What Keeps Joe Rogan Motivated?

Hit me with a question. What keeps you motivated? You're so successful, you got a lot of money, you're doing okay, everything, you have seed, you like accomplish so many things. So what makes you go to the store on a Tuesday night? To work on stand-up. I don't, look, when you get successful at something, the best thing that it does is alleviate stress. But it doesn't change the motivation. It's always to create something that I like, that I can be proud of, that the people enjoy most importantly. There's a bunch of people that watch my stand-up. I gotta work at it. I don't want to be an asshole. I don't want to be that guy that you come to see my show and you go, he didn't prepare, he didn't care, he didn't try. You know, thank you. I'm not going to be that. So look, we all have bad sets, I'll have bad sets. I'll try my best though. I fucking try my best and I'm going to keep trying my best. Because I think if I don't, I leave doubt in my own head that shouldn't be there. If I do my best and it just doesn't work, I have to figure out what was wrong. But if I don't do my best, it doesn't work. You feel like shit. Yeah. That's true. But I think that... I still feel like shit even if it doesn't work and I did my best. You feel like a failure. But that is shitty. Yeah, yeah. I feel like a failure rather than a loser. Yeah. But I think when I was younger and doing comedy in my 20s, it might have just been a Portland thing. There was always kind of this vibe of like, I didn't try my best. If I tried my best, I would have crushed it. But I didn't try my best, so I didn't really fail. Yeah. That's a trap that a lot of comics get into when they are in front of a small crowd. Want more of that? Yeah, I'll take a little more. Damn, Ron goes deep. What? Yeah. And one of the... You know how you have those moments when you're a young comic where someone says something to you and it really gives you a nice boost, like you feel great about it? And one time I was at the store and there was maybe like 12 or 13 people in the audience. The most was like, no, I'll keep going. It was... And Paul Mooney was in the back of the room. And these 12 or 13 people, I'm just doing my act. And Mooney starts laughing hard, like a supportive laugh, like he's with you. Ha, ha, ha! He's clapping. And then he came up to me after the show and he goes something to the extent of you're a real comic. Like that's what makes you a real comic. You do those real shows in front of all those people. You do a real show. Yeah. You don't like... Say, oh, there's only 10 people. There's only 15 people. You don't have an asset. You're out there and do your best.