Who is Joe Rogan? Part Two

[0] Welcome to Season 2, Episode 12 of the Jordan B. Peterson podcast.

[1] I'm Michaela Peterson, Dr. Peterson's daughter, collaborator, and all -meat -d Diet conspiracy theorist.

[2] Today we're presenting Dad's conversation with Joe Rogan, Part 2.

[3] Last week, Dad and Joe Rogan talked about Joe's Netflix specials, his parents' divorce, and his early life, drug experimentation.

[4] fame, and they ended up on the controversial subject of transgender children.

[5] This week's episode will delve into Joe's humble beginnings in Boston, how he discovered martial arts, how many times he's had his nose broken, and how his martial arts career led him to becoming a stand -up comedian, and now the world's number one podcaster, which is crazy.

[6] One of the things Joe and Dad discussed near the end of the episode is the platform think spot that Dad is backed.

[7] It will be featuring many of today's leading thinkers, including Dad, obviously.

[8] I've taken a peek at it, and it's actually pretty interesting.

[9] It has features I haven't seen on any other social media platform that allow you to share, engage, and debate in a thoughtful and intelligent manner, including annotation on video, audio, and podcasts.

[10] There's opportunities to engage directly with contributors through comments, Q &A's, live streams, and annotations.

[11] It's worth checking out.

[12] I think it might be big.

[13] It focuses on actual intellectual discourse without the restrictions put in place by other social media platforms.

[14] go to thinkspot .com to pre -register for access during the current beta phase.

[15] They're setting it up and making sure it runs smoothly with early users before ramping it up in August, I believe.

[16] It should be pretty awesome.

[17] We're in desperate need for a platform that doesn't arbitrarily decide to throw people off because of random crowd mentality.

[18] We know crowds can be stupid.

[19] So check it out.

[20] Thinkspot .com to pre -register for access.

[21] When we come back, part two of my dad's interview with Joe Rogan.

[22] Please welcome my father, Dr. Jordan B. Peterson, as we go back to Boston, with his special guest, Joe Rogan.

[23] We're going to go back to Boston.

[24] Okay.

[25] Okay.

[26] So you said that's really where things started for you.

[27] So you moved there where you were 13.

[28] Yes.

[29] And so what did you get involved in?

[30] First of all, like, what kind of kid were you in school?

[31] Barely paid attention.

[32] I was, if ADD is real, I certainly had it.

[33] And I was very, very interested in what I was.

[34] interested in.

[35] I was very uninterested in people telling me what to do.

[36] And I essentially couldn't wait to get out of school.

[37] But I would excel at things that I had interest in.

[38] And initially it was art. I wanted to be a comic book illustrator until I really got into martial arts.

[39] And martial arts became the focus in my life.

[40] Around 14, 15 years old, that's when I really became massively obsessed and that was really the first thing that I ever did where I really didn't feel like a loser like I really felt like oh I actually have some talent I actually can be exceptional there's like something because I you know I grew up constantly moving didn't really have a lot of friends I would be new in this town I'd get picked on I wasn't a big kid and there was a lot of a lot of issues with that psychologically and I didn't like being afraid of other kids I didn't like not knowing what to do ever ran into kids they were going to bully me and pick on me so uh i learned yeah that's an annoying thing not to know what to do about yeah yeah and um you know martial arts changed that 180 degrees and then i became someone who i would be afraid of you know i became the opposite of what i was so what i was was was someone who was terrified of conflict didn't know what to do.

[41] And what I became was, you know, a taekwondo champion.

[42] I became a martial arts champion.

[43] And I knew how to fight.

[44] I had done it so many times.

[45] So, like, what did you do?

[46] You just walked into a joint one day and decided that that's what you were going to do.

[47] Like, how did it come about?

[48] It was very fortunate.

[49] Well, I've done a little bit of martial arts training at a different place.

[50] And then one day, I was in Boston for a Red Sox game at Fenway Park.

[51] And as I was walking home, to the train station with a friend of mine.

[52] There was a lot of people that were leaving the baseball games.

[53] So the lines from the train for the T, which in Boston, public transportation was very long.

[54] So we decided to go check out the J. Hun Kim Taekwondo Institute.

[55] It was right there.

[56] And I had been really into martial arts because of what I said, you know, the aforementioned insecurities.

[57] And so I went up the stairs.

[58] And as I was walking up the stairs, just fortuitously, a guy named John Lee was training.

[59] And John was a national taekwondo champion who was in preparation for the World Cup, which was this huge event that he was taking, the international event that he was about to travel to go to.

[60] And he was in the peak of his training.

[61] And so I walked up to the top of the stairs and I heard this crazy sound of this, what it turned out to be this man kicking this bag and slamming his heel into this bag and having the chain snap and rattle and the thud of his heel slamming into this leather bag and I got up there and I watched this guy work out I couldn't believe a person could do that I'd never seen anybody kick something so hard in real life anybody that had such incredible martial arts skill like this guy did John Lee who became a mentor mine and taught me quite a bit.

[62] But that changed everything.

[63] I was there the next day.

[64] I talked to them.

[65] They gave me a brochure and a pamphlet.

[66] And I was there the next day.

[67] And I was probably there every day of my life, give or take, a few days here or there, if I was injured or something came up until I was 22 years old.

[68] So how many hours a day were you spending there?

[69] All day.

[70] I had keys pretty quickly.

[71] They gave me keys.

[72] They wanted me. Well, right away, my instructor recognized that I was pretty obsessed and I was physically pretty talented.

[73] So he had me teaching classes instead of paying.

[74] He was like, like, if it's difficult for you to pay, I'd like to have you teach.

[75] And there was some wisdom to that too because one of the best ways for somebody to get good at martial arts is actually to teach.

[76] You actually refines your technique.

[77] You think about it more.

[78] You're explaining it to people that don't necessarily.

[79] understand all the mechanics of it.

[80] So I started teaching.

[81] I would teach private lessons to beginners.

[82] I would teach group classes.

[83] And then eventually I went on to teach at Boston University.

[84] I taught at Boston University when I was 19.

[85] I was teaching accredited class there.

[86] But you actually counted towards a GPA.

[87] And so I did that.

[88] That was I was already US Open champion by then.

[89] How long did it take?

[90] So you went in there when you were 13 and you were a kid that was had moved around a bunch and got pushed.

[91] I was 14 .15 by the time I got to that school.

[92] Okay.

[93] And then I had my black belt by the time I was 17 and I was competing in the adult division by then before I was ever 18.

[94] I was competing as an adult.

[95] I mean, he might have even put me in when I was 16 if I don't, if I remember correctly.

[96] And then I won the state championship when I was 18 and I won it every year from then until I stopped.

[97] Right, so you had a pretty successful run at it there.

[98] How long did it take before, like were you still, were you a thin, like you were you a skinny kid when you started, when did you start to bulk up and get big?

[99] When did you start to be tough enough so that, you know, the problems with aggression stop, you know, with other people's aggression, stop being in a trouble for you?

[100] Well, luckily with high school, kids heard about it right away.

[101] You know, it was one of those things.

[102] where you know you find out that there's some one of you one of the kids you go to school with is flying all over the country kicking people in the head right they just avoided me yeah right it wasn't like you know i mean i certainly never sought out trouble but people avoided me like you know junior and senior year i'd already become this weird kid that was obsessed with martial arts you know and i spent you know most of my life life from the time I was 15 until I was 21, training and competing.

[103] I probably fought over 100 times.

[104] I traveled all over the country.

[105] I fought in California.

[106] I fought in Ohio.

[107] I fought all over the place.

[108] And a lot of local tournaments in Connecticut and Massachusetts and New Hampshire's where I won the U .S. Open.

[109] I just fought everywhere.

[110] And that was that was most of my life.

[111] Yeah.

[112] It was most of my life until I got into stand -up comedy.

[113] Right.

[114] So you had a very singular life.

[115] Like that's unique.

[116] Yeah, 100 % singular.

[117] Yeah.

[118] Uniquely singular.

[119] But I avoided most of the pitfalls of high school partying and all that stuff.

[120] I didn't do that because I was scared of getting hurt.

[121] I was scared that if I showed up for training hung over that I'd get beat up and that I would somehow, I was scared of anything that would take even a tiny bit away from my performance as a fighter because I was obsessed with it.

[122] Was that scared of, was that actually fear of being hurt because you made a mistake or fear of losing the competition or fear of being hurt, fear of losing the competition, fear of being hurt and training.

[123] Training alone was as scary as any competition.

[124] I just just completely by luck wandered into one of the best schools in the world for Taekwondo.

[125] that it hit it um they had produced multiple national champions and uh you know real top of the food chain athletes in terms of taekwondo and it was just just dumb luck that i walked into that school and you know i could have walked into another school that was a few blocks away that was terrible i just got lucky i got really really really lucky so how useful how useful are the technical martial arts like taekwondo and like in an actual street fight not that useful i mean more useful than knowing nothing but um not as useful as Brazilian jiu jitsu or um now i a lot of people now are just learning mixed martial arts right which is essentially what you see in the ufc where they're a jack of all trades master of none and the argument there's two arguments like there's an argument that that is a good thing to learn and then there's other arguments that being a specialist first is the best thing and then learning the other things later in life is the best way to go about it like a specialist particularly a striker or a grappler like being an elite jiu -jitsu artist and then learning all the other stuff later in life because you have such a significant advantage if you can bring the fight into your realm of expertise so if you're a striker every fight starts standing up and if you're an elite striker and you know how to avoid takedowns and you know how to wrestle enough to keep a guy off you, you'll have such a significant advantage striking that you can dominate the competition.

[126] And we've seen that in the UFC.

[127] We've seen that with both grappling and with striking, that it seems that if you become a specialist in one particular area and then learn those other things, you'll be better off.

[128] But you can't really just be a specialist, whether it's in Muay Thai or Taekwondo or Jiu -Jitsu.

[129] you really kind of have to understand if you're a grappler you really have kind of have to understand striking and if you're a striker you really kind of have to understand grappling in order to at least avoid it so and so during this time too I mean you got to be a pretty big guy so when did that start happening were you working out like mad while you were training as well like let me but I was much thinner I was much thinner back then I didn't do much weight lifting because I was trying to competed in certain weight classes like when I was 17 was one it was the I was cutting weight when I was 17 and 18 I was trying to make the 140 pound weight class but I was really probably about 10 pounds plus heavier than that and I would dehydrate myself and it was really affecting my performance and then when I was 18 I moved up to the next weight class that was 154 I believe it was and when I moved up to that weight class I got way better that was when I really excelled that's when I became like a real national class athlete was when I moved up and I would but I still wasn't lifting weights much I was just doing Taekwondo training it was just a lot of heavy bag work some calisthenics but mostly it was martial arts work then when I started getting into jujitsu it was long after I stopped competing that's when I started really getting into weight lifting because jujitsu involves grappling and I think the the advantage to being strong and grappling is pretty significant.

[130] Right.

[131] It's gigantic.

[132] And so that's when, you know, I was like 29 or so like that.

[133] That's when I really started heavily weightlifting and getting up that.

[134] Okay, so that was quite a bit later.

[135] How long did your initial martial arts career last?

[136] I fought from the time I was 15 and I think I had my last fight.

[137] It was either I was 21 or 22.

[138] I don't really remember those.

[139] But the last three fights were kickboxing fights.

[140] And I had those wall out.

[141] I was doing stand -up comedy.

[142] So I was spreading myself too thin.

[143] I was working a bunch of different jobs.

[144] I was working delivering newspapers.

[145] I was working as a private investigator's assistant.

[146] I did some construction.

[147] I did a bunch of different odd jobs to make a living.

[148] And I had decided somewhere along.

[149] Delivery boy construction agent, Jiu -Jitsu fighter, stand -up comedian.

[150] You know, that's kind of your typical 19 -year -old situation.

[151] Yeah, well, Jiu -Jitsu came later.

[152] Jiu -Jitsu didn't come until I was, I think I was 28 or 29 when I first started training Jiu -Jitsu.

[153] That was mostly just Taekwondo and kickboxing.

[154] I really got into kickboxing.

[155] And I was, I had three kickboxing fights, and I was entertaining the idea of fighting professionally.

[156] But I was also starting to get really worried about brain damage.

[157] I started to see some signs.

[158] From kickboxing specifically?

[159] Yeah, specifically because I was getting hit a lot more.

[160] more.

[161] Oh, yeah.

[162] The kickboxing sparring that I did, and I did that over the course of about two years where I really got heavily into kickboxing.

[163] I did a lot of boxing sparring and a lot of what you would call gym wars where guys would just, we would beat the shit out of each other.

[164] And you'd get hurt and you'd come home with headaches.

[165] And you basically were fighting in the gym.

[166] I mean, it's not a wise way to do it.

[167] The smart gyms now and the best martial artists, they very rarely spar hard.

[168] they most of the time they spar technically so they're they're hitting each other but they hit each other like this they don't they don't blast each other full blast they sort of touch each other they're working on timing and occasionally you go hard just to make sure that you you can survive with these techniques in a firefight that you know how to deal with it once you get hit but um we didn't spar like that we and is the lower combat intensity still useful for training for the real fame?

[169] Yes.

[170] It's it's it's but you have to have some high intensity and some people that that high intensity they actually have drills that they use to to sort of um to simulate actual uh exchanges that you would have.

[171] There's a lot of science to it now that didn't exist back then.

[172] The the gyms that I came up in were real hard nose really you know tough gyms and if you if you weren't tough you did not survive and they weren't interested in anybody that couldn't take a shot or anybody that wasn't willing to go to war.

[173] So you would put on a mouthpiece, you'd put on a cup, you'd put your shin pads on, and you'd beat the fuck out of each other.

[174] And that was a big part of learning how to fight.

[175] It was these sparring sessions were brutal.

[176] They were nerve -wracking.

[177] You'd be scared.

[178] You'd be scared going into them.

[179] They'd be, you know, you'd be anxious the night before if I knew how to spar a particular guy the next day because I knew it was dangerous.

[180] you basically were having fights all the time so i'd have fights several days a week you would fight you know it wasn't really sparring you'd hit i'd hit guys as hard as i'm covering a lot too man all the time i think from that so okay yeah you just big hole in this story too so like you're doing great at taekwondo you go your national level athlete and you switch to kickboxing you're worried about getting hurt and that seems reasonable because like how about not being brain damaged by the time you're 30.

[181] But then, you know, I guess kind of what I've wondered was like, how many shots in the head did you have to take before you thought being a stand -up comedian was a good idea?

[182] Well, one of my dear friends to this day is a guy named Steve Graham.

[183] And Steve was, when I met him, I was 15 and he was probably 30.

[184] And he was going through his residency as an ophthalm.

[185] and he had been a flight surgeon in the U .S. Air Force and just, he had been on the U .S. ski team, who's a national skiing champion, just a wild man, just a guy who took chances and lived life to the fullest and was just one of the most hardworking people I ever met in my life.

[186] And I would make him laugh.

[187] And I would make some of the people laugh in training because we were always nervous.

[188] every when we would go to tournaments we were nervous because you know I'd seen many of my friends get knocked unconscious at these tournaments get kicked in the head taken to hospitals and you know I'd seen it in the gym too a lot of guys getting beat up and knocked down in the gym it was constant and you know and you know and it happened to me a couple times I'd been hurt and so we had this gallows humor where we would go to these events we'd travel to these tournaments and everybody would be the tension be so thick everybody would just just taking deep breaths and trying to relax and just stay loose before you fight.

[189] And I would be the, I would be the class clown in that environment.

[190] Have you ever seen any of that when you were in high school or junior high?

[191] No, I didn't have that.

[192] So it took those circumstances.

[193] Yes, I did have a sense of humor, but it would manifest itself in cartoons.

[194] I would draw like cartoons as a teacher.

[195] You know, I would like draw cartoons of like certain kids that were kissed the teacher's ass, I would draw them like kissing the teacher's ass and saying ridiculous things.

[196] And if the teacher was late to a class and, you know, and I knew I had enough time, I would put something on the chalkboard and then pull down the screen so that when they would go to use the chalkboard, the chalkboard, they would pull the screen back up and see this ridiculous cartoon that I had drawn.

[197] The whole class would laugh.

[198] And then the teacher would ask, who did this?

[199] And luckily, nobody ratted me out.

[200] But so I enjoyed making people laugh.

[201] but that was it wasn't mostly wasn't things I said was mostly cartoons right right that's very different yeah yeah but with comedy with the fighting when we were getting ready to compete I was just trying to add some levity I was just trying to lighten up the mood because everybody was and it was also it was a charged environment so anything that I said that was actually funny would get a giant reaction and that became addictive and I was pretty good at doing impressions so I do impressions of our friends do impressions of our instructor all these in ridiculous situations and my friend Steve Graham and my other friend Ed Schorter who's another one encouraged me who I lost touch with unfortunately he he said you should be a comedian and my take on it was you think I'm funny because you're my friend But other people are going to think I'm an asshole.

[202] The things that I think are funny are fucked up.

[203] I have a fucked up sense of humor.

[204] I mean, here I am devoting most of my time to trying to get really good at knocking people on conscience.

[205] I mean, that's what I was trying to do.

[206] I was trying to separate people from their consciousness.

[207] I was doing my best every day to get good at that.

[208] It's like a really perverse psychedelic drug.

[209] Yeah, it was the worst.

[210] Yeah.

[211] But I was trying to hurt people.

[212] That's what I was trying to get good at.

[213] I was trying to get good at hurting human bodies.

[214] And I just didn't think, I thought that I was such a weirdo and such an outlier in terms of like how society viewed combat, physical hand -to -hand combat and interactions with each other that no one would think that the things that I was making fun of were funny.

[215] And this guy convinced me to go to an open mic night.

[216] He's like, you should go to an open mic night.

[217] Just go.

[218] There's a lot of comedy clubs in Boston.

[219] Go and watch.

[220] and I went and watched and I realized, wow, one of the things about going to open mic night is most open mic comedians are so terrible that it encourages you to try it because you're like, well, I can't be that bad.

[221] Like, I might have something that's better than some of these people.

[222] And then, you know, you'd see a real professional go up and it would be so discouraging because you'd say that, God, my God, I'll never be that funny.

[223] That guy's impossibly funny.

[224] But I knew from martial arts that if I worked really hard at something, I could get good at it.

[225] And I had this thought that maybe I could do that with comedy because I didn't want to fight anymore.

[226] I was already, I was already on my way kind of out the door.

[227] I was really worried about the brain.

[228] I was on my way out the door from the time I was like 19.

[229] From the time I was 19, I was starting to worry about brain damage.

[230] And then, so you're, like, you're 53?

[231] I'm 51.

[232] 51, 51.

[233] And so much, how much damage did you actually sustain, you know, like lots of people?

[234] I don't know.

[235] I don't know.

[236] I mean, I seem to be okay.

[237] How about physically, muscularly, and that sort of thing?

[238] Oh, no, I'm fine.

[239] I had a bunch of surgeries.

[240] I've had my nose repaired.

[241] My nose was destroyed.

[242] I had no nose.

[243] Like the inside of my nose was just didn't work until I was 40.

[244] And then I had a deviated septim operation.

[245] They had a cut out giant.

[246] calcified chunks of scar tissue and all sorts of i literally my nose was useless until i was 40 years old um so that must be kind of a relief to have your nose oh my god i tell everybody get it done if you have a deviated septim and you can't breathe out of your nose my god this i couldn't do that until i was 40 yeah it was just all broke i broke my nose who knows how many times, at least a dozen.

[247] And it just was always bloody.

[248] I was always getting punched or kicked in the nose.

[249] Yeah, it doesn't seem designed as a sense organ to be in the middle of your face where you get punched.

[250] Well, it has this little tiny piece of cartilage, too.

[251] It should be on the top of your head, you know.

[252] It be a lot safer out there.

[253] Yeah.

[254] Like a whale.

[255] It also makes your eyes swell shut.

[256] It makes your eyes water.

[257] It makes difficult to see when you get hit in the nose.

[258] The hand in the nose is really annoying.

[259] But other than that, I had both my knees reconstructed.

[260] I had ACL tears in both knees.

[261] I had to get them reconstructed and, you know, a bunch of other stuff.

[262] Oh, yeah.

[263] So you took your...

[264] A bunch of other broken things.

[265] You broke yourself up pretty good.

[266] Yeah, broken knuckles.

[267] And I broke a lot of stuff.

[268] But everything works great now.

[269] I mean, after surgery and, I mean, for a person who's been through what I do, what I've done, with my body.

[270] My body works remarkably well.

[271] Yeah, it's amazing, actually.

[272] You know, that's a lot.

[273] You think you'd be arthritic, at least, in some of your joints and that sort of thing.

[274] No, I'm pretty good.

[275] I mean, I also are very proactive.

[276] I do a lot of yoga.

[277] I've had a bunch of stem cell therapies to deal with some significant tears and injuries that I've had.

[278] But all that, you know, knock on wood, everything works pretty good.

[279] But the brain damage thing is I don't know.

[280] I really don't know.

[281] I really sit back and think about some of those wars that I was in, gym wars in particular, and some fights.

[282] And my last fight, I got TKOed.

[283] I got stopped.

[284] I got hit with a left hook and dropped.

[285] And my legs went out from under me. And then I got up and I got hit again and fell down again.

[286] They stopped the fight.

[287] And that was when I decided I'm going to stop.

[288] I was like, I'm not giving this the same amount of dedication I gave when I was at my best.

[289] I was spreading myself way too thin with comedy.

[290] And I just didn't, I didn't have this same hunger for it that I had when I was young or younger.

[291] And I was also very aware of the consequences at that point in my life.

[292] I was like, I know where this is going.

[293] I saw guys at the gym that were punch drop, you know, that were slurring their words and they would forget things.

[294] And I had seen some people progress towards that.

[295] And it was very, very disturbing to me. You know, I'd be lying in bed at night after a hard sparring session.

[296] My head would be pounding.

[297] And I would think, what am I doing in my fucking brain?

[298] Like, what am I doing to myself?

[299] And I got real lucky that I found stand -up comedy.

[300] I mean, if the UFC was around back then, I most certainly would have started fighting.

[301] And to not be training intelligently, because I wasn't training intelligently, I was training like a meathead.

[302] And that was just all we knew back then.

[303] I probably would have sustained some pretty significant damage before I ever even got into the octagon.

[304] I probably would have already had massive brain damage before I ever had a fight.

[305] Right, right.

[306] So, well, that's good.

[307] So you stepped out at an intelligent time.

[308] And so then you started your comedy career, and you started at open mics.

[309] And so, tell me about how that developed.

[310] Well, open mic nights are very interesting.

[311] You sign up on a list, and you may or may not get on.

[312] They pick people out of a hat.

[313] Like, say, if there's 50 people sign up, 30 people get on.

[314] and you know you each do five minutes and you know the the host is generally a professional comedian that brings people up and you know you have this weird culture of people that are struggling to try to figure out how to make a living in this sort of undefined art form there's no classes you can take in it that are really worth anything there's no books that you can buy that are going to teach you anything it's something that you kind of have to The only thing that I likened to is rap music, because rap music seems to be very similar in the fact that you have to learn from other practitioners.

[315] You don't really learn from books.

[316] There's no like, I mean, maybe there is now.

[317] I don't know of any, like, real legitimate university courses on stand -up comedy.

[318] I don't think they could teach it to you anyway because everyone does it differently.

[319] But I think that's the case with rap music as well.

[320] I think you kind of have to learn from the people that are already doing it.

[321] And one good thing about stand -up comedy, particularly to, Today, today it's much more open and inviting and comedians have a lot more camaraderie than they did in the beginning because they're not fighting over scraps anymore.

[322] Now there's so many venues, so many different places to work.

[323] And then there's YouTube and the internet and comedians, there's much more of a supportive community of people trying to help people.

[324] And I try to really concentrate on that.

[325] I spend a lot of time trying to help young comics.

[326] I put a lot of young comics on my shows.

[327] I have them host.

[328] I've got a show tonight, and a young comic has only been doing it for a few years.

[329] Her name's Ali McCovsky.

[330] She's the host of it.

[331] She's really funny.

[332] And I try to encourage them.

[333] I try to help them.

[334] I try to give them advice.

[335] I try to give them pointers.

[336] I try to, when they have great sets, I try to, you know, really thank them and say that was excellent and you got this.

[337] Just keep doing what you're doing.

[338] And you can really make a career doing this because it's such an insecure business.

[339] It's just so, it's such a weird, undefined path that you have to take.

[340] And I love the art form.

[341] I love it as a consumer.

[342] I love it as a person who's an audience member.

[343] I really still, to this day, enjoy watching stand -up.

[344] But back then, it wasn't that supportive.

[345] We would just support each other, but the professionals weren't that supportive, not like they are today.

[346] A few people, there's a guy named Lenny Clark that I'm still good friends with this day.

[347] And I opened up, he was a boss.

[348] Austin legend.

[349] And I was super fortunate to open up for him when I had been doing comedy for about a year.

[350] And he gave me some great advice.

[351] And that meant the world to me. And he was actually on my podcast just last month.

[352] I love that guy.

[353] And he helped me out when I was really, really, I was 21.

[354] I was really, really young in my comedy career.

[355] And so you started putting the same amount of dedication into that that you had been putting into the martial arts.

[356] Exactly.

[357] Yeah, I just became obsessed with it.

[358] And I just traveled all over.

[359] the place, doing open mic nights.

[360] I mean, me and my good friend Greg Fitzsimmons, we started out together.

[361] We're good friends to this day.

[362] We started out within a week of each other.

[363] And we used to travel all the way to Rhode Island.

[364] We would drive, you know, it was an hour plus drive to go down there just to do five minutes.

[365] And then we were at an open mic night for free.

[366] And they would drive all the way home and just dream about one day being a professional.

[367] That was the dream.

[368] The dream was to pay your bills by doing comedy imagine if that that you could do comedy for a living like that was the dream would i would never imagine that i'm doing what i'm doing now or i'm doing the sold -out arenas like that that wasn't even a hope and not it wasn't even like maybe if it goes well i could do this maybe i could do that that was never on the menu and you know it's gotten to this really crazy astronomical place now that it's very hard for me to even imagine that that came out of those strange days in Boston just traveling around all these different weird comedy clubs and writing constantly not knowing how to write not knowing how to formulate a joke having like many more misses than hits you know a lot of bombing I bombed all the time I I you know you got to have that that ability to bomb and come back from it.

[369] I mean, because you're going to have a lot more misses than hits, that's for sure.

[370] That's a lot more, yeah, especially in the early days.

[371] What do you think accounts for that obsessiveness that you described?

[372] And that's a negative way of putting it.

[373] I mean, obviously, you said that, you know, when you were in school, if you weren't interested, you weren't listening at all, but if you were interested in something, you were like laser focused.

[374] and that really came up in the martial arts, but it obviously manifested itself in the stand -up comedy, too.

[375] So what is it about you that enables you?

[376] What do you think it is about you that enables you to zero in on something like that to the exclusion of everything else?

[377] I don't know.

[378] I mean, I think some of it has to be attributed to the unhappiness in my childhood that when I would find something that I did get some joy out of, I would just concentrate all in on that.

[379] I think some of it also was like I wasn't really raised with a lot of discipline and I wasn't really raised with a pat my parents were both my stepdad and my mom were both working all the time so they didn't they weren't really around to sort of tell me what to do or how to live and they weren't really around to let me know that everything was going to be okay they were always working so they would come home from work at like six o 'clock or something like that and you know I'd been on my own all day.

[380] Me and my sister had been on our own all day.

[381] You know, we'd come home, we had a key, we got into the house, and it was, uh, when I, there was a lot of real bad feelings, you know, like, and when I found something that made me feel good, I just did that exclusively.

[382] That's all I did.

[383] And I still have that problem to this day.

[384] Uh, when I get obsessed with something, if I find something that means something to me, I think of it all day long.

[385] If I get obsessed with something, it becomes like a mantra that's in the back of my head.

[386] And I have to shut it off.

[387] Like I have to do my best to shut it off.

[388] Otherwise I can't listen to people.

[389] I don't like when people are talking to me, I don't want to talk to them.

[390] I want to go do that thing that I want to do.

[391] It becomes like a compulsion and it could be socially negative.

[392] You know, it could be detrimental to relationships and friendships.

[393] Yeah.

[394] Yeah, but it seems like that sort of thing is also absolutely necessary if you're going to develop high -level skill at something difficult and unlikely because unless you're obsessive about it and practice it like all the time, the people you're competing with are going to take you out.

[395] So the funny thing.

[396] I would always be terrified that I would run into someone like me. Well, I can understand.

[397] I was terrified of.

[398] But that was the fear that I would run into someone who is 100 % all in.

[399] And when I was fighting and when I lost my last kickboxing fight, I wasn't all in.

[400] And I knew I wasn't all in.

[401] And I knew I wasn't the same person I was when I was like 18, 19.

[402] I was a psychopath.

[403] I mean, I was 100 % committed to doing nothing but that.

[404] And then as I was examining my future prospects, in my life and I started to become more aware of the problems of what I was doing, I became less and less.

[405] I had one fight that I had in California, in Anaheim, in the U .S. Nationals in 1980, it must have been my, it seems like it had to been 86, 86 or 87, somewhere around there.

[406] 87?

[407] Somewhere around 87.

[408] I, I, I know.

[409] knocked this guy out with a head kick and I did in front of his parents and it was it was everybody people were crying and he was unconscious for a long time he was unconscious for a solid half hour who and they dragged him they dragged him off of the uh the mat they put him in a stretcher they took him to the hospital I never saw him regain consciousness and uh I remember thinking that could have easily been me like I didn't have any illusions of me being some impervious, invulnerable person.

[410] And I was really thinking about how I hit him so hard my heel was hurting the next day.

[411] I was walking with a limp from his head because I wheel kicked him in the head.

[412] It's a particularly brutal move where you spin and your whole leg comes around.

[413] You're hitting someone in the head with your heel.

[414] And he felt like he had gotten shot.

[415] Just fell face first, out cold, snoring.

[416] It wasn't the first that I'd done that.

[417] someone but it was one of the most brutal because he kind of ran into it too he was trying to kick me as I was kicking him so it was the force of his body coming towards me and me hitting him and I was thinking that guy's probably never going to be the same again like he's never going to get over it psychologically or if he does it's going to be very hard for him but he might he might be damaged for the rest of his life that's a real possibility and then I started thinking am I willing to have that happen to me at 19?

[418] I was 19 years old.

[419] I was like, is this what you want to do?

[420] Do you want to get hit in the head like that and never be the same again at 19?

[421] Because it easily can happen, you know?

[422] Yeah, that's a 60 years to live like that.

[423] Yeah, we were at a, this was a national championship tournament.

[424] So he was a state championship, I think, from Illinois.

[425] And I was a state champion from Massachusetts.

[426] And, you know, it wasn't like he was a black belt.

[427] And it wasn't like he was an unskilled guy.

[428] So the fact that I was able to do that to him and I was able to do that to a bunch of other guys, I knew that someone out there could do that to me. Right.

[429] I knew that I knew that I wasn't the best in the world.

[430] And I knew that even though I was a top, I was, you know, I was a real national level competitor.

[431] I wasn't world class.

[432] I wasn't the best, especially at 19.

[433] And so that doubt, that doubt stuck with me for the next.

[434] couple of years and it was it was probably the first seed of my new future was me hurting that guy and thinking about what that was going to be like if that happened to me yeah well that's a hell of a right turn you took there to go into comedy so okay so how now you became successful as a comedian so you started playing in little clubs like stand -up comedians did and like yeah how'd you get your breaks?

[435] How did your career develop?

[436] How long did it take?

[437] It took a few years for me to get competent.

[438] It took like two or three years for me to get competent.

[439] And then three years in, I got extremely fortunate again where I met my manager, my manager who's my manager to this day.

[440] He basically picked me up when I was an open mic comedian.

[441] I mean, I was getting a few paid gigs here and there, but I was really an amateur.

[442] And he found me. he was looking for new talent he came up from new york he is he was a like you know really well respected and well recognized manager still is of course his name is jeff susman and we've been together for uh shit now it must be 28 years yeah we've been together since really since i was an amateur and he that's a successful collaboration to to span that amount of time not many changes.

[443] Yeah.

[444] Yeah, we've been together forever.

[445] We've been together forever.

[446] We don't even have a contract anymore.

[447] We haven't had a contract, I think, for like 10 years.

[448] So during all this time, this is just like a bit of a side, side question here, but you ever have any time at all to pursue relationships with women?

[449] Oh, yeah.

[450] Well, you do comedy.

[451] You know, you're in clubs at night.

[452] You know, you have most of your day to do whatever you want.

[453] You know, to just, when I was just the stand of comedian, I had a lot of free time.

[454] You know, I mean, you're writing jokes, but you can only do that a couple hours a day, or you get bored, and then it's not effective.

[455] And then you're just kind of living your life and hanging out.

[456] And sometimes the best way to develop your comedy is to have good social interactions.

[457] It's actually kind of important when you're an aspiring comedian to be in a lot of social situations, because you are around people, you hear people say things, and then you think what they say is silly or what they say is you know you disagree or you agree you see perspectives and points of view and you kind of you develop you know an understanding of how human beings behave it's kind of very important so yeah i i i was around a lot of different girls and a lot of guys and just being out and and you're always at comedy clubs and nightclubs but I didn't go out other than that.

[458] You know, if I wasn't at a comedy club at night, I probably wasn't out.

[459] You know, it was always the same thing with, like, my obsession with fighting.

[460] And fighting came way easier for me than stand -up did.

[461] Stand -up was way harder.

[462] For me, it was way harder.

[463] It was way harder to achieve competence.

[464] What was harder about it?

[465] Well, you said it took you two or three years to get competent.

[466] So that was a lot of falling flat on your face.

[467] Yeah.

[468] And even then, even like three years in, I still could bomb at any moment.

[469] I mean, I could have a bad set.

[470] I didn't know how to do it.

[471] But also, I was socially awkward.

[472] I think it took me a while to not be so socially awkward.

[473] You know, that was an issue.

[474] And, you know, it was a lot of it was from my upbringing, but a lot of it was also, I kind of cultivated that when I was fighting.

[475] I didn't want people to like me I didn't care I didn't need them to like me all I needed them to do I mean I kind of wanted them to be scared of me you know so when I was fighting I wasn't trying to make friends out there at all I was I was just trying to fuck people up I mean so when you were fighting when we were fighting did you have any relationships with women or was it or were you pretty much Not good ones Not good ones No I didn't I wouldn't allow them to do I wouldn't allow them to have much of my time you know I didn't I didn't I didn't I didn't I didn't I think to have a successful relationship you have to spend a lot of time together you have to communicate you have to you the person has to almost be first place in your life yeah and that was never that was never happening and so that was that would come up very often like I was a girl that I was dating in high school and you know I used to teach at the school so I had keys to the school Cool.

[476] So one time I took her up there because I needed to get a workout in.

[477] And she wanted to have sex at the gym.

[478] And I was like, there's no way.

[479] I wouldn't do it.

[480] I was like, this place is sacred.

[481] Like, there's no chance.

[482] She was trying to fool around.

[483] And I was, you know, I was adamant.

[484] I was like, this is never happening.

[485] Like, this might as well be a church to me. I was like, it's not happening.

[486] And, you know, I was so horny when I was 17 years old.

[487] To me at 17 or 18 to say no to sex, it's crazy.

[488] Right, right, that's a crazy story.

[489] I think we're going to clip that and put it in a little clip that says, Joe Rogan tells a story that no sane man would believe.

[490] Well, you know, that was the first refuge that I had from my life of despair.

[491] So for me, I wasn't going to screw that up.

[492] Right, right, right.

[493] And I felt like disrespecting the, the academy like that.

[494] Yeah, well, they had been treated you like an adult.

[495] That's something.

[496] Yes.

[497] That's something when you're a teenager, you know, like to actually be treated.

[498] that way it's a good thing not to mess with if you're fortunate enough to have it well i wouldn't even walk onto the training floor by myself with no one around without bowing uh -huh i mean there was no one there but i would never leave the the common area and step on the training floor without bowing first right never never okay so when you're in comedy now you said you said you were all in as a fighter And you figure you went all in as a comedian, too.

[499] And did you do that right from the beginning?

[500] Yeah, yeah, pretty much.

[501] Yeah, right away, as soon as I realized that I could actually do this.

[502] And as soon as I realized, I decided, I mean, my first set that I ever did, I had a bunch of my friends come down and watch me, and I wasn't good, the first time I ever got on stage.

[503] But I got a couple of little chuckles and laughs.

[504] And then I realized, this might be possible.

[505] I might be able to do this.

[506] And then I became obsessed with figuring out how to do it.

[507] Because it was, I saw it as a path.

[508] Like, okay, this is a thing.

[509] Like, this is a thing you could do that you actually love.

[510] Like, I was a huge fan of the art form.

[511] I loved watching it.

[512] Ever since my parents took me to the movies when I was like 14 or 15.

[513] We saw live on the Sunset Strip.

[514] It was a Richard Pryor movie in the theater where he did stand up.

[515] And I had never seen that before.

[516] And I remember thinking, how crazy is it that this guy can just talk?

[517] And it's so funny.

[518] I was falling out of my chair laughing and I was looking around I remember looking around while the movie was playing at all these people in their chairs just rocking back and forth and laughing so hard Yeah, it's really something to see Amazing I saw Bill Cosby Especially when you're a young teenager Like 16?

[519] I know you shouldn't talk about Bill Cosby But I saw him live And like I saw him live too When I was a security guard Oh yeah?

[520] I saw him live Yeah, I was a security guard at Great Woods I saw Kinnison there when I was a security guard and saw Rodney Dangerfield there Yeah, I saw quite a few people there Yeah, well it was something to see him sit on his stool with his cigar And get the whole audience like literally hysterical I mean the guy in front of me was rocking back and forth so hard He could hardly breathe his wife kept elbowing him To get him to kind of turn back into something vaguely resembling a human being But it was it's really amazing to see someone with that much command of the audience and so consistently, unbelievably funny.

[521] He's the most tragic story in all of show business.

[522] Man, it's a catastrophe.

[523] Next to Michael Jackson and O .J. Simpson.

[524] I mean, those are the three most tragic stories in show business in my mind.

[525] Yeah.

[526] And, you know, he's a monster.

[527] It's crazy.

[528] Yeah, this is a brilliant comedian.

[529] What the hell?

[530] You know, the thing that's so strange about, Cosby, you'd think, well, like, was this really necessary?

[531] like man the guy was famous on 15 different directions and really well respected you wouldn't have think he would have had to date rape his women you know it's just well yeah I mean he could have just had prostitutes I mean if he really just needed sex I don't think that's what it was I think there was a sick perversion and I think he liked to do that to people he like to trick that I mean I'm just guessing right it has to be something like that because it's so it's so counterproductive and so psychotic it's psychotic i mean i don't understand it you know i've tried to i've tried to sort of imagine what it must have been like to be around in the 50s and the 60s i think people did that to each other way more often than we'd like to admit and i think that it was more casual than we would think of today where people would slip someone a mickey or you know i mean he even had a bit that he did back in way back of the day about giving someone spanish fly that you you'd give someone something that would make them horny.

[532] Right.

[533] I think he was probably a guy that had an incredibly inflated opinion of himself, didn't want anybody to ever reject him, experienced that a few times.

[534] Again, this is pure speculation.

[535] And just decided that he was better than people that he could just drug them.

[536] It's so strange, though, because his comedy was basically so, like, it was generally family oriented.

[537] It was, you know, and he put himself forward as a role model, and he was credible, like he was credible.

[538] as an actor as a role model, and he seemed credible as a spokesperson.

[539] It kind of makes me think, you know, there's this idea that the psychoanalysts had.

[540] There's a guy named Eric Neumann who is a student of Carl Jung's, and one of the things that Neumann said, wrote a book called Depth Psychology and the New Ethic, right after World War II, and it's a great book, a little thin book, but it's a great book.

[541] One of the things he says in that book is, don't be better than you are.

[542] And what he meant was he didn't mean don't improve like that would be foolish.

[543] He meant beware of adopting a persona that makes you a far better person than you actually are because all of that part of you that you're not admitting to that's going to go off and have its own life because you're not integrating it, you know, you're suppressing it in some way.

[544] And you know, and so it's a living thing, you know, that, well, like the aggression you had when you were a fighter, that's a big, deep part of you, you know.

[545] You can't just push something like that aside and pretend that it's not there and think that it's not going to go off and have some fun when you're not paying attention.

[546] Yeah.

[547] To me, like, something like that must have got him is that he was, he was split between this really good guy that he was trying to be, which was like too good.

[548] and and and this this like more monstrous side of his personality that he obviously never integrated or perhaps never even admitted to it's really a hell of a story man it's like and it really is a catastrophe i think it was an absolute bloody catastrophe for his victims obviously and but just as a general cultural phenomenon it's so awful yeah i couldn't agree more and it you you know they say you should separate the man from the art but in his case it's almost impossible to do because his art was his perception of life so like when you're watching him it's not like a painter or even someone who makes a movie it's like when you're watching him you're watching him now and all you can think of as he's talking about these different things and about i told my children what he's like he's doing this lovable dad voice and you know stuff all you can think of that guy rapes people he drugs them and rapes them yeah yeah yeah you can't I can't enjoy it anymore.

[549] And he's unquestionably, as far as, like, his skill, he was one of the greatest of all kinds.

[550] Yeah, yeah.

[551] All right.

[552] So you got a manager and you got a good one.

[553] And what happened?

[554] I moved to New York.

[555] And then once I moved to New York, I started doing a ton of stand -up comedy.

[556] I was traveling all over the place, and I got better and better, and I kept working on it, working on it, and just doing a lot of gigs and just going all over the place and then a few years later.

[557] How old were you about how old were you by the time you were like paying your bills?

[558] Because that was your first marker for success.

[559] Probably like 26, 25, 26 was when it all started coming together.

[560] Oh yeah.

[561] So that's not too bad.

[562] Yeah, I mean, I wasn't making a lot of money.

[563] I was making enough money to eat and pay my rent.

[564] and then somewhere around then I did a thing called the MTV Half Hour Comedy Hour that was a it was a television show they had on MTV and each comedian I mean I don't know how much time I did on the show I think you do like seven to ten minutes or something like that it wasn't a lot of time and I had a set and I did it on television it went really well and then next thing you know I got all these offers to do television shows.

[565] I got development deal offers.

[566] And then before you know it, I'm living in California.

[567] It was like that.

[568] I mean, within a year, I was living in California and I was on a sitcom.

[569] And then that sitcom got canceled.

[570] And I thought I was going to move back to New York.

[571] It was called Hardball.

[572] It was a baseball show on Fox.

[573] It was a sitcom about a baseball team.

[574] That show got canceled.

[575] And then I got a development deal with any.

[576] NBC.

[577] I was going to move back to New York, but I had signed a lease for my apartment.

[578] I hated LA.

[579] I hated actors.

[580] I didn't like it.

[581] It was so disingenuous.

[582] The worlds that I had come from were the worlds of stand -up comedy, which is about as real as you can get.

[583] Either you're funny or you're not.

[584] And then the world of fighting, which was even more real than that.

[585] And then all of a sudden, I was around all these people that were just full of shit and weird.

[586] And it was they were put on these personas and they wanted the casting agents to like them and the producers to like them and everything was fake and everybody knew it was fake but they all accepted it and they talked fake and it was it was very very strange very hard for me to deal with I really didn't like actors I didn't like being and the only place that I sought refuge it's a funny thing that there'd be an automatic assumption that because you were a good stand -up comedian that somehow you'd be an actor yeah to be the same thing.

[587] No, they're not.

[588] But the thing is that a lot of comedians had gone on to be super successful in the world of sitcoms, like Roseanne Barr, Jerry Seinfeld, Tim Allen, those type of people.

[589] They had these huge careers, Brett Butler.

[590] So because of that, all that was happening at the same time.

[591] This was like in 94 -ish when I got on TV for the first time.

[592] And they, that was what they were pushing.

[593] And then agents and managers have pushed that too, because obviously you can make a tremendous amount of money.

[594] So that show got canceled, but I had a lease for this apartment.

[595] So I was kind of stuck in L .A. So I was like, all right, let me just stay out here and see what happens for a year.

[596] That was my thought.

[597] And then I got a development deal with NBC.

[598] They wanted to do a sitcom with me. And then I wound up auditioning for a show that they had already had called News Radio.

[599] And that was with Dave Foley and Phil Hartman and Moria Tierney and Candy Alexander and Stephen Root and Andy Dick and Vicki Lewis and we did that show for five years.

[600] And then, you know, by that time, I had done a lot of stand -up at the comedy store.

[601] When that show was canceled, Fear Factor came along and I was touring as a comedian.

[602] Now that's a whole switch there.

[603] Okay, so now you go from sitcoms to Fear Factor.

[604] So how to hell did that happen?

[605] NBC came up to me with the idea because I was on NBC previously.

[606] and they liked me. And then part of the thing was that I didn't want to work with actors anymore.

[607] I was happy that Fear Factor was no actors.

[608] And I was like, oh, good.

[609] This is easier to do.

[610] It's just me talking to people.

[611] And since I had a background in coaching, because I had coached a lot of people at tournaments in competition.

[612] And I taught a lot at Boston University.

[613] I taught at my own school.

[614] I, you know, with Taekwondo, I was used to teaching people.

[615] And I was used to encouraging people and getting people motivated.

[616] And I knew how to, I knew how to get fired up for competition.

[617] I understood.

[618] So you were actually, you were actually one of the rare people in the world who was actually trained to be the right host for fear factor.

[619] Yeah, in a lot of ways.

[620] Luckily, fortuitously, because I, like I would, when someone was nervous, they're about to do something, I could grab them and go, look at me, you could do this.

[621] This is going to define you.

[622] If you back off right now and you get scared and you give in to your fears and your anxieties, this is going to define you.

[623] Or if you just press forward and realize you can do this and succeed, it will define you in a positive way and you'll build momentum in that direction.

[624] You can do this.

[625] And I was really good at giving people pep talks.

[626] I was really good at firing people up.

[627] And it was part of the gig that it was completely unexpected because I thought the gig was just going to be these people do these crazy things.

[628] And, you know, I make fun of it, which is part of my job.

[629] And I, you know, we all cheer.

[630] And it would all play itself out because it was a reality show.

[631] And it was sort of a game show slash reality show.

[632] It was like a hybrid.

[633] But somewhere along the line, especially when they became really nervous, it was very intense.

[634] And there was moments where I really, I wanted these people to win.

[635] You know, I wanted these people to do their best.

[636] I wanted these people to succeed.

[637] you know and to be able to encourage someone you know from that's the basis of psychotherapy so you know it's really something to get people to face their fears i mean you were doing it in a very idiosyncratic way a very what unique way but imagine it was psychologically compelling very often got any particular Got any particular stories from that time?

[638] You got a good story from Fear Factor?

[639] There was one time where there was this couple, not a couple, a family.

[640] It was a father and the son competing against a mother and the daughter.

[641] And the father and the son were kind of jerks, which was part of the competition.

[642] There was a lot of trash talking.

[643] But they were really cocky.

[644] And they thought that they were going to win, you know.

[645] And it was, you know, they had this, the parent and child teams had gotten down to two.

[646] And it was the man and his son versus the woman and her daughter.

[647] And everybody thought these jerks were going to win and we were kind of bummed out about it.

[648] But the women, the woman and her child, you know, they just rose to the occasion.

[649] And, I mean, I remember talking to them.

[650] and firing them up, but I still, I didn't know if they could do it.

[651] What was the challenge?

[652] It was some crazy thing that they had to climb and do this thing.

[653] And the, I don't really remember all of it.

[654] Like they had to gather flags.

[655] It was all for time.

[656] But the son, the kind of jerky son, the jerky dad, they kept screwing up.

[657] And they, they fucked up because, you know, they'd kind of taken it for granted that they were going to win.

[658] And when the pressure hit them, and they knew it was all on.

[659] the line.

[660] A lot of times jerks are just insecure.

[661] And when they're under pressure, when they're really faced with real pressure, like this is the real moment.

[662] Who are you really?

[663] Fuck all that talk.

[664] Who are you really?

[665] They fall apart.

[666] And the mother and the daughter won.

[667] And you're talking about a hardened crew of people that watch people eat animal dicks and jump out of helicopters for season after season, episode after episode.

[668] You know, we did a hundred and something shows, a hundred and, I don't even remember how many shows.

[669] Probably 140 episodes of that show.

[670] Everybody cried.

[671] Hmm.

[672] The camera people, like, I'll cry now if I'm thinking about it.

[673] Hmm.

[674] Hmm.

[675] Hmm.

[676] When the mother and the daughter was.

[677] So what was it, what was it so affecting?

[678] They were so happy.

[679] I mean, there's a justice component to it, right?

[680] There's a comeuppance.

[681] It was a comeuppance.

[682] It was an underdog.

[683] It was just seeing their spirit.

[684] You know, when they were figuring out a way to win, watching them win, to this day.

[685] I'll tell you, one of the things that makes me really happy about this interview so far is that, like, I have a tendency to tear up in interviews, as you may have noticed.

[686] but this time it was you so i'm i'm quite pleased about that yeah i threw up a lot man you do eh yeah yeah but particularly like that i don't cheer up for sad things i tear up for happy things you know yeah yeah that's an interesting thing to to think about too because it's not exactly happy right it's because you know when these people come up to me and they tell me their stories that often makes me tear up because it's like it's like this blast of dead bloody seriousness with a happy ending you know so it's a comedy because it's a happy ending but it's rough and affecting and it it that makes me tear up and I think my proclivity I've always kind of had that ever since I was a kid but seems to have come back with the well you too hey yeah yeah always always but it's always been happy things it's never been sad things it's very hard to give me to cry with sad things.

[687] Sad things, I sort of just, yeah, triumph, success.

[688] People pulling through, like post -fight interviews when I work for the UFC, when someone has a particularly incredible performance, I have the fight off tearing up.

[689] I feel so happy for them.

[690] Isn't it strange that it's that same response to sorrow, that's the same response to sorrow and triumph.

[691] Yeah, it is.

[692] You know, like, what the hell's up with that?

[693] I don't understand that at all.

[694] I mean, I guess it's a sign of empathy.

[695] Yes, it is definitely a sign of empathy.

[696] But what's also odd is that with sad things, I can, I can objectively analyze them.

[697] And I could not get sad.

[698] I can understand that this is just life and it is what it is.

[699] and I mean I won't feel good but I won't start weeping I don't weep for like sad things the way I weep for happy things so you that's interesting so in some sense you've trained yourself to detach yourself from that kind of sorrow but not to detach yourself from triumph I can rationalize and understand sorrow I can internalize it I get it I know I know what it is and uh you know I just get so happy for people sometimes when things go well yeah one of my guilty pleasures is i i really like america's got talent and the bbc equivalent what the hell's the bbc equivalent is it the x factor something like that yeah yeah and it does the same thing to me i'd see somebody slub out there slub themselves out there on the stage looking pretty pretty damn dreadful in about four different dimensions and then like knock it out at the park it really yeah it's it's really something to see.

[700] Yeah, it's something amazing.

[701] I think we as a human being you realize how hard it is to overcome competition or these difficult moments.

[702] So these moments when you're tested and you know there's fears and insecurities of these people have to battle as well as the actual physical task in front of them.

[703] There's so much going on.

[704] And there's so much anticipation and nerves and anxiety involved in that, that to see someone triumph, I mean, I am a, a student of human will.

[705] I love stories of discipline and success.

[706] I don't like bad stories.

[707] I don't even like going to movies where they're sad.

[708] But people tell me about sad movies.

[709] I'm like, stop, I'm not going on that movie.

[710] I don't like it.

[711] I don't want to see it.

[712] I'm not interested.

[713] I know what sadness is.

[714] I've been sad.

[715] I get it.

[716] I'm not interested in getting that in a form of entertainment.

[717] I like success.

[718] I like seeing people triumph.

[719] I like seeing the human spirit manifest itself in spectacular ways.

[720] Yeah, that's why I like my lectures.

[721] That's why it's so fun to do them, you know, because I'm out there trying to tell people that they have the opportunity to do that.

[722] And to point out to them, too, that if they watch themselves, they notice they love that.

[723] Because, you know, that's one of the things.

[724] You go to a basketball game or a hockey game or something like that, and somebody makes a spectacular play, and it's a little celebration of the human spirit, ability to do something impossible in the moment, and everybody's up on their feet, like in one second.

[725] Go, man, go.

[726] Yeah, yeah.

[727] Like that's, the more of that, the better as far as I'm concerned.

[728] There's so much concentration on our, you know, the destruction we wreak on the planet and our original sin and our weakness and, you know, the terrible things we do to each other.

[729] It's really nice to see those situations where people are celebrating the triumph of an individual in a group like that and really says something wonderful about, human beings steep in their core for all of our problems.

[730] It's really something to be part of that.

[731] Yeah, I couldn't agree more, and I think we concentrate way too often and way too much on the negative aspects of people.

[732] You know, it's almost like sports is about the only place that doesn't happen, you know?

[733] It's kind of strange because you do concentrate on the positive in sports.

[734] You celebrate the winners, you know?

[735] The cameraman, don't go over and interview the losers.

[736] You know, I mean, they'll have done all that, but, and it's, I don't know why it is that in sports, it's okay to, to celebrate the triumphant and the victorious, but it is okay.

[737] And no one questions it.

[738] It's, well, that's not true, because now they have like non -competitive games for kids.

[739] And, you know, that's part of the politically correct curriculum.

[740] But most of the time, most sane people will celebrate along with a victorious athlete, and that's really something.

[741] all right so fear factor how many years did that last six years were they good years it's good financially yeah well that's something i made i made a ton of money and it alleviated financial pressure but i enjoyed doing it somewhat but it was not like the way i enjoy the other things that i do it's not like i enjoy stand -up comedy it's not like i enjoy working for the ufc it's not like i enjoy doing podcast.

[742] All those things that I just talked about, those three things, those things are labors of love.

[743] They're passions.

[744] They're things that I'm really genuinely fascinated by and interested in.

[745] Like this conversation, I would have this conversation with you if it was just you and me and there was no cameras.

[746] I would love to have this conversation.

[747] I love having conversations with interesting people.

[748] I love stand -up comedy.

[749] I love all those things.

[750] I didn't love being there for Fear Factor, but it was a great job.

[751] And I knew it was a great job.

[752] And I knew I was really lucky to habit.

[753] So it was great in that respect.

[754] But when it was over, I'd kind of decided I was done with television.

[755] When it was over, I was like, okay, I think I'm done with this.

[756] No more of this.

[757] From like from here on out, I'm just going to concentrate on my own stuff.

[758] And so from then on out, I just really focused on stand -up comedy.

[759] And that's when my comedy career really took off was post -fear factor.

[760] I mean, I had a comedy career during Fear Factor, but it really took off post Fear Factor because I really gave it all of my attention.

[761] And so what was, what, what happened after Fear Factor that boosted you on the comedy, on the comedy circuit?

[762] Um, well, I did a special for Comedy Central and Spike TV called Talking Monkeys in space in 2009.

[763] That was like probably my best work up until then.

[764] And then, um, you know, from then, I've been on a pretty steady pace of doing specials every two years or so, ever since then right right right and that's being successful non -stop are you getting better yeah and it's yeah i think i am i think i'm getting better i think it's one of those things as long as you keep concentrating on it and as long as you keep focusing on it you're getting better i think my hour that i'm doing now is as good as anything i've ever done and it's not even done yet it's only you know six months into this hour but i think it's some of my best work ever and i'm really excited to see where it comes well i mean there's no rush because it's only six months since my last one I probably will work on this for another year before I even think about recording it.

[765] Oh, yeah.

[766] So if it's good, it should be really good by then.

[767] Yeah, it's like a samurai sword.

[768] You're folding the metal and hammering the blade.

[769] You're folding the metal and hammering the blade.

[770] And you've got to know when it's ready.

[771] And I'll start to get a sense of where it's ready in about a year.

[772] In about one year, then I'll start going, all right, this seems pretty solid.

[773] Maybe it's time to rock and roll.

[774] And then I'll contact Netflix.

[775] and I'll say, hey, let's do it, you know.

[776] So set it up in whatever city I decide.

[777] And I'll just, I'll pick a city.

[778] I'll just run it over in my head.

[779] I'll pick a name for it, you know.

[780] Well, maybe I'll try to stay posted on what you're doing and come down and see it.

[781] That'd be fun.

[782] Yeah.

[783] I missed it the last time you were here in Toronto.

[784] But I'd like to come and see one of your shows live.

[785] I think that'd be a blast.

[786] Yeah, it would be fun, man. So the next was the UFC, eh?

[787] yeah that was tv too the UFC kind of the UFC happened while I was on news radio actually while I was on news radio I started working for the UFC way back in 1997 but it was the UFC was more of a side show back then it was a band from cable you could only get it on satellite TV right it was a freak show people didn't know about it I mean I loved it because as a lifelong martial artist to me it was fascinating to watch all these different styles compete against each other But it didn't pay much money.

[788] And even though it was enjoyable for me, it got in the way of other aspects of my life.

[789] And so I quit around 1998.

[790] And then somewhere along the line in around 2001, the UFC was purchased by this new company.

[791] And when they purchased, my earphones are dying.

[792] I'm going to have to take these off and unplug this here.

[793] Can you hear me still?

[794] Is that good?

[795] Yeah.

[796] Okay.

[797] Once it started, once the new company took over, they were trying to get people to go to their events and they asked me to go to the event.

[798] You know, it was when I was doing Fear Factor.

[799] And so I went and watched it live.

[800] And when I was watching it live, I was talking to Dana White, who was the president of the UFC and just talking to him about the sport and all these different things I think about.

[801] and are you interested in this guy?

[802] I was asking about various obscure fighters who were competing in Japan.

[803] Maybe he didn't know about you should try to get these guys.

[804] And then somewhere along the line, he said, hey, you want to do commentary?

[805] And I kind of, I was like, I don't want to work, man. I'm just here.

[806] I just want to enjoy this.

[807] So he and I became friends and he talked me into doing it.

[808] And I first did it for free.

[809] I did like 12 events or so for free, just for fun.

[810] So I was like, just get tickets for my friends.

[811] and I'll go and I'll do commentary for you.

[812] But I didn't take it that seriously.

[813] I just, I didn't ever think it was going to be, you know, a career.

[814] Right, great.

[815] And I would be this, you know, well -known commentator in mixed martial arts.

[816] I just thought I was doing it as a favor for them and for fun for me. And, you know, lo and behold, here we are, 18 years later, I'm still doing it.

[817] I presume they're paying you now.

[818] Oh, yeah, they pay me a lot.

[819] That's good.

[820] That's good.

[821] That's better bargaining position, I would say.

[822] Yeah, they're very generous.

[823] So that's kind of an understandable transition in some sense because, you know, you got your social skills highly developed and you got your ability to be witty on demand highly developed and to pay attention to an audience.

[824] And you had the martial arts background.

[825] And so UFC commentator, that makes sense.

[826] It's that, all right, so now where does the podcast come in?

[827] How the hell does that happen next?

[828] I guess it's next, isn't it?

[829] Yeah, the podcast was 2009, I guess, when it first started.

[830] And the podcast was basically, it was just for fun.

[831] It was like something to do with my friends.

[832] Me and my friend Brian, we just decided to set up a laptop and people would ask questions.

[833] And we would just start just talking about things.

[834] And then it became a weekly thing.

[835] and then we started uploading it to iTunes and then you know I started getting guests and then I mean it took years before it was profitable I mean I just it was just for fun forever like a lot of things that I've done it was originally just for fun well that's pretty early podcast too though 2008 so very early I mean podcasts were I mean for lots of people there's still not a thing although that's really changed in the last three or four years.

[836] I mean, you know, there are definitely a mainstream media phenomenon now.

[837] But 2009, I mean, that was fringe stuff fundamentally.

[838] Yes.

[839] Yeah, it was very fringe.

[840] So wouldn't have been really been in an advertising market at that point, I wouldn't have thought.

[841] Not much of one in the place.

[842] No, there was no ads.

[843] We didn't have ads for years.

[844] And then slowly ads started trickling in.

[845] The first ad was the flesh.

[846] light, which is a masturbation device.

[847] It was a funny story about Sam Harris.

[848] Sam Harris, who was a guest really early on, when the fleshlight was the only sponsor, requested that we not have the fleshlight as a sponsor on the episode that he was on.

[849] And so I was like, okay.

[850] So I took that week off.

[851] I just decided no sponsor that week.

[852] That is funny.

[853] for very many reasons it's funny that that was your first well you know pornography leads the way right yeah well you know in the internet yeah yeah it is kind of funny yeah and you know was even also funnier is that the guy who was um i guess he was a CEO of the flashlight or marketing something or another the flashlight he went on to form on it with me so on it which is my fitness and supplement company, he and I are partners in this.

[854] And it came out of our, uh, the thing with the fleshlight, our business agreement, because it was really profitable for the fleshlight.

[855] And he realized early on like, wow, like having a podcast sponsor something can be incredibly lucrative.

[856] If the podcast is well respected and well received, like this is sort of an untapped advertising market, hey, let's start a business and just use the podcast.

[857] as a method of launching this business and let's see how it goes.

[858] Right, right.

[859] So the podcast, and that became very successful too, but the podcast sort of took on a life of its own.

[860] It went from being just me hanging out with comedians talking to me, interviewing people like you, having conversations, I should say, more than interviewing people like you and, you know, scientists and archaeologists and doctors and, I mean, everyone.

[861] Yeah, well, right, you started talking.

[862] Oh, you started talking to everyone.

[863] Yeah, everyone.

[864] Really everyone.

[865] And it was mostly comedians to begin with?

[866] Yes.

[867] It was almost all comedians in the beginning.

[868] And the everyone part is interesting because that's something that people resist or resent more than anything now.

[869] Like the thing about this that you see now, you see this expression giving someone a platform.

[870] Why would you give someone a platform with those ideas?

[871] It's like, and it really comes down to this concept.

[872] of silencing opinions that you don't agree with.

[873] And my thought on it has always been, I want to talk to all kinds of different people.

[874] And even if I don't agree with them, I want to find out why they think the way they think.

[875] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[876] Well, there's also an element of useful disagreeableness there.

[877] It's like, I'm going to talk to whoever the hell I want to.

[878] Yeah.

[879] I don't care what you think about it.

[880] I interviewed Milo, speaking of people that you're not supposed to be talking to.

[881] Recently?

[882] Yeah, like a week ago.

[883] Yeah.

[884] So I take a lot of.

[885] heat from that?

[886] It hasn't been broadcast yet.

[887] I don't think I'm going to.

[888] I don't think I'm going to take a lot of heat for it, you know, because it was, we didn't have a political discussion.

[889] What did you guys talk about?

[890] Well, I was really curious about how he got taken down, you know, when he was talking about his sexual abuse when he was a kid and defending it in some sense.

[891] Like, I watched that interview, and I knew he was in trust.

[892] as soon as he completed it.

[893] I figured, no, you're, you said things that you're not allowed to say.

[894] And I think the part of it was that, see, I was split in two parts watching it, part because I was also watching it as a clinician.

[895] I thought that it was admirable of Milo to refuse to take the victim stance because he had been such an anti -victim, what would you call it, agitator or advocate.

[896] And so he said, well, I was a full participant in this.

[897] But then the clinic decided me thought, no, man, you haven't updated your memory since you were 14.

[898] Like you're still thinking of adult Milo as 14 -year -old Milo.

[899] And you're not thinking about 14 -year -old Milo as a kid.

[900] And so that was sad for me to see that because often when people are traumatized, in some sense, around the area of trauma, they don't mature.

[901] like it's like they get stuck well look imagine that you're on a path and you you you come towards an obstacle that's impenetrable but you really need to get through it to fully develop like it's part of what you need to grow up but you can't so you walk around it you know but you leave the part of yourself that could have matured behind there and because it didn't deal with the challenge like this is sort of what you were experiencing maybe on fear factor maybe why you're such a what you're so emotionally affected by triumph it's like you get defeated by something like that you can't overcome it there's part of you that gets stuck there in a sense and something Freud observed like a hundred and my damn near must be 120 years ago that people would fixate at a certain age because something had happened to them or at least part of their personality would i could see that happening with milo and i thought that he was in a really tough spot because he'd been molested, he didn't want to play the victim.

[902] Yet he actually was a victim, which was the perverse damn thing.

[903] And that, you know, the way he spoke about it could easily have been twisted, misinterpreted, partly because of his own doing into a quasi -justification for pedophilia.

[904] And then he also said, well, you know, this was relatively common practice in the gay community and I figured he'd be cut to ribbons for for for bringing that up but he said in it in the interview it was really weird you know he said that it wasn't the left -wingers that took them out it was the conservatives and they really had because he he was slated to talk speak at CPAC and and the straight Republican types not the Trump types you know but the but the more classically conservative Republicans didn't think that Milo Yonopoulos was the right kind of guy to have speaking at CPAC.

[905] And so his sense is that it was actually the moderate right that wiped him out.

[906] And so that was interesting.

[907] And I didn't expect that.

[908] And we also talked a fair bit about, I can't tell you all of it, because then nobody has to watch the damn podcast, or listen to it.

[909] But, you know, he's also shifted his viewpoint quite substantially on what happened to him when he was 14 and he he describes the process he went through to kind of rethink that not least because of the controversy it caused so you know I think well that was our conversation it lasted a couple hours it was you know I asked him how he was doing and what he was planning on doing and and that and so that was kind of interesting to find out too but we never got into anything that was remotely political and so I was happy to have had the conversation.

[910] You know, the thing about people like Milo is, I don't give a damn what you say about them.

[911] Alex Jones is the same sort of person.

[912] I think the same thing about Tommy Robinson, for that matter.

[913] It's like, these people are interesting.

[914] Like, they're strange people and they have, they have an effect on the world.

[915] And like, what are you supposed to do?

[916] Are you supposed to, what, are you not supposed to be curious about that?

[917] It's like, how can you not be curious about Milo?

[918] It's the de -platforming thing.

[919] Like, they, did they have this idea that you should not have a differing opinion if you have a differing opinion it should never get a platform and i think yeah well it's also more perverse than that even it's the idea that if you give someone like that quote a platform so now you're willing to talk to them that you must agree with them merely because you're conversing with them and it's like yeah that and that's a that's a well that guilt by association assumption is it's a terrible assumption what does it mean you're only going to talk to people who hold exactly the same ethical views that you hold on anything on everything yeah it's it's nonsense it's like that data in society thing that came out connecting everybody is alt -right gateways because they've talked to people that are on the right you know i i i tweeted that lady when she wrote that i said that barbara walters interviewed castro does that make her a And basically how I might take on all this stuff is there's nothing wrong with talking to people and I feel like Milo in this well Milo, you know, almost has been his own worst enemy because he's such a provocateur and now they've turned a lot of that stuff that he was saying as a provocateur and they've turned it against him, but I think that you and him have this one thing in common in that you get categorized by ladies.

[920] people who are not good at nuance and they put you in this box that other people have created and this box is oh this is an alt -right this this is a conservative that this guy's a Nazi this guy's a white supremacist this guys of that whatever it is they put you in that box and then socially you have to in order to fit into the ideology in order to fit into this group think, you have to sort of accept these definitions, that this person's bad, you know, that that person, Gavin McGinnis is a Nazi, Milo Unopoulos is a Nazi, that these people are this, these are the problem, without any real understanding of who those people really are, without any real...

[921] Yeah, well, that happened to Sargonne of the CAD, right?

[922] Having to call Benjamin, hey, by the way, we're launching our alternative social media platform soon.

[923] We got it going, yeah, it's going to be, well, we tried out the first of the technology.

[924] I just debated Slavoy -Zijek on Friday and last Friday, and he was hypothetically the world's foremost Marxist philosopher, although it turned out that he wasn't really a Marxist at all.

[925] He called himself a Hegelian, which is actually way different than being a Marxist, and so it wasn't really much of a debate.

[926] It was more me attacking the Communist Manifesto for half an hour, which I find rather rather straightforward thing to do and then us having a rather peculiar and productive discussion for about an hour and a half but anyways think spot tested their technology so live stream technology and we've got some cool features that no other platform has so it'll be a subscription service and so that's partly what makes it a replacement for patreon to some degree you know because we want to be able to monetize creators but we've got new different terms of service and so the essential issue with the terms of service will be that once you're on our platform we won't take you down unless we're ordered to by a u .s. court of law that's basically the idea so we're trying to make an anti -censorship platform and then we've got there's other features too that are quite cool and unique so for example it's you might be interested in this with regards to your podcast so if you listen to your podcast on our podcast you listen to your podcast on our platform people will be able to like pick a time in the podcast like maybe a 30 second clip and just mark it out and then they'll be able to either make a written comment about it or an auditory comment and then send that to a friend or post it so that they're running continual running conversations in audio and written form on podcast content constantly we want to do the same thing for YouTube videos so that people can append their own video to any part of a video and then distribute that to their network or also posted so that people can watch, you know, so that we're hoping we can get a real dialogue.

[927] We can really add dialogue to the podcast and a YouTube world.

[928] We're also going to do the same thing with books.

[929] So if you buy an e -book on the platform, you'll be able to annotate publicly.

[930] And so what that should mean is that every book that's sold on our platform that many people purchase will become the center of multiple conversations.

[931] And we can do that with books that are in the public domain.

[932] So, for example, one of the books we're going to post right away is Beyond Good and Evil by Nietzsche.

[933] And I'm going to start annotating it.

[934] And so what that should mean, you know, if you look at the Bible, it's a good example.

[935] People have been annotating it for like 5 ,000 years, right?

[936] Every verse has God, books written on it.

[937] So it's just this incredibly expanded document that's pulled in thousands and thousands of people to this collective conversation.

[938] And this platform should be able to allow people to do that with great works of art. And well, and then also with current affairs and events, such as, well, YouTube videos and podcasts.

[939] And so it's nice looking too.

[940] It's got a fairly professional feel.

[941] We're hoping that we'll be able to pull people who are interested in intelligent conversation specifically into this platform, you know, and maybe start to pull them away from YouTube and some of the less specialized channels.

[942] I'm hoping it's a that, that plus, you know, our anti -censorship stance.

[943] And it would be invitation only to begin with so that we can, well, so that we can beta test it and make sure the damn thing, works and that we're not fooling ourselves about its appeal.

[944] So that's come a long ways.

[945] And hopefully, I think we've got four, five, six people who are interested, who are lined up.

[946] Rubin is going to use it.

[947] I'm going to use it.

[948] James Altooker, uh, Jocco Willink, Michael Shermer.

[949] I think those are, oh, and, and, uh, Carl, Carl Benjamin Sargonne of the CAD.

[950] That'll be our first beta testers fundamentally.

[951] We've reached out.

[952] That sounds awesome.

[953] Yeah, I'm looking forward to it, man. And if the bloody thing works, I'd like to have a conversation with you about it at some point because...

[954] Oh, for sure.

[955] I'd love to try it.

[956] Okay, okay, okay.

[957] Well, I'll let the developer know.

[958] But I think the annotation feature could be really cool.

[959] And we're also setting it up so that if you do comment, all the comments will be up and downvoted.

[960] And if your ratio of downvotes to upvotes falls below 50 -50, then your comments will be, hidden.

[961] People will still be able to see them if they click, but you'll disappear, you know, from the mainstream.

[962] We don't know if 50 -50 is right.

[963] We're going to have to play with that because we're also trying to control stupid trolling.

[964] And I think we're going to put a minimum length requirement on for written comments so that you can't just say four words like this guy's a fucking idiot, you know, like no, we don't need that.

[965] So that, you know, if minimum comment length is 50 words, you're going to have to put a little thought into it, even if you're being a troll, hopefully you'll be a quasi -witty troll.

[966] So, anyways.

[967] Yeah, that's the ultimate battle, right?

[968] It's trying to combat the trolls in some sort of a way or mitigate their impact.

[969] Yeah, well, it's the ultimate battle is to do that without being censorious, right?

[970] Because you want people to express their opinion, but there's a difference between, it's a subtle, but there's a difference between productive dialogue and provocation without wit for the purpose of causing trouble.

[971] There's so many people out there that are just bored, and that's what they use the internet for.

[972] They're at work.

[973] They're in a cubicle all day, and they get their jollies out of just fucking with people online.

[974] And my producer, Jamie, he has a friend who does that.

[975] I mean, this is what this friend does.

[976] He has a bunch of accounts, and he just trolls people.

[977] he tries to troll celebrities and he tries to get them to respond to him and he says mean things to them and you know that's how he that's how he entertains himself while he's at work same dark side that that was manifesting up to a much greater degree in bill caused yeah you know it's yeah right guy well the guy is also depressed he's also a depressed guy is a failure in life and you know he's everything you would expect yeah well someone who uses that kind of time for right so you know the issue with him is like he should take some of that so if he would admit to himself his aggression if he'd come to terms with it he could take that damn aggression and he could integrate it into his personality and that would make him able to focus on his life you know like you said when you you know you started your your martial arts fighting that you were obsessed hey and you were also sick being pushed around and all of that and you were like willing to do something about it but obviously and it's obvious just talking to you that the aggressive part of your character is like deeply integrated inside of you it's not hiding out in some corner doing stupid things that you know you're not paying attention to it's right there at hand and you get a guy like the one you're talking about he's split into meek and depressed and ineffectual on the one hand and cruel and resentful and bitter on the other if those two things would marry you know he'd get half his personality back and maybe some of his dynamism.

[978] So it's a real waste of time.

[979] Well, I think a lot of people just feel just totally powerless.

[980] And they feel like this is the only way they can affect others is by reaching out and trolling or saying mean things.

[981] And I think that many people take these terrible paths and lives in their lives, which are not productive.

[982] And they don't, they don't feel good about it.

[983] They don't, they don't respond well to whatever they're doing.

[984] with their life, and they have this constant state of anxiety.

[985] It's like Thoreau's quote, most men live lives of quiet desperation.

[986] Yes, except the trolls live lives of noisy desperation.

[987] Yeah.

[988] That's what the internet has allowed.

[989] Yeah, Jordan, I got to wrap this up.

[990] I got to get out of here, unfortunately.

[991] This is a long and wonderful conversation, though, like we always have.

[992] I really appreciate you.

[993] Hey, well, we damn near got caught up.

[994] you got 30 seconds yes yeah sure okay well let's end it off i want to know what okay what what are you up to next man like what do you want to have happened you've got this crazy reach you've got this crazy platform what's what what's what's what's on your horizon anything other than what you're doing no no i just enjoy what i'm doing i'd like to continue doing what i'm doing i'm very happy that people enjoy the show i'm very very happy that it's affecting people in a positive way that they're getting inspiration out of it and they're getting information and entertainment and education and it means the world to me. I love it.

[995] I love doing the podcast.

[996] I love doing stand -up.

[997] I love everything that I'm doing.

[998] I mean, I'm very, very happy with my career and family life.

[999] I couldn't be happier.

[1000] So I just like to keep doing what I'm doing.

[1001] I don't have any crazy aspirations other than continuing to get better at everything that I try to work at.

[1002] Yeah, well, that's a crazy aspiration.

[1003] man because you go well you got a lot of things going for you that are very very unlikely you know and to and to hope i don't mean to hope that they'll get better but to continue to work to get those better that seems like sufficient aspiration for my perspective i think if you work at anything if you work at anything you're trying to improve and if you there's there's you know there's always room there's always room for improvement and everything yeah in your personality you're always in your work and everything and that's what i strive for i strive for improvement Yeah, well, that edge of improvement's a good place to be.

[1004] Yeah.

[1005] Look, I want it also to thank you.

[1006] My pleasure.

[1007] Just so you know what, you know, especially that first interview you did with me. My pleasure.

[1008] That was really helpful to me. And, I mean, I've enjoyed all the talks that we've had, and they've been really productive.

[1009] And they've had a, well, a very big impact on my life, but lots of people have watched them.

[1010] And so it seems to me that we've had a pretty productive series of interactions.

[1011] but I do owe you some thanks.

[1012] And also, thanks for coming on this podcast, man. It was really good to you to do that.

[1013] And I will definitely talk to you about ThinkSpot once we get it going and see that it works because it's, look, I didn't have any hope for its success when at first, you know, it was a little ugly baby thing because, you know, it's too impossible, but it's looking pretty damn good and it's got some cool features.

[1014] So it'd be nice to have a censorship -free platform, if we could figure out how to do that.

[1015] That sounds very exciting.

[1016] I'm very interested.

[1017] I can't wait to try it.

[1018] All right, man. Thank you, Jordan.

[1019] Hey, thanks a lot.

[1020] My pleasure.

[1021] Hey, good luck with your improvement, and I'm looking forward to your comedy special.

[1022] Thank you.

[1023] Ciao, Jill.

[1024] Thank you, my brother.

[1025] Take care.

[1026] Bye, bye.

[1027] Bye.

[1028] If you found this conversation meaningful, you might think about picking up dad's books, maps of meaning, the architecture of belief, or his newer bestseller, 12 Rules for Life, an antidote to chaos.

[1029] Both of these works delve much deeper into the topics covered in the Jordan B. Peterson podcast.

[1030] See Jordan B. Peterson .com for audio, e -book, and text links, or pick up the books at your favorite bookseller.

[1031] Next episode on the Jordan B. Peterson podcast will be one of Dad's 12 Rules for Life Lectures recorded at the Center in the Square in Kitchener, Ontario, on July 21st, 2018.

[1032] Should be a good listen, as usual.

[1033] Enjoy your week, people.

[1034] I'm stoked to be alive.

[1035] Hope you are, too.

[1036] It's an amazing world out there.

[1037] Talk to you next.

[1038] Follow me on my YouTube channel, Jordan B. Peterson, on Twitter at Jordan B. Peterson, on Facebook at Dr. Jordan B. Peterson, and at Instagram at jordan .b. Peterson.

[1039] Details on this show, access to my blog, information about my tour dates and other events, and my list of recommended books, can be found on my website, jordanb peterson .com.

[1040] My online writing programs, designed to help people straighten out their pasts, understand themselves in the present, and develop a sophisticated vision and strategy for the future, can be found at self -authoring .com.

[1041] That's self -authoring .com.

[1042] From the Westwood One podcast network.