Joe Rogan Experience #1901 - Steven Pressfield

Narrator 0:00 (drumbeats) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out.

Steven Pressfield 0:04 The Joe Rogan Experience.

Joe Rogan 0:06 Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day. (instrumental music) Good to see you, man. What's happening?

Steven Pressfield 0:14 It's good to see you, Joe.

Joe Rogan 0:15 With a nice stack of books here. What do we got here? Government Cheese: A Memoir. Is this your memoir?

Steven Pressfield 0:20 This is my memoir, yeah.

Joe Rogan 0:22 Ah, exciting.

Steven Pressfield 0:24 Of, uh, of my 27 years in the wilderness.

Joe Rogan 0:27 And, uh, Put Your Ass Where Your Heart Wants To Be. This is, uh-

Steven Pressfield 0:32 That's sort of like a War of Art type of book as you can tell from the size of it and everything.

Joe Rogan 0:37 After writing The War of Art, did you ... 'Cause you wr- you also w- wrote Turning Pro, right?

Steven Pressfield 0:42 Yeah, and a few others.

Joe Rogan 0:43 Yeah, but this-

Steven Pressfield 0:44 In the same-

Joe Rogan 0:44 On the same, along the same-

Steven Pressfield 0:46 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 0:46 ... vein.

Steven Pressfield 0:46 Yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 0:47 You just felt like you have more to, to squeeze out of that? It's like, it's such an important subject for, for artists and for creative people. I mean, that book, The War of Art, changed so many people.

Steven Pressfield 0:59 Let me ask you, Joe. What, uh, w- why did that resonate with you?

Joe Rogan 1:03 (clicks tongue) Well, there was some stuff that he talked about that it was almost, like, unspoken. And one of 'em is the concept of resistance. And, and that the fact that you treated the muse as if it was a, a, like a real, living entity. Like, you-

Steven Pressfield 1:21 Which I think it is, yeah. She is.

Joe Rogan 1:23 Well, she is. Whatever it is.

Steven Pressfield 1:25 Uh-huh.

Joe Rogan 1:25 That thing where if you show up and you put in the work, creativity s- just sort of ev- sort of gives birth. It, it sort of, uh, erupts. It comes out. It, it manifests. It ... There's something to it. And, and just, uh, I kind of always had this, like, inkling that that was a thing or this thought that that was a thing. But until I read your book, it was ... It's like you had ... You, you made it real. You, like, you, you, you just, like-

Steven Pressfield 1:57 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:57 ... you laid it out and, like, "Here's the problem, this is what's going on, and this is what you gotta do. You just gotta show up every day, and put in the work, and be a, a damn professional." And y- so many people that I gave that book to, I used to have a stack of 'em in my old studio, and I would just hand them to people.

Steven Pressfield 2:13 Uh-huh.

Joe Rogan 2:13 "Like, dude, just read this. Trust me." And it wasn't a hard read, you know? It wasn't a giant book. But it was so valuable because it, it just, like ... Uh, I guarantee you, there's so many people, there were so many days where people sat in front of their c- their computer or a notepad where they wouldn't have because of that book.

Steven Pressfield 2:33 Mm.

Joe Rogan 2:33 Like, it got people to where they needed to go. Whether they stayed there, you know, whether they kept up the ... Nah, that's not unique.

Steven Pressfield 2:40 Did you yourself ... Let me ask you. Like, as a comic, did you experience resistance to getting, say, up on front of people or in the writing of the material or does-

Joe Rogan 2:52 Yeah, you kind of re-

Steven Pressfield 2:53 Was that an area where you could relate to it?

Joe Rogan 2:55 Yes. It ... All the, the, all the above. You could, you know, you experience resistance in, like, "Oh, I wanna take a day off." You know, like, "Oh, I don't feel like going up today." Like, I know a lot of comics who are, like, really good comics and they're always canceling, like, sp- Well, like, there's work and then there's spots, okay? So the spots are important because the spots are what get you better, tighten your material and how you create new material. They keep you sharp.

Steven Pressfield 3:21 Now, are spots when you actually perform? Is that what a spot is?

Joe Rogan 3:24 Yes.

Steven Pressfield 3:24 Okay.

Joe Rogan 3:25 So this is what I mean. Um, a spot is, say, if you're gonna go to The Comedy Store and, uh, on, on regular night in The Comedy Store, there might be 15 comedians and each one of 'em is doing 15 minutes. So there's just ... It's a long running show. It starts from 8:00 PM. It goes on all night. When you're doing that, that's a spot.

Steven Pressfield 3:46 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 3:46 Doesn't pay very well. I think it pays, like, $50.

Steven Pressfield 3:49 Uh-huh.

Joe Rogan 3:49 So you just go down there and it's really ... There's a lot of comradery. We're all hanging around-

Steven Pressfield 3:54 Uh-huh.

Joe Rogan 3:54 ... with each other and joking around in the parking lot and in the hallway. And, uh, you're really just trying to stay sharp and work on new material. And you mi- ... And The Comedy Store has three rooms. There's the belly room that seats about 70 to 90 people. There's the main room that seats about 400-plus people. And then there's the original room that seats, I think it seats about 170. And you do shows in each room. Like, people do spots. Like, sometimes people do three spots a night. So those are, those don't pay well, but that's, tha- those are the ones people cancel. So, like-

Steven Pressfield 4:31 Ah, ah.

Joe Rogan 4:31 ... a lot of comedians, they're like, "Oh, I don't feel like going up."

Steven Pressfield 4:34 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 4:34 And they'll call in the Store, "I'm canceling. I'm gonna cancel."

Steven Pressfield 4:37 Ah.

Joe Rogan 4:37 "I'm not feeling well. I'll cancel." And it's really just resistance. It's this thing that keeps you from showing up. But the resistance for writing is way stronger. That's really strong.

Steven Pressfield 4:48 That's the work that you're talking about.

Joe Rogan 4:49 That's-

Steven Pressfield 4:49 That spot and, uh, and then the work. Huh.

Joe Rogan 4:51 Well, no, no. The wor- wor- spots are short sets that you do in town. Work is when you're on the road.

Steven Pressfield 4:58 Oh.

Joe Rogan 4:58 So the work is ... So, like, say, if you do a weekend at a comedy club. Now, that pays well. That's where m- the majority of comedians make their living, is doing weekends on the road or maybe even weekdays-

Steven Pressfield 5:11 Uh-huh.

Joe Rogan 5:12 ... on the road. So then you're doing a show. And can ... The idea is that you've crafted all this material on your own, in writing, and then in front of the crowd, doing spots and y- you know, and, and doing it around town. And then when you go on the road, then you have a show to put on. And that's-

Steven Pressfield 5:32 Now, what's-

Joe Rogan 5:32 ... that's work.

Steven Pressfield 5:33 What's interesting to me ... Here's my question. When do you actually sit down and write the, th- the thing?

Joe Rogan 5:40 For me, it's two times. It's either late at night when everyone's asleep in my house or it's ... Lately, it's been in the morning. Lately, I've been doing it first thing in the morning and, uh, there's ... I don't know. Sometimes I have my best ideas first thing in the morning for some reason.

Steven Pressfield 5:56 And, like, I c- I can't quite imagine. What is it like? Do you have, like, a theme that you think is funny that you're gonna work on?

Joe Rogan 6:04 No.... no. I just sit in front of the computer and write about subjects. I just have, like, essays. See, I used to try to just write jokes, but it seemed too limiting creatively. Like, uh, like, the format is so limited that I was missing out on some ideas. And so then, I started writing blog posts, and one of the things that I realized in blog, when I write blog, which is essentially essays, is that I could extract good ideas from those essays and those have become my bits.

Steven Pressfield 6:38 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 6:39 And so now, that's how I write. When I write, I just sit down and I just, like, uh, like, uh, w- uh, write, like... I'm j- I'm doing this idea about riots lately, riots and protests.

Steven Pressfield 6:50 Uh-huh.

Joe Rogan 6:50 And so I just start writing about riots and protests, and I'm just writing. And then I'm writing about what kind of people go and what, you know, what motivates someone to put a Buffalo hat on and try to break into the Capitol.

Steven Pressfield 7:01 Uh-huh.

Joe Rogan 7:02 And, uh, and as I'm writing, then I'll go, "That's a, that's a chunk."

Steven Pressfield 7:07 Uh-huh.

Joe Rogan 7:07 And I'll take that and I'll pull it out-

Steven Pressfield 7:08 Uh-huh.

Joe Rogan 7:09 ... and I'll copy and paste it in another folder.

Steven Pressfield 7:11 Uh-huh.

Joe Rogan 7:11 Or another, another, um, file. And then I'll go on stage and try to, like, give those life. And so then I take those and I try to figure out the best way to present 'em. And oftentimes, like, you think you have it right, but then you go in front of the crowd and they don't think it's funny, or they think the setup is funny, but the punchline sucks.

Steven Pressfield 7:33 Ah.

Joe Rogan 7:34 It's w- it's weird.

Steven Pressfield 7:35 Uh-huh.

Joe Rogan 7:35 Or they think, uh, you know, they, maybe they, the way they laugh makes you think there's another layer to this and you come up with more stuff on the fly.

Steven Pressfield 7:46 Uh-huh.

Joe Rogan 7:47 So you really create in front of them as well as by yourself. You need them. Like, y- you know, you can't create comedy in a vacuum. Y- you really need an audience.

Steven Pressfield 7:56 What, what's the feeling like when you're on stage? Are, are you scared? Is it fun? Is it-

Joe Rogan 8:01 No, it's fun.

Steven Pressfield 8:01 It's a, uh-huh.

Joe Rogan 8:03 It's fun. I mean, it'd be scary if I hadn't done it a lot. It was definitely scary when I first started doing it. But now it's fun. It's just fun. Like, 'cause they're all paying to see you. They're all... it's fun.

Steven Pressfield 8:12 Uh-huh.

Joe Rogan 8:12 It's a good time.

Steven Pressfield 8:13 Uh-huh.

Joe Rogan 8:13 As long as you've done the work, that's... You know, as long as you're prepared, it shouldn't be scary.

Steven Pressfield 8:18 Uh-huh.

Joe Rogan 8:18 It should be really a good time. You're there to make 'em laugh.

Steven Pressfield 8:21 Ah.

Joe Rogan 8:21 You know. But it's, uh... But I've also been doing it 33 years.

Steven Pressfield 8:26 Uh-huh.

Joe Rogan 8:26 You know, 34 years. It's a long-ass time.

Steven Pressfield 8:29 I mean, I know that my accountant always tells me that his comedians are, he, they all write off their psychotherapy bills. In other words, he's saying to me-

Joe Rogan 8:39 (laughs)

Steven Pressfield 8:39 ... that these are the ones, that, that it's not easy being a comic.

Joe Rogan 8:44 Yeah.

Steven Pressfield 8:44 I mean, is that...

Joe Rogan 8:46 I don't know, man.

Steven Pressfield 8:46 No?

Joe Rogan 8:47 It's not easy.

Steven Pressfield 8:47 You seem like you enjoy it and it's fun.

Joe Rogan 8:49 Yeah. It's different. I mean, what does that mean it's not e- it's not easy being a soldier, okay? It's not easy being an EMT. It's not easy being a police officer.

Steven Pressfield 8:59 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 8:59 It's not easy being a school teacher in an inner city school. It's n- it's not easy being a heart surgeon. It's this... Comedy is not that fucking hard.

Steven Pressfield 9:08 Hmm.

Joe Rogan 9:08 People, there's this old expression, the hard... I don't know who the fuck said this, but I've repeated it ad nauseam. The hardest thing that's ever happened to you is the hardest thing that's ever happened to you, or the worst thing that's ever happened to you is the worst thing that's ever happened to you. And that worst thing could be you're a little kid and your toy breaks.

Steven Pressfield 9:25 Uh-huh.

Joe Rogan 9:25 Or it could be your family got killed in a war. You know, it really depends. And so what level of resilience you have is entirely dependent upon what your life experiences are and what you've come to expect. And there's a lot of people that are comedians that really seem to think that what they're doing is so goddamn difficult. And, uh, yeah, it's not the easiest thing in the world, but Jesus Christ, what a great life.

Steven Pressfield 9:51 Ah.

Joe Rogan 9:52 You know, you're, you're telling jokes. You're making people laugh. It should be wonderful and celebrated. But a lot of them are, they do a really poor job of mental management and of, like, assessing their own, like, psychological issues-

Steven Pressfield 10:07 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 10:07 ... and, and coming up with, like, real methods of mitigation.

Steven Pressfield 10:11 So, why do people bail out on the nights that they're, that they're not-

Joe Rogan 10:15 Resistance.

Steven Pressfield 10:16 It's, uh, they're, what are they... They're afraid of bombing, they're afraid of getting up there and-

Joe Rogan 10:20 Nah. No.

Steven Pressfield 10:20 ... huh?

Joe Rogan 10:20 They're just not being pros.

Steven Pressfield 10:21 Ah?

Joe Rogan 10:21 That's really what it is. It's like-

Steven Pressfield 10:23 Not-

Joe Rogan 10:23 ... it's l- that's one of the reasons why your book resonated so much.

Steven Pressfield 10:26 Ah.

Joe Rogan 10:26 It's 'cause, like, it's just there's a thing that you described, that you just nailed it, and you called it resistance. But there's this feeling that you just don't wanna sit and write, you don't wanna work. You know, like, when I get in front of my computer, there's, like, an urge, like, "Hey, let's go see what's in YouTube. Hey, let's go l- f- we're gonna roam around on..."

Steven Pressfield 10:47 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 10:48 "... let's go to digg.com, see what the wackiest stories are."

Steven Pressfield 10:50 Uh-huh.

Joe Rogan 10:50 "Let's go to CNN."

Steven Pressfield 10:52 Uh-huh.

Joe Rogan 10:52 You know, it, that, that is part of the resistance, like, keeps you from just sitting down and working. And I don't know what that is, because you know, in the back of your head, that if you do the work, you'll have more ideas. If you have more ideas, you'll have more material. If you have more, uh, material, you'll be able to pick the best material and your show will be better, and then the audience will have a better time, your career will go better, and all these things.

Steven Pressfield 11:16 And yet that doesn't matter, you know what I mean? You still feel it, right?

Joe Rogan 11:19 Yeah.

Steven Pressfield 11:20 And it's totally universal, I can tell you, from the emails that I get, from the letters that I get. And it's, not only is it universal in that everybody experiences it, but they all seem to experience it, it with the same script, you know.

Joe Rogan 11:33 Hmm.

Steven Pressfield 11:33 "You're not worthy. You're too old, too young, too fat, too thin," whatever. Or, "Let's do something else. Let's distract ourselves-"

Joe Rogan 11:41 Hmm.

Steven Pressfield 11:42 "... with something else." So everybody gets the same thing. I mean, I always say that it's, it's, um, it's a force of nature, you know. It's not personal. It's not specific to you, even though it, that voice in your head sounds like it is specific to you. It's saying, "Joe," and then it's hitting you right in the p- points that are your sore points, you know.

Joe Rogan 12:03 Yeah.

Steven Pressfield 12:04 But it's really not personal. Everybody seems to experience the same thing.And, uh-

Joe Rogan 12:09 What do you think it i- When, when did you write the War of Art? What year was it?

Steven Pressfield 12:12 2002.

Joe Rogan 12:13 And in that time after writing that n- um, I'm sure, uh, it's, it's obviously being, been a very successful book, so you've had time to think about this. Like, what do you think is going on? Like, why are people ... wh- why is that a force of nature? What is it?

Steven Pressfield 12:28 Um, I'll, I'll gi- this is a, my lengthy explanation-

Joe Rogan 12:31 Okay.

Steven Pressfield 12:31 ... but I'll give you my theory.

Joe Rogan 12:32 Please.

Steven Pressfield 12:34 If we think of the human ... So everybody just gotta bear with me. This takes a minute or two. If you think of the human psyche, we got the ego, which is like a little black dot in the middle of a greater thing that we would call the Self, like the Jungian Self with a capital S. And the Self contains the collective unconscious, all the aspects of the unconscious, right? Um, the hero's journey, the archetypes of the unconscious, all of the sort of intuitive stuff, right? When you, I would imagine, come up with great comedy material or any kinda material, it's coming from that Self, coming from that deeper place, right? And even when, uh, Jung or Joseph Campbell describe the Self, they have a ... I have a little diagram in The War of Art where adjacent to this larger Self, they've like three arrows and the arrows are coming from what they call the Divine Ground, which I take to mean whatever greater force is out there, you know, that, that will come to you. So, this is a long way of saying that the ego, which is, right, your I part, the part that identifies with this body and with the ... The ego wants to be in control, right? The ego is the way you drive down to the store. You get a ... whatever it is, right? But when you're trying to tap into that greater intelligence, like if you're writing, if you're trying to come up to ... if you're a musician, if you're any kind of creative person, you're trying to, to surrender to that Self, to that greater Self. And I feel like the ego hates that. The ego knows if you make that shift to identify with that greater Self, then the ego is outta business. So I think, this is my theory, that the ego produces resistance to try to stop you from, from connecting and trusting and believing, 'cause it is a leap of faith, right, to get that other level-

Joe Rogan 14:32 Mm-hmm.

Steven Pressfield 14:32 ... wherever it is. So the ego says to you, "Who do you think you are to try to m- tap into that thing? Who do you think you are to come up with this idea? It's been done a million times better than you'll ever do it. You don't have the chops to do this. You're gonna fall on your ass," etc., etc., etc.

Joe Rogan 14:46 Mm-hmm.

Steven Pressfield 14:47 Or, "Let me distract you. Why don't we chase some women? Why don't we get drunk? Why don't we hang out with our buddies?" Whatever it is. But so I think that what the ego wants is to maintain its control, right? And if you make that shift into the, into that greater Self, that's when you really are starting to tap into great stuff. That's where the great stuff comes from-

Joe Rogan 15:07 Yeah.

Steven Pressfield 15:07 ... right? And that puts the ego out of a job. At least that ... This is my theory, Joe. So the ... I think that the ego produces it. I mean, it's be- interest- it's interesting sort of ... Animals don't experience resistance. I'm sure they don't, right? Be-

Joe Rogan 15:21 Right. But they also don't-

Steven Pressfield 15:22 ... be- 'cause they're-

Joe Rogan 15:22 ... experience creativity.

Steven Pressfield 15:24 True. But, but they're in that greater world, I think, naturally, you know?

Joe Rogan 15:29 Right.

Steven Pressfield 15:29 Um, they're-

Joe Rogan 15:30 They're free.

Steven Pressfield 15:31 ... th- they, they're in that God energy, you know?

Joe Rogan 15:33 Mm-hmm.

Steven Pressfield 15:33 An eagle or somebody that's flying, you know, you watch like the tiniest little wings or feathers even, you know, control it. They're not thinking about anything, right, when they're hunting or whatever it is. So anyway, that's, that's my theory on what, on what resistance is. Now, Seth Godin, you know who he is, he's a believer that it's the, uh, the, um-

Joe Rogan 15:52 Who is Seth Godin? I do not know who he is.

Steven Pressfield 15:54 S- Seth Godin is a kind of a marketing guru, one of the earliest guys on, on the, on the internet from way back when, when it first began, and, uh, is a great, um, teacher of marketing and stuff like that, and also a wonderful guy-

Joe Rogan 16:11 There he is.

Steven Pressfield 16:12 ... and this ... there he is ... in the sense that he is m- highly ethical dude. Like, when he talks about, um, businesses, startups, and all the things that he's kind of, uh, helping people with, ethics is a huge part of it. So I really respect the guy. And he's a great deep thinker too. Now he thinks it's what he calls the lizard brain, the amygdala, which I'm not even sure what that is. I guess it's the reptile brain at the back of your head, that that's what's producing something that wants ... producing resistance. But anyway, I respect his thinking on that, but I think it's what I just explained to you or ...

Joe Rogan 16:49 What you're saying makes a lot of sense. And the, the ego, whatever that thing is that i- it's, it's so interesting how it's not able to see that it would actually benefit the ego if you didn't have resistance.

Steven Pressfield 17:07 Yes.

Joe Rogan 17:08 Which is really weird.

Steven Pressfield 17:09 Yeah. It's weird, isn't it? Yeah.

Joe Rogan 17:10 Yeah. Because if, if the ego was wise and, and had like foresight, it could see the future going, "Oh, if we just like just give in and relax and l- relinquish control, then we're gonna come up with better stuff and our life's gonna be better."

Steven Pressfield 17:25 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 17:25 "Be able to buy a nicer house."

Steven Pressfield 17:27 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 17:27 You know, maybe be-

Steven Pressfield 17:28 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 17:28 ... able to go on trips. You'll, your, your, your work will do well. Everything will be good."

Steven Pressfield 17:33 It's a de- it's a deep subject because also-

Joe Rogan 17:35 Mm-hmm.

Steven Pressfield 17:35 ... if you think about the ego's view of what life is, you know ... I'm gonna go into some deep stuff for you to mind this stuff, right?

Joe Rogan 17:44 You don't have to clarify, just feel free.

Steven Pressfield 17:45 The ego has a whole view. The ego believes that this material world...... is all there is, right?

Joe Rogan 17:55 Yeah.

Steven Pressfield 17:55 The ego believes in death. The ego believes that when this body dies, we die, right? The ego believes that this flesh can be hurt, you know? It can be maimed. It can be broken, etc., etc. So the ego is naturally... lives in fear. I think that the, the predominant emotion of the ego... If we're living in the ego, wh- which is 99% of people do, our predominant emotion is fear, right? And fear, uh... even though we might not know it. Fear of death, which is kind of why people want to achieve, I think, right? "Let me make a name for myself," blah, blah, blah. Why people wanna have children, their children will live on. Why they have insurance, why they try to succeed and have a big house, and this and that and the other thing, right? That's all sort of coming out of, out of an- out of a, uh, a mindset of fear. Whereas this giant self, in my opinion, the bigger self that is connected to the thing, its predominant emotion is love, if you ask me. Now the ego... Another thing the ego believes is that, "I am separate from you." Right? "We are all separate individuals," right? "I could hurt you, and it won't hurt me." That's what the ego thinks, right? That's why so much of the evil that happens in the world comes out of that, right? "We can torture these sons of bitches, and it won't happen to us," right? "Nothing bad'll happen to us." But the self believes exactly the opposite. Once you get into that deep level, right, that we are not separate from one another, that you and I are bound together in some kind of way, along with all of humanity and all of the animal life and all of the planet, all of the oceans, and all of that. And so the predominant emotion in that self is the emotion of love. So the ego... This is my belief, anyway. The ego, being centered in fear, is gonna try to hang on to what it's got, right? If the ego thinks that it's living our life, it's calling the shots, it's gonna hang onto that, you know, out of, out of fear. And won't... That's why I think it's so strong, the resistance is so strong. When, when you... The closer you get to moving into that self, into that greater space. Like, if you're sitting down and trying to write a novel, and you get into a kind of a flow of it, that's what the ego is really afraid of. Because it's such a kind of empowering and intoxicating experience, the ego says to itself, "Shit, if this guy stays over here very long, he's never gonna go back to, you know, to where I re- pull the, call the shots." So, I think that's why it, it, it makes itself... it, it puts such a, an intense shot at you to stop you from getting there.

Joe Rogan 20:36 So, this greater self. What is... If... Like, w- what do you think that is? If, if the greater self is all about love, and the greater self is what recognizes the connection between all of us, what is the greater self?

Steven Pressfield 20:52 Okay, it's a great question. I know that you're a guy that's into psychedelics to some extent, right?

Joe Rogan 20:56 Yeah.

Steven Pressfield 20:56 I mean, when you... Now, my only experience with psychedelics is back in the '60s, you know? So I haven't done any of the stuff that people are doing now.

Joe Rogan 21:03 You want some?

Steven Pressfield 21:04 No, thank you (laughs) .

Joe Rogan 21:06 Okay.

Steven Pressfield 21:06 I'm too old for that.

Joe Rogan 21:07 You're not too old.

Steven Pressfield 21:08 But, but one of the things that you know-

Joe Rogan 21:10 You have resistance. That's resistance to psychedelics.

Steven Pressfield 21:12 (laughs) Maybe so. But one of the things that you know from LSD or from mescaline or anything like that, right, is you suddenly see a whole other world that was not there before, right? Even though you're looking at that wall, all of a sudden that wall becomes so beautiful, right, that you, you can't even say anything except, "Wow." Right? So that, I believe... I, I would... I was thinking in those moments, "This must be the way Jesus sees the world, or the Dalai Lama sees the world, or, or God sees the world." And when I come back to my regular self, and I see this kind of normal shrunk-down world, that's not the real world, right? There's another world that's greater. And so that's sort of my feeling about it, Joe. That, that, that when the self... When you enter that... There is a greater world. We're living in that greater world right now. We just can't see it, you know? We're just... We just see what's in front of us. And I think another aspect of it, to me... You would know a lot more about this than I do, being more in the present of this, is that if you're living in that kind of psychedelic world, you really can't drive a car. You really can't operate heavy equipment. You really can't handle the stuff you have to handle. You can't do your taxes, right? So in order to kind of live, you do have to sort of shrink, shrink that world down, right?

Joe Rogan 22:36 Mm.

Steven Pressfield 22:36 To, to, you know, push the, the, all the beauty aside and all the amazing shit aside.

Joe Rogan 22:42 Yeah.

Steven Pressfield 22:42 But that doesn't stop the fact that that stuff is there, right? I always wonder, "What was it like before we were born, and what's it gonna be like after we die?" Are, are we gonna live in that world? Are we gonna enter that world again? And what is that... What'll, what'll, what will that be like?

Joe Rogan 23:00 Do you think that this narrowed-down world that you're talking about when you, when the psychedelics wear off, do you think that's an artifact of the cold, hard reality of being an animal living amongst predators and other, other violent human beings on Earth? Where, in order to survive, in order to raise your children and protect your village and provide food to each other, you kinda have to have this very simplistic, just w- just, as you said, narrowed-down? This, this different... Where you can't just wax euphorically about the, the, the concept of the universe and life and, and, and love, and, you know? You have-

Steven Pressfield 23:48 I do. I do believe that, yes.

Joe Rogan 23:50 You think... Yeah.

Steven Pressfield 23:50 And I think that's why, again, like, what I was saying about the ego being, being dominated by the emotion of fear, right? And also, our parents, right, and our society, our school, everything, for our own good-... as we're kids growing up, tells us all that, right?

Joe Rogan 24:06 Mm.

Steven Pressfield 24:06 It kind of indoctrinates us into that world, for our own good, right?

Joe Rogan 24:10 Yeah.

Steven Pressfield 24:10 It wants to protect us, you know? "On your way walking to school, somebody's gonna beat you up," blah, blah, blah.

Joe Rogan 24:15 Right.

Steven Pressfield 24:16 Um, so yeah. I do think that's the case. It's kind of a strange world, isn't it, that God created for us?

Joe Rogan 24:22 Mm.

Steven Pressfield 24:22 I mean, on the one hand, there's this beautiful other-dimensional reality out there. But then there's this hardcore world of predators, you know? In order to, you know... Like, what did you just have on Instagram today, a alligator taking off the leg off a deer? I mean, that's, that, uh-

Joe Rogan 24:39 Did I?

Steven Pressfield 24:40 You don't even know if, what was there, but it's there. We just saw it a few minutes ago. But, I-

Joe Rogan 24:44 I had it on Instagram?

Steven Pressfield 24:45 Yeah, I think so.

Joe Rogan 24:47 Oh. It was-

Steven Pressfield 24:47 Diana had it, showed it to me.

Joe Rogan 24:49 Oh. No, no, no, no, no. Oh, yeah. Th- there was a crocodile that took a pig and snapped it in half.

Steven Pressfield 24:53 Oh, is that what it was?

Joe Rogan 24:54 Like, like that.

Steven Pressfield 24:55 Yeah. I didn't see it.

Joe Rogan 24:56 It's like a terrifying video.

Steven Pressfield 24:58 But-

Joe Rogan 24:58 Yeah.

Steven Pressfield 24:58 ... that's the world, right, that God-

Joe Rogan 25:00 Yes.

Steven Pressfield 25:00 ... gave us, right?

Joe Rogan 25:00 Sure. Yeah.

Steven Pressfield 25:01 So-

Joe Rogan 25:01 Predators and prey and monsters.

Steven Pressfield 25:03 Yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 25:04 Yeah. Um, I-

Steven Pressfield 25:06 So, here you are, Joe. I mean, you're a fighter, right? You're a UFC MMA kind, that's, that, in that world of predator versus prey. But you're also a comic and you're also a podcaster, where you're reaching out into this other world, you know? That greater world of who knows what it is.

Joe Rogan 25:24 Yeah.

Steven Pressfield 25:25 So you're try, you're a, that... You know, it's one of the things I admire about you, about what you do on this show, that you really go into every direction possible. You're talking to every kinda people, every kinda person that's got any kind of a theory about anything, which I think is great 'cause we all need everything that we can possibly bring in here.

Joe Rogan 25:39 Well, I think I certainly do. I certainly need as many different points of reference and different perspectives as possible. But, uh, I'm just very lucky that I'm genuinely curious, and that I have a platform to bring in people like yourself or-

Steven Pressfield 25:54 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 25:54 ... or other people and have conversations with them. And it's been very enlightening for me to, to in- t- encounter all of these different perspectives, and to interact with all these different people that think about the world in a different way. And it makes me, you know, reconsider my own ideas or reformulate or, you know, just sort of reevaluate.

Steven Pressfield 26:15 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 26:15 You know? And I think, um, that people can be very rigid in how they view the world, and v- very rigid in how they, you know, the rules that they set for themselves and for other people. And, and 'cause it allows you to l- when you have less options, you have less things to think about, and sometimes you could be more successful that way, you know? There's a lot-

Steven Pressfield 26:35 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 26:35 ... of people that do things very rigidly-

Steven Pressfield 26:38 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 26:38 ... and they found great financial and, you know, physical success doing-

Steven Pressfield 26:44 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 26:44 ... it that way.

Steven Pressfield 26:45 I mean, think about various religions that have such, you know, "You can only eat this."

Joe Rogan 26:50 Yes.

Steven Pressfield 26:51 "You must wear that."

Joe Rogan 26:52 Yes.

Steven Pressfield 26:52 "And on Wednesday, you do this."

Joe Rogan 26:54 Mm-hmm.

Steven Pressfield 26:54 And it really helps you because you don't have to make any decisions.

Joe Rogan 26:57 Yeah.

Steven Pressfield 26:57 I'm sure it's a, I'm sure it's a happier life in a way, but what is it, you know?

Joe Rogan 27:03 Yeah, there's something to it. You know, me and my friends, uh, Tom and Ari and Burt, we do this thing every year, uh, called Sober October. And generally, we come up with, when we do Sober October, we come up with some sort of a challenge. And one year was, we had to do, uh, 15 yoga sessions in the 31 days of October, and, you know, 90-minute yoga sessions. And then the other, the next time, we had to do a fitness contest where we, we counted up the amount of energy, each one of us. We were using an app and we were trying to compete in the winner, you know, you know, whatever. So, we, we, we did that. And then, uh, other years, we've done different things. And then this year, we decided what we're gonna do is we're gonna work out seven days a week. Every day, you have to burn 500 calories. So, we've kinda decided that a competition is too fucked up 'cause I'm kinda crazy and I, I get over-competitive and it's not fun.

Steven Pressfield 27:58 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 27:58 Not fun for my family, not fun for me, 'cause I go crazy. So, it was, it's way better to not be competitive and just, we all are held accountable to this one thing. So, this one thing was you had to do 100 pushups every day, and you had to burn 500 calories in a workout. And so everyone did it, and we sent each other screenshots of our apps, and we all talked about it. And one of the things we all came out of, at the end of it, was like knowing that you had to do this thing was so different than just going, "Oh, I probably should work out today. Maybe I won't. Maybe I'll fuck off." Like, t- today, for instance. I was up late last night. I got home from the c- um, from the comedy show. Uh, I did a little mushrooms, and then, uh, I did a little writing. And I didn't go to bed until, like, 2:30, 3:00. And so, I woke up at 10:00. I was like, "God, I should work out, but I don't fucking feel like working out." I go, "Let me just get in the sauna and do the cold plunge," which is my m- minimum amount of things that I do every day.

Steven Pressfield 28:59 Uh-huh. Uh-huh.

Joe Rogan 28:59 But then, after I did that, I was like, "You should've worked out, man." But I didn't. Right? So I didn't. But if I, if it was the Sober October month, I would have had to-

Steven Pressfield 29:08 Ah.

Joe Rogan 29:09 ... 'cause I ha- 'cause I had those nights during Sober October where I was up late and I only got, like, six hours sleep-

Steven Pressfield 29:14 Uh-huh.

Joe Rogan 29:14 ... but I still got that workout in 'cause I had to do it. When you have a thing that you must do every day, that's how you get productive. And what we found, all of us found, is there's this alleviation of anxiety that comes from doing these workouts every day, that was like... I was, we were all talking, I was like, "If this was a pill that I could take, I'd take that pill all day, if it had no side effects."

Steven Pressfield 29:39 Uh-huh. Uh-huh.

Joe Rogan 29:39 In fact, this pill makes you healthier, but instead of a pill, it's an hour to an hour and a half of arduous physical work. Like, very difficult physical work. You're pouring sweat and, and when it's over, you're exhausted, but healthier? And then the anxiety level is like (snaps fingers) nil. Like, nothing bothers you. You feel so good. You've all- you've tooken your tension like, like your body's a wet rag and just rang out all the tension, just dripped it out. And the fact that you have to do it every day, it kind of eliminates this whole resistance thing, because you can't entertain it. And because we're all accountable and we're all texting each other, and you know, we're in a group text...

Steven Pressfield 30:25 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 30:26 It was great. It's great.

Steven Pressfield 30:27 So, why not do it 12 months of the year?

Joe Rogan 30:30 Um, I don't know if it's sustainable, but what I am doing is five days a week.

Steven Pressfield 30:34 Uh-huh.

Joe Rogan 30:34 So, five days a week, I do it now. So, instead of seven days a week, I do it five days a week.

Steven Pressfield 30:38 Uh-huh.

Joe Rogan 30:39 Which is, uh, 'cause I travel, do-

Steven Pressfield 30:41 Uh-huh.

Joe Rogan 30:41 ... other stuff. It's-

Steven Pressfield 30:42 Uh-huh.

Joe Rogan 30:42 ... it's more sustainable. But it seems very effective. So, today, uh, I bitched out, so now I know that, uh, I only have six more days... Well-

Steven Pressfield 30:51 Uh-huh.

Joe Rogan 30:51 ... you know, I, I worked out yesterday. But there's only a certain amount of days in the week. Right? So, now, I've got three more days that I must get in. No if, ands, or buts. Those have to be done, 'cause I did Monday and Tuesday, and then I fucked off today, so I've got other days. But I've gotta... But it's not the same as if, if you, if you're doing it every day, like, if it's a religion, which is why I understand why people would get up in the morning, and you have to pray. Get up in the morning, you know, face the east, get on your hands and knees and bow. Like, it, there's something to that that hijacks all of that resistance shit. All of the things that hold you back from finding your greater self. All the things that hold you back from accomplishing your true potential in this life.

Steven Pressfield 31:41 Yeah. And I think w- what that is, to me, is an exercise, like, a ritualistic exercise in overcoming resistance.

Joe Rogan 31:49 Yes.

Steven Pressfield 31:49 And in getting into that other, that greater place. Right?

Joe Rogan 31:52 Yes.

Steven Pressfield 31:52 When you say, "wrung out," that's you're wrung out of every ego thought.

Joe Rogan 31:57 Mm-hmm.

Steven Pressfield 31:57 Right? You're wrung out of all your negative s- thoughts. Right? You're not being jealous of anybody else. You're not being competitive with anybody else.

Joe Rogan 32:04 Yeah.

Steven Pressfield 32:04 So, I think... I mean, I'm sure that... I'm not a meditator, but I'm, I imagine that that's what that's all about. Right? You get up every morning, and you center yourself, and you do all that sort of thing.

Joe Rogan 32:14 Yeah.

Steven Pressfield 32:14 And, and you get to that, to that place. So I'm all... I'm a total believer in what you're talking about, Joe.

Joe Rogan 32:21 Yeah. I think that's probably with people who have the, the... Whoever the original writers of various religions, the way they crafted it, I think all of those rules and regulations, and... And, uh, not just keeping society order, but keeping you ordered. Like, keeping your mind ordered. Like, they, they, they knew there was something-

Steven Pressfield 32:45 Yeah. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 32:46 There was, like, a disconnect-

Steven Pressfield 32:47 Yes.

Joe Rogan 32:47 ... between what you can do and what you're going to do.

Steven Pressfield 32:50 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 32:50 What your p- what your potential is, and, you know, where you're gonna actually find yourself fall.

Steven Pressfield 32:55 Yeah. They know there's a devil out there. The devil's out.

Joe Rogan 32:58 Yeah.

Steven Pressfield 32:58 I, I would call it resistance. But it's those negative thoughts that you can spiral into, right?

Joe Rogan 33:03 Yes.

Steven Pressfield 33:03 It never... Nothing good ever came out of that, you know?

Joe Rogan 33:06 No.

Steven Pressfield 33:06 It's always let's hate the other guy, create the other and hate them-

Joe Rogan 33:09 Mm-hmm.

Steven Pressfield 33:10 ... or, or take our own selves down. I mean, I fight it myself. I'm lying in bed in the morning, you know, and those thoughts come to my mind. I mean, I don't know if you're... Are you familiar with Paramahansa Yogananda's stuff at all?

Joe Rogan 33:21 No.

Steven Pressfield 33:22 From Self-Realization Fellowship? I mean, he's one of the great gurus. He actually died in, like, 1952 or something like that, so he's not a contemporary dude. But one of the things that he says is, "When you wake up in the morning, get out of bed right away. Do not lie there thinking any kind of thoughts, 'cause those thoughts o- only are negative and are only taking you bad," you know? He says, "Get up. Start your day." And I'm definitely a believer in that, too.

Joe Rogan 33:50 Why, why are they negative when you wake up and you just lay there?

Steven Pressfield 33:53 I-

Joe Rogan 33:53 Why do you think that is?

Steven Pressfield 33:54 ... I don't know where it is, but, uh, somebody asked me, "When in your day do you first experience resistance?" And my answer is, "The minute I open my eyes."

Joe Rogan 34:05 Mm.

Steven Pressfield 34:05 It's right there, you know? Which is also really f- interesting, and I don't know the answer to this. If you think about the sleep state, whatever that is, there's no resistance in that state, you know? I don't know why.

Joe Rogan 34:17 Right.

Steven Pressfield 34:18 Maybe we're in that greater world, you know, that unconscious... It's only when we come into consciousness. All of a sudden, that resistance thing is there. The devil is there. Those shitty thoughts are there. Those negative thoughts are there. Which is why, like, your Sober October is really let's do something to counteract that shit-

Joe Rogan 34:36 Yeah.

Steven Pressfield 34:36 ... right away, before it grabs us, you know? Or even if it has grabbed us, from 6:00 till 9:00, now we're gonna work out, and we're gonna do our thing, and we're gonna, we're gonna overcome it. Which, you can overcome it. Thank-

Joe Rogan 34:49 Yeah.

Steven Pressfield 34:49 Thank goodness.

Joe Rogan 34:51 It also has that aspect of religion where you're all in it together.

Steven Pressfield 34:54 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 34:55 You know?

Steven Pressfield 34:55 That's true.

Joe Rogan 34:55 There's this thing. Because it's, it's ritualistic.

Steven Pressfield 34:58 You can also do it alone, you know?

Joe Rogan 34:59 Yeah. Oh, you definitely could do it alone. But there's real... We had real comradery, in the fact-

Steven Pressfield 35:04 Ah. I bet you did.

Joe Rogan 35:05 ... that we were all doing it together.

Steven Pressfield 35:06 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 35:07 And it's-

Steven Pressfield 35:07 It's like the military in a way, right?

Joe Rogan 35:09 Yeah. And we're, uh, we were accountable to each other, too.

Steven Pressfield 35:11 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 35:11 So we knew that we were accountable to each other.

Steven Pressfield 35:13 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 35:15 Yeah. Um, w- wouldn't you think that, w- just for the sake of survival, like, from an evolutionary perspective, when you wake up in the morning, that would be th- the last thing you would wanna do, is, like, lay there? Just s- stay put. Like, uh, uh, you would think that evolution would favor thoughts that, like, immediately launch you into action.

Steven Pressfield 35:38 Yeah, you would think so, that you would be wary and ready to go get-

Joe Rogan 35:41 Yeah.

Steven Pressfield 35:42 On the other hand, if you're in the cave and you're under a nice, you know, bear skin thing, you know-

Joe Rogan 35:47 (laughs)

Steven Pressfield 35:47 ... and your old lady is there beside you-

Joe Rogan 35:49 Yeah.

Steven Pressfield 35:49 ... maybe you don't wanna get up and get into that cold world.

Joe Rogan 35:52 Well, I g- I get that you wouldn't want to, but I would think that f-... you know, fortune favors the brave.

Steven Pressfield 35:59 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 35:59 Or fortune favors the, the one who's most active.

Steven Pressfield 36:02 I would imagine, in the tribal world, they had a, somebody standing watch 24 hours a day, you know? And even if you or I might be asleep, there would be some young kid that was at the mouth of the cave, you know, keeping his eyes open.

Joe Rogan 36:16 Yeah. Before they-

Steven Pressfield 36:16 And, and if they did-

Joe Rogan 36:16 ... figured out doors, they probably had to do that.

Steven Pressfield 36:18 Uh-huh.

Joe Rogan 36:19 Yeah.

Steven Pressfield 36:19 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 36:20 But it just still seems like it doesn't... Uh, um, I mean, maybe it's just the puzzle that you have to solve...... in order to tap into the full potential of the mind, because the mind has so many different functions, and there's so many different things that it's doing. And then, we're also living in this world that's entirely unnatural. It's, like, entirely of our creation, the world of society and civilization and s- cities and cars and buses. And we're, we're not living in a world that we're engineered for. We're engineered for the world of the wild. And so, d- for us to exist in this other world, there's this battle between these sort of deep-seated human instincts that are e- designed to help us survive versus what we know we can do creatively as a modern human, in terms of accomplishing great works of literature and, and creating comedy and creating music and all the different things that humans can do in this modern era, especially when you record things, when you write things down, and then you could spread it to millions of people, like your books. Like, it's really-

Steven Pressfield 37:39 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 37:39 ... an extraordinary ability that didn't exist until fairly recently in human history.

Steven Pressfield 37:46 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 37:46 So, like, we don't really, we're not really designed for these thoughts and feelings.

Steven Pressfield 37:49 No. It's like where you have two separate selves, right?

Joe Rogan 37:51 Yeah.

Steven Pressfield 37:51 You have the animal self-

Joe Rogan 37:53 Mm-hmm.

Steven Pressfield 37:53 ... that's the evolutionary self. We're still cavemen, right?

Joe Rogan 37:56 Yeah.

Steven Pressfield 37:56 We still have the same things, but yet we have this other potential. Let me ask you something, Joe. Like, where do you see yourself w- in five years or 10 years? Or, or let me put it a different way. It's clear to me that you are exploring something, and you're, you're, you're trying to, you're trying to project your mind into another greater realm. What, what exactly... How do you see this odyssey that you're on right now? What, what are you, what are you aiming for? What are you hoping to achieve 5 years, 10 years from now? Who do you, who do you hope to be?

Joe Rogan 38:32 I don't.

Steven Pressfield 38:33 Ah. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 38:34 I don't think like that.

Steven Pressfield 38:35 You don't?

Joe Rogan 38:35 No, I just do things that I like to do.

Steven Pressfield 38:37 Ah.

Joe Rogan 38:38 I'm very simple. (laughs)

Steven Pressfield 38:40 Ah, ha. Ah.

Joe Rogan 38:41 No, legitimately. I don't have goals like that.

Steven Pressfield 38:43 Ah.

Joe Rogan 38:43 I try to do better at everything that I do.

Steven Pressfield 38:46 Ah.

Joe Rogan 38:46 Like, I would like to be better at archery. I would like to be better at playing pool. I'd like to be better at standup comedy. I'd like to be better at being a podcast host. I'd like to be better at doing UFC commentary. So, every time I do a thing, I assess my performance. I think about it. I write things down. I work hard at it, and I do the same with being a father. I do the same with being a husband. I do the same being a friend. I do the same with, uh, b- being an employer.

Steven Pressfield 39:16 I think you may be overly modest here now 'cause I know that you're, just from the people that you bring on the show, you want... You're exposing yourself to all kinds of different points of view, right? To each-

Joe Rogan 39:28 And I'm a- but I'm also exposing the world to them.

Steven Pressfield 39:31 Yes.

Joe Rogan 39:31 That's part of my goal, too, when, when someone's interesting.

Steven Pressfield 39:33 But like you say, you have a great curiosity. You're not doing that 'cause you're not interested in it.

Joe Rogan 39:38 Right.

Steven Pressfield 39:38 You're interested in it.

Joe Rogan 39:39 I'm definitely-

Steven Pressfield 39:39 Right?

Joe Rogan 39:39 ... interested, yes.

Steven Pressfield 39:40 And you're also exploring kind of inner worlds, your own inner world-

Joe Rogan 39:43 Yes.

Steven Pressfield 39:44 ... you know, with the help of chemicals or whatever it is. So, it's more than just getting better at something, isn't it?

Joe Rogan 39:50 Yes, but the, but I'm genuinely not try... I don't have a goal.

Steven Pressfield 39:54 Ah-huh.

Joe Rogan 39:54 I genuinely don't have a goal-

Steven Pressfield 39:55 Ah-huh.

Joe Rogan 39:55 ... is what I mean. My goal is to just get better at all the things-

Steven Pressfield 39:58 Ah-huh.

Joe Rogan 39:58 ... I'm doing and to understand life, to j- just do-

Steven Pressfield 40:01 Ah, okay.

Joe Rogan 40:01 ... w- which is probably impossible. But I'm trying to understand it better than I do.

Steven Pressfield 40:06 Ah-huh.

Joe Rogan 40:06 And I definitely understand it better now than I did five years ago, 10 years ago, 15 years ago, 20 years ago. Like, I feel like every year, I get better at it.

Steven Pressfield 40:15 Ah-huh.

Joe Rogan 40:15 And I think as long as you don't define yourself... Like some people say, "Well, I'm, you know, 46 years old. This is about as smart as I'm ever gonna get. This is about as... This is me if I'm, you know, still smoking cigarettes and drinking every night. This is me." Like-

Steven Pressfield 40:33 Ah-huh.

Joe Rogan 40:33 ... I don't buy into that.

Steven Pressfield 40:35 Ah-huh.

Joe Rogan 40:35 I feel like you're a living human being. If you're alive, you can get better at everything you do. You get better at being a person. I think there's an art to being a person. And I think that the more things you encounter, the more, uh, disciplines you take on, the more you focus on whatever craft it is that you're obsessed with, that you, you find creatively satisfying, the more you do that, the better you get at all the things you do.

Steven Pressfield 41:04 Hmm.

Joe Rogan 41:04 That's what I think.

Steven Pressfield 41:05 Okay.

Joe Rogan 41:06 So, I feel like if I had-

Steven Pressfield 41:07 I'll accept that. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 41:08 ... if I had, like, this goal, like... My, if I had a goal ever, it was, uh, the beginning of my comedy career. I was like, "I want to be a professional. I wanna be able to make a living telling jokes." 'Cause-

Steven Pressfield 41:20 Ah-huh. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 41:21 ... you know, me and my friend, Greg Fitzsimmons, we started out th- at the same time, like a week apart from each other, i- in, in Boston. And we would sit around, and we'd talk, "Man, imagine if you could just pay your bills doing standup." 'Cause we both, he was working in catering, and I was driving-

Steven Pressfield 41:35 Ah-huh.

Joe Rogan 41:36 ... limos. And we would get together, like after shows, and just hang out, maybe, you know, have some dinner or something. And we'd be just like, "Someday, man. Imagine that? Just being just nothing but a comedian. Like, that's how you make your living. That'd be so amazing." So, that was the, the only goal-

Steven Pressfield 41:51 Ah-huh.

Joe Rogan 41:51 ... we ever had.

Steven Pressfield 41:52 Ah.

Joe Rogan 41:53 And then, once that... And th- like, the idea of a career seems so preposterous. Like, what career? Like, what does that mean? Like, it didn't, didn't ha-

Steven Pressfield 42:01 Ah-huh.

Joe Rogan 42:01 ... it didn't... So, but, but then once we started making a living, and then we started doing better, and then things started happening, and Greg went on to win Emmys for writing, and, you know, like, he's got comedy specials, he tours all over the world, like, it, it did eventually become a thing where you are a professional, and then you have these sort of goals inside that profession. Like, "I'd like to do a s- a new comedy special within the next 12 months. I think my material's ready."

Steven Pressfield 42:32 Ah-huh.

Joe Rogan 42:33 So, we talk like that. But I don't, I don't ever say like, "In 10 years, I wanna be this and that."

Steven Pressfield 42:38 Ah-huh.

Joe Rogan 42:39 "And in 15 years, I want this, uh..." Uh, I don't think like that.

Steven Pressfield 42:41 Ah-huh.

Joe Rogan 42:42 I just keep going. I keep on trucking.

Steven Pressfield 42:44 Ah.

Joe Rogan 42:44 That's what I do.

Steven Pressfield 42:45 Ah.I'll tell you what I- how, what I feel about that.

Joe Rogan 42:48 Perfect.

Steven Pressfield 42:48 How I, how I feel myself. Um, I, you know, uh, I go from project to project, at least from the time that I finally actually was able to make money as a writer and be a writer. I go from one to another, and each one is like an actor that's cast in a movie or something like that, where you're in that world completely, in that lane completely while you're doing it. And I never know what the next one is gonna be, but that's sort of... I'm, I'm a believer in a higher dimension of reality. I'm a believer in the muse, as we were talking about earlier. And I sort of... So I don't have a goal and future either. I don't say to myself, "Five years from now, I wanna be this. 10 years, I wanna be that," 'cause you never know what trolley is coming down the track.

Joe Rogan 43:36 Mm-hmm.

Steven Pressfield 43:36 What the next kind of assignment for me from the muse is gonna be. What's the next book that gonna be? All I know is I'm on the lookout for it. I'm waiting for the, you know, the cosmic radio station to send me a message-

Joe Rogan 43:51 Mm-hmm.

Steven Pressfield 43:51 ... and then I'll, I'll do that. So if at any point in my writing career, if you had asked me what I would be doing five years in the future, I would have been completely wrong, if I had ever projec- Completely wrong. So I'm... I never know what's, what's coming up ahead. But I do know, just like you, that you can't stand pat at any point, you know? Then you start getting old, and then you start going, you know, down the-

Joe Rogan 44:20 You decline, yeah.

Steven Pressfield 44:21 ... grease thing, you know? But I think as long as you're still following that impetus, that creative impetus, whatever it is, which is scary, right? It's always a risk. You never know what's gonna happen. Um, then you're okay.

Joe Rogan 44:36 Yeah.

Steven Pressfield 44:36 So that's all I wanna do, is be able to, to keep doing that. That's my... If I make any money, I say, "Okay, that's, that's enough so that I can keep doing it." You know?

Joe Rogan 44:47 Mm-hmm.

Steven Pressfield 44:49 And I never would have thought that when I was 20 years old or 40 years old. But that's, that's how I feel now.

Joe Rogan 44:54 What would you have thought then, do you think?

Steven Pressfield 44:56 Of course, then I was struggling. I was just trying-

Joe Rogan 44:58 Right.

Steven Pressfield 44:58 (laughs) Like you were just trying to, you know, stop, you know, driving a cab for a living, you know?

Joe Rogan 45:02 Mm-hmm. Yeah, I think projects are really important for people, 'cause, uh, things to concentrate on that you c- That's like a, a, a solid, tangible thing you, you're working on.

Steven Pressfield 45:13 Yeah, it's like your Sober October, yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 45:15 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, or a book, right?

Steven Pressfield 45:17 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 45:17 Or a, a, you know, a comedy special, or so- so so- like, think... I think if people just have sort of open-ended things and just like-

Steven Pressfield 45:28 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 45:28 "Oh, I'm trying to eat healthy."

Steven Pressfield 45:29 Uh-huh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 45:29 "I'm trying to lose weight." Like how are you trying to lose weight? Like what are you doing-

Steven Pressfield 45:33 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 45:33 ... specifically? What's, what's the, what's the program you're on?

Steven Pressfield 45:37 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 45:37 Like show me the program. "Well, you know, I try to get to the gym more. I try..." No, no, no, no, no, every fucking day show me what you're doing. Let's go. Show me what you're doing. Like let's, let's, let's form a real program.

Steven Pressfield 45:49 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 45:49 And if you do that, then you see the real changes. That's when you see people lose like 100 pounds and start getting really healthy or write a book. You're like, "You finished the book?" And then you read the book. Like, "Holy shit, this is great."

Steven Pressfield 46:00 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 46:00 'Cause you realize they had a goal.

Steven Pressfield 46:02 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 46:02 They got together with that, that mindset, and they went to work. And if you just kinda dilly-dally, and you don't have a very specific goal and direction, it's very hard to make real headway. You know, it's very r- hard to really accomplish a thing.

Steven Pressfield 46:19 The other thing to me, um, and I'm just speaking for myself, is it's not enough to have just a generic goal, a goal that anybody else could do, like, "I'm gonna lose X number of pounds," or, "I'm gonna do that." I think it needs to be something creative that's coming from, with you that only you could do, even if it's a, if it's a business, you know, if it's you're gonna design motorcycles, you're gonna build a motorcycle, whatever it is. Because then when you have a project like that, like a book, right? You start... You're gonna write a book, right? That book has a life of its own. Or you make a movie, or you start a business, or whatever it is. That thing has a life of its own. And particularly if it's coming out of your heart and your inner self, like for me or for anybody that writes a book, nobody else could write that book, whatever it is. You're in your own lane, tapped into something that's coming from you, from your deepest self, you know? And as the weeks and months go by, shit comes into you from all kinds of places that, that you never knew you had in you. And that's an amazing experience, you know?

Joe Rogan 47:26 Mm-hmm.

Steven Pressfield 47:27 And by the end of that book, you look at it, you go, "I wrote that?" That's... Or you even say to yourself, "That's not me." You know? "Where did that come from?" But it is you 'cause you did it. You know?

Joe Rogan 47:39 Mm-hmm.

Steven Pressfield 47:39 Or if you start a business, and suddenly it becomes, you know, whatever it becomes. Uh, I think, I think it's more important than just something generic like, uh, you know, lose weight or something like that or run a marathon. Not that there's anything wrong with that. But if you can pull something out of your own heart, out of, you know, that, that really lives within you, that's tremendous. And the other thing I'll say is, at least in my experience, when a book comes along, and I sort of get the orders from the goddess, it's always a surprise to me, the subject matter of the book, you know? Like my f- my first book was about golf, right? The Legend of Bagger Vance.

Joe Rogan 48:19 Yeah.

Steven Pressfield 48:19 Then what came after that was Gates of Fire, a book about the 300 Spartans at Thermopylae. I would have never have thought of either of those books coming out of me. Those subjects were... It wasn't like I dreamt of that my whole life. So I say to myself when that happens, "Where is this coming from?" You know? "What, what is this all about?" You know, "Why did that come out of me, followed by that, followed by that?" And I still don't know what it means, but it's, it's kinda, it's fascinating, you know?

Joe Rogan 48:51 Mm-hmm.

Steven Pressfield 48:52 Um, you look back at a thing like Bruce Springsteen's albums. If you could, you know, write them all down on a page, you go, "Hmm, why did that come after, you know, Tom Joad and, you know, The River or Darkness at the Edge of Town?"

Joe Rogan 49:05 Yeah.

Steven Pressfield 49:05 "And how did they..." Uh...... I don't, it's a mystery to me. I don't know. But, but projects are great things, you know?

Joe Rogan 49:15 Yes.

Steven Pressfield 49:15 They... 'cause they really show you who you are.

Joe Rogan 49:19 Yeah. And they give you something to concentrate your creative energy on.

Steven Pressfield 49:25 Absolutely.

Joe Rogan 49:25 They do, they do something-

Steven Pressfield 49:27 They ground you completely.

Joe Rogan 49:29 Yeah. And, you know, and even just physical fitness projects, you wouldn't think that that'd be a creative en- creative endeavor. But there's something about, there's something about d- forcing yourself to acknowledge that your life... that there's a thing in your life that you have to address. That it sort of frees up the mind in some sort of a strange way, you know? And the concept of the muse, I think, also frees up the mind in a strange way. And I love the way you think about it, 'cause you... I'm... and I don't wanna disrespect it by saying you treat it like it's a god, but... because you do think it's a god. You think it's like a goddess. Like I'm, I'm not-

Steven Pressfield 50:07 I do.

Joe Rogan 50:07 Right. So I'm not saying you're silly.

Steven Pressfield 50:09 No.

Joe Rogan 50:09 But it seems like I'm saying you're silly. Like of course someone does.

Steven Pressfield 50:11 No, I don't feel that at all.

Joe Rogan 50:12 But it does, you know, to, uh, like a rational person or especially to someone who's an atheist or who doesn't believe in spirits or...

Steven Pressfield 50:21 Uh-huh.

Joe Rogan 50:23 They would say, "Well, why are you thinking about it that way? Just take accountability, just show up and go to work." But there is a real benefit in thinking of it as a muse. Um, whether or not it's real or not, if you think about it like it's a muse, if you show up at the same time every day and put in the work, it will reward you as if it's a god.

Steven Pressfield 50:44 It will.

Joe Rogan 50:45 It really will.

Steven Pressfield 50:46 Yeah. It will.

Joe Rogan 50:46 Which is wild.

Steven Pressfield 50:47 Do you know who Dr. Joe Dispenza is?

Joe Rogan 50:49 Yeah, I've heard of that guy. Yeah.

Steven Pressfield 50:50 Does that ring a bell? Now, he talks about this in a whole other vocabulary. He talks about the quantum world, whatever that is, which is what I would call the muse. It's that l- greater self, right? So, he looks at it from a whole other perspective. He would say he wants to get out of the ego, leave that behind, and it's psychedelic in a way too. He, he talks about getting into that world where you are no one and no place.

Joe Rogan 51:17 Mm-hmm.

Steven Pressfield 51:18 And no thing. And the senses are gone, and all that's left is vibration and awareness, you know? So, that's his way of talking about that. For me, I kind of... I'm sort of anthropomorphic. I like to imagine a, you know, something with a human face.

Joe Rogan 51:34 Mm.

Steven Pressfield 51:34 You know, a goddess with that little Greek hairstyle and a little thing, yeah.

Joe Rogan 51:37 That's what you think of?

Steven Pressfield 51:38 Yeah, definitely.

Joe Rogan 51:40 (laughs) So, I mean, but as long as you have a thing that you're concentrating on that you sort of give up your, y- uh, the, your control of the moment to, and that you respect enough that you're gonna show up every day and put in the work and, and address this thing. Like, you actually have a, like a prayer to the goddess.

Steven Pressfield 51:58 I do, yeah.

Joe Rogan 51:59 Yeah. What is the prayer? Can you tell us what it is? What do you say?

Steven Pressfield 52:01 Yeah, sure. Uh, it's actually, uh, a mentor of mine, a guy named Paul Rink, gave me this, printed this out, typed this out. It's the prayer from Homer's Odyssey, the opening invocation of the muse, as Homer himself was sitting... If you look at the first 12 lines of The Odyssey, that's his kind of prayer to the muse. And, uh, do you want me to, to say it-

Joe Rogan 52:27 Sure.

Steven Pressfield 52:27 ... out loud?

Joe Rogan 52:28 Sure.

Steven Pressfield 52:28 Okay. And I say this every morning out loud. Paul taught me this. It goes like this, "Oh, divine poesy, goddess, daughter of Zeus, sustain for me this song..." I'm getting goosebumps as I'm saying this. "... Of the various-minded man who, after he had plundered the innermost citadel of hallowed Troy, ah, was made to stray grievously about the coasts of men, the sport of their customs, good and bad, while his heart, through all the seafaring, ached with an agony to redeem himself and bring his company safe home." And it kind of continues through that, you know, um, "For his fellows, he strove in vain." I'll, I'll just skip to the end. "Make this tale live for us in all its many bearings, oh muse."

Joe Rogan 53:19 Hey.

Steven Pressfield 53:19 So, um, and what's interesting about that, Joe, there are a lot of things interesting about that, but that sort of paradigm of a story of o- of Odysseus, the various-minded man, if you look at almost any novel, any movie, any legend, anyone, that fits, you know? And I've found that any novel that I've been working on, I don't know how many I've done, 10 or 11 or something like that, I say that prayer, and I'm amazed that the story I'm working on fits exactly. There's always somebody that's kind of been cast out into exile-

Joe Rogan 53:54 Mm-hmm.

Steven Pressfield 53:54 ... and is lost, and is trying to get home, whatever home means, and is struggling, struggling, struggling. And so, Homer, I'm sure he did believe in the muse. I mean, that was whatever it was 3,200 years ago, something like that. Those gods and goddesses were real.

Joe Rogan 54:13 Yeah.

Steven Pressfield 54:13 You know, for whatever this is worth, the Spartans, the ancient Spartans, we know they were as hardcore as they could possibly be. When their army would march out on a campaign and they got to the frontier of, of Lacedaemon, the name of their c- their, their region of Greece, they would take the omens. And if the omens were unfavorable, the whole army would turn around and go home. So, they took it pretty seriously.

Joe Rogan 54:40 Yeah.

Steven Pressfield 54:40 They... S- And, and, you know, I do too.

Joe Rogan 54:45 That seems a little ridiculous.

Steven Pressfield 54:46 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 54:47 That's just superstitious. I mean, it's like, but that's the dance. It's like, how much control are you gonna give to this idea? Are you gonna give it when it benefits you, or are you gonna give it to the point where you, you, you run the risk of becoming paranoid?

Steven Pressfield 55:03 True. True.

Joe Rogan 55:03 And then you get sabotaged.

Steven Pressfield 55:04 And then probably they should have marched out on certain-

Joe Rogan 55:06 Perhaps.

Steven Pressfield 55:07 But all I'm saying is they took it really seriously.

Joe Rogan 55:09 Yeah.

Steven Pressfield 55:09 So...

Joe Rogan 55:09 Well, perhaps they were aware of something that we weren't, like that maybe, maybe there is something-... to these signs. And there, at the very least, maybe there's something to the signs, whereas if they der- erode your confidence in the mission, and you ignore those signs, then when things go sideways, you won't have conviction-

Steven Pressfield 55:32 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 55:32 ... in, in your task.

Steven Pressfield 55:33 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 55:34 But if you do have signs that indicate you're on the correct path, that the gods are with you, then you will have confidence in your conviction.

Steven Pressfield 55:43 Yeah. But wouldn't it be interesting, Joe, if it really was true?

Joe Rogan 55:47 Hmm.

Steven Pressfield 55:48 I mean, if there really were forces that we couldn't see that shamans or people like that can see.

Joe Rogan 55:57 Yeah.

Steven Pressfield 55:57 And I mean, I'm not saying that's true, but it would be... Who says that this technological, scientific way that we have of looking at the world is the right way?

Joe Rogan 56:09 Yeah.

Steven Pressfield 56:09 I mean, over all the course of history, the Egyptians built the pyramids. We still can't figure out how they did it, right?

Joe Rogan 56:15 Right.

Steven Pressfield 56:15 All that, like the... You had the guest on your show that said that, right, that civilization, there was a civilization that was destroyed.

Joe Rogan 56:23 Graham Hancock, yeah.

Steven Pressfield 56:23 Yeah. What if, what if that, what if that was true?

Joe Rogan 56:27 Yeah.

Steven Pressfield 56:27 And those civilizations were tapped into... Who knows?

Joe Rogan 56:30 Well, it seems very likely that it was true. Um, I don't know if you've seen his Netflix series. It's out now. It's really amazing.

Steven Pressfield 56:36 I haven't. What, what's it called?

Joe Rogan 56:37 It's called Ancient Apocalypse.

Steven Pressfield 56:39 Ah, right, right, right.

Joe Rogan 56:40 And it is all about all of the evidence that points to a lost civilization that was most likely destroyed dur- be- by a thing called the Younger Dryas impact theory.

Steven Pressfield 56:53 Ah.

Joe Rogan 56:53 The Younger Dryas impact theory was somewhere around 12,800 years ago, we encountered, uh, comets. And they slammed into Earth and probably wiped out most of civilization and reset human history.

Steven Pressfield 57:08 Ah. I mean, I'm-

Joe Rogan 57:09 And that's why the evidence-

Steven Pressfield 57:10 ... open to an idea like that.

Joe Rogan 57:11 Yeah. Well, there's real physical evidence.

Steven Pressfield 57:13 Uh-huh.

Joe Rogan 57:13 It's a, it's an interesting idea. And for the longest time, he, you know, when he wrote the first book, which was Fingerprints of the Gods, he was, uh, widely criticized for it and dismissed as being, you know, a charlatan and a crazy person. But now there's a lot of real physical evidence in the form of ancient structures, and then also in the form of, uh, when the comets made impact, when they do core samples and they look through the earth, at that same time period, they find high levels of iridium, high levels of, uh, nanodiamonds that, that, uh, are formed when things impact the Earth with great force.

Steven Pressfield 57:54 Uh-huh.

Joe Rogan 57:54 So there's a lot of, uh... The iridium thing is like, it's very common in space and very rare on Earth, and there's a, a nice layer of it around 12,000 years ago.

Steven Pressfield 58:03 Ah.

Joe Rogan 58:04 Which is also the end of the Ice Age.

Steven Pressfield 58:06 Ah.

Joe Rogan 58:06 And they think that the Ice Age ended because comets slammed into the ice caps and melted everything-

Steven Pressfield 58:12 Ah.

Joe Rogan 58:12 ... almost instantaneously, causing massive floods. And those are the floods that were talked about in stories like the Epic of Gilgamesh-

Steven Pressfield 58:20 Hmm.

Joe Rogan 58:20 ... and Noah's Ark, and-

Steven Pressfield 58:21 Hmm.

Joe Rogan 58:22 ... uh, I mean, many, many, many ancient cultures have these, these catastrophe myths. And he thinks that that's what those all came from. Uh, that they all come from a very true thing.

Steven Pressfield 58:32 Ah.

Joe Rogan 58:33 Yeah.

Steven Pressfield 58:33 So we're talking about things that we can't prove, like a-

Joe Rogan 58:37 Right.

Steven Pressfield 58:37 ... like the flying saucer up there-

Joe Rogan 58:39 Yeah.

Steven Pressfield 58:39 ... that maybe they are, there's something to that.

Joe Rogan 58:42 Yeah. Well, Jung had theories about like what flying saucers were too, that these, they're manifestations, I think, of, of the human mind. And that, that might be real too. Like, whatever w-... This, this idea of, like, a, a solid world that you can only measure and put on a scale. Well, then why is it that when you do call to the muse and you do put in the work, why are you rewarded? Is it simply just a m- a m- a m- matter of because you, you disciplined yourself to work? Or is there something in giving up control to whatever it is that causes people to have wonderful ideas? Like, wonderful ideas are like these little gifts. Like, whenever, whenever I have a new idea for a bit or a new punchline, it's like the universe gave me a gift.

Steven Pressfield 59:38 Yeah. Isn't it? Yeah.

Joe Rogan 59:39 Like, I have a punchline and I say it and the audience laughs so loud. You're like, "Wow, the universe just gave me a gift."

Steven Pressfield 59:46 Yeah. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 59:46 Like, how, what is that? Like, where's that coming from?

Steven Pressfield 59:49 Uh, yeah.

Joe Rogan 59:49 I could say, "Oh, it's just me, just me in my mind." But there's a benefit in some strange way to saying, "No, no, no, no, no. You're, you're, you, you're just showing up. You're showing up and you're getting out of the way. You're getting out of the way, and then the stuff comes through you, and then you write it all out."

Steven Pressfield 1:00:13 I mean, we're sort of, again, we're kind of talking about, to me, the greater self or the-

Joe Rogan 1:00:16 Yeah.

Steven Pressfield 1:00:16 ... unconscious or that thing. I mean, what is it... Like, I know sometimes I, uh... If, let's say I've been working all day on something and I go and I take a walk at the end of the day, and, um, my mind is empty as I'm going along. And suddenly, uh, it'll come into my mind, there's a typo on page 178.

Joe Rogan 1:00:35 Hmm.

Steven Pressfield 1:00:35 And I'll go, "What?" And of course, it's right, right?

Joe Rogan 1:00:38 Hmm.

Steven Pressfield 1:00:38 As soon as I go back, I look at it, it's there. So some mind, some level of consciousness is operating, right? So below our, below our level of consciousness.

Joe Rogan 1:00:51 Yeah.

Steven Pressfield 1:00:51 So maybe it's just as simple as tapping into that. But going back-

Joe Rogan 1:00:55 I think there's more to that, though.

Steven Pressfield 1:00:56 There's... Back to... I would say, going back to what you were just saying a couple of minutes ago, Joe, that there's sort of two halves of it. The one half is the sort of the airy-fairy half that talks about something coming from-

Joe Rogan 1:01:08 Mm-hmm.

Steven Pressfield 1:01:08 ... somewhere we don't know. But the other half is a disciplined half.

Joe Rogan 1:01:11 Yeah.

Steven Pressfield 1:01:11 The other half is, you know, it's a right brain, left brain, right?

Joe Rogan 1:01:15 Right.

Steven Pressfield 1:01:15 Where we've kind of made that instrument, our body, our mind, ready to accept that.

Joe Rogan 1:01:21 Yeah.

Steven Pressfield 1:01:21 You know, to tune into the cosmic radio station, and whatever's coming in, to remember it, to take it seriously, you know, to put it down, and then to work with it, you know? So...... it's, it's... To me, it's like a symphony exists on another dimension of reality, but it takes Beethoven here, who knows how to do it, knows how to bring it in, knows how to open himself to it, but also has the chops, has the musical chops, and, you know, the, and the, uh, intellectual chops to put it together into a form that you and I can listen to.

Joe Rogan 1:02:01 Yeah.

Steven Pressfield 1:02:01 So to me, it's kind of right brain, intellect, it's two things.

Joe Rogan 1:02:04 Well, there's a thought too, right? And this thought is, why have people throughout time, why have they gravitated towards these, these ideas of deities? Is it just because we don't know? We see lightning in the sky and we assume it's gods? But there's more to it than that, right? There's, there's a moral structure that these things give us. There's a, there's a thing that we get out of them that isn't exi- doesn't exist in the, the animal world. The world-

Steven Pressfield 1:02:33 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:02:33 ... of that crocodile snapping that pig-

Steven Pressfield 1:02:35 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:02:35 ... in half.

Steven Pressfield 1:02:35 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:02:36 The world doesn't... That, that, that, they don't have any of that.

Steven Pressfield 1:02:38 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:02:39 They just kill or be killed.

Steven Pressfield 1:02:40 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:02:40 It's tooth, fang, and claw the whole way. But we elevate. We are somehow or another, even though we are nature and we are animals and we are creatures of life and of the universe, we somehow or another have a sense that there's more. I think it's an emerging sense. And I think this emerging sense is evolving, just like our ability to see things and hear things and our ability to speak. All these things are helping us understand that there's maybe more to life, and that we are somehow or another connected. And one of the beautiful things about your work that I think, uh, you'll probably agree with, is that there's a great satisfaction in the fact that your work has helped people. Your work has helped me. Like, y- me reading The War of Art has absolutely motivated me and helped me, and helped me understand things. And because of that, you, by your work, and by thinking, and by getting out of your own way and summoning the muse, you've created this thing that is then everybody else's experience too, and it helps us all rise up. There's something to that.

Steven Pressfield 1:03:50 I, I think there is. I mean, not forgetting about myself, I do think that, uh, there is some force. If you think of all the music that's been written, right? Or all the books, or all the podcasts, or all the information that's been brought out, there's gotta be, there's gotta be a payoff for that somewhere, right?

Joe Rogan 1:04:09 Yeah.

Steven Pressfield 1:04:09 Because it's all a gift.

Joe Rogan 1:04:11 Yeah.

Steven Pressfield 1:04:11 You know, people are all trying to give something to somebody. Um, and a lot of that gift is the alleviation of pain, I think, you know?

Joe Rogan 1:04:18 Mm-hmm.

Steven Pressfield 1:04:19 Of broken hearts, of fear, of, of, uh, self-destructive things, that you read a book or you listen to a piece of music and you go, "You know, I'm not alone. I'm not the only person that's dealing with this shit." You know?

Joe Rogan 1:04:30 Yeah.

Steven Pressfield 1:04:30 So and so actually... There's meaning to it, it isn't just meaningless. And I hope you're right, that we are evolving, the human race. On the other hand, I would wonder if w- when we go back to primitive people if they had somehow a deeper understanding or a more direct understanding-

Joe Rogan 1:04:50 Probably.

Steven Pressfield 1:04:50 ... of God or whatever. Who knows what, you know-

Joe Rogan 1:04:53 Probably. Yeah.

Steven Pressfield 1:04:53 ... Jesus in the wilderness, in the desert, what... You know?

Joe Rogan 1:04:57 There's probably something to this deeper understanding, because they were less burdened down by, like, dogma and, you know... I mean, you, if you really only had the culture of the people that you were surrounded by, you know, that's all you had, maybe, maybe you had less things to consider about, like... I think we're very much burdened by media and the outside world. I mean, think about all the, the fearmongering that goes on in the news, because if it bleeds, it leads. Whatever's scary is the thing that gets-

Steven Pressfield 1:05:30 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:05:30 ... the, the, the head headline. So you're constantly taking in all this data that's scaring the shit out of you. Like, Bill Hicks used to have a great... Do you know who Bill Hicks was?

Steven Pressfield 1:05:38 No, no.

Joe Rogan 1:05:39 Great standup comedian who died young.

Steven Pressfield 1:05:42 Ah.

Joe Rogan 1:05:42 And was one of the most influential standup comedians maybe ever. Um, so much so that there was a, there was a green room at The Punch Line in Georgia, in Atlanta, and when you'd work there, in the green room before you go on stage, someone had written on the walls, "Quit trying to be Hicks."

Steven Pressfield 1:05:57 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:05:57 'Cause so many comedians-

Steven Pressfield 1:05:59 Uh-huh.

Joe Rogan 1:05:59 ... were so, they were so blown away by him-

Steven Pressfield 1:06:02 That's true, that's great.

Joe Rogan 1:06:02 ... that they kinda imitated him.

Steven Pressfield 1:06:04 Uh-huh.

Joe Rogan 1:06:04 It was really common. But he had this bit about, um, CNN, that you'd watch CNN and it was war, death, famine, disease, and he'd go outside and birds are chirping, he's like, "Where is this shit?"

Steven Pressfield 1:06:17 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:06:17 He's like, "Ted Turner's making-"

Steven Pressfield 1:06:18 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:06:18 "... all this shit up."

Steven Pressfield 1:06:19 Yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:06:20 Like, this, like, the... In your life, this didn't exist, and that y- y- you, you, you really need to be concerned with the things you actually encounter. But now we're, we're not. Now we're encountering these enormous problems like global war or the, the temperature, the climate's changing, and it's human beings and we have to change how we extract energy and information, and what are we, what are we doing? Like, totally. And why is there so much crime and why is there so much poverty and why is education so fucked? And why do these terrible people wanna run the planet? And why are they extracting money? And why are they... Like, they're almost dead, they're 80 years old and they're still concentrating on the same goddamn thing that people were concentrated on when they were cave people, just acquiring resources and dominating the other cultures. And, like, we're overrun by so much extraneous data, and I think that if we were not and we were living in these sort of tribal environments, I think it, it's more in align with a, a natural way of life, and maybe being more in line with a natural way that the, the human animal evolved to exist in.... that maybe you have more freedom to think about the very source of life, the very source of these thoughts, the source of love-

Steven Pressfield 1:07:49 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:07:49 ... the source of creativity and of progress, and what all that means.

Steven Pressfield 1:07:55 Yeah. I think of sometimes, like, 10,000 years ago, the first yogis in the Indus Valley, or wherever the hell they were, right? Where they had infinite time, you would think, right? They were okay, and they could just work postures and poses, and s- and study, you know, what happens when this little... when you release this little muscle here, and when your spine is aligned in exactly the right way.

Joe Rogan 1:08:21 Mm-hmm.

Steven Pressfield 1:08:21 And they had, like, generation after generation after generation, right? Father to son, and mother to f- daughter, whatever. Uh, what did, what did they get to? You know, the energy coming up the spine, the chakras, all... Where does all that... I have no idea what that is. I just have a, you know, a kind of a layman's knowledge of that. But think about hundreds of years of doing that, of just focusing inward, or the great, you know, meditating people that would get... God only knows where they got to.

Joe Rogan 1:08:48 Yeah.

Steven Pressfield 1:08:48 You know? And, and it's... You know? No CNN. Nothing to distract them.

Joe Rogan 1:08:54 Yeah.

Steven Pressfield 1:08:55 It, it's, uh... And the other thing, the news, CNN and all that sort of stuff, is really the voice of resistance. You couldn't define it more, you know, than what's coming out. It's all fear, fear, fear, fear, fear. It's all, "Us versus them. You're alone, I'm alone. These motherfuckers are trying to take what you've got."

Joe Rogan 1:09:19 Yeah.

Steven Pressfield 1:09:19 That sort of thing. And because we're all weak, and we give... and, and resistance is like our native tongue, we... and I'm guilty of this shit too. You know, it comes in, and I... you know, I'm hooked on it. It's washing over me, and I always feel dirty when every- when it's done, you know?

Joe Rogan 1:09:38 Mm-hmm.

Steven Pressfield 1:09:38 Like I need to, you know, take a shower or get something out of that. Um, the 24-hour news cycle is another horrible thing, you know?

Joe Rogan 1:09:47 Yeah.

Steven Pressfield 1:09:47 It used to be just Walter Cronkite for a half hour in the evening, you know?

Joe Rogan 1:09:51 But were we less... We're uninformed then. That's the argument against that, is that we do live in a complex and ever-connected world, and you should be in- informed of all of the things that are dangerous.

Steven Pressfield 1:10:03 I don't know about that. I mean, what are we be- what are we being informed of? It's a very limited stuff, you know? It's like, "Oh, the... a missile landed in Poland," or, "There was an explosion in Poland-"

Joe Rogan 1:10:15 Mm-hmm.

Steven Pressfield 1:10:15 "... yesterday." And you could tell, I'm sure in the newsrooms, and the executives, oh, they were ecstatic when they heard that, right? "Oh, this will scare the fuck out of everybody," right? It's, you know, it's Putin-

Joe Rogan 1:10:26 Do you think they think like that?

Steven Pressfield 1:10:26 I... Absolutely. 'Cause like they say-

Joe Rogan 1:10:28 Do you think they-

Steven Pressfield 1:10:28 If it bleeds, it leads, right?

Joe Rogan 1:10:29 Right. But do you think they think like that, or do they think it's imperative that we get this information out? Because this is-

Steven Pressfield 1:10:35 They may have brainwashed themselves to believe that, you know, to... as a self-justification. But they know, you know, it's, it's gold to them.

Joe Rogan 1:10:44 Right.

Steven Pressfield 1:10:44 You know?

Joe Rogan 1:10:44 Right.

Steven Pressfield 1:10:46 You know, another mass shooting. That's another thing that g- gets me. Or why does that dominate the news for days, right?

Joe Rogan 1:10:56 Right.

Steven Pressfield 1:10:56 And it's always the same stuff. Or even in, like... I, I live in LA. Freeway chases, right? A guy stole a car. The helicopter's following him as he goes through, you know, all the communities, and the cops are after him.

Joe Rogan 1:11:09 Yeah.

Steven Pressfield 1:11:09 And like everything else that's on the air is, like, blown off the air completely while we watch that. I don't know. It's just resistance, if you ask me.

Joe Rogan 1:11:18 Well, it, it, it certainly is a thing that could get away from you. And you could just get completely absorbed with all the negative aspects of the world and not concentrate on your own life, not, not concentrate on the things that you actually can control. But the thing is, like, should you be a civic-minded person who's, like, concerned about the world-

Steven Pressfield 1:11:39 Yes, yes, yes.

Joe Rogan 1:11:39 ... and stewards of the land and all that good stuff?

Steven Pressfield 1:11:41 But how much?

Joe Rogan 1:11:42 Right.

Steven Pressfield 1:11:42 How much-

Joe Rogan 1:11:43 But that's the balance, right?

Steven Pressfield 1:11:43 ... to the, to the dominance of, of whatever it is?

Joe Rogan 1:11:46 But isn't that maybe what's emerging, this understanding of the world as a whole? Maybe it's a part of a thing where we're not quite good at it yet, but we're-

Steven Pressfield 1:11:55 Maybe.

Joe Rogan 1:11:55 ... we're getting a- an understanding-

Steven Pressfield 1:11:57 We're overwhelmed by it now.

Joe Rogan 1:11:58 Yeah.

Steven Pressfield 1:11:59 Yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:11:59 But that we are all connected in this way. And, you know, there's, there's also an awareness, like, if you b- Like, someone sent me a video yesterday. My friend, David Lucas, sent me a video yesterday of, uh, these kids working in a factory. And, uh, you, you... Uh, we kind of all know that in some countries, kids work in factories. But when you see a vi- a video-

Steven Pressfield 1:12:24 Oh, yeah. Sure. It's horrible. Ugh.

Joe Rogan 1:12:24 ... of these Chinese kids working in a factory-

Steven Pressfield 1:12:27 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:12:27 ... and you look at 'em, like, "How old's that kid?"

Steven Pressfield 1:12:29 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:12:29 "Is that kid 12?"

Steven Pressfield 1:12:30 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:12:31 "Are they 11?"

Steven Pressfield 1:12:32 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:12:32 Like, "What's going on there?" And you see them doing th- this hard labor, often 16, 18 hours a day in this factory. It's very disturbing, 'cause then it makes you think, like, "Oh my goodness, what, what products am I buying that are"-

Steven Pressfield 1:12:46 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:12:46 ... "that are being made in this factory? And what am I contributing to?"

Steven Pressfield 1:12:50 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:12:51 And you can be overwhelmed with, with grief and with guilt.

Steven Pressfield 1:12:56 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:12:57 But should you? Or you-

Steven Pressfield 1:12:58 Or take it, take it beyond-

Joe Rogan 1:12:58 ... should you just be blissfully unaware and buy your iPhone?

Steven Pressfield 1:13:01 Take it beyond that and think... Forget about just the children. What about the grownups-

Joe Rogan 1:13:06 Yeah.

Steven Pressfield 1:13:06 ... that are in factories? Or I was just, uh... Earlier today, I was hanging out with Ryan Holiday. And he was giving a talk-

Joe Rogan 1:13:14 I love Ryan.

Steven Pressfield 1:13:14 ... to... He's a great guy.

Joe Rogan 1:13:15 Great guy.

Steven Pressfield 1:13:15 He was here, he was here just a little while... Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:13:17 Yeah.

Steven Pressfield 1:13:18 He was giving a talk to a, a bank group at, uh, at the Marriott. So, it's one of those ballrooms, you know, where there are tables, table, tables. And there's probably 250, 300 people in there, executives, you know, men and women. And I'm thinking to myself, "Thank God I'm not one of these guys."

Joe Rogan 1:13:37 Yeah.

Steven Pressfield 1:13:37 And I feel... And, but that is...... in modern industrial society. What the fuck is that? You know?

Joe Rogan 1:13:44 Yeah. What is that?

Steven Pressfield 1:13:45 I mean, what is that?

Joe Rogan 1:13:46 (laughs)

Steven Pressfield 1:13:46 You know? Thank God that you have, you know, (laughs) your podcast and all your other stuff, right? You would never sit still for that in your own life. You would never do that, right?

Joe Rogan 1:13:54 Well-

Steven Pressfield 1:13:54 And-

Joe Rogan 1:13:54 ... I mean, maybe I would if I was raised that way and I fell into that path, which I think-

Steven Pressfield 1:13:59 It's a fucked situation. You know?

Joe Rogan 1:14:01 Yeah.

Steven Pressfield 1:14:01 We take it for granted, right, 'cause we're brainwashed from day one in kindergarten, you know? But, uh, if Plato were to walk onto the scene or an ancient Spartan or somebody would appear, they'd look around and go, "What the fuck is this?" You know?

Joe Rogan 1:14:16 Yeah.

Steven Pressfield 1:14:16 "Let me get back to (laughs) where I was," you know?

Joe Rogan 1:14:19 Yeah.

Steven Pressfield 1:14:20 Um, yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:14:21 Yeah, well then, you know, one of the things that I, uh, when I was, I was reading a bunch of ... I got into a kick for about a year and a half where I read many books about Native American culture and the, what happened when the settlers made their way across the United States. And one of the things that's fascinating is there was a bunch of people, whether they were trappers or soldiers or just regular civilians, that gave up on modern life and were incorporated into Native American cultures. They, they wound up living with the Native Americans. Some of them were even kidnapped by the Native Americans when they're young.

Steven Pressfield 1:14:58 Yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:14:59 And then re- recaptured by the Americans and brought back to, you know, quote unquote-

Steven Pressfield 1:15:05 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:15:05 ... "civilization." They all wanted to go back.

Steven Pressfield 1:15:08 Yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:15:08 They all wanted to go back.

Steven Pressfield 1:15:09 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:15:10 To a, to a man.

Steven Pressfield 1:15:11 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:15:11 No one from that tribe wanted to join-

Steven Pressfield 1:15:14 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:15:14 ... modern civilization. But everyone from modern civilization wanted to be a part of that tribe.

Steven Pressfield 1:15:20 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:15:20 Once th- once they, you know, were incorporated in it and they lived that life for a while, there's something about it that was far more satisfying and, uh, far more ... it resonated with them in a way that, you know. And even then, I mean, this very primitive society we're talking about, 1860s America, but that, that was not exciting. That was not satisfying. That was not what they wanted to do. They wanted to live off the land.

Steven Pressfield 1:15:44 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:15:45 They wanted to be traveling.

Steven Pressfield 1:15:47 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:15:47 Just, you know, hunting buffalo.

Steven Pressfield 1:15:49 I mean, can we go back to that? I don't know (laughs) if we can go back to that.

Joe Rogan 1:15:52 I don't think we can. (laughs) I don't think there's any going back.

Steven Pressfield 1:15:53 But it does seem to be the way that the human being is the happiest, you know?

Joe Rogan 1:15:58 Well, I think it's the way we evolved. And these human reward systems are just sort of ingrained in the fiber of our being.

Steven Pressfield 1:16:07 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:16:07 And th- the, the reward systems are, there's a feeling that you get when you catch a fish. You ever go fishing?

Steven Pressfield 1:16:12 Uh, I have.

Joe Rogan 1:16:13 When you catch-

Steven Pressfield 1:16:14 But I'm not good at it. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:16:15 You don't have to be good at it. But there's a feeling that you get when you get a big fish on the line. It's so exciting. Well, what is that feeling? That feeling is you're gonna be able to feed your family.

Steven Pressfield 1:16:23 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:16:24 So you're rewarded for being successful at that with not just food, but also with this rush of endorphins and these great feelings.

Steven Pressfield 1:16:32 Uh-huh.

Joe Rogan 1:16:33 And that's what people pursue when they go fishing. And it's to t- so much so that there's a, like a perversion of it, where people do catch-and-release fishing.

Steven Pressfield 1:16:42 Uh-huh.

Joe Rogan 1:16:42 Just to get a thrill.

Steven Pressfield 1:16:43 Uh-huh.

Joe Rogan 1:16:44 So there's tournaments.

Steven Pressfield 1:16:45 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:16:45 And these guys go out there and they cast a line and they, they even have a live well on their boat where they take the fish and they put it in this aerated pool on their boat where the fish stay alive so they can weigh 'em and win the tournament. And then they-

Steven Pressfield 1:17:00 Uh-huh.

Joe Rogan 1:17:00 ... release them-

Steven Pressfield 1:17:01 Uh-huh.

Joe Rogan 1:17:01 ... back into the lake, which is kinda crazy, right?

Steven Pressfield 1:17:04 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:17:05 But it's a, they're, they've, they've hijacked this feeling that you get that is a part of being a person because that feeling was to reward you with being able to feed your family.

Steven Pressfield 1:17:18 Yeah. And within the tribe-

Joe Rogan 1:17:20 Yes.

Steven Pressfield 1:17:21 ... where it's your uncle and your cousin-

Joe Rogan 1:17:23 Mm-hmm.

Steven Pressfield 1:17:23 ... and your daughter and your mom and everybody's-

Joe Rogan 1:17:25 Yeah.

Steven Pressfield 1:17:25 ... together. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:17:26 Everybody's together.

Steven Pressfield 1:17:27 Yeah. Like the movie Dances with Wolves, you know?

Joe Rogan 1:17:29 Exactly.

Steven Pressfield 1:17:29 They really got it, really, they l- really hit that with a nail on the head with that one.

Joe Rogan 1:17:34 Yes.

Steven Pressfield 1:17:34 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:17:34 That's a great example of that, with that movie. But, but, you know, that reali- the reality of that, th- that life is so much more satisfying than the life of being a banker. Like, the, when you're a banker, I would, I mean, I'm, I'm not a banker,