Joe Rogan Experience #1961 - Peter Attia

1. 0:00 – 15:00

   (drumbeats) Joe Rogan podcast,…

   1. NANarrator0:00

      (drumbeats) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out.

   2. The Joe Rogan Experience.

   3. JRJoe Rogan0:06

      Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day. (rock music) The sign is made by this company, Roadhouse Relics. It's, uh, uh, they make, like, these beautiful neon cool-looking funky signs. And my buddy Brigham actually bought it for me, like, when I moved here. And I was like, "Wow, what a cool sign." Like, wouldn't that be nice if it was, like, in the studio behind me? And so it wasn't on purpose.

   4. PAPeter Attia0:30

      Yeah.

   5. JRJoe Rogan0:30

      It wasn't by design at all, and so once, uh, once he did it. But the UFO was his idea.

   6. PAPeter Attia0:36

      I don't know. Yeah.

   7. JRJoe Rogan0:36

      Yeah. It was before we even decided-

   8. PAPeter Attia0:38

      Before you had The Mothership.

   9. JRJoe Rogan0:38

      ... to call it The Mothership, yeah.

   10. PAPeter Attia0:40

       Yeah.

   11. JRJoe Rogan0:41

       But I'm easy to figure out. I mean, I got a fucking Bob Lazar UFO on the desk. I got fucking stars on the ceilings. I have a alien head in the sky. Yeah, I'm a dork.

   12. PAPeter Attia0:52

       (laughs)

   13. JRJoe Rogan0:52

       It's easy to f- I mean, it's not like, "Wow, how did he know you like UFOs?"

   14. PAPeter Attia0:57

       (laughs)

   15. JRJoe Rogan0:58

       (laughs)

   16. PAPeter Attia0:58

       (laughs)

   17. JRJoe Rogan0:58

       I'm fucking obsessed. I'm absolutely obsessed. I think it's the only thing that's gonna save us.

   18. PAPeter Attia1:04

       (laughs)

   19. JRJoe Rogan1:05

       So, uh, Outlive: The Science and Art of Longevity, this is a big one, buddy. Look at this. Look at all this. There's a lot of information in this.

   20. PAPeter Attia1:13

       Not a lot of pictures.

   21. JRJoe Rogan1:14

       No pictures?

   22. PAPeter Attia1:15

       No, there's some. Uh-

   23. JRJoe Rogan1:16

       I need pictures. (laughs)

   24. PAPeter Attia1:17

       Uh, there's some. There's some.

   25. JRJoe Rogan1:19

       (laughs) No. It's, uh... Um, is it out now?

   26. PAPeter Attia1:22

       Y- Out today.

   27. JRJoe Rogan1:23

       Today? Beautiful. How long did it take you to write this?

   28. PAPeter Attia1:25

       Six years.

   29. JRJoe Rogan1:26

       Wow. Six years. And I know that's like s- That's, like, six years of actual work too.

   30. PAPeter Attia1:33

       Yeah. I mean, I rewrote it twice, so-
2. 15:00 – 30:00

   So, what did you…

   1. PAPeter Attia15:00

      She said, "You know, your entire self-esteem is based on performance, and anytime you turn to one of your performance, you know, addictions and you don't get performance back, you lose your mind," right? "So you... Everything you have to do feeds your sense of self-worth. So if you go out and shoot the bow, it's gotta be great. If you go out and drive the car or get in the simulator, it's gotta be great. If you're trying to, you know, prepare for a podcast, it's gotta be great. Like, all of these things, you have to be great. And when you don't, it's sort of like an alcoholic who walks into a bar, asks for vodka, and gets water," right? "They're asking for vodka. They need the thing that feeds their addiction, but they're being given water instead. So I, I want..." I... "I'm demanding great performance because that's how I validate my existence, and I... Instead, I get no performance. I get lousy performance. But because my appetite has grown, it gets hard." That, that's why I think, over time, it just got worse and worse.

   2. JRJoe Rogan15:59

      So, what did you do to correct that?

   3. PAPeter Attia16:02

      Well, I mean, I think there's two things, right? There's the underlying belief system has to be completely shattered, right? So that's... You know, I spent total of five weeks in residential care. Um, two weeks in 2017 and three weeks in 2020. So that's, you know, that's as bad as it gets, right? That's... You're doing 12 to 13 hours a day of therapy seven days a week, um, and that's where you're kind of going back to the root of the problems, like, what is it that is creating or has created this belief system in you? Um, so you have to go back and look at that. You then have to figure out what are the strategies and tools to break these habits and behaviors. Um, and so to the latter, there was a very tangible tool, uh, put forth by one of the therapists, which was every time you do something that creates this ire and rage in you, instead of defaulting into your normal state, which is yelling at yourself, or breaking an arrow over your thigh, or whatever it is you would do, pull out your phone and audibly speak as though it's your friend that made that mistake, right? So if I'm shooting horribly and, and, and so... And I really feel like I'm gonna lose my mind, I pull out my phone and I pretend it's you that's shooting horribly-

   4. JRJoe Rogan17:20

      Hm.

   5. PAPeter Attia17:20

      ... what would I say to you?

   6. JRJoe Rogan17:21

      Hm.

   7. PAPeter Attia17:22

      I wouldn't yell at you if you were shooting poorly. I'd be like, "Joe, look, man, I... It's a little windy today. Let's be honest. We're not making excuses, but when it's 20-mile-an-hour wind, (laughs) it's hard to shoot well. Um, maybe you're tired, you know? You probably just lifted right before you came out here. That always makes it harder for you to stabilize the bow. Um, and look, maybe it's just a bad day. Like, let's come out and do it again tomorrow."

   8. JRJoe Rogan17:42

      Hm.

   9. PAPeter Attia17:43

      And so I would record that, and I would send that to my therapist every single time.

   10. JRJoe Rogan17:47

       Wow.

   11. PAPeter Attia17:47

       And this would happen, like, multiple times a day. And just doing that four or five times a day, after four, five, six months, what I called my inner Bobby Knight, which was the, the name I had for that guy that would scream at me, like, I just couldn't hear him anymore.

   12. JRJoe Rogan18:04

       Wow. That's fascinating. So you fixed a lifelong problem in just a few months.

   13. PAPeter Attia18:11

       Which if you had told me upfront that was possible, I would have said, "It's not."... you can't... I was like, "There's no way you can undo something so," I, I thought, "so terminal." Um, but, you know, this, this speaks to plasticity, right? The, the brain is a pretty plastic thing.

   14. JRJoe Rogan18:29

       (smacks lips) It's interesting to think of what, what started you on this path and why you didn't course correct. I love this thought process that it's an addiction, that you're addicted to great performance, which totally makes sense, totally makes sense. 'Cause I could feel myself, I could... Like, I definitely could have succumbed to that same sort of, uh, thinking and behavior.

   15. PAPeter Attia18:55

       And it is a dangerous addiction.

   16. JRJoe Rogan18:57

       Mm.

   17. PAPeter Attia18:57

       Perfectionism is a dangerous addiction in the sense that a lot of people will reward it. Society-

   18. JRJoe Rogan19:04

       Yes.

   19. PAPeter Attia19:04

       ... generally rewards it.

   20. JRJoe Rogan19:05

       Yeah.

   21. PAPeter Attia19:06

       And in that sense, another fear I had was... 'Cause, I mean, it's not like my... It's not like people around me didn't know I was a mess, but any time someone tried to suggest, like, "Back off," I would look at them and say, "Are you an idiot? Like, if I back off, I won't be as good." Like-

   22. JRJoe Rogan19:25

       Mm.

   23. PAPeter Attia19:25

       ... i- i- if I don't... You know, like, when I was in residency, I had this obsession with wanting to read every single textbook written in surgery. And, you know, this is... We were already working, like, 114 hours a week. It's not like I had a lot of free time. And my wife was like, "You're so dogmatic in this. Like, you insist on reading 26 pages of tiny-fonted textbooks every day." And, and she's like, "W- like, d- you don't need to do this." And I was like, "Are you kidding? Like, of course I need to do this. Like, what else will my legacy be if I don't do this?" I mean, it's just, like, this very polluted sense of self-worth.

   24. JRJoe Rogan20:00

       Mm.

   25. PAPeter Attia20:01

       Um, but again, it's rewarded, 'cause then you, you, you know, you know a lot, right? And so, you, you, people, people are happy with how much you know. So, it feeds on itself in a very destructive way. There's nobody that's looking at the guy who's losing all his money gambling and saying, "Good job." Like-

   26. JRJoe Rogan20:16

       (laughs)

   27. PAPeter Attia20:16

       "Keep doing that."

   28. JRJoe Rogan20:19

       Legacy is the strangest thing to aspire to, because you will never experience it.

   29. PAPeter Attia20:25

       Yeah.

   30. JRJoe Rogan20:26

       It's such a weird-
3. 30:00 – 45:00

   (laughs) …

   1. JRJoe Rogan30:00

      in high school when it happened, or somewhere around then, and I remember we got one at my house. I was like, "Whoa." And you would come home and you'd see, like, a little light flashing.

   2. PAPeter Attia30:09

      (laughs)

   3. JRJoe Rogan30:10

      It showed you had a message. I was like, "This is crazy."

   4. PAPeter Attia30:13

      I remember when we got our first-

   5. JRJoe Rogan30:14

      "I live in the future."

   6. PAPeter Attia30:14

      ... push phone, like the, when, when you didn't have to rotary dial it.

   7. JRJoe Rogan30:17

      Yes, I remember those.

   8. PAPeter Attia30:18

      And I was like, "It is so much faster now."

   9. JRJoe Rogan30:20

      And you don't go crazy. Talk about punching a wall. If you get through all those digits, then you fuck up the last one, like, "Ah!"

   10. PAPeter Attia30:27

       Like, I remember hating to call people-

   11. JRJoe Rogan30:29

       "Shh."

   12. PAPeter Attia30:29

       ... that had eights and nines in their numbers.

   13. JRJoe Rogan30:31

       Oh, yeah, they took a long time. Forget about that.

   14. PAPeter Attia30:34

       Yeah.

   15. JRJoe Rogan30:34

       Nines took forever.

   16. PAPeter Attia30:35

       Yeah.

   17. JRJoe Rogan30:36

       Oh, my God. That's hilarious. It's so funny. People will never know that. They think it's novel. It's like people who like using typewriters. "Oh, I'm an old-timey person."

   18. PAPeter Attia30:47

       (laughs)

   19. JRJoe Rogan30:47

       (laughs) With the fucking Wite-Out on the paper. The fuck outta here, stupid.

   20. PAPeter Attia30:51

       (laughs)

   21. JRJoe Rogan30:52

       (laughs) I mean, it's kind of amazing. Like, typewriters existed forever and then all of a sudden there's a word processor. And it, like, says, "Didn't you mean this word?" And you're like, "Oh, my God. Yeah, I did mean that word. Thank you."

   22. PAPeter Attia31:02

       (laughs)

   23. JRJoe Rogan31:02

       It's, like, you barely even... Like, when I write in Microsoft Word, I am stunned at how often it just, like, corrects for me. Or I, like, just hit tab and, like, I'm halfway into the word and it offers a suggestion. "Yeah, that's it. Yep, that's it." Like, I'll get four letters in, and it's like, "Suggestion? Yeah, that's it."

   24. PAPeter Attia31:21

       Yeah. Yeah. Well, and Gmail does it now for the whole sentence.

   25. JRJoe Rogan31:24

       Yes, that's wild.

   26. PAPeter Attia31:25

       Yeah.

   27. JRJoe Rogan31:26

       When you get an email-

   28. PAPeter Attia31:27

       Yeah.

   29. JRJoe Rogan31:27

       ... and it, it gives you a potential response. Like, "Oh, boy." Meanwhile, the government is, like, completely reading everything you say. Everything you say. Did you see that Tucker Carlson said that the, uh, the NSA got into his Signal?

   30. PAPeter Attia31:45

       No, I didn't.
4. 45:00 – 1:00:00

   Hmm. …

   1. JRJoe Rogan45:00

      in Van Nuys was where it was at. And Blinky, ooh, um, I believe had lost his son to gang violence. I hope I'm not fucking this up. Um, but he, because of that, had this sort of outreach program where he would work with all the gang members.

   2. PAPeter Attia45:17

      Hmm.

   3. JRJoe Rogan45:18

      And so I was sparring with these hardcore gang members, and I was good, so it was a real problem.

   4. PAPeter Attia45:26

      (laughs)

   5. JRJoe Rogan45:26

      So I was like, you know, I was, I was-

   6. PAPeter Attia45:27

      Don't be too good.

   7. JRJoe Rogan45:28

      ... 26 at the time, somewhere around then, so it was only like a few years, five years removed from me fighting. And so, uh, I was, uh, still sparring and I was still training on a regular basis, and I'd get in there with these like hardcore gang members with like, just covered in tattoos and ... But they had no skills. And, you know, I'd just be real nice to them.

   8. PAPeter Attia45:50

      (laughs)

   9. JRJoe Rogan45:51

      Just like, "Please don't fucking (laughs) shoot me after this." You know? I remember, um, dropping this guy with a body shot and going, "Oh, no." And then he got up, he's like, "That was a good shot, good shot."

   10. PAPeter Attia46:01

       (laughs)

   11. JRJoe Rogan46:01

       I was like, "Huh, thank you." (laughs)

   12. PAPeter Attia46:05

       (laughs)

   13. JRJoe Rogan46:05

       But he, he would have these guys come in that were, you know, like right off the street and try to give them some focus and give them something that they could, they could do to, you know, channel their aggressive energy.

   14. PAPeter Attia46:17

       Mm-hmm.

   15. JRJoe Rogan46:17

       And also give them some self-esteem, like develop like some skills and, you know. And they had a real idol in Blinky. Like Blinky Rodriguez, I don't know if you ever saw him fight, but he was a bad man. He was the first guy to knock out Jean Yves Thériault.

   16. PAPeter Attia46:32

       Oh, really?

   17. JRJoe Rogan46:33

       Yeah, when Jean Yves Thériault was the fucking man.

   18. PAPeter Attia46:34

       God, what a blast from the past.

   19. JRJoe Rogan46:36

       Yeah. Jean Yves Thériault was the fucking man, and Blinky knocked him out with a left hook. I mean, flat-lined him. See if you can find that. Blinky Rodriguez KOs Jean Yves Thériault. It was, uh, in the pants days, the pants kickboxing days, where you had to wear pants.

   20. PAPeter Attia46:53

       Yep.

   21. JRJoe Rogan46:54

       It wasn't like the kickboxing- (laughs)

   22. PAPeter Attia46:55

       I love the pant days. Remember Bill Wallace?

   23. JRJoe Rogan46:57

       Yes, Superfoot.

   24. PAPeter Attia46:58

       (laughs)

   25. JRJoe Rogan46:58

       He was a fucking man.

   26. PAPeter Attia47:00

       Is he still alive?

   27. JRJoe Rogan47:00

       Yes, he is. Yeah, he's still throwing kicks. So here it is. Like look how bad the fucking, the, the, the resolution is.

   28. PAPeter Attia47:06

       The VHSs? (laughs)

   29. JRJoe Rogan47:07

       Yeah, look at this. So Jean Yves Thériault ... Oh, that's a leg ... That looks like a leg kick. Was that a leg kick? It's hard to tell. I mean, we're talking about like the 1980s. Yeah, it was a leg kick. Interesting. That's interesting 'cause they're leg kicking with pants on. Really unusual, right? But, um, so this fight, I don't remember. Yeah, they're throwing ... Oh.

   30. PAPeter Attia47:35

       Oh.
5. 1:00:00 – 1:14:08

   Exactly. They were probably…

   1. PAPeter Attia1:00:00

      right?

   2. JRJoe Rogan1:00:00

      Exactly. They were probably threatening him.

   3. PAPeter Attia1:00:02

      There, there, there. Th- that was it there at the bottom. I saw that picture. Um...

   4. NANarrator1:00:04

      Oh, it's up there. This one?

   5. PAPeter Attia1:00:06

      Yep, that one.

   6. JRJoe Rogan1:00:07

      Yeah.

   7. PAPeter Attia1:00:08

      Yeah, so that's Jess Willard standing over him, and he kinda looked like he was like, "Yeah, I'm gonna..."

   8. JRJoe Rogan1:00:14

      Yeah.

   9. PAPeter Attia1:00:14

      Um-

   10. JRJoe Rogan1:00:14

       Yeah. It's, it's very likely in a lot of people's eyes that he threw that fight. I mean, uh, you know, when you get to a certain point in time, you're just tired of fighting off all these fucking white racists. You maybe just take the money and lay down and just, uh, just fade off in the distance, you just want it to end, you know? I mean, the guy was persecuted his entire life. You mean- and the level of hate that he experienced, we will-

   11. PAPeter Attia1:00:38

       Yeah, it's so-

   12. JRJoe Rogan1:00:38

       ... probably never be able to understand it. Because, you know, you're really only a few decades removed from the Civil War. And this guy's the heavyweight champ of the world, the first ever black heavyweight champion. And also-

   13. PAPeter Attia1:00:49

       And how big was boxing at the time?

   14. JRJoe Rogan1:00:51

       Yeah.

   15. PAPeter Attia1:00:51

       Like, the significance of being-

   16. JRJoe Rogan1:00:52

       Oh, yeah.

   17. PAPeter Attia1:00:52

       ... heavyweight champion of the world.

   18. JRJoe Rogan1:00:53

       It was everything. And he looks unbeatable. That was the other thing. It wasn't just that he was the first black heavyweight champion. He was the first black heavyweight champion, but he, he was like Mike Tyson in his prime.

   19. PAPeter Attia1:01:05

       Yeah.

   20. JRJoe Rogan1:01:05

       It's like a whole new level of heavyweight.

   21. PAPeter Attia1:01:09

       And, of course, y- y- you know, I mean, we could debate that forever and ever is Ali or Louis, who was the best heavyweight of all time? Um, but I think for... I mean, I don't know. I- I- I, I'm alwa- I always have such sadness over the fact that we never got to see Ali fight from '67 to '71.

   22. JRJoe Rogan1:01:27

       Yeah. It's true. Tha- those three years where he protested-

   23. PAPeter Attia1:01:31

       (clears throat)

   24. JRJoe Rogan1:01:31

       ... the Vietnam War, in many ways that cemented Ali's legacy, because he was such a cultural icon that he was like, "You know what? Fuck you. I'm not going to Vietnam. You guys are out of your fucking minds. I... No Viet Cong ever said anything bad to me. I'm not going to Vietnam and killing people. Fuck you." And they just removed him from boxing. They wouldn't let him box for years. And by the time he boxed again, people were so happy to see him again, because they knew he was right. They knew that war was bullshit. They knew it was wrong. And he, he became who he was. The last... When he fought Cleveland "Big- Big Cat" Williams-

   25. PAPeter Attia1:02:10

       I was just about to say-

   26. JRJoe Rogan1:02:11

       Yeah.

   27. PAPeter Attia1:02:11

       ... that is the greatest display of a- in any division, any weight, at any time, just watch Ali versus Williams-

   28. JRJoe Rogan1:02:20

       Yeah.

   29. PAPeter Attia1:02:20

       ... November 1966.

   30. JRJoe Rogan1:02:22

       Mm-hmm.

Episode duration: 2:47:10