All Episodes
July 19, 2022 - The Joe Rogan Experience
02:25:17
Joe Rogan Experience #1845 - Zachary Levi
Participants
Main voices
j
joe rogan
01:07:15
z
zachary levi
01:13:39
Appearances
Clips
j
jamie vernon
00:30
| Copy link to current segment

Speaker Time Text
unidentified
Joe Rogan Podcast, check it out!
The Joe Rogan Experience.
Train by day, Joe Rogan Podcast by night, all day.
zachary levi
How are you acclimatizing to Austin?
joe rogan
I love it.
zachary levi
It's great, isn't it?
joe rogan
Yeah, I've been here now, like, we're going?
Yeah, so I've been here now for two years and just totally feels like home.
I love it.
zachary levi
It's such a great town.
joe rogan
It's the best.
The people are so nice.
zachary levi
Yeah.
joe rogan
It's such a great place to live.
zachary levi
Yeah, and it's, one of the things I love about it is how well nature is protected here, like Barton Springs, for example, or even like I can't think of another major city I've been to anyone in the world that has a river that goes through the middle of the city that anyone is playing on.
Austin is the only place I've ever been to where there's a river in the middle of the city and there's people kayaking and paddleboarding and doing all of the things.
You're like, that's what we should be doing in all of our rivers.
joe rogan
And it's clean!
zachary levi
It's so clean!
joe rogan
Yeah, that's what's crazy.
You know, one of the comedy clubs that I was going to buy, there was a problem with it, and the problem was there was a parking lot.
Yeah.
was at the bottom of a long hill.
And if it rained, the rainwater would come down and get all the oil and all the bullshit from people's cars from the parking lot and then take it over the hill into the creek.
unidentified
Oh.
joe rogan
And so they were supposed to have installed this big biocontainment pond.
unidentified
Oh.
joe rogan
Yeah, it's a really wild thing.
They had to literally build a pond, and then they had to surround the pond with very specific plants that filter out shit and suck everything up.
I was like, I'm out!
zachary levi
That's more than I want, thanks.
joe rogan
But it wasn't even that.
It was just like, I could see the headlines, Joe Rogan kills fish with his shitty comedy club.
unidentified
Ha ha ha!
joe rogan
I was like, no.
zachary levi
With the comedy club.
joe rogan
Yeah.
unidentified
That was the tool.
joe rogan
I am not doing anything that is ever going to be an environmental concern.
I'm not...
If it's up for...
I'm fucking...
I'm out.
unidentified
No.
joe rogan
I'm out.
zachary levi
Well, to the extent that we should never be doing anything that's fucking up the planet, it would be great if we could all agree on that.
joe rogan
That would be great.
unidentified
Good idea.
joe rogan
It's like this agreement to fuck up the planet a little bit so you can get more gas mileage.
Or agreement to fuck up the planet a little bit so it's easier for you to do X, Y, or Z. Certainly.
zachary levi
But also, I think...
Well, it's just industry run rampant, man.
I mean, you know, that's what most of it is anyway.
It's greed on a really high level that we all kind of just accept because it's like, well, that's capitalism, I guess, or whatever.
joe rogan
We all agree that companies should try to make the most amount of money every year, always.
Like, you're always supposed to make more money.
zachary levi
But I feel like we do, which is, I don't think that's such a bad thing to the extent that it should never be at the expense of life.
Of human life and plant life and animal life.
To the extent that industry is milking every single dollar out of everything.
So what?
So their bottom line is better?
So their shareholders are happier?
So their CEO makes a better salary that year?
It's all just high-level greed.
And they could still all make so much money and not kill everything.
That's what's really crazy.
joe rogan
It's like everybody always wants to do better.
Like no one wants to maintain.
No one wants to say, hey, you know, this company makes $100 million a year.
This is great.
Yeah, we're good.
Everybody high five.
Let's keep the ball rolling.
We all get vacation time and we all live a wonderful life.
No.
zachary levi
But no, you gotta have more, man.
joe rogan
Yeah, and you gotta put in overtime.
We gotta increase our bottom line.
We gotta fucking, why aren't these things moving off the shelves?
zachary levi
Have you seen Succession?
joe rogan
Yes.
Love it.
zachary levi
Oh, it's so good.
unidentified
Love it.
zachary levi
It's so good, but it's also so terrifying because you're watching it being like, yeah, that's going on right now.
joe rogan
Oh, for sure.
zachary levi
That's so representative of multiple different, you know.
joe rogan
Dude, I know people like that.
Such a bummer.
unidentified
Such a bummer.
joe rogan
Physically know people like that who got all their money from their parents and they're just batshit crazy and doing blow and wearing $50,000 watches and just...
zachary levi
And just going for more and more and more and more and more at the expense of everyone and everything else.
joe rogan
Never ends.
And it's always you have to have the newest, latest, greatest thing.
You know, you have to have the 2023 Mercedes right when it comes out.
Like everybody's balling in this weird like performative way.
zachary levi
Well, and we all celebrate it, which is the saddest thing, honestly.
I mean, look at Instagram, all of it.
I mean, if you drive a Lambo, how many likes do you...
You know what I mean?
And we all also...
I mean, nothing against people who own Lamborghinis, but...
We all kind of sense that that's flashy anyway.
Why are we so caught up in that?
And yet it still is getting all the likes and getting all the shares.
And people still, particularly young people, are still gunning for that, aiming for that.
Like, I want to be that cool.
It's like, no, you don't.
That's not the kind of life that you...
Want to be living or aspiring to.
joe rogan
It's not real.
They're not even living that life.
If you're posing in front of a Lamborghini, just by virtue of the fact that you're posing, you're not really living your life.
unidentified
Posing.
joe rogan
This is fake.
zachary levi
Lots and lots of poses.
joe rogan
You're standing there in a fancy pose to show how badass you are.
zachary levi
Look at my Lambo, man.
joe rogan
And perhaps you have a bandana and no shirt on.
Maybe you're really wild.
Maybe you're like that rich, eccentric guy with flip-flops.
That's a weird one.
The flip-flop guy.
I don't even give a fuck, bro.
I'm out here on flip-flops, my Lamborghini.
zachary levi
I mean, I am a flip-flop fan, so...
joe rogan
Nothing wrong with flip-flops, but flip-flops and Lamborghini.
zachary levi
But I like my Crocs even more.
I wore my Crocs specifically today.
Because you and my judge were hating on them.
I'm like, bro, these are, by the way, Texas flag croc.
joe rogan
That looks like somebody did that, though.
Like an artist did it.
zachary levi
I mean, I picked them up at Walmart.
I don't know where I picked them up.
But Academy, that's where I think I grabbed them.
joe rogan
I was hoping there was like some sort of a flea market or some shit.
zachary levi
Oh, that would have been fun, too.
Like they were somebody else's crocs before.
joe rogan
Oh, even better.
Even grosser.
One grosser way to make crocs.
zachary levi
But dude, crocs are awesome, though.
unidentified
For real.
zachary levi
For real.
joe rogan
I believe you.
zachary levi
They're very comfortable.
unidentified
Amphibious.
joe rogan
You're talking to a guy who wears a fanny pack.
I am on no moral high ground.
zachary levi
No moral fashion high ground.
joe rogan
I have fucking no fashion sense.
zachary levi
Fanny packs are back though, bro.
Fanny packs are back.
joe rogan
I never let them go.
unidentified
No.
joe rogan
I kept them through the 90s.
I really did.
I kept wearing fanny packs.
unidentified
They're very handy.
zachary levi
They're handy.
I'm never going to stop.
And guys, we don't have purses.
That's the closest thing we have to a damn purse.
joe rogan
A lot of folks are sporting that shoulder thing now.
zachary levi
Yeah, they get the lacrosse thing.
joe rogan
The lacrosse thing's all right.
It's acceptable.
unidentified
Yeah.
joe rogan
I'm amenable to a purse.
If a man wants to wear a purse, zero problem with that.
I mean, maybe dudes start getting dope purses, because girls have been dominating the purse game.
zachary levi
No, but they kind of do.
I mean, I've seen some dudes with some, again, Gucci or Fendi things that they're wearing around their belt that are basically like a little purse, essentially.
joe rogan
When I was a boy, you would get punched in the face for that.
zachary levi
I mean, yeah, probably.
joe rogan
Man wants to walk around with a purse, you gotta get a knuckle sandwich from a stranger.
zachary levi
Yeah, yeah.
I don't know.
I think my sisters dress me up in some of their shit, you know, occasionally, so.
joe rogan
Do you think it's just guys ran out of ways to bling, so they had to, like, add purses to them?
zachary levi
I mean, here's the thing.
For me, maybe it's a bling thing.
For me, it's the...
joe rogan
Convenience.
zachary levi
It's the utility of it.
Like, as a guy, again, we don't have a purse.
So I'm always wearing some cargo shit.
I'm wearing a jacket that's got extra pockets because that's where I got it.
Especially back in the day when I was a smoker, I'd have my cigarettes and my lighter and my gum and all this.
I needed all those places.
I don't have this thing to go rummage around in and go find it off.
joe rogan
What if you need a snack?
zachary levi
And what if you need a snack?
joe rogan
I can't have a fucking protein bar in my bag.
zachary levi
No!
joe rogan
I can't keep a protein bar in my pocket.
That's gross.
zachary levi
And which pocket?
That's gonna get real mangled real fast.
joe rogan
It's gonna be all gooey and all the chocolate on the outside is gonna be melted off.
zachary levi
Yeah, you don't want that.
joe rogan
Fuck all that.
zachary levi
You don't want that protein bar.
joe rogan
Yeah, the purse thing's an interesting thing and you could also do a satchel to show they're interesting.
Like you're an intelligent, interesting person.
You have a nice worn Indiana Jones type satchel.
zachary levi
Sexy intelligent satchels.
Right?
Exactly, yes.
joe rogan
That's a look.
Like a guy with a satchel probably reads a lot.
zachary levi
Absolutely.
Why else have a satchel if you don't have a lot of books in there?
joe rogan
He's got books in there.
zachary levi
He's got a lot of books.
joe rogan
He's a journal.
He's going to write about meeting you.
zachary levi
I played this character, Flynn Rider, in this Disney movie, Tangled, and I had a satchel.
And he's a very charming, intelligent man.
joe rogan
You were the voice of Flynn Rider!
That's right!
zachary levi
Yeah, bro!
joe rogan
Dude, I watched that movie at least 80 times.
I'm not...
zachary levi
Well, you got girls.
joe rogan
Young girls.
unidentified
Yeah, man.
joe rogan
They were of the perfect age.
zachary levi
Yeah.
joe rogan
So I watched that movie forever.
I didn't know that was you.
unidentified
Yeah, man.
joe rogan
That's hilarious.
zachary levi
It's a treat.
It's one of the coolest things I've ever done.
joe rogan
Dude, I loved you in Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.
You were great in that.
zachary levi
Thanks, man!
joe rogan
That's a fun, fun show.
zachary levi
Dude, that show is...
joe rogan
It's a really fun show.
zachary levi
It's so well done.
Amy Sherman Palladino and her husband Dan, they are, and really everybody involved in that show, but they are, I think they're geniuses.
I think that the way they write, direct, produce so much of that, the two of them, plus lots of other talented people, obviously, that come in and direct and produce and write and all of the incredible actors.
But it's one of those things where...
It's just delightful.
You watch the show and you're just delighted from the beginning to the end.
And Rachel and Tony, the whole cast are just so charming and the writing is so smart and it moves and it's funny and you're like, fuck yeah, I'm going to watch this all the time.
joe rogan
It's a really good show.
And the way she gets into stand-up, like as a stand-up, is the least offensive I've ever seen.
unidentified
Yeah!
joe rogan
Of any of those things.
Yeah, yeah.
Because let me tell you something.
That shit is possible for a woman to be that funny, just a housewife.
There's people out there that are like that.
zachary levi
Oh, yeah.
joe rogan
People are like, oh, that's unrealistic that she would kill.
That is not unrealistic.
unidentified
No.
joe rogan
There was a girl at the Vulcan in Austin, and she was in the crowd, and I was doing like a Q&A thing at the end of my set.
Yeah.
And she asked something about, how do you get into stand-up?
And I go, are you thinking about doing stand-up?
I'm like, you should do it.
She goes, I'm funny as fuck.
I go, come up here right now.
I go, come up here right now.
And she got on stage and she was a little drunk.
And it wasn't the worst, but it was funny that she did it.
So then, a week, two weeks later, maybe it was longer than that.
Maybe it was like a month later.
I'm on stage, and I see her again.
And I don't remember how it came up, and I said, do you want to come up here and do stand-up?
And she said yes.
And she went up again, and she had prepared, and she had notes.
And she fucking killed.
unidentified
Fuck, yeah!
joe rogan
I mean, fucking killed.
And she didn't just fucking kill, she fucking killed after me.
Like, I had done an hour of stand-up.
zachary levi
Oh, wow, man.
joe rogan
And then I'm doing Q&A, and then she goes up and kills.
zachary levi
And then here comes the amuse-bouche.
joe rogan
It was real.
I was like, this is like a real Mrs. Maisel.
That's a possible thing for a girl.
Or for anybody.
I knew guys that never did stand-up that were funnier than me.
Funnier than most of my friends.
zachary levi
Yeah, I think my funniest friends are not actually in entertainment like that.
They're these snipers, man.
Every single day, at any given moment, they're about to say something, something's about to come out of their mouth, and everyone's going to be like, bah!
And they're not like, you know, they're regular people.
joe rogan
That's why they're so funny, because they're not trying to perform.
They're just actually being themselves, which is funny, and they enjoy being funny.
zachary levi
Well, but absolutely.
And I would also add, though, that how cool of you to give this cool girl a bit of a spotlight to give that and the encouragement that you gave her and that she would take that.
I mean, that goes a long way.
When Joe Rogan is saying, you got something there, go work on that.
She does, you know?
joe rogan
It was fun.
She had a great sense of humor and she was fun at doing banter.
And so when she went up and did it, I was like...
Fuck yeah, she fucking killed.
That woman 100% could be a professional comic.
If she dedicated herself to it, 100% she could do it.
And that's like a Mrs. Maisel type character.
I've seen people like that before.
I used to work for a guy who was a private investigator.
His name is Dave Dolan.
And he was one of the funniest fucking human beings I've ever met in my life.
He needed a driver, really.
He lost his license drinking and driving.
And so he put an ad in the paper for a private investigator's assistant, and I needed a job while I was doing stand-up.
zachary levi
Oh, no shit!
joe rogan
Yeah, so I became this guy's driver, and so I hung out with him, and he was a private investigator.
zachary levi
How long did you work for him?
joe rogan
I think it was at least six months, because I forget how long his driver's license was suspended for.
zachary levi
Was that a trip or what, bro?
joe rogan
It was the best.
zachary levi
Like, you're literally just on a case all the time?
joe rogan
All the time.
Yeah, we're on cases all day.
I got to see how they catch people.
Most of the time it was people that were cheating on insurance companies.
Sure, yeah.
Like, say if you got hurt...
zachary levi
Workman's comp, that kind of stuff.
joe rogan
Guys were working under the table.
And so they would take photos of them and catch them lying and stuff like that.
But there was one guy that his wife was getting plowed by this bodybuilder.
zachary levi
Oh, that's fun.
joe rogan
And he kept wanting my friend Dave to take pictures.
He goes, hey, listen, you sick fuck.
You know what the fucking deal is.
You know what the guy's doing.
We're done here.
unidentified
He goes...
I'm not going to fucking take pictures, you weirdo, of this guy fucking your girl.
joe rogan
You need to take those pictures.
zachary levi
I like that he has no standards.
He's not just going to go and hand that out.
joe rogan
Dude, he was hilarious.
And he never did stand up.
If that guy ever went on stage, he would have fucking murdered from the moment he went up there.
He was just like this really funny Irish guy from Boston.
Just fucking funny all the time.
He was the guy that like when you're eating dinner, he was the one who would crack in with something and everybody be slapping the table.
He was just an animal.
zachary levi
But there's also I guess that, you know, you have to have some kind of inherent Confidence and also insanity to go up and do stand-up and just, you know, be there working without a net and just literally saying, hey, this is me and these are my words that I think are funny.
I hope you do too.
I mean, that's...
So sometimes even very, very, very funny people have put into that spotlight.
They're not always necessarily totally capable, I guess, but...
joe rogan
Yeah, well, it's a skill, and you've got to learn how to do it.
But the thing is, some people really can't ever do it.
But if you can do that, like what that girl did when she went on stage at my show, or you could do what Mrs. Maisel does in that show, you could actually do stand-up.
It's just a matter of learning the rest of it.
It becomes more comprehensive.
What are my bits supposed to be about?
Are they just being silly?
Am I trying to say something?
Am I sacrificing funny to try to make myself seem smart?
There's a lot of weird games you play with your mind to try to get the material right.
But the point is that show is one of the best shows ever for stand-up.
Because it really did a great job of capturing the time.
It really did a great job of capturing Lenny Bruce.
zachary levi
Oh, he's so good.
joe rogan
Yeah.
unidentified
So good.
joe rogan
And who's the gentleman that plays Lenny Bruce?
unidentified
Luke...
zachary levi
Luke Kirby?
I think it's Luke Kirby.
I could be totally wrong.
joe rogan
Let's find out.
zachary levi
If I'm mangling this, I'm so sorry.
joe rogan
Because he does a really good job.
zachary levi
He's so good, man.
joe rogan
Really good job.
zachary levi
Like, it's so spot on.
joe rogan
Yeah.
You believe it.
zachary levi
Yeah.
joe rogan
Yeah.
zachary levi
I love stand-up comedy.
I've been...
joe rogan
Luke Kirby.
Yeah, Luke Kirby.
He nailed it.
zachary levi
There you go, Lukey boy.
joe rogan
And he looked very much like Lenny Bruce.
zachary levi
Oh, yeah.
He's really got the mannerisms down.
I remember watching and rehearsing, like, listening to old Lenny Bruce and, like, just trying to find that rhythm and the cadence and stuff.
And he's so good.
I mean, everybody in the cast is so good.
joe rogan
That time is a strange...
Like, stand-up by itself is a very strange thing because it's a lot of the old stand-up doesn't work anymore.
Because it's just, you already know those things.
They're not shocking.
These are all like, but it's because of people like him.
zachary levi
Well, the envelope has been pushed so far.
I mean, the envelope is off the edge at this point as far as what is comedic material and what roads can be crossed and all that jazz.
joe rogan
For sure, but Lenny was the first guy to push it.
Lenny was the first guy to really, like, push the envelope.
zachary levi
He was the first guy to- He got arrested, like, multiple times.
joe rogan
So he had Carlin.
zachary levi
Yeah.
unidentified
Oh, yeah.
zachary levi
Carlin was arrested for it, too.
Carlin was great.
joe rogan
But so those guys, I mean, that's why the envelope got moved.
It's because these guys were constantly moving it forward and forward.
Before them, no one even did that kind of comedy.
Comedy was all just jokes.
zachary levi
Like the hacks that she goes and sees when she's waiting to get a spot.
joe rogan
Exactly.
That was well represented too.
And then the hunger and the fucking trying to make it and all that stuff.
It seemed realistic.
It was good.
It's a good show.
And Rachel's fantastic.
zachary levi
She's so good.
And she's a lovely person.
joe rogan
Can I imagine?
She must be.
No one's that good an actor.
zachary levi
I don't know, some people might be.
joe rogan
They might be.
zachary levi
Hollywood's full of a lot of interesting deceit too, bro.
joe rogan
I know, it is.
unidentified
Yeah, yeah.
joe rogan
And sometimes we get to watch it on trial.
zachary levi
Oh yeah, oh my gosh.
joe rogan
How wild is that they had a relationship trial?
Like, this is who was more fucked up in the relationship.
Let's show the whole world.
unidentified
Yeah, yeah.
zachary levi
I don't know how I feel about it.
Like, there's a part of me that just wishes that nobody would really care about any of that drama as it unfolds, because it's not pertinent to anybody's life, really, or making the world a better place.
joe rogan
Who gets paid for the advertising money from that trial?
There must have been a lot of it.
Does Johnny get a cut of the YouTube title?
zachary levi
Was it all YouTube?
joe rogan
I don't know.
I mean, but a lot of it is available on YouTube.
I mean, was it available for free when it came out?
I think the people making the videos are making money.
jamie vernon
I feel like I saw an article that said someone's making like 60 grand a month making...
Reaction videos to the trial or something.
zachary levi
Just reaction videos of the trial?
jamie vernon
Or showing it or highlights.
joe rogan
Everybody wants to know what everybody else thinks about it.
The trial is a perfect thing to have a reaction video.
Because there's so many moments in that trial.
zachary levi
Certainly.
But I think things like that, though, ultimately, I don't know, man.
I feel like it's making us...
Less empathetic, ultimately.
We all get to look at these people, literally, you know, like you're saying, they're having a marital dispute.
We're all getting brought in on their nonsense, not nonsense, their shit, their traumas, all that stuff.
And everyone just gets to sit around eating popcorn and judging the entire fiasco because it's entertainment now.
It's like everything is content and everything is entertainment.
But the more we do that kind of stuff, I do feel like we're pulling farther apart from being able to look at either her or him and say, You both have issues and you both need to work on some shit.
And, you know, however the jury and all that founded, ultimately I saw little bits and pieces.
It seemed like he was more in the right than she was.
I would have gone with that too.
But the point is, they're still human beings, both of them, at the end of the day.
And they're just a circus when we see it like that.
Seemingly.
joe rogan
I think he wanted the circus because the circus exposes the truth.
I think that was the only way to expose the truth, was to get her to talk about stuff on camera, and he felt like she would kind of fall apart.
zachary levi
Certainly, but I don't think that...
That could have been done just in a courtroom without it airing to the rest of the world.
All that stuff would have been said on some cameras that are recording in that room.
joe rogan
Are we trying to pretend that the jury didn't know how the rest of the world felt?
zachary levi
I know, it's so ridiculous.
joe rogan
In that case?
zachary levi
It's so ridiculous.
How do you keep jurors away from anything anymore?
joe rogan
How do you keep them away from their phones?
zachary levi
Yeah, I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know.
joe rogan
Like, do we give up on that?
On jurors being influenced by the outside world?
zachary levi
No, that's still very much the law, I believe.
joe rogan
But wasn't it at a certain point in time that they were restricted?
Like, they weren't allowed to watch media or something like that?
They were sequestered?
Is that still going on, or do they get to go home?
zachary levi
It depends on the trial, I think so, yeah.
Like, in the O.J. Simpson trial, all those guys got sequestered for a long fucking time.
Oh man, it was not ideal for any of them.
joe rogan
And after all that, they still come up with a fucked up verdict.
zachary levi
I mean, I agree.
I don't see him as being innocent in that at all, but Rodney King had just gotten beaten on a freeway, and there was a lot of anger and a lot of pain and frustration.
And again, not that that should...
Make the other right or whatever, but it's still just I think we got to come back and be like, you know, I don't know.
We're humans.
joe rogan
You're right.
Like everyone who's mocking the trial, me included, is not being empathetic to the fact that these are two human beings.
But there's something about liars in particular that people when they're lying and they are doing it to try to damage someone else.
unidentified
Yeah.
zachary levi
Oh, it's horrible.
joe rogan
It's one of the creepiest.
unidentified
It's horrible.
joe rogan
So there's a certain amount of signaling that everybody's doing by not being empathetic because it is such a public thing.
There's a certain amount of signaling that we're doing to each other.
Saying, hey, that is fucking bullshit.
Always.
And everybody kind of agrees.
And then it's kind of better for people.
It's better for people to see that on display and see people's reaction to it.
And make people think about what is it like if someone lies about something just to try to damage someone.
zachary levi
Yeah.
Well, listen, I 100% believe that all lies should be exposed.
You know, sunlight is the best disinfectant.
We should be able to talk about all that shit for sure.
But I think, yeah, hopefully it can be done where we all get the example.
joe rogan
But we're still nice to each other.
zachary levi
Yeah.
We're still radically loving each other.
unidentified
Yeah.
joe rogan
It's possible.
zachary levi
Yeah.
joe rogan
It is possible.
It's possible for people to be way nicer to each other.
But that stuff's not good, right?
zachary levi
No.
And people, they're still responsible.
I think that we can both acknowledge that As crazy as it might sound, but no one's at fault, but everyone's responsible.
You know, you get programmed by your parents, who are programmed by their parents, who are programmed by their parents.
I mean, it's generational trauma.
And it's not just your parents.
Sometimes it's other people in your family or your community or your society or your country or your faith or whatever it is.
But all that stuff is the coding you get as a little soul growing up.
And so that's how you behave, by and large.
I mean, there's, like, psychopaths and sociopaths that might be born with a little, like, physiological...
You know, something wrong.
But all of us are nature and nurture, like, through and through.
joe rogan
Yeah, that's the determinism perspective, right?
That life has kind of led you to this moment and you don't really have a lot of control over it.
zachary levi
Well, we have to forgive ourselves for not knowing what we didn't know, right?
We've all done stupid shit throughout our lives.
That was one of the biggest things that was destroying me before I went to life-saving therapy.
I didn't know how much I hated myself.
My self-talk was Oh, really?
Oh, yeah, man.
It was so bad.
joe rogan
You're a beautiful, tall, handsome fella.
Why would you have bad safe talk?
You've got a wonderful personality.
unidentified
Oh, shit.
Well, thank you, Joe.
joe rogan
Your self-talk should be great.
zachary levi
I appreciate that.
Well, okay.
But, again, I didn't know what I didn't know.
And what I didn't know was that my whole life, my parents, my mom and stepdad particularly, were very...
Psychologically abusive types of people, you know, because they were also super psychologically abused by their respective parents, right?
But your parents' voice More often than not, in my humble opinion, the voice that you have for yourself, that's you just echoing the way they talked to you.
So that's why no matter what I may look like or what I've accomplished in my life, and even up to the point at 37, when I moved out here to Austin, I had this whole breakdown.
Even up to that point, I still felt like I was failing my life entirely.
I had accomplished so many things and I still felt like I was failing because my self-talk was garbage.
I just...
joe rogan
So did you feel like you were failing like in looking at your career or did you think you were failing at life?
zachary levi
Everything.
All things.
joe rogan
I was 37. Yeah, I was 37. But your career was going well.
zachary levi
To some, looking from the outside, it'd be like, that guy's got it all, or whatever.
Absolutely, totally.
Which makes you feel even fucking worse, because now you feel like a sad...
I was in major depression and anxiety, and I'm like, why can't I be happy and love myself wherever I'm at right now?
And then you go, oh, yeah, and you have all this stuff, you shithead.
And then you just start shitting on yourself.
I mean, it's a horrible downward spiral that you go down, you know?
But that's why...
That's thinking thinking.
That's why you've got to go to therapy and have professionals just walk you through like, hey, let's help you see yourself, the world, and how you fit into it more clearly.
Let's do that.
Let's unpack these ideas.
Let's talk about trauma.
Let's be able to tell the person like, hey, it's not your fault.
You're responsible 100%.
No matter what happens in your life, if you've done it, you're responsible for that.
So we just hold everybody accountable.
And responsible while simultaneously not dehumanizing them at the same time.
That's the push and the pull, I think.
And it's just easy.
We all want to dehumanize because we've all been taught in other, us and them, our whole lives, our nations, our tribes, our faiths, our whatever.
I mean, all of these things are, I mean, fuck, man.
We're so divided.
The country, the world is so, so, so divided right now.
Fear is not going to...
We can only love our way to a better future.
We can't hate our way there.
joe rogan
Animosity our way to enlightenment.
zachary levi
No, we're not.
unidentified
It's not going to happen.
zachary levi
And even if we can build some kind of weird dystopian future, whatever that fucking is, we're all going to be that much more miserable because...
We're going to save the planet but hate each other in the future while we're on that?
No, we got to fucking figure it out.
We got to figure out how to coexist genuinely.
But I think all of that comes down to, initially, self-love and then being able to love somebody.
Because now, like, you know, in a plain analogy, you put your own mask on before helping other people with their masks.
A lot of my life, I was trying to go love everybody.
I'm just trying to get everybody's, and I'm fucking suffocating and dying and falling on the cabin floor until I went to therapy.
And I was like, oh shit, I don't even understand how to love myself, how to take care of myself, really like invest in myself.
I had in moments throughout my life, but if you don't value yourself, you're not going to invest in yourself.
joe rogan
We always hear those stories about the person who's doing really well, and then they decide to take their own life, and it's so baffling to us.
Oh, man, yeah.
And I think for some, even if they're doing really well, they compare themselves to people who are doing better, and they always feel bad.
unidentified
Yeah.
joe rogan
Like, we've told the story about this guy Richard Jenny, who's like a really huge comedian in the 80s and 90s, and he wound up killing himself.
And he always wanted to be like Jim Carrey.
He wanted to be a movie star.
It just never really happened.
But for comics, he was like one of the best comics alive.
Like he was a guy who would, comics would go and sit in the back room to watch his set.
And you'd leave going, fuck, he's good.
Goddamn, that guy's good.
But he, that wasn't enough.
Like he, for whatever chemical imbalance he had, whatever, you know, bad self-talk, whatever life trauma and whatever he was going through, it was just too much.
zachary levi
Well, a lot of people, I mean, genuinely a lot of people are programmed with some form of you're not good enough programming, you know?
I take it, having listened to many of your conversations, you're somebody who has always had a really innate self-worth about you.
You invest in yourself on a high rate and have been doing it for a really long time.
Myself, lots of other people I know, we're not.
There's that self.
If you are still always chasing because nothing is ever ultimately a good enough thing to finally say, I accomplished enough to silence the voices in my head that are telling me I'm not good enough.
Yeah.
You'll be forever chasing that.
And seemingly, that's probably what happened to him.
Something happened in his growth, either as a child or even later on as an adult or both or whatever, and that was something that he could never get that monkey off his back.
I can relate to that.
joe rogan
I think sometimes people also get in these patterns of thinking like really negative Patterns of thinking and they can't get off the tracks like they're stuck in a groove the way they think about things They're always thinking that everything's going bad for them.
They're always thinking everything's Everything's gonna be worse in the future and everything's falling apart and they can't get it out of their head They can never go look on the bright side.
zachary levi
It's like it's almost like it's not available to them anymore Well, but there's a lot of evidence to the fact that that's really neuroplasticity.
So when traumas or when memories or whenever they, you know, those galvanize in our head, well, now it's like a circuit.
It's a root.
And so when you like, you know, putting a deeper groove into a record, you're just, the more you think about that same trauma or that same thing that's holding you back, the more it's going to hold you back.
joe rogan
Right.
zachary levi
Do you know Dr. Joe Dispenza?
You ever heard of Dr. Joe Dispenza?
joe rogan
Not really.
zachary levi
He's like...
joe rogan
I think I've seen him on Instagram.
zachary levi
Yeah, but he's like...
joe rogan
I might even follow him.
zachary levi
I think he was a chiropractor, doctor, but then ultimately he's really been kind of leading the charge for...
I don't know, like...
Energy, connectivity in your body, your ability to think your way to a better life, ultimately.
Because our thoughts are so powerful that they can affect our bodies.
This is kind of the world that he's into.
But I do think there's a lot...
joe rogan
That world makes me super suspicious.
zachary levi
Oh, really?
joe rogan
Yeah, anytime people start talking about manifesting the world through the ideas...
zachary levi
Oh, man, I think it's so real.
joe rogan
What do you think is real?
zachary levi
Well, I think prayer...
Is manifestation.
I think manifestation is prayer.
I think that that is a real thing.
And it's not...
I don't think it's just a fluke that people have been doing it for so, so, so, so, so long and feel something very deep through it.
You know what I mean?
joe rogan
I think it's a method to achieve focus, for sure.
And I think one of the things about prayer is prayer is very similar to meditation in that they're both like...
Really good.
They're both really good for you.
Certainly.
Meditation, where you're literally thinking about nothing, and prayer, where you're praising God, or thinking about the energy of the universe, or whatever it is.
What you're doing is you're putting out gratitude, you're putting out this feeling of appreciation, and all of those things are really good ideas.
zachary levi
Absolutely.
But that, by doing that, I mean, the thought exercise is, by doing that, you change your aura.
You change your energy.
You are also rewriting the neuroplasticity in your mind to break those habits and those cycles that have just been stuck there.
joe rogan
I think you definitely do something.
Something's going on.
I don't know if it's your aura, though.
zachary levi
I don't know.
joe rogan
When people start talking auras and chakras, I'm like, slow down.
Slow down.
Are we talking nonsense?
I'm not sure.
zachary levi
Maybe it is.
Maybe it is.
But it's no more nonsense than anything else that we think is probably true.
Like, I don't know, man.
joe rogan
And it's probably really also puts you in a positive state of mind, which can be very effective at improving your life.
zachary levi
Yeah.
But I do think that we are, yes, we are these bags of meat that walk around in this physical world.
I fully believe that there's a soul in us, and that is something that is other than physical, and whatever that is operates in a slightly different way.
You know what I mean?
joe rogan
Yeah, I think there's something in there, too.
I wonder what it is.
You know, what we're calling the soul, it's like consciousness that's untethered from language and untethered from life experience.
It's just whatever your essence is.
And then everything else you're doing.
Like, we're talking about the way these ideas get sort of carved into your mind and how people can help you manipulate your mind to get rid of some of these bad ideas and bad self-talk.
And it begs the question, like, what are we really?
Some weird combination of life experiences and noises that we can make with our mouths.
But at the center of it all, there's a thing.
We all believe that we're navigating through words and having conversations through language, but what is we?
We are using this language, but what is that thing?
zachary levi
That collective soul, you mean?
joe rogan
The thing that you get to, if you could erase all the bullshit from people and just get down to you.
zachary levi
Yeah, the essence.
joe rogan
What is that?
zachary levi
I think that's a soul.
And more specifically...
joe rogan
It might be.
zachary levi
I do think it is, but I think that that's a life energy, soul, that is connected to God energy.
We are all little conduits of life.
The only actual miracle in the universe that we know of right now, this place right here, this little blue dot, spinning ball of mud, that we're all on together...
That's a pretty spectacular thing.
And I think all of that is just God energy.
You know, people are kind of saying, oh, God, the universe.
I'm not trying to even define it for anybody other than just saying, absolutely, that is, I think, absolutely, that is a thing.
And absolutely, that thing, I think, operates in love.
I think that when we...
When we're going after love and loving people, we're walking closer to God.
joe rogan
That seems to only work right here with us.
It doesn't seem to work with any other animals.
Other animals, it doesn't seem to matter at all.
It's just tooth and claw.
zachary levi
Listen, listen.
joe rogan
But isn't that interesting?
zachary levi
It is, but I've thought about this.
I think that...
Look, we're very special apes, right?
Somehow, whether it was eating a bunch of mushrooms and we, you know, grew a brain or whatever the heck it is, bro.
But we are very, we're called out.
We're a special animal, right?
That shouldn't give us this cocky arrogance like, this is all ours, like we've been doing for so long.
We have to be in homeostasis with the rest of the world and creation, but we're fucking special, man.
joe rogan
Yeah, we're weird.
zachary levi
We're super weird, yeah.
But I would say, but check this out, though.
Like, Nature is Metal, the Instagram, I think you follow them too.
They're one of my favorites.
They're so good.
I tell everybody.
In fact, particularly I tell my vegan friends and all that stuff.
They're like, you know, animal, animal.
Like, I got you.
I'm like, go follow that account and tell me that we are somehow these horrible creatures that are going and mowing down all these animals when they are ripping each other's limbs off, literally.
It's so satisfying.
Anyway, but nature is a metal, that's a great example of, yeah, this is the wild world out there.
So what about that?
How do you explain that?
Well, I think that perhaps a lot of other species of animal, just we evolved super fast into whatever our reasoning, the fact that we even ask why, right?
Like all that, we're set apart.
I don't think those animals have literally just evolved or matured long enough to be able to have some of that.
But I will say this, and this is, hear me out, hear me out.
I fully believe, this is how much I believe in the power of love.
I'm not kidding.
unidentified
I'm not kidding.
zachary levi
Dogs are The greatest animal.
I know you love your dog.
I love my dogs.
They're amazing.
I don't understand cat people.
I've had cats.
They're cute and cuddly, but they're selfish little fuckers who don't need you ultimately and will eat your decomposing body the second you die.
Dogs will wait at least a couple of weeks.
But dogs are amazing.
How the fuck Do we have this amazing species of animal that exists right now that when we met it, it would have fucking killed us as a wolf?
Right?
And what has made the dog not just domesticated, but what has made the dog love?
And it's humans loving the dog.
We have loved dogs more than we've loved any other animal on this earth.
I mean, I think.
joe rogan
Yeah.
zachary levi
I would say.
joe rogan
Yeah, probably.
zachary levi
And I think because of that, you see dogs becoming better versions of themselves that aren't so wild, that don't want to just go and fucking kill.
Not that that stuff's still not in there somewhat, but this is my theory.
I really believe it.
And I think that the more we would do that...
I mean, also, have you ever seen videos of...
Like animal sanctuaries, where they have all kinds of different animals, like owls and cats and tigers and little, you know, like docks and dogs.
And they're like best friends.
They're best fucking friends.
These little teeny dogs and these huge tigers, or a cat and an owl in a tree.
They would be sworn enemies on any other day.
This should not happen.
But because they have been taken care of, literally, in this beautiful sanctuary by human beings that are loving them all the time, could that perhaps then spill out and be like, oh, that is how we do that?
joe rogan
Yeah, but that Siegfried and Roy, didn't that put a damper in that idea?
unidentified
Listen, I'm not saying that it's bulletproof, Joe.
zachary levi
I'm not saying it's bulletproof.
We've loved a lot of human beings and they still do horrible things, you know what I mean?
joe rogan
One of the things that Mike Tyson told me is that tigers only like one person.
If you have a tiger, if you have a tiger as a pet, they only like one person.
They don't like all the other people.
And that becomes a real problem.
zachary levi
Oh, yeah.
It'd be a real damper at a pool party.
joe rogan
They only listened to you.
So he had a tiger and didn't want to listen to anybody else, and everybody else was terrified of this fucking tiger.
And Mike's walking around with a chain in his underwear.
But the point is, they don't give a fuck about love.
zachary levi
I understand what you're saying.
joe rogan
I understand what you're saying.
zachary levi
Just theoretically.
There's got to be something to the power of that.
That we have taken so much time and so much energy and so much effort.
And we treat them with...
I mean, dude, humans love dogs more than they love other human beings.
So what are we even fucking talking about?
How often you're like sitting in an outdoor cafe or something like somebody's walking by with a dog or you're walking your dog and there's somebody sitting there and it's not high.
They look at you for half a second.
They go, oh my God, what's its name?
They go straight down to the dog.
They're asking the breed, the age, where is it from?
What is it like to do?
And those all your fucking dogs, happy hobbies and everything.
And that's a thing of the person that's got the dog.
And you just go, oh, thank you so much.
Have a great day.
Because all you wanted to do was be with their dog.
Dogs get all the love.
And look at them.
They are just like love in an animal.
Most of them.
joe rogan
Yeah, but if you let them go and they have to fend for themselves, they turn right back into dogs and they get sketchy and they even kill people sometimes.
zachary levi
Certainly.
But again, I think these are more exceptions to the rule.
For dogs?
Yeah.
And by the way, if people are not loved in a good way for a long time, they regress and we become far more animalistic.
joe rogan
But you don't want to domesticate everything, right?
zachary levi
I'm not sad.
I'm just bringing it up to the point of I think love is that powerful.
I genuinely do.
joe rogan
Love is definitely that powerful for us.
The funny thing is, I'm just fucking around, but this is a thing that always comes up with people when they want to say love is the answer.
Not in the jungle.
It's tooth and claw over most of the world, but we have gotten to a place where love really can do amazing and very beneficial things to our species.
It's because we've figured out a way to get out of the wild.
I don't think you can ever domesticate the wild.
You'll never have a world where those things aren't eating each other.
That's literally the engine that powers the machine.
zachary levi
Like I said, I'm just throwing out ideas.
joe rogan
I know.
I'm not even disagreeing with you.
zachary levi
But I would say, though, that in response to that, A, absolutely noted, but what if?
What if?
This simulation that we're in.
This game that we're all playing, life.
What if there actually is an end-winning goal?
Which is that we all choose love and not fear.
That we all go this way.
And if we all do, if we get our meter all the way up there and get everybody on board with, like, let's be leading in love and not in fear.
Not in the fear and the anger and the hate and all the things that come from that.
But we actually lead this way.
What if that starts energetically, literally changing the world in a way where...
I'm not saying we're all going to be hanging out with Tiger.
joe rogan
I know what you're saying.
I know what you're saying.
zachary levi
I just think that literally the energy of the world would change 100% because love is an energy and fear is an energy.
joe rogan
Well, if you just sign this bill to legalize mushrooms, we can make this a fact, Zach.
That's why I'm here.
zachary levi
Oh, bro.
I hope it does.
joe rogan
If they did, it would change the whole world.
zachary levi
I think it's really wonderful what's going on with psychedelics and treating people for depression and anxiety.
It's incredible.
That is incredible.
And it's way long overdue.
The fact that all of these drugs were put, you know, Schedule 1 and like we couldn't do any research, we couldn't figure anything.
We would be so much farther ahead on all of the CBD, THC, psilocybin, MDMA, whatever.
Like all of these ketamine things that are literally helping people right now could have been helping people forever.
So long!
joe rogan
Also, we would have real studies on what the negative consequences of each individual drug are.
Because right now, it's like you're counting on people.
What happens?
Oh, you get a little bit of a hangover afterwards, that's it.
You're like, what does that mean?
What's happening to my head?
Why does it hurt?
We know about alcohol.
Why?
Because it's legal.
We've had a long time to study.
zachary levi
Which is, by the way, the worst drug.
unidentified
It's the worst!
zachary levi
I mean, I love me some tequila, but it literally is one of the worst things you can put in your body.
joe rogan
It's definitely not good for you.
zachary levi
No.
joe rogan
But it's just weird that we're still accepting this strange situation where a person tells another person what they can and can't do.
zachary levi
Sure.
joe rogan
Even if the original person telling the other person what they can and can't do has no experience in that thing.
zachary levi
Certainly.
joe rogan
And they have this distorted idea.
unidentified
Yeah.
joe rogan
If you talk to a lot of people that are legislators or people writing laws, they don't know jack shit about psychedelics.
zachary levi
Right, but that's case in point.
That's leading in fear.
joe rogan
Yes.
It's leading in ignorance, for sure.
zachary levi
Sure, but I think that's all tied to the same place.
I think ignorance comes out of that fear, ultimately.
You know what I mean?
You're afraid of whatever.
I mean, pick your poison.
But those ladies and gentlemen who are legislators, who are still operating in whatever their fear is, that's what they're choosing.
Instead of...
I mean, look, Rick Perry, he was a conservative dude here in Texas.
He's now, like, he's a...
Huge proponent of psychedelic work with anxiety and depression and all that stuff because I think it affected him personally in his life.
Maybe not him, but somebody in his life.
So it changed him.
And then instead of leading in this fear that he may have led in before, now he's leading in the love of, hey, actually, this can help people and we need it to help people.
joe rogan
Yeah, it's really beneficial for soldiers, really beneficial for people that have been through extreme trauma, car accidents, assaults, that kind of shit.
It helps a lot of people, changes your perspective.
zachary levi
Is this coffee?
joe rogan
Yes, it is.
Would you like some?
zachary levi
Yes, thank you.
joe rogan
But it's a tool.
It's like any other tool.
The tool itself is not evil.
The problem is people abusing that tool.
zachary levi
Exactly.
joe rogan
Just like alcohol.
Everything else, there's so many things that are occasionally beneficial, but can be ultimately detrimental if you overdo it.
zachary levi
Well, 100%.
I mean, look, man, God has given us so many cool things on this planet.
We just, as human beings, we get crooked.
And so then we make it crooked.
But the thing, I mean, look at opium.
One of the greatest pain relievers that's, I mean, basically still is, right?
All of the synthetics are all basically still being made to simulate something like opium.
It just grows out of the ground.
And we can use that to help people if they have amputations and all the ways that we've been using it.
But if all of a sudden you're super smacked out all the time because you're hooked on some fucking, you know, opioids and that crisis and the fentanyl crisis and why?
Why?
Money.
All money.
joe rogan
Yeah, all money.
And the problem is it's also they're illegal.
And when they're illegal, that means you can sell them under prescription medication.
Yeah.
So a doctor can prescribe you for opiates and then you could have a legitimate use for it because your back does hurt and then you can get them.
zachary levi
Yeah.
joe rogan
But that's the only way to get them, unless you're out there buying them on the free market.
And if you're just buying them on the free market, no one can sell them to you unless they're drug dealers.
And the drug dealers are all the ones making money, and they're not paying any fucking taxes.
And if you keep it illegal, I bet the same amount of people would be using drugs.
I bet if we knew, with education, I think we can lower it, but I bet the same amount of people would be doing drugs if we just legalized everything.
I bet it would even out.
I bet it would actually drop a little bit.
zachary levi
They have done studies.
I mean, there are some cases already in Colorado.
I read an article not too long ago that Colorado's marijuana usage has dropped.
joe rogan
Yeah.
Because it's too fucking strong.
Have you tried some of that shit?
Colorado's not fucking around, man.
zachary levi
No, no, no.
joe rogan
Colorado has some preposterous marijuana, because they were first to the game.
zachary levi
I know.
joe rogan
Warren Buffett invested in grow-ops there.
zachary levi
Yeah.
joe rogan
He invested in warehouses that they would put these, because a lot of them, they grow them indoors.
zachary levi
Oh yeah, almost all of them.
I've been to some really interesting grow houses before.
Oklahoma actually has...
It's medically cool there.
I think they're going to be working toward making it recreational as well.
Which I hope they do.
I think it would be great for the state, for taxes, for all of the things that could be done with that.
And allowing people to have more liberty in that regard.
Because I think we ought to have that.
I think it's...
It's preposterous that we're all allowed to drink booze, which has some of the worst, you know, ultimate effects in our bodies and the decision making that we do.
And yet these other things are still seen with so much stigma.
It's like, guys, come on again, choosing fear, fear, fear, fear.
And it's like, guys, there's some of this stuff is really good for you.
It's really good for you.
joe rogan
Yeah, and the amount of money that could be generated for tax revenue, too.
Colorado had some crazy tax on weed.
zachary levi
Yeah.
joe rogan
It was like, I don't remember what it was, but it was very high.
I'm like, good.
Good.
Still cheap.
Still cheaper than alcohol, and maybe that money will go to good.
Maybe we could actually use that money.
unidentified
Yeah.
joe rogan
Let's put it in education.
Put it in cleaning streets.
Put it in, like, fuck yeah.
It's, you know...
It should be legal if you can find a benefit.
But in the beginning, one of the things that happened with the Colorado people was they weren't letting them use credit cards.
zachary levi
Well, they're still doing that in California.
joe rogan
That's wild.
zachary levi
Yeah, you can only use a debit card.
joe rogan
I bought weed with a credit card before in California.
Yeah, 100%.
I bought it at a dispensary.
zachary levi
Are you sure that wasn't a debit card that looked like a credit card?
joe rogan
No, no, no.
It was a credit card, for sure.
zachary levi
When was that?
joe rogan
I started buying weed from a dispensary in the 90s.
It was probably like...
98 or something like that?
zachary levi
And they took a credit card?
joe rogan
Yes, they took a credit card.
zachary levi
Interesting.
joe rogan
Yeah.
And then that was the Inglewood Wellness Center.
We used to have to go to the hood to get our weed because that was like one of the only places where you could buy weed.
I don't remember that place.
Yeah.
Legally?
I definitely know I bought credit card weed.
zachary levi
Because it was medical at that point?
joe rogan
Yeah, it was medical at that point.
unidentified
Gotcha, gotcha, gotcha.
joe rogan
So we used to go down there to get weed, but it was...
Super sketch.
The situation was super sketch because everybody knew that they were selling weed there and everybody knew there was a lot of cash in there.
unidentified
Oh, yeah.
joe rogan
And so one of the guys that I used to buy from wound up getting shot.
unidentified
Fuck.
joe rogan
Yeah, he got robbed in the store and shot.
unidentified
Oh, fuck.
zachary levi
Did he live?
joe rogan
I believe he lived.
unidentified
Oh, fuck.
joe rogan
Yeah, I had stopped going there.
But, um...
He was the dude that was putting his neck out in the 90s when it was like, is this really legal?
Because I know a guy, my friend Todd McCormick got arrested for growing medical weed in accordance to California state law, but he got arrested on federal charges.
And they wouldn't even let him bring up the fact that it was medical weed that was legal in the state of California, because in federal law, there's no such thing as legal weed.
zachary levi
Oh, that's right!
Federally was still illegal.
joe rogan
So you couldn't even bring it up.
Oh, what?!
Yep.
So his trial consisted of them saying, did you have weed?
Yes.
Did you sell weed?
Yes.
Okay, you're guilty.
And they put him in jail.
zachary levi
Fucked up.
joe rogan
And you literally were not allowed to bring up the fact that it was legal in California and that it was medical marijuana for people who have prescriptions.
I had this one doctor that I was going to though.
He was crazy as fuck.
I went to him and then...
zachary levi
Did he have a peg leg?
joe rogan
Oh, he was so nuts.
He had like all the new things, like new gadgets.
You want to put like electrodes on your skin.
And so one day I went to him and he gives me this book.
I go, what is this book?
And it's got like the twin towers on it.
He's like, the towers were dissolved using Tesla energy.
I go, what?
He goes, it's impossible to turn concrete into dust.
The towers were dissolved using Tesla energy.
unidentified
I'm like, Was that the last time you saw that doctor?
It was the last time I saw a doctor.
joe rogan
I was like, Jesus Christ.
Jesus Christ.
I saved the book.
I saved the book, too.
The book is so stupid.
The book is so stupid, I pick it up every now and then and go, what the fuck is this?
It's so wild.
Tesla energy.
zachary levi
That's a leap.
That's a leap.
unidentified
Some people...
zachary levi
Although Tesla was fucking dope, man.
joe rogan
Tesla was dope.
zachary levi
That guy, I literally think that guy is also a great example of somebody who was like in touch with understanding that...
joe rogan
There's something going on.
zachary levi
Yeah.
joe rogan
Yeah.
zachary levi
But I think that's a part of being connected to that energy, to that God energy.
I think you can tap into that kind of shit.
And I think Tesla absolutely was.
Like that guy was next level genius.
joe rogan
He believes he was getting signals.
zachary levi
Yes.
joe rogan
That was one of the things that he said, that he believed he was getting signals from some other planet.
unidentified
Yeah.
zachary levi
But I think that was God though.
joe rogan
Personally.
zachary levi
It might have been...
I mean, look, dude.
joe rogan
It could be.
zachary levi
It could have been an alien.
unidentified
Who knows?
joe rogan
No, I mean, I think that word, that word God, the problem is people think of the dude in the robe and the beard.
zachary levi
Oh, I get that.
I mean, look, I use it in a very general sense.
I can tell.
Yeah, yeah.
I don't...
It's more just because...
Like it or lump it, it's the word that we all know that represents that concept.
You know what I mean?
joe rogan
It most certainly could be.
All of your ideas could be coming from that sort of life force that created the universe.
Because I've always said this, that the one thing that's weird about ideas is that it's the only way that things get made.
So what is an idea?
An idea is literally like a thing that enters into your mind and causes you to create things.
If you were an alien thought, like an alien life form, and the way you made things work is you got into this creature's brain and you put thoughts in there as to what to do and what not to do.
And if you're Nikola Tesla, They put thoughts in there about, oh, you need to fucking figure it out or just spray electricity through the air to everybody.
zachary levi
And sit under it.
joe rogan
I mean, he was a guy that was constantly coming up with ideas.
And then through his ideas, things get made.
zachary levi
Yeah.
joe rogan
But it's like the idea, it's almost like a life form that forces itself- It's a creative thought.
zachary levi
It's a creative thought process, and it's something that we don't see.
Not that other animals don't display some levels of creativity, because they do, but by and large, they're not sitting around being like, how do I make my day easier?
What can I do?
They're all just still living, by the way, until they're totally torn up by some predator or whatever, they're living pretty great lives.
They're in constant state of parasympathetic.
You know, they'll jump into sympathetic for moments at a time, like when you're hunting down an elk or whatever.
And then they get, and they're like, all right, come back to life now.
I'm just going to go right back into chilling.
I'm not worrying about my taxes.
I'm not worrying about my relationships.
I'm not worrying about work or anything else.
It's either I'm worrying about surviving or I'm living my life.
You know?
It's fascinating.
But...
I think with Tesla, yeah, I think that creative thinking, which seems to be very, you know, not singularly, but almost singularly human being, that is a difference in these crazy, amazing, special brains that we have.
And I think that, yeah, they tap into something greater.
joe rogan
It definitely is very capable, the human being, the human animal, is very capable of making new things.
And new things all come out of ideas.
I mean, we like to think that ideas are our own, but imagine if they really are just out there and you're tuning into them, and it's just a matter of like sitting down and clearing your schedule to tune into them, or occasionally driving your car and you tune into them.
zachary levi
Yeah.
I mean, that's a meditative state, essentially, you know?
I've absolutely had so many...
When I was first starting in acting, I grew up in Ventura, California, and about an hour, you know, northwest from L.A., and the first three years I commuted down to L.A. for all my auditions, so I was on the 101 all the time.
There were so many mornings where I'd get in my car, I would, you know, start the day with like a prayer or something like that.
I'm just driving.
And I would forget to turn my radio on.
I would just be lost in thought.
joe rogan
Right.
zachary levi
And not only does the trip, you know, you ever driving some long distance and, but you know the distance and it feels like you blink and 30 miles went by.
You have no idea.
You don't remember seeing any of that at all.
joe rogan
Yeah.
zachary levi
It's like that meditative state that you find yourself in.
You know, maybe in some ways it's like a, you know, a version of a not as great version of as your, your, um, sensory depth.
Yeah, your float tank.
unidentified
Yeah.
zachary levi
Because your brain is on autopilot.
You're driving a stretch.
You've driven all the time.
You're totally on autopilot.
You're good.
And now you're just wandering in thought.
And you do.
You tap into a lot of cool things that way, I think.
And that's meditation in general.
Prayer and meditation is hugely important.
joe rogan
It's the same as going for a walk, right?
What's one of the things that writers love to do?
They like to write and then go for a walk and bring a tape recorder.
And just like to just record their ideas as they're walking because sometimes just the process of walking around after writing is like a meditative state.
zachary levi
Yeah.
Or also, do you ever find yourself pacing like on a phone call or something like that?
joe rogan
Yeah.
zachary levi
I think there's a similar thing in that too.
It's like you're focusing so much on whatever business is going on in that phone call and you're just putting yourself in this kind of like autopilot of a move.
Yeah.
joe rogan
Well, I feel like I talk better when I do that.
You know, like I get a little bit of circulation.
zachary levi
Sure.
joe rogan
Like if it's a very important conversation, I'm not going to sit down.
Yeah, yeah, totally.
I'm going to get up.
zachary levi
100%, yeah.
You're going to walk around, you're pacing around.
And again, people have been doing that shit forever.
Forever.
I mean, pacing is like an absolute thinkers kind of a thing.
You're trying to solve some shit.
joe rogan
Yeah, that's what's so fascinating about the human animal, right?
It's like we are so many different things.
We're biological, but we're also intellectual.
We're creative and loving and silly and mean.
And then we're all like living in this physical shell.
And how well you take care of your physical shell depends on how the physical shell feels and treats you.
If you abuse it and treat it like shit, then you have this fucking achy Jacked up, sloppy thing that doesn't have any air in it.
You know, you're just tired all the time.
Or if you take care of it, you feel good.
And you can make other people feel good too.
And it's like we're these weird piles of ideas and life experiences.
And we're all just trying to sort through things in real time.
And then there's people that take advantage of that.
And they'll try to be mean to you if you don't think the way they think.
And they'll...
You know, they'll use excuses as to why they're being a fucking asshole.
zachary levi
Choosing fear.
joe rogan
Yeah, but it's just being mean, but you're being mean on the side of good.
zachary levi
But again, that's still, yes, 100%, but that's still them, ultimately, they're fearing the other side of the conversation because their ego is kicking on, their fight or flight is literally kicking in.
They're like, I don't know enough about whatever this is that I'm talking about to be able to even allow for that conversation to come in because it could totally destroy the scaffolding of what my identity is pinned on.
joe rogan
There's a lot of that, yeah.
zachary levi
So we have to be empathetic to people in that regard and be like, okay, I understand why you're being so cross.
I understand why you're pushing back so much.
But ultimately, if we can point out to everybody, hey, work on yourself.
Love yourself so that you feel like you can invest in yourself.
And as you love yourself better, you'll recognize how to love other people outside of you better because in order to love yourself, you gotta give yourself a fucking break, man.
You gotta give yourself a break.
And we don't give anybody a break.
Nobody's giving anybody a fucking break anymore.
Like, guys, we're human beings.
We're fucked up.
We're all a little broken and messed up.
And if we can't just acknowledge that and see each other, you know, it doesn't mean, again, it doesn't mean that people aren't assholes on the other side and doing things that need to have boundaries.
Loving is not just liking times a thousand.
To like something is to like something, but to love something means just recognizing the miracle in the soul across from you.
Recognizing that they exist and they are worthy of existing.
They are worthy of being in this space that they're inhabiting, even if they're a fucking asshole.
And then having boundaries with those people so that, you know, it's not a matter of just giving.
People say, like, how do I forgive this person and make sure that they don't do this to me again?
I go, no, no.
Forgiveness isn't just being like, and we're cool.
That's not forgiveness.
Forgiveness is recognizing that they didn't do anything to you personally.
They did something.
They're acting out of their shitty trauma, their programming, more often than not, you know?
joe rogan
I just also think we have to kind of reward an ethic of trying to be nice and sort of do our best to not reward people that are just constantly being shitty.
Because there's just so many people that are getting attention from being shitty, constantly being shitty.
They're just putting this thing out there.
It's like, alright.
That's really what you want to do.
You're putting out this negative energy like constantly, and you're complaining about things, and you're finding reasons to be mean about people, to shit on people.
zachary levi
Because they're terrified.
joe rogan
Well, they're broken, right?
zachary levi
Yeah, but deep down, they're very afraid of whatever it is on the other side of that conversation.
They're just terrified.
And by the way, it's on both sides of the aisle.
Oh, yeah.
Terrified of these ideas this side terrified of these not being able to just come together man.
I wish we had I wish we had some like Jedi council of just the smartest deepest most enlightened Deeply empathetic, genius people, symposium, whatever, 20 people, and just allow them to get together and all just agree on like, can we just decide some of these things that we're all fighting about?
Can we just come together and make some really neutral ground so we can do this?
joe rogan
Do you know of anyone that you would trust to be on that council?
Like how many people do you think would have to be on that?
zachary levi
I don't know.
I mean, again...
joe rogan
Let's say nine people.
Should we say nine people?
unidentified
Okay.
joe rogan
Let's say nine.
zachary levi
Nine people.
joe rogan
Do you know of nine people whose opinion you would value so highly that they wouldn't say something so egregiously stupid that you'd go, what the fuck, man?
You know?
Yeah.
See, these people can't be like politicians.
They have to be chosen.
zachary levi
No, no, no, no, no.
They can't be picked.
Politicians, oh man, it just breaks my heart.
It breaks my heart how fucked up our entire political system is.
It's so sad.
It is so fucking sad.
joe rogan
It's so weird.
zachary levi
It's so weird and it's so bought.
Everyone's bought.
The lobbyists bought everything and everyone and we're all just looking around being like, how is this all not working?
It's because the Fucking money, guys!
Just follow the goddamn money.
Yeah.
I don't know.
I mean, like, the Dalai Lama?
You know, like, legitimately, like, I don't know that he's...
joe rogan
You know he got canceled?
zachary levi
The Dalai Lama got canceled?
joe rogan
The Dalai Lama got canceled.
He was saying a bunch of sexist shit.
unidentified
What?
joe rogan
Yeah, he was, uh...
zachary levi
Well, here's the thing.
joe rogan
It was a while back.
Let me remember what he was saying.
Oh, he was talking about how...
He doesn't want to get married, and he sees his friends that are all married, and a lot of times they get divorced and they lose all their money.
And then this lady goes, well, sometimes a woman has her own money.
She makes her own money.
He goes, yeah, good one.
unidentified
What?
zachary levi
The Dalai Lama said that?
joe rogan
Yes, yes.
zachary levi
Oh, wow.
joe rogan
Dalai Lama got jokes.
He made in 2015 that if a female Dalai Lama were to replace him, that she must be very attractive.
Otherwise, not so much use.
zachary levi
Wow, Dolly.
unidentified
Hello, Dolly.
joe rogan
He laughed when asked if he understood why the response had offended women, saying, if female Dalai Lama comes, then she should be more attractive.
If female Dalai Lama, before putting on a face, I think, ugly face, people prefer not to see her that face.
The Dalai Lama also said they had not given up hope of returning to Tibet.
But there was another thing where he was doing an interview about that.
And that's where he said, the woman would say, well, sometimes women have their own money.
And he's like, oh, yeah, good one.
unidentified
Yeah.
zachary levi
Well, so here's the thing.
Actually, that brings me to another point, which is...
This council, these nine people, guess what?
joe rogan
What?
zachary levi
They're all still going to have shit about them that somebody's not going to like, right?
Because we're all humans.
At the end of the day, we've all got some weird baggage.
We've all got something.
But that's why you have such an array and diversity of those people.
So that compensates for all of that stuff.
joe rogan
So we give the Dalai Lama a pass.
I get it.
I don't know.
So we have nine people.
We've got Dalai Lama.
Ted Nugent.
zachary levi
You know, honestly, man, I... I think one of the deepest thinkers that I've ever heard break down like human behavior and I don't know.
Just an understanding of all that stuff and I think good wisdom along with it is Jordan Peterson.
I think he would be a person that I would trust.
I think that guy has a lot of integrity.
That would be somebody too.
But I also know Jordan has his own things that people have issues with.
I get it.
Nobody's perfect.
joe rogan
He's kicked off Twitter right now because he said something about Ellen Page.
Elliot Page.
Calder Ellen Page.
I think that was the number one thing.
The dead naming.
zachary levi
And it's sad, man.
Because again, there's a lot of fear and pain on the sides of all that too.
joe rogan
My friend Brian Simpson had a very good thing to say about that.
He was like, I come to you for heavy duty intellectual shit.
He goes, not for this.
zachary levi
Yeah, true.
unidentified
This is not a thing to be getting offended about.
zachary levi
You don't need to get into all that.
I mean, look, it's his life, it's his Twitter, or was his Twitter anyway.
joe rogan
But that thing is like, that transgender thing riles people up, man.
That is one of the ones that riles people up.
Like, everybody's in favor of everybody doing whatever they want to do as long as it doesn't hurt anybody and Until it gets to gender, and then people start getting weird.
They start thinking it's a mistake.
They start thinking, why are you doing that?
They start thinking all kinds of things.
It's like, we're so cool with people making all kinds of changes to their body.
No one's protesting fake boobs.
No one.
zachary levi
I mean, that would just be stupid.
joe rogan
Well, it's one of the most preposterous things a human being has ever done.
You open up a person's chest cavity and put bags of chemicals in there because they feel like real tits.
And everybody's like, yeah, that's what we do.
It's totally normal.
zachary levi
And all that's in response to what our beauty norms are, ultimately.
joe rogan
Well, it's a response to DNA. Your DNA wants you to see a small waist and big hips and big boobs so that you can feed and nourish the baby.
zachary levi
Yeah, but beauty norms have also shifted a lot over the years, too.
unidentified
Like, there was a long stretch where, like, the thicker the better.
zachary levi
Like, you know, ladies in paintings and stuff like that.
Because that meant you were wealthy.
That meant you had so much food and wealth and look at me.
You know, like, that was totally a thing.
So, I don't know.
joe rogan
Right, but they didn't have media.
The moment they had the ability to see different ones and figure out which ones they liked, things got pretty standard.
There's like a certain form that is generally preferred to as being most attractive.
But there's also people that have tastes.
Like some guys who like this and some people like that.
There's all sorts of different tastes.
But when it comes to physical attraction, there's like a weird shape.
And you can manipulate a man's brain by altering your shape with bags of chemicals.
unidentified
Yeah.
joe rogan
It's strange.
zachary levi
It's very strange.
joe rogan
And now they're doing it to their butts.
They're doing stuff to their butts to make their butts fake.
And it's just, it's a wild time.
Because it's like, whatever that is, is you're playing with the geometry that's inside a human's mind.
zachary levi
Yeah.
joe rogan
Because we all know it's fake.
zachary levi
Yeah.
joe rogan
That's what's really strange.
zachary levi
Well, sometimes you can't tell it's fake.
unidentified
Boobs?
Yeah.
joe rogan
Very rarely.
If you get a real pair of them in 2022, you're like, holy shit.
unidentified
Yeah.
joe rogan
It's like finding an arrowhead.
Look at this.
This is wild.
zachary levi
Can you believe it?
joe rogan
These are real boobs.
They're out there.
I know they're out there.
But it's also like if people get really lean, that's the other thing.
If people are like super lean and cross-fitting and shit like that, it's like your mammary glands are going to be smaller.
Everything's going to be smaller.
zachary levi
Oh yeah, totally.
joe rogan
You're going to get lean.
zachary levi
Oh, it's like gymnasts.
I mean, you know, those girls, they grow up, that's all they're doing their whole life.
All of that, a lot of their body growth stunts in those ways because they're just units.
joe rogan
Yeah.
Yeah, exactly.
Being a person is just such a fucking strange enterprise.
It's so strange because, you know, when we're thinking about all these different things about human beings, about transgender rights and the Council of Jedis and We've only been around for a short amount of time.
zachary levi
Yeah, we're specs, man.
joe rogan
We're talking about 1776. You know, we celebrated Independence Day yesterday.
And here we are today.
We're filming this, recording this on July 5th.
It's only a few hundred years away from the revolution.
zachary levi
Oh, yeah, dude.
joe rogan
Less than 300 years ago that shit happened.
zachary levi
But also, you know, it's one of the things I always like to point out to people.
Like, you know, what are you chasing if you're trying to chase some kind of monument of yourself?
Like, what are...
All the people that are so wealthy and are trying...
Like, maybe if I make enough money, I'll be remembered forever.
Bullshit.
It's never going to happen.
There are...
I mean, how many people...
We're involved in the founding of this country.
We don't know their names for fucking anybody.
You don't.
They're not even footnotes anymore.
joe rogan
We know Jefferson.
We know quite a few people.
unidentified
Certainly.
zachary levi
But there were so many people that were involved in all this stuff.
Also, go back farther.
Emperors that held power over entire empires.
Somebody can be marched into their throne room, and they can look at them and be like, give me the sword.
unidentified
Pop!
zachary levi
Head off.
Nobody does anything about it.
They have ultimate power.
We don't remember all of their names.
They're all forgotten.
So what are people hanging on to all this stuff for?
You're going to, in a hundred years, It's not going to even be a conversation.
Life will have moved on, or a meteor will have hit us by that point.
Who knows?
joe rogan
We're confused.
We're confused in the fact that human beings are constantly trying to do the same things that corporations are trying to do.
We're constantly trying to do better and constantly trying to stack up more shit, buy more stuff, have more success.
zachary levi
But why?
joe rogan
Yeah, we don't know why.
zachary levi
Because we're afraid of not being enough.
joe rogan
Well, it's also because there's some sort of an innate desire to constantly feed into the creation of new things.
Whatever we do as a culture, one of the things that we do is we create new things all the time, constantly.
zachary levi
Certainly.
joe rogan
New televisions, better phones, better cameras.
zachary levi
Which is great.
Progress, you're not going to stop progress.
You can only guide it.
You know what I mean?
It's going to keep marching forward.
We're going to keep having new things and new things and new things and new things.
I just wish that we did it not because it's all status, which is so much of what it has become.
It's not because the thing actually has a great utility, although there's that as well.
But like these little black mirrors, man, I mean, they are...
They are the greatest Swiss army knife ever created in the history of mankind.
You can do more things with that one thing.
I mean, it's insane what you can do.
And it's also the deepest narcissist pool to stare into because you just get lost in all of that nonsense that you're comparing yourself to all the time, which then drives that consumerism even more.
You're like, I gotta have the thing, the thing, the thing.
joe rogan
It's also a tracking device that the government uses to listen to this very conversation.
They don't even have to use Spotify.
They can just listen to it on our phones.
zachary levi
I've heard, in fact, I think I even heard somebody on your podcast once talk about how that's not true, that they don't listen through our phones.
joe rogan
Listen to me.
It's 100% possible for them to do that.
zachary levi
I think it is too, because the advertisements that I get on my phones are far too specific.
And I don't believe it's something like triangulation because of whatever.
I've heard people talk about that.
unidentified
No, no, no, no.
zachary levi
I was talking about a very specific thing, and that very specific thing popped up on my phone.
They have to be listening to me.
joe rogan
It's not uncommon, and it's never admitted to.
zachary levi
No, ever.
joe rogan
But that's just normal shit.
That's normal shit.
The tracking you're getting from advertising, the cross-platform tracking from apps to apps, that's all normal shit.
The real shit is the government is listening to your fucking phone.
zachary levi
Oh, you're talking specifically about the government?
joe rogan
Yeah, anytime they want, they can listen to your phone.
I had Gavin DeBecker on, and he explained these Pegasus softwares.
He's like, the original Pegasus, the one they used Jeff Bezos, they got dick pics from him and shit like that.
Oh, okay.
zachary levi
The government got Bezos dick pics?
joe rogan
It's not the government.
There's an Israeli spyware called Pegasus, and another government, the Saudi Arabian government, tapped into his phone, and they sent him a WhatsApp link.
And the WhatsApp link, he clicked on it.
And when he clicked on it, it downloaded malware into his phone.
unidentified
Wow.
joe rogan
And it allowed them to literally see everything that's on his phone.
He goes, that's Pegasus 1. He's like, Pegasus 2?
They don't even need you to click a link.
Like, the government can just hit a switch and they're connected to your phone.
zachary levi
And just send you the malware.
joe rogan
No, there's no malware anymore.
They can just tap into your phone.
zachary levi
Oh, got it, got it.
joe rogan
They use this.
You don't have any idea they're doing it, and they're listening to your phone.
You're reading all your emails.
They're reading all your text messages.
And he's like, this is a 100% real technology that's available right now to governments.
zachary levi
So let me ask you a question then.
So what's the prognosis?
What is the world going to be like in 10 years if these technologies are not just very real, but very much being implemented, and they're just the tip of whatever this particular iceberg is?
joe rogan
Well, it depends, Zach, on whether or not you're going to be compliant.
If you're going to be compliant, we're going to have a good time.
We're going to have a good time together, but we're going to need equity.
We're going to need equality and equity and a lot of other words that make you give up all of your sovereignty and your power and rights.
We're all going to be together in one cubicle, just mushed in together.
No one has a better life.
unidentified
Well...
zachary levi
Yeah, that's terrifying.
But I think that we can help everybody have a better life and not go down some dystopian weird shit like that.
joe rogan
It's definitely possible.
zachary levi
Because everyone, again, everyone needs to be loved.
I mean, I don't know.
joe rogan
That's what every human person wants.
Every human person wants love.
That's it.
zachary levi
Needs.
Needs love.
joe rogan
Yeah, and when they don't get it, they get sick.
That's what happens.
When people are really angry and they lash out, it's almost always, like, if we looked at love like a quantitative thing, like, oh, look at there, Zach, you're low in vitamin D. If they could say, oh, you have, like, 10% love, this is not good.
zachary levi
Yeah.
joe rogan
Like, you need way more love.
unidentified
Yes.
joe rogan
The problem is we just can't measure it.
But if you went to a doctor and you're like, I'm depressed.
zachary levi
And they had some kind of, yeah.
joe rogan
And they're like, oh my god, this is right here, it's love, you're missing love.
zachary levi
I mean, trust me, man.
I struggle with depression So much throughout my life.
Even as a kid, I didn't know I was depressed or dealing with anxiety or whatever.
joe rogan
Did you find different methods that helped you relieve it?
zachary levi
Yeah.
Well, so, yeah.
Ultimately, at 37, I talk about it in the book, but at 37, when I moved out to Austin, I had a whole meltdown.
And thank God, I was surrounded by some friends and family that helped kind of pick me up and get me to this program that's up.
And they operate out of...
Southern California, Connecticut, and I chose to go to Connecticut for three weeks of this super intensive, life-changing, life-saving therapy.
I threw the psychological kitchen sink at it.
It was three weeks, every day, at least three or four appointments that were one of either a psychiatrist, psychotherapist, Dialectic behavioral therapist, art therapist, meditation therapist, life coach, nutritionist, gym four days a week, yoga twice a week, Pilates twice a week.
And that helped me tremendously, and I learned a lot of modalities and things from all of that.
But that wasn't until, you know, five years ago.
The rest of my life, I'd been coping by fucking...
Boozing and drugging and sexing, you know what I mean?
I didn't realize how much self-medicating I was doing for so long.
And I wish that there would have been some way for anyone to be able to be like, I'm just going to see what your levels are.
Because I didn't even know.
I didn't know that what I was constantly feeling all the time.
Well, anxiety, I was constantly feeling all the time.
Depression would hit me in these moments where...
Basically, I'd have massive dopamine crashes, as I think I've come to find out.
I would finish a job, or I'd get out of a relationship, or I wouldn't be working for a while, and all of a sudden it's like, I'm worthless, I'm worthless, I'm worthless.
Work always kept me buoyed.
If I'm at work, it's dopamine all day long.
Particularly on a movie set or whatever.
It's all just a bunch of little puzzles.
You're just solving little problems all day long.
Dopamine, dopamine, dopamine, dopamine.
Being on a Broadway stage.
You got a thousand people.
I mean, you understand the rush of a live audience.
Fuck, you're feeding off of that energy.
You know and you're playing jazz with this crowd.
I mean it's incredible so much dopamine and I would get off you know doing a Broadway show I'd be flying after the show and then I would go to the bar with some of my cast mates and I would be drinking whiskey gingers like Till 3 in the morning because I didn't even have to be at work the next day until 6 p.m.
Or whatever and it was all just a ton of Self-medicating because I didn't love myself and I didn't know that I didn't love myself and Wow, so you just thought you were partying.
Yeah, basically.
joe rogan
Yeah.
zachary levi
I think that's what a lot of people think.
joe rogan
You have a moment where it just comes crashing down.
Is it a moment?
Is it a series of moments?
zachary levi
No, it was like, you know, I had this big dream, still do, of moving out here, buying a bunch of land, building a movie studio slash arts commune slash resort.
That's kind of like a new United Artists studio.
joe rogan
Someone sounds like a cult leader.
zachary levi
Why do you think I came to Texas, bro?
And so, you know, head full of steam and dreams and all that, and I was so convinced, like, this is what I'm supposed to do with the rest of my life.
I want to make a better Hollywood, all these things.
joe rogan
Right.
zachary levi
And I came out, but I had, like, my work life wasn't great at the moment.
Like, the jobs I was doing, I wasn't stoked with.
I was, again, feeling like a failure.
I had just broken up with this girl, wonderful girl, who was from Austin, who probably would have moved here with me, but I self-sabotaged it all and was like, no, I don't think this is going to work.
And I came out here, I had no real support structure, and my friends and family had a beautiful community in Los Angeles, but I was like, I gotta go.
I feel compelled, I gotta go do this, I gotta go buy this land.
And I'm really grateful that I did, but I didn't do it in the healthiest of ways.
And so I ended up out here, and I was alone.
And I was deeply, deeply feeling like, oh, I've blown up my life.
I don't feel support.
I didn't feel like I felt like a lot of my friends and family were watching me Go in this kind of almost manic state of like I gotta fuck you know like just if I don't do it now I'm not gonna do it and I knew I had to get out of California like California was has been broken for so long and I'd love California I'm from California, but it's it's just so busted in so many ways But so I came out had nobody had no real support structure work wasn't great love life wasn't great all these things were just like falling down on me and so Massive just Spiral into darkness.
joe rogan
Damn.
zachary levi
Yeah, it was gnarly.
I mean, even went to...
I mean, I was definitely considering killing myself, and it wasn't the first time that I'd ideated on certain thoughts like that.
If ultimately committing suicide is like a 10-rung ladder, I was at rung 9 a couple of times.
A couple of times in my life, yeah.
It was gnarly.
But I didn't realize that the reason why you get there is because your hormones are all completely out of whack.
My dopamine, my serotonin, my norepinephrine, all these things that are typically, you know, and me going and drugging and boozing doesn't help balance those things either.
But you don't know that.
You're just chasing.
Like, I got to be happy.
I don't know how else to get through all this stuff, you know?
joe rogan
Yeah.
zachary levi
So all of that just came...
Oh, I quit smoking when I moved here, too.
Like all this, everything!
It was so intense.
But anyway, this place changed my life.
It saved my life.
But I will also mention, though, that It gave me a lot of understanding of my own psychology and just psychology in general, I suppose.
But I'm learning all these things about how to, like, love yourself more.
That's great.
You can learn all that knowledge.
But if you still don't believe that you are worthy of being loved, you won't apply any of it.
You don't care about any of it.
You don't see the value in yourself to want to put that work in, you know?
And so, thank God, there was this woman...
Her name is Beth in the book.
She was...
We had these, like...
Like, companions, basically.
Like, house moms.
Because if somebody's not in a very good place, you can't depend on them to, like, get up and, like, make themselves breakfast and get to your appointments and all that kind of jazz.
It was a very nice place that really took care of you.
It was built for, like, CEOs that were having massive burnout and all that jazz.
Like, lots of depression and things of that nature.
But anyway, we had these companions and they would rotate through.
Lovely women, all of them.
But there was one, Beth, who...
Was a mom of three kids, just like me and my sisters, middle boy between two girls.
And her son also struggled with mental health.
And she turned out to be this angel, man.
Like this total God loved me through that woman in the most intense, amazing ways.
And she doesn't take credit like she did it.
She knows she was just a vessel.
She was just a tool that God got to show me.
Mother's love like really kind of for the first not the first time I know my mom loved me and tried to do her best particularly I've done I've done all the therapy I know that my mom did her best but it still left me with so many holes Particularly with that maternal you know trauma and so this woman ended up at least like just lighting the the pilot light you know just getting me started so that I could didn't you know take that journey on and go go about it more on my own and There's real people like that out there, right?
joe rogan
That term healer is a gross word because a lot of people use it when they're just crazy charlatans.
But there are people out there that are capable of helping you heal because they're so kind and so loving that the feeling you get when you're around them is like a medicine.
Yeah.
It's like how we were talking about if you could register love, like if you could look in your blood and go, oh, your zinc levels are good, but your love is down.
If that was a real thing, I bet we would think about it differently, because then we would think about it as something, because now that we can measure it, we would think about it as something that's actually a tangible physical thing that's necessary.
But it is.
We know it, in fact, in terms of the way people feel.
zachary levi
I think that the best Thing we can do, the best proxy, which is not even a best proxy.
It actually works quite well, which is getting your level checked is going into a therapist and sitting down and talking about some stuff.
And allowing them, you know, a professional, to be able to assess, like, are you feeling anxious?
Are you feeling depressed?
Are you feeling lost?
Are you feeling angry?
You know, get all these things out.
They can then be that mirror back and say, hey, I think that maybe you're operating in this world.
And let's help, you know, psychologically, you know, chiropractor you back into being a happier, healthier version, stronger version of yourself.
Because it would be great to just be like, boop, there you go, there's the level.
But therapists are, I mean, that's why I think everybody needs to go to therapy.
Not everybody needs to go to therapy to live.
Like plenty of people don't go to therapy and they live their life and whatever, but I ultimately think that we would all benefit no matter what.
No matter what.
Even people that are super together to just go to talk to a professional about even a few things.
It just gets those extra kinks out and helps you live a stronger, more vibrant life and better version of yourself.
joe rogan
The sensory deprivation tank is like going to a therapist in a lot of ways.
You're forced to look at your thoughts.
You're forced to sit there and sit with them.
If you're the type of person that examines your thoughts, If you don't, you're going to go on some weird ride when you're in there.
But when you are the type of person that examines your thoughts, you're left alone with them.
You don't feel your body at all.
You're really alone with your thoughts.
Some of them look really silly when they're by themselves.
unidentified
Yeah.
zachary levi
Yeah.
I think psilocybin gives some real introspection like that, too.
You're just asking, like your ego, like the way it can melt ego.
joe rogan
Sure.
zachary levi
And just be sitting there like, why am I so hung up on this thing or that thing?
Or why am I afraid of this or that, you know?
joe rogan
Or it'll show you.
zachary levi
Yeah, totally.
joe rogan
It'll just stick it right in front of your face.
Like, this is it, dummy.
zachary levi
Yeah, for real.
joe rogan
Get it together, bitch.
zachary levi
For real.
I'm definitely going to come back and use that sensory deprivation tank.
joe rogan
One time.
Come on by.
zachary levi
I'm going to do it so bad.
joe rogan
Yeah.
zachary levi
I've heard so many great things about it, but I've just never had access to it.
joe rogan
Well, there's a place in Austin that rents them out.
We should tell people.
What is that?
unidentified
There's a float place.
zachary levi
Oh, is it called something like Float?
joe rogan
I think it might be actually called Float, yeah.
zachary levi
Float House?
joe rogan
Yeah.
Hold on a second.
I'll tell you right now.
jamie vernon
I know there's the Ocean Lab does it, and there might be a place called Float also.
joe rogan
Yeah.
Kevin Johnson is the guy who owns it.
Yeah, I'm pretty sure it's just called Float.
Yep, that's it.
zachary levi
What are those sessions normally when you think?
Like a hundred bucks for an hour?
joe rogan
Probably something like that.
I don't know what they charge.
The Float Lab is the place that I got my tank from and they're the premier float tank manufacturers.
They're in Venice.
And so my friend Crash runs that place.
He's got one in Venice and I think they also have another one still and I believe it's in Westwood.
California, but they make the best tanks.
Did you see all that crazy gear and shit?
It's all like, bro.
zachary levi
I was like, oh wow, this is a commitment.
You need a whole ass room.
joe rogan
Yeah, you need a whole room for a float tank.
But he can make a smaller one with still adequate filtration, but that's like top of the food chain commercial filtration.
zachary levi
I expect nothing less here at the Joe Rogan Experience.
joe rogan
They sell some for your home, though, that have a smaller footprint and they're still, like if it's just going to be you using it, you don't have to worry about people What if I want that, Joe?
zachary levi
What if I want that?
Stop yucking other people's yum, okay?
joe rogan
You just have to ask the person who goes before you.
zachary levi
That'll make it more buoyant, bro.
joe rogan
Do me a favor.
He'd go in there and it smells like asparagus.
unidentified
Like, what the fuck, man?
zachary levi
Oh, shit.
How do you clean that?
I mean, I guess it's just a big salty room.
Do you have to clean it?
joe rogan
Well, that whole thing actually has a commercial water filtration system.
unidentified
Oh, so it just...
zachary levi
Okay, got it, got it.
joe rogan
That takes out everything.
And then it goes through ozone.
There's a whole series of things that it kills things through.
I think it goes through LED light, too.
There's like a lot of shit that goes on before it pours into the, and it cycles out.
Like it constantly does.
It has a jacuzzi pump and it cycles out.
zachary levi
It's slick.
joe rogan
Yeah, so it's on a timer.
So it's like, I forget what time of the day, but every time of the day it'll just like, weee, like cycles all the water.
Because it has to.
It's actually, there's so much salt in there.
It gums up the gears.
zachary levi
Can you hear that going when you're in the tank or is it?
joe rogan
It won't go when you're in the tank.
What you do is you set it to only go like four in the morning or something like that.
zachary levi
I'm definitely getting a cold plunge, that's for sure.
I've had friends that have been so hot on it.
I've done it a bit in my life, but not consistently.
joe rogan
That's a great way to raise your endorphin levels, more epinephrine.
The feeling you get after a cold plunge is really wild.
zachary levi
I love it.
I just have never had a consistent access to a proper cold plunge.
joe rogan
Yeah, I do that shit.
I try to do it at least three times a week, if not four.
Sauna I do almost every day.
I'm up to almost every day on the sauna.
zachary levi
How hot do you get in there?
joe rogan
185 degrees.
That's what I like.
unidentified
That's so hot.
joe rogan
It's not as hot as Laird Hamilton gets in the 200s.
What the fuck?
zachary levi
Dude, that guy's a monster.
He's a monster.
Like those exercises he does where he just hold rocks down at the bottom of the ocean.
unidentified
Walk around with rocks.
zachary levi
Yeah, just walking around like, oh my gosh.
joe rogan
He's from the ocean.
zachary levi
He's a unit.
joe rogan
He does an Airdyne bike in the sauna with oven mitts on.
So he gets that sauna cranked up to 200 fucking degrees.
unidentified
What the fuck?
zachary levi
That guy's gonna survive anything.
joe rogan
Yeah, well, he's, you know, he's very health conscious.
We have his coffee here.
He made a coffee machine for me.
It's like Laird Hamilton's superfood coffee machine.
And if you press a button, it'll make you like a turmeric coffee, like coffee with coconut milk and turmeric.
It's really good.
unidentified
Yeah.
joe rogan
Yeah, and it's like he's got them with cacao and Why aren't we having one of those?
zachary levi
Jesus, Joe.
joe rogan
Well, I drink that sometimes, too.
The problem with that, though, honestly, is it does make me...
It gives me, like, phlegm.
zachary levi
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
joe rogan
And it makes me...
It fucks up conversations.
zachary levi
Totally understood.
joe rogan
Yeah.
zachary levi
Totally understood.
joe rogan
You can get your mouth gummed up.
zachary levi
Oh, yeah.
joe rogan
I do it all the time still, so if you hear me going...
That's what that is, most of the time.
Yeah, it gives you phlegm or something, whatever it's doing.
But anyway, it's really good for you.
And he's just very much into foods that are anti-inflammatory, things like turmeric and stuff like that.
zachary levi
But we all should be.
joe rogan
Yeah.
zachary levi
I mean, by the way, that's another thing that terrifies me, which is the whole save soil and what's going on with our top soil everywhere in the world.
Like, what the fuck, dude?
Yeah.
What the fuck is about to happen?
What is going to happen?
joe rogan
I don't know.
When you don't have regenerative practices of farming, you're supposed to...
Farmers forever have been taking their compost and they've been taking food scraps and all these different things and using them to create healthy bacteria and then using that on their soil.
They've been doing that forever and we don't do that anymore.
zachary levi
And we monocrop with fertilizer.
And it's killing everything.
joe rogan
It's not how it's supposed to be.
And this is the problem with people, even people that think that they're doing well by only eating plants.
Well, you're definitely probably contributing to some factors less, but you're also contributing to monocrop agriculture, which is one of the most degenerative practices we know of.
To get thousands and thousands of acres and just plant one crop is kind of fucking crazy.
It's kind of crazy.
zachary levi
I mean, I didn't know how crazy it was until I knew how crazy it was, because I didn't know really anything about farming.
But once it came to my attention, like, oh no, that's not what you're supposed to do.
You're supposed to rotate the crops because they have different, essentially, profiles of how they grow and what they suck in.
I mean, man, we should be planting...
Fields and fields and fields of industrial hemp to do so many amazing things with, including sucking a bunch of carbon out of the atmosphere.
joe rogan
They kill a lot of animals to do those monocrop agriculture setups.
They kill a lot of animals.
They displace a lot of animals, and a lot of animals get chopped up in those fucking gears when they're harvesting.
zachary levi
Yeah, like prairie dogs and stuff like that.
joe rogan
They kill a lot of shit.
And it's just not supposed to be that way.
If you really love nature, you would not love that.
Because that is the worst.
That is like some sort of a distortion of what nature is.
When you drive by some crazy cornfields, it's like, whoa, those are kind of nuts.
Like, look how much fucking corn they got here.
zachary levi
And that corn's all going to feed.
joe rogan
Most of it, yeah.
zachary levi
Most of it's soy and corn.
It's all just going to fucking feed.
And ethanol.
unidentified
And guess what?
joe rogan
Cows aren't even supposed to eat that.
zachary levi
They're not even supposed to eat it.
It's so...
joe rogan
It does make them fat and delicious when they do.
I'm not saying they should eat it.
I prefer grass-fed meat anyway.
It tastes better.
zachary levi
Oh, guaranteed.
joe rogan
It feels better for you.
zachary levi
Yeah, guaranteed.
joe rogan
And it's just, you don't feel bad.
That's what they're supposed to be doing.
They're supposed to be eating grass.
If you stuff them full of fucking marshmallows and corn...
Wagyu freaks me out the most.
zachary levi
Oh, yeah.
joe rogan
Because they basically made the sickest, most obese cows.
unidentified
Yeah, yeah.
joe rogan
Just so they're more tender and delicious.
zachary levi
And you know what, though?
I will say, I've had some good Wagyu.
unidentified
I have.
zachary levi
But sometimes I have and I'm like, this is too much.
This isn't enough.
It's almost too buttery.
joe rogan
Right.
zachary levi
You know what I mean?
I want a little more steak.
I want something more than that.
joe rogan
More of a chew to it.
zachary levi
But going back to people who are more plant-based in their diets, One of the other things I find fascinating, which is I think I actually learned it on this podcast, which was how now we recognize that plants are way more intelligent than we've given them credit for for so long and communicate with each other and help each other.
And with all the mushrooms connecting...
joe rogan
What is that called?
Mycelium.
zachary levi
Mycelium.
joe rogan
Thank you.
zachary levi
All that, all going on.
So it's like, well, you don't want to...
Friends of mine are vegan.
They don't want to...
Eat food because they don't want to kill an animal because they see a soul.
They connect a soul or something to that.
I go, okay.
But these trees might actually have some kind of a presence in them, even though they can't verbalize or do the things that animals do.
How do you know that they also don't have some kind?
I mean, like the studies where they played certain music or they taught those ferns that they were dropping.
You know what I mean?
They learned.
The plant learned something.
joe rogan
You know they can hear?
zachary levi
Yes, that's what I'm saying.
joe rogan
Yeah, they can hear sounds.
zachary levi
The sounds of grasshoppers eating them.
joe rogan
And they'll change their flavor profile.
unidentified
Yes.
zachary levi
So you go, well, what is that?
joe rogan
What is that?
zachary levi
What is that?
If not some form of life intelligence.
I don't know that they're on par with animals.
I don't know that they're not.
But we make these really interesting kind of arbitrary moral stands, I think, sometimes.
And being like, well, animals are more of a life than a tree.
And it's like, I don't know.
I don't know that you can stand on that and still have the moral high ground.
joe rogan
You just don't want suffering, right?
Really the best thing to eat if you don't want suffering is shellfish.
Because they can't fill shit.
Like if you eat like clams and scallops and stuff, yeah, there's a real good argument for vegans eating shellfish.
Because they're so primitive.
They just move.
They don't have minds.
There's no nervous system to speak of, like ours, that can register pain.
Yeah, scalps don't.
They don't even bleed.
Like when you cut an oyster out, they're not bleeding.
Right.
They're so primitive, but they're a source of meat.
It's a very strange animal because it doesn't really think.
It just closes, opens and closes.
zachary levi
It's a muscle, literally just one muscle.
joe rogan
But because it moves like that, we consider it an animal.
And then if you look at the protein and the amino acid, if you look at the content of an actual oyster, it's much more like an animal or a fish than it is like a plant.
So it's not a plant, but it's dumber than a plant.
unidentified
Right.
joe rogan
They're more primitive than plants.
So it's like you'd be a mean person to eat a lettuce over a oyster.
zachary levi
Interesting.
joe rogan
Because oysters are dumb as fuck.
zachary levi
Well, don't fish in general lack a lot of nervous system or something?
joe rogan
I don't buy that, dude, because they fucking freak out when you hook them.
zachary levi
Yeah.
joe rogan
And they seem to be in pain when you cut into them.
If you gut a fish, They look like they're in pain.
I don't buy it at all.
I just think they can't scream.
I think, oh, they're kind of fulfilled.
zachary levi
I don't know if they- I was at a sushi restaurant in Tokyo before.
You've been to Tokyo, right?
joe rogan
Yes, I have.
zachary levi
Oh, man, I fucking love that place so much.
unidentified
Fascinating place.
So cool.
zachary levi
So cool.
Japan is just a cool spot.
But I was at a sushi restaurant there once, and it was like a small one.
We're sitting at a table.
There's a tank right kind of above where we're sitting.
And there was fresh fish in the tank.
They would take the fish out.
Filet aside off the fish and put the fish back in the tank.
joe rogan
Oh my god.
zachary levi
And the fish would just keep swimming around waiting for the other half of it to be taken off.
unidentified
Oh my god.
zachary levi
I was like, this is a thing?
I couldn't believe it.
But the fish didn't seem phased.
It didn't seem like it was wigging out and freaking out.
So I was like, maybe there is some truth to this.
Or maybe it's just that type of fish or whatever.
I don't know.
But it was a trip, bro.
joe rogan
I've heard that same argument about lobsters.
Like that lobsters can't feel pain.
But then you throw them in the water.
They freak out.
zachary levi
Yeah.
joe rogan
I mean, they freak out a little.
zachary levi
Hopefully you put them in the tempered water and then you slowly cook them.
joe rogan
Yeah?
Is that what you're supposed to do?
zachary levi
Yeah, right?
Like a frog in a pot.
joe rogan
Oh, really?
zachary levi
Oh, no, maybe just frogs because they jump out.
joe rogan
Yeah, lobsters you're supposed to boil the fuck out of.
zachary levi
No, no, I know, but I thought you started, you put them in like regular water and then you just slowly boil.
joe rogan
Just to trick them?
zachary levi
Yeah, well, I don't know.
joe rogan
Well, we're kind of like really compassionate lobster eaters.
We want to kill them, but we don't want them to know we're going to kill them.
zachary levi
Hey, listen, man.
You know, sometimes a lobster's got some feelings they need to process.
joe rogan
I don't know if they do, though.
I think that's the question.
I think there's a real legitimate debate as to whether or not they can actually feel anything.
zachary levi
Did you know that they...
Can grow indefinitely?
joe rogan
Yeah.
zachary levi
And they will if they don't get predated?
Like, that's so crazy to me that a lobster could just basically keep getting bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger.
Like, that's crazy.
joe rogan
They found one recently that was 100 years old.
zachary levi
Damn.
joe rogan
Yeah.
See if you can find that.
They found, I think, I'm 99% positive it was 100 years old.
zachary levi
It's also fascinating to me that lobster, for the longest time, was not considered a delicacy.
It was sea insect.
joe rogan
Look at this.
Fisherman catches enormous 100-year-old lobster.
His answers may have been, that's a lobster that's 100 years old.
zachary levi
That doesn't look that big.
joe rogan
Well, I don't think they necessarily keep growing if they don't get all the food.
It's pretty goddamn big.
zachary levi
That's pretty big.
joe rogan
It's pretty big.
Wow.
zachary levi
Yeah.
joe rogan
I'm pretty sure he let it go.
zachary levi
Nobody liked to eat lobster before it was basically just like marketed.
Like diamonds.
Like nobody cared about wearing diamonds on their rings until De Beers.
joe rogan
Well, poor people would get them out of the river and they would eat them at bars.
They were like bar food.
Lobster in New York.
Yeah.
zachary levi
But it wasn't a nice thing.
It was like, yeah.
joe rogan
Yeah, they figured it.
But also, it is fucking delicious.
Especially with melted butter.
zachary levi
Yeah, I've had some decent lobster, but I'd still...
joe rogan
Don't you come down on lobster, Zachary.
zachary levi
I would still prefer crab over lobster.
joe rogan
Really?
zachary levi
Yes, it tastes way better.
joe rogan
You're a man of the people.
I get it.
zachary levi
Crab just tastes better, bro.
joe rogan
I understand.
You think so?
zachary levi
Oh, yeah.
I mean, I personally think the flavor profile of crab is a much tastier...
I don't know.
It's like saltier.
It's got more...
They're just a pain in the ass.
joe rogan
I'll tell you what, Michelob got me with a fucking advertisement back in the day where a bunch of guys were eating stone crabs and drinking Michelobes, and to this day, I think of beer with crabs.
unidentified
Oh, sure.
joe rogan
They fucking locked me in.
zachary levi
Dude, advertising is real, man.
joe rogan
That was a really good one.
zachary levi
It is really, really real.
joe rogan
Because these guys, they went crabbing, they got the crab, and they're drinking beer.
I'm like, damn, that looks fun.
I bet they're telling some funny jokes.
unidentified
Yeah.
joe rogan
I want to hang out with those guys.
zachary levi
Yeah.
And that's just written into your neuroplasticity.
You're going to find that every single time.
joe rogan
When I have crabs, I want a beer.
unidentified
Always.
joe rogan
It's true.
zachary levi
I mean, they do go well together anyway.
joe rogan
It's a great combination.
Fish and chips and beer are great too.
Solid combination.
There's certain things that a beer just goes.
Hot dog.
Beer and a hot dog.
That's a fucking good combo right there.
Especially with sauerkraut.
Sauerkraut, mustard, beer.
Come on, man.
So happy.
zachary levi
It's like a great Dodger game.
unidentified
Yeah.
joe rogan
Sometimes it's good to be fat and happy.
You know, some days.
zachary levi
Oh, certainly.
joe rogan
Yeah.
zachary levi
But, you know, indulge, but then recognize that that was that moment, and now let's take care of myself.
joe rogan
Or drive right off a cliff.
unidentified
No, let's not do that.
zachary levi
I'm here to tell people to love themselves, not drive off a cliff!
joe rogan
There it is.
Is this the ad?
Yeah, look at these people.
It's Milwaukee, but...
Oh, it's Milwaukee?
Old Milwaukee.
That's right, not Michelob.
zachary levi
Hey, Michelob got the credit.
unidentified
Look at these guys.
zachary levi
Michelob got the credit.
joe rogan
Old Milwaukee.
These guys look like dorks.
zachary levi
I bet that conversation sucks.
Aren't these the guys that were inspiring you to hang out?
joe rogan
Thank you.
unidentified
You cured me of it.
I want to hang out with those guys.
joe rogan
You cured me of it, because they look annoying now.
As I'm older, and I'm realizing, I bet those guys were losers.
I bet their story sucked.
Let me see it again.
Florida Keys.
zachary levi
I love that they give you the setting.
joe rogan
All three of those guys died from cocaine that they got from the money they used to film this commercial.
unidentified
Look at her.
joe rogan
Oh, man.
unidentified
You can't have one without the other.
joe rogan
You can't have one without the other.
Look, they're sucking on those crabs, telling stupid stories.
unidentified
And then she shit in my bed, and I took her back.
You know what?
It doesn't get any better than this.
joe rogan
It doesn't get any better than that for them.
zachary levi
They're not wrong.
joe rogan
Because they suck at conversations.
Those guys are both, all three of them, they're annoying.
zachary levi
What kind of beer do you drink?
Are you a pilsner guy?
Are you a pale ale person?
joe rogan
I like all kinds of beer.
I even like crazy crafty beers when dudes get crafty.
There's this place called, I think it's called Lor out here, L-O-R. I think Loro.
I think it's called Loro.
Yeah, L-O-R-O. It's like an Asian barbecue place.
You know the spot?
Great spot.
Fantastic food.
But they also have a beer that's like a kombucha beer.
It was wild.
And they give it to you in a small glass.
I was like, I'll go get a beer.
And I picked a beer, and they give it to me in this little thing.
zachary levi
That's not a beer.
joe rogan
And then you drink, and you're like, oh, wow.
This is wild.
What a wild flavor.
zachary levi
Is it like hard kombucha?
joe rogan
Yeah, it's like a hard kombucha, but it's like a beer.
They might not have even called it kombucha beer, but it tasted like kombucha and beer, like a combination to it.
I like that kind of shit.
I like a lot of weird beers.
Do you remember, who brought in those, there's a company that makes, it looks like wine bottles, and we had it out there.
Firm?
Isn't it Firm?
Isn't it called Firm?
Anyway, that was a beer that tasted almost like a combination of a beer and a sparkling wine.
It was really interesting.
So people do weird stuff with beer now.
zachary levi
Oh, microbrewing is insane.
There's so many different types of beers now.
joe rogan
So I like that stuff, but I also like a Heineken every now and then.
zachary levi
Yeah.
joe rogan
I like a good beer, solid beer.
People are like, Heineken sucks.
No, it doesn't.
It just tastes like Heineken.
It's a solid taste.
zachary levi
Yeah, it's interesting how people just want to, just because something is like, I don't know, a staple or mainstream.
Particularly, there's a lot of beer snobs that are so about the craft beers that it's like, oh, you drink Dos Equis.
It's like, yeah, I like Dos Equis.
joe rogan
I like Modelo.
I like Budweiser.
I like them.
There's a reason why they're popular, you fucking idiot.
zachary levi
Yeah, for real.
And they're refreshing.
It's carb water, bro.
joe rogan
Cold Budweiser is refreshing as fuck.
It's very refreshing.
I know dudes who drink them after they run.
zachary levi
The first time I ever got drunk, I was living up in the Seattle area.
My family moved up there for a little while when I was in middle school.
And my older sister was in her first year of high school.
And she and her friends were loading up into...
One of her, you know, older friends' vans, like panel van with like, there was like a mesh gate from like the, you know, front seats to the back and there was no seats in the back.
It was like a couch or like two couches and just boxes of naughty ice, natural ice beer.
unidentified
I don't know.
joe rogan
Right, right.
Sure.
zachary levi
And though my sister protested heavily, her friends were like, yeah, no, bring your little brother.
He's going to come.
And I was like, I don't even know, 12?
joe rogan
And I was ripped!
unidentified
At 12?
zachary levi
I was ripped, bro.
unidentified
Jesus Christ.
joe rogan
How much did you drink?
zachary levi
Oh, I don't know.
Probably four beers.
But a Naughty Ice was like...
joe rogan
For a 12-year-old.
zachary levi
I know, yeah, I know, I know.
joe rogan
That's a heavy dose.
zachary levi
It was insane.
But it's not like I did that all the time.
Like, the first cigarette I ever smoked was probably when I was 12. But I didn't smoke another cigarette until I was 13. And then so on and so forth.
I wasn't, like, out boozing it up.
I wasn't a 12-year-old booze hound.
But I remember it.
I mean, it's core memory for me.
unidentified
Mm.
zachary levi
I partly remember it because my youngest sister, we were leaving at the house by herself.
It was so dumb.
We're leaving Shekinah at the house and she starts coming out the front door like, where are you going?
And my older sister, Sarah, she's like, go tell Shekinah to get back in the house.
And so I go to step out of the van and I trip.
And my left leg goes down and hyperextends, bends all the way in, bro.
And I'm on the ground.
My whole knee is on fire.
But I didn't want to lose.
I wanted to save all the face and still go out with these cool older kids.
So I get up and I'm like, I'm cool.
I'm cool.
And I go hobble over to my sister, tell her to go back in the house.
We go to the park and get drunk.
And I'll tell you what, I didn't feel my knee for the rest of the night.
It was groovy.
joe rogan
So did it wind up destroying your knee?
zachary levi
No, thank God, man.
joe rogan
Kids are so flexible.
unidentified
Oh, yeah.
joe rogan
They just bounce back.
zachary levi
Yeah, we're rubber.
When we're kids, we're rubber.
joe rogan
Yeah, they bounce off of shit.
I've watched my kids bounce off of stuff.
You're like, you're going to be all right?
zachary levi
Yeah.
joe rogan
I'm like, yeah, fine.
zachary levi
But that's also why it's so great to learn skills, particularly physical skills, when you're younger.
joe rogan
Oh, yeah.
zachary levi
You know what I mean?
Like all those people that start snowboarding when they're two.
50. That's tough.
That's tough.
But if you start when you're a teeny little kid, not only are you getting the mechanics, but you have no fear because you're two feet from the ground.
You're falling nowhere.
And you can keep chancing that and chancing that until eventually your bones become more brittle and you don't want to be chancing that anymore.
joe rogan
Yeah, my youngest daughter started skiing before she was two.
How old is she now?
zachary levi
She's 12. Oh yeah.
joe rogan
Got her on one of them little bunny trails.
Yeah.
And then they have those little magic carpets that the kids ride up and then they ride down.
zachary levi
I love those magic carpets.
joe rogan
It's so adorable when you go to a ski place and you see little kids skiing.
Yeah.
zachary levi
Little pizza wedges.
joe rogan
On the little ski area.
zachary levi
Yeah, just little pizza wedges going on.
joe rogan
Little tiny with their little outfits.
But if you can learn physical tasks, yeah, I feel bad for people that don't do anything physical and then they try to pick it up when they're 45 and their body's all uncoordinated and deteriorated.
It sucks.
zachary levi
It's tough.
joe rogan
It sucks that we don't get taught that this is actually beneficial to your mind.
Like, we never got taught that.
We're saying it now.
zachary levi
That moving your body.
unidentified
Yeah.
zachary levi
Oh my gosh.
joe rogan
Nobody ever heard that when we were kids.
zachary levi
Well, yeah, because I don't think that they had any understanding of it at all.
unidentified
Which is crazy.
zachary levi
Which is crazy.
It's not that long ago.
It's not, but at least we have the Hubermans and everybody of the world who are like, hey guys, we're really drilling down into this stuff.
Let's understand why our bodies act the way that they do.
Let's understand why, you know, we all think we're in so much control of our mind when it's so fragile.
It can be hijacked in a moment's notice if your hormones are off, if you're not doing the things that can take care of this whole, you know, package.
joe rogan
If that old Milwaukee commercial comes on.
They get you.
They get you.
zachary levi
Yeah, it's important.
joe rogan
Yeah, it is.
It's really weird that if you think about how long human beings have been around, that we're just learning this in the last couple of generations, that it's important to use your body to take care of your mind.
That was never brought up.
To people from our parents' age.
No one was broadcasting that.
zachary levi
I think a lot of Eastern philosophy still held onto it, but it was certainly not an American Western concept, man.
I mean, we've been so backwards about so many things, particularly when it comes to health and wellness, for so long.
It's such a bummer.
joe rogan
We were actually going to look that up yesterday, Jamie.
Who was it that was talking about...
Using your body so it doesn't betray your mind.
Who was it?
Aristotle?
jamie vernon
There's a lot of quotes of variations of it from back then, so I could have known about Socrates and Aristotle.
zachary levi
Oh yeah, you had Ryan Holiday on.
You guys were talking about that Stoic stuff.
joe rogan
Yeah, he's fascinating.
zachary levi
He lives out near me in Bastrop.
joe rogan
Yeah, he's a really interesting guy, and his work is so extensive.
His love of the Stoics is so excellent and so extensive.
zachary levi
Yeah, I follow his Stoic Instagram, and it's always fascinating.
It's also so cool to me, though, that if you really drill down into all of the Stoicisms, there's such universal wisdoms and truths, which to me just says, like, You know, like, that's the difference between information and wisdom.
Like, information is information, but sometimes information changes.
In fact, oftentimes information changes, but wisdom is universal truth.
It is something that has been riding through our minds and hearts and DNA as human beings and has been passed down and passed down and passed down.
I mean, gosh, who's the awesome dude you had on that talks about meteors and, you know...
joe rogan
Randall Carlson?
zachary levi
Yes, Randall Carlson.
And talking about how, you know, Plato was like, what's the Atlantis?
All that kind of stuff.
Like, maybe that really happened?
Maybe the human beings have been around in some form for way longer, but, you know, whatever.
Like, I don't know.
That stuff seems to be that wisdom that's been passed down forever.
Like, guys, wake the fuck up.
Stop doing this stupid shit.
Like, those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it.
And we keep doing it over and over and over again.
joe rogan
Marcus Aurelius' book, Meditations, is really, really interesting because it's almost 2,000 years old.
And when you read it, you're like, wow, this guy had some really fascinating insight as to what it means to be a person, how to be forgiven, how to forgive people.
Marcus Aurelius, who's the head of Rome, was really into forgiving people.
He's a fascinating guy.
When Ryan Holiday sort of lays out his life and talks about how he was sort of betrayed and what all went wrong with him.
zachary levi
Well, Seneca, I think Seneca was another, like, incredible example of someone with such, I mean, all of them, but, you know, he had incredibly deep, I think, caring, empathetic wisdom as well.
But also Jesus.
I mean, like, you know, speaking of a manuscript from 2,000 years ago, there's so much incredibly accurate, real deep wisdom in the Bible.
However you want to chop it up, Old Testament, New Testament, whatever, I have found there to be such power, by the way, particularly when it comes to love.
Particularly listening to what Jesus will talk about when it comes to love.
joe rogan
You know what's interesting about that?
zachary levi
Transformational.
joe rogan
Like Marcus Aurelius was 100% real.
We've read his stuff.
Like Meditations is available right now for anyone to read.
Although apparently there's more stringent translations according to Ryan.
But Jesus is like...
unidentified
Debated.
zachary levi
That he existed or that he was what he claimed to be?
joe rogan
Yeah, there's a lot of people that don't think he existed.
zachary levi
Really?
joe rogan
Yeah, there's a documentary called The Man Who Wasn't There.
Really interesting documentary because it deals with the historical reality of Jesus.
Isn't that it?
The man who wasn't there?
Very interesting documentary.
zachary levi
So what should they propose happen then?
joe rogan
There's not a lot of references to Jesus, historical references, other than the Bible.
There's not a lot of references to him being a real person of significance in that era, apparently.
This is me, who's not very well studied in it.
zachary levi
No, no, no.
unidentified
Understood, understood.
joe rogan
But what I'm saying is that it's debated.
It's not debated whether or not Marcus Aurelius existed.
zachary levi
Certainly, yeah.
joe rogan
The God who wasn't there, that's what it is.
A film being in belief.
So go to, what does it say?
2005 independent documentary written and directed by Brian Fleming.
The documentary questions the existence of Jesus.
Examining evidence that supports the Christ myth theory against the existence of a historical Jesus as well as other aspects of Christianity.
So I don't know if this is accurate or inaccurate, but I do know that there is debate as to whether or not Jesus existed, even if he did.
But there's no debate as to Marcus Aurelius, but they're from the same time period.
They're only separated by like a hundred years.
I think.
zachary levi
I guess I would still wonder, though, like...
joe rogan
Is that true?
unidentified
If...
joe rogan
Yeah, okay, 161 to 180, almost 200 years.
zachary levi
Yeah.
joe rogan
So, yeah.
Isn't that fucking wild, though?
AD 161, this motherfucker was writing his private notes to himself and ideas on Stoic philosophy.
He wrote 12 books of the meditations in coin Greek as a source for his own guidance and self-improvement.
Fucking amazing.
He's so goddamn smart, and it just makes you think, like, I wonder what that existence must have been like back then.
Like, what Rome must have been like at, you know, 161 A.D. God, it must have been fascinating.
zachary levi
When was the fall of Rome?
I can't remember.
Like, was he living in the heyday, or was he...
joe rogan
That's a good question.
zachary levi
Jamie?
joe rogan
Fall of the Roman...
jamie vernon
Western Roman Empire?
unidentified
September...
It's got a date.
zachary levi
September 4th, 476 AD. 476. Okay, so he was still living in, like, some heyday Rome.
joe rogan
Yeah.
Shit was still kicking.
zachary levi
476 AD. Yeah, it's a trip.
I mean, I'm assuming you've been to Rome as well.
joe rogan
Oh, yeah.
zachary levi
Dude, walking around those...
unidentified
What is that?
zachary levi
It's a picture of the rise and fall.
unidentified
Wow.
joe rogan
The decline and fall.
I don't know what it really looked like that day.
The lust for power led to Rome's decline and fall.
Oh, you mean like the United States?
zachary levi
Well, everywhere.
Everywhere.
joe rogan
Yeah, everybody, everywhere.
You mean like Russia?
zachary levi
This is the thing.
These are leaders of countries that need to figure out how to love themselves so they don't need to keep conquering everybody else and taking everything else.
joe rogan
Go to that picture again of the guy trying to pull down the statue.
unidentified
Yep.
joe rogan
Dude, people back then were jacked.
zachary levi
Yeah, they were.
joe rogan
If that was Antifa, our Antifa guys would fall to their death while trying to climb there.
There'd be like three or four deaths before anybody ever got the noose on that statue.
And that guy's like feeling that guy's butt.
He's like, damn, dude, you've been squatting.
zachary levi
He's got him in the lower back.
He's got him in the lower back, Joe.
joe rogan
But he's looking at his butt.
See how he's looking at it?
Straight at it.
zachary levi
I think he's looking at the rope.
joe rogan
The guy's also completely naked.
How about covering your cack there, fella?
zachary levi
It's artistic interpretation, Joe.
joe rogan
I understand what you're saying.
zachary levi
Let the men be naked.
joe rogan
It's called talking shit, Zach.
zachary levi
I know, bro!
joe rogan
The Antifa, the whole Antifa crew back then, they looked like Conan.
Look at them, the guy on the sword, or the guy on the horse, rather.
Look at them.
zachary levi
Yeah, but he's wearing clothes.
He looks like a general or something.
joe rogan
The point is, the people that were the rebellious people back then were really fit.
zachary levi
Yeah, I mean, there was a lot of manual labor back then.
joe rogan
That's all you did.
zachary levi
A lot of walking around.
joe rogan
Yeah, that's all you did.
And there was no, like, fatty foods in terms of, like, no sugars.
unidentified
Oh, yeah.
joe rogan
Oh, yeah.
You couldn't get pastries.
zachary levi
No.
joe rogan
And there's, you know, there's probably no candy bars.
zachary levi
Isn't that a trip, too?
Like, why we even have sugar cravings the way that we do?
Because once upon a time as hunter-gatherers, we would find berries and we would just fucking gorge because we didn't know when we'd see them again.
And now that's translated into, I can't stop eating gummy bears.
joe rogan
Like, it's so...
zachary levi
It's insane.
Our bodies are so crazy like that.
joe rogan
Well, it's so insane that we've hijacked them.
zachary levi
Yeah.
joe rogan
Figured out a way to get so much sugar into a drink.
zachary levi
It's terrifying.
It's terrifying how much sugar is in a soda, man.
It's insane.
joe rogan
It's a shitload.
It's a shitload.
And the really scary thing is how much most people have in a day.
Let's ask this.
How many grams of sugar do you think the average American consumes in a day?
unidentified
25. 25 grams?
zachary levi
I think the average American definitely has at least...
unidentified
Way more than that.
zachary levi
Oh, way more than that?
unidentified
Yeah.
joe rogan
25 is what you have to stay keto.
unidentified
Oh.
zachary levi
All right.
250. Doesn't like a Coke have like 30?
joe rogan
Yeah.
More than that, I think.
I think a Coke has more than what you need in a whole day if you're on a ketogenic diet.
zachary levi
For sure.
There's so much.
77. That's what I said!
77!
jamie vernon
More than three times the recommended amount for women.
joe rogan
I bet that's a lie.
See, that's the thing.
If it's more than three times the recommended amount for women, come on.
Dude, most people are having way more than that.
If you just found out what an apple juice is.
You ever look at a fucking apple juice?
Apple juice is like 50 grams of sugar.
What is this?
zachary levi
Those little juices at Starbucks.
Those green juices or whatever.
Packed full of sugar.
So much sugar.
jamie vernon
It was higher a few years ago.
joe rogan
Really?
People dropped it?
111 grams of sugar a day.
That was the average.
So find out what eight ounces of apple juice is.
Because I saw it one time, one of my kids was laughing because I can't even read those fucking things.
My eyes don't work that good.
But she was reading the ingredients on apple juice and she got to the sugar and she was like, what the hell?
24 grams for how many ounces?
Eight ounces of apple juice.
zachary levi
Oh jeez.
Yeah, 24 grams.
joe rogan
I think some of them are different, but that's a lot.
zachary levi
Have you ever heard about...
Like, I'm sure you have.
That whole study that was done, which basically formed our food pyramid that was paid for by the sugar industry.
joe rogan
Oh, yeah.
zachary levi
Fucking crazy!
joe rogan
Not just that, but they actually bribed scientists to take the heat off of sugar and put it on saturated fat.
zachary levi
Which totally screwed everything up more.
joe rogan
Screwed up a lot of people's bodies, too, because their diets got all fucking confused.
They're eating margarine because they think it's good for them.
zachary levi
It's insane, man.
And the things, and the FDA allows these things to go on, like, it's just mind-boggling to me.
It is, no, I mean, I guess it's not, because it's all, again, it's all lobbyists and people being paid off.
joe rogan
There's a lot of crooks out there.
zachary levi
That's so terrible.
joe rogan
There's a lot of crooks out there, and these people have been co-opted by these enormous corporations, so these people can make decisions that benefit the corporations, and it benefits their career, and then they move on to get jobs in those corporations, and meanwhile everybody else is Isn't it often times that the head of the FDA at any time was a former CEO of one of the pharmaceutical companies and then will also return to them?
They go back and forth.
zachary levi
That's insanity.
That we are not all like, what the fuck?
What the fuck?
This is a rigged system.
joe rogan
This should stop immediately.
Have you ever seen that documentary Inside Job?
It's about the financial crisis of 2008. I don't know.
It's a really good documentary.
But one of the things that's really good about it is that the guy who's the host of it, they think that they're going to be able to just respond to his questions and they'll just paint a rosy picture of what went wrong and what we need to do next and And so he starts calling them out on all the various regulatory decisions that were made,
and then he points out that these people oftentimes that are setting economic policy, these people that they're getting recommendations from are these mathematicians that work for these universities.
And then these mathematicians, they set these standards that the government uses, and then they get jobs in these major corporations afterwards.
So they set standards that benefit these major corporations, and then they leave their job at the university to make millions of dollars working for these corporations.
So they'll set these financial pathways where these corporations can profit.
And then they profit.
unidentified
They can profit.
joe rogan
It's wild because most of us don't know.
zachary levi
Because no one has integrity anymore.
joe rogan
But the guy who is the host of this documentary is great because he really understands the financial system.
And so he starts calling these guys out while he's interviewing them and explaining what they did wrong, why it fucked everybody up.
And they're like, you can see these guys like, oh shit.
I didn't know this guy would understand the game.
unidentified
Wow.
joe rogan
It's a great documentary.
zachary levi
And when did it come out?
joe rogan
Right after the crash.
So it was like 2010 or something?
Yeah, probably somewhere around then.
Yeah, it's good.
It's good.
I think it's called An Inside Job.
But it's just disheartening to know that there's so many fucking creeps that are so fucking corrupt that are in charge of making decisions that all of us have to live with.
zachary levi
Well, yeah, there's another documentary I saw.
unidentified
I think it was called The Cutting Edge.
zachary levi
I don't know.
It was on Netflix.
But a lot of this stuff about the FDA, I learned from that because there are all these, like, not just drugs, but medical devices and things that are constantly being okayed that are fucking people up.
joe rogan
Yeah.
zachary levi
Meshes that they would put inside women who had like hysterectomy like major problems with these Faulty products, but they were all just nobody decided to give it enough testing because they had a little fucking you know side deal like we know I used to work for them They're gonna we're gonna get this in there.
joe rogan
Yeah, like it's insane and there's no accountability Well, that's what John Abramson talked about when he was on the podcast.
He sort of really highlighted some of the more spectacular instances of that, like the Vioxx instance.
zachary levi
Yeah.
joe rogan
Yeah, there's a lot of that.
It's like, you can't trust people that have a history of doing that.
We should all know that.
And so if the same people that did that are also now trying to do this, keep your fucking eyes open, please.
Just keep your eyes open.
Don't just dive in here.
zachary levi
But I think we should, honestly, I mean, I feel like we should be keeping our eyes open.
joe rogan
With everything.
zachary levi
Yeah, with all industry.
Because all industry is bought.
All of it.
I mean, I wish to God I could look to one field and feel like it's being run with integrity.
It's being run in a way where The corporation, the industry are valuing the lives of the people that run their entire situation and also valuing the lives of the user downstream with whatever they're providing.
But they don't.
They don't give a fuck.
joe rogan
You never really get a whole industry that's on the up and up.
But you do get people that operate in the industry.
People that run regenerative farms.
zachary levi
Sure.
joe rogan
There's people that do have good ethics and good morals.
But they're not leading.
Well, it's just like...
That's the problem.
It's like when you're talking about feeding 30 million people.
How are you doing it?
How are you doing that with regenerative farming?
How are you going to feed that many fucking people?
How many farms do you need?
Where are you going to put them?
How are you going to replace factory farming in terms of output?
Is it going to be lab made?
Lab made meat?
What are you going to do?
zachary levi
I hope not.
And not only that, the energy crisis.
The ways that people get down on nuclear and it's like, what are we supposed to do?
joe rogan
Well, nuclear is probably the best option for the future.
unidentified
It is!
It is!
zachary levi
But people still want to hate it so much, so much.
joe rogan
Well, we're scared.
Scared of like Three Mile Island and Chernobyl and all that shit.
It would fucking suck.
zachary levi
It would.
It would.
Another documentary that I watched a while ago called Pandora, I think it was called Pandora's Promise.
Schellenberger actually was in it as well.
And he was like, I used to be so anti-nuclear.
I was completely against this.
joe rogan
Yeah.
zachary levi
And then I realized I didn't understand fully what I was weighing and talking about, you know?
It's a great documentary.
But, yeah, people are scared.
But leading out of fear.
That's more fear.
joe rogan
Yeah, most of the people that understand nuclear in terms of, like, when they're looking at our potential to make clean energy, like, what's the most likely scenario?
Like, nuclear's a great one.
Because...
They have better methods of developing those power plants with better fail-safes.
It's like what happened at Fukushima.
It's an old system.
zachary levi
And they also have the ability to build sites, plants, where you can recycle the waste.
So it's not just immediately put into a barrel and then it's buried for a million years.
You actually can take that same waste and recycle it through and get more and more out of it until it becomes even more inert.
And then you go and dispose of it in a very safe way.
But again, how...
If we don't do that, like I'm all about regenerative everything, but there's a lot of people that still don't have really good power sources in this world, and we're just going to not go with a thing that could help the most amount of people with the least amount of impact.
It's a bummer.
joe rogan
Yeah, when you think about how many coal plants we have running, that should stop.
We did this podcast once where we watched a documentary about this one town in Indiana that has a series of coal plants around it that's so bad that all their cars are covered in this fine coal dust.
Hey man, you're fucking breathing that.
You gotta get out of there.
They all have lung ailments and asthma and diseases and shit.
You guys are breathing toxic air.
zachary levi
Don't they have the ability to put those filters on the tops of their smokestacks that kind of capture all that stuff?
joe rogan
I don't know.
I mean, how much can you really capture?
Can you capture all of it?
What if you only capture 10%?
What if you capture 20%?
The bottom line is it's not a clean way to develop energy, but nuclear is.
And it's a thing that we're sort of conditioned to be afraid of.
zachary levi
Yeah.
It's unfortunate.
joe rogan
Yeah, it is because those systems that they had in the 1970s, like the Fukushima system that fucked up, they could have way better shit now.
If we started implementing brand new power plants with 2022 technology, that would be wild.
We could fix a lot of shit.
And if they really want to implement electric cars nationwide and have an even greater impact on the environment.
But you say nuclear, they go, disaster.
Nuclear, disaster.
Those two things are connecting in people's heads.
zachary levi
And not to mention the fact that all of the...
Battery components are getting out of rare earth and all of that practice, which is horrible for the environment, even to make a lot of these electric cars that are helpful for the environment.
So it's like, where is the moral high ground in all of this?
Can't we all come together?
Again, get this Jedi Council of nine people and be like, can we just be fair about all of the pros and cons here and figure out how we can all move forward and everybody can actually have energy and power, which is one of the greatest What's the word I'm looking for?
joe rogan
Benefits to mankind?
zachary levi
Well, equalizer, yeah.
There was a lot we didn't accomplish as human beings until all of a sudden we had lamps.
And then we had kerosene lamps, and that was like, oh my god, we can stay up a lot, and we can put kerosene all through the streets, and we have lights, and then all of a sudden electricity.
It's like, oh my gosh, look at all the things we accomplished as human beings just because we have this.
And how many people who live in this world who don't have any of that?
They're still struggling.
And that's not to mention, obviously, just having lights on, but powering wells for water and all of the things that these people would be able to benefit from.
joe rogan
Yeah, I just wonder what they're going to do about the battery thing.
The battery thing is, unless they come up with batteries that they make out of nuclear waste...
Didn't they figure out a way to recycle nuclear waste to use as some new revolutionary idea that someone was pushing about nuclear waste?
The problem is all this complaining is on a phone that's made by slaves.
zachary levi
Ain't that some shit.
joe rogan
That's some shit.
zachary levi
Like, bro, the whole thing.
jamie vernon
It says they're making batteries from lab-grown gems, known as diamond batteries, to make...
joe rogan
And those diamonds, so by encapsulating radioactive materials inside diamonds...
We turn a long-term problem of nuclear waste into a nuclear-powered battery and a long-term supply of clean energy.
The team have demonstrated a prototype diamond battery using nickel sixty-three as the radiation source.
Holy shit.
Makes sense.
Makes sense that someone will figure that out.
zachary levi
Slight tangent.
Have you seen this dude?
I think he's here in Texas.
He created a machine that just makes water out of thin air.
Have you seen this?
joe rogan
I have seen that guy.
I've seen...
Didn't he just get...
Somebody fucking sabotaged his shit somewhere.
unidentified
Yes, yes.
zachary levi
They sabotaged one of his units, but they got on top of it.
And now, Viola Davis had totally pumped him up on Instagram, so he's getting a lot of donations and stuff.
But I think he's legit.
Everything I've looked at, it's like, this guy actually made this thing, which could totally revolutionize the world.
joe rogan
Well, it definitely works, apparently.
It pulls water out of moisture in the air, but I don't think it's...
I think it takes a long time.
But he was giving away free water.
unidentified
Yeah.
joe rogan
I think that's one of the things that was pissing people off.
zachary levi
Of course.
joe rogan
So the people that were selling water.
unidentified
Yeah.
zachary levi
Because all these people own all of our water.
joe rogan
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, I mean, it could be just local people that were selling water from stores and just decided that their water sales were down.
This guy had set up shop in the parking lot.
zachary levi
Possibly.
I wonder, putting my tinfoil hat on, I wonder if there's not a bigger play in all of that.
I wonder if there's not larger entities at work who want to stifle things that would really revolutionize certain industries.
I mean, there's been a couple of different people who...
Have come up with, you know, hydrogen engines or, you know, something for a car that would just, like, run on water.
And for some reason, somehow, all of those people die, like, very strangely.
joe rogan
You know the one who said he got poisoned?
His last words, were they poisoned me?
You don't know that story?
zachary levi
No, what happened?
joe rogan
This is the guy who invented a supposed water-powered car, and he goes to meet someone to discuss this water-powered car, and he starts gasping, goes to meet someone to discuss it, like someone from the automobile industry or something like that, and his last words, he's running out of the place saying, they poisoned me.
zachary levi
Yeah.
joe rogan
And he dies.
zachary levi
And he dies.
joe rogan
Here it is.
Did Stanley Meyer die because he knew how to turn water into fuel?
zachary levi
But see, it would not, and I'm not casting any aspersions, but it wouldn't surprise me at all.
Because again, why stop at sabotage?
If you're a massive industry, if you're a massive corporation, and you know that gas, oil is your commodity, and you need people buying this oil, you don't want somebody coming up with a new technology that is going to make oil, at least gas for cars, obsolete.
You don't want that.
joe rogan
Look at this story.
The crime scene is in Grove City, Ohio, Franklin County, with all the ingredients of setting in the American province that is dear to crime writers.
It's 21st March 1998, the first day of spring, and four men are having a lunch in a restaurant.
A waiter serves one of them some cranberry juice, perhaps, but we will never know for sure, chosen for dessert.
This man, immediately after his first sip, Suddenly gets up as if he's gone crazy, holds his hand around his neck, he loses his breath, runs out into the parking lot, collapses to the ground, and pronounces his last words, they poisoned me.
zachary levi
And that's true?
Like, that's corroborated?
joe rogan
Yeah, that's how he died.
unidentified
This is the guy that figured out a way to have a car run on water.
zachary levi
Yeah, I'll show you the news article that I was on.
joe rogan
Yeah, the car that ran on water.
zachary levi
Greed stops at nothing, man.
I mean, this is why we have to change that.
We have got to help people get off of greed.
Because you will do, potentially, again, I don't know what happened there, but I fully believe that corporations at large...
joe rogan
Maybe it was his ex-wife.
Maybe she was like, you know what, this dude, I'm tired of his fucking bullshit.
I'm just gonna poison him.
And he thinks that the automobile industry's out to get him.
Meanwhile, his engine doesn't even fucking work.
Did it work?
What?
unidentified
Yeah, it's the south side of Columbus.
joe rogan
Oh, another one outside of Columbus.
Bunch of assassins out there taking out inventors.
zachary levi
A crime writer's dream.
joe rogan
Yeah, I guess so.
It is kind of a fucked up story, if it's true.
But if it's true, how come nobody back-engineered his engine and started...
unidentified
I don't know.
zachary levi
I don't know.
But I definitely think that it's not beyond many corporations to do nefarious things in the name of progress.
joe rogan
Oh, for sure.
zachary levi
In the name of, guys, we have to keep making more money.
We can't stop.
That can't stop.
joe rogan
A hundred percent.
zachary levi
And we rationalize it, and we justify it.
It's like, you know, the Vioxx, and it's like, well, we'll make $20 billion.
We know we're going to have to pay out $7 billion, but we're still going to net $13, and nobody will go to jail.
So we're good.
joe rogan
They don't even lose their jobs.
zachary levi
This is what I'm saying!
joe rogan
It's crazy.
zachary levi
It's insanity!
And it's right there, right in front of us, and yet we still just kind of allow these things to go on, because we're not collectively enough angry about it.
We're all angry at each other, which is the...
joe rogan
There's also too much information to really take account of.
There's too many stories, too many different things.
There's too much stuff going on.
To be aware of all of these different scandals, even just with pharmaceutical companies, you'd lose your fucking mind.
You don't have the time.
zachary levi
No, exactly.
But to have leaders that are on top of that stuff that we can trust, which we don't.
joe rogan
Definitely don't.
zachary levi
Our politicians are all bought and sold.
I mean, even the ones that I like or want to like, I don't trust that they have the ability to navigate all of that political scene and not end up fucking contorted by compromise by the time they get to a place of actual leadership where they can do things.
joe rogan
Yeah.
zachary levi
You know what I mean?
It's like, how can we trust this system when the system itself is fucking broken?
So it doesn't matter how good or altruistic a soul you throw into that shark's den.
They're fending it all.
And then, of course, here comes like, hey, we're a lobby and we'd love to support you for your next campaign.
And I know you really need the money.
And so maybe just don't talk about this.
Or do talk about this.
And it'll be, you know, the first taste is free.
And then there's just slowly integrity just out the fucking window.
joe rogan
So we gotta legalize mushrooms.
That's how we fix it.
zachary levi
That would help.
joe rogan
Spread it across the board, all of them.
They'd get Rick Perry.
They'd get the government.
The governor, Rick Perry.
That guy's pro-mushrooms now?
zachary levi
I think so.
I was just talking to somebody about this recently.
I think Rick Perry has turned a corner and understands that there is a lot of value, as there is.
True value.
Plenty of these clinical studies have been saying this.
There's true value in allowing us to responsibly Use these things to heal people's minds and hearts and bodies.
This is a good thing.
joe rogan
Also, there's no good reason why it's illegal.
And if it is legal, then we can study it and find out maybe it's not for everybody.
And let's find out why.
Because there's probably some people out there that shouldn't be taking it.
And they're not going to know that.
They're not going to know that if we keep it illegal.
People are all going to think that you're keeping it from them and that they all deserve to use it.
But meanwhile, there's probably people out there that are allergic to them, just like they're allergic to everything.
unidentified
Yeah.
joe rogan
And there's no way to tell.
There's probably people out there that are hypersensitive.
There might be, like, a gene expression that, you know, they should probably keep away from mushrooms because of this or because of that.
Like, we don't know any of those things, unfortunately, because it's all in the dark.
But all we do know is that, like, the John Hopkins studies and all these different studies where people are showing beneficial results from giving psilocybin to people in these clinical settings, it's really interesting, man.
It's really interesting stuff because it's like changing the way people interface with life.
And almost all of them report at least some alleviation of the anxiety that was evolved and the trauma that they were trying to work through.
zachary levi
Psilocybin has done some really deep healing in my life.
I think it's a...
Again, something to be respected.
It's plant medicine.
But I think it's something that very much, even from my own personal experience, I think it has a lot of healing property.
unidentified
There's a lot of mushroom users out here in Austin.
zachary levi
I think they're everywhere, bro.
joe rogan
There's a lot of them out here.
zachary levi
Yeah, I think they're everywhere.
But I think it's because people are waking up to that and not being as afraid, I guess.
I don't know.
I don't think we should be...
Constantly judging and shaming and judging and shaming and judging and shaming, which is what we've been doing for way too long about far too many things.
We're not leading in that love.
We're leading in that fear.
So judge, shame, judge, shame, judge, shame.
joe rogan
Well, it's also pharmaceutical companies don't want you to have things that are going to cut into their profits, just like somebody would want to destroy that water machine because they're selling water.
zachary levi
Oh, certainly.
joe rogan
We absolutely don't want you developing these natural alternatives.
zachary levi
What is the stuff I've heard about you talk about before they have it done in Mexico but you can't get it here that's like totally healed people?
joe rogan
Ibogaine.
zachary levi
Ibogaine.
What is that?
Is that like a plant?
joe rogan
Ibogaine is what Hunter S. Thompson accused Was it Humphreys?
Yeah, it was Humphreys during the presidential race.
He made Humphreys go crazy because he wrote all these stories about them bringing in Brazilian witch doctors and that he had a serious Ibogaine addiction.
unidentified
And if you've ever heard anything- He was accusing Humphreys of having an Ibogaine addiction?
joe rogan
Yeah.
He just made a fake rumor.
And Hunter would write things that weren't true at all.
Oh, it was Ed Muskie.
That's right.
The drug hunter claimed Muskie was being treated with was a little known root called Tabernath Iboga or Ibogaine.
That's right.
So he admitted, I think he was on the Dick Cavett show.
See if you can find the clip of him admitting it.
zachary levi
That's probably him there.
joe rogan
That is the clip.
That's what he looked like.
And so he starts talking about this, Jamie will pull it up.
But that drug is a very, very introspective drug.
It's not a fun experience.
Everybody that I know that's tried it, said it's horrific.
But very beneficial after it's over.
My friend Dakota Meyer did it and he said it helped him a lot.
He said, but it sucked while he was doing it.
Like he was like fucking angry that someone made him do that or suggested he would do that.
But then afterwards, he had another psychedelic experience and he realized the benefit of it.
But it's something that really helps people with addiction issues in particular.
For whatever reason, it's really good for helping people get off opiates and cigarettes and alcohol.
unidentified
Finally said, well, you made it all out.
I couldn't believe that people really believed that Muskie was eating eating again.
I never said he was.
zachary levi
I said there was a rumor in Milwaukee that he was.
unidentified
Which was true, and I started the rumor in Milwaukee.
Finally...
zachary levi
It was such a trip.
unidentified
I said there was a rumor in Milwaukee, which is true because I started the rumor.
zachary levi
That's hilarious.
joe rogan
So tell people about your book, man.
zachary levi
Oh, yeah.
Do you have a copy of it here?
I don't.
They did not send you one.
I'll get you one.
I'll figure it out.
Oh, there you go.
joe rogan
There's a picture of it.
zachary levi
Yeah, man.
So basically, the long story short...
I had this whole breakdown.
I went to all this therapy.
On the heels of going to this life-saving therapy, like literally as I was finishing up my treatment in Connecticut, I got my agency.
I told, hey, I'm going to be off-grid for a little while.
So, you know, don't send me any auditions or anything like that.
I got to do some healing.
Cool, cool, cool.
And then, of course, two and a half weeks later, I get an email.
Hey, so there's a role in Shazam, which, by the way, I had already passed on an audition for that role of Shazam.
I never thought I had a chance in hell of getting that job.
But also, I was in a very dark place and not loving myself.
So months prior, I'd passed on that audition.
Now, I've done some fucking hard work.
I'm seeing some light at the end of the tunnel.
And I get this email from my agency.
And they're like, hey, there's another role in Shazam.
It's a supporting role.
It's like one scene.
No pressure.
And I just had this breakthrough.
And I was like, you know what?
I'm going to choose to love myself.
And I'm basically finishing up my treatment right now.
I feel good.
I feel like I'm back on my feet a bit.
And I came back from the gym one day, put my phone up, did one take, sent it to my agency.
And I'm not going to allow that to define, whether it happens or not, it's not going to define who I am moving forward.
By, you know, a couple hours later, my phone's blowing up, and my agent's like, hey man, they liked you so much for that role, but they think you could be their Shazam, they haven't cast it yet.
And so, long story shorter, a week later, through all these different things, I wrapped up my therapy, I end up flying to LA, I camera test, and one week from the day of doing that first tape, I was cast as Shazam.
So, all of that, none of that would have happened.
I fully believe that that door opened for me in my life because I first chose to go do the real hard work, which was to go and love myself, to figure out why I was not operating in a clear and healthy way, right?
And that was going to this therapy and, you know, really investing in myself in that way.
And that changed energetically, spiritually, it shifted things, and this presented itself and it came into my life.
One of the greatest gifts I've ever been given as an actor.
Such a fun role and totally changed the trajectory of my career.
The career that I was feeling like a total failure in.
So when I'm promoting the movie, I tell my publicist, like, listen, I can't talk about the movie without adding, but I only got to do this because of this work and going to therapy.
And so I talked about that on a couple of different podcasts, and HarperCollins saw that, and they're like, hey, we think that this could be a book.
I never intended to set out to write a book.
I have a hard enough time reading books, let alone sitting down to write a book.
And I had wonderful help from the folks at HarperCollins, and we made it through.
But ultimately, the book is about those three weeks in Connecticut and all of the traumas and things that happened to me throughout my life that put me in that place.
And a lot of that is familial.
My mom and stepdad, I go into a lot of that.
My dad himself and my relationship with him, my relationship with other family, going through school, being bullied relentlessly, all these things.
It's just a real raw vulnerable take of my life, but it's something that I felt like if we people like myself who have a platform and who have also struggled greatly can just keep normalizing this shit, so many other people will feel not alone. so many other people will feel not alone.
Because with mental health, I mean, that's one of the hardest things you have to fight through because you really feel alone.
You feel like nobody else is going to understand this.
Nobody has ever understood whatever this feeling is right now, which is a total lie because people have been experiencing some form of depression and anxiety and sadness and anger and all these things since the beginning of man.
But the lies are very real.
Your mind is lying to itself.
I love that quote, you're not the voice of your mind, you are the one who hears it.
That was one of the biggest things I ever learned in all this.
unidentified
That's a great quote.
zachary levi
Yeah.
It's from The Untethered Soul, a book that I haven't read, but I know that quote from.
unidentified
That's a great quote.
zachary levi
Yeah, it's great, right?
And by the way, and that's been said in many different ways by many, many intelligent, wise people.
joe rogan
It resonates, right?
zachary levi
Yeah, yeah.
But if you can realize that, and you can realize that you're not always telling yourself the truth.
I mean, for example, you're driving like on some windy road.
You ever have those moments where you're like driving along, you look down the cliff and you go, what if I just, what if I just turned right now?
What would that be like?
joe rogan
I never have that thought.
zachary levi
Never?
Not like you want to end it.
Like, just running the scenario of what would happen if I drove off this road right now.
joe rogan
Never?
Nope.
I go, don't go near the edge.
That's my head.
Don't go near the edge.
unidentified
Don't go near the edge.
zachary levi
I think a lot of people have these weird thoughts.
It's not like you want to do it.
It's just like a weird...
Like, I'll go to a...
A show, like, you know, go to see some theater or something like that.
And I've often had the thought of, like, what if I just got up and ran and jumped up on the stage and ran through the back of the stage?
What would that happen?
I would never do it.
But you have those random thoughts.
That, to me, is a perfect example of your mind is going in weird places that you have no real control over.
So that means it's very capable of lying to you.
And the first lies that it digs in, that darkness in those lies, That is the depression and the anxiety and everything saying, you are alone.
Nobody else understands.
So this is just my attempt to hopefully help as many people walk through the same flames that I did.
And already the feedback's been really lovely.
And people have hit me up on my DMs and said, I have been struggling so badly.
I read your book.
It has totally changed my life to this point.
I couldn't put it down.
I'm going to therapy immediately.
I'm trying medication for the first time, whatever it is.
joe rogan
Did you read the audio?
zachary levi
I did, yeah.
I did specifically because I knew you were going to ask me that question.
And I do other voiceover and shit anyway, so I was like, I think this would be really interesting to do.
And it is a trip, man.
Like, it wasn't what I thought it was gonna be.
Like, I'm sitting there in this booth, and also, like, you know, you go do, like, voiceover for Tangled or something.
You know, you do, like, these long sessions, but you have intermittent, you're saying little lines here and there, whatever.
But to go and sit down and read the book, you go through four chapters, your voice is fucked.
It's gone.
You gotta, like, parse it out, you know?
But it was a really interesting experience, and...
I just hope that, you know, again, at the end of the day, if it does well, fucking great.
I'd be so stoked.
joe rogan
When is it out?
Is it out now?
zachary levi
It's out now.
Yeah, it came out last Tuesday.
And yeah, so if anybody out there listening, you know, wants...
joe rogan
Well, I'm sure people buy it now.
And you look handsome on the cover.
Look at that.
zachary levi
Thanks, man.
joe rogan
Well-dressed.
zachary levi
Thank you.
unidentified
All right.
joe rogan
Thank you very much for coming here.
unidentified
Thanks, Joe.
joe rogan
Tell people your social media.
zachary levi
At Zachary Levi on everything.
Instagram, Twitter, all that jazz, yeah.
joe rogan
Good luck with the book, man.
unidentified
Thanks, bro.
Thanks for having me.
joe rogan
Very good talking to you.
unidentified
Yeah, you too.
Export Selection