Joe Rogan’s Unlikely Secret to Success

As I’ve mentioned before, I’m a big fan of Joe Rogan’s podcast. He talks about many topics that interest me greatly, and the format and entertainment value are second to none.

But his success often perplexes me. And that’s what I want to speak about today.

The “Rules” of Success

I am by no means a marketing expert. I’m hardly a marketing beginner. But I dabble. I’m interested. And I’m learning all the time. I have this here blog. And my books. And I know if I want anyone to read my words or buy my books, I need to do what it takes to get things out there.

This takes a lot of research, tons of skills, and copious amounts of time. And as much as I want to see and feel success, I don’t have the time or energy to do what it takes. I’d rather just write. I’d rather just hone my craft and plug forward every day, and just let the chips fall where they may.

Furthermore, there are rules to this game. And I hate the rules. They irk me.

Find Your Niche

Do enough research and you’ll find that everyone has their opinion of the perfect length for a blog post or the perfect length for a podcast or a YouTube video. There might be small disagreements, but there’s still a general consensus that some things just don’t work. Ultimately everyone is just trying to beat an algorithm. Everyone is just trying to plug their creation into the best formula to breed the most success. Some things work. Others don’t.

Furthermore, no matter what your medium, we’re always told to find our niche. You can’t create a hodgepodge of tons of different, non-related topics. Not only do you need to pick one and stick with it, but you should fine-tune your topic down to something so specific, you’ll be the go-to person for that topic.

Want to start a YoutTube channel? Alrighty, choose a topic. You’ll never succeed if it’s just making videos about whatever pops into your head.

So what to do? Cooking? Fine, but way too broad. Too much competition. Everyone and his kitten have a YouTube cooking channel. Mexican cooking? Alright, we’re getting closer. Mexican cooking for lactose intolerant left-handed ex-cons with dyslexia? Now we’re talking!

Joe Rogan vs The Rules

But Joe Rogan breaks these rules. His guests span a wide gamut. Sometimes they are politicians, other times scholars. Authors, artists, buddies, comedians, bloggers, activists, or whomever he feels like speaking to that day. There’s no pattern. There’s no schedule. One day he’s talking about the environment, the next hunting, the next mixed martial arts, and the next they’re discussing some crazy events happening in the world at that moment.

So on one hand we’re told there’s a very specific format one must have in order to achieve maximum success. And on the other hand, we’re watching as Joe Rogan breaks every rule, and yet has the most successful podcast in the world. How can that be?

I’ve contemplated for a while why that’s the case. And if there’s some way this can apply to the rest of us mere mortals.

I’m not positive if I know the answer just yet, but I can definitely say this: Joe Rogan often feels like the last man standing in a war to remain impartial.

Joe Rogan vs A Fragmented World

Somehow or other the world has become fragmented to degrees that are disturbing. You must choose a side, and once you’ve chosen that side, all opinions are already laid out before you. Not only that, but you may not veer, no matter how absurd those views get. And trust me, they’ll get absurd. They’ll get radical. They’ll get quite unnerving. And the moment you step outside, you might as well be on the other team. Because you will get drummed off of your team faster than you could imagine.

And yet here you have a man making his career having long, entertaining conversations with people from all over the spectrum. One day Joe Rogan’s talking to Bernie Sanders, the next with Ben Shapiro, and then he sneaks in a conversation with Kanye West and Sanjay Gupta for a little variety. And they’re all great conversations. They’re all worth listening to. And they’re all fantastic opportunities to expand the way you look at the world.

Maybe a part of why his popularity is so far and wide is because it’s a reality we all, deep down, want to return to. We’ve been so conditioned to “pick a side” we can’t even remember a world in which we connected to people different from us. Our thought patterns have been shoved into our brains by algorithms on Facebook and YouTube, forcing us to look at the world through one very fine-tuned lens. But it’s not who we are.

We all know that to truly experience growth, we need to be challenged. We need to look at the world from multiple perspectives. And the end result is very unlikely to produce a carbon copy viewpoint of our next-door neighbor. No, by the time the process is complete, we’d actually all be different from one another. Each and every one of us would have subjects about which we’re passionate, issues we wish to vehemently fight against, and others we literally couldn’t care less about.

And sure enough, we’d have a subset of our beliefs that we considered unformed, waiting to be influenced and impacted by the many voices out there.

And it would be a beautiful thing!

What Happens Without An Agenda

But maybe there’s even more to this message. Perhaps it’s true that for most people the road to success is choosing a niche. It’s modifying the length of what you do to fit a certain formula. It’s going by a strict code and using certain methods to reach out to people.

But there’s a level that transcends all of that. When you create a product so damn good, the rules no longer apply to you. You are so genuine and entertaining that hundreds of thousands of people want to listen to you, and they don’t really care if you’re talking to Elon Musk or Snoop Dogg. The only thing that matters is what feels like the last opportunity to hear from someone with true interest and no agenda.

We all want it.

Just the cards are stacked against us.

And we don’t even realize yet how much we want it!