Joe Rogan's Thoughts on Tesshin
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Why Joe Rogan Believes Discipline Is Everything — and Why That Matters
Joe Rogan is a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu black belt, Taekwondo black belt and national champion, UFC commentator, mixed martial arts expert, and an avid advocate of developing our human potential through training in martial arts.
Over the years, Joe Rogan has built a reputation not just as a podcast host or commentator, but as a fierce advocate of discipline, self-mastery, and showing up even when motivation fails. His thoughts on excellence, struggle, and personal responsibility strike a chord — especially for athletes, martial artists, and anyone committed to constant improvement.
Tesshin is Real
As Rogan once bluntly put it: "determinism is bullshit" (determinism: the belief that human actions are determined by causes external to our will).
"Will is real. I know it's real. The idea though, is that it's fleeting."
"It's not determinism that makes David Goggins run harder than anybody else. It's will. It's 100% will, his knees are destroyed! It's only will that just gets you up off the couch if your knees are destroyed and you run a tidy 30 miles that day."
"There's only a small little fucking handful of these psychotic people who have incredible will. World championship fighters, Gordon Ryan in Jiu-Jitsu. Gordon Ryan works out every fucking day of the week, 365 days a year."
"If you want to be really great at something, you kind of have to be out of your fucking mind, but you also have to have an iron will. You don't want to workout every day; there's going to be days where you just want to eat cake and sleep. If you want to get past the guy who eats cake and sleeps — you don't eat cake and you don't sleep."
Joe Rogan reminds us that greatness isn’t talent, luck, or genetics — it’s will. The kind that gets you training when your body’s tired, the kind that separates champions from everyone else who isn't willing to put in the work.
BJJ doesn’t reward convenience. Life doesn't either. It rewards the disciplined few who continue to show up long after motivation fades.
That’s the philosophy that Tesshin is built on — a brand made for the athletes who choose discomfort, choose effort, and build the iron will that turns ordinary people into something more. We want our gear to represent a commitment to outwork the version of you that quits. It’s discipline, made physical.
Show Up and Do the Work
When you listen to Rogan — or to warriors, artists, thinkers who preach discipline — one message stands out:
Your greatest opponent is yourself.
Every time you skip a training day, waste time scrolling, or avoid discomfort, you give a victory to complacency. But when you choose discipline: you build momentum, resilience, and character.
Rogan’s philosophy — like that of old-school warriors or modern-day fighters — isn’t about quick fixes or flashy results. It’s about showing up. Doing the work. Earning the progress. Everyday.
So whether you lace up your rashguard, hit the mats, sit down to write, or push through another rep — remember this:
Excellence isn’t magic. It’s deliberate.
Discipline is Always a Choice
In a world obsessed with shortcuts, hacks, and instant gratification, discipline feels old-school. It’s not glamorous. It’s not sexy. It’s not something you’re born with. Discipline a decision you make every single morning.
Joe Rogan says a lot about this idea in different forms:
“You can’t wait for motivation. You have to just get up and do the work.”
That’s the core of discipline. It isn’t an emotion. It isn’t a wave you ride. It’s a switch you flip.
Most people think high-performers are driven by some unstoppable force of natural motivation. But Rogan calls that out for what it is: a facade.
He often talks about building momentum through action, not inspiration:
“Action breeds motivation, not the other way around.”
Discipline is the willingness to act before you feel like acting.
It’s saying “yes” to long-term goals when your body, your mind, and the world are giving you a hundred short-term reasons to quit.
That’s why discipline is a choice.
It’s not a talent.
It’s not a blessing.
It’s not something you’re handed at birth.
It’s something you choose the first time you train when you’re sore.
It’s something you choose when you show up to drill the basics for the thousandth time.
It’s something you choose when everyone else takes a rest day, but you grind one more rep, one more round, one more hour.
Rogan often repeats one of his core philosophies:
“Be the hero of your own story.”
Heroes aren’t born with discipline. They create it through repetition, hardship, and responsibility.
They drag themselves through the days when the mind is screaming to quit.
They build discipline the same way you build strength — with resistance.
Every moment of resistance is a fork in the road.
- Choose comfort? You stay exactly where you are.
- Choose discipline? You move one inch closer to who you're capable of becoming.
The truth is, discipline isn’t about suffering — it’s about freedom.
Freedom from weakness.
Freedom from excuses.
Freedom from the version of you that never lived up to its own potential.
Rogan frames it simply:
“Hard choices, easy life. Easy choices, hard life.”
The hard choice is discipline.
But it’s also the path to a stronger body, a sharper mind, and an iron will.
In training, in business, in life — discipline is not a trait you wish for.
It’s a choice you make today.
And tomorrow.
And every day after.
Because greatness doesn’t belong to the gifted.
It belongs to the disciplined.