This might be an odd thing for me to talk about.

I spend all my time helping entrepreneurs and experts become MicroFamous. So what do I know?

Yet there are some really critical lessons we can all take from Rogan’s history.

There is no original reporting or investigative journalism or exclusive interview here.

But I am going to tie together the 4 big cultural waves that propelled Joe Rogan to being mega-famous.

That way we can be on the lookout for similar opportunities in our own world, big or small.

Let’s start with a rough timeline.

You’ve got Rogan’s childhood scattered, where among other things, he picks up tae kwon do and ends up winning a US Open Championship and doing some martial arts teaching.

He gets started in stand up comedy in the late 80s going into the 90s. 

He moves to LA, gets picked up by Disney on a development deal and ends up on a sitcom called Newsradio. You might remember that as the last thing Phil Hartman did before his unfortunate death. Newsradio runs from 1995-99. 

This whole time he’s followed the UFC from almost the very first event. The live event UFC 5 takes place about a month after the first episode of Newsradio airs.

In 1997, while Newsradio is still on TV, Rogan starts doing backstage and post-fight interviews, does that for a couple years but leaves and doesn’t reconnect with UFC till after 2001.

So Newsradio ends in 99, Rogan is working on a sitcom loosely based on him, when the opportunity comes to host Fear Factor instead. Fear Factor was NBC’s answer to Survivor, which launched earlier in 2001.

Fear Factor does really well for a few years before it starts to lose steam. By this time Rogan is working with the UFC again, now partially under Dana White, and is doing color commentary.

UFC starts to explode in the mid-2000s, that’s when even I was paying attention. All the UFC names I remember were active around this time. Georges St Pierre, Anderson Silva, Frank Mir, Rich Franklin, Ken Shamrock, BJ Penn, Tito Ortiz. 

Around the time Fear Factor is on the way out, the UFC launches its own reality TV show, The Ultimate Fighter. It went a long way toward helping the UFC hit a mainstream audience. I remember talking over the fighters with guys in the office I worked in at the time.

So Rogan is doing color commentary for UFC as it’s exploding in popularity, this is mid-2000s. This is the period where Chuck Liddell hits the cover of ESPN magazine. UFC goes mainstream and Rogan is there for that ride.

Then we come to 2009 when Rogan launches his podcast, and by August 2010 it hits the iTunes Top 100, and the rest is history.

Now, let’s dive into what happened and all the things that had to come together for Rogan to become mega-famous.

1. Rogan got into stand up comedy at the tail end of the 80s stand up boom. That boom turned to bust by the mid-90s, which is when Rogan pivoted to Newsradio.

2. Newsradio catches the 90s sitcom boom, launching less than a year after Friends. In fact, the lead in show for Newsradio when it launched was Wings, to give you an idea of how good of a head start it was given.

3. Meanwhile, a few years later as Newsradio is losing steam, reality TV is starting its boom. The Real World was well known, but reality TV as we think of it today started more with shows like American Idol and Survivor.

That’s when Fear Factor comes along, and Rogan is able to ride the wave of reality TV in the early 2000s.

4. The UFC wave really gets going in the mid-2000s with Rogan doing color commentary and cracking jokes in front of millions of pay-per-view subscribers. 

5. While riding the UFC wave, Rogan parlays that into more stand up gigs and then launches the podcast in ’09. 

To give you an idea of timing, Adam Carolla launched his podcast about 8 months before Rogan, and everyone thought he was crazy for doing a podcast. That’s how new it was.

The podcast capitalizes on his stand up career by featuring all his comedian friends, and catches the podcasting wave in its earliest stage. 

So that’s a total of 4 distinct, massive cultural waves. 

Rogan caught all of them at various stages.

Stand up comedy

Reality TV

UFC

Podcasting

Plus he catches smaller waves along the way, from the 90’s sitcom boom to live-streaming on YouTube and Justin.tv, the forerunner of Twitch. 

Now, I don’t think Rogan did any of this intentionally or through any special foresight.

He’s genuinely been interested in mixed martial arts since he was a teenager. The fact that UFC happened to hit its massive cultural wave right in the lull of Rogan’s post-reality TV career was a very, very lucky break.

If not for that, Rogan might just be a touring comedian with a small podcast that maybe your brother-in-law listens to.

Now, what are the lessons I think anyone can take away?

1. Find a wave in the culture that can carry you. Not a wave you have to create yourself.

Just like it’s easier to invest in stocks when the whole market is going up, it’s a lot easier to get famous when you ride a wave that’s already moving in the culture.

Trying to create a cultural wave on your own is like trying to make the stock market go up by buying a bunch of stock yourself. Odds are, you’re going to waste a lot of time and money.

2. Catch one massive cultural wave as early as possible. 

Rogan was late to the party on the stand up wave, but he pivoted to sitcoms and caught the reality TV wave at just the right time. Then he caught the UFC wave relatively early and podcasting super early. 

You don’t have to hit every wave early, but if you want to be mega-famous, you’ve got to hit a massive wave early. Building the #1 comedy podcast as the entire podcast wave was exploding was a huge part of Rogan’s success.

3. As one wave loses steam, start looking for the next wave.

Once you have attention and fame, you can never rest. The wave that made you famous might lose steam or even dash you against the rocks.

Just like a surfer, you’ve got to get out of a wave that’s losing steam, regroup, and start looking for the next wave. 

Here’s the key: The next wave will never be about you and what you want.

This is the hardest thing to understand once you’ve already achieved a certain level of fame.

Maybe you’ve achieved a lot. Maybe you’ve set big goals for growth. None of that makes a difference to the market.

People don’t care about your big goals. 

People care about themselves.

So the next wave that comes along won’t be about you and what you want. That next wave will require you to adapt. 

Joe Rogan didn’t get mega-famous because another wave of stand up comedy came along. 

He adapted. He shifted. He experimented.

Hosting UFC events, livestreaming on early platforms, blogging, a video web series. 

He kept iterating. Trying new technologies and new formats, until finally he hit the podcasting wave.

That’s what we all have to do.

To catch the latest wave, we have to adapt and change and shift. Sometimes a little, sometimes a lot.

So those are the 3 lessons anyone can take away, and we can apply them at any level, Big, small and anywhere in between.

Find a wave in the culture that can carry you.

Catch that wave as early as possible. 

As one wave loses steam, start looking for the next one.

That’s how Rogan did it, that’s how Tony Robbins did it, that’s how Oprah did it. That’s how everyone in the public eye did it.

And the savvier you get at spotting waves in the culture as they build and break out, the more successful you’ll be.