Jimmy Carr: "There's A Crisis Going On With Men!"

I remember the day I remember being at home and and getting the news and laughing and crying and then it hits you I was very uh very upset by it and he was just just so funny you a fantastic crowd thank you very much thank [Applause] you would you please welcome Jimmy one of the most respected and best love comedians in the world The king of on liners okay strap in everyone you ready I'm going to start teaching comedy because it teaches you how to come up with original thoughts to find your voice you'll be

chasing impostor syndrome and it's great you should feel it every 18 months you learned that failure is one of the great gifts of standup comedy and to learn how to lose gracefully it's a good test of how much you want something how do we know what we actually want I love what I Do now but often question whether I should go be like a DJ D what I can answer that question for you no you shouldn't I know everything do you think oh maybe we can make a few quid out of this no as a

guy that's touring the world 300 days a year what advice would you give me on how to be a better Communicator speak at 92 beats a minute when you look at the great public speakers they all seem to be hitting that rhythm of 92 beats a minute anxiety It's the flip side of creativity so I think the cure for managing my anxiety is hang on the Netflix special drops today so I imagine I'm being canceled right now how have you come to deal with that so the next time I get canceled I've got a plan

here's what I'm going to do I'm going to say congratulations diio gang we've made some progress 63% of you that listen to this podcast regularly don't subscribe which is down from 69% our goal is 50% so if you've ever liked any of the videos we've posted if you like this channel can you do me a quick favor and hit the Subscribe button it helps this channel more than you know and the bigger the channel gets as you've seen the bigger the guest get thank you and enjoy this episode [Music] Jimmy it's great to be back

what have you been up to I've been you know I've been around I've been working I very Much enjoyed this last time and I'm kind of I was a bit nervous coming back because it's a Big Show and I I really enjoy it I really enjoy listening so I I've given it quite a lot of thought I've kind of made loads of notes and uh you know here's what I'll kick off with I've been thinking a lot about gratitude as the mother of all virtues and I think I'm right in saying this I think you

would give me everything you own in 25 years time to be the age you are now and As healthy as you are right now and I think it's a really interesting meditation to think about right if you had a time machine if you were 30 years in the future if you could be this healthy and feel this good and be this age you give everything materially that you own in 30 years time to be back here and just that just to take that end for a minute just to take a moment to think about wow

this is amazing what does that Inspire in terms of Behavioral change in the moment well I think it's that thing of like I try and I think gratitude is such an important virtue um and it's people talk about gratitude practice and it does take some practice and it often takes like it's a it's like a way of reframing the way that you see the world so I think that we suffer in the west a little bit from Life dysmorphia do you hear a lot about body dysmorphia gender dysmorphia we've got life dysmorphia a Lot of

people think their life is terrible because there's kind of the the honic treadmill you get used to how great your life is no one had a hot shower until 50 years ago so I Tred and do this thing when you stand in a hot shower George Mack my friend pointed this out to me went well look when you stand in a hot shower just for a moment just go well no one that you admire from 100 years ago had this simple pleasure in life and when you look at the world That we live in we

we're like you're doing there been 100 billion people ever right we are in the top top percentile in terms of the luck that we have had the the lives like the the the calorific intake that we just take for granted the fact that our children don't die uh you know in the first year the the modern medicine and our lives and our the entertainment that we get we're living like kings and yet life has never been objectively better and subjectively Worse because the nature of humanity is our desires are memetic so we've got this thing

where we we sort of you know how happy are you well it's it's your quality of life minus Envy that's how happy you are and it's easy to look at everyone else and how they're doing and and not take pleasure in what you have it's funny because there's a cost to a hot shower isn't there and that's exactly what you're describing there Because subjectively I think lot of people don't feel like they are very happy and I think objectively if you look at some of the stats around suicidality and depression and mental health it doesn't

appear that people are any happier so even though we have sort of materially improved Our Lives we have hot showers now there's a cost to the hot shower in the sense that um maybe it's made life too easy maybe it's made life too comfortable maybe we're in a Comfort crisis yeah I mean there's there's a there's a lot to be said on that I mean it's very I suppose it's very tough love but you can't have an easy life in a Great Character Show show me a trust fund kid that inherited a bunch of money

and I'll show you someone mentally tortured it's it's true right everyone's like your your struggle what where you've come from in Plymouth uh you know in living in poverty to now having stuff Isn't fun getting stuff is fun right it's not the pursuit happiness it's the happiness of the pursuit right it's it's just it's that thing and it's not like you know that the self-help it's not the journey it's the destination it's not either the journey or the destination it's who you become on the journey and here's the terrible thing about life it's self- assignment

like you know there's school and college and then you get dropped Into the the real world at some point and look and you go well you you have to decide what you're going to do and you can take an easy path and it's it's ultimately less fun it's short money or you take a hard path and you give yourself a challenge and it's great and I think you know a lot of the times it's that thing of like it's hard to do that's a it's it's life is life is really really tough those are tough

things to hear and it's it's easy for us Because we're sort of on that road but then you know the thing I love about this podcast is you're sort of trying to there's so much kind of wisdom in it so many stories that you're sort of you're giving people this kind of road map for okay well make your life a little bit harder in the short term and and and get somewhere I mean I I didn't really get what religion was until comparatively late in life like the idea that God is a proxy for the

Future right so so so God represents the future so work hard now for a better life in heaven right so that's it's kind of it's the same as all self-help like okay so so sacrifice the present for the future work is kind of the same it's a sacrifice of the present for something better in the future that's like it's a it's it's an interesting thing to sort of think around isn't it that like what are you g to do now so I've got this um Chris Williamson you know Chris from he's a really good friend

of mine he's lovely guy and we came up with this idea so me him and George Mack were chatting about what what should you do today that you tomorrow would be happy you did so sort of 24 hours in the future how best to live because people sort of set like oh well I'm going to do something for 5 years you know so it's this huge goal but you won't rise to your goal you fall to your systems right so that Thing of like what could you do tomorrow what could you do today rather that

you'd be happy you did tomorrow whether it's the food you eat the exercise you take the work you do what do you do oh right I went to the gym yesterday I feel great like a a little bit of Doms or oh I wrote 10 jokes and tonight I'm on stage trying those jokes oh well I'm thanks me yesterday I you know I did something that was good so you can kind of time's Going to pass whatever you do and you can give yourself gifts in the future you can be rich and you can have

a six-pack and you can be successful and you can be in a happy long-term relationship with a beautiful family you can give yourself those those gifts but that there's some tough times in the present to give yourself that gift in the future something I really wanted to ask you about is you've climbed to the very peak of your profession like you Really are generational Talent this guy that's what it's true it's true you really you really have you think about where you started off at sort of 25 years old in your mid 20s when you

decided to leave that I think advertising business and pursue comedy like where you are now really is must be the Dre a dream you like never really imagined could come true you're at the very peak of your profession and I think at the peak of your profession I wonder Sometimes if you wonder more than other people who are still on their Journey up that mountain what the point in all of this is well I think that's that's incredibly interesting okay so there's a couple of things to unpick there so you never feel like you're at

the top of your profession because you're a you're standing on the shoulders of giants in whatever industry you're in so you might think oh he's doing he's doing very well uh you know he's got a Netflix special And a new tour and all of the you know all of the things but then inside you're going well I'm as good as the next joke I write so the the thing that I try and do is be quite stoic I'm trying to be I'm trying to do less better I'm trying to just be a stand-up com the

world ordered a standup comedian and I'm trying to honor that right that's what people want right go out jokes tell jokes push the boundaries great that's your little role in the world do that so The more I focus on that the the the better it gets more people come to the show it's that thing of like I suppose the whole of the world is built on incentives right so you you you put down sugar you get ants you tell jokes you deliver on a show and people come and they enjoy it and then they come

back next time what'd you get out of that I mean the self-actualization I suppose the idea of going well I do this thing that I I very Much enjoy comedy because it's an immediate feedback loop it's a it's a very lucky business to be in because I don't have to wait like I don't have to discuss with someone ah do you think this joke's going to work or not what do you think do you think it's too offensive or do you think ah tell it test it it's it's kind of it's the Silicon Valley the

um you know uh the the Dual testing is is this better than this this or this I'm like an an ition Like just is this this or this or this or this this wording or this wording and the audience is a genius the audience tell me what works so it's it's kind of yeah it's it's it's a joyful thing to kind of to write a new show and then to put something on the on the Shelf like the new Netflix special Natural Born Killer now streaming on Netflix is is like it's it feels like I've

given people irrefutable proof I am who I say I am and that feels really good like That's what I do that's better than the last one and last time I was on the show I talked about wanting to write longer bits longer form like I I've got a great fast ball but I haven't got a knuckle ball and I wanted to try and write some different bits that maybe made some points and I went away and I did it and for better for worse it's there and I I gave it a shot and I think

it's a better more rounded comedy special than the previous one and I and I don't hate the Previous one it's got really good jokes in it it's really funny I like it and then the new tour I think will be better again I think you can see you see progress and what are you chasing you're not chasing the the thing it's your you're enjoying the process it's it's being so I don't think you get self-esteem from the six-pack you get at the gym I think you get self-esteem from being the kind of person that goes

to the gym every day and I don't think you Get anything from the from the show from having done the Netflix special but being the person that put that together is the that's that's the enjoyable thing and you get you get kind of better at it you you know the light the weight doesn't get lighter your back gets stronger I think about this with myself a lot I look at what I'm doing in business and stuff and with the podcast and other things and I go there are moments where my brain will ask myself The

question like what's the end goal here because I've got the things that I materially need need to be happy I could retire and just go chill on a boat but for some reason I'm sort of torturing myself in many respects but torturing yourself very hard what you're doing you're giving yourself a character because you're giving yourself a challenge right we all need the challenge so it's like you know with any kind of mythological story it's the Hero's journey and you're on a journey to to to do something to become something right and you what's your

what are you doing here what's your role in the world but going and sitting on a beach isn't anything like you there's a reason holidays are are two weeks it's so you have three days of going ah we should get back like holiday should be 10 days but somehow we we' made it two weeks and that's great because it allows people sort of three days of going you Know what I've got to get back to work I've got to do something I like that thing of like the top of your profession well you'll always be

looking ahead right at someone that's you know if it's for you probably Joe Rogan you go well Joe's got the biggest podcast in the world and what are you number two and you and so you're you've got something to aim at and even if you're number one then you're going to go yeah but radio still bigger so huh like that thing if You'll be chasing something giving yourself maybe an artificial um goal in the future but it's a it's a it's just a um something to point you in the right direction is there a little

bit of unhappiness sort of voluntary unhappiness involved in wanting to that thing off in the future you think you know because if there's I sat with a psychologist a psychiatrist the other day who was on the podcast and he said if you live your life continually Wanting you're essentially deferring your happiness and replacing it with sort of discontent in the moment well this is I mean listen even the worst people say great things chairman ma said uh you can't smell the roses from a galloping horse so when you're moving at that kind of speed you

don't take any time to enjoy life right so you have to just just enjoy the moment but you enjoy these conversations you enjoy the thing that you do now the hard work is a lot Of the stuff around it you know the travel and the the admin or whatever but you have to love the whole job you can't just go well I want that bit because in the same way that people are jealous of you there'll be other podcasters that are very jealous of what you've got but they're jealous of what you've got they're not

jealous of how you got it no comedians are jealous of how I got it no one sits there and goes oh I wish I could sit for 10 hours a day and write Jokes oh they think I'd want to play that venue or I'd love to have that Netflix special but they don't sit there going well what pathology would you need in your head to write that many on liners and to care that much about it who would you have to be to do that and we're all chasing something right I think we're chasing impostor

syndrome I think imposter syndrome's got a bad reputation and it's great you should feel it every 18 Months as you level up you should feel like do I belong here right this show is much bigger than it was when I was last on congratulations you why is it bigger well because you pushed yourself and you worked harder right and now sometimes you feel like oh my God I'm interviewing this person great don't feel comfortable lovely as soon as you start to feel comfortable you need to push yourself a little bit further there's a great story

My friend told me this a very Nam droppy story you mind good all right Brandon Flowers told me this story so he's filming a video with Lou Reed like 10 years ago they did a song with Lou Reed which is preall for the killers and they're filming this video and they're backstage they're in the they're in the uh the The Green Room and Lou Reed's there he's got leather trousers on he's got a leather jacket and a vest he's got mirrored Sunglasses he's Lou Reed and he looks in the mirror and Brandon sort of sees

him just like checking himself out and Lou re just goes I wish I was that guy Lou Reed's got imposter syndrome and he's Lou Reed there's nothing to matter with it you know a guy that's been a rock star and a legend for 40 years is still feeling that thing of like going I don't feel like I'm that guy great that's how you should feel so if you haven't felt imposter syndrome in the Last 12 18 months you think there's something probably what push yourself a little bit hard I mean it depends it depends what

you want to do you can have an easy life some people you know work to live some people live to work it's it's there's different ways of doing things it's not necessarily you don't necessarily need to push yourself in that way like you're listening to us and and you know there might be a psychiatrist listening going well these Guys are pathologically ambitious this isn't healthy they should just be you know chilling out and maybe they have a good point I look at your work ethic and I just feel like I've never seen anything like it

for someone who is incredibly successful I look at your tour dates and I'm like this guy spends how many dates a year on stage maybe 300 shows a year something like that 300 shows a year well most people turn up to work every Day don't they I mean you know it's also most people like get get your average listener to the show and go okay do you want to swap lives you you have to work for two hours a day but You' be telling jokes to people and it's joyful it's what what looks like work

to other people and feels like play to you there you go there's there say like as a really happy life that people go oh my God he worked so hard and I'm going you're joking Aren't you you are literally joking and then you go oh the tour dates like this last week I was in I know what South Africa Paris Istanbul Budapest Vienna what a life what because really that's the other thing about life people don't want to live longer they want more memories and and really how do you get more memories well it's it's

doing novel interesting things so if you commute to work every day the same commute for a year you don't have 300 memories of that Commute you've got one memory right but if you do different things every day you go to different places you talk to different people you you experience the what that's a fantastic that Variety in life gives you more memories more life you pointed at your head a second ago and said we must be pathological in some way yeah do you think you are yeah yeah I'm not sure I'm the I don't know

I mean I'm not sure I'm not entirely sure if comedy isn't a uh some sort of low-level Mental Health issue that you can turn into a career I it's you know it's like for most people it seems quite strange to want to stand on stage and uh and tell jokes I think it's it sounds terrifying to a lot of people but I find it very very fun Have you ever figured out why you are wide in such a way not really I mean I suppose that thing of it goes back to Childhood it goes back

to um my mother was an incredibly funny Larger than Life Irish woman I was very Very close to her I believe they call it in meshed when you have like a very close relationship with your mother um uh and she suffered with uh depression and I didn't know you don't know as a kid your house is just your house you think it's normal right so if your mom's in a dressing gown when you get home from school and she hasn't got herself together you just think well that's what mom's are like so my whole childhood

was aimed at making her laugh especially When driving fun thing to do make your mom laugh grab the steering wheel try and you know have you had to unpack that to stop that getting in the way whatever that driving is getting in the way of your adult life cuz I've thought about that a lot myself I think the things that have driven me here aren't necessarily the same things that are going to help me succeed in the next phase of life whether it's being a Father like I know you you know you've you had a

kid I think in 2019 um or whether it's being in a romantic relationship I've had to kind of really work hard to unpack things so that I can succeed in a new season listen I'm not a therapist but here's what I would say I think you're going to have to make a transition from looking at uh measurable metrics to immeasurable metrics I think you've got an amazing resume you've got An incredible CV of stuff you've done and achievements and stuff you can point at and and the the amount of views on the website and the

money that you've made and the businesses You' started great and I think the immeasurable stuff is going to become much more important so George Mack has this kind of theory on we trade in life the measurable for the immeasurable so you trade work for I know time with parents can't really measure time with parents and it's kind Of it's tough to lunch with your parents as opposed to the job and the thing and the work and that I'm busy I'm busy I'm busy and you only notice it when it goes to zero so mom dies

and you go well I'll never see her again what wouldn't you give now for another meal another time another thing so you go trying to find that balance in life and I think parenting and being a father is about that isn't it it's about that It's about trading the the measurable for the immeasurable Warren Farrell tells a great story do you know Warren Farrell it's like the myth of male power I think a lot of his writing's been used by nefariously by people sort of that are a bit anyway he's a very interesting guy and

he's he's very uh authentic um and he told this story I heard him tell this story he said uh said this guy came to me and very successful man you know head of head of a business that makes Millions really doing very well and he said he was unhappy because he had worked all the way through his son's childhood and he didn't he hadn't bonded with his son because he'd just been away at work and he went went to see Warren farell and he's a you know psychiatrist or whatever and he said uh okay what

are you going to do he said well I'm going to I'm going to give up my job for 5 years and I'm going to be at home with My kid get I'm [ __ ] it I'm not doing any of that I'm going to be with my kid for 5 years just being that moment and he did it and he was very happy that he did it it was John lenon and no matter how important you think your job is you're not John lenon you know I'm sure he could have done great things in those

5 years but you think oh my God I'm so glad he did that I'm so glad cuz of what an incredible artist he was He'd given us so much and that he had those years for himself and that's for him I mean I I imagine he's kid I imagine Shawn Lennon's very glad he did that but he got that time and I imagine he didn't regret it and and his life was cut short tragically and you think it's even more powerful when you consider that that he didn't put it off he didn't go well I'll

do that I'll do I I'll get to I'll get to a million subscribers and then I'll Do that I'll sell a few more records and then one more tour and then I'll spend time with the family he he did it isn't that beautiful there's a lot of emotion in your face when you tell that story it's beautiful story isn't it I mean I could when you think about it you go that's kind of that's life isn't it and the and mortality I think is something we don't think about enough right I love that the Muslim

uh uh phrase for death uh the Certainty you know we're in this brief shaft of Light Between Two Oceans of Darkness everyone always thinks about the tail end right and thinks about what happens after you die Mark Twain had this great quote you know we we um he said uh he said I wasn't alive for billions of years before my birth and it didn't inconvenience me in the least but this brief shaft of Lights kind of it's magnificent isn't it I Think so I think it can be this idea of um you know depression is

essentially thinking about yourself too much you last time we spoke on the podcast you talked about I would say yeah sorry that that feels to me maybe a little bit too harsh because I think people suffer with depression and that's a it's a disease and it's incredibly serious and we think of suicide as being something that stands alone it's not it's a symptom of a disease called Depression right so it's the it's the permanent solution to attemp problem you don't want to feel this way anymore but actually you don't want to feel nothing anymore uh

you like to feel better so it's that thing of like I don't think we talk about it enough but I think that thing of you know thinking about yourself all the time I think just leads to a can lead to a Melancholy a sadness I think depression is maybe a slightly separate thing not to nickp but it feels Like it feels like that's a disease yeah and there's also a lot of sadness in the world MH and you're lucky if you're sad because if you're if you're sad it's circumstantial and you can do something about

it you know are you depressed because you have serotonin imbalance in your head and it's a heritable trait or are you sad because your life hasn't worked out the way you want it to work out well if that's the case the latter you're in luck because you can change That it does feel like there's a bit of a crisis going on within young men at the moment and I think your new show on Netflix shines a light on many of the difficulties that young men are facing I I was really excited to talk to about

this particular topic cuz I've been trying to arrive at a position myself on why so many young men appear to be lost and suicidality has increased and there's you know these new masculine influences or masculine Influencers that are really rounding up this cohort of young men who who are we talking about and Tate Andrew Tates of the world well Andrew T interesting isn't he because um who made the I think John meany made the observation Trump is a poor person's idea of what a rich person looks like yeah got gold Taps and I think s

of Andrew Tate is like a 14-year-old boy's idea of what masculinity might look like like it's really it's it's and and of course Nature abor a vacuum and there's a real vacuum for um Elders like we now we don't learn how to shave from our fathers it's a YouTube video and so you lose something in that in that bonding so there's a big bit in the new show where I give a young guy an audience member a pretty tough time like we have the talk and I give them advice on how to uh be with

a woman and it's I'm not wrong about anything it's really funny and it's really rude but I'm not wrong About stuff it's like it's about consent and it's it's I think it's really it's really good because it's I've sugared the pill of the message because people don't want to talk about it people go it's obvious what consent is yeah not to 17-year-old boys or girls it's like actually what what does that look like and how should that be so it's uh yeah it's a it's a really fun routine really fun routine to perform and to

write what is it to be a man these days cuz it's Quite confusing in ter even the conversation around like chivalry and understanding you know well people talk about toxic masculinity and easy fix be a gentleman be a mench that's it this is done be a gentleman be a mench you know a gentleman is never rude by accident it's Christopher Hitchin line great I I don't know I mean my thing about young men today if I was going to give young men advice it would be Get the right drugs and the real thing right in

real life live in real life right so why young men are obsessed by video games right obsessed they're spending hours and hours and hours online playing video games why well that's a proxy for career right video games you think about the levels of video games and what people do on video games it's that's a proxy that's like a uh it's a it's a substitute for the career that they're not having and then They spend a lot of time you know fapping to to Pornhub or uPorn or whatever and that's a proxy for sex and my

thing would be George Orwell wasn't right our power won't be taken away from us by some authoritarian master we're going to give it away for cheap dopamine and the cheap dopamine of video games and online porn and living online is is is getting in the way of real life so it's risk right that's that's what we're not Allowing young people to do because we we're saying to young people you can't take risks in real life we're we're helicopter parenting we're not giving them the freedom how much Freedom should you give a kid as much as

they can cope with right 14year olds used to be babysitters they now need babysitters that's not good right so you should allow them more freedom in in the real world because otherwise the only place they get freedom is Online and no freedom in the real world you're not allowed to go to the park and hang out but you're allowed to do whatever you want online well that's a that feels like a very bad social experiment that feels like a bad idea yeah it feels like we've inverted um Ma you know masloff this P pyramid hierarchy

of needs and you go well food and shelter and warmth and all the we've got all the bottom stuff worked out in our society right we we Kind of can't see it we're not grateful for that because we can't see the hot shower the Hot Shot we can't see the third world and we can't see the people in the past having a tougher time than us so we take it for granted but we worked out that stuff they hadn't worked that stuff out 200 years ago but they had the top of the pyramid sorted everyone

knew who they were they had their identity and they knew what their purpose was everyone knew who they were What they were about and they were connected to to the others in the in the group and now we're kind of free floating individuals we kind of worship the individual as if as if we can survive as individuals I always think of that thing of like there's no such thing as a baby there's a baby in a mother there's a baby and a father baby and an auntie but there's no such thing as a baby because

a baby on its own isn't anything It's it's dead it's you it needs taken care of we're all still babies we all need the connections you you yourself yeah sure there's there's a lot of yourself that's that's within you but a lot of it is out in the world it's connected to other people and it kind of it mediates who you think you are and that's you know that's that's slightly missing from society where you kind of live online and you're kind of a self-authored thing You're just on on the computer on the screen and

you're not connected and you're not taking risks taking risks is really important is this in part due to the rise in atheism and agnosticism I think we we both me and you lost our sort of religious Faith around the same age think sort of early mid mid mid2 I think it's a weird thing where you go you can lose your I I certainly don't believe in the stories there's two types of fools Right there's people that take religion literally and there's people that think it has no value okay both both idiots for different reasons like

it works as a thing religion I quite I miss it because the reason the ceremony Works isn't because God's pleased it's because the people came together and so I think we look for things that that are um proxies for religion and sometimes that's could football it could be Environ ISM you Know because you go well I need something I need purpose in my life I need to feel like I'm I'm adding value and what a great cause I'm going to save the planet it's a big thing to think about it's got a religiosity to it

but I don't think that's the you know I don't think that's necessarily the answer you know some people do it with politics they think politics is going to is going to be Heaven they're going to they're going to come up with some perfect System I think you're putting too much pressure on politics first time I've ever said this actually but when you just said I I think Miss religion I think I miss religion it's nice wasn't it it's a lovely thought as well when you lose someone that you love very much it's a lovely thought

I mean Heaven is just it's a lovely thought and I think in a way in our culture Fame and Fortune has replaced Heaven it's the land of milk and honey And where you can feel like you're um uh everything's okay everything's taken care of um and it is good but it's it's not it's not heaven I don't believe in an afterlife I believe in a next life so I don't think anything happens after you die but I think you can have a next life a very different life so it's interesting you're at this point of

your your life when you're thinking about well we might start a family it's a Whole other life it's a whole other you'll hardly recognize yourself you and your partner will be saying what did we do what did we do all day now we're not a Peppa Pig World or wherever you find yourselves it's really just struck me that I do kind of Miss religion but it feels like when I lost my religion I put a backpack on a backpack full of weights on and I think that's what the responsibility and individualism is I mean for

me the the loss of religion was A Rush of Blood to the Head it was like oh I I this is my life and I need to make good on this and I need to live it the tragedy is most people don't have that kind of they don't get to kind of follow their their their dream when you were 28 years old your mother died who had a you know a profound influence on you for many reasons but also has very much the inspiration or at least the singular biggest causal factor of your career when

I read through your story Even more recently you've undergone quite a lot of grief even the loss of your dog I believe um which had a pretty large impact on you I think grief is cumulative so every time you lose someone or something uh and and actually losing a pet can be it's a weird thing because people lose pets and it's like I don't know the other people in the office can be about H okay oh well what we doing for lunch it's like can be a really affecting thing because it's not Just just everyone

you've lost and you think about mortality but you think about your own mortality and you think about you know you kind of think about it takes you to a very melancholy place of like at some point you got to say goodbye and I guess you think about those things of going what are the you know in life as we were talking about the the the great you can have great a great resume great CV loads of stuff on it but what are people going to say at Your eulogy that's the important thing that's the stuff

that really matters and it's a very different it's again it's the it's the it's a hidden metric of what people going to say at your your funeral what what are people going to say when you when you pass uh I don't know I think grief's it's a it's very interesting it's very it is that thing of it you know kind of comes in waves and you think about it for a long time and then it and then it Hits you how have you dealt with grief in your life I mean I I I think when

my uh I don't know I think I think I'm slightly guilty of you know suppressing it a little bit I think when uh I think when Shawn lock died I was very uh very upset by it and you just go to work you just kind of go well I'll I'll put myself in this joyful place of laughter and maybe not have to think about it as much but it's Uh yeah it's you know they gone forever and there was something really amazing about when sha died because people shared so much online so you had these

clips of like I remember the day I remember being at home and and getting the news and laughing and crying kind of real kind of um cognitive dissonance of like feeling really upset and then they played just all the funniest clips of Sean like people just sending me clips clips clips and he was just so funny and That Joy is kind of there it's it's it's really lovely it's really like for all of social media ills on that day my God it made a difference what did it make you realize about both sha and life

when he passed I I don't know whether there's any great Revelation in it I think it's that thing of just you know enjoy you know enjoy your time enjoy the enjoy this because it's fleeting I mean all too fleeting for for Sean who's very Young uh but it's you know I think that that thing of you know family and and you know spending time with the people that you love and and doing what you love I think prioritizing that it's if you want to meet someone high agency meet someone that's got six months to live

I'd say their tolerance for [ __ ] is is about as low as it gets I think living your life like that is not a bad idea if really shows you What your priorities would be someone said you had six months to live well what would you do that's how what you should be doing anyway yeah that's really what I'm what I'm getting at is there's something that facing our own mortality teaches us um but unfortunately we have to we often learn that when we we haven't got a lot of time to implement it and

sometimes when we when someone close to us passes away we can vicariously learn that Message about our immortality and what really what our priority should be and really how we should be living our life and really What mattered the most and I imagine losing someone that was as close to you as Sha was sends you some kind of message about priorities and life and gratitude and all these things we talked about yeah I think it's yeah I think gr gratitude's a big part of it as well that idea of kind of going wow that was

That was pretty special you you were I might grab I might grab another coffee can I grab the rest of my coffee yeah yeah is that all right am I allowed yeah he said breaking with format I might shuffle my notes as well I'm going to shuffle my notes this is a business podcast or at least that's how it started and is it have You Have you listened back because I don't think it is I'll be honest with you it's it's not this is but business is life You know what I mean and they're the

same thing the communication mental health striving progress people relationships it's all business at the end of the day it I mean you are re I mean this I mean I know it's still cool diary the CEO but re I don't think you've talked about business on this for like 3 years and even then it was like a passing so when you started your business how did that make you feel it's this isn't you're an old hippie is what You are you love this is a great podcast but this is a storytelling podcast so many of

so many entrepreneurs are old hippies I think of Steve Jobs he was an Old Hippie yeah you know and it's interesting I think that thing of like uh what does business teach people like we're talking about like young men and and kind of there's a bit of a crisis going on out there uh with young men and and young women are not having an easy time either but it's that thing of like The the suicide rate whatever um is horrific with young men and you go well what's going on and it's agency I don't think

we're giving young people enough agency so they don't feel like they have they have control and really I think the thing of like serial entrepreneurs like no one ever seems to hit on their first company but it's the second and third and fourth and but they just keep going they go well I'm never going to work for anyone I'm going to do it myself that's Kind of I don't think we're teaching enough of that uh it's it's a weird thing CU like teaching someone to be a self-starter is kind of a contradiction in terms but

it's it it kind of works right there's I think we're teaching the wrong things I've Got a Theory I think I'm going to start teaching comedy and and okay so comedy is very new it really you could trace its roots back to George Carlin and Richard PRI in the early 70s as like one guy on stage In a big theater and he's selling tickets and people are just seeing him right you can trace it back to the dawn of time but really the modern standup early '70s is a good good starting point right so it's

a very new medium compared to music and film right it's very new so I sort of view George Carlin and uh Richard PR they're John the Baptist right and and Jesus isn't here yet and it's this new evolving medium and unlike music we don't have a language yet so we Need a language of like okay what are the joke types and how could you how do you how do you write that down how do you configure it there's too much magical thinking around stand-up comedy you know the idea that I I just I just came

up with it it's just yeah I just but actually learning how jokes work and uh systematizing and uh analyzing them I think really helps so I've been working on a book with um uh Amanda Baker who helped me on my first book uh we've been Working on a thing together for the last couple of years trying to teach comedy and I think I think there's a real benefit to it because if you think about music in schools right we'd all argue learning music's great right it's great idea teach kid the piano grade three learn something

about music and they'll appreciate music much more in life I think comedy is much more relevant right what does comedy teach you right it teaches you you would you learn to kind Of you find your self and you find your voice and you learn to communicate your ideas and to order them and write them down and uh to communicate it's very valuable like the great tragedy of life is most people live and die and never hear their own voice everybody wants to be a better speaker a better Communicator you know it's funny cuz I sat

with a guy called um Julian treasure who has I think Ted Talk on communication and speaking that Did I don't know 30 40 million views and he said I also did a Ted Talk on listening ick can no one listen to it everyone listen to the talk about being a better speaker that's that's that's pretty funny uh the uh yeah know I could imagine that you as a as a guy that's touring the world 300 days a year you must have really been able to break down the science of communication and being a good speaker

that's transferable to Business public speaking life sales Etc what would what advice would you give me on how to be a better speaker Communicator all right okay 92 beats a minute what does that mean speak at 92 beats a minute that's there you go I mean there's kind of a science behind it and I've looked into it but most great public speakers sort of speak in a rhythm but it doesn't matter how fast they're speaking but they're kind of Hitting 92 beats a minute so I tend to listen to a playlist of songs that are

all 92 beats a minute before going on stage I know that sounds like Madness you know and it's it may be it is but I think there's something about that Rhythm that just the audience that kind of um the proximal speed of cognition that idea everyone kind of gets into that Rhythm and when you look at the great public speakers they all seem to be hitting that that rhythm of 92 beats A minute do you think Trump's a good public speaker yeah he's an excellent public speaker of course I don't know why people would have

a problem admitting that it's I mean he's kind of and he's freestyling it's like there's nothing planned this is this is insane um yeah it's uh because he really leads into sort of exaggerated storytelling and emotion much more than facts and figures than most politicians I mean it's a it's you know there's a Theory that this is all Gwen Stefani's fault what do you mean okay so Donald Trump was pres was hosting the Apprentice uh and Gwen Stefani was on uh America's Got Talent or one of the singing shows maybe it was fact anyone one

of those big singing shows he found out she was getting paid more than him and so he wanted to build his relevance right so he decided Well I know I'll run for president I'll become incredibly relevant for like three months he's a Contender he's whatever and then you drop out the race no problem at all so he hires all those people in Plaza and he comes down the gold escalator and he does the speech and great okay nothing he then goes and there's footage of this he then goes and does the first make America great

again rally and they've got foot job him walking up the steps and he sees like 10,000 people all chanting and there's the Realization oh oh this could be real it's kind of a yeah I think that's I think that's stani did it get her I was the reason I was I was talking about business is because because this is don't have a CEO it's a podcast about business is is because you taught me last time sort of indirectly about something that I've now developed and I call myself no man's land which is that moment when

you make a decision to leave the comfort and security of your Identity your professional um you know Endeavor what whatever it is you were working in marketing and then like I always reference how objectively insane it was for you to leave that and go and become a comedian and I've I've dubbed that no man's land that sort of six to 12 months of looking a bit stupid of losing your friends losing you know I refer to these five buckets in life you have your knowledge skills your network your resources and your reputation and When you

go into No Man's Land you fill the first two buckets of your Knowledge and Skills but you empty the last three you lose your network you lose your resources often you lose your reputation whatever that was at the time but you fill these two buckets you made that for whatever reason decision to leave a normal life and go and tell jokes for no money some people for some reason and I've seen consistently on this podcast like Darren Brown who was had a great Professional life ahead of him and decided to go do card tricks on

tables in Bristol for 10 years I what is it about these people that's making them I think they've had the realization right they've they've had the confucious moment every man has two lives and he second begins when he realizes is he only has one and the good is the enemy of the best cuz you know when people are on podcast like this that moment looks like Bravery but I I wonder if to you and when you quit your sort of marketing job no there's plenty of 4:00 in the morning ah what have I done this

seems this seems crazy especially when you really kind of when you break because when you leave as well you don't have like an hour of great stuff of like that you've written you've got like 20 minutes of stuff that you kind of look back on and go it's kind of joke shaped there's something there but really it's it's Insane yeah but I think that's great I think failure is one of the great gifts of standup comedy you you sort of make friends with failure as a standup because you write so many things that don't work

you write so many jokes that you think oh this is going to be great and then you tell it and the audience go no that isn't anything guess again and that idea of going yeah failure failure is kind of frowned upon in our society we don't let Kids fail we don't let kids lose at sports we don't let you know that it it's it's really silly because you're sort of teaching them if if everyone's a winner then you don't learn how to lose and to learn how to lose gracefully is that's a great skill to

have isn't it and and you kind of you know it checks your ego and you you some not everything in life is going to work out for you and it's okay so you you test it and it's a good test of how much you want something You go and have you have a terrible gig and well I'm never doing that again or you have a terrible gig and go well you know you you lose or you learn you develop your relationship with no I've someone said this to me the other day and it really stuck

with me that you need you know I worked in Telly celles for a couple of years and it really helped me develop my relationship with the answer no and so now in life I I think I have a much healthier Relationship with the word no because for me in call in it's that the law of averag is where in the call center all it meant was that I was one step closer to getting the yes so I'd get you know you get loads of NOS in a row and you sit there and go [ __

] know this next guy is going to buy these [ __ ] double glazing and I think at at 16 years old I developed that relationship with no which me meant in my head that was getting me closer to a positive outcome Lots of kids don't have that these these days because we Shield them from no no is you know seen as a self-esteem hit for me it was building some kind of muscle in me I don't but self-esteem on its own like confidence without confidence is madness it's Madness you you have to give the

world irrefutable proof you are who you say you are right so you you release a comedy special or whatever you go yeah that's me that's what I do the New tour that's me that's what I do it's it's irrefutable evidence right I am who I say I am and I think that idea of going taking away the the negatives you can't just I mean I mean you can but then I think we're I think it's very cruel I think we're being kind on the wrong time scale to people if you're kind you want to be

kind to your kids right I want to be kind to my kids what do my kids want well they want McDonald's and they want ice cream and They want to watch TV and play video games well okay Downstream are some fat stupid kids who wants fat stupid kids no one so you have to be kind to their potential to who they're going to be right and that involves you know broccoli and homework there boring going on a walk doing some exercise okay but but you're being kind later and I think that it's very easy to

see that when you're a parent uh and it's hard to See that with an 18-year-old that's maybe struggling TI to your point about being kind to you in 24 hours I guess it's a similar thing right like like seeing the potential in in someone seeing the potential in yourself in a child in anyone but in yourself that's kind of the thing of going well you could be incredible in 20 years time cuz really that thing of like it's it's the um I suppose what's the the opposite of gratitude it's Resentment and who had the Great

Line nature had the great line on resentment he said if you think someone's ruined your life you're right it's you like that's a mic drop isn't it that's such a great line and you know gratitude is the cure for that there's a there's a great definition of entitlement uh uh which is where you are now and where you want to be if you want to do something about it that's Ambition where you are now where you want to be if you think that's someone else's problem that's entitlement and I think if we're honest there's always

a little bit of that going on like there's a lot of people in my industry that would you know that their career isn't where they think it should be and ah I need to get a new agent really you think that might be the Problem remember there's a great story of uh I wasn't there but uh David tell is sort of the comedians comedian is works out in New York late night uh he's I mean really one of the greats one of the one of the most influential voices in comedy and these guys backstage were

like moaning about their management and he's kind of overhearing this conversation it's going on for far too long and he just he oh be funnier it's often very simple that stoic thing Of going what's the thing you meant to be doing just do that I'm not sure I approve of portfolio sort of uh working the idea of having lots of different things that you do because really you going to do comedy part-time what you're going to do half comedy and half novel writing oh so you're going to compete I'm doing it 100% of the time

and you think you can compete 50% of the time all the best let's see how you do you're never going to get to the top of The pyramid doing it 50% of the time right yeah and there'll probably be a lot of resentment as you say an entitlement be you know be be a specialist it's one of the favorite parts of my previous conversation that I had with you where you you talk about the world doesn't need more people that are [ __ ] in physics and it really helped me understand a lot of things

I also then shortly after Met Richard Branson in New York and he's the most you know Incredible delegator he's not trying to get good at things that he's not good at he's built his whole business and life on realizing what he's [ __ ] at and just handing that over to other people whereas so many people are fighting to polish something that they're not so good at yeah I think knowing who you are is quite important for that isn't it it's like being honest about it like well I'm not good at that but I can

do this it's hard to know who you are Though clouded you want to be yeah it's well yeah it's it's also that thing of uh it takes a bit of time I'm not sure whether we're not kind of rushing people on that a little bit I'm i i s often think of like the listeners to this show right so like certainly the younger ones of kind of going well do I need to know now who I am and what I want to do exactly it's no you could you know try a few different things see

what you like because I think That thing when you get into the stream that you're meant to be in it just feels very easy it's like you're not you're not you know swimming against the tide just feels like it's carrying you along I love what I do now but I often question whether I should go be like a DJ or do musical theater or something what me do what I can answer that question for you that's a bit of luck no no you [ __ ] shouldn't what what you think you maybe Should do musical

theater who what are you having a panic attack what what are you talking about what would make you think that I I bought some DJ equipment and I spent about a year learning and I thought I [ __ ] love doing this great you've got hobby you've got a hobby not everything's a business I know it's di over CEO and everything you do you think oh maybe we can make a few quid out of this no stop it what are you talking About you know who's you know who's being a DJ right now there's someone

right now in their bedroom they've been there for 12 hours already today and they're just loving it and they're putting everything into it they're putting the work you put into the podcast into DJing let them have that it's nice to have stuff where you're in a flow state in life and for some people that's work and for some people that's a hobby and And some some of us are very lucky and we get to do it in a few different things so I play a little bit tennis I don't think I'm going to get the

wild card at Wimbledon this year there I've given up on that it's just a hobby and listen I mean you might be the next Calvin Harris I might be steering you in the wrong direction you might be incredible but stop it stop it just do this this is great this is enough it's is lovely you're talking to The most interesting people I mean present company accepted but you you know you speak to all these different people from different worlds and it's it's this is enough right how do you know if it isn't enough well I

want to talk to you about quitting because there's going to be a cohort of people that listen to them I meet them I met a lot of them last night at a show I was doing and they are working in finance and they'll tell me their job then They'll show me their hobby on their phone and their face lights up when they show me their I don't know their Pap and mashe business or whatever it is on their phone what's the great line it's the uh you know if you if you want to find out

what you should do in life what do you think about all the time that's your [Music] god what working in the city with a shirt and tie on at JP Morgan or Something no but no one's thinking about that all the time you know so what do you what do you think about all the time what are you what are you engaged in all the time like if it's if it's football if you're absolutely obsessed by football well something in that industry is going to be the job for you because you're obsessed by that and

that's what you think about all the time so the um the idea of quitting quitting is quite interesting Because oh the things that you won't do like if you're going to have an interesting life you can't have all the other interesting lives you would have had right so there's all the counterfactuals of the different sliding doors that you could have done like well you know if you're going to be an Olympian you're going to have to give up an awful lot of stuff like you're not really going to have a childhood in the traditional sense

but you're going to be An Olympian great and if you if you're going to be an academic then you're probably not going to be having to go to as many parties okay well that's you know there's there's no Solutions only trade-offs you know Thomas S isn't it you have to make a lot of trade-offs because not only you know are you on the road 300 days a year but you have so much opportunity there's so many things being offered to you to do movies why don't you try and be an actor or why Don't you

write five more books or why don't you do I don't know a comic comical musical or whatever it might be why don't you become a DJ DJ and musical theater those are my two prime loves um yeah I mean there's there's a few there's not as many as you would think I don't no one's banging down my door saying you want to be in a movie um and I don't know if I'd be I don't know if I'd be great at that I don't know I mean listen I like getting out my comfort Zone and

you know opportunities come along and sometimes you you get offed a TV show you go well give it a go why not um but I think sticking to what you do that stoic thing has really paid dividends that really has paid off and I think you have to listen to that you know and I see other Comics you know mentioning no names there's some great standup Comics that were like absolutely amazing and they're doing five other things now and they've lost a yard of Pace and for me that feels crazy like you've because I'm looking

at it going you've got the best job in the world why are you allowing yourself to be distracted because ultimately it's going to be hard work you know ultimately I mean people can see it I suppose that the you know something costs more like a a Ferrari cost a lot of money cuz a lot of work goes into it right there's a lot of work goes into that thing there a the beautiful handmade made Louis Vuitton Thing is it's going to be expensive because a lot of work went into it people understand that I sort

of feel the same about shows you're going to see a show you wow that really took some time every single line in that is brilliant he's not wasting any time it's no there's no fat it's just it's a lot of work when people look at you and they look at successful individuals they think oh they just must be innately Motivated in some way that I'm not well I do think that's it's slightly unfair that we think about luck in a very fixed way right so Barbie and Oppenheimer are great to talk about this right so

people see Margo Robbie and they go well she's just lucky right she was born she's that beautiful right she's so beautiful people can't see how good an actress she is right people just can't because she's just like sort of this stunning thing and and you look Oppenheimer right no One thinks a he so lucky born with an IQ of 170 a and born with a work ethic because a work ethic is heritable right so he was born incredibly clever and an incredible work ethic right and no one thinks of him as being lucky but they

think of her is being lucky it's weird thing right that's odd in our perception of of luck and how much is how much is your factory settings you know this it's always I've talked to you about this Before but it's always like some some [ __ ] uh if someone's very successful you either go wow incredible Talent OR oh he works so hard no always both together always both together and or like you said earlier maybe a bit pathological in some way which I don't know whether you'd put Talent bucket again you put the pathological

the work ethic the the striving a lot of that is heritable you know so what what are you Going to do I think when you when you see luck in that way I think you become much more forgiving of okay it's quite crazy this idea of luck i' think been thinking a lot about it lately I was reading some stories about um even the asteroid hitting Earth if it had been a minute later than the dinosaurs would still be here and the story of Nagasaki and Hiroshima being bombed because one guy went to Kyoto 20

years earlier and he really liked it so He told president truma not to bomb it and if he hadn't been on holiday there with his wife then Kyoto would have been hit by the nuclear bomb and then they went over kakuru I think a city in Japan and that had a cloud so they s [ __ ] it we'll go bomb Hiroshima and 100,000 people over there lost their lives and every generation that would have come lost you you think these tiny little things that are going on in the world at all times kind of

like this this idea of The butterfly effect shaping our world and it can make you feel a little bit powerless in some way because if I'm the you know if if someone's holiday can be the difference between me being alive or dead yeah it's you know it's very difficult to to you know we we always you know think about the first order effects of what we do not the second and third order effects yeah so yeah I mean that's a that's a lot to that's a lot to take in with this idea of luck in

mind Mind personal responsibility seems to sit on the other side of the conversation of luck which is how much can I control where I'm going in my life how much control do I have how much should I show up and [ __ ] fight for positive outcomes yeah well that's agency you should you should strive to have the locus of control within yourself like so there's there's character and there's reputation and reputation is what the world thinks of You and character is what you know about yourself and your self-esteem should be Lar based on your

character and a little bit based on reputation because reputation you could you could take a hit every now and then you get canceled once in a while well once every 18 months well hang on the the Netflix special drops today so I imagine I'm being canceled right now somewhere how have you come to deal with that because as a comedian you guys get it worse than Anybody I don't know if we get it worse than anyone I think we're sort of the canary in the mind it's it's I don't know I sort of view it

as respectability is a prison and the gates are open and people are desperate to be inside right I I'm not a respectable guy I tell very edgy out there jokes and jokes are like magnets they attract some people I've got a big following I've got a lot of people that watch my shows and and they really enjoy it and light Magnets they the jokes attract people and they repel people some people are repelled by my jokes and they think they're terrible I'm not for everyone I think you have to accept that and you know it's

it's when it comes out on Netflix when it drops DRS that's when it kind of the pathogen escapes the lab because people that didn't pay to see this are suddenly exposed to it someone puts a clip somewhere and goes this ban this filth Okay Banning stuff it's like I sort of view Council culture as the new and this isn't saying criticism isn't valid you can criticize ideas but you cancel people and I think the cancel culture thing I think it's the new book burning it's no different the people that burnt The Beatles records in the

60s how do they feel now you feel like a dummy I bet they feel like dummies it's like and and obviously the basket of things that are acceptable and unacceptable change And EB and flow through time but really it's it's uh you know I'm I'm a creature of my time I'm going to I'm going to tell these jokes and if they get big laughs then then great have you always had this perspective or is this something that's developed like a muscle over time no I think I think there's um I think that adversity I've been

canceled quite a few times and there's I try and see the positives in life right so adversity is a filter and you find Out who your friends are and who stands by you and who's you know who's ride or die great turns out got loads of great friends and a couple of people fell by the wayside and great I don't have to waste any time on them because everyone loves you when you're thrown a party but in the tough times you're a bit more difficult to love and if people stand by you then then they're

friends that's that's that's what it is you friendship is such an important Thing it's something that we don't really think about we think about a lot about our partners in life and our children and that side of family friendship for me is such an important thing it's such a huge part of my life and really when you think about it why why do why is comedy having this moment well because comedian it's a little bit like a friendship right there's there's a there's no filter and really your best friend is The person you have the

least filter with your deepest darkest you share you're open and a colleague you quite a lot of filter and someone you meet the bus stop tons of filter right Comics kind there's no there's no filter you see Chappelle on stage he's it's him great you see Chris Rock On Stage that's him it's like you feel connected lovely there's really something in that Idea of as you were saying there that there's so little authenticity and vulnerability and openness in the world that when we encounter it we feel so connected to it because it caters to the

demand that we have that's not being met with Supply there's so much supply of like filter girl on holiday in Hawaii drinking cocktail but it but in our sort of private and our secret lives there's very little um reflection of what we think about in our private and secret Lives in the world so when we hear someone talking about their depression or their mental health we go oh my God that you know can resonate or is this not why the podcast is so big why comedy so big at the moment because the the gap between

public and private discourse has never been wider and we both were we're both living in that space we you go yeah have a have a real conversation with someone great and the you know the the cancelling thing is is great but Really what happens I mean you could you can recalibrate it and just call it free publicity like people are talking about you well great okay there's this thing called the Eraser test which one of my guests talked to me about before mord out where he said if you could go back and he asked I

think he asked or there was a study done where they asked people if they could go back in time and erase their most difficult moment would you Press the button and erase it and like these are like really traumatic events about 95% of people said they wouldn't when you think about your most traumatic moments of sort of being canceled or something like that the best best advice I got um actually the last time I got canceled I found a friend of mine who's been cancelled and he said you've only got you've only got to answer

one question who's Jimmy car uh any went no who's Jimmy KH I well I'm edgy stand-up comedian okay fine then you haven't got a problem it's great and then another friend of mine just went well you need to just rightsize this and I'm what what's you've got to rightsize it she said what's happened here you told a joke and some people didn't like it yeah that's what happened I didn't didn't seem like that a deal when you put it like that and yet in the moment sometimes it Feels you know catastrophic but those hard times

you know you wouldn't erased the hard times because again I would say and it's a it's a you can't have an easy life in a great character and what they're saying thereby not erasing that moment is I'll keep my character thanks anxiety we talked about this last time anxiety is it's a very interesting thing I mean my kind of original thought on anxiety was the it's the flip side of Crea ity so you have a mind that is woring and that's given me every gift I've ever received right the ability to write jokes and to

to be funny or whatever is from that I can't turn it off mind and sometimes at 4 in the morning when you got nothing to do that mind is still woring so you get involved in counterfactuals you start to think of all the other things that could have happened that haven't happened in life and you know people are not worried About falling off a cliff they're worried about jumping it's the madness within all of us of like well what what could happen and the worst case scenario and these terrible things and you allow that to

to get ahead of you I think the cure for it for me at the moment how I'm managing my anxiety is giving myself more to do because I think anxiety you're trying to solve a problem in the future now and you can't because there's no problem in The now the problem is in in the future so you you you're kind of ahead there trying to trying to figure out something because you there's a demand for um for problem solving in the moment and you don't have a problem fact think of like people don't get depressed

when they go to the gym right if you're in the gym you can't be anxious while you're working out because you have an immediate problem I got lift this damn thing off my chest you've got an Immediate thing to deal with you're in that moment so it's hard to be anxious because you got something to do right now so give yourself something to do right now if you're suffering with anxiety and don't let your mind kind of drift into the future kind I suppose it's quite sort of um Buddhist in a way is your anxiety

triggered by anything or is it just kind of a noise in the background I I don't think it is I think you often I think I I think there's an illusion that when you feel anxiety it's about this thing I think actually you've just got a a level of anxiety and you will you know so if I've got nothing to worry about career-wise or show wise or I'm not currently being canceled you might worry about the environment or you worry about your kids or you worry about you know you'll worry about something else so I

think you just it just it attaches onto whatever's Front of mind and you logically go oh it's anxiety about this it isn't it's just anxiety do you think people know who you are truly you know I I met with a CIA agent a couple of weeks ago and he said we have three lives we have our our secret life we have our private life and then we have our public life public life is you know the guy in the suit on camera your private life might be what your wife knows but then maybe your Secret

life is who you are when there's like absolutely nobody there in your mind and in your own space do you think people know who you are I think so I think actually weirdly um this podcast is quite important in that you know going on this going on Joe Rogan going on Modern wisdom and talking as myself is very exposing uh and writing the book before and after which is kind of a um autobiography but also a bit self-helpy-ness If we knew each other if we were having lunch you know for the listeners it's like this

is yeah it's kind of what I'm like and then I've got an ability to be funny on stage which is another side of me so I think that's like it's not it's not inauthentic what I do on stage it's just like that's who I am in front of 3,000 people that have all paid £30 to be entertained here we go what's the side of view that your wife might know but we Don't well this this this is yeah you know you you're slightly more um I think on this it's it's very much you take down

the uh it's not like doing a TV show to publicize something so if you go on you know gr you're very much like okay well I've got three anecdotes and I'll get them out and I'll try and get four laughs and then I'll try and snipe her in on the other guests and be funny and it's a it's very performative whereas This is performative but in a slightly different way where you're kind of going well this is kind of what I think about the world and this is this is what it's like inside my head

and it's quite I don't know I suppose when you step back from it it's kind of okay well a lot of self-help a lot of uh a lot of uh I guess therapy a you that's that's what I'm like since we spoke last time is there anything you thought then that you no longer believe I'm Interested I'm asking that question because my favorite question what was the last thing you changed your mind about um I think I've changed my mind about environmentalism a little bit I think I'm I absolutely acknowledge the problem and I think

the solution is just there I think it's I think it's splitting the atom I think we should all be I think nuclear is kind of the is the future that's what we should be investing in that's we've got an issue That we have a system that is full of politicians and we we haven't got Statesman we need longer terms longer terms we need longer terms because we need people to make decisions like everything's about um about rewards right so what do we reward it's on a 5 year cycle so no one's ever going to invest

in nuclear because it's going to take 20 years to pay off but they should be rewarded for that somehow we need to find a way to reward politicians for What they did 20 years ago because if we do that it's there there's a better future right and I I don't know if Britain doing it makes any difference like people often say well if Britain does it it doesn't make any difference because well China's not going to do it or India's not going to do it but you go well actually if we did it if we

did something something radical and went all nuclear there been incredible examples to set to the rest of the world here's What I do here's my you want to hear my pitch all right here's my political pitch right nuclear submarines have been testing this for 50 years they're perfectly safe right people going to live in a nuclear sub next to the reactor they're fine right so we build one of those there's no not in my backyard we put it in everyone's backyard there's a nuclear reactor like a submarine in every city bury it have a small

power unit in every city City and Town in Britain okay and then it's quite expensive so you pay your fuel Bill and in 20 years time we don't worry about cop 23 we we burn all the fossil fuels we want for 20 years and then in one day we go totally green right no more fossil fuels well a little bit for fertilizers and stuff but no more essentially and then fuel over the next 10 years uh Power becomes free so we say to businesses around the world you want to set up a business in Britain

it's quite expensive to employ people but Energy's free you think we live in a world where energy will be of value in 20 years time is it going to be the thing yes so you say to your Amazon and your Googles do you want to set up the place here yeah great if I rule the world that's what I would do Trump's probably going to come back into Power isn't he by the looks of things Biden's not doesn't seem to be Very compelling to people according to some of the polls I mean a week is

a long time in politics who knows who knows what will happen I think America will be fine regardless America is um Geographic rically economically uh it's a net exporter of fuel and of food it's got incredible Neighbors in Canada and Mexico it is it's going to have the most incredible 20 years regardless of who gets in they're going to double their industrial base in the next 20 years Because everything that was globalized is becoming more insula uh which isn't necessarily good for the world but very good for America America can afford to have a terrible

political system because it is so blessed they're going to own much of the AI race as well all the big AI companies seem to be based in America and that feel feels like that's going to really I'm not worried about Ai No AI is a covers band it's it's artificial intelligence it's Not artificial Consciousness right so if you tell it to write a joke it can spit back stuff that you've already written and reorder it slightly but yeah don't worry about it but if you imagine the Beatles aren't worried about the bootleg Beatles but if

you imagine at sort of even a 20% rate of improvement every year it's it's only going to take and you know that compounds it's only going to take us five or 10 years before there's a [ __ ] AI that can crack a Joke really really [ __ ] well great and and an original joke I don't know whether it's going to be original I think there is something about I mean uh you know I don't know genius is an over overused term right so there's there's uh there's two types of Genius right there's there's

um there's innate actual genius there's you know bark or bethoven or whatever you know genius genius and then there's um hyper accelerated Rationality and it's kind of what you know people talk about comic genius and they go that's what they're talking about hyper accelerated rationality and I think AI is a long way from either of them like of coming up generating something that's genuinely original no it's a covers band it can it it can it can go well that's the genre and I can do something that's a bit similar but there's something about human creativity

that I don't think it's Getting close to and maybe I'm being naive but I think it'll be an incredible thing for the world because I think new jobs will come along this wasn't a job 10 years ago right being a podcaster you tell someone I'm going to do I'm going to do sort of a long radio show but people but it's an individual you'd have to explain it you know it things change and it's only when you sort of look back you go oh wow that's interesting the biggest TV Channel in the world is YouTube

and no one noticed the BBC were battling with ITV about who's going to get the higher ratings on a Saturday night and YouTube stole their lunch because they weren't paying attention is that not AI well it's the world it's the world progresses and things move on and it's always been fine I think people worrying about AI it really strikes me it's the people going well these we've got to smash up these These cotton making machines because this is this is this can't happen there'll be no new jobs they'll just be different jobs I read a

book called The innovators dilemma and it really changed my mind on a few things they go back through history and they look at all of the big steps forward in Innovation and they basically categorize two types of innovation I'll call it the upward opportunity and the downward opportunity so if you're selling horses back in the 1880s the upward opportunity is the thing that all your customers are asking for it is the thing that you know how to do it is the thing that you have your supply chain setup to deliver on which is faster and

better horses you know you can imagine the meeting that you're the CEO of horse company I come in I go listen boss got an idea they go what is it I go faster horses you go people asking for it I go yeah do we know how to do it yeah um do we have a customer B Yeah let's do that then then another guy comes in and says Jimmy I've got an idea um cars are they better no you have to walk in front of it with a red red flag and it goes 10 miles

an hour do we know how to do it no is anyone asking for it no one none of our customers have asked for a horse yeah that is the downward opportunity and throughout history the incumbents always ignore the downward opportunity because their incentives as you said their incentives are set up to Pursue what we call the sustaining Innovation the obvious thing in front of them become a better comedian or become a better podcaster get another camera the downward opportunity I asked myself what is the downward opportunity in podcasting L you should ask uh you should

ask comedians comedians got an interesting way of thinking I think we're very similar to detectives because we think backwards most people think about what's next Right which is what you're talking about there is what's next what's the next thing what's the next thing and we go well this is the state of affairs how did this happen it's the same as it's like being Sherlock Holmes you go how the how the hell did that you kind of you're reverse engineering a lot of the time it's very interesting that this is this may yet be a business

podcast I think I I honestly think with the right amount of work if you really Put yourself into this I genuinely think you can occasionally talk about business I tried to I try and weave it in where I can yeah but that's interesting that the the podcast thing of going no one saw podcast coming nobody like this and yet what's missing from our lives right what's what's missing what's the nature of BS of vacuum well people aren't having conversations people are when you look around the world all those people that Live to 100 all of

those zones and people go oh yeah they eat loads of olive oil and fish maybe that's the answer no it isn't they eat with other people they have a conversation they're part of a community that's the difference they've got something to live for the olive oil isn't making any [ __ ] difference the connection to other human beings is what are you doing here you're connecting to people you're having a conversation so people are Eavesdropping on a conversation but in their heads they're having a conversation and they're the stuff we're talking about they're relating to

their lives great nobody was asking for this though nobody was saying do you know what I want three hours of Jimmy Carr talking about life no one was like demanding that in the like B someone you know someone roll rolling their eyes as they listen to this yeah and I'm turning off now but in that industry they Probably thought people want bigger TVs and thinner TVs that's what they want they want to watch the BBC on a thinner bigger television so we're going to deliver it to them whereas the the down opportunity was in fact

they wanted connection they wanted it to be longer form they didn't want loads of ads every six seconds inside of it is this not the great sort of if you're listening to this and you're thinking right what am I going to do it's like it's not like Someone has spotted the Gap in the market you could be the person you know and it's it's that thing of like do what you do authentically um I I always think like Joe Rogan's a really interesting example of that of someone that's entirely authentic what you talk about comedy

and MMA and life and slightly kind of you know philosophy stuff that he's interested he's exactly the same guy he was 20 years in The Comedy Store 20 Years ago in The Comedy Store back backstage chatting he's exactly that guy totally authentic and people just yeah great I listen to that all day you're exactly who you are I mean I love the idea that you think there's still a bit of you that thinks it's a business podcast it's not it's not you re you have a thing where you love stories and you love chatting to

people and you love learning and that's what it is this is just it's the this should be called the Education of Steven bartler well I the reason I think this is a business podcast is because of what I said I think business is mental like this is called The Diary of a CEO right what would you find in the Diary of a CEO you wouldn't find [ __ ] forecasts and pnls would you you'd find problems with his wife and you'd find that he's having anx xiety attacks and you'd find that he's doesn't know what

the [ __ ] he's doing so the whole point of this was to go into The Diary of a CEO the things you that's not business that's the rest of his life this is about life I mean I I love it I absolutely love it I'm not breaking your balls but it's like it's it's uh it's it's great the way that it's kind of developed I think yeah it's been led by as you say curiosity I get people all the time will say Steve we want the [ __ ] CEOs back we want to listen

to the business people or whatever and I just go you know I can't do that for a Decade what I can do for a decade is follow my curiosity like I could do that for the next 30 40 years and at some point I'm going to care about a zmek and I cared about psychedelics and so that's what I'm going to talk about and if you don't like it then there are three other million other options yeah I think that thing about that's going with your gut is going to be the way to go because

if you like the show and if you're having interest in conversations I think the Listener will will go with that and if you try and give them what they wanted I think it's the it's exactly that thing of going we need Better Faster Horses not a car and you're going well you need a car cuz whatever this is in 10 years time it's going to be different right it's going be it'll be something I'll dad and I'll be thinking about a different set of problems and I'll be speaking to parental psychologists about what F do

with my kids and stuff yeah um But Rogan was the blue I have to say it and I think I've dm'd him it I don't think he replied but I just said to him one day that the blueprint he said about authenticity and following whatever it is you're interested in has helped me so much because is there's more pressure to change when there's more people watching and they can I've seen petitions and I've seen little movements on LinkedIn trying to get me to have more of these kind of people on the single biggest Request I

have on this podcast is to quote interview normal people that are at the start of their Journey that's the quote that's what they say to me um and I go well if you'd interviewed Stephen at 18 yeah not a lot to talk about um you know so it really be them interviewing me maybe that tends to what happens who would be the student in that situation um but it's that's the most popular request I get is to go and interview Quote unquote normal people so yeah ignoring that I mean as you must have been able

had to ignore the external pressure of changing or telling a certain type of joke or being a certain type of no I think I think I think the audience though for me because in that immediate feedback loop they do tell me what they find funny and that kind of leads you down the road of going that's that's interesting people want to hear this I think the reason people are Drawn to my comedy is partly because there's not a lot of censorship in our society there's quite a lot of self censorship so people aren't speaking freely

in the office or even at home they're not saying what they really think if you notice this thing opinion polls don't seem as accurate as they once were and that's because people don't feel like they don't vote in the same way as they as they as they express themselves in the world So they come and see me live and there's no filter and this guy's saying whatever he wants this guy doesn't seem to give a [ __ ] very cathartic if you're spending your days going well I know what the right thing to say is

so I'll say the right thing you know if you want to see who has power in a society who can't you criticize and making jokes and making light of all of that stuff is is powerful because it it uh it's about Free speech and it's about um the Overton window you know that Overton window of what is and what isn't acceptable to speak about you know so there's an no window in politics of what what is and what isn't acceptable policy and then there's an overturn window of what is and what isn't acceptable to talk

about in polite society and I think comedy has a really valuable role in moving that overturn window in what what people can discuss what people can talk About I'm always very interested in like occasionally it happens where you'll overhear the audience leaving a comedy show and have such great conversations it's really interesting how it like just Taps into they just feel a bit Freer and looser because they've listened to someone on stage being very loose and they're not buttoned down they're not trying to self-censor or say the right thing self- expression and expression Generally has

just been on such a journey like you know this whole idea of wokeism and what you can and can't say it's I mean it really accelerated in the last 10 years to the point that it's it's quite you know it's quite if I look back at comedy videos from 20 years ago they really seem to just be able to say whatever the [ __ ] they wanted to say and then we went through this era of like censorship and cancellation and there's no time in human history where the good Guys have censored stuff it's never

happened so wherever that's coming from whether it's the right you know the marry White House ban this filth which used to be the case or the left the idea that the there's um you know a hate speech or or the idea that something could be words can be violence um which is you know what people say when they've never experienced real violence I guess um the there's such demand for violence we had To we had to co-opt words into it but the idea of going this you're trying to censor stuff is is a bad idea

free speech is a very good idea because those thoughts don't go away if people don't express themselves they just get they get suppressed and and actually just speaking freely about stuff and talking about it is is very very valuable when you're trying to build something the problem that we all face is we need to talent and skills that we don't have Ourselves and we can waste so much time trying to learn a new skill when really what we should be doing is using a platform like fiverr.com where you have Global access to reviewed tried and

tested worldclass Talent at your fingertips that you can access in a flexible and affordable way fiver for me when I was starting out in business was a real unlock it was a bit of a hack because I used to think that the only way for me to add skills to to my Project was by hiring full-time staff and bringing them into the office fiver.com changes that and if you're in that position now where there's a skill you're missing for a project that matters to you here's what you have to do visit fiverr.com diary tolearn more

and here's the great thing if it doesn't go well Fiverr offer a pretty amazing money back guarantee so what are you waiting for if you were a podcaster would you Have anyone on the podcast would there be any limits you would set that's something I think about a lot where are my limits because I get a lot of messages saying would you have this person on would you speak to Trump would you speak to Vladimir Putin would you speak to you know yeah I mean I think I think you're I think you have to speak

to everyone I think the idea of going that there's there's people that are beyond the pale people have got like There's people with bad ideas right I don't know if there's that many bad people but there's bad incentives and people that follow them and talking to everyone seems incredibly valuable to me and the idea that you go yeah that's how life moves forward you know there's you know even you want to be a Marxist it's a dialectic of going well this person I don't agree with and you have the conversation and with an open mind

and an open heart and maybe you change their Mind and how do you move the conversation forward I mean the great mystery for me in politics is the idea that people talk about um Hypocrites in politics changing their mind about things of course he changed his mind the facts have changed that the world's changed you move on Obama ran on an anti-gay marriage ticket but the world moves on and things progress and you know I'm I'm you know a Progressive but I think the idea of not listening to people is poison you know you think

about why Hillary lost the election right it was that deplorables thing remember when she talked about the deplorables and you can't talk to those people and it was like no those are those are just working class people and they've got they've got worries and you need to talk to them about those worries you can't just write them all off and go well they're despicable people you know That Urban Elite kind of thing you've got to bring them in have the conversation you'll get someone with it you you know you have to listen to that you

have to listen to all the different sides of the argument otherwise we're entrenched we're just in these little you know and it's it's that thing of like it becomes uh identity you know which party that you follow crazy people don't like to follow people that they disagree with online in particular Because that's creating cognitive dissonance isn't it it's a constant confrontation of a set of ideas that threaten or challenge you in some way so we'd rather just create this little Echo chamber of individuals that will confirm my set my set of existing beliefs and that's

what you know one of the things I I made the decision to do about two three years ago was just to follow everyone that I am viscerally sort of repulsed by should I say yeah and if you Had them on the show if you had people on the show that you go I don't really agree with what they say but yes yeah it's I I feel like great to be back yeah the uh that's interesting I think that's really I think that's really valuable I think that's a more interesting conversation as well because if you're

just going to nod along with someone and go well it's talking sense that's great it's like you know and it I think to have those kind of difficult Conversations is really it's a valuable thing one thing you said which surprised me because it didn't come at all up at all in our previous conversation at all and even in my prior research was you said that you feel like you have a lowlevel eating disorder yeah I think I'm very uh very conscious of my uh weight and my appearance and I think that's maybe uh Eating Disorders

are very they're very very serious things and I'm Not um I'm not really in that category but I'm very aware of it like as a as a man as well I was chatting to um Chris Williamson on about this on uh modern wisdom I think I think he was like quoting the stat of saying men's uh body morphia overtakes women's I think in the next year in terms of kind of young men looking at Instagram wanting to look a certain way and presenting themselves a certain way I think there there is kind of an issue

around it I think that weird Thing about like I've had a bit of work done you know and had my teeth done and my hair done and I think there is kind of a there's something about being on screen all the time that you get very conscious of kind of uh and maybe it's slightly a control thing have you always had that um or is it developed I think it's kind I think it's slightly developed through sort of you know I think if I wasn't on TV or on Netflix or whatever I think you probably

wouldn't Be as aware of how you how you present yourself um so it's it's slightly odd like thing slightly odd relationship with I mean I I have kind of a theory around um around drugs right drugs and alcohol so I think marijuana when you think about it like weed uh is people are very Carefree about H well that's just a bit of weed fine but think about what it is right it's not an performance-enhancing drug it's a performance inhibiting drug right it Takes away your ambition and agency and it just makes you very chilled and

relaxed and I don't think that's appropriate for men in their 20s or teenagers right actually what you want is the performance and arting and I think what we should be s promoting is almost like prohibition I mean I did it kind of organically I found comedy and I gave up drinking for 12 years I didn't touch a drop and that was mainly because of Lifestyle because I was driving to Gigs and driving back and then I didn't want to hang over the next day because I I wanted to and everyone was trying to buy you

drinks all the time and it just felt like it was like enough already I'm going to be I'm going to be straight edge which I always like the term straight edge it's a punk rock term for being T tootal straight edge it's cooler right mhm but I like the idea of going right I'm going to control that I mean I drink A little bit now kind of socially but uh not in a problem way but giving up was quite an important thing because it was also the focus that it gives you so I don't know

I I kind of I'm slightly uh slightly anti-drugs for young people I slightly think men in their 50s and 60s that that are Workaholics maybe some marijuana wouldn't be a bad idea but it's the it's the idea of kind of young people taking it and not having And it's what does it take from you takes away that kind of that that raw ambition and that's as such a sort of valuable thing in those years it's almost like that advantage that young people can't see the advantage that they have they see the the the the wealth

uh and the you know the financial um security of being 50 and when you're 20 what you don't recognize is the energy that you have when you're 20 that Inc inredible Advantage you have over Everyone else in the office in that you're just you're just full of energy your 20 years older than me exactly what advice would you give to me that's unobvious as a 31 year old you're 51 I believe yeah what advice would you give to me that's would be probably quite unobvious to me at my age about the next sort of 20

years of my life stay out the sun stay out the sun sun damage is is 90% of Aging stay out the sun honestly You'll save a fortune plastic surgeon uh the uh I don't know I mean I think that you know I don't know if you could be in a better place right now than you are but you can certainly give yourself gifts when you're 50 what gifts do you want to give yourself let's talk about what gifts you would like to receive on your 51st birthday from you interesting what would you like to have

I'd like to be physically fit so done no problem at all you will need to Go to the gym three times a week and 80% of it is going to be diet not exercise okay so you're going to need to do that but no problem at all I'm the genie you got it what else would you like I would like a happy healthy family and relationship with my partner I'd like to be married and I'd like her to be happy and I'd like my kids to be happy okay that's great I don't think you get

to call that I think you get to be happy and you're In charge of that and their happiness is maybe a byproduct of that but you need I I my perception would be you need the locus of control to be within you you could be happy make yourself happy and that's good for the people around you but I don't think someone else's happiness can be your responsibility you can set up all the conditions and you can you can make it as easy as you can but you know that's that's that's a lot But but I

get the idea of it the how many kids four four Jesus Christ all right so four four kids so you're you're in minivan territory already you can't even drive a regular car this is crazy this is madness um four kids so one of each one of each yeah a modern world uh I love that all right what else would you what else would you want in 20 years time I'd like to still be doing a business podcast you're not doing a Business podcast now very little business in this no one ever talks about supply and

demand nonsense um I think yeah the the that stoic thing of like you still doing this in 20 years time what a journey that will be like think about the people that you will speak to think about the things that you will learn think about the the road that you're on and and actually if you're open to speaking to everyone then The Comm the lines of communication are kept open and that's incredibly important in the modern world where people are uh uh uh in these you know divided camps it's important what gifts were most important

for you when you turned 50 that you either had or hadn't given yourself when you turned 50 you know you look around on your your 50th birthday about the gifts that you either have or that you wish you had what are those Things I was in Australia last year on tour and I fairly arbitrarily I mean I was always very good at trying new material and doing sort of warm-up gigs and I just went oh I'm going to try something new I'm going to do new [ __ ] at at every show I'm going to

try I'm going to write jokes during the day and then I'll try them that night at every single show and a year later I've got a new show and it was so easy to put together Because it was just like every night you're you're you're trying new new new new and it forces you into that space of writing more and more more and more and I feel like I'm getting better you know a year on you go that was yeah that was that was easy and it was just little and often how important is that

the the routines you know the small things because I think there's kind of two camps of people typically there's those that think sweating the small stuff Matters and there's those that think sweating the small stuff is inconsequential and it's you know but it seems that you know the people that I seem to sit here with that are really successful at what they do have a real obsession with the detail I remember I don't know if it's the small stuff I think it's the important stuff so I wouldn't swear anything other than the joke writing and

the performing on stage everything else it's all small Stuff that's the important stuff and focusing on that like knowing what's important I guess would be the first stage there but then yeah that's that seems absolutely critical remember I sat here with Walter isacon who followed Elon Musk for two years and followed Steve Jobs for two years before Steve Jobs died um both two business people he's not connected though no one thinks it's his fault no you're not you're not casting Any no no I'm not saying he did I'm not saying he did but he said

something to me about how Steve Jobs would even make the circuit board inside the iPhone look beautiful and this came from Steve Jobs father who who told him that he had to paint the back of the fence as well even though no one would ever see the back of the fence because it was covered but he said that truly great individuals care equally about the parts that are unseen you know the things you'll never see and I always that's incredible that Steve Jobs would care so much about making the the circuit board inside this iPhone

look beautiful and why is he doing that well is he doing that because he will know you know and I and that made me think about this concept of your self story we have you said reputation earlier which is the external story of what people think of you but everything we do writes this self story about who I like when you Leave I I love this concept the idea that we are a story We Tell ourselves yeah and everything I'm doing is telling me who I am so Chris Eubank Jr the the son of the

famous boxer Great boxer himself says that he if he's on a treadmill and he gets cramp in his leg like really painful cramp in his leg no one's in the gym but he told himself he was going to do 20 km he says I I will physically limp the last 8K yeah even though no one's there of course why of Course because you you are who you who you who you are like that's that how you do anything is how you do everything so he's all in he's he's that guy great that's it's great that's

a good that's a great story because you go yes well of course of course if you say you're going to do it and then you're the kind of person that does the thing you say it's powerful right if you keep a little promise to yourself that's Powerful that changes your sort of perception of self you can trust yourself a little bit more a lot of us pathologically let let ourselves down in small ways and don't really think those promises matter we break commitments to oursel pathologically okay but but you can but you can change that

right you can build that up a little bit and we'll see the results in 20 years time bit and healthy and you got a family and kids and you're Doing great you're still doing this it's great we'll see it I think you probably you can't beat yourself up over everything right you you have to choose where to suffer you have to choose what's the thing that matters to you and don't just let yourself down on that so maybe you're not going to do everything okay fine do you think that's what confidence is confidence and yeah

confidence in yourself is just a combination and a culmination of the Commitments you kept to yourself and what you Pro to yourself about yourself I think that's uh I haven't thought about it like that but that seems like a very uh logical conclusion you know it's that thing of you want to give the world irrefutable proof you are who you say you are well the world and yourself there's a mirror up as well are you who you say you are yeah well great that's a that's a lovely thing to be and to build that up

in Small ways I mean that's really you're talking about building character of going well I'm going to make that promise to myself and then I'm going to I'm going to do it so you don't make [ __ ] promises to yourself yeah New Year resolutions are not a good idea because if you're going to let yourself down that's more damaging pick something that you can do pick something small last time we spoke you expressed An aspiration an ambition you had you said I think we were talking about Dave Chappelle and you said you wanted to

do longer form jokes yeah so there's there's some stuff in the new show so there's like 20 minutes on being a dad um that I think is really funny and I wanted it to fit within my Persona as well because a lot of people sort of become fathers and they get a bit sentimental and they lose some of their Edge so the stuff that I've got about being a father is uh is brutal but it's funny it's funny it's it's a funny thing to to kind of experience as well it's something kind of new to

talk about who's your favorite comic of all time Chris Rock really Chris Rock by yeah Chris Rock I think the uh the the I had the great pleasure of working with Chris as well and he's an extraordinary Talent the uh the the Rhythm and Cadence and the points that he makes and the way that he sets up Material um the way that he delivers a bunch line that just everything about it from sort of a technical point of view I admire and I love what he says I I I just think he's he's he's just

[ __ ] hilarious and I see the work I see what he does I see the work that he does now he's he's been a legendary Next Level performer for 30 years and he's still working just as hard and you got to love that what did you make of this lap well I mean obviously just I mean it's there's no there's no um there's no argument that's it's a it's a uh I I was I was shocked you know it it strikes me that uh Will Smith may be the greatest actor of his generation because

he was pretending to be an entirely different human being for the last 40 years and The Mask slipped and we saw a a Yeah a different side and I think Chris really the Extraordinary thing about that moment was Chris Rock got slapped in the face his level of composure was he was like a Hindu cow get slapped in the face by a big dude right hard I just got slapped in the face that's going to be a huge TV moment here's the award he's to be admired incredible man you were on stage as well you

know a couple of months after when Dave Chappelle was attacked I actually saw you in the back I remember seeing you sort of come out and just you you kind of looked a little bit like security but maybe not the most yeah me me well security so when when Dave got rushed uh and it was very scary because you know it could have gone another way um you know the guy had a knife orbe it a knife in a gun it was it was a it was a kind of a fake gun that pressed a

button and a knife Came out it was a it was a um yes it was it was it was a knife that identified as a gun maybe I don't know anyway so um yeah I remember I was standing with Jeff Ross on the side of the stage and then and then this this thing happened it was yeah it was it's crazy crazy scary had he got his ass beat the person that ran out and got stomped out by like well he got the reason he got stomped out wasn't it wasn't um uh malice it was

He wouldn't let go of the gun knife so the guy had a gun what looked like a gun I mean it was a gun and he wouldn't let go of it and they I think um the security guys um uh broke his arm getting the getting the gun off him yeah but what are you going to do let the guy have the gun like it's a it's yeah it's very yeah pretty scary uh scary thing are CH times changing in terms of violence towards comedians is think so I think they're they're isolated into uh Eddie

Murphy had the best line on it Eddie Murphy said uh he said Will Smith when he slapped Chris Rock rang the dyner bell for crazy all the crazies came out for a couple couple of weeks the guy rushes um Chappelle it's not it's not a great situation I mean it's like it's it's a scary thing when you think you know friends getting rushed by someone with a knife and you sort of think of what could have happened but he was fine and Obviously you know was shaken in the moment but he was pretty pretty philosophical

about it anyone ever attacked you on stage no I mean threatened you yeah I've been I've been threatened a little bit but okay not part of the game I guess I mean it's like it's that weird thing of like when you there's a there's a routine in it I talk a little bit about uh being canceled on the on the special and you talk about like what I'm going to do Next time because it's going to happen again right so the next time I get canceled I've got a plan here's what I'm going to do

I'm going to say I've rehearsed this I'm going to make a public statement on the day the news story breaks I'm going to say I'm sorry and the people that are offended will say you don't really mean that apology and I'll say so you're saying I could say something and not mean it now you're getting It a smart but it's that it's they're jokes you can't go around apologizing for jokes I'm exceptionally excited to sit down and watch your Netflix special Natural Born Killer which came out on April 16th there's been a lot of conversation

around it because I think a lot of people are acknowledging that you've adopted a slightly different style to the past and everyone's excited to see this this newer Jimmy this This heavily iterated optimized version of Jimmy that's taken 51 years to produce and I always talk to people about our last conversation and you telling me that even you at at the peak of the mountain in many people's eyes are still trying to find small marginal gains and and challenge yourself and come out of your comfort zone and I think that's exactly what you do in

this special I've been fortunate enough to see some of the the jokes and the angles In the special and I think for some reason it feels to me like Society needs to have some of these conversations as well so what even though there is humor there underneath the the jokes you tell there's um I think there's an underlying important message that's greeting Society at the right moment I very much appreciate that is that accurate is that an accurate assessment I think it is I think it's it has it is different to the last special And

it's got more of me in it and it's like I'm in a very privileged position where people you know some people listen to me uh and I have my audience I know what my audience are so I can I can get a message in under the wire uh that other people can't really talk about and so that thing of going if I'm doing sex ed I do sex ed in my way and it's very funny but it's getting a message across to young men that I think is very valuable I'm excited to listen Specifically about

the stuff about consent very very excited Jimmy we have a closing tradition on this podcast where the last guest leaves a question for the next guest not knowing who they're going to be leaving it for oh well I've given this literally no thought so right okay I don't get to see it either which is funny people don't believe me when I say that but okay what's the have I got a question you have got a question that's been left for You the question that's been left for you is what would you tell your 20-year-old self

that you wish you knew and that would have positively impacted your life and helped you to avoid unnecessary pain I think I would have said enjoy yourself more try and be more present I think I was uh I think I was worried about the results and not the process at that age I think I was worried about what kind of degree I would get uh and working hard and I should have been worried about having more fun what's telling you in hindsight that that's the important thing you needed to hear at that point what was

the symptom of not hearing that I think it was I think there's a there's a weird thing in uh if you're in Academia and you have that imposter syndrome and you feel like oh oh God what's what's I don't belong here I'm not bright enough I need to Work harder that's valuable in one sense it makes you kind of work harder but actually you know should have what's what what's college for it's just for growing up be in the moment I what do you think of University I think University is a luxury item now I

think the intrinsic value of university is less important than the what it signals about you so I think a degree from Cambridge is a Louis Vuitton bag it's a luxury item that says Oh I have this um you can just get the reading list and read the books I'm not sure whether whether academia's you know I don't know I've got strong views on Academia because I was when I went to University it was free right it was very difficult to get in but it was free and I think we should bring that back I think

if you're doing let's say stem right let's say you're studying any stem subject University should be free in the UK and if you get A stem degree from anywhere else in the world it should come with um British passport attached come spend some time here great it's not a bad policy your kid turns to you one day and says daddy I'm I want to be a magician what' you say to your kid they want to be a a a magician or they say that I want to be an NBA player let's do that one what'

you say to your kid wait Go back become a magician um uh I I don't know I mean listen it's it's uh I suppose it's that thing of like follow your dreams if they're hiring it's Chris rocks line isn't it yeah Follow Your Passion if they're hiring if you if if you're good at that if you're I don't know if my kid winds up being 7 foot I'd be surprised but if he is then maybe maybe then you know maybe there's a maybe there's a future in it but The yeah pick something that seems realistic

to you have you got a bias about what you want your son to do uh honestly because we all have I would have a I would have a bit of a bias I I mean I don't know I don't know what jobs are going to be in 30 years time right you you want your kid to be happy and maybe maybe to have some sort of uh grounding in critical thinking and beyond that I know good luck Jimmy thank you our first conversation really blew Me away and it it taught me something about actually about

this podcast you're one of the real defining conversations I had that taught me that everyone is much more than the surface that you see and it's funny cuz when last time when we recorded it was upstairs in my kitchen my previous kitchen and the team text me when you arrived and they said oh Jimmy car's just arrived I think you arrived on your bicycle or something and they're Like oh God he's just act a joke about someone's mom downstairs and I thought oh this is this is Jimmy car the Jimmy car I've seen on nine

out of 10 cats and then we went upstairs and had that conversation and it just blew my mind it just absolutely blew my mind well this is the difficult second album how did I do oh fantastic oh great fantastic absolutely but no it really it taught me that um people are much more than than just the the mask that we wear and we All wear a mask you know Persona to get through life and we find it easier sometimes to wear the mask than to confront who we actually are but in that ation I feel

like I got to meet The Man Behind the Mask per se and I I really like sharing that side of myself I I I really enjoy this I really enjoy the show I wish you every success thank you so much Jimmy thank you for everything and I highly recommend everybody go and see Natural Born Killer which is on Netflix right now I'm going to put the link to the Netflix special in the description below [Music] a [Music]