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[Applause] I've got one [ __ ] life and this is it. Jimmy, it was not pre-ordained that I was going to be a successful comedian touring the world and being on TV. I just I knew
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what I wanted to do and then I pursued it. I was so broken. I was so stripped of serotonin. It went from being on the
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cover of the paper to going, you know, this is morally wrong. I was having panic attacks. It's [ __ ] terrifying
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because you think, is this my forever now? And when you're depressed, it's the appetite for life is just gone. What's
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the thing that you're good at that you could get better at that you could be better than you last year? That's the key thing. Cuz take that thing, if you
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can find out what that is for you, and then apply some hard work and time, that's your luck.
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Be happy. I think it's a it's a powerful thing to aspire to. You know, when you're on a plane and it's going down
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and the oxygen masks come, you have to grab your mask first or you're no good for anyone else. You being happy makes
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the people around you happier. Better for your friends, better for your family, better for the world.
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When you clicked on this video, I don't know what you were expecting when they told me Jimmy Carr was going to be on
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the Diary of a CEO. I don't know what I was expecting, but what I got and what I
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learned and the person that showed up is not the Jimmy Carr that I know from TV. It's not the Jimmy Carr that I've
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watched on TV for many, many decades. The Jimmy Carr that came here today is quite honestly a genius, a philosophical thinker, an expert on the topic of
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happiness. someone that writes in his brand new book about finding and pursuing your purpose. Jimmy Carr has typically been known for his very
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comedic oneliners. What he shares today, it's deep. It's profound. And when you find out that he was a Cambridge graduate, it kind of makes sense because Jimmy is a very, very smart man. Not
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just books smarts, he's life smart. This podcast today is one of my favorite of all time because it has everything. Not
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just those profound truths that I know I know will change your life, but also a very remarkable, compelling, vulnerable personal story. One that starts with his
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mom and his dad. One that starts with dyslexia and feeling rejected at a very young age. one that journeys through
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being cancelled, controversy, panic attacks, depression, and ultimately finding himself. He says it himself. This is the Jimmy Car you don't know.
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But I'll tell you this, this is the Jimmy Car you should. So, without further ado, I'm Steven Bartlett and
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this is the Driver CEO. I hope nobody's listening, but if you are, then please keep this to yourself.
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It's so funny because every time I do this podcast, I always try and think of a new place to start. But having read
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your story and having read the stories of my guests before they arrive, I always end up starting in the same
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place. So I was just sat there trying to think of a new way to to come into it. But I'm going to go for it. So your
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childhood, Jimmy, very very pivotal. And I I was reading throughout your childhood about these really really
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pivotal moments. pivotal moments of changing school and family and mom and dad. Take me to the the most important
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context from your childhood. I suppose I mean listen it's it's when you remember stuff we're all um unreliable narrators
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when we look back on our lives and I think the gift of lockdown was that uh memory and speed are inversely
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proportionate that when you slow down in life you remember more you kind of and and it's a great time for kind of
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recalibration and thinking well what happened so the things that I recently became a father so you're thinking about
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childhood again in kind of this new way and thinking well what are the what are the things you would want for your child
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what would you want to give them? And also what were those key moments where you get to decide who you are and I
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think that the key bits in my childhood were the moments where you become aware you are a story you tell yourself. So I
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moved schools when I was 16 and I was kind of not a tear away but I was in trouble and I was messing around and I
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was with a uh a fairly rough crew. Uh and I switched schools and told a different story. Not to be Machavelian. you just kind of arrived at the new school and went well I guess I guess
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maybe no one no one knows me here I could just be whoever I want to be and you become aware of how not consciously
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but even at that early age aware that you're not a noun you're a verb you're a doing thing and you can do things
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differently and you can do better and then so that lesson obviously that you then forget that and and you don't make
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good on that again for a while so I was kind of in my mid20s when the next big kind of sea change of going right I'm
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going to leave uh a job working for someone and go on an adventure. And it was I mean for me that kind of
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mid20s thing was it's not childhood but it feels like even at 25 I was um in an archetypical way still a child because I was living my life for someone else. I hadn't really taken the reigns yet. I
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hadn't really made a decision until I was in my mid20s. So it felt like to me I was like a big kid when I was 25 and
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then suddenly at 26 yo ho ho a pirates life for me. I just I [ __ ] off and joined the
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circus and became a comedian and started leading my own life in a way that I think I mean part of the reason for the
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book is I think a lot of people aspire to that. A lot of people want to um want to find their purpose and they want to they want to pursue it and you know it's
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very sad a lot of people don't get to do either. And when you changed school at 16 years old and you talk about you were
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able to kind of shed this identity that that school and environment and the teachers there had given you. Well, I think you've got baggage,
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haven't you? When you're even when you're 16, you got baggage. You go to six form and you're oh, you're the tear away kid. You're going to do like you're
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going to do, you know, this well in your exams. It's it's a um your past indicates where your future's going to go. And it doesn't have to be that way. At some stage you just have to you you
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cut those apron strings or you cut with the past and go no I could be academic. You know I'm I'm a I'm very dyslexic and
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I didn't really learn to read and write till I was about maybe 10 or 11 with any level of proficiency and then I managed
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to get myself to Cambridge. And part of that is like a force of will. You just go right I'm going to I'll do that. I'll figure out how to do it. I'll figure out what the code is. And often I think it's
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that thing of like the thing that comics do incredibly well. Well, I talk about like the superpowers of comedians. What comedians do brilliantly is they're
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great at p pat pattern recognition. And that strikes me as like the most important thing in life for humans is
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pattern recognition. Well, that that kind of works like that. How do you write an A-grade essay? It's not about knowing about history. It's about
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knowing the structure of what that essay looks like. And so, you kind of lift the structure and go, "Right, well, I'll
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just I I'll I'll write to that formula." Crack in the code on stuff. And I think
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at every level you're trying to crack new codes. You're trying to get better at stuff. And and do you think if you go back to
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that that changing school scenario again, you were given this identity and that identity came with a set of like
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implicit instructions on who you were which we then all for some reason subconsciously believe and then obey and then we start fulfilling. 100%. I mean I think the the the things
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that dictate our lives are our beliefs. Your your life is as good as your you believe it's going to be. I think I'm a
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real advocate that disposition is more important than position and 95% of life is how you look at it and 5% is what
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happens to you. So the idea that you go what what are you going to believe? Well, most of our beliefs that the beliefs that really affect us are the um
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presuppositions that we make. We don't even think about them. We just think it's oh I'm not the kind of person that does that. I'm not the kind of person
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because I'm not from that background or I'm not I'm not from showbiz. I don't know anyone in showbiz so I'm never going to be in showbiz. And then you
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allow yourself at some stage you go, well, [ __ ] that. I'm gonna allow myself to dream or to to uh to try and be more
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than. But, you know, the premise of the book kind of is there's nothing special about me. It was not pre-ordained that I
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was going to be a successful comedian touring the world and being on TV. That was not like a lock. I don't have a
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irrefutable talent. I just I knew what I wanted to do and you know what do you want being the key question in life and then I pursued it kind of doggedly because I I found my
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purpose and that strikes me as something that's um achievable not you know I'm not suggesting everyone goes out and
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becomes a comedian but I want better lives for everyone. I read um I read that you said you spent a lot of time cheering your mother up.
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Yeah. I think most comics I mean the cliche is the comedian is depressed, right? That's the go-to and it's such a
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pleasing irony. Why wouldn't it be? Because you go he's makes us laugh but uh he's really down. You know the old um you know the old story there's an old joke about a guy is like super depressed
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like he's going to kill himself. He's really down and he goes to see a psychiatrist and the psychiatrist says
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well you need to you know you need to cheer up. Grimmaldi is in town. The great clown Grimaldi is in town. He's
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the greatest clown the world has ever seen. He's hil I saw him last. He's hilarious. You won't even be able to
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breathe because you'll be laughing so much and you'll forget your worries and you'll just be happy again.
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And the guy goes, "But I am Grimaldi." The great old joke about, you know, it's like, "Okay, Tears of a Clown thing." I think it's parents. I think my mother
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was, if you talk to comedians, you'll talk to a lot of comedians on this podcast, right? So, I think the question to ask is which parent was sick. It it
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tends to be, you know, one of them, and it tends to be either physical or mental with my my mother was depressed. You
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don't know that when you're a kid. You just, you know, something isn't right. No, you have to the atmosphere has to be
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changed. So you become very good at um at changing people's states and then that becomes your job. You lean into that. That becomes a very important thing that you place a lot of value on.
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Now I hadn't put that together till I was in my mid20s. But the idea of going being able to change people's states is
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a it's a it's an interesting skill set. I mean, I like to think of myself as a drug dealer,
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but I'll never be taken by the feds because the drugs are already on you. You've got the the endorphins there. You've got the good [ __ ] in there. And it's about letting that out in a very um
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sort of organic natural high of laughter. And I'm a huge advocate of live comedy because people laugh so much more when they're in a crowd. It's a it's a social noise. It's very tribal.
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It's the the idea of like we all belong to this thing. If you you watch your favorite show on on the phone on the bus
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and you'll smile and it won't do you any good physiologically, but if you see it
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in a crowd of 30 people with all your friends around, it's like laugh. You cry laughing.
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I guess that's why they put canned laughter on TV. I think to encourage Yeah. to encourage. I mean they can laugh at things slightly
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a myth but yeah they they uh uh they do you know and it does encourage you to kind of do a little bit but it's um it's
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really about that thing of it being a tribal thing where we we sort of want to belong and laugh with something and I
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kind of feel that as a comedian you're part of a very long tradition there's always been comics you know there was
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comedians and there's variety acts and then there's court jesters and then there's trickster gods uh you know and
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Nancy and the monkey king and all these kind all these things from our our sort of deeprooted culture. There's always
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someone saying the other slightly outside looking in. Um I think being an immigrant I think is an important thing with that. I mean I don't read as an immigrant in any way,
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shape or form, just your average white guy, but and I sound like I was privately educated, but
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it's interesting in the book of like people's perception of you. You have to be aware who you are and you have to be
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aware how you're perceived. They're both important. And you I think acceptance of that is like a it's like that thing of
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what's the first step on the journey to finding your purpose. It's like well you have to know who you are. You have to start with like there's an honesty to
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comedy of going right this is what I've got. Going back to that the first person you were sort of I guess assigned to cherup
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which was your mother. What was did you know at the time she was depressed? No I just thought was normal. I I mean
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genuinely like na she was a lot of fun and she was very charismatic and people liked her. I sort
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of could see that. And then you could see people are complexed and nuanced. And you could see that she was, you
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know, she didn't get out of her dressing gown most days. She didn't she she wasn't engaged in in a in a way that was
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normal. She didn't take care of herself. Um, and it's a great sadness. you know, you kind of look back and you feel a bit
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guilty that maybe you could have done more. Or I think even the debate now, the culture that we that we have at the
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moment where people are talking about mental health and they're talking about getting help and what to do and talking therapies, it feels like there's a whole
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world that's open now that maybe things might have been different if if it had been, you know, 20 years later, but it
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felt like she was quite isolated and and depressed. One of the things you you talk about linking to that is the the
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root cause of a lot of things, you know, mental ailments, depression, um addiction is a lack of a lack of
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purpose. And it's a, you know, like hazarding a guess at what the the causes would be. And with depression, um it
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somewhat bizarrely seems to be quite generational at times. Did you ever figure out or hazard a guess in your
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later life what caused her to feel the way she did? I make a lot of cases in the book for conflated words like you know words that you sort of think they mean the same thing but they don't.
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There's that's sort of a theme in the book of sort of going well I think happiness and pleasure are different and
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I think um envy and jealousy are different and I think uh depression and sadness are very different. I think some of it was circumstantial which which is sadness
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and there you know sadness is better. If you could choose between sadness and depression, go with sadness because it's
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circumstantial. It's about uh it's about nurture. It's about what's going on in your world, who you're with, what's
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going what's happening that's getting you down. Okay? But depression is a much more serious thing. There'll be people
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listening to this or watching this that are that suffer with depression. It's a serotonin imbalance in the head. It's a
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proper medical ailment. And we never think of it like that. We never think of it like that, right? You've never told
00:14:53
anyone with uh cancer, snap out of it. Come on. Come on. Let's snap out of it. Let's go and get a drink. Come on, cancer. Come on. But someone depressed, you've
00:15:05
100% people have done that. Come on. You're depressed. Come on. We're going to get a drink. We're going You got nothing to be depressed about. I'll tell
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you what's great. You know, you do that and and you go, it's so crazy when you stop and think about suicide as a
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symptom of depression, not as a thing that's a standalone. It's a symptom. there's an epidemic of it going on, then
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people aren't taking it seriously. It's it's a it's I I think comedy is a very valuable tool as well because it lends
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perspective and really what is suicide? It's a it's a it's a it's a permanent solution to a
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temporary problem. It's so sad. You hear about young people that's it's just it's a heartbreaker.
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And I think often that thing of like purpose is the is the cure. H do you think? Yeah. So what I don't know why I'm asking you this question because these are these are you know these are very complex questions specifically
00:15:58
around mental health but I I I think it all of these questions come from my own place of like deep deep curiosity um as
00:16:05
it relates to to mental health the apparent increase in it in our society whether that's because more people are
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you know labeling it or because there more people are actually going through those um those elements. Well, I think
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there's I think there is a um you know, if we take it over, you know, not a huge not geological time, but over
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like a 30-year time plan, uh what's happened for the last 30 years? Well, it's the rise of the individual,
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right? We've all become uh the individual has become more powerful and the group or the tribe has become less
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powerful. And that is not only a force for good. There's a negative to that as well. So people feel that families are
00:16:43
smaller, um, groups are smaller, people feel like they go their own way. So we've never been more connected and felt
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more alienated. It's, you know, we're set up to to to fail almost. There's a generation of people that feel like they're incredibly connected and they have a huge number of friends online,
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but they have no one to talk to. And that's a it's a it's a that's a difficult thing. And they don't feel
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maybe part of a group. They always feel a little bit other. So that's, you know, if you there's a great book called
00:17:11
Selfie and a great book called Tribe. I remember sort of reading them back toback and thinking, yeah, there something's going on here. And why do
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why does everyone want to go to Glastonbury? Why does everyone want to go to a music festival? It's not necessarily because they, you know, I
00:17:25
love that song. See that song anyway. You play that song on your headphones. But they want to feel part of something and they want to be in a crowd with
00:17:31
other people and feel a sense of belonging. There's there's something a little bit our societyy's unbelievably
00:17:37
great and I love that kind of Steven Pinker enlightenment now thing about right it's the best it's ever been. There's [ __ ] terrible things happening but it's the best it's ever been. I love that positive attitude, but
00:17:50
there are serious issues, especially I mean it seems especially for young people, it seems like it's um I mean
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part of the reason to write the book is I have a son, but also the people that come and see my shows and the people that go well I
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don't I don't know what to do and yet you know and they come out for a laugh or whatever and you go well I'm not I'm the jester here. I don't have any answers but this is what worked for
00:18:14
me. So sharing that felt like a um a really a sort of privilege to be able to do that. And you think about your life
00:18:21
and your childhood and the people that you met along the way that made huge differences with seemingly small
00:18:27
interventions. The world seems to be hurtling more and more in the direction of individualism,
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loneliness. I mean the stats would back that up that we're getting more and more lonely as we're moving online. You know,
00:18:39
Facebook announced they're changing their name to Meta last week and they're, you know, building the the metaverse,
00:18:44
which we're all going to live in. And it's interesting how empathetic and beautiful people are one-on-one.
00:18:51
You know, if you you've ever met someone one-on-one that's a cancel culture is an interesting thing to talk about, right? Because I get cancelled at some stage in
00:18:57
the next two years. It just happens. Let's just accept that for a joke I've done online. It's already out there.
00:19:03
It's pointless me worrying about it. But that thing of like one-on-one with people, people are incredibly empathetic and kind. And there's a thing that we're
00:19:09
doing now where we're not on a Zoom call. We're across the table from each other looking into each other's eyes having a conversation. There's an
00:19:15
intimacy to that. There's like a there's like a okay, we're going to have a conversation here and we're going to see
00:19:20
each other's points of view and we're going to talk about it. And it's a it it's there's something about this that
00:19:27
goes back 10,000 years. Like people have always done this. the online thing you what are we missing from that with that that immediiacy and I think the the crisis in lockdown where people were
00:19:39
literally locked down and shut away it's just it's not good for us how do we change it
00:19:45
well I don't know I mean I think there's I I don't know is is the answer I mean I
00:19:50
think there's the really simple [ __ ] is is not getting done for me because it feels like this big
00:19:57
boat that's going in one direction and it's speeding up. And what I mean by that is we're actually building our
00:20:02
lives into the digital space which is making us more socially connected online but more disconnected in the real world.
00:20:09
There's an interesting thing going on. I mean I it's interesting and terrible. Um where people are I I sort of quote a lot
00:20:15
in the book. I use a lot of quotes because I sort of think quotes are the truth. Like it's everything else has
00:20:21
been burnt away. There's nothing left but these six or seven words that just sum something up and you go that's just
00:20:26
[ __ ] that's stuck around for 50 years for a reason. That's just [ __ ] true. So the I think it's Elellanena Roosevelt
00:20:33
that said, you know, comparison is the thief of joy, which I love because we're comparing our lives to everyone else,
00:20:39
right? We're the classic, you know, millennial kind of phrase of like you're comparing your insides to someone else's
00:20:46
outsides. But even there's another thing layered on top of that now where I don't know you online, but you have an online
00:20:53
profile and you might well be jealous of yourself online because you look at your pictures of yourself online and you're
00:20:59
always smiling and you're always with beautiful people drinking a cocktail on a beach, beautiful car, beautiful thing.
00:21:05
That thing of like you can't you're disconnecting with how you feel and how you you choose to express yourself digitally. Um, so that there's it's a
00:21:17
it's an odd thing that's that's happening. I think like feeling connected to other people and laughing with other people. I think it's here's
00:21:24
how we fix it, right? It's nature and nurture, right? So oldest debate in the world. Nature, nurture. What's
00:21:30
important? Well, who [ __ ] cares? Nature's the cards we were dealt, right? That's what we got. We got this. I got
00:21:37
this. You got that. Okay. All right. You win. So, so, but that thing of going the nature nurture thing is right. You've
00:21:42
got the nature. That's fine. That's the cards. How you going to play it is the nurture. And I think there's a perception that nurture is finished at
00:21:49
15, 18, 20, 21. At what stage do you think you're done? I'm done. Off to the world now. Going to kill it. Like it's a nonsense. Nurture is like an ongoing
00:22:02
process of like and thinking about it giving it even five minutes thought of going right who do I like and why do I
00:22:08
like them? Well, I like I like who I am with people. That's why I like them. So when I'm with my child, I like who I am. When I'm a dad, I like playing that role. I like being that part. I like I
00:22:19
like who I am when I'm with my friend Johnny and we're chatting about music. I like who I am when I'm with, you know,
00:22:25
my my my friend uh Matt and we're chatting about aliens or what, you know, those things. And spending finding more
00:22:30
time with those people and laughing and connecting with the people that make you happy.
00:22:37
That seems to be the the you know, the smart thing. I mean that you know I suppose there simple [ __ ] like you know
00:22:43
putting your phone away for a day. Have you ever done that? We did it on our last holiday. My go I haven't had a holiday for two years.
00:22:49
Yeah. But that thing of like we put our phones in the we check the phone in the morning to see no one interesting's died. You don't want to miss a biggie.
00:22:56
You know what I mean? You don't want to miss [ __ ] Diana too. Whatever the [ __ ] So you put the phone in the safe in the morning
00:23:01
and then you have your day and then you check it in the evening. You give yourself the the the rush of I've got so
00:23:07
many emails. Oh my god. And and then it's it's interesting though of that that feeling of
00:23:13
decompressing and most people don't don't have that. Not that you know it's not I'm not saying that digital world is
00:23:20
you know a terrible thing and it's clearly the way we're going. So we have to learn to to live with that.
00:23:25
We talked there about one half of your parental equation. Tell me about the other half.
00:23:31
Well, you know, I've just become a father and I'm acutely aware that it doesn't always work out. I haven't seen my
00:23:37
father in 20 years, I guess. Um, it's a long time. Um, and I I don't have a a relationship
00:23:44
with him. And listen, there's there's three stories, mine and yours, and then the truth. Um, but that's the facts of the matter is I don't have any relationship with my father. So, that
00:23:56
makes me um that's another lesson in life though, isn't it? She go, right, if you don't have a father, don't be a
00:24:02
dummy about it. Don't not have a father. Just find a different one. F that archetype is so important to our
00:24:08
development. Having a mother is, you know, when my mother died, I didn't go, well, I guess, you know, the older
00:24:15
female nurturing um archetype. I just I guess I'll live without that. You go, you find other
00:24:21
people that are going to maybe not one other person, but you find a you put your team together, you put your nurture together, and you you go, well, I need
00:24:28
to find those people. you need to find I mean I suppose I'm lucky in the the job that I do that you have certain you know
00:24:35
people are further down the road so if you look to them as kind of mentors or you look to them as as uh as people that
00:24:42
you want to impress and you want to you know you're aware of that what you need and and now you've had a son
00:24:49
that must be uh you know there was two things you talked about that real really really pivotal in recent times one of
00:24:55
them was the pandemic and the other one was obviously the birth of your of your own man. What are the the top level, you know, shifts that
00:25:02
have occurred in you because of those two events? Well, I suppose I mean, I got I was kind of late to fatherhood, I think, because
00:25:09
um I think it was I think psychologically I think maybe I didn't want to be uh I didn't want to be a
00:25:16
father because I didn't want to be my father. Uh and you know, so you find a different
00:25:22
way through. You find different models. You know, I've got friends that are incredible fathers and you kind of model
00:25:28
that and it's that thing of like it's what humans do. We kind of go like, "Okay, well, I could kind of do that. I
00:25:34
could see what he's doing there and that's amazing." So, that felt like I mean, it's such a I mean, everyone does
00:25:41
it. It's like not a big deal that I've had a kid, but it it's a big deal in my life, obviously. It's like it's uh it's
00:25:47
there's a quote in the book. I love quotes. Um it's like having a medical procedure where your heart now lives
00:25:52
outside your body. I kind of there's a bit of me that kind of I wish I'd done it sooner. And then
00:25:58
there's another there's another bit of me that goes, I wasn't ready for it sooner. I'm ready for it now.
00:26:05
Interesting. My friend said that to me. He's just had a baby and he said, "Oh, I just wish I'd done it sooner." I'm thinking, really?
00:26:11
But, you know, but it got you to to there. It's like it's it's funny. There's a great Chinese expression, a
00:26:17
great old proverb. The best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago. The second best time is now.
00:26:26
They're pretty wise, those Chinese guys. They know what they're talking about. Going back to, you know, your university
00:26:31
time because I remember cuz just kind of going through in chronological order. I remember I was reading about how you,
00:26:37
you know, you leave the nest, you go and get, you know, you go and get a you go to Cambridge, which I thought was amazing considering you're, you know,
00:26:43
you were an undiagnosed dyslexic. Oh, diagnosed. Um, at the time you were undiagnosed. Yeah,
00:26:48
I got diagnosed at college, but I only got diagnosed as dyslexic to get a free laptop. I mean, that was like I didn't
00:26:53
really particularly care. I didn't make any odds. You just get long longer to sit your exams, but it was um yeah, it's
00:26:59
a it was it was nice. I mean, I think I wouldn't recommend it to young people because I think it's um Cambridge is
00:27:06
still now very anacronistic. It's like going to college in the 1950s. It's like a time machine. It's like it's
00:27:13
just it's very old school. And I mean, maybe it's changed a bit, but I don't think it's changed much. It's like living in a church.
00:27:18
Yeah. It's cloistered in every sense. Yeah. So it's, you know, it is what it is. But there's, you know, it's also what are you going there for? I think I went there for
00:27:31
in an unthinking way sort of it was a away from something. I think I'd remembered at a very deep level not
00:27:38
being able to read when I was a kid and kind of being in the special ed class and then wanting desperately to prove myself. And so you kind of get there and
00:27:45
get your degree and go, "Right, well, I never have to worry about that again, which is dumbest thing in the world." I
00:27:51
mean, you know, everyone with any kind of education has educated themselves because really, what do you remember
00:27:58
from college years ago? Yeah. Like it's whatever you're reading now. And fast forward a few years, you get
00:28:04
your degree, you uh get a job at Shell as a marketing exec. Again, unthinking. Absolutely
00:28:10
unthinking. Like it just it wasn't like it was like a binary thing of like going I didn't make a choice when I was 16 to
00:28:15
stay on at school. That was just like the sensible thing. What what's everyone doing? We're all staying at school. Okay. We're all going to go to
00:28:21
university then at 18. Okay. Right. What's the best one? Okay. We'll try and get to the best one. If you can't get into that one, get into the second best
00:28:26
one. If not, you know, so you it's like a conveyor belt. And then after university was right, everyone's getting jobs. Okay. I guess I'll get a job. But
00:28:34
it's amazing how little thought I put into my life. Amazing really. And when you consider that I do something that is considered
00:28:41
to be uh you know very creative, you know, I write jokes and tell jokes for a living and you go, "Oh, I it was a lack
00:28:47
of imagination that kind of [ __ ] me and and it [ __ ] you, right?" Tell me how what were the symptoms of being [ __ ] by that? Well, I think it was the the it was uh again sadness, not depression, but in my
00:28:59
mid20s just thinking, is this it? Is this all there is? It felt like it was a trudge. I didn't have any purpose. I was um working to live, not living to work.
00:29:11
And I think it's not not everyone's going to get that. Not everyone gets that break. And I'm very aware that it's
00:29:18
not like, come on, dummies, get a job that you love and get up and you're excited about every day. It's like it's
00:29:23
not easy for everyone. It takes an awful lot of work to find out what that thing is that's going to make your heart sing
00:29:29
and then, you know, you find something you love doing and you never work again. It's not an easy thing, but if you can,
00:29:35
it's worth betting your life on it. You write about that in the book, the two adventures we all have in our lives,
00:29:40
which is finding your purpose and obviously going in the pursuit of it. It sounds like yours happened crazy
00:29:46
early, like kicked out of school, dropped out of college, and then went right, I'm starting a company. Like that seems And then you'd left the company by the
00:29:56
time you were 27. You were you were almost onto midlife crisis, I think, at 27. It's true. which is
00:30:02
it's it's completely true. That's great though. I mean it means you get to die at 50 and you've done everything. Exactly. Yeah. I
00:30:07
So what was what was the what was that? Because do you see I mean I sort of talk about a quarter life crisis
00:30:12
of being finding your purpose and cutting the apron strings and and and that's about I think it's about responsibility. It's about going oh I'm in charge of
00:30:23
this. I can't blame anyone else. This is all me. This is all my fault. which should be an empowering phrase but
00:30:30
sounds terrible but it's all my fault. The idea that right I'm I'm in charge. Uh and I think it's often that thing of
00:30:36
like the expectation of parents or whatever it is the the idea that you're living your life vicariously through
00:30:42
someone else or someone's living vicariously through you rather is like JK Rowling said this brilliant thing
00:30:49
about where do you draw the line? Where do you draw the line on taking responsibility for your life? Because if a 16-year-old kid says to me, "Yeah, I'm kind of [ __ ] up, but my parents are
00:30:59
dicks." You go, "Oh, that sounds fair enough." Yeah. Okay. But if a 40-year-old says
00:31:05
the same thing, you go, "Motherfucker, please. Come on." Yeah. You're 40. Where do you draw the line?
00:31:10
The answer is somewhere. Somewhere you draw the line. And there'll be 16 year olds listening to this going, "Yeah, I'm
00:31:16
not blaming anyone for any anything. I'm just I'm I'm doing this myself." Where do you draw the line?
00:31:21
I think I was about 25. You think 25 is where you got to take No, no, That's why I do for you. Okay.
00:31:26
It's different for everyone. It's going to be it's your road to Damascus. It's your oh this is my one life. I mean I
00:31:34
think my loss of religious faith was a very important part of my um same life. I think it was a huge thing of
00:31:40
going religious faith faith for me was the ultimate in procrastination. It was about the next life.
00:31:46
Yeah. And it was also there's potentially a puppet master and a judge. So, I've just got to play to this Bible
00:31:52
potentially or you know what when I was the same. I lost my religious faith in Christianity when I was 18,
00:31:58
right? I was a bit late to the party. I was about, you know, 24 25 something like that. And it's it's um and I don't view it I
00:32:04
don't view atheism as like a this isn't going to be um Christopher Hitchens and Dawkins, you know, it's not like it's
00:32:10
not like a dry intellectual aesthetic. It's like it's a rush of blood to the head. It's like one [ __ ] life and this is it. And we're in it
00:32:21
right now and there isn't a second to waste. Let's do this. What are we doing? What am I doing? What's exciting? What's
00:32:27
fun? What's and and kind of stand or fall, it doesn't matter. Yeah. When I realized that I was an
00:32:32
atheist after trying to convince my brothers of a Jesus and a and a god and then really realizing I was an atheist, I spent two years absolutely obsessed with atheism. So, Dawkins, I watched
00:32:44
every video, every book you could read. And then I was an antagonist to to religious people because it's almost
00:32:50
like I was trying to still at the center. Yeah. It was still And you don't lose it overnight. So it's still it's like it's like people that
00:32:56
are you know people with you know oh well I I live as a um you know a hippie commune with no
00:33:03
belongings. You're still putting money at the center. Yeah. Exactly. You're kind of it's still the focus of that religious thing of going well I've
00:33:08
lost my religious belief so now atheism is my new religion. Exactly. It's like an addict never really gets
00:33:13
over an addiction. and they just get addicted to something new. Yeah. And I think that's why I think purpose is the thing.
00:33:19
And I think purpose as well for someone who's had a religious upbringing to go right well, I'm going to what's the new
00:33:25
thing? What are the new rules for me? What are the rules for what's my morality? What's my life going to be like? So that's it's very exciting. I
00:33:32
mean, it really feels like it's a I would encourage people to kind of think about it. And for me, it was just the
00:33:38
the basics. I don't know how you lost yours, but mine was like so basic. It was exactly the same. I read I read
00:33:43
how you lost yours and it was I it was exactly the same. If I'm right about this then all those it's not Yeah. It's good
00:33:49
news for me and the other Christian boys but it's very bad news for Ishmael. Yeah. [ __ ] hell, TK. It's bad news for you.
00:33:56
Yeah. So you you went somewhere. I went to Jerusalem. Yeah. I went to Jerusalem and I had a look around and you go, "Oh, this is some [ __ ] This is
00:34:02
Disney." I mean, Jerusalem's one of the most beautiful cities in the world. I would encourage anyone to go there. It's
00:34:08
it's wonderful and I I love Israel. But you you go there and you go, "This is 900 years old, not 2,000 years old,
00:34:15
please. This is let's stop kidding ourselves. This is not none of this happened. This is Disneyland." Um, and I
00:34:22
think there's a stage of throwing the baby out with the bathwater. And then you read more when I don't know if
00:34:27
you've kind of done this, but you you read about the myth and what it is and what it you know, the story of Christ is
00:34:33
interesting. It's an interesting story, but the story the the the the myth of it is interesting, not the
00:34:40
factual character. I couldn't care less. Um, but that thing of like what remains when everything is
00:34:46
burnt away. That's what I get from that story. Okay. So, if you burn everything else away, what's essential you? What's the
00:34:52
thing that's left when there's nothing? That's interesting. You go through trials in life. You go through, you
00:34:58
know, hard times and what remains. And when you lost your faith on that point, did you were you kind of destabilized
00:35:05
by Yeah. unanchored almost, you know? Yeah. I didn't leave my job to be rich and famous on TV. I left my job for I don't Yeah. Yo ho ho, a pirates
00:35:18
life for me. We're doing comedy. I'm doing a gig above a pub. Someone gave me 20 pounds cash in hand. That was I mean
00:35:25
it was crazy. I'd had like a good job, but it's that thing where you go, the good is the enemy of the best. How much to not live your life? How much to not
00:35:36
follow your dreams? How much do I have to give you across the table? Now, I'm saying this to you now, right? And
00:35:42
you're you're a wealthy man. You're an investor or whatever. So, it's going to be a high figure. But for most people in
00:35:48
their mid20s, they've just left college or early 20s, they've left college. and you go, they give you 35 grand to compromise on
00:35:55
everything and always be tired and just work to my time and people go, "Okay, that's the the thing of like working for
00:36:02
someone else is I think that that's the big shift, right?" So the the my standup
00:36:08
is a metaphor in the book. I'm not trying to get people to become stand-ups. Frankly, I don't need the [ __ ] competition. But the idea of
00:36:14
going going and doing your thing, even if it's less successful, but doing your thing, being your boss, being your CEO,
00:36:21
great. Like, I'm all about that. When people tell me they've started a little business or done a little thing, you just go, "Yeah, [ __ ] boss." Because
00:36:28
you you get like serial u entrepreneurs because they do it once and go, "Yeah, I'm not working for anyone. I'm not." Let's challenge this. So, when I started my business, I had many, many bosses cuz
00:36:40
I had lots of clients. So, I've got people that can call me at 3M and just give me [ __ ] And I think even as you
00:36:45
know when I and then I had investors as well and they can call me and give me [ __ ] Yeah. But we listen, Bob Dylan got to
00:36:51
this before we ever did. We all have someone to serve, right? That's just the the nature of life, right? So, listen, I
00:36:58
work for myself and I'm a [ __ ] boss and making huge money. I've got an audience to serve every night. Got 2,000
00:37:04
people that need to laugh for two hours three times a minute. [ __ ] hell. And that's my boss, right? So, I've got
00:37:10
to lean into I've got to make sure that they're happy or none of this can happen. So, we all have people to serve.
00:37:16
Of course, that's that's part of life. You you have But you find out you do it on your terms, in your way. Great. I
00:37:23
don't mind the call at 3:00 a.m. I don't mind the audience wanting more. I don't mind you, that's great. The travel, anything that's all fine because I have
00:37:30
the true north of a of a purpose, you know. And then it's it's that other thing on life where you kind of go I write in the book quite a lot about money about the idea of like what is it
00:37:43
what's going on there because it's such a powerful thing we spend so much of our lives we give up so much for these
00:37:48
tokens and it's that classic line that you know to buy [ __ ] we don't need to impress people we don't like it's it like who was it the it's Byron has the quote
00:38:01
money is a magic lamp you You have to know what to wish for. You have to know what you want.
00:38:06
Otherwise, what are you doing? Like, I mean, we're sort of in the city of London now. There's people working in
00:38:12
the city that are just like they're making huge money and they're they're buying the Rolex. But what for?
00:38:18
Quick one. Um, when Jimmy got here off camera before we started chatting, he uh he walked up and he saw the Hu bottle on
00:38:24
the table and I went to explain to him what Hu was and he goes, "Oh, you don't need to tell me. I I drink Hu all the time." And he went on to explain that he
00:38:30
has hu before he goes up on stage because it it's nutritionally complete and gives him all the vitamins and minerals and energy that he needs before
00:38:37
he goes up on stage. Um, and that's exactly why I have here. And that's the beauty of having a podcast sponsor that
00:38:43
you so deeply believe in and one that has genuinely transformed your life. I've just landed back from Indonesia. I
00:38:49
am all go because my entire schedule because I've been away for four four odd weeks has been condensed into the month
00:38:54
of November and I am running right now at a tremendous pace to get everything in my schedule ticked off. Hule is there
00:39:01
to make sure that my health and my nutrition is ticked off at the same time as my professional ambitions. That's the
00:39:08
role it's always played in my life. Zoom me right in on that moment then. You're working at Shell as a marketing
00:39:14
executive. There's a day, is it a moment, is it a comment where you think, "Fuck this." And then to go from there
00:39:22
to comedian. Yeah. It doesn't make any sense to an external one. It doesn't. I mean,
00:39:28
make it make sense for me, please. Okay. So, I had a boss there, a guy called Mike Har, who I'm recently kind of got back in touch with a little bit.
00:39:34
So, I was I was working for Shell. I initially worked for an advertising agency. He's the one you call an [ __ ] in your
00:39:39
book. No, I'm joking. Joking, but that would that was good. Uh, so he's he's that's a typo. Um, it's funny
00:39:47
the uh so I was working for an advertising company and then I figured out okay advertising this is this is
00:39:53
[ __ ] Who's who are these people calling me asking me for [ __ ] are marketing managers right? Get into marketing. So got a job with Shell. So
00:39:59
I'm working for Shell and then I kind of figured out look I'm not happy here. I was kind of low energy. I was not the
00:40:06
funny guy in the office. I was just like this is this is [ __ ] We're all working here for shareholder value. I
00:40:12
couldn't give a [ __ ] And uh I I went, "Okay, well, what's a cooler job? What's
00:40:18
a better version of this?" So, I went and did like the McKenzie Boston consulting interviews. So, I was
00:40:24
like I said to my boss, let's nice guy, Mark, Mike, I said, "Look, I'm going to I'm going to go and try and get a job
00:40:30
one of these things." And he sat me down in his office and just went, "No, I can't see it. I can't see it. just you're just gonna have the same
00:40:41
problem somewhere else. I just don't see it. And that was kind of enough. It was
00:40:47
enough that he saw me as like a funny, nice guy and just went, "Yeah, this isn't for you. You're in the wrong
00:40:53
stream." You know, so the ladder, the analogy of the the the ladder that you've climbed is leaning against the
00:40:59
wrong wall. And there's no finer like like ripping up your CV metaphorically going, I never need this again. No one needs to know how I did in my A levels ever again. No one gives a
00:41:12
[ __ ] about my degree. I mean, maybe some of this stuff will come in handy on Qi 10 years later, but otherwise, who
00:41:18
cares? And you're just off doing your thing. And it's, you know, none of that was wasted. I mean, an education is a
00:41:25
incredible thing. What a gift to have. Um, but it just felt like it was it was kind of freedom. And they they did a
00:41:32
little voluntary redundancy thing which was meant to get rid of the dead wood. It was meant to get rid of people at, you know, 55, 60 and just get them out
00:41:39
the door so more people could come in. And I was on the management graduate scheme thing, blue chip thing. I just
00:41:45
went, "Yeah, can I what would I get if I left?" They went, "Five grand." And I went, "I'm out." [ __ ] great. Not only
00:41:51
am I leaving, they give me my money to leave. And I was, it's weird. I had like a reputation when I started doing comedy
00:41:58
of being um the hardest working comic because I went out 300 nights a year every year. for the first 5 years just like was like just honor. I was so feckless at work.
00:42:09
It's a really good indication of if you're doing the right thing if like I used to put in a meeting at
00:42:15
11:00 a.m. on a Friday and another meeting in at 2 a.m. so that I could go to a movie in Leicester Square and be back and just
00:42:22
go, "Oh yeah, nothing happened." Just like a lazy [ __ ] Isn't that so interest? I was exactly
00:42:28
the same. I I my attendance and score was 30 40%. But then and in fact it wasn't in my business class. was 100% my
00:42:34
business class and then when I left school as this lazy kid that was going to fail, I outworked everybody at the
00:42:39
thing that I love doing business. It's interesting, right? So, it's a really good feedback loop of like for
00:42:45
anyone listening to this of going, what do you find easy? What you know, what's your edge? That's the other thing I talk
00:42:50
about a lot in the book, your edge. What's your thing, the thing that you do better than anyone else? You don't have
00:42:56
to be the best in the world, by the way. You don't have to be better than anyone else. But what's the thing that you're good at that you could get better at
00:43:01
that you could be better than you last year? That's the key thing because take that thing if you can find out what that is
00:43:08
for you and then apply some hard work and time that's your luck. Be lucky. I always say that like be
00:43:15
lucky. But that that's what I mean by luck. Luck and happiness being sort of the same in German. It's a lovely uh
00:43:21
sticky phrase like be lucky. Like if you put that in you're you're buying lottery tickets every time, right? So that hard
00:43:26
work you put into the business. It's like lottery ticket, lottery ticket, lottery ticket, lottery ticket. And hey, presto, one of them hits because you're
00:43:34
there all the hours, working all the hours, and you're working smart. You're working at the thing you're best at.
00:43:40
You're kind of super focused on that. I want to talk to you about that point about hard luck because that's been um
00:43:47
stigmatized in our society. But before that, you said something which is f, you know, find that thing within you that
00:43:52
you can be the best at, the thing that you enjoy, etc., etc. When I when I say that to people, they always say to me,
00:43:58
"But Steve, how how do I find the thing? How do I find my purpose? Is it just I sit down with myself and make a list? Do
00:44:05
I Yeah, I mean, I I literally went through uh there's two books. Um Zen and the Art of Making a Living I would recommend to
00:44:11
people. It's still available. And there's a book called um What Color Is Your Parachute?" They're quite
00:44:18
corporate. both of them. Even Zen and The Art of Make a Living is quite corporate, but it's basically you write essays about yourself and you you it's a
00:44:24
workbook. It's like a big chunky workbook. I did both of them and it kind of and for me I kind of then slightly
00:44:30
threw it away and went show business. But it's interesting of like knowing yourself like who really knows you? Your
00:44:38
friends probably know you. Ask them ask them what they think. That's it's an interesting sort of process to kind of
00:44:44
go like and you could be a ripe old age and this would still apply like do you know who you are, how you're perceived
00:44:51
and who you really are, what you feel like. Um because it's it's that thing where you got like those personality
00:44:57
tests online are not dumb to do. You know that there's that um breaks no there's a Jordan Peterson one
00:45:04
understanding myself. like 100 questions and it tells you things that's that's worth I had a crack at that recently and
00:45:10
really enjoyed it like because you get the results and go I agree with that. So that's surprising. Well, you know, it's
00:45:16
it's interesting. It's almost like a um a um a horoscope like everyone likes their horoscope, right? Because everyone's a little bit egotistical and like I wonder what it says about me. And
00:45:28
I think those personality tests kind of can be very very useful for going well how are you going to find your edge?
00:45:33
What's the thing you enjoy? Is it being with people? Is it on your own? Are you introverted, extroverted? That
00:45:39
MyersBriggs thing might lead you in a direction of going, "Well, I can't be I'm not going to be a salesman. I'm going to be and these are jobs we're
00:45:46
talking about as opposed to um something beyond that like a purpose, a career, an
00:45:51
entrepreneurial spirit. Um people find that. So I've I've done the MyersBriggs, I've done this, I've done
00:45:56
the Jordan Peterson test and it's clear that my passion is X, but I'm in that job unthinking as you describe it and I've got a mortgage to pay. I've got,
00:46:07
you know, bills. Well, I mean that thing of like I nearly fell into that trap. I was like the
00:46:12
things you own end up owning you. Like there's nothing you can buy in the mall that you give a [ __ ] about in 5 years time. There's nothing like like in the
00:46:22
early phase of your life. Don't [ __ ] buy anything because it's like, you know, the things you own end up owning
00:46:28
you. Like the payments on a sports car nearly stopped me going into comedy because you go, well, what ties you down? If I bought a house in, you know,
00:46:35
the ' 90s when I was, you know, working for Shell. It would have been a great investment and I never would have left
00:46:40
because you're paying that mortgage, you're doing that thing, what do you need? You know, what do what do you need the money for? What are you using the
00:46:46
money for? You know, when you take away the commute and you take away the um the lunch that you're buying and the night out, the weekend and a couple of drinks
00:46:52
to, you know, because you need some fun, it's it's it's amazing how little when I first year in comedy, I made literally
00:46:58
no money. I mean, literally nothing. First money I got was £80 in cash for going to driving 5 hours to Plymouth and
00:47:05
back. But I had a little bit saved. I had this like five grand from Shell and I was living at my mom's uh initially.
00:47:12
So, it was like it's fine. I had enough. You know that that amazing story about um Kurt Vonager and uh Joseph Hela?
00:47:20
Yeah. They're at a party in New York and the part is [ __ ] incredible. Right. So
00:47:25
the it's in the Hamptons, right? So the guy's he's married to a supermodel. He's got warholes. He's got Picassos. The
00:47:31
house is unbelievable. Like the Wolf of Wall Street party that incredible amazing party. Everyone's there. And
00:47:38
Kurt Vonager, incredible writer, says to Joseph Ella, "This guy made more money one day last week than you made out of
00:47:44
catch 22." Like laughs at him. And Joseph Ella goes, "Yeah, but I got something he'll never have." Enough.
00:47:54
What's enough? What's enough for you? What's What's enough? What's the There's two things going on, right? There's
00:48:00
There's safety and security, right? There's our caveman thing of like going, "Right, I need we need to be secure. That's about a bear not attacking, right? We feel pretty secure in our
00:48:11
worlds, right? And then scarcity is about, it's another caveman thing of like going, "Okay, so we need to collect
00:48:17
some stuff cuz winter is coming, so we need some we need some coin. We need a little bit of gold to take care of us."
00:48:23
How much is enough? I mean, there's going to be a trillionaire next five years. There's going to be someone's going to be a trillionaire. It's going
00:48:29
to be in the news. You know why? Because a billion wasn't enough. And the millionaires are billionaires
00:48:35
trillionaires. But they're working for money. The money is the is the important thing. It's the that's what that's the
00:48:41
whole center of their being. It's interesting because as I reflect on my childhood, I was clearly the one of
00:48:47
the big drivers for my success was insecurity. Broke family, black kid in an all-white school. Um parents were never in the house. I'm going to school every day with [ __ ] stained trousers
00:48:59
and stained t-shirts and no money. So like this this deep insecurity must have been like sort of burnt into me that
00:49:06
like if you get money Steve then you won't feel ashamed anymore. It's it's interesting. I think it's a really interesting point because as someone that lost their faith.
00:49:17
Um I think fame and fortune are the secular heaven. Like we get rich and famous and
00:49:23
everything's okay. There's no problems when you're rich and famous. That's what I thought. Everything's fine. Well, of course, because it is like a if you think about
00:49:30
like legacy now becomes the afterlife. Yeah. And fame and fortune become uh the recognition of people that we don't know becomes a type of heaven.
00:49:44
So I think that's a it's a perfectly rational thing to to you know are you moving towards something or away from
00:49:50
something? Well, in an ideal world it's kind of a mix of the two. And at what stage do you personally and I think
00:49:57
probably if I was I'm not a psychotherapist but I would say you need to build some ritual around it and I'm sure you did when you sold your company
00:50:03
or left but build some ritual have a trip do something shamanic and go we did it we're okay we have enough. Yeah. And now focus on towards something.
00:50:14
Yeah. But that's like that part of your life is kind of over now. Right. It's like the the what was that thing for you?
00:50:21
What was the kind of trying to trying to escape pain and get to a point of I guess freedom
00:50:27
and freedom is a very psychological thing. It's the freedom from shame, freedom from not being able to, freedom
00:50:34
from having to do things you don't want to do. And I think really freedom from shame. I think that's probably at the
00:50:39
very heart of it. Oh, that's I think that's what it is. It's very deep, man, because it's it's that thing where you go,
00:50:44
I feel um empathetic towards the younger you. That's like a tough thing to have to go through. But you go kind of great. Kind of great.
00:50:55
Look at what look at how far you got on away from. Yeah. Without even the towards without even the amazing kind of, you know, and it's it's like, well, what next? That's a
00:51:08
it's a sad story. But then you you you look at people that got given everything and have done nothing because they had
00:51:14
no sense of purpose. They had no fire under them. I had no I think um yeah it's it's it's kind of an inspiring story but then it's you know there's no
00:51:28
I suppose it's like what what's going to motivate you next what's going to be the thing that you go you know what do I want to do
00:51:34
and this is exactly it so you think about how important purpose is for people to feel stabilized and fulfilled
00:51:40
etc as we've talked about earlier and then you think about these people that are they're striving for a million a
00:51:46
billion a trillion. Well, think about what a midlife crisis is, right? So, I talk a lot about midlife crisis in the book and you go,
00:51:52
"Well, midlife crisis is someone that's found their purpose and they've done their thing and then they've gone, is
00:51:57
this it?" Yeah. Is this it? And then they want something like excitement. So, what do they buy?
00:52:02
Sports car. Is it exciting? I don't [ __ ] know. I mean, maybe. If you're super into cars, I guess it's good. But
00:52:07
like, it's all advertising speaks to this, right? I know I'm right cuz all advertising ever is about it's no longer
00:52:14
about the functionality of the product. It's about the well what what do you want? You want to you want to feel like uh self-esteem like self-esteem? Great. Rolls-Royce. You want excitement? We got Ferraris for
00:52:25
you. You want your dick up? We got a Porsche. Whatever the thing is the you know you got that that kind of there's a
00:52:32
different one and they're playing on different emotions. And I think being aware of I mean I come back to it all
00:52:38
the time. What do you want is the fundamental question. Like in any scenario, when you sit down
00:52:44
to eat, what do you want? What do you want from life? What do you want? What's what's the
00:52:50
thing that you want? And often it's it's often asking that question multiple times because the first answer tends to
00:52:57
be [ __ ] Well, I think wishing wells work, right? But they don't work when you think they work. It's nothing to There's no magic. The magic is, if there is any, knowing
00:53:09
what to wish for, knowing what that thing is. You know, someone says, "I want a million pounds." You go, you don't know what you [ __ ] want. You
00:53:15
want tokens for things that you might want in the future. What do you want? What are you doing? What are you trying
00:53:20
to be? Who who are you trying to become? I ask people this, young people specifically this question, and they
00:53:26
will say things that are all about external validation. So I want to be like you know the one variation of
00:53:32
famous that you know they might say public speaker and you say why do you want to be a public speaker and really when you get to the crux of it what they
00:53:38
actually want to be is they want the admiration that they think public speakers get because you know their dad
00:53:43
didn't talk to them or something. Yeah. But I could I could see that the idea of going I think a lot of that is like
00:53:48
that tribal thing of going I want to be recognized. I'm in a very privileged position in that I'm famous. And I would
00:53:54
argue that's the norm. That's the norm for the longest time in human history that
00:53:59
everyone knew everyone. We used to live in what for like 10,000 years. You know what? Longer. The longest time we were we were in tribes between 60 and 100
00:54:10
people. Everyone knew everyone. A stranger was a weird thing. And now we see strangers all the time
00:54:15
and we act like it's normal, but it ain't. And so that desire to belong, to be famous, what is was ever thus. It's
00:54:22
always been that way. There was a there's a you know it was in ancient Rome people wanted to be famous and
00:54:27
wanted to be adored and wanted to be that's like a it's valid and and you know how do you deal with that? How do
00:54:33
you how do you get that thing and if if it helps them strive I think like I make a
00:54:38
real distinction between jealousy and envy in in the book and I talk about jealousy
00:54:45
being bad. I don't want you to have that. I don't want you to have that. I don't necessarily want it but I don't
00:54:50
want you to have it. [ __ ] that guy. He shouldn't have that. Why do you get given that? That's some [ __ ]
00:54:56
Envy is really good. Envy is like, it's what you want. It's like motivation. It's like, oh, that guy's he's got an
00:55:03
electric scooter that looks really cool. I'm going to get one of those. Great. You know what you It tells you what you want. It tells you what the what's the
00:55:09
thing that you're attracted to. So, I think it's like it can be a real force for good. So that thing of like when you
00:55:14
were a kid and you're looking at the other kids and they're suited and booted and clean and tidy going to school and their
00:55:19
parents are there and you go right I'm building that for me. I I investigated this particular topic
00:55:25
in my in my book at great length but I want to ask you the question as if I don't know the answer because I want to
00:55:30
get your take on it. Um I agree with everything you said and I I al especially this point about knowing that
00:55:36
you're enough now. Um, in my book, I got to a point in chapter 18 where I'm like,
00:55:41
how do I know that I'm enough right now, but also get the purpose and fulfillment
00:55:46
that comes from ambition and striving for more? And it felt like a contradiction like I am enough. I have everything I need. Yeah. I think we're talking about here we're talking about gratitude. It's that
00:55:58
thing of like you're grateful for what you got. You're grateful for what you've got. Just the solid state. If you lose everything tomorrow, you got your
00:56:04
health, right? And there's people out there that don't. and you've got friends around you, great. You you know that gratitude
00:56:10
can't be stifling. You've like practicing gratitude. I mean, they've done all the statistical studies on it.
00:56:16
It makes such a difference to your life to be grateful for what you have and to go, "Right, this is [ __ ] amazing."
00:56:22
Like I, you know, the older you get, the more your friends die, the more you go, [ __ ] and never got to see this, never
00:56:28
got to enjoy that thing, never got to sad. had a friend pass away recently and you you just you become aware of your
00:56:35
mortality and you're so grateful to be here and to be in this game and to be uh around. But that gratitude can't stop
00:56:43
you from going, but I also want to go further and farther. And I think the great thing about being a comic is we're
00:56:50
brilliant with failure. We we made friends with failure a long time ago. We've died many times on stage. I've
00:56:58
written more jokes that don't work than you. so many more. You may not have written
00:57:03
any jokes that don't work. I've written thousands of them. But that thing of like that feedback loop of failure is so
00:57:11
it it's it's such a great life lesson to learn because you go, "Well, look, I can fail all the time and I'll fail and I'll fail and I'll fail and I'll eventually
00:57:18
I'll fail so many times I run out of ways to fail and then I'll we'll call that success." And you kind of you build
00:57:24
and build and you kind of go, well, what's the next thing I'm going to do? I'm very lucky because I have a job which is it's a task without end. And
00:57:30
that's where I think happiness lies in those tasks without end where you go, right, I'm going to spend my time trying
00:57:37
to be a better comic. You I'm going to try and write in a different style. I'm going to try and be I'm going to try and
00:57:42
be a goat. I'm going to try and be on the Mount Rushmore of comedy. Now, I know that probably won't happen, but
00:57:49
I've got a [ __ ] lottery ticket and I'm allowed to try and do it. And that feels like an incredibly that feels like
00:57:55
a life's journey. I don't know if that did that answer the question. I don't know if it did. Perfect. Yeah. But then the the the question was about
00:58:03
No, you did because you reframed beyond you reframed my point which was um about
00:58:08
knowing you're enough. You reframed it to gratitude and when and gratitude and ambition can coexist.
00:58:14
Yes. But it's a tricky one though, isn't it? Because sometimes you feel like am I being ungrateful by wanting to more?
00:58:20
Yeah. And also and how much of a kind of you kind of go gez I've already got a lot of stuff. Do I need any more stuff?
00:58:26
Do I need any more? But it's I guess it's not about things or people. It's about how we
00:58:32
spend our days ultimately. So it's not about like there isn't a god. No one's keeping score. There's no one from above
00:58:39
who's going to go at the end of your life. Okay, let's take a look at the stats. And in my head, I kind of wish there was someone going you did that
00:58:46
many. So what's happiness? I've got a couple of theories on happiness. I think flow states are where happiness lives. What's a flow state? So I know if you get into a state where you lose
00:58:58
track of time that's a pretty good indicator. A lot of people get it with uh sports. Okay. So you you're doing
00:59:05
something that you so enjoy. You're so engaged in this activity you forget even where you are. You might get it playing
00:59:10
video games. I get it on stage where I'm just in this moment and I enjoy it. I'm
00:59:16
totally engaged and I'm I'm in the flow. You see musicians kind of embody it on stage. Spend as much time in a flow state as
00:59:28
you can in life. If that can become your job, then tremendous. That is that's success. Everything else is who cares. But that
00:59:40
thing is like that's amazing. So what's your flow state? What's the state? What's the thing you do where you go
00:59:46
this is this is my [ __ ] I mean what is it for me? Yeah. Ah, a lot of things come to mind. One of them is um I've got this show that's touring at the moment. It's in
00:59:56
the London Pladium in in February. Um and I was as you were saying that I was imagining sitting in the chair on stage
01:00:02
with with my choir and it that feels like my flow state feels like I'm just on my own just floating.
01:00:10
You'll try and hold on to that moment. Yeah. You'll try and it's like quicks because it's like the time will just float by
01:00:16
and you know you'll be there and there's kind of a high before the high even thinking about it. M but that thing of going that's next February
01:00:23
that won't do you're going to need that once a week you're going to need that once a day like more of that like leaning into that edge of going that's
01:00:29
if that's where I'm happy that's where you should be this is lovely actually I think
01:00:34
I think kind of there's it's a I think the reason sort of panel shows are so popular on TV is because this is missing
01:00:41
from our culture like this is how we should end every day the reason podcasts are blowing up is
01:00:46
because people desperately want to be in a conversation and there's something very intimate about podcasts. There's
01:00:52
something about the long form and listening that's really when you don't do them on Zoom.
01:00:58
Yeah. You can't do them on Zoom. There's no eye contact. My other theory on happiness is it's expectations exceeded.
01:01:05
Oh yeah. Because listen, what birthdays are [ __ ] right? New Year's Eve is [ __ ] waste
01:01:10
of time. Amateur drinkers. I've never had a good New Year's Eve. New Year's Eve is [ __ ] all. And why?
01:01:15
Because the expectation is this is going to be the best night ever. We're It's going to be huge. Everyone's going to be
01:01:21
there. Even if everyone is there, and it is a really good night, you go, "Yeah, but I thought it was going to be amazing
01:01:27
and it was just really good." And then sometimes on a [ __ ] Tuesday, someone goes, "I just went I bumped into the guy and then we went to a thing and then we ended up at a had a [ __ ]
01:01:40
great time." It's the It's that thing of like tricking yourself into kind of just lower your expectations. Maybe a little
01:01:47
bit less time looking at what everyone else is doing on holiday on Instagram is pretty healthy and looking around trying enjoying the
01:01:54
little simple pleasures and oh we ordered in and the food was [ __ ] amazing and it arrived hot great.
01:01:59
Does that link to your point about comparison being the thief of joy? Of course. Yeah. Compare and despair.
01:02:05
Everyone's having a better time. All check Instagram now. We're going to feel like dummies for sitting here having a
01:02:11
really interesting conversation. Oh [ __ ] We should be [ __ ] water skiing in the Amazon. Ah, we're dummies. But
01:02:18
it's being where you're at, right? So it's and that's raising our expectations of
01:02:23
how our lives should be going. When I see Timmy doing his jet skiing and but it's it's oh the places you won't
01:02:29
go. Oh, the things you won't do to be where you are. There's a million people you're not because you you did this and you didn't do that. Now, you could have
01:02:40
gone down another road. Maybe you could have been a great sportsman. Maybe you could have been a great academic, but you didn't go down that road. You went
01:02:47
down this road. And enjoying that and being where you're at is kind of it's kind of important. you know, once you commit to something, it's like,
01:02:55
you know, you it's fine, but you can't like all these different I think it's it's overwhelming at the moment what's
01:03:01
going on in in social media. Um, because it just feels like you're constantly bombarded by options and easy
01:03:08
lives. You know, the latest kind of iteration of the fame heaven myth is reality
01:03:16
stars. So the there's a big difference between again another conflation but being a celebrity and being famous. I'm famous but I'm not a celebrity. I'm
01:03:27
famous for something that I do but a celebrity is just themselves the queen or a Kardashian. They're just themselves and the money rolls in and it's tremendous. It's just it's a [ __ ]
01:03:38
lottery win. hard work very pivotal to your um you getting here today by the sands of it especially in those early years as a comedian after leaving Shell.
01:03:50
What role does hard work play in our society? Um it's right in in becoming a successful individual at whatever
01:03:55
pursuit or whatever passion you're pursuing. There's a there's probably a counternarrative that I think has emerged in our country maybe because of
01:04:02
social media has allowed people to kind of converge behind that and relinquish responsibility of their situations by
01:04:08
calling hard referring to hard work as being a really really sort of toxic thing and I' I felt that more recently.
01:04:13
I didn't see it when I was younger. I mean let's let's you know what let's have a you gambling man. Uh
01:04:19
not it depends. I mean in life not in the casino but yeah let's let's put a bet on that. Let's see how that works out for them.
01:04:25
I just don't think that's going to bring him happiness. Which part? The hard work is toxic. Okay. Okay.
01:04:32
Don't do Don't do hard work then. Good luck, dummy. It's just not going to work for you. That's not going to pay out because what's the metric of our society? It's results, right? And I
01:04:44
don't care how there's two great myths in our society, right? There's one myth is talent and ideas, and there's another
01:04:52
myth which is hard work. They're both [ __ ] Total [ __ ] [ __ ] because the the ideas are cheaper than table salt, right? There's there's everyone's got ideas. I've got an idea for an app. It's the Uber for fill in the thing
01:05:04
here. Yeah. Great. Sure. Sure. It's every idea is about implementation. Every um sports is a good analogy, right? So, Michael Jordan, greatest of all time, right? There's no debate. He's
01:05:18
the greatest. How much did he work? [ __ ] more than anyone else. How much natural talent did he have? More than
01:05:24
anyone else. What if he hadn't worked? You never heard of him. He never would have made the team, let alone been the greatest, but wouldn't have even made the team if he hadn't trained. It's a
01:05:36
good analogy for life of going, "Look, whatever talent you have, if you don't do the work as well, it's it's it's just
01:05:42
a waste of potential." So, I think it's it's the absolute fundamental. Now, hard work and drudgery are not the same
01:05:49
thing, right? Like there's a there's a working smart and working hard and there's a difference between the two.
01:05:54
Like if you're if you're working at something and it's like hard work alone won't do anything. You know, it's about what stream you're in. And I suppose the
01:06:02
extreme example would be if you're collecting um you know recyclable metals on a FLLA
01:06:09
dump in South America. Work as hard as you want. Nothing's ever g you're never going to get to that level. So you you work hard if you must and you work smart if you can. If you can't, you know, if
01:06:20
anyone listening to this is already in a privileged position in that, you know, odds are western world doing okay, have a digital phone. That's you're doing
01:06:32
better than a third of the world before you even start. You know, most people don't have running water. You know, most
01:06:37
people don't have a flushing toilet. The world's in a [ __ ] terrifying state. So, it's that thing of going, well, work
01:06:42
as smart as you can. Work at the thing that you're best at. I think school teaches us maybe the wrong lesson.
01:06:48
School teaches us a lesson about mediocrity and being all rounders. And yet we live in a world that does not
01:06:54
reward all rounders. Who gives a [ __ ] about all rounders? If you if you get a D in physics and you get an A in English, I say just go to English
01:07:04
lessons because we're going to get you up to a C-grade in physics. I tell you what the world doesn't need someone
01:07:09
who's [ __ ] at physics. Still still [ __ ] at physics with no natural. So find out what you've kind of got a natural, you
01:07:16
know, that edge thing. Find out what you have a natural ability for. What's the thing that you do best? And again, I
01:07:21
would remind people it's not the best in the world. Just better than anything else you do. Lean into that. Like, I'm
01:07:27
all for following your dreams if your dreams are what you're best at. And the opinions of family and friends don't
01:07:33
count. And then it's it's a little bit I suppose it's a bit tough love. It's that
01:07:38
thing of going, look, look at what your inner critic says, okay? And it won't be
01:07:44
wrong. Look at what your inner critic says about you. Walk back the cruelty and you
01:07:50
got to Okay, that's the reality. That's the starting point. I read that in your book and I was I was in I was laying in bed. It was actually
01:07:56
your book I was listening to and I and you said the thing about your inner critic which a lot of people obviously
01:08:01
don't want to admit is their inner critic is usually right. And I remember sitting there thinking there that can't
01:08:06
be right. Let me check this. And then I started listening to my inner critic for a couple of seconds and I thought no that's right. That's right. That's
01:08:13
right. But please expand on that idea of the inner the the idea of the inner critic is going look I I went to a a fancy
01:08:20
university right and I think Cambridge is where imposter syndrome was built and there's there's a lot of imposter syndrome in the world right you arrive at a new workplace and you go Jesus they
01:08:30
must have made a mistake and got the wrong CV and given me the job and oh cra or I'm at this new college or I'm I'm at
01:08:35
this new I'm starting this thing and I don't know what I'm doing that feeling of I'm not enough and I don't know what
01:08:42
I'm is why you buy the business management for dummies book and [ __ ] read it the
01:08:47
night before. It's what drives you to do the homework. So I got to Cambridge and I thought I'm not smart enough to be
01:08:53
here. And then I wor my [ __ ] nuts off and it turned out I was wrong. And I was smart enough to be there and I did
01:08:58
really well because I [ __ ] because I was motivated by the I'm not good enough to be here. I need to work. I need to
01:09:05
work hard. Uh you know, you start in comedy and you go, "Oh my god, I've given up everything to be a comedian.
01:09:11
And I've got 20 minutes of jokes that work. I I'm going to need thousands of jokes that work. They all have to work.
01:09:17
[ __ ] You get to work. What's the motivation? What's the thing that wakes you up at 4 in the morning and you go, I need to
01:09:24
[ __ ] do this. I can't rely on just being, hey, I'm just going to wise crack. And you know, asking a comic to
01:09:30
improvise an hourong show is like asking a magician to do real magic. The work is done in the gym. By the time I get to the stage, I know it's going to be a good show. I I've tried these jokes
01:09:42
on other people. I know we're a lock, you know, 10 20% of the evening is about the fun that happens in that room, the messing around with the audience, the the showing off the work that I've done
01:09:53
in the gym, the muscle memory of knowing how to make people laugh. Great. But I'm
01:09:58
going to arrive ready. There's something really interesting in that when you're talking about the
01:10:03
reason why you succeeded at Cambridge is because you didn't feel like you were smart enough to be there and etc etc etc. That also sounds a lot like what I
01:10:10
described when I said the reason why I pursued money and trying you know tried to be successful was because I felt
01:10:16
inadequate in my in myself and it became this great motivator. Yeah. And there's there's there's like a
01:10:23
there's a there's a plus to that and then there's this potential danger in but are we being a bit like you know
01:10:29
that that thing of going giving kids too much self-esteem. Giving people not kids
01:10:35
necessarily because this is about life stage right what we're talking about here isn't about when you leave college and when you're young and when you're
01:10:41
doing something right there'll be people listening to this in their 40s that are going to start a business and do something [ __ ] exceptional with their
01:10:46
lives. There's people in their 50s that are going to do that. There's people in their 60s. I don't believe there's like a a knockoff point.
01:10:52
People in their 70s, you [ __ ] those people. The Delta variant dealt with them.
01:10:57
They're gone, man. There's none left. I'm sorry. Hey, the good news is the pensions crisis is over. But that thing
01:11:03
of like going, well, you're going to, you know, people people do people do extraordinary things if they
01:11:09
if but they they put the work in. And and I think people lean into the myth of like that thing of like, oh, he's a
01:11:16
genius. You you read, you know, Forbes magazine or whatever about business people doing incredibly well. It's like,
01:11:21
well, this guy's a genius. Steve Jobs thing is though, genius. Genius. Love Bill Gates. He's a genius.
01:11:27
And then you read about like these these guys that are like finance guys. They wake up at 5 in the morning and he only sleeps for three hours a night and he
01:11:32
does so much and he knows everything and he works so hard. It's always it's always both. It's always both. And then
01:11:39
plus time you need, you know, that 10,000 thousand hours thing isn't isn't wrong. It's just that's the minimum.
01:11:47
What could you stand to do for 10,000 hours that won't feel like drudgery? What could you stand to do now for the
01:11:54
next 10 years of your life that won't feel like uh this again? And if you're only motivated by the
01:12:00
paycheck, it's like, well, how hard could you work? Quick one. As many of you know, I've
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install, and you can control it using the My Energy app on your phone. To find out more about this product and more
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products like it that will help you make that sustainable transition, head over to myenergy.com. And um I highly
01:13:00
recommend you check out the Eddie. It's um it's a real game changer, a product, and one that I'm going to be installing in my home soon. paychecks. You you
01:13:07
talked about one of the lessons you brought over from your business career was um branding. You you said one of the
01:13:13
the most important things you carried over from your business career to stand up is branding. You sell your
01:13:19
specialtity. Yeah. I think that that thing like I mean branding in a very loose sense,
01:13:25
it's that thing of like knowing how you're perceived. So when you walk on stage, if you're like suited and booted
01:13:30
and you look as if you're hosting a TV show, how long is it going to be before some dummy at a TV channel goes, "Who
01:13:35
should be hosting a TV show? This guy looks the part." Like that thing of like that simple thing of going, "This is a
01:13:41
visual medium. I'm standing in front of people." I don't think it's not like people go, "Oh, you know, if you don't get them in the first five minutes,
01:13:47
you're in trouble." Five minutes, you're having a laugh. If you don't get them in the first on the before I've hit the
01:13:53
mic, they've made a decision about me in a club. You know this guy. Oh, this guy [ __ ] knows. We can all relax. This
01:13:59
this guy knows what he's doing. Take the wishing well. Yeah. And it's like that thing of like you go, you know, someone someone uh
01:14:08
faking confidence is exactly the same to the casual observer. So that thing of like what you're what what are you faking? Fake being a good person to the casual observer. It's the same.
01:14:21
Being a good person to the casual observer. Tax. That seems like a good segue. Yeah. Well, I mean the tax thing is
01:14:27
really it's quite an interesting thing when you get publicly shamed uh that you kind you know you learn a
01:14:32
lesson. You you don't I totally missed that. Oh, okay. Well, I mean it's what happened was there was a
01:14:39
the long story I suppose is you have an accountant, right? And your accountant says, "How much tax do you want to pay?" Oh, there's a scheme. And
01:14:46
you go, "Yeah, great. Is it legal?" Yeah. They go, "Yeah, it's legal." And you go, "Okay."
01:14:51
and they go, "Yeah, you can pay as much as you want or pay this or it's it's quite they use terms like it's quite an aggressive scheme." And you go, "Okay,
01:14:58
but there's less tax and you get to keep Okay, that's well that sounds good." And I suppose every anyone that's ever bought an ISA has done a tax avoidance
01:15:06
scheme. That's a governmentbacked tax avoidance scheme. So I was doing a bunch of those and government enterprise initiative
01:15:12
things and trusts and quite complex financial things. So the money was rolling in and it was just all going
01:15:18
through the accountants out to these things and one day it all caught up. So one day I don't know how exactly I presume HMRC leaked something but that's okay. Uh and it went from being on the
01:15:32
cover of the paper to going you know you've done an aggressive tax scheme. This is morally wrong. And I'd never
01:15:37
thought of it as being moral. I'd never I'd just gone well I pay as little as you can and whatever. I'm still kicking
01:15:43
in a lot. Um, and it was just like I I had that feeling. It was almost like um suicide with a bungee rope. You felt like you were losing everything and then
01:15:54
it kind of snapped back and it was okay, but the sensation of what it would be like to be cancelled. I've had that that
01:16:01
kind of, you know, not PTSD. I haven't been in a bomb blast, but you know, you have that feeling of like what that
01:16:07
would be like. Um, so and then the prime minister comes out and he's at the G20 and he does a press conference where he talks about nothing other than your tax affairs and how
01:16:17
morally representable you are and he's the guy that brings in austerity and gave us Brexit and you know Scottish
01:16:24
independence and whatever and you go a [ __ ] this is going to be and then I'm doing a
01:16:30
topical comedy show that week where we're talking about the most talked about things and I'm the most talked
01:16:36
about thing. How did you actually feel in that moment? I was behind the scenes. I had uh so the news broke on a Sunday.
01:16:43
I was I didn't sleep for about maybe three days. I mean, you know, I didn't sleep, you know, there's always an hour
01:16:49
here or there, but I was having panic attacks. Uh and that sensation of a panic attack, if you haven't had one, is you you you can't get comfortable in
01:16:59
your own skin. You can't sit, you can't stand, you can't eat, you can't drink, you just like nothing feels right.
01:17:06
you're kind of just off. And I I took some I took like a beta blocker on the first day and then I had the meds. I had like the beta blockers and the Valium and the stuff I got like prescribed
01:17:18
enough to send me down a black hole and then I didn't take anything. I just had them as a talisman of like, okay,
01:17:25
I'll have that. But it was kind of panic attacks and waves of that and uh guilt and shame and you know hard lessons
01:17:34
because you find out who your friends are. So a couple of people that I was pretty
01:17:40
close to were gleeful were that guy's been brought down a peg or two. Like it's a hard thing. It's a hard thing to learn. And then some other
01:17:53
people stepped up to the plate, you know, and you go, "Wow, that's I'm not really interested in fair weather
01:17:58
friends." Like, everyone comes to a show party. Of course they [ __ ] do. The show's party, baby. Um, but the people
01:18:03
that call you when you're at your lowest and go, "Fine. I love you. You're you're
01:18:10
not the worst thing you've ever done." You go, "Great." And on that point, you you talk openly about how you've had depressive bouts.
01:18:22
Yeah. I mean, I I spoke about it in the book because I think it's a um I wanted to kind of deliver on listen if I hadn't
01:18:29
talked about the tax thing in the book. I think people readers would have felt shortchanged very much like HMRC did. Um but again
01:18:37
the depression and anxiety I suffer more with anxiety than depression and I try and see it in a very positive way. I try
01:18:43
and be as positive as I can in life and go, so if I have an anxiety attack, you go, well, that's sort of the flip side of creativity, right? So, if you have a
01:18:51
mind that's worring all the time, you know, sometimes it's going to wake you up at 5 in the morning with a panic
01:18:56
attack, and that's all right. You know, I can white knuckle that. I'm I'm lucky that mine aren't that severe. It's not
01:19:02
like I'm better and braver than other people with mental health problems that need to medicate. Just lucky that it's
01:19:08
not as bad for me, but I'm I'm aware of it. And I think talking about it does help because all we have is talking therapy. So if that talking therapy is me someone listening to my book and and
01:19:20
going, "Oh, he seems all right and he's he deals with this and he's going through it and I know that I'm not alone
01:19:25
in this." Because the first time you have a panic attack, it's it's [ __ ] terrifying because you think, "Is this
01:19:31
my forever now?" Because it's all you can feel and it's overwhelming and you go, "Well, is this
01:19:37
it? Is the first time you get depressed?" the first time like a real depression hits you, it's like, "Oh,
01:19:43
wow. This is a this is awful." When was the first time? Um, the first one was probably early
01:19:50
early 20s, like after college, like a a black mood that just wouldn't shift. And it was Yeah. Yeah. It's pretty scary. And then I had
01:20:03
I had one in Australia a couple of years ago 2018 where I and I could kind of see
01:20:08
what it was like there's a bit of your mind that's like always you aware and it was like I traveled that I I'd done like
01:20:15
160 flights that year and it was I did Australia twice in a month and it's I was so broken I was so stripped of
01:20:21
serotonin and I took a Valium to sleep on the plane and that strips more serotonin and I was just like it's the
01:20:27
inability to feel joy. Um, so I don't know if you've had anyone die in your life, but sometimes someone on their deathbed, you make them their favorite meal. You get the food from the specialty. I remember going to see a
01:20:38
friend who was dying and we bought him scotch eggs from Fortnham and Mason. Like it's his favorite thing. And he
01:20:44
looked at him and he was grateful, but he couldn't eat them because he just didn't have an appetite. And when you're depressed, it's the appetite for life is
01:20:51
just gone. It's just you haven't got it. Um, but it's this too shall pass. you know, the the that thing of going, well, you can just, you know, I can white knuckle it and
01:21:02
just kind of get through that and other people can medicate for a couple of weeks and then it's sort of okay. And do you think these things are It's an
01:21:09
interesting question to ask and probably quite naive, but do you think these things are
01:21:14
a symptom of the way we live our lives? panic attacks, depression, or do you think they are part of the innate human experience
01:21:26
regardless of the way that we live our lives? I think it's a it's a great question. I think uh I think depression
01:21:33
is a part of life. I think it's, you know, probably people have always had that and I think there is a um there's a
01:21:42
there's a benefit to these things. There's a um uh it's not only negative. You know, melancholy can be a very beautiful thing. Sometimes it's very appropriate to be down. You know, if
01:21:54
you're grieving someone, that's you know, you talk about being depressed when someone dies. You you it's grief.
01:22:00
It's a different sort of thing. That's uh of course it's it's uh it's normal. I think that thing about for me, I think,
01:22:10
you know, the nurture thing is the thing that we can change. I'm a I'm I'm a great believer that we could change and
01:22:15
do better. But yeah, maybe it's maybe it is a symptom of how we're living our lives and we could do better. You know, I'm sure if I was doing um Iawaska every
01:22:26
weekend, I'd have less panic attacks, but at the moment, I don't feel kind of drawn towards that world, but I'm kind
01:22:32
of aware that that exists. I've kind of got some friends in that world and I kind I'm aware there's other I've got a
01:22:38
friend that was on anti-depressants for 30 years and started doing Iawaska and is now off them now. It's not even firsthand. It's definitely not scientifically relevant. Don't take
01:22:48
medical advice from me kids. But it strikes me that there are other ways. There's other ways and that there's
01:22:54
ancient cultures that had this [ __ ] locked down. You didn't lose your virginity till you were 26.
01:23:00
Yeah. Very late. And again, I spoke about that in the book because I think there is a a perception in society that
01:23:07
it is a race and you need to do that early and you need to be, you know, [ __ ] with a weaponsgrade dick because everyone's watching Pornhub and, you
01:23:19
know, whatever. It's it's uh I thought it was a nice thing to share because I think some kid of 24 is going to read
01:23:26
that and go, I might be all right. I might be normal. You describe that as being a fear. I
01:23:31
remember very distinctly trying to have sex when I was 16 and just being totally
01:23:36
[ __ ] terrified because I thought my penis was I thought it was I mean I think I probably watched too much porn
01:23:41
or something at 16 or 17 but I was like this is not a penis. This is tiny in comparison to that. I think we have to get our dicks now, right? I think we have an ending for the
01:23:52
show. I was like 15 and I and I totally bottled it. What was it? Was it fear? Was it I think it was you know I think
01:23:58
it's fear you know there's a lot of other things going on obviously it's like maybe a religious faith 15% of that
01:24:05
and maybe a little bit uh inshed is the term they use where you're you know too close to one parent and that maybe stops
01:24:11
you from forming bonds with uh with other women so very close to my mother and that stops you from kind of going
01:24:17
out and having normal relationships in some sense you know there's a million different reasons it kind of doesn't
01:24:23
matter it's like you everyone gets there And the perception I think again in our
01:24:28
society and the reason to put it in the book is because you go not embarrassed give a [ __ ] like I very happily talk
01:24:35
about it and you go don't get too caught up in the reasons uh think about now think about what matters I think you
01:24:42
know that school of therapy the Freudian analysis that's all about why that happened I give a [ __ ] what are we going
01:24:47
to do about it I like CBT and NLP more because it's more like yeah what are we going to do though what are we doing now what are we
01:24:53
doing today NLP neural linguistic programming Yeah, Peter Jones was talking to me a lot about this on when we were having our
01:24:58
breaks in Dragon's Den. And what role has NLP played in your life? What has it done for you? And for those that don't
01:25:04
know, including me, what is it? Um, neural linguistic programming is like I suppose it came out of the um
01:25:11
West Coast human potential movement of the 70s. It's a sort of almost like a belief structure of for life. Uh, and it's been you I think it's been used
01:25:21
nefariously a fair bit. You can find some negative stuff on it online. I happened to when I was working for
01:25:26
Shell, there was a budget for training. And obviously, I'm not working on an oil rig. I was like, "Okay, well, I'll just
01:25:33
I'll I'll I'll go on an NLP course." It's like this kind of slightly hippie-ish thing for a big oil
01:25:39
corporation to send you on. And the idea of it is the map is not the territory. It's like the fundamental questions in
01:25:45
life are going, "Look, your experience of the world is not the same as everyone else's. And how you see things within the map
01:25:52
inside your mind is how the world is for you. And you know so these premises of like the quality of your communication
01:25:57
is the quality of your life which made sense to me. Everything about it I read this kind of I was taught by
01:26:04
this guy called Ian McDermott and everything I he said like for you know 20 days on this course I just went agree
01:26:10
with all of this. I I it it everything felt right to me about that. It felt like, okay, they someone's given this a lot of thought and we're all standing on the shoulders of giants. We, you know,
01:26:21
and this seems like a pretty good way to um to think about life. Um so the idea that the map is not the
01:26:28
territory. The idea that you go, well, you imagine how things are, you could imagine it a different way. It's very difficult to change how you think about
01:26:35
the world. Very difficult. I don't but it's so much easier than changing the world.
01:26:40
The map is not the territory. So you imagine the world, right? Yeah. you imagine um London.
01:26:48
Yeah. And the size of London and what it is. What you have in your head isn't the real thing. It's your perception of it. It's your
01:26:54
perception of how things are in this room is not the is not the same as my perception of how they are in this room.
01:27:01
Um so it it it's it's different for everyone. The the idea and the analogy being
01:27:07
there's a map that's 2D and it tells you right that's Britain, that's France. you
01:27:12
have an idea of what Britain looks like from above. It's got [ __ ] all to do with reality.
01:27:17
No one's ever seen it from that angle. So you you know those lines don't exist. Those lines are man-made.
01:27:24
The the borders aren't real. And how does that help you in in life? Well, I think it's the idea of going
01:27:29
look, you can change the way that you think about things. So I was thinking about things in I can do I can do these na this narrow bandwidth of things. My
01:27:36
belief system, the assumptions I'd made about life were, well, you can get a job and you can work for someone and after
01:27:42
you get a job and you work for 40 years, you get a pension and when you get the p I was on a conveyor belt. Sure.
01:27:47
When suddenly I went, oh, I could believe anything. I could believe that I could do anything.
01:27:53
I could believe that I could be the guy on the TV show telling jokes. And you can. What you believe dictates your life. You'll you'll be the barrier. You'll be the thing that stops you.
01:28:06
No one else. You know, people spend a lot of time worrying about other people. Oh, what what if they don't help me? What if they don't? You're going to be
01:28:12
the thing that holds you back. You said that the best goals are those without like the destination, right? The the I mean, listen, it's the the the
01:28:23
Listen, this is very self-helpy chat, right? So, we are legally obliged to say at some point it's the journey, not the
01:28:28
destination. We have to say that. But getting there isn't half the fun. It's all the fun.
01:28:35
So, what's next for you? Okay. Well, I have plans. I always have plans, but I have quite grand plans. If you if you say now that you want to make a billion dollars, I'm going to
01:28:46
delete this episode. Uh, I'm trying to get better at comedy. I've been sort of going about 20 years
01:28:52
and I'm trying to change up my style a little bit. So, I do, this is inside baseball. People, you can switch off now
01:28:57
if you're not interested in comedy. So, I do oneliners. I Everything's a fast ball, right? And I do sort of three a
01:29:03
minute on stage and I try and get people into a state where they're they can't breathe, where they're
01:29:08
laughing so much, where they're a joyful experience, where they can't remember anything I said, but they remember how I
01:29:15
made them feel and I made them feel so happy. That's what I want to do. Okay, I'm trying to change that a little bit.
01:29:20
I'm trying to change it up. So, I'm doing I'm trying to write routines between sort of seven and 12 minutes long. Trying to write longer pieces with
01:29:27
a bit more to them. So, I'm trying to sort of find a It's been really interesting with the book and with coming on podcasts like this of like
01:29:33
finding a different voice. So, go I'm a public figure. I've been on TV for 20 years, pretty famous. I've never spoken
01:29:40
like this before. Right. So, we've just done a couple of podcasts recently where I'm chatting to people as I am. And you
01:29:45
go, okay, so that's there's a serious side to me and then there's a a funny side to me. People are nuanced and complicated and great. And I'm trying to
01:29:52
bring a little bit of who I am to the stage now. I'm trying to reveal a little bit more about me and that's a very exciting prospect and so writing a new
01:30:03
show. So I'm sort of halfway through a tour and I kind of pushed the [ __ ] it button and recorded a special that's
01:30:09
going to come out at Christmas and I've written new stuff. Why? I just go out and do new stuff.
01:30:14
Why? It's exciting. It's it's like the the trying new stuff, doing new things, trying trying to get people to a different state. So, it's a little bit for the for the agilation of
01:30:28
it because you kind of go, well, I want it to be a better experience for the audience, but also I want more applause
01:30:33
breaks. I want it to be a um a higher volume laugh. You know, there's a there's a it's difficult to describe, but there's like there's there's a laugh that you go everyone in the room laughed, bang, but then it's gone. and
01:30:45
then get them again. Bang. And then and then it's gone. You want a rolling laughter. You want, you know, I want to
01:30:52
get better. I want to get better. I've seen people that are better than me on stage with worse material with with
01:30:58
worse jokes. He goes, "So, you want to get better as a performer and you want to get better as a writer and it feels
01:31:04
like there's I feel like I'm at base camp. I've got the kit. I've got the right gear and I'm I'm on the mountain,
01:31:11
but we haven't got anywhere near the summit." And that's for me tremendously exciting as a guy in his late 40s to go,
01:31:18
"Oh, we're just starting." Most of the great comics that I love did their best work in their 50s.
01:31:24
Inside your book, in the front cover, and this is my um last question for you, it says that one of the things the book will help you understand is the meaning
01:31:36
of life. Pretty profound. I'll do it in five words. Okay. enjoying the passage of time. That's it. It's enjoying the passage of
01:31:47
time. It's it's the chances of us being here now are so small. The chances of us existing, it's it's you know, if you
01:31:59
look at the if you look at the stats, the it's not just our parents had to get together at that moment, but their parent, their parents, their parents,
01:32:04
their going back a billion years as we climbed out of the soup. The chances of this happening are
01:32:13
incalculable. And yet, we're here and we have this shot and we're breathing and we're healthy and we're This is incredible. Enjoying the passage of time is about it's about all I got and it's
01:32:25
enough. Thank you. Um I I found your, you know, your book incredibly refreshing for so many reasons. because it was laced with
01:32:37
humor, but because it was so inclusively written as a self and so relatable as a
01:32:44
I kind of felt like it was lowhanging fruit the self-help thing because you go well Echart tole is amazing but he does
01:32:50
not know his way around a dick joke and you know and and Jordan Peterson great 21 rules for life but it's like it's quite pitchy. Yeah. Yeah. tone, you know, so you go actually
01:33:01
sugaring the pill and going, "Look, there's this great interesting world out there and I think this is like a I think
01:33:07
this book is a gateway drug. I think this is marijuana. This is like some really mellow
01:33:13
weed and it'll lead you in a different direction and like maybe oh, okay, well, I need to read some more stuff by him or
01:33:18
I need to investigate that or that sounds interesting." and the honesty you start the book with, even confronting
01:33:23
the fact that there's a stigma to writing self-help books, it immediately builds trust very early that you're not going to [ __ ] me and you're not
01:33:29
going to try and be anybody you're not in this book. And so I as I as I listened into the audio book and the chapters passed, you'd established this
01:33:36
really high degree of trust with me because you kind of had pointed at the elephant in the room so early. It's it's interesting that thing of like
01:33:43
the the experience you had as well about the inner critic where you engaged with the book
01:33:49
Yeah. to a to a degree where you went, is that true? Is that you? It's it's it's an interesting thing to be able to give someone that I haven't met something that is essentially very tough love.
01:34:00
Yeah, I know it was. And the other thing that was even tougher love was at one point you say that I am the person I am
01:34:05
when no one's watching. And at that exact moment as I'm in my boxer shorts with the pot noodle like spilt on my belly and it's like 2:00 a.m. in the
01:34:12
morning, I'm thinking this is who the [ __ ] I am. Look, I like I swear I I feel like I sat up in the bed, it was like
01:34:18
I love I love that thing though of going like if you're listening to this in the car and you just threw a beer can out the
01:34:25
window, you go, "Yeah, that's who you are." And that's not terrible. You just have to be okay with that. It's a good
01:34:32
It's I think honesty is one of the great superpowers of comedians because everything's built on that level of like
01:34:38
people aren't going to get the joke if it's not honest. Yeah. Yeah. But it's it that bedrock of like acceptance is a great first step.
01:34:45
Look, you are where you are. It's not where you're going to end up. And you know, I think I I get the feeling a lot of people listening to
01:34:51
this podcast are looking for something. They're looking for kind of a a steer. And it's it's you know, there's going to
01:34:57
be movement. You're going to you're going in the right direction. Just the desire to get there is enough to get you started.
01:35:03
Well, thank you. It's um I'm so incredibly happy you wrote this book because it also showed me as someone I've watched on TV since I was a child.
01:35:10
Of course, I've been around a long time, baby. And uh so it's also surreal meeting you because as I said, you know, one you're one of the people that I sat there in my
01:35:16
house in Plymouth, that whole place that you described, um and I I watched you growing up and I
01:35:22
knew one side of you. I knew the the quick jokes. I literally remember the sketch you did where you said you come up on stage and you say, "I'm going to
01:35:28
do as many [ __ ] oneliners as I can." And you just hammer them all out. and reading this book and also meeting you
01:35:33
today as exactly what you've described as your kind of ambition, I've come to learn a how unbelievably [ __ ] smart
01:35:40
you are. I didn't actually know you'd g to Cambridge until I read about it. Um b how um multifaceted you are as a sort of
01:35:47
philosophical thinker and see your incredible ability to weave that all together and to shine lights on really
01:35:55
important truths in society. And that's why when you told me that your ambition going forward is to bring a bit more
01:36:01
content, we'll say, and a little bit more probably profound meaning, I don't know, to to to your to your comedy.
01:36:10
You know what it is? I saw Chappelle the other week. Really? And I shock people. Yeah. And he disturbs people.
01:36:16
Yeah. And what I need to do is disturb people. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you have all the
01:36:22
everything it takes to do that because you really are a genius in your own right. So, you're way too kind. But
01:36:27
thank you. It's been a a pleasure. Now, I have to write a question for the next Yes, you have to write a question. So, all of our Did they write me a question? Okay. What
01:36:33
do we do first? Do I get the question first? I'm going to ask you the question first. So, all of our guests leave a question in the diary. Okay.
01:36:39
As they leave and they don't actually know who they're leaving the question for, which is interesting. Right. We had Patrice Evra, who's a Manchester
01:36:47
United football legend. Is this Is this going to be about the offside rule? Is this going to catch me
01:36:52
out? It's not. Okay. In fact, interestingly, this is a question which changed his life when his
01:36:57
his partner asked him this question one day and it disturbed, troubled and caused a sense of introspection that made him really
01:37:09
really consider this seriously and that changed his life. That was the catalyst. So when I said to him to write a question, I looked down at what he had
01:37:14
written and it was the question he described on this podcast. So listeners of last week's episode will know will
01:37:20
know this question coming. Okay, the question is, are you happy? Yeah, it's a great question. Yes,
01:37:38
it is a really great question. It's really good. It's beautiful. Yeah, it's beautiful. And I think you know um
01:37:45
that thing I said earlier about like be lucky. I had a friend a friend's father when I was a kid would always say be
01:37:50
lucky. And I remember thinking it was ridiculous because you can't be lucky but that you know from the the German
01:37:56
luck is uh happy be happy. I think it's a it's a powerful thing to aspire to you know enjoying the passage of time is my answer for the meaning of life but to be happy is everything and I
01:38:10
think you are responsible for your happiness. you know, uh, objectivism and hangrand get given a hard time, I think, because I think people have conflated pleasure and happiness and they think
01:38:21
those guys are just hedonistic fools. But you being happy is better for the world. You know, when you're on a plane
01:38:28
and it's going down and the oxygen masks come, you have to grab your mask first or you're no good for anyone else. You
01:38:35
being happy makes the people around you happier, better for your friends, better for your family, better for the world.
01:38:41
It's a great question. Weirdly, my my one of my ex my ex-girlfriend asked me that question one
01:38:47
day and I felt really defensive and like she had like really vulnerable when she
01:38:53
asked me it and I thought I thought I was happy and I still think I was in that moment. But there's something about that question which really strips you to
01:38:59
your essence and like I think it's it's very nicely framed as well. I like the way you asked it and I like the silence
01:39:05
around it because it's often that thing of like conversation is that the the pace is a bit too it's too quick with filling silences and actually something you kind of sit with am I happy
01:39:19
you know and listeners it's almost impossible that you won't have answered that question
01:39:25
and if you're not know that that's okay because it's going to change and you know happiness I think is about like that it's the base state isn't it it's that thing of you know what's your base
01:39:39
state what's what's going on with you are you a happy person generally are you able to um deal with the stimulus of
01:39:47
life and still maintain I suppose I need to put a question in the right question okay thank you please excuse my terrible penmanship do we do the question on a or do we do
01:39:59
after I'm going to come in give you the book and then you scribble the And thank you so much T.
01:40:04
My pleasure. Hey for me. [Music] [Music]