"All Self-Help Boils Down To One Truth" - Jimmy Carr (4K)

Jimmy car welcome to the show thank you very much I'm uh I'm a big fan of it I'm kind of nervous about talking to you in a weird way because I like the show I I really like you as a kind of cultural um entity I think it's a really interesting kind of Journey you've had and I get so much from this show you know that phrase I think you use it probably more than any other phrase does it grow corn and for me this show really kind of grows corn there's so many little things that I've taken from this that I've kind of on oh I'm going to I'm going to do that I'm going to do something with that so kind of the the practical application of the wisdom what you get out of people seems to be um very easy to integrate into life right so the bar's being set high for you today then if you start well I mean around is sort of what I do so the other thing is like I I kind of get more nervous being myself than being sort of the comedic um Persona you know just being funny just being on things being funny I find very easy it's a it's an interesting sort of Life Lesson the idea of like what do you find easy that other people find difficult go for that do that for a living that's that's there's there's going to be money there there's going to be there's going to be some gold you're going to be okay if you find it easy and everyone else is going that's impossible so you standing up in front of people being funny I find very easy like these kind of conversations I slightly you slightly second guess yourself it's what you're used to I think it's what you spend a lot of time becoming a climatized to doing yeah I suppose you know it's just that thing of I've always said in comedy people sort of talk about how many years they've been doing comedy and it seems faintly ridiculous it's kind of it's like when you talk to an airline pilot they've got a really good view on it they talk about how many hours they've got in the sky and for me like there's no substitute for um stage time and I'm sure for you there's no substitute for for this for actually doing it everything else is is kind of it doesn't matter how many years you've had a podcast I think something about the frequency of your show as well it's the it's kind of it's always there there's always something new you talk about the most important question to ask yourself being what do you want yeah I mean I talk about that an awful lot I I studied a lot of uh studied and was very interested in sort of NLP and that question of what do you want in the micro in the macro being um being the absolute key in sort of life because people sort of um I suppose it's it's it's that thing of going what is something represent people someone might say well I want a Ferrari um but why if you if you sort of dig a Little Deeper you can't just ask once what do you want well I want a Ferrari and a Rolex and all of the trappings but actually what they want is status so it's kind of asking yourself what game are you going to play I've read a lot of that um uh Rene Gerard uh stuff about sort of mtic desires so this idea that you've got what you really want at kind of a a fundamental level it's about you and what you perceive you should have compared to others so this idea of kind of being honest about what you want and why you want it well splitting apart what is a genuine desire that's come from you that's been self-authored and what is just the things that you've taken from the way you dealt with past trauma and what your parents valued and what society says that you should and the paths of least resistance and your genetic predisposition this beautiful quote that says ultimately happiness comes down to choosing between the discomfort of BEC aware of our mental afflictions and the discomfort of becoming ruled by them and it's this yeah that's it's a lot though isn't it I mean it's like I don't think anyone gets there by the way I think there's there's kind there's slightly I think sometimes when I hear people kind of interview talking about this stuff there's a there's a sense of oh well you know I'm enlightened now and I know knowing that you you know you I'm only want that thing because you've got that thing and I want the new iPhone cuz you've got the new iPhone knowing that doesn't really make any difference because when you're out there in the world you still got to live a life and do something correct but it's about what uh that will store book I thought was phenomenal um the status game I mean all these books are great actually he's a really interesting sort of underrated writ he's wonderful but that thing of like going well actually you pick what status game you play in you can have anything you can't have everything it's that thing of just the the words seem to be very important to me the idea of saying um you can work for anything in life to a kid as supp you can have anything is the difference between um you know ambition and entitlement in you know summed up that lovely thing you sent out the other day yes that you know that the difference between ambition and um entitlement being you know ambition ambition is when you expect yourself to close the gap between what you have and what you want entitlement is when you expect others to close the gap between what you have and what you want yeah that thing of like agency seems that's very high on my list of like getting back to what do you want agency I want the um I want control to be in here like I think it's better to be a standup I mean the thing I've been thinking about recently is um being stoic doing less better being a stand-up is a great job and there's so many stand-ups that get the job of being a standup and then they want to be an actor and you I go you're mad that's it's not as good a job it's better to do a podcast than to have a TV show and because you're in charge you're Your Own Boss you you know kind of whe you cancel proof not you'd be particularly bothered about that but the idea of going you're in charge and you've got agency and you can do what you want well there's a LEL there's a huge power to that there's a level of narcissism I think that comes with believing that you would be able to beat somebody else at them doing one thing while you're doing two things okay so you think that you're going to be a better podcaster than the guy that just does a podcast while it's trying to do a podcast and run a business and be on TV and fly around the world do all of these it's also that thing of like going if your aim is sort of happiness I think having a process driven ambition rather than an outcom driven ambition like what do you want to do rather than what you want to be you know so that idea of going look you do a podcast and you live for it it seems to be pretty much all you care about and you're loving it and you you you kind of embody that and it's it gets back to that Nal thing of like what play for you what's easy for you what's play what's just what's fun no one's going to put this effort in look around look at the 4K cameras or whatever the no one's putting this effort in that doesn't really care about it so someone trying to fake it and go well I want what he's getting for that I want the ad Revenue MH it's like you well no that's the you're playing in the wrong game there's a a really great quote from Mark Manson where he talks about the most important question to ask yourself is what pain are you willing to endure in your life rather than what pleasure do you want because any pleasure or any Pursuit that you want is going to come with an in-kind payment of pain even your stuff the the fatigue the road everything else but that thing of like you know the the all self-help is hard choices now Easy Life later everything is the marshmallow test everything is about saying look you know that famous marshmallow test of give a kid you can have one marshmallow now or two later that seems to be a really good indicator in life of going what are you willing to and and and work really is work is the sacrifice forat and it's it's really about that time frame probably the biggest thing I got from this show uh and from following you was that idea of serving yourself in 24 hours you have to serve someone what are you going to do today that you tomorrow will appreciate yeah because for something about a day seems about the right time frame like if it's if it's in six months time and you're trying to go to the gym and motivate yourself by I'm going to look great in 6 months it's like ah I don't know I don't know if you're going to do that I I don't think that's a motivator because it's written on my fridge what would you tomorrow want you today to do it's written on my fridge it's a great I think there's a book in that I I think genuine I think it's such a a powerful you've got me writing you have told me to write five different books over the last week that we've spent together but I like the idea of that thing of going because it's it's you know you listen to a podcast but the book seems to be the book and the course seems to be the thing that it's just a way of getting all of your thoughts on this together a treatment yeah um but I think the idea of like your the you know what are you going to do that's going to make you happy in 24 hours and that's really about saying well your Ambitions should be um feelings not things what's the difference well the idea that you go well how do I want to feel is something that you go well that's that's an ambition you can have I want to feel happy I want to feel contented I want to feel healthy I want to feel fulfilled uh wanting those things wanting material things well the reason you want the material thing is to give you the feeling so just cut out the middleman yeah I mean listen it's easy for me to say I'm rich famous baby you know it's like slightly that thing of like where you're calling from but you you just realize there's just more stuff over dinner you spoke about the difference between jealousy and envy and I thought that that was really interesting well I think that it's a conception where I don't really mind which word you use but Envy for me is is good because it tells you what you want so if you see someone and they've got a terrific physique and you go oh I want to I want to look like that guy that tells you what you want that's that's great when you see someone with a uh I don't know a um a beautiful girl and you don't want him to have it but you don't want it that strikes me that is a very uh that's kind of um bitterness and resentment and it's it's mean and it's it's that that I think it's a it's a it's a niche quote isn't it if you um uh resentment is when you think someone has ruined your life and there is someone that's ruined your life is you it's really I find that very powerful the idea that's the agentic frame again right that you're taking control of that when you realize that it is you that's been in control of most of the things that have gone on that's taking agency that's taking responsibility but I think that we're we're sort of set up not to do that right we we're set like and as the economy changes as our world changes I think the idea of getting a job is is a little bit you know become slightly Nanny State it's like well I'll get a job and they'll pay me and then they'll they'll worry about that and I'll just do this job for them and it's like this idea of like new jobs are happening all the time it feels like there's a there's a new economy kind of sprouting up and people are doing their own thing it feels like it's not just comedians I mean obviously I'm uh very bought into the being a stand-up comedian world but people are doing their own thing it's lovely yeah I I wonder talking about the skill acquisition thing obviously the pace that you tour at how many shows have you done this year so far 220 something like that and there's probably been about 250 to 280 days so far this year yeah something like that but I make TV shows as well so you know I keep busy but it's you know but really if you compare it to someone with a real job it's not that much work because the way that I perceive is I work for you know 2 hours or 4 hours a night depending on how many shows and most people work 8 hours now there's a bit of travel involved and stuff but it's it's it's a pleasure if you find something you love doing you never work again that's the well I suppose if you look at that's such a good frame to say wow 250 days of the year or 220 days of the year and there's only been 280 days or whatever okay well if you were to roll that forward for any normal 9 to5 person that's that's probably the right number of days or maybe even a little bit less and there's something about taking a work class spit and sawdust mentality into the realm where it it doesn't seem like it's it's supposed to be there where you actually end up seeing disproportionate returns yeah I suppose it's that thing of like it's uh it's really about what you're willing to put in as well like if you find something that you love doing well why would you want to stop doing that just do do more of that and you get better it is that thing where you go it's time in the gym it seems that stress is very good for us in in all areas you know going to the gym is stressing your body and working and coming up with new stuff is you know you're stressing yourself you know so that thing of like trying to you know trying new stuff at every show you it's only you know you saw the show the other night it's only a f minute bit where I get out a pit of paper and try some new jokes but that bit means that the next tour is very easy because five minutes at every show you you sort of Bank a lot of stuff a bank a lot of new ideas and you have a reason to think about the new thing always you have a reason to be thinking about okay what's the new thing what's the new thing what's a new idea for a joke what am I going to try tonight well that's a big hack I think you know it's the fan technique in order to be able to learn it you must first be able to teach it type thing but there's an equivalent when it comes to personal growth as well I think which is the best way to ensure that you're going to continue to develop is to have an outlet where it's going to be scrutinized by other people that so much of the learning and the reading and the stuff that I do is exclusively because I know that I need to be remotely interesting or prepared for the next guest that comes on well it's that it is that thing where you go the joy of standup comedy the feedback loop is it's so quick I mean people just immedi and and an audience you Lenny Bruce first said it the audience is a genius they know immediately that's funny that's not funny that's acceptable that's not acceptable they make the call on all that stuff so you're just like presenting stuff and going is that okay is that all right I mean you know it's it's really easy because you just you write I've written so many more jokes that don't work than you so many more like thousands more it's that Edison thing about I haven't failed I just found 10,000 ways that I wasn't successful yeah and you but you eventually get to it and then you go well you what's what's the stand-up comedian kind of superpower it's an hour maybe 90 minutes if you go and see a live show cuz there a better of stuff as well but you know putting together specials and you go right it's it's that's kind of the best of me of the last 18 months that's all the funny stuff I I said in the last 18 months and that's there for you I think it's more relevant than music I think music's incredibly important and should be taught more in schools but I think standup should be a course in schools you think about what it's about it's about verbal dexterity right and it's about being able to express yourself and it's about finding your voice and expressing who you are and it's a perspective on life where you're seeing the lighter side and trying to find fun in something that you know there's two stories you know one story is about a guy um himself on a train and it's just a it's like ah I had the worst day ever and then there's some perspective where you go that's the funniest story I've ever heard there's there's something about the ability of a comedian to kind of shift perspectives and for me comedy has a function in society that no one is calling which is it's the we're pushing the Overton window we we're always at the edge of what is and what isn't acceptable like no I'm not just talking about like I happen to tell edgy jokes that's not what this is It's I'm seeing things as they are but kind of with new eyes that's sort of what Comics do even the most kind of mainstream observational comedy have done well you're sort of questioning the reality you're saying well this is this is uh this is not normal this is not how things should be this is weird am I the only one thinking this is it just me that kind of of comedy and it pushes what we what we think about the world it pushes what's acceptable Progressive you said that comedians are often ahead of the curve on social issues I think they are I think like comedians really do kind of it's the canary in the mine it's the sort of test in the air of what you can say and you know politics lags behind and so does culture you know if you want to know what are going to be the biggest talking points amongst normal people in about 18 months time look at the jokes that comedians are making today well I think there's a there's a there's a argument to be said that comedy lives in sort of a space between public and private discourse and it strikes me that there's never been a wider gap between public and private discourse what people are saying in bars and homes and on social media to their friends and and what the party line you know you sort of the party lines pretty strong at the moment on what you can and what you can't say you know if you want to see where power really lives what can't you say it's interesting right what can't you say in a society what isn't acceptable in the world you get into very interesting topics I mean all the stuff you talk about on Modern wisdom falls into that sort of category of going what should we talk about this you know you talk about you know whether it's environmentalism or gender or or you know what's what's happening in the world it's very it's very interesting to kind of call that and to to mess around with it so it's actually it's kind of a great space and comedy it sugar the pill as well you you know it's it's almost the perfect drug for me standup comedy because it's the dopamine here if you don't quite know where the line is going to come and it's the serotonin pleasure of laughter and going out to a live show has that incredible sort of effect on people of it it's a physical response I'm you know I've said it before I I think of myself as a drug dealer but you have the drugs on you that's so nice you know you've you've got everything everything on you but I'm able to sort of tease it out so I can get across borders with no problem it's interesting isn't it like the best drug in the world what's the best drug in the world I would love to know what the hormonal Cascade of someone listening to a great podcast is feeling I'm going to guess that there would be a good chunk of Serotonin and maybe some dopamine from I've realized something or here's two ideas that I didn't see before and they've been tied together and they've been wrapped up in a bow and what interesting the dopamine thing the thing that we were discussing the other day I found very interesting was like the idea that you could go if you had one data point on someone their view on abortion let's say what else could you what else could you figure out from that correct you know so the the modern day I suppose it would be modern day cold reading right yeah so if you know old school cold reading was you know someone at a seance going is anyone lost a Mary in Catholic Island I mean throw a stone but the idea this kind of modern day called reading on what do you what do you think about brexit someone tells you and you go I know everything that I need to know about you yeah from that one data so it's with podcast it's the thing is it's about the dopamine of going when does someone surprise you with their view dude I I so after our conversation we went for dinner on Thursday and then I wrote my newsletter based off of the inspiration from that such a good way to judge whether or not the content creator that you are listening to is acting genuinely and taking their insights from what they truly are interested in and being honest is when was the last time that they surprised you with something that they said yeah the honesty is really interesting cuz it's it's weird being a comic because everything I say on stage is a lie ultimately jokes are little lies but Comics leak there's a weird thing you can watch someone on stage or watch you know your favorite comic or whatever and you kind of have a sense of who they are it just it just happens you don't really choose your style as a comic it kind of chooses you it's kind it's who you are it's really it's kind of an interesting the caricature of the self well not even a caricature I think there's something about it's it's very authentic and there's something about podcasting especially the long form shows you can't hide there's nowhere for you to hide so the thing that I found kind of fascinating about your journey um and I you know my only critique of your show is I don't think you ever talk about yourself enough because it's you're fabulous at listening and teasing things out people and and holding a space but you never really talk about your journey and or maybe did in the very early episodes and I missed them but the idea of like going to go from a guy on love Island running clubs to this strikes me as a I mean you talk about agency you you basically kind of invented a job that didn't really exist wasn't really a thing M and and now of course you know it is and you know everyone's got a podcast but not like this yeah yeah it's interesting I guess you know whenever I sit down with someone for a long time when you start a show you're writing on the coattails if whoever is in front of you you know I'm riding on the coils of Rory Sutherland or Jordan Peterson or Douglas Murray or whoever and then I'm always really interested in just making the show an amazing platform and trampoline for the guest if I walk away with the guest shining as much as possible that's that's a good day at the office for me I made this as energetic or sedate or thoughtful or exciting or whatever as needed to be to get the best insights out of this spectacular person who's very interesting and I want to learn from that's a good day at the office and it always inevitably puts me in the back seat but that's how I designed it right I designed it to not be it's not called the Chris Williamson show right it's called modern wisdom because I wanted to be the most interesting people the smartest thinkers on the planet what have they got to say life is hard and this show should help that's where it is that being said I know that after a while sort of the cult of personality starts to kick in and you think oh well people actually want now not just to know about them but to know about you I've got this live show happening where it's me on stage for nearly two hours just me yeah that's ter how's that how are you finding the because you did the first one on Saturday right I had a dry run yeah assisted by some words of wisdom from you the night before um it was good I really enjoyed it scary I don't know how you guys do it uh what do you mean you just did it but it's different what I do is I just get to Waffle what you have to do is this unbelievably 0% fat lean down to the nothing but muscle bodybuilder presentation up on stage I don't know I think it's I think it's you know what are people looking for really I mean with laughter they're looking for it's a it's a it's a it's a response you could kind of measure you look at laughs per minute and go well you're doing a great job because you're getting the laughs per minute but ultimately they're coming out to be part of a crowd they could watch it at home on Netflix but they're coming out to see a show because they want to feel connected what are you offering connection people want to feel connected and you're standing on stage and you're saying well you're giving of yourself here's what I learned here's what I think and you know hopefully they they feel like they're they're with like-minded people they're in a room Collective Essence I think well it's it's Tribal isn't it it's that idea that we're we sort of there's an illusion that we're individuals I really like that line there's um there's no such thing is a baby it's always a baby and someone caring for the baby it's a baby and a mother baby and a father baby and a family babies don't exist on their own we're all babies we all takes a village you know if you look around behind the cameras at the other people that are just in the room right now never mind the other people that work on the podcast the idea that a standup is standing on stage on his own it's an illusion it's a very pleasing illusion because we're in our heads a lot of the time but we are searching for community in a space where that's sort of been lost you know that the idea that we're kind of we've never been more connected did and never felt more alienated because it's about the depth of the connection in other news this episode is brought to you by epidemic sound if you have ever tried to put sound effects or music behind any video you will know just how hard it is to do epidemic sound has over 990,000 sound effects plus a vast music library that will avoid any copyright concerns your videos are not going to get demonetized or infringe on someone's copyright which happens all the time if you're not using a professional Library all of their tracks are professionally produced by a diverse collection of artists and are exclusive to the platform if you've ever been wondering how your favorite creators take their videos to the next level a lot of it comes with sound design and that is the Sound Library selection they have access to so many of them are using epidemic sound and you can join them for free for 30 days by clicking the link in the description below or going to share. epidemicsound.com sodern wisdom and if you cancel within that 30 days you can still keep all of the sounds that you've used during your trial period That's share. epidemicsound.com slod wisdom we spoke the other night about the problems of the self you have a problem or there are there are many problems that are associated with this obsession with the self and the rise of the individual well I think that's you know that's the yeah it's it strikes me that it's uh if you if you look at different communities around the world you can sort of see where there certain communities where the self is uh is sacran and there's other places where not so much you know it's much more tribal I mean it's kind of an interesting thought my favorite quote of all time is William Gibson the future is here but it's not evenly distributed and you think wow like yeah of course what does that mean to you well it means that there's a Utopia in the world I'm I'm a very positive person I mean I really do think the world is great and we're going to crack it I think we may have already solved most of the problems in the world but in in in just particular areas right so you know so you go to Portugal let's say go to Lisbon now and the drug laws changed 15 years ago they legalized all drugs said all drugs are legal and we're going to take all the money we were spending on fighting uh the War on Drugs which would just patently losing we're going to take all that money and we're going to spend it on rehabs and we're going to spend it on education and we're going to spend it on uh making it easier for people to make good choices great and it worked you walk around Lisbon now one of the safest cities in Europe it's magnificent it's bu buzzing it's it's fabulous you go that's that's a brilliant idea why don't we just take that and do that here it seems to work because you know the alternative people sort of go yeah but you know drugs aren't good and drugs I agree I don't do drugs it's not my thing and some people have got real issues around them but you go but what we're doing at the moment isn't working and that seems to work and then you'll always have a very small percentage of people that have you know real problems and that's fine but the at least at least if you know those people aren't criminalized then they don't most petty crime is drug related so you that's a problem that's been fixed we could just take that I think the energy crisis have been solved but only on nuclear submarines nuclear submarines strike me as that's there why is no one talking about these people are living in tubes with a nuclear reactor and they have been for 50 years we've tested it and those guys seem fine self- sustaining much worse environment than we've got up here where we can breathe water and we don't need to recirculate the carbon dioxide and it's working right there you go there's the I mean I'm ABS I'm with Extinction Rebellion I think there is an environmental crisis it's awful but I don't think the person that solves the problem is I don't think we say in 50 years time we came pretty close there to an environmental collapse but thankfully someone glued themselves to the top of a car that did it I think it's going to be a physicist that does it right it's going to be a scientist that has a wonderful idea and and and does something so it's that thing if you go if you care about that where should you be putting your energy and I think it's again it comes back to where's the agency so that you know gluing yourself to the top of a car is is great it's saying look I need some this is important something needs to be done I don't think any politician has the vision to do it I don't think it gets solved through a law I think it gets solved through science and technology and I read um uh David deutsche's uh the beginning of infinity and was just blown away by what if we're the first 100 billion people that's how many people have lived right yeah 100 billion um I'm including us in that yeah and it could be trillions in the future yeah if we if we get this right it's it's exciting right and the idea that science is this particular meme that can you know we've got this AI technology which people seem scared about you go well maybe this is going to be the solution people are worried about nuclear catastrophe we've already priced in the downside right we've priced in nuclear war that's already a possibility why not take the outside did you read William MCC casal's what we owe the future did you see that no but I I I heard people talking about it I I haven't got around to reading is it is it good interesting guy good it's it's an important book I think to read especially if you think about these top in a big way well that idea of like people being people are important um temporally and spatially yes so the idea that we're quite obsessed with us in the west America Western Europe in our village in our community what do we owe the future is a very good question what do we owe the rest of the world because the idea that the environmental problem could be solved by doing less and cutting back and maybe if we live like we lived in 1985 that could cure things I don't think it's you know the population's out of control I don't see any volunteers have you heard Peter singer's thought experiment about the drowning child this explains the distance thing that you were talking about very nicely so um you're walking down the street and you see a drowning child in the uh River that's next to you does sound like a set up for a joke doesn't it it sounds like the kind of thing I would go so I'm walking down the street so there's a drowning child in in a river yes okay that's the start Peter Singh is a nice softly spoken Australian man in his late 70s I don't think that he was meaning it as the setup to a joke but feel free to take it for tonight okay you if you were to walk past and not save the child you would be seen as abhorrent right the drowning child you're the only person that's around here why would you not go into the river and go and save this kid okay now some kids are dicks I mean let's call it let's call it better off do I know this kid no is it Baby Hitler no why would it be B Baby Hitler I don't know thought experiment go to go to Hitler okay so go on what's the uh basically he continues to use the distance of you okay now the river's 100 yards away now it's 300 yards away now it's half a mile away now it's a mile away and the point is at which distance does the drowning child become less important to you and the argument kind of is that there's no distance it becomes an arbitrary an arbitrary decision if you would save the child that was there now you would save the child that is on the other side of the planet starving of yeah it's that you get to that um I think quite quickly to that uh what is it best things first the is it BJ lomberg book about what we like the idea the UN has got 148 things that they want to do these are our priorities and you go well you don't have any priorities then cuz there's a lot of things what are the things that should do now that make a difference so the simple stuff like mosquito Nets really does make it makes a huge difference what do what do you do because you go well you value you know your life much more than you value someone's life in you know it's interesting what we're not talking about like no one talks about what's going on in Venezuela no one seems that bothered about Venezuela at the moment and it's a I don't know the phrase show Springs to mind what's happening in Venezuela it's it you know the stories I'm hearing is you know teenagers are hunting cats in the street people are dying of malnutrition yeah it's like it's it's hell on Earth that thing of like you know the future is here but it's not evenly distributed it goes back as well you can go back in time the past is still here it just hasn't caught up yet yeah it's it's you know there not everyone's kind of running on the same system and maybe we should be maybe you know I mean we we live in an incredibly privileged time and I'm big on gratitude of like of the the opposite of kind of uh bitterness and resentment the idea of just going well what are you grateful about and it's you can kind of it's ever expanding the idea that like if I'd been born in North Korea today never mind 4 years ago but today he's really funny he's really good at saying you know offensive things I wouldn't have lived to he made it to six and a half years old yeah it's gone it's gone that's not given your punch on for being positive and for gratitude what do you make of this culture of cynicism that we see on the internet fatalism nihilism despondency um I mean it's the internet's a problem for me because the anonymity is is an issue um are you with Jordan Peterson on this what on the he says that no one no one should have a Twitter account that hasn't uploaded a photo of their ID I I I kind of would think that's be an interesting thing to try I mean what's the argument against that that that whistleblowers couldn't operate well I guess whistleblowers existed before Twitter and they used to have to go to a paper and the paper would then print the story that doesn't seem like a terrible system so we go back to that and everyone has to upload and then you go well you can still post you can still do all that stuff it's just it has to be traceable to you because we are who we are when nobody's watching if you want to know who you really are be on your own go somewhere on your own on holiday or whatever and you that's who you are if you're driving along and you throw the soda can out of the window of the car that's who you really are no one does that with kids in the back monster but if that's if that if you do that if that's who you that's it's interesting to kind of note that you know it's the difference between character and reputation you know you really know who you are reputation is what everyone else thinks about you you know who you are and yourself it's interesting to me to think about how the way that we the way that we act when nobody is looking tells us an awful lot about ourselves it's that adage about um listen to how he talks about his mother and how he treats the serving staff at the restaurants when you're on dates it's like a good litmus test for the guy that you're dating because that shows kind of who when the stakes are incredibly low yeah how do you show up as a person but yeah go back to the cynicism angle what do you think's going on I I don't know I I suppose it's easy it's it's easy to be kind of cynical about stuff it's also do do people not feel like they don't have agency you know if we as we learn more about what's going on in the world as we you know you're surrounded by news stories that you can do nothing about you know Co was very interesting for that because it actually affected us but normally you're reading about an earthquake happening and you go well this what can I do what difference does it make it's it's beyond my control or they're fracking for oil in Alaska okay well no one's listening to me or they're going to war in this okay well I'm I'm not sure I've got a a dog in that race but and you feel very so it's you you you kind of get cynical about it I think people have got cynical about politics it feels like they need big new exciting ideas that people can get behind and it feels like a lot of politics is like talking about changing this thing a tiny little bit changing that and it's people are kind of in one camp or the other I wonder whether the skepticism around the legitimacy of Elections is born out of this sort of sensation people have that they don't really have any they can't contribute and what they do doesn't matter because that's that's the most extreme version of it right even my vote didn't matter even my legitimate vote didn't matter yeah so regardless of whether or not you think that the voting machines are hacked or whether or not it's it's part of some big conspiracy which you very well maybe it definitely seems like you could sort of extrapolate forward oh well if what I do doesn't matter at all this is a perfectly designed continuation of that narrative as well so maybe people were were primed to believe that a little bit more yeah I mean I think it's a it's a very interesting point to kind of go well if people don't even think their vote counts then what can you do but but I guess if you're if you're pinning your hopes for um self-actualization on your party getting in it's like following a football team it's like it's it's a fun thing to do but don't don't let it take over your life you know these are 11 guys that don't give a about you and they're kicking a ball around it can't be everything it can't be the whole of your life Politics as well can't be the whole of your life you can't hope that that's going to bring you everything it's you want a you want a uh a better world but how are we going to get you know it's a good question to ask like how do we get a better world um how do we how do we bring the standard of living up what do we actually want for the world because it's not just more money you see what happens when people get more money there's just more inflation of that hidden tax kicks in so what do we want we want better education better chances for everyone better opportunities I guess it's it's like there's a lot of stuff that everyone kind of reason right why do you think we think about luck incorrectly my thing on luck is like we're we're incredibly lucky there's certain things that we devalue right so so um looks is a really good example like if someone's a model and they're they're gorgeous and they're photographed lucky people are kind of a bit dismissive of that if someone's born really smart you never go you're lucky you're born with an IQ of 162 bit of luck no one thinks that we sort of the two great myths in our society are um uh it's hard work and talent aren't they and it's always total it's always a mix of the two and finding the right medium the right Edge for you the right thing to be doing so you go people think oh you know Bill Gates oh he worked so hard he used to work 18 hours a day slept at the office he worked so hard to build that company no he's incredibly bright he had you know it's it's always you know the talent and the hard work you know Michael Jordan if he hadn't shown up to practice would be just a guy um and also if he was living 200 years ago pre- basketball I don't know I don't know you know that skill set is very particular so you what's what's what's what's luck the everyone's incredibly lucky I mean just to be here is it's beyond right I don't know I kind of I like the idea of just going okay look we're very lucky we've got what we've got run with it and also you're not going to change it you you might that thing of like acceptance being kind of that first step in therapy strikes me as really sensible just looking at what you've got and go right this is it this is it for the whole journey I can work on this it's like nature nurture obviously Nature has got a bigger effect than nurture but nurture is the only bit anyone gives a about because the only bit you can play with yeah until I can start fiddling with my DNA sensibly then I'm going to be I'll be nurturing and nurture people seem to think nurture stops you know people seem to think nurture and environment is a thing for kids yeah and the right school but really look at you as a shining example of environment so you you put yourself in the micro and the macro in a better environment than you were in 5 years ago you're not surrounded by people on love Island you're surrounded by these incredible intellects and you taken yourself out of your well you grew up and went to University and you've taken yourself to to Austin because there's there's kind of energy there and there's other people that are trying to do the same thing as you and you put yourself in that environment that strikes me as as incredibly kind of powerful but the idea that you know if you're still hanging around with the people you hung around with 25 years ago and they're not adding value then what are you doing yeah me and George had this idea that we're going to write a an essay on together so I'm going to try and explain it to you now it's not fully thought out but we'll see if we can get there the difference between observable and hidden metrics and how they influence our motivation so a lot of the time people will trade a hidden metric for an observable metric good example of a hidden metric would be something like peace of mind okay and something like an observable metric would be money people will happily trade something which may be more valuable ultimately for something which is less valuable simply because they can measure it more effectively yeah like time's an interesting one because John lenon lyric isn't it I give you everything I got for a little peace of mind there we go but that it's a very interesting point because that idea of going you know if you can't measure it we tend to go to what's measured correct and so the idea of going these and but actually what matters is it's you know emotional yeah and there's no dashboard this is why George tries to have a dashboard for all of the things that he does he's got this endof day assessment type form custom type form he's made himself that autop populates to a Google sheet and at the end yeah I yeah he's he was born an incell but managed to ascend out of it he has got himself to the stage where he's tracking what were the three things that I did today what was my sense of presence how connected was i d d d all the way down and his goal is to track this over time right to see what are the correlations between my actions and the way that I felt so he's trying to make the hidden observable and the problem that we have is that things that really really matter to us like connection and peace of mind and you know dopamine and serotonin balance throughout the day like how content and fulfilled did I feel all of these things they're just words there's this nebulous ephemeral Wishy what trying to hold smoke right to try and work out what this is but money my bank account it's good game the number of followers I've got on social media it's a really good game so I'll chase down the obser a well it gets back to that story of like what's the most successful story in human history money money is The Greatest Story Ever Told CU what even is it really when you break it down it's kind of um it's it's not anything and yet everyone believes in it everyone believes in that story and what you're getting to is what's really important in life and the stuff that maybe you can't measure is kind of what matters right I wonder if there's the this hidden observable framework that we've got here I wonder if there's an equivalent to do with luck so what you were talking about is that the actual chance of us all being here which I did for my tedx talk I actually looked at this it's the same likelihood as all 7 million people in Ireland rolling a trillion sided dice and all of them coming up with the same number it's astronomical it's way way way way way more than all of the particles in the observable universe because your parents had to meet at that particular ovulation cycle with that particular sperm all the way back forget surviving in all of the rest of it to preh humanity correct all of the way the only way that you're here is with the exact precise combination of each different iteration that goes all the way back up had to be that sperm I find that slightly makes my head hurt you know that thing of Sam Harris was talking about this recently the idea that um maybe there's no free will maybe we have to be having this conversation now because when the big bang happen happened everything rolled this was ordained of course Robert seol's got a new book coming out called determined you know Robert spolski Harvard's evolutionary biologist he's coming on in month and a bit and his new book is called determined and it's uh like how to find happiness in a life with no free will um so it'll be interesting I think one of the things that Sam failed at doing I'm still like is it some people are speak to talk about like ways that free will kind of does come through and all the rest of it but one of the things that I think Sam has at least not instructed me who has listened to a lot of him in is tactically how do I use the information of a deterministic universe to feel more fulfilled given the fact that both of us are such massive fans of agency and everyone that's listening to this podcast will be as well they want to feel like they they're the architect of their own life right that they are actually able to make some sort of imposition on the world it's very disempowering to find that oh I'm just Domino number 48 million out of today's it it doesn't I it doesn't make me feel very empowered so I want I want someone to come in and tactically tell me if this is the case yeah how should I live it's interesting that thing of like the the time scales kind of comes up and also the idea of like what what are we what's important here you sent out a thing recently about you money yeah which I thought was really interesting the idea of like the meme of you money the idea that you could have enough that you could tell people to off if that's particularly something that you know you want to tell people to off in my experience you can tell people to off with no money good luck but then there's there's you Freedom was the next iteration and then you got to you family the idea that actually what really matters is having a unit and and family I would take in a broader sense of friends and family having like a a cery around you your tribe if you will around you that's really very interesting to me of like where you're going to play that game where you have agency uh in the world and the idea going okay well there's certain players you know Elon Musk has got agency at a ludicrous Global level but you know in the global leaders great but on an individual level we all have agency we can all we can all be you know we can all make a difference yeah I I really wish I really wish I could give the gift of sort of higher agency to a lot of people I think it's such a the lack of I know I think sort of the greatest gift like if you could give your child any gift likeability likeability goes a long way that's Peterson's thing do not let your children do anything that makes you not like them like a likable child I think I Was Fear I may need to ask my mom but I fear I was an incredibly unlikable child and I think that that shaped that was probably quite formative in a lot of my experience experences with other parents with other kids do you not think that I mean I know a little bit about your childhood and kind of what you went through as an only child and feeling slightly isolated but is that not the thing that untethered you and allowed you to sort of fly through so true so I spoke about this yesterday with Steven Bartlett that there's layers to unpacking the things that you went through and the formative experiences that you've had so the first layer is you know chip on your shoulder about whatever it is that happened to you so for me you know being bullied in school being ostracized not feeling like I was part of a group then the second layer is alchemizing that into something that you really care about so saying okay the skills that I got and the resilience that I developed from spending so much time on my own I've turned something that was toxic into something which is valuable then the layer after that is I get to use the chip on my shoulder and the resentment for the people that came before me and that caused this problem as the activation energy to now deploy this skill set okay so there now I'm not only uh not only have I made lead into gold but I've now turned this gold into something that's useful I've formed it into something that I can move forward with but then the final one and this is the really difficult one is to realize that if the people who tormented you are the reason that you've developed the skill sets that you care about then you can't resent them you should thank them that you genuinely should look back at most of the things that you were ashamed of or guilty about or fearful of in your past and realize that that's the Dark Side of one of the lightest and most proud things that you've got so overall if the challenges that you went through formed a person that you like those bullies in school I should sit down with all of them and say yeah thanks mate yeah that's uh it's very interesting to listen to Because when you when you go you know to go through that experience it's it's kind of easy now you're 35 you're a grown man and you're doing great but to sort of think back to you are still that child y you're still that lonely kid searching for connection but is that not the whole of the show like every episode I listen to you're sort of there kind of looking for a hug you're sort of your whole demeanor is I want to connect with this person I want to know what they know and I want to have a friendship and it's incredibly healthy it just seems like it's it's a yeah everything that happened absolutely worth it and also H what are you going to do you can forgive them and move on or you can hold resentment but it's it's ultimately that's you know what's what's the important thing we can't measure that metric yeah of what that forgiveness gives you as to what that resentment gives you but I would I'd bet the house on the fact that the forgiveness is lighter and breeds more activity yeah I've been thinking recently about the idea of um we can't know the future and we don't fully know ourselves and we don't fully know the present we don't fully know everybody else so we have to concede that some huge proportion of our worldview is a delusion yeah isn't it doesn't someone talk about the three humiliations you ever heard of that no what's that the three humiliations of humanity so it was capern we're not the center of the universe and then it was Darwin we're we're descended from animals we're not special oh Jesus all right and then the third one Freud our self-conscious is running the show we don't even know ourselves a hell hell it's like Humanity's really taken a combination one big hit after another yeah those a those are big hits and you go yeah we don't really know ourselves but that's kind of the journey and that's the the whole thing I mean that's why I think not to bring it all back to standup comedy but I do think there's something Magnificent about doing a bit of standup you know going and finding your voice and what you find funny and your sense of humor because everyone's kind of got one right in other news this episode is brought to you by nomatic no literally it's actually brought to you by nomatic that carryon Pro is the hand luggage that I used to transport my laptop and all of the stuff that I brought with me to the UK the difference between having proper well-designed durable High qual quality luggage and not is everything it makes the difference between packing a complete hell or actually quite enjoyable the team at nomatic creates the most functional durable and Innovative backpacks bags luggage and accessories everything from pneumatic comes with a lifetime warranty which is exactly how confident they are in the quality of their products especially if you're someone that travels quite a lot you need to make sure the luggage you're using is high quality and nomatic is the best that I've found so if you need to upgrade your luggage game for work for travel or for anything else the first place to go is nomatic head to the link in the description below or go to nomatic docomo wisdom and use the code modern wisdom at checkout for 20% off everything sitewide that's Nom matic.com wisdom and modern wisdom a checkout yeah I uh so this delusion thing people people don't fully know themselves or the world around them or what's going to happen or all of the rest of it given the fact that you don't know yourself and you're deluded in some way why not pick a delusion that is useful to you well this is what NLP gets you neural linguistic programming talks a lot about presuppositions because you can't know you don't know it for a fact it's kind of you know all bit of a pseudo science so what's useful rather than think about what's correct what's useful what makes a difference if I believe I can do that I can do that the belief is often the thing that makes the difference did I do that did I tell you about the uh symbolic truth but literal falsehood framework no this is cool okay so things can be symbolically true but literally false and this is most religious stories so the belief that porcupines can throw their quills right literally untrue porcupine can't throw its quills like it's not a it's not Phil the power tailor right uh good luck American lists without reference Phil Taylor a fat nacka darts player legendary darts player from from England you say legendary I say fat Naka but you know potato poata yeah you can throw a a sharp thing so they can't do that they it's a useful thing to the Bel yeah because they're bobbed and if they get in you you're so not good the belief that porcupines can throw their quills is symbolically true in that it's adaptive for you to believe it another one would be that pigs are uniquely dirty animals ever seen a cow cow's pretty dirty as well so all of the religious Traditions that said we don't eat pigs because pigs are uniquely dirty animals literally false figuratively pigs do carry a higher pathogen load typically than other animals in their meat so by believing that that's the case it's an Adaptive uh outcome for you now I learned this from Brett Weinstein six or seven years ago right then I've been playing with it for ages and ages to try and think of something which is literally true but figuratively false so what's the opposite of this right so I was trying to think about something which is might be accurate to know but unadapted Universe even if that is literally what is true figuratively it's an information Hazard I don't think that it really unless you go false like Sam Harris Enlightenment mode and get out the other side to no one is the architect their own decisions therefore empathy and forgiveness are much easier to come by which I don't think like practically is is that easy for most people to do I I don't think that that the same as the behavioral genetics red pill if you believe that almost more than 50% of what you are psychologically is locked in and you only get to play with this tiny little sort of cake dressing on the top of it how many cherries do I want to put on top of this cake yeah it doesn't feel it's not very supportive in terms of how you show up in the world even if it's true so that's something that might be literally true but figuratively false and the porcupine throwing their quills is it's a very interesting area to sort of talk about because it's about belief makes such a huge difference if you believe in something you can kind of you don't it gives you the kind of the will to do it to give it a go about what you think is possible what are your dreams going to be I mean when you started this podcast presumably you didn't think i' be Austin Texas talking to the Great and the good and trying to figure things out it's like that's why I think the book thing is really interesting for you now of like trying to rather than just uh at the level of okay trying to figure this thing out and it's kind of interesting to chat about it's like putting down these thoughts and going you know does it does it grow corn what what are the bits of wisdom that are most affected how you live dayto day that's why I think that the next 24 hours is really interesting yeah of like what could you do that adds value to you tomorrow such a lovely frame such a lovely frame you you talk about uh disposition being more important than position yeah what you mean by that well listen I know some billionaires that are pretty miserable and I know some guys with uh boring office jobs that are very happy I think your disposition is it's very difficult to change but it's often easier than changing the world you know you are you're in your head on your own an awful lot of the time no matter how connected you are no matter how great your family you're you you are you and you know the acceptance of that and and the way that you see the world the rose tinted glasses of looking at the world looking for jokes is pretty tremendous I think the thing that makes a difference to people on disposition is um in the most part it's gratitude can kind of move the dial that's the thing that seems to make a difference because it's that thing of like if you're if you're in a bad mood all the time you're not in a bad mood you're an asso it's the truth of it so it's go how are you most of the time the how you treat a waiter or a waitress or how you react when you get a speeding ticket or any of those little things that because life is going to throw lots of that stuff at you how do you react to it h how how are you in the world what's your is it a sunny disposition or are you kind of you know are you are you are you boring well you've been through bouts of depression as as I have I I actually thought throughout all of my 20s that I was depressed I thought that that was the texture of my mind I thought it was locked in like the worst weed trip that you've ever had this is me for the rest of my life okay so I'm interested in conflated words and often think depression is conflated with sadness and sadness is much more um difficult to admit and it's much more uh there's more of a stigma around being depressed it's kind there's a c certain glamour to being depressed aof it's sort of this mysterious thing it's pathologized it suggests depth yeah well sadness is just well you sad you're sad what do you do you got a surface level life you run clubs and sure having a nice time whatever but it's it's surface level so that Depression was maybe sadness but I think if it's environmental if you could change it if it's not to do with the serotonin levels in your head and a cical embance then it's if you can do something about it it's sadness so assuming it's sadness and that you can do something about it I mean listen it's people with real mental health problems and my heart goes out to them but for a lot of people it's just there it's circumstantial but you went through periods of acute sadness or depression however you want to label it and yet you've managed to get yourself to a stage largely anxiety's been the big is really my um drug of choice yeah and anxiety I think's got I think there's a gift in there I think the gratitude that I have for anxiety is it's the flip side of creativity correct that your mind is racing and sometimes you're trying to solve a problem in the future because you don't have anything to do now it's why people talk about you know I'm so happy when I EX size because you're giving yourself a problem right now and your mind is dealing with whatever lifting that up and putting it down yeah you put 120 kilos on a on a bar you're not thinking about much else other than I really need to get this off me yeah that that thing of like that simple thing of going you probably don't have enough to do if you're anxious about silly things in the future or the um I mean I'm I get very tied up with counterfactuals and wondering about what might have been and what should have have done and you know it kind of links to me to that weird thing of like no one's scared of falling off a cliff we're worried about jumping there's a there's there's kind of a weird thing of going what if I'd done something different what if I'd told you that that you've heard that Douglas Murray thing about in life we must choose our regrets right yeah I mean you can have anything you can't have everything yeah yeah that uh what could have been we can't split test life we can't go back yeah and give this another crack I tell you for a guy with a sunny disposition it's a very serious conversation isn't it yeah I quite like this I feel this is very I feel like in the moment to call it it feels very revealing to have this conversation because it doesn't feel unlike the conversation we had at dinner the other day but it is that thing if you go it's kind of showing more of yourself than you you know normally it's just dick Jokes wait until people see you haven't got pants on underneath uh cut to the White it needs to be very wide um yeah I so I'm interested in this if anxiety is your malady your mental malady of choice yeah and yet you've managed to get yourself to a state where you are in a sunny disposition at least some nonzero amount of the time well yeah sorry just to go back to because I'm still thinking about disposition position because people climb to a position and they think happiness is going to live there and I think you'd be better served trying to make yourself happy and then worrying about where you're going I think your happiness your emotional well-being working on that first seems to be a very sensible thing because it doesn't live down the road it doesn't live you know you put a million dollars in the bank it won't it won't make you less insecure that kind of scarcity mindset is kind of poison is that a lesson that can be learned without going into seeing the top of the mountain yourself because there will be a lot of people that could say Jimmy easy for you to say about Fame isn't going to fix your problems money isn't going to fix your problems you've achieved both well fame fame I think has replaced heaven in a secular World Fame is the land of milk and honey where everything is okay and you're looked after and it's perfect and I'm not knocking it i' love being famous but it's not the be all and end all and actually again you can you can kind of split test that cuz I can go to a country where I'm not known not many but there's a few you talk about why trajectory is so important as well and I think that this ties in here it's all people see isn't it like people aren't interested in how you know if you're playing 250 shows a year like I've been doing that for years it's not exciting it's not news it's news when people arrive and they're new so when something you know in I think film and TV and comedy and kind of entertainment it's it's like it's all about where were they last year where are they this year just maintaining no one seems to care although Comics aren't entertainers in the true sense the true definition of an Entertainer is if you don't like me I don't like me oh that's interesting you've that's a real Entertainer you've outsourced your selfworth to the crowd of course that's what an Entertainer is and there's I know guys that are entertainers friend said that to me and it was like oh man that is that is your journey good luck that's hard comedians desperately want to be loved but entirely on their own terms it's a lovely Paradox do you see that in yourself what what's the the lesson here between the desire to make people happy and laugh and being this uh how would you say like intrinsic drug dealer yeah and the fact that you need to be able to go home at night and put your head on the pillow without having you know if if your selfworth is inflated by the crowd than it can be deflated by their criticism yeah I mean listen that's the if if something if something out there makes you happy losing it is going to make you sad so it it matters I think putting on a good show though is about going do I think it's funny you know there's certain things that I write and I go ah feels a bit doesn't feel hasn't got a great structure to it it's not quite the right sort of joke for me I'm going to leave it it's it's not great and then there's stuff that I like more than the crowd and it's finding a balance where you go look I know what you paid to see I know why you're here and you know the world ordered a stand-up comedian and I'm going to honor that I'm going to be as good at this as I can be and you know it's kind of a mediation but it's very much on my terms in ter these are the J jokes that I tell we spoke about that trajectory thing of a dinner and it's really interesting because Andrew Tate someone you might not have thought wisdom from this area of the world would have would have applied but he says having things isn't fun getting things is fun and well a stopped a stopped clock is right twice a day I mean he says a lot of things he's bound to get some stuff right he's kind of an interesting cultural phenomenon because I think the what do you think happened with with have you done a postmortem on his ascendancy to no I mean the only thing I would say is that you know young men I feel are in crisis and uh not that young women aren't in crisis they are as well I mean young people generally but it feels like young men are having a a silent crisis you know we we talk about certain things and we don't talk about um other things and you know young men committing suicide seems to be a it's a a huge problem at the moment and a lack of purpose and agency is a huge you know why video gam so popular you know especially with young men and it's a um a fact simile of career and purpose and drive and different levels and there's something in us there not that men and women are so very different I always think like the big difference gender-wise is men are all taking a performance-enhancing drug every single day and that drug is testosterone and really if you had to talk about what testosterone does for men it's risk-taking so and we talk a lot about all the CEOs all the big CEOs are men and it's very unfair also prisons are full of men because men take ludicrous risks so I think if you were going to life hack for I mean I've got a daughter and the advice I I'll give her is take more risks and you can because you're making it a conscious decision it's not a hormonal decision then maybe you can actually do better because you can not do the dumb you don't need to jump from the high board but you can move to a city where there's more opportunities taking those risks that that you know the average man takes like I kind of look back and it seemed so easy that I left my job and became a comic because I did it the idea that that was pre-ordained was so stupid such a ludicrous mid-20s Hail Mary catch of a ah this life's boring I'm going to go and do something more fun crazy um so I think that's it's kind of that's kind of an interesting point of going the um how do we how do we make things more equal between men and women in our society and I think encouraging greater risk in young women is is a really sensible hack cuz that's what that's what guys have got they're taking crazy chances you you you leaving you had a very comfortable life and a good living and a good career and you traded it in for madness for like oh well I'm just going to be you know is autod dictat you know it's like you're self-educated you seem to be you should have this kind of thirst for knowledge they going yeah well maybe I'll just do that just doing the thing that you love it's one of the reasons why I had such a problem with the term it was meant to be so the reason that I hate this post Hawk rationalization of how a bad situation became a good situation because it was meant to be in the end it completely removes all of the agency that you had overturning that situation into something that was good let's say that you lose a leg in a car crash and you're in a hospital bed and while you're there you begin watching history YouTube videos about ancient Rome and you realize that you're really interested in it and 10 years later you are now the biggest ancient Rome historian presenting shows for your own channel maybe you're on the BBC you've written books your best you got only got one leg but doesn't matter saying it was meant to be I got in that car crash for a reason so that I would spend enough time in the hospital bed so that I would find the videos about the Roman Empire so that I could have this career ultimately Nets out at taking away all of the alchemy that you had yeah that turned this hang on let's do it in a reverse way you had you got dealt a really unfortunate card and managed to there we go that's Blackjack but the the cards you got dealt are the cards you got dealt I really like that thing of like at some point you got to go with what you got or you're not going to go so you just you do what you need to do and like it's interesting now the like the the educational bit of this the idea that you're going look it's it's uh you're educating yourself now to what end to what purpose well you're making it easier for for other people down the line and I'm working on a thing at the moment where I'm trying to write a um a language for comedy I'm trying to write I'm excited for this trying to write a comedy course a book I'm not quite sure what it's going to be but the idea of going I think there's too much mysticism about writing jokes I think even professionals even some of the goats uh they kind of write it on stage and they embody a um a part of their Persona on stage and they can conjure up these funny things and there's Alchemy I go yeah maybe but actually you can break it down you can break down what you're doing there and and it can be taught the idea that it can't be taught is to me so incredibly limiting the idea that comedy can't be taught it's like it's like going well music can't be taught of course of course CU great musicians he saying that the comedy industry has an disproportionate number of narcissists in it Jimmy that would be a surprise how dare you um yeah I I've got a good line on narcissism I think I've got a couple of narcissists in my life so my line is a narcissist they've got the disease and you've got the symptoms pretty much sort of sums it up doesn't it hey it's it's an issue if you got one in your life you know about it um yeah I think it's really interesting that thing of going if it was like music more like music and people could sort of discover themselves because really what are the teenage years about you it's uncomfortable being a teenager it's uncomfortable like and and the and we're all you know growing it doesn't really stop but that idea of going well who am I if you're the person you were 10 years ago then you up if there's no growth in it if you haven't progressed but it's constantly asking yourselves kind of the right questions and and and finding a bit of humor in that is just makes it just makes the the journey a lot bit easier doesn't it talking about that trajectory and how it's important to think about where you're going and other people respond to the rising or falling of your stock in kind there's an argu but that's that's character versus reputation so character is what you know about yourself if you have a crisis and you're getting cancelled um your reputation is in the toilet but you still know who you are you you know you still you know who you are and it's that the fundamental question when you're in the middle of a cancellation crisis is who are you oh my Jimmy I'm a stand-up comedian I tell edgy jokes oh okay that's fine this seems appropriate there's no problem you know who you are you know what you're about it's it's uh it's ultimately it's about that kind of thing just going okay this is this is fine and also where's your where does your happiness lie if it's outside of you if in that true Entertainer self if you don't love me then I don't love me what's it feel like to be canceled or attempted canceled um it's interesting like what the term means now I don't think it's um you call it cancellation I call it free publicity it's it hasn't really had I don't know whether it really exists uh I think it does I think like there's extreme cases but people are can no longer work and um are shunned but hasn't there always been cancellation it's kind of a new new word for something that we've always had there were always people that were um you know but you've said something unsayable I mean you've got a right size it as well the things I've been canceled for I told a joke and some people didn't like it we got to right size that that's that's not that bad uh I got canceled once over tax avoidance not tax evasion you know the difference no it's about 18 months in prison but you know that thing of going you you uh that was very easy because if you get canceled for tax evasion and you say well I'm I'm going to pay the money back great we cannot forgive what we cannot punish there's certain things that religion does better than a secular society where we cannot forgive what we cannot punish so certain crimes like no laws been broken but ah that guy now gives me the ick H okay well should he never be allowed to work again is what did he what did he do are there criminal charges what's going on here what's what's actually happening and the the reputational damage and what what could be done online in a day I mean you can tear something down pretty quick and it's uh it happens every week it happens to regular people it's there's a lack of um I suppose because we live online and we're not seeing the whites of each other's eyes um kindness compassion forgiveness and very dehumanizing especially when you get to a certain level of of Fame people no longer see very famous people as people they see them as a representation of an ideology they're a conglomeration of ideas sat behind an at symbol on some form of social media which is why they're prepared to say completely reprehensible things that they wouldn't say to someone who is much smaller but they would even say much more reprehensible things to the person that's much smaller on social media than they would say to them face to face or they would even say them a weird thing as well with the cancellation the Press would have you believe press opinion public opinion and Twitter X are the same thing and they're all very different well they want to be the Arbiters The Gatekeepers of true public opinion they're not the news aren't in the news business they're in the clickbait business clickbait is their product yeah it's I wonder what news looks like without that I mean it's you what was your idea you wanted news without the without this the video or the sound yeah news without news without opinion would be I think very interesting uh there's a there's a um a website at the moment like an an app called the knowledge which gives you all the day's news and it comes out about noon great not first thing have a cup of tea and relax first but it's like five sentences tells you all the news you need to know for the day kind of great it was an interesting idea of well do you need all the commentary do you need to know what they think about it it's like it's a weird thing there's a great book called uh by Neil Postman called amusing ourselves to death and it came out in 1984 and it's him kind of railing against they put music on the news m it's a show now this that's that's the beginning of the end for him they put music on the news and you go yeah this is It's Entertainment I really enjoyed that um what's our problem book by Tim Urban yes I thought it was absolutely fantastic just the idea of going you know you kind of follow politics like you're following a a team you know people are they're just there one or the other and they're following and they're not really watching politics they're watching the real politicians of Washington DC where they picked seven Great characters to follow yeah like real housewives you know reality is boring reality TV is great well the news is the same it's a great book I really I would I think that's the book that's changed the way I think about things more than anything else the last sort of 12 months really great book you wish you'd read that 10 years ago before you went through a bunch of I wish I'd read it when I was at College I think that's it's a weird thing where um you know the stuff I was reading at College was was sort of nonsense this episode is brought to you by eight sleep we have decided to land in the UK during a heat wave and every Hotel I've stayed in their airon has broken I thought I'd left Austin so I could escape the heat turns out I haven't and the Pod cover from eight sleep would have been a lifesaver the Pod cover sits over the top of your existing mattress just like a normal mattress topper and actively cools and heats each different side of the bed based on yours and your partner's sleeping preferences As you move through sleep stages it'll change the temperature to ensure that you stay in deep Sleep it is the biggest game changer to sleep that I think I've ever found the Pod cover even tracks your heart rate variability your resting heart rate your sleep stages your sleep consistency it's like having a wearable built into your bed they also deliver internationally and if you are not happy with your pod cover within 90 days for any reason they will give you a full refund you can get a $150 discount plus that 90-day money back guarantee by going to the link in the description below or heading to 8sleep.com slod wisdom that's EIG ght sleep /od wisdom but yeah go back you know regardless of character and reputation and how much you've tried to bate the two and Silo them off from each other there must be a felt sense of fear there must be a felt sense of like this is happening and largely I'm being I'm being no it's the worst breakup you've ever being canceled is the worst breakup you've ever had because you you losing the person you love the most you're losing you because you've created and this Cur created and curated this person this this thing and you have a reputation which is your your brand is um sort of a a decentralized opinion on who you are living in other people's heads and in a day it's gone or changed or you know ruined but it's you know it's all right I think it makes you more the good to take from it is the empathy it gives you I always call on the day what do you think people who aren't famous don't know about fame um I I don't know I mean I I sort of Stand by that idea it's the land of milk and honey it's kind of uh a secular Heaven it's it's kind of my view is it's the natural state to be because we're meant to live in tribes right for the longest time we lived in tribes and let's say there was 60 80 people in the tribe and everyone knew everyone and meeting a stranger was weird what being famous is like is it's like you live in one of those tribes but you've got Outsiders so I don't know anyone but they all know me so people come out it makes the world a very friendly place so I go into a coffee shop and get a coffee and people go you're the guy from the thing and you immediately there's no small talk you're into talking about your career and your life and what's going on with them and you have a connection with people and sometimes people don't like you and those people ignore you and that is just a regular stranger it's great people don't bother having a negative interaction with you so they just come up and say something nice if they going something nice or they don't say anything oh it's like a selection effect the only people that do bother coming up to you are the people that like you the people that don't like you just ignore you yeah or they just don't know who the hell I am you know I think be I I came up I'm one of the last guys I think to come up and be famous in in certainly in the UK in that sense of you know mass media I'm tell famous and now I think increasingly we're going to have people that are famous but in a very limited way so you think about musicians there's very few musicians now that your mom's heard of right if if your mom's heard of them they are massive right same amount of records were sold in the 1980s as today but by it used to be sold by 500 artists now sold by 10 same things happen with books used to be 500 authors brought out novels they all do pretty well now it's like four a year and they sell incredible numbers but music and books and if you're into something now it seems like it's marrow cast so it's interesting like the other night we went out for a drink someone came up and said oh hey how are you someone came up to you and was so into it it's like oh this is my guy this is my guy but it's probably fewer but much more intense yeah it's interesting it's it's just I know we're often told about the Perils of Fame right that it's reality warping and that you privacy gets lost and all the rest of it there's a great line I remember watching Breaking Bad and uh my my girl said uh we talking about it and going well you know power he power um corrupts and she went no power reveals it's like reveals who you really are like the more it it it is kind of a revealing thing I think how so I think you you become you're allowed to be you know do you live in someone else's world or do they live in yours it kind of gets to to that you know did we cover that charm Charisma thing I've got a real sort of thing on charm and Charisma being very different and their their conflated words they sort of mean the same thing in conversation but I think they're very different I think um charm isn't someone you like it's someone you think would like you Charisma is you come to me charm is I come to you Obama incred Charming look at his speech patterns look at the way he HS himself he's like he's mediating the situation it's so damn Charming uh Trump is charismatic you come to me um one isn't better than the other particularly I mean there's a you know example there one that I prefer there but as an individual uh Jennifer Aniston is charming Angelina Jolie is charismatic now you both get to Brad Pit that's the good news but it's a very different skill set and I think knowing yourself knowing which one you are is very valuable which do you think you are all Charisma zero charm like zero charm of course but that's why it sounds very arrogant I'm all Charisma but you but that's what I'm working with that's the thing of like like so someone charismatic trying to be Charming SM me kind of ah falsely disingenuous it does doesn't come across it doesn't read so you you got to know know what you're dealing with know what you're playing with and there's no judgment particularly on which one it is but it's very sort of interesting thinking about what what you are how people perceive you because how you're perceived sorry but how you're perceived is so important in our world and it's useful to know because when people meet me and when people see me on TV they have a perception of me now is it true no there's there's more to me than that you know I I I'd suffer a bit with the anxiety I'm very dyslexic not very good at writing I read quite slowly um none of that comes across people just go he's he's all right he's look at him wear in a sharp suit he's really cutting and sardonic he's probably unthinking and what whatever you but knowing that is really useful you don't have to be that person but you know it's it's it's good to know what others think about you I mean there is the thing about Fame where if you wear the mask for long enough The Mask becomes the face yeah you told me that line the other night that took a great mate good chunk of my 20s to to realize that um and Al Marcus taught me that the Persona is incapable of receiving love it can only receive praise and what he means by that yeah that's very good isn't it correct yeah that was like a because this was when I was probably 20 no must have been 31 I think when he said that to me for the first time so like 2019 so only you know only four years ago and I'm still kind of this big name on campus party boyish but I'm also not and I'm feeling this pain so I've got enough distance I think had I have learned it when I needed to hear it I wouldn't have had the perspective to be able to understand it what isn't that the kind of the thing with wisdom is it's you could tell any 18-year-old all of this stuff yeah and it will just different things will resonate at different times so you can't read the same book twice you we talked the other night about Lindy books that's one of the things I got from this podcast which I love I got I listening to this and I was reading Quinton Tarantino's Cinema speculation I just want why am I watching new stuff yeah who gives a about new stuff I want the best stuff yeah so you go back to 1970 Cinema and books that you read years ago that meant something to you and read them again it's that you like no man steps in the same river twice because he's not the same it's not the same river and he's not the same man yeah yeah the um so this like strange idea around the Persona is incapable of receiving love it can only receive praise was really important to me because I realized that I hadn't necessarily felt particularly connected to a lot of the successes in my life I hadn't felt like they really got me right and the reason being that if you are only playing a role everyone's support and Adoration of you will feel in some ways Hollow and shallow because people aren't in love with you they're applauding the role that you play you know we don't love Russell Crow we love Gladiator we don't love I love Russell he might be listening to this your is that's but you know that yeah that thing of um I suppose it is the actor it's that we're playing a role and that role is yeah you you you kind of don't love someone at work they're in a chair they're the boss whatever they're doing it's not it's it's a part of them but it's not authentically them and that's why you know finding that work life balance where you go you have a place where you can totally be your yourself and be open to love but also it's interesting the love thing is interesting to me just as a sidebar every song for 400 years was about God and every song is about love how do you mean every song is about love right every song used to be about God everything used to every every piece of music pre 1900 was about God everything and now it's about love I mean you could make an argument to say it's the same thing but it's kind it's just interesting to me that that culture Al that's kind of what we the gaps well love love as well it's slightly taken over now the love song has you know it feels to me like comedy is having a moment because there it's reflecting back the world in a very interesting way it feels like comedy is having the moment that music maybe had in the 60s and 70s and Cinema had in the 70s where it really connected with people people are connecting with comedians in a way that's I mean listen I'm I'm part of this but I feel like I'm I'm in at the ground Lev like podcasts are new and we can see podcasts are new because it's like less than 5 years but really comedy's only existed in the current format since I mean who are the who's the John the Baptist you know Lenny Bruce and George Clin and Richard Pryor right these guys standing on stage talking for an hour and people just came to see them n that really happened before there you can trace it back there's never a first but you can trace it back to whenever to to shamanistic um skunk and ansy but really it's a very modern thing standup comedy this way of it's an American medium and it feels incredible to be kind of part of that as it and it's rising it feels like it's rising and becoming more important and I don't know I I don't know who the the goats are but I kind of I like to think they're in the future I like to think the goats are you know 12 years old now going through high school like and they're going to be they're gonna grow up with this language around them oh I came up with an interesting idea the other day so I was in Brighton uh giving that live talk and then James one of my friends got up on stage and it was packed 1600 people wall to- wall in this massive Auditorium in Brighton somewhere and I just wanted to watch his show from the front so he's done what I'm about to start doing a lot he sold out Sydney Opera house he sold out the roundhouse in London he sold out the Palladium so he's done the thing that I'm about to begin doing with my live show and I was like I'm going to watch the guy not from s stage not from backstage I'm going to observe it I'm going to be out out there with the peasants so descend into the muck and the Meer and the feces and the blood sit down during the interval this guy comes over sits in front of me and we get talking and he was uh discussing about how he has changed the way that he sees himself about how he has what I called uh personal growth guilt so survive a guilt someone goes away to war their truck gets blown up all of their friends die he gets stuck in the back but somehow you survive right maybe you're injured maybe you're not but you get to come home and there's a very specific type of guilt that's associated with that which is his his belief that he should have gone with his friends right that he should have been killed along with them I think this is relatively common amongst soldiers that come back from war he was talking to me about one of the things that he feels which is like a personal growth guilt that as he begins to pull himself away from these beliefs and insights and Lifestyles that no longer serve him he was starting to feel this degree of guilt for leaving his friends behind in some regard and I thought that was very interesting I think that this is one of the drawers that pulls people back into old habits and old patterns that they almost don't believe that they are worthy well it's it's interesting the move to Austin that you've made because that thing of like you can't beat your environment and that idea of I made a move quite early in life I was 16 and I moved schools and it was the first kind of that that sort of discovery that you are who you say you are you know I mean ultimately you'll be judged on what you do not what you say but it was interesting to kind of be able to reinvent myself quite early in life and go well I'm not going to just mess around and uh and you know act crazy at school I'm going to work really hard and go to Cambridge and really apply myself and no one thought it was crazy because I could just turn up in this new place and go hey I'm you know I'm smart enough and I'm going to go to Cambridge and everyone okay great it's interesting now with things like Facebook where I think it's becoming increasingly difficult to distance yourself from the past you're Tethered to your past there there there's memories and those photos and those and the friendships and the connections it's just difficult to let go there used to be a high school reunion and you'd meet someone 15 years after you left school and go what have you been up to now you already know it's never going to happen again right because if you're interested you're going to know or you're still connected to them they're following you they're they're they're still part of your life so you don't get to kind of reinvent yourself and I think it's quite a healthy thing I me it depends you might have just come out fully formed and be great but I think for a lot of us it did involve going well look this is what I am now this is what I want to be and I've got a bit of ambition as opposed to entitlement and I'm going to work hard to get to there and sometimes you can be kind of dragged back by friends and family can be incredibly supportive but they can also kind of drag you back there was I had a weird thing a lot of comics have spoken about this the idea of um when you start out you don't really take your friends you just go and do it and like after I know 10 or 20 or 30 gigs or whatever you tell people you're doing this new thing but by then you're off you you've joined the circus one of my friends has a quote we're not afraid of failure we're afraid of what other people will think of us if we fail yeah which I think is a nice reframe you know I I've never understood the quote about you're not afraid of failing you're afraid of what will happen if you succeed no I'm not no I'm not that's what I'm aiming for for I'm afraid of what will happen if I succeed that's what that's literally what I'm trying to do but I think we're afraid of the Judgment of other people if we do fail oh that feels pretty on the money to me the and you could live a very you know contained life you know scared of being ridiculed you're scared of humiliation you're scared of saying I want to do great things and then not doing great things but I would argue saying you want to do great things and not doing great things is better than just not doing anything not saying anything give it a crack thinking about that that ability to deal with failure that ability to sort of face up to things not going so well and also this well it's there's different failures aren't there there's kind of there's there's recoverable and non-recoverable failures so you tell a joke and it doesn't work very recoverable you got another line straight away locked and loaded we'll try something else and then if they all don't work all the new lines then you've got the old lines that you know do work so you s of you're okay and then there's there's there's proper you know kite surfing failures where you drown there different failures right there's different levels of risk and different tolerance for risk so making sensible choices on what could you risk yeah is that seems very sensible George reminded me I I was lamenting about two years ago to George about whether or not George Mack for the people that don't know the mutual Geor George friend about whether or not I should move to Austin and he gave me a frame that was very instructive which is it's a reversible decision yeah you go out there it doesn't work you come back with your tail between your legs maybe you're going to look a little bit silly but it's it's hardly the end of the world reversible and irreversible decisions I think it's such a a lovely actually right so if you're looking at something and you're saying well should I should I have these kids that's a big that's a big decision really to put them back in I've heard yeah I mean even and there's a so there's this real stigma to putting them up for adoption and as a parent there'll be days when you go that might be an angle but you you go that's irreversible that's forever yeah whereas other things are you know pretty easy to reverse so take those risks and you know even but there's certain things I think we're set up to think or the our society set up to tell us losing your job is the worst thing that can happen you you find another job your skill set is the thing that's interesting add to that there's this lovely idea that the skills that you develop along the way of what you are working toward in any case so whatever Pursuit it is that you're going through whatever challenges are Place placed in front of you what you are working toward is not the end goal it is not necessarily even the outcome because whether it fails or whether you succeed the skills that you developed what while you were doing this it's kind of analogous to that um it's K kid wipe on wipe off it's also uh analogous to Man's Search for meaning right Victor Frankl But ultimately your ability to respond in any situation is the thing that can never be taken away from you is that not disposition is more important than position yes you know RIT large yes you go people went through ter that life is beautiful movie the idea that you go people went through the worst things in the world they came out there's I I heard an interview with up around and she said this thing that really kind of shook me and she was talking about her parents were in um the death camps in Germany and she said some people didn't die and some people lived and she talked about like people that have plastic Furniture plastic coverings on the furniture they're waiting to live but they're not living now they they're sort of it's a really interesting analogy cuz I think we all know those people that are saving that room for special but special every day this is it this is you know there's a a lovely frame the original name for this podcast before I woke up at 3:00 a.m. with modern wisdom six years ago was crushing a Tuesday and it's a sentence from quite like it sentence from Tim Ferris and he talks about you want to design your life so that the average Tuesday is pretty good yeah and I think so because it's you you're like the the idea of the mountain the idea that you're aiming towards something where you will be satisfied there's always going to be someone that's got it better than you somehow the idea that your you know comparison is the thief of joy is one of my favorite quotes you just because you're constantly I've sort of got a um holistic theory of jealousy where you you know if you're comparing yourself to someone else you might look at their career and go oh my God they're playing 15 soldout nights at the Oto Arena oh my God they they must be making bank AR incredible no you have to be jealous of the whole thing take the whole correct you need their wife their kids their car their house their life who would you actually swap lives with like there's like I feel like there's no one because you go well this is my I like the adventure I'm on yeah I want to see how this turns out it's like my favorite show yeah I I that I mean that frame changed an awful lot about jealousy for me as well you don't know what the inner texture of Elon mus or Conor McGregor or Kardashian's mind is it's that thing of like especially with people closer to you than those kind of the the icons the icons are very useful I think um to to really admire people that are doing fabulous things in the world great but that kind of close when you've got someone close to you is is it a real friend or a friend of me so if their success is your success if my friend gets a show sells out a tour and gets a big break and he's in a movie if I'm ah I wish it was me I can't hang out with that person I can't it's like that would be that's it's poison but if you if you're friends with someone their win is your win yeah like when they get the thing you're like ah incred even if it's a thing you really would aspire to and think was amazing I remember when James Cordon got the show in the states just thinking this is so cool this is like and then you you know you and you can compare yourself to your friends but you go yeah but he's he's got charm for days and he's got skills I don't have what are you g to do what's your theory on kindness well my theory on kindness would be that we have maybe everyone's very everyone wants to be kind and the problem is the marshmallow test you can have one kindness now or two kindness later and we have to I think as a society as people I think it's the thing that sort of parenting has kind of taught me but just life in general like be kind to yourself be kind to others later you know and I think we all know that thing of like the kind thing to do now is to go to Gregs and buy some donuts and smash them great get that Sugar hit right now and the Kinder thing to do is to have a salad and feel good tomorrow and with yourself with others just delay it the let do do the kind of it's easy to give in now to whims and desires but actually if you hold back it's better yeah I kindness is kind of like an unsexy thing it feels almost like the sort of thing that's very hard to just to find a capitalistic world one where everyone's striving here we are you know you got you've got a non-measurable metric y that is incredibly important you know so if we talk about uh disposition tough to measure position oh my God so easy to measure how you doing how many downloads this month how many people listening how many people tweeting what do they say easy disposition not it's about you how you feeling yeah that kindness is is uh and it it comes you're not being kind it's ultimately it's for you it's just a nicer way to live yeah I love this position disposition hidden observable metric frame I really think there's something in there I think the hidden observable I I think maybe we could apply that to everything you know because what's the the successful show is it's sold out does that make it successful you could fill the room but can you fill it with laughter you know it's it's how are you viewing things like the it's the wrong time scale often people often think of the show as being the show tonight all my show is is a sales pitch for next time that's all it is all the podcast is today is a comeback next week there's more of this it's great and he's chatting to people and this is the kind of conversation he has great it's just doing more it's process driven not outcomes driven do you know what good Hearts law is good heart's law good heart's law it sounds like a sequel to a movie it's kind of the people that brought you how'd you let them Apple kind of kind of like Parkinson's law so Parkinson's law says that work expands to fill the time given for it okay fundamentally the it's the justification for time blocking in productivity strategy it's why you completed your University assignments the night before they were du in or sometimes if you were me throughout the entire night before they were you in yeah what's that great line the I think it's Dickens said I would I would have written you a shorter letter but I didn't have the time H so that's Parkinson's law good heart's law says when a measure becomes an outcome it ceases to be a good measure so when it's the overreliance on dashboards for everything right yeah if I was to optimize on the podcast for plays right that's a measure plays are a measure of the success of the podcast if I begin to use that measure as an outcome it no longer is a good measure because it doesn't measure the thing that it's supposed to measure right I could get lots and lots of email addresses by posting all over the Internet sign up to my mailing list and every single person that signs up will get ,000 pounds right people will then sign up and I won't give them 1,000 pounds because I'm not going to do that so the metric of acquire as many email addresses as I can good did that yeah but the actual outcome I wanted was accumulate lots of people on a mailing list who actually want to hear from me who trust in me and I'm going to click on links and I'm going to care about what I've got to say like that's the actual outcome can I ask about that like sidebar but the I like the email that you sent I I'd rather you said it rather to dictate it don't I'd rather that was a mini podcast that came at the beginning of the show here's what I've been thinking about I'd rather it was just a because it's often that thing if you go I'm listening to it I I kind of uh you know I like it and I like those things those thoughts but for me it's the the medium is the message and for you it seems to be podcasts are and I think actually if you put those together I think maybe that's the book that's it's it's taking these little things so you're you're sort of the process is you're writing it as you kind of go along and you're taking those those things that really resonate with people and I don't disagree I mean it's it's the thing that fires me up the most to do this like whatever we want to call it bro philosophy like common guy life Insight stuff I just really like it I like like bringing those two things together but have you seen you know Jonathan height right hate height uh he's writing his next book in public it's really interesting way he the coddling of the American mind thaty yeah that's a great book yeah fantastic and then he he wrote this uh great essay for the Washington Post I think called the Tower of Babel and it's kind of a development on from where he was coddling of the American mind he's s big into this antisocial media thing he's concerned about what it's doing to especially young girls sense of self the anxiety and so on and so forth however what he's doing on his maybe substack maybe something else he's writing the book chapter by chapter publishing it maybe just to paying members or maybe for free to everybody then just getting feedback on getting feedback and iterating so he will have released every single chapter of his book's first draft for largely free over the space of a year or 18 months it's a great idea it's kind of the wisdom of crows if you think about music as well like the great bands often go out and play it first before they finish the album they go and play it and see what the reaction is it's it's interesting like you know it's I suppose the not looking behind the Wizard's curtain but like with great standup comedians like when you see Chris Rock do an hour you go yeah well he he wrote probably 2,000 jokes in order to do those 70 that worked brilliantly and in order to do those he put how much time in and he you know you want to road test it you don't want to do all new material I came up with an idea which is similar to something you talk about a lot you call it the quarterlife crisis and I called it the manop pause so Mano pause is nice yeah it's nice but it's the it's it's early right it's that mid 20s I think it's when you start to make your first decision in life so pretty much on a treadmill if you think about it from the age of five you go into the education system and it was great when we had an Empire because we needed people that went through the education system to go and run the Empire that was what it was for that's the what the education system in Britain that's kind of gone out to the Western world was for now not so much so this idea that it's exams at all these stages and you know what the metric is you know what the measurable is so the measurable isn't what you found now which is the joy of learning the joy of reading the joy of ideas that's what school should be about but it isn't it's about passing exams and get to did I choose to stay on and do aels no no the obvious thing to do after you're 16 you do stay on and that everyone goes to University I mean everyone goes to University now and you go to the best one you can the Cambridge and then after Cambridge what do you do well everyone's getting a job now I've got to get a job who do I get a job with well the biggest blue chip company I can find yay so you get a job and then you kind of turn around what a year two years depending on how bright you are I'm not that bright about two years in I kind of went the am I doing you that great quote of every man's got two lives and the second begins when he realizes he's only got one and that so you get off the treadmill and go what and then it's very it's there's a book called um what color is your parachute which I read at the time which is kind of uh asking questions that lead you to that what are you going to do there's loads of that kind of self-authoring stuff on the internet now which is I always think it's like uh it's horoscopes for people with a levels you know they kind of whether it's Myers's Brig or whatever but those are fascinating because you kind of go why do people like horoscopes I just want to read about myself yeah just yeah I'm I'm a little bit self-obsessed and narcissistic but doing those my Edge what's the thing that I do that I find easy that other people find difficult and there's a little bit of gold there and I could pursue that that would be a that would be a purpose that would be something that's a true north and um is it uh teic and anti-ck you pronounced it differently to me I don't telic and exoic yeah I've only ever seen it written down uh it it's weird I kind of like that when you don't know yeah uh but the but that idea of like tasks Without End will make you happy tasks with an end can be a bit depressing if you get to the end of a project and it's done huh fine finite in infinite games isn't it yeah yeah I uh that manopause thing it came about I first called it the fitness manopause so I noticed around about 20 27 26 27 that I was all of the training strategies that I'd been relying on like Push Pull legs and bro split and I was looked fantastic but kind of got out of breath going up a set of stairs and I couldn't bend over and touch my toes and all the rest of it so what I realized was I I probably should try and pivot my training and I saw it with a lot of my friends a lot of the guys that are listening to this podcast will feel this as well the training protocol that you followed especially if it's a bro split through your 20s you get toward the end of your 20s and I'm like ah am I steeping in my own osis powered by 500 milligrams of caffeine looking at myself in the Mir I'm kind of done with this and then people pivot and they start doing yoga or they do Brazilian jiu-jitsu or they do kickboxing and they go and try CrossFit they do whatever and I noticed that first but it was actually the lead measure of a whole bunch of other changes which was the things that I thought served me in my 20s weren't self-authored the things that I thought I wanted and the things that I wanted to want had diverged I didn't want the things that I wanted right I actually when I looked sufficiently deep well is that I mean the what do you want to want as a question is I mean that should be the name of the book it's so good it's so good but that thing of I didn't want what I wanted is dopamine that's just dopamine it's the idea of going no the chase was the thing the chase was your reward so when you go shopping and you buy the the watch the car the whatever the the trinket is that you thought you wanted that represented something and then you get it and it's a bit blah it's that how many times do you have to do that before you realize okay trinkets aren't for me there's nothing in trinkets your your the ambition should be emotions can I spin you a yarn about the pineapple the pineapple yes not much you can tell me about pineapples but yeah sure very important fruit let me show you that you're wrong so 1492 Christopher Columbus lands on the island of Guadalupe and for the first time ever Western person discovers the pineapple kind of looks like a royal fruit right it's got a little Crown sure on its head and he describes in his journal eating it if you've never had a pineapple before and you hadn't had other fruits that were sort of created outside of the UK stuff like apples and stuff the pineapple is overpowered as like it's a super fruit right it's so sweet and juicy nice anyway describes it brings it back right right uh Prince or King Ferdinand II of Aragon king of Spain I think he takes it back to First and they take a literally boatload take all of these ones back one isn't rotten when he brings it back it gets given to the king so the first pineapple that's ever eaten by somebody who's a Westerner is it's done in a very sort of ceremonial fashion this myth about the pineapple propagates and after a little while trade begins to improve a little bit the pineapple becomes one of the most ostentatious displays of wealth that anybody in the British aristocracy can rely on for about 300 years you know you know on the Strand in London is there a pineapple you used to be able to rent pineapples $8,000 £8,000 is the equivalent of what it would cost but people would rent them for dinner parties they would parade them around look yeah look at this and they would have statues out front of the estate as if to say you know what the gag is on the Statue so the pineapple um I'll go to to do on pineapples so on Stately homes they'll often have a stone pineapple out the front and it's a gag so the gag is when sailors would come back from the West Indies they'd often bring a pineapple M and they would put the pineapple in the window the girls would put the pineapple and the pineapple kind of meant no gentleman callers my husband's home uh and he's a sailor and that gag that gag has been lost in the in the M but the the aristocracy put a pineapple at the front of their house it kind it was kind of a joke it was a reference to that but the joke got lost so that's interesting I didn't know that you're teaching me things about pineapples here I read a book about pineapples once but the my friend wrote a book about pineapples uh but that thing in the Strand you could yeah you could rent pineapples and you would show them off and then and then suddenly that thing that they was the most lorded special thing ain't nothing and see where I'm going you look at it now and you go what's the thing there's nothing you can buy in a shopping mall that you will give a about in 10 years nothing there's nothing for you there fast forward do something for you in 5 years time don't buy the thing you don't need it so that story about the pineapple and its subsequent demise when the French invent green houses and you can grow fruits from much more tropical climates where we are uh related to a lesson that Rogan taught me when I went on his show last year and I called it Rogan's value difficulty conflation look at the car he's driving look at the watch he's wearing look at the girl he's with that's unattainable to many people so it seems like it's valuable but then you attained it and then you realized oh this isn't valuable this is just difficult to get and there's a difference there's a big difference what's valuable is something that fulfills you intellectually emotionally spiritually and lovingly most smart people realize that there is value in stepping outside of their comfort that on the other side of discomfort is something valuable we're told that worthwhile things are difficult to attain because if they weren't difficult to attain they wouldn't be worthwhile this is how non-valuable but difficult things get slept into our desires without us noticing attaining something worth while is often going to be difficult but just because it's difficult doesn't mean it's worthwhile we use the challenge as a proxy for virtue or value or alignment or Integrity there's some signaling going on here too difficult things by Design will be attained by a small number of people which makes them desirable simply because it's an easy way to stand out from the crowd but just because it's difficult to obtain does not mean that it's valuable I mean that's great the only thing I would take issue with there is most smart people realize no no they don't and I can prove it Yachts Yachts someone's bought a yacht someone's buying a yacht today Yachts great there's a level at which people are just okay maybe okay if you don't enjoy a conversation with a friend you're not going to enjoy a yacht what do you think you're doing on the yacht yeah I mean that nval quote if you can't be happy with coffee you won't be happy on a yacht yeah is it's perfect right yeah it's perfect it because you you go that is it's so true how early in life can you know that how what age do you have to be before you can go ah you're chasing rainbows this is there's nothing that external stuff isn't going to bring you the thing that you want but how much of a quest you need to go on before you can sort of realize that but that's the you know that's has been a repeating theme throughout today about you can bestow all of these insights but the 18-year-old version of me wouldn't have listened to this in any case and it seems like even if someone shows you a photo of the top of the mountain this is what it looks like this was the route that I took to get there here were the pitfalls that you should avoid ultimately it takes a very singular person to be able to learn from the mistakes of others rather than the mistakes of ourselves Who had who had that line about it was climbing Everest or whatever and someone someone choppered up there it wasn't Everest it was another Mountain but like they didn't climb up they got a chopper up took some photos and went it's a nothing experience who cares you might as well just get you can get sent some photos like there's nothing in that like doing that I wanted to do that pilgrimage but I thought i' do it real quick so I did it on a jet ski it's not anything if if you if you're not willing to take the journey yourself it's you got nothing it's interesting that thing of the manopause that you had 2627 that LE leaks to links to the um uh the developmental kind of biology of the when's the brain finished yeah it's interesting your brain was just finished yeah what do I think about 25 for guys is it 24 for women it's like but it's that old that we're fully integrated ready to go and and then at that age miraculously about 12 months in you went well this is nonsense I've got to do something else yeah yeah I I see it I see it in a lot of people um we spoke the other night about inner critics what do you think the relationship that we should have with our inner critic I mean I think it's it's interesting Walt Disney had three different rooms so he had a room to be creative right just come up with ideas no bad ideas great other than some of the anti-Semitism anyway so he's got his ideas room and then he's got his um he's got his management room well how how do we make those room how do we make those ideas happen how are we going to make that stuff happen and then you had another room for criticism and I think we should sort of think about the inner critic like that the idea of going if you're trying to do something creative don't let the critic in too soon wait until you've had the whole idea wait until you've let the management get involved a little bit wait until you've tried to write the whole joke and ComEd it from a few different angles and tried it twice for you critic you criticize it and Outsourcing your critic I think is is smart I mean comedy does it with the audience really they make the decision as to what the show is they do the editing for me so you got a much better relationship with failure with that it it engenders a much better relationship with failure yeah because it's not identity level yeah the jokes of the bullets I'm the gun like easy come easy go yeah so you you let go of it you know but also when you're doing something creative you got to kill a lot of babies you they're all very precious to you and you think they're fa it's a fabulous little idea and that's nothing audience just St at you okay try the next one yeah that was swing a Miss yeah great but that isn't that kind of a nice attitude for it's hard though when you've made something that's you if it's a movie or a a book that you've worked on for years but that super smart uh guy trying every chapter as he goes along that's super yeah low stakes low pressure creativity is something I wonder whether it's played into by this sort of concretizing of everything that you've ever said throughout all of time being there that it doesn't feel like the ephemeral can be ephemeral anymore you can't just blast it out it's iPhones at a comedy show are kind of the enemy of creativity censorship is not a problem in comedy self-censorship is a huge problem people not saying the unsayable risky thing that could be the funniest because they're worried well if that's taken out of context what if people don't understand I mean like why do people like comedy there's a lot of nuance in comedy isn't there there's no Nuance in the modern world there's no Nuance in in you know what's reported in the media it's all a weird newsp and then in comedy it's like you can say the craziest and people know it's not yeah there's no hate in his heart just fun did you see uh Rosanne get popped for that little bit she did with theovon she was making a joke about the Jews and she basically said that not enough of them word she she was it was the most probably the most egregious clipping of a bit yeah I didn't see it so I can't really comment but the idea of like the bad faith argument that journalists make of going I know it's a joke it was in a comedy show at a comedy club that's the context it was a joke and they go okay well let's report it as if it was a statement that was made and gentlemen can I get your attention I to make a comment here about no no one said that she'd made a bunch of obviously sarcastic very over-the-top opposite statements it was like and the pigs will fly and the sky is green and the D D D D D basically for for ages and ages and ages and ages and ages and then at the very end said like and not enough Jews summing summ summing it was part of it was an Ever escalating statement about the Ridiculousness of some of the claims that were being made with some some something and they just took the bit at the end yeah and I was like come on you know I'm all for saying you know this needs to be able to stand up on its own like things can be taken in a little bit of isolation but not that much isolation yeah it is interesting though isn't it the idea of you go well you could take anything out of context and someone's going to be upset as well also you've got how much access to people now everyone's got to say it used to be that would have been an eye roll and a tou from someone right someone said that not for me thank you won't be buying a ticket I won't go and now it's the the idea of saying I don't like that seems very reasonable to me no one should have access to that seems like a different thing so you know the free speech thing is you go well until we find a better system we have to have free speech what about the Chinese system that's a good system yeah I mean I mean that's the world we could be living in you know where I mean it's you know Charlie Brooke is a mate of mine and that those kind of black mirrors where people are getting so social points and then it's happened I it's happening right now it's unbelievable it's like 1984 is happening right now you know that they've got in China Gate analysis that can work out even face covered wearing clothes can work out who someone is with about 90% plus accuracy just from the way that they walk so hiding your face hiding everything dressing differently doing whatever isn't sufficient to protect you now they've fingerprinted your uh yeah movement it's interesting that thing of like the micro the macro so you can't move privately but I think maybe with social media now you can't think privately because everything's um it become slightly performative and there's no boredom you're constantly stimulated I think we're slightly over stimulated as a society like being bored is really good for creativity being a bit bored and a bit like listless you know sometimes I look even now it happens but it used to happen more previously at how many things I'll be doing at once so I'll be replying to an email whilst I'm waiting for the cattle to boil I'll be setting the dishwasher away whilst listening to a podcast at two times speed and I'll be waiting for somebody I'm like I've got like I'm literally waiting for five things to happen while doing three that's the modern condition though isn't it that you're you're so uh addicted to activity to doing something and feeling like you're being productive and actually just letting yourself kind of sit having some time just to think it's the Char Monga thing isn't it the idea of waiting and just having time just to think and do nothing read stuff what's your the you've got a theory on the Chinese what's your theory about the Chinese my theory on the CH Chinese the same Theory as uh um well my theory on the Chinese we don't need to worry there are covers banned the Rolling Stones are not worried about the bootle Rolling Stones right because they're the Rolling Stones they're coming up with this and playing it and someone's doing a cover version China at the moment is a is a is a covers band and there's something there's some sweet Source in our system where Innovation is created and we're coming up with stuff and you look at the five biggest companies in the world and they're all tech companies that came up in the last 10 years 15 years whatever it is it's incredible The Innovation that we have you don't need to to worry about it it's like AI I'm not worried about AI it's artificial intelligence as soon as it's artificial Consciousness great I'll be concerned oh can can computers write jokes yeah when they start laughing at jokes that's that's when there'll be a problem there was this I think it was George that taught me this one as well um a really good measure of AI will be I think it's called stairway wit you heard of this stairway wit stairway wit or stairwell wit so um says Spirit discal the French term for you know you have a dinner with someone and you you're walking down the stairs from the restaurant and you think I wish I'd said that correct is the yes yes what's what's that called Spirit discal I'm going to guess that means the spirit of the staircase yeah there you go there you go the French they've always going to make everything so much more F but I think it's because the restaurants were often on the first floor Upper Floor and you walk down the steps that's cool so that was their it's a French thing and the French are like genetically not very funny so presumably yeah they are who's funny say that um Gad there a guy called gad's very funny um there's a girl called um oh what's she called come back to me in one second um oh I'm blanking on her name because the French used to date uh blanch Garden is I watched it that's a French name I don't speak French I watched it in French with subtitles blanch gardan special blew my mind really it's so spoken too soon no there's incredible funny funny people everywhere but that um it's weird the uh the stairs thing this is very on a tangent but it's interesting let's talk about the environment again okay so are you aware of New York at the uh turn of the century okay so New York turn of the century incredibly loud every street is cobbled seen gangs in New York you get the visual right every street is cobbled horse and carts everywhere and people on Horseback right cuz you got get around the hor is yay deep okay uh when horses die they die in the street and they have to wait for them to atropy slightly before they cut them up manually and cut them off so you know that kind of Trope about you've heard about smelling salts and people talk about it's fetch the smelling salts it's from that era London was the same but New York had it really bad because it's an island so you know there the steps going up to the Brownstones the steps going up to the Brownstone building buildings with a little metal scraper and that was so you could walk out of the and scrape it off your feet before you went into the house covered in the whole of New York was covered in and they they had a law and they wrote a law about it and then another law and then they brought in a tax and then they brought in another tax and another law and another law or that and nothing changed it was covered in and it smell awful and it was hell and then Henry Ford came along and horse went from a million horses to six of them now in Central Park taking tourists around and no more horseshit problem and I kind of I kind of think things can change very quickly I mean maybe that's a ludicrously optimistic view of the world because the biggest industry in the world in 1902 was wailing you're kidding no biggest industry in the world was wailing because they would need the blubber and the oil for lamps the oil was everything right you know what a resource is a really interesting question so you go the that that oil from Wales was a resource and we didn't wipe out the Wales but we came as close as you'd ever want to get and then suddenly a bit of tech came along and and save them yeah um I mean it's it's it's the it's kind of a little bit tropy but one of the best ways to ensure that people pivot from a behavior that they do to a behavior that you want is to make the behavior that you want more attractive than the behavior that they do it's the way that Elon Musk managed to do what the Prius never did because he made an electric car that was cooler than a normal car yeah it's uh yeah it's interesting that thing of like whenever you look at Society wherever you're calling from in this moment we imagine it's finished we imagine this is the last iteration of humanity all the technology up to now that's but that's pretty much it right we're never going to get Beyond this right cuz it's never going to computers don't get better than this phones don't get better than this we don't have better medicine than we do today this is it we've reached the Pinnacle right look around it's never going to get any better we somehow can never factor in that's never ever been the case but we can't in our heads we can't get our head around the idea things are going to get better tell you what else I loved I learned this term from a uh a historian of existential risk so I'm big into X risk right and and trying to avoid it and learning about personally you're trying to avoid it cuz that's it kind of doesn't work that way difficult to do yeah uh but I don't want Humanity to go extinct and I think that our someone write that down that's a lovely thought efforts are placed in the wrong direction they're placed in the wrong place which is you know beyond Lor's kind of like fundamentally his thesis within human flourishing but I think he could even spread it out further than that this is William mcll from the future of humanities Institute this is Nick bostom and Toby Ys work again from Oxford uh 30,000 foot view all of our attention is currently paid or the vast majority of our attention in terms of existential risks are paid on things that are not existential risks There is almost 0% chance that the next Thousand Years humanity is going to be wiped out by climate change but well I I I don't know because I think a like what what do you consider climate change because you know the super volcano if that goes that could you know you familiar with this uh the theory of uh I think it's called bookas bedos blanket you ever heard of this so it's the idea that if you put um coal in Coal Fired you know uh power plants into the atmosphere it's it causes warming it's terrible we should stop doing it but if you go high enough with the chimney into the stratosphere uh if you go high enough it those particles reflect light and it cools the Earth the Stratos the stratosphere reflects light from the sun the sun's the only thing heating us we cool down it's a thermostat on the globe wow and here's the thing here's the kicker it's been tried okay when kraa TOA went off such a huge volcano it put so much Ash into the upper atmosphere the Earth cooled by I think I think it was two degrees I could be wrong about the amount and there was no summer in Europe the next year wow so it's it's kind of we know we could do it but I mean the amount of how bad does it need to get before we do that how bad does it need to get before we harness the atom you know the the idea that you go all of the existential risk of nuclear power is there because we have weapons but we're not really using the power as much as we could be yeah and that seems to be the why not take that and people go what about safety well okay we'll put some more safety on it then yeah the the conversation around X risk is what's called anthropogenic risk so R risk human created versus natural risk super volcanoes asteroids Godzilla coming up from underneath the ocean I mean the ideal is a super volcano goes off as an asteroid lands on it plugs the hole perfect yeah we might get lucky we might get lucky let's just let's try and focus on that let's try and focus on that's your positivity coming in again so so what's the other ones what's the other big existential risks so the most likely one is AI right and this book The the original conception by Toby OD in the precipice was written probably about six years ago maybe maybe four years ago so this is before chat GPT and I'm going to guess that he would have increased his his uh AI is going to wipe us AI it's the most likely so he says that there's pathogens AI uh so natural pandemics engineered pandemics AI nanotechnology they're the big movers right we all get turned into Grey Goo we we have unaligned ai we have an engineered pandemic from some bastard in the lab or some gain of function research that accidentally gets released or we have a natural pandemic that everybody now the reason this very specific way that there's wording put for existential risk it's total unrecoverable collapse yeah right when sorry when do I plug my show in this because I feel like people need to buy tickets for a comedy show at this point in this point in the conversation like I mean you'll watch more of this but this is this is bad right so unrecoverable yeah permanent sorry not total permanent unrecoverable collapse and the problem with almost everything including nuclear weapons you'll notice that nuclear weapons weren't in there nuclear weapons all of them go off at the same time it's catastrophic it's hell on Earth but it's not permanent unrecoverable collapse the difference between there's a really great thought experiment where what is the greater difference between 0% and 99% of humanity being killed or between 99% and 100% being killed and when you look at it with a long-termism lens it's the 99 to 100 but also you're looking at the wrong thing you you've read the selfish Gene you're looking at Humanity you should be looking at DNA that's I mean listen we're just we're just Meat Puppets getting the stuff to the Future right that's a AI L had this idea I had him on this dude who's looking he's going to fire a light sail fire a laser from the earth at a light sail and try and Propel a craft up to about 20% the speed of light send it toward Alpha centori that's going to happen within the next decade something like that and the message is going to read it's just a very thin piece of like reflective foil I think I don't know how much does it say help maybe send help SOS um but I asked him do you ever think that we'll send generation ships to other planets do you ever think that we will have you know all the SS um bukaki yeah well I don't know I mean presumably the SS inbred is going to be the name of the ship yeah maybe it's the yeah all the SS Norfolk get on board intergenerationally marrying what yeah it's yeah his argument is the best way half of the ship can't meet that half of the ship for 20 Generations or we're all yeah yeah yeah yeah argument is that you get to um the best way would be desktop DNA synthesizer attached to one of these ships keep everything Frozen get it over there drop it down artificial WBS away you go is this not okay your worry about this is not we talked about anxiety earlier right and anxiety if you were going to sum it up is it's a Restless mind and you're problem solving for the future because there's not enough going on now I would argue there's quite a lot going on now that we could nail here and that as a byproduct of that like like the idea of intergenerational ships traveling at light speed ah I don't think it gets us anywhere I think I'd be with Eric Weinstein on like a new physics might be the thing that gets us somewhere and if you think about where we were isn't there some weird fact about from the right Brothers to um landing on the moon is is it 67 years or something yeah we've done it before although you know how NASA did it someone told me this recently talking about NASA until they put a man on the moon yeah absolutely they put a man on the moon how did they do it and my went we know what the budget was unlimited they had an unlimited budget you can have anything you want and anyone you want I'll put a man on the moon with that I mean ah honly interesting how tough could it be unlimited uh you can have any one you want and it can cost anything you want but it can't take as long as you want as well so remember we learned about Parkinson's law just before the task will expand to fill the time given for it that was not it was before dot dot dot before the Russians yeah well it was the that thing of like you don't there's a great lawn Michaels quote about Saturday Night Live where he says the show doesn't doesn't start at 11: on a Saturday cuz it's ready it's it goes on because it's 11:00 on a Saturday sometimes you got to go with what you got right yeah the before the Russians think of like what did we you know Wars are great apart from war if you could take the war bit out of War like The Innovation that comes of it because in those desperate times and now you know I don't know what's going on with the you know we're fighting these proxy wars and the the human suffering and the devastation you kind and for what I can't see what happens I don't know man I mean it's there is a degree to which there's an ever increasing velocity of the Spiral of ping ponging between this thing and the next thing and what's going to be and I understand why people feel overwhelmed I I I get it too but I don't know the last few years I've since being around more smart people and more hopeful people I just I've got faith for some reason that everything is going to be fine I I listen that thing that we were talking about earlier about like what's your belief is that the truth doesn't matter it's a useful belief very useful belief to think that things will be okay and that maybe in some small part way uh some small way we could play a part in that that would that would be huge you know so that thing of going what what are you going to do well if you have an aptitude for physics go and study Physics or chemistry or math whatever you're doing doing do more of that you spoke earlier on about your kids and you said about how we we mentioned the other night I think you identified the difference between life on easy mode or life with low Stak this is yeah so this was my theory on life was I have a partner I've been with for many many years and we get on great and it struck me that not having kids was like we didn't want kids and it was living life on with a cheat on the video game super this is super easy why was it easy because the the what I didn't realize you think you have skin in the game but you don't have skin in the game until you have kids because it's it's a medical procedure where your heart now lives outside your body that's what it is you know so you go now you you feel invested in the future and and and and you you're more worry you're worry more about your mortality now you've got kids because it's you know what's the worst that could happen you could die well now it's much worse there might be a saying goodbye so I think it was I thought I was living life on easy settings and actually I was playing a very low stakes table and now I feel like I'm playing in a higher Stakes table and it's it's very joyful is it also terrifying though you've got this heart that lives outside of your body yeah I think so I think I spend a lot of time with the um you know thinking about what could what could happen and an anxiety you know if I let myself there's kind of a um there's a there's a tendency towards counterfactuals and what what could happen what if he what if he walks into the road what if something awful happens but I read that um uh the coddling of the American mind book and it really kind of made me think yeah childhood is about experimentation and risk and letting kids be kids let them let them do their thing yeah I it's interesting to think about the protective motivation that a lot of people have myself included you know you hear about this sound of Freedom film that just came out recently and I had one of the guys who was a part of it on the show he tell me about these kids that are being trafficked and you know it's like a like visceral compulsion that you have to make it stop and to help them and to do I didn't see I didn't see the the movie but is that how he made his money no yeah ruined his business God you got really interesting guest on this show ruined his business and uh there's something about that you know this sort of desire to protect but for me it's largely abstract right like I know that it's an ethical thing to protect a child right it's the same for me it's the exact same for me as thinking about a sister right incor version for me is not an emotion that I have I don't I don't feel incest AV verion because your sister's fat because I'm an only child oh right that too yeah sure just with you but the uh the so when people talk about like ins I can make like would you your sister jokes all day long yeah because for me it doesn't TR there's nothing visceral I understand I understand and I'm sure that if I had a sister I wouldn't her much but right the bare minimum um yeah okay and it's the same I think a little bit with this and I I'm interested to work because you you've got a good example of long enough life without kids to then have them do you is that like a global cartel of parents that become extra protective and more invested in the well-being of all children I always found it very annoying pre having kids that like that kind of you wouldn't understand cuz you haven't got kids yeah you do you're a person in the world you don't change entirely when you have kids it's it's a it's a lovely thing to do and I think it um I think there's it's kind of a final it feels like it's another bit of growing up it's another bit of growth where you kind of go oh well you know especially in my business where you are a bit self-obsessed and show business you go well there's someone else to worry about now don't you know and it's it's fun for me and I kind of you know because you're kind of in play mode with kids and and my job is kind of play mode it's good to Anchor myself in that it's um yeah it's it's joyful it really is joyful it's lovely I mean there's a weird thing of like you know it's it's I think parents kind of can sometimes they're either going you desperately you've got to have kids oh my God it's ruined my life and it's you can find people in both camps and I think again it's it's uh it's disposition they're all parents there's some very happy parents and some not very happy parents and I think it's about expectations what did you think it was going to be like what's happiness its expectations exceeded right then why is New Year's terrible why are birthdays boring because you expecting it's going to be the best night ever and then it was okay or even if it is the best night ever you go y I was expecting that and somehow crushing a Tuesday sometimes having a great time when it was unexpected is the most joyful thing yeah so having kids what what do you what do you think it was going to be like how do you think it was going to be to think it's going to be terrible no even think it's going to be terrible just like being realistic about it going you it's going to be it's going to be there's lovely moments and you're very present with I don't really I always want to meditate and I never really find the time to meditate and I'm I think I'm terrible at it but I'm good at going on walks and I'm good at playing with kids you when you're with a kid playing with a kid you're you're in the moment you're just there there's nothing else it's lovely yeah I uh I think that there's a few decisions that you can make in life Downstream from them there it's an entire lifestyle change so buying a dog would be one right that especially because dogs are usually a precursor to kids in some form yeah F babies and downstream from that you have something else that you're responsible for you need to get up at a time it needs to be fed and watered and walked yeah it's often my thing of the cure for depressed friends is to encourage them to get a dog oh hell yeah because you might not need to get out of bed till noon but the dog needs to poop so yeah you you got to get up and out and put something on and go to the shop and buy some food and taking care of someone else it's often like if you're having a really tough time finding someone who's worse off and calling them and checking in is really valuable it's odd but it really helps you know it's that thing of you know if you're going through something reach out and try and help someone and it just puts you in a different position with with the you know your problem one Trend that I see amongst some of my friends who are more resilient or capable is sometimes they allow themselves to be relied on and allow themselves to serve others and a lot of the time end up not being served themselves so it's that uh Guardian rather than dependent Dynamic continues to just get flipped with them always being the person that's the one interesting that that internal critic the idea that you sometimes the circle of compassion you're not in the circle it's everyone else around you and then you're not in it and you're you know you meet a lot of people that aren't very good to themselves very generous with everyone else and then they're not very good to themselves a strange I don't know what's going on there but it's it seems is that something you ever encountered no I'm I'm pretty good to myself I think no it's not really a something I had not less so now but it's something I had um it strikes me it's an interesting thing to talk about because it strikes me that your journey will be the worst bit will be when you've got one kid why you you almost want twins off the bat why because your story is an only child that needs to connect yeah so it's a weird thing when you have two the dark thought you have when you have two is well if anything happens to us at least they got each other and you don't even have a sister to we've established this tried tried been yeah yeah it's I I kind of think that's is that not the journey though is that not the thing of KN and the the quiet the the kind of the listening that you've done for the first five six years of this podcast I feel like that's going to remain and then there'll be another gear where you're on send yeah I feel like that you know it's often easier to see it in other people like of what the trajectory of their career will be because it's like it's kind of your you're in training to be a wise man you're a bit Young wise man in training but you're a bit young to be a wise man right but that's kind of where it's I have a friend you know David Perell really good follow on Twitter if no one if people aren't following him um he was the one that wrote the the article uh think like an athlete which in classic Twitter fashion I didn't read read the headline made up my own idea about what the article was about and then that ended up being really formative so he didn't write an article that ended up being very formative to me what I ended hang on what's what's untrue but yeah yeah yeah figuratively false but literally true or the reverse yeah so he uh first off he he was one of the people that poked me toward turning pro with the show what would happen if I treated the pursuit of being a podcaster like athletes do where I review gam tape and I get a speech coach an addiction coach and a comedy coach and I do improv and I go to bed on time and I'm hydrated and I learn how the mouth moves and all of these things what would happen if I did that and it worked out to be really great from one sentence think like an athlete which wasn't what the article was about right but he uh is in this great relationship he lives in Austin and he we we had a phone call before I even moved to Austin you told me this this really beautiful sentiment you know he's worked an awful lot throughout his 20s very successful spent a lot of time thinking and being around people and networking and doing self-work and meditation and you know he's he's got a Rabbi that he goes and sees at 6 a.m. every Saturday cuz he wants to learn about Jewish Cannon and he said everything I've done in my 20s Was preparing me to be the dad that I wanted to be you know you got this guy who's got million dollars and million million million people business all this stuff and he was like yeah it's just in service of becoming the dad that I wanted to be and I thought that was a really beautiful sentiment I've always known I haven't always known that I wanted to be a dad I've always had a sense that I wanted to be a dad and then definitely the last five years I just I I can't wait to be a dad so yeah it's nice it's nice to know that even though the kid isn't there ready for you to bestow the hard work and the fruit of your labor internally externally on yeah you're kind of you're kind of doing it for them in a way yeah I could see that I could I mean it's also that thing if you go it's the it's the role that you want to play and you don't know yourself yet the interesting thing is like it's interesting to think about getting to know your kid because your K the kid arrives and they go I haven't really met them yet but you want you're going to meet them at some point you to meet them and connect with them and you know great you and you get a sense of who they are but it's it's bit by bit but then you haven't had you don't have a sense of who you are as a dad and it's interesting what would you be like fritzel yeah very good at DIY no one talks about that I can't put a shelf up I can't put a shelf up you built a house under his house props I've heard you talk about enjoying the passage of time as a good synopsis well I think anything where you're in a flow State seems to be a magical time so what you know your whether it's a hobby or a or your job ideally but something where you're in a in a flow state so good conversation is kind of Flow State right so I'm not quite sure how long we've been talking I'm sure listeners are going or too long frankly but it's you're kind of in a flow you're you're in a flow you're enjoying it you're not looking at the clock you're not conscious of other things you're just where you are yeah and focused so on stage I find that's a flow State playing tennis I really like I'm not that good at tennis but I really like playing it and that thing of like when you're doing sports I suppose it lifts the anxiety because the thing that we talked about anxiety is solving future problems ahead of time and when you're doing something in a flow State you're in it you're dealing with that thing you've your conscious mind is busy and it's just for the purpose of that as well you know going back to the and anti- tiic and anti- teic stuff yeah pickle ball for me is my it's just it's so rapid and so all consuming that I can't I can't think about anything else and you know so that's switching off yeah yeah great I think some I think you need something like that as well something that's uh low stakes a flow State that's low stakes in life you you're not bothered about the outcome oh that's interesting you're not becoming a professional pickle ball player player you are a professional podcaster this is a flow state but it's high stakes this matters to you greatly but to have something where you go it's really just for fun I'm not trying to get better at this like you in the gym you're trying to achieve something aesthetically physically healthwise probably less healthwise and more aesthetically in your 20s and as you get older it'll be more Health but that idea of going what's something you could enjoy being a flow State and it's just fun low stakes flow state is a lovely framework that I haven't thought about before that a lot of people will continue to pile high stakes onto the thing that they choose to do and I don't know if that fully encapsulates the relaxation that you have you know it may be able to drill your focus even more you may be completely dialed in and and very very concerned about the outcome I don't know if it achieves everything you could from this variety this sort of relaxation this very sort of parasympathetic I'm just at ease here I lose the game of pickle ball my friend Aaron calls me a so what like it's you know it is what it is yeah but his parents never loved him anyway look how far they got in the book of boys names that do he is currently in New York and and he's become the director of director of physical therapy for the Aaron roders the current best living quarterback in all of the NFL so he plays for the New York Jets right uh I think and but just easier if everyone on the team's called Aaron just honestly he's not the best he's just he less fuss Aaron Aaron has been hit in the head too many times you can remember the name Aaron so we have to hire an Aaron if you shout Aaron 50 people turn around well the quarterback doesn't he just sort of has to right okay yeah yeah yeah but no he's uh he's over there but yeah doing something that's that's low stakes that's Flow State I I think that that's a really nice conception and it's like a good justification for having Hobbies you know yeah I mean that that we need a justification is really speaks to our the the activity I mean I I really guilty of this like even when you go on holiday you make a list of books to read when you're away to relax like its homework but that's you know really the only thing I got from my education was work ethic you know you you find what your work ethic is when you find what you love doing but then it's it's hard not to replicate that in all areas of your life productivity Purgatory was what I called it that even when you're supposed to be doing something for leisure it's still in service of the outcomes that you're going to get at work so it's the walk that you take on a morning not because you get to relax and spend time in nature but because you heard in Andrew huberman episode about how it improves dopamine the dopamine ergic seaa so you can focus better wonderful thing about being a comedian I mean I could be getting a colonoscopy and thinking well there might be some material in this you never know literally you never know a virtual colonoscopy there the future maybe a VR one where they fly a tiny little micro drown up yeah that's what he told me anyway we're in a park what have you got coming up next what can people expect from you I've got a new tour I'm going to go out on the road again I'm touring slightly differently this I'm hope it works uh I think it will but certainly around the UK I'm going to do two shows a night every night Wednesday to Saturday so work less and more than I've worked before I'm going to do more shows but more compacted and I'm going to do a show at 7 and a show at 9:30 I'm a Big Show at 7 fan by the way well it's that thing if you either have dinner afterwards or before you either have drinks after or before but you go it's not a big with an interval it's like you pack the stuff in you know do maybe 100 minutes got time to do 100 maybe even two hours sort of straight through and that's a it's a great show to hold people for that long it's great you don't because they break and then you build it again and with the bigger shows sometimes you just do it with a regular interval but I'm you know putting that tour on I'm working on a book at the moment it's probably the easiest conception of it about how to write jokes I've had a really great run in comedy and what am I leaving for posterity some dick jokes right right lovely jokes I've done a bunch of specials uh I'll record a new one next month I don't know want it be out but I want to leave something behind to the community because it's done an awful lot for me so I'm working on this thing and hopefully it'll become something for you know other comedians America you're doing America yeah doing a tour in America sort of gigging around the place I mean you know it's quite nice it's I can play quite big rooms it turns out that because of the one of the major benefits of the the biggest TV channel in the world is YouTube and no one noticed in mainstream media no one noticed oh that's the biggest TV channel in the world so your Netflix and your YouTube's the global entities mean you can play anywhere in the world which is fantastic I do about 40 countries and I'll Do America and I'll play cities I've never been to and 2,000 people will turn up it's amazing I'm looking forward to Austin Sunday the something of October Sunday maybe the 17th of October it's somewhere in there Jimmy I really appreciate you I I we got introduced by a mutual friend yeah and I feel like uh it's a real flourishing blossoming it's lovely I I'm a huge fan of this please don't stop and please do more I think more conversations and more more learning and it uh yeah it grows corn it's a great show I appreciate you thank you mate thanks thank you very much for tuning in if you enjoyed that episode with Jimmy you are going to love my conversation with Mark Norman go on press it