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

I remember the day, I remember being at home, and and getting the news, and laughing and crying. And then it hits you. I was very uh very upset by it, and he was just just so funny. You are a fantastic crowd. Thank you very much. Would you please welcome Jimmy Carr! One of the most respected and best loved comedians in the world. The king of one-liners. Okay, strap in everyone. You ready? I'm going to start teaching comedy, because it teaches you how to come up with original thoughts, to find your voice. You'll be chasing imposter syndrome, and it's great. You should feel it every 18 months. You learn that failure is one of the great gifts of stand-up comedy. And to learn how to lose gracefully. It's a good test of how much you want something. How do we know what we actually want? I love what I do now, but often question whether I should go be like a DJ. Do you what? I can answer that question for you. No, you [ __ ] shouldn't. I know everything you do, you think, "Oh, maybe we can make a few quid out of this." No. As a guy that's touring the world 300 days a year, what advice would you give me on how to be a better communicator? Speak at 92 beats a minute. When you look at the great public speakers, they all seem to be hitting that rhythm of 92 beats a minute. Anxiety. It's the flip side of creativity. So, I think the cure for managing my anxiety is Hang on. The Netflix special drops today, so I imagine I'm being canceled right now. How have you come to deal with that? So, the next time I get canceled, I've got a plan. Here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to say, Congratulations, Diary of a CEO gang. We've made some progress. 63% of you that listen to this podcast regularly don't subscribe, which is down from 69%. Our goal is 50%. So, if you've ever liked any of the videos we've posted, if you like this channel, can you do me a quick favor and hit the subscribe button. It helps this channel more than you know, and the bigger the channel gets, as you've seen, the bigger the guests get. Thank you, and enjoy this episode. Jimmy, it's great to be back. What have you been up to? I've been, you know, I've been around. I've been working. I very much enjoyed this last time and I'm kind of I was a bit nervous coming back because yeah, it's a big show and I I really enjoy it. I really enjoy listening. So, I I've given it quite a lot of thought. I've kind of made loads of notes and uh and you know, here's what I'll kick off with. I've been thinking a lot about gratitude as the mother of all virtues. And I think, I'm right in saying this, I think you would give me everything you own in 25 years time to be the age you are now and as healthy as you are right now. And I think it's a really interesting meditation to think about right, if you had a time machine, if you were 30 years in the future, if you could be this healthy and feel this good and be this age, you'd give everything materially that you own in 30 years time to be back here. And just that just to take that in for a minute, just to take a moment to think about, wow, with this is amazing. What does that inspire in terms of behavioral change in the moment? Well, I think it's that thing of like I try and I think gratitude is such an important virtue um and it's people talk about gratitude practice and it does take some practice and it often takes like it's a like it's a way of reframing the way that you see the world. So, I think that we suffer in the West a little bit from life dysmorphia. You hear a lot about body dysmorphia or gender dysmorphia. We've got life dysmorphia. A lot of people think their life is terrible because there's kind of the the hedonic treadmill. You get used to how great your life is. No one had a hot shower until 50 years ago. So, I try and do this thing when you stand in a hot shower. George Mack, my friend, pointed this out to me when Well, then when you stand in a a shower, just for a moment, just go, well, no one that you admire from 100 years ago had this simple pleasure in life." And when you look at the world that we live in, where where like you're doing there's been 100 billion people ever, right? We are in the top top percentile in terms of the luck that we have had. The the lives like the the the calorific intake that we just take for granted, the fact that our children don't die uh you know, in the first year, the the modern medicine and our lives and our the entertainment that we get. We're living like kings. And yet life has never been objectively better and subjectively worse. Because the nature of humanity is our desires are memetic. So, we've got this thing where we we sort of, you know, how happy are you? Well, it's it's your quality of life minus envy. That's how happy you are. And it's easy to look at everyone else and how they're doing and and not take pleasure in what you have. It's funny cuz there's a cost to a hot shower, isn't there? And we that's exactly what you're describing there because subjectively, I think a lot of people don't feel like they are very happy. And I think objectively, if you look at some of the stats around suicidality and depression and mental health, it doesn't appear that people are any happier. So, even though we have sort of materially improved our lives, we have hot showers now, there's a cost to the hot shower in the sense that um maybe it's made life too easy? Maybe it's made life too comfortable. Maybe we're in a comfort crisis. Yeah, I mean there's there's a there's a lot to be said on that. I mean, it's very I suppose it's very tough love, but you can't have an easy life and a great character. Sh- Show me a trust fund kid that inherited a bunch of money and I'll show you someone mentally tortured. It's It's true, right? Everyone's like your your struggle, what where you've come from in Plymouth, uh you know, in living in poverty to now having stuff isn't fun, getting stuff is fun. Right? It's not the pursuit of happiness, it's the happiness of the pursuit. Right? It's It's just It's that thing and it's not like, you know, that the self-help is not the journey, it's the destination. It's not either the journey or the destination, it's who you become on the journey. And here's the terrible thing about life, it's self-assignment. Like, you know, there's school and college and then you get dropped into the the real world at some point and look and you go would you you have to decide what you're going to do and you can take an easy path and it's it's ultimately less fun. It's short money. Or you take a hard path and you give yourself a challenge and it's great. And I think, you know, a lot of the times it's that thing of like it it's hard to do. That's it it's it's life is life is really really tough. Those are tough things to hear uh and it's it's easy for us because we're sort of on that road. But then, you know, the thing I love about this podcast is you're sort of trying to there's so much kind of wisdom in it, so many stories that you're sort of you're giving people this kind of road map for okay, well, make your life a little bit harder in the short term and and and get somewhere. I mean, it's really I I didn't really get what religion was until comparatively late in life. Like the idea that God is a proxy for the future. Right? So so So God represents the future. So work hard now for a better life in heaven. Right? So that's it's kind of it's the same as all self-help. Like do you Okay, so so sacrifice the present for the future. Work is kind of the same. It's a sacrifice of the present for something better in the future. That's like it's a it's it's an interesting thing to sort of think around, isn't it? That like what you're going to do now. So I've got this um Chris Williamson, you know Chris Williamson, he's a really good friend of mine, he's a lovely guy and we came up with this idea. So me, him, and George Mack were chatting about what what should you do today that you tomorrow would be happy you did. So, sort of 24 hours in the future. How best to live? Cuz people sort of say it like, "Oh, well, I'm going to do something for 5 years, you know?" So, it's this huge goal. But you won't rise to your goals, you'll fall to your systems, right? So, that thing of like, "What could you do tomorrow uh what could you do today rather that you'd be happy you did tomorrow?" Whether it's the food you eat, the exercise you take, the work you do. What do you do that is Oh, right, I went to the gym yesterday. I feel great. Like a a little bit of DOMS. Or oh, I wrote 10 jokes. And tonight I'm on stage trying those jokes. Oh, well, I'm Oh, well, thanks, me yesterday. I you know, I did something that was good. So, you can kind of time's going to pass whatever you do. And you can give yourself gifts in the future. You can be rich and you can have a six-pack, and you can be successful, and you can be in a happy long-term relationship with a beautiful family. You can give to yourself those those gifts, but that there's some tough times in the present to give yourself that gift in the future. There's something I really wanted to ask you about is you've climbed to the very peak of your profession. Like you really generational talent, this guy. That's what I'm saying. true. It's true. You really have You really have. You think about where you started off at sort of 25 years old in your mid-20s when you decided to leave that I think advertising business and pursue comedy. Like where you are now really is must be the a dream you like never imagined could come true. You're at the very peak of your profession. And I think at the peak of your profession, I wonder sometimes if you wonder more than other people who are still on their journey up the mountain, what the point in all of this is. Well, I think that's that's incredibly interesting. Okay, so there's a couple of things to unpack there. So, you never feel like you're at the top of your profession because you're A, you're standing on the shoulders of giants in whatever industry you're in. So, you might think, "Oh, well, doing he's doing very well. Uh you know, he's got a Netflix special and a new tour and da da da all of the you know all of the things." But then inside you're going, "Well, I'm as good as the next joke I write." So, the the thing that I try and do is be quite stoic. I'm trying to be I'm trying to do less better. I'm trying to just be a stand-up comedian. The world ordered a stand-up comedian and I'm trying to honor that. Right? That's what people want, right? Go out, write jokes, tell jokes, push the boundaries. Great, that's your little role in the world. Do that. So, the more I focus on that, the the the better it gets. More people come to the show. It's that thing of like I suppose the whole of the world is built on incentives, right? So, you you you put down sugar, you get ants. You tell jokes, you deliver on a show, and people come and they enjoy it and then they come back next time. What do you get out of that? I mean, the self-actualization, I suppose. The idea of going, "Well, I do this thing that I I very much enjoy comedy because it's an immediate feedback loop. It's a It's a very lucky business to be in because I don't have to wait. Like I don't have to discuss with someone, "Oh, do you think this joke's going to work or not? And do what do you think do you think it's too offensive or do you think it's ah Tell it. Test it. It's It's kind of it's the Silicon Valley the um you know uh the the dual testing. Is Is this better than this? This or this? I'm like an an optician. Like just is this this or this? Or this or this? This wording or this wording? And the audience is a genius. The audience tell me what works. So, it's it's kind of Yeah, it's it's it's a joyful thing to kind of to write a new show. And then to put something on the on the shelf like the new Netflix special, Natural Born Killer, now streaming on Netflix, is is like it it feels like I've given people irrefutable proof I am who I say I am. And that feels really good. Like that's what I do. That's better than the last one. And the last time I was on the show, I talked about wanting to write longer bits, longer form. Like I got a great fastball, but I haven't got a knuckleball. And I wanted to try and write some different bits that maybe made some points. And I went away and I did it. And for better or for worse, it's there. And I I gave it a shot and I think it's a better, more rounded comedy special than the previous one. And I And I don't hate the previous one. It's got really good jokes in it. It's really funny. I like it. And then the new tour, I think will be better again. I think you can see You see progress. And what are you chasing? You're not chasing the the thing. It's you're you're enjoying the process. It's It's being. So, I don't think you get self-esteem from the six-pack you get at the gym. I think you get self-esteem from being the kind of person that goes to the gym every day. And I don't think you get anything from the from the show, from having done the Netflix special, but being the person that put that together is the That's That's the enjoyable thing. And you get You get kind of better at it. You You know, the light The weight doesn't get lighter. Your back gets stronger. I think about this with myself a lot. I look at what I'm doing in business and stuff and with the podcast and other things. And I go, there are moments where my brain will ask myself the question, like, what's the end goal here? Because I've got the things that I materially need need to be happy. I could retire and just go chill on a boat. But for some reason, I'm sort of torturing myself in many respects. But torturing yourself? Sometimes You know what you're doing? You're giving yourself a better character because you're giving yourself a challenge. Right? We all need the challenge. So, it's like you know, with any kind of mythological story, it's the hero's journey. And you're on a journey to to to do something, to become something, right? And you're What's your What are you doing here? What's your role in the world? But going and sitting on a beach isn't anything. Like you There's a reason holidays are two weeks. It's so you have 3 days of going, "Ah, we should get back." Like holiday should be 10 days. But somehow we we've made it 2 weeks and that's great because it allows people sort of 3 days to go, "Do you know what? I've got to get back to work. I've got to do something." I like that thing of like the top of your profession. Well, you're always be looking ahead, right? Someone that's, you know, if it's for you probably Joe Rogan. You go, "Well, Joe's got the biggest podcast in the world." And what are you? Number two? And you'll And so you're you've got something to aim at. And even if you're number one, then you're going to go, "Yeah, but radio's still bigger." So, huh. I I like that thing of you'll be chasing something, giving yourself maybe an artificial um goal in the future. But it's a it's a it's just a um uh something to point you in the right direction. Is there a little bit of unhappiness as sort of voluntary unhappiness involved in wanting to that thing off in the future, do you think? You know, cuz if there's I sat with a psychologist a psychiatrist the other day who was on a podcast and he said, "If you live your life continually wanting, you're essentially deferring your happiness and replacing it with sort of discontent in the moment." Well, this is I mean, listen, even the worst people say great things. Chairman Mao said you can't smell the roses from a galloping horse. So, when you're moving at that kind of speed, you don't take any time to enjoy life, right? So, you have to just just enjoy the moment. But you enjoy these conversations. You enjoy the thing that you do. Now, the hard work is a lot of the stuff around it. You know, the travel and the the admin or whatever. But you have to love the whole job. You can't just go, "Well, I want that bit." Because in the same way that people are jealous of you, there'll be other podcasters that are very jealous of what you've got. But they're jealous of what you've got. They're not jealous of how you got it. No comedians are jealous of how I got it. No one sits there and goes, "Oh, I wish I could sit for 10 hours a day and write jokes." Oh. They think I want to play that venue or I'd I'd love to have that Netflix special. But they don't sit there going, "Well, what pathology would you need in your head to write that many one-liners and to care that much about it? Who would you have to be to do that? And we're all chasing something, right? I think we're chasing imposter syndrome. I think imposter syndrome's got a bad reputation and it's great. You should feel it every 18 months. As you level up, you should feel like, do I belong here? Right? I This show's much bigger than it was when I was last on. Congratulations, you. Why is it bigger? Well, because you pushed yourself and you worked harder, right? And now, sometimes you feel like, oh my god, I'm interviewing this person. Huh. Uh great. Don't feel comfortable. Lovely. As soon as you start to feel comfortable, you need to push yourself a little bit further. There's a great story my friend told me. This is a very name-droppy story. You mind? Good. All right. Brandon Flowers told me this story. So, he's filming a video with Lou Reed like 10 years ago. They did a song with Lou Reed, which is pretty cool for The Killers. And they're filming this video. And they're backstage. They're in the They're in the uh the the green room. And Lou Reed's there. He's got leather trousers on. He's got a leather jacket and a vest. He's got mirrored sunglasses. He's Lou Reed. And he looks in the mirror and Brandon sort of sees him just like checking himself out. And Lou Reed just goes, "I wish I was that guy." Lou Reed's got imposter syndrome and he's Lou Reed. There's nothing the matter with it. You know, a guy that's been a rock star and a legend for 40 years is still feeling that thing of like going, "I don't feel like I'm that guy." Great. That's how you should feel. So, if you haven't felt imposter syndrome in the last 12 18 months, you think there's something probably What? Push yourself a little bit harder. I mean, it depends. It depends what you want to do. You can have an easy life. Some people, you know, work to live. Some people live to work. It's It's There's different ways of doing things. It's not necessarily You don't necessarily need to push yourself in that way. Like, you're listening to us and and you know, there might be a psychiatrist listening going, "Well, these guys are pathologically ambitious. This isn't healthy. They should just be, you know, chilling out." And I maybe they have a good point. I look at your work ethic and I just feel like I've never seen anything like it for someone who is incredibly successful. I look at your tour dates and I'm like this guy spends how many dates a year on stage? Maybe 300 shows a year, something like that. 300 shows a year. While most people turn up to work every day, don't they? I mean, you know, it's also most people like get your average listener to this show and go, "Okay, do you want to swap lives? You You have to work for 2 hours a day, but you'll be telling jokes to people and it's joyful." It's what what looks like work to other people and feels like play to you. There you go. There's There's like It's a really happy life that people go, "Oh my god, he works so hard." and I'm going, "You're joking, aren't you? You are literally joking." And then you go, "Oh, the tour dates." Like this last week I was in, I don't know, South Africa, Paris, Istanbul, Budapest, Vienna. What a life. What a life cuz really That's the other thing about life. People don't want to live longer, they want more memories. And And really how do you get more memories? Well, it's it's doing novel, interesting things. So, if you commute to work every day the same commute for a year, you don't have 300 memories of that commute. You've got one memory. Right? But if you do different things every day, you go to different places, you talk to different people, you you experience the world. That's a fantastic that variety in life gives you more memories, more life. You pointed at your head a second ago and said, "We must be pathological in some way." Yeah. Do you think you are? Yeah. Yeah, I'm not sure I'm the I don't know. I mean, I'm not sure if I'm not entirely sure if comedy isn't a some sort of low-level mental health issue that you can turn into a career. I mean, it's you know, cuz like for most people it seems quite strange to want to stand on stage and and tell jokes. I think it's It sounds terrifying to a lot of people, but I find it very, very fun. Have you ever figured out why you are wired in such a way? Not really. I mean, I suppose that thing of it goes back to childhood. It goes back to my mother was an incredibly funny, larger than life Irish woman. I was very, very close to her. I believe they call it enmeshed when you have like a very close relationship with your mother. And she suffered with depression. And I didn't know. You don't know as a kid. Your house is just your house. You think it's normal, right? So, if your mom's in a dressing gown when you get home from school and she hasn't got herself together, you just think, "Well, that's what moms are like." So, my whole childhood was aimed at making her laugh, especially when driving. Fun thing to do. Make your mom laugh, grab the steering wheel, drive, and you know. Have you had to unpack that to stop that getting in the way, whatever that driving force is getting in the way of your adult life? Cuz I thought about that a lot myself. I think the things that have driven me here aren't necessarily the same things that are going to help me succeed in the next phase of life, whether it's being a father, like I know you're a, you know, you've had a kid I think in 2019. Um or whether it's being in a romantic relationship. I've had to kind of really work hard to unpack things so that I can succeed in a new season. Listen, I'm not a therapist, but here's what I would say. I think you're going to have to make a transition from looking at measurable metrics to immeasurable metrics. I think you've got an amazing resume. You've got an incredible CV of stuff you've done and achievements and stuff you can point at and and the the amount of views on the website and the money that you've made and the businesses you've started. Great. And I think the immeasurable stuff is going to become much more important. So, George Mack has this kind of theory on we trade in life the measurable for the immeasurable. So, you trade work for, I don't know, time with parents. Can't really measure time with parents. And it's kind of it's tough to lunch with your parents as opposed to the job and the thing and the work and that I'm busy, I'm busy, I'm busy. And you only notice it when it goes to zero. So, mom dies and you go, "Well, I'll never see her again." What wouldn't you give now for another meal, another time, another thing? So, you go trying to find that balance in life. And I think parenting and being a father is about that, isn't it? It's about that. It's about trading the the measurable for the immeasurable. Warren Farrell tells a great story. Do you know Warren Farrell? It's like the myth of male power. I think a lot of his writing's been used by nefariously by people sort of that are a bit Anyway, he's a very interesting guy and he's he's very authentic. Um and he told the story. I heard him tell the story. He said said this guy came to me and very successful man. You know, head of head of a business that makes millions. Really doing very well. And he said he was unhappy because he had worked all the way through his son's childhood and he didn't he hadn't bonded with his son because he'd just been away at work. And he went he went to see Warren Farrell and he's a, you know, psychiatrist and whatever and he says he says, "Okay, what are you going to do?" He said, "Well, I'm going to I'm going to give up my job for 5 years and I'm going to be at home with my kid. I'm I'm [ __ ] it. I'm not doing any of that. I'm going to be with my kid for 5 years. Just be in that moment." And he did it. And he was very happy that he did it. It was John Lennon. And no matter how important you think your job is, you're not John Lennon. You know, I'm sure he could have done great things in those 5 years, but you think, "Oh my god, I'm so glad he did that." I'm so glad cuz what incredible artist he was. He'd given us so much. And that he had those years for himself. And that's for him. I mean I I imagine his kid imagine Sean Lennon's very glad he did that. But he got that time. And I imagine he didn't regret it. And his life was cut short tragically. And you think it's even more powerful when you consider that. That he he didn't put it off. He didn't go well I'll do that. I'll do I'll get to I'll get to a million subscribers and then I'll do that. I'll sell a few more records and then one more tour and then I'll spend time with the family. He did it. Isn't that beautiful? There's a lot of emotion in your face when you tell that story. Beautiful story, isn't it? I mean I could when you think about it you go that's kind of that's life, isn't it? And the and mortality I think is something we don't think about enough. I love that the Muslim phrase for death, the certainty. You know we're we're in this brief shaft of light between two oceans of darkness. Everyone always thinks about the tail end, right? Everyone thinks about what happens after you die. Mark Twain had this great quote, you know, we we he said he said I wasn't alive for billions of years before my birth. And it didn't inconvenience me in the least. But this brief shaft of light's kind of magnificent, isn't it? I think so. I think it can be. This idea of um you know, depression is essentially thinking about yourself too much. You last time we spoke on the podcast you talked about I would say yeah, sorry that that feels to me maybe a little bit too harsh. Because I think people suffer with depression and that's a it's a disease. And it's incredibly serious and we think of suicide as being something that stands alone. It's not it's a symptom of a disease called depression, right? So it's the it's the permanent solution to a temporary problem. You don't want to feel this way anymore. But actually, you don't want to feel nothing anymore. Uh you'd like to feel better. So, it's that thing of like I don't we talk about it enough, but I think that thing of you know, thinking about yourself all the time, I think you just leads to a can lead to a a melancholy a sadness. I think depression is maybe a slightly separate thing. Not to nitpick, but it feels like it feels like that's a disease. Yeah. And there's also a lot of sadness in the world. And you're lucky if you're sad. Because if you're if you're sad, it's circumstantial. And you can do something about it. You know, are you depressed because you have serotonin imbalance in your head and it's a heritable trait? Or are you sad because your life hasn't worked out the way you want it to work out? Well, if that's the case, the latter, you're in luck cuz you can change that. It does feel like there's a bit of a crisis going on within young men at the moment. And I think your new show on Netflix shines a light on many of the difficulties that young men are facing. I I was really excited to talk to you about this particular topic cuz I've been trying to arrive at a position myself on why so many young men appear to be lost and suicidality has increased and there's you know, these new masculine influences or masculine influencers that are really rounding up this cohort of young men. Who who are you talking about? Andrew Tate? Andrew Tates of the world. Tate is interesting, isn't he? Cuz who made the I think John Mulaney made the observation Trump is a poor person's idea of what a rich person looks like. Yeah, I've got gold taps. And I think so Andrew Tate is like a 14-year-old boy's idea of what masculinity might look like. Like it's really it's it's And And And of course, nature abhors a vacuum. And there's a real vacuum for elders. Like we now, we don't learn how to shave from our fathers. It's a YouTube video. And so, you lose something in that in that bonding. So, And there's a big bit in the new show where I give a young guy, an audience member, a pretty tough time. Like we have the talk and I give them advice on how to uh be with a woman. And it's I'm not wrong about anything. It's really funny and it's really rude. But I'm not wrong about stuff. It's like it's about consent and it's it's I think it's really it's really good cuz it's I've sugared the pill of the message because people don't want to talk about it. People go, "It's obvious what consent is." Yeah, not to 17-year-old boys or girls. It's like actually what what does that look like and how should that be? So, it's uh yeah, it's a it's a really fun routine. It's really fun routine to perform and to write. What is it to be a man these days cuz it's quite confusing in time even the conversation around like chivalry and understanding, you know talk about toxic masculinity and easy fix. Be a gentleman. Be a mensch. That's it. That's it. It's done. Be a gentleman. Be a mensch. Uh you know, a gentleman is never rude by accident. It's Christopher Hitchens' line. Great. I I I don't know. I mean, my thing about young men today, if I was going to give young men advice, it would be get the right drugs and the real thing. Right? In real life. Live in real life, right? So, why young men are obsessed by video games, right? Obsessed. They're spending hours and hours and hours online playing video games. Why? Well, that's a proxy for career. Right? Video games, you think about the levels of video games and what people do on video games. It's that's a proxy. That's like a It's a It's a substitute for the career that they're not having. And then they spend a lot of time, uh you know, fapping to to Pornhub or YouPorn or whatever. And that's a proxy for sex. And my thing would be George Orwell wasn't right. Our power won't be taken away from us by some authoritarian master. We're going to give it away for cheap dopamine. And the cheap dopamine of video games and online porn and living online is is is getting in the way of real life. So, it's risk, right? That's that's what we're not allowing young people to do because we're we're saying to young people, "You can't take risks in real life. We're we're helicopter parenting. We're not giving them the freedom." How much freedom should you give a kid? As much as they can cope with, right? 14-year-olds used to be babysitters. They now need babysitters. That's not good, right? So, you should allow them more freedom in in the real world because otherwise, the only place they get freedom is online. No freedom in the real world. You're not allowed to go to the park and hang out, but you're allowed to do whatever you want online. Well, that's a that feels like a very bad social experiment. That feels like a bad idea. Yeah, it feels like we've inverted um Ma- You know Maslow's this pyramid pyramid of hierarchy of needs and you go, "Well, food and shelter and warmth and to do all the We've got all the bottom stuff worked out in our society, right? We we kind of can't see it. We're not grateful for that because we can't see The hot shower. The hot shower. We can't see the third world and we can't see the people in the past having a tougher time than us. So, we take it for granted. But, we've worked out that stuff. They hadn't worked that stuff out 200 years ago. But, they had the top of the pyramid sorted. Everyone knew who they were. They had their identity and they knew what their purpose was. Everyone knew who they were, what they were about, and they were connected to to the others in the in the group. And now we're kind of free-floating individuals. We kind of worship the individual as if as if we can survive as individuals. I always think of that thing of like there's no such thing as a baby. There's a baby and a mother. There's a baby and a father. Baby and an auntie. But, there's no such thing as a baby because a baby on its own isn't anything. It's dead. It's you It needs taking care of. We're all still babies. We all need the connections. You you yourself Yeah, sure there's there's a lot of yourself that's that's within you, but a lot of it is out in the world. It's connected to other people, and it kind of it mediates who you think you are. And that's, you know, that's that's slightly missing from society where you kind of live online and you're kind of a self-authored thing. You're just on on the computer on the screen, and you're not connected, and you're not taking risks. Taking risks is really important. Is this in part due to the rise in atheism and agnosticism? I think we we both, me and you, lost our sort of religious faith around the same age. Mhm. I think sort of early Early mid mid 20s. I think it's a weird thing where you go You can lose your I I certainly don't believe in the stories. There's two types of fools, right? There's people that take religion literally, and there's people that think it has no value. Okay? Both both idiots for different reasons. Like it works as a thing, religion. I quite I miss it because the reason the ceremony works isn't because God's pleased, it's because the people came together. And so I think we look for things that that are um proxies for religion. And sometimes that's Good. football. It could be environmentalism. You know, because you go, "Well, I I need something. I need purpose in my life. I need to feel like I'm I'm adding value, and what a great cause. I'm going to save the planet." It's a big thing to think about. So it's got a religiosity to it. But I don't think that's the you know, I don't think that's necessarily the answer. You know, some people do it with politics. They think politics is going to is going to be heaven. They're going to They're going to come up with some perfect system. I think you're putting too much pressure on politics. First time I've ever said this, actually, but when you just said I I think I miss religion, I think I miss religion. It's nice, wasn't it? It was. It's a lovely thought when you lose someone that you love very much. It's a lovely thought. I mean, heaven is just it's a lovely thought. And I think in a way in our culture fame and fortune has replaced heaven. It's the land of milk and honey and where you can feel like you're everything's okay. Everything's taken care of. And it is good. But it's it's not it's not heaven. I don't believe in an afterlife. I believe in a next life. So you don't think anything happens after you die, but I think you can have a next life. A very different life. So it's interesting you're at this point of your your life when you're thinking about well I might we might start a family. It's a whole other life. It's a whole other you'll hardly recognize yourself. You and your partner will be saying what did we do? What did we do all day? Now we're not at Peppa Pig World or wherever you find yourselves. It's really just struck me that I do kind of miss religion, but it feels like when I lost my religion I put a backpack on a backpack full of weights on and I think that's what the responsibility and individualism is. I mean for me the the loss of religion was a rush of blood to the head. It was like oh I I this is my life and I need to make good on this and I need to live it. The tragedy is most people don't have that kind of they don't get to kind of follow their their their dream. When you were 28 years old your mother died who had a you know a profound influence on you for many reasons but also is very much the inspiration or at least the singular biggest causal factor of your career. When I read through your story even more recently you've undergone quite a lot of grief even the loss of your dog I believe which had a pretty large impact on you. I think grief is cumulative. So every time you lose someone or something and actually losing a pet can be it's a weird thing cuz people lose pets and it's like I don't know the other people in the office can be a bit okay. Oh well, what we doing for lunch? It's like it can be a really affecting thing because it's not just everyone you've lost and you think about mortality but you think about your own mortality And you think about, you know, you kind of think about it it takes you to a very melancholy place of like, at some point you're going to say goodbye. And I guess you think about those things of going, what are the, you know, in life as we were talking about the the the great you can have great a great resume, great CV with loads of stuff on it. But what are people going to say at your eulogy? That's the important thing. That's the stuff that really matters. And it's a very different It's again, it's the it's the it's a hidden metric of what people going to say at your your funeral. What are What are people going to say when you when you pass? Uh I don't know. I think grief's it's a it's very interesting. It's very It is that thing of it, you know, kind of comes in waves and, you know, I don't think about it for a long time and then it and then it hits you. How have you dealt with grief in your life? I mean, I I I think when my uh I don't know. I think I think I'm slightly guilty of, you know, suppressing it a little bit. I think when uh I think when Sean Lock died, I was very uh I was very upset by it. And you just go to work. You just kind of go, well, I'll I'll put myself in this joyful place of laughter and maybe not have to think about it as much. But it's a Yeah, it's you know, like they're gone forever and there was something really amazing about when Sean died because people shared so much online. So, you had these clips of like I remember the day I remember being at home and and getting the news and laughing and crying kind of real kind of um cognitive dissonance of like feeling really upset. And then they played just all the funniest clips of Sean. Like people just sending me clips, clips, clips. And he was just so funny. And that joy is kind of there. It's It's It's really lovely. It's a really like for all of social media's ills on that day, my god, it made a difference. What did it make you realize about both Shawn and life when he passed? I I don't know whether there's any great revelation in it. I think it's that thing of just, you know, enjoy it you know, enjoy your time. Enjoy the Enjoy this because it's fleeting. I mean, all too fleeting for for Shawn who's very young. Uh But it's you know, I think that that thing of you know, family and and you know, spending time with the people that you love and and doing what you love. I think prioritizing that. It's If you want to meet someone high agency, meet someone that's got 6 months to live. I'd say their tolerance for [ __ ] is is about as low as it gets. I think living your life like that is not a bad idea. It really shows you what your priorities would be. Someone said you had 6 months to live, what would you do? That's how what you should be doing anyway. Yeah, that's really what I'm what I'm getting at is there's something that facing our own mortality teaches us. Um but unfortunately, we have to we often learn that when we we haven't got a lot of time to implement it and sometimes when we when someone close to us passes away, we can vicariously learn that message about our own mortality and what really what our priorities should be and really how we should be living our life and really what mattered the most. And I imagine losing someone that was was as close to you as Shawn was sends you some kind of message about priorities and life and gratitude and all these things we talked about. Yeah. I think it's Yeah, I think gra- gratitude's a big part of it as well. That idea of kind of going, "Wow, that was That was pretty special." You You were so so I might grab I might grab another coffee. Can I grab the rest of my coffee? Yeah. Yeah. Is that all right? Am I allowed? Yeah. He said breaking with the format. I might shuffle my notes as well. I might shuffle my notes. This is a business podcast or at least that's how it started. And have you have you listened back? Cuz I don't think it is. No, I'll be honest with you, it's it's not. This is But business is life. You know what I mean? And they're the same thing. The same communication, mental health, striving, progress, people, relationships. It's all business at the end of the day. I mean, you are I mean I mean I know it's still called Diary of a CEO, but I don't think you've talked about business on this for like 3 years. And even then it was like a passing. So, when you started your business, how did that make you feel? This isn't You're an old hippie is what you are. You know, this is a great podcast, but this is a storytelling podcast. So many of So many entrepreneurs are old hippies. I think of Steve Jobs, he was an old hippie. You know, and it's interesting. I think that thing of like what does business teach people? Like we're talking about like young men and and and kind of there's a bit of a crisis going on out there with young men. And and listen, young women are not having an easy time either. But it's that thing of like the the suicide rate whatever is horrific with young men. And you go, "Well, what's going on?" And it's agency. I don't think we're giving young people enough agency. So they don't feel like they have they have control. And really I think the thing of like serial entrepreneurs. Like no one ever seems to hit on their first company. It's the second and third and fourth and but they just keep going. They go, "Well, I'm never going to work for anyone. I'm going to do it myself." That's kind of I don't think we're teaching enough of that. It's we think it's like teaching someone to be a self-starter is kind of a contradiction in terms. But it's it it kind of works, right? There's I think we're teaching the wrong things. I've got a theory. I think I'm going to start teaching comedy. I I Okay, so comedy is very new. It really you could trace its roots back to George Carlin and Richard Pryor in the early 70s as like one guy on stage in a big theater and he's selling tickets and people are just seeing him, right? You can trace it back to the dawn of time, but really the modern stand-up early 70s is a good good starting point. Right? So it's a very new medium compared to music and film, right? It's very new. So I sort of view George Carlin and Richard Pryor as the John the Baptist, right? And and Jesus isn't here yet. And it's this new evolving medium and unlike music we don't have a language yet. So we need a language of like, okay, what are the joke types and how could you how do you how do you write that down? How do you configure it? There's too much magical thinking around stand-up comedy. You know that idea that oh I I I just I just came up with it. It's just yeah, I just but actually learning how jokes work and systematizing and analyzing them, I think really helps. So I've been working on a book with Amanda Baker who helped me on my first book. We've been working on a thing together for the last couple of years trying to teach comedy and I think I think there's a real benefit to it cuz if you think about music in schools, right? We'd all argue learning music's great, right? It's a great idea teach a kid the piano grade three, they learn something about music and they'll appreciate music much more in life. I think comedy's much more relevant, right? What does comedy teach you, right? It teaches you you would you learn to kind of you find yourself and you find your voice and you learn to communicate your ideas and to order them and write them down and to communicate. It's very valuable. Like the the great tragedy of life is most people live and die and never hear their own voice. Everybody wants to be a better speaker, a better communicator. You know, it's funny cuz I sat with a guy called Julian Treasure who has I think a TED Talk on communication and speaking that did I don't know 30 40 million views and he said I also did a TED Talk on listening. [ __ ] no one listened to it. Everyone listened to the talk about being A BETTER SPEAKER. THAT'S THAT'S THAT'S THAT'S PRETTY FUNNY. UH THE UH YEAH, WELL now I could imagine that. You as a as a guy that's touring the world 300 days a year, you must have really been able to break down the science of communication and being a good speaker that's transferable to business, public speaking, life, sales, etc. What would What advice would you give me on how to be a better speaker? Communicator. All right, okay. 92 beats a minute. What's that mean? Speak at 92 beats a minute. That's There you go. I mean, there's kind of a science behind it and I've looked into it, but most great public speakers sort of speak in a rhythm. Well, it doesn't matter how fast they're speaking, but they're kind of hitting 92 beats a minute. So, I tend to listen to a playlist of songs that are all 92 beats a minute before going on stage. I know that sounds like madness. Uh you know, and it's it maybe it is, but I think there's something about that rhythm that just the audience that kind of um the proximal speed of cognition, that idea everyone kind of gets into that rhythm. And when you look at the great public speakers, they all seem to be hitting that that rhythm of 92 beats a minute. Do you think Trump's a good public speaker? He's an excellent public speaker. Of course. I don't know why people would have a problem admitting that. It's I mean, he's kind of and he's freestyling. It's like There's nothing planned. This is This is insane. Um Yeah, it's uh Cuz he really leads into sort of exaggerated storytelling and emotion much more than facts and figures than most politicians. I mean, it's a it's You know, there's a theory that this is all Gwen Stefani's fault. What do you mean? Okay, so Donald Trump was present was hosting The Apprentice. Uh and Gwen Stefani was on uh America's Got Talent or one of the singing shows. Maybe it was X Factor, anyway, one of those big singing shows. He found out she was getting paid more than him. And so, he wanted to build his relevance, right? So, he decided, well, I know, I'll run for president. I'll become incredibly relevant for like 3 months. He's a contender, he's whatever, and then you drop out of the race, no problem at all. So, he hires all those people in Trump Plaza, and he comes down the gold escalator, and he does the speech, and great, okay? Nothing. He then goes, and there's footage of this, he then goes and does the first Make America Great Again rally. And they've got footage of him walking up the steps, and he sees like 10,000 people all chanting. And there's the realization, oh, oh, this could be real. It's kind of a yeah. I think that's I think that's actually Gwen Stefani did it. Get her. I was The reason I was I was talking about business is because Cuz this is not about CEO. It's about a podcast about business. No, no, what it is is because you taught me last time sort of indirectly about something that I've now developed and I called myself no man's land, which is that moment when you make a decision to leave the comfort and security of your identity, your professional you know, endeavor, what it whatever it is. You you were working in marketing, and then like I always reference how it objectively insane it was for you to leave that and go and become a comedian. And I've I've dubbed that no man's land. That sort of 6 to 12 months of looking a bit stupid, of losing your friends, losing you know, I refer to these five buckets in life. You have your knowledge, skills, your network, your resources, and your reputation. And when you go into no man's land, you fill the first two buckets of your knowledge and skills, but you empty the last three. You lose your network, you lose your resources often, you lose your reputation, whatever that was at the time, but you fill these first two buckets. You made that for whatever reason decision to leave a normal life and go and tell jokes for no money. Some people, for some reason, and I've seen consistently on this podcast, like Derren Brown, who was had a great professional life ahead of him, and decided to go do card tricks on tables in Bristols for 10 years. I What what is it about these people that's making them I think they've had the realization, right? They've They've had the Confucius moment. Every man has two lives, and his second begins when he realizes he only has one. And the good is the enemy of the best. Cuz you know when people are on podcasts like this, that moment looks like bravery. But I I wonder if to you in when you quit your sort of marketing job No, there's plenty of 4:00 in the morning, "What have I done? This seems This seems crazy." Especially when you really kind of when you broke it cuz when you leave as well, you don't have like an hour of great stuff of like that you've written. You've got like 20 minutes of stuff that you kind of look back and go, "It's kind of joke-shaped. There's something there." But really, it's it's insane. Yeah, but I think that's great. I think failure is one of the great gifts of stand-up comedy. You You sort of make friends with failure as a stand-up because you write so many things that don't work. You write so many jokes that you think are just going to be great, and then you tell them and the audience goes, "No, that isn't anything." Guess again. And that idea of going Yeah, failure Failure is kind of frowned upon in our society. We don't let kids fail. We don't let kids lose at sports. We don't let You know, that It It's It's really silly because we're sort of teaching them if you If everyone's a winner, then you don't learn how to lose. And to learn how to lose gracefully is That's a great skill to have, isn't it? And And you kind of you know, it it checks your ego and you you some Not everything in life is going to work out for you. And it's Okay, so you you test it. And it It's a good test of how much you want something. You go and have you have a terrible gig and you go, "Well, I'm never doing that again." Or you have a terrible gig and go, "Well, you know, you you lose or you learn." You develop your relationship with no. I've Someone said this to me the other day and it really stuck with me that you need you know, I worked in telesales for a couple of years and it really helped me develop my relationship with the answer no. And so now in life I've I think I have a much healthier relationship with the word no because for me in cool in it's that the law of averages where in the call center all it meant was that I was one step closer to getting the yes. So I'd get you know, you get loads of no's in a row and you sit there and go, "Fuck no, this next guy's going to buy these [ __ ] double glazing." And I think I don't 16 years old I developed that relationship with no which meant in my head that it it was getting me closer to a a positive outcome. Lots of kids don't have that these these days cuz we shield them from no. No is you know, seen as a self-esteem hit. For me it was building some kind of muscle in me. I don't know but self-esteem on its own like confidence without confidence is madness. It's madness. You you have to give the world irrefutable proof you are who you say you are, right? So you release a comedy special whatever you go, "Yeah, that's me. That's what I do. The new tour, that's me. That's what I do." It's it's irrefutable evidence, right? I am who I say I am. And I think that idea of going taking away the the negatives, you can't just I mean I mean you can but then I think we're I think it's very cruel. I think we're being kind on the wrong time scale to people. If you're kind, you want to be kind to your kids, right? I want to be kind to my kids. What do my kids want? Well, they want McDonald's and they want ice cream and they want to watch TV and play video games. Well, okay, downstream are some fat stupid kids. Who wants fat stupid kids? No one. So you have to be kind to their potential, to who they're going to be, right? And that involves you know, broccoli and homework. And they're boring, going on a walk. Do some exercise. Nah. Okay, but but you're being kind later. And I think that it's very easy to see that when you're a parent. Uh and it's hard to see that with an 18-year-old that's maybe struggling. It ties to your point about being kind to you in 24 hours, I guess. It's a similar thing, right? Like like seeing the potential in in someone. Seeing the potential in yourself, in a child, in anyone. But that in yourself. That's kind of the thing of going, "Well, you could be incredible in 20 years' time." Cuz really that thing of like it's it's the um I suppose what's the what's the opposite of gratitude? It's resentment. And who had the great line? Nietzsche had the great line on resentment. He said, "If you think someone's ruined your life, you're right. It's you." Like that's a mic drop, isn't it? That's such a great line. And you know, gratitude is the cure for that. There's a There's a great definition of entitlement. Uh which is where you are now and where you want to be. If you want to do something about it, that's ambition. Where you are now, where you want to be, if you think that's someone else's problem, that's entitlement. And I think if we're honest, there's always a little bit of that going on. Like there's a lot of people in my industry that would you know, their their career isn't where they think it should be. And ah, I need to get a new agent. Really? You know, that might be the problem. I remember there's a great story of uh I wasn't there, but uh David Tell is sort of the comedians' comedian. Is a works out in New York late night. Uh he's I mean, really one of the greats. One of the one of the most influential voices in comedy. And these guys backstage were like moaning about their management. And he's kind of overhearing this conversation. It's going on for far too long. And he just he went "Ooh, be funnier." Often very simple. That stoic thing of going, what's the thing you're meant to be doing? Just do that. I'm not sure I approve of portfolio sort of uh working. The idea of having lots of different things that you do. Because really you're going to do comedy part-time? What are you going to do half comedy and half novel writing? Oh, so you're going to compete? I'm doing 100% of the time, and you think you can compete 50% of the time. All the best. I see how you do. You're never going to get to the top of the pyramid doing it 50% of the time, right? Yeah. And there'll probably be a lot of resentment and as you say, entitlement. Be you know, be a be a specialist. It's one of the favorite parts of my previous conversation that I had with you where you where you talk about the world doesn't need more people that are [ __ ] in physics. And it really helped me understand a lot of things. I also then shortly after met Richard Branson in New York, and he's the most you know, incredible delegator. He's not trying to get good at things that he's not good at. He's built his whole business and life on realizing what he's [ __ ] at and just handing that over to other people. Whereas so many people are fighting to polish something that they're not so good at. Yeah. I think knowing who you are is quite important for that, isn't it? It's like being honest about it. Like, well, I'm not good at that, but I can do this. It's hard to know who you are, though. Clouded by who you want to be. Yeah, it's well, yeah, it's it's also that thing of uh it takes a bit of time. I'm not sure whether we're not kind of rushing people on that a little bit. I'm I I would so often think of like the listeners to this show, right? It's a like so the certainly the younger ones have kind of going, well, do I need to know now who I am and what I want to do? Exactly. It's like, no, you could you know, try a few different things if you like. Cuz I think that thing when you get into the stream that you're meant to be in, it just feels very easy. It's like you're not you're not you know swimming against the tide. It just feels like it's carrying you along. I love what I do now, but I often question whether I should go be like a DJ or do musical theater or something. It What's that? Do What? I can answer that question for you. That's a bit of luck. No. No, YOU [ __ ] SHOULDN'T. WHAT WHAT? You think you maybe should do musical theater? What? Are you having a panic attack? What? What are you talking about? What would make you think that? I I bought some DJ equipment and I spent about a year learning and I thought I [ __ ] love doing this. Great, YOU'VE GOT A HOBBY. YOU'VE GOT A HOBBY. NOT EVERYTHING'S A BUSINESS. I KNOW IT'S Diary of a CEO and everything you do you think, "Oh, maybe we can make a few quid out of this." No, stop it. What are you talking about? You know who's You know who's being a DJ right now? There's someone right now in their bedroom, they've been there for 12 hours already today and they're just loving it and they're putting everything into it. They're putting the work you put into the podcast into DJing. Let them have that. It's nice to have stuff where you're in a flow state in life. And for some people that's work and for some people that's a hobby. And And some Some of us are very lucky and we get to do it in a few different things. So, I play a little bit of tennis. I don't think I'm going to get the wild card at Wimbledon this year. There, I've given up on that. It's just a hobby. And listen, I mean you might be the next Calvin Harris. I might be steering you in the wrong direction. You might be incredible, but stop it. Stop it. Just do this. This is great. This is enough. This is lovely. You're talking to the most interesting people, I mean, present company accepted, but you you know, you speak to all these different people from different worlds and it's it's it this is enough, right? How do you know if it isn't enough? Well, I I want to talk to you about quitting cuz there's going to be a cohort of people that listen to them. I meet them. I met a lot of them last night at a show I was doing and they are working in finance and they'll tell me their job, then they'll show me their hobby on their phone and their face lights up when they show me their I don't know, their papier-mache business or whatever it is on their phone. great line? It's the uh you know, if you if you want to find out what you should do in life, what do you think about all the time? That's your God. What working in the city with a shirt and tie on at JP Morgan or something? No, but no one's thinking about that all the time. You know, so what what do you What do you think about all the time? What do you What are you engaged in all the time? Like if it's if it's football, if you're absolutely obsessed by football, well, something in that industry is going to be the job for you because you're obsessed by that and that's what you think about all the time. So, the um the idea of quitting Quitting is quite interesting because all the things that you won't do. Like if you're going to have an interesting life, you can't have all the other interesting lives you would have had, right? So, there's all the counterfactuals of the different sliding doors that you could have done. Like, well, you know, if you're going to be an Olympian, you're going to have to give up an awful lot of stuff. Like, you're not really going to have a childhood in the traditional sense, but you're going to be an Olympian. Great. And if you're if you're going to be an academic, then you're probably not going to be have to go to as many parties. Okay, well, that's you know, there's there's no solutions, only trade-offs. You know, Thomas Sowell, isn't it? You have to make a lot of trade-offs because not only you know, are you on the road 300 days a year, but you have so much opportunity. There's so many things being offered to you to do movies. Why don't you try and be an actor or why don't you write five more books or why don't you do I don't know, a comic comical musical or whatever it might be. Why don't you become a DJ? DJ and musical theater, those are my two prime loves. Um yeah, I mean, there's there's a few There's not as many as you would think. I don't No one's banging down my door saying, "Do you want to be in a movie?" Um and I don't know if I'd be I don't know if I'd be great at that. I don't know. I I mean, listen, I like getting out of my comfort zone and, you know, opportunities come along and sometimes, you know, you get offered a TV show that you go, "Oh, I'll give it a go. Why not?" Um I think sticking to what you do, that stoic thing has really paid dividends. That really has paid off. And I think you have to listen to that. You know, and I see other comics, you know, mentioning no names, there's some great stand-up comics that were like absolutely amazing and they're doing five other things now and they've lost a yard of pace. And for me, that feels crazy. Like you've cuz I'm looking at it going, you've got the best job in the world. Why are you allowing yourself to be distracted? Because ultimately, it's going to be hard work. You know, ultimately, I mean, people can see it, I suppose, that the, you know, something costs more, like a a Ferrari costs a lot of money cuz a lot of work goes into it, right? There's a lot of work goes into that thing. That's a, you know, the beautiful handmade a Louis Vuitton thing is it's going to be expensive because a lot of work went into it. People understand that. I sort of feel the same about shows. You go see a show and you go, "Wow, that really took some time." Every single line in that is brilliant. He's not wasting any time. It's no There's no fat. It's just it's a lot of work. When people look at you and they look at successful individuals, they think, "Oh, they just must be innately motivated in some way that I'm not." Why do you think that's it's slightly unfair that we think about luck in a very fixed way, right? So, a Barbie and Oppenheimer are great to talk about this, right? So, people see Margot Robbie and they go, "Well, she's just lucky, right? She was born she's that beautiful, right?" She's so beautiful people can't see how good an actress she is, right? People just can't cuz she's just like sort of this stunning thing. And and you look Oppenheimer, right? No one thinks, "Oh, he's so lucky born with an IQ of 170." A- and born with a work ethic. Because a work ethic is heritable, right? So, he was born incredibly clever and an incredible work ethic, right? And no one thinks of him as being lucky, but they think of her as being lucky. Weird thing, right? That's odd. In the our perception of of luck and how much is how much is your factory settings. You know that this it's always I talked to you about this before, but it's always like some some [ __ ] If someone's very successful, you either go wow, incredible talent, or oh, he worked so hard. No. Always both together. And or like you said earlier, maybe a bit pathological in some way, which I don't know whether you put Again, again, you put the pathological, the work ethic, the the striving, a lot of that is heritable. You know, so what are you what are you going to do? I think when you when you see luck in that way, I think you become much more forgiving. Of okay. It's quite crazy this idea of luck. I've I've been thinking a lot about it lately. I was reading some stories about even the asteroid hitting earth if it had been a minute later than the dinosaurs would still be here and the story of Nagasaki and Hiroshima being bombed because one guy went to Kyoto 20 years earlier and he really liked it, so he told President Truman not to bomb it. And if he hadn't been on holiday there with his wife, then Kyoto would have been hit with by the nuclear bomb and then they went over Kokura, I think a city in Japan and that had a cloud, so they so [ __ ] it, we'll go bomb Hiroshima and 100,000 people over there lost their lives. And every generation that would have come lost You think these tiny little things that are going on in the world at all times kind of like this this idea of the butterfly effect are shaping our world and it can make you feel a little bit powerless in some way because if I'm the you know, if if someone's holiday can be the difference between me being alive or dead, Yeah. it's uh you know, That's very difficult to you know, we we always you know, think about the first order effects of what we do, not the second and third order effects. Yeah. So, yeah, I mean, that's a that's a lot to that's a lot to take in. With this idea of luck in mind, personal responsibility seems to sit on the other side of the conversation of luck, which is how much can I control where I'm going in my life? How much control do I have? How much should I show up and [ __ ] fight for positive outcomes? Yeah, well, that's agency. You you should you should strive to have the locus of control within yourself. Like, so there's there's character and there's reputation. And reputation's what the world thinks of you, and character's what you know about yourself. And your self-esteem should be largely based on your character, and a little bit based on reputation. Because reputation's you could you could take a hit every now and then. You get canceled once in a while. Well, once every 18 months. Why, hang on, the the Netflix special drops today, so I imagine I'm being canceled right now somewhere. How have you come to deal with that? Cuz as a comedian, you guys get it worse than anybody. I don't know if we get it worse than anyone. I think we're sort of the canary in the mine. It's It's I don't know. I sort of view it as respectability is a prison, and the gates are open, and people are desperate to be inside. Right? I'm not a respectable guy. I tell very edgy, out-there jokes. And jokes are like magnets. They attract some people. I've got a big following. I've got a lot of people who watch my shows, and and they really enjoy it. And like magnets, they the jokes attract people, and they repel people. Some people are repelled by my jokes, and they think they're terrible. I'm not for everyone. I think you have to accept that. And, you know, it's it's when it comes out on Netflix, when it drops, that's when it kind of the pathogen escapes the lab. Because people that didn't pay to see this are suddenly exposed to it. Someone puts a clip somewhere and goes, "This is ban this filth." Okay. I mean, banning stuff is like I sort of view cancel culture as the new And this isn't saying criticism isn't valid. You can criticize ideas, but you cancel people. And I think the cancel culture thing I think it's the new book burning. It's no different the people that burned The Beatles records in the '60s. How do they feel now? You feel like a dummy? I bet they feel like dummies. It's like and and obviously the basket of things that are acceptable and unacceptable change and ebb and flow through time. But really it's it's uh you know, I'm I'm a creature of my time. I'm going to I'm going to tell these jokes and if I get big laughs then then great. Have you always had this perspective or is there something that's developed like a muscle over time? No, I think I think there's um I think that adversity of it I've been canceled quite a few times and there's I try and see the positives in life, right? So adversity is a filter and you find out who your friends are and who stands by you and who's you know, who's ride or die. Great. It turns out I got loads of great friends. And a couple of people fell by the wayside. And great. I don't have to waste any time on them. Because everyone loves you when you're throwing a party. But in the tough times, you're a bit more difficult to love. And if people stand by you then, then they're friends. That's That's That's what it is. You know, friendship's such an important thing. It's something that we don't really think about. We think about a lot about our partners in life and our children and that side of family. Friendship for me is such an important thing. It's such a huge part of my life. And really when you think about it, why why do why is comedy having this moment? Well, because comedians it's a little bit like a friendship, right? There's there's a there's no filter. And really your best friend is the person you have the least filter with. Your deepest, darkest, you share, you're open. And a colleague, you know, quite a lot of filter. And someone you meet at the bus stop tons of filter, right? Comics, currently there's no there's no filter. You see Chappelle on stage, he's it's him. Great. You see Chris Rock on stage, that's him. Like you feel connected. Lovely. There's really something in that of as you're saying there that there's so little authenticity and vulnerability and openness in the world that when we encounter it we feel so connected to it cuz it caters to the demand that we have that's not being met with supply. There's so much supply of like filter, girl on holiday in Hawaii drinking cocktail. But it But in our sort of private and our secret lives there's very little um reflection of what we think about in our private and secret lives in the world. So when we hear someone talking about their depression or their mental health we go, "Oh my god, that you know, I can resonate." Or Is this not why the podcast is so big? Why comedy is so big at the moment? Because the the gap between public and private discourse has never been wider and we both we're both living in that space. We go, "Yeah, have a have a real conversation with someone." Great. And the you know, the the canceling thing is is great, but really what happens? I mean, you could you can recalibrate it and just call it free publicity. Like people are talking about you. Well, great. Okay. There's this thing called the eraser test which one of my guests talked to me about before Merzbow doubt where he said, "If you could go back." And he asked I think he asked or there was a study done where they asked people if they could go back in time and erase their most difficult moment, would you press the button and erase it?" And like nine These are like really traumatic events. About 95% of people said they wouldn't. When you think about your most traumatic moments of sort of being canceled or something like that. The best best advice I got um actually last time I got canceled I found a friend of mine who's been canceled. And he said, "You only got to You only got to answer one question. Who's Jimmy Carr?" And I I'm a a a Anyone? No, who's Jimmy Carr? Well, I'm edgy stand-up comedian. Okay. Fine, then. You haven't got a problem. It's great. And then another friend of mine just went, "Well, you need to just right-size this." And I went, "What? What's And you went, "You've got to right-size it." She said, "What's happened here? You told a joke and some people didn't like it." Yeah, that's what happened. I Didn't Didn't seem like that big a deal when you put it like that. And yet in the moment sometimes it feels, you know, catastrophic. But those hard times, you know, you wouldn't erase the hard times because again, I would say, and it's a it's a You can't have an easy life and a great character. And what they're saying there by not erasing that moment is, "I'll keep my character, thanks." Anxiety. We talked about this last time. Anxiety is It's a very interesting thing. I mean, my kind of original thought on anxiety was the it's the flip side of creativity. So, you have a mind that is whirring, and that's given me every gift I've ever received, right? The ability to write jokes and to to be funny, whatever, is from that I can't turn it off mind. And sometimes at 4:00 in the morning when you got nothing to do, that mind is still whirring, so you get involved in counterfactuals. You start to think of all the other things that could have happened that haven't happened in life. And, you know, people are not worried about falling off a cliff. They're worried about jumping. It's the the the madness within all of us of like, "Well, what the what could happen?" And the worst-case scenario and these terrible things, and you allow that to to get ahead of you. I think the cure for it for me at the moment uh how I'm managing my anxiety is giving myself more to do. Because I think anxiety, you're trying to solve a problem in the future now, and you can't. Cuz the There's no problem in the now. The problem is in in the future. So, you you're you're kind of ahead there trying to trying to figure out something because you there's a demand for um for problem-solving in the moment, and you don't have a problem. Yeah, that I think of like people don't get depressed when they to the gym, right? If you're in the gym, you can't be anxious while you're working out because you have an immediate problem. I've got to lift this damn thing off my chest. You've got an immediate thing to deal with. You're in that moment, so it's hard to be anxious. Because you've got something to do right now. So, give yourself something to do right now if you're suffering with anxiety. And don't let your mind kind of drift into the future. It kind of I suppose it's quite sort of um Buddhist in a way. Is your anxiety triggered by anything? Or is it just kind of a noise in the background? I I don't think it is. I think you often I think I I think there's an illusion that when you feel anxiety, it's about this thing. I think actually you've just got a a level of anxiety and you will you know, so you if I've got nothing to worry about career-wise or show-wise or I'm not currently being canceled, you might worry about the environment or you worry about your kids or you worry about, you know, you'll worry about something else. So, I think you just it just it attaches onto whatever's front of mind and you logically go, "Oh, it's anxiety about this." It isn't. It's just anxiety. Do you think people know who you are? Truly. You know, I met with a CIA agent a couple of weeks ago and he said we have three lives. We have our our secret life. We have our private life and then we have our public life. Public life is, you know, the guy in the suit on camera. Your private life might be what your wife knows, but then maybe your secret life is who you are when there's like absolutely nobody there in your mind and in your own space. Do you think people know who you are? I think so. I think actually weirdly um this podcast is quite important in that. You know, going on this, going on Joe Rogan, going on Modern Wisdom and talking as myself is very exposing. Uh and writing the book Before and After, which is kind of a um autobiography, but also a bit self-helpy, uh is very much authentically who I am. So, I think reading the book, listening to this, this is kind of what it would be like if we knew each other, if we were having lunch. You know, for the listeners, it's like this is yeah, it's kind of what I'm like. And then I've got an ability to be funny on stage, which is another side of me. So, I think that's like it's not it's not inauthentic what I do on stage, it's just like that's who I am in front of 3,000 people that have all paid £30 to be entertained. Here we go. What's the side of you that your wife might know, but we don't? Well, this This. This. This is yeah, you know, you you're slightly more um I think on this it's it's very much you take down the uh it's not like doing a TV show to publicize something. So, if you go on you know, Graham Norton, you're very much like, okay, well, I've got three anecdotes and I'll get them out and I'll try and get four laughs and then I'll try and snipe her in on the other guests and be funny. And it's a it's very performative. Whereas this is performative but in a slightly different way, where you're kind of going, well, this is kind of what I think about the world and this is this is what it's like inside my head. Mhm. And quite I don't know, I suppose when you step back from it, it's kind of okay, well, a lot of self-help, a lot of uh a lot of uh I guess therapy, a lot of yeah, that's that's what I'm like. Since we spoke last time, is there anything you thought then that you no longer believe? I'm interested I'm asking that question because My favorite question. What was the last thing you changed your mind about? Mhm. Um I think I've changed my mind about environmentalism a little bit. I think I'm I absolutely acknowledge the problem and I think the solution is just there. I think it's I think it's splitting the atom. I think we should all be I think nuclear is kind of the is the future. That's what we should be investing in. That's We've got an issue that we have a system that is full of politicians and we we haven't got statesmen. We need longer terms. Longer terms? We need longer terms because we need people to make decisions. Like everything's about um about rewards, right? So, what do we reward? It's on a 5-year cycle. So, no one's ever going to invest in nuclear because it's going to take 20 years to pay off. But, they should be rewarded for that. Somehow, we need to find a way to reward politicians for what they did 20 years ago. Because if we do that, it's there's a there's a better future, right? And I I don't know if Britain doing it makes any difference. Like, people often say, "Well, if Britain does it, it doesn't make any difference because well, China's not going to do it or India's not going to do it." You go, "Well, actually, if we did it if we did something radical and went all nuclear, it'd be an incredible example to set to the rest of the world." Here's what I do. Here's my You want to hear my pitch? All right, here's my political pitch, right? Nuclear submarines have been testing this for 50 years. They're perfectly safe, right? People can live in a nuclear sub next to the reactor. They're fine, right? So, we build one of those. There's no not in my backyard. We put it in everyone's backyard. There's a nuclear reactor like a submarine in every city. Bury it. Have a small power unit in every city and town in Britain, okay? And then, it's quite expensive. So, you pay your fuel bill and in 20 years' time, we don't worry about COP23. We we burn all the fossil fuels we want for 20 years and then in one day, we go totally green, right? No more fossil fuels. Well, a little bit for fertilizers and stuff, but no more essentially. And then, fuel over the next 10 years power becomes free. So, we say to businesses around the world, "Do you want to set up a business in Britain? It's quite expensive to employ people, but energy's free." Do you think we live in a world where energy will be a value in 20 years' time? Yeah, of course. Is it going to be the thing? Yes. So, you say to your Amazons and your Googles, "Do you want to set up the place here?" Yeah, great. If I ruled the world, that's what I would do. Trump's probably going to come back into power, isn't he? By the looks of things. Biden's not doesn't seem to be very compelling to people, according to some of the polls. I mean, a week is a long time in politics. Who knows who knows what will happen. I think America will be fine regardless. America is um geographically economically uh it's a net exporter of fuel and of food. It's got incredible neighbors in Canada and Mexico. It is it's going to have the most incredible 20 years regardless of who gets in. They're going to double their industrial base in the next 20 years because everything that was globalized is becoming more insular uh which isn't necessarily good for the world but very good for America. America can afford to have a terrible political system because it is so blessed. They're going to own much of the AI race as well. All the big AI companies seem to be based in America and that feel feels like that's going to really I'm not worried about AI. No? AI is a covers band. It's it's artificial intelligence. It's not artificial consciousness. Right? So, if you tell it to write a joke, it can spit back stuff that you've already written and reorder it slightly. Like, but nah. Don't worry about it. But, if you imagine aren't worried about the bootleg Beatles. But, if you imagine it at sort of even a 20% rate of improvement every year, it's only going to take and you know that compounds. It's only going to take us 5 or 10 years before there's a [ __ ] AI that can crack a joke really really [ __ ] well. Great. and an original joke. Mm, I don't know whether it's going to be original. I think there is something about I mean, uh you know, I don't know a genius is an over overused term, right? So, there's there's uh there's two types of genius, right? There's there's um there's innate actual genius. There's you know, Bach or Beethoven or whatever, you know, genius. And then there's um hyper-accelerated rationality. And it's kind of what, you know, people talk about comic genius and think everything That's what they're talking about. Hyper-accelerated rationality. And I think AI is a long way from either of them. Like, of coming up generating something that's genuinely original. No, it's a covers band. It can It It can It can go, well, that's the genre and I can do something that's a bit similar. But, there's something about human creativity that I don't think it's getting close to. And maybe I'm being naive, but I think it'll be an incredible thing for the world because I think new jobs will come along. This wasn't a job 10 years ago, right? Being a podcaster. You tell someone you're going to do do sort of a long radio show, but people but it's an individual thing. You'd have to explain it. You know, it things change and it's only when you sort of look back you go, oh, wow, that's interesting. The biggest TV channel in the world is YouTube and no one noticed. The BBC were battling with ITV about who's going to get the higher ratings on a Saturday night and YouTube stole their lunch cuz they weren't paying attention. Is that not AI? Well, it's the world it's the world progresses and things move on and it's always been fine. I think people worrying about AI, it really strikes me as the people going, well, these we've got to smash up these these cotton making machines because this is this is this can't happen. There'll be no new jobs. They'll just be different jobs. I read a book called The Innovator's Dilemma and it really changed my mind on a few things. They go back through history and they look at all of the big steps forward in innovation and they basically categorize two types of innovation. I'll call it the upward opportunity and the downward opportunity. So, if you're selling horses back in the 1880s, the upward opportunity is the thing that all your customers are asking for. It is the thing that you know how to do. It is the thing that you have your supply chain set up to deliver on, which is faster and better horses. You know, you can imagine the meeting that you're the CEO of a horse company. I come and I go, listen, boss, got an idea. They go, what is that? I go, faster horses. You go, people asking for it? I go, yeah. Do we know how to do it? Yeah. Um do you have a customer base? Yeah. Let's do that then. Then another A comes in and says, Jimmy, I've got an idea. Cars, are they better? No. You have to walk in front of it with a red red flag and it goes 10 miles an hour. Do we know how to do it? No. Is anyone asking for it? No one. None of our customers have asked for a horse." Yeah, that is the downward opportunity and throughout history, the incumbents always ignore the downward opportunity because their incentives, as you said, their incentives are set up to pursue what we call the sustaining innovation, the obvious thing in front of them. Become a better comedian or become a better podcaster, get another camera. The downward opportunity, I ask myself, what is the downward opportunity in podcasting? Listen, you should ask you should ask comedians. Comedians have got an interesting way of thinking. I think we're very similar to detectives because we think backwards. Most people think about what's next, right? Which is what you're talking about that is the what's next, what's the next thing, what's the next thing. And we go, well, this is the state of affairs, how did this happen? And it's the same as it's like being Sherlock Holmes. You go, well, how the how the hell did that you kind of you're reverse engineering a lot of the time. It's very interesting that. This is this may yet be a business podcast. I think I I honestly think with the right amount of work, if you really put yourself into this, I genuinely think you can occasionally talk about business. I try to. I try and weave it in where I can. Yeah. But that's interesting that the the podcast thing of going no one saw podcast coming. Nobody. And yet what's missing from our lives, right? What's what's missing? What's the nature abhors a vacuum. Well, people aren't having conversations. People are When you look around the world, all those people that live to 100, all of those zones, and people go, "Oh yeah, they eat loads of olive oil and fish. Maybe that's the answer." No, it isn't. They eat with other people. They have a conversation. They're part of a community. That's the difference. They've got something to live for. The olive oil isn't making any [ __ ] difference. The connection to other human beings is. What are you doing here? You're connecting to people. You're having a conversation. So, people are eavesdropping on a conversation, but in their heads, they're having a conversation. and they're with the stuff we're talking about they're relating to their lives. Great. Nobody was asking for this though. Nobody was saying do you know what I want? 3 hours of Jimmy Carr talking about life. No one was like demanding that in the like BBC You know someone is rolling their eyes as they listen to this. Yeah, and I'm turning off now. But in that industry they probably thought people want bigger TVs and thinner TVs. That's what they want. They want to watch the BBC on a thinner bigger television. So we're going to deliver it to them. Whereas the the down opportunity was in fact they wanted connection. They wanted it to be longer form. They didn't want loads of ads every 6 seconds inside of it. not the great sort of If you're listening to this and you're thinking right, what am I going to do? It's like it's not like someone has spotted the gap in the market. You could be the person. You know, and it's it's that thing of like do what you do authentically. Um I I always think like Joe Rogan's a really interesting example of that of someone that's entirely authentic. What does he talk about? Comedy and MMA and life and slightly kind of you know philosophy. Stuff that he's interested He's exactly the same guy he was 20 years in the comedy store 20 years ago in the comedy store back backstage chatting. He's exactly that guy. Totally authentic. And people people just Yeah, great. I'll listen to that all day. You're exactly who you are. I mean I love the idea that you think there's still a bit of you that thinks this is a business podcast. It's not. It's not you you have a thing where you love stories and you love chatting to people and you love learning. And that's what it is. This is just it's the this should be called the education of Steven Bartlett. Well, I The reason I think this is a business podcast is because of what I said. I think business is mental This is called the diary of a CEO, right? What would you find in the diary of a CEO? You wouldn't find [ __ ] forecasts and P&Ls, would you? You'd find problems with his wife and you'd find that he's having anxiety attacks and you'd find that he's doesn't know what the [ __ ] he's doing. So, the whole point of this was to go into the Diary of a CEO what the things you Just that's not business. That's the rest of his life. This is about life. I mean, I I love it. I absolutely love it. I'm not breaking your balls, but it's like it's it's it's it's great the way that it's kind of developed, I think. Yeah, it's been led by as you say curiosity. I get people all the time who say, "Steve, we want the [ __ ] CEOs back. We want to listen to the business people or whatever." And I just go, "You know, I can't do that for a decade." What I can do for a decade is follow my curiosity. Like I could do that for the next 30, 40 years. And at some point I'm going to care about Ozempic, and I cared about psychedelics, and so that's what I'm going to talk about. And if you don't like it, then there are three other million other options. Yeah, I think that thing about that's going with your gut is going to be the way to go. Because if you like the show and if you're having interesting conversations, I think the listener will will go with that. And if you try and give them what they wanted, I think again it's the it's the exactly that thing of going, "We need better, faster horses, not a car." And you're going, "Well, you need a car." Cuz whatever this is in 10 years time, it's going to be different, right? It's going to be it'll be something else. and I'll be thinking about a different set of problems, and I'll be speaking to parental psychologists about what [ __ ] to do with my kids and stuff. Yeah. Um but Rogan was the blue I have to say it, and I I think I've DM'd him it. I don't think he replied, but I just said to him one day that the blueprint he set about authenticity and following whatever it is you're interested in has helped me so much because there's more pressure to change when there's more people watching. And they can I've seen petitions, and I've seen little movements on LinkedIn trying to get me to have more of these kind of people on. The single biggest request I have on this podcast is to quote, "Interview normal people." that are at the start of their journey. That's the quote. That's what they say to me. Um and I go, "Well, if you'd interviewed Steven at 18, yeah. Not a lot to talk about. Um you know, so it'd really be them interviewing me, maybe. If that tends to what happens. He would be the student in that situation. Um but it's that's the most popular request I get. Is to go and interview, quote and quote, normal people. Yeah. So Yeah. Ignoring that, I mean, as you must have been able had to ignore the external pressure of changing or telling a certain type of joke or being a certain type of person. No, I think I think I think the audience though, for me, cuz of that immediate feedback loop, they tell me what they find funny. And that kind of leads you down a road of going, well, that's that's interesting. People want to hear this. I think the reason people are drawn to my comedy is partly because there's not a lot of censorship in our society. There's quite a lot of self-censorship. So people aren't speaking freely in the office or even at home. They're not saying what they really think. Have you noticed anything? Opinion polls don't seem as accurate as they once were. And that's because people don't feel like they don't vote in the same way as they as they as they express themselves in the world. So they come and see me live and there's no filter and this guy's saying whatever he wants. This guy doesn't seem to give a [ __ ] Very cathartic. If you're spending your days going, well, I know what the right thing to say is, so I'll say the right thing, you know. If you want to see who has power in a society, who can't you criticize? And making jokes and making light of all of that stuff is is powerful. Because it it it's about free speech. And it's about um the Overton window. You know that Overton window of what is and what isn't acceptable to speak about. You know. So there's an Overton window in politics of what what is and what isn't acceptable policy. And then there's an Overton window of what is and what isn't acceptable to talk about in polite society. And I think comedy has a really valuable role in moving that Overton window in what what people can discuss, what people can talk about. I've always very interested in like uh it happens where you'll overhear the audience leaving a comedy show and have such great conversations. It's really interesting how it like just taps into they just feel a bit freer and looser. Cuz they've listened to someone on stage being very loose. And they're not buttoned down. They're not trying to self-censor or say the right thing. Self-expression and expression generally has just been on such a journey. Like, you know, this whole idea of wokeism and what you can and can't say. It's I mean, it really accelerated in the last 10 years. To the point that it's it's quite you know it's quite If I look back at comedy videos from 20 years ago, they really seemed to just be able to say whatever the [ __ ] they wanted to say. And then we went through this era of like censorship and cancellation and There's no time in human history where the good guys have censored stuff. It's never happened. So, wherever that's coming from, whether it's the right, you know, the Mary Whitehouse ban this filth, which used to be the case, or the left, the idea that they there's um you know hate speech or or the idea that something can be words can be violence, um which is, you know, what people say when they've never experienced real violence, I guess. Um the there's such demand for violence we had to we had to co-opt words into it. But the idea of going the this you're trying to censor stuff is is a bad idea. Free speech is a very good idea. Because those thoughts don't go away if people don't express themselves. They just get they get suppressed. And and actually just speaking freely about stuff and talking about it is is very very valuable. When you're trying to build something, the problem that we all face is we need talent and skills that we don't have ourselves. And we can waste so much time trying to learn a new skill when really what we should be doing is using a platform like fiverr.com where you have global access to reviewed, tried and tested, world-class talent at your fingertips that you can access in a flexible and affordable way. Fiverr for me when I was starting out in business was a real unlock. It was a bit of a hack because I used to think that the only way for me to add skills to my project was by hiring full-time staff and bringing them into the office. fiverr.com changes that. And if you're in that position now where there's a skill you're missing for a project that matters to you, here's what you have to do. Visit fiverr.com/diary to learn more. And here's the great thing. If it doesn't go well, Fiverr offer a pretty amazing money-back guarantee. So, what are you waiting for? If you were a podcaster, would you have anyone on the podcast? Would there be any limits you would set? It's something I think about a lot. Where are my limits? Cuz I get a lot of messages saying, "Would you have this person on? Would you speak to Trump? Would you speak to Vladimir Putin? Would you speak to a, you know, Yeah, I mean, I think I think you're I think you have to speak to everyone. I think the idea of going that there's there's people that are beyond the pale. People have got like There's people with bad ideas, right? I don't know if there's that many bad people, but there's bad incentives and people that follow them. And talking to everyone seems incredibly valuable to me. And the idea that you go, "Yeah, that's how life moves forward." You know, there's You know, even if you want to be a Marxist, it's the dialectic of going, "Well, this person I don't agree with." And you have the conversation. And with an open mind and an open heart and maybe you change their mind. And how do you move the conversation forward? I mean, the great mystery for me in politics is the idea that people talk about um hypocrites in politics changing their mind about things. Of course, he changed his mind. The facts have changed. The The world's changed. You move on. Obama ran on an anti-gay marriage ticket. But the world moves on and things progress. And you know, I'm I'm you know, a progressive. But I think the idea of not listening to people is poison. You know, you think You think why Hillary lost the election, right? It was that deplorables thing. Remember when she talked about the deplorables? And you can't talk to those people. And it was like No, there's a There's a just working class people and they've got They've got worries. And you need to talk to them about those worries. You can't just write them all off and go, "Well, they're despicable people." You know, that urban elite kind of thing. You've got to bring them in, have the conversation. You You'll get somewhere with it. You You know, you have to listen to that. You have to listen to all the different sides of the argument. Otherwise, we're entrenched. We're just in these little you know, and it's it's that thing of like it becomes identity, you know, which party that you follow. Crazy. People don't like to follow people that they disagree with online in particular because that's creating cognitive dissonance, isn't it? It's the constant confrontation of a set of ideas that threaten or challenge you in some way. So, we'd rather just create this little echo chamber of individuals that will confirm my set my set of existing beliefs. And that's what you know, one of the things I I made the decision to do about two or three years ago was just to follow everyone that I um viscerally sort of repulsed by, should I say? Yeah. And have you had them on the show? Have you had people on the show that you go, "I don't really agree with what they say, but" Yes. Yeah, it's it's I I'm I feel like I'm quite It was great TO BE BACK. THE THAT'S THAT'S INTERESTING. I THINK THAT'S REALLY I THINK that's really valuable. I think that's a more interesting conversation as well. Because if you're just going to nod along with some someone and go, "Well, he's talking sense. That's great." It's like you know, and it I think to have those kind of difficult conversations, it's really It's a valuable thing. One thing you said which surprised me because it didn't come at all up at all in our previous conversation at all, and even in my prior research was you said that you feel like you have a low-level eating disorder. Yeah. I think I'm very very conscious of my uh weight and my appearance. And I think that's maybe uh, and that eating disorder is a very they're very very serious things and I'm not um, I'm not really in that category, but I'm very aware of it. Like as a as a man as well. I was chatting to um, uh, Chris Williamson on about this on uh, on Wednesday. I think I think he was like quoting the stat of saying men's uh, body dysmorphia overtakes women's I think in the next year. In terms of kind of young men looking at Instagram wanting to look a certain way and presenting themselves a certain way. I think there there is kind of an issue around it. I think that weird thing about like I've had a bit of work done. You know, and I had my teeth done and my hair done and I think there is kind of a there's something about being on screen all the time that you get very conscious of kind of uh, and maybe it's slightly a control thing. Have you always had that? Um, it developed? I think it's kind I think it's slightly developed through sort of you know, I think if I wasn't on TV or on Netflix or whatever, I think you probably wouldn't be as aware of how you how you present yourself. Um, So that it's it's it's it's slightly odd, I think. It's slightly odd relationship with I mean I I've kind of a theory around um, around drugs. Right? Drugs and alcohol. So I think marijuana when you think about it, like weed, uh, is people are very carefree about oh, it's just a bit of weed, fine. But think about what it is, right? It's not a performance enhancing drug. It's a performance inhibiting drug, right? It takes away your ambition and agency and it just makes you very chilled and relaxed. And I don't think that's appropriate for men in their 20s or teenagers, right? Actually what you want is the performance enhancing. And I think what we should be sort of promoting is almost like prohibition. I mean I did it kind of organically. I found comedy and I gave up drinking for 12 years. I didn't touch a drop. And that was mainly because of lifestyle, because I was driving to gigs and driving back and then I didn't want a hangover the next day because I I wanted to and everyone was trying to buy you drinks all the time and it just felt like it was like enough already. I'm going to be I'm going to be straight edge, which I always like the term straight edge. It's a punk rock term for being teetotal. Straight edge. It's cooler, right? Mhm. I like the idea of going, right, I'm going to control that. I mean, I drink a little bit now, kind of socially, but not in a problem way, but giving up was quite an important thing. Because it was also the focus that it gives you. So, I don't know. I I kind of I'm slightly slightly anti-drugs for young people. I slightly think men in their 50s and 60s that that are workaholics, maybe some marijuana wouldn't be a bad idea. But it's the it's the idea of kind of young people taking it and not having and it's What does it take from you? Takes away that kind of that that raw ambition. And that's a such a sort of valuable thing in those years. It's almost like that advantage that young people can't see the advantage that they have. They see the the the wealth and the you know, the financial security of being 50. And when you're 20, what you don't recognize is the energy that you have when you're 20. That incredible advantage you have over everyone else in the office in that you're just you you're just full of energy. You're 20 years older than me exactly. What advice would you give to me that's unobvious as a 31-year-old? You're 51, I believe. Yeah. What advice would you give to me that's would be probably quite unobvious to me at my age about the next sort of 20 years of my life? Stay out the sun. Stay out the sun. Sun damage is is 90% of aging. Stay out of sun. Honestly, you'll save a fortune on plastic surgeon. Uh the I don't know. I mean, I think that you know, I don't know if you could be in a better place right now than you are. But, you can certainly give yourself gifts when you're 50. What gifts do you want to give yourself? Let's talk about what gifts you would like to receive on your 51st birthday from you. Interesting. What would you like to have? I'd like to be physically fit. So Done. No problem at all. You will need to go to the gym three times a week. And 80% of it is going to be diet, not exercise. Okay? So, you're going to need to do that, but no problem at all. I'm the genie. You got it. What else would you like? I would like a happy, healthy family and relationship with my partner. I'd like to be married, and I'd like her to be happy. And I'd like my kids to be happy. Okay. That's great. I don't think you get to call that. I think you get to be happy, and you're in charge of that. And their happiness is maybe a byproduct of that. But, you need to I my perception would be you need the a locus of control to be within you. You could be happy. Make yourself happy, and that's good for the people around you. But, I don't think someone else's happiness can be your responsibility. I think you can set up all the conditions, and you can you can make it as easy as you can, but you know, that's that's a that's a lot. But, but I get the idea of it. The How many kids? Four. Four. Jesus Christ. All right. So, four four kids. So, you're in you're in minivan territory already. You can't even drive a regular car. This is crazy. This is madness. Um four kids, so one of each? One of each, yeah. It's a modern world. Uh I love that. All right. What else would you What else would you want in 20 years' time? I'd like to still be doing a business podcast. You're not doing a business podcast now. Very little business in this. No one ever talks about supply and demand. Nonsense. Um I think yeah, the the that stoic thing of like you still doing this in 20 years time, what a journey that will be. Like think about the people that you will speak to. Think about the things that you will learn. Think about the the road that you're on and and and actually if you're open to speaking to everyone, then the the lines of communication are kept open. And that's incredibly important in the modern world where people are uh uh uh in these, you know, divided camps. It's important. What gifts were most important for you when you turned 50? That you either had or hadn't given yourself when you turned 50. You know, you look around on your on your 50th birthday about the gifts that you either have or that you wish you had. What are those things? I was in Australia last year on tour and I fairly arbitrarily. I mean, I was always very good at trying new material and doing sort of warm-up gigs. And I just went, "Oh, I'm going to try something new. I'm going to do new [ __ ] at every show." I'm going to try I'm going to write jokes during the day and then I'll try them that night at every single show. And a year later, I've got a new show. And it was so easy to put together because it was just like every night you're you're you're trying new new new new and it forces you into that space of writing more more more more and I feel like I'm getting better. You know, a year on you go, "Oh, it's yeah, that was that was easy." And it was just little and often. How important is that? The the routines. You know, the small things cuz I think there's kind of two camps of people typically. There's those that think sweating the small stuff matters and there's those that think sweating the small stuff is inconsequential and it's, you know, meh. But it seems that, you know, the people that I seem to sit here with that are really successful at what they do have a real obsession with the detail. I remember Walter know if it's the small stuff. I think it's the important stuff. So, I wouldn't sweat anything other than the joke writing and the performing on stage. Everything else it's all small stuff. That's the important stuff and focusing on that. Like knowing what's important I guess would be the first stage there. But then yeah, that's that seems absolutely critical. Remember I sat here with Walter Isaacson who followed Elon Musk for 2 years and followed Steve Jobs for 2 years before Steve Jobs died. Um both two business people. He's not connected though. No one thinks it's his fault. No, no, you're not casting any No, no, no, I'm not saying he did it. I'm not saying he did it. But he said something to me about how Steve Jobs would even make the circuit board inside the iPhone look beautiful. And this came from Steve Jobs' father who who told him that he had to paint the back of the fence as well even though no one would ever see the back of the fence cuz it was covered. But he said that truly great individuals care equally about the parts that are unseen. You know, the things you'll never see. And I always thought that's incredible that Steve Jobs would care so much about making the the circuit board inside this iPhone look beautiful. And why is he doing that? Well, is he doing that because he will know. You know, and I and that made me think about this concept of your self story. We have the you said reputation Ali which is the external story of what people think of you. But everything we do writes this self story about who I am. Like when you leave this room I I I love this concept. The idea that we are a story we tell ourselves. Yeah, and everything I'm doing is telling me who I am. So, Chris Eubank Jr. the the son of the famous boxer, great boxer himself, says that he if he's on a treadmill and he gets cramp in his leg, like really painful cramp in his leg, no one's in the gym, but he told himself he was going to do 20 km. He says I I will physically limp the last 8K. Yeah. Even though no one's there. Of course. Why of course? Because you you you are who you who you who you are. You like that's that how you do anything is how you do everything. So he's all in. He's he's that guy. Great. That's that's great. That's a good that's a great story because you go yes well of course. You say you're going to do it and then you're the kind of person that does the thing you say. Powerful, right? If you keep a little promise to yourself, that's powerful. That changes your self-perception of yourself. You can trust yourself a little bit more. A lot of us pathologically let ourselves down in small ways and don't really think those promises matter. We break commitments to ourself pathologically. Okay, but but you can you can change that, right? You can build that up a little bit and we'll see the results in 20 years time. Fit and healthy and you got a family and kids and you're doing great. You're still doing this. It's great. We'll see it. I think you probably you can't beat yourself up over everything, right? You you have to choose where to suffer. You have to choose what's the thing that matters to you and don't let yourself down on that. So maybe you're not going to do everything, okay? Fine. Do you think that's what confidence is? Confidence in Yeah, confidence in yourself is just a combination and a culmination of the commitments you kept to yourself and what you prove to yourself about yourself. I think that's a I haven't thought about it like that, but that seems like a very uh logical conclusion. You you know, it's that thing of you want to give the world irrefutable proof you are who you say you are. Well, the world and yourself. There's a mirror up as well. Are you who you say you are? Yeah. Well, great. That's a that's a lovely thing to be and to build that up in small ways, I mean that's really you're talking about building character of going well I'm going to make that promise to myself and then I'm going to I'm going to do it. So you don't make [ __ ] promises to yourself. You know, New Year's resolutions are not a good idea. Because if you're going to let yourself down, that's more damaging. Pick something that you can do. Pick something small. Last time we spoke, you expressed an aspiration, an ambition you had. You said I think we were talking about Dave Chappelle and you said you wanted to do longer form jokes. Yeah. Yeah. So, there's there's some stuff in the new show. So, there's like 20 minutes on being a dad. Um that I think is really funny and I wanted it to fit within my persona as well. Because a lot of people sort of become fathers and they get a bit sentimental and they lose some of their edge. So, the stuff that I've got about being a father is uh is brutal. But, it's funny. It's funny. It's it's a funny thing to to kind of experience as well. It's something kind of new to talk about. Who's your favorite comic of all time? Chris Rock. Really? Chris Rock by yeah, Chris Rock I think. The uh the the I've I've I've I've had the great pleasure of working with Chris as well and he's an extraordinary talent. The uh the the rhythm and cadence and the points that he makes and the way that he sets up material um the way that he delivers a punchline that just everything about it from sort of a technical point of view, I admire. And I love what he says. I I I just think he's he's he's just [ __ ] hilarious. And I see the work. I see what he does. I see the work that he does now. He's He's been a legendary next level performer for 30 years and he's still working just as hard. And you got to love that. What did you make of the slap? What I mean, obviously it's just I mean it's it's there's no there's no um there's no argument. That's it's uh it's a uh I I was I was shocked, you know. It It strikes me that uh Will Smith may be the greatest actor of his generation. Because he was pretending to be an entirely different human being for the last 40 years. And the mask slipped. And we saw a a yeah, a different side. And I think Chris, really the extraordinary thing about that moment was Chris Rock got slapped in the face. His level of composure was He was like a Hindu cow. Get slapped in the face by a big dude, right hard. I just got slapped in the face. That's going to be a huge TV moment. Here's the award. He's to be admired. Incredible man. You were on stage as well, you know, a couple of months after when Dave Chappelle was attacked. I I actually saw you in the background. I remember seeing you sort of come out and just you were you kind of looked a little bit like security, but maybe not the most. Yeah, me and me and well, security So, when when Dave I rushed. Uh, and it's very scary. Because it you know, it could have gone another way. Um, you know, the guy had a knife, albeit a knife in a gun. It was it was a it was a kind of a fake gun that pressed a button and a knife came out. It was a it was a um, yes, it was It was a it was a it was a knife that identified as a gun, maybe. I don't know. Anyway, so um, yeah, I remember I was standing with Jeff Ross on the side of the stage and then and then this this thing happened and it was yeah, it was it's crazy. Crazy. Scary. Had he got his ass beat, the the person that ran out and got stomped out by like Well, he got The reason he got stomped out wasn't it wasn't um, uh, malice. It was he wouldn't let go of the gun knife. Oh, really? The guy had a gun what looked like a gun. I mean, it was a gun. And he wouldn't let go of it. And they I think the security guys um, uh, broke his arm trying to get get getting the getting the gun off him. Yeah, but what are you going to do? Let the guy have the gun? Yeah. Like it's a it's, you know, it's very very you know, pretty scary, uh, scary thing. Are trying times changing in terms of violence towards comedians? Is No, I don't think so. I think that They're isolated incidents. Uh, Eddie Murphy had the best line on it. Eddie Murphy said, uh, he said Will Smith, when he slapped Chris Rock, rang the dinner bell for crazy. All the crazies came out for a couple of couple of weeks. The guy in Russia's, um, Chappelle. It's not It's not a great situation. I mean, it's like it's a it's a scary thing when you think, you know, friends getting rushed by someone with a knife and you sort of think of well, what could have happened. But he was fine and obviously, you know, was shaken in the moment, but he was pretty pretty philosophical about it. Anyone ever attacked you on stage? No. I mean, threatened you or No, I've Yeah, I've been I've been threatened a little bit, but okay. It's all part of the game, I guess. I mean, it's like it's that weird thing of like when you There's a There's a routine in it. I talk a little bit about, uh, being canceled on the on the special. And you talk about like what I'm going to do next time cuz it's going to happen again, right? So, the next time I get canceled, I've got a plan. Here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to say, I've rehearsed this. I'm going to make a public statement on the day the news story breaks. I'm going to say, "I'm sorry." And the people that are offended will say, "You don't really mean that apology." And I'll say, "So, you're saying I could say something and not mean it. Now you're getting it." Ah, smart. Ah. But it's that it's they're jokes. You can't go around apologizing for jokes. I'm exceptionally excited to sit down and watch your Netflix special, Natural Born Killer, which came out on April 16th. There's been a lot of conversation around it because I think a lot of people are acknowledging that you've adopted a slightly different style to the past and everyone's excited to see this this newer Jimmy this this heavily iterated at optimized version of Jimmy that's taken 51 years to produce and I always talk to people about our last conversation and you telling me that even you at at the peak of the mountain in many people's eyes are still trying to find small marginal gains and and challenge yourself and come out of your comfort zone and I think that's exactly what you do in this special. I've been fortunate enough to see some of the the jokes and the angles in the special and I think for some reason it feels to me like society needs to have some of these conversations as well. So what even though there is humor there underneath the the jokes you tell there's I think there's an underlying important message that's greeting society at the right moment. I very much appreciate that. Is that accurate? Is that an accurate assessment? I think it is. I think it's it has it is different to the last special and it's got more of me in it and it's like I'm in a very privileged position where people you know some people listen to me and I have my audience I know what my audience are. So I can I can get a message in under the wire that other people can't really talk about. And so that thing of going if I'm doing sex ed I do sex ed in my way and it's very funny but it's getting a message across to young men that I think is very valuable. I'm excited to listen specifically about the stuff about consent very very excited. Jimmy we have a closing tradition on this podcast where the last guest leaves a question for the next guest not knowing who they're going to be leaving it for. Oh well I've given this literally no thought so right. Okay. I don't get to see it either which is funny. People don't believe me when I say that but Okay what's the Have I got a question? You have got a question that's been left for you. The question that's been left for you is what would you tell your 20-year-old self that you wish you knew and that would have positively impacted your life and helped you to avoid unnecessary pain. I think I would have said enjoy yourself more. Try and be more present. I think I was uh I think I was worried about the results and not the process at that age. I think I was worried about what kind of degree I would get uh and working hard and I should have been worried about having more fun. What's telling you in hindsight is that that's the important thing you needed to hear at that point. What was the symptom of not hearing that? I think it was I think there's a there's a weird thing in uh if you're in academia and you have that imposter syndrome and you feel like oh oh god, what's what's I don't belong here. I'm not bright enough. I need to work harder. That's valuable in one sense. It makes you kind of work harder, but actually, you know, should have what's what's what's college for? It's It's for growing up. And being a man. What do you think of university? I think university is a luxury item now. I think the intrinsic value of university is less important than the what it signals about you. So, I think a degree from Cambridge is a Louis Vuitton bag. It's a luxury item that says oh I have this. Um you can just get the reading list and read the books. I'm not sure whether whether academia's you know, I don't know. I've got strong views on academia because I was when I went to university it was free, right? It was very difficult to get in, but it was free. And I think we should bring that back. I think if you're doing let's say STEM, right? Let's say you're studying any STEM subject, university should be free in the UK. And if you get a STEM degree from anywhere else in the world, it should come with um a British passport attached. Come, spend some time here. Great. It's not a bad policy. Your kid turns to you one day and says, "Daddy, I'm I want to be a magician." What do you say to your kid? They want to be a magician or they say that I want to be an NBA player. Let's do that one. What do you say to your kid? Wait, go back. Become a magician. Um I I don't know. I mean, listen, it's it's uh I suppose there's that thing of like follow your dreams if they're hiring. It's Chris Rock's line, isn't it? Yeah, follow your passion if they're hiring. If you If If you're good at that if you're I don't know. If my kid winds up being 7 ft, I'll be surprised. But if he is, then maybe then maybe you know maybe there's a maybe there's a future in it. But the Yeah, pick something that seems realistic to you. Have you got a a bias about what you'd want your son to do? Uh Honestly. I Cuz we all have I would have a bi- I would have a bit of a bias. I I mean I don't know. I don't know what jobs are going to be in 30 years' time, right? You You want your kid to be happy and maybe maybe to have some sort of uh grounding in critical thinking. And beyond that, I don't know. Good luck. Jimmy, thank you. Our first conversation really blew me away and it it taught me something about actually about this podcast. You're one of the real defining conversations I had that everyone is much more than the surface that you see. And it's funny cuz when last time when we recorded it was upstairs in my kitchen, my previous kitchen. And the team text me when you arrived and they said, "Oh, Jimmy Carr's just arrived." I think you arrived on your bicycle or something. And I like, "Oh god, he's just cracked a joke about someone's mom downstairs." And I thought, "Oh, this is this is Jimmy Carr, the Jimmy Carr I've seen on 9 out of 10 Cats." And then we went upstairs and had that conversation and it just blew my mind. It just absolutely blew my mind. Well, this is the difficult second album. How did I do? Oh, fantastic. Oh, great. Fantastic. Absolutely. But no, it really blew me. It taught me that um people are much more than than just the the mask that we wear. And we all wear a mask. You know, the persona to get through life and we find it easier sometimes to wear the mask than to confront who we actually are. But in that conversation, I feel like I got to meet the man behind the mask, per se. Well, I I really like sharing that side of myself. I I I really enjoyed this having really enjoyed the show. I wish you every success. Thank you so much, Jimmy. Thank you for everything and I highly recommend everybody go and see Natural Born Killer, which is on Netflix right now. I'm going to put the link to the Netflix special in the description below.