Modern Wisdom - #691 - Jimmy Carr - The Secret Hacks For Living A Fulfilled Life

Episode Date: October 9, 2023

Jimmy Carr is a comedian, television host and an author. Jimmy is known as one of the best one-line comics in history, but this episode goes way deeper than you’re probably expecting. It's far less about jokes and far more about Jimmy’s obsession with human psychology, frameworks and thinking tools. Expect to learn what the most important question to ask yourself is, why you have probably been thinking about luck incorrectly, what the two great myths in life are, the most common misconceptions about being famous, how to survive a cancellation attempt, what kind of relationship we should have with our inner-critic, how to enjoy the passage of time in a graceful way and much more... Sponsors: Get the Whoop 4.0 for free and get your first month for free at https://join.whoop.com/modernwisdom (discount automatically applied) Get $150 discount on Plunge’s amazing sauna or cold plunge at https://plunge.com (use code MW150) Get 5 Free Travel Packs, Free Liquid Vitamin D and more from AG1 at https://drinkag1.com/modernwisdom (discount automatically applied)  Extra Stuff: Get my free Reading List of 100 books to read before you die → https://chriswillx.com/books/ To support me on Patreon (thank you): https://www.patreon.com/modernwisdom - Get in touch. Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chriswillx Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/chriswillx YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/modernwisdompodcast Email: https://chriswillx.com/contact/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello everybody, welcome back to the show. My guest today is Jimmy Carp. He's a comedian, television host, and an author. Jimmy is one of the best one-line comics in history, but this episode goes way deeper than you're probably expecting. It's far less about jokes and far more about Jimmy's obsession with human psychology, frameworks, and thinking tools. Expect to learn what the most important question to ask yourself is, why you have probably

been thinking about luck incorrectly, what the two great myths in life are, the most common misconceptions about being famous, how to survive a cancellation attempt, what kind of relationship we should have with our inner critic, how to enjoy the passage of time in a graceful way, and much more. I got to know Jimmy over the last few months, so I'm not particularly surprised about what he talks about today, which is unbelievable deep insights into human nature and personal growth and development. But if you're expecting a list of Joseph Fritzel jokes, you may be a bit a little bit taken aback. Jimmy is a really, really genuinely deep thinker

and a phenomenal human. There is so much to take away from today, and I really, really hope that you enjoy this one. Don't forget that if you are new here or a long time listener, you might be listening but not subscribed, and that means you will miss episodes when they go up. I promise you, the next couple of months

has some of the world's biggest guests coming on modern wisdom and coming back on. And you do want to miss it you'll be trez sad so navigate to Spotify or Apple podcast or wherever else you are listening and press the subscribe button it really does help to support the show it means you don't miss episodes when they go up and it'll make me very happy indeed so go and press it. it. Ah, thank you. This episode is brought to you by Woop. Woop is a 24-7 health and fitness coach that tracks your sleep, strain, recovery, stress, and more to provide personalized insights to help you to reach your goals. Whether you're obsessed with putting in a little more effort in the gym or getting those extra hours of sleep, Woop helps you improve your everyday health and wellness.

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This is why Dr. Andrew Huberman and David Sinclair and Joe Rogan and Lex Friedman and myself are all massive fans because it is the best daily foundation on nutrition supplement on the planet. Also, there is a 90-day money back guarantee so you can buy it and try it for 89 days and if you do not like it, they will give you your money back. Head to drinkag1.com slash modern wisdom to get a year's free supply vitamin D, 5 free travel packs plus that 90 day money back guarantee that's drinkag1.com slash modern wisdom. But now ladies and gentlemen please welcome Jimmy Car. I'm a big fan of it. I'm kind of nervous about talking to you in a weird way because I like the show.

I really like you as a kind of cultural entity. I think it's a really interesting kind of journey you've had. And I get so much from this show. You know that phrase, I think you use it probably more than any other phrase. Does it grow corn? And for me, this show really kind of grows corn. There's so many little things that I've taken from this,

that I've kind of gone, oh, I'm going to do that. I'm going to do something with that. So kind of the practical application of the wisdom, what you get out of people seems to be very easy to integrate into life. Right, so the bar's been set high for you today, then, if you start taking it around. Yeah, I bet around. Well, I mean, dicking around is sort of what I do. So the other thing is like, I kind of get more nervous

being myself than being sort of the comedic persona. You know, just being funny. Just being your things, being funny, I find very easy. It's an interesting sort of life lesson. The idea of like, what do you find easy that other people find difficult? Go for that. Do that for a living. That's, there's gonna there, there's going to be some gold, you're going

to be okay. If you find it easy and everyone else is going, that's impossible. So you're standing up in front of people being funny, I found very easy. Like these kind of conversations, I slightly, you slightly second guess yourself. It's what you're used to. I think it's what you spend a lot of time becoming a climatized to doing. Yeah, I suppose. It's just that thing of, I've always said in comedy, people sort of talk about how many years they've been doing comedy and it seems faintly ridiculous. It's kind of, it's like when you're short on airline pilot, they've got a really good view on it. They talk about how many hours they've got in the sky. And for me, like, there's no

substitute for stage time. And I'm sure for you, there's no substitute for this, for actually doing it. Everything else is kind of, it doesn't matter how many years you've had a podcast. I think something about the frequency of your show as well. It's the, it's kind of, it's always there, there's always something new. You talk about the most important question

to ask yourself being what do you want. Yeah, I mean, I talk about that in awful. I studied a lot of, studied and was very interested in sort of NLP. And that question of what do you want? Yeah, I mean I talk about that and awful. I studied a lot of, studied and was very interested in sort of NLP and that question of what do you want in the micro, in the macro, being the absolute key in sort of life because people sort of,

I suppose it's that thing of going, what does something represent? Someone might say, well, I want a Ferrari but why? If you sort of dig a little deep, you can't just ask once, what does something represent? People, someone might say, well, I want a Ferrari. But why? If you sort of dig a little deep, you can't just ask once, what do you want? Well, I want a Ferrari and a Rolex and all of the trappings, but actually what they want is status. So it's kind of asking yourself, what game are you going to play? I've read a lot of that René Gerard stuff about sort of memetic desires. So this idea that you've got, what you really want,

at kind of a fundamental level, it's about you and what you perceive you should have compared to others. So this idea of kind of being honest about what you want and why you want it. Well splitting apart what is a genuine desire that's come from you, that's been self-authored? And what is just the things that you've taken from the way you dealt with past trauma and what your parents valued and what society says that you should, and the paths of least resistance and your genetic predisposition, this beautiful quote that says, ultimately

happiness comes down to choosing between the discomfort of becoming aware of our mental afflictions and the discomfort of becoming ruled by them. And it's this. It's a lot, that was, I mean, it's like, I don't think anyone gets there, by the way. I think sometimes I want to hear people talking about this stuff. There's a sense of, oh, I'm in light now, and I know knowing that you, you know, I'm in light now and I know knowing that you know, you, I'm only want that thing because you've got that thing and I want the new iPhone because you've got the new iPhone. Knowing that doesn't really make any difference because when you're out there in the world, you still got to live a life and do something.

Correct. But it's about what that will store book I thought was phenomenal. The status game. I mean, all these books are great, actually. It's a really interesting, sort of underrated writer. It's wonderful. But that thing of like going, well actually you pick what status game you play in. You can have anything, you can't have everything.

It's that thing of, just the words seem to be very important to me, the idea of saying, you can work for anything in life to a kid, as opposed to you can have anything, is the difference between ambition and entitlement summed up. It's a lovely thing you've sent out the other day. Yes. The difference between ambition and entitlement being... Ambition is when you expect yourself to close the gap

between what you have and what you want, entitlement is when you expect others to close the gap between what you have and what you want. Yeah, that thing of like agency seems, there's very high on my list of like getting back to what you want, agency. I want the, I want control to be in here. Like I think it's better to be a standup.

I mean, the thing I've been thinking about recently is being stoic, doing less better. Being a standup is a great job. And there's so many standups that get the job of being a standup, and then they want to be an actor. And I go, you're mad. It's not as good a job. It's better to do a podcast than to have a TV show. Because you're in charge. You're your own boss. You know, kind of, what in a cancel proof, not you particularly bothered about that, but the idea of going,

you're in charge and you've got agency and you can do what you want. Well, there's a level, there's a huge power to that. There's a level of narcissism, I think, that comes with believing that you would be able to beat somebody else at them doing one thing while you're doing two things. Okay, so you think that you're going to be a better podcaster than the guy that just as a podcast while it's trying to do a podcast and run a business and be on TV and fly around the world and do all of these different things. It's also that thing of like going, if your aim is sort of happiness, I think having a process driven ambition

rather than an outcome driven ambition, like what do you want to do rather than what you want to be? So that idea of going, that you do a podcast and you live for it, it seems to be pretty much all you care about and you're loving it and you kind of embody that and it gets back to that Navarre thing of like, what's play for you? What's easy for you?

What's play? What's just, what's fun? No one's going to put this effort in. Look around, look at the 4K cameras, whatever. No one's putting this effort in that doesn't really care about it. So someone trying to fake it and go, well, I want what he's getting for that. I want the ad revenue. It's like, well, no, that's the, you're playing in the wrong game.

There's a really great quote from Mark Manson where he talks about the most important question to ask yourself is what pain are you willing to endure in your life, rather than what pleasure do you want? Because any pleasure or any pursuit that you want is going to come with an in-kind pain and to pain. Well, even your stuff, the fatigue, the roads, everything else.

But that thing of like, you know, the all self-help is hard choices now, easy life later. But everything is the marshmallow test. Everything is about saying, look, you know, the famous marshmallow test of, give a kid, you can have one marshmallow now or two later. That seems to be a really good indicator in life of going, what are you willing to,

and work really is, work is the sacrifice for later. And it's really about that time frame. Probably the biggest thing I got from this show and from following you was that idea of serving yourself in 24 hours. You have to serve someone. What are you going to do today that you tomorrow will appreciate? Yeah. For something about a day, it seems about the right time frame. Like, if it's in six months time,

and you're trying to go to the gym and motivate yourself, I'm going to look great in six months, it's like, ah, I don't know. I don't know if you can do that. I don't think that's a motivator. It's written on my fridge. What would you tomorrow want you today to do? It's written on my fridge.

It's a great, I think there's a book in that. I think genuine, I think it's such a powerful... You've got me writing. You have told me to write five different books over the last week that we've spent together. But I like the idea of that thing of going, because it's, you know, listen to a podcast, but the book seems to be, the book and the course

seems to be the thing that it's just a way of getting all of your thoughts on this together. It's a full treatment. Yeah. But I think that idea of like you're the, you know, what are you going to do that's going to make you happy in 24 hours? And that's really about saying, well, your ambitions should be feelings, not things. What's the difference?

Well, the idea that you go, well, how do I want to feel is something that you go? Well, that's an ambition. You never want to feel happy. I want to feel contented and want to feel healthy. I want to feel fulfilled Wanting those things wanting material things. Well, the reason you want the material thing is to give you the feeling Just cut out the middle man Yeah, I mean it's easy for me to say I'm rich and famous baby It's you know, it's like what you took you talk slightly that thing of like where you're calling from, but you just realized this just more stuff. Over dinner, you spoke about the difference between jealousy and envy.

And I thought that that was really interesting. Well, I think that it's a conception where I don't really mind which word you use, but envy for me is good because it tells you what you want. So if you see someone and they've got a terrific physique and you go, oh, I want to look like that guy, that tells you what you want, that's great. When you see someone with a, I don't know, a beautiful girl, and you don't want him to have it, but you don't want it. That strikes me that is a very, to have it, but you don't want it. That strikes me that is a very, that's kind of a bitterness and resentment and it's mean and it's that I think it's a it's a it's a Nietzsche quote, isn't it? If you resentment is when you think someone has ruined your life and there is

someone that's ruined your life, it's you So actually, I find that very powerful. The idea that you went to frame again, right? That you're taking control of that when you realize that it is you that's been in control of most of the things that have gone on, that's taking agency, that's taking responsibility. But I think that we're sort of set up not to do that, right?

We're set, and as the economy changes, as our world changes, I think the idea of getting a job is a little bit, you know, becomes slightly nanny state. It's like, well, I'll get a job and they'll pay me, and then they'll worry about that, and I'll just do this job for them. And it's like this idea of, like, new jobs are happening all the time. It feels like there's a new economy kind of sprouting up,

and people are doing their own thing. It feels like it's not just comedians. Obviously I'm very bought into being a standup comedian world, but people are doing their own thing. It's lovely. Yeah. I wonder talking about the skill acquisition thing, obviously the pace that you tour at. How many shows have you done this year so far?

Two, twenty, something like that. And there's probably been about 250 to 280 days so far this year. Yeah, something like that. But I make TV shows as well. So, you know, I keep busy. But really if you compare it to someone with a real job, it's not that much work because the way that I perceive it

is I work for two hours or four hours a night depending on how many shows. And in most people work eight hours. Now there's a bit of travel involved and stuff, but it's a pleasure. If you find something you love doing, you know, for work again, that's the... Why, I suppose.

If you look at, that's such a good frame. To say, wow, 250 days of the year, or 220 days of the year, and there's only been 280 days or whatever. Okay, well, if you were to roll that forward for any normal 9-5 person, that's probably the right number of days, and maybe even a little bit less. And there's something about taking a working class spittance or just mentality into the realm where it doesn't seem like it's supposed to be there, where you actually end up seeing disproportionate returns.

Yeah, I suppose it's that thing of like, it's really about what you're willing to put in as well. Like if you find something that you love doing, well, why would you want to stop doing that? Just do more of that and you get better. It is that thing where you go, it's time in the gym. It seems that stress is very good for us in all areas. You're going to the gym and stressing your body and working and coming up with

new stuff is, you're stressing yourself. So that thing of like trying new stuff at every show, it's only, you know, you saw the show the other night, it's only a five minute bit where I get out of a paper and try some new jokes. But that bit means that the next tour is very easy, because five minutes at every show, you sort of banqu a lot of stuff, a banqu a lot of new ideas, and you have a reason to think about the new thing, always. You have a reason to be thinking about, okay, what's the new thing, what's the new thing, what's a new idea for a joke, what we're going to try tonight? Well, that's a big hack, I think, you know, it's the Feynman technique in order to be

able to learn it, you must first be able to teach it, type thing. But there's an equivalent when it comes to personal growth as well, I think, which is the best way to ensure that you're going to continue to develop is to have an outlet where it's going to be scrutinized by other people. So much of the learning and the reading and the stuff that I do is exclusively because I know that I need to be remotely interesting or prepared for the next guest. Yeah, that comes on. Well, it's that it is that thing where you go the joy of sound of comedy, the feedback loop is. It's so quick. I mean, people just immediately, and on

audience, Lenny Bruce first said it, the audiences are genius. They know immediately, that's funny, it's not funny, that's acceptable, that's not acceptable. They make the call on all that stuff. So you're just like presenting stuff and going, is that okay? Is that all right? I mean, you know, it's really easy because you just you write, I've written so many more jokes that don't work than you. So many more, like thousands more. It's an Edison thing about, I haven't failed, I just found 10,000 ways that I wasn't successful. Yeah, and you eventually get to it and then you go, what's the stand-up comedian super power? It's an hour. Maybe 19 minutes if you go and see a live show because there's a bit of stuff as well,

but you know, putting together specials and you go, right, that's kind of the best of me of the last 18 months. That's all the funny stuff I said in the last 18 right, that's kind of the best of me over the last 18 months. That's all the funny stuff I said in the last 18 months and that's there for you, just it's rich. I think, I mean, my big thing on sound up comedy is I think it should be taught. I think there's too much superstition. You want it to be in schools.

I do think it should be in schools. I think it's more relevant than music. I think music's incredibly important and it should be in schools. I think it's more relevant than music. I think music's incredibly important and It should be taught more in schools But I think stand-up should be a course in schools. I think about what it's about. It's about verbal dexterity Right, and it's about being able to express yourself and it's about finding your voice and expressing who you are and it's a Perspective on life where you're seeing the lighter side and trying to find fun in something.

There's two stories. One story is about a guy, shitting himself on a train, and it's just a, it's like, ah, I had the worst day ever. And then there's some perspective where you go, that's the funniest story I've ever heard. There's something about the ability of a community to kind of shift perspectives. And for me comedy has a function society that no one is calling, which is it's the we're pushing the over to the window. We're always at the edge of what is and what isn't acceptable. Like no, I'm not just talking about like I happen to tell edgy jokes. That's not what this is. I'm seeing things as they are, but kind of with new eyes. That's sort of what comics do. Even the most kind of mainstream observational comedy, if done well, you're sort of questioning

the reality. You're saying, well, this is not normal. This is not how things should be. This is weird. Am I the only one thinking this? Is it just me? That kind of trope of comedy. And it pushes what we think about the world. It pushes what's acceptable. You're progressive. You said that comedians are often ahead of the curve on social issues. I think now, I think comedians really do kind of... It's the canary in the mind. It's sort of testing the air of what you can say. And politics lags behind.

And so does culture. If you want to know what are going to be the biggest talking points amongst normal people in about 18 months' time, look at the jokes the comedians are making today. Well, I think there's a argument to be said that comedy lives in a space between public and private discourse. And it strikes me that there's never been a wider gap between public and private discourse. What people are saying in bars and homes and on social media to their friends, and the

party line, you know, you sort of, the party line's pretty strong at the moment on what you count and what you can't say. You know, if you want to see where power really lives, what can't you say? It's interesting, right? What can't you say in a society? What isn't acceptable in the world? And you get into very interesting topics. I mean, all the stuff you talk about on modern wisdom falls into that sort of category of going, what should we talk about this? You know, whether it's environmentalism or gender or what's happening in the world.

It's very interesting to kind of call that and to domestic realm of it. So it's actually kind of a great space. And comedy, it sugars the pill as well. You know, it's almost the perfect drug for me stand up comedy because it's the dopamine here if you don't quite know where the line is gonna come. And it's the serotonin pleasure of laughter.

And going out to a live show has that incredible sort of effect on people of, it's a physical response. I've said it before, I think of myself as a drug dealer, but you have the drugs on you. That's so nice. You know, you've got everything on you, but I'm able to sort of tease it out so I can get across borders with no problem.

Ha, ha, ha. It's interesting, isn't it? It's like the best drug in the world. What's the best drug in the world? I wouldn't do it. I would love to know what the hormonal cascade of some unlistening to a great podcast is feeling. I'm gonna guess that there would be a good chunk of serotonin and maybe some dopamine from, I've realized

something, I hear two ideas that I didn't see before and they've been tied together and they've been wrapped up in a bow and it's interesting. The dopamine thing, the thing that we were discussing the other day, I found very interesting was like the idea that you could go, if you had one data point on someone, their view on abortion, let's say, what else could you figure out from that? Correct. The modern day, I suppose it would be modern day cold reading. If old school cold reading was someone that say, I don't know, is anyone lost to Mary in Catholic Island? I mean,

fucking throw a stone. But the idea is modern day cold reading on, what do you think about? Brexit, someone tells you and you go, I know everything that I need to know about you I was stunned. But the idea is kind of modern day called reading on what do you think about Brexit? Someone tells you and you go, I know everything that I need to know about you. From that one day to one. With podcasts, the thing is, it's about the dopamine of going, when does someone surprise you with their view? Dude, after our conversation, we went for dinner on Thursday and then I wrote my newsletter based off of the inspiration from that.

Such a good way to judge whether or not the content creator that you are listening to is acting genuinely and taking their insights from what they truly are interested in and being honest is when with the last time that they surprised you with something that they said. Yeah, obviously, the honesty is really interesting because it's weird being a comic because everything I say on stage is a lie. Ultimately, jokes are little lies, but comics leak. There's a weird thing you can watch someone on stage or watch, you know, your favorite comic or whatever, and you kind of have a sense of who they are. It just happens. You really choose your style as a comic. It kind of chooses you.

It's who you are. It's really, it's kind of an interesting thing. The caricature of yourself. Well, no, even a caricature you are. It's really, it's kind of an interesting character. I think- The caricature of yourself. Well, no, even a caricature. I think there's something about it's very authentic. And there's something about podcasting, especially the long form shows, you can't hide. There's nowhere for you to hide. So the thing that I found kind of fascinating about your journey, and you know, my only critique of your show is that I don't think you ever talk about yourself enough because it's your fabulous listening and teasing things out of people and holding a space.

You never really talk about your journey and maybe you did in the very early episodes and I missed them, but the idea of like going to go from a guy on Love Island running clubs to this. Strikes me as a, I mean, you talk about agency. You basically kind of invented a job that really exists. It wasn't really a thing. And now of course, it is and everyone's got a podcast, but not like this. Yeah, yeah, it's interesting.

I guess whenever I sit down with someone, for a long time when you start a show, you're writing on the coattails if whoever is in front of you, you know, I'm writing on the coattails of Rory Sutherland or Jordan Peterson or Douglas Murrier, whoever. And then I'm always really interested in just making the show an amazing platform and trampoline for the guests. If I walk away with the guest shining as much as possible, that's a good day at the office. For me, I made this as energetic or sedate, or thoughtful or exciting, or whatever, as needed to be to get the best insights out

of this spectacular person who's very interesting and I want to learn from, that's a good day at the office. And it always inevitably puts me in the backseat. But that's how I designed it, right? I designed it to not be, it's not called the Chris Williamson show, right? It's called Modern Wisdom because I want it to be the most interesting people, the smartest thinkers on the planet, what have they got to say? Life is hard and this shows should help.

That's where it is. That being said, I know that after a while, sort of the cult of personality starts to kick in and you think, well, people actually want now not just to know about them, but to know about you. I've got this fucking live show happening where it's me on stage for maybe two hours, just me. Yeah, that's tells that. How are you finding me? Because you did the first one on Saturday.

I had a dry run, yeah, assisted by some words of wisdom from you the night before. It was good. I really enjoyed it. Scary. I don't know how you guys do it. What do you mean? You just did it. But it's different. What I do is I just get to waffle. What you have to do is this unbelievably zero percent fat lean down to the nothing but muscle, fucking bodybuilder presentation upon stage. I don't know. I think it's, you know, what are people looking for really? I mean, with laughter, they're looking for, it's a response you can kind of measure. You can look at laughs per minute and go, well, you're doing a great job

because you get in the last minute. But ultimately, they're coming out to be part of a crowd. They could watch it at home on Netflix, but they're coming out to see a show because they want to feel connected. What are you offering? Connection. People want to feel connected and you're standing on stage and you're saying, well, you're giving of yourself, here's what I learned, here's what I think. And hopefully they feel like they're with like-minded people, they're in a room.

Collective effabessence, I think. Well, it's tribal, isn't it? It's that idea that we're sort of, there's an illusion that we're individuals. collective effabescent. So things. Well, it's tribal, isn't it? It's that idea that we're, we sort of, there's an illusion that we're individuals. I really like that line. There's no such thing as a baby. It's always a baby and someone caring for the baby. It's a baby and a mother, baby and a father,

baby and a family. Babies don't exist on their own. We're all babies. We all take a village. You know, if you look around behind the cameras at the other people that are just in the room right now, never mind the other people that work on the podcast, the idea that a stand-up is standing on stage on his own, it's an illusion. It's a very pleasing illusion, because we're in our heads a lot of the time.

But we are searching for community in a space where that's sort of been lost. The idea that we've never been more connected and never felt more alienated. Well, you talk about the depth of the connection. Yeah. We spoke the other night about the problems of the self. Have a problem? Or there are many problems that are associated with this obsession with the self and the rise of the individual. Well, I think that's, you know, that's the, yeah, it strikes me that it's, if you look at different communities around the world, you can sort of see where the certain communities, where the self is, is sacrosanct, and there's other places where not so much, you know, it's much

more tribal. I mean, it's kind of an interesting thought. My favorite quote of all time is William Gibson. The future is here, but it's not evenly distributed. And you think, wow, like, yeah, of course, what does that mean to you? Well, it means that there's a utopia in the world. I'm a very positive person. I mean, I really do think the world is great and we're going to crack it. I think we may have already solved most of the problems in the world, but in just particular areas. So you've got a Portugal, let's say, go to Lisbon now,

and the drug laws changed 15 years ago. They legalized all drugs. They said all drugs are legal, and we're going to take all the money we were spending on fighting the war on drugs, which we're just patently losing. We're going to take all that money take all that money and we spend it on rehabs and we're going to spend it on education and we're going to spend it on making it easier for people to make good choices. Great, and it worked. You walk around Lisbon now, one of the safest cities in Europe, it's magnificent, it's buzzing, it's fabulous. You go, that's a brilliant idea. Why don't we just take that and do that here?

It seems to work. Because the other people sort of go, yeah, but drugs aren't good and drugs. I agree, I don't do drugs. It's not my thing. And some people have got real issues around them, but what we're doing at the moment isn't working. And that seems to work.

And then you'll always have a very small percentage of people that have real problems. And that's fine, have a very small percentage of people that have, you know, real problems and that's fine. But at least if you know those people aren't criminalized, then they don't most petty crime is drug-related. So that's a problem that's been fixed. We could just take that. I think the energy crisis has been solved. But only on nuclear submarines. Nuclear submarines strike me as, that's there. Why is no one talking about these? People are living in tubes with a nuclear reactor and they have been for 50 years, we've tested it, and those guys seem fine. Self-sustaining, much worse environment than we've got up here where we can breathe water

and we don't need to recirculate the carbon dioxide. And it's working, right? There you go. I mean, I'm with Extinction Rebellion. I think there was an environmental crisis. It's awful, but I don't think the person that solves the problem is I don't think we say in 50 years time, we came pretty close there to an environmental collapse, but thankfully, someone glued themselves to the top of a car. That did it.

I think it's going to be a physicist that does it, right? It's going to be a physicist that does it, right? It's going to be a scientist that has a wonderful idea and does something. So it's that thing if you go, if you care about that, where should you be putting your energy? And I think it's again, it comes back to where's the agency. So that, you know, gluing yourself to the top of a car is great saying, look, I need, this is important, something needs to be done. I don't think any politician has the vision to do it. I don't think he gets solved through a law. I think he gets solved through science and technology, and I read David Doitch's, the beginning of Infinity, was just blown away by what if we're the first

hundred billion people, that's how many people have lived, right? Yeah, 100 billion. I'm including us in that. And it could be trillions in the future, if we get this right. It's exciting, right? And the idea that science is this particular meme that can, you know, we've got this AI technology, which people seem scared about. And you can, well, maybe this is going to be the solution. People are worried about nuclear catastrophe.

We've already priced in the downside, right? We've priced in nuclear war. That's already a possibility. Why not take the upside? Did you read William McCaskill's What We Are The Future? Did you see that? No, but I heard people talking about it. I haven't got around to reading it. Is it good? Interesting guy. Good. It's an important book, I think, to read, especially if you think about these topics in a big way. Well, that idea of like people being,

people are important, temporally and spatially. So the idea that we're quite obsessed with us in the West, America, West and Europe, in our village, in our community. What do we owe? The future is very good question. What do we owe the rest of the world? Because the idea that the environmental problem could be solved by doing less and cutting back. And maybe if we live like we lived in 1985, that could cure things. I don't think it's, you know, the population's out of control. I don't see any volunteers.

Have you heard Peter Singer's thought experiment about the drowning child? This explains the distance thing that you were talking about very nicely. So you're walking down the street and you see a drowning child in the river that's next to you. Does sound like a setup for a joke, doesn't it? Sounds like the kind of thing I would go. So walking down the street. So there's a drowning child in a river. Okay. That's the start. Peter Singer is a nice, softly spoken Australian man in his late 70s. I don't think that he was meaning it as the setup to a joke, but feel free to take it for tonight.

Okay. You, if you were to walk past and not save the child, you would be seen as abhorrent, right? The fucking drowning child, you're the only person that's around here. Why would you not go into the river and go and save this kid? Okay, now... Some kids are dicks.

I mean, let's call it. Let's call it. Do you know the world's better off? Do I know this kid? No. Is it baby Hitler? No. Why would it be baby Hitler?

I don't know. Thought experiment. Go to go to Hitler. Okay. So, go on. What's the, basically, he continues to use the distance of you. Okay. Now, the rivers, 100 yards away.

Now it's 300 yards away. Now it's half 100 yards away. Now it's 300 yards away. Now it's half a mile away. Now it's a mile away. And the point is, which distance does the drowning child become less important to you? And the argument kind of is that there's no distance. It becomes an arbitrary, an arbitrary decision. If you would save the child that was there now, you would save the child that is on the other side of the planet, starving of whatever. Yeah, it's that you get to that, I think quite quickly to that.

What is it best things first? Is it beyond Longberg book? Oh, yeah. Like the idea that UN has got 148 things that they want to do, these are our priorities and you go, well, you don't have any priorities then, because there's a lot of things. What are the things that we should do now that make a difference? So the simple stuff like mosquito nets really does make,

it makes a huge difference. What do you do because you go, would you value your life much more than you value someone's life in? It's interesting what we're not talking about. No one talks about what's going on in Venezuela. No one seems that bothered about Venezuela at the moment. And it's a, I don't know, the phrase fucking shit shows, brings to mind. What's happening in Venezuela? It's, you know, the stories I'm hearing is, you know, teenagers are hunting cats in the street. And people are dying of malnutrition. Yeah. It's like, it's, it's hell enough. That thing of like, you know, the future is here, but it's not evenly distributed. It goes back as well. You can go back in the

past. It's still here. It just hasn't caught up yet. Yeah, it's, you know, there's not every wise kind of running on the same system. And maybe we should be. Maybe, you know, I mean, we live in an incredibly privileged time and I'm big on gratitude of like the opposite of kind of bitterness and resentment, that idea of just going, well, what are you grateful about? And it's, you can kind of, it's ever expanding. The idea that like, if I'd been born in North Korea today, never mind 400 years ago, but today, it's really funny, it's really good at saying, you know, offensive things. I wouldn't have lived if you made it to six and a half years old. Yeah, it's gone. It's gone. I's not given your ponschant for being positive and for gratitude.

What do you make of this culture of cynicism that we see on the internet fatalism, nihilism, despondency? I mean, it's, the internet's a problem for me because the anonymity is an issue. Are you with Jordan Peterson on this? What on the, he says that no one, no one should have a Twitter account that hasn't uploaded a fault of their ID. I, I, I kind of would think think that's be an interesting thing to try. I mean, what's the argument against that? That whistleblowers couldn't operate? Well, I guess whistleblowers existed before Twitter,

and they used to have to go to a paper, and the paper would then print the story. That doesn't seem like a terrible system. So we go back to that, and everyone has to upload. And then you go, well, you can still ship host, you can still do all that stuff. It's just it has to be traceable to you because we are who we are when nobody's watching. If you wanna know who you really are, be on your own, go somewhere on your own, on holiday, whatever, and that's who you are.

If you're driving along and you throw the soda can out of the window of the car, that's who you really are. No one does that with kids in the back, monster. But if you do that, if that's who you, that's, it's interesting to kind of note that. It's the difference between character and reputation. You really know who you are. Reputation is what everyone else thinks about you. You know who you are in yourself. It's interesting to me to think about how

the way that we, the way that we act when nobody is looking tells us an awful lot about ourselves. It's that adage about, um, listen to how he talks about his mother and how he treats the serving staff at the restaurants when you're on dates. It's like a good litmus test for the guy that you're dating. Because that shows kind of who when the stakes are incredibly low, how do you show up as a person? But yeah, go about the cynicism angle. What do you think's going on? I don't know. I mean, I suppose it's easy. It's easy to be kind of cynical about stuff. It's also, the people not feel like they don't have agency. You know, as we learn more about what's going on in the world, as we, you know, you're surrounded by new stories

that you can do nothing about. You know, COVID was very interesting for that because it actually affected us. But normally you're reading about an earthquake happening and you go, well, there's interesting for that because it actually affected us. But normally you're reading about an earthquake happening and you go, well, what can I do? What difference does it make? It's beyond my control. Or they're fracking for oil in Alaska. Okay, no one's listening to me. Or they're going to war in this. Okay, well, I'm not sure I've got a dog in that race. But then you feel very, so it's, you kind of get cynical about it. I think people have got cynical about politics. It feels like they need big new, exciting ideas that people can get behind.

And it feels like a lot of politics is like talking about changing this thing a tiny little bit, changing that, and it's people are kind of in one camp or the other. I wonder whether the skepticism around the legitimacy of elections is born out of this sort of sensation people have that they don't really have any, that they can't contribute and what they do doesn't matter, because that's the most extreme version of it, right? Even my vote didn't matter, even my legitimate vote didn't matter. So regardless of whether or not you think that the voting machines are hacked or whether or not it's part of some big conspiracy, which is very well maybe, it definitely seems like you could sort of extrapolate forward, oh, well, if what I do doesn't matter at all, this is a perfectly designed continuation

of that narrative as well. So maybe people were primed to believe that a little bit more. Yeah, I mean, I think it's a very interesting point to kind of go, well, if people don't even think they're vote counts, then what can you do? But I guess if you're pinning your hopes for self-actualization on your party getting in, it's like following a football team. It's a fun thing to do, but don't let it take over your life.

You know, these are 11 guys that don't give a fuck about you, and they're kicking a ball around. It can't be everything. It can't be the whole of your life. The politics is well. It can't be the whole of your life. You can't hope that that's going to bring you everything. You want a better world. But how are we going to get, you know, but there's a good question to ask like how do we get a better world? How do we bring the standard of living up? What do we actually want for the world? Because it's not just more money. You see what happens when people get more money? There's just more inflation. That hidden tax kicks in. So what do we want? We want better education, better chances for everyone, better opportunities, I guess. It's pretty like there's a lot of stuff that everyone kind of agrees on, right? Why do you think we

think about luck incorrectly? My thing on luck is like We're incredibly lucky There's certain things that we devalue right so so Looks is a really good example like if someone's a model and they're gorgeous and they're photographed Lucky people are kind of a bit dismissive of that someone's born really smart You never go. You're lucky. You're born with an IQ of 162 a bit of luck. dismissive of that. If someone's born really smart, you're lucky. You're born with an IQ of 162, a bit of luck. No one thinks that. We saw the two great myths in our society are hard work and talent, aren't they? Yeah, and it's always total bullshit. It's

always a mix of the two and finding the right medium, the right edge for you, the right thing to be doing. So you go, people think, oh, you know, Bill Gates, oh, he worked so hard. He used to work 18 hours a day, slept at the office, he worked so hard to build that company. He's incredibly bright. He had to, you know, it's always, you know, the talent and the hard work. You know, Michael Jordan, if he hadn't shown up to practice, would be just a guy. And also, if he was living 200 years ago, pre-basketball, I don't know. I don't know. That skill set is very particular. So what's luck? The everyone's incredibly lucky. I mean just to be here is it's beyond right? I don't know I kind of I like the idea of just going okay, look we're very lucky. We've got what we've got

You run with it also you're not gonna change it You you might that thing of like acceptance being kind of that first step in therapy Strikes me as really sensible just looking at what you've got and go right, this is it. This is it for the whole journey. I can work on this. It's like nature, nurture. Obviously, nature has got a bigger effect than nurture. But nurture is the only bit anyone gives a fuck about because the only bit you can play with. Yeah. Until I can start fiddling with my DNA sensibly, then I'm going to be, I'll be nurturing. A nurture, people seem to think nurture stops. You know, people seem to think nurture and environment is the thing for kids and the right school. But really, look at you as a shining example of environment. So you put yourself in the micro and the macro in a better environment than you were in five years ago. You're not surrounded by

people on love island, you're surrounded by these incredible interlakes, and you've taken yourself out of your, where you grew up, and when you university, and you've taken yourself to Austin because there's this kind of energy there, and there's other people that are trying to do the same thing as you, and you put yourself in that environment. That strikes me as incredibly kind of powerful, but the idea that, you know, if you're still hanging around with the people you hung around with 25 years ago, and they're not adding value, then what are you doing? Yeah, me and George had this idea that we're going to write an essay on together. So I'm going to try and explain it to you now. It's not fully thought out, but we'll see if we can get there.

The difference between observable and hidden metrics and how they influence our motivation. So a lot of the time, people will trade a hidden metric for an observable metric. Good example of a hidden metric would be something like peace of mind. Okay. And something like an observable metric would be money. People will happily trade something

which may be more valuable, ultimately, for something which is less valuable, simply because they can measure it more effectively. Like, time's an interesting one because... John Lennon Lyric, isn't that? I give you everything I got for a little piece of mind. There we go. But that, it's a very interesting point because that idea of going, you know, if you can't measure it, we tend to go to what's measured. Correct. And so, the idea of going these, and actually what matters, is, it's, you know, measured. Correct. And so the idea of going these and actually what matters is

it's, you know, emotional. Yeah. And there's no dashboard. This is why George tries to have a dashboard for all of the things that he does. He's got this end of day assessment type form, custom type form. He's made himself the auto-populates to a Google sheet. And at the end of the yes. Yeah. Yeah. He was born and in sale, but managed to ascend out of it. He has got himself to the stage where he's tracking what were the three things that I did today, what was my sense of presence, how connected was I did, did, did, did, did, all the way down. And his goal is to track this over time, right? To see what are the correlations between my actions and the way that I felt. So he's trying to make the hidden observable.

And the problem that we have is that things that really, really matter to us, like connection and peace of mind, and dopamine and serotonin balance throughout the day, like how content and fulfilled did I feel. All of these things, they're just fucking words. There's this nebulous, ephemeral wishy, what's trying to hold smoke? Right? To try and work out what this is. But money, a bank account, it's fucking good game. The number of followers I've got on social media

is a really fucking good game. So I'll chase down the observable. Well, it gets back to that story of like, what's the most successful story in human history? Money. Money's the greatest story ever told. Because what even is it? When you break it down, it's not anything. And yet everyone believes in it. Everyone believes in that story. And what you're getting to is what's really important in life. And the stuff that maybe you can't measure is what matters.

I wonder if there's this hidden observable framework that we've got here. I wonder if there's an equivalent to do with luck. So what you were talking about is that the actual chance of us all being here, which I did for my TEDx talk, I actually looked at this. It's the same likelihood as all seven million people in Ireland rolling a trillion-sided dice and all of them coming up with the same number. It's astronomical. It's way, way, way, way more than all of the particles in the observable universe because your parents had to meet at that particular ovulation cycle with that particular sperm all the way back, who forget surviving and all of the rest of it.

To a pretty humane aspect. Correct. All of the way, the only way that you're here is with the exact precise combination of each different iteration that goes all the way back up how to be that sperm and how to be that. I find that slightly makes my head hurt. You know, that thing of Sam Harris was talking about this recently, the idea that maybe there's no free well.

Maybe we have to be having this conversation now because when the big bang happened, everything rolled out. This was ordained. Of course. Robert Sapolsky's got a new book coming out called Determined. Robert Sapolsky harvoured evolutionary biologist. He's coming on in month and a bit and his new book is called Determined. And it's like how to find happiness in a life with no free well. So it'll be interesting. I think one of the things that Sam failed at doing, I'm still like, some people I speak to talk about,

like ways that free will kind of just come through and all the rest of it, but one of the things that I think Sam has at least not instructed me, who has listened to a lot of him, in is tactically, how do I use the information of a deterministic universe to feel more fulfilled? Given the fact that both of us are such massive fans of agency and everyone that's listening to this podcast will be as well, they want to feel like they're the architect of their own life, that they are actually able to make some sort of imposition on the world.

It's very disempowering to find that, oh, I'm just domino number 48 million out of today's fucking bing bing bing bing bing bing bing bing. It doesn't make me feel very empowered. I want someone to come in and tactically tell me if this is the case. How should I live? It's interesting that thing of like the time scales live. It's interesting that thing of like the time scales kind of comes up and also the idea of like what what are we what's important here you sent out a thing recently about fuck you money yeah which I was really interesting the idea of like the meme of fuck you money the idea that you could have enough that you could tell people to fuck off if that's particularly something that you know you want to tell people to fuck off in experience, you can tell people to fuck off with no money.

Good luck. But then there's, there's fuck you freedom was the next iteration. And then you got to fuck you family. The idea that actually what really matters is having a unit. And family, I would take in a broader sense of friends and family having like a, a, a coterie around you, you'll try, if you will, around you. That's really, it's very interesting to me, I'm like, where you're going to play that game, where you have agency in the world. And the idea of going, okay, well, there's certain players, Elon Musk has got

agency at a ludicrous global level. But in the global leaders, great. But on an individual level, we all have agency. We can all be, you know, we can all make a difference. Yeah, I really wish I could give the gift of sort of higher agency to a lot of people. I think it's such a lack of... No, I think sort of the greatest gift, like if you could give your child any gift. Likeability.

Likeability goes a long way. That's a Peterson's thing. Do not let your children do anything that makes you not like them. Like a likable child. I think I was in fear, I may need to ask my mum, when I fear I was an incredibly unlikable child. And I think that that shaped, that was probably quite formative

in a lot of my experiences with other parents, with other kids. So that's a good thing. I mean, I know a little bit about your childhood and kind of what you went through as an only child and feeling slightly isolated. But is that not the thing that untethered you and allowed you to sort of fly free?

That's so true. So I spoke about this yesterday with Stephen Bartlett that there's layers to unpacking the things that you went through and the formative experiences that you've had. So the first layer is a chip on your shoulder about whatever it is that happened to you. So for me, being bullied in school, being ostracized, not feeling like I was part of a group, then the second layer is alchemizing that into something that you really care about. So saying, okay, the skills that I got and the resilience that I developed from spending so much time on my own,

I've turned something that was toxic into something which is valuable. Then the layer after that is I get to use the chip on my shoulder and the resentment for the people that came before me and that caused this problem as the activation energy to now deploy this skill set. Okay, so there now I'm not only not only if I made lead into gold, but I've now turned this gold into something that's useful. I've formed it into something that I can move forward with. But then the final one, and this is the really fucking difficult one, is to realize that if the people who tormented you are the reason that you've developed the skill sets that you care about, then you can't resent them, you should thank them. That you genuinely should look back

at most of the things that you were ashamed of or guilty about or fearful of in your past and realize that that's the dark side of one of the lightest and most proud things that you've got. So overall, if the challenges that you went through formed a person that you like, those bullies in school, I should sit down with all of them and say, yeah, thanks mate. Yeah, that's a very interesting to listen to because when you go, you know, to go through that experience, it's kind of easy now, you're 35, you're a grown man and you're doing great. But to sort of think back to you are still that child. You're still that lonely kid searching for connection.

But is that not the whole of the show? Like every episode I listen to, you're sort of there, kind of looking for a hug. You're sort of, your whole demeanor is, I want to connect with this person, I want to know what they know, and I want to have a friendship. And it's incredibly healthy. It just seems like it's, it's a, oh yeah,

everything that happened absolutely worth it. And also, ah, what are you going to do? You can forgive them and move on or you can hold resentment. But it's ultimately that's, you know, what's the important thing, we can't measure that metric. Yeah. Of what that forgiveness gives you as to what that resentment gives you. But I would, I'd bet the house on the fact that the forgiveness is lighter and breeds more activity. Yeah, I've been thinking recently about the idea of, we can't know the future and we don't fully know ourselves and we don't fully know the present, we don't fully know everybody else. So we have to concede that some huge proportion of our worldview is a delusion.

Yeah, doesn't someone talk about the three humiliations? You've heard of that? No, it's that. The three humiliations of humanity, so it was Copernicus. We're not the center of the universe, and then it was Darwin. We're descended from animals. We're not special. Oh, Jesus. All right, and then the third one, Freud, our self-conscious is running from animals. We're not special. Oh Jesus. All right. And then the third one Freud Ourself conscious is running the show. We don't even know ourselves. Oh, fucking hell Fucking hell It's like humanity's really taken a combination one big hit after another. Yeah, there's a big hits You go, yeah, you don't really know ourselves, but that's kind of the journey and that's the the whole thing

I mean, that's why I think Not to bring it all back to stand up comedy, but I do think there's something magnificent about doing a bit of stand up You know going and finding your voice and what you find funny and your sense of humor because everyone's kind of got one right? Yeah, I uh, so this delusion thing people Yeah, so this delusion thing, people don't fully know themselves or the world around them or what's going to happen or all of the rest of it. Given the fact that you don't know yourself and you're deluded in some way, why not pick a delusion that is useful to you?

Well this is what NLP gets to neuro-linguistic programming. It talks a lot about presuppositions. Because you can't know, you know, know it for a fact. It's kind of a, you know, a little bit of a pseudo-science. So what's useful, rather than think about what's correct, what's useful, what makes a difference? If I believe I can do that, I can do that. The belief is often the thing that makes the difference. Did I do that bit?

Did I tell you about the symbolic truth, but literal falsehood framework? This is fucking cool. Okay. So things can be symbolically true, but literally false. And this is most religious stories. So the belief that porcupines can throw their quills, right, literally untrue. Porcupine can't throw their quills, right? Literally untrue.

Porcupines can't throw its quills. Like it's not a fucking, it's not filled. The power fucking tailor. Good luck, American listeners, without reference. Ha, ha, ha, Phil Taylor is a fat Naka dance player. Legendary dance player from England. You say legendary, I say fat Naka, but you know, potato potato.

Yeah, you can throw a sharp thing. So they can't do that. They can't throw that in a useful thing to believe. Yeah, because they're barbed and if they're getting you, you're fucked. So not good. The belief that porcupines can throw their quills is symbolically true in that it's adaptive

for you to believe it. Another one would be that pigs are uniquely dirty animals, ever seen a cow, cows pretty dirty as well. So all of the religious traditions that said we don't eat pigs because pigs are uniquely dirty animals, ever seen a cow, a cow's pretty dirty as well. So all of the religious traditions that said, we don't eat pigs because pigs are uniquely dirty animals, literally false. Figuratively, pigs do carry a higher pathogen load typically than other animals in their meat.

So by believing that that's the case, it's an adaptive outcome for you. Now, I learned this from Wines Weinstein six or seven years ago, right? Then I've been playing with it for ages and ages to try and think of something which is literally true but figuratively false. So what's the opposite of this, right? So I was trying to think about something

which is, it might be accurate to know, but unadaptive to believe. And I think that free will is one of these. I think that even if we do live in a deterministic universe, even if that is literally what is true, figuratively, it's an information hazard. I don't think that it really, unless you go false, like Sam Harris Enlightenment mode

and get out the other side too, no one is the architect of their own decisions, therefore empathy and forgiveness so much easier to come by, which I don't think practically is that easy for most people to do. I don't think that the same as the behavioral genetics, Radpill, if you believe that almost more than 50% of what you are psychologically is locked in and you only get to play with this tiny little sort of cake dressing on the top of it. How many cherries do I want to put on top of this cake? Yeah. It doesn't feel...

It's not very supportive in terms of how you show up in the world, even if it's true. So that's something that might be literally true, but figuratively false and the porcupine throwing their quills in it like. I mean, it's a very interesting area to sort of talk about, because it's about... belief makes such a very interesting area to sort of talk about, because belief makes such a huge difference. If you believe in something, you can kind of,

you do it, it gives you the kind of the world to do it, to give it a go. About what you think is possible, what your dreams gonna be. I mean, when you started this podcast presumably, you didn't think I've been Austin, Texas, talking to the great and the good, and trying to figure things out. It's like, that's why I think the've been Austin, Texas talking to the great and the good and trying to figure things out.

That's why I think the book thing is really interesting for you now. I've like trying to rather than just either level of, okay, trying to figure this thing out and it's kind of interesting to chat about. It's like putting down these thoughts and going, you know, does it grow calm? What are the bits of wisdom that are most affected? How you live day to day? So I think that the next 24 hours is really interesting. I'm like, what could you do that adds value to you tomorrow?

It's such a lovely frame. Such a lovely frame. You talk about disposition being more important than position. Yeah, what do you mean by that? Well, listen, I know some billionaires that are pretty miserable, I don't know some guys with boring office jobs that are very happy. I think your disposition is, it's very difficult to change, but it's often easier than changing the world. You're in your head on your own, an awful lot of the time, no matter how connected you are, no matter how great your family, you are you,

and the acceptance of that and the way that you see the world, the rose tinted glasses of looking at the world, looking for jokes is pretty tremendous. I think the thing that makes a difference to people on disposition is in the most part its gratitude can kind of move the dial. That's the thing that seems to make it different. It's that thing of like, if you're in a bad mood All the time you're not in a bad mood. You're awesome It's the truth of it. So it's got you how are you most of the time?

The how you treat a waiter or a waiter or a so how you react when you get a speeding ticket or any of those little things That because life is gonna throw lots of that stuff at you. How do you react to it? How how are you in the world? What's your is it a sunny disposition or are you kind of, you know, are you boring? Well, you've been through bouts of depression as I have, I actually thought throughout all of my 20s that I was depressed. I thought that that was the texture of my mind.

I thought it was locked in, like the worst weed trip that you've ever had. This is me for the rest of my life. Okay, so I'm interested in conflated words. I often think depression is conflated with sadness. And sadness is much more difficult to admit and it's much more, there's more of a stigma around being depressed. There's a certain glamour to being depressed. A lo loop of this mysterious thing, it's pathologized. It suggests depth. A word saddest is just, oh, you sad fuck. You sad.

What do you do? You've got a surface level life, run clubs, I'm sure you're having a nice time, whatever. But it's surface level. So that depression was maybe saddest. But I think if it's environmental, if you could change it, if it's not to do the serotonin levels in your head and the chemical imbalance, then it's, if you can do something about it, it's sadness. So assuming it's sadness and that you can do something about it, I mean, since people with real mental health problems and my heart goes out to them, but for a lot of people, it's just there, it's circumstantial.

But you went through periods of acute sadness or depression, however you want to label it. And yet you've managed to get yourself to a stage largely. Anxiety has been the big is really my... Drug of choice. Anxiety, I think there's a gift in there. I think the gratitude that I have for anxiety is it's the flip side of creativity that your mind is racing and sometimes you're trying to solve a problem in the future because you don't have anything to do now. It's why people talk about, you know, I'm so happy when I exercise because you're giving yourself a problem right now and your mind is dealing with whatever lifting that up, putting it down.

Yeah, you put 120 kilos on a bar, you're not thinking about much else so that then I really need to get this off me. Yeah. That thing of like, that simple thing of going, you probably don't have enough to do. If you're anxious about silly things in the future or the, I mean, I get very tied up with counterfactuals and wondering about what might have been and what should have done. And you know, it kind of links to me to that weird thing of like no one's scared of falling off a cliff.

Worried about jumping. There's kind of a weird thing of going, well what if I've done something different, what if I'd... I could tell you that you've heard that Douglas Murray thing about, in life we must choose our regrets, right? Yeah. I mean, you can have anything, you've heard that Douglas Murray thing about in life we must choose our regrets, right? Yeah, and then you can have anything you can't have everything Yeah, that what could have been we can't split test life we can't go back Yeah, and give this another crack. I tell you for a guy with a sunny disposition to very serious conversations

Yeah, I quite like this. I feel this is very I I feel like in the moment to call it, it feels very revealing to have this conversation because it doesn't feel unlike the conversation we had at dinner the other day, but it is that thing of you go, it's kind of showing more of yourself than you, you know, normally it's just dick jokes. Wait until people see I've got pants on underneath. Yeah. Cut to the white. You know. It needs to be very wide. Yeah, so I'm interested in this, if anxiety is your mental melody of choice, and yet you've managed to get yourself to a state where you are in a sunny disposition, at least

some non-zero amount of the time. Yeah, sorry, just to go back to, because I'm still thinking about disposition position, because people climb to a position and they think happiness is going to live there. And I think you'd be better served trying to make yourself happy and then worrying about where you're going. I think your happiness, your emotional wellbeing, working on that first seems to be a very sensible thing because it doesn't live down the road. It doesn't let you know you put a million dollars in the bank, it won't, it won't make you less insecure. That kind of

scarcity mindset is kind of poison. Is that a lesson that can be learned without going and seeing the top of the mountain yourself? Because there will be a lot of people that could say, Jimmy, easy for you to say about fame isn't going to fix your problems, money isn't going to fix your problems, you've achieved both. Well, fame, fame, I think has replaced heaven in a secular world. Fame is the land of milk and honey, where everything is okay and you'll look after and it's perfect and let I'm not knocking it I'd love being famous, but it's not the be all an end all and actually again you can you can kind of split test that because I can get a country why I'm not known not many but there's a few

You talk about why trajectory is so important as well. I think that this is in here. It's all people see, isn't it? People aren't interested in how, if you're playing 250 shows a year, like, have me doing that for years? It's not exciting, it's not news. It's news when people arrive and they're new. So when something, you know, I think film and TV and they're new. So when something, you know, in, I think film and TV and comedy and kind of entertainment, it's, it's like, it's all about where were they last year, where are they this year, just maintaining no one seems to care. Although comics aren't entertainers in the true sense, the true definition of an entertainer is, if you don't like me, I don't like me. I don't like me.

Oh, that's interesting. You've had to... That's a real entertainer. You've outsourced yourself worth to the crowd. Of course, that's what an entertainer is. And there's, I know guys that are entertaining, so friends said that to me and it was like, Oh man, that is your journey, good luck. That's how comedians desperately want to be loved,

but entirely on their own terms. It's a lovely paradox. Do you see that in yourself? What's the lesson here between the desire to make people happy and laugh? And being this, how do you say, intrinsic drug dealer? Yeah. And the fact that you need to be able to go home at night and put your head on the pillow without having,

you know, if your self-worth is inflated by the crowd, then it can be deflated by the criticism. Yeah, I mean, listen, that's the, if something, if something out there makes you happy, losing it's going to make you sad. So it matters. I think putting on a good show, though, is about going, happy, losing it's going to make you sad. So it matters. I think putting on a good show, though, is about going, do I think it's funny? You know, there's certain things that I write and I go, ah, it feels a bit, doesn't feel quite, hasn't got a great structure to it. It's not quite the right sort of joke for me, I'm going to leave it.

It's not great. And then there's stuff that I like more than the crowd. And it's finding a balance where you go, look, I know what you paid to see. I know why you're here. And the world ordered a stand-up comedian, and I'm going to honor that. I'm going to be as good at this as I can be. And it's kind of a mediation, but it's very much on my terms in terms of these are the jokes that I tell.

We spoke about that trajectory thing over dinner, and it's really interesting because Andrew Tate, someone you might not have thought wisdom from this area of the world would have applied, but he says having things isn't fun, getting things is fun. And while I stopped, I stopped clock is right twice a day. I mean, he says a lot of things. He's bound to get some stuff right. He's got an interesting cultural phenomenon because I think the... What do you think happened with Tate? Have you done a post-mortem on his ascendancy to... No, I mean, the only thing I would say is that, you know, young men, I feel are in crisis.

And not that young women aren't in crisis. They are, I mean, young people generally, but it feels like young men are having a silent crisis. You know, we talk about certain things and we don't talk about other things. And, you know, young men committing suicide seems to be a huge problem at the moment. And a lack of purpose and agency is a huge, you know, why video game is so popular, especially with young men, and it's a facsimile of career and purpose and drive and different levels, and there's something in us that's not that men and women are so very different. I always think like the big difference gender wise is men are all taking a performance in

Hansinggrug every single day, and that drug is testosterone. And really, if you had to talk about what testosterone does for men, it's risk-taking. So when we talk a lot about all the CEOs, all the big CEOs are men and it's very unfair, but also prisons are full of men because men take ludicrous risks. So I think if you were going to life hack for, I mean, I've got a daughter and the advice I'll give her is take more risks. And you can, because you're making it a conscious decision, it's not a hormonal decision, then maybe you can actually do better because you can not do the dumb shit.

You don't need to jump from the high board, but you can move to a city where there's more opportunities, taking those risks that, you know, the average man takes. Like, I kind of look back and it seems so easy, but I left my job and became a comic because I did it. The idea that that was pretty ordained, so fucking stupid. Such a ludicrous mid-twenties, hell-mary catch of a, ah, this life's boring, I'm going to go and do something more fun. Crazy. So I think that's kind of, that's kind of an interesting point of going the, how do we, how do we make things more equal between men and women in our society? And I think encouraging greater risk in young women is, is a really sensible, because that's what,

that's what guys have got. They're taking crazy chances. I mean, you, you, you leaving, guys have got, they're taking crazy chances. I mean, you, you leaving, you had a very comfortable life and a good living and a good career and you traded it in for madness. For like, oh, well, I'm just gonna be, you know, and auto-addict that, you know, it's like, you're self-educated, you seem to be, you should have this kind of thirst for knowledge.

They're going, yeah, well, I'm maybe I'll just do that. Just doing the thing that you love. It's one of the reasons why I had such a problem with the term, it was meant to be. So the reason I hate this post-hoc rationalization of how a bad situation became a good situation because it was meant to be in the end. It completely removes all of the agency that you had over turning that shit situation into something that was good. Let's say that you lose a leg in a car crash and you're in a hospital bed and while you're there, you begin watching history YouTube videos about ancient Rome, and you realize that you're really interested in it.

And 10 years later, you are now the biggest ancient Rome historian presenting shows for your own channel, maybe you're on the BBC, written books, you're best, so you've only got one leg, but it doesn't matter. Saying it was meant to be, I got in that car crash for a reason, so that I would spend enough car crash for a reason, so that I would spend enough time in a hospital bed, so that I would find the videos about the Roman Empire,

so that I could have this career. Ultimately, nets out at taking away all of the alchemy that you had that turned this... Hang on, let's do it in a reverse way. You got dealt a really unfortunate card and managed to, there we go, that's blackjack. But the cards you got dealt, are the cards you got dealt. I really like that thing of like, at some point, you've got to go with what you got or you're not going to go. So you do what you need to do. It's interesting now, you do what you need to do. I like it's interesting now the educational bit of this, the idea that you're going,

look, it's you're educating yourself now to what end, to what purpose, or you're making it easier for for other people down the line. I'm working on, I think, at the moment where I'm trying to write a language for comedy. I'm trying to write it for this. I'm trying to write a comedy course, a book. I'm not quite sure what it's gonna be, but the idea of going, I think there's too much mysticism about writing jokes. I think even professionals, even some of the goats, they kind of write it on stage, and they embody a part of their persona on stage,

and they can conjure up these funny things and there's alchemy. I go, yeah, maybe, but actually you can break it down. You can break down what you're doing there and it can be taught. The idea that it can't be taught is to me so incredibly limiting. The idea that comedy can't be taught is like, well music can't be taught of course, because the reason you're saying that the comedy industry has a disproportionate number of narcissists in it, Jimmy, that would be a surprise.

How dare you. Yeah, I've got a good line on narcissism. I think I've got a couple of narcissists in my life. So my line is, a narcissist, they've got the disease and you've got the symptoms. Pretty much sort of sums it up, isn't it? Hey, it's an issue. If you've got on in your life, you know about it. Yeah, I think it's really interesting that thing of going, if it was like music, more

like music, and people could sort of discover themselves, because really what are the teenage years about? It's uncomfortable being a teenager. It's uncomfortable like, and we're all growing. It doesn't really stop. But that idea of going, well, who am I? If you're the person you were 10 years ago, then you fucked up. If there's no growth in it.

If you haven't progressed, but it's constantly asking yourself the right questions. And finding a bit of humor in that just makes the journey a little bit easier, doesn't it? Talking about that trajectory and how it's important to think about where you're going and other people respond to the rising or falling of your stock in kind. There's an argument that's character versus reputation. So, character is what you know about yourself. If you have a crisis and you're getting cancelled your reputation is in the toilet. But you still know who you are. You know you know who you are

and it's that the fundamental question when you're in the middle of a cancellation crisis is who are you? Jimmy I'm a stand-up comedian, I tell edgy jokes. Oh, okay. That's fine, this seems appropriate. There's no problem. You know who you are, you know what you're about. It's, it's, uh, it's, ultimately it's about that kind of thing, just going, okay, this is, this is fine. And also, where's your, where does your happiness lie?

If it's outside of you, if it in that true entertainer's self, if you don't love me, then I don't love me. What does it feel like to be cancelled or attempted cancelled? It's interesting, what the term means now, I don't think it's you call it cancellation, I call it free publicity. It hasn't really had, I don't know whether it really exists. I think it does, I think like there's extreme cases, but people are can no longer work and are shunned.

But as there always been cancellation, it's kind of a new word for something that we've always had. There were always people that were, you know, you've said something, unsaid, but I mean, you've got to write size it as well. The things I've been canceled for, I told the joke and some people didn't like it. You've got to write size that. That's not that bad. I've got canceled once over tax avoidance,

not tax evasion. You know the difference? No, it's about 18 months in person. That thing of going, It's about 18 months in prison. You know, that thing of going, you, you were, that was very easy because if you get canceled for tax evasion and you say, well, I'm going to pay the money back, great. We cannot forgive what we cannot punish. The certain things that religion does better than a secular society. Well, we cannot forgive what we cannot punish.

So certain crimes, like no laws been broken, but ah, that guy now gives me the ik. Okay, we should he never be allowed to work again? What did he do? Are they criminal charges? What's going on here? What's actually happening? And the reputational damage and what could be done online in a day, I mean, you can tear something down pretty quick. And it happens

every week. It happens to regular people. There's a lack of, I suppose, because we live online and we're not seeing the whites of each other's eyes. Kindness, compassion, forgiveness. Very dehumanizing, especially when you get to a certain level of fame, people no longer see very famous people as people. They see them as a representation of an ideology. There are conglomeration of ideas sat behind an at symbol on some form of social media Which is why they're prepared to say completely reprehensible things that they wouldn't say to someone who is much smaller

But they would even say much more reprehensible things to the person that's much smaller on social media than they would say to them face to face or They would even say to them fucking reason. No weird thing is more with the cancellation The press would have you believe press opinion, public opinion, and Twitter X are the same thing. And they're all very different. Well, they want to be the arbiters, the gatekeepers of true public opinion, they're not the news aren't in the news business. They're in the clickbait business. Clickbait is their product. Yeah, it's, I wonder what news looks like without that. I mean, it's, what was your idea?

You wanted news without the, without the video? I sound, yeah, news without opinion would be, I think, very interesting. There's a website at the moment, like an app called The Knowledge, which gives you all the day's news, and it comes out about noon. Great, not first thing. We have a cup of tea and relax first, but it's like five sentences, tells you all the news you need to know for the day. Kind of great. Yeah, it was an interesting idea.

I've got, what do you need all the commentary? Do you need to know what they think about it? It's like, it's a weird thing. There's a great book called, by Neil Postman, called Amusing Ourselves to Death, and it came out in 1984, and it's him kind of railing against. They put music on the news.

It's a show now. That's the beginning of the end for him. They put music on the news. It's a show now. That's the beginning of the end for him. They put music on the news and you go, yeah, this is its entertainment. I really enjoyed that, what's our problem, book by Tim Urban? Yes. I thought it was absolutely fantastic. Just the idea of going, you know, you kind of follow politics like you're following a team, you know, people are, they're just one or the other in their following, and they're not really watching politics, they're watching the real politicians of Washington DC, where they've picked seven great characters to follow, like real housewives, you know, reality's boring, reality TV's great, well the news is the same. It's a great book, I really, I think that's the book that's changed the way I think about things more than anything else the last sort of 12 months. Really?

A great book. You wish you'd read that 10 years ago before you went through a bunch of... I wish I'd read it when I was at college. I think that's a weird thing where, you know, the stuff I was reading at college was sort of nonsense. But yeah, go back, you know, regardless of character and reputation and how much you've tried to bifurcate the two and silo them off from each other.

There must be a felt sense of fear, there must be a felt sense of, like this is happening and largely I'm being, no, it's the worst breakup you've ever, being canceled is the worst breakup you've ever had. Because you're losing the person you love the most. You're losing you because you've created and this created and created this person, this thing.

And you have a reputation, which is your brand is sort of a decentralized opinion on who you are living in other people's heads and in a day it's gone or changed or you know, but it's you know it's all right. I think it makes you more the good to take from it is the empathy it gives you. I always call on the day. What do you think people who aren't famous don't know about fame? What do you think people who aren't famous don't know about fame? I Don't know I mean I'd sort of stand by that idea. It's the land of milk and honey. It's kind of a secular heaven It's it's kind of my view is it's the natural state to be Because we're meant to live in tribes right for the longest time we live in tribes

And let's say there was 60 80 people people in the tribe, and everyone knew everyone, and meeting a stranger was weird. What being famous is like, is it's like you live in one of those tribes, but you've got Alzheimer's. So I don't know anyone, but they all know me. So people come out and makes the world a very friendly place. So I go into a coffee shop and get a coffee,

and people go, oh, you're the guy from the thing, and there's no small talk you're into talking about your career and your life, and what's going on with them, and you have a coffee and people go you're the guy from the thing and you meet a small talk you're into talking about your career in your life what's going on with them and you have a connection with people and sometimes people don't like you those people ignore you and that is just a regular stranger. It's great people don't bother having a negative interaction with you so they just come up and say something nice if you they're going to say something nice, or they don't say anything. So it's like a selection effect. The only people that do bother coming up to you are the people that like you. The people that don't like you just ignore you. Yeah. Oh, they just don't know who the hell I am. I think I came up on one of the last guys I think to come up and be famous in certainly in the UK in that sense of, you know, mass media. I'm tele-famous. And now I think increasingly we're gonna have people that are famous, but in a very limited way.

So if you think about musicians, there's very few musicians now that your mum's heard of. Right? If your mum's heard of them, they are massive, right? Same amount of records were sold in the 1980s as today, but by, it used to be sold by 500 artists now sold by 10. Same things happen with books. Used to be 500 authors brought out novels they all do pretty well and now it's like four a year and they sell incredible numbers. But music and books and if you're into something now, it seems like it's marrow

casting. So it's interesting that the other night we went out for a drink, someone came up and said, oh, hey, how are you? Someone came up to you and was so into it. It's like, oh, this is my guy. This is my guy. But it's probably fewer, but much more intense. Yeah, it's interesting. It's just, I know, we're often told about the perils of fame, I know. We're often told about the perils of fame, right, that it's reality warping and that you privacy gets lost and all the rest of it. There's a great line. I'm a watching Breaking Bad and my girl said, or he's talking about it and going, well, you know, power, he, power corrupts. And you you know power reveals. It's like reveals who you really are. Like the more it is kind of a revealing thing I think.

How so? I think you become you're allowed to be you know do you live in someone else's world or do they live in yours. It kind of gets to that you know do we cover that charm charisma thing. I've got a real sort of thing on charm and charisma being very different. And they're conflated words, they sort of mean the same thing in conversation. But I think they're very different. I think charm isn't someone you like. It's someone you think would like you. Charisma is, you come to me. Charms, I come to you.

Obama, incredibly charming. Look at his speech patterns, look at the way he hurls himself. He's like, he's mediating the situation. So damn charming. Trump is charismatic. You come to me. One isn't better than the other, particularly. I mean,

there's a, you know, exalt, one that I prefer there, but as an individual, Jennifer Aniston is charming. Angelina Jolie is charismatic. Now, you both get to fuck Brad Pitt. That's the good news, but it's a very different skill set and I think knowing yourself, knowing which one you are is very valuable. Which do you think you are? All charisma, zero fucking charm. Like zero charm. Of course. But that's what it sounds very arrogant. I'm all charisma. But you, but that's what I'm working with. That's the thing of like, it likes if someone charismatic, trying to be charming, smarmy,

falsely disingenuous. It doesn't come across, it doesn't read. So you've got to know what you're dealing with, know what you're playing with. And there's no judgment, particularly on which one it is. But it's pretty sort of interesting thinking about what you are, how people perceive you. Because how you perceive this, but how you're perceived is so important in our world.

And it's useful to know. Because when people meet me and when people see me on TV, they have a perception of me. Now, is it true? No, there's more to me than that. You know, I'd suffer a bit with the anxiety. I'm very dyslexic. Not very good at writing. I read quite slowly.

Now that comes across. People just go, he's all right, he's looking in. When a sharp suit is really cutting and sadonic, he's all right, he's looking in. When a sharp suit, he's really cutting and sadonic, he's probably unthinking and whatever. But knowing that is really useful. You don't have to be that person. But it's good to know what others think about you. There is a thing about fame where,

if you wear the mask for long enough, the mask becomes the face. You told me that line the other night. That took a good chunk of my 20s to realize that. And Aubrey Marcus taught me that the persona is incapable of receiving love, it can only receive praise. And what he means by the fucking,

that's very good, isn't it? Correct. Yeah, that was like a, because this was when I was probably 20, no, it was between 31, I think when he said that to me for the first time. So like 2019, so only, you know, only four years ago. And I'm still kind of this big name on campus party boy, ish, but I'm also not, and I'm feeling this pain. So I've got enough distance. I think how do I have learned it when I needed to hear it? I wouldn't have had the perspective to be able to understand it. What is not the with wisdom is you could tell any 18-year-old all of this stuff.

And it will just different things will resonate at different times. So you can't read the same book twice. We talked the other night about Lindy books. That's one of the things I got from this podcast, which I love. I got, I was listening to this and I was reading Quentin Tarantino's cinema speculation. And just want, why am I watching new stuff? Who gives the fuck about new stuff?

I want the best stuff. So you go back to 1970's cinema and books that you read years ago that meant something to you and read them again. It's that, like no man steps in the same river twice because he's not the same river and he's not the same man. Yeah.

Yeah, so this like strange idea around the persona is incapable of receiving love, it can only receive praise. It was really important to me because I realized that I hadn't necessarily felt particularly connected to a lot of the successes in my life. I hadn't felt like they really got me, right? And the reason being that if you are only playing a role, everyone's support and adoration of you will feel in some ways hollow and shallow because people aren't in love with you, they're applauding the role that you play.

We don't love Russell Crowe, we love gladiator, we don't love Russell. He might be listening to this. Your is mate, So that's different. But yeah, that thing of, I suppose it is the actor. It's that we're playing a role and that role is, yeah, you kind of don't love someone at work. They're in a chair. They're the boss, whatever they're doing. It's a part of them, but it's not authentically them.

And that's why finding that work-life balance where you have a place where you can totally be yourself and be open to love. But also, there are love things interesting to me, just as a sidebar, every song for 400 years was about God. And every song is about love. How do you mean? Every song is about love, right? Every song used to be about love. How do you mean? Every song is about love, right? Every song used to be about God. Everything used to, every piece of music pre-1900 was about God. Everything.

And now it's about love. I mean, you could make an argument to say it's the same thing, but it's just interesting to me that that culturally, that's kind of what we... The love of the gals. Well, love is what, it's slightly taken over now. The love song has, you know, it feels to me like comedy is having a moment because it's reflecting back the world in a very interesting way. It feels like comedy is having the moment that music maybe had in the 60s and 70s

and cinema had in the 70s, where it really connected with people. People are connecting with comedians in a way that's, I mean, listen, I'm part of this. 70s and cinema had in the 70s were really connected with people. People are connecting with comedians in a way that's, I mean listen, I'm part of this, but I feel like I'm in at the ground level. Like podcast and new and we can see podcast and new because it's like less than five years. But really, how many of you only existed in the current format? Since, I mean, who's the John the Baptist, you know, Lenny Bruce and George Carlin and Richard Pryor, these guys standing on stage talking for an hour and people just came to see them.

Run about really happened before. You can trace it about, there's never a first, but you can trace it back to whenever, to shame inistic, skunk and antsy. But really, it's a very modern thing. Stand up comedy this way of it's an American medium and it feels like incredible to be kind of part of that as it and it's rising. It feels like it's rising and becoming more important. And I don't know. I don't know who the goats are, but I kind of like to think they're in the future. I like to think the goats are 12 years old now going through high school. They're going to grow up with this language around them.

I came up with an interesting idea the other day. I was in Brighton giving that live talk and then James, one of my friends, got up on stage and it was packed. 1600 people, wall to wall in this massive auditorium in Brighton somewhere. And I just wanted to watch his show from the front. So he's done what I'm about to start doing a lot. He's sold out Sydney Opera House. He's sold out the Round House in London.

He's sold out the palladium. So he's done the thing that I'm about to begin doing with my live show. And I was like, I'm going to watch the guy, not from side stage, not from backstage. I'm going to fucking observe it. I'm about to begin doing with my live show. And I was like, I'm going to watch the guy, not from side stage, not from back stage. I'm going to fucking observe it. I'm going to be out there with the peasants. So descend into the muck in the myon, the feces in the blood,

sit down. During the interval, this guy comes over, sit in front of me, and we get talking. And he was discussing about how he has changed the way that he sees himself about how he has what I called personal growth guilt. So survivor guilt, someone goes away to war, their truck gets blown up, all of their friends die, he gets stuck in the back, but somehow you survive, right? You maybe you're injured, maybe you're not, but you get to come home. And there's a very specific type of guilt that's associated with that, which is his, his

belief that he should have gone with his friends, right? That he should have been killed along with them. I think this is relatively common amongst soldiers that come back from walk. He was talking to me about one of the things that he feels, which is like a personal growth guilt, that as he begins to pull himself away from these beliefs and insights and lifestyles that no longer serve him, he was starting to feel this degree of guilt for leaving his friends behind in some regard. And I thought that was very interesting. I think that this is one of the draws that pulls people back into old habits and old patterns that they almost don't believe that they are worthy. Well, it's interesting the move to Oster that you've made, because that thing of like, you can't beat your environment.

And that idea of, I made a move quite early in life. I was 16 and I moved schools. And it was the first kind of that sort of discovery that you are, who you say you are. Yeah, I mean, ultimately you'll be judged on what you do, not what you say. But it was interesting to kind of be able to reinvent myself quite early in life and go, well, I'm not going to just mess around and, you know, at crazy at school,

I'm going to work really hard and go to Cambridge and really apply myself. And no one thought it was crazy because I could just turn up in this new place and go, hey, I'm smart and alpha and I'm going to go to Cambridge and everyone, okay. Great. It's interesting now with things like Facebook where I think it's becoming increasingly difficult to distance yourself from the past, your tethered to your past. There's memories and those photos and those friendships and the connections. It's just difficult to let go. There used

to be a high school reunion and you'd meet someone 15 years after you left school and go, what have you been up to? Now are you already now? It's never going to happen again, right? Because if you're interested, you're going to know or you're still connected to them. They're following you, they're still part of your life. So you don't get to kind of reinvent yourself and I think it's quite a healthy thing. It depends. You might have just come out fully formed and be great. But I think for a lot of us, it did involve going, well, look, this is what I am now. This is

what I want to be. And I've got a bit of ambition, as opposed to entitlement, and I'm in a work hard to get to there. And sometimes you can be kind of dragged back by friends of family can be incredibly supportive, but they can also kind of drag you back. There's a lot of comics have spoken about this, the idea of when you start out, you don't really tell your friends, you just go and do it. Like after a 10 or 20 or 30 gigs, whatever you tell people you're doing, there's new thing. But by then you're off, you're, you're joined the circus.

One of my friends as a quote, we're not afraid of failure or afraid of what other people will think of us if we fail. Yeah, which I think is a nice reframe. I've never understood the quote about, you're not afraid of failing, you're afraid of what will happen if you succeed. No, I'm not. No, that's what I'm aiming for.

I'm afraid of what will happen if I succeed. That's literally what I'm trying to do. But I think we're afraid of the judgment of other people if we do fail. Or that feels pretty on the money to me. And you could live a very, you know, contained life. You know, scared of being ridiculed. You're scared of humiliation.

You're scared of saying, I wanna do great things and they're not doing great things. But I would argue saying you wanna do great things and not doing great things and they're not doing great things. But I would argue saying you want to do great things and not doing great things is better than just not doing anything. I'm not saying anything. Give it a crack. Thinking about that ability to deal with failure, that ability to sort of face up to things not going so well. And also this. Well, it's, there's different failures, aren't there? There's kind of, there's, there's recoverable and non-recoverable failures.

So you tell the joke and it doesn't work. Very recoverable. You've got another line straight away, locked and loaded. We'll try something else. And then if they all don't work all the new lines, then you've got the old lines that you know do work. So you're, you're okay. And then there's, there's proper that you know do work. So you're okay. And then there's

there's proper, you know, kite surfing failures. Where you drown. There's different failures, right? There's different levels of risk and different tolerance for risk. So making sensible choices on what could you risk? Yeah. That seems very sensible. George reminded me. I was lamenting about two years ago to George about whether or not George Mack, for the people that don't know the mutual George friend, about whether or not I should move to Austin. And he gave me a frame that was very instructive, which is it's a reversible decision. You go out there, it doesn't work. You come back with detail between your legs. Maybe you're going to look a little bit silly, but it's hardly the end of the world. Reversible and irreversible decisions,

I think, are such a lovely... I'd say, great. So if you're looking at something and you're saying, well, should I have these kids? That's a big, that's a big decision. It's really hard to put them back in, I've heard. Yeah, I mean, even, and there's a, there's this real stigma to put them up for adoption.

And as a parent, there'll be days when you go, that might be an angle. But you go, that's irreversible, that's forever. Yeah. Whereas other things are, you know, pretty easy to reverse, so take those risks. And you know, even, but there's certain things I think we're set up to think or the our society set up to tell us losing your job is the worst thing that can happen. You can you find another job. Your skill set is the thing that's interesting. Add to that. There's this lovely idea that the skills that you develop along the way of what you were

working toward in any case. So whatever pursuit it is that you're along the way at what you are working toward in any case. So whatever pursuit it is that you're going through, whatever challenges are placed in front of you, what you are working toward is not the end goal, it is not necessarily even the outcome, because whether it fails or whether you succeed, the skills that you developed while you are doing this, it's kind of analogous to that.

It's correct, it. Wipe on wipe off. It's also analogous to man's search for meaning, right? Victor Frankl. Yeah. But ultimately, your ability to respond in any situation is the thing that can never be taken away from you. If that not disposition is more important than position. Yes.

You know, writ large. Yes. You go, people went through, that life is beautiful movie the idea that you go people went through the worst things The world they came out there's I heard an interview with Esther Perage She said this thing that really kind of shook me and she was talking about her parents were in the death camps in Germany and She said some people didn't die and some people lived and she talked about like People that have plastic furniture a plastic coverings on the furniture, they're waiting to live by they're not living now. They're sort of, it's a really interesting analogy

because I think we all know those people that are saving that room for special. But special every day. This is it. This is, you know, there's a the original name for this podcast before I woke up at 3 a.m. with modern wisdom Six years ago was crushing a Tuesday and it's a sentence from I like it sentence from Tim Faris and he talks about you want to design your life So that the average Tuesday It's pretty fucking good. Yeah, I think so because the idea of the mountain, the idea that you're aiming towards something where you will be satisfied,

there's always gonna be someone that's got it better than you somehow. The idea that your comparison is the thief of joy, is one of my favorite quotes. You just, because you're constantly, I've sort of got a holistic theory of jealousy, where you, you know, if you're comparing yourself to someone else, you might look at their career and go,

oh my God, they're playing 15 sold out nights at the Oto Arena, oh my God, they must be making bank, all right, incredible. No, you have to be jealous of the whole thing. Take the whole thing, correct. You need their wife, their kids, their car, their house, their life. who would you actually swap lives with like this like I feel like there's no one because you go well this is my I like the adventure I'm on I want to see how this turns out

it's like my favorite show Yeah, I mean that frame changed an awful lot about jealousy for me as well. You don't know what the inner texture of Elon Musk or Conor McGregor or Kim Kardashian's mind is. It's that thing of like, especially with people closer to you than those kind of the icons. The icons are very useful, I think, to really admire people that are doing fabulous things in the world. Great. But that kind of close, when you've got someone close to you, is it a real friend or a friend of me?

So if their success is your success, if my friend gets a show and sells out a tour and gets a big break and he's in a movie, if I'm, oh, I wish it was me, I can't hang out with that person. I can't. It's like that would be, it's poison. But if you, if your friends were someone, their win is your win. Like when they get the thing, you're like, ah, incredible. Even if it's a thing you really would aspire to and think was amazing. I remember when James Corden got the show in the States just thinking this is so cool, this is like. And then you know, you know, you and you can compare yourself to

your friends, but you go, yeah, but he's he's got charm for days and he's got skills I don't have. What are you going to do? What's your theory on kindness? Well, my theory on kindness would be that we have maybe everyone's very, everyone wants to be kind and the problem is the marshmallow test. You can have one kindness now or two kindness later. And we have to, I think, as a society, as people, I think it's the thing that sort of parenting has kind of taught me, but just life in general, like be kind to yourself, be kind to others later. You know, and I think we all know that thing of like the kind thing to do now is to go to Greg's and buy some donuts and smash them. Great, get that sugar here right now.

And the kind of thing to do is to have a salad and feel good tomorrow. right now. And the kind of thing to do is to have a salad and feel good tomorrow. And with yourself, with others, just delay it. Delay it, do the kind that it's easy to give in now to whims and desires, but actually if you hold back, it's better. Yeah, kindness is kind of like an unsexy thing. It feels almost like the sort of thing that's very hard to just define a capitalistic world. One where everyone's striving. Well, here we are. You've got a non-measurable metric that is incredibly important. So if we talk about disposition, tough to measure, position, oh my God, so easy to measure. How are you doing? How many downloads this month?

How many people listening? How many people tweeting? What do they say? Easy, disposition, not so bad about you, how you feeling? That kindness is, and it comes, you're not being kind. It's ultimately it's for you. It's just a nicer way to live. Yeah, I love this position, disposition, hidden, observable metric frame. I really think there's something in there. I think the hidden observable,

I think maybe we could apply that to everything. You know, because what's the, the successful show is, it's sold out. Does that make it successful? You could fill the room, but can you fill it with laughter? You know, it's it's how are you viewing things like the, it's the wrong time scale often. People often think of these show as being the show tonight. All my show is, is a sales pitch for next time. So all it is.

All the podcast is today is a comeback next week. There's more of this. It's great and he's chatting to people and this is the kind of conversation he asks. Great. It's just doing more. It's process-driven, not outcomes-driven. Do you know what good-harts-law is?

Good-harts-law. Good-harts-law. It sounds like a sequel to a movie. what's processed driven, not outcomes driven. Do you know what good hearts law is? Good hearts law. Good hearts law. It sounds like a sequel to a movie. It's kind of like people that brought you, how'd you like them apples? Kind of like Parkinson's law. So Parkinson's law says that work expands

to fill the time given for it. Okay. It's fundamentally the, it's the justification for time blocking and productivity strategy. It's why you completed your university assignments the night before they were due in, or sometimes if you were me throughout the entire night before they were due in. Yeah, what's that great line? I think it's Dickin said, I would have written you a shorter letter,

but I didn't have the time. So that's Parkinson's law. Good heart's law says, when a measure becomes an outcome, it ceases to be a good measure. So when it's the over lines on dashboards for everything, right? If I was to optimize on the podcast for plays, right, that's a measure. Plays are a measure of the success of the podcast. If I begin to use that measure as an outcome, it no longer is a good measure because it doesn't measure the thing that it's supposed to measure. I could get lots and lots of email addresses by posting all over the internet, sign up to my mailing list and every single person that signs up will get a thousand pounds. People will then sign up and I won't give them a thousand pounds

because I'm not going to do that. So the metric of acquire as many email addresses as I can, good did that. But the actual outcome I wanted was accumulate lots of people on a mailing list who actually want to hear from me, who trust in me and are going to click on links and are going to care about what I've got to say. Like that's the actual outcome. Can I ask about that like a sidebar? But the, I liked the email that you sent. I'd rather you said it. I'd rather. You wanted to dictate it.

I'd rather that was a mini podcast that came at the beginning of the show. Here's what I've been thinking about. I'd rather it was just a, because it's often that thing if you go, I'm listening to it, I kind of, you know, I like it. I like those things, those thoughts. But for me, it's the medium is the message. And for you, it seems to be podcasts are, and I think actually if you put those together, I think maybe that's the book. That's it's taking these little things. So you're sort of, the process is you're writing it as you kind of go along

And you're taking those those things that really resonate with people and I don't disagree I mean it's it's the thing that fires me up the most to do this like whatever we want to call it bro philosophy Like common guy life insight stuff. I really like it. I like bringing those two things together But have you seen in Jonathan height right? I like bringing those two things together. But have you seen Jonathan Hight, right? He's writing his next book in public. It's really interesting. See the Kotlin of the American Mind, that's right.

Yeah, that's a great book. Yeah, fantastic. And then he wrote this great essay for the Washington Post, I think called The Tower of Babel. And it's kind of a development on from where he was, Kotlin of the American Mind, he's sort of big into this anti-social media thing. He's concerned about what it's doing to especially young girls, sense of self and anxiety and so on and so forth. However, what he's doing on his maybe

sub-stack, maybe something else, he's writing the book chapter by chapter, publishing it, maybe just to paying members or maybe for free to everybody. What, they're just getting feedback on it. Getting feedback and iterating. So he will have released every single chapter of his book's first draft for largely free over the space of a Euro-18 months. Great idea. He's kind of the wisdom of crowds. If you think about music as well, like the great bands often go out and play it first before they finish the album. They go and play it and see what the reaction is. It's interesting. I suppose the not looking behind the wizards curtain,

but with great stand-up comedians, when you see Chris Rock do an hour, you go, yeah, well, he wrote probably 2,000 jokes in order to do those 70 that work brilliantly, and in order to do those, he put how much time in, and you know, you wanna road test it. You don't wanna do all new material. I came up with an idea, which is similar to something you talk about a lot. You call it the quarter life crisis,

and I called it the Manel Pause. So, the Manel Pause is nice. Yeah, it's nice, but it's the it's it's early, right? It's that mid 20s. I think it's when you start to make your first decision in life. So pretty much on a treadmill, if you think about it from the age of five, you go into the education system and it was great when we had an empire because we needed people that went through the education system to go and run the empire. That was what it was for. That's what the education system in Britain that's kind of gone out to the Western world was for. Now, not so much. So this idea that it's exams at all these stages, and you know what the metric is. You know what the measurable is. So the measurable isn't what you found now, which is the joy of learning, the joy of reading,

the joy of ideas. That's what school should be about, but it isn't. It's about passing exams and get to, did I choose to stay on and do I levels? No. No, the obvious thing to do after you're, it's 16, you do stay on and everyone goes to university. I mean, everyone goes to university now and you go to the best one you can. So I had to Cambridge and then after Cambridge, what do you do? Everyone's getting a job now. I've got to get a job. What do I get a job with?

Well, the biggest blue chip company I can find. Yay! So you get a job and then you kind of turn around what a year, two years, depending on how bright you are. I'm not that bright, about two years in. I kind of went, the fuck am I doing? I feel like that great quote of two years in, I kind of went, the fuck am I doing? That great quote of every man's got two lives.

And the second begins when he realizes he's only got one. And fuck that. So you get off the treadmill and go, and then it's very, there's a book called, What Color is Your Power Shoot, which I read at the time, which is kind of asking questions that lead you to that, what are you gonna do? There's loads of that kind of self-authoring stuff on the internet time, which is kind of a asking questions that lead you to that, what are you going to do? There's loads of that kind of self-authoring stuff on the internet now,

which is, I always think it's like, it's horoscopes for people with A-levels. You know, whether it's Myers-Brig or whatever, but those are fascinating because you kind of go, why do people like horoscopes? I just want to read about myself. Yeah, I'm a little bit self-obsessed and narcissistic. But doing those personality tasks, actually, if you do them seriously and the self-authoring sort of things, it's fantastic for, well, who am I? Am I charismatic? Am I charming?

Am I, what's my edge? What's the thing that I do that I find easy, that other people find difficult, and there's a little bit of gold there, and I could pursue that. That would be a purpose. That would be something purpose. That would be something that's a true north. Is it T-Lick and anti-T-Lick? You pronounced it differently to me. I don't know. I have only an exotellic. I've only ever seen it written down. I kind of like that when you don't know. But that

idea of tasks without end will make you happy. Toss with an end can be a bit depressing. If you get to the end of a project and it's done, huh? Finite and infinite games, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. That manopause thing, it came about, I first called it the fitness manopause. So I noticed around about 20, 20, 26, 27 that I was all of the training strategies that I'd been relying on, like push pull legs and bro split, and I was looked fantastic, but kind of got out of breath going

up a set of stairs and I couldn't bend over and touch my toes and all the rest of it. So what I realized was I probably should try and pivot my training, and I saw it with a lot of my friends, a lot of the guys that are listening to this podcast We'll feel this as well the training protocol that you followed especially if it's a bro split through your 20s You get to all the end of your 20s and I'm like, ah Am I sleeping in my own Euro C-spoured by 500 milligrams of caffeine looking at myself in the mirror I'm kind of done with this and then people pivot and they start doing yoga or they do Brazilian jiu-jitsu or they do Kickboxing and they go and try crossfit. They do whatever and I noticed that first

But it was actually the lead measure of a whole bunch of other changes which was the things that I thought served me in my 20s Won't self-authored the things that I thought I wanted and the things that I wanted to want had diverged. I didn't want the things that I wanted, right? I actually, when I looked sufficiently deep, was... Well, is that, I mean, what do you want to want as a question is, I mean, that should be the name of the book. It's so good. It's so fucking good. But that thing of I didn't want what I wanted is dopamine. That's just dopamine. It's the

idea of going, no, the chase was the thing. The chase was your award. So when you go shopping and you buy the watch, the car, the whatever, the the drink it is that you thought you wanted that something, and then you get it into it. Blah, it's... How many times do you have to do that before you realize, ah, okay, trinkets aren't for me? There's nothing in trinkets. Your... the ambition should be emotions.

Can I spin you a yarn about the pineapple? The pineapple. Yes. Not what you can tell me about pineapples, but yeah, sure. Very important fruit. Let me show you that you're wrong. So, 1492, Christopher Columbus lands on the island of Guadalupe and for the first time ever, Western person discovers the pineapple. It kind of looks like a royal fruit, right? It's got a little crown on its head. And he describes in his journal eating it. If you've never had a pineapple before

and you hadn't had other fruits that were sort of created outside of the UK, stuff like apples and stuff, the pineapple's overpowered as fuck. Like it's a super fruit, right? It's so sweet and juicy. Nice. Anyway, describes it. Brings it back, right? Prince or King Ferdinand, the second of Arrogon, King of Spain. I think he takes it back to first. And they take a fucking literally boatload, take all of these ones back. One isn't rotten, when he brings it back, it gets given to the king. So the first pineapple that's ever eaten by somebody who's a westerner is, it's done in a very sort of ceremonial fashion. This myth about the pineapple propagates, and after a little while trade begins to improve a little bit.

The pineapple becomes one of the most ostentatious displays of wealth that anybody in the British aristocracy can rely on for about 300 years. You know on the Strand in London, is there a pineapple? You used to be able to rent pineapples. $8,000. $8,000 is the equivalent of what it would cost. But people would rent them for dinner parties.

They would parade them around. Look at this. They would have statues out front of the estate, as if to say, you know what the gag is on the statue. So the pineapple, I'll go to the Dom Pineapples. So on stately homes, they'll often have a stone pineapple out the front and it's a gag. So the gag is when sailors would come back from the West Indies, they'd often bring a pineapple and they would put the pineapple in the window. The girls would put the pineapple and the pineapple kind of meant no gentleman callers

my husband's home. And that gag, that gag's been lost in the, in the mid, but the aristocracy put a pineapple at the front of their house. It was kind of a joke. It was a reference to that. But the joke got lost. So that's interesting. I didn't know that. You're teaching me things about pineapples here.

I have a book about pineapples once, but the, my friend wrote a book about pineapples. But that thing in the strand, you could, yeah, you could rent pineapples and you would show them off and then, and then suddenly that thing that they was the most lauded special thing, I ain't nothing. And see where I'm going. You look at it now and you go, what's the thing? There's nothing you can buy in a shopping mall that you will give a fuck about in 10 years. Nothing.

There's nothing for you there. Fast forward, do something for you in five years time. Don't buy the thing. You don't need it. So that story about the pineapple and its subsequent demise when the French invent greenhouses and you can grow fruits from much more tropical climates where we are, related to a lesson that Rogan taught me when I went on his show last year. And I called it Rogan's value difficulty conflation. Look at the car he's driving, look at the watch he's wearing, look at the girl he's with. That's unattainable to many people, so it seems like it's valuable.

But then you attained it. And then you realized, oh, this isn't valuable, this is just difficult to get. And there's a difference, there's a big difference. What's valuable is something that fulfills you intellectually, emotionally, spiritually, and lovingly. Most smart people realize that there is value in stepping outside of their comfort, that on the other side of discomfort is something valuable, were told that worthwhile things are difficult to attain, because if they weren't difficult to attain, they wouldn't be worthwhile. This is how non-valuable, but difficult things get

slept into our desires without us noticing. Attaining something worthwhile is often going to be difficult, but just because it's difficult doesn't mean it's worthwhile. We use the challenges of proxy for virtue or value or alignment or integrity. There's some signaling going on here too, difficult things by design will be attained by a small number of people, which makes them desirable, simply because it's an easy way to stand out from the crowd. But just because it's difficult to attain does not mean that it's valuable. I mean, that's great.

The only thing I would take issue with there is most smart people realize, no, no, they fucking don't. And I can prove it. Yots. Fucking yots. Someone's bought a yacht. Someone's buying a yachts. Fucking yachts. Someone's bought a yacht, someone's buying a yacht today. Yots. Great.

There's a level at which people are just, okay, maybe, okay. If you don't enjoy a conversation with a friend, you're not gonna enjoy a yacht. What do you think you're doing on the yacht? Yeah, I mean, that in a vowel quote, if you can't be happy with a coffee, you won't be happy on a yacht. Yeah, it's perfect, right? Yeah.

It's perfect. Because you go, that is, it's so true. How early in life can you know that? How, what age do you have to be before you can go, ah, you're chasing rainbows? This is, there's nothing that external stuff isn't going to bring you the thing that you want. But how much of a quest you need to go on before you can sort of realize that? Well, that's the, you know, that's been a repeating theme throughout today about you

can bestow all of these insights. But the 18-year-old version of me wouldn't have listened to this in any case. And it seems like even if someone shows you a photo of the top of the mountain, this is what it looks like. This was the route that I took to get there. He was a pitfalls that you should avoid. Ultimately, it takes a very singular person to be able to learn from the mistakes of others rather than the mistakes of others. Who had that line about it was climbing Everest or whatever and someone chopped it up there. It wasn't Everest, it was another mouth, but they didn't climb up. They got a chopper up to some voters and went.

It's a nothing experience. Now who cares? Almost would just get, you can get sent some photos. Like there's nothing in that. Like doing the arm, I wanted to do that pilgrimage, but I thought I'd do it real quick. So I did it on a jet ski. It's not anything. If you're not willing to take the journey yourself, it's, you got nothing. It's interesting that thing of the manopause that you had, 26, 27, that links to the developmental kind

of biology, when's the brain finished? It's interesting your brain was just finished. What do I think about 25 for guys? It's a 24-4-woman, it's like, but it's that old that we're fully integrated, ready to go. And then at that age, miraculously, about 12 months in, you went, well, ready to go. And then at that age, miraculously, about 12 months in, you went, well, this is nonsense, I've got to do something else. Yeah, yeah, I see it in a lot of people.

We've spoke the other night about inocritics. What do you think to the relationship that we should have with our inocritic? I mean, I think it's interesting. Walt Disney had three different rooms. So he had a room to be creative, like just come up with ideas, no bad ideas, great, other than some of the anti-semitism. Anyway, so he's got his ideas room, and then he's got his management room.

Well, how do we make those, I don't know, make those ideas happen. How are we going to make that stuff happen? And then you're another room for criticism. And I think we should sort of think about the inner critic like that, the idea of going, if you're trying to do something creative, don't let the critic in too soon. Wait until you've had the whole idea,

wait until you've let the management get involved a little bit, wait until you've tried to write the whole joke and come at it from a few different angles and tried it twice before you critic, you criticise it. And outsourcing your critic, I think, is smart. I mean, comedy does it with the audience. Really, they make the decisions to what the show is.

They do the editing for me. Do you got a much better relationship with failure with that engenders a much better relationship with failure with that? It engenders a much better relationship with failure. Yeah, because it's not identity level. Yeah. The jokes, the bullets, I'm the gun. Easy come easy go. Yeah.

So you let go of it. But also when you're doing something great, if you've got to kill a lot of babies, they're all very precious to you and you think they're fabulous, they're fabulous, little idea and there's nothing. Audience just dead at you. Okay. Try the next one. Yeah, that was a swaying a mess. Yeah, great.

But isn't that kind of a nice attitude for, it's hard though when you've made something that's, you know, if it's a movie or a book that you've worked on for years, but that super smart guy trying every chapter as he years. But that's super smart. Guy, trying every chapter as he goes along. That's super smart. Yeah, low stakes, low pressure, creativity is something. I wonder whether it's played into by this sort of concretizing of everything that you've ever said throughout all of time being there, that it doesn't feel like the ephemeral can be ephemeral anymore. You can't just blast it out. It's gonna be.

I phones that have comedy show are kind of the enemy of creativity. Censorship is not a problem in comedy. Self-centorship is a huge problem. People not saying the unsayable, risky thing that could be the funniest fucking shit, because they're worried, well, if that's taken out of context, what if people don't understand, like, why do people like comedy?

There's a lot of nuance in comedy, isn't there? There's no nuance in the modern world. There's no nuance in, you know, what's reported in the media. It's all a weird new speak. And then in comedy, like, you can say the craziest shit and people know, it's not, yeah. There's no hate in his heart. Did you see a Rosanne get popped for that little bit she did with Theo Vaughn. She was making a joke about the Jews. And she basically said that not enough

of them were she was it was the most probably the most egregious clipping of a bit. Yeah, I didn't see it, so I can't really comment, but the idea of like the bad faith argument that journalists make of going, I know it's a joke, it was in a comedy show, at a comedy club, that's the context, it was a joke, and they go, okay, well, let's report it as if it was a statement that was made.

So there's some gentlemen, can I get your attention? I'll make a comment here about no, no one said that. She'd made a bunch of obviously sarcastic, very over the top, opposite statements. It was like, and the pigs will fly, and the sky is green, and the da da da da da, basically for ages and ages and ages and ages and ages. And then at the very end, said like, and not in your Jews, something, something, something,

it was part of, it was an ever escalating statement about the ridiculousness of some of the claims that were being made with some, some, something, and they just took the bit at the end. Yeah. And I was like, come on. I'm all for saying, this needs to be able to stand upon its own, like things can be taken

in a little bit of isolation, but not that much isolation. Yeah, and it is interesting though, is the idea of you go, well, you could take anything out of context and someone someone's going to be upset as well. Also, you've got how much access to people now. Everyone's got to say, it used to be that would have been an eye roll and a touch from someone. Right, someone said that. Not for me, thank you.

Won't be buying a ticket, I won't go. And now it's the, the idea is saying, I don't like that. Seems very reasonable to me. No one should have access to that. It seems like a different thing. So, the free speech thing is you go, well, until we find a better system, we have to have free speech.

What about the Chinese system? That's a good system. Yeah, I mean, that's the world we could be living in. You know where, I mean, it's Charlie Brookers that made a mind in those kind of black mirrors where people are getting social points and then it's that, you know, Charlie Brookers are made in mind and that those kind of black mirrors where people are getting social points and then it's happened. It's happening right now.

It's unbelievable. It's like 1984 is happening right now. You know that they've got in China gate analysis that can work out even face covered wearing clothes, can work out who someone is with about 90% plus accuracy just from the way that they walk. So hiding your face, hiding everything dressing differently, doing whatever isn't sufficient to protect you. Now they've fingerprinted your movement. It's interesting that thing of like the micro, the macro. So you can't move privately.

But I think maybe with social media now, you can't think privately because everything's become slightly performative and there's no boredom. You're constantly stimulated. I think we're slightly overstimulated as a society. Like being bored is really good for creativity. But you're a bit bored and a bit like listless. You know, sometimes I look, even now it happens, but it used to happen more previously at how many things I'll be doing at once. So I'll be replying to an email whilst I'm waiting for the kettle to boil. I'll be setting the dishwasher away

whilst listening to a podcast at two-time speed and I'll be waiting for somebody to, I'm like, I've got like, I'm literally waiting for five things to happen whilst doing three. That's the modern condition, though, isn't it? You're so addicted to activity, doing something and feeling like you're being productive and actually just letting yourself kind of sit having some time just to think. So the Charlie Munger thing isn't it the idea of waiting and just having time just to think and do nothing. Read stuff. But you've got a theory on the Chinese. What's your theory about the Chinese?

My theory on the Chinese, the same theory is, well, my theory on the Chinese, we don't need to worry there are covers bound. The rolling stones are not worried about the bootleg rolling stones, right? Because they're the rolling stones. They're coming up with this shit and playing it and someone's doing a cover version. China at the moment is a cover's bound.

And there's something, there's some sweet source in our system where innovation is created and we're coming up with stuff. And you look at the five biggest companies of the world and they're all tech companies that came up in the last 10 years, 15 years, whatever it is, it's incredible, the innovation that we have. You don't need to worry about it. It's like AI, I'm not worried about AI. It's artificial intelligence. As soon as it's artificial consciousness, great, I'll be concerned.

That all can computers write jokes. Yeah, when they start laughing at jokes, that's when there'll be a problem. There was this, I think it was George that told me this one as well. A really good measure of AI will be, I think it's called stairway wit. You heard of this? Stairway wit. Stairway wit or stairwell wit. So, there's spirit de scalié, the French term,

for, you know, you have a dinner with someone and you're walking down the stairs from the restaurant and you think, I wish I'd said that. Correct. Is that the, yes, what's that called? Spirit de Scalier. I'm going to guess that means the spirit of the staircase. Yeah, there you go. There you go. The French they're always going to make everything so much much more fun because the restaurants were often on the upper floor and the wall down the stairs. That's cool. So that was there. It's a French thing. And the French are, like, genetically not very funny.

So presumably. Yeah, they are. Who's funny? They're not. Gad, the guy called Gad is very funny. There's a girl called, oh, what's she called? Come back to me in one second. Oh, I'm blanking on her name.

Because the French used to date, uh, Blanche Garthan is, I watched it. That's a fucking French name. I don't speak French. I watched it in French with subtitles Blanche Garthan special. Blue my fucking mind. Really? It's so fucking too thin. No, there's incredible funny, funny people everywhere.

But that, um that it's weird. The stairs thing, this is very unattangent, but it's interesting. Let's talk about the environment again. Okay, so you will wear of New York at the turn of the century. Okay, so New York turn of the century. Incredibly loud. Every street is cobbled, seeing gangs in New York, you get the visual, right? Every street is cobbled, horse and carts everywhere and people on horseback rank because you've got to get around. The horse shit is yey deep, okay? When horses die, they die in the street and they have to wait for them to atrophize slightly before they cut them up manually and cart them off. So you know that kind of trope about, you've heard about smelling salts and people took what, it's fetched the smelling salts. It's from that era. London was

the same, but New York had it really bad because it's an island. So you know there's the steps going up to the brown stones, the steps going up to the brown stone buildings with a little metal scraper. And that was so you could walk out of the shit and scrape it off your feet before you went into the house Covered in shit the whole of New York was covered in shit and they they had a law and they wrote a hell. And then Henry Ford came along. And horses went from a million horses to six of them now in Central Park, taking tourists around and no more horse-hit problem.

And I kind of think things can change very quickly. I mean, maybe that's a ludicrously optimistic view of the world, because the biggest industry in the world in 1902 was wailing. You're kidding. No. The biggest industry in the world was wailing, because they would need the blubber and the oil for lambs. The oil was everything. Right.

You know, what a resource is a really interesting question. So you go, that oil from Wales was a resource and we didn't wipe out the wiles but we came as close as you'd ever want to get and then suddenly a bit of tech came along and save them. Yeah. So I mean, it's kind of a little bit trope, but one of the best ways to ensure that people pivot from a behavior that they do to a behavior that you want is to make the behavior that you want more attractive than the behavior that they do.

It's the way that Elon Musk managed to do what the Prius never did, because he made an electric car that was cooler than a normal car. Yeah, it's interesting that thing of like, whatever you look at society, wherever you're calling from in this moment, we imagine it's finished. We imagine this is the last iteration of humanity, or the technology up to now, but that's pretty much it, right? We're never going to get beyond this, right? Because computers don't get better than this, phones don't get better than this, we don't have better medicine than we do today. This is it we've reached the pinnacle, right?

Look around. It's never going to get any better. We somehow can never factor in. That's never ever been the case. We can't, in our heads, we can't get our head around the idea, things are going to get better. Tell you what else I loved. I learned this term from a historian of existential risk.

So I'm big into ex-risk and trying to avoid it and learning about personally, you're trying to avoid it because that's, that's, it doesn't work that way. Yeah, that's difficult to do. Yeah, but I don't want humanity to go extinct and I think that are... Someone write that down, that's a lovely thought. Efforts are placed in the wrong direction.

They're placed in the wrong place, which is, you know, beyond Lombog's kind of like fundamentally his thesis within human flourishing, but I think he could even spread it out further than that. This is William McCaskill from the Future of Humanities Institute. This is Nick Bostrom and Toby Ords work, again, from Oxford. 30,000 foot view, all of our attention is currently paid, or the vast majority of our attention in terms of existential risks are paid on things that are not existential risks.

There is almost zero percent chance that the next thousand years humanity is going to be wiped out by climate change. But... Well, I don't know, because I think, like, what do you consider climate change? Because, you know, the super volcano, if that goes, that could, you know, for many of this, the theory of, I think it's called Baducus, Baducus blanket, you know, out of this.

So it's the idea that if you put coal, in coal fired, power plants into the atmosphere, it causes warming, it's terrible. We should stop doing it. But if you go high enough with the chimney into the stratosphere, if you go high enough, those particles reflect light and it cools the earth. The stratosphere reflects light from the sun. The sun's the only thing heating us, we cool down. It's a thermostat on the globe. And here's the thing, here's the kicker, it's been tried. Okay. When crack a toe went off, such a huge volcano, it puts so much ash into the upper atmosphere,

the earth cooled by, I think it was two degrees, I could be wrong about the amount, and there was no summer in Europe the next year. So it's kind of we know we could do it but I mean the amount of how bad does it need to get before we do that? How bad does it need to get before we harness the atom? You know the idea that you go all of the existential risk of nuclear power is there because we have weapons, but we're not really using the power as much as we could be. And that seems to be the why not take that and people go, what about safety? Why, okay. We'll put some more safety on it then. Yeah, the conversation around X-risk is what's called anthropogenic risk, so our risk, human created versus natural risk.

Super volcanoes, asteroids, Godzilla coming up from underneath the ocean. I mean, the idea is the Super volcano goes off as an asteroid lands on it. Plug the hole. Perfect. Yeah. We might get lucky. We might get lucky. Let's just, let's try and focus on that.

Let's try and focus on that. That's your positivity coming in. So, so what's the other one? What's the other big existential risks? So, the most likely one is AI, right? And this book, the original conception by Toby Ord in the precipice was written probably about six years ago, maybe, maybe four years ago.

So, this is before chat GPT, and I'm gonna guess that he would have increased his, his estimates. So, these AI's to wipe us out. AI is, it's the most likely. So he says that there's a lot. Pathogens, AI. So natural pandemics, engineered pandemics, AI, nanotechnology.

They're the big movers, right? We all get turned into Gregoo. We have unaligned AI. We have an engineered pandemic from some bastard in a lab or some gain of function research that accidentally gets released or we have a natural pandemic that fucks everybody. Now the reason there's very specific way

that there's wording put for existential risk, it's total unrecoverable collapse, right? Sorry, when do I plug my show in this? Because I feel like people need to buy tickets for a comedy show at this point. In this point in the call of a tree. Like, I mean, you'll watch more of this, because I feel like people need to buy tickets for a comedy show at this point. In this point in the comedy show. Clevvery. Like, I mean, you watch more of this, but, whew.

This is, this is bad, right? So unrecoverable. Yeah, permanent, sorry, not total, permanent, unrecoverable collapse. And the problem with almost everything, including nuclear weapons, you'll notice that nuclear weapons weren't in there. Nuclear weapons, all of them go off at the same time. It's catastrophic. It's how unearthed, but it's not permanent unrecoverable collapse. The difference between

there's a really great thought experiment where what is the greater difference between 0% and 99% of humanity being killed or between 99% and 100% being killed. And when you look at it with a long-termism lens, it's the 99 to 100. But also, you're looking at the wrong thing. You know, you've read the Self-Esteen, you're looking at humanity, you'll be looking at DNA. That's, I mean, listen, we're just, we're just meat puppets getting the stuff to the future, right? That's obviously low. Obviously, low.

Avi Loeb had this idea, I had him on the studios looking. He's going to fire a light sail fire a laser from the earth at a light sail and try and propel a craft up to about 20% the speed of light Send it towards Alpha Centauri. That's going to happen within the next decade something like that And the message is going to read It's just a very thin piece of reflective foil, I think. I don't know how. Does it say help?

Maybe, send help, SOS. But I asked him, do you ever think that we'll send generationships to other planets? Do you ever think that we will have, you know, all aboard the SS book, Karki? Yeah, well, I don't know. I mean, presumably, the SS in bread is going to be the name of the ship. Yeah, maybe. It's the, yeah, all aboard the SS Norfolk. Get on board, intergenerationaly marrying what? Yeah, it's, yeah, his argument is the best way. You're half of the ship, can't be half of the ship for 20 generations or we're all fucked. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

His argument is that you get to, the best way would be desktop DNA synthesizer attached to one of these ships, keep everything frozen, get it over there, drop it down, artificial wombs, away you go. Is this not, okay, you'll worry about this. Is not, we talked about anxiety earlier, right?

And anxiety, if you were gonna sum it up, is it's a restless mind and your problem solving for the future because there's not enough going on now. I would argue, there's quite a lot going on now that we could nail here. And that as a byproduct of that, like, like the idea of intergenerational ships traveling at light speed, I don't think it gets us anywhere. I think I'd be with Eric Weinstein on like a new physics might be the thing that gets us somewhere. And if you think about where we were, isn't there some weird fact about from the right brothers to landing on the moon? Is it 67 years or something?

Yeah. We've done it before. Although, you know how NASA did it? Someone told me this recently, talking about NASA. I mean, they put a man on the moon. Yeah, absolutely put a man on the moon. How did they do it? I'm when we know what the budget was. Unlimited. They had an unlimited budget. You can have anything you want and anyone you want. I'll put a man on the moon with that. I mean, that's interesting.

Oh, tough going to be. Unlimited, you can have anyone you want and it can cost anything you want, but it can't take as long as you want as well. So remember, we learned about Parkinson's law just before the task will expand to fill the time given for it. That was not it was before before the Russians. Yeah. Well, it was the that thing of like, you don't, there's a great lawn Michaels quote about

Saturday night Live, but he says the show doesn't start at 11 on a Saturday because it's ready. It's, it goes on because it's 11 o'clock on a Saturday. Sometimes you've got to go with what you got, right? Yeah. Before the Russian thing of like, what did we, you know, wars are great apart from war.

You could take the war bit out of you, but the innovation that comes of that, because in those desperate times, and now, you know, I don't know what's going on with the, you know, we're fighting these proxy wars and the human suffering and the devastation you've had in for what? You can't see what happens. I don't know, man. There is a degree to which there's an ever-increasing velocity of the spiral of ping-ponging between this thing and the next thing and what's going to be. And I understand why people feel overwhelmed. I get it too.

But I don't know. The last few years, since being around more smart people and more hopeful people, I've just got faith for some reason that everything is going to be fine. I listen, that thing that we were talking about earlier about, what's your belief? Is that the truth? It doesn't matter. It's a useful belief. Very useful belief. To think that things will be okay and that maybe in some small partway, some small way, we could play a part in that. That would be huge. So that thing of going, well, what are you going to do? Well, if you have an aptitude for physics,

go and study physics, chemistry, and math, whatever you're doing, do more of that. You spoke earlier on about your kids and you said about how we mentioned the other night. I think you identified the difference between life on easy mode or life with the low stage. Yeah, so this was my theory on life for partner. I've been with for many, many years and we get on great and it struck me that not having kids was like, we didn't want kids and it was living life on with a cheat on the video game. This is super easy.

Why was it easy? Because what I didn't realize, you think you have skin in the game, but you don't have skin in the game until you have kids because it's a medical procedure where your heart now lives outside your body. That's what it is. So you go now, you feel invested in the future and you're more worried, you're worrying more about your mortality. Now you've got kids because it's, you know, what's the worst that could happen?

You could die. Well, now it's much worse. There might be a saying goodbye. So I think it was, I thought I was living life on easy settings, and actually I was playing at a very low stakes table, and now I feel like I'm playing in a higher stakes table. And it's very joyful. Is it also terrifying though? You've got this heart that lives outside of your body? Yeah, I think so.

I think I spend a lot of time with the, you know, thinking about what could happen and anxiety. You know, if I let myself, there's kind of, there's a tendency towards counterfactuals and what could happen. What if he walks into the road, what if something all happens? But I read that, the coddling of the American mind book and it really kind of made me think, yeah, childhood is about experimentation and risk and letting kids be kids. Let them do their thing. Yeah, it's interesting to think about Interesting to think about the protective motivation

that a lot of people have, myself included, did you hear about this sound of freedom film that just came out recently? And I had one of the guys, it was a part of it on the show. Please tell me about these kids that are being trafficked. And it's like a fucking visceral compulsion that you have to make it stop and to help them and do all. I didn't see the movie, but is that how he made his money? Rune is business. You're not really interesting guests on this show.

Rune is business. There's something about that, this desire to protect. But for me, it's largely abstract. I? Like I know that it's an ethical thing to protect a child, right? It's the same for me, exact same for me, as thinking about fucking a sister, right? Incessive version for me is not an emotion that I have. I don't feel incessive version. Because your sister's fat.

Because I'm an only child. Oh, right, not to. Yeah, sure. It's fucking with you, but the, the, the, so when people talk about like, I can make like, would you fuck your sister jokes all day long? Yeah. Because for me, it doesn't, there's nothing visceral.

I understand, I understand, and I'm sure that if I had a sister, I wouldn't fuck her much, but. Right But the bare minimum. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And it's the same. I think a little bit with this, and I'm interested to work it because you've got a good example of long enough life without kids to then have them. Do you, is that like a global cartel of parents that become extra protective and more invested in the well-being of all children? No, I always found it very annoying, pre-having kids, that like that kind of, you wouldn't understand,

because you haven't got kids. Yeah, you do. You're a person in the world, you don't change entirely when you have kids. It's a lovely thing to do. And I think there's kind of a final, it feels like it's another bit of growing up. It's another bit of growth where you kind of go,

oh, especially in my business, where you are a bit self-obsessed at your business, you go, well, there's someone else to worry about now. Don't, you know, and it's fun for me and I kind of, you know, because you're kind of in play mode with kids. And my job is kind of play mode. It's good to anchor myself in that.

It's, um, yes, it's joyful. It really is joyful. It's lovely. I mean, there's a weird thing of like, you know, it's, it's, I think parents kind of can sometimes. They're either going, you desperately, you've got to have kids. Oh my god, it's ruined my life. And it's, you can find people in both camps. And I think again, it's this position, they're all parents, there's some very happy parents, and some not very happy parents.

And I think it's about expectations. What did you think it was gonna be like? Or what's happiness? It's expectations exceeded. Then why is New Year's terrible? Why birthday's boring? Because you're expecting it. It's gonna be the best night ever,

and then it was okay. Or even if it is the best night ever, you go, you're always expecting that. And somehow crushing a Tuesday, sometimes having a great time when it was unexpected is the most joyful thing. Yeah. So having kids, what do you think it was gonna be like?

How do you think it was gonna be? To think it's gonna be terrible. Not even think it's going to be like? How do you think it was going to be? To think it's going to be terrible. Not even think it's going to be terrible, just like being realistic about it, going out, it's going to be, there's lovely moments and you're very present with you. I don't really, I always want to meditate and I never really find a time to meditate and I think I'm terrible at it. But I'm going on walks and I'm good at playing with kids. When you're with a kid playing with a kid, you're in the moment.

You're just there and there's nothing else. It's lovely. Yeah. I think that there's a few decisions that you can make in life downstream from them. It's an entire lifestyle change so buying a dog would be one, right? Especially because dogs are usually a precursor to kids in some form. Yeah, for babies. And downstream from that, you have something else that you're responsible for, you need to get up at the time, it needs to be fed and watered and walked.

Yeah, it's often my thing of the cure for depressed friends is to encourage them to get a dog. Oh, hell yeah. Because you might not need to get out of bed till noon, but the dog needs to poop so you've got to get up and out and put something on and go to the shop and buy some food and taking care of someone else it's often like if you're having a really tough time finding someone who's worse off and calling them and checking in is really valuable it's really it's strange off but it really helps you know it's that thing of you know if you're going through something reach out and try and help someone and it just puts you in a different position with the, you know, your problem. One trend that I see amongst some of my friends who are more resilient or capable is sometimes

is sometimes they allow themselves to be relied on and allow themselves to serve others, and a lot of the time end up not being served themselves. So it's that guardian rather than dependent dynamic continues to just get flipped with them always being the person that's the one that's having. What is interesting that that internal critic, the idea that you sometimes the circle of compassion, you're not in the circle, it's everyone else around you, and then you're not in it. And you know, you meet a lot of people that aren't very good to themselves, they're very generous with everyone else and then they're not very good to themselves. It's a strange, I don't know what's going on there, but it seems that's not wrong. Is that something you ever encountered. No, but I'm pretty good to myself. I think.

No, it's not really a... That's not something I had. Less so now, but it's something I had. It's interesting to think to talk about, because it strikes me that your journey will be... The worst bit will be when you've got one kit. Right. You almost want twins off the bat, because your story is an only child that needs to connect. So it's a weird thing when you have two.

The dark thought you have when you have two is, well, if anything happens to us, at least they've got each other. And you don't even have a sister to fuck, we've established this. Tried. Tried. Yeah. Yeah. It's, I kind of think that's, is that not the journey though, is that not the thing of going

and the quiet, the kind of, the listening that you've done for the first five, six years of this podcast? I feel like that's going to remain, and then there'll be another gear where you're on scent. Yeah. I feel like that, you know, it's often easier to see in other people like what the trajectory of their career will be, because it's like, it's kind of your,

you're in training to be a wise man. A wise man in training. But you're a bit young to be a wise man, right? But that's kind of where it's going. I have a friend. David Parall, you're a really good follow on Twitter, if not, if people I'm following him. He was the one that wrote the article,

think like an athlete, which in classic Twitter fashion, I didn't read, read the headline, made up my own idea about what the article was about, and then that ended up being really formative. So he didn't write an article that ended up being really formative. So he didn't write an article that ended up being very formative to me. Right, what I ended up... Hang on, what's untrue, but...

Yeah, figuratively false, but literally true or the reverse, yeah. So, he, first off, he was one of the people that poked me toward turning pro with the show. What would happen if I treated the pursuit of being a podcaster like athletes do, where I review game tape and I get a speech coach, an addiction coach, and a comedy coach,

and I do improv, and I go to bed on time, and I'm hydrated, and I learn how the mouth moves, and all of these things. What would happen if I did that? And it worked out to be really great. From one sentence, think like an athlete, which wasn't the fucking article it was about. But he is in this great relationship, he lives in Austin,

and we had a phone call before I even moved to Austin. He told me that it was really beautiful sentiment. He's worked an awful lot throughout his 20s, very successful, spent a lot of time thinking, and being around people, and networking, and doing self work, and meditation, and he's got a fucking rabbi that he goes and sees at 6am every Saturday because he wants to learn about Jewish canon.

And he said, everything I've done in my 20s was preparing me to be the dad that I wanted to be. You know, you've got this guy who's got a million dollars and million, million, million people business, all this stuff. And he was like, yeah, it's just in service of becoming the dad that I wanted to be. And I thought that was a really beautiful sentiment. I've always known, I haven't always known that I wanted to be a dad. I've always had a sense that I wanted to be a dad and then definitely the last five years. I can't wait to be a dad.

So yeah, it's nice. It's nice to know that even though the kid isn't there ready for you to bestow the hard work and the fruits of your labor internally, externally on. Yeah. You're kind of doing it for them in a way. Yeah, I could see that. I mean, it's also that thing if you go, it's the role that you want to play.

And you don't know yourself yet. The interesting thing is like, it's interesting to think about getting down your kid because you get the kid arrives and they go, I haven't really met them yet. The interesting thing is like it's interesting to think about getting to know your kids because you get the kid arrives and they go, I haven't really met them yet. You want to be going to meet them at some point. You're going to meet them and connect with them and you know, great. And you get a sense of who they are, but it's a bit by bit. But then you don't have a sense of who you are as a dad. Mmm. And it's interesting. What would you be like? Fritzel. Yeah, very good at DIY.

No one talks about that. I can't put a shelf up. I can't put a shelf up. I built a house under his house. Prop. I've heard you talk about enjoying the passage of time as a good synopsis. Well, I think anything where you're in a flow state seems to be a magical time.

So whether it's a hobby or a job ideally, but something where you're in a flow state. So good conversation is kind of flow state, right? So I'm not quite sure how long we're talking. I'm sure listeners are going, oh, too long, frankly. But you're kind of in a flow. You're in a flow, you're enjoying it. You're not looking at the clock.

You're not conscious of other things. You're just where you are and focused. So on stage, I find that's a flow state. Playing tennis, I really like it. I'm not that good at dance, but I really like playing it. And that thing of like when you're doing sports, I suppose it lifts the anxiety because the thing that we talked about,

anxiety is solving future problems at a time. And when you're doing something in a flow state, you're in it, you're dealing with acting. Your conscious mind is busy. And it's just for the purpose of that as well, you know, going back to the talic and anti-talic, tealic and anti-tillic stuff. Pickleball for me is my, it's just, it's so rapid and so all consuming that I can't, I can't think about anything else. And, you know, switching off. Yeah. Yeah. Great. I think something, I think you need something like that as well, something that's low stakes. A flow state that's low stakes in life. You're not bothered about the

outcome. Oh, that's interesting. You're not becoming a professional pickable player. You are a professional podcaster. This is a flow state, but it's high stakes. This matters to you. Yes. Great. But to have something where you go, it's really just for fun. I'm not trying to get better at this.

Like you and the gym, you're trying to achieve something. Aesthetically, physically, health-wise, probably less health-wise and more aesthetically in your trunnies, and as you get older, it would be more health. But that idea of going, what something you could enjoy being a flow state, and it's just fun. Low stakes flow state is a lovely framework that I haven't thought about before, that a lot of people will continue to pile high stakes onto the thing that they choose to

do. And I don't know if that fully encapsulates the relaxation that you have. You know, it may be able to drill your focus even more. You may be completely dialed in and very, very concerned about the outcome. I don't know if it achieves everything that you could from this variety, this sort of relaxation, this very sort of parasympathetic. I'm just at ease here. I lose the game of pickleball. My friend Aaron calls me a pussy, so what? Like it's, you know, it is what it is. Yeah. But his parents never loved him anymore. Look how far they got in the book of

Boy's Names. How do he is currently in New York and he's become the director of physical therapy Director of physical therapy for the Aaron Rogers, the current best living quarterback in all of the NFL. He plays for the New York Jets, I think. And it's easier if everyone in the team is called Aaron. Just to eat, honestly, he's not the best, he's just as less fuss. Aaron has been hitting the head too many times. He can remember the name Aaron.'s just as less fuss. Aaron has been here in the head too many times. You can remember the name Aaron. So we have to hire an Aaron.

If you shout Aaron, 50 people turn around. The quarterback doesn't need to sort of have to... Right, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But now he's over there. But yeah, doing something that's low stakes, that's low state. I think that that's a really nice conception. it's like a good justification for having hobbies. Yeah, I mean, that we need a justification

is really speaks to our, the activity. I mean, I get really guilty of this, even when you go on holiday, you make a list of books to read when you're away to relax like it's homework. But that's really the only thing I got from my education was work ethic. You know, you find what your work ethic is

when you find what you love doing, but then it's hard not to replicate that in all areas of your life. Productivity purgatory was what I called it that even when you're supposed to be doing something for leisure, it's still in service of the outcomes that you're going to get at work. So it's the walk that you take on a morning, not because you get to relax and spend time in nature, but because you heard an Andrew Cuban in episode about how it improves dopamine,

the dopamine-ergic seesaw, so you can focus better at it. The wonderful thing about being a comedian, I mean, I could be getting a colonoscopy and thinking, well, there might be some material in this. You never know. Literally. You never know. A virtual colonoscopy? No.

Only there the future. Maybe a VR one where they fly a tiny little microdron up. Yeah. That's what he told me anyway. We were in a park. What have you got coming up next? What can people expect from you? I've got a new tool. I'm going to go out on the road again. I'm touring slightly differently. I hope it works. I think it will, but certainly around the UK I'm going to do two shows a night,

every night, Wednesday to Saturday. So work less and more than I've worked before. I'm going to do more shows, but more compacted. And I'm going to do a show at seven and a show at 930. I'm a big show at seven fan. Right away. It's that thing if you either have dinner afterwards or before, you either have drinks after or before, but you go, it's not a big with an interval. It's like you pack the stuff in, you know, maybe a hundred minutes, that time to a hundred, maybe even two hours, sort of straight through. And that's a great show to whole people for that long. It's great that you get, because they break

and then you build it again. And with the bigger shows, sometimes you just do it with a regular interval, but I'm putting that tour on. I'm working on a book at the moment, it's probably the easiest conception of it, about how to write jokes. I've had a really great run in comedy. And what am I leaving for posterity? Some

dick jokes, right? Lovely jokes. I've done a bunch of specials. I'll record a new one next month. I don't know when it'll be out. But I want to leave something behind for the community because it's done an awful lot for me. So I'm working on this thing and hopefully it'll become something for, you know, other comedians. America. You're doing America? Yeah, doing a touring America sort of kicking around the place.

I mean, so, you know, it's quite nice. It's nice. I can play quite big rooms. It turns out that because of the one of the major benefits of the biggest TV channel in the world, it is YouTube. I know one noticed in mainstream media, no one noticed. Oh, that's the biggest TV channel in the world So your Netflix and your YouTube's the global entities mean you can play anywhere in the world, which is fantastic

I do about 40 countries And I'll do America and I'll play cities I've never been to and two thousand people turn up. It's amazing I'm looking forward to Austin Sunday the Something the October so they may. Sunday, something of October. Sunday, maybe the 17th of October, somewhere in there. Jimmy, I really appreciate you. We got introduced by mutual friend. And I feel like it's a real flourishing blossoming. It's lovely. I'm a huge fan of this. Please don't stop and please do more. I think more conversations and more

learning and it yeah it grows corn it's a great show. I appreciate you thank you mate. Thanks. you