The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett - Moment 20 - Jim Chapman on How He Overcame His Failure Anxiety

Episode Date: August 26, 2021

In these ‘Moment’ episodes of my podcast, I’ll be selecting my favourite moments from previous episodes of The Diary Of A CEO. It seems that in the modern world we live in ‘anxiety’ is a word we are all becoming far too familiar with. The same can be said for many celebrities and online personalities who at first glance may seem untouchable, however when you look a little deeper, no one has it all worked out. In this extremely open and honest clip, Jim reveals how a complicated childhood became the source of many of his issues. He also reveals how he has come to identify and overcome his anxiety for both himself and his new family on the way! Episode 78 - https://g2ul0.app.link/zubmaijq0ib Jim: https://www.youtube.com/user/j1mmyb0bba https://www.instagram.com/jimchapman/ https://twitter.com/jimchapman

Quick one, just wanted to say a big thank you to three people very quickly. First people I want to say thank you to is all of you that listen to the show. Never in my wildest dreams is all I can say. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I'd start a podcast in my kitchen and that it would expand all over the world as it has done. And we've now opened our first studio in America, thanks to my very helpful team led by Jack on the production side of things. So thank you to Jack and the team for building out the new American studio.

And thirdly to Amazon Music who, when they heard that we were expanding to the united states and i'd be recording a lot more over in the states they put a massive billboard in time square um for the show so thank you so much amazon music um thank you to our team and thank you to all of you that listen to this show let's continue what kind of dad do you want to become because you've got a kid on the way now congrats again yeah thanks um it's really hard to say this because i know that every first time prospective parent goes oh i'm gonna be the best dad and actually you know invariably we'll all fuck up at some point it's gonna happen um i just i think for me if i can have a child and if i can instill in them the waste of time in anxiety like that just the just the sheer nonsense of it like i really want them to understand

that worrying does nothing. You know, yes, all right, we can be stressed about things. There are times when life is hard and there's challenges to overcome, but you overcome those challenges when they present themselves. There's no, my therapist once said to me, when you worry, you rob yourself twice, right? Because the first time round, you're overwhelmingly thinking about nothing but a potential problem, which may never rear its head. If it doesn't rear its head, then you've wasted

time worrying about it. If it does rear its head, then you're forced into action because you can't stay in that situation. So why stress about something that's never going to happen or, you know, something that you will solve if it does happen? So I really want my child to understand, just be content, I think, and to know that both me and Sarah and all of our families, so my siblings, my mum, Sarah's siblings and her parents will always be there to help. I think that if I can do that, then I'll have done a good job. I also want to make sure I'm around enough. My job totally allows that. Like I have time. I can work as little or as much as I want.

That's the beauty of my job. Obviously I work less, I earn less, but you know, I can make those sacrifices. I don't at the moment. That's my problem. I work constantly because I like what I do. And because of the constant, it's anxiety. I'm constantly worried about

if I take my foot off the gas, what happens next? I find that fascinating, but I picked up on that before we started recording right because every time we talked about your screenplays or other things you're working on you would then end the sentence with but i might lose it all right and i i don't resonate like that i found that interesting because it's not how i end my sentences right but it was it was like you'd tell me something and then you would also then almost caveat it at the end with there is a chance i might not i might not get it or i might lose it all yeah and i i i find it particularly because i don't think in that way right so where does that come from in you this my mom right uh 100 again she's wonderful wonderful. She has like an ethos.

It's not a saying, but it's an ethos, which is like a day doing nothing is a day wasted. She can't relax. I can't relax as a consequence. If I'm sitting there just chilling, even if I'm watching a film, which for me I consider as research because I write films, right?

If I'm watching something, I'm like, oh, okay, I see what they're doing there. And it's like, I don't watch them passively. I'm constantly thinking about them. But even if I'm sitting there watching a film, I'm like, oh, I shouldn't be doing it. 9 p.m., right?

It's the evening and I'm supposed to be relaxing and I'm sitting there going, oh, I shouldn't be doing this. I shouldn't be doing this. That's my biggest... What's your brain saying in that moment? It's telling me off.

It's going, dude, you need to be, you can't just be sitting here watching. need to be doing you need working and making what if this all goes wrong how are you going to earn the money how are you going to afford to look after your child and pay the mortgage and you know all that stuff a lot of people will resonate with that for sure um and you've addressed it in therapy yeah what have you learned i learned that i do it which a lot of people don't even know right that self-awareness of knowing that it's a problem you have and and it's taken me i've

been seeing my therapist for christ six seven years something like that how often uh it varies if i'm going through a moment then more often at the moment like once every six weeks, because I'm pretty chill. But it's taken her most of our time together just to crack that. And she sort of said, you know, with me, it's my biggest strength and also my biggest flaw. It just depends on where it is on the dial. Like if I've got that at seven, it's great

because I'm motivated and I'm enjoying my work and I'm loving it and i'm sitting there god i'm really good at this you know and i'm typing away or doing whatever i'm doing if it's an eight or a nine it's torture paralyzed or yeah often paralyzed often paralyzed ironically into doing nothing because i'm so busy stressing about getting it done i don't get it done because i've got no brain space because it's too busy whizzing around in my head going, get it done, get it done, get it done. So there's a point where it's sort of really,

ironically, kind of just, it's the antithesis of what it's designed for. And I think I get a lot of that from my dad because I remember being young, knowing that it was easier to be busy and keep myself separate so i used to draw i'd be like this be really arty um and i just want things yeah i sit out of harm's way and i so you would draw in the corner because you felt safe if he if you were busy and he wasn't you know

i wasn't in his in his eyeline i couldn't be chastised or it was safer the thing about dad he was very unpredictable so which is terrifying for a right? Because you don't know if you're going to get love or you're going to get punishment for the same action. So I would spend most of my time just kind of getting on with stuff. And because of that, I've developed a real independence, a real creativity. But if it's turned up too high, it's crippling. Whereas if it's turned up too high it's crippling whereas if it's a good number um then it's what's got me to where i am i i 100 would not be here without that because i just wouldn't work as hard as i do um but i don't need to work as hard as i do you know human beings have a couple of things they need to do they need to sleep they need to eat they have the option of procreating that's

kind of it right what else is there the rest of it is just made up right the rest of it is just made up shit that we've given ourselves to do society has told us that in order to be a complete person we need to and it's climb right totally it's bloody stressful it's it's it's debilitating sometimes so when i have that turned up too high i end up doing nothing but i worry myself and sarah's like where have you gone like i just disappear and i don't talk i don't like i haven't been like this for a while because i'm pretty good at recognizing the signs and i know to take my foot off the gas a bit because of you know all the therapy i've had but yeah it's the bloody worst what has helped you um therapy yeah it's

absolutely that being aware of it there's a point i always say this because i've actually a couple of my best mates have i don't know a guy that's my age that doesn't need it by the way so a couple of my best mates i've put them in touch with therapists or sort of said something you know i think you should see someone actually we're really open and honest with each other we're constantly looking out if one of us is quiet on the group chat we'll go dude you all right you've been a bit quiet um i said to him at a time i was like there's a really tough point with therapy where you start seeing someone at first you're really resistant you're like no i'm fine what are you talking about but when they point things out to you like shit i'm not fine but you're aware of doing it but you have no tools in place of how to stop doing it or how to at least challenge it. So you're just punishing yourself

for doing it. Like I remember going through that stage for a long time going, I hate that I'm failing. I hate that I'm still stressing out about being like working constantly or not working constantly or whatever it is. I hate that I'm doing it to myself, but I can't stop. And you feel a bit like a junkie, you know, in a way that you're like, you know, it's wrong. You know, you shouldn't be doing it, but you can't, you can't not. And actually it takes a while to learn the techniques. You know, mine is as simple as it's, it's, it's painful that I have to go, right, stop. Just don't do it.

Take a step away from your laptop, step away from your camera, do whatever it is you're doing. Have five minutes. If you feel better after five minutes, go back to it. If not, then take the rest of the day off um and that's what i have to do i need to be sarah needs to keep me in check quite a lot because if i sometimes it sneaks up on me and i'm kind of like at stage four before i even realize it and i'm like shit i'm in too deep um so she's often like dude come back um And that's really helpful. It's hard though, because you don't want to be told by someone that you're not performing the way you should. You know what I mean?

Especially when that matters, right? Right, totally. Especially when it's already your weakness. But you need to be, like I actually really like criticism. So it's good for me. Like, you know, if I send someone some work or something

and they go, ooh, okay. As long as it's constructive, you's constructive you know they go okay i see what you're doing here don't like that that that's not great i thrive on that because i'm back in there and i'm you know so i think having other third parties be like you're not doing right right now um and that's something that i really want to be totally aware of when it comes to my child because i don't want to be an absent father i don't want to be a dad that's always going no no no i'm just on my lap so i'll come back to me five minutes i want to be able to obviously i have to work you know we all have a living but i want to be able to have my kid with me and be present you know and not them think that they're sort of auxiliary or like

an afterthought or just an addition. I want them to know that they are the center of my universe.