The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett - Moment 39 - Jimmy Carr: The Truth About Hard Work

Episode Date: January 6, 2022

In these ‘Moment’ episodes of my podcast, I’ll be selecting my favourite moments from previous episodes of The Diary Of A CEO. Jimmy Carr needs no introduction and is one of the biggest names in British comedy. Jimmy has hardly been off our screens for the last two decades. But what people may not know is that Jimmy has another side to him. When he was in mid-20s, Jimmy was in a boring office job, without much joy or direction in his life. But he set himself on a journey of self-improvement. Out of nowhere, he decided to quit and start again, the rest, as they say, is history. Hard work is something that in our society has developed a reputation for being toxic but what really is the truth about hard work? In this weeks moment episode Jimmy talks to us about the myths of hard work, this 'toxic' narrative and the importance of woking hard vs working smart. Episode 106 - https://g2ul0.app.link/AWljby1dzmb Jimmy: https://www.jimmycarr.com/ https://www.youtube.com/user/jimmycarrfans https://twitter.com/jimmycarr Watch the episodes on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheDiaryOfACEO/videos

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 role does hard work play in our society? Sorry, in becoming a successful individual at whatever pursuit or whatever passion you're pursuing, there's probably a counter-narrative that I think has emerged in our country,

maybe because of social media, has allowed people to kind of converge behind that and relinquish responsibility of their situations by referring to hard work as being a really, really sort of toxic thing. And I felt that more recently. I didn't see it when i was younger i mean let's let's you know what let's have a you gambling man uh not it depends i mean in life not in the casino yeah let's let's put a bet on that let's see how that works out for them i just don't think that's going to bring him happiness which part the hard work is toxic okay Okay. Okay. Don't do, don't do hard work then.

Good luck, dummy. It's just not going to work for you. That's not going to pay out because what's the metric of our society? It's results, right? And I don't care how, there's two great myths in our society, right? There's one myth is talent and ideas. And there's another myth, which is hard work. They're both bullshit, total fucking bullshit. Because the ideas are cheaper than table salt, right? There's, there's, everyone's got ideas. I've got an idea for an app. It's the Uber for fill in the thing here. Yeah, great. Sure, sure. It's every idea is about implementation. Every sports is a good analogy, right? So Michael Jordan, greatest of all time, right? It's every idea is about implementation. Every sports is a good analogy, right? So Michael Jordan, greatest of all time, right? There's no debate. He's the greatest.

How much did he work? Fucking more than anyone else. How much natural talent did he have? More than anyone else. What if he hadn't worked? You never heard of him. He never would have made the team, let alone being the greatest, but wouldn't have even made the team if he hadn't trained. It's a good analogy for life of going, look, whatever talent you have, if you don't do the work as well, it's just a waste of potential. So I think it's the absolute fundamental. Now, hard work and drudgery are not the same thing, right? There's a working smart and working hard, and there's a difference between the two. Like if you're working at something and it's like,

hard work alone won't do anything. You know, it's about what stream you're in. And I suppose the extreme example would be if you're collecting, you know, recyclable metals on a favela dump in South America, work as hard as you want. Nothing's ever getting, you're never going to get to that level. So you work hard if you must, and you work smart if you can. If you can't, you know, anyone listening to this is already in a privileged position in that, you know, odds are Western world doing okay, have a digital phone. That's, you're doing better than a third of the world before you even start.

You know, most people don't have running water. You know, most people don't have a flushing toilet. The world's in a fucking terrifying state. So it's that thing of going, well, work as smart as you can. Work at the thing that you're best at. I think school teaches us maybe the wrong lesson. School teaches us a lesson about mediocrity and being all-rounders.

And yet we live in a world that does not reward all rounders. Who gives a fuck about all rounders? If you get a D in physics and you get an A in English, I say, just go to English lessons because we're going to get you up to a C grade in physics. I'll tell you what the world doesn't need, someone who's shit at physics, still shit at physics with no natural. So find out what you've kind of got a natural, you know, that edge thing. Find out what you have a natural ability for. What's the thing that you do best? And again, I would remind people, it's not the best in the world. Just better than anything else you do. Lean into that. Like I'm all for following your dreams, if your dreams are what you're best at and the

opinions of family and friends don't count. And then it's, it's a little bit, I suppose it's a bit tough love. It's that thing of going, look, look at what your inner critic says. Okay. And it won't be wrong. Look at what your inner critic says about you. Walk back the cruelty and you got to, gotta okay that's the reality that's the starting point i read that in your book and i was i was in i was laying in bed i was actually already a book i was listening to it and i and you said the thing about your inner critic which a lot of people obviously don't want to admit is their inner critic is usually right and i remember sitting there thinking there that can't be right let me check this and then i started

listening to my inner critic for a couple of seconds. And I thought, no, that's right. That's right. That's right. But please expand on that idea. The idea of the inner critic is going, look, I went to a fancy university, right? And I think Cambridge is where imposter syndrome was built. There's a lot of imposter syndrome in the world, right? You arrive at a new workplace and you go, Jesus, they must have made a mistake and got the wrong CV and given me the job and all that, or I'm at this new college or I'm at this new, I'm starting this thing and I don't know what I'm doing. That feeling of I'm not enough and I don't know what I'm doing is why you buy the business management for dummies book and fucking read it the night before. It's what drives you to do the homework. So I got to

Cambridge and I thought, I'm not smart enough to be here. And then I worked my fucking nuts off and it turned out I was wrong. And I was smart enough to be there and I did really well. Because I fucking, because I was motivated by the, I'm not good enough to be here. I need to work. I need to work hard. You know, you start in comedy and you go, oh my God, I've given up everything to be a comedian. I've got 20 minutes of jokes that work. I'm going to need thousands of jokes that work. They all have to work. Fuck. You get to work. What's the motivation? What's the thing that wakes you up at four in the morning and you go, I need to fucking do this. I can't rely on just being, I am just going to wisecrack

and, you know, asking a comic to improvise an hour long show is like asking a magician to do real magic. The work is done in the gym. By the time I get to the stage, I know it's going to be a good show. I've tried these jokes on other people. I know we're a lock. You know, 10, 20% of the evening is about the fun that happens in that room, the messing around with the audience, the showing off the work that I've done in the gym, the muscle memory of knowing how to make people laugh. Great. But I'm going to arrive ready. There's something really interesting in that when you were talking about the reason why you succeeded at Cambridge is because you didn't feel like you were smart enough to be there and et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. That also sounds a lot like what I described when I said the reason why I pursued money and trying, you know, tried to be successful was because I

felt inadequate in my, in myself and it became this great motivator. And this, there's, there's like a, there's a, there's a plus to that. And then there's this potential danger in. But are we being a bit like, you know, that, that thing of going, giving kids too much self-esteem, giving people, not kids necessarily, because this is about life stage, right? What we're talking about here isn't about when you leave college and when you're young and when you're doing something, right? There'll be people listening to this in their 40s that are going to start a business and do something fucking exceptional with their lives. There's people in their 50s that are going to do that. There's people in their 60s. I don't believe there's like a knockoff point. People in their 50s that are going to do that there's people in their 60s i don't believe there's like a knockoff point people in their 70s yeah fuck those people the delta variant

dealt with them they're gone man there's none left i'm sorry hey the good news is the pensions crisis is over but that thing of like going well you're gonna you know people people do people do extraordinary things if they if but they they put the work in. And, and I think people lean into the myth of like that thing of like, Oh, he's a genius. You read, you know, Forbes magazine or whatever about business people doing incredibly well. It's like, well, this guy's a genius. Steve Jobs thing is though, genius, genius, love Bill Gates is genius. And then you read about like these, these guys that like finance guys, they wake up at five in the morning and he only sleeps for three hours a night and he does so much and he knows everything

and now you work so hard it's always both it's always both and then plus time you need you know that ten thousand thousand hours thing isn't isn't wrong it's just that's the minimum what could you stand to do for ten thousand hours that won't feel like drudgery what could you stand to do for 10,000 hours that won't feel like drudgery? What could you stand to do now for the next 10 years of your life that won't feel like, oh, this again? And if you're only motivated by the paycheck, it's like, well, how hard could you work?