The Prof G Pod with Scott Galloway - Conversation with Mike Birbiglia — On Storytelling, Mortality, and Fatherhood

Episode Date: November 30, 2023

Mike Birbiglia, a comedian, storyteller, director, and actor, joins Scott to discuss his approach to storytelling, and how he thinks about mortality, comedy, and fatherhood. Follow Mike on Instagram, @birbigs. His latest special, The Old Man & the Pool, is out now on Netflix.  Scott opens with his thoughts on the second-order effects that might follow the Sam Altman debacle. He also shares why he wants Shein to have a successful IPO.  Algebra of Happiness: Less is more.  P.S. You can access Scott’s free brand strategy course for mobile at profgcourse.com/pod.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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NMLS 1617539. Episode 277. 277 is the number you can dial in the state of colorado to report aggressive drivers in 1977 the first star wars movie was released and the first vhs based vcr was introduced in the united states true story i was so into the star wars genre that i had a star wars tattoo on my head you should have seen the luke on my face i love vhs most recently i watched the Luke on my face. I love VHS. Most recently, I watched the tape of my wedding backwards. It's the gripping drama of my friends saving me from the church. Go, go, go!

Welcome to the 277th episode of The Prop G-Pod. In today's episode, we speak with Mike Birbiglia, a comedian, storyteller, director, and actor, to hear about his approach to storytelling and how Mike thinks about mortality, loneliness, and fatherhood. His new special, The Old Man and the Pool, is now out on Netflix, and it's fantastic. I saw his one-man show in London. I love the way Mike collides humor and soulfulness and emotion and relationships. It'll make you laugh. It'll make you cry. Okay, what's happening? The dog is in Miami. That's right. The best city in Latin America. I'm in South Beach enjoying myself,

room service, edibles, a little beach time, trying to work out and doing a shit ton of podcasts because I have a speaking gig here. And then I head back to London. I do. This is interesting. I know you want to know more about let's bring this back to me. Let's settle on the dog. So I no longer do red eyes. I've decided that one of the things I want to reward myself with for the rest of my life is as few or no red eyes as possible. So when I go back to London from New York, I take something called the chairman's flight. And that is you leave at 9 a.m. So you bomb to JFK super early, no traffic, which is nice. And the flights in the morning are the first flights out and they take off on time. A little pro tip there. First flights in the morning, it's tough to get up at zero to a hundred hours, but the

flights get out on time, no traffic on the runway. And you get into London, I guess around 8 p.m., and then you go home, have dinner, stay up to 1 or 2 a.m., do an edible or a sleeping pill, and then go to sleep, I find is much healthier. And I take the, from Miami, I take the 5 p.m. flight, which gets me in around 2 a.m. my time, which is 7 a.m. their time. Again, no traffic into London. And then I just sleep the first half of the day and then try and crash later that night. Anyways, I think red eyes are terrible for you. And I imagine that every red eye I took, I took at least a week off my life. Anyways, here in Miami, absolutely love it down here. Wonderful city. Also, one in Miami, absolutely love it down here. Wonderful city. Also, one more note, and by note, we mean basically a commercial for us. Our higher ed startup section is partnering with Pair AI to bring my brand strategy sprint to a mobile device, TikTok style format. And for a limited time, you can get free access to the course by going to profgcourse.com slash enroll.

Again, that's profgcourse.com slash enroll. Free. Free brand strategy. Okay, moving on. It's been a little over a week since the chaos ensued over at OpenAI. And by now, you know that the board ousted C.O. Sam Allman and then, wait for it, reinstated him just a few days later after there was an internal uproar over the board's initial decision. So putting aside the obvious that the board clearly fucked up here, we've been thinking about the second order effects or more specifically how profits and mission don't mix. I think great investors are really thoughtful people. You see kind of the immediate effects, but I always think it's fun to say, okay, let's try and still our minds and think about all the

different ramifications. If we have a ground zero, what happens to the blast zone? And as you go, circumferences are several circles out from the blast zone. What does this mean, right? Does GLP-1 drugs not only hurt the industrial food complex, but it probably hurts the industrial medical complex? Or does it increase sales at Urban Outfitters as people begin to pivot to a lower weight and need new outfits or feel better about themselves? What does it increase sales at urban outfitters as people begin to pivot to a lower weight and need new outfits or feel better about themselves? What does it mean when people have extra disposable income because they're not spending a ton of money on shitty food or alcohol? What does it mean? What are the second order? Does it create a baby boom? Do all of a sudden people

feel much better about themselves, start dating and start having a lot more sex and pairing up and having kids? I don't know. These are the fun things to think about it. For some backstory, OpenAI was founded as a nonprofit in late 2015 with the stated goal of, open quote, building safe and beneficial artificial general intelligence for the benefit of humanity. But then, as they put on their website, open quote, it became increasingly clear that donations alone would not scale with the cost of computational power and talent required to push core research forward, jeopardizing our mission. And sure enough, they birthed a for-profit subsidiary. So think about this. This is a company that wasn't even supposed to be or an organization that really wasn't supposed to be a company, much less a for-profit company. It was originally founded to build safe and beneficial artificial general intelligence for the benefit of humanity. But quite frankly, once they took $12 or $13 billion from Microsoft, whose job isn't to benefit humanity, it's to sell software and create shareholder value, things kind of got flipped on their head. And if you think loosely about shareholder

interests and employees wanting to sell their shares into a $90 billion secondary offering, and you think about Coastal Ventures and Sequoia and Andrews and Horowitz, all investors, much less Microsoft with $12 or $13 billion in, they want return on their invested capital. So if you think of capital versus, quote-un unquote, the nonprofit side, we'll call it humanity. Capital smothered humanity in its sleep. There was just absolutely no question that all this adorable concern that Sam Altman was in fact not being candid, I think was the word they used with the board about how fast he was moving. Capital said, well, okay, girlfriend, you may have fired him, but the real power is showing up and I'm going to give you 13 billion reasons

why we, Microsoft, want you to reinstate him. And there was a bit of a hallucination that all the folks who threatened to resign, and I believe they were genuine about it. By the way, talk about cults. Does anything inspire a cult like someone who understands technology? Why is that?

Because as we become more educated and wealthier as a society, our reliance on church and a super being declines. We no longer believe in an invisible friend, but we still want idols. We still want people to look up to. We still want to think there is someone who has more answers than us. What is the closest thing to magic in our era? Hands down, it's technology. Do you understand how your iPhone works? I don't even understand how the Nespresso machine works, but it is magic. That shit is magic. That sound in the morning makes daddy go, yes, it's going to be a good day for the dog. That's right. Give me a snack and an espresso. Give me a treat. That's my treat. I sit in front of that fucking Swiss army knife of a coffee maker with my paws up and just love it. Just love it. Everything

about it. Even when I'm drinking decaf Nespresso, everything just feels better. True story. I didn't drink coffee until I was 40. I remember seeing in high school something about caffeine, that it was bad for you. And that along with the propaganda around not smoking really worked for me. I never smoked and I never had a cup of coffee or took a single pill until the age of 40. Now, daddy loves all the pharmaceutical industrial complex offerings. It's like, well, there's something for that. Well, I'll take it, fork it over. What is it? I don't care. Let's try it. I don't know how we got here. As we sit here today, the planned sale of OpenAI employee shares that valued the startup at 86 billion is still expected to take place. But capital showed up and said, OK, girlfriend, that is really fucking adorable that you want to save

humanity. But when you take this kind of money, you're essentially implicitly and explicitly agreeing to pursue profits full stop. And what are the key second order effects here? Well, one, it'll be really interesting to see how this decision ages. And that is, it'll be very interesting to see if, in fact, AI does, in fact, create greater concentration of power, disinformation, super weapons become sentient, which I've always found is a little bit ridiculous, but maybe I just don't understand it. And we look back on this moment and think, well, would it have been nice? Or maybe did those folks have a point that the whole origin story or the backstory of this organization was meant to really look out for humanity? But once this thing became worth billions, sorry, boss, that shit's adorable. Okay, great.

Create the Hallmark Channel. But if R-rated films or an X-rated film is making a lot more money, we're going to allow those films to run. I don't know if that's the correct analogy. Anyways, you feel me. You feel me. You hear me. It'll be very interesting to see what, in fact, happens. Another second-order effect here.

I think this is the beginning of the end of ESG. And I've gotten a lot of pushback for this. But effectively, I think for-profit companies are so outstanding at what they do that they shouldn't be trusted to do anything else. We constantly go, you hear about, okay, 1.1 million complaints that kids under the age of 13 are getting on the platform, and we immediately start thinking, Mark needs to do better. No, he doesn't. We need to do better. We need to do better. We need to stop these companies from licensing their IP offshore to Ireland such they can avoid taxes, such that we have the resources to attract really talented, thoughtful people who understand these technologies and it doesn't blow up in your face. The fact that there are red lights, green lights, and yellow lights. The fact that the FAA makes it incredibly safe to travel via air transport. All of these things create bigger markets, standards, protocols,

and also prevent a tragedy of the commons. Are we doing this right now? It doesn't appear. We immediately go to, let's call on the better angels of the private sector. I know, I know we can have something called ESG and hedge fund managers can actually outperform the market by investing in companies that are good or at least less mendacious and everyone will make money and will solve the world's problems. Well, here's the thing, folks. Bono at Davos holding up a red iPod doesn't solve the fucking problem. And we do have a model that helps. It's not perfect, but it works. And that is we pass laws. And if you, General Motors, continue to pour mercury into the river, we fine your ass. And if you continue to do it after that, we fine the CEO or some individuals and we put them in jail. The most effective ESG investment over the last year, hands down, the investment that you, me, and every other taxpayer are making,

the DOJ and the SEC, and the fact that we're putting Sam Bankman-Fried in jail. This notion that ESG works is nothing but a Sandbergian-like distraction, a weapon of mass distraction. That, in fact, that the markets alone and the capitalism can figure this out. The other bullshit argument right now is that climate change is going to be solved by someone who also makes his billions, that someone is going to start a company that cleans the carbon out of the air and will invest and will all make money while solving climate change. Well, boys and girls, get your heads out of your asses. Climate change is going to cost a shit ton of money and require sacrifice for every government and every citizen in the world. And it will absolutely be costly. There is no free lunch here. And this bullshit notion that a group

of people can decide Southwest Airlines is actually ESG friendly is nothing but marketing such that a small group of alternative investment managers can charge higher fees for worse performance while pretending to save the world. Well, guess what? Guess what? The only organization, the only organization that has ever had any impact on pushing back on these types of crimes and this amoral behavior when it's raining money, you just overlook the fact that in the UK, one in eight teenage girls cite Instagram specifically as a cause for their suicidal ideation. Well, there is only one goddamn thing that stops that. That is the U.S. government in the form of civil penalties and perp walks. And we need both of more of those things. OK, what else is happening? That was indignant. Xi'an, the Chinese-founded fast fashion company,

has filed for an IPO. The firm was last valued at $66 billion, down from the $100 billion valuation it reached in April 2022. JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, and Goldman Sachs have reportedly been hired as elite underwriters. Those are kind of the, you know, the blue chip, the bluest of the chips of underwriters. In 2022, Sheehan reported $23 billion in revenue and $800 million in net profit. The Financial Times reported that Sheehan expects revenues to reach $58.5 billion by 2025. This is easily the fastest- retailer in history. The U.S. is Xi'an's largest market. Should the IPO go through in the U.S., it would be the largest Chinese-founded company to list since Didi in 2021, valued at $68.4 billion at its IPO. Wow, that's real. Xi'an has essentially been trying to distance itself

from China. It moved its HQ to Singapore and deregistered its original company in Nanjing. Am I saying that right? Nanjing? Anyways, this is a company, I'm actually a fan of this company for a couple of reasons. Geopolitically, I think the biggest tax break in the history of the world would be if the U.S. and China kissed and made up. And I think there's incentives around that. I think China was filling their oats two or three years ago, beating their chest. We're going to be the biggest economy in the world in seven or eight years. Who knows, maybe we'll take back Taiwan, kind of feeling the Belt and Road Initiative, and then shake our reel over there. And their economy has gone into the tank, and some of their biggest real estate companies have filed for

bankruptcy. For all the talk about Chinese stocks, the Dow, the Nasdaq have all vastly outperformed the Hang Seng over the last decade. Inflation in the West is an existential threat for the leadership and the economies and the general well-being of those economies. So we have inflation. China has a slowing economy. I know. Why don't we kiss and make up and take our IP from the West, our innovation, our entrepreneurship, some of our capital, and collided with the incredible manufacturing, incredible labor force, incredible innovation around supply chain in China. And let's boogie, and that would result in the biggest tax cut in history around the world. Because more than 70% of your toys under the Christmas tree are in fact manufactured in China. There is no room you can

walk into and have a China-free room. They are producing pretty much everything everywhere around the world, and they do it really well and for a lot less. The ultimate business strategy, I don't care if it's Dell, Walmart, or China, the ultimate business strategy that has created more shareholder value than any other business strategy is the following, more for less. And that's China's entire business strategy, is migrating hundreds of millions of people into urban centers and manufacturing parks, figuring out supply chain, transportation innovation, and IP theft, quite frankly, and producing more for less. And when we bear hug each other and make up, which I think we will do, I think that we're both saying, I miss you in San Francisco. I said some bad things. You said some bad things. I've been dating Mexico and Indonesia and Canada, and I find that they're another shot? And I think you're going to see, again, this couple get back together, and I think it's going to be a good thing. I hope Shannon is a successful IPO. I think more for less. A lot of questions about the supply chain here. I actually think this company is incredibly innovative, growing super fast, offering young people more for less. Young people want to feel good about themselves. They're in their mating years. They want to have a sense of style. They want to feel differentiated. Global trade, cooperation,

that is our superpower as the West and as a species more generally. It brings the cost of products down. It raises people's standard of living. If I sound like a douchebag capitalist, trust your instincts. We'll be right back for our conversation with Mike Birbiglia. Welcome back. Here's our conversation with Mike Birbiglia, a comedian, storyteller, director, and actor. Mike, where does this podcast find you? In my Working It Out podcast studio in Brooklyn, New York, where I live. Nice.

So let's bust right into it. Your latest tour is now a special on Netflix, The Old Man in the Pool, which, Mike, I don't like culture, but I went and saw your show. And it was wonderful. Literally, that statement, I laughed, I cried. It's actually true here.

I took my 16-year-old son. We bonded over it. He was really into it. It's about getting older, mortality, and fatherhood. Can you walk us through kind of your creative process? How did this come together and manifest itself in a one-man show? I started doing these solo shows that are like a hybrid of stand-up and theater. The first one was in 2008, and it was called Sleepwalk With Me. And it came

out of, you know, I went to Georgetown and I studied dramatic writing. And then I was doing stand-up at the same time in Washington, D.C. when I was in college. And at a certain point, I thought, well, if I merge these two ideas, I think that that could make for something that's sort of interesting. So I did this first show called Sleepwalk with me in 2008. And I did it off-Broadway in New York, and Nathan Lane presented it, and it was a big inflection point in my life and career. And then I've ended up doing, this is the fifth one now, The Old Man in the Pool. And it was at Lincoln Center. And it was the way that I arrive typically at what the shows are about. It comes down to sort of what I'm obsessed with at that moment. Like, I feel like with, with any writing or art form or comedy or art form is like, I feel like it's like, what are you obsessed with? Ultimately, that's what your reader or listener will, will be obsessed with also if, if you're compelling enough. And, and the thing with

me was mortality. Like I was in my forties and I was like, oh, this is what I think about this a lot, like an inordinate amount of time. And, uh, and so I just started writing abouts and I was like, oh, this is what I think about this a lot, like an inordinate amount of time. And and so I just started writing about it. I was like, well, if I can make death funny, then I think that that'll be helpful to the audience, possibly. I think your your comedy is effective because you have just this kind of nonchalant way of delivering it through storytelling. Can you, how do you create the story? Is there an arc?

Is there a process? And how do you fit it into stand-up? So, yeah, I definitely do. And it is a process. You know, I started working with my director, this guy named Seth Barish, who's a wonderful, wonderful theater director and actor. He was on the show Billions along with me. But he and I talk through in the early forms, like I usually I start with just jokes, stories. What am I thinking about? What am I, you know, what are

my experiences? What's the funniest thing I can come up with? And at a certain point, he and I will talk about like, well, what are the themes that are running through this? And then we're sort of talking through like, well, what could be the, what we call the main event of the, of the show. And, um, you know, with the sleepwalking show with sleepwalking with me, it was like, I jumped through a second story window sleepwalking. And that one was sort of in a certain way, obvious of like, oh, that's a really massive thing to happen in my life. And, uh, and, and in this one, it's sort of a a certain way obvious of like, oh, that's a really massive thing to happen in my life. And and in this one, it's sort of a culmination of like realizing like, oh, I have, you know, type two diabetes and I failed the pulmonary test and I had bladder cancer when I was younger. And kind of all of these things like 150 car pile up coming over me and thinking about that kind of in relation to my daughter and my

wife. And so that's sort of, that's usually the process. So let's talk about that. You were faced with a sense of mortality or the prospect of, you know, you were very sick or potentially very sick at a very kind of an abnormally young age. How did that change your approach to your relationship with your wife and your daughter and just your view of life in general? I think there's like two parts to that. Like I think that when I was younger, like when I was 20, I had bladder cancer and I was very lucky they got all of it and I didn't have chemo or radiation. So I was very lucky. And I had, when I was 25, I jumped through second story windows, sleepwalking. So I had these two kind of near death experiences young. And that did this thing where it really sp about this idea of like in your 20s that you recommend to your students that they just put their head down and just work, work, work, work, work, because ultimately't know if there's going to be a later. And so I'm just going to try to,

I'm just going to try to get this all done now. And I think that as I've gotten older, my daughter's eight years old. And I think in this phase of life, it's much more focused on, well, how can I be a good father, be a good husband, and then connect with the people in the audience in a way that feels human. You said something about the moment, and I thought it's probably more indicative of just the life you lead as an artist and a comedian. But I saw you after the show. I came back. You were generous. You hosted me and my son backstage. And I said, how are you doing? And pretty much right away, you said, I'm lonely. I haven't been with my wife and my daughter for a long time. I'm lonely. It strikes me that comedy, it must be very lonely that you're on the road a lot. You can, I mean, I've always admired what feels like a really supportive,

mutually supportive community with comedians amongst each other. But you're kind of in weird, crowded or weird, dark lit places where people may or may not be nice to you. And the whole point of getting to the whole point of getting to good stuff is having a bunch of bad stuff and then going home and kind of like trying to ignore the bad stuff. It feels it just feels very lonely to me. Can you can you speak to that? I think it is lonely. I think it's it's funny, like when I watch my daughter and I started watching this summer, this great documentary series on professional tennis called Breakpoint on Netflix. And I have to say, like, one of the things I love about it is you really get a sense of like, you know, these top 100, 200, 300 players in the world are not on easy street. Like it is hard. It is hard to be one of these players. And I do get

the sense that it is lonely. Like I, when I watch it, I think like, oh yeah, that's, that's hard. You're all over the world. I mean, ultimately like you, you play your match and you, you know, you go back to your hotel and it's, it's just maybe just you or you and your partner or whatever it is. I think I think stand up is lonely. I think it's fundamentally it's a solo sport. You have to work out a lot in your mind. You need to sort of. Essentially, you need to outthink your audience and then make it seem like you're not outthinking your audience. And then, like you're saying, you deliver it as though it's just this thing you just thought of. And so that's sort of the magic trick of it. But yeah, London was really

hard for me because I was away from Jenny and Una for about four and a half weeks. And it was, it reached a point of being, yeah, it was hard. I mean, it was, and I fortunately, you know, some of my comedian friends, Jimmy Carr and Daniel Kitson and some other folks over there reached out and were sweet about, uh, meeting up with me and stuff, but it, it is very, it is very hard. And I, uh, the, the, so much about your show resonated with me. And there was this one piece, and I don't want you to do the bit, but I'd like you to talk a little bit about it, that even if you think of yourselves as a loving person, even if you're in the room with your family and you know you love them, they know you love them, you know they love you. You know they know. You know they love them. And yet we just can't bring ourselves to tell each other that we love each other.

Can you talk a little bit about this? Yeah, it's funny. Like, in some ways, I feel like it might be generational. Because, like, certainly, like, my wife and I say I love you to each other and to our daughter. But, yeah, I think my dad, my mom and dad's generation, they didn't say I love you to each other and to our daughter. But yeah, I think my dad, my mom and dad's generation, they didn't say I love you. You know, I say in the show, they said, take care, which is which is not which is not the same. Drive safely. Drive safely. The one I heard in London was jolly good. The there's all these different things to avoid the emotional connection. And, um, yeah, I mean, I, and that's, and in some ways that's a lot of what the show is about is like,

all we have is this moment and, and all we're promised is this moment right now. And, and it's like, it just, you know, it seems as though it's the thing that you should do is express if you feel love towards someone to express it. So we have a lot of young men that listen to this show. I'd love for you to just, when we do something called Office Hours, what advice would you have to young men in their 20s

who are dating and maybe not having as much success as they'd hoped? I mean, I was there, certainly. I have a joke in my new hour. The hour I'm touring right now is called Please Stop the Ride. And I talk a lot about being single and how when you're single, somehow it feels like you're kind of roaming the earth,

just saying, like, does anyone want to be naked at the same time? And then most people say no. With me. Yeah, exactly. and then most people say no and then with me yeah exactly and then some people say yes and uh and then you say no you know it's a and it's terrible and it's and i do think one of the things that's challenging is in you falling is the timing of falling in love is like a lot of times you know you'll fall in love with someone and they're not at that moment in their life for to be in love or they don't fall in love with someone and they're not at that moment in their life for to be in love or they don't fall in love with you or whatever and so i don't know what my advice would be other than uh i guess i would say open to communities to be open to like you know being outside versus inside

i don't know like i get out yeah yeah i mean i don't know what what's your best piece of advice for that uh first off get get build yourself up so you can endure rejection and then put yourself in a bunch of random environments with strangers and also don't be afraid to be i don't want to call the aggressor but the initiator to go up to strangers and express interest. Um, but yeah, there's no, nothing, nothing easy. What about advice, uh, to new fathers? Oh my God. New father's advice would be do more than you think is the right amount of contribution in your, in your house. You know, it's never enough. And like, whatever you can do to say to your partner let me go get us i'm gonna grab us bagels i'm gonna go get this i'm gonna you know what i mean like i'm gonna do the

laundry i'm gonna do you know like an infinite amount of things that could be helpful um i think we'll pay a lot of dividends later i think think I I think of all my regrets in my life, it's like that I wasn't I wasn't helpful enough in the first year of my daughter's life. And I was helpful, but I I think in hindsight, like, no, I wasn't helpful enough. We'll be right back. What would the next, if in 10 years, if you thought, okay, this is where I want to be in 10 years. This is the box still left to check or that I want to check in indelible ink. What does that look like for you in 10 years as a comedian?

It's two things. You know, I've directed two movies. I directed Sleepwalk With Me, which was an adaptation of the solo show. I directed this movie called Don't Think Twice, which is about a group of best friends in an improv group played by Keegan-Michael Key and Gillian Jacobs and a bunch of improvisers and comedians. And then one of them gets cast

in like a Saturday Night Live type of show and then the rest of them don't. And it's about what happens in friendship when people realize that not everybody gets the same thing. And I think I would like to make more movies and I would like to make more specials. I want I want to do those two things concurrently. Those are the things that bring me most joy and the things that make me feel most like i'm utilizing what i have to offer like i was watching i watched two documentaries recently one was on nichols and may and one was on mike nichols um and mike nichols's career i find to be fascinating because he he started as

uh this improviser in chicago and he paired up with with elaine may they had a hit broadway show and then just interestingly instead of going the route of capitalizing on being a stage performer and becoming you know an actor a big on-camera person he went went the direction of, like, directing movies and becoming an auteur and injecting dramatic stories with humor. You know, like, if you look at The Graduate, for example, it's like, it's a movie where the dramatic stakes are phenomenal and the story itself without humor is phenomenal. And I think ultimately what makes it transcendent is the moments of him in the pool underwater or him with the desk clerk at the hotel. And I think that that's what I'm always trying to do with my shows and I'm trying to do with my movies is how can you take a dramatic story and then inject it with humor in a way that sort of, you know, it's the sugar that makes the medicine go down. Yeah. So Mike Nichols, amongst other things,

he did The Graduate, Working Girl, The Birdcage. And I have some of a connection. A few months ago, I got a call from his spouse. Obviously, he's passed away. But Diane Sawyer wanted to talk about doing a special on young men. But, yeah, he definitely seems to have lived a pretty rich life. So it sounds like you want to get behind the camera, be more involved in writing, producing, directing. Would that be fair? Definitely. I think, like, you know, I'm 45 now

and I feel like I, yeah, in the next, in the next 10 years, I'd like to get to a point where I'm consistently just writing and directing movies. But like, you know, you've said this before on the podcast and on Pivot, it's like the, the degree to which the industry is changing under our feet is so dramatic that the idea of movies, it's like, we honestly, I think we don't know where that's even going. Yeah. Yeah. Talk about, you've been a contributor on public radio, This American Life. Talk about, and you were given the Kurt Vonnegut Award for humor. Talk about the vision for that and how you approach that and the impact it's had. Well, I was really lucky. So in 2008, I told my sleepwalking story. If people don't know it,

it's just this very extreme story where I was diagnosed with REM sleep behavior disorder. But the way that I found out I had it was I jumped through a second story window of a La Quinta Inn in Walla Walla, Washington, which, by the way, I'm returning to in January.

That's the most depressing part of that story. That I'm going back? Yeah, no, that you're going, that it's La Quinta. Yeah, yeah. You know, it would have been much more dramatic if it had been, I don't know, just like a Four Seasons or a club or something, but a La Quinta, that's, I don't know. Yeah. You gotta, you gotta work better. It was a low point. And, uh,

so I told the sleepwalking story on, um, it was, it was the Moth storytelling series at the time. Now it's a radio show on public radio, et cetera. It's, you know, they have books. It's a huge thing. But at the time it was a storytelling series in New York and they asked me to tell the sleepwalking story and I did. 13 years ago, I jumped in my sleep through a second story window of a La Quinta Inn. Yeah, when I say through, I mean through the glass. The glass was double-paned. I ended up with 33 stitches in my legs.

The glass was a centimeter from my femoral artery. Had it struck there, I could have just bled out on the front lawn and died. I was diagnosed with a very rare thing. It's called REM behavior disorder. So when I go to bed at night, I take medication and I sleep in a sleeping bag up to my neck and I wear mittens.

So I can't open the sleeping bag. And then Ira Glass, who's the host and producer of This American Life, who's like a legend in storytelling and, you know, has won Pulitzer's and Peabody's and all kinds of things. He really took to this story and he said he wanted to put it on the show. And he reached out and I said, I don't know if I'm comfortable putting it on the radio because it's part of my show, which I don't, I don't want to give away the show because so much of comedy is surprise. And he called me and he goes, he goes himself, you know, before that I was dealing with producers and assistants and other folks. And he called me and he said, uh, he said, you know, I really think

you should put this on the show. I don't think you realize the reach of our show. Like, our show reaches, like, 5 million people. Like, more people will call you about this than anyone's ever called you for anything. And then he and I, like, kind of struck up a friendship on the phone. And we said, you know, let's get together in New York. And we started talking about a bunch of different stories that could work on this American life. And then we ended up developing maybe like five or 10 stories over the course of a few years. And so I was on the show a lot and he, and then he produced my two movies and he's really mentored me and taught me like an extraordinary amount about storytelling. And

you know, a lot of the stuff, it's, you know, it's like all wisdom, all kind of, you know, gained wisdom is like, it's, you're just sharing what someone else shared to you. And then, and then they're sharing what someone shared with them. And, and, and so, yeah, I feel so lucky to have crossed paths with Ira and I try to pass it on, you know, like I, I'm a producer of Alex Edelman's show, which was on Broadway. It was called Just For Us. It's a wild story.

It's about how he once was, he did a piece about being Jewish on BBC radio and he had all these anti-Semitic people following him and saying sort of hateful things on Twitter. And so he started following them back. And then one day, there was an open invitation for like, kind of like a white nationalist kind of meeting in Queens. And he thought, what would it be like if I went, if I just showed up at that? And so he went and that's what the show is all about. And so I helped him develop that and I produced it. And, um, and a lot, a lot of the things that I share with Alex are things that are just, you know, were taught to me by Ira. And again, we have a lot of young men or a lot of young people talk about the importance of being

on time. This is a bit that I did. I did a bit on, uh, thank God for jokes about, you know, the thing that people that late people don't realize about us on time people is that we hate you. And the reason why we hate you is it's so easy to be on time. You just have to be early and early last for hours and on time lasts a second. And then you're late. And, uh, and I, I just ramped on it. I honestly, like it's, you want to talk about Tik TOK. It's like, I think it's a cliped on it i honestly like it's you want to talk about tiktok it's like i think it's a clip up on tiktok it's one of my most popular clips and part of the reason is because people fight over it in the comments they're like i can't be on time because of this and because of this because of this and and uh and then other people go, but you can be, you just set aside more time.

Look, I don't want to get into like the ideological side of being on time versus being early or late, but I will say this. When I was in college, my professor, John Glavin, who taught me writing, I was late for a class once early in the semester, and he just said, you should drop out of the class. And I said, no, no, I love the class. And he goes, well, no, you just don't. You clearly don't want to be here. And I said, no, I really do. And he's basically, if you're late for his class class you don't get into the class the door is closed and he doesn't want you there and again like it's something that it was a class that i loved it's my favorite class i've ever taken it's on screenwriting and and i value it so much and it

was one of those like i don't know it was like a pivotal moment where I was like, oh, yeah, like, if you want, if you really want to be somewhere, be early. You just can't go wrong with that. If you really want to be there, go early. Yeah, you did. I mean this sincerely. I've struggled with being on time. One, because I think I'm selfish.

And I think being late a lot is, it's just selfish. You're valuing your own time over other people's. And you just summed it up so perfectly. You basically said, and of course you did this as they did the late theater seating to mock people, but that you've got forever to be on time early. I mean, you've got, I've got an appointment, you know, for lunch this Friday with someone. I have between now and then to be early. That's right. And it just struck me, like, what on earth am I ever doing being on time, much less late? I've got forever to be early. And it's just such an easy thing to just show a small smidgen of respect. But I want to just real briefly say that I found you, I sought you out. And as someone who's trying to be a good dad, trying to be a good husband, trying to be a good citizen, everything you said really resonated with me. And I have found people, quite frankly, comedians that make me laugh harder. You make me

think more. You really do. And you make me feel more. You touch on very intense topics sort of fearlessly. You know, there's been comedians that talk about social issues fearlessly, that are profane fearlessly. But you talk about, you know, very deep, meaningful issues, life, death, love, being a good dad, fearlessly. Anyways, Mike, I hope that you continue to be fearless. Mike Birbiglia is a comedian, storyteller, director, and actor. In addition to performing live, Mike is an author and filmmaker who wrote, directed and starred in the film Sleepwalk With Me and Don't Think Twice. As an actor, Mike has appeared on Inside Amy Schumer, HBO's Girls and Broad City, as well as in the film's Trainwreck, The Fault in Our Own Stars and Popstar. Mike's latest special, The Old Man in the Pool, is out now on Netflix. Watch it twice. Mike joins us from his home in Brooklyn,

New York. Mike, thanks again. Thanks, Scott. I really appreciate it. I'll drive happiness. I want you to do an emotional audit at the end of the year. Every end of the year, I spend a lot of time on my taxes, trying to figure out tax strategy. These are problems that stem from blessings. But I also think it's a good idea to do an emotional audit. What do I mean by that? Look at different aspects of your life, different relationships, different activities you engage in. Look at the upside you're getting, the benefit, the money, the reward.

You know, some shit you have to do. It may be difficult to take care of your aging mother, but that's just part of being a good daughter or a good son, even though it's emotionally trying. But there are some relationships in your life that are, quite frankly, optional. Friends, lovers, and say, what kind of reward am I getting and what kind of emotional trauma or cost am I enduring? And this can be across all parts of your life. Take an audit of the substances that you engage in. Okay, it's fun. I enjoy it. Maybe sometimes I even need it a little bit, but it's causing me a lot of problems or it's causing me

some anxiety or it's creating tension in my relationships. The audit I've done is that I spend too much time looking at my stocks. I invest a lot. I'm very interested in the public markets. I find it fascinating. But there's definitely an element of gambling involved for me. And I know deep down that the smartest thing to do is not try to find the needle in the haystack, but to buy the whole haystack. And then more importantly, the return that lowers the returns I'm getting is the emotional bandwidth it takes from me. Every day I'm looking at my stocks, wondering what's up, what's down. And I'm contemplating returns I'm getting is the emotional bandwidth it takes from me. Every day I'm looking at my stocks, wondering what's up, what's down, and I'm contemplating because I'm at that stage

now where I'm not looking to get rich, I'm looking to not get poor, but also I want to spend less time and less emotional bandwidth thinking about stocks. I don't want to be excited or upset when Airbnb or Apple or Amazon or any of my other holdings are substantially up or down. So I'm actually thinking of slowly liquidating some of the stocks and putting them into low cost ETF and index funds where I've started transferring a lot of my assets and also some credit vehicles. But anyways, that's a longer story. But what part of your life is just taking more emotional bandwidth than is healthy? Where would your life be better? Is there a relationship in your life, a friendship that's just too intense

and requires too much emotional tumult? maybe you just put that friendship on pause. Is there a second job that, quite frankly, you'd be better off just working a little harder at your existing job because the incremental income is so hard on you? Just that little bit of income is creating such attacks in your life. What could you give up right now, right now, where the juice isn't worth the squeeze, where less is more?