The Tim Ferriss Show - Ep 47: Bryan Callen on Eating Corgis (Yes, The Dogs) and Improving Creativity

Episode Date: December 1, 2014

Bryan Callen is a prolific actor and world-class standup comic. He's appeared on shows including Entourage, Law & Order, CSI, Sex and the City, Oz, and others. He also travels the globe performing stand-up comedy for sold-out audiences. This episode is a hilarious romp. We delve into the craft of comedy, fixing education (or shortcuts within it), habits and tricks for boosting creativity, writing, and the general pursuit of excellence. And, of course, eating corgis... Last but not least, Bryan is also INCREDIBLY well read. Don't miss the show notes at www.fourhourworkweek.com/podcast ***If you enjoy the podcast, would you please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcasts/iTunes? It takes less than 60 seconds, and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. I also love reading the reviews!For show notes and past guests, please visit tim.blog/podcast.Sign up for Tim’s email newsletter (“5-Bullet Friday”) at tim.blog/friday.For transcripts of episodes, go to tim.blog/transcripts.Interested in sponsoring the podcast? Visit tim.blog/sponsor and fill out the form.Discover Tim’s books: tim.blog/books.Follow Tim:Twitter: twitter.com/tferriss Instagram: instagram.com/timferrissFacebook: facebook.com/timferriss YouTube: youtube.com/timferrissPast guests on The Tim Ferriss Show include Jerry Seinfeld, Hugh Jackman, Dr. Jane Goodall, LeBron James, Kevin Hart, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Jamie Foxx, Matthew McConaughey, Esther Perel, Elizabeth Gilbert, Terry Crews, Sia, Yuval Noah Harari, Malcolm Gladwell, Madeleine Albright, Cheryl Strayed, Jim Collins, Mary Karr, Maria Popova, Sam Harris, Michael Phelps, Bob Iger, Edward Norton, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Neil Strauss, Ken Burns, Maria Sharapova, Marc Andreessen, Neil Gaiman, Neil de Grasse Tyson, Jocko Willink, Daniel Ek, Kelly Slater, Dr. Peter Attia, Seth Godin, Howard Marks, Dr. Brené Brown, Eric Schmidt, Michael Lewis, Joe Gebbia, Michael Pollan, Dr. Jordan Peterson, Vince Vaughn, Brian Koppelman, Ramit Sethi, Dax Shepard, Tony Robbins, Jim Dethmer, Dan Harris, Ray Dalio, Naval Ravikant, Vitalik Buterin, Elizabeth Lesser, Amanda Palmer, Katie Haun, Sir Richard Branson, Chuck Palahniuk, Arianna Huffington, Reid Hoffman, Bill Burr, Whitney Cummings, Rick Rubin, Dr. Vivek Murthy, Darren Aronofsky, and many more.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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Anything at all. Who you'd like to see on this show. Ping me on Twitter at T Ferris. That's twitter.com forward slash T F E R R I S S or on Facebook at facebook.com forward slash Tim Ferris with two R's and two S's. Good day. This is Tim Ferris. I'm sitting in a park. It's a beautiful park in San Francisco and the fall weather is upon us. The leaves are turning color and the eucalyptus are still standing tall.

The foliage has not yet fallen. It's a beautiful day. For those of you who have not listened to the Tim Ferriss Show before, this is where I try to use all of my contacts and research to dissect excellence, to figure out whether it's a billionaire investor, a chess prodigy, an actor, or in this episode's case, an actor and a comedian. How do they do what they do? What are the tools and tactics and tricks that you can use? So we dig very, very deep. But I'll start off with a bit of linguistic trivia, and I will ask apologies, or rather, not apologies, that'd be a weird way to phrase it, forgiveness from the Turkish speakers. I love the Turkish language. It's a fascinating language, fascinating culture, a real collision of European and Middle Eastern cultures. And I also have found the similarity between Turkish and Japanese very, very interesting. But I'll give you an idea of how I deconstruct languages just by memorizing phrases. You can pick out patterns.

So, for instance, if you say good day as translated into English in Turkish, and again, I've read this, not said it a lot, but it's iyi günler. İyi günler. Okay, good evening is iyi akşam but it's i-gun-lar. I-gun-lar. Okay. Good evening is i-ak-sham-lar. Okay. I-ak-sham-lar. And then the way you would say child, I believe it's cho-chuk or cho-kuk. And then you have cho-kuk-lar. Okay. So you notice the lar at the end. So to turn child into children, you have the lar at the end. And it turns out that literally good day is good days or good evenings in Turkish. And so you can start to piece it together without a dictionary, without a grammar reference,

just by memorizing a handful, even like a hundred words or phrases. Anyway, I'm a nerd. There you have it. But we're going to move on to Brian Callen, who's the guest for this episode. He is a prolific actor who has acted in more shows than I can count, certainly, but includes pretty much all the City, King of Queens. It goes on and on and on. He's also a world-class comic who travels the globe performing stand-up comedy for sold-out audiences all over the world. He's also one of the best-read people I have ever met. So we're going to dig into all sorts of things. The craft of comedy, how he boosts his own creativity, which sounds like I could stand to gain from. Ideas for improving education, both self-education and institutional education. Many different book recommendations,

influences of his. We really dig into a lot of details that I found fascinating. Brian's one of my favorite people to hang out with. So without further ado, here's Brian Callen. Hello, ladies and gentlemen, this is Tim Ferriss, and welcome to The Tim Ferriss Show. But we also have 50% of this episode, which is The Brian Callen Show. Brian, welcome to the show. Thank you, sir. I am excited to have you on for many different reasons, not the least of which, as we were discussing before we started recording, you are known as the best body in comedy, if I'm not mistaken. That's right. Just think of – you guys don't have any videos. Just think of if you were to take human skin and stretch it over a cheetah.

I think that's probably the best way. That's not me. That's just what my critics. The critics. That's the worst they can come up with. That's what my admirers say, but that's just what the critics the critics that's what that's that's that's the worst they can come up with what my admirers say but that's that's just what the critics say and uh you know i'm trying to piece together it's been uh a number of years now but how did we first meet what was the first neil brennan who is the creator of the chaappelle Show, knew I was into fitness and all that.

And he sent me, I believe, a TED talk you had done about a guy named Tim Ferriss. He said, what do you think of this guy? And I watched it and I was very taken with the way you were explaining things and how you used your body as a human guinea pig. And I think I texted him back. I said, well, I know one thing. I'm going to go out and get the book, The 4-Hour Body. And of course, that sent me, basically, I started with The 4-Hour Body, and then I got into The 4-Hour Workweek. And then, of course, I listened to, and then I read The 4-Hour Chef. So I became sort of this, but what I really, some of the concepts

that you talked about resonated so deeply with me. 20% of your effort results in 80% of your results, et cetera, et cetera. And here was this guy who was into all the things I was into, fighting and deconstructing the learning process. And then I heard you were going to be at this loft in downtown L.A. at some publicistist place talking about your book. So my wife and I went there and I had a brief conversation with you, not long enough. And I think that's how we first met. That's right. Yeah. And then I just, I think we had mutual friends, Joe Rogan and Keith Ferrazzi and various people like that. And then I got you on my podcast, I remember.

And that's when we started dating. Seriously, I think. When we started dating. Seriously, I think. That's when we started dating. That's right. And actually, the timing now is making perfect sense to me because I recognized you initially from having just seen Warrior. And you were in that movie. And I remember the goldfish scene, among others, the bag with the goldfish. And I was very impressed with

your performance and then delved into a lot of your comedy, went to one of your live shows, which was hilarious. And it really is something that I think everybody should experience. Not just your comedy ideally, but if you haven't been to a live stand-up show it's just it's so categorically different from dealing with with audio virtually i mean just the interaction with the audience everything is so yeah unique show in particular too was a night where i was really trying a bunch of new stuff i'm about to shoot my one hour special so what you saw was really in its infancy and. And I remember, I remember having you in the audience. I said, if anybody's going to appreciate the process, I was literally trying to work out so many of those bits. And I wasn't even sure where a lot of them were going, but it was a really receptive audience. And I was just fun to

do that for you. And I think the, you were there with the founder of Uber. Yeah, yeah, that's right. Yeah. Travis Kalanick was there. Yep. Yeah, and so in a way, when you have people there, you want to do your best stuff and kill it. But I just kind of remember myself going, I think Tim will appreciate sort of the process that is. It'd be fun for you to watch now

when I shoot my special because it's all gelled and it's so tight. And of course, now I just want to shoot it and move on to the next process, which is coming up with a whole new hour. But yeah, I remember that. And I do think that that's what's fun about stand-up. It's really interesting. Comedy seems to be the great equalizer. When you do stand-up in so many of the places that I do it, what's really cool nowadays

is that so few of the audience are actually traditionally white. You know, I just came from San Antonio where it was primarily, you know, Mexican American. But if you do a stand up in a place like New York City or in San Francisco or in Vancouver, man, it is the United Nations out there. And what's really interesting, I think maybe because of the Internet, is regardless of all the cultures and how we all come from different origins and different points of view, most people laugh at the same stuff nowadays. I mean, they're getting the jokes. I've been offered to do this tour in India.

And I said, are they going to get my stuff? And my friend said, are you kidding? They'll love it. And not only will they love it, they know who you are. I was sitting next to a woman on the plane, and she kept looking at me. I said, oh, boy, here it goes. And she was from India, from Mumbai. And she said, I'm so sorry to bother you.

And she had a heavy Indian accent. And she said, are you on the show How I Met Your Mother? And I went, yes, I am. And sometimes I'm on that show and she said i watch you all the time and i watch you in india and i thought this is just you know it's really becoming a global marketplace it was really wild so do you find when you're developing your material that uh i'm sure you do this is kind of a silly question, but what aspects are most difficult of developing material? Because I love watching the iterative process and people have strong

opinions about this documentary, but I, I, as, as an outsider found it interesting to watch a comedian with, with, with Seinfeld and others just to see, like you said,

how level a playing field it is. Like it doesn't matter if you're Jerry Seinfeld or anyone else, if you get up and your stuff isn't funny, people are just not going to laugh. Oh, it's why there are three things you can't really fake. One is fighting that. The second thing is sex. And the third thing is sex and the third thing is comedy your publicist is or how famous you are man if you don't bring the money it gets quiet in that room fast you gotta be funny or

you're dead and and it's just the way it is man and that's kind of what i love about you know mma and and uh you know i do this podcast called the fighter and the kid with brendan who's about to fight Travis Brown next. And I, you know, Brendan's got to go in there and fight the number three fighter in the world. He's six foot seven, 240 pounds, and Brendan better bring the heat because no matter how much we want him to win, it's him alone in that ring. And in a lot of ways, when you're on stage, it's the same thing. But to answer your question, you know, the, the process, you know, I don't think about being funny. And I certainly don't think about being universal. I think the way to write stand up, if you want longevity in this business, at least for me, is to start by asking yourself personal

questions. And what I write from is this, I'll ask myself some very personal questions. I ask myself what I'm afraid of, what I'm ashamed of, who I'm pretending to be, who I really am, where I am versus where I thought I'd be. Those are the kinds of things that resonate with people. I have children. I like to talk about how great they are, and I also like to talk about how freaking boring it is to be a parent sometimes. Or, you know, I like to talk about the fact that if my dick had a mouth, it would be saying things like monogamies for pussies, you know, whatever it is. Those are the kinds of things people resonate with, especially when they're married, you know. My wife may not like to hear that, but those are the things. And so it really is,

that stage is the last bastion of free speech. It's really the place you can really be honest. And my feeling is that when you write from that perspective, the comedy finds its way through. And how much of a pass do you have to develop your onstage presence? Or I hesitate to use the word personality because I feel like there are comedians and stand-up comics who have very different personalities on and off the stage. I feel like you're pretty much what you see is what you get.

I mean I feel like obviously the volume is turned up, the intensity is turned up, but you're very much the same guy in a lot of ways on and off the stage, which I think is a good thing. I think that's the authenticity. I certainly think when you start out, you're putting on a performance and a character and it's a whirlwind. But I think as you do it, the person that you really are versus the person that is on stage begins to mesh. And there becomes almost no difference at all, hopefully, as you continue to do it. And can you start off as I think a lot of writers do, for instance, a lot of actors, timid, and then develop a very brutally honest way of doing comedy? Or is that something you kind of have to start with to get

away with it and the reason i ask is that i feel like comedy as you as you put it is one of the certainly in the u.s at least one of the last places where we can talk about the touchiest of subjects right you can you can talk about uh adultery fantasies of adultery race, which is, I think a big one. You can talk about sex and sexism and you can say what everyone is thinking without having your career destroyed necessarily. Right. I, I do. I think that we, you know, it's, it's, um, we live in a world where people are terrified to talk about how they really feel. I mean, my God, look at the corporate world. Look at how structured you have to be. But I think that's changing. I think that, I don't know if it's the internet or whatnot, but I do think that the long-term approach for any

company, and I believe that's for your brand as a performer, I think your long-term approach should always be authenticity. Try to be as honest as you can. We'll forgive you if it's coming from an honest and compassionate place. You can talk about stereotypes. You can talk about things that are uncomfortable as long as you have hopefully a solution or or as long as it's I I just I don't know I it's it's just boy do I feel sometimes like we're so stifled you know I think we're it's very people are very hesitant to really talk about what is really going on. I mean, I think our resources many times are misallocated. For example, on my podcast, I had a woman who was talking about how I have to spend more money on education.

And my co-host on the show, Hunter Motz, who you know, who wrote a book called The Straight-Aid Conspiracy, had studied the learning process and said, look, the biggest enemy is the fact that a lot of students or kids in this country just don't believe that they are capable of learning. We have these misguided beliefs. I don't have the math gene. I don't have an ear for languages, this kind of shit that's fed to us. Well, in fact, maybe what we need is a shift in how we look at learning. We need a shift in how we look at ourselves. We may not need money at all. We may just need to get people to take a different point of view on how one can learn and how capable we are. Some cultures, it could be argued, some races, it could be argued, have been in, I don't know what the word is, but you can make the argument that there are large swaths of our population that don't believe they are even capable

of learning the way their white colleagues are, for example. That's stuff that needs to be talked about. That doesn't need money. That needs dialogue. There are bad ideas out there. And the way you beat a bad idea is with a good idea. No, I agree. And I think if that's at the heart of what you're saying as a stand-up comic on stage

or as a politician we forgive you we'll see it we'll feel it um maybe it's idealistic i don't know no i i think that uh i think it's better to be slightly too idealistic than too jaded or cynical right because idealism can at least spur you to action, whereas cynicism is exactly the opposite. It leads you to do nothing, right? So, I mean, I don't remember who originally said this, but there's a quote to the effect of, you know, the person who says everything is going to be all right and the person who says nothing can be done are both bad because in both cases, you do nothing. Well because in both cases you do nothing.

Well, in cases it gets in the way of critical thinking, right? So if you're completely optimistic, you're not being critical. You're not, you're not being, yeah,

you've got to be, it gets in the way of sober thinking, both, both ends of that spectrum. And I wanted to just add a comment related to a point you made echoing Hunter, that the issue is, is first and foremost a challenging of belief sets in the United States, at least, just limiting it to the United States. And I have to just mention for people who are interested in this, you should check out an organization called QuestBridge. It's just questbridge.org. And I'm an advisor to this nonprofit. What they do,

I'll illustrate by example, which I just think is so fucking elegant and creative. What they've realized is that getting low-income, let's just say, students who are high-performing, who are getting straight A's, who are in the top 10% on the SAT is into good schools or into college at all is not a funding problem. There is tons of money at all of these top schools, uh, for giving these kids full rides. The problem is a recruiting problem. That's where the dislocation exists because these kids have no family members, no teachers, no guidance counselors who will ever tell them or convince them to apply to a Princeton, a Yale or whatever. And so what QuestBridge will do, among many other things, is, for instance, imagine that you're, whether it's a Native American on a reservation, a poor black kid in the Bronx, or a poor white kid in Appalachia.

It's not race or color-based. It's needs-based and merit-based. You get a letter in the mail or you see an advertisement that is offering you the chance to get a free iPad. All right. You fill out this application because you want a free iPad. And unbeknownst to you, QuestBridge has made that application standardized as an application form to 35 of the top universities in the country. A few weeks later, you then get a letter from, say, Princeton offering you a free ride for four years. And so they're focusing on fixing that recruiting problem. And I think the number is something like half of the low income kids at the top 35 universities in the country have been fed into the system and fully funded by QuestBridge. What this means is if you're willing, uh, if you want to work philanthropically, I'm sorry, I gotta, gotta

get on my soapbox for this just cause I'm so passionate about education and I recognize the opportunities I've had. That means that you don't need to spend a quarter of a million dollars to put a kid through college at a top school, which is what a lot of people perceive. They're like, oh my God, I have to make millions and millions of dollars before I can make a difference. In fact, if you were to take, say, 50 grand to help support these types of prizes, the iPads and so on, you could put 50 kids potentially through four years at the best schools in the country by solving the right problem, which is not a funding problem. It is a recruiting problem and changing those belief systems. So I totally agree with you.

Amazing. And to piggyback on that there's a there's a guy who i just had on my podcast mark derisowitz who wrote a book called excellent sheep he was a yale professor and took a look at the the essentially what was wrong with higher education elite these elite institutions primarily you know places like amherst and and and yale and harvard um and one of the things he said is that we're breeding excellent sheep. You've got 31 flavors of vanilla. These kids are so in so obsessed with essentially achievement for its own sake, not fulfillment or meaning, but rather achievement for its own sake that they so they can get into a great, you know, become rich doctors or lawyers or consultants or investment bankers. And even that becomes an extension of what they've been doing their whole life, which was, hey, I want to please my boss, jump through these loopholes and be an elite person. And it's an interesting book. But one of the things he talked about was that these

elite institutions, there's a feeder system of about 100 high schools in this country, about 100 high schools. And that's it, that provides students to these universities. So something like QuestBridge is desperately needed so that we can create an equality of opportunity. That's always what it is, right? No, exactly. create an equality of opportunity. That's always what it is, right? Exactly. And when you look at some of the recruiting efforts that are perhaps less than ideal, what they tend to do is try to recruit, say, low-income but high-performing students from within a certain radius of the school itself. And that generally means if the vast majority of these top schools are, say, on the East and West Coast, you're just not recruiting kids from the vast

majority of the country, even though they're there. And I think that if you want not just a diversity of color, which I think, quite frankly, can be a very confusing and misguided conversation for people, but if you're looking for a diversity of socioeconomic backgrounds, cultural backgrounds, and so on, you really need to get outside of a handful of zip codes. Yeah, more of a representation of what the real world is, for God's sake. Right, exactly. So to totally shift gears, because I am fascinated and hugely intimidated by comedy, what does your creative process look like? So to get to, for instance, you're about to do a one-hour special, highly refined, well-oiled machine, biceps of steel, deltoids like a vidalia onion with with sheet of skin on it i've seen your tattoos and uh but where does that start right so when you finish this and you're like oh my god even though it's going to to tear part of my soul asunder

i need to put together new material. Where do you start? What does that process look like? Well, I find that I do better when I'm moving. So I've written all my standup walking my dog or hiking in the Santa Monica mountains. And even more than that, I've learned that comedy is a mindset. You know, I think Francis Ford Coppola said great screenplays are written on the hoods of cars and standing in line at the DMV. And he's right. You write things a lot of times when you're you're doing something else. You'll get an idea. You'll get an idea. My idea, one of the ideas I had is, boy, you know, if you turn my life into a movie, I don't think I wouldn't recommend going. It's kind of a bummer. I thought I was

going to be living this action packed lifestyle. But boy, do I spend a lot of time in traffic and sleeping. So it's not it. I don't think that my life would make a very exciting movie. I certainly am not the hero I thought I'd be. I think in fact, instead of being the gunslinger, I'm sort of the merchant who boards up his windows when they come to fight. I never, I'm appalled at that. I wrestled and I like to box and I fancy myself kind of the opposite, but you know, let's look at my real life. That is, that is very fertile soil. And so what I'll do is I just keep coming back to that theme. I keep thinking about that. I keep thinking about what my expectations of myself were when I was younger.

Who did I really want to be? And who am I really? That's the kind of thing. And by the way, why do I box for four days of the week? Why do I spar with 21 year olds and get hit in the face? It's not good for my brain. It doesn't help my pocketbook. It's ridiculous. What's going on here, man? Do I really think I'm going to get in a fight? If I punch somebody in the face, I better have a good lawyer. Yet I really practice hard and I try to sit down on my punches and I think about it and I shadow box. It's a little ridiculous at 47 years old.

It just is. And I'm pissed off that I haven't been able to roll more. I mean, you know, just in case I got to put somebody in a triangle. Are you kidding me? Are you kidding me? It's just ridiculous. I drive a Passat. But where does this come from? What's going on, man? What is happening? Well, I had a father who was a giant. I mean, a giant. I take after the Sicilian side, my mother's side side she comes from a long line of peasants and petty criminals so you know i built a blend in with a crowd i can pick your pocket you can never describe me who's the he was white brown hair medium you know whatever right so so

these are these are where that's kind of what you start to think about who you really are. Talk, think for a second about how you behave. And then and then start thinking about why. How did you start? How did you get here for Christ's sake? Who are you? If you watched yourself from afar, if you met yourself, what how would what would you tell? What would you say to yourself? What would you tell you? Would you say, hey, you got to change this, this and that? Or would you say, you know what? You're perfect. Leave yourself alone. I doubt you'd say you're perfect. Leave yourself alone. So it's really becomes a process of introspection. And when you're working with these questions, what's the, the container, the schedule for that? So for instance, you have the podcasts, you have your sort of scheduling on the

road career of performing, you have your TV work, you've got your film work, you've got many different projects that you need to schedule for. When do you typically develop material? I mean, is it in all the in between slots? Or do you actually schedule, say, two hours of walking four times a week? That's a very good question. Because I think it's very important to because we all get very busy, right? So yesterday, I'm shooting the Goldbergs, this fun show on ABC, and my day has been, I mean, long days, 12 hour days, I'm driving and I have a 6.15 call tomorrow morning and I'll be there all day.

So what that means is that writing is a mindset. Writing is not something you schedule. Writing comedy must be a mindset. What I mean by that is that I took all the fencing, any of the sacred space around quote unquote work time or writing. I took it away. I don't believe some people have to do that. You know, Gabriel Marquez, uh, Garcia Marquez, the great, uh, writer who died recently, who wrote a thousand years of solitude and loving a time of cholera and things um he had four hours a day he

would write no matter what hemingway did the same thing uh flannery o'connor said something wonderful she said i sit at my typewriter every every morning at 5 30 in the morning not to write but just in case something happens it's an act of faith i had she's got to show up in case and and nick cave was just on npr talking about the same thing. He said, I find writing is, you know, there's this idea, well, you're a rock star, it just comes. No, it's labor. It's hard labor. Yes, yes, Somerset Maugham said, the muse hits me at eight o'clock every morning.

In other words, he sits down and if the muse shows, it shows either way I write. So there is a place if you're a creative person or any kind of person and you want to produce something out of nothing. I think you do need to, I guess, sequester time. But you don't do that. I don't do that because life gets too busy.

And when you're an actor and you got podcasts, things are way too unpredictable. And when, of course, you have to box. When you're losing half of your ideas due to brain damage, it makes it harder. That's right. So what I do is I just say when I'm driving in traffic, I'm going to start writing. When I'm in the shower, I'm going to start writing. How are you capturing these ideas? I try not to capture them. That's, that's what I do. I just, I just happen. So you're looking at your computer or whatever, as you're talking to me, just take, just turn your head and look somewhere else. That's literally how I look at writing. I go,

oh, I'm doing this. I'm going to turn over here and just start thinking. I don't put anything on it, nothing on it. And that's, that's something you can practice and get very good at. Now, at some point though, you have to, I would assume, record this, develop it, start looking at possible ways of delivery and so on. Is there a point at which you write any of this stuff down or do you just try to hold it in your head and then jump on stage and freestyle it? I do write it down, but again, I'm performing it a lot as well. And the reason I write it down is it's very similar to writing songs, writing music. So when you write music, and I've talked to a couple of people, I talked to Fiona Apple about this. I talked to Harry Connick Jr. about this. And I've talked to some other musicians.

And all of them said, and they've seen me do standup. And I think it was, I think both Harry and Fiona said, you know, you do very similar. You do what I do. You know, stand-up feels very, comedy feels very much like music. I said, what do you mean? They said, well, when you're writing a song, rhythm, tempo, melody, it's all very, very important. You're always kind of working out, like, where to place emphasis, where not to place emphasis, how many words are in the song. And comedy is exactly the same thing.

When you write a bit, finding how many words go into that joke, finding how many words I should say go into the surprise. Because comedy is really surprise, isn't it? When you're I got you going one down one lane, then I say something and you go, oh, I didn't see that coming. And you start laughing. It's kind of what it is. There is a rhythm, there is a perfect number of words. And I believe there's a perfect amount of emphasis and de-emphasis, if that's a word, to that sentence. And that's kind of the process of finding exactly what that whole rhythm is. It's very much like music. It really is. If you had to, if you, let's see here.

No, this is very interesting. So I love, I love watching comedy and listening to comedy. I'm not a well-versed connoisseur. I haven't studied comedy theory, if there isversed connoisseur. I haven't studied comedy theory. If there is such a thing like music theory, I don't know. Uh, but, um, I've at least observed that they're, they're stylistically very, uh, many successful comics who have dramatically different types of delivery, right? So you have, when I watch your performance, I agree, there's a certain musicality to it. Then you might see, let's just say a Stephen Wright or Mitch Hedberg, which

from a delivery standpoint, sometimes seems as dry as sort of a cyborg without any personality, but it's hilarious, or a lot of it I find to be very, very funny. Who are a few comics? Do you say comics or comedians, by the way? I guess maybe they're, they're distinct. I'd say comics. Okay. Uh, which comics out there living or dead are very different from your own, uh, style of, uh, standup that you really admire? Well, you know, I mean, the people I admire, I don't know how different, but certainly I think George Carlin and George Carlin was again, not as interested in being funny.

Being funny is something that you do. And, you know, there are a lot of tricks to being funny. It's a little bit like being a musician where you write pop songs with tricks and hooks, you know, with phrases that are catchy and beats that are catchy. And then you listen to Pink Floyd or you listen to Led Zeppelin or you listen to, you know, whoever they might be. And it's just a different feel, man. There's a reason Zeppelin is still kind of marveled at and still listened to. Pink Floyd, the same thing, where you listen to the wall and you go, man, this music's kind of timeless. I think that Carlin was really busy trying to say something.

You know, it's one thing to be funny. It's another thing to be thematic and to be getting the audience to think a little bit yeah profound in a way yeah i think prior did that i think carlin did that and i and again i'm not that's why i i would say those people are very different than i am i'm certainly trying to do that but that's very different comedy i think my next hour is going to be a lot more in that direction. But those guys were not afraid to make you feel a little bit uncomfortable. And I think it was also a time when people believed they could make a difference with their expression. We live in cynical times. I don't think a lot of people feel that they're making a difference at all with the exception of people like yourself. It's one of the reasons I like talking to you read books um you know we have to fight that you know so but but as far as

to answer your question i'm going around you know i'm going around around here but sebastian maniscalco is hilarious how do you spell his last name sebastian maniscalco i'm not sure maniscalco i can look it up. He's so funny. You just go on a Sebastian comedian. He goes by one name usually. He's amazing. And then Dov Davidoff, of course, who's a dear friend of mine. Dov Davidoff's great.

Brett Ernst is great. Tom Segura is great. Joe Rogan is somebody I perform with a lot and a dear friend. And Rogan is just you know rogan is just about telling the truth rogan is again another comic who's less worried about being funny though he's very funny and way more interested in getting into your head why he's got a cult following it's crazy oh yeah the following is the following is incredible yeah do you do you remember the first, and I apologize if my

terminology is off, but the first bit or the first, uh, the first comedy that you performed that really got an exceptional response from an audience. Do you remember that? I do. I do. Could you tell me a bit about it and why, why you think it worked and how it came about? The first thing I wrote was, and I didn't know if it would work. And God, you know, I don't know. I thought to myself, I saw a special on penguins. And I said, gee whiz, man, that's a legless, flightless bird in the middle of the South pole. What in the world did you have to do in your past life to be reborn that shitty a bird? You know, I mean, wouldn't you way rather be an eagle and sore? Uh, or would you rather be those, those basically those feather sausages?

That sucks. What do you do if a polar bear comes at you? Or whatever. You spend all your time running away from leopard seals. And I just wrote this thing about what you had to do and who you had to be. And I run away from a polar bear and how I'm cold all the time and I look like everybody else. Anyway, I was amazed because I was so terrified it wasn't going to be funny. But it worked. It worked. It was amazing. Were there any particular – you mentioned hooks and tricks.

And I don't view those terms in a negative way. But were there any particular hooks or tricks in that bit that helped it to work? I don't know. I never really, um, I mean, I look back on my old standup and I cringe. I mean, I cringe, I can't even watch it, but I don't think, I don't think I was ever, I think I was at least sincere. I mean, I, I don't think I was ever looking for hooks or tricks. I was just writing what I thought was funny. I mean, that's my, my young people ask me advice on standup. And I always say, look, man, first of all, I'll see you in 10 years.

And second of all, uh, you know, write only what you think is funny and write every day and try to perform as much as you can. And if you can't perform in front of the mirror, that's how you become a comic. Have you performed much in front of the mirror that's how you become a comic have you performed much in front of the mirror all the time really what is that what is that what does that look like i mean affected my chris walken as a pigeon in front of a mirror not proud of these things what i do i'm literally in front of the mirror going cool cool, cool. I'm a small bird, tiny, big chest, hanging around water fountains all day, bread on my mind.

I don't know. Anyway, I should be arrested for even doing that. But this is the kind of thing you do as a comic. You're always working it out, man. You must appear to be a complete lunatic in the car when you're stuck in traffic because I would imagine imagine in my head, at least that you're doing that kind of stuff nonstop. Well, look, I was working on a bit. My father has become my fan now because he's seen my standup and, and, uh, he also features pretty prominently in the next,

uh, next hour. And he, to his credit, it was great because my mother and my sister, and I think my wife were yelling at me about, uh, what to buy at the grocery store. And then they were asking me some terrible question that I didn't care about, about, I don't know, do you want to go to Menchie's with the kids and something? I don't know. And I wasn't paying attention. And my sister goes, as usual, Brian's here, but he's not really here. And in fact, I was trying to work on a bit. And so I was going, yeah, yeah, yeah. Menchies, yeah. Okay, supermarket.

Like I give a shit about that stuff. I'm trying to work out what an ostrich does. I don't know what I was doing. You never tell them that that's more important, that me running like an ostrich. In fact, I think I was working out this bit where I'm in a tower with no pants on and a woman's over my shoulder

and she's like, oh my God, your body feels like warm moving wood. And I don't know what I was like going through this. I'm mowing her captors down with a machine gun. I got bandoleros. My hair is wet. It's in my eyes. I'm writing this ridiculous thing. I think there's a horse rearing in the background. It's not here because he's not interested in your grocery list. The guy makes his living off his imagination. He's obviously coming up with funny stuff that the country, that the world is going to laugh at. Leave him alone. I'll go shopping.

And it was just great. I was in a comfortable circle. Thank you. I'm getting paid for what I got in trouble for my whole life. My father used to pull his hair out when he'd get my report card because I was fantasizing about being a professional skier or slash tennis player or anybody I was not. And guess what? It pays the bills now. So this is not a perfect segue, but I just have a million questions I want to ask you.

You are very well read and very curious in my experience with you. I mean, you've read an incredible number of books and really have sort of a very sharp spider sense for exploring new ideas and subjects you know nothing about. If you did very poorly in school, and I'm not saying these are mutually exclusive, but how did you develop that curiosity and appetite for reading? Because it's not always that you find those two go hand in hand. Well, I was always curious. And I grew up all over the world until I was 14. I lived in seven different countries, right? So Lebanon and Saudi Arabia and Pakistan and Greece and India and the Philippines. So I was, I was always, I was exposed to so many different cultures.

My father was a huge reader as well as was my mother and they were both pretty educated. But I think that I always had a great deal of trouble until I was a sophomore in college with what you would call concentration. Uh, the idea that you've got to sit down and furrow your brow and concentrate. I didn't know what that meant. Nobody had explained the art of learning to me. Um, the one thing I was very into, I went to college to wrestle, hurt my back, and then I saw these guys kicking and punching these Taekwondo guys, but they were fighting full contact. And I went, I want to do that. So that began my journey into Taekwondo. And I started fighting. And my teacher was teaching me how to jab the bag, sort of a boxing jab. And I said,

I have trouble concentrating. I'm getting C's or something. And he said, he was Korean. And he said, hit that bag again. And I hit the bag and he goes, did you concentrate on that? I said, no. And he goes, same mindset readings the same way. Just let it come into your body. Stop trying to stop trying to force it in. Just let it come in in that began the journey of sort of uh learning by learning in a passive way i suppose uh it changed it turned the process on its ear he i started to i started to i guess um use the the mental model i used for taekwondo, and I applied it to my academics. But I think it also came from perspective. I think that the turning point was always the fact that I realized there were huge deficits in my learning. I wasn't familiar with the Greeks. I wanted to know where I came from. I wanted to know who I owed

thanks to, Socrates and Plato and Aristotle. What was the Bible? Why did the Bible have such authority for a thousand years or even thousands of years? Why? What was the contribution of the Hebrews, the Jews, I mean, the Old Testament and their laws? What was Roman law about? These were the things that I always knew that I should know about these things. I knew that there were people who had done all the thinking for me. I knew that it was probably a good idea to immerse myself in the best that had been thought and said. Because I was just aware of how – and I think, look, it's, it's exactly like

why you, uh, you should do sports. Sports teach you how tough you're not. Uh, they also teach you how tough you are. You need both. You, you need what's called perspective. And, um, maybe that's kind of what, what I was, uh, inundated with before I began that journey. When did you start pursuing comedy seriously? At what age? Well, you know, as I think about it, I was moved to so many different locations. I didn't live

anywhere for more than really a two years. about this, until I was 30. I mean, I remember when I bought my first house, I think I was 32, and it was in Venice. It was the first time I'd ever put anything on a wall. And I was a real nomad. Well, what that meant was I was always moved and put into a whole different circumstance. Usually I was taken to a new continent. I'd be in a school for two years in Greece or in Lebanon. And my dad would come home and say, guess what? We got

transferred to Saudi Arabia. And I was like, I don't know what Saudi Arabia is, but I have a dog and this sucks. And I miss all my friends. Sorry, get on a plane. We're leaving. And I would be thrown into a new set of circumstances. Well, there are two ways you get guys to like you. One is sports. I was a pretty good athlete. Not a great athlete, but pretty good. And the other is get them to laugh at you. And those are the two things I got good at.

I didn't want to be the last guy picked on the team. And by the way, you'll have fun with me on your team because I will make you laugh the whole fucking time. And that's really where my training my training as a standup comic, um, started. And, you know, my life isn't much different. I get up on stage in different cities all over the, you know, now in Canada as well, and probably in India pretty soon. I don't know them, but they're all looking at me and they need me to make them laugh for an hour. Nothing new, nothing new here, man. I'm just more honed.

It's just a little more polished than it used to be. There it is. What was your first paid gig for comedy? Oh, boy. I think my first real paid gig was in London. My buddy had started an online bank and flew me to London to do standup in a tent. And, uh, Oh, I was, I was, uh, I, I don't think I've ever performed to that, that kind of deafening silence. It was, it was horrifying. Check or something. And that was fine but oh i mean it was horrifying people didn't really look at me afterward here was this american trying to do bad jokes so uh uh you know you got to have

those experiences what made it so bad in retrospect? The mic didn't work that well, and my jokes just didn't seem to want to fly. Brits have a subtle sensibility. Look, if you go to Britain as an American comic, you better be good and experienced. I wasn't either of those two. And it got quiet quick. But I just forged through. I forged through. I was basically on fire.

Maybe the most uncomfortable I've ever been in my life. And by the way, the one compliment I got wasn't one. A woman said she was beautiful. I think I was trying to pick her up. It didn't work. And she looked at me and said, you know, you're really, i don't mean to sound bad but you're really like you're very american i mean you're very loud and very big has anyone ever told you that totally haven't but obviously this isn't going anywhere

what what was the first what was the the first uh gig that comes to mind where you thought to yourself, holy shit, that fucking worked. I can be really good at this. I mean, when you came off kind of glowing and really feeling like it worked, what's the first experience that came, that comes to mind that that description? That was a place. I think it was the West side theater in New York city. And it was down in the village. And, uh, I just, I had this crowd and, um, I hit one, I hit one. It was the first time where things started to gel and I'd been working all summer on it. And I did, gel and I'd been working all summer

on it. And I did, uh, I just been working all summer and it was a packed crowd and I got up and I did about 20 minutes, which was an eternity back then for me. And, uh, they just kept laughing harder and harder and harder. And when I got off stage, some of them stood up. And my girlfriend at the time was there. And boy, did I, I just I went, Oh, my God. Oh, my God. So if I just sit and work all the time alone in a room, this is what happens. And that was the end of it, man. That was I just couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe I see, I still couldn't believe I was able to do stand up comedy. The great surprise of my life still is the fact that I make money doing this. By the way, you forget how you

came up with the ideas. You even forget how you structured them. You just know that they become part of you after a while. A heartbreak is letting go of a lot of your great bits. You can't do them anymore because you've already cut them. It's not like music. You've just got to keep inventing. People don't want to hear the greats. They don't want to hear you rehash all of your old material. No, because it's a magic trick, and once they know what's coming,

it ain't going to be the same. Music is different. The Rolling Stones have been singing Start Me Up for the past 30 fucking years. Well, I don't got it so easy. I got to come up with start me up every, every time I cut a new, uh, one hour. So what were the ingredients? Do you think that, uh, I'll try to keep my two part questions to a minimum, but what were the ingredients that went into that first, uh, see, it sounds like a home run in New

York. And then the second piece is how many, how many times had you rehearsed parts of that performance before that night? You know, probably my whole life. you know my subconscious and my conscious and the years i had been you know the things i'd thrown out there and i just somehow was able to kind of cast a net and then sieve through all the shit and i just kind of it's just a process of whittling down who you really are. And I guess whittling down what makes you laugh. I don't know, man. I don't know. I don't know the answer. It's a surprise. It was just a huge surprise, a wonderful surprise. Dig it. No, I dig it. What book or books had the biggest, I'm just thinking to your

school experience and after that, what books have had the largest impact on your life, whether that's your 20s, 30s, 40s? You know, look, I mean, I went through, I would go through my phases. I remember reading, you know, Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand. And that's good fodder for a young man. It sets these bold, stark characters. You could even call them Christ figures. And you think to yourself, I want to be that. And of course, I read Nietzsche, you know, about Nietzsche, you know, that this is the genealogy of morals, etc. I mean, this is bold, stark stuff for a young man, where the truths and truisms are really cut

and dry in a lot of ways. And it's just like kind of the equivalent of, I guess, intellectual red meat. But then I got into Joseph Campbell and the power of myth and the hero of a thousand faces and these kinds of things. And Joseph Campbell was the first person to really open my eyes to maybe that sort of compassionate side of life or of thought. I just loved how he was a biblical scholar, he was an Eastern philosophical scholar, and he would often compare and contrast the two. And that's what I really resonated with, I guess. So Campbell, Campbell was the guy who really kind of put it all together for me. And not in a way I could

really put my finger on it, but certainly in a way where I kind of, he gave this wonderful, it made you just glad to be alive, how vast this world is and how, how similar and how different we are. Um, maybe that's kind of the first guy I remember really blowing my mind, but then, you know, there are books like Josh Waitzkin book, the, the art of learning. I love, yeah, I wish there were some, some of those books I wish I had, I had read when I was way younger, by the way, I love The 4-Hour Body. I love what you did with that. I love The 4-Hour Workweek.

I love The Philosophy. I like the journey you took and how you broke it down. Those are the kinds of things I wish I had read when I was much younger. It would have made my schooling a lot easier. That's for damn sure. So, my God, the books. So many books. So many authors.

I love Somerset Maugham. I went through all those. I mean, you know, listen, listen. I mean, the symposium, Plato's dialogues. I mean, come on. Yeah, those guys. Those guys. It's amazing to look at some of the ancients and think about the persistence of their work. 2,500 years ago. You are profoundly aware of the fact that there is a responsibility to being

a human being. There are questions you must wrestle with on your own as a human being. And technology and the creature comforts and antibiotics and x-rays and plenty to eat, those things ultimately probably aren't going to help you. They're going to make you a lot more comfortable and maybe let you think longer. And God bless and thank God we have them. But there is a responsibility to being a human being, to being an ethical human being, and to being a whole and complete human being that nobody can really help you with. You've got to go down that, that rabbit hole yourself. No, definitely. And the, like you said,

the material possessions and success are not going to answer those questions for you. There's a, there's a, there's a really good book that I've been exploring recently and it's about Seneca and it's called dying every day. Seneca at the court of Nero is just published in the last year. Yeah, that, that sounds great. But I've been really enjoying it. Let me ask if I could shift gears a little bit, a couple of rapid-fire questions.

The first is, what's your drink of choice at a bar? You walk into a bar, what do you order? Usually a Pilsner, a cold Pilsner, preferably something like Peroni or Moretti. I like the rice beers in Japan. That's what I like. But I'm a wine drinker. I like my red wine, and I like my red wine that has some age on it.

And that's harder to find in a bar. What type of red wine do you like? I like the red wine. It has some age on it. That's harder to find in a bar. What type of red wine do you like? I like the old world wines. I like primarily French wines. There are some great California wines, of course, and great Italian wines. There's nothing like a French Bordeaux or a French Burgundy with some age on it. Nothing like it. Who's your favorite person or favorite people to follow on Twitter?

Oh, by the way, I also like to drink raw goat milk after a workout. My favorite people to follow on Twitter, I don't have anybody. I don't really follow, I don't follow a lot of people on Twitter at all. That's what people laugh at me about. I think taking Hayek seriously is one of them. Friedrich Hayek wrote The Road to Serfdom, who is a great economist. I follow them. That's about it. And Tim Ferriss, of course. Well, thank you, sir. Favorite movies or documentaries? Well, I just watched Fed Up, which is a very new documentary, which I recommend to everybody about the food industry. And I think the food industry,

Mars and Coca-Cola and Nestle and Kraft, sorry, but I think that their behavior and how they target children with their unhealthy foods, with their sugar and sodium, I think they are going to be exposed. And I think that we're going to look at what they're doing in the school lunch programs, et cetera. I think we're going to

compare them very much to how the tobacco industry was behaving back in the day when they were denying that their product caused cancer. There is no question that the enemy in our foods is sugar and processed foods. And I think that's what's causing type 2 diabetes in children as young as 8 years old. Shame on them. Shame on them. Shame on them for saying that their soft drinks, like Coca-Cola, doesn't contribute to obesity. I don't think there's anything wrong with one Coke a day necessarily. I don't drink it. And wrong with one Coke a day necessarily. I don't drink it

and I'm a free market guy, but I don't think they're behaving ethically and I don't believe the way they've hijacked the food and nutrition board, the way they've stacked the deck with their own scientists. Shame on the scientists and shame on the food companies. So that's a great documentary. Sorry to get on my soapbox, but I think a huge problem, and I think we'd solve a lot of our health care issues if people in this country learned how to eat properly. The enemy is not fat, as you know, Tim. It's probably sugar.

Agreed. Yeah. So Fed Up was a great documentary. I'd have to think. I mean, there's so many good documentaries, man. I don't know. I'd have to think about that. No, Fed Up is a great documentary. I'd have to think. I mean, there's so many good documentaries, man. I don't know. I'd have to think about that. No, FedUp is a good recommendation.

I agree wholeheartedly with a lot of the co-opted science, which people can read a book called Bad Science, which is by a doctor named Ben Goldacre. It's great. Great book, yeah. If you want to get an idea of how the studies can be tortured to say whatever companies want them to say.

And Bad Pharma. He also wrote a book called Bad Pharma I read, which was also very good. Yeah, very smart guy. organization that I'm involved with called NUSI, uh, N-U-S-I.org, which is, uh, independently funded, uh, for studies specific to nutrition for some of these unanswered or at least not conclusively answered questions, uh, which is, which is pretty awesome. It's been, it's been nicknamed the Manhattan project for nutrition, which is pretty cool. Let's see. What's the first face that comes to mind when you think punchable? Oh, Jesus. Well, after I soft that up, probably anybody who's who's anybody who's responsible for for their unhealthy products and for getting Congress to say that french fries and pizza counts as a vegetable in our school lunch programs.

I'd like to fucking line those guys up and sit down in my punch. I'm talking about a right and I can hit. I'll show you how to knit sometime. I'd like to sit down on my punch and just break a couple of jaws, those assholes. So that's a punch from mine. time. I'd like to sit down on my punch and just break a couple of jaws, those assholes. Again, I'm not some left-wing guy who believes in a lot of government interference. I believe in the free market. They're not living in a free market, those people. So just to clarify for folks out there and me probably as well, so sitting down on your punch means really kind of dropping down

and torquing your hip into some nice follow through. Grinding those – yeah, grounding that back foot and that front foot on the balls of your foot and just go, just turn that body and keep that – keep everything loose. Just think of your fist as kind of a stone and your arms a rubber band and just sit down, boom, and punch. Yes, yes. My left hook is pretty

nasty too. So I don't know what I'd rather do. Maybe just maybe left hook followed with an uppercut, something like that. We'll go into it. See if I can set that up for us. I would enjoy that as well. I'll film it. What book do you most often give as a gift or books? By the way, I want to just, let me back up because I got to say one more thing. I read a book called Fiasco. You know, the architects of the Iraq war, how's that going for us, by the way? Who told us that it would happen very quickly? I mean, Dick Cheney was just at the American Enterprise Institute saying that the president must understand that we are in a war and we have to fight this war for as long as it takes.

Hey, Dick. Okay, thanks. Thanks so much. You told us that we'd be a war and we have to fight this war for as long as it takes. Hey, Dick. Okay, thanks. Thanks so much. You told us that we'd be welcomed as liberators. So did you, Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle and Douglas Feith and Michael Vadim and all you neocons. Thank you, guys. You guys said we should go into Iraq and I kind of listened to you. I mean, I guess he had weapons of mass destruction. Apparently, this is going to be a very quick thing and an orderly thing. Paul Bremer, none of these people knew anything about the history of Iraq. And now I'd like to hear, can you guys at least say, hey, maybe we were wrong?

Maybe we screwed up a little bit? I mean, ISIS, I don't know that ISIS would have happened. I mean, Iraq doesn't seem to be doing that well. And it's 13 years later or something, or it's 11 years. I'm not sure. We went in 2003. So I'd like to line those be doing that well. And it's 13 years later or something or it's 11 years. I'm not sure. We went in 2003. So I'd like to line those guys up as well. You could get those guys in a line.

I'd like to punch them in the face. I don't want to kill anybody. I just want to hit them and feel them. Just feel their jaw break with my two front knuckles. It would be a lot of fun. I think what I'll do since I've got some ideas now is I'll do a Kickstarter campaign and I will pay them all speaking fees. I will bring in the heads of all of these sort of sugar-laden product corporations and then the politicians. I think I can solve your boxing problem. So I'm going to take – I'm going to alternate sort of fake scientist, politician, corporate head, politician. All the politicians will be on one knee.

So you can straight right and then low body hook to the head of the politicians. Then you can just work your way down the line. Because all those architects, all the people that created the intellectual scaffolding and argument for the Iraq war, none of them have done a day in the line. Because all those architects, all the people that created the intellectual scaffolding and argument for the Iraq war, none of them have done a day in the military. And I would even go so far as to say they've never done a sport in their life. Dick Cheney, I guarantee, has never done a sport. And he sure as hell has never taken a punch

to the face or punched anybody in the face. So I'd like to see how he reacts to what real pain is about. Fuck you, Dick Cheney. Anyway, keep going. Keep going. No, I like it. I like it. You're getting fired up.

It's good. It's good. I'm a libertarian. I believe in the free markets. I don't work for the Democratic Party. Keep going. Go. What, on an unrelated note, what book or books are you most likely to give as a gift?

You're going to think I'm plugging you, but I probably have recommended The Art of Learning and The 4-Hour Body. I'm not kidding, more than any other book. I just think it's fantastic. And for young people, I recommend The 4-Hour Workweek. I just love the possibility and the optimism in those books. And I love that you've kind of lived it and what you do. So I actually start with those books a lot of the time. So, you know, uh, I, I, it sounds like I'm shamelessly plugging you, but I am a fan. So no, I appreciate it, man. Thank you. I, uh, and you know, I have to say also the,

the optimism, uh, you know, it's, it's really standing on the shoulders of giants. And I've had a lot of positive influences in my life, whether virtual by books, by Seneca and people like that, or through interactions with mentors and teachers. And I just feel like there's such, as you mentioned, an overabundance of cynicism, which leads to sort of an inactive apathy. You know, I can't do anything. I can't make a difference. Therefore, I will do nothing. That's really, I feel, reached a level of epidemic in the US in particular. And I'm not quite sure why that is. I agree. I agree with you, Tim. And I think, I don't know the reason either, but I would imagine it's because in many ways,

these problems are rather insidious. I think that they're, they're, it hasn't come to a head. I don't think that we really, it's a little bit like when you're in California and they say we're at a serious drought, conserve water. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm still taking my shower every day and I'll probably let the water run when I brush my teeth because, you know, we're not really going to run out of water. But, you know, the real problems, the real deficits, the things that are going to come to a head a lot of times are not – they're not sexy. They don't have – they're not sexy. They don't have, they're not very colorful. They're not that visible unless you know where to look, right?

So the root, the roots of the problem, when you start talking to people about campaign finance reform and how money in politics is probably one of the reasons nothing seems to work in this country, or one of the, one of the main problems with the way our government is run, where Washington is probably less concerned with your problems. It's more of a battleground between two different corporations. I mean, in 2010, the biggest issue was swipe fees, swipe fees with ATMs. That's what the war on the floor was, was swipe fees. How much should banks should be allowed to charge somebody when they

go to an ATM? Well, that's because that was affecting two large corporations' bottom line, not yours and mine. When you start talking to people about campaign finance reform, you start talking to them about those kinds of things, their eyes glaze over because it doesn't have immediate relevance to their life right now. And I think that's what we're dealing with, apathy. As long as people have enough to eat and they feel safe, you're going to have a tough time. Yeah, it's tough because as someone who wants to be able to catalyze sort of massive positive action, it's a fine line to walk where you want to inspire people and show them the possibilities. You also want to show them the downsides of taking no action,

which is a decision. It's not that you're postponing decisions. If you choose to do nothing, you've made a decision to do nothing. And it's a challenge for me sometimes to decide whether I can get a better response by focusing on the positive or by focusing on the consequences of doing nothing, which are negative typically. But let's see, dogs or cats? Do you have any pets? I'm a dog guy. Do you own any dogs?

I have always had pit bulls and I just love them. I just love that bully face. And I love their spirit. My female dog, my pit bull just died. And I've got kids, they want another dog. But I'm kind of like, Oh, yeah, we won't get a dog for a while. When you have kids, you know, that's enough. Now, if all right, so that pit bull, if you had to, if you had to select a dog off the menu in another country to eat for dinner, what would you choose? That's interesting. Well, probably something kind of – probably a corgi. I can roast that small enough to season and stuff in my oven.

I'm sorry. I love corgis. In fact, if I get a dog, it'll probably be a corgi, but damn, do they look delicious. Just stick a little crab apple in the mouth. Yeah, I mean, if a corgi had a beak, we'd eat the fucker. They had a muzzle,

so now all of a sudden it's cute, I guess. It's funny how that works. But yeah, I would 100% eat a corgi, I think. A chihuahua would probably taste more like quail. Not a whole lot of meat on it, but I would eat, yeah, but a corgi. I'm going hunting with Joe Rogan. Oh, you are? Yeah, and we're going to Alaska October 1st to the 8th with Steve Rinella.

You've done this before. Very nice. You're going to caribou hunting? We're going to go deer hunting, actually. Deer hunting. Yeah. I need to get back outdoors for a few weeks of non-electronics time. I really just had such a phenomenal experience with Steve in Alaska when we went to hunt caribou.

And I was never a hunter. Uh, and I know you're aware of this, but, um, it's really, uh, an eyeopening experience to be taken through the ropes with someone who's very responsible and takes, takes what they do as it relates to nature as seriously as Steve does. Yeah. He knows so much about animal behavior and everything else. It's, it's incredible. I'm not a big hunter. I don't like camping. I miss my cappuccino, but I'll do it. I just, again, it's the same reason I box. Getting punched in the face just reminds me

of my own mortality, how tough I'm not. And it just keeps me a little harder. And I think hunting once a year in a place like Alaska and freezing my ass off for eight days is good for me. Have you ever listened to Hardcore History, the podcast? I've not, and I need to get that guy on my podcast. I've had him recommended to me many, many times. You could start with listening to his series called Wrath of the Khans,

but it talks about the hardest people imaginable and how they can get soft. It was such a perfect metaphor for a lot of what I'm trying to reverse in my own life as it just becomes easier and more seductive to try to take the path of less resistance with a lot of this stuff. And using age as an excuse or whatever it might be. I've been thinking a lot about that.

Do you have any morning or evening rituals that you do consistently? Just patterns. When I had my dog, one of the things I loved to do was I would just walk my dog, and that's where I would think and write. But I actually, believe it or not, I sound so L.A. Almost every morning I drink green tea and I do some yoga. That's just my routine, man. Once you do it, you feel

really great. So that's probably my... Do you do the yoga in a class or do you do that by yourself? I do it by myself. Usually naked on a wood floor in front of a mirror and I just marvel at my body, Tim. Just do cobra pose for hours

at a time? Sometimes I just stand there and go wow, thank you, God. Too much? No, never too much. Not such a thing. A combination of Bikram and Ashtanga, whatever it is. And pumping iron. It becomes political.

My God. Oh, we don't do Bikram. We do Ashtanga flow, do you? All right, you win, I guess. Watching for an hour and a half is too long, so I don't do classes. I'll do 20 minutes and I'm done. Got it. Yeah, that makes sense.

When you think of the word successful, who's the first person who comes to mind for you? Well, you know, anyone who is original. I think the name of the game is innovation and originality. So in my field, you know, as far as actors are concerned, I mean, Daniel Day-Lewis does things. I don't know how he does what he does. Christian Bale is the same way. But I think anybody who surprises and shocks me with what they're able to come up with. Usually anybody that comes up with something out of nothing. I love the visionaries.

Steve Jobs, the late Steve Jobs, was somebody I would consider very successful. He changed a lot. So people like that, people like that. I like journalists, man. I like, I love, what's his name? Lawrence Wright, who wrote, uh, the looming tower and going clear. Uh, you know, uh, I love Ken Burns, the great documentary maker who wrote, you know, who created the documentary jazz and baseball. And those people that give us

perspective, those people that are able to put it all together, the guy who wrote fiasco, I can't remember his name, but these are the people that really, um, that's what I consider successful. They are really making a difference. They really are. I mean, it takes guts to write the way they do and to come up with a point of view and put it all together and be that fair and be that fair man. Um, those are the people that I think are incredible. You know, if, if I were to talk to your your your closest friends, colleagues, family, et cetera, and ask them what your world class at, what do you think they might say? Oh, you know, probably probably being very social, probably making people feel good about themselves. I just like people. I think that's probably humor. Humor.

I think I think I've always made everybody around me laugh a lot. And I'm proud of that, but I've always been, um, somebody said something, Dove Davidoff said, you know, at your wedding, one of the things that I thought was amazing is that you have one guy doesn't have any money and another guy's a hundred million dollars. And you've never, you've never made any, you've never had criteria for your friendships or for the people that you have around you. It's just genuinely who you really like. And I'm proud of that.

You don't have to have done anything. You just have to be somebody I think is interesting, generous, kind, and funny. And you're my friend. Related to that, as you've gotten older, what has become more important or less important to you? Balance has become more important. Balance. What type of balance? I think that's kind of the idea of fulfillment and meaning and being effective. There is intent in life, but then there is bottom line. There is something called being effective, changing minds, changing minds and having I find your podcast inspiring, or I find what you're doing inspiring, or you recommended something. I read it. It changed my life. Uh, I like being in a position of service. Those are the important

things, service and, and all of those things. When you, when you put other things and people first, um, I think it gives you balance. I think that's very important. That's a good answer. I have a book recommendation for you. I'm sure you get a lot of them. But this book is by Primo Levi. It's called, well, it's a combination of two books, actually, If This is a Man and The Truce. But I think that given that answer, you would absolutely love this book. It's one of my favorite books is recommended to me by David Blaine, who has,

I believe hundreds of copies that he gives out. He's a good friend of mine. I've known David since he was seven. Oh, no kidding. All right. Well, he's,

then you can ask him all about it. Maybe you can tell me even more. Maybe you have more background than I do. Well, David will tell you. And, and he said this on the podcast, we did a podcast together and David said, I was the first guy to get him to start reading because I said to him he was younger and we were in theater school and he was 17.

I said he was hungry. This kid was hungry. I said surround yourself with people who will make you grow and the difference between the people you admire and everybody else are the people that read. And he never forgot that. I love everything. Yeah, it was pretty cool, so I'm proud of that. He recommended this book to me, which is a masterpiece of a book or a combination of books.

If This is a Man by Primo Levi and Truce? The Truce. They're very often combined in one book. Okay. Yeah. Just incredible, meaningful, beautiful prose with a lot of lessons. I mean,

hundreds of underlines, uh, really, really impressive stuff. Uh, so I have two more questions for you. Uh, the second to last question is if,

if you could give your younger self one piece of advice or two, what would it be? Oh, boy. Buy property in Venice. Oh, boy. And, oh, boy. You know, gosh, I I thought about that so much. And I don't know if it would have had an effect. I guess focus, work harder.

But I worked pretty hard, man. I just was interested in a lot of stuff. I mean, you know what? I should have wrestled in college. I know that's lame, but I don't know, man. Would it ruin your beautiful actor's ears? Well, believe me, I was always nervous about getting cauliflower ears. So I wrestled long enough and never got it. Then I did enough jujitsu. But yeah, maybe. Or maybe I would have had an injury. I don't know, man. Gosh, golly.

I don't know. No problem. No problem. I thought about that question a great deal. A great deal. Would I have studied abroad a little longer? Would I have played tennis more? Would I have boxed earlier?

I don't know, man. If you removed – if you took you out of the equation, in a sense, and were giving a college commencement speech, right? So these kids are, I don't know, I'm too far past it, whatever, somewhere between 18 and 22. What advice might you give in that commencement? Well, I would say that if you are searching for status and if you are doing things because there's an audience for it, you're probably barking up the wrong tree. I would tell them that I live in a town where people spend 20 years scratching and crawling to get to the top of the wall. And usually they don't like the view. And that's because their value system was misplaced to begin with. I think that's what I would tell them. I would say, listen to yourself. Listen to yourself. Follow your bliss, as Joseph Campbell, to bring it back around, said. And there is great security in insecurity. We are wired and programmed to do what's safe and what's sensible.

I don't think that's the way to go. I think the way to go is to do things. I think you do things because they are just things you have to do or because it's a calling or because you want to be. You're idealistic enough to think that you can make a difference in the world. I think you should be a dreamer. I think you should try to make the world a better place. I think you should try to slay dragons. I don't care how big the opponent is.

We read about and we admire the people that did things that were basically considered to be impossible. And that's what makes the world a better place to live. That was a damn fine answer. I can't believe we got to get you on some stages. No, that was... Behind that, I wish I had a fan that was blowing my hair, although I don't have the kind of hair that... No, I think that is an excellent place to start to wrap this up and be respectful of your time. Obviously, you know, I'm a huge fan of your work. Really enjoy our friendship and look forward to

many more conversations. Where can people find out more about you, learn what you're up to, check you out? I appreciate it, my friend. I am going to be at Brian Callen. That's my Twitter and my Instagram, B-R-Y-A-N-C-A-L-L-E-N. And you can go to briancallen.com to find out where I'm performing. I'm always performing. I'm going to be in Atlanta in October. This Sunday, I'll be at the Irvine Improv. I'm not in, I wish I was in your neck of the woods sooner than later, but I'm not, Tim. But I'll let you know as soon as I am. I will be all over the place, man. Gosh, I've got such a big, sort of a big schedule, and I'm not sure exactly where I'll be. But I know I'll be in Atlanta in October.

But briancallant.com, best way to find me or tweet at me. Or email me at BrianCallen at Gmail. I answer all my emails. Awesome. Well, I will put all of this into the show notes, guys, including links to everything that you heard about in the conversation. So for those, just go to 4hourworkweek.com,

all spelled out, forward slash podcast. And by the way, The Fighter and the Kid has, I think, been holding at number one the way, the fighter and the kid is, is I think been holding at number one on iTunes and the sports and rec section for eight or nine weeks now. And Tim, you're going to be on that on Monday. So we're excited.

I am. And I'm looking forward to it. I can, I can pull all the skeletons out of the closet and talk about how much my, my joints have atrophied from too many knee bars when I was a young, and it's going to be great. But to be continued, I'm sure we'll be having more conversations soon.

And thanks so much, Brian. Tim Ferriss. You're one of my favorite people. I appreciate your time. All right, buddy. I'll talk to you soon.

All right, bud. See you later.