Moment 20 - Jim Chapman on How He Overcame His Failure Anxiety

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

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:07Steven Bartlett?

  What kind of dad do you want to become? Because you've got a kid on the way now, congrats again.

• 0:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, thanks.

• 0:13Speaker 01

  It's really hard to say this because I know that every first time prospective parent goes, "Oh, I'm gonna be the best dad." And actually, invariably, we'll all fuck up at some point. It's gonna happen. I just, I think for me, if I can have a child and if I can instill in them the waste of time in anxiety, like that just the sheer nonsense of it. Like, I really want them to understand that worrying does nothing. You know, yes, all right, we can be stressed about things. There are times when life is hard and things, there's challenges to overcome. But you overcome those challenges when they present themselves.

• 0:56Speaker 01

  There's no, my therapist once said to me, "When you worry, you rob yourself twice", right? Because the first time around, you're overwhelmingly thinking about nothing but a potential problem, which may never rear its head. If it doesn't rear its head, then you've wasted time worrying about it. If it does rear its head, then you're forced into action because you can't stay in that situation. So why stress about something that's never gonna happen? Or, you know, something that you will solve if it does happen? So I really want my child to understand, just be content, I think, and to know that both me and Sarah and all of our families, so my siblings, my mum, Sarah's siblings and her parents, will always be there to help, you know?

• 1:38Speaker 01

  I think that if I can do that, then I'll have done a good job. I also want to make sure I'm around enough. My job totally allows that. Like, I have time, I can work as little or as much as I want. That's the beauty of my job. Obviously, I work less, I earn less, but, you know, I can make those sacrifices. I don't at the moment, that's my problem. I work constantly because I like what I do and because of the constant, it's anxiety. I'm constantly worried about if I take my foot off the gas, what happens next?

• 2:05Steven Bartlett?

  I find that fascinating, but I picked up on that before we started recording.

• 2:09Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:09Steven Bartlett?

  Because every time we talked about your screenplays or other things you're working on, you would then end the sentence with... But I might lose it all.

• 2:18Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:18Steven Bartlett?

  And I, I don't resonate like that. I found that interesting because it's not how I end my sentences.

• 2:25Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:25Steven Bartlett?

  But it was, it was like you would tell me something and then you would also then almost caveat it at the end with, there is a chance I might not, I might not get it or I might lose it all.

• 2:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:34Steven Bartlett?

  And I, I, I find it peculiar because I don't think in that way.

• 2:38Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:38Steven Bartlett?

  So where's that come from in you, this?

• 2:40Speaker 01

  My mum.

• 2:41Steven Bartlett?

  Right.

• 2:41Speaker 01

  A hundred percent. Again, she's wonderful. She has like an ethos. It's not a saying, but it's an ethos, which is like, a day doing nothing is a day wasted. She can't relax. I can't relax as a consequence. If I'm sitting there just chilling, even if I'm watching a film, which for me I consider as research because I write films, right? If I'm watching something, I'm like, oh, okay. I see what they're doing there. And it's like, I don't watch them passively. I'm constantly thinking about them. But even if I'm sitting there watching a film, I'm like, oh, I shouldn't be doing it. Nine, nine P M. Right. It's, it's the evening and I'm supposed to be relaxing and I'm sitting there going, oh, I shouldn't be doing this. I shouldn't be doing this. That's my biggest.

• 3:20Steven Bartlett?

  What's your brain saying in that moment?

• 3:21Speaker 01

  It's telling me off. It's, it's going, dude, you need to be, you can't just be sitting here watching. You need to be doing, you need to be working and making. What, what if this all goes wrong? How are you going to earn the money? How are you going to afford to look after your, your child and pay the mortgage? And, you know, all that stuff.

• 3:35Steven Bartlett?

  A lot of people will resonate with that.

• 3:37Speaker 01

  For sure.

• 3:39Steven Bartlett?

  And you've addressed it in therapy.

• 3:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:41Steven Bartlett?

  What have you learnt?

• 3:42Speaker 01

  I learnt that I do it.

• 3:45Speaker 01

  Which a lot of people don't even know, right? That self-awareness of knowing that it's a problem you have. And, and it's taken me, I've been seeing my therapist for Christ, six, seven years, something like that.

• 3:56Steven Bartlett?

  How often?

• 3:58Speaker 01

  It varies. If I'm going through a moment, then more often at the moment, like once every six weeks, because I'm pretty chill.

• 4:05Speaker 01

  But it's taken her most of our time together just to crack that. And she's sort of said, you know, with me, it's my biggest strength and also my biggest flaw. It just depends on where it is on the dial. Like if I've got that at seven, it's great because I'm motivated and I'm enjoying my work and I'm loving it. And I'm sitting there going, God, I'm really good at this, you know, and I'm typing away or doing whatever I'm doing. If it's an eight or a nine, it's torture.

• 4:32Steven Bartlett?

  Paralysed or?

• 4:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, often paralysed, often paralysed ironically into doing nothing because I'm so busy stressing about.

• 4:41Speaker 01

  Getting it done. I don't get it done because I've got no brain space because it's too busy whizzing around in my head going, get it done, get it done, get it done. So there's a point where it's sort of really ironically, kind of just, it's the antithesis of what it's designed for.

• 4:57Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 4:57Speaker 01

  And I think I think I get a lot of that from my dad because I remember being young, knowing that it was easier to be busy and keep myself separate. So I used to draw.

• 5:06Steven Bartlett?

  I read this.

• 5:08Speaker 01

  Be really arty.

• 5:08Steven Bartlett?

  You would sit in the corner.

• 5:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, sit out of harm's way.

• 5:11Steven Bartlett?

  So you would draw in the corner because you felt safe if he, if you were busy and he wasn't.

• 5:16Speaker 01

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

• 6:00Speaker 01

  to eat, they have the option of procreating. That's kind of it, right? What else is there? The rest of it is just made up.

• 6:06Steven Bartlett?

  Toilet.

• 6:07Speaker 01

  Right. The rest of it is just made up shit that we've given ourselves to do.

• 6:10Steven Bartlett?

  Society has told us that in order to be a complete person, we need to climb.

• 6:14Speaker 01

  Right, totally. And it's bloody stressful. It's debilitating sometimes. So when I have that turned up too high, I end up doing nothing. But I worry myself and Sarah's like, where have you gone? Like, I'll just disappear and I don't talk. I don't like, I haven't been like this for a while because I'm pretty good at recognizing the signs and I know to take my foot off the gas a bit because of, you know, all the therapy I've had. But yeah, it's, it's the bloody worst.

• 6:36Steven Bartlett?

  What has helped you?

• 6:38Speaker 01

  Therapy, yeah, absolutely that. Being aware of it is a, there's a point, I always say this because I've actually, a couple of my best mates have, I don't know a guy that's my age doesn't need it, by the way. So a couple of my best mates, I've put them in touch with therapists or sort of said something, you know, I think you should see someone. And actually, we're really open and honest with each other. We're constantly looking out. If one of us is quiet on the group chat, we'll go, dude, you all right, you've been a bit quiet. I said to him at the time, I was like, there's a really tough point with therapy where you start seeing someone. At first, you're really resistant. You're like, no, I'm fine. What are you talking about? But when they point things out to you, like, shit, I'm not fine. But you're aware of doing it, but you have no tools in

• 7:19Speaker 01

  place of how to stop doing it, or how to at least challenge it. So you're just punishing yourself for doing it. Like, I remember going through that stage for a long time, going, I hate that I'm failing. I hate that I'm still stressing out about being like, working constantly or not working constantly, or whatever it is. I hate that I'm doing it to myself, but I can't stop. And you feel a bit like a junkie, you know, in a way that you're like, you know it's wrong. You know you shouldn't be doing it, but you can't, you can't not. And actually, it takes a while to learn the techniques, you know? Mine is as simple as it's, it's painful that I have to go, right, stop. Just don't do it. Take, step away from your laptop, step away from your camera, do whatever

• 8:01Speaker 01

  it is you're doing. Have five minutes. If you feel better after five minutes, go back to it. If not, then take the rest of the day off. And that's what I have to do. I need to be, Sarah needs to keep me in check quite a lot, because if I, sometimes it sneaks up on me, and I'm kind of like, at stage four before I even realise it. And I'm like, shit, I'm in too deep. So she's often like, dude, come back. And that's really helpful. It's hard, though, because you don't want to be told by someone that you're not performing the way you should. You know what I mean? Especially something that matters, right? Right, totally. Especially when it's your, already your weakness. But you need to be, like, I actually really like criticism. So it's good for me. Like, you know, if I send someone some

• 8:43Speaker 01

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

• 9:28Speaker 01

  I want them to know that they are the centre of my universe.