Growing A 10+ Million Youtube Following At The Age of 22: Joe Sugg

Joe Sugg is an influencer who, after breakout success before he turned 21, decided to dial down the parties and temptations of fame in order to return to nature and make everything more low key. After realising he didn’t enjoy his life as much as he was supposed to, some serious prioritisation about what his real values were and what really mattered to him was in order in order to refocus and rebalance his life. He hasn’t looked back since. Joe’s new book Grow is out on the 15th September, it goes through the lessons he’s learnt and the strategies he’s adopted to help him find balance and harmony with his life. Joe: Joe’s Book - https://g2ul0.app.link/NIKf94xNKsb Twitter - https://twitter.com/joe_sugg Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/joe_sugg/ Follow me: https://beacons.ai/diaryofaceo 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.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  I started to feel anxious, getting followed by a guy. My mind is panicking. I actually can't concentrate on driving because I know this person is just trying to follow us.

• 0:10Steven Bartlett?

  Strictly finalist, written a book, West End.

• 0:16Steven Bartlett?

  You started at 19, 20 years old. By 22, you had about 6 million subscribers.

• 0:20Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 0:20Steven Bartlett?

  That's fucking nuts.

• 0:21Speaker 00

  It was so uncertain about where that was going to go. The rise, but also the fall can happen so quick. That imposter syndrome I already had got amplified. Anxiety, self doubt. The whole thing just didn't feel real.

• 0:37Steven Bartlett?

  Diane, you met her on Strictly.

• 0:39Speaker 00

  First real, proper girlfriend, yeah. The further you go in that competition, the higher the pressure is and the stress gets. We saw the best and the worst of each other. I always thought it would be a very private thing. It's actually ended up being the complete opposite.

• 0:51Steven Bartlett?

  Hand on heart, do you think if you'd never started YouTube, you'd be happier overall?

• 0:57Speaker 00

  Good question.

• 1:00Steven Bartlett?

  So without further ado, I'm Steven Bartlett and this is the Diary of a CEO. I hope nobody's listening, but if you are, then please keep this to yourself.

• 1:16Steven Bartlett?

  Joe.

• 1:16Speaker 00

  Hello.

• 1:18Steven Bartlett?

  Tell me, what are the most important things that I need to know about you from your early years in order to understand you?

• 1:26Steven Bartlett?

  In order to understand the man that you are today?

• 1:28Speaker 00

  The man I am today. I was quite a loud child. I was a loud, annoying child growing up. When we look back through like family videos,

• 1:37Speaker 00

  it's quite embarrassing to watch, particularly me, because I was the sort of boy that'd be like, mommy, watch this, watch this. Like repeating myself over and over again. And we're watching it back like, oh, shut up. Like you were an annoying child. But then at some point. I flipped and I don't know when that was, but at some point I flipped and became a very sort of timid, quite shy child. Always very creative, even from an early, early age.

• 2:08Speaker 00

  I was a good drawer, I used to illustrate and draw a lot of pictures at school. Which definitely came from, passed down from my parents, mum and dad, both very creative in their own, in their own sense. I went to a very, very small primary school in rural Wiltshire. I think there's fifty two pupils in our, in our whole school. Going from there to secondary school was a big change for me because that was going from fifty two pupils in the whole school to over a thousand. So that was a big, which probably could have a

• 2:42Speaker 00

  a reason why I went from being sort of quite a loud, annoying child to being a lot more sort of, oh, I'm at my depth here. I'm now a small fish in a big pond.

• 2:54Steven Bartlett?

  You were, I read in the book in chapter one of Grow that you were quite self-deprecating at that point.

• 2:59Speaker 00

  In secondary school, yeah.

• 3:00Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 3:01Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah. Primary school, I, I feel like primary school, I was, I was a lot more confident. Everyone knew everyone very well and I just felt like a lot more popular then. And then, yeah, moving to secondary school, it was much more like, yeah, like I say, it was, it was a very different place. And that's when I first sort of encountered teasing and bullying and stuff. And I wasn't necessarily like bullied, I wouldn't, but it was more like if there was ever like teasing going on or things that they were trying to sort of dig. I very quickly sort of realised if I'm already sort of poking fun at myself.

• 3:42Speaker 00

  They will get bored of trying to poke fun at me. So there's less chance of that happening.

• 3:47Steven Bartlett?

  At that age in secondary school, would you consider yourself to be a confident child?

• 3:52Speaker 00

  No, no. Do you know what? Silently confident, like in my head, I've always been the sort of person where I can, I know what I'm capable of and like I know that. That I think, you know, I know that I'm, I can do certain things to a good standard and I know that I, I can be a good student and all this kind of stuff.

• 4:13Speaker 00

  But on the outside, not as confident at all. So like with work and stuff, I was very confident. I was confident that I'd be able to get the grades and do well in school and things like that. But it's the more the sort of social side of it, I found that a lot more difficult.

• 4:28Steven Bartlett?

  Well, if I'd asked you at that age, what you wanted to be when you grew up, what would you, what would you tell me? Say like 16 ish.

• 4:33Speaker 00

  16, I wanted to be, I wanted to work in media, but I wanted to be more, go more down the route of animation. My goal as a kid, initially, first of all, it was an archaeologist. I wanted to be in Diana Jones. And then secondary school, I wanted to work for Ardenman. I wanted to be an animator, like model builder. Or just, I think I've got, I've got a lot of patience. And if you know what animation is like, or how long it took to make Chicken Run or Wallace and Gromit, you know, those films take a long time to make. So I wanted to, yeah, I, I felt like I'd be good to do that. I wanted to, wanted to work for, for Hardman.

• 5:12Steven Bartlett?

  Your, your, your grades at A level were really good.

• 5:15Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 5:16Steven Bartlett?

  Which was surprising because then, you know, most people with those kind of grades that get As and stuff would then go off to university.

• 5:22Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 5:23Steven Bartlett?

  You chose not to.

• 5:24Speaker 00

  No, yeah, it's, so we did work experience. I don't know if you did the same, like when you turn 16, you have to.

• 5:31Steven Bartlett?

  Went to a dentist.

• 5:32Speaker 00

  Did you?

• 5:33Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah, I fell asleep every day, so.

• 5:36Speaker 00

  I, I, I decided to go roof thatching with my uncle. So my uncle is a roof thatcher, which is a

• 5:44Speaker 00

  a very old, traditional craft that they don't really teach anymore. It's very like, kind of, there's no classes you can go and take and you can't study for it. You've got to actually go on the job and work on the job and you learn. When the master thatcher thinks you're ready, you then go from being an apprentice to a master thatcher. And my school, I remember my school advised that I didn't do it, but I went and did it anyway. Shouldn't have done, sorry. But I, I, so I went and did that. And then I absolutely loved it. And it was, I was outside. I think what it was, I was outside. It was. It was tough. I wasn't really, I was lifting a lot of straw and moving things and sweeping up, but I absolutely loved it. There's something about like when we finished a roof,

• 6:29Speaker 00

  we'd look at what we'd done and it's just that feeling. I wanted to bottle that up and be like, that's what I want for the rest of my life. So I decided that I wanted to be a roof thatcher for the rest of my life. I'm the sort of, I'm very kind of, I'm very bad at making my mind up on things as well. There's a lot going on. I'm very bad at making my mind up on stuff. So I was like, what if it doesn't work out later on down the line? I need to have A levels. So if I, if this doesn't go to plan or, you know, after a while I don't like it, I can at least then try out university and go back to trying to work for something in the media or, or Arden or something. So, but I didn't, I'd sort of, I, I always liked the idea of having safety nets underneath me.

• 7:13Speaker 00

  So if something, if something doesn't go to plan, it's all right. You've always got that safety net of, and that's kind of like in a way what roof thatching became because I started doing YouTube as a hobby off the back of the thatching. I did it on my spare time and that started to take off and, and become a full-time career. But then I was in a way safe going into that because I was like, if it all doesn't pan out, because this is going back to when YouTube wasn't really a career as well. So it was, it was so uncertain about where that was going to go. But I always felt very like secure in the fact that I knew that if it didn't pan out, I try it for a year, it doesn't work. I can go back to a job that I genuinely really, really love. So, yeah.

• 7:58Steven Bartlett?

  The two, the two ideas that are almost in sort of collision there was this idea that you are very self-confident in your abilities and that you've always needed a plan B.

• 8:07Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 8:08Steven Bartlett?

  I was trying to make them make sense as two kind of separate ideas because one of them sounded a bit like self-doubt. This idea that sometimes there's a struggle to make a definitive decision and that there's a need for a plan B. Are you someone that has self-doubt at the same time? Because I think it's, I think it's possible to understand your talents, but also have doubt in the future and how things will pan out.

• 8:30Speaker 00

  Yeah. I'm the sort of person where I think of the best case scenario. So like I, I have those, like I've got a very vivid imagination. So with everything I go into, I always think of the best possible outcome, which then gives me that sort of self-confidence. But then I also have. Mr. Self doubt on the other side who finds the worst case scenario. And then they they have a battle in my head of how I should think. And I think that's where the indecision comes from with a lot of stuff. I live with it. I'm glad I've kind of got it because without like, I would, I wouldn't want to always have the self doubt there. And I also wouldn't ever always want to have the self confidence there.

• 9:11Speaker 00

  Cause I think that would make me a completely different person, maybe a person that I don't like either. So I don't know, it's, there's, um, yeah, I have, I have both.

• 9:23Steven Bartlett?

  That's the thing with, um, with the self doubt, if it's just a little bit too high. And I learned this actually from a guest on this podcast called Nira Iyal. He, um, he, he wrote a book on why we get distracted and ultimately like why we procrastinate on things. And he says procrastination is the result of us trying to avoid a task or thing that's, that we have psychological discomfort associated with.

• 9:42Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 9:43Steven Bartlett?

  So when you're like, you know, you've got the essay to do, you'll end up doing the washing up because that's the task you're competent in. And whereas with the essay, you know, there's loads of research to do. You're not necessarily, you don't feel comfortable starting yet. There's something missing. So there's mental psychological discomfort. So you just go do the dishes.

• 9:57Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 9:57Steven Bartlett?

  And I think self doubt is one of the things that leads us to have that psychological discomfort where we just kind of delay it and wait for that perfect time or.

• 10:04Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 10:04Steven Bartlett?

  Go do the dishes.

• 10:05Speaker 00

  I have that all the time. And I, I, I always say it's because I'm creative. It's because I'm creative. It's like, I get scared. I don't know if scared is the right word, but I, yeah, I put it off. Like if I know I've got something I want to do that's, that is creative and requires a lot of sort of sitting around thinking beforehand, then putting pen to paper or, or, um, anything that's going to involve the creative process. I delay it and I, I think it's a thing of like, what if I start doing it and instantly I don't like it? And I'm like, ah, this is not how I imagined. Cause you, you sort of, in your mind, you have this version of it's always going to come flowing out of the pen or you're going to start filming, um, something and it's always going to go perfect plan and it doesn't.

• 10:47Speaker 00

  And it very, very often does it all just completely flow. And I think that that kind of puts a block in. I'm always like, if I'm going to do it, I need to make sure everything's prepared beforehand.

• 10:57Steven Bartlett?

  That is very interesting. A lot of the time is what we say to ourselves that we're, the reason I'm not. Starting it, or the reason I have that procrastination is because I'm a perfectionist. I really want, you know, everyone loves that because it's a nice way of framing yourself as being, as having really, really, really high standards and being, honestly, it's kind of like saying I'm, the reason I've not started it yet, or the reason I struggle is because I'm amazing.

• 11:19Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 11:19Steven Bartlett?

  It's almost like saying that when really, a lot of the time, it's probably self doubt and that psychological discomfort associated with, you don't feel fully competent, or like you could fully nail it. And you're trying to avoid the mess, which, which we all encounter as we do anything.

• 11:33Speaker 00

  Yeah, I think it's like, it's kind of like that, I, I think it's from that part of my brain that's like seeing the best possible outcome. So like, let's say, for example, I'm doing a, a painting. In my head, I'll have that thing of like, almost going ahead because of my imagination, I see it finished. And I'm like, this is, it's going to be amazing, it's going to, you know, I'm going to post it online and people are going to love it and things like that. But then I start and it doesn't quite go and like, oh, actually this is, in my mind, I've gone through this process of like, doing it over and over again and getting it to how I want it to go. And then I start doing it, it's not going how I imagined it. And that sort of scares me a bit. And that's why I think I put things off more from that kind of side.

• 12:14Steven Bartlett?

  Unfinished paintings?

• 12:16Speaker 00

  Yeah, a lot of them, too many of them.

• 12:18Steven Bartlett?

  What, what have you learned about, is there anything that you've learned or any, anything that's helped you get past that initial hesitancy of procrastination or, because you know, you know, reading through your story and even speaking to you today, even before we started recording, I was like, God, this guy's got so many ideas.

• 12:35Speaker 00

  I was going to say, yeah, that is something that I've struggled with, especially nowadays where like,

• 12:45Speaker 00

  going into things like business, like starting businesses and stuff. I feel like from what I've seen, very rarely do you see people that are doing so many different things. And it is that thing of like, I'm a plate spinner, like I love spinning plates of different things and trying to keep up with these spinning plates. And I take time to sort of sit back and look at these things and think, what, when are you going to sit on one thing and actually just do that thing? And devote your, because you see like, you look throughout history. Of like artists and people who have devoted their whole life to sculpting, do you know what I mean? And I sort of tell myself, I'm not going to achieve anything sort of near that if I don't dedicate my whole life to one thing.

• 13:23Speaker 00

  But for me, I just find it so difficult because I'm like, I've got a limited time and I want to dip my toe into everything. And it's weird because I feel like I use this analogy and I don't know if it's a great analogy or not, but with the YouTube sort of career that I've had over the last 10 years, that is something that I did sort of double down on and really focus all my energy on at one point. But then it became a point of branching it out and doing different things, just as a form of like stability as well. Because we didn't know, we still like, we, back in those days, we didn't know how long it was going to last for. So we did sort of branch out into different things. And I think I just got a bit carried away with the branching out and just, I was like, there's so many things to sort of see and try out and do.

• 14:06Speaker 00

  I see like the, that YouTube thing of like catching a, like going out to sea and catching a wave and caught that wave in. And it was incredible. It was a, it was a record breaking wave. It was a major wave kind of thing and you know.

• 14:21Speaker 00

  And now I feel like I'm sort of, I'm back out on my board again and I'm paddling around. I've caught a few little waves, but they've not been like another, you know, ripper of a wave like, like the YouTube one was yet. But I'm, I'm sort of like, I know that there's more big waves out there. But it's just kind of like knowing which wave you start paddling, you know, like how surfers sort of start to paddle out trying to catch them. And you watch them, they sort of get it and then doesn't go. And it's like, I feel like at the moment I'm sort of paddling out and sort of waiting for that sort of next big wave in a sense.

• 14:58Steven Bartlett?

  Why do you need a next big wave?

• 15:01Speaker 00

  Good point. I should just stay on the beach. I think that's actually what my therapist, I have a therapist I speak to. And I used that analogy with her and she said, the exact same thing, why do you need to catch the next big wave? Why not stay on the beach? You don't need to go out and constantly catch big waves.

• 15:19Steven Bartlett?

  I was thinking this because you said earlier, I mean, the question I was gonna. Ask before you talked about the wave analogy was kind of similar, which is if you're happy spinning multiple plates and trying lots of things and sculpting for the joy of sculpting. It seems like, and this is, I'm guilty of this in the biggest way, it seems like there's this other narrative, which is saying, no, no, no, no, no, no. Forget what you love doing, focus because success is the most important thing.

• 15:44Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 15:44Steven Bartlett?

  And when I say success, I mean like accomplishment.

• 15:47Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 15:47Steven Bartlett?

  Because real success probably is actually being happy.

• 15:50Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 15:50Steven Bartlett?

  And you're happy like, but, but it's almost, it's almost like we deny ourselves of happiness because there's not a gold medal there or there's not a gazillion followers there.

• 15:59Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 15:59Steven Bartlett?

  But you're enjoying sculpting.

• 16:00Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 16:00Steven Bartlett?

  For the sake of sculpting.

• 16:01Speaker 00

  It's like, it's like a punishment of yourself. Like, I feel like I, um, it, in a way, I, yeah, it's kind of like a form of like, Joe, you know, you love doing this and this makes you genuinely happy.

• 16:13Speaker 00

  So why don't you just do it? Do you know what I mean? And if, if you love it that much and you stick at it and do it, then good things may come from it, but it's not going to happen straight away. And it's like, it's almost like I get into a thing of like, I like to sort of, the things that I know I love doing, I put aside. And I focus on the things that, uh, that maybe I don't love as much or not as passionate about as much. But I'll sort of almost put that before the little things that make me really happy. It's bizarre. I have no idea, no idea. I've tried to, I've tried to like, think about it a lot and it's, it's weird that it comes from, I don't know where, where it comes from.

• 16:50Steven Bartlett?

  Because, are you saying because those things you could be, although you might not love them as much, you, you might be able to be successful in the eyes of the world in them or?

• 16:58Speaker 00

  I think I, it's because I've got that thing in me that's looking for instant success and stuff, which is weird. And maybe that's because of like before on YouTube and stuff, there was a time where, you know, we were, I say we like, might speak for myself, but like me and a lot of the people around at similar time that, on that sort of wave that we were on. We all, everything we sort of would go into almost became an instant success in a way. It was like, yeah, I think it cause we like back then, I felt like it was, it was so much bigger. Anything you sort of went into, you, you know, it did end up sort of getting attention and doing really well and, and things.

• 17:41Speaker 00

  Whereas now, maybe not so much. And I think that's kind of.

• 17:44Steven Bartlett?

  Crazy. We signed some YouTubers back in that, those days. So maybe not, because you were, you were very, very early, but.

• 17:50Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 17:50Steven Bartlett?

  In two thousand and thirteen, fourteen, we signed a bunch of YouTubers.

• 17:53Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 17:53Steven Bartlett?

  And still to this day, none of them were near, near the size of, of you and that sort of British cohort of like YouTube mega stars. But still to this day, I, and they must have been eighteen, nineteen, twenty years old. I still think it ruined their lives.

• 18:07Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 18:08Steven Bartlett?

  Because I watched an eighteen year old, nineteen year old kid who had started a YouTube channel, got to two hundred thousand, three hundred thousand subscribers. When there was no, that was the only shop in town for video.

• 18:17Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 18:17Steven Bartlett?

  You just got all Facebook video and Instagram and Snap and all, and Twitter video.

• 18:21Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 18:21Steven Bartlett?

  So that was where as brands, we were just pumping all the money into these YouTubers.

• 18:24Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 18:25Steven Bartlett?

  I watched those kids turn down fifteen grand to show up to a fucking movie premiere.

• 18:29Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 18:29Steven Bartlett?

  Or to just show face. When that, when that wave comes into shore and hits the beach and it's over.

• 18:35Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 18:35Steven Bartlett?

  I don't, those, I don't, those kids are in a psychological trap almost.

• 18:40Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 18:40Steven Bartlett?

  With their own personal expectations of the world. And I, and I, and I really worry about that because success has often is, can be a curse because it, because of the way it messes with our own personal expectations of ourself and of the world.

• 18:52Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 18:52Steven Bartlett?

  And in, in some respects, that sounds like what you're saying. Your expectations back then, everything you guys touched did turn to gold.

• 18:59Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 18:59Steven Bartlett?

  Now you're saying it's, it's a little bit more difficult.

• 19:01Speaker 00

  Yeah. Bronze.

• 19:02Steven Bartlett?

  Probably, yeah.

• 19:05Steven Bartlett?

  No, yeah. Do you, does any of that resonate with you?

• 19:06Speaker 00

  A hundred percent. Yeah. I think that's, that's a big part of why myself and Casper is also a YouTuber. We, we started a management company because in the future, there's going to be kids, I mean, we already see it then, like young kids that were shooting to fame overnight. But even, I think nowadays with other social medias, it happens even quicker. Like the, the rise, but also the fall can happen so quick. And I was like, for, for me and Casper, we were like, we want to make a management company, a big role of what we have in that is being in a way kind of mentors when needed to, to, for any questions they have or anything, any concerns they have about that kind of thing, we can sort of give, I kind of use it as like a, I guess like the, you know, like. The Hunger Games, a guy who's like sat on the train, he sort of takes her through it and be like, look, this is gonna happen.

• 19:51Speaker 00

  I guess like a

• 19:53Steven Bartlett?

  Like a mentor.

• 19:54Speaker 00

  Very different version of, yeah, like, yeah, kind of like mentor kind of role.

• 19:58Speaker 00

  And that, for me, is like one of the best things that I do at the moment is having that sort of one on one with our own clients. And sort of if they've got any sort of issues, being able to actually offer advice and see it make a change.

• 20:12Steven Bartlett?

  I'm Joe at nineteen. And you're Joe at thirty. What do you say to me? I'm about to, but as you were, I'm about, I'm thinking about uploading that first video. What advice would you give me?

• 20:24Speaker 00

  I would say, if you want it to get to that level, you can do it. If you put in the sort of the consistency and you're, you're, you're making stuff that is gonna get seen and stuff, but just be prepared for. There's other sides of it that aren't, aren't all bells and whistles and that kind of thing. There's, there's gonna be obstacles, there's gonna be things that, that you're gonna need advice on. And we're gonna be here to, to help and hold your hand through that if you needed.

• 20:50Steven Bartlett?

  What are the things that are wrong?

• 20:51Speaker 00

  Press, negative press.

• 20:55Speaker 00

  You know, haters, you're gonna get trolls, that's, the bigger audience size, the, the more issues it brings in terms of the more eyes that are on you. The more people that will watch your stuff that may not like what you do. And then they've got a thing out against you and there's, there's a lot.

• 21:12Steven Bartlett?

  What's the mental cost?

• 21:14Speaker 00

  I would say that if you're me, it's still worth it. It's still, don't ever regret doing it. It's still worth it, like you, that, that of course has its negatives, but the positives that you've gained out of it, or you will gain out of it.

• 21:33Speaker 00

  In everything outweighs the negative. And don't get, don't get bogged down by the negatives, because there's more, you know, there's more, there's gonna be more positives and negatives. The, the negatives don't matter as much as you think they're gonna matter at the time. At the time, when you experience these negatives and these things that, you know, don't go your way, or that's gonna happen, but

• 21:57Speaker 00

  don't let it, don't dwell on it, don't let it consume you, because there's positives beyond that, that, and you'll, you'll, you'll look back and you won't regret it.

• 22:05Steven Bartlett?

  What is the worst thing that's gonna happen to me?

• 22:08Speaker 00

  The worst thing that's gonna happen to you?

• 22:09Steven Bartlett?

  Over the next ten years, so I'm nineteen years old.

• 22:14Steven Bartlett?

  You know how it all plays out?

• 22:15Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 22:18Speaker 00

  Overthinking.

• 22:22Speaker 00

  Overthinking and worrying about what other people, how they perceive you.

• 22:28Steven Bartlett?

  What cost is that gonna have?

• 22:30Speaker 00

  Um. Few sleepless nights, a lot of anxiety, self doubt.

• 22:39Steven Bartlett?

  I'm guessing at nineteen years old, Joe didn't know what anxiety was?

• 22:42Speaker 00

  No, no.

• 22:44Steven Bartlett?

  What is it?

• 22:45Speaker 00

  It's a feeling of claustrophobia, feeling a bit trapped, um.

• 22:55Steven Bartlett?

  Do you remember, do you remember days through that period? I mean, you talked a little bit in the book about, I think, two thousand and fifteen or so? Couple of years in, I mean, so you, you said earlier, you started at nineteen, twenty years old. By twenty-two, am I correct to say that you had about six million subscribers?

• 23:09Speaker 00

  Possibly, yeah.

• 23:10Steven Bartlett?

  That's fucking nuts.

• 23:11Speaker 00

  Yeah, it happened really quick. I was very fortunate that my, uh, my sister Zoe, sort of, um, and Alfie, actually, um, her partner, they, they really encouraged me to do it. Before YouTube, we used to, um, buy blank cassette tapes and make our own radio shows or, I guess, podcasts back in the day, like, as, as like kids, we were always taking our parents' camcorder and recording shows. And Zoe was very much like the leader in that. She was very much sort of, uh, the director, let's say. Um, and I was always the sort of, sort of, I just did what she told me to. Like, I was the little brother that would just go along with it and that kind of thing.

• 23:51Speaker 00

  And, um, so when YouTube came around, she started to get a bit of success from it. And she was like, you should give this a go because it's the kind of stuff that we were doing as kids or have done. We're kind of like, it's not that far off from what we used to do. But, you know, there's an audience that can watch you from around the world and, and, um. And so, yeah, so I gave it a go and it, I think back then, the success of like the, some of the, some of the stuff we filmed back then, wouldn't it be like a drop in the ocean now in terms of like how big social media has got and YouTube and stuff. Our stuff wouldn't be watched nowadays. It was like we were very much kind of hit it at the right time. And yeah, so I started and it just sort of snowballed and it snowballed really quickly.

• 24:35Speaker 00

  I remember there was a time where I was still thatching on a roof five days of the week. And then I had an email come through asking if I'd go to fly out to Los Angeles to interview Simon Cowell. And yeah, flew out there and it was all first time ever experiencing a business class flight. I still had like straw in my shoes from like being on the roof and like hadn't showered like kind of like just grotty Thatcher. Getting on this plane, like a chauffeur driven car pulled up to a house and took me off to the Heathrow Airport. And I went through the, there's like a little secret bit where they put these barriers down. You have your own like private security kind of thing and you go through and, and I was like, it just blew my mind.

• 25:19Speaker 00

  And, and I hadn't even got to Los Angeles yet. First time ever flying on my own, like solo. And that whole experience was just like, the whole thing just didn't feel real. It did not feel real. It just felt like I was sort of like living like a double life in a way of like, like yesterday I was on a roof thatching and now I'm sat in Simon Cowell's fancy house. Sort of talking to him about Skype.

• 25:47Steven Bartlett?

  Those experiences, especially when they're really quick and they go from zero to a hundred. People, when I sit here with them, often talk to me about imposter syndrome.

• 25:56Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 25:57Steven Bartlett?

  Because.

• 25:59Steven Bartlett?

  As you said, you're kind of living a double life. You're like, what the fuck am I doing? I've got a straw in my shoe and Simon Cowell and.

• 26:04Speaker 00

  Definitely, yeah. Imposter syndrome. There's definitely a lot of that going on.

• 26:10Steven Bartlett?

  And that must result in overthinking and doubt and all those things we talked about.

• 26:13Speaker 00

  And that's another thing, actually, that I would say to younger Joes, but you're going to get this thing called imposter syndrome. You'll learn about it later, but yeah, it'll be there. And I've had that even now to this day. Even now with this podcast, I've listened to this podcast all the time. And even on the way here, I was a bit nervous. So I was like, you get like these, you know, these incredible CEOs on and these people that are so good at talking. And I struggle to get a sentence together most of the time. And I'm like, even me, I feel like there's people on there that have done such amazing things. And I'm like, even for me, it still gives me that little bit of imposter syndrome of like,

• 26:57Speaker 00

  there should be other people, there's a lot more people that should be sat in this chair rather than me.

• 27:01Steven Bartlett?

  What's the risk of that? Because, you know, a lot of people, for me, the risk is you end up like avoiding like opportunities in life and stuff. Cause I'm sure there must have been people that we've asked to come on this podcast before that through imposter syndrome said no. Because we do get a lot of people come here and they'll say something. I mean, I can think of a few people who literally came here and was like, I don't know why you've asked me to be here. And that must impact performance. It must make the whole thing unpleasant. I mean, at least the lead up anyway.

• 27:30Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 27:30Steven Bartlett?

  Until I'm such a, you know.

• 27:32Speaker 00

  It does, yeah. I think like a good example for me is doing Strictly or even actually probably even more so is Waitress in the West End. So I did a stint on the West End in Waitress and this was coming off the back of doing Strictly. So my confidence actually completely changed me in a sense that it gave me such a big boost of confidence, which I didn't, hadn't had for a long time.

• 27:58Speaker 00

  And so riding on that confidence, I agreed to do an audition for Ogie in Waitress in the West End. And I remember I kept asking sort of. My sort of my team being like, have they asked me because of like strictly or you know, will they be honest and like if I'm not good enough, will they just tell, I don't want them to sort of put me in it. If I'm actually not good because I'm not to standard that they'd take someone on, do you know what I mean? If it's not me and they were they were sort of like, I think you'll, you know, just go along, you'll be you'll go this kind of stuff. And I remember even after doing the audition and they said they really loved it and things like that, I still in my mind, I was still like, but did you though? What like, are you sure? Like, are you sure? And especially like the the backlash that I kind of got from that.

• 28:44Speaker 00

  Was was quite like, I mean, it's it's nothing that sort of worried me too much, but there was a lot of like people that was messaging me being like, you you don't deserve this as people that have trained their entire lives in musical theatre. And they're not gonna, they didn't get that, they won't ever get that opportunity because people like you coming in, taking those roles. And so I started to have like a massive and that kind of like that imposter syndrome I already had got amplified and I was like, maybe I shouldn't do it and just sort of, but then I wonder, I wonder if there's been any, I wonder if there's been any times where people have then turned around and said, actually, do you know what? I don't, I don't want this because of what people on social media have said.

• 29:26Speaker 00

  Do you know what I mean? Or given their opinion on. So that was a real sort of.

• 29:33Speaker 00

  That was a definitely a moment that stands out to me of being like, I probably shouldn't be be here doing this.

• 29:40Steven Bartlett?

  In your in your journey with social media and YouTube, was there a moment where you go, that was where I really started to see the symptoms of getting burnt out by doing this? Was there a year or a time where you just thought, fuck, I don't wanna, I don't wanna open my emails, I don't wanna do, I don't wanna upload?

• 29:57Speaker 00

  Yeah, there it was, I think around two thousand sixteen seventeen, I think it might be.

• 30:05Speaker 00

  I remember it clearly because it was just a time where there was just a lot going on. I think YouTube was like massive. We were, you know, like, I think at the time, I mean, I run, at the time, I had three YouTube channels that I was trying to all keep up at the same time. And this was actually before I had any, I was doing it all solo as well. So I'd think of the ideas, I'd shoot them all, edit them, obviously distribute it, I guess, kind of in a way market it by promoting it, putting it out there and trying to get people to watch my stuff. But I also had a book coming out, which I was working on. We'd also, me and Casper did a feature with BBC Studios, like a sort of, like a straight

• 30:48Speaker 00

  to DVD kind of like film of us sort of travelling around in a cam van. So there's a lot of things going on and obviously lots of other different things in the background. And it got to a point where I was like, my life as a Ruth Thatcher before all this was, there was no feeling like this, how I'm feeling now. It was just, I had my, I had such a solid structure, like up at this time, go to work until this time, go back, unload the straw, load up the van again, go and see my nan, give her the paper, go home, go to the gym, and then that was it.

• 31:22Steven Bartlett?

  Was that happier life?

• 31:23Speaker 00

  There's been a lot of times throughout my life where I've looked back and thought that was like, I think, I think it is because that's that structure, it does make you feel like it's, I was living a more, yeah, yeah.

• 31:36Steven Bartlett?

  Hand on heart, do you think if you'd never started YouTube, you'd be happier overall over the last 10 years? Hand on heart.

• 31:50Speaker 00

  I think I'm more happy the route I've gone down as well. I think, because the thing is, I can't, I can never sort of, as much as, you know, I've had my struggles online and stuff, actually the online has also been such a big help for me and especially like in terms of like YouTube and the way that they, I've worked with them and personally and like had support from them has been incredible. So I'm very fortunate as a creator on YouTube that YouTube has actually given me a lot of support and I've had a good team around me that have given me the support and the friendships and the family that I've had around me. Although I went through a time where I did struggle a lot and I had that burnout

• 32:31Speaker 00

  and I had that sort of anxiety and worry and self doubt and stuff, I've had a really good set of people around me that have helped me sort of get past that. Even with the roof thatching, you know, I look back on it now because I'm so far down a different path. But if I went back to thatching, I'm sure there were times where I'd be up on the roof when it's like sideways rain, wind, freezing cold, thinking like, what am I doing up here? So I think it's all sort of comparative to where you are at certain points in your life.

• 33:04Steven Bartlett?

  Did your love for YouTube shift though? Because obviously you start posting less frequently on your main channel.

• 33:11Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 33:12Steven Bartlett?

  To the point where, and it's funny because as someone that's kind of observed the whole YouTube journey over the years, there seems to have been this point which you've literally spoken about where multiple YouTubers appear to have kind of vanished a little bit.

• 33:24Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 33:25Steven Bartlett?

  And then they end up posting a video saying, like, almost giving their reason why, saying they're gonna come back.

• 33:31Speaker 00

  It's, yeah.

• 33:32Steven Bartlett?

  There's another one a year later saying they're gonna come back and they never come back. What is going on?

• 33:37Speaker 00

  I think, I mean, I have to say, I can't speak for everyone, but for myself personally, I think it's partly because your, my audience have all grown up, or the audience I had back then, they've all got older, they've all, they're all in their sort of, I presume a lot of the ones started watching me when they were 14, 15. They're all now in their twenties, they've got their own stuff going on and the stuff that I knew how to make back then is not what they wanna consume now as content, it's what I sort of gauge from it.

• 34:07Steven Bartlett?

  I have like, I have, I have a guess as well, which is, I think, very much in line with what you're saying. I think that the algorithm might have changed a little bit.

• 34:15Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 34:16Steven Bartlett?

  And I think that, I think a few things happen when that happens. So I think as a creator, you get psychologically demotivated.

• 34:22Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 34:23Steven Bartlett?

  When you're doing the same work and you're not getting, you're getting a, basically you're getting a vote from your audience to say, which sounds like we don't like it anymore.

• 34:30Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 34:31Steven Bartlett?

  And then it seemed like that happened all at the same time with that initial sort of YouTube cohort. And so a lot of them. Because they saw declining numbers in whatever they were making, decided to try the formats and other things and go into other places. I remember back in the day, like YouTube seemed to be much shorter form videos.

• 34:48Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 34:48Steven Bartlett?

  And now you have a lot of long form stuff, a lot of 55 minute, hour, Rogan, three hour videos on there.

• 34:53Speaker 00

  Yes, there's always like rumours that go around being like, oh, this, if you heard the latest, this is what now, you know, this is what the algorithm wants and stuff. And I, I agree with that to a degree, but I also think you've got the people that take it to the extreme sometimes and like, you know, the reason why I'm not doing this is because of this. And I, I never wanna solely blame, I think that's why I don't always blame it on an algorithm. This might go back to me being the sort of self doubting kind of imposter syndrome type vibe again of thinking like, it's not just because of this mechanical thing that goes on in the background, it's also because I need to switch things up and change my, you know, who I am online or what I'm doing online. I need to move, I need to shift what I'm doing with the times.

• 35:37Speaker 00

  And I think that's harder than I, than I thought when I was sort of like, I'm gonna change my stuff now. And it's, I think it's more difficult than I thought.

• 35:49Steven Bartlett?

  Was there a point where you, you saw numbers decline and you thought, where you start to think, wait a minute, these, this is not how it used to be?

• 35:56Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 35:57Steven Bartlett?

  When was that?

• 35:58Speaker 00

  It was right before I said yes to doing Strictly. I thought, you know, it'll be fine, I'll get used to it and try with different content and things. And I started to post different stuff and it just wasn't doing, performing as well as it used to. And I'd always kind of like prepared myself for it. Like my dad actually gave me a good piece of advice, looking back on it, of being like, this, what you're doing now is great, but you know, in the future, it's only gonna get more and more people trying to do what you do. And there's gonna be people, there's always, there's always people out there that have new talents and stuff and it's gonna, it's gonna change over time. And there's gonna be people that come into this that have got, you know, not saying that,

• 36:42Speaker 00

  yeah, there's gonna be people that come into it that have got super talent and stuff that just completely dominate and things in it. So you, unless you've got, really got something about you, you're gonna.

• 36:55Speaker 00

  Struggle to keep up because it's just gonna get bigger and bigger. And I kind of like, I look back now, I'm like, actually, a lot of what he said makes sense. You know, there is, you know, it's, that's the sort of way it's gone.

• 37:05Steven Bartlett?

  How do you define yourself now? Who are you now? Like as a, from a self-definition point? Not that that's something I like to do to myself. I don't like to self-define. But if you, if you, someone, if someone asks you to write a bio, what'd you say?

• 37:16Speaker 00

  It's one of the hardest things for me to answer. It genuinely is. If, if I'm ever asked to sort of sum myself up, what I do, I just, I think it's like my Instagram bio is like, I, I am creative or something like that. Cause I just, I don't, I find it so hard to sort of pigeonhole myself as this is what I do and this is what I am. Um, so I'd say like, it's, it's difficult. I just like to say like, I'm, I'm just a creative person.

• 37:45Steven Bartlett?

  You wrote a book, Grow, about being outside and in nature. It seems like a fairly unobvious topic for someone like yourself to write about. So it was very compelling. Why, why did you decide to write about this, about the importance of going outside?

• 38:04Speaker 00

  During the lockdown, we were all sort of looking for things to keep us busy and, and I, like we've mentioned before, I love hobbies. I'm always looking for things to do. And I had like a balcony that ran off from my living area. And I got into gardening in that small little balcony of the things I could do at the time and the things I had lying around. I got really into it and it's like, sort of like caring for a plant. I'm just trying to make a plant grow or putting time and effort into something else. Um, and, and sort of not being in the sort of, the whirlwind that's going on online on our phones and stuff at that time. Disconnecting myself from that and sort of reconnecting myself with something as simple as, as nature

• 38:47Speaker 00

  made me feel so good. It took away all kind of anxieties. Um, I just felt very calm and very like, it took me back to My childhood in a sense of like how I grew up, I was very lucky to grow up in a little cottage type place. So getting all that thoughts is part memoir. I talk a lot about like growing up in the countryside and like and sort of things actually living in London and and all that kind of stuff, but also a part practical guide of hopefully giving some tips for other people in terms of like how they can find their own balance that suits them in terms of the real world and social media world.

• 39:28Steven Bartlett?

  It's quite a personal pivot, isn't it, going from being a YouTuber who's uploading across three YouTube channels and is glued to a screen to standing here, holding these pots.

• 39:38Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, no, it is. Yeah, it is very different. I think, but that's that's kind of like how I've been. I like to separate out

• 39:47Speaker 00

  like those two things. And what I've realised is separating those two things out is really beneficial for me. But it's but it's in no way sort of saying that social media is bad and this kind of thing. You shouldn't be on social media because like it's a tool that we all use and we kind of like need to use like in terms of like, we've got a personal computer in our hands. It's kind of like an extension of our arm. We use it for so many things. So it's not saying like, don't use your phone, your phone is evil. It's more kind of like finding a balance that's right for you, that is going to help you feel better about yourself mentally.

• 40:21Steven Bartlett?

  On that point of thinking, mental health has become an increasing conversation over the last 10 years. Social media has played, it's kind of sat in the middle of that debate. Being someone that started a big social media business, I talk about this a lot. And obviously, you know, people, when we talk about social media and mental health, they'll say, well, you made all your money from it. So and my rebuttal is always the same, which is, you know, if I if I've spent 10 years within it and I knew there was something wrong and I didn't tell you, that'd make me even more of an asshole, right? Just because it had made me money. So having having been like very deep in social media over the last 10 years, I think we're probably more qualified than most to talk about the impacts it has on us, the mind, for better and for worse. When you were going through your hard times with social media, when

• 41:02Steven Bartlett?

  you were having those real anxious moments where you've written a few things about how there was about a two year period with when when you'd really got going, where you just had this overwhelming sensation that felt like it was impossible to escape. Were you telling anybody about it? Were you talking to people? Were you speaking to Zoe, your family and saying, I'm getting anxiety right now?

• 41:22Speaker 00

  Yeah, more so my sister, because my sister has suffered with it a lot throughout her career. So I found it, I was very lucky that I could speak to her about it. And I obviously got a therapist as well that was recommended to me through my sister.

• 41:39Steven Bartlett?

  Do you remember that first time you spoke to her about it?

• 41:41Speaker 00

  She, she was very good about it, to be fair, because she's been through a lot of that stuff. She's sort of, straight away, made me feel better in knowing that, at least sort of acknowledging what it is and then bringing some sort of understanding to it. But it definitely, definitely helped having someone so close to me like my sister, being able to sort of help with that.

• 42:04Steven Bartlett?

  And you spoke to a therapist about this?

• 42:06Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 42:06Steven Bartlett?

  Going to see a therapist has a lot of stigma surrounding it. So especially men are often very reluctant to do that because I think especially once upon a time, going and seeing a therapist meant that I was crazy.

• 42:18Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah, yeah.

• 42:19Steven Bartlett?

  So your journey to actually getting into the, into therapy, can you talk to me about that process and what pushed you ultimately to take that step?

• 42:29Speaker 00

  I think for me, it was, I was, I never saw it as a sort of, I don't know whether it's because of my sister, once again, like through everything sort of, in a way, sort of paving the way through that of like being like, she was seeing a therapist. So I already felt like, well, if my sister, my big sister can do it, then, then I can. Do you know what I mean? You know, if she can do it, I can, I could do it. So I was quite lucky in a sense. It was actually a very easy process for me.

• 43:04Steven Bartlett?

  What has therapy done for you practically? Is there anything that's, it really helped me with that particular challenge that I had?

• 43:11Speaker 00

  It's made me realise that I am a, I've got a thing about people pleasing, a people pleaser. So I, I often feel like I can't be my unapologetic self in a situation without.

• 43:33Speaker 00

  Risking causing offence to someone. I'm terrified of upsetting someone or saying the wrong thing. I'm learning through therapy that how to sort of manage that and to acknowledge it first and foremost. And then to sort of, and we're working on that at the moment of trying to sort of work on like, why I have this thing of being worried so much about what other people think about what I do. It's a tough business to be in if you have that as a kind of predisposition. Has your therapist been able to offer you any advice about overthinking at all?

• 44:06Speaker 00

  Yes. More so in like the sort of anxiety side of things. There's three, there was, I think, two or three points that she suggested. And it's like, decatastrifying the catastrophe, using time to separate. So like, if I'm, if I'm feeling anxious, I've got a sort of, the way you think about time helps. For example, I was at Chelsea Flower Show recently with my mum. And I was, I was engaged in conversation with someone else and I was, but my mind was thinking like, there's so much going on around me. I started to feel anxious. I just needed to get out of there. And it started to make me feel sick that I was like, I couldn't leave.

• 44:48Speaker 00

  And I, and I had, I remember I had a glass of champagne in my hand. And I was like, I don't know what to do. Cause I can't, I was starting to think of all these different scenarios of being like, I can't just be sick here. Cause I'm in like someone's garden. I can't just like, I can't just run away and leave mid-conversation. Cause I'm so worried about going to them. Sorry, I can't listen to what you're saying right now because my mind is panicking. I need to go. I was so worried about how they would think of me. So it's like, all that going on. But if you, what I've learnt is that if you take that and think this conversation is max gonna last five minutes. That helps and it's like, no, that after those five minutes, you can walk over there and you can be on your own and do this kind of stuff and it's going to help.

• 45:28Speaker 00

  So it's like, kind of like if you're going into something that you think, oh, this can be a five hour thing or a two hour exam. You break it down into like chunks. So it's like, I've got, okay, this two hour exam is uh four 30 minute chunks. And that that starts to make me feel less anxious about things. And then also sort of thinking ahead of that whole thing. So if you've got an exam thinking, well, after this, I'm going to go and do this, this and this and this. And when you're thinking about things further in the future, it actually starts to make make me feel more calm.

• 46:00Steven Bartlett?

  Diane.

• 46:03Steven Bartlett?

  You met her on Strictly.

• 46:04Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 46:05Steven Bartlett?

  Strictly gave you a lot, didn't it?

• 46:07Speaker 00

  Yeah, it did. Yeah, yeah.

• 46:09Steven Bartlett?

  What was really interesting is that was your first girlfriend.

• 46:12Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 46:13Steven Bartlett?

  That's, that's.

• 46:14Speaker 00

  First, yeah.

• 46:15Steven Bartlett?

  First real girlfriend.

• 46:16Speaker 00

  First real, proper girlfriend. Yeah.

• 46:17Steven Bartlett?

  At what age?

• 46:18Speaker 00

  Twenty seven, twenty six. Yeah, god.

• 46:21Steven Bartlett?

  I wonder if had you met her outside of Strictly, if you would be together.

• 46:26Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 46:27Steven Bartlett?

  Because it seems like you would have done a pretty good job of overthinking your way.

• 46:31Speaker 00

  It's, we have the same conversation. We're like, how lucky it was in a way that we were even partnered together. Because when you're partnered, if you're, if we weren't even partners on the show, we're on the same show. We still say we may not have got together because when you're actually with your partners, you don't see each other throughout the week. So we're, we're like this, we sort of see it as like the stars sort of realigned there and we, and, but it wasn't um.

• 46:58Speaker 00

  It was, it was an odd sort of situation, I guess. It's not, it's not how I thought it would happen. I, I used to be quite like nervous about sort of getting a girlfriend publicly because I would always think what. Because I had, at the time, I had this sort of uh large female, young female demographic that were. That were really into sort of what I did and things like that. And I was kind of like, I've seen through like friends that have got girlfriends. You know, and when they introduce their girlfriends to their audiences, it's a bit kind of like a, I always saw it would be a very private thing. And in my head, the whole time I was like, it'll be very private. And it's, it's actually ended up being the complete opposite. It's like you can now watch the moment we met, which is kind of unusual.

• 47:42Steven Bartlett?

  It seems from just speaking to you today and getting to know you, but it does seem like that was the perfect way for you to get past, because you were forced together.

• 47:48Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 47:49Steven Bartlett?

  And it's, you know what I mean, in the, in the context of the show, you were forced to spend time with each other. You weren't there to, to fall in love, but they put you together to do this very quite intimate thing, very deep journey over many, many months.

• 48:00Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 48:00Steven Bartlett?

  And it feels like from, from just understanding you a little bit, that was probably the best way for you to get past a lot of that, sort of talking yourself out of it.

• 48:08Speaker 00

  Hundred percent. And you know what, you, you, you see the, I feel like on that, in that environment anyway, especially for me, it's like we saw, I felt like we saw the best and the worst in each other over that sort of 16 week period. There'd been times where we'd go into training and like things weren't going to plan. We thought we're going home and we, you know, stress, the, the further you go in that competition, the higher the pressure is and the stress gets and things like that. So we, we saw the best and the worst of each other within those 16, excuse me, within those 16 weeks. And, um, and I was, and afterwards I was kind of like, when we even sort of like had time to really kind of sort of address things like posts and be like, I actually kind of want to spend more time with you. Cause I felt like I kind of, I've seen the best

• 48:53Speaker 00

  and the worst and I can, you know, I'm happy with that. And it, vice versa. And so, um, so yeah, that's how it, yeah, that's how it sort of happened.

• 49:02Steven Bartlett?

  So the show ends.

• 49:03Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 49:03Steven Bartlett?

  You get to the final, you do very well. And then you did the tour.

• 49:06Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 49:07Steven Bartlett?

  Which everyone, a lot of people do, and they love that process as well. When did you decide that your dance partner was not just a dance partner and was a girlfriend?

• 49:16Speaker 00

  It was, it was actually, it was before the tour.

• 49:19Steven Bartlett?

  Before the tour?

• 49:20Speaker 00

  It was before the tour, yeah.

• 49:21Steven Bartlett?

  Strictly, but before the tour?

• 49:22Speaker 00

  It was after the show finished. Um, and like a few days after, we had time to sort of like, we obviously missed each other because we had, didn't see each other. So after we were like, sort of like, I do miss, like miss spending time with you and things like that. And so obviously we had a conversation, had a sort of decided and to see each other more often and things like that. And we actually then went, uh, went away to a place in the new forest.

• 49:47Steven Bartlett?

  Wait a minute. That was very quick. You had a conversation on WhatsApp or in person?

• 49:51Speaker 00

  No, no, like in person.

• 49:52Steven Bartlett?

  Okay. So you met up a few times in person.

• 49:53Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 49:54Steven Bartlett?

  You can go straight to the forest.

• 49:55Speaker 00

  And then, uh, we went, yeah, we went, uh, we went to the new forest, like a little trip.

• 50:00Steven Bartlett?

  Right.

• 50:00Speaker 00

  Um, and I remember we were getting like followed.

• 50:05Speaker 00

  Because there's a lot of like, um, sort of, there was a lot of like, attention on us at the time, I think. And, um, and so, yeah, we were getting, we were getting followed by a guy. Like, I'm very like, sort of aware of like, what's going on around me and stuff. I think it's, I think it's just from the career that I've had over the last 10 years, I don't know. But I'm like, I was like, that guy who's parked, I could see from my flat, I was like, that guy who's parked there, he's a Paparazzi. Paparazzi, yeah. And, um, this is gonna sound really like, really wanky, but I, I, I was lent an Aston Martin that, that morning. So I went down and I was like, this is the best. I do things like this more often. I get lent cars like this. And I was like, and so I went down and, um, parked it. And he must have seen me parked, he knew what car

• 50:50Speaker 00

  to follow. And later on that day, I was driving along and I looked through the rearview mirror, I was like, I think we're being followed. And then, um, I recognized the, like, the license plate or something to do with the car. And, um, and it put me on so much edge. I was like, driving along, thinking like, I actually can't concentrate on driving because I know this person is just trying to follow us. Um, so I, I, um, I, yeah, I sort of turned off from where I was trying to go to, because I don't want them to actually turn up to where we're going. So I was like, trying to like, Shake him off. Shake him off a little bit. So I was like, right, Diane, you know how to work Bluetooth? He's like, yeah. Put on the James Bond theme song. And we had that moment of just like,

• 51:33Speaker 00

  trying to sort of avoid, um, this, this guy who was following us. And we did manage to do it, obviously, very safely. Did the pictures come out in the paper? No, no, nothing, luckily, because we were moving on the move. Um, but, but yeah, I remember that very clearly of that, kind of like a moment of being like, this is not what I'm used to at all. Don't, don't know if I like this, but, but then, yeah, that's where we sort of. Yeah, that's where.

• 52:01Steven Bartlett?

  You're a couple of years into the relationship now.

• 52:03Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 52:03Steven Bartlett?

  You live together, right?

• 52:04Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 52:04Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah. How's it going?

• 52:06Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's going good. Yeah, going really well. It's, it's, it's really nice because we are both very, like, she's also one of the professional dancers. So she's still very much involved in the show and, and when the show is not on, she's involved in the tours and things like that. So a lot of our time is separate. And we had one year, obviously, twenty nineteen was a year where we were like together and, but we had our own stuff that we're working on. It's a very busy year for me and also a very busy year for her with like tours and, and back then even like, I think they do like cruise, like they did like cruise ships and stuff as well. So like, loads of different tours and stuff. So we were away a lot of, a lot of the time, but then when we come together,

• 52:44Speaker 00

  it's so nice because we've got so much to, as they say, like, distance makes the heart grow fonder and that kind of stuff. And I, I genuinely kind of, I do believe in that, I think, especially in this sort of situation, like, although we are away from each other a fair bit because of our work commitments and stuff, it, it works really, really well. And like when we do, when we are together, it's nice just to spend quality time together. Um, but yeah, no, absolutely loving it.

• 53:13Steven Bartlett?

  We have a, a closing tradition on this podcast where the previous guest asks a question for the next guest, not knowing who they're asking it for. Do you remember a moment where you realised that you loved your job? When was it and why? And was there a moment when you realised you hated your job? When was it and why?

• 53:35Speaker 00

  Ooh, good question. Um, the moment that I remember that I loved my job was, there's, there's a lot of little moments that stick out, but I think it, this was going back to like the old YouTube gang. So like me, my sister, Alfie, Marcus, Butler, Jim, Tanya, a lot of that kind of, the, the, the barrique we were called back in the day. Um, we got invited to Harry Potter World. Um, and I'm, I'm, I've.

• 54:09Speaker 00

  I'll admit, I'm not the biggest Harry Potter fan, but just being around like a, having like a day out with, with that group, that first sort of, because it's kind of like our first sort of big group out somewhere. And just being around these people and we're all going through the same situation, which I really appreciate the fact that there's people within this group that I could chat to and speak to about what was going on. And it was such a new and exciting time and we're all kind of on that journey up. And I just remember that's all that memory's always stuck in my head. And there's weirdly, there's a, there's a vlog, I've vlog, we all vlogged it. So it's like, it's actually been documented. So we can go back and watch it in the future and stuff, but that really sticks out.

• 54:50Steven Bartlett?

  So what about the second part of that question?

• 54:53Speaker 00

  The, so a moment where, sorry, a moment where I hated my job.

• 54:56Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 54:57Speaker 00

  It, I guess it was the time where I had that burnout feeling and I was, I had so much going on. I just thought, you know what? I, I actually don't really know if I want to do this anymore. And I, I remember telling my manager at the time, um, Alex, uh, that I was like, I just don't know if I want to do this. There's too much going on. I don't, I, I actually can't really handle it. I'm, you know, and I'm thinking about my old job and how much sort of simpler that was and thinking like, ah, it's like, but I had all these things going through my head of like that thing of like, don't be ungrateful, but also I am struggling with it. And I guess in that moment would feel like the time that I hated it, but it didn't last very long because

• 55:39Speaker 00

  my manager at the time, Alex, she'd sent me a, like a care package. She like went out and above and beyond and sent me this care package of like a, a book and weirdly, it was a Harry Potter book, which as we know, not the, not the biggest fan, but at the time it was exactly, like I said, it's exactly what I needed.

• 55:58Speaker 00

  So, but right before she saved the day, it was, um, Yeah, probably about that time, I think.

• 56:05Steven Bartlett?

  Joe, thank you so much. Thank you for your time. Thank you for writing a really important book.

• 56:09Speaker 00

  Thank you.

• 56:10Steven Bartlett?

  I think these kind of messages in the digital overstimulated world we're living in, especially our generation, the generation that are coming, are very, very important. And they're very simplifying, which I love because it's very easy to write very complex things that are, that try and make things more complicated than they are in order to make yourself sound super smart, or to try and trick people to buy something, or to think you're a scientist. But I love stuff that is simplifying. It makes it much more accessible. And I think that is, that is why I love this particular book so much. But I also really appreciate your honesty because you're talking about topics and themes that, on one hand, very few people will ever get to experience with the crazy career that you had in YouTube and that you're having in the media and all of these things. But, but also topics that are not always easy to talk about, which is the, the difficult, harder times.

• 56:54Steven Bartlett?

  And that balance is exactly why we do what we do here. So, thank you for your time.

• 56:57Speaker 00

  Thank you very much. No, pleasure. Thanks for having me.

• 56:59Steven Bartlett?

  I can't wait to see what happens next.

• 57:01Speaker 00

  So.