Nick Cannon: How I ACCIDENTALLY Built A $1.3 Billion Business & My Ex-Wife Mariah Carey Saved My Life!

Nick Cannon has lived many different lives, and if you ask him he’s won them all. In this new episode Steven sits down with TV host, actor, rapper, and comedian, Nick Cannon. At 16 years old, Nick began performing stand-up comedy, a year after this he appeared on the Nickelodeon sketch series, ‘All That’, as a writer for the show, at 17 years old, he became the youngest writer in TV history. Nick made the move into film in 2002, appearing in ‘Drumline’, and in 2005, he created, produced and hosted the MTV improv comedy series ‘Wild ’N Out’. From 2009 to 2016, Nick was the host of ‘America’s Got Talent’. In this conversation Nick and Steven discuss topics, such as: The power of optimism in his life How imagination was his superpower as a child His unorthodox childhood His father turning his life around The importance of gratitude in his life Going down the wrong path in his childhood Starting doing stand up comedy at 11 years old Being wise beyond his years His connection with Jamie Foxx Living his life in the public eye Believing in luck rather than alignment Speaking himself into existence His ADHD and not being challenged when he was younger Meeting Will Smith at 16 years old The lessons he learned from Will Smith Losing his TV show at 19 years old Likeminded people intuitively connecting and coming together Becoming the youngest ever TV writer The career advice he would give to his children How fun is the battery for success The importance of intuition in the world Sad money vs happy money The negativity of the music industry The power of narcism and the need to balance it Self funding and taking a risk on ‘Wild N Out’ The importance of owning your intellectual property Wild N Out being an platform for young talent Wild N Out being a billion dollar business Working with Kehlani in her early career Why he struggles with signing young artists Why networking is overrated Being an outgoing introvert Being diagnosed with lupus at 32 years old His near death experience Facing his own mortality The death of his child How grieving is forever Turning grief into purpose The 20th season of Wild ’N Out’ premiered on VH1 on the 6th July. Follow Nick: Instagram: https://bit.ly/3t1p7ts Twitter: https://bit.ly/3LryOrB TikTok: https://bit.ly/3LwA2lv 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 didn't think Wild 'n Out would be the billion-dollar conglomerate. I was just creating a show because Kevin Hart needed money to pay his rent.

• 0:07Steven Bartlett?

  Please welcome Nick Cannon.

• 0:09Speaker 00

  Entrepreneur and rapper, actor, host, comedian. True superstar. Who's Nick Cannon? I'm me.

• 0:16Steven Bartlett?

  Nick, you've been a pioneer. I read that one of your companies has generated more than $100 million.

• 0:22Speaker 00

  That was just in our headphone sales. We have a tour that makes millions, a cruise line, restaurants. As a kid, I learned that I may not be the most talented person in the room, but I'll be the hardest worker in the room. That's how you get it. Some people play basketball, and there's basketball players. Don't try it. If you try it, it's not gonna work. Do it as if there's no other option. So by the time I was 17, I started writing for Feeney and Kale.

• 0:45Steven Bartlett?

  The youngest staff writer in TV history.

• 0:47Speaker 00

  Yeah, I was like Harry Potter with the pen. And then Will Smith signed me. I was living my dream life, but I always felt like I had a ticking clock.

• 0:56Steven Bartlett?

  The latest on the health scare from Nick Cannon. Nick Cannon has lupus.

• 1:00Speaker 00

  If you don't catch it and control it, you could lose your life pretty quickly.

• 1:04Steven Bartlett?

  You said that you wouldn't be alive right now if it wasn't for Mariah Carey.

• 1:08Speaker 00

  Yeah, it makes you question, what are you gonna do with the time that you have on this planet? What impact are you gonna make? When you're not afraid of dying, you focus on living.

• 1:17Steven Bartlett?

  And then you dealt with the loss of your son at just five months old due to brain cancer.

• 1:26Speaker 00

  You never know how strong you are till it's the only option.

• 1:37Steven Bartlett?

  Nick, what do I have to understand about your earliest years to understand the man that you are today?

• 1:44Speaker 00

  I'm still there, question.

• 1:51Speaker 00

  I'd have to say that optimism, youthful optimism, you know, some call it imagination. But the world was just so big, but yet so tangible for me. You know, I felt even as a, I felt like I had this magic that I could just manifest anything, good or bad. You know what I mean? It was, I lived this life to where as small as the community was, disenfranchised and maybe not as upwardly mobile as, as one would see from the house side. I had this big imagination in my mind, this superpower,

• 2:36Speaker 00

  that I could be, do, or whatever I wanted. I, it was all in my grasp and I could, I don't know where I got it from, but I was just, as a kid, as a teenager, I always felt like I had this ability to, to walk in a room and get whatever I wanted.

• 2:56Steven Bartlett?

  But the environment that you were raised in wasn't one of

• 2:58Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 2:59Steven Bartlett?

  great abundance.

• 3:00Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's what was so crazy about it. Like I would, you know, even growing up in the projects, growing up in scenarios that we didn't have a lot, but I felt like I had a lot. I felt like I was always destined for, to, and it wasn't even like about fame. It wasn't about money. It was just about, I like my life. I'm gonna have fun. I'm gonna have a good time. I was always that, you know, let's, let's smile about it. You know what I mean? Even in some difficult and tumultuous times, I would still find, you know, a silver lining.

• 3:43Speaker 00

  I would still find a way to smile through pain. And it's, it's worked, you know? It's always kept me level-headed, you know? Even in the midst of having a, a abnormal and extraordinary life, it's like, even the thing that humbles me is the fact that I'll just enter spaces with gratitude and optimism.

• 4:11Steven Bartlett?

  Even in pain, what was your family home like?

• 4:17Speaker 00

  See, that's the thing, like, probably looking back at it,

• 4:22Speaker 00

  more than would be like, it definitely wasn't orthodox, you know, and we didn't come from much, but it was joyous, it was filled with love, you know, my parents had me, you know, as teenagers, they were young. I went to my dad's high school graduation, like, uh, but, you know, his parents helped raise me, my mom was constantly working, you know, uh, school, work, my dad went off to college, uh, and then, you know, I kind of felt like I grew up with my parents, uh, and their parents assisted in raising us all. So, but it was households filled with love, um, but, you know,

• 5:03Speaker 00

  wasn't traditional by any means, so there, there were the obstacles of, you know, trying to figure it out and parents and grandparents putting food on the table, uh, but that, I think that also gave me a different type of drive to say, all right, we gonna, we gonna have to make something out of nothing.

• 5:25Steven Bartlett?

  Your parents separated when you were very young?

• 5:27Speaker 00

  I would say I feel like my parents had sex once, just one time. And then I showed up, uh, cause they were kids, man, you know, like, I don't really know the intricate details of their relationship, but I definitely knew they weren't together. Um, it was, uh, but not, not enemies by any means, you know what I mean, they were, they were just teenagers, they were kids, so, uh, after, you know, I was born, they kind of went their separate ways, but my dad's parents kind of kept, kept everyone together and it was a close knit thing. You know, when, when my mother needed assistance, uh,

• 6:08Speaker 00

  uh, my grandmother would, would be there to help her out, my father's mother, and even though my father necessarily wasn't physically present for, you know, he was

• 6:19Speaker 00

  You know, actually doing good things for himself where, you know, getting a college degree trying to figure it out and have a family infrastructure elsewhere.

• 6:31Speaker 00

  His mom would help my mom kind of keep me afloat.

• 6:35Steven Bartlett?

  He turned his life around quite significantly, didn't he?

• 6:37Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. My dad was definitely headed down a path

• 6:42Speaker 00

  of destruction early on and then it clicked for him, you know, through some experiences of, you know, incarceration. You know, being able to kind of leave some of those substances out there that were, you know, kind of the downfall of, you know, the community in the eighties. He was, he was able to escape and put his life on the right path. You know, dedicated his life to his ministry and helping others. It worked.

• 7:11Steven Bartlett?

  When you were, you were a young man, you nearly went down the wrong path.

• 7:14Speaker 00

  Yeah, I went down there, figured like, made a U-turn, went back. You know what I mean? Like, uh, I, I think human nature, we all kind of gravitate towards the unknowing. Sometimes that usually is the path that are are sometimes the darkest, sometimes like you just want to, you don't want to do the responsible thing. You don't want to do what your parents may suggest. So I, I definitely have a rebellious nature. I'm definitely an anti-authoritarian. I'm definitely the kid that has to feel that the pot is hot. You know, they're like, okay, I'm not gonna, I, I know what getting burned feels like. So, um, I think it's probably just my,

• 7:59Speaker 00

  you know, nature of exploring and wanting to understand things. It's cool, it's cool to be a bad boy when you're young. And especially when, for me, the mold wasn't necessarily presented that way. So.

• 8:15Speaker 00

  I definitely went through a stage of I want to prove to people that, you know, I'm not a goody-two-shoe all the time. And that took some maturing to do. But then it's also a lot of it is environment. When you grow up in especially Southern California, you know, there was times where the life of gang violence was glorified. You know, whether it's through music, through entertainment, through our culture, you know. When you come from the trenches, you get a certain level of respect. You get a certain level of reverence. So I grew up admiring a lot of that

• 8:59Speaker 00

  and therefore kind of took that path a few times. But, you know, luckily I didn't get caught up, you know, like some of my other friends and associates did.

• 9:10Steven Bartlett?

  What saved you from that path?

• 9:12Speaker 00

  Creativity, like I said, that optimism, which then obviously was transmuted into entertainment.

• 9:21Steven Bartlett?

  When you're a young man, say you're like between the age of 10 and 14. If I'd asked you what you wanted to be and what you thought you'd be when you were 42.

• 9:34Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 9:36Steven Bartlett?

  What would you have told me?

• 9:37Speaker 00

  Same thing, a rapper, you know. Probably that. If it was just as simple as like at 10 years old, what I was focused on. I loved hip hop. I loved, I knew I was, in my mind, I was famous in the hood. Like I just wanted to be, because I was already doing stuff then. You know what I mean? I already had demo tapes and I was already connected to our to our streets and our blocks just as being in the community. Somebody with a voice, not always a positive voice. I was, you know, I was considered a.

• 10:16Speaker 00

  I'll try to think, I wasn't a bad kid, but I was a kid that everybody knew about, you know. But luckily, my art, my creativity allowed people to appreciate me. Even at ten years old, like within my family, within my community.

• 10:32Steven Bartlett?

  What did your art and creativity look like at that stage? Rap music?

• 10:35Speaker 00

  Yeah, it was loud. It was ADHD-ish. It was the kid who could do it all. You know, kind of also had a church background, so I was, you know, I was always, I was a class clown at school, trying to be funny. Starting to just figure out, oh, there's careers in that space. I started to look up to a lot of people like the Eddie Murphys.

• 10:56Speaker 00

  Even the, you know, at the time, the Fresh Prince, as we know, is Will Smith. But he was just, he was just this charismatic, funny rapper at the time. So those were, you know, but at the same time, I was looking up to the Ice Cubes and Two Shorts. And, you know, which was a whole different energy.

• 11:19Speaker 00

  So that was kind of like my makeup of like, well, I want to be like these guys.

• 11:23Steven Bartlett?

  And you start doing stand-up comedy at eleven years old, I had.

• 11:26Speaker 00

  Eleven, yeah.

• 11:27Steven Bartlett?

  That's TV.

• 11:27Speaker 00

  Officially doing it at eleven. I had been, you know, doing stuff in church and stuff, you know, trying to make people laugh. But like, first stand-up stage I got on was I was eleven years old.

• 11:37Steven Bartlett?

  Strikes me as someone that grew up very quickly.

• 11:40Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 11:41Steven Bartlett?

  Cause.

• 11:41Speaker 00

  I was always called an old soul. And I think it was because I grew up around older people, with my grandparents kind of being, you know, patriarchs for me.

• 11:56Speaker 00

  Their children were my siblings. My father, who was, you know, a teenager, was somewhat more of like a big brother type of.

• 12:06Speaker 00

  So like even the way he dealt with me and even the people that I dealt with in my community. I just, I kind of had mannerisms and a jargon that was a little, little wise beyond my years.

• 12:19Steven Bartlett?

  You're a big brother as well, right?

• 12:21Speaker 00

  Yeah, and then, you know, ultimately, my dad had a, I'm a mother's only child, but my dad had five, five boys in total. So, you know, I was the, and I was the oldest. And he and I's connection was different than, you know, the connection with my younger brothers. Cause I was almost somewhat, you know. I was closer to my father than, you know, he, his parenting style was different with me than it was with, you know, his younger children.

• 12:49Steven Bartlett?

  It boggles my mind that someone at eleven years old starts doing stand up comedy.

• 12:52Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 12:53Steven Bartlett?

  Cause it takes, takes some guts and some confidence to do that, but I guess that speaks to who you were at eleven years old.

• 12:57Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 12:58Steven Bartlett?

  By fifteen years old, you're at the Comedy Store where you met Jamie Foxx.

• 13:02Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean, I met so many comedians, but Jamie was definitely one of the ones that kinda, just cause it's such a giving and loving individual, kinda saw this kid and, and was like, I love it, like come hang out, like. And because, you know, Hollywood was miles away from my neighborhood, so uh, figuratively and literally, like it was just like, I needed a place to stay a lot of times, so, you know, catching, catching car rides or even once I got my own vehicle, I'd, I'd had nowhere to sleep, so people would know that I was sleeping in my car or it wouldn't have a place to sleep, so people like Jamie Foxx would let me sleep on their couch.

• 13:44Speaker 00

  Brothers like Guy Torre, if you've seen the Fat Tuesday documentary about, you know, the, the black side of the comedy store. He had a night that, you know, he would let me open up and as people were coming in, I'd be entertaining the audience at like, as a teenager. You know, and the guys like Chris Tucker and Damon Wayans and Eddie Griffin, all these guys would be going on later on in the night. But I was the guy, I was the kid that was welcoming, you know, everybody into their seats and it'd be like Shaquille O'Neal and Kobe Bryant and Snoop Dogg and like all of these people in the audience and there's this fifteen year old on stage, you know, rapping and telling jokes and, you know, everybody else saw something that I was just,

• 14:27Speaker 00

  I was just having a blast, I was, I didn't think about what the future was going to, uh, to offer up, I was just like, yo, this is, this is a dream come true right now.

• 14:37Steven Bartlett?

  People might hear that and go, oh, he, he got lucky, fifteen years old, whatever, you know. What was the, talk to me about the intentionality behind that, like, if there's a fifteen year old listening to, listening to this right now.

• 14:48Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 14:50Steven Bartlett?

  What did you do to put yourself there in hindsight? It's not always easy to know in the moment.

• 14:54Speaker 00

  Yeah, I was definitely a hustler. Like, I don't, you know, I don't believe in luck. I believe in alignment. You know what I mean? Like, and you gotta put yourself in those positions. It's like, you know, some people say luck is preparation meets opportunity. I was always speaking myself into existence. I would put myself in those environments. Like, I, I met Jamie Foxx because I walked up to him and was like, yo, what's up, Jamie Foxx? I'm Nick Cannon. Like, ever since I was four years old, I introduced myself as my full name. Like, everybody used to think it was so funny, like, as a four-year-old, like, I'm Nick Cannon. Like, I just thought my name was cool.

• 15:38Speaker 00

  I thought you, everybody else, you know, you teach a kid to say their first name, it's funny. I teach my children the same way. Like, nah, you got your full name. You're, you're Monroe Cannon. You're, you know, you're powerful Cannon. You know what I mean? Like, and I think maybe I got that from such a cool-ass name. Like, I think my dad probably did that. His dad probably did that. Like, it's just, like, they called, you know, my grandfather, they called him Cannon. Our daddy Cannon. It was just like, it's such a cool name. So, and that's why I was like, I believe it so much in a name. But, so even as, I think those steps kind of ordered the personality.

• 16:18Speaker 00

  So then, when I would find myself in scenarios that I would take advantage of them. I wasn't a shy kid. Wasn't an overly outgoing kid either. I wasn't like, I, I kind of, my ADD kind of maybe shifted, like, made me always seeking attention. Or like, I don't say I was seeking attention. I got attention because I was always doing something. I was always in some shit because I was just trying to figure it out. Therefore, I got a lot of attention. And a lot of it probably wasn't positive attention, but it was just attention. And then from there, you know, that shifted. You know, I grew up around hustlers. So I was like, all right, we gonna try to, we gonna figure it out.

• 17:00Speaker 00

  If there was a door over there, I'm gonna figure out how to get in that door. And that's how I was able to rub shoulders and, you know, I, I studied rooms. And I'm like, all right, if I'm a, if I'm a maneuver in here, I gotta do it in a way that... Not just based off of instinct. I gotta, I gotta put a plan together and I, I move like that, you know, since, since a kid.

• 17:25Steven Bartlett?

  What did you learn from Jamie Foxx? What, what lasting influence has he had on you, the way you are, your career, your perspective?

• 17:31Speaker 00

  It's so interesting, man. I have so many great mentors coming up. I feel like a lot of my first part of my career, I always acknowledged and bigged up Will Smith.

• 17:41Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 17:41Speaker 00

  Cause he was so influential to me.

• 17:44Steven Bartlett?

  You met him from, by, through Jamie?

• 17:46Speaker 00

  Not, well, yeah, yeah, I guess, yeah. But it wasn't directly, like Jamie didn't introduce me to Will. But Jamie had a comedy festival called Laughapalooza. That, uh, Will Smith's company, Overbrook, saw me at that comedy festival and gave me a holding deal at the time, what they were called, and kind of signed me to Will's company. Which then I got to meet Will, you know, a few months later after getting that opportunity in Atlanta at Laughapalooza.

• 18:22Speaker 00

  And then that's when Will and I's relationship, uh, began when I was about 16 years old. So it's like, I met Jamie when I was 15 and then I met Will when I was 16.

• 18:32Steven Bartlett?

  It's hard to think of many more greater multifaceted entertainers than Will Smith and Jamie Foxx.

• 18:38Speaker 00

  Man, that's what I'm saying, like they, they trained me, like, and it's, it's so crazy cause two of the nicest human beings you would ever wanna meet. Like, never seen, like, it's, what you see on camera is that's who they are. You know what I mean? Like, like walk in a room, everyone gravitates towards them. They, they're, they're loud, they, they know how to have a good time. Like, that's just who those guys are. So I don't think I'm naturally like that. Like, I, I, I talked to Kevin about that a lot. Like, when I come in a room, I'm quiet. Kevin Hart, like, like, uh, he's one of those guys that like, they, they're loud, they're like, everyone loves them. Like, I'm more like, I'm in the corner, I'm watching, I'm observing.

• 19:22Speaker 00

  I know how to be that. I can, you know, I can joke with the best of them and get as much attention and stuff, but I'm, I'm a little more reserved. And that's like, to finally answer your question in a very long-winded way, like, the things I probably learned from Jamie is I observed him so much that.

• 19:43Speaker 00

  He's such a great storyteller. I've stolen all of the tricks of when he can get everybody around a table and tell the stories. He's such a great impromptu type of guy could sit down at a piano and, you know, sing a song and get everybody like, I know all of those tricks and I'll probably learn that from him, you know what I mean? Just watching how to, you know, captivate a room in a very jovial manner. Uh, no matter what's going on. But, uh, man, yeah, he's in just his, his, his thespian muscle is so strong. You know what I mean? And I think from whether he's being a silly character or he's being something that's so tuned in.

• 20:24Speaker 00

  Uh, and understanding the subtleties and really embodying, you know, all of his characters. I, I learned a lot of that from him as well, too.

• 20:31Steven Bartlett?

  And Will, so you describe Will as you're mentoring you from 16 years old?

• 20:35Speaker 00

  Yeah, the thing I learned from him is hard work. And, and really like, I was, I've, I've heard, he's said this quote so many times, like, I may not be the most talented person in the room, but I guarantee I'll work the most talented person in the room. Or, or I've also heard him say, um, you know, I may not be the most talented person in the room, but I'll be the hardest worker in the room. Uh, and he, he just, if you want something, he's not gonna stop until he figures it out. You know, and he, he dedicates himself in that manner. And, you know, when this job is done, he's gonna stop where everybody else is gonna go to sleep. He's gonna go work 10 more hours to either perfect that craft or on to the next thing.

• 21:18Speaker 00

  And I saw that at, you know, as a teenager, I'm like, okay, that's how you get it. That's what I'm gonna do. I'm, if he not sleeping, I'm not sleeping. You know, and it'd be times like up in the studio all night and then be on set early in the morning. And you just, you're so grateful and appreciative of the opportunity that you wanna be the best you could possibly be.

• 21:41Steven Bartlett?

  Did he correct any of the errors in your ways when you were a young man? You're sixteen years old, you've got a perspective.

• 21:46Speaker 00

  Yeah. He taught, I mean, every, I mean, before I met Will, I didn't know how to, even musically, I didn't know how to rap sixteen bars. I didn't even know what that was. Like, I knew, I knew music counting, you know what I mean? But I didn't know a verse, specifically a rap verse, was supposed to be sixteen bars. And I think that culture might have had, just started to happen, because everybody wasn't writing sixteen bars in the eighties. You know what I mean? Sometimes a song would be seven verses, or sometimes, you know, like, people would just, but I feel like there, there, in the nineties, there began this, uh, infrastructure of songwriting. Obviously, most choruses and hooks are about eight bars.

• 22:30Speaker 00

  And then, therefore, you had to have a hot sixteen double that was your verse. And Will taught me how to write, because I was just writing. He would give me a beat, or I'd get a track, and I would just write and just memorize it, and then be like, oh, let me spit this for you. And he's like, you need some infrastructure around that. He's like, you, you got some good stuff there. So even as, you know, simple as something like that is, but then he also just life ways, man. I learned, I learned a lot about integrity, character, obviously perseverance from him. And then, stuff that he went through as a teenager, he passed on to me. And even, I didn't listen, but I learned, you know?

• 23:13Speaker 00

  He went broke, you know, at nineteen. After winning a Grammy and having a platinum album, just spending it all on cars and living fast. He gave, I think my first check was somewhere from him, like a hundred fifty, two hundred thousand dollars. And I went and bought, uh, the exact same Range Rover he had. He's like, I'm the biggest movie star in the world. Like, I'm, he's got millions. I got a hundred and fifty thousand dollars. And I went and bought a Range Rover. He told me, don't do it. He's like, man, he's like, I don't do that. Like, you gotta, there's other things to do with that money. And this is from the person who gave it to me.

• 23:56Speaker 00

  And he was right. I totaled that Range Rover six months within having it. And ended up having to move back to my mom's house probably a year later because thinking that, you know, I'm signed to Will Smith, the opportunities, but you don't like, that's money that you're supposed to survive on. Those, everything that, you know, that was a time I wrote and created a television sitcom through Will's company called Loose Cannon. And it was like me in a military school, teenager in a military school, thinking it was gonna get picked up. We got a six-episode commitment. Will Smith, the executive producer. Quincy Jones is on set. Like, everything, Stan Lathan is the director of the pilot. Like, everything, I'm like, oh, I'm set.

• 24:41Speaker 00

  The entire network of the WB makes a shift and they don't pick up the show. So it's like, I thought I was, and it's so funny, I never even think about these correlations. The, one of the executive producers and writers was Bentley Kyle Evans, who's the writer and creator of Jamie Foxx. I, my time slot was scheduled to come on. My show was gonna air right after the Jamie Foxx show. So it was like, it was all together and it didn't happen.

• 25:12Steven Bartlett?

  And you how old at that point?

• 25:13Speaker 00

  Nineteen. Same age Will was when he had to re-figure it out. I think we shot it when I was eighteen. But nineteen is when they let me know that it wasn't, it wasn't gonna move forward. Probably one of the biggest heartbreaks of my life. I probably, I cried for days. Cause I didn't, you know, that's the thing, you think you're, you've arrived. And then it snaps from under you and there's no plan. I had nobody there, even the people like, it's gonna be alright, I didn't believe them. Like, I was like, I was just on the Warner Brothers lot with, you know, in my Range Rover. You know, like, I, I saw the millions.

• 25:57Speaker 00

  I saw me being the biggest young star in the world. Everybody was rocking with me until everybody's gone, like that.

• 26:07Speaker 00

  And it was just, and it wasn't like they abandoned me. It was more like everybody had to move on to their next thing. I had to be the one to figure it out. So that was, that was probably one of my greatest life lessons that Will even taught me indirectly. I mean, cause he was warning me the whole time. Uh, and he held me down, you know, time and time again since then. You know what I mean? It was, uh, it, you know, I wouldn't have got Drumline if it wasn't for him. It was, wouldn't, like I said, I wouldn't have my first record deal if it wasn't for him. So there was, I, I truly, it's funny.

• 26:43Speaker 00

  I can get a little esoteric real quick, but I, I have this, when it comes to like Akashic records and, and, you know, energy. I feel like you're placed in certain, it's, it's the, the law of synchronicity. Like I feel like certain things just happen, uh, because they are constantly happening. There's certain energies that just are attracted to each other. And I, for whatever reason, people like Will Smith, Jamie Foxx, like they're throughout my career. They're always there. They're always, even when they're not like, we may not speak every day, we may, but they, we always connected. Like even same thing, like, you know, I call Kevin Hart my best friend to me.

• 27:29Speaker 00

  Like it's just like we've all since day one, even when we're not trying to be connected, we're connected. Like we're, we're doing projects together. We're, we're thinking alike. He might, he might create a car show and I would create a car show. He has a restaurant, I have a restaurant. Like, and it's not like, it, it looks like competition, but it's like, oh no, like we just, we're on the same frequency. Like we're just, we just operate the same.

• 27:52Steven Bartlett?

  And those people kind of attract each other.

• 27:53Speaker 00

  They attract each other. Like, and I think that's like when people talk about like secret societies and I think it's like, it's not, it's not like this formed meaning. It's just like like-minded individuals, like people who operate on the same frequency. They, they, there doesn't have to be this written rulebook. It's just like, oh no, we intuitively, this is, we, we move like this. We gravitate towards certain things and it's, it's unfortunate because people who operate in low frequency, that it's the same way. And it's like, you know, You always like, damn, that person can't can't catch a break. It's like, ah, that's because they're living in that frequency that.

• 28:31Steven Bartlett?

  What does that frequency look and feel like?

• 28:33Speaker 00

  It's slow, it's thick, it's heavy.

• 28:36Steven Bartlett?

  Blame.

• 28:37Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, victimization is anger is it's it's, you know what I mean? It's like one of those things where.

• 28:46Steven Bartlett?

  Jealousy.

• 28:46Speaker 00

  Yeah, all of that, so like, and it's unfortunate because of people who operate in it, they don't know that they're in it. And it's almost like they they almost desire that. And they feel like they have to have angst and anger to to get their point across. Like, man, you're you're doing so much more damage to yourself. Uh, and you you're digging yourself deeper by pointing fingers at people who are on a completely different frequency than you. They don't even hear you. And you're you're you're clouding up your existence instead of just like stepping out of that frequency.

• 29:27Steven Bartlett?

  You were the youngest ever staff writer, right? Seventeen years old.

• 29:30Speaker 00

  Yeah, I think, I mean, unless somebody's beat it before, like, I think.

• 29:33Steven Bartlett?

  In TV history.

• 29:34Speaker 00

  Yeah, I think because.

• 29:37Steven Bartlett?

  Working on Keenan and Kel, which by the way was massive in the UK.

• 29:40Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, I mean, again, two of the most beautiful people I've ever experienced, specifically Keenan. Keenan is like my brother, like my our our mothers are like best friends.

• 29:53Steven Bartlett?

  Oh, really?

• 29:53Speaker 00

  Yeah, like, um, he they they gave me the opportunity because they were kids too. And I started off doing warm up in the, you know, kind of entertaining the the studio audience when, you know, they're moving the cameras around and stuff. And people were like, yo, that kid is sometimes more entertaining than what's going on on stage. So they're like, he has a voice. So through my management, you know, Michael Goldman is still my manager to this day, still Keenan's manager. Like, Keenan actually, I feel like, I don't know if Keenan introduced me to, because Keenan would hang out in the comedy clubs. And I was in awe of him because he's Keenan from Keenan and Kel and we're in, he's a few years older than me, but I'm like, he's doing what I want to do.

• 30:36Speaker 00

  So we would kind of, you know, catch each other and I would, you know, I wouldn't jock him too much, but I'd be like, ask him questions and stuff. So one night, his manager came to, um. To the improv on Melrose with and I was doing stand up. And you know, they produced Keenan and Kel and all of that and all this stuff. So they gave, they allowed me to do the warm up job. And then from there, I'm in. So I'm like, Keenan, I was like, yo, we should write something. So I went to Keenan, wrote a couple of episodes. And you know, he was like, yeah, let's do it. I remember we wrote one episode with uh. Keenan had a crush on Tamea at the time, like, like, he was like, well, we all had a crush on Tamea.

• 31:19Speaker 00

  But he really liked, you know, the singer Tamea and I was like, yo, let's write an episode. About your crush on Tamea and we could get Tamea on the episode. And it worked too, like, like we got Tamea, she was in the show. I was like. This is amazing. Like, you mean I could write something and it actually happened? Like, I was literally like, I was like Harry Potter with the pen, like, like I couldn't, um. I couldn't believe that I could write something in my mind and it would actually come into fruition. Uh, and that began, so I just began writing everything. And I figured it out and they hired me as a staff writer for a bunch of different Nickelodeon shows.

• 31:54Steven Bartlett?

  At seventeen, eighteen?

• 31:55Speaker 00

  Yeah, I was just seventeen, yeah.

• 31:56Steven Bartlett?

  Jesus.

• 31:57Speaker 00

  Cause I think I wrote, we wrote the Tamea thing probably when I was like sixteen. And then, so by the time I was seventeen, I had like an official job. And then I started writing my own stuff and then hence I wrote my own television show that I would later then. Pitched to Will Smith, you know, in that same time.

• 32:12Steven Bartlett?

  When you're twenty two years old, which is the, the Nick Cannon show, right?

• 32:15Speaker 00

  Well, no, the, remember I said the Lu, the Loose Cannon show?

• 32:18Steven Bartlett?

  The Loose Cannon show, right.

• 32:19Speaker 00

  Is that didn't get, the, the big lesson I learned, that I was still a teenager then. So, but it's the way I got back on my feet after Loose Cannon didn't get picked up. I then wrote my own show for Nickelodeon, which is interesting because I was so, I did that out of. To be honest, I wasn't even proud or even, I kinda did that out of just like. I don't have nothing else to do. So let me create and produce my own show. Because I felt I was at a low point. I was nineteen. And you know how this game, sometimes if it doesn't work, they'll spit you out. Like, that was my shot. Like, I was like, oh, I had, I was signed to Will Smith.

• 33:04Speaker 00

  I was the protege of all of these big comedians. I had, you know, hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of holding deals with networks. Usually, you only get that shot once. So I was like, damn, I blew my wad at nineteen. Like, I gotta go get a regular job now? Like, that's like, that's what I was thinking. Like, I was gonna go back to hustling in the streets. And, but it was, I was like, all right, well, maybe it's Nickel, I was doing Nickelodeon. So I still got the relationships. Maybe I'll just write a kids' show. You know, but I was thinking I was about to be the next Will Smith, the next Jamie Foxx. All right, I gotta go do children's television.

• 33:45Speaker 00

  And through that, I exercised these muscles as a writer, as an executive producer. And even like now, like, I didn't, I didn't have, you know, the foresight to know how powerful, you know, children's entertainment is. How it's one of the most dominating forces to be able to entertain families that, you know, I utilize in every aspect of my business now. I used to look at Nickelodeon as like preschool, you know what I mean? But I didn't know that they were the billion-dollar conglomerate of, you know, Nickelodeon, Disney. Like, I didn't understand that then because I was in it. So, yeah, I created the Nick Cannon Show for Nickelodeon.

• 34:28Speaker 00

  You know, garnered a massive youth fan base through that.

• 34:34Steven Bartlett?

  When I look at you being twenty-two years old, writing this, The Nick Cannon Show, you being seventeen, writing for Keenan and Cow, I go like, where did you get the repetitions? Like, where did you get the skill from? And if I was to, if you had, if I had like a baby Nick Cannon here, and I had to do something to give him the skills that you had at seventeen, where you're writing hilarious things, where, where, where does that skill come from?

• 34:58Speaker 00

  I think stand up, to be honest, stand up because writing my own jokes from 11 years old, and then by the time I'm 12, 13, I'm seeing Def Comedy Jam, Comic View, I'm seeing all of these things happen, and I'm watching these individuals become their own intellectual properties, becoming their own business, becoming their own producers. One thing about stand up, you have to write, direct, perform, promote, market, all by yourself. It's a one man show. So I think by the time I had honed those skills at like 15, 16, I knew how to do it. I knew how to write a script. I knew how to write a great joke. I knew how to, you

• 35:40Speaker 00

  know, hours of sitting in libraries and figuring out words, hearing stories, like all of that stuff was starting to pay off. And I knew, like, I just zoned in, like, you kind of, again, like, when you know this is my space, this is my flow, you operate in your gift. So I think just, you know, trial and error as well, too, but like, I just figured it out, you know what I mean? Like, this is what is a gift that I have, so I'm gonna continue to operate in it.

• 36:11Steven Bartlett?

  They say you've got to put in 10,000 hours to become a master at something.

• 36:13Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 36:13Steven Bartlett?

  And actually, when I run the numbers, I go, listen, you started at 11.

• 36:16Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 36:17Steven Bartlett?

  And then you wrote your own show at 22. That's more than a decade.

• 36:20Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 36:21Steven Bartlett?

  Of repetitions in the gym.

• 36:22Speaker 00

  Yep. And then even, and to me then, even then, I was still just getting started. You know what I mean? Like, again, the beauty of like even Nickelodeon, like, even I, I mean, it was, because I think the Nick Cannon show was, I was from, I did it from like age, I started at 19 and it ended right when I turned 22. I was a baby. I looked like I was 15. Like, everybody thought I was much younger than I even was. So, you know, that's when everything else from like Drumline and my music career began, and I was a baby then, too. And then so. It just, like I said, I've lived so many lives and learned so many lessons early on

• 37:04Speaker 00

  that even as I sit here before you today, I'm like, I'm still just getting started. Like, I still got, still got so many more movies that I gotta do. I still got so much more music I gotta produce. I still got so many more television shows I gotta write. So, like, uh.

• 37:19Steven Bartlett?

  If your kids come to you, though, and they say, Dad, how do I become the master of my craft? How do I become the top of my industry? Not only have you become the top of your industry, many facets, but you've been around people that have got to the top of the industry. So, the things you point out and the similarities in the people that get there, what are those similarities? If I'm your kid and I come to you and say, Dad, I wanna, I wanna get to the top of the industry, what, what's the advice you give to them?

• 37:43Speaker 00

  Do it. I think especially now, it's as simple as that sounds.

• 37:50Speaker 00

  That's what it is today. Like, do it and stick to it. Like, don't give up. Like, do it efficiently. Do it because this is, don't try it. If you try it, it's not gonna work. If you do it. Like, that's even like, even when people always talk to me about acting. Like, how do you know or become a great actor? Do it. Like, it's not like, it's not believe it. It's not, uh, act it. You gotta actually every, embody every aspect of it. Like, do it as if there's no other option. Like, if you try something, that's you sticking your foot in it.

• 38:32Speaker 00

  If you believe it, you're kinda like, I, I think I, yeah, I, okay. But when you do it, when you live it, when you operate in it, when there's no other option of like, like, you know, it's like, it's some people who like, you know, they play basketball. And then somebody's like, oh, no, they, they're a basketball player. You know what I mean? Like, there's some people who, who. Train or try to box. And I know that's a boxer. You know what I mean? Like, they embody it. They live it. You got it. And that's what my. And even with my own kids, I'm like, all right, what do you just naturally do? Where's just swag naturally at?

• 39:10Steven Bartlett?

  Why naturally?

• 39:12Speaker 00

  Because like, some of my kids are just natural athletes. Their physical build. Their what they gravitate towards. And then I'm all right, I'm a water that I'm a. I'm a I'm gonna cultivate that seed. And that's what because they have fun at it. Then there's some of my kids that are just like, natural musicians that just gravitate towards the piano. Like, they just.

• 39:34Steven Bartlett?

  They have fun at it. What does that matter?

• 39:35Speaker 00

  Yeah. And then it's like, OK, I'm gonna I'm gonna help you with that.

• 39:39Steven Bartlett?

  Why does the fun matter?

• 39:41Speaker 00

  Well, I mean, that's that's the that's the battery. Like, that's and that's what if they ever lose the fun, at least for me, like, when it's no longer be fun or becomes fun, then why are we doing it? You know, are you doing it for money? Are you doing it for like, no, you got to do it because you enjoy it?

• 39:57Steven Bartlett?

  I find that fun part so important, but a lot of the time people don't appreciate it. And I love your your ref reference of the battery because a lot of people will be orientated because they come from tough upbringings to go. What's going to make the most money?

• 40:10Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 40:10Steven Bartlett?

  And what I love about what you said about the fun thing is ultimately. Well, it's my belief that the thing that will actually make you the most money is the thing that you can master. And the thing that you can master is the thing that you can do for 11 years.

• 40:20Speaker 00

  Exactly.

• 40:21Steven Bartlett?

  Which is a fun thing.

• 40:21Speaker 00

  Exactly. It's like I always say.

• 40:25Speaker 00

  Money doesn't make you happy. Happy makes you money. And then it goes to the concept of happy money or good money. Because there's definitely the opposite of there's bad money and there's sad money. And I've seen so many people live in that frequency.

• 40:47Steven Bartlett?

  Sad money.

• 40:48Speaker 00

  Sad money. It's like stingy.

• 40:53Speaker 00

  Fear that people only want you for your money. Loneliness. Loneliness in this big glass castle by yourself. You got all the money in the world. Like, we know those entertainers. You know what I mean? Like, man, they they put themselves in this this glass tower. And everybody could see him. And they hate that everybody could see him. And they're so lonely. And it's like, they got more money than they know what to do with. And then everything becomes about a transaction. Hmm. Like, and you can see they have the biggest yacht in the world. They have the most diamond studded watch ever, and they're miserable.

• 41:39Speaker 00

  And it's like, that's sad money. And it becomes bad money. You know what I mean? Like, they're making, and it's vindictive. They're not honest. They get it in a way. They're like, man, how do you sleep at night? Like, the music industry is filled with bad money. And I've seen people, they take advantage. Like, it's literally designed in these contracts. That's why I never really wanted to be, I didn't want to thrive in it. Once I saw it, I'm like, oh, it's so manipulative. It's about, it's one person robbing another, robbing another, robbing another. And it's like, that's not a fun industry to be in. Like, clearly, there's some people who figure it out. But even as a as a music executive, I'm like, I don't, I don't want to operate in dishonesty.

• 42:24Speaker 00

  I don't want to operate in manipulation. And it's just like, that entire industry is designed off of that. And, but, it's it's ways to, you know, far and few between, but you can operate with happy money and good money because the crazy thing specifically about music, it brings so much joy to the world that the industry shouldn't be in a low-frequency place. Like, everybody should be able to thrive and win and provide for their families. But there's a lot of people who aren't musically inclined, who aren't musically talented, who don't know how to have happiness with music that latch on.

• 43:06Speaker 00

  And control the artists. And then therefore, they run the industry. And they operate on a lower frequency of like, you know, I'm gonna control your, your intellectual property. And I'll make more money off of it than you did, even though you made it from such a pure and happy place.

• 43:25Steven Bartlett?

  There's a balance, it almost feels like there's a bit of a balance act, or a, or a, I don't know, a conflict between being selfish enough that you, you get on and you get what you deserve. But being generous and kind enough so that you can stick around.

• 43:39Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 43:41Steven Bartlett?

  Do you think about that a lot?

• 43:42Speaker 00

  It's the beauty of narcissism. I, I am a, that balance, I am a narcissist. I, I believe there's the balance of narcissism.

• 43:54Speaker 00

  Because you can go to, you can go to an extreme of narcissism and it becomes dangerous, it becomes uh, maniacal, it becomes uh, uh, where you can be a psychopath with it. Or you're a sociopath with it, where you have no empathy. That level of narcissism is unhealthy, that's to the extreme of the, the spectrum. But uh, the balance of confidence, of self-love, of there's no other option but me. I am the, I'm him. You know, like LeBron James is him. You know, Kobe Bryant, him, Michael Jordan, him. Michael Jackson, him. You know, Mike Tyson, him.

• 44:39Speaker 00

  You know, like all the Mikes. The uh, Will Smith is him. Chris Rock is him. Jamie Foxx is him, you know, and uh, Mariah Carey is her. Mary J. Blige is her, Beyonce is her. You know, like, all of those people know that there is, there will never be another them on the planet. And that. Is worth its weight in gold. So you have to have a level of self-love, self-promotion, self-dedication. All the self is the key word, the common word in all of these things. You have to love self, you have to know self. Not so much that you hurt others or you think less of others.

• 45:24Speaker 00

  It's not, because that's people like, oh, you think you're better than everybody else. I don't care about everybody else. Like, it's not, I don't think I'm better than y'all. I'm me. Like, and that to a point, it's a fine line because you don't want to disrespect anyone. You still want to have compassion, you still want to have empathy. You still want to enter the space of gratitude, but this is my show. This is my party. This is my, this is my block. That you, you have to, that's where that success lies. Because without these narcissists, we wouldn't have, you know, electricity. We wouldn't have iPhones. We wouldn't have great music. We wouldn't have great, like, the director of the movie is the director for a reason. He's the boss.

• 46:08Speaker 00

  He knows he's the shit. He knows his vision is the one that everyone else has to align with to make a great film.

• 46:15Steven Bartlett?

  Was there a point in your career where you realized that you needed to change in some way to get what you deserved and to get what you're worth?

• 46:21Speaker 00

  Nah, I don't think so.

• 46:22Steven Bartlett?

  Really?

• 46:23Speaker 00

  I had to learn lessons.

• 46:24Steven Bartlett?

  Because you're 15. I see you coming up, I go, he's got talent.

• 46:28Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 46:29Steven Bartlett?

  I could get him to sign a bad contract and I could take his money.

• 46:31Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's what I was like, I've learned, I've learned all of those lessons. Uh, and people have tried to forewarn me and stuff like that, but uh, the thing, I think the beauty that, you know, the aura that everybody's seen is that's been consistent. It's what you do with it. You know, I'm never letting no one put out my flame. You know, it's constantly burned for the type of individual that I want to be that I, you know, the, my purpose.

• 47:02Speaker 00

  So, you know, we all have trials and tribulations. Uh, I, you know, you gotta learn how to bob and weave, but you're still the fighter in which you're supposed to be. You know, like the, whatever made you jump in the ring from that day one, you're gonna cultivate those skills. You know what I mean? You may be a defensive fighter and that's how you win your fights sometimes. Then, you know, uh, you, but early on in your career, you know, you are a puncher. You know, then you had to be more of a thinker, you know? But at the end of the day, you're still a fighter. So I think as whatever I, I am, I still have this desire in me to, to be a winner. I have this desire in me to, to beat the odds.

• 47:47Speaker 00

  To some, there's something about like when someone tells me I can't do something or tells me no, um, that fuels me. And it's been that way since day one, since, you know, my, my ADD, since my anti-authoritarian behavior, like it's just like, I'm gonna push through. I'm gonna persevere. I'm gonna do what I want and I'm not gonna let society or

• 48:13Speaker 00

  individuals tell me I can't.

• 48:16Steven Bartlett?

  Twenty-two years old, you start writing Wild and Out.

• 48:19Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 48:20Steven Bartlett?

  You start writing at that point, I think you, you then self-fund the pilot.

• 48:24Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 48:25Steven Bartlett?

  At twenty-five years old.

• 48:26Speaker 00

  Yeah, probably before that, cause I self-funded in, in two thousand and four. So that might've been, I might've been twenty-three. Uh, and again, I had just seen some success with film and music and,

• 48:42Speaker 00

  I just started, I was, I was kinda one of those guys, Drumline was out and had, you know, my album and stuff, so people, but I was still doing stand-up. And I was like, everybody was like, oh, he does so many things, he hosts. And I had a, a deal with. You know Viacom at the time, obviously, they had Nickelodeon and then you kind of like graduate from Nickelodeon, go to MTV. So I was in that stage of developing things for MTV. And they didn't understand what I wanted to do when I was saying, I want to get all my comedian friends together and all my rapper friends together and we just like do improv and play games. And they're like, we don't get it. So I was like, all right. So I rented out one of the comedy clubs that me and my guys would normally frequent.

• 49:27Speaker 00

  Got some cameras together.

• 49:30Speaker 00

  I think, I mean, I want to say it was somewhere around like a hundred thousand dollars that I had put into like that night. Promoted it, had everybody come out, you know, got some beautiful people to stand around and look beautiful and.

• 49:44Steven Bartlett?

  You put a hundred thousand dollars of your own money into the pilot to show MTV?

• 49:48Speaker 00

  Yeah. And then, uh, once we put it all together, you know, edited, created logos, showed it to them and they're like, oh, we get it now. But, you know, I had, by then I had created the intellectual property, had, you know, copyrighted and patented the name of Wildin' Out, uh, the logo. So when it was time to negotiate, when I knew that they wanted the show, we, we had the, you know, the, the strong side of the table because we knew they wanted it and we had already created it. And that instantly was like, oh, this is the business model that I want to continue to operate under.

• 50:23Steven Bartlett?

  Most people don't figure that out until much later in life, if at all, that owning their IP is key to getting the value that they deserve for their work.

• 50:32Speaker 00

  Yeah. Well, now I feel like everybody knows the secret's out. You know, I mean, when you look at YouTube and, you know, the ability of that we could create great content, you know, for a very cost effective amount like, you know, Wildin' Out, that probably wouldn't cost me a hundred thousand today. You know, because everything, like back then, to get a cameraman.

• 50:56Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 50:56Speaker 00

  That was a couple thousand dollars, you know what I mean? And, you know.

• 51:00Steven Bartlett?

  You're doing the iPhone now.

• 51:01Speaker 00

  Yeah, like exactly. Uh, yeah, everybody knows now to if they create it and they'll come and then you build your fan base on your own. And then you can sell it to a larger corporation. So I feel like that model is being, you know, kinda like, look at Mr. Beast. You know what I mean? Like, I'm so, I'm so jealous of him. So all like, everything that he's doing at twenty four, twenty five, like I was trying to do back then, but there was no, there was no YouTube. Like I, I was doing this, you know, on VHS, you know?

• 51:31Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 51:31Speaker 00

  But, uh, I love it. You know what I mean? I, I love watching what even, I mean, the beauty of my brand now is what I started in two thousand four is still going strong and probably more popular today going into two thousand twenty four.

• 51:49Steven Bartlett?

  It's crazy.

• 51:50Speaker 00

  You know what I mean?

• 51:51Steven Bartlett?

  You're, you're about to film series twenty one?

• 51:53Speaker 00

  We just filmed twenty one, so we're going into twenty two and twenty three. I figured out a model now how to do two seasons in one. So, um.

• 52:01Steven Bartlett?

  Most shows don't last for a, a season, let alone twenty one seasons, twenty two seasons.

• 52:05Speaker 00

  I think my goal is twenty five. So.

• 52:09Steven Bartlett?

  What happens at twenty five?

• 52:11Speaker 00

  It'll be the twentieth year. Twenty five, I, do I gracefully bow out? It's twenty five, twenty five seasons, like, do I hand it off to somebody else? Do like, I'll probably be getting close to fifty by then, like.

• 52:26Steven Bartlett?

  Hmm.

• 52:26Speaker 00

  I can't wild out forever.

• 52:28Steven Bartlett?

  No?

• 52:28Speaker 00

  Nah, I gotta stop at some point. I think I'm probably too long in the tooth now. I mean, that's why I even created the old school, new school. It's funny, everybody, when I first created, all of the wilding out girls, all of the cast members, all of the crew were older than me. And it was weird that everybody was listening to this kid. Tell them what to do and like even the my my OGs like you know Cat Williams and you know a lot of the guys who are on the show and right Chris Spencer and Daryl Heath like these guys were the guys that I looked up to uh that were on my show uh and now I'm the overhead and I got all of these other young kids like the DC Young Flies and every

• 53:13Speaker 00

  I'm like it's so crazy to have the same brand and I literally grow up on you know like I remember being a kid trying to get these comedians to listen to me and what do you know and now I'm the guy telling

• 53:27Steven Bartlett?

  With the platform.

• 53:28Speaker 00

  Yeah, so.

• 53:30Steven Bartlett?

  Give me a view into into that platform that you have and that you've built the entertainment company that sits behind it the talent that you have because it's not so obvious to people.

• 53:38Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 53:38Steven Bartlett?

  You know, people kind of probably think, okay, well, and now he's he does this, whatever. He's the host, whatever. But when I did the research on the company that you've built behind it, it's a pretty it's a huge business behind all of that.

• 53:49Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 53:49Steven Bartlett?

  You're involved in a lot of things.

• 53:51Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean, there's so many aspects of it. I mean, I I truly look at it as a blessing. I'm I'm so grateful for it because it was on a job job training. I didn't say I didn't think Wild and Out would be the billion dollar conglomerate that it is because I was just creating a show to give my friends jobs to because Kevin Hart needed money to pay his rent. Like, because he's like, it's just real, you know, like, we were trying to create something because I was the only one that was, you know, seeing some success out of our, you know, our generation at the time. And I was like, oh, let's let me shine a light on these dudes that are way funnier than me that are way more talented than me,

• 54:31Speaker 00

  you know, like, uh, and then I built a business out of it of incubating, of cultivating young talent, so much so that when they're ready, we we see Pete Davidson go on to become one of the biggest stars in SNL and a movie star. We we see same thing with like Mikey Day and Taron Killam and, you know, uh.

• 54:54Speaker 00

  The Cat Williams and Kevins to become some of the biggest stand-up comedians to ever tour the world. Like, they, they got they, you know, they, they feet wet, they, they skills honed. On one of the toughest stages, like if you look at what Wild 'n Out is, if you, if you excel and survive there, you're gonna be a star.

• 55:16Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 55:16Speaker 00

  Because you're in a, this is the gauntlet, this is the combine, this is the best of the best. In the grimiest of, of this, we gonna test your insecurities, we gonna test your anxiety. And then you succeed and you get the love from people that you respect. And then, once the industry sees that, do whatever you want. So, I, I didn't, I couldn't have designed that, but it, it happened. And I was like, wow, I didn't know, I was literally, I, I didn't, we were just in the trenches. But it's like, it's so much so, like, we created an environment that most entertainers are scared to come to. They're like, man, I don't wanna go Wild 'n Out, they gonna talk about my mama, they gonna talk about my last scandal, or I don't know how to rap, or,

• 56:01Speaker 00

  I'm not that funny off the top of the head. And it's like, it's intimidating. So, when you throw a kid in there, whoever's in it, and they excel,

• 56:11Speaker 00

  they, they, they've earned their stripes. So, now they can walk into any room, be like, yeah, I was the man on Wild 'n Out. And now, because it is a platform to propel, now you can go become a movie star. Now you can go become a rapper, or a singer, like, so, so that was really, if I could, I'd be lying if I say I designed that, but.

• 56:34Steven Bartlett?

  It became that.

• 56:35Speaker 00

  Yeah, it became that. And that's like the blessing I got. But then the business behind it.

• 56:40Steven Bartlett?

  You used the word, you used the B word, billion.

• 56:42Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah. I mean, if you, and it's, I, it's funny, I didn't even, that was told to me after they did all of the research and, of, you know, obviously, what the IP is worth, because one, I mean, we're looking at 500 episodes of television. That alone, when you just do the math, you charge however much you wanna charge per episode. What that, what, you know, and then, the, the careers that it's launched.

• 57:14Speaker 00

  And, you know, then go to where the money really is in the actual intellectual property. So, we have a tour that makes millions every year. Now even turning into a cruise line, you know, the Wild and Wet. Like, we have restaurants that are being franchised, you know, all over the country, you know. We just expanded our, our South Beach location on, on Ocean Drive in Miami.

• 57:46Speaker 00

  The, the logo in itself, the amount of T-shirts, we're the, we're probably Paramount's number one selling.

• 57:55Steven Bartlett?

  Merchandise.

• 57:55Speaker 00

  Yeah, merchandise, T-shirt merchandise, that, everybody knows that Wild 'n Out logo. And it's, it's on everything from T-shirts to bikinis to underwears to coffee mugs, to toys. It's things like that, that, I was just trying to make a cool T-shirt. Like, I didn't think, you know, for twenty something years, people would be buying Wild 'n Out T-shirts. So, stuff like that, that when, and then even stuff I never even thought of, you know. We created Wild 'n Out before there was a YouTube. It's probably one of Viacom, if not the, I think maybe The Daily Show is probably right there with it. But the biggest digital brand that Paramount has through TikTok, YouTube.

• 58:40Speaker 00

  You know, I feel like, I think we might, we're somewhere north of twelve million YouTube subscribers on the Wild 'n Out page.

• 58:49Speaker 00

  Twelve million something subscribers on TikTok, seven million on Instagram. And that's just, that's a TV show. You know what I mean, when you think about it, like, not the individuals who are on the TV show.

• 59:02Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 59:02Speaker 00

  Have even more followers. This is just the show's page.

• 59:05Steven Bartlett?

  How much you think the brand is worth?

• 59:07Speaker 00

  I've heard different things. I mean, like I said, when I initially went the research back, there was like a 1.3 billion. But then that was years ago. So like, I'm pretty sure it's grown because now it's even more popular now. So it's a, it's, you know, I try not to get caught up in that because then I'm, two things happen. Like one, I get in, I start gloating on like, built this billion dollar business. And then the second thing I was like, hey, where's my billion dollars? Like, somebody owes me some money. Like, so I try not to get caught up in that. So like, I know, I just know it's very successful and I'm grateful that it's still going. I mean, I can't wait to find the next comedic superstar. Can't wait to find the next big rapper that graces the Wild and Out stage.

• 59:52Steven Bartlett?

  What are the other businesses or the business ventures that aren't obvious that people might not know about? So you talked about restaurants, you sign talent, you obviously the Wild and Out brand. Is there anything else going on that from the business side of things that isn't obvious?

• 1:00:06Speaker 00

  Specifically in Wild and Out or everything else?

• 1:00:07Steven Bartlett?

  Everything.

• 1:00:08Speaker 00

  Well, I mean, I've created Incredible Entertainment in 2009. It was more of a conglomerate where, because I had always had a record label, but it was separate from my television company. Film, I would produce the films that I was in and stuff. So I was like, I want everything in-house.

• 1:00:27Steven Bartlett?

  I read that Incredible Entertainment generated over a hundred million dollars in revenue in 2009.

• 1:00:33Speaker 00

  And that was, I think that was just in our headphone sales. Like, because we did, I had, I did a headphone brand, very similar to Beats by Dre. Monster was the parent company. They did Beats for $300 and they did Incredibles for $100. So we were the more cost-effective headphone man. While Beats by Dre was making all the noise, we were quietly making noise in Walmarts and the Radio Shacks for selling an affordable product that was pretty much the same product, except for we made ours affordable. So, yeah, just so that alone, that was just in consumer electronics that I would, never thought I was gonna be, you know, selling electronics.

• 1:01:12Speaker 00

  So, but yeah, Incredible, and ultimately I created a one-stop shop that could be everything from consumer products to entertainment to, so, and it's been thriving, man. It's in, and it's kind of, I guess my brand is somewhat known of giving people opportunities and finding that next. Big things, so we're cultivators, we're curators, we're incubators. And so a lot of the content that I've created,

• 1:01:47Speaker 00

  I found my niche.

• 1:01:49Steven Bartlett?

  I was gonna say you're the Simon Cowell of the entertainment world, but you're in fact just the Nick Cannon of the entertainment world.

• 1:01:54Speaker 00

  Funny, me and Kehlani is a, um, me and Simon talk about that often because I found her on America's Got Talent, on his show, my show, our show, but he wasn't paying attention. You know what I mean? And it was like, you know, he was focused on One Direction or whatever on one of his other shows. And I was like, you know, Kehlani came in,

• 1:02:18Speaker 00

  and it was, she was an amazing talent. She was, and like, I hate to say found because she was already talented. Once you get to America's Got Talent, you're already proven, you know? Uh, and she was the lead singer for a group called Pop Life,

• 1:02:35Speaker 00

  which was put together, I believe, by Dwayne Wiggins from Tony, Tony, Tony. His sons were in there too, but she was clearly the star of this group. And I remember Piers Morgan was being an asshole as he does so very well. And he was, he was telling a 15-year-old little chubby Kehlani,

• 1:02:57Speaker 00

  to that she should leave the group. And the only way that he would put her through and not buzz her off is if she left her band because she was the talent. Clearly, he was right, but like, how do you put a 15-year-old in that scenario? And she stuck to her guns and she said, "I'm not leaving my brothers." And everybody else on the panel was like, "We're gonna, you know, we love that you stuck to your guns." So even though Piers was being an ass, they put through, they went all the way through to, uh... To the finale, I think they performed with Stevie Wonder on the finale as Pop Life. And then unfortunately, you know, when you don't win, life goes on. She had to go back home to Oakland and probably met some hard times.

• 1:03:39Speaker 00

  And I remember, it's funny, the father of her, you know, as we know now, I knew as Gabby, who also grew up in that same musical, he called me and said, hey, man, you know, that girl that was on America's Got Talent, she's homeless now, she's not doing so well. I was like, what? He's like, yeah, she's, you know, not doing, she's being a teenager, but like, she needs help. Like, I didn't really know her background of, you know, her father, you know, being murdered when she was a child and her mother, you know, dealing with substance abuse. And a lot of, she has a very compelling story of just the resilience of her and her family.

• 1:04:22Speaker 00

  And they were explaining all that and I was like, yo, give me your information. Find who's her guardian and kind of went and talked to the family and said, yo, I'll move you to LA, but first you gotta finish high school. Like, the one promise, finish school, I'll take care of everything else. A year later, her mixtape was nominated for a Grammy. So it's just like, just, and you know, so it's stuff like that to where, you know, I was like, I put in the work to, you know, help her out. I was telling Simon, yeah, you missed that one. You got a lot of other ones, right? But you missed, you know, you missed that one and. Did you sign her? Uh, see, that's the thing, how I feel about signing. I don't, I'm weird about that. I don't like signing people. Uh, and people, everybody in my life is like, that's what you have to do.

• 1:05:07Speaker 00

  I, I would say, I didn't ask for anything. I, I, I was the impresario, you know what I mean? I funded scenarios because I could, so she didn't have to worry about anything. You know what I mean? She had a roof over her head, food on the table, anything she wanted, studio time. You know, we, we figured it out. I, I introduced her to, you know, the good people over at Atlantic Records. Uh, and the rest is history. So.

• 1:05:41Steven Bartlett?

  Hindsight's a wonderful thing.

• 1:05:42Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I didn't want no money from it. You know what I mean? I do, I do that for a lot of people. Uh, it's created, you know, me and Craig Cowman over at Atlantic, that's my man, you know, uh, but where a lot of people would be, you know, Kalani would be signed to them forever.

• 1:06:01Speaker 00

  Wow, I would, I don't want that. You know what I mean? I want her to be able to provide and do like, I always tell everybody I work with from the beginning, whether you make it or you don't make it, my life is still gonna be the same. So I don't want anything from you but to see you win. I just wanna see like, I don't.

• 1:06:19Steven Bartlett?

  But you could've.

• 1:06:19Speaker 00

  I could, there's a lot of people and that, that is their business to where like, I need my percentage of every song that you write from here on out because I found you, I discovered you, I signed you. My spirit, that don't sit well with my spirit. I, uh, and that's this future superstar show. My inner struggle, when you watch it, cause I'm on the show as well, I struggle with signing these kids. It's funny because we go from city to city and I give a local artist anywhere from five to $10,000 a city. And a lot of times, that's what these record labels are signing these kids up for.

• 1:06:59Speaker 00

  Someone signed my publishing away when I was a teenager for $10,000. One of the biggest mistakes, one of the biggest lessons I've ever learned. So now, I'm giving that $10,000 away to these kids and I don't want nothing from you but to see you win. And that's me paying it forward. That's me correcting what this industry has done to people. So, for so long. So, I don't want, if you wanna sign with Incredible, that's your choice. That's how you, uh, you can sign to me if you want to, but I'm good. I'mma still be rich. I don't need anything from you.

• 1:07:44Speaker 00

  If you wanna join the gang, let's go. Like, you know, there, there's benefits and perks to, to being incredible. But, um.

• 1:07:54Speaker 00

  I don't, I, I, it's, a lot of people even, you know, from my attorneys and people in my, my circle like, "Man, you gotta sign these people. How you gonna, how you gonna function? How you gonna allow your business to thrive if you don't sign?" It's been working thus far, so I don't, I don't wanna, I don't like signing people. I don't like having ownership in someone else's brand. Now, we could be collaborative. We can write a song together and we can split the publishing. We can, you know, yeah, it costs money to keep the lights on. You can use my studio. Yeah, like, and you, I'll get reimbursed, you know, down the line when it's time. But I'm not gonna take something from you. I'm not gonna charge the artist.

• 1:08:37Speaker 00

  Like, that's a, that's a fucked up concept that we've just been operating in and no one's ever corrected it. Like, why should we, this, this is an artist who's making brilliant art and someone who had nothing to do with it gets to own it forever in perpetuity? The fuck does perpetuity mean? Like, like, there's these terms and these words that we just signed up for that is just, it's wrong. But it's made a lot of people a lot of money, so they don't want it to change. But it has to change. Like, technology is making it change. These next generations of people who have more empathy and giving spirits are gonna allow it to change.

• 1:09:19Speaker 00

  Because I don't, I don't believe people are, are as animalistic or, or, they're not, they don't have a savage mentality like it once used to require. I believe we're more empathetic, we're more compassionate, and it's starting to show even in business.

• 1:09:36Steven Bartlett?

  I think you're right, though. I think because of platforms, that middle man has less power than ever. So you say like, "Oh, maybe they're becoming more empathetic. Maybe they have no choice."

• 1:09:45Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:09:45Steven Bartlett?

  Because a Kalani or a you or whatever now has all these platforms where if you've got art and you've got talent, that shit's gonna go viral.

• 1:09:51Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 1:09:52Steven Bartlett?

  And you're gonna have the followers.

• 1:09:53Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:09:54Steven Bartlett?

  On your account with, and you own the password.

• 1:09:56Speaker 00

  Exactly.

• 1:09:57Steven Bartlett?

  So they gotta come with a different value proposition.

• 1:09:59Speaker 00

  Before it's like, "Oh, I can introduce you to that person." I always tell people like, networking is stupid. Like, like, if you're like, focus on being the best you, they'll come find you. Like, but there are some people who've made a lot of money by networking. That concept is like, "Oh, this, I know this person. I can introduce you to them."

• 1:10:22Speaker 00

  God bless you, you know what I mean? Like, if that's how you like connecting, I'll get it. But if we're really trying to get the artist or the IP or the genius to the people,

• 1:10:37Speaker 00

  now technology is doing it for us.

• 1:10:40Steven Bartlett?

  I have this debate with my assistant all the time because she tells me to network more. And I say to her, I say like, my networking is doing my thing.

• 1:10:48Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:10:48Steven Bartlett?

  And then you become a peacock or a magnet versus me having to small talk in a room for three hours.

• 1:10:52Speaker 00

  Exactly.

• 1:10:53Steven Bartlett?

  Which I can't do.

• 1:10:54Speaker 00

  I hate small talk. And that maybe we're just different type of individuals.

• 1:10:57Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:10:58Speaker 00

  Because there are other people that be like, your network is your network.

• 1:11:01Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:11:01Speaker 00

  I don't care who I know. It's more about who knows me. It's, I'm, I'm gonna go over here and figure it out. And you're welcome to the party. Like, but I don't want to go to your party. Like, I don't want to hang out with everybody dressed in white and got on billion dollar watches. I don't, that's not fun to me.

• 1:11:23Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:23Speaker 00

  Like, to each his own.

• 1:11:25Steven Bartlett?

  But some people can do that.

• 1:11:27Speaker 00

  Yeah. And I, and like, I, maybe because I've been in it so long. I've been to the white parties before and wanted to show off. And, and they were fun. But like, I'm at this point, like, I don't, I don't want to do that. That feel, that feels like work to me. I'd rather be in a studio. I'd rather be with my children. I'd rather be writing somewhere. And not to say that those people don't do that as well. I just like, that world is, I, I, I don't have a place in it. That's not where I could be my best self.

• 1:11:59Steven Bartlett?

  I low key, though, do envy the people that can do it and that enjoy it and that can be that networker and connect this person to that one. And just because it's, it's an energy that I just don't have. I think as an introvert, I don't have that muscle to like, show up, small talk my way to a lunch with someone and fucking.

• 1:12:16Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah. I'll tell, I'll tell everybody I'm an outgoing introvert. Like, like, I, and that's what me and Kevin Hart go back and forth about all the time because he has that gift. He walks in a room and lights it up. You know what I mean? And he know, he knows this person and this person. And I'm like, yo, that looks exhausting. And that's coming from a person who like my, my personal bandwidth is overloaded constantly, but my spiritual bandwidth, I keep, like I don't, I don't give everybody my energy. Like, and that's probably why I am a little bit more subdued in rooms. That's why I may not go to every event.

• 1:12:58Speaker 00

  And, and most of the time if somebody asks me to come, something's like, nah, I'm good. And it's not because I just like my peace. I just like being with, where I can be my authentic self, where I can be my best. So I don't like having to turn it on, but I understand when it's time to like, all right, Nick, it's award season, you got, you gotta go do this. So you gotta like, all right. And I, I know how to do it with the best of them, but that's not who I naturally am.

• 1:13:26Steven Bartlett?

  I, I'm 30 years old, Nick, and at 32 years old, you got a diagnosis that changed your life.

• 1:13:32Speaker 00

  Yeah. Threw me for a super loop, like literally part of the pun, but lupus.

• 1:13:39Steven Bartlett?

  Lupus.

• 1:13:40Speaker 00

  Yeah, man, lupus nephritis specifically in 2012. And here, living my dream life, you know, married to the most gorgeous, beautiful, super talented person to ever step on a planet, literally my dream girl. We got two kids, we're in Aspen. I never like, I'm from, from the hood, I'm from the projects. You don't go to Aspen.

• 1:14:04Steven Bartlett?

  Who were you married to?

• 1:14:05Speaker 00

  Mariah Carey. But it's like, I'm in Aspen with my, with my wife. And thinking I'm in probably some of the best shape of my life. Go to boxing three times a week. You know what I mean? Got my own home gym in Aspen. You know what I mean? Like, uh, and I had the weirdest pain in my, uh, in my right side. And I'm like, I'm thinking like a muscle cramp or like, like I'm gonna just jog through it. Here I'm in high, uh, you know, altitude jogging in the snow, thinking I'm gonna do like, this is my Rocky moment. I don't know what I was thinking. And by the time I got back to the house.

• 1:14:50Speaker 00

  Passed out, like, and I didn't know, like, like, literally, Mariah came in and found me. Uh, and they called her, you know, rushed me to the ER in Aspen. How did she find you? I was, I don't know. I was laid out, like, and I, I think everybody, because, you know, like, think it was that bad? Because I had, just came from jogging in Aspen. That's like, oh, he probably got altitude sickness. You know what I mean? Like, I was just dehydrated. So that's what the narrative we were going with. So once I got to the hospital, like, I just need some fluid, a IV, I'll be all right. You know, because that happens, because it happens on the ski slopes. People like, my dumb ass was jogging in, in, up a mountain, I'm probably gonna pass out.

• 1:15:31Speaker 00

  Um, and I was only doing it to try to rid this crap that I had. I thought I could, like, work it off. Uh, and then, the longer I was in the hospital, they were like, oh, well, maybe you have a kidney stone. Uh, because there's something going on back there. And I was like, no, it wasn't a kidney stone. And you got the fluid, you're no longer dehydrated. All right, well, you know, maybe you got a kidney infection. And then they wanted to do a biopsy. And then, through the biopsy, it wa, I think at the time, it was called, like, acute kidney failure. Like, it wasn't full, like, I wa, I, I had caught it early enough to where my kidneys didn't completely fail.

• 1:16:13Speaker 00

  And then they were, and they found out the reason why is that my immune system was attacking my kidneys. Therefore, the autoimmune condition lupus and lupus nephritis to where, you know, where your immune system can get out of whack, based off of whether it's levels of stress, uh, things that you're putting into your body, you know? A lot of times, it's not hereditary. They don't really know what the cause of it is. Uh, it's definitely related to stress, which I didn't think I was stressed out. But it's like, obviously, there's various types of stress, where physical stress, emotional stress. But this is, can send your immune system, uh, out of whack.

• 1:16:55Speaker 00

  And therefore, your immune system then starts to, you know, self-destruct. You know, it starts to attack the- Whatever organs, different people's lupus attack different things. Mine specifically were my kidneys, which then created a bunch of other stuff like pulmonary embolisms. So like the lupus started, I started having these flare ups and it was doing a bunch of stuff to my body. That if you don't catch it, you know, and and control it, you could lose your life pretty quickly. So it was a scary time. I didn't understand it. But we got it in order, you know, and even I feel like I got a good hold on it now.

• 1:17:37Speaker 00

  But every once in a while, it's a great reminder that health is wealth. Health is currency. Health is the most important thing next to time that we possess. And we we don't, we can't control the time. We can control our health. You can control what you put in your body. You can control what you, how well you take care of yourself. So my lupus is my alarm clock every morning. Letting me know, you better do the right things. You better drink your gallon of water. You better take your supplements. You better, you know, not eat too much sodium or processed. They're like, it's a a constant measuring stick to keep me alive.

• 1:18:19Steven Bartlett?

  How did that diagnosis change your your life? So if I was, if I was in your life at that moment,

• 1:18:23Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:18:24Steven Bartlett?

  before that moment and then during that moment, you're married, you're you're still contending with work and.

• 1:18:29Speaker 00

  It changed it so much. I became a different person.

• 1:18:33Steven Bartlett?

  For better or for worse?

• 1:18:34Speaker 00

  Both, you know.

• 1:18:39Speaker 00

  Certain things didn't matter anymore. Other things mattered too much, you know.

• 1:18:45Speaker 00

  I started to overly value relationships and time. But then that made me get rid of relationships that were taking up time and wasting my time.

• 1:18:56Speaker 00

  But it all became, I always felt like I had a ticking clock. But the ticking clock became more apparent in two thousand twelve. That I gotta make the most out of today because tomorrow isn't promised. My relationship with my children, all of my children, you know what I mean? Like a lot of that all comes into play to where like, what are you gonna do with the time that you have on this planet? What impact are you gonna make?

• 1:19:24Speaker 00

  So that's kind of, that's where, in a nutshell, what it did.

• 1:19:28Steven Bartlett?

  Emotionally, if I'm, if I'm Mariah at that time, and I'm dealing with a Nick that's contending with this new diagnosis and an uncertain future.

• 1:19:38Speaker 00

  Yeah, she was my rock, man. She was, um, she went hard, you know, probably, probably wouldn't even, to be honest, probably wouldn't be alive if it wasn't for how hard she went, you know, with the doctors, with me, my stubbornness, you know, um. She was the, the perfect helpmate, the perfect matriarch, the perfect mom, the perfect wife in those scenarios. Cause granted, she's who she is, and dealing with all the pressures of being Mariah Carey, but then, uh, being loving enough to take on all of my stuff, uh, and, you know, we, it, it probably took a toll

• 1:20:22Speaker 00

  on us just because of the person I was in my head and the struggles that I was dealing with. Uh, so it probably took a toll on our relationship, but it definitely brought us closer together.

• 1:20:33Steven Bartlett?

  The struggles you were dealing with.

• 1:20:35Speaker 00

  Man, just like, was I gonna live? Uh, what was life all about? Had I wasted my time up until this point, and if I get another shot, what am I gonna do? What type of, am I gonna be able to be here for my children? Am I not gonna be able to be here for my children? So therefore, what am I leaving them? Uh, what am I leaving the world when I, when I exit? You know, staring up at that hospital bed, or from the hospital bed, staring at the ceiling all alone, and everybody else is kicked out, and you gotta, you gotta just, you know, be, be face to face with your higher power, asking all those tough questions. Am I done? You know, uh, a lot of people, we, we, we don't do that because we get.

• 1:21:24Speaker 00

  Caught up in the constant rat race of just living day to day. But it slowed down for me on many occasions. I was like, it's just a rat. He's almost out of here. And I wasn't scared. That's the crazy thing when you get to that point where you're like, oh, okay. I had a good run.

• 1:21:43Steven Bartlett?

  Were you happy?

• 1:21:44Speaker 00

  I was.

• 1:21:44Steven Bartlett?

  In that moment, when you're looking up at the ceiling.

• 1:21:46Speaker 00

  I was content. I wasn't scared. And it happened, you know, more than once. And even, you know, it continues to like, I'm probably reminded of my physical mortality all the time.

• 1:22:04Speaker 00

  And when you're, when you're not afraid of dying,

• 1:22:09Speaker 00

  you focus on living. You know, it's a, it's a. Anyone who's ever had a near death experience or anyone who's been in those quiet places of dealing with thoughts of afterlife and what this current life was for you.

• 1:22:28Speaker 00

  You live the rest of your days differently. And

• 1:22:33Speaker 00

  at least for, you know, a certain amount of time until you're reminded again.

• 1:22:38Speaker 00

  But yeah, man, I, I, I always say I won that life. I've had, I've lived several lives and I won them all. You know, so it's like, I'm not, I'm not afraid to go. Like, and even all of the things that I, I study and have prepared myself for. It's, you know, one thing, it's inevitable. We all got, it's gonna happen to all of us at some point. And I think others just deal with it better and it makes you appreciate this life. Like I'm one, when it's all said and done, I guarantee you they're gonna be like, yo, he rode that motherfucker till the wheels fell off. Like he got, he got the most out of life.

• 1:23:20Speaker 00

  And, you know, I'll be known for smiling big, loving hard, you know, and, you know, what more can you ask for?

• 1:23:30Steven Bartlett?

  You said you don't think you'd be here if it wasn't for Mariah going hard. Do you really believe she saved your life?

• 1:23:35Speaker 00

  Oh, absolutely.

• 1:23:37Speaker 00

  Absolutely, but I think that's what you do. When you, when you find a helpmate, when you find

• 1:23:44Speaker 00

  someone that you're in matrimony with, you know, you, you go hard for them. I feel like I went hard for her and will still go hard. I laid down my life for her today. You know, it's just, it's what you do. It's just family.

• 1:23:58Steven Bartlett?

  It wasn't, and I just wanna make it clear, it wasn't just that moment where you had to contend with health and mortality. It's an ongoing conversation.

• 1:24:04Speaker 00

  I was in and out of the hospital. I mean, I was in the hospital this past December. You know, uh, it's not as frequent, you know, but and, and it's just because I have the right doctors and I'm hopefully doing the right things now that it doesn't find me. But you, they, lupus, you have what they call flare ups. And it happens when certain times of the year, seasons, stress, uh, and some can be worse than others. Uh, so early on, when I was trying to understand it between like two thousand and twelve and two thousand and sixteen, I was in the hospital like a couple of times a year for stints of like three weeks to a month, just trying to figure it out. So those, and like I said, the flare ups would cause things from everywhere from like

• 1:24:50Speaker 00

  blood clots, pulmonary embolisms, inflammation and not have the ability to walk to kidney failure, organs not doing what, you know, they're supposed to do. So, you know, I had blood clots in my lungs and my heart, like things that would have normally killed other people. You know, the doctors would be like, man, I don't understand how you didn't get affected by that, you know. Having to do, you know, infusions that are you know, similar to chemotherapy and, you know, my hair falling out, stuff like that, like, uh, it's been quite the journey, but you know, you gotta, you gotta, you never know how strong you are. Just being strong is the only option. You just gotta push through.

• 1:25:35Steven Bartlett?

  Crazy how that changes perspective. And as you say all of that, having not been through that myself.

• 1:25:40Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:25:41Steven Bartlett?

  I'm so hungry to understand the perspective that it's given you because I don't want to have to go through that to get the perspective.

• 1:25:47Speaker 00

  I don't wish it on anyone. Yeah, I mean, it's funny, you say that sitting there thirty years old.

• 1:25:52Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah, and this is why it's.

• 1:25:54Speaker 00

  Ah, but man, you know what I used to do even before I was diagnosed with lupus? It's funny, and I don't even just put on my heart, but I I knew it helped my perspective. Every month, uh, started off every month, then it started to be like once a quarter. But I would go to Saint Mary's Children's Hospital and read books, give toys, uh, and really just hang out. Um, and I wouldn't do it for publicity or it was just, it was a reset button for me

• 1:26:35Speaker 00

  to put everything in perspective because you would see these children who were dealing with life altering, sometimes just chronic and detrimental disease. And they would have these smiles on their faces, man, and they would just be so happy and like hooked up the tubes and I'm like, man, if they're having a good day, I have no complaints. I can, I'm gonna walk out of here in good health. And this, I would, I, you know, I was still on the board of Saint Mary's Children's Hospital and I did a lot of work with like the Children's Miracle Network and stuff.

• 1:27:17Speaker 00

  I probably started that in like, I was in my mid twenties. Um, and it just.

• 1:27:25Speaker 00

  I almost wanna say help prepare me for the mindset of when I had my own diagnosis. I mean, ultimately ended up losing my own child, you know, even a decade later after that. It was like, you gotta enter these spaces with empathy, with compassion. Cause then that reminds you that we're all human. That and make the most out of this day because you might not be able to walk tomorrow. You might not, you might take a loss of someone that you thought was gonna be there forever, that you thought was gonna outlive you and.

• 1:28:02Steven Bartlett?

  You're talking about Zen.

• 1:28:03Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, and it's like, and moving so fast, you, you, you start to regret like, man, I didn't, I didn't do what I should have done in that moment. So it's a constant reminder, you know what I mean? And I, I think perspective, perception, a lot of those things help us daily.

• 1:28:25Steven Bartlett?

  You dealt with the loss of your, your son, Zen at just five months old due to brain cancer.

• 1:28:33Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:28:34Steven Bartlett?

  Something that no parent ever conceives.

• 1:28:38Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:28:39Steven Bartlett?

  As a possibility.

• 1:28:40Speaker 00

  And so I, it's, it's a, it's an awful club to be a member of. Uh, but I, I can understand where it's, um, it's hard to relate. It's, I've learned a lesson in that to where when other people are going through stuff, never use the word I understand, cause you don't, you know, um, it's, it's, it's just, it's so many things that go through your mind of, you know, even in, even in a short period of time of five months,

• 1:29:24Speaker 00

  the, the level of pain, the level of guilt, the level, you know, like that one struggles with because.

• 1:29:33Speaker 00

  You know, you think like, oh, well, that child would have got to grow to see five years or twenty-five years. You know, you start asking all of these questions that of concepts you just you struggle to understand. So when you go through it, you kind of have to just

• 1:29:55Speaker 00

  create this fog that protects you. But at the end of time, like, again, you just got to keep pushing through. And then, you know, they do say time heals all wounds. I think, you know, you feel

• 1:30:10Speaker 00

  it's just something that you'll never completely heal from. But you live and you learn to operate and you learn to smile. You learn to be appreciative. If you're a jovial and optimistic person like I am, you know, you push through. But, you know, that pain never leaves you.

• 1:30:27Steven Bartlett?

  Did you have space and time to grieve his his loss?

• 1:30:31Speaker 00

  Grieving is forever. It's not a time period. Like, that's why I was talking about, like, it's not about time. It's like, that's something you're going to grieve daily.

• 1:30:41Steven Bartlett?

  You can grieve it daily.

• 1:30:42Speaker 00

  Oh, absolutely. And I think we all, and then any loss, you know what I mean? And it's learning how to turn your grief into purpose. Learning how to turn your grief into a badge of honor in your character.

• 1:31:02Speaker 00

  Because we all experience it. We all, it's instead of, because sometimes grief can turn into anger and sadness. I don't think that's what it's meant for. I think that may be the innate feeling. But when you can turn, oh, man, I lost my grandmother. I lost my mother, so therefore it makes me more compassionate to women. I lost my child, so that makes me appreciate other children.

• 1:31:27Speaker 00

  I lost my father. I never knew my father, so that makes me want to be a greater father. You know, like, when you learn that that pain or that grief can actually turn and make you fulfill you in with strength in those spaces that once were empty.

• 1:31:46Speaker 00

  I think that then allows you to figure out why we're here in the first place.

• 1:31:52Steven Bartlett?

  If I was a fly on the wall in your household during that period, what would I have seen?

• 1:31:58Speaker 00

  A lot of silence, from me, at least.

• 1:32:02Speaker 00

  Uh, when I'm dealing with stuff, I get real quiet. I don't talk, keep to myself. Therefore, that makes the whole room uncomfortable because everybody else has to be quiet. Especially like someone like me, who is loud, you know, especially in my own home. When it becomes eerie silence.

• 1:32:24Speaker 00

  So, and you know, it's internalizing, it's thinking, it's taking the time, it's being appreciative of, of the time, of the, of the energy. But uh, see a lot of love, a lot of compassion, but a lot of silence.

• 1:32:42Steven Bartlett?

  We have a closing tradition on this podcast where the last guest leaves a question for the next guest, not knowing who they're gonna leave the question for. And they write it into the diary. I don't get to read it beforehand, Jack does, he just checks it's not completely crazy, so.

• 1:32:53Speaker 00

  Oh, okay.

• 1:32:53Steven Bartlett?

  Here we go.

• 1:32:56Steven Bartlett?

  Okay, I'm gonna have a guess. Okay, so I've got this thing, then what's the next word?

• 1:33:04Steven Bartlett?

  Okay, this thing you're upset about, but you're hanging on to, that you've been ruminating about, resenting.

• 1:33:18Steven Bartlett?

  What would happen if you just let it go? If you just never thought about it again and let it go?

• 1:33:28Speaker 00

  Did you interview my therapist last?

• 1:33:32Speaker 00

  As much as I may like internalize things and like overanalyze, because I, I would say I'm a perfectionist on one end, I'm also

• 1:33:45Speaker 00

  fly by the seat of my pants, carefree, whatever happens, happens type of person. So, in therapy, I have to figure out which box I'm gonna put my issues in. Because there are the ones I overanalyze about and, you know, those usually have to deal with like my children and, you know, relationships based off of like wanting to be the best me in that space.

• 1:34:13Speaker 00

  And then there's the stuff that was like, I can't control that, like, whatever, like. And there's the things that keep people up at night and you just lost how many millions of dollars? Or like, I don't care, like, like, uh, so to answer that very

• 1:34:30Speaker 00

  insightful question, um, nothing would happen.

• 1:34:36Speaker 00

  Like, I, I, it would be very similar to, and that's what I've learned, like, the, the things that I overanalyze and stress about.

• 1:34:50Speaker 00

  Usually the same result happens when I'm carefree and don't really put too much emphasis on the issue.

• 1:34:59Steven Bartlett?

  But is there anything that you could let go of that you think would have a positive impact on your life? If you just let it go?

• 1:35:07Speaker 00

  Not really. I mean, cause I'm kind of that type of person, like, I don't let things.

• 1:35:14Steven Bartlett?

  There's not an idea or resentment or a grudge or a.

• 1:35:17Speaker 00

  Maybe, maybe before, you know, I think I'm, I'm, I'm kind of doing the work. So I kind of know that about myself, but I'm also, I've never been one to take life seriously like that. And it's almost to my detriment, you know, sometimes, or like, I need to take something seriously, like my health or, you know, even some certain relationships, but, um, I used to care what people thought about me. You know, because we're in an industry of that, we'd, we'd be lying if, like, I still pay attention to what people say about me. But I don't, I don't allow it to, you know, make decisions for me. So I don't deal with that anymore.

• 1:36:02Speaker 00

  And that's why I said now I'm probably at this space to where even if it's the small things. You know, I kind of know how to compartmentalize even for the moment. Like, all right, I spent enough time on that. You know, we gotta move off it. As a father, I mean, I'm pretty sure I'm gonna learn so many more lessons.

• 1:36:23Speaker 00

  With all of my children having to, they're all gonna deal with things in a completely different fashion. So hopefully, whatever their hangups are, don't necessarily become my hangups. Cause I know as a parent, we do that. You know, that's, that's the compassion of parenting. You got any kids?

• 1:36:46Steven Bartlett?

  No, yeah.

• 1:36:46Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's the thing they don't tell you, that their problems become your problems.

• 1:36:51Steven Bartlett?

  How do you mean?

• 1:36:52Speaker 00

  Immediate, whatever they have an issue is now your issue. From the small, if they got diarrhea, you got diarrhea. Like, if they're crying, you're crying. If they can't sleep, you can't sleep. And it happens forever. If they have a problem getting in, if they're stressing about school, you're stressing about their school.

• 1:37:13Steven Bartlett?

  I'm right there. I'm about to have kids.

• 1:37:15Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:37:15Steven Bartlett?

  I imagine I've got a partner, we're settled down, we've got a place together, we're talking about it. What advice have you got for me?

• 1:37:21Speaker 00

  Do it.

• 1:37:25Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean, but that, it's cause it's what life is all about. Like, it's like, you're gonna do it the way you wanna do it. Like I said, the one of the thing, I never, and me having so many kids, I'm like, man.

• 1:37:36Steven Bartlett?

  So many, you've got six.

• 1:37:37Speaker 00

  Twelve.

• 1:37:38Steven Bartlett?

  Twelve kids.

• 1:37:39Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, so.

• 1:37:40Steven Bartlett?

  The oldest is twelve, you said earlier.

• 1:37:42Speaker 00

  Yeah, the oldest, twelve, twelve year old twins.

• 1:37:45Steven Bartlett?

  Twelve year old twins.

• 1:37:46Speaker 00

  Yeah, and every, all of their problems, they come, they're my problems.

• 1:37:51Steven Bartlett?

  That's a lot of problems.

• 1:37:52Speaker 00

  Yeah, like, it's not, and they're not, they don't care about their siblings' problems. You gotta deal with this one right now. Dad, my chameleon has an eye infection. We have to rush to the vet now. Like, what? It's a lizard. All right. Like, and it's life or death. The chameleon can't die. Like, or, or to, you know. You know, that's, that one's fun and silly, but, you know. Taking us back to Zen and what we were talking about, like, those are my issues. Those are my problems. Those brought out things that I never thought I would ever have to deal with. Cause as I watch my five month old sit here and deal with life.

• 1:38:37Speaker 00

  So it's like their problems become your and what you think about.

• 1:38:43Speaker 00

  For me, and I was thinking about this this morning. You're just grateful for when it's like, wow, there's no problems right now. It's quiet. Everybody's good. Let's embrace this moment. And then, you know, when problems are issues, challenges, obstacles arise, we all deal with it as a family. And that, you know, so that's you, you, you appreciate life for you become a problem solver. You become an individual who every day wakes up and overcomes whatever challenges in front of them.

• 1:39:16Steven Bartlett?

  Sounds like a lot of a big weight to carry.

• 1:39:19Speaker 00

  It's but it's life. It's fun. It's have fun with it. Whatever that challenge is, whatever issue that that child brings, have fun with it. Find the story in it. Find the lesson. What's this? What's the happily ever after to this? Because it's happily ever after every day. You just got to focus on it. Don't, don't, you know, e- even the villains have happy ever afters. Like, it's like you just got to figure out at the end of the day, how am I going to say, I learned this? Or I got this out of this, even though I went through the fire to get there. I'm go or I'm still going through it. It's you got to find the enjoyment in the journey.

• 1:40:02Steven Bartlett?

  Do you care about legacy?

• 1:40:04Speaker 00

  I thought I did. I had to define what it was. I'm still defining what it is. I I've realized that my children aren't my legacy.

• 1:40:15Speaker 00

  My children are my children. My children aren't necessarily mine. They're their own. I've been given the stewardship and the privilege for a certain amount of time to be able to guide them to the best of my ability for eighteen to twenty-five years. But they're their own people. So I've learned that that's not my legacy.

• 1:40:43Speaker 00

  What we can build together as a family can become a legacy.

• 1:40:46Steven Bartlett?

  So what's your legacy?

• 1:40:48Speaker 00

  My compassion, my, uh, my gratitude, which then probably then turns into my humility, that's then turns into my humor, which then turns into my comedy, which it turns to my art form. I mean, that's built into the compassion and stuff as well, too. So.

• 1:41:06Speaker 00

  To be able, people say, man, he made the world a better place by making people smile.

• 1:41:15Speaker 00

  And if I could do that through my humour, my music, my art, my movies, my finances, I just wanna make people smile. So hopefully, even when I'm gone, the things that I left behind make people smile.

• 1:41:30Steven Bartlett?

  I certainly believe that's the case. You've made me smile over the years. I started watching Wild and Out on MTV and then on YouTube throughout my entire life. I mean, MTV was the only, felt like the only show on in my household growing up in Plymouth. And seeing, it was kind of my window into hip hop culture and comedy and all those things. And in every respect of the word, not only have you put countless people on that you'll never get credit for, nor that, nor do you really care about the credit clearing. But you've been a pioneer in so many different art forms and created this wonderful platform to put other people on. And that's something that I look at and I really aspire to do with my life as well. Like, if I, if I'm able to help people reach their full potential in the way you have for so many people that people have no idea

• 1:42:11Steven Bartlett?

  about across comedy and entertainment and music, then I think that's a life worth living and a life worthwhile. It's exactly what you have. So thank you. Thank you for doing that.

• 1:42:23Speaker 00

  That's another title, Life Worthwhile. Sounds like a book.

• 1:42:27Steven Bartlett?

  Let's get that trademarked. Let's keep that IP.

• 1:42:31Speaker 00

  Appreciate it, man. This has been beautiful. Thank you for the experience.

• 1:42:34Steven Bartlett?

  Pleasure to meet you. Thank you, Nick.

• 1:42:35Speaker 00

  Likewise.