Ruby Wax: “I was addicted to rage!” How to respond instead of reacting

Have you noticed that your memory and rational thinking disappear when you’re anxious? Ruby Wax wants you to retrain your focus and attention in a digital world that’s always trying to steal it. In this chat with Fearne – live from the Happy Place Festival – Ruby explains the difference between mental health and mental illness, and why she calls meditation ‘mind gym’. She also explores why laughing – getting into your body – is one of the greatest things you can do for your mental health. Ruby also tells some raucous stories about the celebrities she’s interviewed. Why did Trump want her kicked off his plane? And what was her read of OJ Simpson? You can get tickets for Ruby’s tour Absolutely Famous here https://www.rubywax.net/livetour. Join Ruby’s Frazzled Café here https://www.frazzledcafe.org/?gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=23266114294&gbraid=0AAAABCBC2f8EF2q_H9yc41r9EpazHItUw&gclid=CjwKCAjw1IHTBhAaEiwA4AYNFgTDF_JZRxFIGKb3ai8HG5u391c-StW5WneT-6TyWoZMS3pn8CgP1hoCUh8QAvD_BwE. If you liked this episode of Happy Place, you might also like: Ruby’s first Happy Place episode https://pod.fo/e/1428d Ruby’s second Happy Place episode https://pod.fo/e/1e7bed Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

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

• 0:00Fearne Cotton?

  Hello and welcome to Happy Place. I'm Fern Cotton and today I'm taking you back to the Happy Place Festival in sunny, sunny, hot, hot London with the one and only Ruby Wax.

• 0:13Speaker 01

  A lot of them, like with Trump, he terrified me because he's sort of an animal. He hated me before he even met me. And then he said he wanted to be the next president of the United States. So I started laughing, but there were things I should have done that I didn't do. Because I practice meditation, which by the way, isn't about sitting on a gluten free cushion. It is exercising part of your brain that gives you the ability to lower that red mist. And when you're in such fight and flight, part of your memory goes down. You lose your saliva, your heartbeat goes up and you can't think straight. So that's what happened when he scared me. He reminded me of my dad.

• 0:50Fearne Cotton?

  Oh, so excited to have Ruby back on. Right, let me take you back quite a few years. If you want to spill back into our archive of our podcast feed. Ruby came on, I don't know how many years ago. I want to say five, could be four, I don't know. But I went and recorded, actually she's been on twice before. I did it once in a studio and once at her house. The first time was at her house, right? So I turn up to Ruby's house in London and I'm always punctual. I'm just type A punctual person. I cannot be late, I hate it. I knock on Ruby's door and her husband opens, Ed. And Ed goes, "Oh, hello, what are you doing here?" And I said, "Oh, well, I'm here to record my podcast Happy Place with Ruby. She's a guest."

• 1:34Fearne Cotton?

  And he went, "Well, she's not here." "Uh, okay." He went, "Do you want to come in?" I was like, "I guess so." So I went and sat downstairs and Ruby's husband made me a cup of tea. And I sat in the kitchen like awkwardly like, "Da, da, da. How long is she going to be? Where is she?" Anyway, she had got carried away writing a new book in a local cafe. And a sort of forgotten slash time had run away with her. So she turned up like sprinting into the house apologetically. And we just had a wild chat. And then again, the second time around in the studio, just, they're just always honest, brilliant chats, super thoughtful, obviously hilarious. But Ruby knows her, her subject matter so well. And that's why I could quite literally interview her every week.

• 2:18Fearne Cotton?

  And we'd still get something new out of her. Now, in this chat, there are some celebrity gossip stories which are just amazing. Like Ruby's back catalogue of interviews that she's done are astonishing. Did you watch her TV show Ruby Wax Meets back in the 90s? It massively inspired me in lots, lots of ways. And she was a real pioneer for that sort of interviewing, which was just genius. Her and her producer are currently watching back old clips and telling really brilliant stories from behind the scenes of the show in her new tour, Absolutely Famous, which she's still in the middle of. It's like a global tour. And that's basically what happened on the Happy Place podcast stage two. She's also a mindfulness expert. So we talked about how to quieten your mind, which I think you'll find useful because I bloody well did.

• 3:05Speaker 02

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• 4:08Fearne Cotton?

  Right, let's do it. Here's the show.

• 4:31Fearne Cotton?

  Ruby Wax OBE.

• 4:33Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 4:34Fearne Cotton?

  Thank you very much.

• 4:36Speaker 01

  When I go to America and I say I have an OBE, they think it's cystitis. They think that I have and they go, "I'm sorry, you can get rid of it with penicillin."

• 4:46Fearne Cotton?

  Oh, what an affliction to have.

• 4:48Speaker 01

  Hi.

• 4:49Fearne Cotton?

  I'm so happy you're here.

• 4:50Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 4:51Fearne Cotton?

  This sort of came about, I bumped into you last summer. This is a name drop, but I was having lunch with Tan France and Ruby was on the next table. And I said, "Oh, Tan." Went, "Please introduce me to Ruby." So we came over and you went, "Why haven't you invited me to your Happy Place Festival?"

• 5:06Speaker 01

  That would be the direct question.

• 5:08Fearne Cotton?

  And here we are, and here we are. And I am thrilled to have you here. So absolutely thrilled because I know how absolutely busy you are as well.

• 5:14Speaker 01

  Look at all those faces.

• 5:16Fearne Cotton?

  They're all the loveliest people. They're the best people. You've been incredibly busy this summer already, not only with a tour, but also I saw, was it even like yesterday, the day before, you were running one of your retreats?

• 5:28Speaker 01

  Oh, I run retreats. I know people think, "How do you do comedy and then you do medita?" Well, I don't call it meditation, but brain gym.

• 5:36Fearne Cotton?

  Yes.

• 5:37Speaker 01

  Training your little mind so that you're not so busy. And then I do my show, which is going around the country. And then it's going to New Zealand and Australia because it's not me. I put in Donald Trump and Tom Cruise and a few other people. So if you don't know who the fuck I am, you know who they are. So that's how I get people to see the show.

• 6:00Fearne Cotton?

  I'm coming to that. I love, you know, you've spent the last 20 years studying mindfulness, not only for your own benefit and to help yourself out, but also to then make mindfulness accessible. That's what I love that you've done that. I think for me mindfulness always felt slightly out of reach. Like I don't know what this intangible thing is. And you're deeply passionate about getting that out and spreading the word and letting everybody have access to it.

• 6:27Speaker 01

  Well, I think it got too commercial. You know, there was something now for origami called mindfulness. I mean, they're going a little too far with it. So when I got kicked out of television, thank you. Because I did a terrible thing, I turned 50 and that's against the law.

• 6:44Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 6:45Speaker 01

  You're out. You are out.

• 6:46Fearne Cotton?

  You're out.

• 6:47Speaker 01

  Yeah. And I thought, "I look fabulous, but they know the date." So they said, "You're finished."

• 6:53Fearne Cotton?

  They know the date.

• 6:54Speaker 01

  And then I was replaced by somebody. I thought it was Louis Theroux, but it wasn't.

• 7:00Fearne Cotton?

  Right.

• 7:01Speaker 01

  It wasn't and I forgave him.

• 7:02Fearne Cotton?

  You did?

• 7:03Speaker 01

  Yeah. Because we did a podcast and I said, "I'm sorry, I thought you took food out of my unborn children, but it wasn't you at all."

• 7:11Fearne Cotton?

  No, I heard that. I love that interview. It was brilliant.

• 7:13Speaker 01

  So now I'm using all my old, you know, videos, my films, but the stuff you never saw. So that's why we have Madonna, who's impossible. And but better than the Graham Norton one.

• 7:28Fearne Cotton?

  I watched that.

• 7:29Speaker 01

  I mean, that was a disaster. She really is up her own ass. I mean, she's got to come out and play. And so we're showing clips that we never showed before and, you know, stealing it from the BBC.

• 7:40Fearne Cotton?

  I love that.

• 7:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:41Fearne Cotton?

  You also did a TV show where you looked back at old interviews, which I absolutely adored, partly because it's a joy to revisit. You know, you were the first person going out there and doing those like really wild, ad hoc, chaotic interviews that were just, we felt like we were there with you, like Jim Carrey tearing up a hotel room and going on Donald Trump's plane, et cetera. But when we saw you on the TV show, there was a level of discomfort of you watching these videos back. You didn't love it, right?

• 8:06Speaker 01

  Well, I, a lot of them, like with Trump, because he scared me so much. He terrified me because he's sort of an animal.

• 8:13Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 8:13Speaker 01

  Like he hated me before he even met me. And then he said he wanted to be the next president of the United States. So I started laughing, thinking, "Oh, he's a great comic." And then he said, "I want her off the plane." And he landed the plane from, by the way, he had, he asked my makeup artist to do his hair, it's before the roadkill. And he had like one nostril and she had to wind it around his hand. So he had a gold bee day and he had a gold toilet for the golden genitalia.

• 8:41Fearne Cotton?

  Sure.

• 8:42Speaker 01

  And then we met Melania and that was remarkable. I was standing really close to her and I could hear the ocean. Is that terrible? Is that terrible to say? But there were things I should have done that I didn't do.

• 8:58Fearne Cotton?

  Okay, right, what should you have done? What should you have done?

• 9:00Speaker 01

  Because, because I practice meditation, which by the way, isn't about sitting on a gluten free cushion.

• 9:06Fearne Cotton?

  No.

• 9:07Speaker 01

  It is, it is an exercise, just the way you get a sit up. You know, if you do a sit up, you're going to get a six pack. Medita, I don't call, I call it mind gym. You know, it is exercising part of your brain that gives you the ability to lower that red mist. And when you're in such fight and flight, the hippoc, you know, the hippoc, a part of your memory goes down, you lose your saliva, your heartbeat goes up and you can't think straight. So that's what happened when he scared me. He reminded me of my dad, so approving of me. And so I asked stupid questions because if somebody thinks you're an idiot, you become an idiot. And so I asked, you know, Maran, and then he said, "I want her off the plane."

• 9:48Speaker 01

  Whereas if I had cooled my engines, I would have just played it a different way.

• 9:53Fearne Cotton?

  I mean, I, I watched that as a viewer and didn't think any of that at all. But that's, you know, what you're internally feeling in that moment is horrible. I've been there, but it's not nice.

• 10:01Speaker 01

  But you feel toxic, you know what I mean? With the flop sweat running down you and, okay, maybe it's funny for TV, but it feels dirty.

• 10:08Fearne Cotton?

  For you, yeah.

• 10:09Speaker 01

  And when I fell in love with somebody, like with Carrie Fisher, it was a love affair. Then you're, you think, "I understand why I do this job."

• 10:16Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 10:17Speaker 01

  Was to meet that and then become best friends for 35 years. You know, I used it to flirt.

• 10:22Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, I love that.

• 10:22Speaker 01

  But when it turns on you, like with Bill Cosby or these terrifying men, I thought, if I could just have that, if I had been trained in meditation, I would have been able to, well, I would have been able to take them on, you know, in a nice way, like, you know, not be angry, but just play their game. Play their game, return that tennis ball.

• 10:41Fearne Cotton?

  Because what's interesting at that point in your life, before you've looked into mindfulness and you're having that fight or flight, and I've certainly done this too, is that you then turn on yourself because of that bad man. Like that's just such a horrible feeling. You weren't doing anything wrong. You were in the presence of not great men.

• 11:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, but that's so female. That's what, that's what pisses me off is that I let him have the power and I, you know, I'd never let that, that happen again. I would have been much smarter. And because I am smart, but he didn't see that side of me.

• 11:15Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 11:15Speaker 01

  I become like a kind of, you know, playing the kind of ditzy brunette. And that, nobody should allow you to do that with a shit eating grin.

• 11:23Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 11:24Speaker 01

  I should have told him to fuck off.

• 11:33Fearne Cotton?

  Yet, on the other side of things, and I'm sure this felt as enjoyable as it looked, you and Jim Carrey, there was fireworks, like a spark, you got each other, and he went with it.

• 11:44Speaker 01

  He went with it because I handled it well, you know. The thing about my interviews is I always had about a week with them. I would start off with five minutes, and then I'd start to, you know, do a little foreplay, and as long as I could make them laugh, that's how long the interview went on. So, I moved into the Playboy Mansion with Hugh Hefner, and he let me live with the bunnies. Then Goldie Hawn and I lived together, and Carrie Fisher, we stayed for many years. And so the interviews went on really long, and they would tell their PR people to get lost, because they weren't so powerful then.

• 12:17Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 12:18Speaker 01

  And, you know, if you made them laugh, and in the beginning, you're terrified, but if you, if you... What I never did was I never said, "Oh, I love your film," or "I'm your biggest fan," because famous people don't like that. Part of them thinks they don't deserve it, do you know what I mean? And so I'd insult them a little bit, and they like that. They like that because they think, "Oh, she's got the human side of me," and then they take off their mask and they play human. So that's what we did. We always, we never went on about their career. I tried to get into, you know, what they really were about. I think "Drop the Mask," and that was my, that was my kind of dissertation.

• 12:56Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 12:57Speaker 01

  I was never interested in the film, I was interested in the psychology.

• 13:01Fearne Cotton?

  Well, then it's not work for them either. They just get to be themselves.

• 13:05Speaker 01

  They get to play, and they get to see, you know, and I, I did a lot of talking too. As long as I show them my cards, they'll show me their cards. And we'd go out at night, and they'd tell me stuff about them, because people love to talk about themselves, but I never used it the next day.

• 13:20Fearne Cotton?

  Oh, so you know even more than we think you know.

• 13:22Speaker 01

  I know a lot, yeah. But I never, I never played that, you know, I'm not a journalist.

• 13:26Fearne Cotton?

  No, no, no, you're not going to out them on a TV show, of course not. Do you wish that that...

• 13:30Speaker 01

  But OJ Simpson did tell me where the knife is, so...

• 13:33Fearne Cotton?

  Right, good, okay. We've got that on record.

• 13:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:36Fearne Cotton?

  It feels like a bit late for that one.

• 13:38Speaker 01

  I know.

• 13:39Fearne Cotton?

  Um, do you wish that that version of you had discovered mindfulness?

• 13:44Speaker 01

  Um, you know, when you're young, I don't know if mindfulness is appropriate, because when you're in your twenties, you need to be in full turbo. But then if you keep the turbo on when you're 50, it's sort of like, it's itchy, you have to be appropriate. I don't mean like suddenly you're mature. You're funny, but you're deep. You gotta get deep, otherwise you're not interesting. You know, if you stay kind of bouncy, and you're, you know, you're 50 and have those wrinkles, it doesn't look pretty. So you have to start, you know, going down. And so I would have, um, as time went on, when I was 20, I could be goofy, but by 50, I could have played it differently, and I think I would have had a longer career.

• 14:25Speaker 01

  I think Louis Theroux is smart, because he plays, he's not the big character.

• 14:30Fearne Cotton?

  Don't you think that's harder for women? I think like, men can be slightly, I don't know, aloof or distant, but if we were to do that, we'd be seen as cold, a bitch, or I don't know.

• 14:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, I wouldn't play a deadpan like him, but I would have been much more, um, not so zany all the time. So when I did OJ, that was a really, or Amelda Marcos, those were really good interviews, because I was still playing with them, you know, because you're playing with despots, and that's, infamy is a whole different ballpark. Like, do they know they're lying, or are they getting all high? And so it became so interesting and intriguing. I mean, Amelda, I said, "Where'd you steal the five billion?" And she said, "Oh, she's just an ordinary housewife." Yeah. And she was dusting the walls, that's what you do when you're not hoovering the ceiling, and a painting fell off, a painting fell off the wall, and she saw all this gold glitter.

• 15:21Speaker 01

  So she said the five billion, which they stole from the country, was because her house was made out of wall-to-wall gold bullion. So I think, is she insane?

• 15:29Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 15:30Speaker 01

  Or does she, is she a brilliant liar?

• 15:32Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 15:33Speaker 01

  So I was always interested.

• 15:34Fearne Cotton?

  Fascinating.

• 15:35Speaker 01

  And OJ, was he a liar? But I looked like Marcia Clark, who was the prosecutor, so he wanted me to find him guilty. So he kept taking me to where Nicole was murdered, and said, "That's where she was murdered." And I said, "Well, you should know." And he kept wanting me to, you know, he was goading me. Because he has, you know, and I studied psychology, so it was interesting. He had a disease, a pathology called dysfunctional identity disorder, which means half his brain knows he murdered her, and half his brain doesn't. So he gets somebody like me to, you know, he wants to confess, but they didn't make him confess. So at the end, he tried to stab me with a banana, and I think...

• 16:14Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 16:15Speaker 01

  I think that's kind of a confession.

• 16:17Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah. It's a pretty blatant confession. I mean, you're not going to get hurt by a banana, you were fine, you were safe. Um, at what point did you...

• 16:26Speaker 01

  Well, depends where you put the banana.

• 16:28Fearne Cotton?

  Um, at what point did you start thinking, age-wise or period of your life, "Maybe there's something wrong with my mental health, or maybe I'm, I need to look into this," versus, "I'm the problem, I'm getting life wrong." That's how it used to feel to me, I might be putting words in your mouth, but did you have a moment where you thought, "Oh, this is my mental health, and it's not good"?

• 16:51Speaker 01

  Well, there's a mental health, but there's mental illness, and I realized I hadn't, I didn't know I had mental illness. But, you know, for those of you who know, it's not sadness, and it's not because you had a bad hair day, you're, you're diseased. You have a disease, like you have cancer, and you, you're not even alive, you know, it's a walking death, depression. So that when I got that, I didn't know I had it, I just saw, you know, I had all these blood tests, and then they said, "When I had my third child, you've got yourself depression." And I was so relieved, because you think, it's like if the devil had Tourette's, that's what it would sound like, those voices are so vicious. And so, at least there's medication. But that doesn't always work either, but at least it's something.

• 17:34Speaker 01

  But the interviews would make me ill, but they don't give you depression. You know, when they don't work, you're, Bill Cosby tried to strangle me, and I kept a stupid grin on my face, whereas I should have walked off.

• 17:47Fearne Cotton?

  So what, that then becomes a trigger for you to spiral into...

• 17:49Speaker 01

  No, I don't, it doesn't give depression. Depression comes even when you win an Academy Award. It has its own, it's, it's the devil comes, and then you have to sit there and wait for it to leave. It isn't to do with anything, any...

• 18:02Fearne Cotton?

  External.

• 18:03Speaker 01

  Nothing external. Things can be going really well, and then you, the, that bitch comes in and takes your mind hostage.

• 18:10Fearne Cotton?

  I mean, you've said previously that you're never gonna sit there and be bold enough to say, "Oh, I'll never experience that again." It's, it's when, not if.

• 18:20Speaker 01

  Well, I, I studied meditation, I went to university, because I thought, "I'm not doing the fluffy stuff, you know, don't throw me an angel card." I wanted to know the neuroscience. So I went to Oxford and studied the neuroscience. So I can see in a scanner what happens when you practice it. It doesn't happen when you do witchcraft, sorry. But I mean, you know, there, we're all different fingerprints, so different things will work. But I did see, you know, when you, when people do mind gym or attention training, there, that alarm bell, the fight and flight, does go down, and another area of the brain that's, that's in charge of attention, it starts to get buffed, just like a, a muscle does in your stomach. But you have to do a certain exercise. Everybody wants a magic pill.

• 19:05Speaker 01

  It's like you didn't, you'll learn piano because you wanted it, you have to do the exercises.

• 19:10Fearne Cotton?

  So this is every day?

• 19:11Speaker 01

  Maybe for two minutes a day already, like if you do three sit-ups, it'll take you a while, but it's the equivalent of building up, you know, I could mention the, the areas, but they're in charge of attention. And everybody wants attention, because genius advertisers know how to take our focus away, and then will buy anything just to be happy, which we'll never get.

• 19:34Fearne Cotton?

  No.

• 19:35Speaker 01

  But this is how to get your focus back, and if you can give somebody your focus and your attention, they will adore you. Because that's all people want, is to be paid attention to.

• 19:43Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, and to be seen, to be heard.

• 19:45Speaker 01

  Or to see what it's like through your eyes, instead of, "Here's my point of view, and I'm gonna win." What's that about? That's war.

• 19:53Fearne Cotton?

  That's the culture that we live in. So, what would that two minutes look like if you were doing that every day? What, what are you, what are you doing to get your brain in that focus space?

• 20:03Speaker 01

  Well, and my meditation is just, you're tricking your mind a little, sorry, a little neuroscience to make you, I have to, because that's...

• 20:11Fearne Cotton?

  Oh, please do the neuroscience.

• 20:12Speaker 01

  Well, when you're, you know, when you're in fight and flight, you got that amygdala is your alarm system, and it's charged, and it's up, and in this culture, we're always alarmed, you know what I mean? If it's not the news which is making you shit in your pants, it's, um, it's, you know, it's social media, which I have, you know, or technology which I adore. I mean, someday I hope, while I'm sleeping, a drone is gonna come in and shave my legs.

• 20:36Fearne Cotton?

  Someone needs to invent that.

• 20:39Speaker 01

  I know. Or a virtual Brazilian.

• 20:44Speaker 01

  But you know, but when the amygdala is up, if you send your focus into your body, and people who do martial arts know this, or Tai Chi, or Pilates, or yoga, it's all the same thing. If you send your focus into your body, you're activating another part of the brain called the insula, and that's when you feel in the body. But you can't have the amygdala on and the insula on at the same time. So the minute you're focused in your body, either following your breath, or listening to sound, or smelling, or tasting, or just feeling your feet on the ground, immediately the amygdala is deactivated. So it's like being in a car, you can't be in two gears at once. When you're in your body, you're present. If you're speaking, you're not present, because words come 280 milliseconds

• 21:29Speaker 01

  after you feel something. So bringing focus into your body lowers the cortisol. But you have to practice it because your thoughts are so rampant, and everybody goes, "I'll never stop thinking." You're not supposed to stop thinking. But if that cortisol goes down, it's more like a little radio in the other room. It'll never shut up, but it's not so vicious.

• 21:50Fearne Cotton?

  So if people here today think, "God," I mean, that's me. My brain, I go to bed sometimes and I can hear all the voices that I've heard in real life that day. And I forget all the basics. So it is enough to go, "My feet are on the floor. I can smell fried chicken. The air feels warm." Like, that's the practice.

• 22:10Speaker 01

  But if you just do it, let's say during an emergency, when somebody's giving you hell, it's not going to work. It's like, you're not going to jump out of a plane and pull the ripcord. You've got to practice it. So when I'm on stage and I forget my lines, you know, my mouth rises up,

• 22:25Speaker 01

  and then the audience turn on you because they can smell your fear. Just because I, you know, it's like at the watering hole, they know one of their kind is sick, so they want to kill her.

• 22:34Fearne Cotton?

  Right, yeah.

• 22:35Speaker 01

  And that you can feel their rage. And so just because I practice, if I can send my focus to my feet on the ground, I can feel the cortisol starting to, the amygdala comes down, and they start cooling off, you know, because I see the whites of their eyes. If somebody can laugh, it means they're way, they're back to homeostatic state. They're calm, and that's the greatest state a human being can. If you can laugh, the cortisol is gone. So that's why you can kind of play, if we work like neural Wi-Fi, if I got really upset, you'd lock antlers with me. So with Trump or whatever, if I could cool my engines, I could cool his engines. If you're with your kids or with your coworkers or whatever,

• 23:17Speaker 01

  if you can get your, get the red mist down, you affect the person, and they affect the community, and the community affects the planet. And I always say, "Fix yourself and then go save the world."

• 23:28Fearne Cotton?

  Yes.

• 23:28Speaker 01

  Because otherwise, you're carrying your neurotic grenade around, and it's going to detonate.

• 23:33Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 23:33Speaker 01

  So we really manipulate each other in a great way and in a horrible way.

• 23:39Fearne Cotton?

  We do.

• 23:39Speaker 01

  But I think our culture's got a virus, and it permeates on us. But you know, you can say, "I, it's me, I'm responsible for me. There could be shit hitting the fan, but if I can keep my focus on my breathing, but not all day. You don't go to the gym all day. But if I can get, if I can get that calmness, then you can throw anything at me."

• 24:01Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 24:02Speaker 01

  And if you throw your anger, it'll go right back because I'm not engaging. And you know, it's sight, sound, taste, touch, smell, and interception. So I always, something I do with somebody shouting at me or getting angry, well, it's sight, you know, it's a sense. So I will look at their, it could be anything, but their left eyebrow with real curiosity. And like, look at the shape, and look at, it looks like you're looking at them and listening, but you're not.

• 24:30Speaker 01

  You know, you just notice it, and that'll get you calm.

• 24:33Fearne Cotton?

  That's good. I like that. That's a good practical tip.

• 24:36Speaker 01

  Just staring at it and be so curious. And they think, "Oh, my God, she's so interested in what I'm talking about."

• 24:41Fearne Cotton?

  She's looking into my soul.

• 24:43Speaker 01

  She's fascinated.

• 24:44Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 24:45Speaker 01

  But you're not getting caught. Your heart's not, you know. You can feel yourself breathing. And the breathing thing isn't to make you a better breather. It's just, it's just takes your focus into your body. Anything, you know, feet on the ground. Worry beads here. The minute you're in, the minute you're doing yoga, unless you're worried about like, you know, a lot of people are competing.

• 25:06Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 25:07Speaker 01

  Trying to give myself a gynecological examination from both ends, or tying your feet in a bow above your head.

• 25:13Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 25:13Speaker 01

  If there's a 17-year-old next to me, I'm going to really compete.

• 25:17Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 25:18Speaker 01

  But you know, it's the same thing. It's getting, it's getting into your body. And Taekwondo and martial arts. And athletes, like if they're going to play tennis now, they picture the muscles in their body. And then when they really get on the thing, they can whack it.

• 25:32Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 25:33Speaker 01

  But in your body, you won't think, "Oh, my God, am I getting a divorce? Where did I park my car?" You're in. You're in. And that's your salvation.

• 25:40Fearne Cotton?

  And that also, it gives you a moment of pause rather than, we're so used to like, responding, like firing off the emails, sending the texts, saying the thing that makes you feel like shit. You then regret it. The cycle continues. It gives you that moment to think, "Do I even want to respond to this? Do I have to respond to it?"

• 25:57Speaker 01

  Well, if you're in your body, you have a pause. That's exactly right. You can go, "Is this, you know, just before I hit 'I'm going to kill you' on my computer? Is that..." So I always erase the last line I said because that's when I dig it in.

• 26:10Fearne Cotton?

  That's when you put that knife in.

• 26:11Speaker 01

  That's when I dig it in.

• 26:12Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 26:12Speaker 01

  You know what I mean? And it tastes delicious. But then, you know, I used to take my, I'm addicted, I was addicted to rage. That was my, you know, drug of choice. And so I used to find traffic wardens so I could give them hell.

• 26:25Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 26:25Speaker 01

  Because I didn't want... But now, because I, you know, I've learned, when I see a traffic warden so that I don't get ill because I get the backwash, this is what you do. It's just for the women. If I get stopped speeding or I get a ticket, you just stand up and go like this. "I'm sorry, I've just had a BLT." Because any three letters scares them. They don't want to see what's coming out of you. Or, "I just had a BPC." They don't want to know. And they go, "Keep driving. Keep driving." I used to give them full anger.

• 26:56Fearne Cotton?

  That is so great.

• 26:56Speaker 01

  Any three letters.

• 26:58Fearne Cotton?

  I've never heard that. Again, another practical tip.

• 27:03Speaker 02

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• 28:06Fearne Cotton?

  I love that you've tried all manner of things to, I guess also, not only inform yourself, but then you can go to your retreats or Fuzzled, what you do online. You've done your cafes and put the word out there. One of the more extreme things that you've written about is going to a silent retreat. And I've loved listening to you talk about this experience and how your senses started peaking, how you felt coming out of it. What did you get from it?

• 28:34Speaker 01

  Well, I did a 30-day silent retreat, which is like the Iron Man of the brain.

• 28:38Fearne Cotton?

  Oh, yeah.

• 28:39Speaker 01

  Because the first week, you're going to hear those thoughts real loud and clear. They're going to, it's just incoming. It's just incoming. But what happens is eventually, they get exhausted. You know, you get so tired from this abuse constantly coming in that it's like you were arm wrestling and finally one of the arms goes down. And once that, your cortisol is coming down, you can see red for the first time and you watch, I watched these, because it was outside, spiders making spider webs, and some were perfect and other ones had dyslexia. And I go, "Come on, fellas. Pull it together." And I fell in love with a digestive. I just tasted it and went, "Oh, my God, it's too good." And I ran into the kitchen and said, "How did you make this egg?" I broke my silence, and they said, "With an egg."

• 29:26Speaker 01

  Things are delicious. And that's, I think, why it appeals to younger people too, because it's psilocybin will do. I haven't done psilocybin, except in small doses. But I didn't do the big one. But it's very similar where I suppose they get it very quickly, whereas the meditation does take a while. But then what you're getting is you're getting, everything is novel. And when you're novel, you make more neurons. You know, that's why older people, you know, start to lose it because they repeat themselves. But if everything gets novel, like with a baby, you know, that's surprise grows their neurons. And so, everything is more poignant. It's hard to stay that way. You have to practise, unfortunately, but even two minutes a day while you're waiting for

• 30:11Speaker 01

  the bus or you're sitting in the tube. I mean, I don't sit there like this. When you got, go sit on the toilet and feel the toilet lid and then go back in. Just as soon as you're in your body, cortisol comes down, amygdala deactivates.

• 30:25Fearne Cotton?

  Even just being off your phone, like I quite like testing myself now. If I'm, I don't know, I'm waiting outside a cafe for someone or I'm on the train, whatever, rather than every, we're so used to everybody gets their phone out. It's almost weird to see someone who is just sat there, like what's wrong with them? Like what's, or just stood outside on the street. It used to be cigarettes and now it's, everyone's looking at their phone.

• 30:47Speaker 01

  Well, because we're scared we won't be loved, you know what I mean? Who's thinking of me? Who's thinking of me? Because we got no community.

• 30:53Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 30:53Speaker 01

  I mean, I think that's loneliness, is to say, I'm gonna show a picture of my lunch. Is anybody gonna, you know?

• 30:59Fearne Cotton?

  Like it.

• 30:59Speaker 01

  How many people are gonna like me?

• 31:01Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 31:01Speaker 01

  You know, sending out an Instagram, a little tweet from the sinking Titanic.

• 31:05Fearne Cotton?

  But just having no, just having no distraction, again, like having a moment of mind gym, of mindfulness, of going, oh yeah, that tree's green or that person's cardigan's nice.

• 31:17Speaker 01

  Feel your phone, feel the way to your phone, you know? But it's really hard. People will go, I want the magic pill. But on the other hand, when I got to this country 40 years ago, people weren't even brushing their teeth. And now, everybody's in the gym. Everybody's in the gym. So where'd that discipline come from? And, you know, the gym will get you a hotter date, but you know, if you exercise your brain, you're gonna live longer and better.

• 31:42Fearne Cotton?

  That's what we want. And you're so right. I think everything is geared up today to get the quick fix. Like someone tell me five tips I can do and then I'm gonna be okay, I'm gonna be fixed. And it's not. It's all day, every day, forever. We've got to come back to the basics, the absolute basics.

• 31:58Speaker 01

  Well, you've got to train yourself because, you know, unless you live in the country and, you know, you live with thatch and chickens, you know, whatever. But I think even they get rained on by this culture. Because, you know, everybody wants your attention. That's how you make money. That's how you get people hysterical about the news. That's how Trump wins, because he gets us so fearful, we go to him to stop the fear, forgetting that he's the one that caused it. You know, if your heart's accelerated and your amygdala's activated, you ain't thinking straight. You know, that's why kids' little brains burn out when they're taking exams. Because they're so heightened, they can't remember anything because the memory goes first. So, I've been to schools where they teach kids, you know, if they're getting hysterical,

• 32:41Speaker 01

  they send them into a corner and they do exercises until they feel red light, green light, yellow light, green light. When they feel green again and they have all these tools, they take the exams and boy do they score. You have to drive yourself like you do a race car. I always say, it's like, our brains are like having a Ferrari on top of our heads, but nobody gave us the keys.

• 33:03Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 33:04Speaker 01

  I mean, we've evolved this far and yet nobody knows how to be happy.

• 33:07Fearne Cotton?

  No.

• 33:08Speaker 01

  Go fuck and figure that one out.

• 33:09Fearne Cotton?

  It's nuts. It's not only normal that we're distracted, we are actually addicted to it. We're addicted to, whether it is the dopamine hit of a phone or just constantly imbibing something, something on TV, radio, noise, like we, we're so addicted to it. I think there probably is a bit of a cold turkey moment where you have to get used to having moments without that stuff.

• 33:30Speaker 01

  Just a moment, just a moment. And then your body gets used to the pause, like you said. It says, I'm gonna pull out, you know, that, I, it was so interesting, that tennis player yesterday, she shut her ears just for a minute to stop everything. You know, it's, it's learning to drive, you know, you can go into turbo or you can go into neutral. But if you go into neutral, if you learn how to do that, the next person doesn't know how to stop and they'll burn out and you can keep driving. I mean, you really are, it's our hormones that make us crazy, so why not use the hormones to cool us down? You know, if you ooze that oxytocin, which is the bonding chemical, the cortisol automatically again can't turn on.

• 34:11Speaker 01

  So, you know, kindness and that kind of stuff, you know, it feels like a cat's purring in your heart. If you can get that, you cannot turn on that machine. So it really is, it's interesting. It does feel like, I'm not gonna catch this, I'm like a conductor of an orchestra, I need that thought, this one can pass through, that one's, you know, not all day, but just sometimes, play with it, play with it. Because you're in charge of the brain, the brain's not in charge of you.

• 34:37Fearne Cotton?

  That, well, again, we forget that constantly. And then, like you said earlier, we blame external forces, other people, whatever it might be.

• 34:44Speaker 01

  You make me feel this way. Well, you don't. And the way you think in your head is how you talk to other people. So if somebody's giving you hell, just think of the hell going on in their minds and enjoy it.

• 34:54Fearne Cotton?

  Yes. That is quite instant karma, that one. I mean, you did exceptionally well going into the jungle. I saw you a little bit before that and then I loved watching it on TV. And you were 100% yourself. And even you had said, I think, before you went in, like, my therapist is probably thinking this is a bad idea. But I don't think you, you sort of had an okay time. You seemed to thrive in that environment. Did that surprise you?

• 35:20Speaker 01

  Well, Dave promised, A, you were paid.

• 35:25Fearne Cotton?

  Let's cut to the chase.

• 35:26Speaker 01

  And B, they said I'd like everybody. So once I have people in front of me where I think this is rich, you know, then you, again, the greatest thing you can do is hook on how do they see the world, even if they're 23, you know, I thought.

• 35:39Fearne Cotton?

  You and Ginge.

• 35:40Speaker 01

  Me and Ginge. I mean, it's so opposite, but like he was reading me and I was reading him and that's a love affair, you know, when you're cha-cha together, like that. And so, also, I don't feel a lot of fear. I just don't have it.

• 35:53Fearne Cotton?

  Has that always been the case?

• 35:54Speaker 01

  I think I'm on medication, so I don't feel a lot of fear.

• 35:58Fearne Cotton?

  Love.

• 35:59Speaker 01

  So, but also, you know, I can lower that, so they give me a snake and I go, the guy had to run out and go, be a little nicer to the snakes, because they don't scare me. And I said, everything's gone down my throat, so give me a pig testicle, I don't care.

• 36:12Fearne Cotton?

  Oh yeah, you were just chowing it all down.

• 36:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, like a kangaroo anus, no biggie.

• 36:17Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, you just did it. I mean, it was astounding.

• 36:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:20Fearne Cotton?

  It was unreal. But I guess, like you said, a lot of that experience is the people you're with and the fact that you're willing to go in there at this point in your life, having studied this stuff and you know what works, to properly connect with people. And that's the joy of it.

• 36:34Speaker 01

  That's the pleasure, yeah. And even if somebody's a jerk, it's fascinating. But there was no jerks, everybody was so cool.

• 36:40Fearne Cotton?

  Such good people.

• 36:41Speaker 01

  And Tom and I, you know, who knew he was gay? I thought I had him. I thought I had him.

• 36:47Fearne Cotton?

  Tom is, you and Tom.

• 36:49Speaker 01

  We had a child together in our fantasy, because you don't know there's 70 cameras, so you go into full fantasy. We had a child called Mortimer.

• 36:57Fearne Cotton?

  Mortimer, of course you did.

• 36:59Speaker 01

  But Mortimer had an accident and so we had to make another baby. It was just endless.

• 37:03Fearne Cotton?

  I can imagine Mortimer, has he got some sort of like Victorian outfit on or something? He's got sensible shoes.

• 37:08Speaker 01

  He was a rag.

• 37:10Fearne Cotton?

  Oh.

• 37:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, but it was okay because we loved him anyway. It wasn't a good birth.

• 37:14Fearne Cotton?

  There were such tender moments where you were in the little, did you call it a pool? The little lagoony thing?

• 37:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's where we'd, that's where we'd have our sex.

• 37:21Fearne Cotton?

  And you would be, yeah. You would be canoodling and rocking and then he'd be reading poetry.

• 37:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, was very Jane Austen. I know. And then I'd shave that woman Lisa because she had so much facial hair.

• 37:35Fearne Cotton?

  I love Lisa.

• 37:36Speaker 01

  Love Lisa. And her mammaries, you know, I would fall asleep on them.

• 37:39Fearne Cotton?

  Oh, dreamy.

• 37:41Speaker 01

  Because you, you lose your inhibitions, you know, you can't see the camera. Eventually you're just going to the toilet anywhere.

• 37:47Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 37:47Speaker 01

  Don't care.

• 37:48Fearne Cotton?

  What an experience.

• 37:49Speaker 01

  Cockroach, cockroach.

• 37:50Fearne Cotton?

  I love you, Dick. Tom's actually gonna be at our Happy Place Festival in Manchester, which I can't wait. I saw him not long ago and I said, oh my God, thank you so much for saying yes to coming to Happy Place. And he said, darling, you put wings on my heels. His way with language.

• 38:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:08Fearne Cotton?

  It's extraordinary.

• 38:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:10Fearne Cotton?

  Have you kept in touch with people?

• 38:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, I see him, I see Lisa. I haven't been to Manchester yet, but when I go, I'll see Ginge.

• 38:17Fearne Cotton?

  Gotta see Ginge.

• 38:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:18Fearne Cotton?

  It's so brilliant. How important is it for you at this point in your life and career to throw yourself into situations like that, that they are the unknown, wherein if there is risk, you know, you're doing, you're exposed to lots of people on TV in those situations?

• 38:31Speaker 01

  Well, it's, it's weird because I don't, television and I have an allergy, you know, it just doesn't work anymore. And people say, why don't you do it now? Because I'd only have five minutes. You know, with Jim Carrey, I said, please don't make me do five minutes because he was doing the junket. I said, just give us longer, longer, longer. And then I encouraged him to pull the tablecloth.

• 38:52Fearne Cotton?

  That's the best.

• 38:53Speaker 01

  And it didn't work at all.

• 38:54Fearne Cotton?

  No.

• 38:54Speaker 01

  There was just crap all over the floor.

• 38:56Fearne Cotton?

  So great.

• 38:56Speaker 01

  But as long, again, as long as I entertained him, they'd say, keep it going. Now you couldn't. The PR would come in and say, that's it, five minutes. And nobody, because of Instagram, shows who they really are. You know, in those days, like Pamela Anderson was a girl's girl and she didn't care what she said. Like she told us, she had a grand piano and a swing over the grand piano and she used to get naked and then she'd swing onto Tommy's penis.

• 39:24Speaker 01

  She didn't care.

• 39:24Fearne Cotton?

  How is that even possible?

• 39:26Speaker 01

  I know.

• 39:26Fearne Cotton?

  How do you do that?

• 39:27Speaker 01

  Well, you know, I had a scene with her where she told me how she likes to have sex and he lies on the bottom and she lies with her legs straight out. I said, where is your uterus? In the back of your head?

• 39:38Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 39:39Speaker 01

  But, you know, people played then. With Instagram, you're scared of getting cancelled. Nobody was cancelled.

• 39:45Fearne Cotton?

  No, I know, but I, I wonder, right? How much? Because I've heard you say this before and I've felt the same until quite recently. I felt very rejected from the TV world at one point. And I was, I started to repeat it a lot and say, oh, I don't know, I just, people think I'm too weird or, I don't know, I've just been sacked from a million things. And, and it started to become a self fulfilling prophecy that then I just wasn't doing TV. And part of it was because there weren't any jobs and part of it was because I was talking myself out of that situation. And I've only just in the last few months started to do the right shows, the things that I feel really safe in is the, is the word. Because a lot of it I did not feel safe in.

• 40:28Fearne Cotton?

  I just thought this is too exposing or I'm gonna really hate being there and feel like crap mentally the whole time. And this show that I've just done, I had a brilliant time and I felt really supported. And I felt like they wanted me there, which was the difference. Because I've been on, sure, you felt this, tons of sets or in teams where I thought, they, they don't want me here. They really don't want me here. But I know that some of it was me saying it.

• 40:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:54Fearne Cotton?

  How much do you think you're doing that? Because I want to see you on the telly. I'd watch you on telly every damn day.

• 41:00Speaker 01

  No, I do anything else like, um, you know, I used to be really snobby about reality shows, you know, and I certainly would never do, I'm a celebrity, get me out of here. That was the most fun I've ever had.

• 41:11Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 41:12Speaker 01

  Or they stuck me on some island, you know, with, with just GoPros and no, you need no help. To me, that keeps you, you know, the brain really active is because you go, I've never had anything like this. Unfortunately, there's reality shows where they make you like victimize somebody.

• 41:28Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 41:28Speaker 01

  So I wouldn't have that opportunity. But in real life, throw me somewhere. You'd just drop me from a plane and let me, you know, let me run and explore. And that's my idea of a good time.

• 41:39Fearne Cotton?

  I love that. And is that because, I don't know, you like having a big challenge? You need something?

• 41:46Speaker 01

  No, I'm adrenaline junkie, you know, nobody gets addicted to kale. They just get addicted to adrenaline. I love the adrenaline. I mean, I'm still a junkie to it.

• 41:55Fearne Cotton?

  I love it. Do you get that hit when you go on stage still? Because you're touring at the moment, as you said.

• 41:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:59Fearne Cotton?

  Does that wear out or do you, are you still getting the hit?

• 42:03Speaker 01

  You get the hit because you're playing with a thousand people. And in the second half, I let them talk and that's the hit. That's when you start playing. And I love people telling me what's going on in their heads. I love it. Like if anybody stops me on the street, I'm yours. You know, some people go, oh, and what I love is they're talking about their mental health. They're not saying, oh, that was funny in 1993, what you said. They're saying, here's what's going on. Here's my brother, he's doing this. My father did this. I have this. And I think, we're talking now, you know? We're being human.

• 42:35Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 42:36Speaker 01

  You know, my thing, frazzle, is where it's a, it's a charity I've got where you, I run it every two weeks. You come online and you talk about, you know, what's human about you, what the weather conditions are like inside and there's no bullshit. And there's just that oxytocin, there's just compassion flowing off the screen because nobody, um, nobody has a mask, you know what I mean? And you see all these heads going, yeah, me too. That's me too. And all you want is people to go, yeah, that's me too. You don't want to be alone.

• 43:06Fearne Cotton?

  No.

• 43:07Speaker 01

  And we have facilitators all day long. So if you don't get me, you can go on. It's like a little like, it's not AA, but you know, it's a place where people feel safe.

• 43:17Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, it's so beautiful that you've built that.

• 43:19Speaker 01

  So come on, it's free.

• 43:20Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, it's an amazing, amazing thing.

• 43:26Fearne Cotton?

  I love it. And I'm, you know, what a, what a privilege that, well, not a privilege, because you've, you've, you've worked to get to this point, but where people feel so safe, they can come up to you and say what's really going on, rather than making some weird small talk about nothing, that they want to say the thing, that they might not have said to their mate or their partner.

• 43:45Speaker 01

  But that's the thing is that people don't want to be a burden to their mate or partner. That's how we live. You know, whereas it was your family took care of you now, that's the last person they want to tell. So tell me, I'm happy to hear it. You know, and that's to me, a compliment that you had the trust to tell me that.

• 44:02Fearne Cotton?

  And knowing that you're not going to judge, because I think that is the problem, whether it's someone you're very close to, related to, that you think they're going to judge me or they're going to reject me. And actually, when it is someone that you don't know in real life, that risk isn't there as much because it doesn't matter. You know, you're, and you, and you've created something that feels very safe where people can go, yeah, I, I don't, I don't feel all right. And that's okay. It's beautiful.

• 44:26Speaker 01

  Well, you know, that's my thing.

• 44:28Fearne Cotton?

  That's your jam.

• 44:29Speaker 01

  That's my jam.

• 44:30Fearne Cotton?

  I love it. Um, Ruby Wax, where is your happy place? Is it a real place? Is it a mental state?

• 44:39Speaker 01

  It's, it's, when I do a retreat, I know this sounds really weird because my mother always said, she said moronic things, but for you, you know, most of them were insane, but for beauty, you have to suffer. So even though the beginning is like, this is like getting ready to do any sport, but everything you ever learned was like hell in the beginning. That state you go into when it's, it's the, the thoughts are there, but they're just, it's more like a CD playing in the background or, you know, Spotify. Oh, I know that I'm an idiot. Everybody thinks I'm a loser. Nobody's really listening to this. I just go, come on, boys. Yeah, come on in. They're more here than they are here. Like some people will, will think you're a loser, but it's like, I'm not responsible for you.

• 45:24Fearne Cotton?

  Nope.

• 45:25Speaker 01

  So when you get in that, that state of, you're just listening to sound even for a second and it's peace, that's my happy place.

• 45:35Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah. I think that's, we all want that, don't we? That's exactly what we want, is that feeling.

• 45:41Speaker 01

  I think you can have whatever you want outside, but unless there's peace inside, you ain't gonna experience it.

• 45:48Fearne Cotton?

  But that's exactly it. I mean, you and I have both met so many people who have got on paper, everything that society tells us to strive for, whether it's success, money, fame, to be popular, accolades, awards, and they're deeply mentally not happy. So we know it doesn't touch the sides and it's, it's an inside job.

• 46:08Speaker 01

  But you will get a hit, you know, like when, when somebody gives you something, it's like a burst bubble. It's, you know, it's like champagne just went off in your heart, but then you reach for it again and it's like a cigarette. You're gonna go, where am I gonna find it next? Because we slip into addiction, we're creatures of addiction. So, you know, again, it's the human condition. We're flawed. We're just flawed.

• 46:30Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 46:30Speaker 01

  And we have to give ourselves, you know, a little compassion.

• 46:33Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 46:33Speaker 01

  Because this ain't perfect. I don't know who started this rumor.

• 46:38Fearne Cotton?

  Oh, no.

• 46:38Speaker 01

  I always say, take a look at the person next to you flawed. Underneath that shiny exterior, they're fucked up just like you are.

• 46:45Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, we all, we're all massive fuckups. It's great.

• 46:54Fearne Cotton?

  Too right. And sometimes the shiniest people are the most fucked up.

• 46:59Speaker 01

  That makes me feel so good.

• 47:00Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah. I love that. Um, Ruby Wax, I absolutely adore every bone in your body. I think you are just the most incredible person and I love every opportunity I get to interview you. And I'm so grateful that you came to the festival today, as are this lovely lot.

• 47:16Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 47:17Fearne Cotton?

  Please, give it up for Ruby Wax!

• 47:23Fearne Cotton?

  Oh, it's just always a riot with you, Ruby. I love you so much. What a, just one incredible woman who just keeps pivoting in her career in, in such an intuitive way and is full of wisdom and stories and she's just great company. I love hanging out with Ruby. You can get tickets for Ruby's tour, Absolutely Famous, now. A massive thanks again to Ruby and to you lot. You're bloody brilliant.

• 48:14Speaker 05

  Because you didn't just say, "How can I provide these investments?" You'd be, "How do I holistically provide everything? How do I bring in the legal, the accounting, all this? And do it at a price point no one else is doing it."

• 48:23Speaker 06

  Learn more about how we approach wealth management at creativeplanning.com/integrated.

• 48:28Speaker 02

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• 48:59Speaker 06

  Hello, I'm Chris Richards, General Manager at Saffron Volkswagen Richmond. I'm here to announce an exciting new program that I want you to listen to. Here's my friend Happy.

• 49:07Speaker 07

  Hi, I'm Happy Harry Turner, Special Finance Manager at SaffordCredit.com. If you're in an open Chapter 13 bankruptcy, recently filed a Chapter 7, or you've been turned down because of credit challenges, don't give up. For nearly 30 years, I've helped people get reliable transportation when others said no. Visit SaffordCredit.com. Remember, I'm not happy unless you are.

• 49:28Speaker 03

  At Humana, our Medicare Advantage plans are easy to understand and easy on your wallet, like offering more benefits than you'd get from original Medicare alone, and including dental, vision, and hearing coverage in every plan. And the best part is, every plan has a $0 or low monthly plan premium, which makes it easier to save, too. So this Medicare planning season, plan well with Humana. Learn more at GetHumana.com. Humana is a Medicare Advantage HMO and PPO organization with a Medicare contract. Enrollment in any Humana plan depends on contract renewal.