Sharp Truths From A British Comedian - Jimmy Carr

Jimmy Carr is a comedian, television host and an author. Having made his career out of cutting jokes and brutal roasts, today Jimmy Carr reveals a more introspective side. Jimmy opens up about his favorite parts of life, the best bits of his show, and the wisdom he's picked up along the way. Expect to learn why Jimmy is such a fan of the show, and how his thinking has been influenced but the MW podcast ecosystem, how to know what you should be doing with your life, ways to overcome anxiety and dealing with the balance of meaning and pleasure, what life is like on the road for Jimmy, how Jimmy has learned to enjoy his time better, and where he finds gratitude, how fatherhood changed Jimmy for the better, how to become someone worth becoming, and much more… - 00:00 Why Jimmy Is A Fan Of Modern Wisdom 06:46 Creativity Can’t Be White Knuckled 20:56 If You Want An Interesting Life, Do This 31:04 Finding Your Life’s Direction 48:26 How Fatherhood Changed Jimmy 55:44 The Delayed Happiness Syndrome 1:04:40 The Nobility Of Drudgery 1:11:22 Taking Pleasure From The Ordinary 1:17:22 Why UK Comedians Are So Special 1:26:38 Lessons From A Stag Party 1:36:09 The Relationship With Your Inner Critic 1:51:43 Doing Less But Better - Get a Free Sample Pack of LMNT’s most popular Flavours with your first purchase at https://drinklmnt.com/modernwisdom Get 35% off your first subscription on the best supplements from Momentous at https://livemomentous.com/modernwisdom Get a 20% discount on Nomatic’s amazing luggage at https://nomatic.com/modernwisdom⁠ Get the best bloodwork analysis in America at https://functionhealth.com/modernwisdom - Jimmy Carr is an award-winning stand-up comedian and writer, touring his brand-new show JIMMY CARR: LAUGHS FUNNY throughout the USA from May to November this year, as well as across the UK and Europe, before hitting Australia and New Zealand in early 2026. All info and tickets for the tour are available at http://jimmycarr.com - Get access to every episode 10 hours before YouTube by subscribing for free on Spotify - https://spoti.fi/2LSimPn or Apple Podcasts - https://apple.co/2MNqIgw Get my free Reading List of 100 life-changing books here - https://chriswillx.com/books/ Try my productivity energy drink Neutonic here - https://neutonic.com/modernwisdom - Get in touch in the comments below or head to... Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chriswillx Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/chriswillx Email: https://chriswillx.com/contact/

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

• 0:00Jimmy Carr?

  This is a big deal for me, uh, because I listen to the show so much. I absolutely love it. I slightly could fanboy about the whole thing. I really love, I, I, I love what you do. I love this show. I'm nervous about it because I kind of go, well, normally it's an expert with something to say. And I'm like, oh, I've got dick jokes if you need them. Well, that do. Why are you such a fan of it? I don't know. I think the breadth of the subject matter, and I think that thing of going, it's in a, there's a lot of, it's that signal and noise. There's a lot of noise out there and I love the idea that I listen to this show and even stuff that I'm, oh, well, maybe I wouldn't read that book.

• 0:42Jimmy Carr?

  But I'm interested in listening to them for an hour and a half or two hours. And then oftentimes it's something where someone says something and you go, wow, that's brilliant. I've got to go and look at their channel or I'm going to go and find something. So I'm using it almost kind of as a, your research as a resource for me. And I think a lot of people talk about diet and exercise. And they talk about um, how it makes them feel and they're eating right and they're staying away from processed foods and they look fantastic. And then you ask them what they're watching and they go, yeah, I'm watching Love Island, but like the old series and I'm smashing through it. And I don't know if you're aware of Love Island, but it's, it's for, it's for, it's for terrible people doing terrible things.

• 1:23Jimmy Carr?

  I mean, the idea that you go, that information diet is such an important thing of like, I think you said it here where you're sort of a, if you tell someone the last five podcasts they listen to, it's a pretty good read on who they are and what they want to do. And I love, the other thing I love about this show is I think it's got, it's aiming up.

• 1:45Jimmy Carr?

  Everything seems to be like the way that you conduct interviews and the way that you engage with people. It seems to be you're trying to bring the best out of them, which, which I, I like anyway. It's very positive to listen to. But it's also like everyone you have on is trying to make your life better. It's, it's very well intentioned as a, as a show. Um, I, I think it's, it's terrific and the, the, the transformation in you, I think has been. Sort of extraordinary, the journey to this is just kind of amazing. When I see you, I mean, I genuinely got quite emotional with the Naval Ravikant thing. Because I knew what that meant to you.

• 2:25Jimmy Carr?

  And as someone who's a big fan of podcasts and a big fan of, suppose, modern wisdom in the broader sense as well. But someone like Naval, who's done maybe five or six podcasts ever and one incredible burst of wisdom on Twitter. You go, it's slim pickings, if you're a fan. He's the J D Salinger of the podcast world. And then you get him on the show and it's like, I felt like that was the, is that your Mount Rushmore completed?

• 2:53Chris Williamson?

  One more, Rogan. So it was a Mount Rushmore, but then I realized there was five. So it's more like Thanos's glove with the different infinity stones. So it was before I started Rogan, Jordan Peterson, Sam Harris, Alain de Botton and Naval Ravikant. That was before I started the show, those were the five I wanted and I've got four. And after the last episode with Rogan, I woke up the next day, as you have today, with still the anxiety of, well, you know, I didn't put my foot in my mouth too many times and so on and so forth. And he texted me and was like, love the show yesterday, man. Like always a pleasure to sit down. By the way, we still need to get a bucket of data and bring me on the show, him on. So he's self invited.

• 3:35Chris Williamson?

  So I was like, Joe, you can give over, you know, I've got so many other people to speak to. But yeah, there's a, there's definitely a little bit of a sense of like gold medalist syndrome where I think, fuck. Like, what do you do when you've completed the things that you said that you were here to do? And I imagine that that must be the same in your industry as well. You know, when, when I can start selling out theatres, when I can start selling out arenas, when I can start selling out stadium, when I get the Amazon Prime deal. One egg, well, we've got to run it back for season two. I've got to ensure that it wasn't a fluke. I've got to do it twice. That's the problem.

• 4:10Jimmy Carr?

  Is it not Morgan Housel? Uh, the, the, the genius that is Morgan Housel that said it's that like success is not moving the goalposts. It's that thing, if you constantly like that, that uh, uh, hedonic treadmill of like, as soon as something good happens, you go, yeah, but, but what about the, the next thing? And yeah, I said it was that amount of money, but now it's this amount of money. And I think the um, most ambitions should be um, internal. They should be, you should be heading for a feeling. And if it's process driven, cause kind of success is a, is a, is a moment. You know, even if you get the, the big thing, whatever it is, and there's lots of those markers along the way. And I've kind of um, trying to think about celebration in a different way. Hmm.

• 4:52Jimmy Carr?

  I'm trying to think about like celebrating those moments, like the equivalent of Naval Ravakant comes on your podcast. Um, you do a co-headliner with Dave Chappelle and his new show. Whatever, whatever the thing is that you go, oh, that's cool. Mm hmm. Um, celebrating that, I think like celebration is gratitude in action. And that thing of like gratitude being the mother of all virtues. Uh, cause if you, if you kind of track it back to that, my kind of fundamental belief is that um, disposition is more important than position. So where you are in the world, you could be, you could be miserable or you could be, you know, in entirely at ease. And it's, it's kind of dependent on your disposition. Are you looking at the donut or the hole? Hmm.

• 5:37Jimmy Carr?

  Cause you could always look at what you don't have. Mm hmm. You could always look at what, what's missing or who's doing better or the other thing, but, but you know, kind of being grateful in the moment. And the thing that seems to shift that is, is kind of uh, is gratitude and celebration as a form of gratitude. Like trying to, trying to reframe a lot of stuff in my life in a positive light. Hmm. So that thing of like, I travel constantly, which is an incredible sort of privilege, but also incredibly boring a lot of the time. It is, right? Travel is boring, but um, but going places is fun and you're seeing new things. And it's this idea of like boredom as unappreciated serenity.

• 6:19Jimmy Carr?

  There's guys up mountains in Tibet for 30 years, trying to get to where I get to in Denver airport. I've like, huh. And slightly like not being overstimulated, like allowing yourself to be bored seems to be the, that's kind of where creativity bubbles up.

• 6:39Chris Williamson?

  Mm hmm.

• 6:40Jimmy Carr?

  Right? You kind of allow yourself to be bored and you allow yourself to kind of just have have that kind of um space.

• 6:47Chris Williamson?

  I think it's very difficult to white knuckle creativity. I'm aware that you as someone who has quite a sort of uh structured creative process. But I would imagine that if you look at the absolute big winners that you've come up with, they've probably kind of been bestowed from above in a, oh, motherfucker, that's it. It's that thing. It's sort of almost divine inspiration that then gets refined in the process.

• 7:12Jimmy Carr?

  Yeah, I think there's something about, yeah, I don't know about the refining really. I mean, often it's that thing of like you're writing on stage because you're in a flow state. So I started doing a thing a couple of years ago where, actually, what it was, I mean, jealousy, really. I was looking at Andrew Schultz and I was looking at Matt Rife selling out arenas across America and I was, how are they, what's going on here? And then, and I know those guys a lot better and I like them a lot and it's, what's happening? I know, putting out crowd work. I've seen why I do a lot of crowd work. But, but what? Oh, I should do that. Oh, dummy, every day is a school day. So I kind of watched it and started putting out these crowd work videos and it has grown.

• 7:50Chris Williamson?

  It's traction.

• 7:51Jimmy Carr?

  And it's also that weird thing of like going, I hadn't realized how much improv I was doing in a show. It's like 20 minutes a show of stuff we can put out that's unique to that show.

• 8:01Chris Williamson?

  And doesn't kill the set, doesn't make the.

• 8:03Jimmy Carr?

  No, it doesn't, doesn't touch the written material. And it's a lovely thing where as a comedian, you want to kind of, I, I think about, I'm in the service industry, right? And I, I'm going to be fine because I, I make something people want. I make them happy.

• 8:19Jimmy Carr?

  No one remembers what I say, but they remember how I made them feel. And I tell jokes and I want to turn up suited and booted because it's a proxy for respect. Right? You I respect you. You've paid money. You've come out. You've given me your time and attention. There's that's nothing else. All that we have in life is time and attention and they give me that. So I want to prepare a show and make sure there's like a hundred and fifty incredible banging lines that are like, and they've been filtered from

• 8:45Chris Williamson?

  Celine.

• 8:46Jimmy Carr?

  A thousand lines that were okay, but not didn't quite make the cut. And then it's that thing where you go, and also I need to hold that space. Well, okay, perform those jokes and then.

• 8:59Jimmy Carr?

  Okay, what have we got? Shout out. Anyone got anything? Join in. And it's like, I suppose the analogy would be it's like doing that kind of improv. It's like watching a magician do real magic because you're doing the thing in real time and

• 9:11Chris Williamson?

  It's freestyle rapping.

• 9:12Jimmy Carr?

  Yeah, and it's the I wonder how much of Chappelle said this thing a while ago, and it really struck with me. Of like, he was talking about a bad gig that he had and they do not have many bad gigs. But he was talking about Evel Knievel. Said Evel Knievel wasn't paid for the jump. He's paid for the attempt.

• 9:32Jimmy Carr?

  And I was thinking, that's a brilliant way of looking at it because actually, how much of what we do as comedians is bravery? How much of it is being paid to? Yeah, there's freedom of speech, but it isn't freedom of consequence. And this fucking lunatic is saying anything. This guy's, I'm taking all the filters away. And if you think about what friendship is for me, it's the person you have the least filter with. Again, another thing I got from Modern Wisdom, but it's the least the least filter.

• 10:03Chris Williamson?

  I was gonna ask this. I was

• 10:04Jimmy Carr?

  This is like a best of episode of Modern Wisdom.

• 10:06Chris Williamson?

  I know. It's really lovely to hear you on other shows. And I wonder how many other people pick up on it. I'm not to say that I'm your intellectual daddy or that the people on the show are. But it's so nice to hear your interpretation of ideas that really mean a lot to me. That have maybe the inspiration consciously or subconsciously is percolated through. So I'm like, fuck, that sounds familiar. Fuck, that's like, that's like, that's a, that's a work on a whole Mosey quote from two thousand, twenty twenty three.

• 10:34Jimmy Carr?

  Yeah.

• 10:34Chris Williamson?

  That I.

• 10:35Jimmy Carr?

  I mean, I try and give you prompts.

• 10:36Chris Williamson?

  Oh, you do.

• 10:37Jimmy Carr?

  All the time because it, yeah, but it is that thing where you go, it's your, your, your friendship group and your, the, the things that you're taking in. I think also like for a lot of people, right, I'm in a very privileged position. I'm fully aware of that. I get to know you. I, we get to be friends as well.

• 10:53Chris Williamson?

  If there's a question you want to bring up, we can WhatsApp each other.

• 10:55Jimmy Carr?

  And we get to be friends with George Mackham. There, there's, there's a coterie of people that, you know, we know each other and there's a lot of mutual respect there and I feel that and it's, it's lovely. But I think really the sweet source of this show is, I think most people that listen to this show have that relationship with you as well. It's just they, they didn't get to go for a steak last night, but they kind of go, you, you know, they're, I think it's the same thing of going. I think probably most people listening to the show are like low level, a bit concerned about your health at the moment, like, cause you, you sort of, you don't really talk about yourself that much. I think the other thing about the show is it's, it's, it's very much about, it's kind of, it's very dense compared to other podcasts.

• 11:36Chris Williamson?

  I wanted to, that, that was the point I was about to make with regards to your set. And I saw you in Wembley at the second of a matinee, I think on that evening. I think you'd done two in Wembley.

• 11:48Jimmy Carr?

  Oh, yeah. One at seven, one at nine thirty.

• 11:49Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 11:49Jimmy Carr?

  One for me, one for the taxman. That's how, that's how I operate my touring system, two shows a night.

• 11:55Chris Williamson?

  Very good. Um, and it, your set is incredibly lean. There is very little wasted time, including in the warm up, which doesn't exist. And, uh, I realized that if you were to have, when I first started the show and still now, just because of my disposition, if you were to have Rogan at one end, which is, uh, information dense, but can meander because he likes to vamp and, and chat shit. And then if you were to have Tim Ferriss at the other end, which is, you know, very sort of structured, it's almost like a blinkist sort of cut down.

• 12:28Jimmy Carr?

  Well, I'd even go further. I'd, I'd say to, to the, to the other, uh, absolute extreme, Morgan Housel has a fifteen minute podcast that you listen to and go, I, all right, I need, I need half an hour to process that.

• 12:39Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 12:40Jimmy Carr?

  Cause it's so dense.

• 12:41Chris Williamson?

  Yeah. Yeah. It's the almanac of Novell Ravikant of podcasts.

• 12:44Jimmy Carr?

  Yes, he did. He did one the other day, which was like, oh, it's just like fifteen things I've been thinking about. And after each one, you had to kind of pause it and go.

• 12:50Chris Williamson?

  I need a day.

• 12:51Jimmy Carr?

  Right, okay.

• 12:53Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 12:53Jimmy Carr?

  Yeah, I mean, he's he's fucking brilliant. So I think that I sit, you know, I'm a bit more Ferris pilled than Rogan pilled, but I like I like people feeling like, huh, that I really got a lot out of that. I feel like it's I think it's really true of comedians, and I think it's increasingly true in the in this in this world, the podcast world of like, you leak. You don't say a lot about yourself on the podcast, but you leak like they like who you are sort of, oh, okay, there's like.

• 13:20Chris Williamson?

  Clues.

• 13:20Jimmy Carr?

  Yeah, there's there's little clues and it's you can't hide who you are in this kind of long form for long. You know, there's no pretense. It's really, it's great.

• 13:28Chris Williamson?

  Uh, just on your idea around boredom being an insight creator. This beautiful work on the magic you are looking for is in the work you're avoiding. It's a twist on that. The answers you are looking for is in the silence you're avoiding.

• 13:45Jimmy Carr?

  Yeah.

• 13:46Chris Williamson?

  I fucking love that. The answers you're looking for is in the silence you're avoiding. You need fewer inputs, not more.

• 13:52Jimmy Carr?

  I'd I'd agree with that. Yeah, that's really, uh, it's very, it's it's interesting that thing of like, because it's two British guys. So we feel like we should apologize for saying anything deep. There's there's like, there's a natural.

• 14:03Chris Williamson?

  Don't get ahead of yourself.

• 14:04Jimmy Carr?

  George George Mack had a great line yesterday. I went for a walk with George and he was talking about, you know, Britain's very cynical. America's full of bullshit, which I thought.

• 14:14Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 14:14Jimmy Carr?

  Such a great kind of.

• 14:15Chris Williamson?

  It is. Yeah, in in in England, you need to be aware of the cynics and avoid them. And in America, you need to be aware of the bullshit artists and avoid them. And both of them are applauded. The cynics are praised by most of British culture and the bullshit artists are praised by most of American culture. But, yeah, I, uh, I think I've realized the sort of people that I like. And I think it's why me and you have become friends. I think it's why George is friends. Mosey, Brian Callan, you know, like this little, whatever we want to call it, squad of degenerate people trying to work out how the world works. I like earnest people, like people that are earnest. And my working definition of earnest is the bravery to take your emotions seriously.

• 14:55Jimmy Carr?

  Yeah, I think you can be. I think there's a there's a sweet spot between being very sincere, but you don't need to be serious. You you you kind of you're real, but it's not, you know. And it's very, I I I always think that thing of like, it's very easy live as well to to switch. Um, you know, because there's slightly a code switch thing going on where you go, well, on stage. I'm there to do a job. We're in a theater. This is the space. You're there to be funny. But occasionally now, and I'll allow myself put it out on social media as well. If something comes up that's heartfelt or or or beautiful, sometimes you answer a question seriously. Sometimes you just go, so or someone needs it. Uh, and so there's

• 15:33Chris Williamson?

  Seen a few of those.

• 15:34Jimmy Carr?

  There's a couple of those moments like in a show where I I feel like I need to earn it. I feel like, yeah, if I do twenty minutes of fastballs, then I can, there could be one nice moment where you make a point. But I, but no one wants that. No one wants to come to a comedy show and have someone uh wag a finger at them and talk about, you know, being progressive. It's it's that thing where you go, okay, I'll be super funny. And then I feel like my audience will go, okay, he's he's made a good point there. And nothing overly controversial, you know, it's not like, uh, but it's like that thing. It's really interesting, that thing of, um. I don't know whether it's an age thing, but feeling like I can do that a little bit more now.

• 16:11Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, this certainly an extra kind of credibility that comes with age that I'm I'm feeling too.

• 16:20Chris Williamson?

  You look at Peterson and he's got this sort of patriarch persona, right? He's got sort of the gray hair. He's got the whizzened fingers that look like a fucking druid. And you think, yeah, he's able to, you know, talk to you about the deeper meaning of life and stuff like that. But if you while you're cut backwards and walking in crocs, really, you've kept your upper bound on how much of this you can be taken seriously when you talk about, you know what I mean? So I think

• 16:43Jimmy Carr?

  I don't know, because I think it's much more, um, it's much more relatable. What will people listen to? That like, it's always that thing of like, I wrote a book a couple of years ago, uh, which kind of a biography slash self-help. And it was like, it's that thing of going, it's, um. Eckhart Tolle for for dummies. It's it's because there's a lot of people that love that kind of stuff or would love that kind of stuff, but they're not going to read that kind of stuff. It's like that. There's no going to find time in their day.

• 17:08Chris Williamson?

  Sufficiently accessible.

• 17:09Jimmy Carr?

  Yeah, and it is, it's tough. It's tough to kind of, uh, to get through because that stuff is actually, it's, um, it's.

• 17:17Jimmy Carr?

  Sincere and it's very serious. And I think actually you sometimes do need to sugar that pill. I think comedy does that. I mean, Peter McGraw, who I think you've had, have you had on the show? So he's got the theory of benign violation. I was chatting to Joe about this yesterday, the idea of like violations being anything that messes with the norm, what you were expectations of life.

• 17:40Chris Williamson?

  Patent interruption.

• 17:41Jimmy Carr?

  So something terrible happens in the world and you make it benign by making a joke about it. And so this idea that jokes cannot be offensive because there's a there's a by making it a joke, you're putting it in this kind of sacred space.

• 17:56Chris Williamson?

  It's kind of like alchemy.

• 17:58Jimmy Carr?

  Yeah, your process. Well, I often think like if someone's offended by a joke, I fucked up. My, I didn't use strong enough juju, not enough magic on that. That wasn't funny enough to make it worthwhile for them to go to that place.

• 18:13Chris Williamson?

  I asked Schultz the same question. I said, are there any jokes that shouldn't be told? Because can you think of a joke that shouldn't be told?

• 18:19Jimmy Carr?

  No, saying, saying something is too serious to joke about is like saying, oh, that, that disease is actually too serious to treat. Or saying to a journalist, oh, we can't report on this story. It's horrible. Like you'd never dream of saying that. And you go, well, I feel sort of the same way about comedy. It's all sort of fair game. It's a question of how funny could you be?

• 18:38Chris Williamson?

  Well, that was.

• 18:38Jimmy Carr?

  How, how skilled could you be in, in doing that?

• 18:42Chris Williamson?

  Andrew's response was, when I said, is there anything, is there a joke so abhorrent that you shouldn't make it? And his immediate response was, is it funny?

• 18:51Jimmy Carr?

  Yeah.

• 18:52Chris Williamson?

  It's like, if it's funny, you can get away with whatever you want.

• 18:55Jimmy Carr?

  Yeah, I think so. I think it's not even getting away with it though. The, the idea of like, I don't buy into the.

• 19:00Chris Williamson?

  Get away with.

• 19:01Jimmy Carr?

  Yeah, on the punching up, punching down. I don't buy into that because you, in order to buy into that, you have to buy into the Frankfurt School and Foucault and Derrida and Leitard and all of that. And the idea that power dynamics and that cultural, any cultural work is a demonstration of power. And I, frankly, I don't, I mean, I was, I was kind of brought up in that. That's when I was at university. That was all

• 19:30Jimmy Carr?

  postmodernism was, was thriving.

• 19:32Chris Williamson?

  Sexy the first time around.

• 19:33Jimmy Carr?

  Yeah. And it was, well, it was, it was very, very interesting and valuable in the lab. And very much like Covid, it escaped the lab.

• 19:44Chris Williamson?

  Great in theory, horrible in practice.

• 19:45Jimmy Carr?

  And it's had horrific effects. It's out of the lab.

• 19:49Chris Williamson?

  The R naught number keeps on rising.

• 19:51Jimmy Carr?

  It's 28 days later, but with a meme, but with an idea. And I don't buy into that punching up punching down because it's a, in order to be punching down, you'll be looking down on someone. I'm not looking down on anyone.

• 20:04Chris Williamson?

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• 20:46Chris Williamson?

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• 20:57Chris Williamson?

  I heard a quote of yours, if you're going to have an interesting life, you can't have all of the other interesting lives you would have had. What's that mean to you?

• 21:06Jimmy Carr?

  Well, I suppose it's that thing of like, it's incredible, the things you won't do. But when you think about like the potential that we all have, like we've all, we're all privileged in a sense, right? Because we all get one life and then we get given, you know, different gifts, right? So there's no, it can be no equality because we're all born different, right? So it's that thing of going, and it's not better, worse or the same. It's just different. Everyone's kind of different. And I think that, for me, that.

• 21:38Jimmy Carr?

  The the idea of going, um, you can, you can't have an easy life and a great character. You can't, you've got to kind of go out there and and decide what you want. That's the first great adventure. And then getting it is the second great adventure. So it sort of speaks to that thing of like wishing wells work.

• 22:00Jimmy Carr?

  But they don't work when it's not the magic. The magic is you going, oh, what I wish for. What do I want being the fundamental? Like, if you know what you want, that's incredibly powerful. Most people don't know. Most desires are memetic desires and you get into René Girard and the idea of going, well, I want that watch because he's got that watch and I want that car because he's got that car and I'd love that girlfriend. It's like, how many guys are dating girls incredibly hot? They look amazing, very impressive. They don't even like the guy. It's like, it's a weird flex.

• 22:31Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, they're they're in love with what other people think about them.

• 22:35Jimmy Carr?

  Hmm.

• 22:35Chris Williamson?

  For having that.

• 22:36Jimmy Carr?

  Is that Will Stor thing, that Status Game book, which is, again, I mean, it's just, he's such a genius writer. Uh, I love him. He's got a new Substack, by the way, all about storytelling.

• 22:45Chris Williamson?

  His new book, he's, he comes out this week on the show, the, uh, a story is a deal.

• 22:50Jimmy Carr?

  Yeah.

• 22:51Chris Williamson?

  He's, he's, he's outstanding, outstanding him.

• 22:54Jimmy Carr?

  But that idea of like, you choose what status game you play. You know, so, so what status game? And again, another thing from modern wisdom, that idea of going, well, there's, there's fuck you money. And there's fuck you freedom and there's fuck you family. I really, I mean, that really I took to heart as going, oh, that's very interesting. And the idea of going, what are the things that you're not going to do? Because we live in a world that rewards specialization. And it strikes me that our whole school system is like geared wrong to get you to do all the different things, you know, and and really, you know, young kids are like, what are you going to get from being, okay, you're terrible at maths? But we're going to get you up to a C grade. Yeah, because what the world needs is someone who's all right at maths. No.

• 23:39Chris Williamson?

  Semi competent at maths.

• 23:40Jimmy Carr?

  No, but but you're brilliant at English. Well, fucking lean into that. Spend all your time doing that. You know, specialize, especially in as as the world changes, I think leaning into, you know, what it's that, you often get, I don't know what it is about age or my position in life, but I often get asked like, oh, you know, what do you think I should do? And it's that thing of like, what do you think about all the time? That's the best indicator.

• 24:00Chris Williamson?

  There's a Georgie's birthday this year in Austin. Dicky, one of the guys came up with a fucking wonderful, I haven't written about it yet, but it'll be in a newsletter soon. It's a great idea. He calls them shower thoughts. And the shower being one of the very few places reliably that people don't have some sort of external input going on.

• 24:19Jimmy Carr?

  Right.

• 24:20Chris Williamson?

  And he said, you can tell what you care about by what you think about in the shower.

• 24:26Chris Williamson?

  Tell what you care about by what you think about in the shower. When there's no other inputs going on and you're in this liminal space between being unclean and then drying yourself off with a towel.

• 24:37Chris Williamson?

  What do you think about? Where does your mind go? It's like, that's what you care about.

• 24:40Jimmy Carr?

  Yeah, I think expanding that space to twenty minutes, an hour.

• 24:47Chris Williamson?

  The answers you're looking for in the silence you're avoiding.

• 24:49Jimmy Carr?

  That kind of being alone with your thoughts is a, that's a lovely thing.

• 24:53Chris Williamson?

  How do you think about that? Because you're spending all of this time on the road. Airports, could watch a video, can listen to a podcast, can do the whatever thing. How do you try and purposefully create that space when you're busy all the time?

• 25:12Jimmy Carr?

  I suppose that thing of like going, if I do eight shows a week or be more than that on the American tour, but it's normally eight shows a week. So it's that thing of like going, well, I want to try new jokes at every show. It's quite sort of stoic, really. I mean, it's just like that thing of like going, well, there's. I always think how hard you work is important, but what you work on is essential. Like, that's the key thing. You can work so hard on bullshit and distract yourself with it. And like, my job's quite easy because it's easy to analyze and to pinpoint what's the thing that makes a difference. And it's, for me, it's jokes. It's the love language. It's the model. And the more that I spend time with them, you sort of go, it's sort of like time in the gym, I suppose. So when you're.

• 25:57Jimmy Carr?

  Thinking about nothing and letting your mind wander, that's the, that's when it comes up. Or you're listening to something and it's outside of your purview. You're not listening to comedy, you're listening to someone talk about economics or politics or philosophy. And you're then thinking, what could I make a joke of that? So everything's within, you're seeing it through that, the lens of.

• 26:21Chris Williamson?

  Be very careful. If you are the average of the five podcasts you listen to the most, you've got to be careful because it's going to shape your. You listen to too much Gary Stevenson, you're going to be talking about Marxist economics and stuff like that. Be very careful what sort of algorithm holes you fall down in, in particular.

• 26:34Jimmy Carr?

  Yeah, good, right? Good, good, be careful.

• 26:39Chris Williamson?

  How do people know what they should be doing with their lives? People coming up to you and asking you for earnest, you know, sincere life advice. How do you work out what someone should be doing with their life?

• 26:47Jimmy Carr?

  I don't know, I mean, it's a, it's very odd to be like, I'm, I'm quite taken with simulation theory. Because I don't think it's true. I don't think we are in a matrix and this is a video game. But if we are, I've definitely got a cheat code, right? Where I get to be a touring international comedian with a, you know, lovely kids and a great life and great friends. Like, that's an incredibly sort of privileged position. I think thinking about the world as, as if simulation theory is real and this is all a simulation is very interesting. Because if you imagine life as a game, what are you solving for? What, what are your metrics?

• 27:32Jimmy Carr?

  And I think when you really kind of analyze it and went, well, if, if this was going to be a scoreboard at the end and you're only really competing with yourself, there's nothing in being better than anyone else. There's only honor in being better than yourself last year. So the idea of going, well, what would be the important things? What would be the, you know, it's, and it's that thing of you go, it's not the. The the achievement so much as the uh process, enjoying the process seems to be it. So that thing of like, I don't, you know, what what should people be doing? It's not for me to say it's all life is self assignment.

• 28:06Chris Williamson?

  Um.

• 28:07Jimmy Carr?

  It's that thing of like, what are you happy doing? What where's the where's the flow state for you? What's the thing that brings you joy? It's not even like the 10,000 hours. I slightly think misses a trick. Because although I buy, yeah, you've got to work really hard and really long to get good at anything. To get competent at anything is hard. But what could you stand to do for that long? Because if it's, I mean, it's Naval. If it's play to you and work to them, you're going to win 100% of the time.

• 28:36Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, much better question. Uh uh to build on that, what looks like play to you, but looks like work to everybody else is what pain do you want in your life? This is Mark Manson's twist on it. He says, any pursuit, no matter how existentially aligned, will regularly come with a huge side order of pain. Like, it doesn't matter how much you love doing comedy. If you want to be a comedian, that means that you need to spend an awfully long time writing jokes that never see the light of day. Apart from one set where no one laughs. You go, fuck, I spent ages on that.

• 29:08Jimmy Carr?

  No, no, forget that. You've got to enjoy taxi rides at the airport.

• 29:12Chris Williamson?

  Correct, yeah.

• 29:12Jimmy Carr?

  You have to enjoy the whole thing.

• 29:14Chris Williamson?

  Correct, correct.

• 29:15Jimmy Carr?

  And and as soon as you go, oh, no, no, I just like the bit where I'm on stage. Did that? Well, no, it's not. That's not how life is.

• 29:22Chris Williamson?

  Mm hmm.

• 29:22Jimmy Carr?

  You have to take the whole package.

• 29:24Chris Williamson?

  Mm hmm, yeah. Uh, James James Clear has a fucking unbelievable take where he talks about if you want the life, but not the lifestyle, you guarantee disappointment. Like, if you're going to pursue this outcome, but you're not prepared to do what it takes to get it. Okay, you want to be a touring musician. Sounds fantastic. You need to spend probably between five and 10 years just learning the instrument. This is before you get to perform. You don't really get to perform on stage for that long.

• 29:50Jimmy Carr?

  Yeah.

• 29:50Chris Williamson?

  And then when you start doing that, the first 10 tours that you do are maybe going to be in someone's borrowed van in the back of a van. You're not going to have enough money for hotels. You're going to be playing to 100 people. No one's going to care about you. You're not going to have any money. You're not going to know if it's going to work. You have no promise of glory on the other side. You're going to be racked with self doubt, constantly uncertain. The whole experience is going to be tarnished in this like.

• 30:13Chris Williamson?

  Weird, liminal, like discontent about whether this is actually the right path to be on. And then maybe you reach a tiny bit of escape velocity and perhaps get toward micro notoriety. Okay, and then we maybe get to our manager and then we start to get looked after. That is the process of becoming remotely great at anything.

• 30:37Jimmy Carr?

  Yeah, I always think that thing of like with young comics, it's quite easy because you go, if you're going out three hundred and twenty a year to do open mics, it's kind of the same life as playing arenas. It's not vastly different. You're still going out telling jokes. You go out and do a show, like where you go to and how, whether it's an audience of fifty people or fifteen thousand. It really is a very similar process. So it's, if you enjoy that, if you love it, then great.

• 31:04Chris Williamson?

  A good question on, um, what should I be doing with my life, you said before.

• 31:11Chris Williamson?

  If people were making a movie about your life, what would the key scenes be?

• 31:16Jimmy Carr?

  It's a weird thing, actually, where like the cancellation episode, I was thinking like whenever you get cancelled or not cancelled, dragged. Whenever you get like a tough time, it's like, if my life was a movie, this would be the best episode. If my, if my life was like a ten part on HBO, they, they, oh, you see.

• 31:34Chris Williamson?

  Dedicate an entire episode to that.

• 31:36Jimmy Carr?

  You saw the episode where he said the terrible thing and people got very upset. I mean, I always think you've got to right size it with, with, you know, there's different types of cancellation. Like oftentimes it's I told a joke and some people didn't like it.

• 31:48Chris Williamson?

  Wow.

• 31:48Jimmy Carr?

  Okay. Yeah, it's like, who cares? There's a, um, the patron saint of comedy is Saint Lawrence. And Saint Lawrence was.

• 31:57Chris Williamson?

  Your industry has a patron saint.

• 31:59Jimmy Carr?

  Yeah, and he's a third century martyr. And he was an early Christian, obviously. And, uh, Saint Lawrence was condemned to death and they burnt him alive. Uh, so they put him on like a, a metal kind of, I don't know, like, I don't know what you would call it.

• 32:18Chris Williamson?

  A fucking skillet.

• 32:19Jimmy Carr?

  Yeah, like a big skillet.

• 32:20Chris Williamson?

  Skillet.

• 32:21Jimmy Carr?

  And they, and they, they cooked him.

• 32:24Chris Williamson?

  Okay.

• 32:24Jimmy Carr?

  And he said, after ten minutes of being burnt alive, uh, turn me over, this side's done.

• 32:33Jimmy Carr?

  And that level of bravery and fuck you is very inspirational. It's like that thing of like going, it it's almost like Stoicism to the extreme. Like the what we we have, we can't control the world. We can have a strong influence, but we can't control anything. And shit is going to happen to you and how you react to that is life.

• 32:57Chris Williamson?

  Was Plato the guy that was forced to be killed by the government? Was that him?

• 33:02Jimmy Carr?

  What drank poison?

• 33:03Chris Williamson?

  Yes.

• 33:03Jimmy Carr?

  I think that was Socrates, wasn't it?

• 33:04Chris Williamson?

  Socrates, thank you. Um, there's a great story about him. Apparently very like big fuck you energy. I think I need to channel my inner Socrates a little bit more. And the way that it worked when they condemned him during the trial. He was saying, you think that you're punishing me? Like, you know, it was a jury of like a hundred and fifty people. This was how much and typically what you're supposed to do is be grovelling.

• 33:33Jimmy Carr?

  Hmm.

• 33:34Chris Williamson?

  So actually he's supposed to come up and, you know, he bring the crying wife, bring the crying children. Do he didn't do any of that.

• 33:40Jimmy Carr?

  Yeah.

• 33:40Chris Williamson?

  He started chastising the jury. And he said, you all think that you're punishing me.

• 33:48Chris Williamson?

  But you know that I'm an innocent man. So really, you're punishing yourselves. There's nothing that you can do to me because I know that I haven't done the things. You're clearly whatever it was disturbing the youth, you know, the sort of frivolous.

• 34:00Jimmy Carr?

  Yeah.

• 34:00Chris Williamson?

  Claimed accusation. And he gets sentenced to death. And he's supposed to drink.

• 34:07Jimmy Carr?

  Hemlock.

• 34:08Chris Williamson?

  Hemlock.

• 34:10Chris Williamson?

  And he's back at the cell and all of his family is around him and his friends are around him. And the way that it worked, there was not really a time limit on when you had to drink the hemlock. His friend said to him, you know, you don't need to, you don't need to drink this. You can spend some more time around your friends and your family. You can, you can like play the system and drag this out. And he just drank it in front of them immediately. I just love how much of a fuck you it was like, you all think that you're condemning me. But really you're condemning yourselves. You think you're punishing me, but you're actually punishing yourselves. There's nothing that you can do to me. A quick aside, you've probably heard me talk about Element before, and that's because I'm frankly dependent on it. For the last three years, I've started my morning every single day with Element.

• 34:55Chris Williamson?

  Element is. A tasty electrolyte drink mix with everything that you need and nothing that you don't. Each Grab and Go Stick Pack contains a science-backed electrolyte ratio of sodium, potassium and magnesium with no sugar, no colouring, no artificial ingredients or any other junk. It plays a critical role in reducing muscle cramps and fatigue while optimising your brain health, regulating appetite and curbing cravings. It's basically a magic elixir and this orange flavour in a cold glass of water is how I've started every single day for over three years and I can genuinely feel the difference when I take it versus when I don't. Best of all, they've got a no questions asked refund policy with an unlimited duration. So you can buy it and try it for as long as you want and if you don't like it for any reason, they give you your money back and you don't

• 35:38Chris Williamson?

  even need to return the box. Plus, they offer free shipping within the US. Right now, you can get a free sample pack of all eight flavours with your first purchase by going to the link in the description below or heading to drinklmnt.com/ModernWisdom. That's drinklmnt.com/ModernWisdom.

• 35:57Jimmy Carr?

  Do people want more time or do people want more unique experiences? I would argue that like the great gift of being a comedian is you see stuff. You see it when you've got kids, right? Kids are seeing stuff for the first time and they're excited. And what I think a lot of people are doing past a certain age, I don't know what the age is, but I'd say 40, you're remembering stuff. You've made that drive before, you've seen sunsets before, you're kind of remembering stuff so that your mind is kind of filling it in and you're not in wonder. And I think a lot of what comedy is, certainly that kind of the observational element of it is, whether it's linguistic or observation more generally, is you're really recognising stuff. You're really

• 36:40Chris Williamson?

  trying to see things for the first time.

• 36:41Jimmy Carr?

  Seeing things in a way that an artist would, you're trying to see it for what it is.

• 36:47Chris Williamson?

  If I'd never observed this before, what would I notice?

• 36:50Jimmy Carr?

  Yeah. And also that unique experience of like touring around, seeing different places. It's such a unique experience.

• 36:55Chris Williamson?

  Literally, you know, when you, I've done Twenty shows in my life, twenty, thirty, thirty shows in my life. I remember a bunch of different scenarios. There was a nine year old girl sat in the fourth row of the show that we did in Sydney. And she asked this amazing question. And James had been dropping the sea bomb throughout all of his warmer pack. And my, mine was a little bit, you know, this fingering jokes and stuff like that. And I, I was like, parents, I'm so sorry for like, what's happened to your nine year old daughter. She was like, it's all right. She's Australian and everyone broke out laughing. I'm like, I'm, I can't, until Parkinson's comes and rips my fucking like consciousness out of my head. I'm not going to forget that. So you have, you're right. The two ways that human memory works is novelty and intensity.

• 37:41Jimmy Carr?

  Yeah.

• 37:41Chris Williamson?

  If it's something that's new or if it's something that's really emotionally salient, which you could just look at as another form of novelty, right? The intensity thing. So someone will make a drive to work. They've been at this job for four years. You're like, you've made that drive there a thousand times and back a thousand times.

• 37:57Jimmy Carr?

  No memory.

• 37:58Chris Williamson?

  But it's been condensed down into one journey. So apart from that time when it was icy and the guy next to you skidded and whoa, nearly. That's novelty and intensity. And you go, I remember that one. And I remember the first day I went to work.

• 38:09Jimmy Carr?

  Yes.

• 38:10Chris Williamson?

  And I remember when the road was closed and I got in late and I did whatever. But unless you purposefully inject novelty, and this is one of the sort of ruthless double edged swords to routine, which is a lot of the gains in life are to be made through being structured and routineized.

• 38:26Jimmy Carr?

  Well, it's interesting finding that balance of going like, cause is that thing of like, you could go somewhere different on vacation every year? Or you go back to the same place? Cause what are you solving for? Are you making new memories? Or do you want relaxation? You know, what, what's the, what's the, what are you trying to get out of this? What do you want? You're back to that fundamental question.

• 38:44Chris Williamson?

  I think this is one of the reasons why, as people get older, their openness to experience goes down. Because the assumption is, I've been on loads of holidays. I know where's good and I know where's bad. And the likelihood as somebody that's been on lots of holidays of beating the best one, or even getting into the top 10% is way tougher in my sixth decade than it is in my second.

• 39:07Jimmy Carr?

  Tell me about my reversing, like that thing of like, trying to go against the grain of what normally happens. So. Serotonin and dopamine, right, both very important. And we normally get our serotonin from old music. People listen to old music, they listen to the stuff they like when they were in their teens and twenties. And they listen to and they watch new movies. Dopamine, new, new stories, where's this going, what's gonna happen? I kind of changed it around. I listened to that Quentin Tarantino book, The Cinemastere, Speculation. And when I haven't seen any of these seventies movies, or maybe I saw them when I was a kid, but I haven't seen them for years, whatever. I'll watch seventies movies and listen to new music. And it's a really, it's a really fun, it's a really fun way to kind of change things.

• 39:49Chris Williamson?

  Exactly.

• 39:50Jimmy Carr?

  Well, I think that thing of like going, being slightly out of your, like new, music's really interesting because it's, it's such a pleasurable thing to listen to new stuff. And old movies, I think the seventies was the high point for movies. I don't think movies got, because it was like, there was an industry there, but it wasn't fully, I don't know, like the, it wasn't blockbusters yet.

• 40:11Chris Williamson?

  Still experimental.

• 40:12Jimmy Carr?

  Yeah, there was, there was auteurs and the, the suits were giving the best directors the money to go and do the thing, go and do.

• 40:20Chris Williamson?

  Because we don't have a, a established process of how this should be done, so we can allow you to have a few more degrees of freedom.

• 40:26Jimmy Carr?

  Yeah, it was, it was, I don't know, it's just a wonderful time. I kind of feel like it's very analogous to how comedy is now. Comedy's really having a moment culturally. That's very, very special. And I don't know what that is, I, maybe it's authenticity or there, there's something about

• 40:46Jimmy Carr?

  people wanting to be part of a tribe. I, I sort of think, right, so in our culture, there was a fire and we gathered around the fire and did this, spoke, right? And then there was the radio and we gathered around the radio and we listened to it and chatted. And then there was the TV, we gathered around, we watched the shows and talked about it the next day. And then suddenly it was the phone and I'm over there and you're in your room and it's, we're kind of isolated. And I think that thing about coming out to comedy or going out to festivals or going and seeing stuff is, it's my, I suppose.

• 41:23Jimmy Carr?

  Play, we are playing creatures. Someone wrote a book about this in the, I think it was the late thirties, about human beings as a playing animal. Like play being upstream of cooperation and cooperation being the secret source of humanity. And the idea of like, I think about what people are interested in, anyone you know, anyone you speak to. Like what you're excited about. Oh, well, I'm watching the game on Saturday. You're watching people play. I'm gonna go and see the concert, the Killers are playing live. Oh, I'm gonna go and see them play. Oh, I'm gonna go see that comedian. Okay, it's just a guy playing on stage. I'm gonna go and see a musical. I mean, whatever you're into, you want to see people playing. And what is this conversation? It's, it's kind of play, right?

• 42:06Jimmy Carr?

  It's curiosity and it's, you're sort of sorting out ideas and picking little things and strands and it's playful. And it's, you sort of, it's incredibly important that, I love that George Bernard Shaw line. That we don't stop playing because we grow old, we grow old because we stop playing. And there's a wonderful thing in my privileged life as a comedian. Where I'm a grown man, but I also get to be in that mind space while I'm playing all the time. And the audience come out and they, they bought a ticket. And just, I mean, it's very self-selecting, the audience, that you'd have a tough time having a tough kick. Cause a thousand people have bought a ticket to see you. They want to see you win. Came to play. No, but there's an illusion, isn't there?

• 42:50Jimmy Carr?

  The illusion is, and your ego could get taken away, like, oh, I'm on stage. It's me, I'm performing. And you, you don't see the audience. The audience are performing. I saw it last year. I went to see Taylor Swift live in Wembley last year. And it was transcendent. And she was amazing, right? A great songwriter, incredible musician, wonderful performer.

• 43:14Jimmy Carr?

  She was great. The audience were next level. Like, it was girls and their mums and their best friends, like quite a lot of this action. They knew every word to every song. They were, because I was watching it and I was also kind of watching the crowd. And watching that, it's performative. And then you saw, I was kind of watching it and going, oh yeah, well, in my audience, people don't, they wouldn't laugh if they saw the clip on their phone on the bus, you know. Or, you know, sometimes people will post under an Instagram, you know, you put out some heckle video, they think I'm not funny. Yeah, but you watched it with the sound off and the subtitles.

• 43:51Chris Williamson?

  It's like saying, I saw a clip of Taylor Swift live and I didn't sing along.

• 43:55Jimmy Carr?

  Yeah. Well, you're not singing along when you see the clip, but, but when you're there, it's permission. It's the, the, I suppose that thing with like, uh, you see Bruce Springsteen live. How are you doing?

• 44:07Jimmy Carr?

  If someone in Starbucks says it, you sound psychotic. It's, it's great. You allow yourself permission to be in that space where you can perform. It's wonderful.

• 44:16Chris Williamson?

  Collective effervescence is a wonderful way to get out of your own head. And yeah, I think, to fly the flag for my old industry, the demise of nightclubs that don't require quite as much effort, that aren't as rare, that allow you to sort of be in that space and see a DJ, there's just, you know, some local DJ that plays great songs and every songs everybody knows. We get to dance together. You think like, fuck, like, how increasingly rare is it that you're in a room with a bunch of people who you both do and don't know, all feeling a kind of vibe that's together. And yeah, maybe the, the, the resurgence that you're seeing with, with comedy, with live stuff, even the sort of things that I do, or you know, like more like a Peter Sonny style lecture come whatever with a few fingering jokes. Um, there's, there's something going on there.

• 45:00Jimmy Carr?

  Well, I wonder what people are looking for when they, uh, our mutual friend, uh, Alan de Botton, you know, he's got the School of Life, which is ultimately they were running services on a Sunday. I think they still do. Run services on a Sunday, which is sort of church for people that can't, they can't sort of believe in, uh, a deity, but they still want to go and, because I, you know, church works.

• 45:23Chris Williamson?

  Believe in Alan.

• 45:24Jimmy Carr?

  But, but church works not because God is happy, but because people are coming together. And you know, they're kind of there.

• 45:30Chris Williamson?

  You'll have heard me talk about this Latin Mass thing, which is kicking off at the moment.

• 45:34Jimmy Carr?

  What, people going to Latin Mass? Well, I've often said Vatican II was the biggest mistake in in the church's history. Because what they did was they they translated, it goes back to Ian McGilchrist. You know, have you read that, the Master in Your Amnesty, the left brain, right brain thing? So the incredible thing about the left brain is it it it orders things and makes them uh makes lists and it's very uh. We live in a left brain world.

• 45:58Chris Williamson?

  Procedural.

• 45:59Jimmy Carr?

  And the only thing more impressive than that is the right brain, the idea that it can see the Gestapo, that can see the whole thing. And you go, the problem with Vatican II is they took religion and they they made it, they translated it into your local language. And you could just go, oh, yeah, it makes sense. That can't happen, can't come back from the dead. It's crazy. But before that, when it was all in Latin and there was a lot of incense, it was you were just in awe. So it had the same effect of like standing in nature.

• 46:26Chris Williamson?

  Did it just, do you know what it is? I I fucking wish it wasn't this. But the more that I think about what it is people want to take away from life, it's all just vibes. It all just comes back to vibes. So what's the vibe? What was the vibe of his show? Can you remember any of the one line? I think he did a, he did a joke about about roadkill.

• 46:44Jimmy Carr?

  Can't, yeah, no, can't remember anything.

• 46:45Chris Williamson?

  And he did, he definitely did. He gave this really nice answer. He gave this earnest answer to this guy about the something, something, something, something. And uh, but I remember the vibe. Vibe was cool, it was sort of relaxed, it was like intense, actually, it's kind of quick. Um, and and.

• 47:00Jimmy Carr?

  Is it Maya Angelou? People don't remember what you say, but they remember how you feel, how you make them feel.

• 47:05Chris Williamson?

  I gotta, I gotta round out that that movie thing. You mentioned movies before. And uh, two questions about uh, people ask, what should I be doing with my life? Um, if your life was a movie, what would the key scenes be? I think that's important when you're looking backward. But a much better one, if your life was a movie and people were watching up to this point, what would the audience be screaming at the screen, telling you to do with your life?

• 47:31Chris Williamson?

  What would they be just, it's fucking obvious, leave the job, leave the, you mean, get like, it's your brother. It's the, you know, the the fucking killer's hiding in the cupboard, whatever it might be. What would the audience watching the movie of your life be screaming at the screen, telling you to do? And I think it's

• 47:51Chris Williamson?

  a very orthogonal way to look at, huh.

• 47:58Chris Williamson?

  I already know the answer of what I should be doing. I'm just scared of making the commitment and having the conversation.

• 48:02Jimmy Carr?

  Yeah, I I I waited a long time. I didn't, I had kids very late in life and it was because I was waiting to feel like a man. And obviously I had it just backwards. It's a, it's because it's a, it's not a noun, it's a verb. So you have kids and then suddenly you feel, hold a kid, you feel fucking manly. This is fucking great. And then you don't know who you're going to be as a, as a dad.

• 48:27Chris Williamson?

  How's fatherhood changed you?

• 48:28Jimmy Carr?

  Um, I, I don't know. I think it's, um, I don't know about change. I think it's like you sort of, um.

• 48:38Jimmy Carr?

  You know that thing of like, uh, uh, power corrupts. I think it does. I think power reveals.

• 48:47Jimmy Carr?

  And I would say sort of the same about sort of parenthood, like you don't, you don't change. It just reveals who you, who you are at a kind of a deeper level. It's just like the, the, there's a, there's a side of you that was always kind of waiting. Uh, and you, you come out and you don't get, it's almost like the kids come out with their factory settings. Right? Like how much of what they have is heritable? And they just come out and they are who they are. And you watch these little creatures and they, and they, you kind of come out. You've got a personality. I don't know where that happened. And then the other one's got a totally different personality. Oh, because I think everyone with one kid is nurture.

• 49:27Jimmy Carr?

  Oh, well, we, we gave them this, so they've done that. And we were always, we read books like that, so they did this.

• 49:32Chris Williamson?

  Because you haven't got to run the experiment a second time.

• 49:34Jimmy Carr?

  And then as soon as you get the second one, you go, I don't know, I don't know. I don't know. Yeah, they just, ah, she likes that. So what are you going to do?

• 49:43Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 49:43Jimmy Carr?

  It's, it's, it's lovely. Um, and I think it's the same with parenting. I think you don't know who you're going to be as a parent. And it's a, it's a revealing thing. It's, it's, you, you kind of go, oh, I'm, oh, I'm a Canada, okay. That's fun. Great.

• 50:00Chris Williamson?

  Did it teach you much about yourself?

• 50:05Jimmy Carr?

  I don't know. I don't know what the, I suppose it's that thing of like it's a it's a feeling that's very difficult to put into words without, you know, it's a sort of cliched thing, but it does feel like it's, um, I suppose it's, it's closed off uh, an existential angst that I always had of like, since losing my, I lost my religion in my mid twenties, it's quite sort of late. Uh, I was a Catholic and I, I lost my faith and was an atheist and not having a, an afterlife is, it's a rush of blood to the head, right?

• 50:48Jimmy Carr?

  So I've got to do something with this life. I've got to take opportunities and risks and have fun now because um, a random collection of atoms coalesced into a form that can contemplate its own consciousness for 4,000 weeks and then disappears again. That's it. We're in this brief shaft of light between two oceans of darkness. And then suddenly you have kids and you go, oh, there is, there is an ex life. It's them. It's the, it's the DNA. It's, Dawkins was right. It's the, the gene. I'm just the, I'm the vessel. And that's, I found that very, I found that incredibly comforting.

• 51:30Chris Williamson?

  Oh, so you're saying that, uh, the denial of death and the death anxiety can be assuaged, at least in part by making more of you?

• 51:39Jimmy Carr?

  Yeah, I think the, the, the death anxiety, the death is the, uh, um, uh, it's the certainty.

• 51:49Jimmy Carr?

  But, you know, it's coming, coming for all of us. I think the more that we talk about it and acknowledge it and the better.

• 51:58Chris Williamson?

  That idea around I will become a dad when I become a man. I will.

• 52:06Jimmy Carr?

  That's clearly like the movie of your life, the guys listening to the podcast, the girls listening to the podcast. The whole, I mean, we're all screaming at the podcast, going.

• 52:19Chris Williamson?

  Like, use the genes, use them.

• 52:21Jimmy Carr?

  We sort of want you to be happy.

• 52:23Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 52:23Jimmy Carr?

  Yeah.

• 52:24Chris Williamson?

  Yeah. Well, I can't wait. You know, I keep on saying it. I really, really do look forward to becoming a dad. Like, I think it's gonna be. Uh, I hope that becoming a father makes all of the things that I've done up to now feel like shallow, vapid attempts to get recognition from the world.

• 52:45Jimmy Carr?

  Your club promoter, Love Island, shallow and vapid.

• 52:49Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, I know.

• 52:50Jimmy Carr?

  Shallow, vapid, how dare you.

• 52:52Chris Williamson?

  What can I say?

• 52:53Jimmy Carr?

  Wonderful industries.

• 52:54Chris Williamson?

  Very insightful, incisive, you know.

• 52:57Jimmy Carr?

  My prediction is you should, uh, not my prediction, my, my, uh, dream for you is that you have a big family. Because I think there's a, um.

• 53:05Chris Williamson?

  There's an only child. That sounds terrifying.

• 53:07Jimmy Carr?

  But there's a, there's a theme in the, the only child thing comes up a lot for you. Like, it's a, it's a recurring theme. And I think what you need is a really loud, messy house. Let's go back to Plato, right? So my issue with Plato, obviously, you know, the, the, the birth of the, you know, it's Plato to NATO. That's Western civilization, right? Incredibly important figure. But I got issues with Plato. If he was here, and I, I'd say, I'd tell him. It's Plato and the Zarathustrans, and they both independently came up with the idea of perfection. So the Zarathustrans were the first religion, I believe, to come up with the idea of heaven. Perfection and the platonic ideals of Plato. And I think in our heads,

• 53:49Jimmy Carr?

  we think of perfection as an ideal, uh, obviously, a lot. And I think it gets in our heads, like, well, if it can't be perfect, I don't want to, I want to get to the bottom of my list. I want to cross everything off. I want to deal with all these problems and then move on. You can, well, problems are, all a problem is, is, is something that needs your attention. That's great. And there's no such thing as no problems. There's just different problems. Higher order problems. If it helps, call it a puzzle, not a problem. Like, just, it's, there's gonna be problems. It's gonna be messy. Like Nietzsche had this great line which that

• 54:29Jimmy Carr?

  embraced the chaos. Like, it's quite chaotic life. And it's, it's not terribly orderly, and it's never gonna be orderly. And I think there's something about having kids kind of lets you just kind of lean into that a little bit. There's the illusion of control really disappears. You've got influence, but very little control.

• 54:49Chris Williamson?

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• 55:33Chris Williamson?

  panel that I use. Just go to the link in the description below or head to functionhealth.com/modernwisdom. That's functionhealth.com/modernwisdom. That's interesting. I learned this idea called deferred happiness syndrome from Gwyneth Bogle. "The common feeling that your life has not begun, that your present reality is a mere prelude to some idyllic future. This idyl is a mirage that'll fade as you approach, revealing that the prelude you rushed through is in fact the one to your death." It's this strange...

• 56:04Jimmy Carr?

  Is that not John Lennon? "Life is what happens while we're making other plans."

• 56:10Jimmy Carr?

  Like it's, it's, yeah, it's brilliant piece of, it's a brilliant observation. Oh, once I've got this done, once I get my degree, then life will begin. Once I've, I've just got to pass these exams and get to that thing and buy that house. And then I've just got to pay this off and then I've got to, and then we can start.

• 56:27Chris Williamson?

  It's a very instrumental view of life, that everything is done in order to achieve the next thing. So at no point do you actually arrive. It's a great question. Okay. When are you going to arrive? Tell me, tell me when you're going to arrive at life. When are you going to feel like you've actually got that?

• 56:43Jimmy Carr?

  Well, it's, we're going to end up being Buddhists, aren't we? Because it's like, like, I, I do slightly disagree with the over pathologizing life. But depression and anxiety, which I, I would rather call sadness and worry. But, you know, it's very serious for some people, right? And depression is always about the past and anxiety is about the future. And in the, the more you can just be in the moment, you're kind of, you're sort of all right. You're sort of okay, you know, today, enjoying that thing of like, enjoying this bit of the process.

• 57:17Jimmy Carr?

  But it, it is that thing of like, it's very, it's kind of easy.

• 57:21Jimmy Carr?

  It's easy to say, I mean, I love that thing as, as well. I'm such a fanboy of the show, but they, the um, two D and three D lessons.

• 57:28Chris Williamson?

  Oh, God.

• 57:29Jimmy Carr?

  But it's, it's so true in terms of like, you can't say to a young person like the material possessions. They're not going to bring you happiness because actually they kind of will. But not, having the watch won't make you happy.

• 57:45Chris Williamson?

  Getting the watch.

• 57:45Jimmy Carr?

  Getting it is fun. Having stuff is, getting stuff is fun. The journey is, is so fun, like that, that thing of like, and it's partly the dopamine of like, it's, it's the, uh, the, the thrill of, uh, the acquisition. But the stuff that gives you pleasure long-term, it's like, it's, it's, um, it's feelings.

• 58:03Chris Williamson?

  Yeah. Having things isn't fun. Getting things is fun. That's Andrew Tate, by the way. But you have this.

• 58:08Jimmy Carr?

  Is it?

• 58:08Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, that's Andrew Tate. Yeah, I know. Like, you weren't expecting that.

• 58:12Jimmy Carr?

  Well, a stopped clock is right twice a day.

• 58:14Chris Williamson?

  That's true. Um, but you had the, you had the inverse of this when it comes to work rate, which I think probably classes as one of the best insights over the last few years. Everyone is jealous of what you've got. No one is jealous of how you got it.

• 58:28Jimmy Carr?

  Yeah, I think that thing of like, but here's that thing where you go when people say. I want to be famous and but they don't have a thing. It is like, I don't know what for, but it's the but fame and fortune is the a secular heaven.

• 58:46Chris Williamson?

  Hmm.

• 58:47Jimmy Carr?

  For for fame, read heaven. It's the land of milk and honey. Everything's going to be okay. And then when you it's kind of annoying when famous people complain about stuff because you're but you've got everything. You've just got different problems. It's again, it's problems as a as a feature, not a bug.

• 59:02Chris Williamson?

  The issue you have, the issue that I think a lot of famous people have is I am certain that my inner void will be filled when I and the benefit that people who are not yet as rich or as famous as they want to be is that they still have the potential panacea for them to get to.

• 59:21Jimmy Carr?

  What's that great Will Smith line? I'm not the biggest Will Smith fan in the world.

• 59:25Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 59:25Jimmy Carr?

  But the idea that he he went, I was I was poor and miserable and it was okay because I thought, well, I'll just get some money and then I'll be all right. And then I was rich and miserable. It was like, oh, oh, fuck.

• 59:36Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 59:36Jimmy Carr?

  Oh, no.

• 59:37Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, that's Mark Manson's memoir.

• 59:38Jimmy Carr?

  There's nothing else to do.

• 59:39Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, yeah. Originally, that was going to be a two part series. Mark was going to write the first book's called Will. He wrote that with with Will Smith and the second book was going to be called Power.

• 59:48Jimmy Carr?

  It should have been called I Am. That would have been a copyright issue.

• 59:53Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, which which way around does it work? Interesting when it comes to trademark. I'm going to get this the wrong way around, but Europe and the US have different laws when it comes to how words can be trademarked.

• 1:00:07Jimmy Carr?

  My my my mind is stuck on a joke. Okay, so when the Will Smith and Chris Rock thing happened, okay, obviously, it's Chris Rock is like, for me, a godlike figure. I've met him a couple of times and I just I'm so in awe of his skill and and.

• 1:00:23Chris Williamson?

  Do not touch our profit. Okay.

• 1:00:25Jimmy Carr?

  Work ethic. And like, I was so annoyed. So I I was chatting about chatting about it a couple of weeks ago with a friend and and said, oh, somehow it came up and I said, oh, Chris Rock, he was he was at the Oscars. Yeah, he was really starstruck. Like, three years too late. If I thought of that on the day, I was genuinely annoyed with myself. Like, oh, come on, come on, brain. Think about it on the day. No use now.

• 1:00:50Chris Williamson?

  But there is there is this sense of. What happens if you achieve the things that you say that you want? What happens if you get there? Just imagine for a second, the perennial insecure, overachiever optimizer people. What happens if you get there and you still have the same problems?

• 1:01:09Chris Williamson?

  Then what do you do? That's a difficult question.

• 1:01:12Jimmy Carr?

  Yeah, but I think it's, I think it's answered by, um.

• 1:01:17Jimmy Carr?

  You know, there's, there's, there's other people on the same road. And it can feel sometimes quite sort of, I don't know, you sort of, you're out there battling, trying to, trying to achieve whatever you're trying to achieve. And you, you, you kind of do it and look around and you go, well, there's other people. I think having friends in other fields is really helpful. And you, you, cause that thing of like, if, if it's too close to your industry, it can sometimes be a little bit kind of frenemies.

• 1:01:41Chris Williamson?

  Yep.

• 1:01:41Jimmy Carr?

  Um, but I think that thing of like, well, comedy is really good for that because it's kind of, we're out for ourselves, but in it together.

• 1:01:49Chris Williamson?

  Hmm.

• 1:01:50Jimmy Carr?

  There's a lovely thing about.

• 1:01:51Chris Williamson?

  Sense of camaraderie.

• 1:01:52Jimmy Carr?

  Yeah. And it's not like we're actors. It's not like we're, you know, it was.

• 1:01:55Chris Williamson?

  There's only one role for the next Marvel movie.

• 1:01:57Jimmy Carr?

  There's only one James Bond, and I'm afraid you didn't get the part, but he did. Ah, his life's amazing, yours is shit, whatever that thing is. Um, with comedy, it seems to be that there's a, there's a camaraderie and a, it's also comes back to that thing of like, don't be the best, be the only. Like if you're a non-fungible human and someone goes, well, no one else is doing what he does.

• 1:02:19Chris Williamson?

  Hmm.

• 1:02:20Jimmy Carr?

  But other people are in the same, uh, industry. It's like Iron Maiden had a great line about this. The, the Iron Maiden was like, they, they, I think they did an interview with the, um, their, their manager. And he went, well, we're not in the music industry. We're in the Iron Maiden industry.

• 1:02:38Chris Williamson?

  That's a fucking slammer.

• 1:02:40Jimmy Carr?

  And they, and they went, he went, I don't care what's happening in that field. We can only plow this field. And like, it's just, you go, yeah, I mean, they had so many great lines, actually, but I think Bruce, things of, so, so saying fame is, um, it's, it's a, a, a byproduct of what we do. It's the, it's the, uh, it's the excrement, uh, fame is the excrement of creativity.

• 1:03:08Chris Williamson?

  Hmm.

• 1:03:12Chris Williamson?

  Like something that you need to deal with, but sometimes can be enjoyable.

• 1:03:15Jimmy Carr?

  Well, it's like, eh, yeah, okay.

• 1:03:18Chris Williamson?

  Well, it's interesting when people pursue fame for fame's sake. I want to be famous. It's like, no.

• 1:03:22Jimmy Carr?

  Sorry, you you were on Love Island when? Sorry, what?

• 1:03:26Chris Williamson?

  That's true. Yeah, look, I'm allowed to talk. I'm allowed to talk about this because I went up the mountain and came back down.

• 1:03:31Jimmy Carr?

  Well, I think it is that thing of like, the, I don't think that story's been told properly. We chatted about this last night at dinner, but I think to tell that story fully, I think is very inspirational. Because you go, it's the, you've worked on something that is a, uh,

• 1:03:50Jimmy Carr?

  like, like any other muscle, you know, we were going into Love Island and, okay, you've got great forearms. Wonderful. Good luck. God bless. And then you've worked on that for how many years now? Six, seven?

• 1:04:02Chris Williamson?

  This is year eight, yeah, seven and a half now, yeah.

• 1:04:04Jimmy Carr?

  Okay, wow. The results, like the, like you're, you're an advert for, it's not even work ethic. It's just, it's, it's, it's not like ambition. It's systems. It's like three shows a week, every week. I know what a tough year you've had. And the idea that you just keep on showing up.

• 1:04:26Chris Williamson?

  Come on, come on, to mutually fellate each other. You are

• 1:04:31Chris Williamson?

  by a margin, the hardest working comedian on the planet. I, I don't think that there's.

• 1:04:35Jimmy Carr?

  Well, if only I had a bit more talent, I'd take a weekend off.

• 1:04:40Chris Williamson?

  I, I'm blown away by the schedule that you have. Um, I did actually want to read you an essay of mine, um, based on people that work very hard. The gastric band surgery of being busy. After undergoing gastric band surgery, people's risk of suicide goes up. That's perhaps unsurprising. Gastric band surgery is a big deal and can sometimes have complications, infections and painful outcomes. But one of the unseen reasons for the increased suicide risk is actually due to the surgery going right, not it going wrong. Many patients used food as a way to deal with issues in their lives, emotional challenges, loneliness, anxiety. After having their stomach shrunk, the ability to use food as a comforting crutch has been removed, but the emotional challenges still remain.

• 1:05:23Chris Williamson?

  So the coping mechanism has been taken away, forcing patients to face their issues without a release valve. I think there is an equivalent dynamic happening when you try to elevate your life to take your sense of self-worth from things other than your work and your level of busyness. Let's say that in the past you used busyness as a chaos and as a way to distract yourself from feeling unwanted emotions. It meant that you didn't need to reflect on your decisions or sit in discomfort that you're moving so quickly that you never fully connect with the things that are happening in your life. Lost relationships, disconnected friends, poor decisions and accumulated negative character traits are all swept away so quickly that you didn't even have time to consider them by manic work rate. Eventually, you realize that chaotic busyness is not your highest calling in life. Maybe you value different things now. Maybe you've outgrown that phase of your life.

• 1:06:08Chris Williamson?

  Maybe you realize that busyness for busyness's sake is detaching you from connecting to your existence. So what happens when this coping mechanism gets taken away? You're forced to face your issues without the highly distracting release valve that you're used to. The busyness anesthetic that you've used to previously rely on has now been removed, leaving you with two choices. Number one, ignore the lesson that chaos is not fulfillment and go back down this road that you just escaped from by force-feeding your way through this figurative gastric band. Number two, actually learn to handle emotional discomfort without distracting yourself with work.

• 1:06:43Jimmy Carr?

  Yeah, that's beautiful. It really reminds me of that, um, Milan Kundra wrote this short book called Slowness. And kind of the, the nub of the book, the message is that memory and speed are inversely proportionate. So the idea, like the best example I can think of is when COVID hit and the world slowed.

• 1:07:06Jimmy Carr?

  You kind of took stock and remembered stuff and sort of had time to contemplate. Like in that boredom, I guess, of not being busy, not being chaotic. There was a real, oh, can I look around?

• 1:07:25Jimmy Carr?

  I don't know, I, um.

• 1:07:26Chris Williamson?

  Didn't you have a Chairman Mao quote that was similar to this?

• 1:07:30Jimmy Carr?

  What was the Chairman Mao quote?

• 1:07:31Chris Williamson?

  You can't smell the roses from a galloping horse.

• 1:07:33Jimmy Carr?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's a good, that's Mao. What?

• 1:07:38Chris Williamson?

  Who knew?

• 1:07:41Jimmy Carr?

  We can take good shit, we can take good shit from Andrew Tate and Chairman Mao. As long as it's good shit.

• 1:07:46Chris Williamson?

  Because that's really who you need to be associated with right now to help rehabilitate your public image.

• 1:07:51Jimmy Carr?

  Sure, sure, sure.

• 1:07:54Jimmy Carr?

  Yeah, but it's that the, it's, it's true, like slowing down once in a while is, is, is very good for you. And, and finding that balance in life, but I think, um, I don't know, I think working hard's not. It's also, like, I know people that really work hard. Like, I work it hard in showbiz, like, are the hardest working man in comedy. Yeah, it's like being the best looking guy in the burns unit. It's not, it's not really a flex because even if I do two shows a night, oh my God, sometimes I have to work for four hours. I'm not sure I'm going to be okay. Like, what are you, it's, it's nothing. But there's people with real jobs that work really hard.

• 1:08:35Jimmy Carr?

  And there's people actually that don't love their job, that they, they work in order to facilitate a life that they love. Well, great, good on them. There's a, there's a, there's a, there's an honor and there's a worth in that. I think we've slightly lost that in our society, if I'm honest with you. Like, the hero of the working man that provides for his family, puts food on the table and a roof over their head.

• 1:08:54Chris Williamson?

  Well, it's, it's, that's a good point that, um, we've sort of pedestalized passion so much that we assume the only reason that anybody does a job is because they want to do it. And there is a, an additional type of nobility that comes along with drudgery. You think, well, not only do you do this thing, which is maybe hard, but you don't want to do it, but you do it anyway.

• 1:09:16Jimmy Carr?

  Yeah, I know, being, being a provider, um, you're taking care of, I mean, yourself and the people that you love. Just doing that and working hard, it's not, like, something shifted in our culture where that isn't, um, those, those people are seen as being chumps. Or, you know, a mark, uh, oh, they've, they, they haven't got a side.

• 1:09:40Chris Williamson?

  Owned by the man.

• 1:09:41Jimmy Carr?

  Yeah, they haven't got a side hustle and a grift. You go, no, that's, some people work like that and they work really hard and they provide for their families and they, they are doing great. And they're taking pleasure from their hobbies and their interests. And they're, actually, a friend of mine was talking about this because his father had quite a boring job, but he was so passionate about his hobbies. And it was really, it was really interesting that he was like, he didn't like the term hobbies even because he was going, that's what brought him joy in life.

• 1:10:11Jimmy Carr?

  That was the thing for him. Great.

• 1:10:14Chris Williamson?

  In other news, this episode is brought to you by Momentous. If your workouts feel flat, your recovery's slow, or you've just been feeling off, it might not be your training plan or diet, it might be something a bit more boring, like your testosterone. So, if you're not performing in the gym or the bedroom the way that you want, or you just want to naturally improve your testosterone, Tonka Ali is a fantastic research-backed place to start. And when this is stacked with zinc, can make a huge improvement in testosterone production, strength, recovery, and energy, which is why I'm such a huge fan of Momentous zinc. It supports testosterone, boosts vitality, and helps keep everything running like it should. And if you're still unsure, Momentous offers a 30-day money-back guarantee. So you can buy it and try it for 29 days. If you don't love it, they'll give you your money

• 1:10:56Chris Williamson?

  back. Plus, they ship internationally. Right now, you can get 35% off your first subscription and that 30-day money-back guarantee by going to the link in the description below or heading to livemomentous.com/modernd wisdom and using the code MODERNWISDOM at checkout. That's L-I-V-E-M-O-M-E-N-T-O-U-S, E-N-T-O-U-S, L-I-V-E-M-O-M-E-N-T-O-U-S.com/modernd wisdom, a modern wisdom at checkout. There's a line from Visakhan Varasamy, he says, "I have not yet grown wise enough to deeply enjoy simple things." And this is an idea I've been thinking about recently.

• 1:11:35Chris Williamson?

  There is a kind of embarrassment in the modern world at taking pleasure from ordinary pursuits. This sort of sense that my, the things that I feel particularly proud about and that I take a sense of self-worth from and fulfillment, they should be grand. Because how feeble, how shallow, how unimpressive a life it is that lying in a hammock for a couple of hours can be one of the greatest sources of joy. No, no, no, you're supposed to be base jumping from the edge of a skyscraper, you know, just off the back end of some VIP trip to Ibiza to go and watch, you know, it's supposed to be this grand thing. And that line, "I

• 1:12:17Chris Williamson?

  have not yet grown wise enough to deeply enjoy simple things," I think is a pathology of the modern world.

• 1:12:23Jimmy Carr?

  Should we quote Naval? I mean, he's the best of us. "If you're not happy having a coffee with a friend, you won't be happy on a yacht." Yeah.

• 1:12:31Chris Williamson?

  I did have coffee with a friend on a yacht recently and went.

• 1:12:34Jimmy Carr?

  Hey, I've done both.

• 1:12:35Chris Williamson?

  It's even better.

• 1:12:36Jimmy Carr?

  I'm enjoying all of it.

• 1:12:37Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:37Jimmy Carr?

  This is great.

• 1:12:38Chris Williamson?

  It is better.

• 1:12:39Jimmy Carr?

  It's a big boat.

• 1:12:39Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, but no, there's an interesting, um, there's an interesting challenge there, I think, for people that are perennial overthinkers because a lot of them will feel things more deeply than they should do, including the shame of feeling things more deeply than they should do. It's this odd sort of recursive loop.

• 1:12:57Jimmy Carr?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:00Jimmy Carr?

  Are you, are you allowing yourself to enjoy anything at the moment?

• 1:13:03Chris Williamson?

  I'm trying to as much as I can. I mean, look, some of the things that I've learned, the celebration thing is gratitude and action, I think, is a beautiful way to summarize something that I've kind of been floating around. I'm trying to get, I'm trying to build a studio and an office here in Austin because I basically took the working from home pill during COVID and then never realized that COVID had finished. Just I'm just gonna, you know, solopreneur, degenerate, lone ranger my way through this thing. But we hit a million subs and I got to ring Dean. We hit two million subs and I think I broke off from work for a little while. I hit three million subs on a plane. And I just didn't, you know, it's just another thing that happens despite it being something that we worked toward for a long time. And you might go, well, you're not doing it for the subscriber count. Okay.

• 1:13:46Chris Williamson?

  So at what point are you going to allow yourself to arrive? When are you actually going to celebrate this sort of a thing?

• 1:13:52Jimmy Carr?

  Well, it's interesting. You know, that thing of like, when it gets to a certain number of subscribers, you do a Q and A. I think the Q and A should just be a regular thing. Because I think it's like, it's a bit like the newsletter. It's like just, it's sort of almost allowing people to check in with you on a regular basis. And I, I think you don't allow yourself to do that. Because like if your whole interviewing style is.

• 1:14:16Chris Williamson?

  About the guest.

• 1:14:17Jimmy Carr?

  Yeah, you're very much in service of the, of the guest and.

• 1:14:21Chris Williamson?

  My goal is to make you or whoever's sat in front of me look as good as possible.

• 1:14:24Jimmy Carr?

  Okay.

• 1:14:24Chris Williamson?

  Not to make it about me.

• 1:14:25Jimmy Carr?

  Okay. Well, when's that gonna shift? When's it gonna shift? Because how many books do you need to read? How many people do you need to sit with and talk to and add value to? How many quotes do you need before you go, I'm enough?

• 1:14:41Chris Williamson?

  I've arrived.

• 1:14:42Jimmy Carr?

  I can just talk. I can, I can just. Talk about life and what I think and it's I'm enough.

• 1:14:51Chris Williamson?

  It's a good, it's a, it's a good question. Um. There is definitely still a, a kind of imposter syndrome, not around what I do, but around stepping into the more sort of guru side of this stuff. And I think that in some ways that's healthy because there's certainly a lot of people who completely bypassed the learning thing and go straight into the proselytizing thing without having done any of the work to get up there.

• 1:15:11Jimmy Carr?

  I mean, I'm a big fan of imposter syndrome. I sort of think if you're not feeling it every eighteen months, you're not pushing yourself. So that thing of like doing things that you're not quite comfortable with on a regular basis is it's, it's a pretty good sign. You're moving, you're making some progress.

• 1:15:26Chris Williamson?

  Is that difficult for you, given that kind of all of the things that you sort of can do now, like?

• 1:15:33Jimmy Carr?

  Yeah, no, I, I like, I put arenas in in the UK, so I'm playing arenas at the end of the year.

• 1:15:37Chris Williamson?

  No way.

• 1:15:38Jimmy Carr?

  And it's like, that's a, that's a, like, I'm used to playing theatres and I do arenas in different markets in the world, like in Australia and New Zealand. I'm playing arenas next year, but in the UK I kind of haven't done it. Ten cities around the UK and then I, you know, in Australia and New Zealand.

• 1:15:55Chris Williamson?

  What?

• 1:15:55Jimmy Carr?

  Everywhere.

• 1:15:56Chris Williamson?

  Yeah. Do you know what dates you're doing in the UK?

• 1:15:58Jimmy Carr?

  Uh, I'm doing, it's November and December, uh, and it's, but I'm playing in the round.

• 1:16:05Jimmy Carr?

  Because it's that thing where I, I did just, I did a gig, I was in, I was in Melbourne. Had one night off in the tour and Chappelle was in town. And he called and said, you know, what's poppin? I said, oh, doing a show. Oh, I'll come down and play. And he played it in the round and it was like being a boxer. And you sort of realized there was like fourteen thousand people in there, but no one had a bad seat. Cause there's screens above and you're just kind of gently rotating and delivering to different.

• 1:16:31Chris Williamson?

  Like the, the lazy Susan of the Commonwealth.

• 1:16:33Jimmy Carr?

  Yeah. It was, but it was literally so exciting though, walking on. And it was that thing and it was outside and I loved how nervous I was walking.

• 1:16:43Chris Williamson?

  Oh, so you did a little warm up, you be a boyfriend?

• 1:16:45Jimmy Carr?

  Oh, yeah, like a half hour or whatever.

• 1:16:47Chris Williamson?

  Only a half hour.

• 1:16:48Jimmy Carr?

  Yeah, but it was, it was, uh, but it was so fun. And then I kind of thought, oh, this is the way to do it.

• 1:16:54Chris Williamson?

  Sick. I love, I love being friends with you. I think it's so cool to watch you do this stuff.

• 1:16:58Jimmy Carr?

  But pushing yourself and getting to that space is, is, it's really exciting. And then playing America, like playing, I'm sort of traveling across America and. Really trying to, I suppose it's that thing of the, it's the same as the Beatles. You know, you're, you're taking something that is, stand up is an American medium, really. If you think about what America's given the world culturally, it's the Western jazz music and stand up comedy.

• 1:17:22Chris Williamson?

  But I mean, this is a George take where he says Britain has some of the funniest people, some of the funniest comedians, but so few of the world's biggest comedians. What do you think's going on there? Why is it that the UK is able to reliably produce a Jimmy Carr or Ricky Gervais? But most of the big names come out of the States.

• 1:17:41Jimmy Carr?

  I think that might change over time. I think the club culture here has, is very, very healthy. If you think about the Comedy Cellar and the Comedy Store in LA and the communities that they've engendered. And then latterly, the mothership in Austin, the Joe set up. And, you know, I'm not, you know, Yellow Springs is, is, is Dave Chappelle's new thing as well, which is an amazing space. I, I, I think that thing of like, you can't beat your environment and the being around other people and coming up like it's, it's, it's scenes. It's groups of comedians that come up sort of together.

• 1:18:16Jimmy Carr?

  So if you think about Jerry Seinfeld and then, you know, Bagat, Chris Rock, Bagat, Louis CK, all out of the same kind of Comedy Cellar crew, and they're all around each other all the time. I think that really helps to be part of that, that group.

• 1:18:37Chris Williamson?

  I wonder whether the classic British aversion to aiming too high or doing something too different is causing that scene to just stutter a little bit as it grows. Cause when I look at the best, for me, when I look at the best scene in the UK for comedy right now, I'm thinking about guys like Adam Rowe, Finn Taylor, Vittorio.

• 1:19:03Chris Williamson?

  The Screen Rock Guys, Jacob and Jake, like this is kind of the equivalent of the D Gen Podcast Bro Circuit from the US over in the UK.

• 1:19:14Jimmy Carr?

  I wonder with the with the UK as well, it's it's is a great comedy market, like the UK, there's a lot, you could busy yourself very happily for two years touring the UK.

• 1:19:23Chris Williamson?

  And not have to drive far.

• 1:19:24Jimmy Carr?

  And not and be home in your own bed every night and then write a new show and go again. So the the the wanderlust that I have to go out to forty seven countries on tour is maybe slightly unusual, but I think I think as the comedy's gone global relatively recently, right? It was Netflix decided to, and obviously Netflix is based in America, so it's going to lead with the American comics. And then I think it will gradually go out around the world. And what I'm hoping, there just becomes a bigger and bigger thing because comedy is such a a broad church. It's it's kind of wonderful. I mean, I kind of get annoyed when if ever I see a comic slag off another comic. I'm always like, ah, that narcissism of small differences.

• 1:20:07Jimmy Carr?

  We should go, really? It's we're doing exactly the same job, doing the same thing. This is different stylistically. Uh, what do you?

• 1:20:15Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, yeah, I love that. I love that Iron Maiden line, uh, you know, don't try to be the best, try to be the only. Um, I suppose that really only works if you're actually good at what you do. Because if you're if you're not good at what you do, you're like, yeah, I mean, it's awesome that you've created your own unique band of World of Warcraft stand up comedy. Uh, it's a shame that nobody except for you is into it. So.

• 1:20:37Jimmy Carr?

  But I, you know, I I do think that thing of like, there's a with comedy, you find your your audience. You can joke about anything, but not with anyone. And that kind of goes both ways. It's like you you go, your audience is kind of is cool with this stuff. And maybe other people wouldn't be, but it's they you you attract your crowd and you get the audience you deserve ultimately. I mean, if you if you look out and you don't like your audience, you fucked up.

• 1:20:58Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, I mean, that is one of the most fortunate things, I think, about doing doing work that is interesting to you.

• 1:21:07Jimmy Carr?

  Hmm.

• 1:21:08Chris Williamson?

  Is that you will accumulate an audience of people that you would happily hang out with. And look out at the audience at any of the live shows, the one we did in London last year. Uh, sold out the event in Apollo, which was fucking mind blowing. I'm like, there's seven thousand eyes looking at me. And I would happily go for a coffee with like any person in this.

• 1:21:27Jimmy Carr?

  That is such a weird way to think of three and a half thousand people.

• 1:21:30Chris Williamson?

  Seven thousand eyes.

• 1:21:32Jimmy Carr?

  Yes.

• 1:21:32Chris Williamson?

  Well, you see them in.

• 1:21:33Jimmy Carr?

  No one is, no one thinks like that. That's a bizarre way to think about.

• 1:21:37Chris Williamson?

  It's a good way to artificially inflate numbers, though.

• 1:21:41Chris Williamson?

  You're talking to a club promoter who used to inflate numbers for a very, very long time. Turning three thousand five hundred people into seven thousand eyes.

• 1:21:47Jimmy Carr?

  It's packed in there, mate.

• 1:21:48Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:48Jimmy Carr?

  It's packed in.

• 1:21:49Chris Williamson?

  Four hundred eyes.

• 1:21:50Jimmy Carr?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:52Chris Williamson?

  But yeah, and I would happily go for a coffee with any one of them. And I know for a fact that there are fucking tons of people in my industry that couldn't say the same.

• 1:22:01Jimmy Carr?

  Yes, I think that definition of a grifter is, is really powerful.

• 1:22:05Chris Williamson?

  Somebody who is selling a product they wouldn't use themselves. That's it. So I, and we've had a conversation.

• 1:22:10Jimmy Carr?

  We've had such a great thing.

• 1:22:11Chris Williamson?

  We've had a fucking conversation about this. I have an issue because I think it's kind of like the racism concept creep of the online course bro and influencer world. That if grifter and shill means everything, it means nothing. And it's just a, uh, insult that gets thrown around to anybody that seems to be kind of commercializing. It's like if you're selling anything at all, that isn't just yourself or Patreon access. This is some sort of a grift. And what they basically mean is you are monetizing in a manner that I'm uncomfortable with.

• 1:22:42Jimmy Carr?

  I think it's, I think it's very different for different people. Like I did Kill Tony the other night, Tony Hitchcock. And they got a ton of merch. It's like a merch table out the front. And I saw lots of people buying it and the big fans of the show and they love it. And I sell books at the tour shows and that's it. And I don't sell t-shirts. I don't sell pens. I don't sell mugs because I wouldn't buy it.

• 1:23:07Jimmy Carr?

  It's, that's not to say that other comics can't do that because for them, they'd go, yeah, no, a hundred percent. I would wear that.

• 1:23:12Chris Williamson?

  That mug.

• 1:23:12Jimmy Carr?

  I would wear that hoodie. I would wear that t-shirt. What am I gonna do?

• 1:23:17Chris Williamson?

  That's why you've got shares in menswear.

• 1:23:19Jimmy Carr?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:19Chris Williamson?

  Company in Savile Row.

• 1:23:20Jimmy Carr?

  Sure. So yeah, go on. I'm gonna sell Tom Sweeney suits. I'm gonna have tailors on standby in the lobby.

• 1:23:26Chris Williamson?

  Yeah. But I asked on Twitter, I was like, for the people who use the word grifter or shill, give me your best working definition of what that actually means. Like, what is a grifter or a shill? And I was kind of, it was a little bit of a red herring question because I just assumed that nobody would be able to come up with a good definition.

• 1:23:45Jimmy Carr?

  That's a great definition, isn't it? You would sell something you wouldn't buy yourself is so kind of

• 1:23:51Chris Williamson?

  fucking awesome.

• 1:23:51Jimmy Carr?

  QVC from the eighties. It slices, it dices. You're gonna have one of these in your life.

• 1:23:55Chris Williamson?

  Yeah. Well, I just think, okay, that's cool. But in that case, if you have this functional definition, it's pretty easy to work out whether somebody.

• 1:24:05Jimmy Carr?

  Thank you.

• 1:24:05Chris Williamson?

  Have a neutron.

• 1:24:06Jimmy Carr?

  Neutonic, Jimmy. There's no R in it. All right. I came here with a, I came here with a fucking, uh, what's the make of the bag? You've got to put me on.

• 1:24:16Chris Williamson?

  Nomadic.

• 1:24:17Jimmy Carr?

  The nomadic, like the.

• 1:24:18Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, you are fully wisdom-pilled. Yeah.

• 1:24:21Jimmy Carr?

  Oh, man. But I did think sometimes you have a elemental in the morning, in the cold plunge. I got the, I got the new brass monkey cold plunge. Jesus wept. So it's the one, it's the lie down one that, and it has ice that you break through at the top. So you feel like it will throw up ice in the morning. So no, it's just, it just feels better. I mean, I can't do as long in there, obviously, because it's, it's really cold.

• 1:24:48Chris Williamson?

  Yep.

• 1:24:48Jimmy Carr?

  But it's so good.

• 1:24:49Chris Williamson?

  I love how we've slowly sort of rebroed you. There's somebody that sort of turns up in the three-piece suit and all the rest of it. But behind the scenes, it's crocs and socks and cold plunges and element and nomadic and fucking neutonic.

• 1:25:02Jimmy Carr?

  I tell you my, uh, my, uh, let me tell you the story. So I was in, I now stay in hotels based on sauna cold plunge, right? If they've got a sauna and cold plunge, I'll stay in that one.

• 1:25:11Chris Williamson?

  Okay.

• 1:25:11Jimmy Carr?

  Because I like to do it every day. I find it very energizing. I'm not great with meditation. But I think there's a lot of people like me that aren't great with meditation, but I mean, I love Sam Harris's out waking up.

• 1:25:21Chris Williamson?

  It's fantastic.

• 1:25:22Jimmy Carr?

  I do my best. I'm better at listening to talks about it than I am at doing it. Okay, that's fine. But then I find like I can sauna and cold plunge and that's sort of the same thing, right? It's the same vibe of like, just take some time. So staying in these places and I'm staying in this place in Austria. They've got an amazing sauna cold plunge. Right. So I go into the sauna. It's like beautiful facility, huge, like 95 degrees in there, properly hot. So I'm in there and the guy goes, I don't speak German, but shorts, shorts.

• 1:25:56Chris Williamson?

  It's like, I wasn't supposed to be dressed.

• 1:25:57Jimmy Carr?

  Oh, you can't. Okay. I'm gonna take my shorts off and it's fine. There's like three guys in the sauna. Everyone's naked. Fine. We've got towels. Great. Then I do the cold plunge.

• 1:26:08Jimmy Carr?

  And I come out of the cold plunge and I don't know if you've done, you know, it's like five minutes in six degree water and there's some baby dick going on, right? There's some baby dick. And then another guy comes into the sauna as I get out the cold plunge. He has no evidence I've been in the cold plunge. I'm just walking around and I'm like.

• 1:26:30Chris Williamson?

  I need a disclaimer.

• 1:26:31Jimmy Carr?

  Could you come into the sauna with me for a couple of minutes until this? And then what?

• 1:26:38Chris Williamson?

  So Sky that you've just met.

• 1:26:40Jimmy Carr?

  Very odd.

• 1:26:41Chris Williamson?

  We went to his bachelor party in Houston and he likes Asian things, which is why the office looks like that next door.

• 1:26:46Jimmy Carr?

  This is not, not great for him at the moment, if he's listening out there. And I've just said, baby dick. And you've gone, oh, I've got a story.

• 1:26:53Chris Williamson?

  About Sky.

• 1:26:54Jimmy Carr?

  I've got a story about Sky.

• 1:26:55Chris Williamson?

  Yeah. Um, he made us go to, I think it's called the Golden Temple or something. It's the biggest Asian spa in Texas. And this thing has five and nine different sauna rooms and a fucking snow room. And this weird hut thing that you've got to clamber into and the floor's heated and it's insanely hot. Uh, and through the back of the gents, kind of classic Asian spa approach is load of, unisex cold plunges and saunas, but you've got to everyone's dick out. So first off, I was the only person in there with a foreskin. That was interesting, but I walked in to see Sky laid down on a bed with this small Asian man and a loofah. And he just had a towel covering his junk.

• 1:27:40Chris Williamson?

  And this guy, you know, like how people plane the top of varnished tables? But then like, we're gonna get the, we're gonna get the varnish off the top of this table. I'm gonna re-treat it, then we're gonna re-varnish it again. And this guy had a loofah and I was watching him scrub very aggressively.

• 1:27:57Chris Williamson?

  I get that this might be a cultural thing. Everyone in here is naked. The guys getting out of the sauna, per you, sort of hands are open, I've got no problem with my manhood. Everybody getting out of the cold plunge was a little bit more sheepish about the way that they walked around.

• 1:28:12Jimmy Carr?

  Oh, yeah. This is, I tell you, you've come a long way. Is it Middlesbrough you're from?

• 1:28:17Chris Williamson?

  Stockton, yeah, the shit bit of Middlesbrough, yeah.

• 1:28:19Jimmy Carr?

  Stockton?

• 1:28:20Chris Williamson?

  Stockton on tees.

• 1:28:21Jimmy Carr?

  And that's your idea of a stag do now?

• 1:28:23Chris Williamson?

  That was Sky's idea.

• 1:28:24Jimmy Carr?

  Shame on you.

• 1:28:25Chris Williamson?

  I know.

• 1:28:26Jimmy Carr?

  Shame on you. You should have been in Benidorm. You should now have some kind of antibiotic resistant STI.

• 1:28:37Jimmy Carr?

  You went to a sauna. Not even that kind of sauna.

• 1:28:40Chris Williamson?

  You had a Jeffersonian dinner that that weekend as well and followed Shabbat at the same time. Yeah, no, I did. My friends are unbelievably weird. I have, I have some of the strangest friends in the world. I mean, you've been, you were at dinner with us last night. You rocked up to dinner and we've got Craig Jones, second best grappler in the world, maybe the best troll on the planet. Seth Balaile, who is his handler, I suppose. George Mack.

• 1:29:04Jimmy Carr?

  Your handler.

• 1:29:05Chris Williamson?

  Soon to be one of the best writers on the planet. Zach Talander, signed to Conor McGregor's record label, but an ex weightlifter. Your videographer, me, ex fucking reality TV turned podcaster person, Brian Callan and you. And I'm like, this is the shittest version of the Avengers that I've ever seen, but what an eclectic mix.

• 1:29:24Jimmy Carr?

  Yeah, I don't know what crime we were planning, but it wasn't going to go well.

• 1:29:28Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, fuck. Um, I don't know, man, I, I really like. I've liked breaking out of whatever format the UK or whatever life it was that I was supposed to lead, I think. So I don't think I was supposed to lead this one. I feel like this was kind of, you talk about self authoring an agency. I, I think this was something that kind of wasn't written in the stars all that much. I don't know whether you feel that way. You started your thing like.

• 1:29:54Jimmy Carr?

  You made a very big move, like a physical move.

• 1:29:59Jimmy Carr?

  But I think you could have done this in the UK. I think it's the um it's not so much the physical location, it's the it's where you chose to go. I think you you know, you made the move seven years ago.

• 1:30:10Chris Williamson?

  Hmm.

• 1:30:10Jimmy Carr?

  You made the move seven years ago to sit in your bedroom and to go, well, I'm going to talk to interesting people about interesting stuff. That's what happened. Like, everything, the fact now that it's on a grander scale, neither here nor there.

• 1:30:24Chris Williamson?

  Hmm.

• 1:30:24Jimmy Carr?

  Process wise, it's the same thing. You're as inquisitive as you were early on.

• 1:30:30Chris Williamson?

  Unfortunately, even more, actually, I think. Yeah, I don't know. Look, I it's one of the things. I I have two tensions, right? I I have I have a tension between two different poles. One is I don't like to get too big for my boots. I know that it is a bit of a turn off to people to see someone who seems to be too full of himself, especially someone that like presents in the way that I do, especially someone that's doing it through an art form that on the surface anybody can do, and lots of people do do. It's slightly different if you see somebody that plays an instrument, because you think, well, as much as I might not like the fact that they're successful at the saxophone, I can't fucking play the saxophone, right? So there is a kind of hurdle that you need to get over. So the narcissism of small differences, I think that the differences are much smaller when it comes to the art

• 1:31:12Chris Williamson?

  form of podcasting, because let's, you know, it's having a chat. It's just having a chat well, hopefully, when you do it effectively.

• 1:31:20Jimmy Carr?

  I don't think anyone thinks that. I mean, I think you'd have to be insane to think that. It's, you know, if I look at the work that goes into it, if I give it just a the briefest thought.

• 1:31:34Chris Williamson?

  Cursory glance.

• 1:31:35Jimmy Carr?

  A cursory glance at like, the questions you ask, the reading that you've done, the research, the amount of books you have to get through, the the the way that you you need to kind of go, okay, so they've written a book, whether it's really good or really bad, you you you kind of have to get them to

• 1:31:51Chris Williamson?

  Hmm.

• 1:31:51Jimmy Carr?

  present their whole thing. It's like the presentation. It's It's a phenomenal skill set.

• 1:31:56Chris Williamson?

  I appreciate that. That's on.

• 1:31:59Jimmy Carr?

  But so your perception is that you shouldn't appear too successful because.

• 1:32:03Chris Williamson?

  Not only appear too successful, just appear too full of yourself. It's like, oh, you're not that special. Again, it's that British working class mindset that I'm trying to rid myself of. It's why being around people like, like George, like Zach, like Brian, like yourself, people who've got big dreams and sort of blue sky vision. I I I've referred to myself as a criticism hyper responder. I over index on the criticism of others. But so that's one end, right? That is one end. But the other end is

• 1:32:34Chris Williamson?

  if somebody that comes from the most backwater, working class bullshit town, three people living on one person's wage in the northeast of the UK, goes to a school where your entire 200 person, your group has maybe one other person that goes to university. Out of it, everybody is born, lives and dies within a 20 mile radius, for the most part, is able to kind of rip some fucking project off the launchpad and get themselves out to escape velocity in orbit.

• 1:33:06Jimmy Carr?

  Yeah.

• 1:33:06Chris Williamson?

  That should be a really relatable story for most people because it's this

• 1:33:14Chris Williamson?

  pretty accessible combination of

• 1:33:19Chris Williamson?

  effort, curiosity and stubbornness to not stop.

• 1:33:24Jimmy Carr?

  I think it's.

• 1:33:26Jimmy Carr?

  I think you're very working class in the best possible way and you don't waste anyone's time. I'm a bit like seeing the, you know, that kind of inside the actor studio thing, the masterclass, there's a masterclass thing. And Michael Caine did it. Lots of actors have done it. And most actors do it and they tell their life story. And I did this and then I did this and then I did this. And Michael Caine did it, and Michael Caine's working class. And Michael Caine goes, when you look in a camera, I can't do it, Michael Caine, but when you look in the camera, have one eye, look, look at someone in the eye, but look at their, look at their left eye and cheat it and then look the other side. So you just look at one of their eyes. And in the camera, it'll look as if you're looking directly down the lens, but also looking at them.

• 1:34:11Chris Williamson?

  Hmm.

• 1:34:12Jimmy Carr?

  And it's like a practical tip.

• 1:34:13Chris Williamson?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:34:14Jimmy Carr?

  He's not wasting anyone's time.

• 1:34:15Chris Williamson?

  It's very spit and sawdust.

• 1:34:17Jimmy Carr?

  He's a working class guy. He's telling you how to do the functional thing.

• 1:34:19Chris Williamson?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:34:20Jimmy Carr?

  Weirdly, I'm, I'm more working class than you think.

• 1:34:23Chris Williamson?

  Hmm.

• 1:34:23Jimmy Carr?

  Because I'm from Slough and from the farm road in Slough. Next to the Miles factory. I grew up on the, the biggest industrial estate.

• 1:34:31Chris Williamson?

  Education and the current, the current tax bill.

• 1:34:33Jimmy Carr?

  You go, I'm very aware of like, there's, there's reputation in this character. There's how you are perceived. Very important to know how you're perceived. You're very aware of how you're perceived.

• 1:34:43Chris Williamson?

  Hmm.

• 1:34:44Jimmy Carr?

  There's also this character, there's who you know you are.

• 1:34:47Chris Williamson?

  Hmm.

• 1:34:47Jimmy Carr?

  Uh, that thing within you and like where you've come from. And the idea of like, I think people assume I went to private school.

• 1:34:55Chris Williamson?

  Hmm.

• 1:34:56Jimmy Carr?

  People just go, well, yeah, probably. No, of course not. But I, I kind of know that, but you go, you can't change how people, people just have their.

• 1:35:05Chris Williamson?

  Perception.

• 1:35:05Jimmy Carr?

  Yeah, but it, it's okay to lean into that. I think as long as you know.

• 1:35:08Chris Williamson?

  Hmm. Yeah, reputation management's an interesting one that people have. I think so many people are concerned about what do the people think of them, not who they are. I had Dry Creek Dwayne, did you watch that one? The guy with the, the, uh, wrangler horse dude with the big beard.

• 1:35:24Jimmy Carr?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:35:24Chris Williamson?

  Yeah. And, um, he just had this fucking lovely line where he said, I like me. I'd buy me a beer. I thought, what a fucking beautiful self-assessment. I like me. I'd buy me a beer. But he hadn't arrived there overnight. It took him a long time to become the sort of person that he liked. And I guess some people start further off. Maybe some people are more scrutinizing around who it is that they feel they need to become before they would buy them a beer.

• 1:35:54Chris Williamson?

  But I thought that was a lovely internal metric of a place that we should all want to get to. I wanna like me. I wanna be the sort of person that I'd buy a beer.

• 1:36:04Jimmy Carr?

  Yeah. I'd buy you a beer. This has been great.

• 1:36:10Chris Williamson?

  I want to know what relationship people should have with their inner critic.

• 1:36:14Jimmy Carr?

  Um, I think it's, I don't know, I, I think it's very healthy, isn't it? It's very healthy to have um, an inner critic, but it's also, it's the, there's the golden rule. And then there's the, there's the platinum rule, right? There's the treat others as you want to be treated. And then there's the treat yourself as you treat others.

• 1:36:37Chris Williamson?

  Hmm.

• 1:36:38Jimmy Carr?

  Most people are very kind, like you're nicer to me than you are to yourself.

• 1:36:45Jimmy Carr?

  Like i- i- if you said the shit you say to yourself to me, we wouldn't be friends. Um, and I think that thing of like the, the inner critic has to be, it's um, as long as it's process driven. I think it's, it's very, very healthy. It's like imposter syndrome, it's yeah, okay, feel like an imposter for a while. As long as it gives you, as long as you can get that to a granular level where it gives you something to work on. Like the inner critic can't just be, it can't just be like, that's bad. It's got to be, oh, that, that didn't work, so we need to change it. Or that one's, that one's not going to work, so we're gonna write something new. It, it's got to be something that's like, uh, you're working towards something, you're aiming up.

• 1:37:29Jimmy Carr?

  And I think criticism is very important. I mean, Walt Disney used to do this thing where he had like the, he had three rooms. You know, this thing of like one for creativity, uh, one for sort of um, management, like how would you do the idea? And then it was only in the third room that you were allowed to be critical. It's kind of fun idea of like going to sort of.

• 1:37:52Chris Williamson?

  No bad ideas.

• 1:37:53Jimmy Carr?

  Compartementalize. Well, I do think that thing of like, never refuse the muse. If you're working in anything creative, just write it down. Something comes to you, you just, yeah.

• 1:38:02Chris Williamson?

  That's another one, right? Inspiration is perishable, act on it immediately.

• 1:38:06Jimmy Carr?

  Yeah.

• 1:38:07Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, there's a, a Tim Ferriss says, the world rewards the specific ask and punishes the vague wish. And I think that sort of inner critic voice can expand out into, I don't feel good about the thing I did. Okay, well, that's probably the first place that everybody gets it. I'm not, not really too sure about why, but there's some sense of discontent about something that just happened or something that I'm about to do. Probably very normal. You don't know where it's coming from and you don't know what it's about and you don't know what to do to fix it. Okay, so how about we get away from the vague critic? And we move toward the specific coach with regards to this. Okay, so what precisely is it that you're concerned about?

• 1:38:51Chris Williamson?

  Well, I don't feel fully prepared for the presentation I've got to give tomorrow. Okay, is that fair? Do you know that it's true? Do you think that you haven't prepared enough? Well, I actually have prepared quite a lot, to be honest. I think this is probably just my fear trying to be sneaky and sort of turn itself into a way that I'm going to believe it. All right, well, what are you going to do about it? Well, I'll just check my notes a few more times and actually, huh, it seems like I do know this pretty well.

• 1:39:16Jimmy Carr?

  The, the, yeah, the inner critic, it's not often wrong. It's just you can say it in a nice way. You know, it's, it, it, sometimes it's right. Sometimes you fuck up. Sometimes it's not, it's not, it wasn't good enough. And that's okay. It's like, it's the, um, it's that idea of like going, um, it's not repetition, it's iteration. It's like lots of different, you know, doing the same thing again and again doesn't make you better, but like tweaking it. And knowing what to tweak is that, that you have to listen to an inner critic. I think the, the, um, uh, is it Hormozzi? Uh, it's, Hormozzi is so good for quotes, but it's, I think it was, um, uh,

• 1:39:59Jimmy Carr?

  self-confidence without evidence is delusion. Some version of that.

• 1:40:03Chris Williamson?

  Confidence, confidence without competence is delusion.

• 1:40:06Jimmy Carr?

  Yeah, it's, it's so true. And you do meet people along the way that have that incredible confidence or they, they, they sort of exude that and then they, they don't have the, the confidence.

• 1:40:18Chris Williamson?

  Anything to back it up.

• 1:40:19Jimmy Carr?

  And you go, well, no, no, you need to, you need to be able to back. So finding that, I think it's very, I think without that inner critic, I think we would all be kind of delusional, wandering around going, yeah, you know.

• 1:40:28Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, George says, uh, does someone with half your talent but five times yourself believe making 10 times the money?

• 1:40:34Jimmy Carr?

  Yes, and that's that's true for for every British person, there's an American.

• 1:40:38Chris Williamson?

  Exactly. Well, I mean, I I think for the perennial over thinkers,

• 1:40:46Chris Williamson?

  reframing this very well trodden landscape of inner criticism. A lot of the way that you can look at that is I'm fragile. You know, my my self belief exists on a knife edge. It feels like I'm tightrope walking confidence, perhaps. I think a better way to look at it is you're not fragile, you're just finely tuned. And in the same way as a Ferrari can go really, really fast, especially around a track. But if you don't treat it very well, it's probably going to break down quite a lot, actually. And if you treat it really well, it's still going to have a couple of hiccups and days where it doesn't fully operate rightly. But yeah, you're not fragile, you're finely tuned, is a nice reframe.

• 1:41:29Jimmy Carr?

  It's so easy to be kind to other people and sometimes so difficult to be kind to yourself. So you wouldn't let someone else speak to a friend like that. You just wouldn't stand for it. And yet you're in a critic, you're just like, yeah, yeah, say terrible things to me.

• 1:41:44Chris Williamson?

  Just accept it as it comes. Yeah. I uh, that idea on you had a position and disposition. This has happened a couple of times. I misremember things that guests tell me, and then I write about the thing that I misremembered. And what you realize is that you've actually built on something that they didn't mean. And I think I told you about this before, but I'm gonna I'm gonna tell you about it again. So uh, this is after our first episode, 18 months ago, something like that. My chat with Jimmy Carr a few weeks ago inspired an idea. I've been reflecting on how your trajectory is way more important than your position. If you're number two in the world, but last year you were number one, that is way worse than sitting at number 150, but being on a huge upward slope from 312 months ago. There's a few reasons for this.

• 1:42:27Chris Williamson?

  Recency bias, if your value is increasing right now, that means you have to be popular at the moment. By looking at recent trajectory, you are selecting for only the few people who are trendy right now, which is really all that we can remember. We can also romanticize where someone will be in future if they're currently hot stuff. How high might they climb? Who knows? Maybe to the top, maybe even beyond the top. Humans struggle to realize that everything is temporary, including growth and decline. Instead, it's easier to label people as heroes and losers based on what we know of them right now, so we don't have to predict a messy future. There's an old saying, saying that there's three types of people on the ladder. One at the bottom, one at the middle, and one at the top. Which one is the best to be? The one that's still climbing.

• 1:43:10Jimmy Carr?

  Yeah. No, I think, I think it's fantastic. It's very well put. Um, yeah, I think that, especially in show business, trajectory really seems to be such an important metric. And it's like, you could be half the size of some other comic, but they've been around 20 years and they always sell out the arena. So who cares?

• 1:43:29Chris Williamson?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:43:30Jimmy Carr?

  It's like, it's-

• 1:43:30Chris Williamson?

  Novelty, dopamine, this is new, recency bias.

• 1:43:34Jimmy Carr?

  Yeah, I think there's a, there's a thing this year where, um, Oasis are playing.

• 1:43:39Chris Williamson?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:43:39Jimmy Carr?

  Uh, and it's a big deal. People are very excited about it. And I think Coldplay are doing, I think it's 10 or 11 nights at Wembley Stadium.

• 1:43:48Chris Williamson?

  Everyone's like Chris Martin, bored of you being around for ages.

• 1:43:53Jimmy Carr?

  Yeah, well, of course you are. Yeah, you're a big band. But it's like, but it's not like, uh, an event culturally in the same way that Oasis coming together is. There's a, there's a narrative to that and a trajectory of kind of where they are that's, and Coldplay have just been steadily, yeah, listen, and if Taylor Swift does 15 nights next year, it'll be a, yeah, yeah, of course, of course.

• 1:44:14Chris Williamson?

  Accepted.

• 1:44:15Jimmy Carr?

  Yeah. So that thing of like other people getting excited about it. And I think, I don't know what it feels like to be, uh, you know, in Coldplay at the moment and maybe people aren't making as much fuss. I hope they're celebrating. I hope they're, I hope they're taking time to go, this is fantastic.

• 1:44:30Chris Williamson?

  It's a question again of what, what happens when you arrive. Let's say that the things that you want to have happen, happen.

• 1:44:38Chris Williamson?

  What then? Okay, I will be happy when I get to do Wembley. Ah, but no, I need to run it back because I need to prove that it wasn't a fluke. I it's got to be two nights at Wembley because, you know, the goal, it that's the reason the gold medal didn't feel right because it could have been a fluke. So I need to, I need to do it twice to prove that the first one wasn't a fluke. And, oh, I would, because the three, because the-

• 1:45:01Jimmy Carr?

  Or is it a process thing where they just go, yeah, keep doing what you're doing? Keep doing what you're doing. Keep, you know, if it's, you know, however you want to frame it, you know, if you're hard charging. You're like, if you're working hard because you go, well, this is, this is an opportunity.

• 1:45:16Chris Williamson?

  It's what I like to do.

• 1:45:18Jimmy Carr?

  Yeah.

• 1:45:18Chris Williamson?

  I, you know, as I've reached whatever level of

• 1:45:23Chris Williamson?

  micro niche degenerate fame, success thing that I have done.

• 1:45:27Jimmy Carr?

  I think it's okay not to do the throat clearing on that.

• 1:45:30Chris Williamson?

  Hmm. The British, the British person in me is-

• 1:45:33Jimmy Carr?

  As I've reached this level of success, it's okay to say that.

• 1:45:35Chris Williamson?

  Thank you. As I've reached this level of success.

• 1:45:38Jimmy Carr?

  Yeah.

• 1:45:39Chris Williamson?

  Uh, the thing that I've realized is

• 1:45:45Chris Williamson?

  if you create all of the external accolades that are associated with success, but the thing that you have done to get there is not fully aligned. The success feels unbelievably hollow, and this is not something that I've done with the show. But you see it in micro wobbles when episodes that are, I'm really passionate about. It's someone that I wake up on the morning and like, I cannot wait to speak to this person. This is going to be so fucking cool. Today was one of those days. And then there's other ones where I go, yeah, this is like, I'm going to be, I'm going to be interested in talking to this person, but I'm not like super fired up. Even if the other episode that I wasn't super fired up about

• 1:46:27Chris Williamson?

  does 10 times the plays or 100 times the plays, it's number one on Spotify and it does all of this stuff. But it was okay, I guess. Like, it was fine-ish. But it doesn't feel the same as something that's 1% as successful, but much more existentially aligned. And again, this is another unteachable lesson that success derived from something that isn't authentic, doesn't feel like success.

• 1:46:52Jimmy Carr?

  Well, it's, it's slightly that thing of like, what's the, you know, money, money, it won't give you happiness, unless you want it.

• 1:47:02Jimmy Carr?

  Like a lottery win doesn't mean anything.

• 1:47:04Chris Williamson?

  Hmm.

• 1:47:04Jimmy Carr?

  It tends not to bring people happiness because they didn't earn it. But if you earn it, then it's it's got a meaning. It's like there's no benefit. I'm sure I could get some kind of helicopter to fly me to the top of Everest and have a look around. No one does that because there's nothing in it.

• 1:47:22Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 1:47:22Jimmy Carr?

  The view isn't, I'm sure the view is great, but it's the climb is the thing. And the idea of going, the episodes that really resonate with you and are important to you. And you go, well, that's just, that's giving you direction. That's the gift of going, oh, more guests like that, less guests like that. And then you're not looking, and the metric that you're using is the feeling.

• 1:47:48Chris Williamson?

  Fulfillment, vibe.

• 1:47:49Jimmy Carr?

  So it's the vibe and it's you're not looking at the figures and going, well, that went through the roof. But it's not, I didn't want to talk to that person.

• 1:47:56Chris Williamson?

  Didn't resonate in the same sort of way.

• 1:47:58Jimmy Carr?

  Yeah, and I think actually, for your listeners as well, I think it's actually very important to have the balance. I think it's what you don't want to do is, is, um, it's not audience capture, but it's, it's, um, you, you're feeling a certain way at the moment and you go, right, well, I want to talk to these people. And you could be siloed into just, okay, well, I just talked to these guys. And it could just be health and fitness. And then someone comes on and talks about economics, you go, well, this is boring. I'm not really interested in, in money in that way, so whatever. But the audience might be, and then it might awaken something in you and you'll ask more interesting questions of that person than they would have got somewhere else.

• 1:48:39Jimmy Carr?

  So it is that thing of like going, actually, the, for me, certainly the idea of this show is that it's quite a broad church. And if you don't keep on split testing guests that are, oh, yeah, no, maybe I'll chat to them. That might be, that might be something.

• 1:48:57Chris Williamson?

  You're not necessarily the best judge of what you're going to enjoy, right? It's, I, I kind of think, and maybe this is the same when it comes to the comedy stuff too, to avoid being too stagnant. I think there's been a bunch of specials that I've seen recently, some of which have been, wow, that's like, that's really, really good. Others where you go, kind of feel like this guy did this thing before and. Maybe this is a bit repetitive.

• 1:49:21Jimmy Carr?

  Well, there's a, there's a balance, isn't there of like, it's, it's growth, uh, but also in service. So you go, I always think, you know, comedy specials, um, you go, yeah, it's, it's. All my comedy specials are exactly the same and totally different. It's me and it's two hundred jokes in a row. And that's the thing. And like, you know, how much crowd work you put in there and, you know, what kind of jokes? It's as funny as I can be. And I think if I released one and it was a, a heartfelt story about love, people go, well, that's not, no, I didn't.

• 1:49:55Chris Williamson?

  Too much of departure.

• 1:49:56Jimmy Carr?

  You could, yeah, yeah. And you can do a little bit of that. You can do a little bit of talking about stuff that is meaningful to you within that. But you've, you've got to serve as well. So it's not all, it's not all for you. It's for the audience.

• 1:50:09Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, it's an interesting one. I, I, I certainly think that if you feel like substantially aligned with stuff, the more that you do that, the less you're going to feel like, uh, the more, uh, you're going to feel connected to the successes that come along with it.

• 1:50:22Jimmy Carr?

  I just think that there is that thing of like the success in whatever term that is, whether it's, um,

• 1:50:28Jimmy Carr?

  a, a financial lifestyle, uh, feeling, whatever. It's, it's, um, it's a lagging indicator of good decisions you made.

• 1:50:36Chris Williamson?

  A long time ago.

• 1:50:37Jimmy Carr?

  Seven years ago. Oh, I'll do three shows a week. I don't know when you made that decision.

• 1:50:41Chris Williamson?

  Covid.

• 1:50:42Jimmy Carr?

  Yeah, that's insane. It's an insane work ethic. And that's me saying this. It's like, it's a lot of prep to have to do. It's a lot of work to put in. It's a lot of reps. But my God, it's paying off.

• 1:50:58Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, stubbornness is a, and consistency, stubbornness or consistency is a hell of a performance enhancer. Just, it's the one, the one way, and you've spoken about this too. How are you presuming that you're going to be able to beat somebody who does one thing if you're doing two things? At the very least, you need to be twice as good.

• 1:51:19Jimmy Carr?

  Yeah.

• 1:51:20Chris Williamson?

  In order to be able to keep up just with where they're at. In order to be able to beat them, you need to be like two and a half times as good.

• 1:51:25Jimmy Carr?

  Yeah, it's, you know, you, you, and you see people that are spreading themselves incredibly thinly. And they're taking, I suppose it's that thing of like the things you won't do, coming back to that. The opportunities that are presented to you in show business, the things that you could be distracted by, the invites you get, the stuff you could go to and you go, yeah, but I've got to, got to work.

• 1:51:43Chris Williamson?

  This is another one of those insights that I think people early in the journey need to be aware of. Essentialism by Greg McKeown was a huge influence on me. Okay, doing less but better. You know, the highest point of contribution. What is that? And get, you know, very, very offensively, get rid of all of the rest of the things. But if person watching this, who is trying to get more clients than they have now as a personal trainer, or a person that's writing on the internet and wants to get more opportunities to go and do live speaking, or whatever it is that your goal is, as you continue to get better and better and better at the thing that you do, more opportunities are going to come along, which means that your no's need to be more discerning, not less.

• 1:52:28Chris Williamson?

  So you have this weird inversion where as more opportunities come along that are better, that only eighteen months ago, you would have begged to have had the opportunity to be in the room to have pitched, to have been able to say yes, Sue, you now need to be able to say no.

• 1:52:42Jimmy Carr?

  Dave Chappelle had a great line on this, like, I think someone told him very early on, your only power in show business is no.

• 1:52:52Jimmy Carr?

  He did a thing on a series two of the Chappelle Show, I'm not sure if this is a known thing, I'm sure I can talk about this. On the second series of the Chappelle Show, they were in negotiations and he said,

• 1:53:05Jimmy Carr?

  make me an offer. And if I don't like your opening offer, I'm walking.

• 1:53:14Jimmy Carr?

  It's great. Someone gave me that advice years ago, like when I had a proper job. They said, if you get offered a, you know, an amount of money for a job, whatever it is, don't even look at it. Just write back and go, I'm a little bit disappointed.

• 1:53:31Jimmy Carr?

  Don't even look at what the offer is. Just go, I'm a little bit disappointed.

• 1:53:35Jimmy Carr?

  Doesn't matter what the number. It helps if you don't look.

• 1:53:39Jimmy Carr?

  Because you think, I can't say I'm a little bit disappointed, but it kind of works.

• 1:53:43Chris Williamson?

  Jimmy Carr, ladies and gentlemen. Jimmy, you're awesome, man. I love you. And thank you for coming to see me. Thank you for staying for an extra day. So I know you've got somewhere to go to.

• 1:53:51Jimmy Carr?

  It's great. I think, I think, I think you know, I like the show.

• 1:53:57Jimmy Carr?

  Proud to be a small part of it.

• 1:53:59Chris Williamson?

  I appreciate you, man. Until next time.

• 1:54:00Jimmy Carr?

  Lovely. Take care.

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