russell kane he's known as a

multi-award-winning comedian

presenter actor author and scriptwriter

but man

this guy is so much more i started doing

all this biohacking and to

survive on less sleep to not lose your

hair or

to slow down the aging process

it [ __ ] my life in the proper sense

everything fell apart

like a junkie how can i get more of that

my relationship with my girlfriend fell

apart

my bill started to not be paid i started

to look thin

it's the closest thing to a drug

addiction i've ever experienced

[Music]

russell kane he's known as a

multi-award-winning comedian

presenter actor author and scriptwriter

but man this guy is so much more he's

genuinely deeply intellectually curious

something that honestly surprised me

and this sounds like it might be a

offensive or a weird thing to say but

i'm going to say it anyway

i didn't realize how smart this guy is

remarkably self-aware and on to top it

all off

brutally honest he says that how it is

he has an ability to point out things

that i think most of us muggles miss

and he's also genuinely just a really

nice and hilarious human being

today you won't hear many jokes this is

the more serious side of russell cain

and a side of him that i did not know

and would not have guessed

before speaking to him so without

further ado i'm stephen bartlett

and this is the diary of a ceo i hope

nobody's listening but if you are

then please keep this to yourself

[Music]

russell hello one of the things i read

when i was um reading about your story

was a quote um and i'm gonna read the

quote to you

you said i remained a boy while he was

alive

even when i was 18 and i needed to be a

man to tell these stories

what were you talking about when you

said that um well i don't think that's

true of just me i think any

boy or probably girl who has a

reasonably overbearing and dominant

father you sort of remain

a child now that i'm a father myself i

can see that's true so when my daughter

mina is

40 she's still gonna be my my baby so

that's the positive side of it

the negative side of it is if it's quite

an overbearing masculine

energy you saw i felt sometimes a bit

like a bonsai like i kept nearly growing

and then the roots were trimmed so i was

fully grown but small

so if my dad was in the room you know i

was instantly

a child like i would say inside so it's

just a very dominating figure and i

think that would have been the same

had my dad not dropped down dead from a

heart attack years ago

i think that would have been the same

when i'd been 40 50 60 if my dad had

been

90 year old shouting in the corner

probably still would have been like that

even if he wasn't in the room

no no when as soon as what in his

presence i think but so far as this

that i think that quote might be talking

about stand up yeah

i wouldn't have dared to tell the funny

stories about him while he was alive i

don't think just on the risk

he he was offended or you know there'd

be consequences

what was he like for anybody that hasn't

read you about your story

um steroid taking shaven headed

silverback doorman right wing angry

council estate working class barbell

curl

semi-professional bodybuilder lifeguard

sheet metal worker lager

nutter by lager i don't mean someone who

gets on it i mean someone who puts

the insulation on the outside of pipes

the hardest job you can imagine crawling

in boilers

ripping out asbestos fiberglass cut

hands white transit van gaal it away

just massive shirts tail this is when

he's taking steroids that was

before i was born shirts tailored

trousers splitting hulk like at the

thigh just a force

of meat called dave that was my dad

actually call dave

dave actually called dave from essex

um so yeah he was just very old school

so even though

he's like more like someone who was born

in about 1920 he had sort of the

politics and the attitude very

unreconstructed masculinity

quite knuckle draggy but

just would just worked himself to death

to provide

barely raised his voice at me and

certainly never laid a finger on me but

didn't didn't need to

i find the truly terrifying cockney can

just give you summer you [ __ ] get in

near

now and you're you're done i i i i

actually pissed came out of my body once

when he spoke to me like that

really i literally pissed myself i was

i'd thrown my brother on the bed and he

was crying

and there's nothing scarier than hearing

though on the stairs if you've done

something to your brother or sister

and you know your dad's coming up the

stairs and he's like what happened what

have you done your brother had to piss

myself

and that guy never laid a finger on me

that's power my mom definitely laid her

finger

i don't think i would have been scared

of her if she didn't but i was [ __ ]

terrified of my mum

like but she she would beat me like but

my but i couldn't imagine

how she could have achieved that same

objective without

hitting me with something it's it's it

would be analogous of the nuclear

deterrent threat

if you know i've got nuclear weapons i

don't need to fire them for you not to

attack me so i know

i knew my dad had whereas i just sounds

incredibly sexist but the reality is

once you're a 14 15 year old lad

you're the same size as your mum there

are no you know

wearing the nuclear weapon she's got to

put her money where her mouth is but

haven't you got to know how nuclear

weapons work

to to know that they're i just

to be honest with you my dad's giving me

so many positive things it's just that

the negative things are funny

so that's why i talk about them

disproportionately but to teach someone

i'm five foot ten like a pepper army

with hair on but when i stand on

stage i don't need to hit people or

shout they

they sit in their seats and some of them

in the front row [ __ ] themselves if i

even look at them

so who have i learned that from it's

partly my craft

but it's partly also what a good teacher

has

uh what a good dad has like my dad and

what a good stand-up has

male or female that authority to stand

there and hold a room

with a reasonable tone in the voice pin

drop

is powerful it's harder for a mum to do

that particularly where i grabs a lot of

single mums

um when you've got teenage lads that are

sort of thinking what you're going to do

it becomes like an arms race where the

mum starts hitting the legs and hitting

the face

and it's needed because that's what the

mum's got to work with i suppose that's

why that's why i do believe this is so

sexist and old school

but i do believe if not a man

two parental figures in in place one who

can play the badass doesn't matter if

it's two women two

men whatever i think if you've got two

it's double the force raising a child

takes a village you i remember you know

the way you've described your dad is

um is quite different from who you are

today and who you are over the last

10 years i mean yeah and almost the

antithesis and i remember

reading about the fact that you took a

dna test at some point

i took a dna test just out of curiosity

because i'm big into

science i wanted to know what diseases i

was carrying

i've always been fascinated about my

ethnic makeup because my family history

starts in living memory i'm obviously a

little bit

darker than i should be to be a brit you

know i thought i

wanted i was interested to know what was

in there but

part of me did go what if this is the

moment i discover my dad's not my

my dad it did cross my mind which is

totally absurd sorry mum if you're

watching

um because he was blonde hair

blond curly hair blue eyes very

wide um it's just that which is not

nothing in common my brother is the

spirit of my dad

but i'm like i'm not my mum just

energetic pepper army with hair on

running around

bouncing out of bed stick first thing in

the morning and like

in terms of like generational cycles

where did

your dad get it from so he always used

to say to me i never had a dad

so why about okay so then my mum would

my mum would say so you've got to

understand your dad didn't

get taught how to be at my mum's game

man your mom didn't get talked

your mum did your dad didn't get taught

how to be a dad so he just know what he

didn't know how to be around babies he's

never learned that sort of thing he

never

he didn't have anyone to guide him so

quite a rough childhood

his dad walked out on him when he was

about i think he was about two

and my dad's mom's hard as nails he's

eastenders well his essex back then

barking

and it was just a tough childhood you

know tough east london

essex childhood where you you just

survived basically

and uh he he had a lot of

dreams i think he would have liked to

have gone the same way i did he was

quite a good-looking bloke so he got

scouted for modeling and things like

that he pursued that for a bit he'd

pursued the professional bodybuilding

even tried to stand up i think like a

pontins or a butlins he tried a little

bit of acting

only for a couple of years and then he

went into the hardest

i think of all the manual labour you can

do which is

sheet metal and insulation so that like

i say crawling along pipes and all that

so there's a lot of bitterness a lot of

unrealized dreams a lot of abandoned by

your dad a lot of

hardness and negativity there from the

childhood and that plagued him his whole

life

so if we were on a beautiful four-star

holiday to minorco and the sun shining

part of him would be thinking about the

five-star holiday he could have

i'm not like that at all how did you

know how did you know he was thinking

that

well he would voice it half the time how

what would he say

uh yeah it's all right imagine if i get

the big job imagine if we would come

back he'd be quite positive on holiday

actually

but he was like just imagine julie if we

if we had more math my mom of course

julian dave

if we had more money that house we could

have and my mom would be like dave we

bought our own council house thanks

thatcher it's a big

house the biggest house in the street

we've got pillars out the front yes it's

a former council house we've got pillars

we've got a swimming pool in the garden

three beautiful bedrooms lovely bathroom

massive house dining room front room

two healthy sons at the point my brother

was very unwell by the time he was 17

but at that point

what was there to be negative about my

it's hard job my dad did but

good money but he couldn't see that he

could just see his mate who started a

glass company and now his son drove a

lambo and he lived in chickwell and

i don't and when my dad passed away we

were going through the shed at the

bottom of the garden and i found his

diary

and it was lit it was honestly it was

one of the few things that made me cry

when he died because i sort of toughened

up to help with the funeral all that

because my brother was ill by then

and uh it's just rained today didn't get

the job

[ __ ] day james being a can i swear yeah

james being a [ __ ] and that's my brother

[ __ ] day

[ __ ] curry it was like the diary of

someone

in prison that's what it was like it was

it's so weird that someone could be rich

and not know it

i love making money don't get me wrong

but i'm really good

at enjoying what i've got so i've

enjoyed every level of my comedy journey

and i've never been bothered about

whether i go further or not because i

feel like if you can have two banging

holidays a year

and you love the house you're living in

and your family is healthy done

he was engaging in upward social

comparisons right the whole time and if

you do that you're never going to be

happy absolutely and you see that with

people

in in my profession that are earning a

million pounds a year two million a year

when they're in debt

because they're buying an ap watch every

week and they're going to the maldives

four times a year and they've got

they're in a 10 million pound house so

they should be in a 5 million pound it's

ridiculous

that's consumerism but it worked on a

more micro level

so we would if we're going to stanton

airport to fly to menorca

traffic's probably going to be [ __ ] on

the way to the airport i bet you the

traffic will be [ __ ] so we're already

he's pre-imagining the traffic jam will

be in

if we hit a traffic jam [ __ ] knew it

holiday we'll probably miss the flight

holidays [ __ ] julie i [ __ ] told you

we should have gone for

i [ __ ] told you he didn't shout maybe

he would shout to himself sort of thing

did you ever figure out where he learnt

that behavior where that came from no

idea like i said it was just

all the bitterness and negativity and

expecting things to go wrong

that was his tape his script so if we

were in a restaurant and

i'd be seven years old and i'd spill a

glass of water not coke or anything so

he's not gonna get sticky legs

he'd be like water everywhere a [ __ ]

meal ruin i've got to sit here like i

pissed myself for the entire movie

it'll be like the worst thing in the

world has happened like someone at that

moment's probably found

a lump on their body but to my dad the

worst thing that can happen

so he i felt sorry looking back now

you've got you've got to feel compassion

and love

because it was just a constant tide of

self-hate and negativity basically and

imagining

if we go and buy um something from ikea

that needs putting up

you know a screw will be missing and

it's because i'm me because i'm

cursed the [ __ ] screw will be missing

you can guarantee it

[ __ ] that all the time so for a

little boy growing up you've got to work

really hard

not to absorb that i i see hints of that

in my dad especially as he got older a

little bit more negative about

everything

moods you know seem to be irritable at a

lot of things and one of the things that

crossed my mind was

i hope this isn't genetic like how do i

avoid

becoming this guy when i get to that age

has that crossed your mind that

the generational cycle might

continue to some degree without you

noticing

obviously yeah i mean see him so my

brother i don't i can't really go into

my brother's illness because he's

literally not well enough to consent for

me to talk about it

otherwise i would happily discuss it

because it's an important subject to

talk about but he's got

some severe mental health issues let's

just leave it there so my brother's

really sort of

unrefreshingly unaware of his mannerisms

and gestures and postures if you like

and it's just like my he's like my old

man

so how can your like the way

your voice and the cadence of a sentence

and the glances and the way you

you say no i mean and stuff like that it

is my old man

so i mean on some genetic level there

are copies of

how we express ourselves there must be

but

apart from maybe your height

i can't think of anything you can't

change with

loads of loads of ways education

cognitive behavioral therapy if you need

it i never have but you can

um you can work on the way you eat your

diet your lifestyle all of those

you know genetics is not destiny one of

the most fascinating things you can look

up is identical twin studies over and

over again

you'll get one twin that's two inches

taller than the other

where he's had a more successful not two

inches but it might be an inch taller

where he's had a more successful life

eating better food so you can literally

grow taller

they're they're genetically identi

identical so you can't tell me i'm

destined

to suddenly be negative about traffic

jams if two identical twins can

be different in height you must be able

to push against behavior

you see that film through identical

strangers yes fantastic yeah amazing

absolutely fantastic yeah yeah made me

upset

yeah it's inspired chris you know the

ending is obviously tragic but uh

yeah really powerful film and i think

that shines a light on how it does

it gives hope for all of us that you're

not you're only 50

of your dad and 50 of your mum and uh

although you're actually slightly more

of your your mom i've learned how anyway

but um so you don't you're not if you're

only 50

if twins aren't destined to be the same

you're not destined to be the same as a

parent it's it's

it's bad it's a bad way to think

particularly if it's a negative it's a

good way to think if there's something

you want to copy tell yourself it chant

it

you want to be more like my mom she's

such a cool cat or whatever

we we have also grown up in a slightly

different culture especially in the last

sort of 10 20 years where we're much

more aware of our psychology right

and our and our and how trauma and

childhood experiences have shaped us as

adults

whereas i think my dad probably didn't

know so it was like

someone back there in the control room

running the show without him and he was

just a puppet to the [ __ ] he'd been

through whereas we are kind of a bit

more open as a society now so

yeah that that's my biggest learning

men's mental

health comes on the spectrum it doesn't

mean mentally if we have mental health

everyone has men if we have physical

health we have mental health

even if you have no issues that's good

you are mental health

so mental health runs on on a spectrum

to people that

are cooking on for hobbs like me and you

hopefully

all the way down to people like my

brother who are severely severely ill

with cognition issues

and people who are severely ill or

people who are trapped in time

like our dads before an awakening they

don't have

insight into their current state if you

do not have

insight into your condition you are

screwed because if you're let's say for

example schizophrenic

without insight into the fact you have

schizophrenia you will not take the

medicine

you just won't take it you'll look at

the pill and go well i don't

i'm not healed so you'll you'll be in

assisted accommodation your entire life

if you're schizophrenic but know you

have schizophrenia chances are you can

have a relatively normal life because

you know

i'm i need to take my medicine and that

but you can translate that thinking

to any aspect of business or commerce to

stand-ups to entrepreneurs

because i've noticed i call it black box

thinking from the matthew syed book

the moment you can have insight into a

stand-up routine

or into a business proposition in a

proper way where you can look it and go

that doesn't work

you're going to be successful people

that don't have insight into themselves

in their personal lives they end up

single they end up in unhappy

relationships

because they can't see their own

thoughts they can't insight into

themselves and go this

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i mean this is just an impossibly tough

question yeah because we're talking

about self-awareness really right so

like how does and people

people have asked me this question for

the last five years and i really don't

have a great answer still

how does one become more self-aware well

i it was literally part of my degree

i'm very lucky here we go i started

doing english literature because i

wanted to do the most show-off on

council estate posh subject possible way

i mean i was going to get a first or i

was i don't know what was going to

happen so i told myself i'm going to get

a first amount what

that was pre-ordained

so i did two years of showing off about

you know roland bartz and jane austen

and all that and there was an

opportunity in the last year

to cross over into creative writing and

the reason i did that

is again goes back to my dad it's not

very practical to be absolutely badass

on jane austen unless you're going to

want to be a lecturer or an academic

whereas creative writing um is a

practical profession

you can go into advertising you can go

into journalism you can try and write

books you can as it turns out go into

stand-up i didn't know that yet

there's loads of places where you can go

look i've not just got a first in

english

i've got a first in in writing i can

take body copy and make your

brand pop so par

how do you do a dissertation in creative

writing there's only one way

you have to submit ten thousand words

normal academic pouncing about and you

have to submit ten thousand word short

story play

but you have to run through your own

work and criticize it and say what you

got right and what you got wrong

once you've been through that and done

it loads of times

it just becomes natural to bring it to

your life a copywriter in an advertising

agency has to be able to

really hate his own work he just created

and

find the faults in it because that will

lift it above

ogilvy's copywriter and you'll win the

pitch

it's as simple as that the person the

man who cannot realize he's domineering

or jealous and work on that

will not have a fruitful relationship

woman or a man indeed in order to do

that with your life or with your copy or

with your work or whatever in marketing

you have to have a certain level of

self-esteem and personal security to be

to allow yourself to rise above your

work and look back down on it in a

critical way a lot of people's

self-esteem are so fragile

yeah that the prospect of being critical

is uh it's just unthinkable

like you know this is why people get to

from my experience where people get so

defensive and

because they're because they're so if

you one shot to their self-esteem will

take the whole house down

so that they immediately go like this

hat likes so you could look at it that

way

so i would say that person needs to

learn not

self-esteem because self-esteem's a

totally different conversation

they need to learn objectivity a piece

of writing is a thing

a relationship is a thing that you've

built with someone

a comedy routine is a thing a poem is a

thing the things over there that's not

you

you have to practice being able to take

the piss out of the thing

criticize the thing no someone's not

coming up to you and going you're ugly

um you're unlovable uh you've got a big

nose you're not tall enough stuff like

that

is gonna hurt and there's no way of

getting objective but if you can't look

at a poem you've written and someone

goes i really love the meter but the

adjective there's a bit obvious

then you should be able to thank that

person they're giving you a gift

if they know their [ __ ] but you're the

one that should be saying that first

eminem style eight mile seize the bars

and turn them on yourself first

hard to do because everything is better

it makes better work it makes better

humans

yeah i completely agree it's just really

tough to do like

practice it's practice i get a lot of um

i this is the message i get most often

sent to me by my agent or an instagram

and it drives me [ __ ] nuts i had one

the other week

oh my god i love what you do i'm i'm a

really funny person this is how it was

phrased the other week

how how many gigs would i have to do

before i

could like open for you on tour can you

have a look at some stuff i filmed on my

phone

and i'm i'll give them an answer that

norm i never get a reply to this answer

i say okay it's quite simple lucky for

you there is a really simple model to

follow you need to work

unpaid for three years in the clubs

three times a week

i wouldn't recommend a relationship and

just warn your friends you're not gonna

see them

i started to earn about two three

hundred pounds a week after five years

at that point you're ready to give up

your day job on about the eighth or

ninth year

you're going to be ready to do a support

slot i never go

yeah people don't want to hear it but

you if you went up to the guy in the gym

who's 16 stone and five percent body fat

and can you tell me how i can get like

that you'd say the machines are over

there [ __ ] just get going

yeah the machines are there you cannot

skip the machine you cannot skip the

tricep

station if you want triceps you can't

just go but it's going to hurt

uh it's too much work to get attracted

then just don't get triceps don't but

don't moan if you don't have triceps

head to the dip station and see you in

four years

i completely yeah i now i've wrote about

this my book came out last week and i

wrote about it in my book i remember

someone turning to me was actually the

ceo of my company now

company i've just left and he said to me

steve you know this personal brand stuff

and this like speaking you do on stage

was like how long did it like how did

what he was like how do i

how do i do it and your brain

immediately scrambles around looking for

like three tips

right three tips to describe like a deck

i remember my first

talk in school at 14 years old my hand's

shaking absolutely the truth is like

someone's seen you with a sharp sword

and they've said how do i get a short

sword that sharp

i said well start sharpening it now and

then ten years time but

people don't work no one wants to hear

the answer is

boring repetitive practice for most most

people that are absolutely

[ __ ] excellent at something have done

a lot of boring

repetitive practice that would be boring

to the person asking the question not to

us

i loved every [ __ ] gig i did and that's

the difference that's what kept you

doing it for 10 years or

two decades whatever is that you

genuinely intrinsically loved it for its

and people want the rewards right but

when they if they started and genuinely

wanted they too would discover that love

if you if you say i want to be an

identity i'd be a dentist you start

dental training and you're finding it

boring in a slog

news flash you don't actually want to be

a dentist you'll be rich

yeah so find something else find

something where you love the journey

that is a secret so that's what my dad

never found he did he didn't find a job

he took pleasure in he's got nothing to

do with coin although i'm into it

but if you love the outdoors you're

going to love landscaping whether you're

on 17 grand a year or 17 million a year

you're gonna love it because that's what

you were born to do it's such a

counter narrative to the narrative that

sells which is like short investment big

so it's like seven days six pack abs

that's everyone [ __ ] signs up for

that

imagine imagine that the like

10 years maybe maybe that's true

and that's and the problem is a lot of

the t the tv

we make i make sells that x factor spot

do one song

live the pimp lifestyle and of course

that is what in the

all of the x factor that's ever been on

and all of pop star the rivals

how many of those people are now

platinum selling artists living in

mansions

what harry styles try and name some

one direction that's it that's out of

every

single little mixed doomer that's out of

every single one

in a show that's designed to push people

to the front in an artificial way

so if you think that's going to happen

if you're russell from

essex you're deluded it's

but any business if you're passionate

mixed with a little bit of luck people

this is the other thing people like us

don't like putting out there but i'm

afraid

there is a bit of luck involved

and it sort of causes like we always sat

here again i've worked so hard oh look

at me with my work hard badge but at

some point we had some luck as well

which is we're in the right place right

time

mixed with the hard work so some people

are more lucky than others luck

is a thing and what lucky

not luck as in lottery number luck but

luck is in oh my god you've met that

you've met the perfect partner you

you've been the business oh you you were

looking for a friend a french bulldog

breeder and you found exactly the right

one at the right time when you were

looking for a puppy why are you so lucky

where's my life so [ __ ]

so they tested this they got a bunch of

people together

half people who say my life [ __ ] i'm so

unlucky and half people like me who like

i've gotta admit i'm a bit

hashtag blessed i do have a lot of luck

and they run tests on them

and the test they run was very simple

the the psychologist i come here is the

british jewish guy really funny brings

loads of books out richard something or

other he's written a book about it about

luck look it up

they gave them newspaper each and they

went in there

go into your separate rooms and on a

page is a picture you're looking for

whoever finds that picture

comes in first gets a hundred pounds

cash that was the game

so everyone went in like that on page

two your massive headlines was it's a

trick

stop turning if you've read this

headline go and collect the money that

was on page two

all the unlucky people missed that all

the lucky people found it you know why

because lucky people

eyes are open the hustlers

so it turns out you can make luck you

can practice that you can hone it

that's something you can hone next time

you walk into a meeting

just think right what's that guy do for

it for a living who's that is that a

contact

that's not luck if i sit down next to

someone and he happens to be doing a

comedy streaming

service start up and he signs me up

that's me being a bit bold and striking

up a conversation and looking at what

he's wearing and having to think

you can learn these skills people don't

like that because that

sharp puts the mirror on me and creates

personal responsibility where i

yeah you know what i mean and i feel

like in our society at the moment this

is just an observation i've had

personal responsibility is people

[ __ ] hate that

yeah i did i remember doing a tweet

about um

because okay this was me playing a bit

of [ __ ] but i don't care right so

the left of society which i probably

consider myself to be on

are really in support of the nhs so i

did a tweet saying

the biggest cost to the nhs is like

smoking eating bad etc so if you really

care about the nhs

take care of yourself people like no

steve this is

literally the replies like this is not

it because i'm basically saying if you

genuinely care about the

health service here is all the data the

biggest burden on the nhs is people that

are overweight and

people that are smoking or whatever um

well the obesity one's particularly

controversial because there's two

movements at the same time

there's personal responsibility in the

science we're learning about obesity

particularly during covid

i mean if you if you want to do one

thing other than social distancing

obviously get a vaccine

most of us are too young to have a

vaccine so if you have another vaccine

and you don't and you don't want to live

life like a prisoner the best thing you

can do is get in shape

quick you're better off you're literally

better off being

i think a thin smoker literally yeah

but it's a controversial conversation

because quite rightly we're

re-evaluating beauty

standards and a lot of people end up

with eating disorders and fat shaming

and all that needs to go away

and as as soon as we associate

personal responsibility longevity in

health with a body type

we're in a difficult area where we

create

shame for people based on how they look

which is something you want to get rid

of so

for someone like me who's on on the left

my head just goes pop yeah

smoking is is a slam dunk don't smoke

your rebellion yeah

yeah end off [ __ ] don't smoke stop

costing me money on the nhs

but someone that might be overweight

it's

very very complex to understand why

someone's overweight

it's something i studied a lot not

because i've been overweight but because

i'm fascinated with biohacking and body

and all of that

and i think the most

most illuminating thing i can tell

anyone about being overweight

is that eating too much

does not make you overweight

this is no one understands this i'm

going to blow your mind here

being overweight causes you to eat

too much once you have the metabolic

condition

of being overweight that [ __ ] your

circuitry which drives you to eat

more obesity causes

calorie surplus so shaming people for

eating too much is a waste of time

because most people with busy lives and

kids and no money

are in a condition that's compelling

them to eat more might be

emotionally compounded might be

psychologically compounded they might be

recovering from abuse they might be

recovering from a bad relationship they

might just be skin and can only afford

[ __ ] nuggets and they're just tired

and not getting enough sleep

and unfortunately until you get into um

a low-fat state like us where it's easy

to regulate your calorie your

every part of your body is telling you

to feed this obesity

no one understands that i've gone deep

into the sign i'm not a scientist so

look up for yourself before everyone

starts trolling me saying literature

degree boy

but as far as i understand the science

layman's cards and table

obesity causes overeating now that is

just

boom but it helps us to be more as much

as i agree with what you're saying

it just it levens more compassion into

people's weight loss journey although

you're absolutely correct if you don't

want to die of covid

and you don't want to cost the nhs money

getting in shape's one of the best ways

to do it but of course it's not easy and

i've i've had moments in my life where

i've been most stressed

and it's a downward cycle yeah like you

know what i mean so you eat and then

you require sugar more and sugar becomes

this addictive thing in your life

and it only happens to me when i'm

stressed so i'll have my little moments

of downward cycle

in my health when there's a lot on my

mind

and so yeah i mean compassion is

certainly incredibly important in that

regard what about more broadly so

outside of health the topic of personal

responsibility i like it because it's

controversial mm-hmm

um and i discuss the new trying to get

us in the daily mail here

in fact people should pay for themselves

no i know just generally in your life

and success in like

um what you can accomplish the fortunate

position i'm in which is what i talked

about in my last podcast was

because i came from like a very broke

family where my mum can't read or write

and i i was born in africa

and i we didn't have anything no

christmas birthdays or holidays my

journey in life people don't discredit

it they don't point at me and say oh

you know silver spoon you can't [ __ ]

talk yep so

i feel like i can have the conversation

a little bit more about personal

responsibility of course i'm [ __ ]

incredibly lucky

like i didn't choose to be me you know

what i mean i didn't choose my parents

or the

good and bad things that shaped me yeah

but i but i wanna

i wanna have a conversation about

personal responsibility as it relates to

career success and let's let's start

with hard work

because in our society right now there's

two counter narratives one is that

don't work like incredibly hard you're

gonna burn out and you're gonna have

mental health problems and the other is

i've never met someone that sat here

in front of me that doesn't work really

[ __ ] hard and i i did

i don't know how i would have sat here

without hard work and tremendous

sacrifice well first of all we sort of

already made the point

a lot of people are working hard at

things they hate yeah

so working hard at things you dislike

hate or find stressful

will bring success and money but at a

cost

working hard at things you love i'm i

finished filming at midnight last night

in madison i got in at half one i had my

dinner at two

and i fell asleep at three and i bounced

out of bed this morning to come here to

do

a podcast for the price of a car why

because

i love what i do now if i was

had got in at three from working as a

hospital porter

and had to get up to do another job

which was quite well paid this morning

but i hated it

i wouldn't be buzzing and that's what

releases the cortisol and the stress

hormone into your body

so you can't compare you're not

comparing like and like even though both

people are working hard you've even got

people

that might be barristers or doctors

really well paid professions but find it

stressful when they're burnt out and

stuff

it's unlikely you and i will burn out

because i'm like what's next

and you're intrinsically motivated by

you've got a sense of control

exactly so that's that's what i think

that

i think we can we can differentiate

there on hard work

straight away so if i i'm more

interested in the first thing you said

about the

the join between people's origin story

and how much stick they get for the

success they've got because i'm

i have to phrase mine a lot more than

you

because i get put in with the silver

spoon guys because i'm a

just a white man yeah so i'm not going

to use real names here and i'm not going

to use real jobs because i respect

my profession is so hard i don't give a

[ __ ] whether you're

prince charles doing stand up anyone who

does stand up

i just it's so hard to stand up

and i don't think an elite background

helps you in stand up might help you in

telly and production

won't help you on stage with a bucket of

piss coming through

but i've been told on more than one

occasion uh we'd love we'd love to

we'll book you for the x show but we've

already got ollie um and so we got ollie

we can't have two

and i'm like how how is how me do me and

ollie represent the same thing

i sometimes think well i've got more in

common with

i could phone up i don't know if you

know who judy love is i could phone up

judy now and we could speak for an

hour about we both grew up same similar

part of london

similar age similar family yes she's got

jamaican stories but i've got six

stories

and that's the only difference in our

conversation we come from the same

place economically we come with fighting

the same fight we're punching up from

when we never no one would ever say that

i'll probably be in trouble for even

saying that

that's the controversial thing for me to

say and it shouldn't be

because if corbyn and people like that

have got it right

everyone who starts with what i call

lower entitlement points

i've got a lot more entitlement points

than a woman of color

undoubtedly i've got less less

entitlement points

probably than a ghanaian prince right so

all the people that have got

[ __ ] all uh i'll start should link arms

don't matter what gender you are

what color you are that would be

powerful i'm a bit nervous when we get

carved up and we're people who started

life in a tower block should that tower

block should be united you know what i

mean

so that's the first point but i do i do

think you we get off

we do get off lightly if we've got money

if we had a more council estate

background it's like a license

to be okay with having money like i can

wear my rolly by the pool when i'm in

ibiza

because i sound common yeah if i sounded

posh

i probably would keep the breitling on

yeah

it's so true i one of one of my guests

that i had on the podcast

um went to a very good school and

um is white and blonde and very pretty

and she basically can't give advice

to anybody without the papers smashing

her

or social media in fact there was a meme

before before she came on the podcast

there was a meme that went viral i think

it did 250 000 retweets

when she the day she released her book

and it was this someone

pinned someone up against the wall with

a big trumpet and it was like white

privilege telling you how to

how to become rich like she is not

allowed to give advice to anybody

because she's white and went to a good

oxford and with how much good insight

and business knowledge and whatever

like so many people went to oxford and

didn't build multi multi-million

pound two multi-million pound companies

i still want to hear this from this

person if someone's offering you

knowledge

she's not it's not like she's telling

you about her struggles earlier

there was a queue in waitress and i just

couldn't keep that that would be the

trumpet

right she's trying to tell you how to

build a business it doesn't matter if

you come from space

if you can make me money tell me how if

you can tell me how to start the next

comedy streaming platform service where

i own

40 of the shares yeah i don't give a

[ __ ] if you've got a double first from

cambridge

or whether you're one of the mandem i

don't care show me where to

show me how to do it you've got you've

got to have an open

knowledge is is once it's out there is

democratic the path to acquiring it is

not

um but there's no doubt about trying to

stay on topic what you're saying about

personal responsibility

is i'm really split on this because i

don't believe it's true

that anyone with enough will and luck

can make it i think we're probably

outliers and freaks and

just wired a bit different and i've got

what it takes to push through

i think if enough blocks are in place

you're a single child of a drug using

mum in a towel block

and i am built of stronger stuff so i've

bounced through my childhood

and i've come out the other side but a

lot of people aren't if we were all born

the same

then why aren't i playing basketball why

am i not sprinting why am i not

a math scholar you know some of us are

born

genetically more equipped in other

departments i'm clearly a highly

energetic person

who's good at motivating themselves some

part of that is inborn i was like

i would like it as a baby before i could

speak you know the other toddlers are

like

dribbling on their blocks and i'm like

where the blood set

so it's unfair for us to go if only

uh neil at the top of the tower could

have been like us he too could have

been an entrepreneur because maybe he

just being a single mom

being of color or being transgender or

being

not everyone has the strength to push

through those

things not everyone does and it's unfair

to go up to a wheelchair and go just

stand mate i'm using willpower with my

legs why can't you

because some people that that is a

wheelchair their social background and

they don't have the strength and then

they start using drugs and they just

sink too low

not everyone can pull themselves out so

that's why we do need more equality

yeah i agree i'm definitely pro-quality

i i there's a sense of helplessness i

get

if i like if i go all the way and say

you know successful people well they

were born with something yeah it creates

a sense of like well then you're we're

all just stuck in our lanes forever and

if i believe that when i was shoplifting

pizzas in manchester

but then again what i do understand i

actually when i re the harder i reflect

i basically give myself credit for

nothing because i was born into a

situation in a country

i actually think my bad experiences are

why i'm here like the fact that my

parents

weren't around at 10 years old created

this big gap of independence et cetera

et cetera i've told this story a million

times

but it's the bad [ __ ] that is the reason

that i became an outlier i think

i became very obsessive obsessed with

money my book that's why it's called

happy sexy millionaire because it's the

first page of my diary when i was like a

kid

i want to be a happy why did i want to

be happy sexy because we were [ __ ]

broke have you got siblings though yeah

i've got

so are they happy 60 millionaires not

one of them none of them are like me

and they don't understand me either they

look at me and like scratch their heads

but what does that tell you it's almost

like you've run a controlled experiment

exactly so tuning out um genetics versus

willpower i the the difference between

my childhood experience and theirs was

they were raised by parents and i

basically wasn't

so by i was the youngest so by the age i

was 10 my parents were like oh we've

done parenting now

we will work all the time and we will be

out of the house when steve comes home

and will be at the house when he wakes

up

so i was the only one where the the

experiment was

total independence so thought experiment

for you if you'd have been born a

fraternal twin

another boy yeah so as much your brother

brothers your other brothers but happy

boy at the same time

same conditions same school everything

happens so do you believe you would have

another happy sexy millionaire living in

the flat opposite

or do you think depends what that

brother's personality was like

because we both know that that brother's

personality is what would have decided

whether he sat at this table with us

today or not and

personality does come into it we are

born with different

personalities to an extent so i'm not

saying we're all stuck in our lanes

but i'm saying we need more social

mechanisms because

some einsteins don't have energy some

einsteins might might be a bit

emotionally weaker so we're saying my

example of neil at

the tower block he might be really

[ __ ] amazing we will never harvest

that talent because our society is set

up with too many blocks in place

to scoop it out we had one thing in

place for about 40 years

called grammar schools very

controversial

very unfair dumping a load of 11 year

olds in the thick bin

my mum went to a secondary modern my dad

went to a secondary modern

my wife my brother-in-law my

mother-in-law and father-in-law

all went secondary moderns so i know

people who were told you're no good at

11. so i don't say this lightly and i

know how horrific that is

but the data does suggest that

there was a short period where we

scooped off some

bright poorer children not necessarily

neil in the tower block

but at least the poorer children whose

parents

meant well but were too poor we got them

we got more einsteins

when you watch question time switch it

on and you know i went to a state school

and they're giving it all that will

always be a grammar school

always is very rarely i went to the

local comprehensive and now i'm an mp

it's always

i went to state which state school it's

gramsci you went to an elite education

then state but elite selective

so we need some more stuff like that

what can we do in our communities what

can our youth workers do what

what can we set up in in in council

estates

headhunters that look for talent

particularly boys

i'm going to say that because i was a

boy once but there's a real problem with

teenage boys all this testosterone kicks

in and it goes the wrong

way for most of us you when i came in

your podcast you ask

very controversial questions i think you

like those questions those are the ones

that are most interesting to you aren't

they yeah well

as long as it gets in trouble well it's

hard to tell

hindsight's a wonderful thing um so i

guess my i was just thinking then this

is a controversial question but he asked

me controversial questions so i can

answer it

is there no hope for some people well

give me con so zoom out context got a

friend

tried really hard to help them change

their life or do something for

themselves

10 years of effort made all the offers

in the world to this person

still job seekers allowance you know

somewhat depressed can't seem to have

any impact we grew up in the same street

we were best friends my whole childhood

i went off he stayed there

i've got tons of examples like that so i

have to speak very euphemistically now

i'll be cancelled not by the internet

but by my

friends and family stroke associate

stroke i don't even want to say which

group these people are

uh i've all of this i've had female

friends who i'm like

stop dating bastards and the next guy

he's nice he's a coke dealer and he's

like he's gonna [ __ ] he's clear he's

gonna shaggy mate

and some of these women are getting to

35 you know like with the final

egg in the goblet like in indiana jones

waiting to be fertilized

and um this the next guy he's called

we've got three kids by three different

women he has

he's got an electronic tag but it's

great because we can spend some time

just bang a boring guy or a guy that

likes dungeons and dragons or an

accountant

what they call there's a sexual

attraction there

to bastard men that some women

particularly from high school background

working class women

find hard to get over would be one

example but you can

get over it it is possible to do it the

mistake people like you and i

make is we try to help

and say you've got a friend who's

unmotivated depressed

leaves every job after three months it's

always someone else's fault

it's always the system it's always if

only corbyn was in power

it's uh my dad did this my mum did that

always putting it on someone else and

then you're making it worse by putting

it on you let me help

you're just a positive version of that

the solution is with them

they have to switch the light bulb on in

themselves

they may not get there but the moment

they wake up and go today's the day i'm

gonna try and change my life

they should that the first step it might

be

speaking to a therapist it might be

changing your career it might be

enrolling in a levels that you do at

night time like i did

that was what lucky enough my revelation

came up when i was

you're on job seekers allowance at one

point i was yeah i did my a-levels late

because i had this

spark moment but it's got to come from

within them it's not something

as yet although science might get there

one day but we can give to you in a pill

or an injection you've got to suddenly

have in right back to the beginning of

the chat

insight and baby like boom chest out i'm

going to see a therapist

i'm not going to use negative language

i'm going to get this self-help book

which

which gives me some cb cognitive

behavioral therapy tools i always hung

up with cannabis

um so yeah it's it's gonna come from

them but for you and i

fixes how can we solve it how can i

redraft the copy what's the solution

unfortunately the solution is trying to

get them

to have some insight so if you have got

a friend like that maybe have that sort

of conversation with them that spurs

self-reflection

because giving them a million pound a

year job is just going to make them

worse because that muscle that's

atrophied

will stay atrophied that sort of

standing up

making your own strength muscle i've

been on my heel journey for a couple of

years now but in the case of some of my

best friends who i've talked about on

this podcast before

one particular friend called ashley

jones who knows that i talk about him in

his transformation story

he did have a problem eating certain

foods

and so he transitioned to making huel a

greater part of his diet and the guy

went from being and i'm sorry ash if

you're listening

the guy went from being like slightly

overweight constantly

um having health issues that are

unrelated to like you know being

slightly overweight

to being to literally having a six-pack

posting his six-pack on instagram but

more importantly

being high-energy and feeling amazing so

when i'm like

you know talking to you guys about huel

i do so with such a level of passion

because i believe

that it can really help change your

lives in a significant way

i believe it can make you mentally

better i know it can make you physically

better

and so yeah what a joy it is to have a

sponsor that you believe in that much

um yeah and they're also just really

good people

one of the most um probably

scary things from my perspective that

you ever did

was walking out on stage for the first

time for your first gig ever

like what the [ __ ] were you thinking hmm

going out and walking in front of people

and telling [ __ ] jokes are you sure

like

with me it's even more complex because i

don't know if you've had any stand-ups

on here before

never but the majority of them and quite

rightly so

will be like from a young age i used to

watch blah blah on tv

i used to watch all these american

comics so i used to watch chris rock

bill burr

bill hicks i knew that's what i wanted

to do man

i was like you know i was like the young

boxer in the alleyway i knew i was to

box

none of that nothing there is zero

in my cv that shows an affinity for the

craft of stand up

always been the joker i'm not being

funny today i don't know why you got me

on one

but normally i'm always asking around

not this is not a thing i do on stage

i'm just i'm not like

the clown person why just just my again

i've just always been

i just love making people laugh i've

always been a joker

there's some data that suggests um

youngest children have it and i'm not

the youngest child the oldest or

people born in august and july purely

because

if you're smaller than everyone else

you've got to develop your personality

quick

so you if you look at the premiership

you won't find many footballers

born in august i'll explain why i never

made it

august august 26th so you won't find me

sixth as well you won't find

many sportsmen or anyone that requires

size or physical prowess those

professions

so even if you turn out to be a very

tall teenager

you're less likely to become a

basketball player than a

a teenager one inch shorter than you who

was born in october

the reason being you'd have been pushed

by the coach and taught and everything

early doors at six seven eight years old

so and there is some data to suggest

that people who work with their

personalities for a living people that

have to solve entrepreneurs and find

little

rat runs in alleyways develop that based

on being smaller or more vulnerable but

i could take lots of forms i've got an

overbearing dad as well

so i'm an august baby overvaling dad and

some of you will be genetic

my mum's very funny you talked a little

bit about i was reading some some of

your

um previous interviews you talked a

little bit about how it was a bit of a

defense mechanism maybe in school if

that's

you found your name yes by being a yeah

i wasn't but but i don't know how i

wasn't bullied

but i wasn't the smallest no girlfriend

um wasn't him with the in crowd at all i

was sort of like an ex

in a sort of external group that had

diplomatic immunity

definitely a virgin definitely no cool

friends

definitely one of the idiots but we

don't punch him because he's sort of all

right

obviously i did get as a working class

school i did get punched a lot but not

as much as

i was in that league you probably won't

even remember them just above the bullet

the boring grey league no point

yeah which is the place to be at school

because if you're popular at school we

all know

you're gonna have a [ __ ] life

so anyway so because of where i grew up

it's not people like well how can you

have no contact with stand up so you

gotta remember my age i know i look

young

young for my age i'm 45. so

what was my dad watching on tv jim

davison bernard manning

jimmy jones it's like bruce forsyth and

jimmy tarbuck

like you know live at the palladium and

all that it's not obviously they're all

talented comedians and i do i do mean

that

but it just didn't resonate with what

it's not it's not about my life so

i'd like i'd laugh because my dad was

laughing but i was like what's this

crazy art form i've got to learn more

me and my friends mostly either smoking

it's all about getting high

or we'd watch old young ones or whatever

the funny sitcom of the day was maybe

even badly whatever it was

that's what i thought comedy was no we

didn't go to the theater of the weekend

we didn't know which cultural pursuit

should we do this weekend family it was

like dad works all week he's tired we

have a curry

nan looks after you and then when you

get to 15 16 you get stoned over the

park

get someone pregnant work in a shop die

that's it that's the finish line

so i managed to like i say have this

weird entrepreneur turn my life around

get my first class degree

moment but just by sheer bad luck i

ended up at a university that did not

have a stand-up night most of them do

so again i went those three years

without any exposure to

in the student bar stand up it was all

music there was some theater

no one talked about stand up we didn't

have this sort of slightly fashionable

thing now being obsessed with american

stand-ups i like to say to my british

colleagues just remember

if you start having this sort of slick

quality to your stand up it can look a

bit mannered

um that's just a side point so i went

all the way to the office to my dream

job as an advertising copywriter with no

content we stand up just being funny as

[ __ ] the clown

you know legend on a night out first one

up dancing but i didn't know that

something you could do for a living and

i ended up doing a job i loved

branding copywriting headlines i still

love it you can tell by

the way i'm describing it then the

creative planner was like you're always

the one up at the pitch issue

i would do like if we're pitching to a

big client i would do like the funny bit

with interaction to get them on the side

when i'm presenting the creative he said

why don't you try stand up

stephen workman if you're watching thank

you uh why do you use chase stand up

with your mind's glass region

and i thought you know what do it once

like doing a bungee jump or a skydive

or karaoke it's just that's as far as my

thinking went

something to tell the kids so i wrote a

few ideas down in a book

booked an open spot in and i went and

did it it was very scary i think i did a

pack of imodium before i went on

and my hand was shaking and i got that

it wasn't obviously wasn't great but i

did wear

ish well-ish first laugh was like

someone stuck

cocaine heroin ketamine everything in my

but not that i've done those drugs

but everything in my veins and i was

hooked you know in the proper sense of

that

it [ __ ] my life everything fell apart

like a junkie how can i get more of that

i want a gig three night i want to give

five nights a week for no money

i've got a creative director we're

talking about multi multi-million pound

accounts

advertising is you work till 8 pm you

have pizza on your birthday under your

table you sleep at the office

i'm running off to do unpaid gigs in

manchester my relationship with my

girlfriend fell apart

my bill started to not be paid i started

to look thin because i

suffered with my nerves in the beginning

i'm throwing up [ __ ] like both ends

it's the closest thing to a drug

addiction that i've ever experienced

i would have not seen my mum for a year

to chase this

dream it was i was hooked with on that

laugh

i'm like this is what i'm born to do i

just [ __ ] know it how can i

monetize it basically how why were you

hooked on the laugh why did the laugh

matter so much to you it's a rush

it's a rush anyone is i've not taken any

serious drugs but anyone that's taken

any recreational drugs which is a bad

analogy because they're not actually

addictive

but coffee for example i can't live my

life without

without it why are you addicted this is

as absurd as asking me why i'm addicted

to coffee

because i go i wake up i feel alive and

i have an amazing day

the same laugh goes in buzz uh

serotonin pupils dilated afterwards i

want to tell everyone about the gig i

was taking

[ __ ] footage into work and showing it to

people and playing it in the office look

at me

that's me look look come and look at me

in this grainy footage i mean that's so

embarrassing that i did that

i just i couldn't i just couldn't

believe it i couldn't believe

i was getting laughs from strangers it

was straight to the ego

straight to the cortex everyone has that

but do you

have you ever considered that you might

have that might have mattered more to

you

maybe because of your childhood or

whatever than other people that that

sense of like

that validation and that yeah i mean

maybe i mean i'd had plenty of

validation at work i'd had the whole

office cheer

i've rung the bell when we've won big

pitches i've got the rush in the meeting

but it nothing it it's the difference

i'm trying not to talk about drugs all

the time it's the difference between

going from a beer

to mdma right i don't

recommend any hard drugs obviously

particularly people that work with their

brains you're a fool if you mess with

the equipment

but you can't compare them when you say

everyone has that

not everyone stood on stage to a

thousand people

and seen people standing and clapping

that is different

it's of a different category of ego

rush very dangerous what problems does

it give you

well initially all has come with it

initially that my life felt

my life fell apart like a junkies i was

down to 10 stone at one point um

so it come to the point where i had to

say this needs to not be a drug this

needs to be a food

and i left the agency and then i was you

know

off still today though right so all all

things come with their

their costs what is the cost today of

that that career and that rush and that

i suppose the worst thing is the travel

that is a genuine negative one

since min has been born my daughter um i

actually quite

like traveling i like being in the back

of a car i love watching movies i love

reading

and i love eating on the move so all the

things that most people hate i just

happen to quite enjoy

just pure i don't know why because i'm

always on the go i like being forced to

sit still

and watch a movie so i love flights for

example the longer the better

um you still [ __ ] yourself now when you

get when you're about yes big time but

so far as so far as missing part of your

child growing

massive negative doing a is there's a

there's a guilt

thing in your gut and you know you do

cry a bit after facetiming that

particularly when it's a baby

so that's the biggest negative i can

think of but once you're with a woman or

a man

that gets it there's no negative in your

relationship i was with a couple of

girls before who would make me feel bad

about being away whereas lindsay's

kicking me out the door she's focused on

the business we're

a team that's well paid [ __ ] off see you

later

don't call home if you're stressed i'm

cool with it that's what you need man

you need someone who gets it

i do [ __ ] myself though still yes do you

know when you know the

the um a modium scale goes up depending

on how much of my show it is

so if you booked a show for me today

where you're going to introduce me and

i'm going to do 20 minutes stand up

and you've got 2 000 people in the room

there would be nerves there

a fair bit of nerves but mostly i'm

ready to

knock the gig the [ __ ] out with my first

punch if you've put an event on

and michael mcintyre is closing and

you're hosting it

and you to me at the last minute i said

russ i've decided to do two halves can

you do 20 minutes at the top i chip

myself

because they're not there for me they're

there for you and him and i've got a

conversion job to do

right and the risk is massive and then

michael's fans are your fans

and that's when the nerves kick in when

i'm doing royal variety show or live at

the apollo where people have responded

to a tv ticket not me that's when the

nerves go back to old school style

nerves

how how do you uh what's the battle you

have with those nerves and in terms of

your cognition and before you go on

stage what are the tips

you can give people a lot of people

there's two there's two ways to to

to work on that um the first thing is

the actual practical thing on the night

i would say

um just work with breathing and

mindfulness and all the stuff

you've probably read a thousand times

the other thing to do is if you can

find a way to do it it depends which

stage your career you're at if you're at

the stage of the career like me and you

a lot i'm not trying to be offensive a

lot of people are sucking addicts a lot

of the time

so we're constantly walking into the

rooms where people think we're legends

it's never going to be a difficult gig

now and again something comes up well

you're the tadpole and you

you don't have the hardware in place and

[ __ ] bill gates is speaking before