YouSaid · the spoken record

Russell Howard

lines on the record: 125
first: 2021-12-06
most recent: 2021-12-06
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“Sometimes it's really hard to make stories interesting and to write jokes about things that are going on. And in that instance this week, that really helped me brick by brick. And I'm able to kind of go, okay, yeah, cool. I can get stuff from that, you know, I'm very much from a philosophical point of view or a therapy point of view, I need pointers and tips to make me better. I'm not enjoy every sandwich kind of a guy because it's a fucking sandwich. You know what I mean? Like being the sandwich, just like it's a fucking sandwich, like I need, I'm very much kind of Eastern philosophy of like, okay, how do we make ourselves better? I love the idea of kind of sort of self-improvement and being the best you. So I find quotes help that.”
2021-12-06 · The Diary of a CEO · Russell Howard: How To Laugh Through Fear, Anxiety & Imposter Syndrome · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, but this is it. Well, I'll sneak you along, man. Let's do it. We can double up. I was listening to the beginning of his book, and it's a brilliant story about his dad made him and his brother build a wall. And it's just this is very, very simple analogy. You probably read it. It's just brick by brick. And that's particularly when you're making a TV show and you're writing topical jokes.”
2021-12-06 · The Diary of a CEO · Russell Howard: How To Laugh Through Fear, Anxiety & Imposter Syndrome · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Just to kind of make It's a bit easier so that you weren't. Loading it too much so you can still Work efficiently without it becoming debilitating because I think that's the thing probably a lot of people suffer from that by using fear as a motivator sometimes you're probably losing 20% of your Potential through kind of panic. So yeah, it was sort of, God, I sound like a fucking robot when I said that. But do you know what I mean? It was sort of that thing of like just trying to figure out, okay, is there another way of doing this? Yeah, but even recognizing when you're Just a bit full on and just kind of go, all right, just calm down. I'm a real sucker for little quotes, man, or I was weirdly, I'm interviewing Will Smith on Thursday. Which is mad for 10 minutes. I've got a 10 minute interview with Will”
2021-12-06 · The Diary of a CEO · Russell Howard: How To Laugh Through Fear, Anxiety & Imposter Syndrome · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Oh, just a bit of therapy to try and... Have like sort of little coping mechanisms. You sort of just get far enough into it where you go, maybe just have a bit of help now to recognize kind of moments of mania and how to kind of manage them a bit better. So nothing super exciting. It's not a shaman. It's not any kind of ayahuasca or mushrooms, it's just a bloke in an office.”
2021-12-06 · The Diary of a CEO · Russell Howard: How To Laugh Through Fear, Anxiety & Imposter Syndrome · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That's what I want to do. That's what audiences want. There's a friend of mine called Alex Edelman who said, I like stuff that's ambitious and finished. And that's kind of where I want to go. And I feel like that's where audiences want to be. They want to see something that's going to rock them, you know, and blow them away. What a target to aim for, to a thing that's going to be, I'm going to try and make a thing that's the best night out that anyone's ever had.”
2021-12-06 · The Diary of a CEO · Russell Howard: How To Laugh Through Fear, Anxiety & Imposter Syndrome · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Connection and they want experience because it was kind of robbed of us. So it feels like it could be a really glorious time. And like you were saying with the tour that you've got planned, what a fantastic way of doing that rather than just I could just do you could just do a Q&A, but you're putting, you know, you're making what sounds like a really pulsating live theater show. It's going to blow people's minds.”
2021-12-06 · The Diary of a CEO · Russell Howard: How To Laugh Through Fear, Anxiety & Imposter Syndrome · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Find as much majesty in the universe as possible. I genuinely feel a lot of people, like audiences post-pandemic, like even British audiences who are by a stretch, the toughest crowds in the world, like by a stretch. That lovely English common end can't make me laugh. You know what I mean? Whereas in America, they're already up. You do comedy clubs in America. They stand up as you walk in. You know what I mean? But British crowds now, because people want...”
2021-12-06 · The Diary of a CEO · Russell Howard: How To Laugh Through Fear, Anxiety & Imposter Syndrome · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“But I think also the pandemic has recalibrated a lot of people that you actually go, we were kind of locked away from each other and we were locked away from experience and the happiness of something appearing from nowhere, those magical nights down the pub or watching football or listening to music or having a barbecue with friends where a moment Unintentionally becomes a memory. And we were kind of robbed of those social moments that created memories because we were sat with this disease lurking, not knowing where our lives were going to become. We kind of felt like we were sort of immune from something, this heavy happening to us. And it didn't. It happened to everybody. And it feels like because of that. We are now kind of coming out of the cave, as it were, with a real desire to”
2021-12-06 · The Diary of a CEO · Russell Howard: How To Laugh Through Fear, Anxiety & Imposter Syndrome · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And I'm 41. And I went with my friends who are all big, big lads. And we were on this rubber dinghy and we kept going down this slide. We honestly, it was the joy, the silliness of the day. Led into the fun of the gig. And I remember reading a thing about Chappelle that Chappelle, when he's on tour, he brings his pals. He brings friends along so that he's... He's sort of living the joy of life is connected with the joy of work. He's never sort of sat backstage with his notepad kind of waiting for an hour and a half to go on. And if that's something I'm trying to do, I'm trying to kind of involve people more in kind of work and be less kind of like, you need to stay away. I need to concentrate, you know.”
2021-12-06 · The Diary of a CEO · Russell Howard: How To Laugh Through Fear, Anxiety & Imposter Syndrome · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Being on my stag tee with my cousins in Vegas and hearing my cousin Lewis tell a story. And so I think it's... My way of figuring it out is to have as many of those dopamine hits of joy, whether it's good food, good company, travel books, music, whatever. That you're kind of constantly Because if you just, that's the big realization I've had that if you only try and get happiness from work, for me it doesn't work, to sit around and hope that your life outside of work can compete with this joy that you get from work. The only way you can do it is just surround yourself with people that you think are fantastic or experiences that you think are fantastic. And it can even be little things. It's just like, you know, We did some gigs in Dubai, and we went to a water park every day.”
2021-12-06 · The Diary of a CEO · Russell Howard: How To Laugh Through Fear, Anxiety & Imposter Syndrome · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, but then I was just thinking then, I was thinking about. The fascinating thing about life is you have these, so for example, we did 10 nights at the Albert Hall. Which is like a world record. It's mental. It was extraordinary that kind of little me that used to sit in the back of mum and dad's Ford Fiesta watching the raindrops go down the window. I did 10 nights at the Alba Hall. It was mental. And it was fun. It was brilliant. It was great. But it was like you're playing Snooker. You know, get all the reds. Then the rest of them down, done. You know what I mean? But it's that lovely kind of controlled snooker brain joke, joke, joke, joke, joke, joke, joke, joke, end of the show. Hooray. Yeah, go it again, right? But it was fun. That exists from a sort of dopamine level on a very similar level as...”
2021-12-06 · The Diary of a CEO · Russell Howard: How To Laugh Through Fear, Anxiety & Imposter Syndrome · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Living in fear too much or putting too much responsibility on the thing, but I don't know of another way. And I'm sort of, you know. Seeing people and trying to figure it out, but I don't know what motivates you, for example.”
2021-12-06 · The Diary of a CEO · Russell Howard: How To Laugh Through Fear, Anxiety & Imposter Syndrome · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Get there, but I don't know. I don't have the answers and I don't know what works for other people. But for me, it is that. And it's something that I'm trying to address. Like”
2021-12-06 · The Diary of a CEO · Russell Howard: How To Laugh Through Fear, Anxiety & Imposter Syndrome · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The problem Well, that would be the thing. So you'd have like six months of joy. And then you do the thing, it'd be fucking awful. Whereas, at least this week, you have six months of tension. And then you have joy, and then the kind of joy lasts throughout the tour.”
2021-12-06 · The Diary of a CEO · Russell Howard: How To Laugh Through Fear, Anxiety & Imposter Syndrome · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah But I don't know of a better motivator than fear to make good stuff. Like if it exists, I mean, can you recognize that? What is there another thing that you have? I guess excitement, if you could turn fear into excitement, that would be a healthier way of doing it. But I just don't find it as, oh, yeah, it's so much fun because we'll go there and it's going to be great.”
2021-12-06 · The Diary of a CEO · Russell Howard: How To Laugh Through Fear, Anxiety & Imposter Syndrome · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“For him, that's what makes him magnificent. You know what I mean? And I think it's sort of that thing where you go, the older you get, you can try and adapt it and try and figure out. And we're all in a constant state of becoming as regards our sort of mental health and trying to. Figure out a healthier way of being He scored the winning goal of the World Cup, you know, and it sort of. It's kind of shitty, but that determination is what sort of made him. And it's kind of... I guess the thing is, it's about kind of ensuring that you have enough kindness to yourself around that so that you kind of give yourself a break from time to time”
2021-12-06 · The Diary of a CEO · Russell Howard: How To Laugh Through Fear, Anxiety & Imposter Syndrome · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, massively. But I think it's sort of that thing, like, right, have these gigs, but don't do this work. I'm going to look like a fool. People are going to boo me. There's going to be anger. So you go, so that fear drives you to write and perform and get a show that's good enough, right? And I've not found anything that was a useful motivator. But like you say, it's a tough way of being. Like Johnny Wilkinson, I remember seeing this about him. Johnny Wilkinson kicked the winning, I don't know, rugby, but the winning... Will cut kick. Yeah, right. And as the ball sort of soared over, apparently he said to himself, his brain went, you nearly missed that. As it went over, and he's won the World Cup. And the next day, he was training and he was kicking goals again to ensure that he didn't make that mistake. And unfortunately,”
2021-12-06 · The Diary of a CEO · Russell Howard: How To Laugh Through Fear, Anxiety & Imposter Syndrome · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“But the funny thing is, the only time you don't feel anxious is when you're doing stand up. But weirdly, that's the respite. But leading up to it, it's nerve-wracking. But as soon as you step on the stage, you kind of, you know exactly what you're going to do. And it's fun. It's the most fun in the world. And then, but the leading up to it and the afterwards, was that all right? Was that fine? It was good. Right, fine. I think you sort of just make your peace with it. And like you say, it leaves you mentally fragile, but I don't know of another way of doing it.”
2021-12-06 · The Diary of a CEO · Russell Howard: How To Laugh Through Fear, Anxiety & Imposter Syndrome · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You're not as sharp as you once were, and you're like, fine, I'll just go work in local radio. But that's not a dig at anyone in local radio. You're doing important stuff. Keep those weather checks coming. But doing kind of arenas for a long time is, you know, I've been doing them since like 2012 now, and that is a crazy level of pressure because you sort of do, I do them in like a month-long block in the UK. It's kind of right. Okay. Yeah. You know, and then you get through it and then you're like, okay, go again, go again. And that isn't necessarily the healthiest way to be forever.”
2021-12-06 · The Diary of a CEO · Russell Howard: How To Laugh Through Fear, Anxiety & Imposter Syndrome · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah. Yeah, I guess The key thing is to you've got to, I think you have to leave on your own terms. Do you know what I mean? As in stop, there's a while where this won't be healthy forever because it is a strange way to live with that.”
2021-12-06 · The Diary of a CEO · Russell Howard: How To Laugh Through Fear, Anxiety & Imposter Syndrome · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“To just rock up, for example, to an arena tour, having done no kind of warm ups, it'll be fine. It fucking won't. Arrogance destroys standup. You kind of have to go to small clubs before you start doing a tour to kind of know you're okay to get rid of that. And without imposter syndrome, you don't grow as an artist. Do you know what I mean?”
2021-12-06 · The Diary of a CEO · Russell Howard: How To Laugh Through Fear, Anxiety & Imposter Syndrome · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I think I don't know any great comic that doesn't. I'm talking to Billy Conley, Billy Connolly used to get nervous. Billy Connolly was worried that the audience wouldn't love him, that he wasn't worth their evening. Billy Connolly. If Billy Connolly is thinking that, then, you know, you know all of us are. And I think if you get to that stage where you're like, this is going to be great. I know it's going to be great. It probably won't. You have to have a healthy degree of imposter syndrome in order to be the best version of yourself. Because you have to kind of burst into that party and be the best funniest you because that's what's on the ticket. That's the thing. And the only way to do that is kind of hard work.”
2021-12-06 · The Diary of a CEO · Russell Howard: How To Laugh Through Fear, Anxiety & Imposter Syndrome · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It might be rubbish or it might be ill-conceived. It might upset people. But by the end of it, having worked in it in a comedy club, it might say exactly what you want it to say. So it's a really sort of holy space, the comedy club.”
2021-12-06 · The Diary of a CEO · Russell Howard: How To Laugh Through Fear, Anxiety & Imposter Syndrome · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I love that. I love the fact that people aren't going to be waiting for TV to anoint them. But I was very lucky that I was just doing live gigs. And then when I was 26, after having done stand-ups since I was 18, somebody said, do you want to go on TV? And I kind of went the traditional path, as it were, and kind of social media grew alongside it. But I was never, I never needed it, which is not to say I couldn't have been bigger if I cultivated it, but the content I like making exists in the club and it's finished when I do a Netflix special or it's finished when I do a TV show. It's in a state of flux when I'm in a comedy club. It's in a constant state of becoming. And the problem with social media, it makes everything finite and tangible. And sometimes it's not. Sometimes jokes evolve or routines evolve. You put it out there.”
2021-12-06 · The Diary of a CEO · Russell Howard: How To Laugh Through Fear, Anxiety & Imposter Syndrome · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Came up in an era where stand up was still playing clubs. If you're a young guy now, It must be completely different. And there's loads of kind of great comics that have kind of come up through social media or through podcasts. And I love that because there's particularly podcasts, I think, with like young comics, there's a real air of punk about it where you kind of go in, I'm not going to wait for TV to give me anything. I'm going to make my own thing. And then people gravitate to that. And that's your thing. And you can't mess with that.”
2021-12-06 · The Diary of a CEO · Russell Howard: How To Laugh Through Fear, Anxiety & Imposter Syndrome · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Are looking to be angry or they're looking to be enraged. So it just seems naive to put humor into such a volatile club. Can you imagine if it was a club called Twitter, right? Hey, do you want to come play Twitter? Can you imagine how hard that comedy club would be? But I kind of literally emailed them to my agent and say, oh, we should put this bit from the show on. I don't even know. I haven't got my logins. I don't know. Really? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, but and also maybe it's because I'm 41 and I kind of.”
2021-12-06 · The Diary of a CEO · Russell Howard: How To Laugh Through Fear, Anxiety & Imposter Syndrome · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, well, what I do and what I love about social media is I like making things and then putting it on there. And so putting clips of stand up or the TV show or whatever. But I'm lucky. If I want to do comedy, I can go to a comedy club. And it's a dark room and I can howl or I can scream or I can be silly. I can do whatever I want. It's in a comedy club. Social media is the worst comedy club in the world because people aren't there to laugh. Do you know what I mean? Everyone there is there to laugh. And there's this sort of lovely bonding experience. We're here for a reason. Whereas social media, some people, most people in the world are just up for a hoot, but some people...”
2021-12-06 · The Diary of a CEO · Russell Howard: How To Laugh Through Fear, Anxiety & Imposter Syndrome · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Seek validation from people, particularly in the world that we live in at the minute, where you're having to check to see if you've been correct. You're not going to be right for everybody. And some people will not like a joke or some people suit. You just have to try and stay where you are. So I've definitely had times like that when I was younger and it just crushes you. And you realize actually all I'm doing is paying attention to the really negative things that people say. And they'll be like, you know, one out of 50 that's super horrible rather than focusing on the kind things. And you realize, actually, my brain focuses on the negative and you go, yeah, they're right. Actually, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I am that. Yep. Yeah, correct, correct, correct. It just doesn't make me.”
2021-12-06 · The Diary of a CEO · Russell Howard: How To Laugh Through Fear, Anxiety & Imposter Syndrome · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Don't do it. Came up in the days of MySpace and whatnot. And that was, I've never been on Twitter. I've never been on Facebook. I do a bit of Instagram. It's the same with reviews. It's a very funny thing. You get a five-star review and your brain's like, exactly. Yep, correct. You get a shitty review and you're like, what the fuck? And you realize that you have to pay no heed to it. I mean, it's flattering and it's great. And it's lovely to get nice reviews. And anyone who says otherwise is bullshit. But it's with social media, you can't. It's too much to kind of”
2021-12-06 · The Diary of a CEO · Russell Howard: How To Laugh Through Fear, Anxiety & Imposter Syndrome · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Totally But the point is you spend a lot of time in that kind of fun zone. And I think that's the brain that a lot of comics have.”
2021-12-06 · The Diary of a CEO · Russell Howard: How To Laugh Through Fear, Anxiety & Imposter Syndrome · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I just found it so funny that I don't know any true six foot four high achieving intellectuals that kind of just going to nip out to Spath into a pot.”
2021-12-06 · The Diary of a CEO · Russell Howard: How To Laugh Through Fear, Anxiety & Imposter Syndrome · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“What are you on about? Oh, that fucking bin, who's responsible, and it's sort of that's kind of the way that comics brains are, I think, that you spend a lot of time playing around in your head. And then you kind of go, Oh, that might be something, you know, like we were the other day. Talking to a friend about sperm donors and somebody had had Was this website and on that you could sort of get your batch? One of them was like, you know, he was like six foot four, Swedish, keen reader. And you did a really good job. And you're like, yeah, that's exactly what I'd say if I was trying to vlog spunk. You're not going to kind of go a bit of a loner comes in every Wednesday. We've had to stop him. But my point being, we were having a chat about.”
2021-12-06 · The Diary of a CEO · Russell Howard: How To Laugh Through Fear, Anxiety & Imposter Syndrome · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And that's what it is. It's this thing in his head that's gone out of the tree's far It's a joke about the mania. What were you talking about? I was saying that trees over there, but it's not. It's further away. And it's that thing. The amount of times I've been with my wife and you sort of say something. And she's like, fuck you about that. I saw this being in Primrose Hill the other day that genuinely said, protect our birds. This was the line on the bin. Protect our birds. There's a picture of a bird and respect their way of life. And I just went into this thing of like, I don't know, you show respecting, but like in my head, I'm just kind of like, I didn't know they were disgruntled chaffinches all over Primrose Hill. I've never seen that on the news of just kind of go, today a bird was the victim of, you know, of somebody attacking him. My brain was just like whirring around with this. And she can see I'm kind of full zombie. I just gone.”
2021-12-06 · The Diary of a CEO · Russell Howard: How To Laugh Through Fear, Anxiety & Imposter Syndrome · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Honestly, that is the best description of it. Like, there's a joke that I think sums up comedians' brains the best by a brilliant comedian called Mitch Headburg. He's no longer with us. One of the greatest comedians of all time. And this joke sums up the brain that comedians have. And I'll do his impression if there's fans of Mitch out there, forgive me for this, but it works better if you try and do it as him. He kind of goes, I'm mumble, man. I mumble a lull off stage. I'm a mumbler. So I'll be with my friend and I'll say something and he'll be like, what? And I'll say it again a little bit louder and he'll be like, I didn't hear you. And then the third time I'll say it and he still can't hear me, so I'll say it to him. But now I'm yelling at him, that tree is far away.”
2021-12-06 · The Diary of a CEO · Russell Howard: How To Laugh Through Fear, Anxiety & Imposter Syndrome · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Do you know what I mean? It's sort of that weird thing, I don't come off stage going, was that captivating or dull? But hopefully, yeah”
2021-12-06 · The Diary of a CEO · Russell Howard: How To Laugh Through Fear, Anxiety & Imposter Syndrome · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“This captivation in silence. But who fucking thinks they're captivating? That's the hardest thing I find is to kind of, you can never know whether you've been captivating or dull. Because the sound is the same”
2021-12-06 · The Diary of a CEO · Russell Howard: How To Laugh Through Fear, Anxiety & Imposter Syndrome · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You know, it's sort of that weird thing for me. Laughter is truth and victory and silence is failure. But then the interesting thing about that is when you watch a performance, you actually realize that of another comic. You go, wow, there's real power in the silence, actually, which took me a long time to realize because I was very initially just keep it up, keep it up, keep it up. And then you kind of, you know, you watch someone like Chappelle, for example, and you go, he's a real master of the silence and you don't lose him. Do you know what I mean? And you're not away, you're captivated. But it takes a really long time to feel that you've earned the right to captivate an audience.”
2021-12-06 · The Diary of a CEO · Russell Howard: How To Laugh Through Fear, Anxiety & Imposter Syndrome · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Just because it's embarrassing, it's like you've tried to make even this. I'm really enjoying this. It's really fun, but it's very serious. And we've got like a little mini audience over there I can hear. And every little laugh, my brain's going, that's good. And when they're not, I'm like, yeah, totally, just because you sort of feel like.”
2021-12-06 · The Diary of a CEO · Russell Howard: How To Laugh Through Fear, Anxiety & Imposter Syndrome · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“If they're laughing, yeah. But then the interesting thing as well is how quickly it crumbles down if it goes badly. And I've got a friend of mine, Al Pitcher, who's a comic in Sweden, and we talk about this a lot, where when you're low, irrespective of what you've done before, you just feel like such deep, deep shame that you've been unable to kind of make them laugh. But then that makes you work hard and go again because you know the excitement you get from making them love. So it's this, it's an unhealthy treadmill, but at the end of that treadmill, there is this incredible cherry.”
2021-12-06 · The Diary of a CEO · Russell Howard: How To Laugh Through Fear, Anxiety & Imposter Syndrome · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Youth team footballer that's breaking into the first thing. That's how it must feel like. You feel like you're kind of Phil Foden and you get these little opportunities. It's probably a similar thing with football. It's like what makes Phil Foden probably that he has natural talent. He works his ass off. And when there's opportunities, he's kind of clinical enough to take advantage of them. Do you know what I mean? And learn from mistakes. And comedy is constantly about learning from mistakes because you go, you do new material, it doesn't work, you tweak it, you tweak it, you tweak it until you get something that kind of makes them laugh.”
2021-12-06 · The Diary of a CEO · Russell Howard: How To Laugh Through Fear, Anxiety & Imposter Syndrome · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, of course. Yeah. Imagine that. But yeah, it's the best, man. But that feeling when you do the Brighton Comedia and you're 20 and you do 10 minutes and it goes really well and Stephen Grant, who is still the booker at the Brighton Comedia, says, oh, we'll get you back for a 20, that journey home. The best, or someone says, Are you going to do the, we're going to get you back to host the Lincoln student night? And you're like, yeah, do you want to do it monthly? Yes. And you build up this little following in Lincoln because it's... It's, of course, your self-esteem is just up there because you feel like you're.”
2021-12-06 · The Diary of a CEO · Russell Howard: How To Laugh Through Fear, Anxiety & Imposter Syndrome · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You can be critically lauded, you can be win awards, you know, but ultimately, if you don't hear laughter, you won't be here. And you have to have new stuff. That's the big thing. You have to make them laugh and constantly renew yourself. That's the thing to kind of stick around.”
2021-12-06 · The Diary of a CEO · Russell Howard: How To Laugh Through Fear, Anxiety & Imposter Syndrome · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“hard work, luck. Natural talent and perspiration. Mostly, and I would say luck is a big thing, luck and hard work are the big ones, and taking your opportunity and having little kind of moments and always listening to the crowd as well, because it's sort of that thing where certainly as a live comedian, you can't bullshit people. Like there is, you get a tangible answer every time. The laughter is yes, the silence is no. You just can't fuck with that. Like that's, there is a truth. To the gig. If they're laughing, it's fine. If they're not, it ain't. And that's the big thing, really. It's just kind of, you know, All great comedians listen to the audience because they're all that matters.”
2021-12-06 · The Diary of a CEO · Russell Howard: How To Laugh Through Fear, Anxiety & Imposter Syndrome · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Best it was the best. It was like it's the best night out. You go to Plymouth and it's a six hour round journey, but you do 20 minutes and it goes great. And then the promoter says, oh, we'll get you back. And you're like, brilliant. I go back to Plymouth. And yeah, it's sort of all worked out.”
2021-12-06 · The Diary of a CEO · Russell Howard: How To Laugh Through Fear, Anxiety & Imposter Syndrome · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I've been like, I think it's by TETS Elliott or TE Elliot that said those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their mind wake in the day to find that all is vanity. But the dreamers of the day are dangerous. They act upon their visions with open eyes and make them happen. And that is at the core of my dad. So he's kind of quite disciplined, but he also has a fuck it, go for it. But yeah, I just went for it. But also because I loved it. And I didn't love working at the RSC and I didn't, I'd finished my degree and I knew what I wanted to do. And I just worked my bollocks off, man. I did every gig you can imagine but loved it. And my brother used to come to them. We traveled down to Brighton to do 10 minutes. And we'd have to sort of bunny hop the car to Reading Station because we didn't fill up. And, you know, it was real kind of fly by the seat of your pants stuff. But just.”
2021-12-06 · The Diary of a CEO · Russell Howard: How To Laugh Through Fear, Anxiety & Imposter Syndrome · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Spreading out into November, but to work for a comedy company called Avalon, one of the biggest kind of comedy producers in the UK. And then he signed me. And so it worked. And then I kind of moved to London and kind of, you know, slowly kind of kept on keeping on. I really, I liked the deadline that my dad gave me. Do you know what I mean? Because it was kind of, and I really respected it. And he had this amazing quote on his office that said,”
2021-12-06 · The Diary of a CEO · Russell Howard: How To Laugh Through Fear, Anxiety & Imposter Syndrome · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Just do that and then see where you are in a year. I was at the Edinburgh Festival. I had about like eight days left from this kind of like contract. And my now agent saw me at the Edinburgh Festival have like a really good gig. And he kind of said, oh, does it always go that well? And I was like, all the time, you mad, yeah. But I was doing lots of sort of improvising and stuff like that. It was quite hit and miss back then. And then we went for went for a meal. He gave me, I used to have a thing called the comedy network where it was like 30 gigs around universities. And that day, he booked me into these 30 gigs that were at the time, I still remember the money. It's 150 pounds per gig.”
2021-12-06 · The Diary of a CEO · Russell Howard: How To Laugh Through Fear, Anxiety & Imposter Syndrome · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And I was kind of like, I don't have a gig in Lincoln. And then I'd have to drive back to get to work. And it was kind of like knackering. And my dad basically, I remember weirdly not to name drop, but I was talking to Matthew McConaughey about this. And it's a very similar thing where his dad, when he told his dad he wasn't going to become a lawyer, he was going to become a comedian, an actor. His dad said, don't half-ass it. And that was a similar reaction to my dad. My dad basically was like, right, if you want to do this, you're 21, go for it. Give yourself a year. Don't stop. Put everything into it. And then if it's not happening in a year, you stop, you get a proper job. And I kind of respected that option that he gave me. Do you know what I mean? It was like, I'll be fine. It was like, don't fuck around. Properly go for it. Don't do three gigs a week. Do five gigs a week.”
2021-12-06 · The Diary of a CEO · Russell Howard: How To Laugh Through Fear, Anxiety & Imposter Syndrome · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I was working at the RAC in Bristol, I had a part-time job, and I was also doing stand-up. Because I started stand-up at university and then finished my degree, went home and was just kind of doing probably three gigs a week. For 50 quid a pop was like sometimes 100 quid a pop, that kind of thing. And alongside this kind of like shift at the RAC.”
2021-12-06 · The Diary of a CEO · Russell Howard: How To Laugh Through Fear, Anxiety & Imposter Syndrome · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“My first ever gig was in Bristol, a place called Virgin Murph, and I took all these jokes that I've been writing since I was 14 and I whittled it down to my best 20. And I did it there at Virgin Mirth. I followed a guy who was eating a banana with a spoon, singing the theme tune to the Sweeney. And another bloke that was sort of like his act was to punch himself in the face. So in a sense, it didn't really matter how bad my 14-year-old stuff was. But yeah, so that was it. And then I kind of some of it stuck, some of it didn't. But it was all like I had this bit about like, how did Captain Kirk get through the entire? I wrote this when I was 14. But how did Captain Kirk get through all the Star Trek episodes without once flicking Spock's ears? So that was one of my first. And I sort of think it's all right. It's not bad.”
2021-12-06 · The Diary of a CEO · Russell Howard: How To Laugh Through Fear, Anxiety & Imposter Syndrome · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT