Moment 39 - Jimmy Carr: The Truth About Hard Work

00:03What role does hard work play in our society? It's right, in becoming a successful individual at whatever pursuit or whatever passion you're pursuing, there's probably a counter-narrative that I think has emerged in our country, maybe because of social media, has allowed people to kind of converge behind that and relinquish responsibility of their situations by referring to hard work as being a really, really sort of toxic thing. And I felt that more recently.

00:27I didn't see it when I was younger. I mean, let's, let's, you know what? Let's have a, you gambling man? Uh, not, it depends. I mean, in life, not in the casino. Yeah. Let's, let's put a bet on that. Let's see how that works out for them. I just don't think that's going to bring them happiness. Which part? Hard work is toxic. Okay. Okay. Don't do, don't do hard work then. Good luck, dummy. It's just not going to work for you. That's not going to pay out because what's the metric of our society? It's results, right? And I don't care how there's two great myths in our society, right? There's one myth is talent and ideas.

01:04And there's another myth, which is hard work. They're both bullshit, total fucking bullshit. Because the ideas are cheaper than table salt, right? There's, there's, everyone's got ideas. I've got an idea for an app. It's the Uber for fill in the thing here. Yeah. Great. Sure. Sure. It's every idea is about implementation. Every, um, sports is a good analogy, right? So Michael Jordan, greatest of all time, right? There's no debate. He's the greatest. How much did he work? Fucking more than anyone else. How much natural talent did he have? More than anyone else. What if he hadn't worked? You never heard of him. He never would have made the team, let alone being the greatest, but wouldn't have even made the team if he hadn't trained.

01:49It's a good analogy for life of going, look, whatever talent you have, if you don't do the work as well. It's just a waste of potential. So I think it's the absolute fundamental. Now, hard work and drudgery are not the same thing, right? There's a working smart and working hard, and there's a difference between the two. Like if you're working at something and it's like hard work alone won't do anything, you know, it's about what stream you're in. And I suppose the extreme example would be if you're collecting, you know, recyclable metals on a favela dump in South America, work as hard as you want. Nothing's ever going to, you're never going to get to that level.

02:28So you work hard if you must, and you work smart if you can. If you can, you know, if anyone listening to this is already in a privileged position in the, you know, odds are Western world, doing okay, have a digital phone. That's, you're doing better than a third of the world before you even start. You know, most people don't have running water. You know, most people don't have a flushing toilet. The world's in a fucking terrifying state. So it's that thing of going, well, work as smart as you can work at the thing that you're best at. I think school teaches us maybe the wrong lesson. School teaches us a lesson about mediocrity and being all rounders.

03:04and yet we live in a world that does not reward all-rounders. Who gives a fuck about all-rounders? If you get a D in physics and you get an A in English, I say, just go to English lessons because we're going to get you up to a C grade in physics. I'll tell you what the world doesn't need, someone who's shit at physics, still shit at physics with no natural. So find out what you've kind of got a natural, you know, that edge thing. Find out what you have a natural ability for, what's the thing that you do best? And again, I would remind people, it's not the best in the world, just better than anything else you do. Lean into that. Like I'm all for following your dreams if your dreams are what you're best at. And the opinions of family and friends don't count.

03:48And then it's a little bit, I suppose it's a bit tough love. It's that thing of going, look at what your inner critic says, okay? And it won't be wrong. look at what your inner critic says about you walk back the cruelty and you gotta okay that's the reality that's the starting point i read that in your book and i was i was in i was laying in bed there was actually already a book i was listening to it and i and you said the thing about your inner critic which a lot of people obviously don't want to admit is their inner critic is usually right and i remember sitting there thinking no that can't be right let me check this and then i started listening to my inner critic for a couple of seconds and i thought no that's right that's right that's right but please expand on the idea well look the the idea of the inner critic is going look i i went to a uh fancy university right and i think cambridge is where imposter syndrome was built and there's there's a lot of imposter syndrome in the world right you arrive at a new workplace and you go jesus they must have made a mistake and got the wrong cv and given me the job and all right i'm at this new college or i'm i'm at this new i'm starting this thing and I don't know what I'm doing. That feeling of I'm not enough and I don't

04:55know what I'm doing is why you buy the business management for dummies book and fucking read it the night before. It's what drives you to do the homework. So I got to Cambridge and I thought, I'm not smart enough to be here. And then I worked my fucking nuts off and it turned out I was wrong. And I was smart enough to be there and I did really well. Because I fucking, because I was motivated by the, I'm not good enough to be here. I need to work. I need to work hard. You know, know, you start in comedy and you go, oh my God, I've given up everything to be a comedian. I've got 20 minutes of jokes that work. I'm going to need thousands of jokes that work. They all have to work. Fuck. You get to work. What's the motivation? What's the thing that wakes you up at four in the morning? And you go, I need to fucking do this. I can't rely on just being, hey, I'm just going to wisecrack. And, you know, asking a comic to improvise an hour long show is like asking a magician to do real magic.

05:49The work is done in the gym. By the time I get to the stage, I know it's going to be a good show. I've tried these jokes on other people. I know we're a lock. You know, 10, 20% of the evening is about the fun that happens in that room, the messing around with the audience, the showing off the work that I've done in the gym, the muscle memory of knowing how to make people laugh. Great. But I'm going to arrive ready. there's something really interesting in that when you're talking about the reason why you succeeded at cambridge is because you didn't feel like you were smart enough to be there and etc etc etc that also sounds a lot like what i described when i said the reason why i pursued money and trying you know tried to be successful was because i felt inadequate in my in myself it and it became this great motivator yeah and this there's there's like a there's a there's a plus to that and then there's this potential danger in but are we being a bit like you know that that thing of going giving kids too much self-esteem giving people not kids necessarily because this is about life stage right what we're talking about here isn't about when you leave college and when you're young and when you're doing something right there'll be people listening to this in their 40s

06:56that are going to start a business and do something fucking exceptional with their lives there's people in their 50s that are going to do that there's people in their 60s i don't believe there's like a knockoff point people in their 70s yeah fuck those people the delta variant dealt with them they're gone man there's none left i'm sorry hey the good news is the pensions crisis is over but that thing of like going well you're gonna you know people people do people do extraordinary things if they if but they they put the work in and and i think people lean into the myth of like that thing of like oh he's a genius you read you know forbes magazine or whatever about business people doing incredibly well it's like well this guy's a genius steve jobs thing is though genius genius love bill gates is genius and then you read about that these these guys that are like finance guys they wake up at five in the morning and he only sleeps for three hours a night and he does so much and he knows everything and now he works so hard it's always both it's always both and then plus time you need you know that 10 000 hours thing isn't isn't wrong it's just that's the minimum what could you stand to do for 10 000 hours that won't feel like drudgery what could

08:05you stand to do now for the next 10 years of your life that won't feel like uh this again and if you're only motivated by the paycheck it's like well how hard could you work