When Your 'Flaw' Becomes Your Edge with Comedian Hasan Minhaj

0:00Stand-up comedy in the pecking order, you know, you got your actors and your musicians, you have your magicians and your clowns. A stand-up comedy somewhere between magicians and clowns. That's where I kind of place us. Between clown and magician. So somewhere between David Copperfield and Bozo, there's a comedian. It's Hasan Minhaj.

0:29Every single one of us has a teacher or a coach or someone who saw something in us when we were younger and took us under their wing. We are who we are in part because of that person. Now imagine if that discovery, that talent that you learn from that person can actually create an entire career. That's exactly what happened with Hasan Minhaj. He went on to have a wildly successful career in comedy, including being on The Daily Show and host of The Patriot Act. But it was actually his teacher back in high school who saw something in him and imagine, just imagine, if all of us could find that thing and run with it.

1:15This is a bit of optimism. Oh, and a quick aside, my apologies in advance to Todd. I'm always curious about people's origin stories, like how you found yourself on a path of comedian. Okay. What is my X-Men origin story? Okay. I grew up in Davis, California, which is a small-ish town next to Sacramento, California, not to brag. Northern California is kind of the, I would say, the forgotten area of California that I represent very hard, but I went to a public school. I went to Davis Senior High School. I was a energetic, but talkative student that had trouble focusing and paying attention, completing tasks, arriving to things that I needed to get to on time, which I still struggle with to this day.

2:09But I had a teacher. Her name is Miss Takeuchi. And she was the computers teacher. I mean, this is dating me. We literally had a thing called computers class where you would take Mavis Beacon typing, and you would learn C++ as a programming language. I know. But at the time, I know, it just sounds so insane right now with like everything that's happening in AI. So anyways, I was a bit of a blabbermouth, I would get into trouble at school and Miss Takeuchi ended up putting me into a thing called speech and debate and forensics. And I did very good at it. I placed at it. She was one of the first people in my life that kind of pulled me to the side.

2:49And she said, Hey, you have this, you have this gift, you have the gift of gap. It's certainly not helpful in class. It's quite annoying, but there is a place for you to do it here and you should, you should really do it more. And I just thought it was a cool kind of high school activity. I thought it was just a cool way to, to wear oversized suits and go on speech and debate tournaments. And then when I got to college, funny enough, my freshman year of college was the birth of Napster, LimeWire, Kazaa. A buddy of mine downloaded a bunch of stand-up comedy specials. I had no idea what those things were.

3:27And one day I went to go visit my buddy's roommate. And he was watching Chris Rock's Never Scared. So the year is 2004. My buddy is just cracking up. His roommate is just, like, cackling. And I'm watching Chris Rock perform in this really beautiful purple velvet suit. And he's at Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C. And he is talking about money, politics, sex, religion, relationships, pretty much all the third rail issues you are not allowed to talk about in class or at the time I was working at OfficeMax. Max, you're certainly not allowed to talk about that at OfficeMax while you're on the clock.

4:13And I just, I had this kind of aha moment where I go, oh, that's funny speech and debate. The rest was history. I started Googling how to become a standup comedian. My path is almost identical. It's a little bit of sliding doors, right? Which is here I am, hyperactive kid with ADHD. I'm literally bouncing my foot while I'm talking to you. Can't finish things, like missed every deadline that was ever given to me. Show up late to everything. all of the traditional ADHD things like you, all of my friends in high school, my friends had a subject. I was always intimidated. This one was really good at history.

4:47And this one was really good at math. And this one was really good at English. And this one was a really good writer. And I was kind of like average at pretty much everything. And I went through this stress, like what's my subject? And I realized I couldn't read books, but I had to pass school. I got really good at asking questions, really good at listening and really good at explaining things back to teachers saying, do I have this right? Because I had to learn from talking. Otherwise I was going to fail. And so I realized my mouth was my talent. Like speaking was my talent. And I thought, oh, I should be a lawyer.

5:22And you ended up going to law school. You did that, right? I went to law school in England. I finished half a law degree. I dropped out and I happened to be dating a girl at the time. You talk about kismet luck, whatever it is. I happened to be dating a girl at the time who was studying at Syracuse University in the School of Advertising. And she says to me, what about advertising? You can talk. You like the rigor of forming an argument from law. Why don't you go do that creatively? And that's what I used to say in my job interviews when they said, why do you want to be in advertising? They would look at my resume and They'd be like, why do you want to be in advertising?

6:00I'd be like, it's the exact same as law. I have to make an argument to a group of people as to why they should or shouldn't convict, why they should or shouldn't want this product. And I said, it's all the same thing. I used to call it the big sell at 20, whatever I was, 22, 23 years old. And it's just by these strange circumstances of you have these, somebody recognizes a talent. You don't know how to apply that talent, but you kind of go in whatever direction is available. something or someone shows up that sort of slaps you in a direction that you're like huh and thus a career is born and very very similar skill sets very very similar origin story completely different directions do you work with young people do you work with like what are the youngest age group of people that you work with in your travels around the world the youngest people i've done a why Discoverywood were 16.

6:52Wow, that's amazing, man. But having said that, when my nephew was in grade school, how old was he? He was probably nine. I went and gave a talk to seven, eight, nine-year-olds about leadership. And these kids were smarter than any adults I've ever talked to. I said, who can tell me what a leader is? And like a whole bunch of hands, right? You know, they're kids. And I call on one girl, you know, and she says, a leader is somebody who looks after the people around them. I'm like, correct. And I'm like, well, what makes a good leader? And they're like, a good leader is one that makes their friends feel seen and heard.

7:30I'm just like, kids are smarter and then we get dumb and I have to go teach people to be like a seven-year-old. But anyway, that's the youngest. Well, I was about to tell you that, which is I have two children. I have a seven-year-old daughter. I have a five-year-old son. And one of the things that I, I don't know if you're a believer in this, if you're a believer in destiny or kismet. I certainly struggle with this at times, which is regret. I'll go through something in a personal relationship or specifically with a familial relationship. If you've ever dated someone and you've visited their family and then you find out how normal they are and then you just go, oh my God, it didn't have to be like this.gov when you look at your own family.

8:11So I've had these moments where I was like, oh man, the way I grew up, or it didn't have to be this way. If only someone could have gotten to me earlier. What if I had met Miss Takeuchi in the seventh grade? Maybe I could have started the performing arts as a 12-year-old or a 13-year-old. And so I look at my children, I go to their class, and I try to be a parent that's involved with their kind of after-school activities and just the things that they like to do. I try to the best of my ability really see them so when they do something that is brave or courageous whoa like you're you're four years old and you just went on the not the high dive but the middle dive that's kind of crazy because seven-year-olds do that and you're four that's pretty brave you know you're brave right like I try to do these things that I wish I had at a younger age which is hey I see something in you there there is there are these innate qualities within you, then you should be aware of them, that you are capable and intelligent or courageous or brave.

9:07But there's something else that you were talking about when you were talking about speaking to young kids, which is really beautiful, is that that sort of Bluetooth channel is open. They're very open to being airdropped information. They haven't been guilt tripped into the bureaucracy of adulthood. One of the things that's really beautiful about children is if you go to a group of kids and you you ask them who wants to be the leader someone will vocally raise their actually several kids might raise their hands a lot of things are happening like number one there's massive accountability there's face-driven accountability like me yeah pick me it's my full government name pick me and here's my social security number i really believe this i should be the leader in line and then also the risk to put yourself out there and the time that I spent as I was climbing the ranks of standup comedy, and I had day jobs where I'd have to go work in an office, all of those things of whose fault is it?

10:11It was hot potato. Who's in charge? Hot potato. Blame, responsibility, all of these things become obfuscated through Slack, iMessage, email, cell phones, and bureaucracy. Whereas I've seen more courage in my daughter's first great class of like, I'm the one who let the team down and I am sorry, you know, or like, I'm the one that will lead the team to victory. Here I am. And I just, I think, I don't know what it is about adulthood that teaches us that, but it sucks. Adulthood and modern work have become these condoms for conflict where like, I don't want to be blamed. I don't want to put myself out there.

10:49And I just see so much. I see the opposite with kids. There's so much courage. part of it is the neocortex like the part of our brain that is underdeveloped until i think 13 is what piaget said right fully developed like i don't i don't know i don't know either um but but the point is is like the our rational homo sapien brains they're not fully developed in those we don't have full capacity for rational analysis until until you know our teenage years and so when kids don't have that they're operating in that beautiful mammalian state that beautiful sort of good. So, cause you hear entrepreneurs or folks like you, like, how did it work?

11:27When I trusted my gut, it worked. When I took too much advice from other people and doubted myself, it always didn't work. Right. Right. And what kids are doing is they're trusting their guts because that's all they have. Cause they can't think it through. They, they don't weigh pros and cons. It doesn't exist. They don't consider the humiliation that they'll suffer. They don't care. They wear, they're dressed as Spider-Man to go to school. What humiliation, you know? Yeah. And there's also not a political 4D chess. There's no angling. Yeah, there's no angling. There's no angling or Machiavellian.

11:57There's nothing Machiavellian. And they have such a, like, I was so blown away. I thought I was going to, you know, I thought kids, when I said, who's a leader? That's the person who's in charge. Nobody gave me that answer. Right? That's an adult answer, the irony is. And I think when you strip a human being down to their purest form, where you get rid of the insecurities and the politics and the angling and the over rationalizing and overthinking and weighing the pros and cons. And if you just strip all that away, you get a good leader, a good friend. The joy of life. Yes, there's stress. Of course, there's stress.

12:37Kids have tons of stress. I lost my teddy bear in an airport when I was a kid. Let me tell you, huge stress. But the point is that the irony is we have to aspire to be like that. And that's kind of what we teach, right? I love getting advice from old people because they don't care what you think about them anymore. Totally, totally. They don't care anymore. Yeah. And they're like old people and young people. Super old and super young, yes. Like really close to birth and really close to death. That's really like the purest form. Totally, totally. Yeah, yeah. And then we mess it up in the middle to get to the end and be like, I should have stayed like the beginning.

13:15100%. And there's one other detail that I wanted to add to, which is both you and I are kind of bonding on being somewhat of, you know, for lack of a better word, somewhat of outsiders. Oh, I'm not a great standardized test taker. I'm not the most book smart. I did not top my calculus class. I didn't get a five on this AP test, so on and so forth. But I think there's something that you've probably seen in your career, and I didn't know this was a gift or asset in my career, but I certainly hope that we can start valuing it in adult professional settings and certainly with younger children, which is when you said that you were able to see and hear something and then ask your teacher, is this what you're asking for or is this what you need?

14:00that kind of problem solving real world problem solving that's pov and discernment and figure it the fuck out ness and that is a gift i think the term for it is called street smarts but but i think what you're referring to is really important which is figure it the fuck out which which is that's all filmmaking is that's all comedy is that's every writer's room hey what what is your perspective What is your POV? Hey, this is our budget. What are we going to do? And all of that stuff is, there's all these intangible skills outside of, hey, I'm a good writer and final draft. That's really, really interesting.

14:36I mean, for me, and I've said this before, which is, I think the solutions we find to the struggles we have in where kids become our strengths as adults, like, it wasn't what's my point of view. And like, this was, I either had to figure out how to do the homework the way they told me I had to, which wasn't working from a brain, or I had to find a different way to learn, or I was going to fail. And some kids failed. And I wish that they had parents who said, clearly, you're bad at math, but my God, you're a good singer. Or not even that, man. You know, I want, I don't even want it to be that cliche, Simon.

15:12It's not like, man, you could have been a pop star. It's actually, holy shit, you're a great organizer. When it comes to rallying, you can rally 10 people to do anything. You have a high pain threshold. My niece has insanely phenomenal EQ. Like, off the charts, old soul EQ. And as a teenage girl, it is useless. You know? And it doesn't benefit getting ahead in school. But just you wait. as soon as she's in the real world, this magical talent, this gift. I think what you're touching on is we don't tell kids what the gifts they have are that are outside of the report card. Right. Right. Right. Right.

16:01Yes. Yes. And by the way, listen, I want to, I totally get, we need objective metrics and numbers and PNL sheets. Like I get it. We're not slamming the traditional metrics. We're saying and. Yeah. And. I'm saying and. And. Yes. And there are other things that then will bring dividends and revenue and money and et cetera, et cetera. And you would be shocked at how important those things are. yeah this idea of conformity and non-conformity where as kids we're non-conformist and it works out great then we become conformists for valid reasons you know which is which is when we're very little we only want the approval of our parents and as we go through adolescence we need approval from our peers which is important because it allows us to acculturate with a larger tribe outside of our immediate family which is important for survival so i i get that but the balance seems to tip too far and what i find funny about this idea of conformity and non-conformity When we're junior, we have to, so, I mean, I'll just speak for myself, right?

17:02All of the things that people criticize me for when I was junior in my career, you're unfocused, you think weird, you need to be good at all these other things that I suck at, right? Biology, calculus. I mean, being organized. How about, you know, just like when you're a junior person and I'm working in a corporation, like your job is filing. like i remember i remember early in my career my boss asked me to get him a file that i'm responsible for about two hours later i walked into his office like this ha you didn't think i had it did you and it was in that moment that i realized that when you're that excited that you found a file you're disorganized and simon when did you get when did you get fired at what point I mean, are we really going to get on that road?

17:52I didn't get fired, but I got my performance reviews. Yes. My performance reviews were, they went something like this. You're doing a great job, but that's not how we do things here. We're my average performance reviews. But what I realized going back to the point I was making, which is all the things that made me weird, different, don't know what to do with you when I was young, are now celebrated, asked for, demanded, now that my career moved. Same everything, but it was a weakness when I was junior, and it is the strength now that I've figured out how to stay on the path. And man, I feel for all those kids where their gifts aren't articulated through a standardized test.

18:41I feel for those kids, man. because I was one of those kids. I was a very middle of the pack, middling kid that really struggled. And then in my professional life, Del Taco, Office Max, Safeway, I worked in tech, like every single one of those jobs, I was fired. I was let go. Was it consistent while you fired? Or was it just bad luck? Yeah, it was consistent. It was me. I was the problem. Okay, accountability. I like it. Yeah, but they would always call me in and they would just go, look, you clearly don't want to be here. We can tell when we are going this way, your mind is here. Like you're always going somewhere else.

19:15Your enthusiasm, your passion, your patience, you are extremely impatient when it comes to the rules of being a cashier clerk at Safeway. And I'm like, you're totally right. Like I don't, I don't fully adopt and buy into all the rules. I am late to work. I don't have it. I'm not a great employee here. Like it was completely my fault. That being said, I remember my last job that I got fired at. I was working tech support for a tech company and I was doing standup comedy at the time and my manager called me in. And if you work in tech, many people have had this thing where you, whenever you get that, that message, Hey, can we chat for a minute?

19:53It's bad. Do you have a moment to chat? Just know that it's going to be bad. It's not positive. It's the same in relationships, by the way. Yeah. Do you have a moment to chat? Question mark. it's never like i just want to let you know on a fall day when the sunlight hits your eyes i mean it really brings out the hazel in your eyes and i just want to let you know it's it's it's never that right it's never that it's usually something bad but i remember i was getting let go and i was asked to bring my laptop in they make you like turn in your laptop like you're edward snowden or something but i remember my manager let me go and she goes look i can just tell is there somewhere else you would rather be right now.

20:33And I knew the exact place that I would want to be. I wanted to be at the punchline. There was a show that I really wanted to be attending, but I had to be at work. And I think that feeling of being out of alignment, like I want to be here, but I am here. It manifested itself in me just not being a good fit at all of these places. Okay. Yes. And now let's take the opposite. it. I knew a woman who, if you asked her what she did, she said, I'm an actor, except she had been a bartender for about 20 years. And the last quote unquote acting job she had was 20 years ago. Got the dream, got the survival job, right?

21:19I don't know if it's talent. I don't know if it's effort. I don't know if it's luck, but one of those things is missing. It's not working out. Maybe it's you. Maybe it's not you. I don't know. At what point do you let the dream go? Or at what point do you say, maybe I don't have the talent, the effort, the luck? You know, I am always reticent to prescribe how other people should act or live their life. But the point is, is being diehard for the dream is not always the best advice. Yeah, I would say for me, man. Look, when I first moved to Los Angeles and pursued the dream, it was to be a comedian and be in movies and in TV shows.

22:03There was a lot of things that I wanted. There were many shows that I auditioned for that I didn't get. But I'll speak for myself. The thing that I'm the most proud of is that no matter what hand I was dealt, I played my hand to the best of my ability. And as information came in, I just iterated. Like, hey, I'm auditioning to get into this comedy club. the booker didn't pass me cool i'll go to the comedy club across town like i continue to iterate and then the second thing that i did is to the best of my ability i don't try to litigate the the past meaning what whatever whatever grievances or casting directors or jobs that didn't go my way i'm not here to get my pound of flesh and try to pursue that like i am taking the information and just like, you know, my browser, Mozilla Firefox v10.7.1, every turn of the road, I'm just updating my path.

23:00Like, you know, I'm 39 years, I'll be turning 40 in September. Did I want to be in Superbad when I was 22 years old? Of course I did. Of course I wanted to be in Superbad. Of course I auditioned for those early Judd Apatow movies. And it would have been a dream to be a young 20-something in a very fun comedy. I'm 40 years old now. That dream is over. That dream is for me. It's never going to happen. I'm not good at being a 22-year-old, but I'm pretty great at being now a 39-year-old comedian. The intervening factor in those two scenarios, because we're not offering prescriptions because we don't really know, right?

23:36Yeah, everyone's lived experience is different. But the one intervening factor in your case, my case, and those other cases are somebody objective, not your mom, not your bestie. said, hmm, you got a thing. Somebody validated there's a talent, objectively, that if you get a little bit lucky, if you work hard and you foster that talent, like you had gift of gab, sure, but gift of gab is not quite enough to be a comedian. You also have to get a laugh. You know, I have gift of gab and you're funnier. Not much, but funnier. The comment section may say otherwise. It's a relative scale, right? Sure.

24:23But the point is, we both had external objective validation that gives you a little bit of confidence to stick with it, right? And then maybe every now and then you get a little bit more from somebody else. And that's enough to help you ignore the people who don't see it and keep looking for somebody else who does. But it's not your mom who says, honey, you're amazing. You should audition for American Idol. Yeah, no, my parents did not validate me. that way. Maybe that's the reason why I am a stand-up comic. My parents love me and they validated all sorts of things, but I also drove them nuts because I couldn't study.

25:01Are your parents still alive? Yeah. Very much so. How do they feel now that you're wildly successful and you have books and memes that have gone viral around the world? I guess Indian parents or Jewish parents are the same. Very similar. I'm not a lawyer or a doctor, but they'll take it. they don't know how to describe what i do to their friends but it's fine my you know yeah my my dad gets asked like simon cynic you know that's great oh that's great well your don't your parents get asked like like nikki minaj so sure yeah all the time yeah they're like yeah like the like the rapper right um what i was gonna say i i think look i think there's another thing that uh maybe it's a strength which is like sure i'm persistent and sure i'm hard-working I think everybody in my business and at that level is, and I'm sure with you in the publishing world, to write a book, everybody is a good writer.

25:55It's extremely competitive. Everybody has a high motor and is really driven. I think another thing that maybe I didn't know it was a strength, but when I was younger, which was I'm going to take in information and then pivot accordingly. I think I'm pretty good at that, the power of the pivot. and and maybe it's because i'm a child of immigrants and we know that the plan is not always set the plan is this fluid thing it really is like that computer game oregon trail where you're like oh shit like your sister has died of scurvy and you're like all right let's let's barter lemons for everyone yeah you just you have this thing of like i understand hey the plan is gonna change it's not i had this vision board and it's it's supposed to be like it's supposed to be like nothing.

26:44It's like, this is where ADHD helps us. Yes, very much. I can't remember the plan, let alone stick to it. And so and also because my brain moves like a pinball machine, you know, which it's not a strength or a weakness, it has value and it has liability. I don't sleep because my brain doesn't turn off, you know. So but again, all of these, none of these things are strengths or weaknesses. They're just, they're characteristics and attributes. And I think what we have to learn to do is put ourselves in situations where those characteristic attributes manifest as strengths. Whereas when you, and this goes back to the original conversation, which is if you follow the path that's prescribed, for some people, it'll work out just, and I would argue for most people, it would work out just fine.

27:29But for someone like me, the prescribed path and the school path and the, whatever it is, my, it just, it's never going to work. The trick was, and this is, this is what we're getting to. This is the core of what we're getting to. For some reason, whether it's luck, external factors, parenting, a little bit of all of it, for some reason, it didn't destroy my self-confidence. For some reason, I didn't think of myself as dumb or... I had a 2.93 GPA when I graduated college. Holy shit. Yeah, not the best GPA. Yeah, that's pretty bad. Okay, okay, settle. I know why I got it. Okay. I got two Ds, neither of which I deserved.

28:11Okay, okay, gotcha. No accountability. None. Nicely done, Simon. Hey, let me ask you this. So this podcast is called A Bit of Optimism, right? Just a tad. Just a tad. Just a hair of optimism. Okay, I'm sure many people who are fans of your work look to you for your perspective and your framing of the world. So obviously, the news, politics, natural disasters, these things inundate our social feeds and our cell phones every day. And people are really going through it. Life is lifing. What do you do? Do you look at the present and the future with optimism? Or are you scared of the future? How do you look at the world and how do you advise other people?