E210 - Katherine Ryan: When I had nothing, I had everything

0:01Hi there, you're listening to High Performance, the award winning podcast that unlocks the minds of some of the most fascinating people on the planet. I'm Jake Humphrey, and alongside Professor Damien Hughes, we learn from the stories, successes and struggles of our guests, allowing us all to explore, be challenged and to grow. Here's what's coming up today. I was always definitely strange. I had a strange perspective. So I think being an outsider is what felt like home to me. There's no woman in this country with a Saturday night TV show or any late night TV show. I knew that if I was sitting in that chair that I was preventing one of my female peers from having a go.

0:42And being on that show was life-changing. And a lot of people use the word boycott. Catherine Ryan, boycott Smock of the Week. I never boycotted it. I just was realistic about the fact that if I want a different woman to be in this chair, it can't be me. I say this to my daughter's face. Viola is 14 next month. I say, don't be afraid of your mistakes. Like, on paper, you are my biggest mistake. But what seemed like a mistake was the greatest joy, still is the greatest joy of my life, was also my greatest motivation. I always knew that I was lucky and so I should be grateful. And it was gratitude that attracted wonderful things into my life.

1:19All right. So comedian Catherine Ryan on high performance. Of course, she's absolutely hilarious. But I think that when she stands on stage and she does stand up or she's hosting TV shows or appearing at some awards show, you're seeing Catherine Ryan, the public persona. The conversation we have today is with Catherine Ryan, the person. She talks about her upbringing and the impact of that. I mean, she talks wonderfully about reframing challenge in her life. I think that no matter what you achieve, there's always going to be someone that in your mind has achieved more, done more, is in a place that you would love to be.

1:58Catherine talks brilliantly about how she copes with those kinds of feelings these days. She talks about her future. She shares continuing challenges in her life. And it's such a good conversation. It's unlike any conversation we've ever had before, actually, on this podcast. So let's get straight into it. The brilliant and hilarious and actually hugely inspiring. Catherine Ryan on High Performance. And if you'd like to hear an extended edit of this episode, then you can download the High Performance app right now. Just go to your app store, download the app for free, and enter the code H-P-A-P-P for access.

2:36Enjoy.

2:44Welcome to the show. Thank you very much for having me on. What is your definition of high performance? Oh, I think it's competence and relentlessness. And I didn't know a lot about those things until I noticed a lot of people are lacking those qualities. They want to kick back. They can't complete tasks that you ask them to. I think being high performance is wanting to do a lot of things yourself and being able to execute those things well. Do you remember then when you first had that observation that great things can happen, but you've got to make those great things happen? I was very lucky.

3:23And I look at my children now in the younger generation, whom I'm very fortunate they will still come to see me do stand-up comedy. But their lives are so difficult. And I think that they're impeded by too much technology and social media and this idea that the world is so big and insurmountable. And I think it was lovely to grow up in a small town, really distilled, where my parents made me get a lot of things for myself, didn't give me everything. And I knew that if I wanted something, I just always felt empowered that I could go out and get it. And I think a lot of that is because we had to work things out for ourselves.

4:04We had to be bored sometimes. We had time to think about who we wanted to be and where we wanted to go. And I think that if I had grown up in a metropolis where I had lots of entertainment and everything at my fingertips, I might not have had that drive. So what kind of answers did you come up with then when you were having those early debates of who do I want to be, where do I want to go, what do I want to do? My town in Canada is almost America, and it's a big ice hockey town, and athletics were really cool. So the cool girls would play basketball, which is like netball without a dress. And we were allowed to wear trousers in Canada.

4:42Awesome. Yeah, that's pretty cool. And ice hockey was big, and I was not athletic. My dad was Irish, is Irish still. He's from Ireland. I'm an Irish citizen, actually. He was a bit traditional. and my sisters and I had two sisters. We did girl things. So we did ballet and we did piano and singing and musical theater. So a lot of my friends were in the musical theater department. And I was lucky to have that tribe, but it definitely made me love entertainment and performance. And I could see that there was a low ceiling for that where I lived. And I was like, oh, I could do things with this skill.

5:19I could go to the big city. And that was Toronto three hours away. And so my goal very young was just to get out of the athletic small town where I wasn't very cool and find more music and theater. So what was your first experience then of getting up on a stage and a lot of performance about getting bitten by that bug of seeing people respond to what they do? Little, really little. I went to French school as a prank. My parents didn't speak French, but I was quite an articulate, competent toddler. And my mom just was like, we should send her to an all French school. Canada is a bilingual country.

5:58So we have that resource. Let's just send her to French school. And I remember the day being four years old, going into reception, like, what? I thought the whole world was French. It was just my house that spoke English. I was like, what is this? But you immerse yourself and you speak very quickly, become fluent. And in the French Canadian school system, we had speech competitions. Oration is really big. They want to spread the language. They always want to speak. They're very proud of their language. So I'd be standing up in front of the whole school, reciting poems or writing speeches from like four or five years old.

6:33And I did one that was very feminist. I was 10. And it was called De Bezé, which means kisses. And I did it in front of the whole school. I remember being really brave. I was never scared of public speaking. It was about all these people kissing me. Everybody wants to kiss you, your babysitter, your auntie, your uncle. And at the end, I was like,

6:53So it was like, you can't kiss me unless you have my consent. Do you understand? Thank you. And it was 1993. I wonder why you picked that one then. I know. I was always quite spicy. Things like politics and consent always mattered to me. But you said your parents sent you there as a prank. And yet that's quite an outlandish prank to continue. What was their rationale of wanting you to be bilingual? Well, I feel like it was a prank because I just, on that first day of school, I'm like, why are you doing this to me? But of course, my mother thought of me as a citizen of the world. She went, well, these kids are going to have European passports because my husband's Irish.

7:35I got to get something out of that. and they have these resources. So I'm going to expose them to these resources that might serve them in life. My mom was really canny that way. I think it was a wise decision. But then it backfired because my sisters and I all spoke this secret language in the house that my parents didn't understand. So we could openly make plans as teenagers to go out, get some alcohol. We could just say whatever we wanted in front of my parents. And they were like, oh, look at them speaking French. Let's talk then about how this kind of transitioned to you focusing on a life in stand-up comedy.

8:11So you're working as a waitress in Canada. Do you do your first stand-up there or do you take the big leap across the pond to the UK and then have your first experience of that in the UK? Well, I almost did stand up at the restaurant where I was waitressing accidentally. So where I waitressed was Hooters. You might have heard of it. It's an owl sanctuary in Canada. We did bikini pageants there. And when I was a young, young woman, I was trying to find my value in the world. And I could see that in the early noughties, your value was to be for decoration, that the women who seemed to have the best, most happy lives were beautiful and thin and had little belly rings and blonde hair, tanned.

8:55So I tried to emulate all the things I'd seen from pop stars. Pop stars were really big. So what's happened to the 10 year old feminist saying you can't? I know. Like, where did she go? Feminism is a journey. I think you can be a sexy feminist. Yeah, absolutely. But I definitely think having a voice and having value that appreciates rather than depreciates like your youth and beauty is mostly feminist. That's a smart path to take. But at the time, I just wanted to have a good life and to make people happy and to be beautiful. So I started working at Hooters and I won the bikini pageant. I was Miss Hooters Toronto 2002.

9:29It's a title that I'm very proud of. Thank you. And then the next year, I thought, oh, I don't want to wear the bathing suit. Maybe I could wear a dress, which is my idea of power. And maybe I could hold the microphone. So I said to my manager, could I present the bikini pageant instead of competing in the bikini pageant? And for some reason, he said yes. And then when I was presenting the bikini pageant, what we do is we push all the tables together and make a stage in the restaurant. And the patrons of the restaurant watch. It's a really busy night. You make great money that night. They watch the bikini pageant.

10:00But they heckled me and they were drunk, some of them. and I had to keep status in that room, bring the girls out, ask them questions, present the bikini pageant, but also manage the crowd. And I loved that feeling and I loved being funny. We were funny in my house and comedy was always valued in my family and in my friendship groups. I always gravitated towards funny people, but being funny on stage felt really powerful to me. And then there was a comedy club next to the Hooters, the big comedy chain in Canada called Yuck Yucks. And I thought, well, maybe I'll just try some amateur nights there.

10:36So I would go put my name on the list and secretly do amateur nights just as a little outlet. I thought I'll do stand up comedy secretly and then I can come back to Hooters tomorrow and be the sweet, innocent, very non-threatening girl that a pop star would be like that would give me the best life. That's really interesting. So can I ask you about actually deciding to get up on a stage and do the microphone? because when I think about the role of a comedian, it almost goes against our natural psychology, which is to fit into a group and belong. And yet you very purposefully set yourself apart from the group and then look back at them and say, like me, follow me, come into my world.

11:19And that seems to go against so much of our own natural instincts. Would you describe how you overcame those instincts and to be able to get up there and then enjoy the experience? Yeah. I think I read something along the lines of what you're saying, Damien, where it's like we're animals and an animal, if it separates itself from the pack, feels shame afterwards, like fear and shame so that your brain says to you, don't ever do that again. That was really dangerous. And I just always liked that feeling, the feeling that you get where you think you're going to be sick and you feel adrenaline, but you also feel a little bit of shame, I guess.

12:02It's hard to explain why you would like shame. It's a, I don't know what's happening with all the little chemicals in my brain, but that feeling is exciting to me. So as much as my natural core brain was probably saying, oh, that was frightening. You were away from everyone. Don't do that again. I felt maybe like an outsider in my life anyway, because growing up, I was French for some reason. And I was also a musical theater kid, whereas the cool girls were athletes. And I was always definitely strange. I had a strange perspective. So I think being an outsider is what felt like home to me. But also getting up on stage and turning to a group and getting them to come into your world, as you say.

12:45I don't find that I'm doing exactly that. I'm trying to be a mirror. I'm trying to reflect their world back to them. I want people to see something of themselves in me, but to make them forget about any hardships they have or laugh at things that might be edgy or spicy or to articulate things maybe they've noticed about their own lives or their families or pop culture. I view myself more as a mirror. I think that line about shame is really interesting, actually. It can actually lead to it. and I totally recognise that feeling you're talking about. I get it even now. Like if I do something and I get a bunch of criticism for it, I think I better not do that again, rather than it's still the right thing to do.

13:23You know what I'm saying? Like it's still the right thing for you to do your comedy, even if it puts you on a pedestal and gives you that sense of shame. Like do you still live with that now? Or did you find that as you became more comfortable standing up in a room where everyone else is sitting down, which always feels like a scary thing to do, did it slowly disappear? It has diminished for sure. I used to be physically sick, feel sick before or right after a gig, just in the beginning because it was so exciting. It was almost like a roller coaster. So not with fear, with excitement? Just with adrenaline.

13:58Now I miss that feeling and my tour manager said to me, there was a point in my career where I started to ascend very quickly and when you're in the middle of your own life, you can't really see what's going on around you. but my tour manager could see it. And he said, remember this feeling the way it feels now, because it's really special and you'll never feel it again. And I said, what do you mean? He goes, well, once you sort of have done this ascent, then everything gets dulled a little and you start to take things for granted and you should never feel that way. Always get excited by it. So I've looked for those moments where the shame comes back.

14:33It's so hard to explain the shame. I'm glad that you know what it is. And I try to explain it to my husband, actually, because he's new to television and he comes on things with me now. My husband, Bobby, sometimes he's included. We did a documentary with Louis Theroux and he was in our lives and in our home and I'm used to it and I'm busy. So I wasn't really thinking. I just thought, oh yeah, Louis Theroux is coming. And my husband was more trepidatious. He was like, I don't know. Louis Theroux is like a, almost like a secret mind melding therapist. He gets answers out of people somehow that they don't realize that they're giving.

15:06And I didn't realize how monumental it was to be interviewed by Louis Theroux. But after he'd left, then that fear set in, that feeling of, oh, what did I just say? What did I just do? I think the best way that you can relate it to people who aren't performers is, I think when you're hungover and you're trying to remember everything you said last night and you go, oh, and you probably said nothing wrong at all, but you go, oh, what did I do? Was I dancing? What did I say? I think every time I get off stage or I stop, I get off filming a big show, I go, oh, it just happened then. And I've tried to explain that feeling to my husband so that he knows to anticipate it like a wave and lean into it and just welcome it in and know that even if you were wonderful, you were going to feel like that for a few hours.

15:51see i love your ability to almost articulate emotions and it reminds me i was jake and i were talking beforehand i've read an interview um with a psychologist called josephine perry that interviewed sarah pascal pascal and she was talking about learning to be able to use quite clever descriptions for her or more detailed descriptions of her emotions so she talks about in the interview that when she'd seen Michael McIntyre's got a Saturday night TV show a lazy emotion would be I'm jealous of him and yet when she'd learned to reframe it and explore it and go actually I feel envious because I'd like a Saturday night TV show that then empowered her to phone her agent and say what do I need to do to be able to get where I want to do so she learned to understand her emotions to help her rather than harm her and that's something that you seem quite skilled at doing.

16:47I'm interested in, would you explain a little bit around that? I'm certainly not as clever as Sarah Pascoe. She's a very good friend of mine and she's like a trained psychologist somehow. And she is so clever. But yeah, I think stand-up comedy specifically relies on language and the economy of words. And the way you say something could be not as funny as another way that you might say it, a different word that you might choose. It's almost like music. You want to hit the right note and choose the right word to draw people in. And the word acorn might be funnier than the word nut. It's so stupid.

17:27And I don't know why it works that way. But I think we've learned to play with language and try to be as clear as we can. Chris Rock, in some interview that I saw, explained jokes and why sometimes they work and sometimes they don't. And he said, often it's not your punchline that isn't working. It's your premise. People don't remember what you were setting up before you said the punchline. So sometimes Chris Rock repeats premises. He'll say, you know, for example, this is not, this is a terrible example. He'll say, your mom's so fat. Your mom is so fat that, your mom is so fat that he'll repeat the premise loads of times before he says the punchline.

18:05Or he'll say like, kids just don't understand. He'll talk a bit. He'll go back and say again, kids just don't understand. He'll talk a bit. So like language is just really interesting to us. And I think Sarah is such a great example of someone who would recognize the vast difference between the words jealous and envious. I don't really feel envious of anyone. I'm really lucky that way. I feel like empowered and inspired. But we do have to do to get a saturday night tv show sarah is grow a dick that still remains the case there's no woman in this country with a saturday night tv show or any late night tv show we get put on in the daytime even in america there's alan in the day and drew barrymore in the day and women in the day and then you've got jimmy kimmel and james corden in the night and we just i don't know why i think they assume will be sleepy by then.

19:01We just don't get late night chat shows. What can be done to change that, do you think? Because we both work in the TV industry. There are plenty of amazing women, high up commissioners, channel controllers. It's not an industry run by men. It's an industry run by men and women. So why are women not putting women on BBC One at eight o 'clock on a Saturday night on their own to hold a TV show? it's tricky i'm not really sure but i don't come off at it with this aggressive viewpoint of like we are exactly the same it's not fair they need to put women in these roles i have seen what progressive casting has done lately and i've seen shows where they've tried to populate it with different genders and ethnic minorities and socioeconomic backgrounds i've seen them try to adjust these things.

19:54And at the end of the day, I'm very realistic. And I would like, I like to see them doing more of that because it reflects the UK that I live in. I go outside and I see people from different ethnicities and people of different gender orientations, whatever. But they do have to fill a brief and please an audience. And if they don't please an audience, then they'll lose advertisers and then they don't have a TV show at all. So audiences are still a very much of the viewpoint, not all audiences, but I think the majority who actually watch TV anymore, don't find women funny. And that is a barrier for us because if an audience, an older television viewing audience, whomever, is watching TV and they switch off because they already have this unconscious bias that women aren't funny, then I understand that channel will lose advertisers and they don't want to do that.

20:43So they have to put on someone that people will watch and that will take some time to balance out and I'm okay with that I understand it's a shame though that you have to just kind of live in that world and accept that's the case isn't it do you do you find you have to work double hard or be twice as funny as a guy to get the same opportunity I don't but I'm a specific example I'm an example of pedestal feminism where I do get all the opportunities I'm really lucky I'm on every show I earn lots of money people come to see me on tour so I'm used almost against women because people will say, of course women can do that.

21:19Catherine Ryan's done that. And then they'll say, well, we had Catherine Ryan do it, so we don't have to book any other women or so. You know, I can't complain. I have a lot of opportunities. That's what happens to the one woman that they give the opportunities to. They use us as an excuse not to have the others. And that is sad. I never want to be that woman. That's why I've had to step down from certain things. So Mock the Week, for example, isn't a show anymore. It was just ended after a very successful, I think, 30 series or something like that. I loved Mock the Week. I loved Dara Obrey, and I loved everyone who worked on that show.

21:52But there came a point in my career where I had to stop appearing on that show because I knew that there was just one seat for a woman at that time. They always put us in the same seat, which is weird. They wouldn't even move us around. one seat. We know where that seat was, one woman on every episode. And I knew that if I was sitting in that chair that I was preventing one of my female peers from having a go. And being on that show was life-changing. You would receive so much more exposure and then people would come to see you on tour and it would really draw people in. It was a game changer of a show.

22:26And a lot of people use the word boycott. Catherine Ryan, boycott Smock of the Week. I never boycotted it. I just was realistic about the fact that if I want a different woman to be in this chair, It can't be me. That's a huge thing to do, though, because, you know, you work in a freelance industry where if you don't work, you don't earn. So would you mind for people who are maybe in a similar position having to make a big decision? Because this is a selfless decision as well. You know, you're stepping back to kind of pull someone else up behind you, which is legacy effectively. How did you come to that decision?

22:58Well, I was lucky that I had other offers. I had touring on and I try to balance motherhood and work effectively. So if I can pull back on something professionally and it makes ethical sense to me, like the Mock the Week decision did, then I think I just go with my gut on a lot of those things. I didn't seek counsel from anyone else. I should have maybe because then maybe there wouldn't have been this big news story that I boycotted Mock the Week. I never wanted it to look that way. But no, I just felt that it was the right time. I'm very clear about the decision-making process that leads me. I think our animal instincts are thousands of years old.

23:40And then intellectualism is very young. So I think with my chest a lot of the time. I think with that animal brain. And if something feels good, then I just do it. I didn't think about it too much. I just went, you know, I've got a lot on. I'm the one in that chair. If I say no, and it's difficult for me to say no, I do have a freelance mindset. Absolutely. Especially as a single mother in this country for a decade, I was a very destitute, impoverished, 25-year-old single mother once upon a time, and that doesn't feel long ago. And I remember running out of money at the end of every month, even though I had a full-time office job.

24:16And I remember bringing a box of Rice Krispies to work because the milk was free at the tea stand and that's what I would eat all day. And I remember what it was like and I will never forget that. And so now when people offer me loads of money to do my dream, why would I ever say no? So I always say yes. It was difficult for me to say no, but ultimately I felt, I just felt very clear that it was the right thing to do in the right time. But if we look at the decision to book you so regularly on Mock the Week, there's like that old saying in business, isn't there? That nobody ever gets fired for using IBM because you're almost guaranteed that it's safe.

24:52And I'm interested in the journey between you having to bring your Rice Krispies to work to feed yourself and get into that place of, let's book Catherine because we know she'll deliver. We know that she's good at what she does. What were the characteristics beyond being good at your job that you felt that people did want to just book you regardless of how often you'd been there? I think I learned my authentic voice really young. And it takes people a long time to find that. And there are even comedians today. I look at them and I know that they're proficient. They can do the maths of comedy. But there's something lacking in that I don't know if they're clear on who they are.

25:34I think you have to be very authentic in any walk of life for people to connect with you. I think it makes people feel comfortable. It makes people feel confident when you are clear and peaceful in who you are. And I had to find that out really young. I had to distill what was important to me in life and what wasn't. And I was very lucky. I say this to my daughter's face. Viola is 14 next month. I say, don't be afraid of your mistakes. Like on paper, you are my biggest mistake. because would you want your child in a partnership that wasn't very good to move to a foreign country and have a baby when she didn't have any money?

26:08You probably wouldn't want that. That's not the life that you design for your own child or for yourself. So on paper, maybe that feels like a big mistake. But what seemed like a mistake was the greatest joy, still is the greatest joy of my life, was also my greatest motivation. It took so much mental energy that when I was at work, I had to be very efficient and think of only work and I would overwrite as well So I I would watch eight out of ten cats for example, and I would see okay These are the questions and they might come to you and when they come to you. You shouldn't have one answer You need five answers give your best answer And then if everyone's quiet or there's a lull or they come to you again give another answer give another answer And then let the editors choose their favorite When they're putting the show together.

26:54I always came with that mindset because I would study I would do research and I was lucky that I was so busy with my daughter and so desperate that I couldn't really think of anything else. It made me super efficient.

27:17So how long were you in that space for where you were grafting, you had no money and you were waiting for a big opportunity and you were working hard to get it? It changed pretty quickly. So my daughter was born in 2009. I was still with her dad at that time, but we were struggling both in our relationship and financially. And then I had properly left. You know, it takes a while to extricate yourself from any bad relationship. I know so many people will be weighing the options. Is it worth it? Should I do it? It's hard. It's at least a solid year of hell. So finally we split in 2011. And then by 2012 in May, it was my first opportunity to be on 8 out of 10 Cats.

28:00So it was hard from probably before my daughter was born, 2008 to 2012. And all of a sudden, things started to change very rapidly. It didn't mean I was rich right away. I think you switch on the telly and you go, oh, there's a celebrity. They're rich. A lot of money went to, obviously my daughter and rent and paying tax and paying my agent and everything else. And then you wait sometimes weeks or months between the next job. But the acceleration was really quick because I was clear about who I was. People knew what they were getting when they were booking me. I didn't try to compete. My first episode of 8 out of 10 cats was with wonderful Sean Locke and Hannibal Buress, John Richardson, Jimmy Carr.

28:40And I sat backstage for a moment in a yellow dress that I had bought on the high street and Wellington boots. I had brown wellies because I didn't have any high heels at that point. And I thought economically, I thought, well, my feet will be behind the desk. And I sat in that dressing room and I went, oh no, I'm never going to be as funny as these guys. I'm not as funny as they are. But very quickly in my mind, it was a fight or flight response. I think going back to the animal brain, I went, well, I can climb out the window or I could just deliver the most authentic me that I can and use all my experience from my love of pop culture or being North American or having worked at Hooters or being like a 27 year old girl.

29:18I just bring that all to the table. And by the grace of God, it just worked. And then it kept working. And in that period where you hadn't yet had that moment where it kind of clicks and everything works, how big was that negative self-talk, that self-doubt? You sort of wondering whether being an authentic me is the right way to go? I remember my family probably preferred that time because I would call them all the time just crying and be like I don't know what's gonna happen I was I had so much financial fear and professional fear and so many people expected a lot from me growing up because I always had been special for lack of a better term different strange um, academic.

30:04I was very capable always in my life. I was the oldest of three girls. People were usually, um, confused or impressed by me. I always got a reaction. And so I had really destroyed all my potential. I thought I've come to a different country. I'm far away from everyone and I'm a failure. Like I haven't achieved the things. And when you're only 26, 25 that feels at the time very old like I should have a house by now I should have this and everyone in Canada does have those things from my town they'd all been married at like 19 20 and they were established and I wasn't at all and I didn't know if I ever would be and I thought oh I've I've totally ruined my life but I I think that privilege we talk about privilege now as though it's a dirty word and there are so many nepo babies this is a really cool term that don't want to acknowledge their privilege.

30:57And they go, no, I'm not. I've done everything myself. But in that moment, I had to, again, distill all my thoughts and decide what really mattered and what didn't. And my privilege was one of the things that helped me recognize my privilege. I said, well, hang on a minute, Catherine. You have parents who could loan you money or fly here and scoop you up if you needed them to. You're too stubborn to ask them. But if you really needed them not a lot of people have that you have that you are young sort of uh traditionally beautiful at the time don't let my current jawline fool you I was 26 I had mental health I could see even through my tears and my sense of failure I thought I have a mental toughness that I know not everyone has the luck of being born with and did that ever waver in this time no wow I always went You have those things.

31:51So you can't complain. You pick yourself up. You have a daughter that you need to impress, not just your family back home. You can do it. If anyone can do it, you can do it. And that was empowering at that time. And I never lost sight of that. I always knew that I was lucky. And so I should be grateful. And it was gratitude that attracted wonderful things into my life. And to get good at stand-up comedy, you actually have to do comedy. like you can't learn it in a book or practice it in your room on your own or a class don't sign up to the classes they're a scam and that was one of the things that jake and i often hear when we interview people is that to get good at something you have to be comfortable at being shit at it for a while and you're going into a bear pit where people will tell you if they don't think you're funny or will tell you if they don't think you're good at what you're doing so i'm interested in how How did you cope in such a brutal bear pit with heckles and feedback until you got to a level of competence?

32:51Well, again, it was wonderful that I was crystal clear on what mattered in life and what didn't. And all of those heckles are very superficial. And if someone says you're shit or if you haven't made people laugh that night, that is disappointing because ultimately you do want people to like you. That's a very human instinct. But I knew that as long as my daughter was safe and well, and I was still getting paid that night, then I really didn't care. And I always viewed that stuff as very temporary and very superficial, and I could learn from it. I went, well, if I didn't do that well tonight, okay, it hurt, it stings a bit, but ultimately, does it matter?

33:31Will it matter in five years? No. And can I take something positive from this? I was really lucky. And I think about that thick skin because I want to bottle it and give it to my children. I want to bottle it and give it to the divorced women who write into my podcast or even my mother who's from a different generation and is very cool and very confident but doesn't have the real like IDGAF-ness that I have. I say a lot of the time about like I ran out of fucks to give in the spring of 95. And what I mean by that isn't that I don't care. I care deeply about people. And, you know, I'm very moved by Internet videos of dogs being reunited with their like RAF dad.

34:18Yeah. But there are things in life that are so temporary and you can't get hung up on them. You just have to let them pass through you. and you have to lean into them. And when you face your fears is when you realize they're not so scary. And it's not a big deal if people don't find me funny. They have the right to not find me funny. I don't like bread. And I know that I'm wrong. I know that everyone in this country loves bread. Bread's not offended that I don't like it. Bread's like, I got a load of other customers. I'm straight. I'm fine. Everyone loves bread. Catherine is entitled to not like it.

34:50Doesn't make bread any less good so tell us about the process then in which you did reflect like how did you get feedback how did you learn to do a gig and then work out how do I get better next time that's a tough question I think that I would write material that made me laugh first and foremost I had to be able to stand by it and think it was funny because you can do this thing of just doing the math of comedy, going, well, if I say this, it'll get a reaction. And I did that in the beginning of my career all the time. Comedy in Canada, where I was just dabbling, I was doing it as a hobby for fun.

35:28It was very misogynistic at that time. It was the guys who would be able to travel to the smaller towns in Canada, the prairies, go to Winnipeg or Alberta, and then guys would find them funny. It was what you would think of 90s comedy. These guys with plaid jackets and beards, just being like, I hate my wife. My wife's such a drag or talking about smoking weed, things that I totally didn't identify with, but I understood the brief. So when I went on stage, I would either be shocking because nervous laughter to me is the same as laughter, or sometimes comedians mistake this sound for like good reaction.

36:05It's not. So I became a shocking comedian for a while and I would talk down about myself. I'd be like, I'm such a dumb slag. And some of that is still present in my comedy today, but ironically now, whereas I used to just do whatever I thought the audience would accept. And then when I came to the UK, I was so lucky because Sarah Pascoe that you mentioned is one of the first people that I saw on stage. And comedy here seemed to be very alternative compared to what it was in Canada. I was very prescriptive. Here I saw Joe Lycett and I saw all these very literary comedians talking about Henry VIII.

36:41I didn't even know who that was. I was like, what are they talking about? Comedy here seemed so different and nuanced and clever and all of it was mainstream. And so I really found my voice here. And the more I would write for myself and know what I thought was funny, the more authentic it became, the more people trusted me on stage, the more people would laugh at it. You still do have to fulfill a brief. So if I'm doing a corporate gig for a company, for example, they don't want to hear me be too introspective. They don't want really the narrative of my family that much. And they certainly don't want anything too edgy.

37:15You got to give them the Christmas hits. They need to see where the punchline is. There's this joke about my dad that I started telling maybe in 2012, and I don't really like it anymore, but I wheel it out for corporates. And all it is is that my parents divorced, first so I had to start like dating them take them individually out for dinner when I was 15 and when I would go out with my mom that was fine but when I was out with my dad I started being mistaken for his girlfriend and my dad's big and old and Irish and he'd be like you listen to me that's my daughter and I can do a lot better than her like that's essentially the joke but and like it has political edginess that joke but also yeah my dad can my dad could do better than me but this whole conversation really is about someone who has the emotional intelligence to know what they are but also know what the world wants.

38:00So there's a great phrase I heard once, which is the strong tree is the one that moves in the wind, right? Does that speak to you? That's very smart. I love that you said that. That's such good advice for people because I think the tree trunk of who I am is deeply rooted and everyone knows what they're going to get with me, but I am flexible and I can be amenable. And I'm also very open-minded. And I don't know if that's because I'll be 40 next month. and there are a few things in my periphery that I'm very accepting of different opinions. I want to hear different ideas and I do not subscribe to what's going on right now.

38:39And the teens, they're very interesting and I know they're in a different world than I am, but they pull me up on stuff all the time and they go, well, if you like this, then I hate you. You're as bad as them because I'm open to listening to Jordan Peterson podcast. And I follow J.K. Rowling on Twitter and that doesn't mean that I, all of my beliefs are in line with theirs, but as soon as we start shutting down ideas that aren't perfectly in line with ours, like this is what my marriage taught me. My husband and I are very different. I listened to his ideas and I've had to be flexible and amenable and you can't stand alone all your life and like, you know, deeply root yourself in exactly this one way.

39:20There are comedians who won't do adverts because they're like, that's beneath me. that's not who I am. I'm an edgy political comedian. It's like, okay, so am I, but I pay my mortgage. Try it. Like I, I'm so lucky to do this job and I'm so lucky to be part of a conversation. I have a voice that will transcend my life. You know, like my grandkids will be able to look back and be like, oh, my mom did this. My mom did that. Even my daughter now looks back at standup I did 10 years ago and she'll be like, oh, did you really say this mom? Can't say that. I'm like no I wouldn't say it now but I said I articulated myself the best that I could with the information that I had 10 years ago and I'm a different person now than I was 10 years ago and I'll be a different person again in 10 years than I am now but I'm like open and receptive and I'm just so lucky to do this job in any sense you mentioned your grandkids there yeah I hope they're well what would you like them to what would you like them to say to you if in 40 years time someone says oh your grandmother was a comedian like what was she like what would you want the answer to be gosh if the world keeps going the way it is we'll probably all be known as like these horrible yeah well jimmy car says he's already told the joke that we'll get him cancelled right hasn't he yes which is kind of scary is it or well he's survived they've had a few pops on him he's still around i think hopefully as this generation's getting older they'll they'll appreciate context and nuance and, you know, we didn't just all appear on this planet today.

40:46I believe in ancestral trauma. I believe in this indigenous Canadian perspective that seven generations feel different changes with each other. So like it will take seven generations to remove a trauma from your family or it will take seven generations. Everything you do has a ripple effect for seven generations ahead of you and behind you. Yeah. So you can bring your ancestors with you on things. And a lot of the women in my family that I was aware of, they were in unhappy relationships or they weren't afforded a voice like I am or they felt a sense of duty to their culture or to being mothers or they didn't get to live their fullest lives.

41:29And I learned that from past generations, from my mom, from my grandma, from my great grandma. And so I think I'm hopefully very pivotal in the story of my ancestry that I do it. I think I'll be remembered as like a witch, as a very disruptive lady. So whatever happens with my descendants, they'll be like, you know, great, great grandma. She pissed off so-and-so and she did this and she changed. I think if we can all just think that deeply about that generational reach, just edge it forward a little bit each time, it's important. So are you brave or do you find this quite easy? Both. I think I am brave.

42:10And I also, because I'm brave, I find everything that I do quite easy. And again, I lead with gratitude. That was the most pivotal realization in my life was to be grateful when I had nothing. Because when I had nothing, I knew that I had everything. and as the more gratitude that I give to the world and that I show. And like, I'm not traditionally religious, but I have a relationship with the universe and I'm so grateful every day. I wake up like a dog and I go, oh my God, it's still here. Hey, good morning. Good morning. I don't hold on to resentment or anything else. That's what makes wonderful things come into my life.

42:46And I don't want to sound like Kim Kardashian when she goes like, get your fucking ass up and work or Molly May when she's like, we all have the same 24 hours in the day. I know what those women meant when those statements were taken out of context. It's just that whatever you have or don't have, if you can find the light, then it will open up so much more light. And is that a habit everyone can learn? Yes. How? I suppose the things that I held most dear were threatened. So when my daughter was small and I was splitting up with my partner, I thought, what if? Like, what if I'm not able to make it and I have nothing?

43:22And what if, God forbid, I don't even have my daughter anymore? Like, what if she were to get sick? Or what if she were to go live with my partner? Or like, what if, what if, you know, the things that I cared about were only that, her well-being and our relationship and me being able to provide for her in this country? That's all I thought about. And even though I have all these wonderful things, I know that they don't matter. At the end of the day, all that matters is your safety and the safety and health of the people that you love. And I learned that. Maybe it's like a little trauma response.

43:55It was ingrained in me at 25, 26. I went, all that matters is this one thing. And as soon as I realized that, and I was grateful for little things, then I just started getting the most magical gifts in the world. and they could be taken from me because the joke that gets me cancelled, I've probably already told. But if they're taken from me, I really don't care because when I had nothing, I had everything. What are you like with setbacks and failures and disappointments? I think when you talk about language and articulating yourself and your emotions correctly, I think it is embarrassing. Not shameful.

44:33I don't feel ashamed of it, but it's a little bit embarrassing to go, oh, I tried that thing and everyone could see it not go well. And it had my name and my face and no one thinks about anything other than me having not done well. So for a moment, it's just a little bit embarrassing. And then you have to invite that feeling into your life rather than push against it and just go, well, that's all right that it didn't work. And I feel a little bit embarrassed and that's okay. And I know from experience that this feeling doesn't last forever. I think sometimes people get caught up in a feeling of failure being ever present, but it's, everything changes all the time.

45:14It's cyclical. And I knew that it would pass just like a breakup or anything else. You go, oh, that's a little bit embarrassing for a while, but I learned this, this, this. Yeah. That's the key thing that how you take the learnings from it rather than just living with the feeling. It's about being really honest with yourself actually, isn't it? And like licking your wounds a little bit and going, oh, I should have done this differently and that differently and i've never been an addict but i like the addict mantra of change the things you can accept the things you can't and have the wisdom to know the difference i can't build a time machine and do the things differently that i learned from this experience we're about to move on to our quickfire questions before we do um we started this conversation where you you talked about your version of high performance involves being relentless right So would you mind sharing with us what hard work looks like to you?

46:04Well, I think if you're freelance or if you're an entrepreneur, then you can never say no and you have to be available all the time. So I don't go on holidays. It's very difficult for me to take a holiday because I'm so worried, even still, that I'll be on an island somewhere and someone will be sick or will drop out of a corporate and my phone will ring and I'll be like, I gotta get a boat. I hate that idea. It makes me very uncomfortable. I like to be available. Now with the babies, it's a bit different. I am still breastfeeding, like I'm quite tied to the house, but still I never say no. So yesterday I was in Manchester.

46:42I got picked up at four in the morning. The night before I was in Brighton, I got home like 10 o 'clock at night. I'm very committed to being awake all night with my children if they need me to responding to everyone's needs. and I just think sometimes people say to me at work are you comfortable are you can we get you anything are you comfortable and I say I don't come to work to be comfortable I love that saying even though I am very comfortable I like going I like hearing myself remind myself I don't go to work to be comfortable and I know people who call in sick even at my level and if you are not living your dream if you're not in the career of your choice and you're not being looked after and you do feel sick, you should stay home.

47:25But if you're in my line of work and we are paid too much to be anywhere, when I hear that one of my peers has called in sick, I'm right there doing their job, taking their money, thinking, how sick can you be? When I had a newborn, I had a gig in like the North, somewhere in Leeds, and my daughter was two weeks old and I was sick. I had a fever and a cough and I took double paracetamol and I got the babysitter and my newborn in a car and we went and did the gig and my newborn and my babysitter waited in the dressing room. I came off stage. We all got back in the car. I was feeding her in the car and got back.

48:00I never say no. I don't come to work to be comfortable. And I remind myself how lucky I am to do this job every day. And your agent advised you when things started to go well to never forget the feeling. Have you remembered the feeling? Are you still enjoying the feeling? I absolutely remember the feeling. And I think I don't feel that I'm ascending right now. I'm actually taking a very difficult break because I've had these babies. And my attitude towards work is also my attitude toward parenting. I don't want anyone else raising my children. I don't want anyone else feeding my children. And that is a hurdle for me.

48:44and it's so new that I can't even talk about it yet because I haven't figured it quite out. But the balance is not straightforward and I can't be in two places at once, but I try my best to be super responsive. I'm an attachment parent, if you know what that means. I carry my kids everywhere like a monkey. It's really weird. But I am not ascending right now. I'm trying to learn a new path so that my work can be sustainable and that I can have a family who feels like they haven't been neglected by their mother. I am still working all the time. But even when I was touring, I'd drive back every night.

49:16I have another gig this afternoon, but I have an hour in between. So I'm going to go home for 45 minutes and then come out again. I'm trying my best. But I think it's important for me to learn this phase of my life so that hopefully I can build a foundation to ascend again when I'm an older woman. And we've made space for older women to be on TV again, hopefully. I want to work until I'm dead. you hear about comedians dying on stage literally having like heart failure and dying on stage that's going to be me that's the ambition or under the knife but but i am thinking i remember many years ago being at an event where there was a very successful female entrepreneur talking it was a female networking event and i remember feeling affronted on behalf of the young women in the audience because she was saying to him you know you can have everything you can have this successful career you can be a great mother at home you can be and and I remember thinking but there is a cost and you're not telling them the cost of this so people go away feeling shit that or they feel that they failed at one or the other and I know that's not what you're telling us here Catherine I'd be interested in what is the cost as well I am sort of telling you that you do feel a bit shit I feel that I'm letting someone down all the time I'm either letting my husband down or I'm letting my older daughter down who isn't the baby anymore, or I'm letting the babies down, or I am letting my agent and my career down.

50:43And on top of it all, I got quite fat, which is not yet embraced by our society. And then I had to get lots of messages online going, oh, she's had her face full of like Botox or whatever else. No, I just got fat because I was pregnant four times in three years. there is a cost and I think when women specifically ask me this there's also such a biological injustice that you all can have babies until you're 90 Bernie Eccleston but we can't and we're meant to have figured out our careers and our partnerships and everything by age what 35 and there's this ticking time bomb where everyone in your life starts to say to you what are you going to do what are you going to do about your legacy are you going to have kids or not And I think that all women should have their eggs frozen at age 20 on the NHS.

51:34I feel like if this happened to men, that would be prioritized. And then it can be off the table. You don't have to think about it anymore. However, I digress. You can have it all. I don't think you can have it all at once. We just need to stop talking about maybe how unfair it is and just decide without resentment. Just go, all right, if I want this, I have to make time for this. And if I want that, I have to make time for that. and luckily I'm a woman so I can multitask. I can have it all, but not at once. There is a cost. There will be a cost. We'll see. I'll let you know when the babies are grown, if their central nervous system is as regulated as my daughters, my older daughters.

52:10Let's see. Right, time for some quickfire questions. What are the three non-negotiable behaviors that you and ideally the people around you should buy into? Competence, kindness, and generosity. What advice would you give to a teenage Catherine just starting out? do exactly what you're doing i wouldn't want to tweak it because things have ended up really great even the mistakes i would say the times that you suffer you will look back on as the greatest times of your life um we have a high performance book club i would love you to recommend a book for our book club if you'd be happy to how many people recommend their own book uh that's banned oh but even the fact you've mentioned it means that people will now type in Catherine Ryan's book onto the internet.

52:54So that's all good. Okay. I've read so many books lately. I think, well, we mentioned Sarah Pascoe earlier. She has so many wonderful books. I love her book Animal. It's my favorite one. Why? Because she talks a lot about psychology and biology and behaviors, and she does it all in a really funny way. And I like data. I like to understand myself. And sometimes science baffles me, but the way Sarah presents it is really empowering. Great. what's your biggest strength and your greatest weakness my biggest strength is that I'm incapable of remembering anything as being bad for some reason my brain rewrites everything as having been really great I have a lot of secondary fun so I am an optimist and my greatest weakness in the past has been relationships I think my greatest weakness is that maybe I suffer from hyper-independence.

53:50I really struggle to trust anyone else. And I like to do everything myself and I need to learn how to let go and delegate a bit more because other people are very competent. Can I ask what's different about your current relationship and what you've learned from previous ones that you do differently? Well, my current husband is divorced and I think I wasn't dating enough divorced men when I was young. Divorced men have been humbled and they know they can't do better than you because they've already tried. And the final answer, and this is really your kind of the message to leave ringing in the ears of the people that have listened to this brilliant conversation.

54:32What would you like to leave them thinking about when I say to you, your one golden rule really for living a high performance life? well i think if you want to be high performance you need to cut out the fat cut out the noise so i don't ask any question if the answer a doesn't matter or b is going to be a lie just don't even ask the question brilliant katherine thank you so much thank you i love that conversation man damien jake let's have the conversation um about humility that i don't think has had often enough when it comes to high performance and high performance individuals Catherine from the minute she arrived um exuded humility didn't she yeah I think for guests that sorry yeah I think for listeners uh to the podcast that being aware that Catherine turned up on her own she had no entourage with her no manager and you know she described herself as being hyper individual but she came here and was just happy to come and meet with us be down to earth take us on on face value and i think you're right i think humility is a real superpower but it's almost the absence of something rather than the presence it's the absence of an ego the absence of of of noise it's just that quiet confidence that comes from knowing who you are and what you stand for And I think that we talk too much about ego and we over-celebrate.

56:04I don't know, someone like maybe Steve Jobs, who was famous for being really strong in his opinion and quite strident in the way that he managed people. I think that gets spoken about a lot. But I don't think that humble individuals with real humility and a lack of ego, I don't think that gets talked about enough when it comes to high performance. But I suppose the question is, why is that so important for you to reach high performance? Well, I think when you get out of your own way, which is what you might define ego as getting in your way with a sort of an identity or image of yourself, it doesn't allow you to explore.

56:40It doesn't allow you to ask questions. It doesn't allow you to listen at a deeper level. And she's constantly exploring, constantly asking questions. Yeah, well, I mean, part of her craft that she said is about being a mirror to the audience that comes not a door into another world it's a mirror to reflect back what your world is and I think you can only do that if you're watching and listening and paying attention and I think that requires a humility to do so I really loved it when you know we had the conversation about you know the strong tree sways in the breeze and I think you know too often people believe that a high performance comes from having a really set list of beliefs or a way of thinking or a way of acting and you know here katherine like she is she's kind of like a chameleon she changes depending on the room the people the demands on her time but also it's not just about the the individual day like as a person she's constantly evolving learning changing and i think that's a really important part of high performance massively the ability to to be able to adapt to your environment takes emotional intelligence and again it's another great trait of high performers is to read people and understand what buttons to press how to engage and how to get the best out of others as well what a great guest thanks mate loved it thanks jake well that brings us to the end of today's episode if you want to actually see us laughing and learning along with katherine then you can watch these conversations on youtube you can also download the high performance app if you want daily boosts exclusive access to more content from high performance and so much more hit the link in the description to this podcast or just type high performance podcast into your search engine and go to our website listen thank you so much for continuing to trust us with an hour of your day it means so much to us and it drives us to continue to push the boundaries with this podcast thanks for joining us and we'll see you for more very soon

58:46Thank you.