Gabriel Iglesias Opens Up About MENTAL HEALTH, Moving On From RELATIONSHIPS, & Why He Almost RETIRED

0:28Welcome to the School of Greatness. The first comedian to sell out Dodger Stadium. One of the world's most successful and popular stand-up comedians, Gabriel Iglesias, who is known as Fluffy. I got to a place where you want to talk about not feeling good. I talked about retiring, especially right after Dodger Stadium, because that put me in a different place mentally, because it's not every day you can say that you saw your peak. We allow certain behavior to continue because we're trying to keep certain people in our lives and unfortunately some people should not be in our lives i took on the pain and the frustration and the issues because i didn't want to be the bad person who said let me hit the stop button all that stuff i just shared with you about struggles and the relationships and stuff like that i haven't talked about that on stage yet who is fluffy versus who is gabriel in your mind gabriel does have bad days really fluffy can't have bad days he's not supposed to and welcome back everyone to the School of Greatness very excited about our guest we have the inspiring Gabriel Iglesias in the house good to see you sir thank you so much for being hola mucho gusto como estas Mexicans hate it when white people try to speak Spanish to them out the gate just so you know yeah especially when they're not fluent yeah exactly so good to connect with you and congrats on everything man it's been inspiring to see the journey and to And the thing that I really appreciate about you is how vulnerable and honest you are with your message, with your work, and with the interactions you have.

2:06Obviously, you're extremely funny, and you've amassed this massive audience of 25 million people globally that are consistently consuming and watching you. But I love how real and authentic you are with your comedy. And so I just wanted to acknowledge you for the journey you've been on, the impact you've made, and the joy you bring to so many people in the world. Thank you. And I'm curious, as someone at your level who is always on the road with a lot of success over the last, you know, 15 plus, 18 plus years now, how do you manage fame, success while also being happy and finding inner peace? I think you got to go through all the same issues that normal people go through.

2:55You know, you got to go through the moments of heartache. You know, I cry. I have my good days, my bad days. I have my days where I just want to scream into a pillow. I want to throw something, you know, but, you know, you find a way to get through it. I'm very fortunate that I get to air out a lot of my issues on stage because I do. I will take things that bother me and I will go on stage and I will vent about them. And I find that by doing that, people can relate. People can relate to when you're frustrated. People can relate to when you're not having the best of days and you share a moment, you know, whether it's like me dealing with issues as a parent or me dealing with issues as, you know, oh, man, something happened today where, you know, I hit my knee or I'm dealing with a friend that's just bugging the hell out of me because they have a certain way of thinking and I'm trying to explain something.

3:47or just dealing with, you know, trying to get through the day. Everybody has problems. And when you can relate to people's problems, for some reason, it helps me. You know, I went to therapy for two years after my last breakup, trying to figure out what I did wrong. And I realized, you know what? It wasn't all me. Because in the beginning, I thought it was. And going, you know, doing that actually helped out a lot. It taught me how to listen. It taught me how to ask myself questions and have a better understanding. And I think that for many years, I thought I knew it all. And clearly I didn't.

4:26And that's one thing I appreciate about the fact that as I'm getting older, I'm realizing, all right, now we're finally getting into a good group. We're finally understanding and things are starting to make sense. Inner peace, first of all, you got to know what not having peace is to really understand peace. so uh unfortunately i have had some some rough moments where i'm like i am miserable really i am freaking miserable and not because of my work i love what i do it is the greatest feeling in the world but there are things in life not just your career there's you know regular everyday life the people that you engage with and uh yeah there have been serious moments where i'm like i am so unhappy right now so once those things are taken care of or they're gone when you talk about having peace and feeling good knowing what true misery is helps you really understand what peace is wow and i don't think you can have one without the other and so you gotta you gotta know you gotta you gotta be able to bleed to know what it's like to feel good wow and i think that uh starting off this year, 2024, I feel so good.

5:43And I haven't said that in so long. I feel really, really good and I feel happy and I feel like I'm in a good direction. I'm in a good place in life right now. Congrats, man. What do you think has been the darkest or most miserable moments you've had? You know, I think that feeling confused is something that definitely is painful. not knowing uh living in a in a gray area of confusion not being able to have clarity and understanding um especially in relationships not knowing where you stand and and a lot of times i think we're the the ones responsible for that because we allow certain behavior to continue because we're trying to keep certain people in our lives and unfortunately some people should not be in our lives.

6:37And that is a hard pill to swallow as well. Because as much as whether it's friends, family, or business acquaintances, some people do not belong in your life. And the sooner you can get them out, the better you're going to be. And unfortunately, there was times when I didn't just have days or months or a year. I've allowed situations to go on for a very long time because I didn't want to be the bad guy to pull the plug. Really? And so I took on the pain and the frustration and the issues because I didn't want to be the bad person who said, let me hit the stop button because I didn't want to be that person.

7:19But at the same time, I wasn't doing myself any favors by not stopping or correcting certain things that were happening. Yeah, I can relate to that because I'm a slow learner sometimes and I have to go through a lot of pain in order to learn lessons. And I had many long-term relationships, intimate relationships that I should have been out of much years before I got out of them and dealt with a lot of pain by trying to people-please, by trying to change myself to keep someone happy that was just never going to be happy with me. And so I can relate to that feeling. When did you feel like you learned that lesson or what shifted inside of you that allowed you to say, okay, I can no longer be this way anymore with this person or these people in my life.

8:06I'm still learning. And it's one of those things where maybe this period of time was good and helpful and it allowed growth and joy and happiness. But then maybe, you know, letting it go this long, just kind of like, like it's now it's going down and now it's going in the opposite direction. So I'm still learning and I'm still adjusting. And the people that I've started with are not the people that are, you know, always the ones, the ones you start with are not always the ones you end with. And fortunately, there have been many people that are still in my life that that I've been on this quest with for so many years.

8:44For example, like my team, the team of people that I have, I still have the same manager and agent that I've had for God, like 20 years, Wow. And it's awesome. And the fact that we've all grown together has been the same promoter as well. Wow. So I've been very in a business of show business. You're always jumping around. It's always go, go this way, this way, whatever works. And it's very cutthroat. So the fact that I've been able to maintain and have this same group of people, it's huge. Wow. Because the trust is there. and going back to that whole thing of having the wrong person in place i had people in place that was that were making me question are these the best people for me interesting and i feel like loyalty is one of the strongest biggest things that people take for granted because they're thinking about the money they're thinking about this or that but loyalty is so huge being able to trust someone is so huge and i think that a lot of people just kind of go and you know whatever and like oh and that and that's why for me to let people go is really really hard because i'm like am i gonna make a mistake am i gonna regret this you know what's gonna happen and so sometimes i will overthink but being able to trust somebody and being able to have the right people in your corner is is really huge and it is a big key to happiness and joy and peace wow that's powerful man i love that you talked about therapy and i know you've talked about this in different interviews I speak about it a lot on this show.

10:22Just my journey of healing and therapy and lessons I've learned and mistakes I've made. And I feel like it's been so beneficial to creating more clarity and peace inside of me by having a place to talk about challenges, pains, frustrations, upsets, things like that. What would you say are the three most powerful things you've learned through the therapy that you've done? Again, being able to question myself, I know I'm not always right, and I will never claim to always be right. And that's one thing that I had to learn by going that, you know what, just because you're popular, just because people like you, doesn't mean you're always right.

11:04And I was writing that for a minute, and I had to come with the reality that, you know what, dude, no, you're not always right. and uh you know that's that's a tough one to swallow right there especially when you're selling out arenas and people are laughing at everything you say it's hard to yeah it's hard to uh admit that yeah because when you're doing all these great things like are you kidding you're in magazines you're the top Forbes uh you know uh maker of the year type of thing you're you're you're selling out stadiums you're doing all kinds of crazy you know you got a freaking car collection that you know that Jay Leno's like wow like you're doing all these amazing things So to be able to feel like, really, I'm wrong?

11:46You know, it's hard. It took me a minute to really get that. But, yeah, I admit it all the time now. I'm like, yeah, that was stupid. I shouldn't have done that. So, yeah, I definitely feel like that was huge, being able to learn that. Because I feel like I did need to learn. And nobody would tell me. Really? That's another thing. Once you're at a certain place where the wheels are moving really well and money is good at keeping people, hey, let's keep this going here. Don't nobody tell them anything. Don't ruffle feathers. Don't upset them because if we mess this up, so who's going to tell me I'm wrong?

12:26And that's a tough one. I had to figure that one out. Nobody said you're wrong because none of this, we're not going to mess any of this up. Right. We don't want to stop the money machine coming in right now. And everything that's happening. So, yeah. But I can be wrong in business. I can be wrong in relationships. And I've been wrong in both. Yeah. I've made decisions where I'm like, oh, okay. Maybe that didn't work out right. Right, right. So when you're going on a, you know, if it's not a special, but you're just going out to a local comedy club to work out some material, are you going on stage thinking about, okay, I had this thing that happened last week that I want to vent yeah that I want to talk about have you already pre-planned the Interpretation of it or is it more?

13:10I'm just gonna wing it out there and see what comes up for me in the flow I have the idea of what I want to talk about but I don't know the verbiage yet Really? I don't know the how you know, I'm just gonna go and and every single bit starts off with me. Just Literally freestyling it. Let's see how it goes and then go back and you listen and you're like okay that doesn't sound right maybe we you know i should and so the first time is just here's what we got and then you go back and then you start shaving off this or adding that and moving stuff around but everything just starts off with the first let's just throw it at the wall see what happens okay what if people don't laugh then i make fun of the fact that they didn't laugh really i'm in a very good place now because of so many years of doing stand up the trust is there the trust is there from the crowd so if i say something that's not the the funniest or it just it doesn't get the i i feel pretty confident so if something doesn't get a laugh i'm gonna find something to make i'm gonna find something to make fun of you know or you know hey you guys they all can't be funny or if i'm if i'm at a club yeah if i'm club and I just popped in and people were like, oh my God, you know, like, you know, if I get a reaction when I walk in the room and I do a bit that doesn't fly and I just look around and I go, yeah, see, that's what happens when you don't pay for the show.

14:35This is what you get for free, people. Right. You've had so much years of experience with this. You know how to spin something. And I'm not uncomfortable. If they don't laugh, they don't laugh. Really? You know, if they're quiet, I always say this. if the audience is dead quiet and you can hear a pin drop that's a good thing because that means they're listening wow a lot of people are afraid of silence and i'm not i'm more afraid of heckling and and and distractions in the room so whether there's a ceiling fan on or the air conditioner is making a weird sound or you hear glasses and clinking of you know you're trying to talk and you hear little noises in the room.

15:16That'll be for 50. Hey, you got a credit card? You know, sometimes I'll have servers right in the front row, like a big old plate with eight burgers on it. Here you go. And I'm like, you couldn't do this half hour ago with the opening acts with anybody? You had to put like eight burgers and bring them right here in the front. You know, the kitchen's backed up. I'm like, oh, my God. All right. And that's funny to people, to see me in that situation. I'm like, you want me to perform and you got all this food right here in the front. All right. You wonder why bears attack, you know, at the circus.

15:51Sure. That's funny, man. Do you ever feel insecure on stage? I'm always insecure. Really? Yeah. I'm always insecure. Like, ah, man, how's it going to go? Like, oh, did they like that? You know, was it okay? Was it funny enough? Are they going to come back? Are they going to tell their friends? you know that's always in in my head i feel confident going up on stage every time but the insecurities are always there that's part of it um i think that if the insecurities go away it's going to keep me from working hard to make people laugh they always say once you think you're that's when you become wow so you know so i i embrace the insecurities i embrace the fact that you know it's you're working without a net you know when you go up on stage you are the writer the producer the director you are the everything and so it's you know it all falls on you wow man this is crazy so you have confidence but you also have a sense of insecurity or uncertainty i know that stand-up is the thing that i do better than than that's the best thing i can do that's that's what i'm i'm i'm good at um you know i'm not i'm not a good hiker uh i'm not a good you know i i don't know how to i don't know how to code i don't know there's a lot of things i don't know how to do but i feel very confident when i when i'm going when i'm going on stage i know that i'm i'm doing something that i love to do and i know how to do it well but that doesn't mean that i can't have a bad moment or i can't have something that's not gonna go the way it should wow remember earlier you know just because i'm doing like he's doing all this i can have a bad time on stage.

17:30You know, I can, I can be wrong. You know, an idea just might not fly. Right. How do you separate your intimate personal breakdowns in life that you might be having or from the past? If maybe a relationship isn't working the way you want to that day or that week, or you're going through some challenges with a friend or someone in your personal life, how do you disassociate that by going on stage and bringing this joy and passion and creativity while not letting that affect you emotionally while also you might be talking about some of those things as well from your personal life how do you manage that to still bring i incorporate it i have to put it in the set somehow i have to i have to decompress a little bit by by putting it in there and uh you know so whether it's me venting about it for a couple seconds just maybe a little blip or um maybe it's something on social media you know uh and i and that's a dangerous one too because that's that's out there forever um either ah it's that's a hard one because like if you're not feeling good about if i'm not feeling good it's really hard to share that with with uh you know i have a very small circle so it's like it's hard to share because as much as you know you want to trust that people are going to keep things to themselves sometimes they don't and then it's like ah then that that becomes the problem becomes worse and so sometimes i do find myself you know talking to strangers about certain things and a lot of people say really with strangers yeah yeah i'm good at talking to strangers you know no problem it's especially because they don't know all the inner workings they just see me as this which is why sometimes when i'm having a drink you know like yeah you know you just oh yeah yeah i can't do that all the time and it's hard for me to go places but every now and then just you know shooting with somebody this is cool because you don't know everything about my inner workings and i just shared a lot with you and uh you don't realize how much i've shared but i feel good doing it i was like yeah you know like that whole talk about the whole inner peace thing i'm like wow look at me saying stuff out loud conversations like that are very helpful they are um and again being able to talk to people that are not gonna flip it on you and use it against you being vulnerable is hard to do and it's scary you know when you when you show weakness man you know people can just take that and and you know mess up your day and so sometimes you want to just keep it to yourself but if you keep it to yourself then you get up get to a point where you might you might explode and that's not going to be good either yeah i asked this question to a lot of people and i'm curious your your answer on this it's a it's a self-assessment on a scale of 1 to 10 I call it the self-love scale the inner peace and self-love scale where would you say that you're currently at you know this season of life from us from one being you have zero self-love and zero inner peace to ten being a lot of self-love and all peace inside of you where would you say you're currently on that scale one to ten one to ten I'm probably at a six five maybe close to a seven yeah um I feel good but I know that there are so many things that I could do to improve my quality of life so many things that I could be doing to make myself happier so many things I could be doing to just give myself a a better a better place if that makes sense like you know I know that if I was to wake up every morning and go just go take a walk that would improve my health i know that if i didn't drink that could help you know certain things with like you know uh making organs feel better or maybe the skin of you know i know that if i made certain choices it would improve and so it's you know as far as self-love like i feel pretty good right now yeah um but you know The weak is young.

21:48When do you feel like you've been on the lowest on that scale, if you can reflect back? Lowest on that scale is when I was trying to make people happy that weren't going to be happy and definitely weren't going to be making me happy. Really? Killing yourself trying to please others is one of those things that I'm guilty of doing so many times. and I've given so many of the wrong people my time, energy, and love when I should have been giving that to myself. And so I'm guilty of giving till it hurts and giving till I hurt myself. And I definitely would like to, because I'm not going to get that time and all that back.

22:29And so the goal is to try to turn all of that and start doing more for me. Wow, that's beautiful, man. I can relate to that so much because growing up I just cry bro I felt it man I felt it I mean I cry a lot out here man um but I relate to that just because growing up I felt very alone I felt very alone I felt very abandoned and abused now that doesn't mean that's the total truth but there were certain moments and memories that caused me to feel um not enough often I was sexually abused when I was five by a man that I don't know. I've talked about this openly many times here. My brother was in prison when I was eight years old for four and a half years, so I wasn't allowed to have friends in the neighborhood because my older brother was bad and wrong, and therefore parents would have let their kids hang out with me.

23:22I was in special needs classes. It was really hard for me to read and write and just remember what I was learning in school, so I was in those special classes with like three or four kids getting made fun of getting picked on and um you know i just never felt enough i never felt like i was good enough and so that i guess those memories that those experiences those wounds caused me to people please a lot in my 20s and early 30s until it felt like it was going to kill me until i had heart palpitations pain in my chest I was making a lot of money to prove people wrong and succeeding externally but feeling very insignificant lonely and sad internally and it wasn't until I started to wake really break down get some support go to therapy start to transform heal that's when I started to have more clarity and more peace do you feel like you know where a lot of that people pleasing came from for you first of all I'm sorry for for what you went through and I I relate a lot to what you just said especially the you know the people pleasing and just trying to you know you you figure if you're if you're making people happy then then hopefully you'll feel happy and maybe they'll make you happy and that's a that's a tough one it really is I don't know where that came from because I do feel like, you know, even though I didn't grow up with both parents, I had my mom who was an incredible person.

24:57I miss her very much. She gave me everything I needed in life to, you know, to be okay. You know, I didn't have all the toys, but, you know, my Christmases were not horrible, you know. And even though we lived in a rough area, she still protected me and kept me from becoming the environment. So I don't know where that comes from. I mean, I basically grew up an only child because my sisters and my brother were all much older. You know, it was like 14 years between my sister and I want to say roughly. So by the time I showed up, everybody was already gone. They're all out of the house. So it's like it was just my mom and I.

25:39So I don't know where this comes from. Interesting. Yeah. But it sounds like you've realized this was something you were doing. You've stopped doing it, and now you're starting to give back to you. And this is very recent because, I mean, I'm still guilty of it. And I still, unfortunately, I still allow certain people to have behaviors that are not good for them and definitely not good for me. Why do you think you allow that still? Because I love them. Because I don't want to hurt their feelings. I don't want to feel bad for making them feel bad, even though I know that this is not benefiting either one.

26:21I don't like the idea of knowing that what I'm about to do is going to cause ripples of unhappiness, even though it's sometimes necessary to correct what's going on. and and that's why it's like uh you know it's almost like all right maybe and you always want to hope that they see it they get it they understand it they'll change on their own and man some people just yeah man and uh yeah so because of how close they are and how long they've you know they've been part of everything it's it's really hard it's really hard and so So that's why I haven't, you know, because this year started off so good.

27:08Yeah. You know, I'm like, man, I should have done that last year. That's why I wouldn't have carried over. But no. Well, now you have the opportunity. I'm curious. You know, on this show, I really love to talk about living our best lives and what's possible for us. The things that we can have control over, the things that we can learn and can develop, and sharing that with anyone watching or listening around the world. I'm curious you said you know five six six and a half maybe seven at this point on the self-love inner peace scale what do you think it would take from you to get to that eight nine or maybe ten sometimes I'm not saying you have to be perfect all the time but what would it take to from you to be a little bit higher consistently on that scale a little bit higher consistently definitely on the physical side, you know, I think that, you know, again, limiting and the drinking, limiting the, you know, because I will binge eat if I'm not feeling good and I'll just, you know, I'm not like my 600 pound life or anything, but I might have more than one burger, you know, and so I think that if I changed some of my habits, I think that would definitely help.

28:21but I use these habits as crutches too whenever I'm dealing you know sometimes it's easier to just drink and fall asleep than freaking having to you know get into a situation that's very uncomfortable and I'm guilty of doing that so I think that if I were to I know and I know that if I did certain things I would be in a better place yeah I'm very comfortable and that's that's a problem too I don't like feeling uncomfortable and by changing certain you know ways that you do things it's like and developing new habits is really hard so I know that but I do know that it would be beneficial I know that every day I walk by a gym that I have at home I have a home gym nice one a really nice one yeah oh nice one expensive one yes how often do you use it I don't I haven't used it in a long time um and that's something that I'm like every time I walk by it I'm like, ah, God, it's still there.

29:19It's still, I should freaking go live something. And I do feel guilty for not doing it. And then what I wind up doing, I wind up eating. I'm like, I'm doing the complete opposite. What am I? And now I'm laying there, I'm full. I feel good, but then I feel guilty. And I'm like, ah. So as far as the self-love, it feels like love at the moment, but I'm hurting myself. So I know that there's a lot of things that I could be doing. also uh limiting the amount of time that i give to people that that don't make me feel good i think is is a tough one you know back to that that would that would improve the the self-love sure i'm curious about identity um you know i used to use a lot of words growing up about myself to myself and to others i would say i'm an idiot i'm stupid i'll never learn these things i'm not smarts.

30:12I was in the bottom of my class, bottom of four in my class. They used to grade us or rank us in our classes where I was in school. So I could always see that I was in the bottom four consistently all through middle school and high school. So just always, I was just like, I'm never going to be good enough. I'm never going to learn like you guys. I would say these words and built an identity about me to self that would limit me and to others that would limit me. How much does the identity you've built for yourself empower you or hold you back would you say I know that um you know when people see me on the streets uh I'm fluffy hey fluffy you know it's very rare that I'll get you know uh Gabriel really they'll say fluffy and then like who is it it's Gabriel Iglesias you know I mean it's all tied together but it's so much easier to call somebody by the nickname it's it's an easy nickname and it's not like it's a different person it's just it's a nickname that's you know it's me but um i am seen a certain way because of the shows and the consistency that oh you know he's the guy that talks about his son he's the guy that talks about his friend he's the guy that so i'm limited in the sense that if i was to all of a sudden start talking about politics or become you know start venting and being very vulgar being you know that And there are times when I do want to vent and I can't on stage because it's not something that goes with what I've created.

31:43And it's not going to be well received by everyone. I might hit a few. There might be some people that will relate to what I'm saying, but I'm going to ruffle a lot of feathers in the process. And so I have to remind myself this is not the place to do that. so because of what I built there I can't I can't be 100 right here and this is not gonna go well. But what about the identity with Fluffy? The identity with Fluffy? No. Always happy and that's not always the case you know. Always happy always in a good mood not always in a good mood and every time I go out in public I always I'm afraid that people are gonna like I don't want to meet somebody, run into somebody if I'm not having the best of days so I try not to put myself in environments where I'm going to run into people I'm not one who's going to be like no I don't want to take a picture I'm not going to snap on somebody and photos is part of the deal.

32:48If I can do it and there's time for it, absolutely no problem but there are times when I'm dealing with issues, problems, and I'm just like, oh, I just want to go to the drive-thru, get something to eat, and just go back home. But, you know, because of the fact that I'm seeing a certain way, it's like, you got to always be smiling, you got to always be happy, you got to always be that, and that is hard, because sometimes you just want to be a normal person. I understand that, yeah. You know, you just, you know, like, how's he doing? Don't talk to him right now. He's in one of those moments. I'm a big believer that our habits and our identity will shape our lives.

33:27And our goals and the way we feel about ourselves will naturally take care of themselves based on the consistency of our habits and on the identity that we give ourselves. And so I guess I just wanted to ask about the identity of Fluffy. You mentioned this, how people call you Fluffy. Do you think that supports your success but holds you back in other ways? Or do you feel like that is an empowering thing for you with your identity and where you want to be? There are so many more pros than there are cons. The cons are very small. They're very small. No, man, let me tell you. When people, when you get recognized, you know, I have other friends that are, you know, other comics.

34:14And I know a lot of people that are famous. and I don't know man I get I don't want to say that mine is is better but for some reason when I get recognized it's I'm not seeing like like oh it's a particular sweat kind of a thing you know the recognition I get from people the the the look is almost like hey man this guy's like like it's like seeing a family member you haven't seen in a long time and I feel I feel that from people when I when I get recognized it's not it's very different I see how other people get recognized and I'm like wow okay with with me it's a lot that's a lot different I get people right away that are like like the the glow and the energy is very it's like it feels like family it like like a moment like a real sweet sweet thing and um I love that it's it's it tells me that what I'm doing is making a difference what I'm doing because I get a lot of people also that will open up you know hey man i was going through this and i was watching and hey man uh just so you know you i've heard you've helped me get through so many times and it's that's an incredible feeling and that's a game changer so when i hear something like that it changes the whatever mood i'm in it it corrects it i'm like you know what so stop stop thinking like that you know you're whatever you're dealing with is nothing this dude is like you just you know put things into perspective sure so being fluffy is is very much a uh it's a good thing a lot of pros to it yeah a lot of pros do i wish i could vent about certain things of course i do but uh i think that it's it's part of the deal you have to sacrifice this is part of the sacrifice to be where i'm at you mentioned some people will just say hey fluffy on the streets or whatever and they'll be like oh oh, it's Gabriel Iglesias.

36:04You know, who is Fluffy versus who is Gabriel in your mind? They're pretty much like this. But, you know, Gabriel does have bad days. Really? Fluffy can't have bad days. He's not supposed to. And if I do, I try to find a way to push it into the show. Like, for example, in my show right now, without giving too much away because I have a new special coming out, one of the things I'm talking about is I'm talking about things that happened to me that weren't great, weren't fun, weren't awesome. I'm starting to incorporate more of, you know, after so many years, and now I'm coming up on 50 pretty soon.

36:42Wow. You know, there's more things that have happened. For example, I'm talking about the fact that I almost died in a plane crash that made the news. Wow. I'm talking about the fact that they broke into my house, you know. Someone broke into my house and went through my things and just, you know, a bad situation. I'm talking about that I reunited with my father who I haven't seen in 15 years and how awkward that was. And so there's now moments where I'm like, okay. So it's not all like, hey, rainbows and unicorns type of thing. It's like, okay. So the challenge now is making those situations funny.

37:16Near death, how can you make that funny? That's a challenge. Wow. But I am talking more about things that aren't as fun and pleasant. It seems like there's so many people, you mentioned this earlier, about how people think that it's overnight. the success that you've had, or they might say that, but you've been doing this for 25 plus years now. And it seems like the younger generation wants this type of success very fast. They want to be able to sell out arenas. They want to be able to have 25 million followers on social media like you overnight. They want people to walk around the streets and call out their name.

37:53What is the dark side to all of this? What's the dark side of being famous and successful, of having these arenas sold out to, you know, all these different things that are happening in a good way. What's the challenge for people wanting that, maybe for the wrong reasons? I think that now, anytime, like, new comedians definitely don't have patience. I think that one thing that's missing is struggle. Nobody wants to struggle. Nobody wants to take the time. Everybody does want everything right now, And I appreciate the fact that when I first started doing this, there was no social media. The Internet was brand new.

38:34You know, you didn't even know what to do with it back then. I feel very fortunate that I know that life without it. And I know the life with it. And I know all the years that it took to get to this point. So it's it's one of those things where I, you know, when new comics say, hey, what advice do you have? I said, I wish I could give you advice that would benefit you in these times. I go, but my advice is old advice for, you know, a kid that started in 1997, not someone who's starting right now. And I don't want to sound like, you know, back in my day, you know, this is how you got to do it, and these kids don't know.

39:18I don't want to be that guy, so I just say, well, you just have as much fun as you can. I go, do you want to do comedy as a hobby? do you want to do it as a business uh what what is what is the reason you want to do this is it because you want to be popular you want people to like you what is it you want and i go if you want to uh if you want to make it a business then treat it like a business respect it like a business understand that there's things that need to happen in order for this to to work if you want to just do it as a hobby hey then you know go to the comedy store on a sunday night get on the potluck sign up whatever just go and have fun and do your thing and just just enjoy it is what it is and then you're back to work on monday right yeah and if you want to be popular and you know then that's a different thing you want to go jump on tiktok i am pretty savvy with social media but i also know that there's certain things i don't know and there's there's you know people out there now that can sell out clubs and theaters and and and do shows because of what they did on social media and it did take much less than my journey but when they do their show you can see in the performance that uh this is not somebody who's been doing it for a long time yes so you might be able to sell that ticket one time but can you sell it again consistency yeah so uh it's it's different man i i you know again i i appreciate the fact that i i know the struggle So because I know the struggle, I respect what I do more.

40:50And it wasn't handed to me. It wasn't like, oh, he just jumped in. This took a long time. You were in an industry plant. Yeah. I know, right? I'm glad I'm on Cat Williams' good side. We're friends. We're cool. We're cool. If you could go back, I guess, 25, 30 years ago before you started to take off, before this journey really began for you, what three pieces of advice would you give that younger version of you right before you're about to take off on the business of comedy on your personal life on everything what three things would you say to your younger self it's funny because i've had this thought a million times and uh as much as i would love to tell the younger version of me hey don't eat all of it all right uh hey you know what you know don't don't trust everyone um you know and and don't date her uh i i can't because everything that has happened uh from day one it all has to happen in order for me to be here right now any little change would send me in a completely different direction and you know that's me watching back to the future way too many times um now things that i do wish i would have done not advice as far as career but things i wish i would have done more of um back then is i i wish i would have spent more time with my mom i wish i would have asked her her for more life advice and just just had more more conversations about things uh but back then and i was a kid i thought i knew everything and so as an adult i'm like man i didn't know and uh again because i miss her so much i just wish i would have spent more time with her my siblings got to have my mom way longer than me and uh so it was one of those that's that's definitely one thing um i had a lot of fun i had a lot of fun uh early on in my career and i um i learned the business you know trial and error you know whether it's with management or with you know uh you know doing this show versus doing that show um you know how you got booked things you decided to do, things I decided not to do.