The Psychological TRICKS To Be More Charismatic & Influence People | Andrew Schulz

Every great person has self-doubt, and that self-doubt is a massive motivator, but they have enough confidence to overcome it. I think it's the people who lack confidence and have the self-doubt that they can't do anything. They can't get out of their own way.

And the people who have too much.

Confidence and not enough self-doubt just never-- I think you gotta have a dream.

The School of Greatness. Really? Yeah. Please welcome, Lewis Howes. You like to do the challenging thing, like on stage, not the thing that you know was gonna get the biggest laugh.

Yeah.

But the thing that's the most challenging that you'll think is really interesting and hopefully people think it is too. And if you can get them to laugh on the most challenging thing, then you're like, that what lights you up, right?

Yeah, yeah. It's like, I look at it kind of like a, you know, like diving in the Olympics.

I might have used that. You did use that.

Yeah.

Not just anyone can dive in the.

Pool, but yeah, it's like, it's not only diving where there's no splash, it's also like, what do you do before? Like it's all, how many flips are you gonna do? How many spins? So like, you're getting rated not only how you enter the water, but how difficult the trick was before you enter. And that's kind of how I look at like a joke or a premise or anything. I'm like, okay, what's what is the most touchy subject that I could possibly talk about? And how can I make that funny for a group of people that should feel like it's touchy? Yeah, like that. That's awesome that you feel that way. And it took me a while to learn this, but like when a crowd like is a little hesitant to laugh, like, They're kind of doing the right social thing, but they really want to laugh.

They might want to laugh, but socially.

They'Re being considerate of other people, right? And I would like that behavior on the street. It's easy for us comics to get upset, but like, oh, why are you guys awing? Or why are you guys uncomfortable? Or why are you guys acting so woke, et cetera. But realistically that behavior, if you're just walking down the street and you saw somebody saying opinions that are a little bit wild, outside of the comedy club setting, you'd probably want to protect the person that might feel uncomfortable. So I don't really like, have as much animosity for them as I used to.

Gotcha.

But I still want them to feel uncomfortable. That is my place of comfort.

Why do you want people to feel uncomfortable?

I don't know. But it is, I love that. I love the discomfort, I love the tension, I just love it. The more tension, the better.

What's the thing that's hard for you in your life to be uncomfortable with? What's hard for me to be uncomfortable with? Since that's comfortable, that's your comfort zone. Yes.

Making an audience uncomfortable. Yes. Where are you most uncomfortable in your life? Well, let me clarify. the release of tension should be this great comfort and that's where the laugh comes from for them, right? And like as my career has begun to grow and flourish, if you will, I have a much different relationship with the audience. So now when they come, they know. They know and I just want to give them the best show ever. I just want them, I'm just so grateful for them. But earlier in my career when I didn't know them and they were hesitant to laugh about touchy topics, I was angry at them. And I was like, how can I, manipulate you into laughing at this thing you would never want to laugh at. This is the only thing that I hated about comedy my whole career was the first few minutes establishing who you are. It's the only time I felt like a clown.

How would you do it?

You have to make them feel safe. So it's like, how do I... I know what to say to get everybody in the audience to like me, but if that's not me, then they're.

Not liking authentically who you are.

Yeah.

What is the thing you'd say to get them to like you that wasn't you. Just like some random joke that you're.

Kind of like, whatever or. Yeah, like there's like, you know, if you're in certain markets, there are things that you can say that, like, just those people tend to agree with, but that's no fun. So it's like, how do I speak about them in a way that they feel like they're understood, but I'm still pushing back. And I think that's kind of where I developed this style of, like, kind of digging in and, like, understanding, like, nuance. about each one of these like cultures or people or cities, etc. Because I could rip apart a city if I knew things I wasn't supposed to, right? And I was like, oh, this is cool. This is like, this is like almost like a cheat code.

Yeah.

Like, I can make fun of you now. You're safe with me. You know what I'm saying? Like, you feel safe because you know that I took enough time to learn that about you. To research it, yeah. Yeah, and then you feel like represented.

And that's like a really cool thing that I didn't realize.

Represented even on the worst stuff about you.

Yeah.

Because a lot of times you're proud of that too, you know?

Give me an example. What's a city or like a culture or something that you could reference that you were like, I researched this thing about Seattle or whatever, I don't know.

And- oh, God, I'm trying to think.

Of- Detroit or Chicago or wherever it is, the South, I don't know.

Yeah, I'm trying to think like something that I was doing, like something that I was like, a place I was at recently. I was thinking Portland.

You were at the- In Portland, you were on Instagram, you were at the marching, right? There was some love.

Oh, Seattle.

Seattle.

Yeah, they were just like, the same freaking out. Yo, no Portland wants to be Seattle. And I had like a big beef with Portland. Like I went there and it was like a big, it was like a big, yeah, we had like an issue, but we got through it. Okay. And it was fun, but that was also fun. It was like figuring out ways to make fun of Portland that they could also appreciate. And I think that they were like, okay, he knows these things about us. Okay, I feel comfortable enough to like laugh with you.

-He gets us.

-Yeah, there's something, and it's interesting putting out the clips. When I was in Florida, we were living in Florida during the pandemic for a while, and I had this joke about how Cubans become conservative Republicans the second they land. But they're immigrants, they're minorities, and the second that that foot is dry, there's a wet foot, dry foot rule. It's just the rule. If you touch the land, you're good, you're American. And they're just like immediately conservative Republicans, like, we need to stop immigration, it's too many people. And the second they get here, it's like, there's too many people. That's fair. And it's funny, like, to see that joke get shared within that community. And that's the beauty of social media, is like back in the day, if you did a special on like HBO or something like that, like they couldn't just take that one little thing and share it with their grandmas and grandpas and all their cousins that they do that exact thing. Now you see the joke go viral on TikTok or Instagram because it's so easy to access.

What do you think was the skill that you learned that gave you the most confidence on stages?

I think it's probably like watching my dad interact with people. Whoever he was talking to was the most interesting person that he'd ever met. Like the bus boy could pick up all the plates and he'd be like, how did you do that? Like he'd literally be baffled. How did you get all those plates? And like he'd find out about people and like, At the beginning, sometimes people thought he was trolling them, and then they realized it was genuine. I don't know, he just has a skill to make people feel good, but he's doing it because he's curious. So he just learned so much about people, and he'd ask all these questions, and I could see him just break down people's walls. That kind of worked with me, and I think that that curiosity translates to stage. And if there's one thing that I wish that I was able to do more of, Now is just like interact with strangers. You don't do that? It's, I just have less time to do it. You know, like I have a wife, I have a career. Career that's crazy busy. I have a team of guys, so I'm interacting with the people that I know, but I want to interact with, that's what I was saying earlier, like I just love a conversation. Like I want to talk to, you know, the Uber driver. I want to talk to the guy at TSA. I want to talk to the guy, you know, that I'm sitting next to on the plane. have these conversations with these people and then, you know, sometimes they're fruitful. All I need is like one nugget of information and that can, you know, last a lifetime.

What's the biggest insecurity or fear that you had to overcome?

For stand up?

Just in life.

In life? Yeah, it wasn't like so crippling. Like I remember like going to college for the first time and like feeling insecure. Like I never felt like that in like some sort of school environment. Like I never felt that. Like, I would just stop the class. If I didn't understand anything, something like nobody's moving on.

Like that was, what do you mean teacher? I don't understand.

I don't understand it. That was my philosophy. And looking back on it, I was like, wow, like where did this come from? Like why did you think that it was important for you to say things like that and to understand things like, and then in college for the first time, I was like, hesitance raised my hand in like one of these big like lecture halls. Like I didn't understand that participation was 10% of your grade and you wouldn't just raise your hand every day. Like, the teacher would have to, like, force you to talk to him. I'm like, dude, it's so easy. You just raise your hand.

Who cares? Like, I didn't care what anybody felt about me. That's amazing.

I never raised my hand.

Really? I was too embarrassed and scared. I was just bad in school. Interesting. So I was just, you know, I never wanted to look stupid in front of others.

Yeah.

And thinking of, it's funny now because all I do now is ask dumb questions. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That I wish I would have asked when I was younger.

Yeah.

And I'm like, that's a really dumb question. But then I'll have people message me, literally send me voice notes or messages on Instagram, be like, I'm so glad you asked that question. I was thinking of that follow-up question that you asked, but I never asked questions.

I never preface it with, this is a dumb question. Well, yeah, I mean, don't do that.

I don't say that now, but you're thinking, yeah, I'm thinking this is a basic question. And I don't know the answer, but I'm just curious to know why this. Yeah, yeah. And so, but I just always felt like people would make fun of me if I raised my hand.

I felt like I was better than them at making fun.

That's good.

So it was just like, yeah, so it was just like, I wasn't worried about being picked on because like, I'm good at that. Right.

So, you were witty.

You were quick with it. Yeah, like I grew up with like Scottish women, so I just had to find a way to keep up. And then I think once I was able to kind of keep up with them, I was like, okay, I got this no matter what. And then I was just kind of like, my parent, and I give that all the credit to my parents. Like we had dinner every night and they just listened to me. I think when you just listen to a kid, they start to feel like their words matter and what they have to say matters. And I think if you don't listen to them, they go, why does anything I say important at all? If the people that love me more than anything in the world don't even care what I say, why would a stranger care? I really think as I look back, I think that's where it came from. Like every day, that was like my open mic. We sat down, how was your day? This happened, my dad's laughing, you know, my mom's laughing, my brother's laughing, and it was just like, I mean, I would sit down at dinner like, I'm about to bring it. Y'all ready? You got your hat out for tips?

You got your hat out for tips?

Dude, I don't know. I guess, I don't know, I guess I had that confidence. Even when I would go through therapy or something like that, I'd walk into therapy and I'd have the session and I'd walk out like, that was your best. You just had a great, do I have to pay you? Do I have to pay you?

You should be making money. Yeah, come on. Be honest.

What are we doing here? Now, that doesn't... Now there is a, I guess what I'm saying is there's a balance. So in order to be great, you need to have like a crippling anxiety about your skill level, I think. Not crippling, but you need to have like intense scrutiny. And you also need to have the confidence to do more, right? So it's just this crazy balance. You need to have the confidence to say something and you need to have the insecurity to improve. And that balance I have.

Like, I'll be-- and I'll think you're the best and you don't need to work on yourself.

Exactly, that is the worst. Those are the worst people. So it's like, think you can be the best. And there are moments where you're like, yeah, I'm the best. And then there's other moments where you look at your thing and be like, oh, I can make that better. Like, there's nothing that I've ever looked at that I've gone, I can make that better. I can't make that better. Everything I nitpick at, oh, you gotta take me out of the room sometimes. 100% that's the beauty of stage. Like that's why I need the crowd. The crowd lets me know if it works, you know? Like the crowd, if they're just going crazy and they're losing it, I go, okay, that is funny enough.

What if they're all, you know, choking on their laughter, they're crying, they're on the floor, 'cause they can't hold themselves up. Everyone is on the floor dying of laughter.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you're gonna say to yourself, I could have been better? Well, it depends.

I mean, it depends, maybe not.

I'd be like, okay, maybe that joke is getting enough right there, or... Right, right. But the whole set, you could have done something. Yeah, I guess what I'm saying is like there's like a ridiculous, I don't even know if the word is insecurity, but it isn't, yeah sometimes I'll watch things and I'll be like, oh, I'm insecure about how I could look right there. But it's more of just like a brutal honesty about in a high expectation for greatness. So it's like, this is what I believe greatness is and this is where I think that joke is or my performance is or that bit is. And it's like, what Can I do to get there? And to be honest, sometimes it's like so, I can be so harsh, I have to not watch for a little.

Right, right, right.

Let the stew cook a little bit, because if I just keep watching, I'm gonna lose faith in it.

Right.

I have to like let the, it's almost like fake confidence, put the air under my wings to get it to the point where it is good enough, and then I can scrutinize it. But yeah, I've never had that feeling of like, I shouldn't say this.

Do you think a comedian can be truly great without being somewhat insecure?

No. No.

'Cause you won't get better. You need insecurity. I'm like grateful for it.

Mm.

Like, you need the insecurity. You need to look at somebody and be like, oh, they do this better than me. I need to get better than them. I remember seeing the comics like, this guy is unbelievably-- Another level. Yeah, like I remember first time I saw Patrice O'Neal. He was the only comic I've ever seen live, and I've seen them all. that I was like, I don't even like saying these things out loud, because once I say something, it can happen. But it was the only comic that I ever saw where I was like, I'm not even gonna say it out loud, but because it would be...

I don't want to manifest it.

Yeah, I don't believe in that, but I mean, I believe in that very much, but I don't want to put, but I was like, this is gonna be hard to be better than him. That's kind of how I felt.

That's a standard you're gonna get to, yeah.

Yeah. Now there's multiple things going on. There are comics that are so great at what they do, and it would be really hard to get better than them. They just might not have had the style that I want to develop. Different style.

Yeah.

So like-- so they're great at what they do.

I just don't want to do that. You can appreciate it, but you're like, I'm not in that league. Absolutely.

It's a different-- it's not what I do.

It's a different type of art, you know?

Yeah, you're playing football, they're playing handball. Exactly.

Whatever, yeah.

Yeah, handball. Who plays handball? Who dedicates a decade of their life to handball?

Me, yeah.

But yes, yeah, it's interesting. The confidence thing is interesting.

When have you been the most insecure? When you were starting out and trying to figure things out in the middle of your career, obviously, maybe you're more in the middle now, but I mean, or towards this stage of your career, what part have you been the most insecure?

It fluctuates, right? Like I've always balanced, I've always had methods to like, Maintain self-esteem because I recognize like I was the best version of myself when I felt good about myself.

What are these methods?

I mean like even as a kid I was like really curious about it like I looked into it like as a kid I don't know where I even got this idea But as a kid I'm talking about like young like seven eight maybe middle school or something like that if I had a negative thought about myself I would tell myself three positive things.

Hmm.

And I think you know what it was, I had like an acute interest in this because both of my parents battled depression. So I was way more aware of depression and way more aware of, it's probably part of the reason why I'm a comic, like I just loved making my dad laugh, you know? And I was like, I didn't realize that like there was a difference between depression and just not having fun. So I thought, like, remember when he'd be like dealing with depression, I'd take him to like the comedy cellar. And I'd be like, hey look, you're gonna laugh, so now everything's good. 'Cause in my mind it was like, all I need to do is be with my boys and laugh, and then everything's fine. And like, so I would do those things. What was another method for developing self-esteem? So like, as I got into standup, right? It was brutal 'cause you do these horrible shows and you know, no one's laughing, and you're trying to develop your voice and all that kind of stuff. What do I need to maintain like the self-esteem necessary to continue going? And I basically said, I need one great show a month to remind me that I should do this.

How many shows were you doing a month?

I mean, I could be doing five, six, seven, eight a week, but I needed one where there was an audience and I did a good job and I killed. And it was just enough oxygen. It was enough, you ever played those car racing games where you pass a checkpoint, you get 25 more seconds? Yes. I needed one of those a month. And then I needed to reflect on improvement. So I think that like one thing with me is I would get so used to improvement that I wouldn't count it towards my self-esteem, right? Like I'm the type person that I don't get excited before something happens and then after it happens, I don't celebrate it for that long because we got another thing to do. So my like celebration window is small, right? My joy matrix is the journey. Like I like working together, I like achieving these things, et cetera, but then there's always another thing. that we move towards, right? So I had to sit there and be like, okay, well back in the day, you didn't have a joke that you could open with. You had to get lucky that something would happen and you were interacting and the audience liked you. Now, you have a joke that no matter what gets a laugh when you walk on stage. And I'd be like, oh, that is an improvement.

And then the next month, you have a closer. The reflection of the improvement built self-esteem. Not just, okay, it's a little better. and I'm gonna keep go, go, go.

Yeah.

It's like, now I know that I can always get someone to laugh every time I go on stage.

It's easy to just go, oh yeah, you're more comfortable. What does that mean? No, you have the ability to go on stage and do a joke and like execute it and you have a closer, you have this certain thing, you were able to develop this premise into a joke and like just remembering that I was improving even though it was a brutal process.

Right?

How long did it, so you're doing what, 15, 20 shows a month sometimes and you're like, if I get one, Decent show. It's a win and I'll keep going. But if you want three months where no one's laughing and you're just bombing, you're probably like, I'm done.

Yeah.

I don't know if I ever would have quit something that I loved, but there is a chance that I wouldn't love it.

Well, this is fun.

Yeah, exactly.

Why would you, yeah, it's tough. Yeah. Interesting.

Was there another strategy you used? I like these two. I would just be like really perceptive about like the different things. I mean, I'm so like in my head about these things, I'd be like, ooh, when I wear a hat, am I look that different? Is this haircut different? Does this match, does wearing this outfit, change things. And like, of course, it's like, oh yeah, I wore the sweatshirt on stage. I need to wear sweatshirts. That's the thing. Like, I was constantly going through it and like starting to make sense of every little change that happened. And the reality is like most of these changes might have had nothing to.

Do with it, right? These were like, you know, baseball superstitions.

Like they're just wearing the same underwear over and over.

Yeah.

100%. But I was aware enough to go, okay, you know what? Smiling when I first get on stage is pretty good. And it makes people feel comfortable. and feel kind of safe, especially if I'm gonna do like some wild joke. Oh, when I go right on stage saying something immediately might be good. You know, I've always hated the first second on stage. Like the first minute, I hate. I think it's stupid. Still today.

No, now it's great because people know.

Who I am and they love it.

They're like a Ron Burgundy. They're excited. Exactly. Is it better to have the, what are they called, the emcee or whoever is emceeing the show? Is it better for them to give you a great introduction or kind of like, All right, our next guy is a comedian from here, and let's bring him on. Is it better to have some good context around, oh, he's been on Comedy Central, and he's been on here in this HBO special, and it's kind of.

Like building up and then you're let down? I remember when I was younger, I went on stage after someone gave me a fake credit. And this happens a lot of times in comedy. What do you mean? When the host brings up a comic that they don't even know, they just say, you,'ve seen him on HBO Comedy Central. They might never been on Comedy Central. It's just what it is. But that was the first time anybody ever gave me that.

And you knew you weren't on Comedy Central or whatever it was.

But I was filled with so much confidence. And I just-- now if I look back, maybe look at the recording, maybe I did absolutely horribly, but in my mind, I walked out as if I had my own show on Comedy Central. And these people should just enjoy it.

That's interesting. There's something that I did, a strategy that I did when I was playing sports. I had an alter ego that I would step into. It wasn't me. And I never done those things of the alter ego, but the alter ego had done the incredible things. And I would step into that on as like, I got this, you know? And I would lean into that. So if that's a psychological trick, yeah. It works. You studied psychology in school, right?

Yeah.

At Santa Barbara, is that right? Yeah. Did you learn anything from your psychological studies that allowed you to not, manipulate audiences, but tap into the psyche and the heart and the emotions of audiences? Or did you learn that from just like family dynamics?

I think it probably was more, I mean, just psychology was just like a really fun thing to study. I knew I wasn't going to use my degree for anything. So I was like, let me enjoy what I'm learning about, maybe get some cool information I can use in conversation. It was great, like talking to people about like psychological principles is like always awesome. And, you know, and then like seeing them reflected in yourself is really cool. So I just kind of enjoyed it. I'm sure some of that has trickled into the comedy. It has to have. But in terms of like going, I'm gonna turn psychology into comedy, I don't think that that was ever perspective.

When did you have the idea that you wanted to do comedy as a full-time profession? Not just like, I think I wanna try this on the side and see how it goes.

I did a, I think when I moved back to New York, I started managing a restaurant back in New York and I was like, this is not Not for me. And I started doing comedy again and I think something just clicked back in New York where I was like, I.

Think I'm gonna do this.

At like 22-23? I think it was like 23.

Wow.

Yeah.

And I was like, maybe it's 23 or something like that. I was like, I think I'm gonna do this. And then I just get obsessed. I almost missed that obsession. I had like an insane obs- I mean, dude. How many more? I mean, just read every book. I would transcribe every set. Like, I'm sure somewhere there's notebooks of literally like handwritten every word. that Chris Rock would say in a whole special, Dave Chappelle would say in a whole special.

You would record it all down and read it.

So I could see how the jokes were broken.

The structure, the framework, the setup, everything. Yeah. Plot twists, everything. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Oh, this is a story. Oh, this is something that isn't real. Oh, this is misdirection that doesn't make sense. This is misdirection that still operates in reality. Oh, wow. Misdirection that operates in reality is actually more fun because It's something that actually could happen. Ooh, I kind of like that. Oh, this is a misdirection. This is more like using words that are kind of like fun and creating good imagery. Like just really breaking down what these different jokes are.

The science of the set.

Yeah, I need to learn the language, kind of like Spanish. Like I need to learn the math of it first and then I could break that.

How long were you obsessed for doing that type of, you know, research?

I mean, like, I would rewrite my set every single night.

Like, I, is this for years? Is this for six months? Is this for years?

I mean, just like, so competitive.

Wow.

So obsessed. I mean, like, I kind of, I'd like, I know this sounds like weird, and I'm not comparing myself to Michael Jordan or anything, but like watching the Last Dance and seeing like the, like psychosis he almost had, like in terms of how he treated people that he had beef with, like, I used to carry a card in my wallet of the people who are mean to me.

Come on.

Sort of God. Like of all the people in comedy that were mean to me, I had.

Their names on a card. What would you do with that information?

The beautiful thing about like- Was this.

The chip on your shoulder that you were wearing?

Yeah.

See, but what would you look at?

Even to today, I have beefs that aren't real, but in my head they're real. Like everything in that doc about just like what motivated him and what he needed to do to like turn it on. Like his ability, for me, what I understood about the documentary was like, He has the ability to turn on the switch. We talk about this, me and my boys. Like, some people can't turn on the switch, right? And like, he could turn it on and he would do it every game. It's crazy, man. Some people can turn on for the playoffs, but he could do it every single game if he wanted to. And that's like, Tom Brady, too. Tom can do it every game. I would say that that is like a competitive advantage I have. Like, if it needs to get turned on, it can get turned on. Like, when we did that Netflix special, I mean, we were working maybe like 120 hours a week. week or something. It was insane. I've never worked that hard in my life. It killed me. I won't work that hard again unless I get paid 100 million dollars. Right. Like it was now. I, I should have outsourced more. Like, I had guys, shouts to Mark Gagnon, who co-created with me, Robbie Slovic, who's a great comic, and FA, ill guy, who we brought on as well. But, like, what we should have done is had a robust writing team. Like, all these shows have team. Yeah, exactly. For me, I lost all the anger. Like, I have no resentment to anybody who's a dick to me at all. If anything, you just feel a little bad because they're still in that same.

Interesting.

And they needed to be a dick to someone who was like young and excited about comedy. Interesting. Yeah.

So do you have any anger towards anyone now or beef with anyone?

I'm sure.

You're sure?

Yeah.

You don't have a list anywhere. You just have it in the back of your head.

Yeah. Yeah.

Mental list.

It's always up here. It's always. That's good motivation for me.

Yeah.

But I feel like the comedy world, kind of like, I feel like in my industry of people creating, you know, content that is trying to further people along, like personal growth content. At least from my standpoint, I feel like I'm in collaboration with everyone. I'm gonna have everyone on my show and I'm gonna promote them. I'm in abundance. You got a book, let's promote it. You got this, cool, I don't care. It seems like there's a similar collaboration mindset with comedians where you're all in the back room just kind of talking, sharing ideas.

We're very competitive.

You are.

We're very competitive. Really? But I think I think the first time you really saw this happen was on the West Coast when podcast came out. And the West Coast comedians have always been more industrious because they have to New York comedians can make a living doing standup at clubs.

They can.

They can.

And that's what's a living 100 grand, 70 grand, 300 grand, 50 grand, 50 grand. This is like three, four nights a week.

No, this is seven nights a week they're working. Spots. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Now, they're doing 15-minute spots around the city. They're collecting 100 bucks here, 100 bucks there, 100 bucks there. They put together, they can make a living. But for a lot of comics, even if they don't realize it, they just want to make a living. And what I always recognized was like, you'll never go further than what you dream. So, like, if your dream is just to make a living, you can't be the biggest act in the world. The goal is how I work the GPS. Like I have to say the thing and then my brain just starts getting me there.

What's the thing right now?

I want to find a way where comics can make just as much money by self-releasing their specials as they can doing it for networks. Because the self-release allows them to build up an audience that can be nurtured and turn into basically When you talk about being collaborative, like, I've always looked at my contribution in terms of like stand-up is, and just comedy in general is like, I'm gonna find out where the voids are in the game and where we can kind of curate our own lives and like be in control of our own careers. And then I'm going to execute those. And then I'm gonna give it to all of you.

Teach everyone how to do it.

This is for you. Like, I tell everybody, like, sometimes young comics come in, oh, you're doing these things and we don't wanna be the thing. And I'm like, it's for you. anything I do is for everybody. I think you just you get comfortable, you know, like you just get comfortable in your space. You have a deal with Comedy Central and like you think it's great to be on TV. When I grew up, I did Comedy Central. This is like when I was coming up in stand-up I thought I should have a sitcom. Why? Because that's what stand-ups did in the 80s. And I was like, do I enjoy acting?

No.

Right. So I don't want a sitcom, but I had it. I did it. You know, I did all the things that I wanted to do, but I realized this wasn't that much fun for me. So I had to focus on the things that were fun and then those things things would be the most fruitful. And basically what I've just been trying to do is go, hey, this is where the career is going and this is where things are going and you guys should do literally everything that I do and then do it better than me and then force me to think, yeah.

So what would be the five step approach for someone coming in right now? Like if you could only do five things to help further your career, is it one first master your craft of comedy?

Yeah, don't even worry about anything else besides getting funny.

Once you figure that out, let's say, and you're like, okay, I'm ready to go out there in a bigger way. Is it, you know, put your stuff.

On you, you know, put your stuff on YouTube, Instagram, Tick Tock.

Like, create a presence for yourself. And, like, use that algorithmic push.

Okay, so once you do that.

Yeah.

What would be the next three things to really accelerate their career? Literally.

You've gotten funny. You're on social media, putting your stuff out there. If you're genuinely funny, like, what I would say is undeniable. Yes. And those are different levels of funny. Like, some people are funny and, like, some weird. bar in Brooklyn.

Right.

But are they funny at the New York Comedy Club? Are they funny at the Comedy Cellar?

Right?

Like, if you're undeniably funny, and we all know who those people are, like, if you're not even it, like, that's the thing. We all talk about, like, who our favorite comics are and blah, blah, blah. If you're not killing, you're not in a discussion.

Gotcha. So this, we know who kills and.

We know who's like, oh, that's really clever. That's really funny. That one joke was funny.

Yeah.

Killing Or not. If you're killing and you have social media, there's nothing else you need to worry about. Everything else will come to you. That's it.

That's it. Just focus on that.

We did all the hard work for you. It's all been done. Literally, if you're killing, then what can you do?

How can you monetize from there? And how much could you monetize?

Social media, what happens is, I mean, you could do obviously podcasts, It was great if you're good at podcasting. But like a lot of people do podcasts.

A lot of them.

And how many comedians have a podcast? Every comedian has a podcast. A million? Yes. I mean it's just it will be a new form of social media. I love this because like I think the more people that enter the genre, the more people listen and watch, and then those people see who the real...

Right. You guys stop. Like I, my School of Redness will be nine years next week.

Yeah.

I don't know when did you launch your show?

Well, I've been doing Brilliant Idiots with Charlamagne tha God. Yeah, he's great. I've had him on. He's the man, dude. He's awesome. He is truly great. He is truly a great.

Yes.

And I don't know, but we were early in podcasting.

Early, so yeah.

Around me, nine years ago, you think?

I would say around, I think, yeah. 2013, January is when I was. Anyways, I would say it was the second wave.

Rogan was obviously the first big wave.

In the tech podcast. Mark Marin, too. Mark Marin. But then it was like Ted Tech podcast and that was pretty much it. Yeah, it was a few.

Yeah.

I kind of came like second wave maybe 2.5, you know? And then serial came, which brought the wave of everything else of true crime and all that.

Non-said.

And then a lot of the comedian podcasts and business podcasts and interview shows and political stuff came in probably five, six, seven years ago as well. and I remember thinking, oh gosh, is this gonna get too saturated?

Yeah.

Really what it did is it just brought in more audiences to find the best stuff. And so if you're willing to be consistent and kept improving, then you'll be fine.

I learned that from my mom. And maybe that's why I'm so generous with like the guys and I like make it on the internet. But like my mom would have this dance studio and she would have all these teachers. Literally every dance school in New York is started by someone who used to work for my mom and dad. And then they started their own school and I was like, doesn't that bother you that they're taking the students, whatever? And they're like, no, it's great. And I was like, why? And he was like, well, one, competition is great for business. And two, more people can go do it and that's the natural course of things. They had no resentment. There are certain people who I'm gonna sign you to a non-compete and you can't do this and you train people at my gym and if you leave my gym, I'm gonna sue you and you're gonna have to pay me $50,000 to go train people. This stuff really happens. And my parents were just like, no, just go do your thing and have fun and they'd still like hang out with them. And I think there's a lot of--.

Would you do that if you had like this young like comedic mentee and then you brought them up and then they went and did their own thing?

I want, look, in the ideal scenario, I want them to be able to do everything that they want and help them.

Yeah.

Like I don't think like the way I look at these things is like, how can we all do and accomplish our greatest dreams?

Right?

And then what I want to do is create like the Avengers crew and eventually go, yo, once every three years, like we're gonna put out another special like we did, or once every two years we're gonna make a movie together, once every, and then in the in between, they're doing their cool projects, they're putting out their specials, you know, they're mentoring other people, but like the people that I curate, like I have a tight knit group and these are my guys. and I plan on working with them until I'm done working.

These guys go on tour with you, right?

Yeah. So they go on tour with me and, well, Akash has his own tour right now. But Mark is opening up for me and Mark eventually will have his own tour. But, like, when we do arenas, I want Mark there and I want Akash there, you know what I mean? And Derek is opening for us as well. And, like, I want him there. Like, these are the guys that I want to build with.

Yeah.

But I also want them to achieve all their dreams as well.

If they became, you know, 5, 10 times bigger than you, how would that make you feel?

Great, awesome. Yeah, this is the game.

Yeah.

You know what I mean? Now, there's gonna be a part of me that's gonna go, hey, I wanna get bigger too. How do I do it? Depending on where I am in career, if I see somebody doing something really good, and I wanna also do it, of course, just as I'm sure them seeing me inspires them to do it. But yeah, this is the game, man. 100%.

How do you think it'll change in the next two years by 2024? Where will the industry of comedy be? What will have changed? What will stay the same? And where would you guys be innovating? I think we'll figure out a way to make money.

Because right now everybody's putting their specials on YouTube.

For free or they're charging for free?

For free.

You're just making money on ads or?

No money. You make money on the road.

So you build the audience, that's the thing.

You sell tickets. It's like the old music model. That's kind of how I modeled the stand-up thing. I was like, okay, what's going on here? Oh, okay, all these artists back in the day, they didn't make many money off the albums really, they would make money when they would tour and do these arenas. I was like, oh, we can make money by touring, how can I get people out? Okay, I give them the content and then they'll come out because they like the content. And I would say the biggest fundamental change, like maybe my influence on stand-up, it's probably looked at from the outside as like, oh, this is like the social media era. But I would say like the actual fundamental change in stand-up is the way that we approach our material. We used to look at our material as this thing we hoard and then put out for a special. Now we look at our material as marketing for us.

Right.

And that is a big shift.

Why do people hoard so much? Because they didn't think they could recreate new jokes all the time or there's.

No incentive not to put it. There was no place to put it out. So you might as well hoard it, right? And then have all of that material. And then when you get asked to do a special, use it. Then you do it. But like there wasn't a place to even put it. like you could have put it, I guess, on Instagram or Facebook and that kind of stuff, but there wasn't, like, the thirst for video content. And then all of a sudden, video content started to get more popular, and we figured some things out. But, like, that would be the biggest fundamental change I think that has happened in stand-up, at least my influence. It was just how we look at our material. You want people to come out to your show.

Is it because your face is like.

This on a flyer or is it because you're doing a joke? Making people laugh at home or on the, yeah, wherever. Like, these people, it's so funny. Like, these people do, like, promos for their specials that don't have stand up. And it's like, buddy, if I'm gonna go to a restaurant, you gotta show me what the food looks like, right? I'm not going there because there's a.

Picture of the chef going, yeah, and if a friend's like, oh, I bought a ticket to see Andrew's special in LA tonight, and they're showing their friend, oh, who is this guy?

Well, let me show it on Instagram real quick. Oh, it's pretty funny. This looks like it'd be fun. The whole reason why I started selling tickets is because it was easy to justify it to your friends. Hey, you wanna go this comic book? Who is he? One send button, one clip.

Check out this funny clip. I got a million views, by the way.

Everyone's laughing. And what if I got hundreds of clips that have a million views and each one of those clips could pertain to a different person? So if you're Cuban, there's this Cuban, if you're Bosnian, there's this Bosnian. This happened by luck.

Not everything that we're doing, yeah, like.

This is gonna start happening this way.

Like, okay. What year was this?

So I put out, none of the industry wanted to give me opportunity for a special, so I decided to put it out online. One year, maybe 2016 or something like that. I can look back.

So seven years ago, six years ago, seven years ago.

And sometimes you get lucky when you do the right thing. Everybody successful is lucky. Even Bezos, they had that Amazon Web Services business. I think I was listening to him talk about that.

That was like the biggest.

They had that for seven years or something like that with no competitor. Name a business that you can be making tens of millions of dollars where no one even enters the market. Tens of billions or something.

Yeah, yeah.

And even to this day, that's where they make so much of their money. So like he'll be like, yo, we got so lucky with.

He had an obsession for 20 years, which you had an obsession for 15, 18 years.

Thanks both. What happened was this is, so the first one I put out was this, it was like a night in New York.

Right?

It was like, I don't want to, here I am in front of the curtain, like whatever. So everything's the same, right? So I was like, what if you followed around a comedian for a night in New York? You can't put out a video that's gonna make multiple seven figures, right? One video.

One video, yes.

It's the accumulation will make seven figures. But your one video, which is what.

You would have got on a special, like you're gonna make a million bucks or three million on this Netflix, on this HBO Showtime special.

So the last one that I, the one that I sold, Before the pandemic that is gonna come out, I sold it. I got paid a 1.1 for it, right? Which was before the pandemic. Before you became a way bigger than you were.

Yeah, the pandemic was awesome.

Like if you would have gotten that deal now...

They got a good deal.

Put it that way.

They got an amazing deal.

They got an amazing deal. So that one right there, which network.

Is this coming out?

I can't exactly talk about it. It's not out yet. We'll talk about it.

Okay, so anyways... Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

You got that before the pandemic. so, yeah, so that was before the pandemic and then I filmed that in like September in Austin and then, so we're just finishing up the edit for that now. But that special, I'm going, okay, 1.1, okay, that's great. Let's see if I, how do I make a million dollars off a special without a network? Because that's my whole thing with like leverage in the game. Like I know I'm not one of like the insiders, right? Like, and everybody wants to reward the people that they helped build. And I think it's a natural thing, like if I was at a network and I, invested time into these like actors or like comics, like I would want them to blow up because their reflection of me is like a talent scout right now. I'm in the position where like, I don't want my career to be in your hands. Yes, my career is in my hands. We have the team, everybody who works for us in it. We do it. And the way that you get deals done when your career is in your hands is it has to be the best thing that's out. And then the network-- Undeniably funny. Undeniably funny.

And then the net-- and you need Scooter Brown to make a call.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. We'll do whatever you want. Ted Sarandos. So, but like, it has to be undeniable, right? And you have some people that are in some high places that recognize that it's undeniable, and then all of a sudden these things get made. So, and I'm okay with that. I'd rather that, because I can control undeniable. I can't control whether you like me or not, or like, what metric you're using to decide or how much you put it up, etc. So I'm all about working with the industry. We can do this, etc. This is great. But I want to find a way where I can get a comic to make a million dollars off of their.

Special without being with a network by.

Putting it on YouTube. Because if we can make a million dollars on YouTube, what are you going to pay me at Netflix?

Right.

What are you going to pay me?

You're gonna pay me 5 10 x Tick Tock. Yo. You know, so I don't know if it's a combination of advertising, a bunch of other different things. We've got ideas, and this is kind of like what we're working on, but, like, How amazing would that be for a young comic whose only option is now YouTube, but YouTube slash social media, Instagram, et cetera, but now that becomes.

The most lucrative option. If you did a global one night event only, virtually. Or how many tickets do you think you could sell under 50 bucks?

Who knows? Who knows? I think you're thinking something good.

Pay-per-view is good. This is the number. You know, you stream it live on YouTube to a premium service. Could do it to ticketed services. You could do it. Then you ask for donations during it. If you like it, enjoy it.

You just added a tip jar.

Yeah.

More.

Maybe you rent out some movie theaters. You put it out there so people can watch it, you know, in a packed theater with other people.

Event.

You know, that's what you do.

Straight to YouTube and that's it. Straight to YouTube.

You sell some merch with it.

Yeah.

And then you sell, you got some VIP stuff. You make one night.

You do it once a year. Yeah. and maybe you do it once a year or whatever, you've been able to do it, but what if there was this model where commerce could make an equal amount? And the most important part is everybody that then subscribes to their channels, they get to go tour with and give them their new content. And now they have this connection with their audience, which is the most powerful thing that a creator can have now, right? Before it was the network has a connection to the audience and the creator needs to be on the network so they can get the audience. Now we can go around. and I love doing business with them. Let's do business. Let's make movies. Let's make TV shows. Let's do all this is great.

But it's got to be the other way. Other way. I got the audience that you want now.

You want people to subscribe to your network? Yeah. And convince me. Why should I go over there? Because I got millions of people. I got 10 million people gonna watch it over here.

How many are gonna watch it over there?

Well, we can't guarantee.

Well, you better figure it out.

You better put something. Hey, you know what I mean? Push a button. Top 10.

Exactly.

Get it on a list, bro. Nobody's checking the numbers. Get it on the list.

Exactly. Give me 24 hours in there or something.

Yeah, that's it.

That's something you can leverage for the next thing.

Yeah.

I just think that that is the most, like my mom said, it's like competition's good. That's gonna be good for Netflix. That's gonna be good for HBO because what's gonna happen is, and this is what happened in comedy. There's way edgier comedy out right now because we have an avenue for it that's very successful because if they don't, they're comparing it to the watered down stuff. They're comparing like our stuff to the watered down stuff that was okay back in the day. I mean, one of the reasons why I think I blew up on YouTube and stuff early is because like the only other comedy they were showing was on Comedy Central and it was just a bunch of like clean crap and then you saw like actual real jokes, right? And you're like, this is way better.

Than the garbage I'm seeing on Comedy Central.

Sure.

What's the difference between clean crap and And authentic truth. Well, some people are authentically clean.

Yeah, like Brian Regan is just so funny, he's clean. He's just brilliant. But, I mean, he's, he's, yeah, he's just, he's never blue, he's never cursing that kind of stuff, but like there's like a passion in the bits that is like real.

Yeah.

And you still find that really funny.

Oh yeah, like some of my favorite.

Like one of my favorite comics is Ryan Hamilton. He's completely clean, but he is just hilarious. Like, I don't care if you're dirty or clean, it's just, who are you and like, are you reflecting the material? And do I like that person? Some people, I just don't like who they are, so I'm not gonna like their comedy.

Right, right.

But if I like you as a guy or a girl and you're reflecting the material, then like, hell yeah.

You're down with it. What would you say is the ultimate framework of a set? If you had, if you could map out like the five parts, and I don't know anything about comedy.

You're talking about a live show or a special.

A live show. If there is someone here that's like, wanted to be obsessed about your process and understand how you do it. They wanted to research you and they listen to this, they watch this. And I'm like, okay, here's how Andrew does this. He always starts with something and then it goes into a plot twist and then it goes into this. This isn't how I... Connecting to the audience.

I don't know what the lingo is. I'm just... This isn't how I necessarily would do.

It but I think like a great.

Set would be especially like if you're on the road or in a different place, I think like some sort of acknowledgement of that city that you're in, that you're a fish out of water in, an acknowledgement in like a, in a cool unique way, a joke that they've never heard about maybe the most popular thing in their city.

So number one, acknowledge the city in a cool way.

Some sort of interaction baked in with the audience that's just completely spontaneous and just fun and awesome and just really kind of brings everybody into this moment that they feel like will never happen again and is just so exciting. When you get on stage and you're, are you observing the audience from the back before?

Are you in another room hearing, you know, what's-- I don't even like to hear anything that's on stage.

'Cause you don't wanna be-- Influenced.

Influenced. I wanna go out completely blind.

Blind.

You won't even look to see the audience. I might be backstage watching the guys.

And like I'll peer in.

Yeah.

But I'm not like specifically like what are they saying?

What do they say?

Exactly. And I have my guys that open for me, so I know what they're gonna do and I know our ideas won't cross. When you're at a club in the city where you don't know who's on the show, that's where stuff you should.

Probably watch a little bit.

Because you don't want them to say the same thing. Yeah.

Or even a topic like, yeah, it's the same. It's just pretty much the same. We just heard this.

Yeah.

What about, do you have a certain approach to how you interact with the audience? Do you like, I look for shirt colors. I look for ethnicity. I look for Couples, are you thinking or is it just, it just comes to you?

Yeah, it kind of just comes to me. I mean, I always like, I don't know, like I always just kind of tell, remind myself just like trust my gut. So like just say the thing that I'm feeling no matter how weird or uncomfortable or awkward it is. Like what are you feeling right now? And that works. Like that truth works because other people are also curious about that. And especially when you're in a theater, it's a little bit different because everybody is lined up like this. So there's, you've got 3,000 people there. The people on the balcony can't see what the people in the front look like. So when you're interacting with them, you also have to do a little bit more description for everybody there.

In context. But if you're in a nightclub and.

There'S 100 people or 50, they can see that guy's shirt, that guy's face. Everybody's so close. So that is a little bit faster, the interaction. you could even look at somebody and just kind of be like, and everybody.

Else will look and be like, laugh.

Exactly. Just because they're like, I would say, if I looked at that guy too, right? So much of comedy is just like acknowledging this feeling that we all have or acknowledging things that are right in front of our face that we haven't seen yet. And that's, for me, it's like, what is the joke, you know, like, what is the joke that that everybody should have said but hasn't said. You know, like about the most popular thing even. So it's like how can I get one of those for every single thing? That's the challenge.

That's the fun. Okay, so that's the second part of the framework.

Having just a great interaction. Having like great long bits. A lot of people that are unfamiliar with all my content don't know this about me but like most of them know like the Crowdwork stuff, et cetera. And that's the stuff that I've been.

Able to like- You put out there and people are laughing at it.

But that's stuff that like, I'm not using for the set. So I have an hour of jokes, but that's the stuff that I can give the audience.

It's the first 15 minutes of just...

It worked. It worked kind of like Pepper Through, but it was the only thing that I could give out every week. If I gave out one of these bits that I've worked on for six months, I'll run out. Because these bits for me, when I do a bit, it's a chunk. It could be six minutes. Wow. So it's like everything all encompassing in this topic. Six minutes, eight minutes, you know, it's a full story. Yeah, like story or like an analysis of an idea, person, place, or thing from every angle justifying maybe the most absurd situation. The more absurd, the better. But that to me is like, I need a few of those in the set where you go, oh, that bit, boom. Oh, his abortion bit. Or, oh, his Michael Jackson bit. A few of them in there where you're just like, you need to see his bit about this. Interesting.

So two to three bits.

Depending on how long-- I mean, I have a bunch throughout, but there has to be a few in there that are so memorable. You have to see it. That's the feeling. I want you leaving going, I can't laugh at it. That was crazy. That was crazy. That's how I would design the sets early on in my career. I was just like, Even if you hated me for the first 45 minutes, the last 15 minutes, you should be crying.

Wow.

Because you have to leave on that, you know?

Do you ever experience self-doubt at this level?

Yeah, of course. All the time. Before I go on, I'll feel that way, like, is this joke even gonna work? Yeah, of course.

Are you nervous, like, the day before, 20 minutes before, how long?

Depends on the show. You know what I mean? Sometimes the whole day I'm thinking about it, sometimes I'm not thinking about anything at all. It just depends like the thing that I want to accomplish, you know? Yeah, it depends. I put it this way, I'm much better to be around after. When you're done with the set, like.

Okay, it's over with. Don't hang out with you before. I'll kind of say how do you after the show when I come watch you?

Not like, I just leave everybody and I just go into the green room and I just like, Focus. Focus. Think about what I want to talk about. Try to remember the things and like.

Have you ever gone blank in the middle of a, 60 minutes.

Yeah. All the time.

What do you do when you're like, oh, I'm not hitting anything. I'm going blank. I'm just mumbling here. What's the best way to get back on track?

One thing I'll do is I'll pretend like I had a thought. Like, so I'm giving you some game. So I'll do this. I'll be like, I'll be like, you know, I'll be like, see, the thing is, like, I can't, I can't. And then the audience is like, well, what is he thinking about? I'm like, I don't know. But like, I'll have like little games that I can play to like stretch out.

Sure, sure.

Yeah, how long, you know, we can take those silences.

Do you think having self-doubt is a good thing before?

You need it, you need it, you need it, you need it. I mean, we talk so much about confidence, but like self-doubt, you need both. It's the combination of self-doubt and confidence. Confident enough to do the thing and insecure or doubtful enough where you get better. And like without both you cannot be great. I mean if we're talking about greatness, like every great person has self-doubt and that self-doubt is a massive motivator, but they have enough confidence to overcome it. I think it's the people who lack confidence and have the self-doubt that they can't do anything, they can't get out of their own way. And the people who have too much confidence and not enough self-doubt just never really get that great. They're good, like their lives are probably better. They're probably happier. Like real talk, maybe they're happier. But I want to be great. And that requires constant criticism of yourself.

Do you think a comedian can be a 10 out of 10 happy?

I don't think people are. Yeah, I would say I'm on the happy end of the comedian spectrum.

You're generally a happy human being.

Yeah, I mean, yeah, I don't put it this way, like I don't feel sad. I don't feel angry. I feel a lot of gratitude and a lot of joy. And like, I feel stress, which I enjoy and I feel like... You're taking.

On big projects and... Yeah, and like.

You know, building things and obviously there's disappointment and frustration, but I don't like wake up going like, I'm sad. And I understand that people do that. And like, I felt, you know, I felt like down or you come down off of certain big projects. You know, my parents battled this. I imagine people dealing with that every single day. Like that could be incredibly difficult to overcome. I'm very lucky where I haven't felt it and I've tried to curate a life and habits to keep me away from like I need to do certain things. I need exercise. Like if I don't exercise, I'm a wreck. I need to be creating. If I'm on stage, that works. If I'm putting out clips or something like that, that works. couldn't get on stage during the pandemic, but I felt very fulfilled by putting out content. And maybe I'm leaving myself in the hands of those people saying, great job on Instagram, that's a little bit vulnerable, but I at least felt like I was doing something. And I understood the recipe to like my own like mental wellness, if you will. But yeah, I don't think that you should be happy all the time, because then you're not happy, you're just normal. I think that, yeah, you should feel normal enough so when you're happy, you're really grateful.

Yeah.

You know, like, what are you most grateful for these days?

Oh, God. All of it. All of it. I got a great woman.

And what's the thing you love about her the most?

She hates when I say this, but, like, there's, like, there's, like, a great safety with her. I know that sounds like a weird thing because you're supposed to be the one that's providing the safety, but, like, There's like building with her feels I'm just so excited youd know, and that's not only like family, but that's also like emotional connection like she's yeah, I mean, she's just she just creates a great environment to like Feel safe.

What did you not feel safe about before with her?

I mean, I never really like almost immediately. I felt like really safe with her and by safe. I just mean like a Like, to go, I want to spend the rest of my life with you, like, you gotta love that person and you gotta love spending time with them. That's not to say that we don't like get in arguments, but like genuinely speaking, like, if there isn't distraction and it's just the two of us hanging out, it's an awesome time. Yeah. Life complicates things.

But.

To me, I'm so grateful for that. And she's just awesome. Like, so in tune with what I might need and I don't know, she's just so great. She's just like, that's beautiful. Yeah, it's just really selfless in that way. And I know that I require a lot, especially given my career and stuff. So knowing somebody who's having somebody who knows that and is aware of that and wants to give and wants to support is just like, you gotta be grateful. I'm just so. Yeah, it's a weird. I know it's a weird thing, like, being. Feeling safe, but, like, that's really important to me.

Yeah.

Like, I want to be able to.

Share without being judged or made wrong or.

Yeah.

Not accepted or all these things.

Yeah.

Like, I just tell her everything, and she accepts it. Yeah, that's beautiful. Yeah. I mean, I. I don't think she accepts everything, but, like, I just feel like I can share these things that, you know, might. I might go, like. I might with somebody else. So I don't feel safe. Be like, ah, if I say that, will they not like me or they, you know, will they stop being in love with me or whatever. But, like, with her, I just really.

Feel like I want to build with her. Something about with my girlfriend, too, where when we first started dating, I was just my previous ways. The ships, I would be 100 honest and they would get hurt or upset or not like something. And then I would kind of, like, hold back 100 of the honesty because I was like, this is gonna make them. freak out for the night or whatever, right?

Yeah.

And so when I started dating her, I was like, okay, Martha, listen, you're asking me a very vulnerable question now. Are you sure you want the truth?

Yeah.

Because every woman I've been with in the past said they want the truth, but they couldn't handle the truth.

Yeah.

So I go, you sure?

She goes, yes.

You're not gonna like it. She goes, I want to hear it. I go, you're not gonna like it, though.

Yeah.

I'm just letting you know, but I'm gonna not abandon myself from telling you how the truth.

Yeah.

And I'd say it, and she'd be like, that's it. I love that about you. It's like, what? And so the more I was able to do that with her, I was like, man, this feels safe. So I know that feeling. I've never felt safe in a previous relationship.

Yeah.

And I'm like, it feels amazing to be able to just say whatever I want to say.

Yeah.

Not something in a bad way.

I'm not like saying something negative, but.

Just say the truth.

Yeah.

My truth.

Yeah.

And be like, yeah, okay. You know?

Yeah.

I accept you. Yeah.

It's incredible, man. Yeah. It's the best. It feels unbelievable.

Yeah.

You get to be yourself. It's incredible. And if you have to live with someone for the rest of your life, you better be able to be yourself. You need that. otherwise it's gonna be miserable. You were mentioning about therapists last year, and I talked about this on my show, but I went through a year of therapy every two weeks, minimum, for a year. I was getting out of another relationship that I was trying to make work with the therapy. It didn't work, ended it, and I said, I'm gonna stay in this and keep myself emotionally accountable to integrate the lessons I'm learning. So I don't repeat this because I've been repeating this for 15 years. And the consistent therapy was probably the most powerful gift I gave myself ever for one year. And I'm gonna continue again for this year. Incredible peace that I felt. How long have you done therapy for?

You really treat life like sports.

I do, man.

It's great.

Life business, it's all sport, man.

Yeah, but I don't know, the way that I've heard you talk about your life, it's like, okay, here's this thing. I'm going to figure out this thing. I'm going to practice this thing.

Yeah, that's it. And I'm going to get coaching.

I'm going to get feedback. It's all up. I did it for this amount of time, the handball.

There, even therapy. You're like, okay, I'm going to figure out this thing.

It's really great. It's really good. Thanks, man.

Yeah.

But how long, when did you first experience therapy? I think when I was like third grade or something, some teacher said that.

I should go to therapy or something.

I was like probably acting out. Okay. My parents were like, all right, go.

Then I went, I don't really remember much from that. Do you do it now every now and then? Oh, God, I would love to, but I just don't.

But I would love to. I'd love it.

Well, 'cause you've got an amazing audience.

That just, you think they should be paying you.

That's like, what is the best thing.

About therapy for you? Ah, just vomiting, dude. Like, just emotional vomiting. Emotional vomiting and like getting all these like cool words that you then can like use in arguments with your girl, you know what I mean? Give me an example. Oh, like testing, you know that word? Yeah, like you only test someone if you want them to fail. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And like, also like understanding understanding why, like, understanding the emotions behind your behavior. You know, like, sometimes I'll see a comic say something smarter than, like, who they are on stage. Like, he got that from, he got that from somebody for 200 an hour. But, like, yeah, I think it's just awesome.

What was the biggest aha moment from therapy you've ever had?

I think I worked out some stuff with my mom in therapy. You know, like, we always had, like, a kind of, like, interesting relationship. But even that, like, I don't think it was therapy that really helped us with that. Just seeing my mom as like a person that's also flawed.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You know, although, I know his parents are flawed.

Yeah.

Like, they also see him to be perfect.

Yeah.

Yeah, like, yeah, like the fact that like she could need attention and that could be important to her and her self-esteem.

Right. And not just you needing all the time.

Yeah. Yeah.

Thinking like, I'm a kid, so it's about me and my brother. what do you need? Why do you need to talk to dad? You're done with that. And then understanding that and going, okay, I guess I can give you that gift, the gift of attention. And I guess that kind of worked, but I just think therapy is great, man. Just talk to somebody. I mean, if you have friends and if you have family, you already are doing it. There just might be certain things that you're too embarrassed to speak to your friends and family about.

Well, we grew up in the 80s and 90s and I was, for me, I don't know what it was like in New York. I'm assuming it wasn't that much different unless you went to some like hippie preppy school or something. That was like Kumbaya day. But if I put my arm around a teammate of mine, it's like, Hey, what's up, bro? It was like, get off me with.

Some type of word.

If you said that you were just made fun of and laughed at, at least for me. And it was kind of the society of, I guess, young boys growing up and I probably did the same thing to other kids because that was happening to me. Yeah. So you want to fit in?

Yeah.

Was that like that for you or did you feel like you got to express your emotions and process things?

I mean, I'm sure I went through that. I'm sure you want like your friends to like you and that kind of stuff. I don't remember too much trauma from like jokes and stuff. And I do remember my parents being like super open-minded and just like not, I felt no judgment from my parents.

That's amazing.

Yeah, and almost like too little judgment. Like, I was like, what do you wanna do?

You can do it here.

Well, like, yeah, like I was a B student. If my parents required me to be an A student, I would have been an A student.

Really?

Yeah, like I just, I wanted to impress them, but I knew that they were happy enough with bees. So I was like, okay, I guess I'll just get bees. I just worked towards it, like 85, I was fine, who cares? It is what it is. I just didn't care. Like even when I took the SATs, I just wanted to get better than my friends. Like I didn't care what I got, as long as it was more than my boys, because then we'd have fun, you know, competition. Anytime I did well in class was literally just because I didn't like the teacher. That's the only time, like, I was like, I don't like you, so I'm gonna do well in your class to spite you.

Yes.

But like, again, my parents, I think one of the advantages of not having expectations is you always exceed expectations.

Right.

And there's confidence with that. Like you always feel like these people are proud of you and you're doing.

A great job, you know?

What's the disadvantage of that? You're not going as far as you can. I was very lucky where I had this kind of like internal, you know, drive or something. Drive, yeah. If you don't have that, then it's dangerous. And I had the freedom to just go out. I said that to my girl, I was like, you got, like, I'm the type of person, like, I work great with freedom. Like, you don't give me any rules, I come back.

Yes.

You give me rules, I have to break them.

I must break them.

Did she try to create a rule.

Early on that you-- no, no, but.

Like I just, like I noticed when we were kind of getting together and starting to get a little more serious and I was like, you just gotta trust me on this. Yeah. Just like it's going in the right direction. I will not waste your time. I don't waste girls time. I'm not gonna waste your time. If I don't feel like it's going.

That direction, I'll tell you immediately. Let it flow the way you need it to flow. Not on a timeline, not a disc, not a structure.

Yeah.

A number or whatever, just let it go.

Yeah. And then once we moved in together.

The more freedom she gives you, the more you want to be with her.

Exactly. 100%. And it's a really scary concept because the idea is like, go out, do whatever you want. But like, I enjoy doing the things that I do and being myself. The more I can do the things I want to do and be myself, the more I appreciate the people that allow that to happen.

100%, man. This is my girlfriend. Every night I'm just like hugging her. I'm like, I appreciate you so much.

Yeah.

You don't call me and say, what are you doing? You're not checking on something.

Yeah.

I can be traveling, speaking somewhere and you're just cool.

Yeah.

And it makes me love and appreciate you abundantly.

Yeah.

And I tell her all the time, I'm just so grateful for you. Yeah. Because. Well, also because I've experienced the opposite. And, you know, it's the worst. Of the feeling of trapness, which I take responsibility for. I chose those. I stood in those relationships. But I think if women understood, like.

If you find a good guy.

Yeah.

You give that bandwidth psychological freedom to. Yeah. I'm not saying it's not okay to cross boundaries. Yeah. You know, but create the psychological freedom.

It's amazing what we will do. It's really true. And if we're going to cheat, we're going to cheat.

And then they move on.

Yeah, but like, it's not because you gave boundaries. You can't stop it. Yeah, that thing is going to happen.

Yeah.

So there's nothing really that you can do there. Like, and I think that women view our cheating in the same way that they kind of view theirs. Like, you know, I think a lot of times a woman's cheating is a reflection of like, not feeling fulfilled emotionally.

Right?

There's like a void of love and she's replacing that act of lust. There's like this momentary like serum for like a vampire. Like, okay, this will do for the moment. I just want to feel desire because I'm not feeling that. And I think a lot of times guys cheating is just like, just insecurity and I just need to fluff my ego. But you can get that ego fluffed. You know what I mean? Like, that ego can be fluffed at home. But if you have a guy who's insecure, you need to know that. Yes. Now, you know if you guys are insecure or not?

Absolutely. That's why for me, I don't feel like I have insecurity.

Well, 'cause she gives you all the...

She gives me tons of confidence. Tons of love. And yeah. But I'm also like, okay, if, I don't know, she's an actress, so she's done scenes with Keanu Reeves and all the big people she's worked with. And they've all hit on her and all this stuff and I'm like... Okay, if I don't know, whatever. Kennedy Reeves or someone came up to her now. Yeah. And starts hitting on her. Would I be insecure or jealous? I don't think I would be. No, not in front of you.

So crazy.

Behind, I mean, whatever. Oh, behind the standard. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, like, but I wouldn't be jealous. Because I'm like, if you want to be, I would not be jealous. Oh, yeah.

You can be jealous. Because I'd be like, okay, if you.

If there's a better match for you.

Yeah.

If that's a better life, then I want you to live a better life. I I hear what you're saying. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I hear what you're saying, though. It's. But if you don't see the value, like, if your woman doesn't see value you bring to her life.

Yeah.

And she sees there's more value somewhere else than. And she's always thinking about it. Then.

Yeah.

Either be where you are now or go over there.

Yeah.

But don't be in between.

So. Yeah.

How has your craft been different in this type of relationship versus single or in previous relationships?

I never changed my comedy depending on, like, the person I dated or if I was single, and I never did that. And it was probably because I was able to get laid before I did comedy.

Right.

And I think that like, I have empathy to the guy who never got laid before they were on stage. Like, yeah, use it, bro. Like, have fun. Like, wear the cape. Like, go for it. Sure, sure. But I just never felt like this was the only chance I was gonna have to get laid.

So it was all about the jokes.

It wasn't clever enough. It wasn't unique. Yeah, I didn't have the silliness. Like, every joke starts with like a serious point, but that's what I'm always fighting for. Where's the silly thing? But like, just having somebody on my team, like, literally having someone who's like, wants me to succeed, wants to help me with the things that I need to get done, like, wants me, you know, just in every single way, that is massive. That feels awesome. And it's still frustrating. Oh, we had arguments. And there'll be times where she's like, it's late, and I gotta fly out, and she's like, what are we doing with all this? And I just gotta be like, hey, listen, we're in this together, and there's gonna be times where I gotta stay up late for you.

Right.

And it's time you gotta stay up late for me. But, like, it.

We're not boyfriend, girlfriend.

We are married.

Like, we're a team now.

I go get this money, this is our money.

Who are the three most inspiring comics today? Not like in the past, but today that you, whether you're friends with them, I'm assuming you guys all know each other, but that you're like, man, they're just, and I know you don't want to ruffle feathers and not say certain people, but if you had to pick like three, three that you were like.

These three have to be alive though.

That are working, actively working in some way today.

I mean, Bill Burr, it's just fantastic.

One thing about each person. So what's the thing about it?

Bill Burr just found a way to funnel his brutal honesty into hilarious ideas. And I think people really like that. And I like it and I just appreciate it. And Dave Chappelle is really mastered the art of storytelling. There's people might argue oh, I'm not laughing. He's really interesting It's not as many like jokes per second or whatever like that, but the art of literally a story no one does it better now you're on Mount Rushmore with these guys, you know, I mean, I've always been a Chris Rock fan I know Chris Rock hasn't been as active as of late, but like I've always just been a huge Chris Rock fan.

What's the thing he has that you love?

He just kind of like, he got me on board with like kind of devil's advocate thinking. Like I always had those thoughts, right? But like he was the first person I saw like do him well and real and he was the first person who was like yo you could think of an argument that doesn't exactly make sense but it's funny so that's enough and I was like oh I love doing this. I do this all the time. I do this with my friends and like you know, and the more somebody is, like, locked into an idea, the more I want to, like, make that ground shaky. And it's just fun for me. So anytime he wants to kind of, like, pop in and, and, and get busy with that, he absolutely can. Yeah, I guess. I guess I'm naming OGs, to be honest with you.

But so you said on one's honesty, the, the honesty that he brings, the other is a story, and the other's the devil's advocate nature to it.

Yeah, it's just like. The ability to make a cohesive argument for something that isn't a popular opinion.

Right.

And Bill Burr does it great too, but Rock I think for me was just the originator.

Yes.

I'm like fruit off of Chris Rock's tree and then I found Patrice and I was like, oh, that's the exact way that I want to do it.

The model.

Yeah.

Everybody else, I was like, oh, I like how you guys do this. 'Cause that's the thing I think with me is like, it's hard, you know, usually with comics you could see like where they came from. But I think one of the things with me is like, it's hard for people to go, I don't know what he sounds like. I don't know what he is. Sounds like himself. Yeah, maybe, but I'm like, you just don't think I sound like that big, fat black dude. Right. 'Cause I don't sound like him, but I'm influenced so much by him. And like, he's dead. But like, for me, he's just the best. He's the best ever. Elephant in the room, go check it out on Netflix.

That's cool. What's the thing, you know, that people are aware of and they see that they don't see, what's the thing you'll be most proud of? New Year's Eve and the 2022.

Personally, a year married. That will be the 18th of December, that out for personal goal. And then, you know, who knows, man? Like, you never know what happens when you get married. Things happen, my boy. You know what I'm saying? That's not happened yet or anything, but like, you know that, yeah, you never know.

You never know.

And so I would be, that's personally, that would be very gratifying. Professionally, I have my buddy Akash Singh who's gonna be putting out his first special on YouTube. For free. Yeah, for free on YouTube. And he's also been putting out clips and he's also been doing, and that's my guy podcast co-host, like my best friend in comedy. So seeing him, thank you, man. But like seeing him, start to rise and like, that would be very exciting to me, like seeing his career take off in a similar way that happened for me. That'd be really cool. Dropping my special, wherever we put it.

Not sure where yet. Yeah. Maybe it did, but you're not telling me.

We don't know. We don't know. And then, but like dropping my special and then obviously the goal is after this special is like, I want to be able to do, I don't want to do like an arena tour where every place I do an arena. But there are certain places I want to do an arena. Like I'm doing Radio City. Yeah, I gotta do MSG. 'Cause I'm a kid from the city.

Like I grew up.

That'd be sick, man. I gotta come to that. You gotta come.

Like, we're doing Radio City.

We're doing two at Radio City. Wow. That's awesome. That's what, 15,000 or what is that? I think that's gonna be like 12,000. 12,000. Now we could have done the garden at 12,000. But here's the thing.

That's expensive.

But like, that's just rental, right?

But here's the thing.

If I do the garden, I gotta do it in the round.

That's 19,000. That's sick. Yeah, that's 19,000.

Did you sell it out?

What, Radio City?

No, could you do 19,000? Not yet. I think after this next special, if what happens with the next special is what I think can happen, then boom, that would be very awesome and like finding a time to... Now I might not do that show within the next year, maybe it'd be a year after or something like that, but like working towards that, that is, I want to do the Garden, maybe Staples, maybe a.

Theater in Miami or something. You mean crypto.com now?

Oh, that's right. Yeah, yeah, dude. The way people were like connected to staples.

Oh, it's 20 years of legacy, you know?

But like, it's a store. Like, you know what I mean? Like, they sell loosely. People are so furious. Like, it wasn't called that before the store. I know.

It was just a sponsorship.

Yeah.

So funny, man.

But yeah, those would be.

So that'd be sick, man.

Yeah.

What's the biggest audience you performed in front of? I did a-- For your own show or, you know, with someone else's show?

My own, we did the Chicago Theater twice. That's 3,500. And that was pretty cool.

That's respectable, man.

Yeah, it's big. It's cool, man. We've been, hey, man, we've been having fun. Like, this is a-- the tour has been, for me, I look at that as, like, the greatest sign of success.

When people buy a ticket with their wallet and they show up and they take a night out and they come see you, that's big.

Put it on clothes for someone, right? Like, you know what I'm saying? Like, it's like, it's like, it's easy to. And we're in, like, the click business, right? Like, it's easy to click something. It's easy to, like, watch something for a few seconds.

Yeah, it's easy. Right? Like, but, but to get a credit.

Card out and say, leave the house. Like, that's a big deal. So, like, if, I don't know, like, for me, that's how I judge success. And that, those are the people. who I see that are successful in the space, I look up to them for those specific things.

They're selling out tours.

The podcast is like, I hope you find it funny on a podcast, and then you want to come see the stand-up and for me as a stand-up who built my career around putting out stand-up clips, it is a great, I have immense gratitude that people found me from doing stand-up and they want to see me do stand-up. That's cool. Yeah, I think there are people out there who are popular, but People don't have the same urgency to go see them and that's reflected in the tickets.

I gotta buy a ticket and go.

Yeah.

There's a question I ask everyone towards the end called the Three Truths. Okay. So I'd like you to imagine a hypothetical scenario. It's your last day on Earth, many years away. You get to live as long as you want to live.

Yeah.

And you get to accomplish all your dreams. Wow. Personally, professionally, you build up a thousand comedians to do whatever you want to do. You know, you do it all.

Yeah.

At every different season of life, you do it. Yeah. Healthy, happy, thriving, you know, 20 kids running around, whatever you want, you make it happen. And but for whatever reason, all of your material has to go with you to another place. When you leave, it's the last day and it goes with you to another place. No one has access to your information anymore.

Yeah.

Your content, your standup, your podcast, all of it's gone.

Yeah.

But you have three lessons that you get to share with the world. Oh, three lessons that you've learned throughout your entire life and this is all that people would have to remember you by or your content. What would you say would be those three lessons or what I'd like to call three truths?

I would say one is listen. I mean just so much in my life I've learned from listening. So many decisions that I've made is from listening. Just removing ego, I mean, so many of the decisions that even we make was part of my team. It's like, it's the best decision wins. And that means you have to listen to the guys that you hire and empower them and make them believe in their ideas enough to the point where they can share them with you because oftentimes those ideas are going to be the ones that are better than yours. But just every conversation I've had and how that's turned into either conversations on the podcast or like stand-up clips or just anything. So just like listening, for someone who talks for a living and has talked a lot on this podcast, but listening is just so huge. So like, just also what a gift. Like that was the biggest thing that I like changed like my life almost like, I remember just like during single days realizing that once you get to a point where a girl is comfortable sharing with you, just listening to her.

Yeah.

How was your day?

Yeah. Yeah.

Oh, you do that? No way, is that difficult? And just seeing their eyes light up that someone actually, like I've had girls on dates go, Do you actually want to know? Like, yeah, I want to know. Like, what is your date usually like? Like, just listening is just so powerful. People usually don't feel safe enough to share. You know? And that was something my girl did to me. She was just, she's phenomenal at that. But like, if you can get people to just talk, man, just listen. So listening.

Yeah, that's number one. Number two.

You got to take care of the people that you love, man. Everybody, like the people that, that your family, the people that work for you, the people that, like, people that are doing things for you so that you can succeed, like, they got to feel taken care of. And, like, your generosity should show, you know, your, your girl, your friends, your, you know, family, employees like that. They should feel like you go above and beyond for them. And sometimes that's financial, sometimes that's emotional, sometimes that's like protecting them, like their literal safety, their reputation. Sometimes it's like just helping them achieve their dreams. But know that the people that are dedicating time to your dream make them feel like that time is valuable. and I think it's like you also take care of them by like acknowledging them. Like I try to shout out my guys as much as possible and like anytime we're talking about things that I do, it's like things where we're doing like everybody's involved in this.

Absolutely.

You know? And the last one is love, bro. I mean these are just such like easy hacking ones but at the same time it's like they're a reason they've existed for, you know, all of human existence, but like love, man. Dude, love is just that's powerful. Loving your family, loving your wife, like having love, loving your friends. That was one of the coolest things that happened at my wedding. I got to tell my wife how I feel about her. We said the vows, but I also got to tell my mom and my dad how I felt about them. and as part of my vows and like how they prepare me for that moment. I know that like one day my parents will pass and I feel like I've told them what I need to tell them.

That's good.

Now I don't want them to go. But they won't go without knowing, I mean my dad's memory is gone, but like I, for the longest was like, I need my dad to know how awesome he was. I think he knows, but at least I know I told him and I told him the exact way I wanted to tell him. and I told my mom, like, exactly what she did for me and what I'm so grateful for. And it's like, there's a peace in that.

Yeah.

So it's just like, I want to tell all my friends, all my family, everybody that I really care about. So, yeah, share those feelings, man. Even if it's awkward, even if it's uncomfortable.

I want to acknowledge you, Andrew, for just what you've created. and your authenticity. I think the way you create and your ability to put stuff out there, what could be scary for some people, but you just keep showing up and keep being authentic and your realness behind it all. I've been watching your stuff for a while. We have a lot of mutual friends and stuff like that, but to connect in person, it's been really fun, man. This is awesome, dude.

You're a great interviewer, man.

I try to listen the best I can. I interrupt a little too much, but.

I try to listen. Oh, you were great, man. great interviewer. This was fun talking.

Yeah, man. I gotta come to one of your shows. Anytime you want. Yeah, I would love to come and check it out. But I want people to go to your show too, just because if they haven't followed you on social media, Andrew Schultz everywhere. Where else can they support you?

Your YouTube is hilarious.

Yeah, YouTube, Instagram.

You've got two different podcasts, right? Yeah, yeah, I do the podcast Flagrant 2 with Akash and Alex and Mark and and we have the team keeps growing, it seems. But, and then Brilliant Idiots, which the great Charlemagne of God. He's great. He's just awesome.

But, yeah, like, but the main thing you've got is your tour.

If you want to come check it out, like, watch some clips. That's what I always say. It's like, watch a clip or something. If you like it, if it's for you, you'll watch more, and then it will happen.

You'll show up. Yeah, it will happen naturally.

It's exciting, man.

Yeah.

How else can we support you? That's all man. Just your attention is awesome. Like give me the opportunity to entertain you and if you're entertained then I think the rest just kind of works.

Of course.

Of course.

Love it man.

Yeah, people want that.

Final question for you. What's your definition of greatness?

Yeah, being the best. And the best is a standard that I create. You know? So it's like who I think is the best comedian is not who everybody thinks is the best comedian. But they do the, like the form of comedy that I like the best, the best. But like, if we're talking about like career, then that's just being, just being the best and just pushing and continue to move towards that. Uh, but greatness is like a man, that's different. Like affecting the people's lives. Like my dad is a great man.

Mm-.

Like, he's a great man. That is the goal as a man. to affect people's lives the way that he affected them. He never tried to be a great man. Like he just was a great man. And then when you exist in greatness, you affect all the people around you, you know? And he's just, yeah, like that is the goal. To do that, like if you could have career and personal like that, like great man, great husband, great father, Great career. What a life lived, man. That is the goal.

Yeah.

My man. Andrew, thanks, bro.

Thank you so much, man. Even the easiest road is still met with some degrees of difficulty. Somewhere, some point, you're gonna go into some degree of difficulty. For example, I'm watching, you know, the Jordan documentary.

Oh, man, last dance.