The Science & Art of Comedy & Creativity | Tom Segura

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Welcome to the Huberman Lab podcast, where we discuss science and science based tools for everyday life.

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I'm Andrew Huberman, and I'm a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine. My guest today is Tom Segura. Tom Segura is a renowned comedian, writer, and director. During today's episode, we explore the neuroscience and psychology behind comedy, and we explore the creative process more generally.

Tom shares his approach to capturing and developing ideas into narratives that are at once funny and thought provoking. We discuss the interplay between daily-life observations and larger cultural dynamics when developing comedy routines. We spend a fair bit of time discussing the neurobiological basis of humor, and what data and brain lesion patients have taught us about why we find certain ideas novel, funny, or exciting. We also talk about how this relates to the activation of reward circuits in the brain, and the seemingly automatic way that things are either funny or not funny to people, suggesting that humor is like taste or smell.

You really can't negotiate what works for you or what doesn't. We also discuss emotional contagion and how skilled performers like Tom become masters at reading, shifting, and dancing with the collective energy of crowds, whether in small comedy clubs or large arena shows.

So if you're a creative or you're curious about human psychology, or if you simply love to laugh, you'll come away from today's episode having learned a ton of useful information about the creative process and human nature.

Before we begin, I'd like to emphasize that this podcast is separate from my teaching and research roles at Stanford. It is, however, part of my desire and effort to bring zero cost to consumer information about science and science-related tools to the general public. In keeping with that theme, this episode does include sponsors.

And now for my discussion with Tom Segura.

Tom Segura, welcome.

TOM SEGURA: Thanks for having me, cuz.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: We'll let people know who don't already know. Yes, we are related.

TOM SEGURA: Yes, we are related. People have asked me so many times the details, and I was trying to-- because I learned about it obviously later that it was like my mom's great grandmother and your father's great grandmother were first cousins-- they're both Basque. So Northern Spain cousins.

And then generations later, they moved to South America, yours to Argentina, mine to Peru. And that's how we're cousins. Yeah, I guess distant cousins--

ANDREW HUBERMAN: And my dad was on the podcast a little while ago.

TOM SEGURA: How did that go? Because I remember we talked about him coming on.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: It was great. I mean, he's a theoretical physicist by training. So we got to talk about physics, but we also got to talk about life. And I learned a lot from him.

TOM SEGURA: Did you?

ANDREW HUBERMAN: I learned a lot about him that I--

TOM SEGURA: In that podcast?

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Yeah.

TOM SEGURA: Really?

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Yeah. I'll send it to you if you're ever suffering from insomnia.

TOM SEGURA: I would love to listen to it. He's a theoretical-- I didn't even know that.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Yeah, theorist chaos theory. And now he's into quantum internet.

TOM SEGURA: Yeah, it's crazy. Where does he reside now?

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Northern California. Still working.

TOM SEGURA: Wow.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Yeah. 81 still working.

TOM SEGURA: Look at our different sides of the year. Your dad is a theoretical physicist, and my mom plays bridge.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Yeah, but you-- but you can make a half-court shot. I saw the clip of you in lethal shooter. We'll put-- we'll put a link to it.

TOM SEGURA: OK. Yeah.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: I mean, you're an excellent basketball player. I'm not--

TOM SEGURA: High level. So very high level. Did you play ball growing up at all?

ANDREW HUBERMAN: No.

TOM SEGURA: You skateboarded?

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Foot sports. Soccer, skateboarding. I'm pretty coordinated with my feet.

TOM SEGURA: Well, the kid of an Argentine. You got to give it a shot. Yeah.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Every kid where I grew up played soccer.

TOM SEGURA: Really?

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Obsessed.

TOM SEGURA: Were you good at soccer?

ANDREW HUBERMAN: I was all right. Played goalie. I like playing goalie or fullback. I like to wait back there and just-- then just kick people. That was fun.

TOM SEGURA: Maybe you should get into lacrosse or something.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: No, I like running. I ran cross country in my senior year.

TOM SEGURA: You ran cross country?

ANDREW HUBERMAN: I did, yeah. I was a little lighter than I am now. I'm like 210 now. It's probably 160, 170.

TOM SEGURA: OK.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Yeah. Like two-mile races were OK.

TOM SEGURA: I just did 5K.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Oh, yeah?

TOM SEGURA: Two days ago. Yeah.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: How'd that go?

TOM SEGURA: I hated that, I knew I had to do it, and so I just made myself-- I was like, you got to do it, so it's going to suck.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: You trained for it?

TOM SEGURA: Well, the training for me is like, just get in a bunch of three-mile runs, right? So, I mean, I would do them purposely at a slow pace, try to stay as close to zone 2 cardio as possible, just to get used to the mileage. And then we get there because it was our 5K like it was-- I put it on with Bert and Spartan race and it was a--

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Did 5K? Shirt off, the whole thing.

TOM SEGURA: Of course. What are you? Crazy.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Wait vest, wait belly.

TOM SEGURA: I mean sorry, bro. Dude, yeah. He was--

ANDREW HUBERMAN: We give him a hard time because we're still trying to get Bert to quit drinking or reduce his drinking. I think he's reduced his drinking a little bit. No, OK.

TOM SEGURA: So, yeah, we did-- we did one last year in Pasadena. We did the Rose Bowl. And so this time we did Raymond James in Tampa. And it was just the 2 Bears 5K. We had more than three times people sign up this year for Tampa. So we had close to 8,000 people there.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Wow.

TOM SEGURA: And Jelly Roll came out, Jason Kelce, Tristan Wirfs, a bunch of Jon Feliciano, like all these football players and--

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Fun.

TOM SEGURA: And it was a very fun day, a very fun event. But here's the thing. Like at the Rose Bowl, the path was basically through the parking lot and then on these side roads in Pasadena and they loop it out and then you cross back basically across this parking lot and you hit the 3.1.

At Raymond James-- I didn't know. They were like, oh, there's some inclines. I'm like, yeah, all right. Did we get there? It's all in the stadium. And the only way you're running 3.1 miles in a stadium is we're running through the corridors and then up the ramp. Well, the ramp is nine stories up. I mean, you're literally--

ANDREW HUBERMAN: One long incline.

TOM SEGURA: Bro, so, like, you're doing like a quarter mile up and then it would flatten out, then you go down. You're like, oh, this is nice. And then you go up again. But I was just-- I think when you're also running with people, you get tunnel vision.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Yeah.

TOM SEGURA: And you see somebody, you're like, that person's ahead of me. Like, this pig is in front of me right now.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Are you competitive by nature?

TOM SEGURA: Yeah, I think so. And so I would-- like, I definitely was like I have to beat Bert. I have to beat--

ANDREW HUBERMAN: You have to beat Bert.

TOM SEGURA: Jon and my friend Feliciano, I was like, I have to beat these guys. They're both like fucking 300 pounds. I'm definitely beating them. And so that was just like in my head every time I would see-- think of them, I was just have to keep going.

And then Bert got beat by a guy in a wheelchair. So that was also sweet because I beat both of them. Jerry, what's up. Shout out to Jerry. I think he had a little advantage because those wheels on the way down definitely pick up some speed, but on the way up, it's pretty badass.

But yeah. So like, getting in those miles was just-- the training for it. And it was a whole thing. And I don't like running. There's some things you like if you were like, let's go work out, let's go live-- I'd be like, cool, I enjoy that. I don't enjoy running, but I guess that's--

ANDREW HUBERMAN: The best.

TOM SEGURA: You like running?

ANDREW HUBERMAN: I love working out with weights. I've been doing that since I was 16, but I love running. I love--

TOM SEGURA: You love running?

ANDREW HUBERMAN: I'm running three times a week, a long run, a medium run and a short run.

TOM SEGURA: What's a long run?

ANDREW HUBERMAN: An hour, hour and a half long and slow every Sunday. And then in the middle of the week, a 30-minute run faster. And then one day a week, I do that max heart rate VO2 thing, where I warm up, sprint, walk, sprint walk, sprint walk sometimes on the Airdyne bike, but usually running.

TOM SEGURA: Yeah.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: I love running. In fact, I mostly lift so that my body doesn't hurt when I run. I like being strong.

TOM SEGURA: Have you always been into this?

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Yeah, since I was about 16, I started running. I just found I could just go and go. Probably have a lot of slow twitch muscle, and I'm reasonably strong. But, I mean, if I train just for endurance, if I start doing two long runs per week, I just feel like I can just go forever.

TOM SEGURA: Really?

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Yeah. It's probably just a genetic--

TOM SEGURA: What do you cover in that 60 to 90-minute run?

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Depends on how in condition I am. But you were talking about hills. When I lived in the Bay Area, I used to do this run behind the Berkeley campus, the Strawberry Canyon trail. And that's all--

TOM SEGURA: Incline--

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Basically winding up, winding up until you take the long cruise down. I would do that with a weight vest. If I go from there out to Austin and on a Sunday, and then I can cover a lot of distance in a 60-minute run. But if I just train on the flat, then you get used to just of going long and slow.

TOM SEGURA: Yeah.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: So I don't know the exact distance, but it was not unusual when I was in graduate school to head out on a Sunday morning, just hydrated caffeine and do 10, 12 miles.

TOM SEGURA: Wow.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: But now it's probably more like 6, 8.

TOM SEGURA: OK.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: 6 to 8.

TOM SEGURA: But also with a weighted vest?

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Sometimes with a-- I use a vest. They're not a sponsor, which is fun to always mention things that aren't a sponsor too, because I love this weight vest. It's called OMORPHO, and it fits pretty snug. It's not like one of these ones that looks like you're a suicide bomber or a cop or something.

TOM SEGURA: Yeah.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: It sits really close to the body. It zips up. And it's got these heavy ball bearings in it. So it's only about 10 to 12 pounds.

TOM SEGURA: Yeah.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: So it's not like a super heavy weight vest. But it's enough that when you take that weight vest off on a-- run, you feel like a God.

TOM SEGURA: I will say that as much as I say I hate running, the fact that I made myself keep doing-- I was doing daily runs, almost like five days a week, just of getting used to the mileage, obviously, it becomes easier. And then you go like, OK, I can do this.

But yeah, I think I get a lot of mental anxiety about the running.

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What about the running itself? I was going to ask you whether or not it changes your mental frame so that you-- I don't know. Does it-- do you get ideas while you Run Do you get ideas after you run more readily, or are you just cursing the thing the whole time?

TOM SEGURA: I feel like it's a goal to let my mind drift, because sometimes the negative side of it is like you're doing a run and your mind is like, this sucks, right. And you're thinking about how much time is left, and that doesn't produce anything, and it's not an enjoyable thing.

But if the mind goes, if you can let your mind drift, it's less about ideas. I feel like in those moments you're just-- you're off thinking about more life, not like creative thoughts, more like people and relationships and different things. And like, that's a nice place to be because then all of a sudden you're like, oh, a couple miles just went by.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Yeah, there's something to be said for these states of wordlessness, where you're not constructing things in complete sentences. There's no sensory input like through a phone or through even-- I do listen to podcasts or books when I run sometimes the long run. But there's this idea that a lot of learning and creativity is about purging all the noise. And I find that those long runs, they just come out of them just feeling like a bunch of clutter, just got cleared more than I had some insight during the run itself.

TOM SEGURA: Yeah.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Incidentally, 90% of the effect of exercise on improving brain function when it comes to long, slow distance work is that it raises your level of alertness and arousal. So you can do really great work afterwards.

TOM SEGURA: Yeah.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: High-intensity stuff has a bunch of other effects, brain-derived neurotrophic factor, et cetera. But when you see exercise improves brain function, exercise makes you smarter. Most of that is by way of the way how exercise increases your level of alertness and puts you in that nice state like, oh, now I can sit down and focus.

TOM SEGURA: Yeah, my busiest day is-- sometimes I have a very busy day. If I start that day with a hard workout, I end up having no problem tackling that day.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Isn't that wild?

TOM SEGURA: It is wild because sometimes, I'll have a day where I have to arrive at my studio, let's say, at 10:00 AM for something. And it's just like it's going to be recordings, meetings, pitch meetings, and then leave here, go to this thing. It's going to be the entire day. And if I get myself to the gym and I get in a good hour lift, I come in and I'll notice everyone's like, you look like you're in a good mood. And I'm like, yeah, I feel great, and I'm ready. And then I'm ready for the day.

But if I don't do that, it's a different experience.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Yeah, this is one of the real hidden secrets of exercise that I'm trying to make less hidden and less of a secret that Jocko clearly understands with his 4:30 AM wake ups and workouts that you're describing now is that-- won't go into too much detail here because I want to ask you questions.

But there's this phenomenon where when you move the large musculature of the body, so a resistance training workout, a run, probably any workout where you're doing some big movements or you're working hard in that workout, it triggers the release of adrenaline at levels that wake up your body, make it more willing to move.

TOM SEGURA: Yes.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: So people who don't have energy to exercise-- exercise gives your body energy by way of adrenaline. And then that adrenaline acts on this nerve called the vagus nerve, which communicates to the areas of your brain that release dopamine and something called norepinephrine. It basically wakes your brain up also.

So that morning workout that you're describing, wakes up your brain and body for something like six hours by changing the neurochemical state of your body and your brain. And so it's not a surprise that when you work out before a long day, that long day goes better.

TOM SEGURA: Yeah.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Whereas if you hit the work of the day fresh, you're generating the adrenaline drink from all that stuff. This is when people feel a bit more anxious. They feel a bit more irritable, they feel a bit more tired.

So this whole concept of exercise gives you energy. That's how it gives you energy. It's not caloric energy. You still need to fuel, et cetera, but you're talking about neurochemical energy. It fundamentally changes the way you show up to everything else.

TOM SEGURA: The way that I always feel like is-- a lot of times when you wake up, you have what I would describe as a fog. Sometimes--

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Oh, good. It's not just me.

TOM SEGURA: Oh, yeah. So that fog sometimes you carry it. It's just in the day and you're just like, oh, there's this. But I always feel like that exercise just completely wipes it out, where you're like, oh, like, I'm actually alert now and I don't feel that post wake up, just fog that sits there. That's my favorite thing to knock out.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: I love that. I've got this crazy thing that I do now. You can try this. I bought a 70-pounds kettlebell. It's about a third of my body weight, and I have it set in the hallway. So when I get up because I wake up really groggy, really foggy, I grab that thing and I suitcase-- carry it to the end and back twice, and then I switch hands and I suitcase, carry it back to the-- end and back twice. Just trying to teach my body that it can do work right away.

And I'm careful how I do it, but I find that now I wake up and I've got-- I think my body is anticipating that carry. And so I'm more alert from go. And I was like, oh, there's something-- because your nervous system learns to anticipate things.

TOM SEGURA: Yeah.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: It's that phenomenon of setting your alarm clock for 7 AM, you wake up at 6:59.

TOM SEGURA: Yeah.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: What happened like your brain is clocking things in--

TOM SEGURA: To me so many times, and I always feel like that's such a bizarre-- also, I'm not a big napper. Sometimes I'll be like, I'm going to lay down-- I have an hour window before I have to go do something in a hotel, I'm on the road and I'll be like, well, just in case I fall asleep, I'll set the alarm and I'll lay there, eyes closed and a look as it's one minute before--

ANDREW HUBERMAN: And your brain's clocking it. There was a study a couple of years ago, where when people are in rapid eye movement sleep, you're basically paralyzed. The brain is very, very active. That's the phenomenon of rapid eye movement sleep. It's very bizarre brain state.

Brain is super active, body paralyzed. But people can blink and they can show some little like facial responses. If you ask them to do simple math problems during rapid eye movement sleep, you say, hey, what's 2 plus 2. They'll blink with your-- wink with your right eye if it's four, wink with your other eye if it's five. People can do math correctly in their sleep.

They can answer not sophisticated questions, but the brain is tracking what's happening all around you. This is why taking the phone and putting it outside the room while you sleep, people sleep better. People say, oh, it's because of the EMFs, nobody really knows for sure, but it's because your brain is anticipating picking up the phone even while you're sleeping.

TOM SEGURA: Wow.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: So there's-- I'm hitting with a lot of data here, but it's well known now that if you give students a test and their phone is in their bag in the room, they perform less well than if their phone is in their bag in another room.

TOM SEGURA: Seriously?

ANDREW HUBERMAN: This is true for adults, too. Your brain is tracking potential movements, potential thoughts, potential actions, like the way brain circuits work is to create dominoes of circuit sequences. So when you're up-- for instance, you've gone on stage so many times to do comedy.

TOM SEGURA: Yeah.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: As you walk out, your brain is cueing up a whole library of things related to that without you realizing it.

TOM SEGURA: Yeah, yeah.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: It's all context dependent behavior. And when you get home, it's a different set of context dependent behaviors.

So your brain is like a magic library. I always think of this as you get to a particular idea or thought or emotional state, the books change right in front of you to match the set of things that you expect. So if your phone is in the room, your brain is operating that way, even if you're asleep.

TOM SEGURA: That's insane.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Yeah, what's your writing process. Let's talk about comedy. I've got about a gazillion questions. I'm going to try and make them really succinct. What is your typical process of capturing-- you call them bits?

TOM SEGURA: Yeah, for stand up it's a bit. Yeah.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: What's your typical process of capturing ideas? Do you voice memo into the phone? Do you write things down?

TOM SEGURA: I've done pretty much every version of it; voice notes while high. Sometimes you listen to them later and you're like, holy shit.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Are you a cannabis user?

TOM SEGURA: I mean, sometimes. I'm not like a heavy user, but a lot of times at night if you take something and you go to sleep-- you're trying to go to sleep, your brain's like, nah, I got ideas.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Is that right?

TOM SEGURA: Oh, yeah.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: I haven't done cannabis in a long time ago.

TOM SEGURA: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then sometimes you listen-- because you're convinced you're like, this is one of the most brilliant ideas.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Have you ever had great ideas that stick?

TOM SEGURA: Yeah, I've had-- I've had-- I've had good ones that stick. Sometimes the wording is a little off. But yeah, I've had-- I've had ones that I actually do enjoy afterwards. And then sometimes you're like-- you can hear yourself smiling. Because you can tell someone's emotion by their voice. So I can hear that I'm like, dude, then like--

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Oh, because you're recording?

TOM SEGURA: I'm recording into-- in my phone.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: So let me get the process. So you're heading up to sleep and you take an edible.

TOM SEGURA: Yeah.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: This is comedy school 101. No, I'm just kidding. Hey, listen, you're the pro, and you go to voice memos. You're there, eyes closed, and you start riffing on something.

TOM SEGURA: Yeah, it's like you're-- it feels like it's separate from you. Because the right, I guess, dosage of THC, it does make your mind run. And sometimes you have less self-awareness. It's just like, the nice way to think about it is that your brain always puts things on a shelf for you to get through your day, things that make you uncomfortable even.

There's things that you go like, I don't want to think about that. And then THC, I think in the right dosage just goes here it is. Like it puts it in front of you.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: It sounds terrible.

TOM SEGURA: It can be terrible.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: It sounds awful.

TOM SEGURA: That can be like often what-- like too much is where you can get into paranoia. But I think if you have a dosage that is not too strong, so it's not like uncomfortable, it just lets the mind run. It's like stream of consciousness happens.

And so when that's happening, I feel like you go, oh, this feels like a new thought, a new or a new perspective on something. And you go, this is-- it makes you laugh.

So this is an idea, I should take this on stage. Because I think for me, a lot of the thing is here's the kernel of the idea and then it's not so much I'm going to write out long form how to do it. It's like that's the idea, take it on stage. So--

ANDREW HUBERMAN: You don't actually write things out full form?

TOM SEGURA: No, I don't write them out full form. And then I just go on stage with the kernel of the idea that I a blueprint of like, well, here's what I'm going to try to attack and then see what happens as I speak it.

Because the other way that-- like my favorite way to write comedy for stand up is conversations. In other words, we're talking and I say something and I either go like, oh, I should say that on stage, or I just find that I'm naturally riffing on it and making you laugh. And then I go, I should try that on stage because everything is like, it's either-- it's funny here. Is it funny there?

That's how your mind operates. Like, this is funny in this context. Is it funny in the performing context?

ANDREW HUBERMAN: But when you're trying new material, you're not doing that for a Netflix special. You're doing that-- and it's the term working out like you go to the comedy club on a Tuesday night and you're working on-- you're trying new material, seeing how it lands.

You've never-- or is what you're saying that you've never actually built out the bit. You're building it out in real time--

TOM SEGURA: In real time. Yeah, yeah.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Whoa.

TOM SEGURA: Yeah--

ANDREW HUBERMAN: That's typical of--

TOM SEGURA: I think there's different camps of it. Also, there's so many different-- stand up is so popular that there's all these different styles and there's setup punch guys, like what you would call almost pure joke writers; Sam Morril, Dave Attell, Mark Normand, those guys I feel they do a lot of here is-- it's the economy of words. It's like clear premise setup and then boom, punchline.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: So it would be like oh-- I'm thinking about Normand. I won't try and do one of his jokes, but I like Normand's comedy skateboarder too. Same non-biological first family.

So he-- I've heard him do things like-- so my wife and I were on vacation recently, this kind of thing, like a set up where it's very clear. I mean, he clearly knows where he's going with this.

TOM SEGURA: Yeah.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: On vacation and we're picking out rooms and then at some point, there's a punch line pivot. OK.

TOM SEGURA: So there's-- some of those are-- especially when you feel like they're quite short, if it's over quickly, that's going to a lot of times be something that you knew I'm going to say it exactly like this. It's the most traditional form of a joke. Here's the setup, here's the punch line.

And I've written jokes like that in stand up, but I do a lot more, long form, I think, storytelling stuff. And so to write that all out, I feel like you almost get in your own way because you're just like you're-- because then what happens is what you write and what you say it's never quite the same.

So you go through what you think is funny about what happened, and then you take that on stage and then you take that on stage in maybe in a room with 80 or 100 people. And then that's the nice thing about stand up, is you learn right away if that shit is funny or not. Like, people are laughing hard and you're like-- and that's what's such a rush because you go, this was an idea. This thing happened. You try it, it works. It's like it's a really euphoric feeling.

And then if it doesn't, that's when the, I guess, the real work of it comes in because then you're trying to figure out you're like-- especially if you're like married to the idea, if you're like this is funny, but it didn't work, so then you start thinking about, did I-- is there not enough information for it to work? Is that the problem? Is there too much? Because we always say trim the fat.

If you have too much stuff in there that is not getting laughs, it's maybe just omit some of this information. So that becomes OK, I'll go back and instead of saying this is like useless information, it's not adding to what's funny or whatever. It's not adding to the story I'm telling, you start dropping that. And so you start experimenting.

And then sometimes you just get into, OK, is the actual line that I'm saying the problem-- is it that that's not a good enough joke line? And then you start experimenting with that, and then sometimes you figure it out, which is again, like such an amazing feeling where you go, this used to not work and now it works. And then sometimes you just got to go, fuck, man, this just doesn't work.

You just have to abandon it. Yeah.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: If something works or you feel like it's a beginning, it's the start of a thread that could work. Do you end up writing it down for later? Like, you're queuing yourself-- the walk with my son bit or something like that or it's just-- or it's all in your head?

TOM SEGURA: Well, you have it all in your head. And then-- I was going to show you I have this. I'll look at this before I go on stage, which is--

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Tom showing-- me we can get a photo of this if he lets us. It's a bunch of Sharpie written single words.

TOM SEGURA: Yeah. Gitmo, jail, teacher, duck, Huberman-- just kidding. Augusta, kill my wife.

TOM SEGURA: Yeah, it's like. So those like--

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Hitler, Tunisia, make shit. This is amazing.

TOM SEGURA: Yeah, that's a set list for an hour.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: If you think about the range of things in this relatively short list--

TOM SEGURA: Yeah.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: As a partial representation of what goes on in Tom Segura's brain, you get a little--

TOM SEGURA: Well, what's interesting is that another way, I think, comedians would look at it is you start to go, these are 15-minute chunks. Because when you do an hour, a lot of comics think of it as four 15-minute chunks, right. So you go like, OK, this is setting the table chunk. This is like a kid's family chunk.

This is commentary on social issues or things that I'm doing or consuming. And then your last chunk is--s I always feel like you want to get into some of your more-- I don't know-- wilder takes after the audience has gotten to know you and trusts you, they're like, OK, is that way-- you can push it more the further into the set you are.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Yeah.

TOM SEGURA: So you just break it down.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Yeah, very different. But I've done some lives and I have four things I'm going to cover and then but I don't know how I'm going to cover them. Jordan Peterson when he goes out for his lives, I've been to them, he literally explores a topic in real time, walking back and forth across the stage for the first time. I know this because people verify that every night he does something different, even the same city.

TOM SEGURA: Yeah.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: He's exploring it completely in real time. And then other people's lives that I've been to it's clear it's pretty scripted. They know exactly what they're going to say and when. They have a sequence, they have slides.

And so I think it can be done any different number of ways. How long do you go during your waking hours without making or thinking of a joke?

TOM SEGURA: That's a good question. I really feel like when you asked me that question, do you know the first person that I think of is actually Rick Rubin? And this is why. I remember reading that book he put out,

ANDREW HUBERMAN: "Creative Act".

TOM SEGURA: And he was like, there's something about-- I'm paraphrasing here, but about having your antenna up. In other words, you still put out-- some part of you puts out the signal, so to speak, that you're not like, going, I need to find something funny. But you're putting your brain in the mode of that.

And you can also choose not to. And I think there's times where you go like, oh, I haven't thought of any-- I haven't looked at anything with a humorous perspective today or for whatever-- how many hours. And it's almost like that can shift, either by you consciously making an effort to do it or by the company you keep.

Because, obviously, if you're hanging out with comedians, it's like, just by being around them, your brain just shifts to joke mode. You know what I mean? You're thinking in those terms. Or if you're working on something-- like you're writing a script or something, your brain is actively-- even when you're not trying to, it's thinking of that story and thinking of jokes for the story.

So the answer is, depending on the day, it can be like all day. You're just joking, joking, joking. And you're just-- in my case, saying mostly awful things. Because that's what makes me laugh, I think. What know what I mean? Whether it's with friends or family. Just like trying to make yourself laugh, really.

And then there's days where you're in a completely serious mindset, where you're like, nothing humorous is occurring to me at all.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: You happen to be married to a comedian.

TOM SEGURA: Yeah.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Which probably helps your home life in the sense that, you know, has she ever been offended by one of your jokes?

TOM SEGURA: You know, early on, I remember we would have conversations where I would say-- it was more the fact that I would-- I remember, I would pitch a joke idea and she would be like that's fucking awful.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: [LAUGHING]

TOM SEGURA: And then I told her, I go, whenever you think something is awful, I know it's going to be good on stage. And she was like, that's horrible to say. I was like, no, it's true. If you have disdain for what I said, then I'm pretty confident that it's going to work. And it was like that.

But no, for the most part, no. And she says wildly inappropriate and crazy funny things. Often way over my line, you know what I mean? Not where I'm offended, but I'm like, Jesus Christ. Yeah, she says crazy shit. Really crazy.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Has she ever offended you to the point where you're you can't tell that joke in public? Our family will suffer.

TOM SEGURA: No, we've never had that conversation. Sometimes we have what makes this joke digestible conversations, where we talk about a bit. And we're like-- and then the punchline is like in this world. And it's like, OK, you got to find a way to say that, that is going to be digestible to the-- so you actually look for your own advantage.

What I mean is as a woman, I go, you can shit on women harder because you're a woman. So you should find your way into that bit from the perspective that you're actually-- do you know what I mean? Like you're actually-- I was like, if you're a woman, you can-- it's like a Black comic can talk about Black people. You're talking about your own.

So like, we'll talk about things like that. You can take this angle-- and then the joke becomes digestible. So we'll talk about reframing material. And then to me, she's like, yeah, you're just a white guy. Apparently, you guys can say anything. So I'm like,

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Oh, yeah. Really. On the other hand, comedians and what's allowed in comedy at a given time has a powerful influence on culture.

TOM SEGURA: Yeah.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: What you can say, what you can't say. Has any comedian ever been canceled for what they said as part of a bit? I mean, we've got these examples of these-- I consider them sad instances, where people break down on stage, have an interaction with someone in the audience, and it really hurts their career and it's super offensive. But that's clearly not part of the bit.

TOM SEGURA: Right.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Has a comedian ever been canceled for, here was the bit and they're done?

TOM SEGURA: I can't tell you that it comes to the top of my head--

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Me either.

TOM SEGURA: --thinking about that. I know there's been like-- I remember there's a Canadian comic that in Canada has some bizarre-- to my experience-- free speech rules.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Oh, OK. I think they say comics. I always think--

TOM SEGURA: No.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: --of Canadians as so kind and well-behaved.

TOM SEGURA: And they have some amazing comedians.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: They also have some crazy serial killer stories up there, I discovered.

TOM SEGURA: Really?

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Yeah. I mean, this idea that Canada is just all like, nicer America,

TOM SEGURA: Oh, that's not--

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Nice Americans is not true.

TOM SEGURA: No, no.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: They're wonderful Canadians.

TOM SEGURA: Yeah.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: But they're not all nice.

TOM SEGURA: No. For sure, they're not all nice. No, there's some real fucking pricks up there.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: [LAUGHING]

TOM SEGURA: Yeah, I've met a few. But there's also amazing-- I mean, obviously you think of Norm MacDonald and Mike Myers, Ian Bagg, all these-- there's really, really funny Canadian comics. But I remember that there was-- not too long ago, I'm sure we could find it. There's a Canadian comic that-- he went after some woman in the crowd, shut her down. Said something offensive, whatever. And he got arrested and yeah.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Arrested.

TOM SEGURA: Yeah, yeah. Arrested and had to pay substantial fines.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: There's like Lenny Bruce days.

TOM SEGURA: Yeah, it was really crazy. I don't mean like 25 years ago. I mean like sometime in the last five years.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Wow.

TOM SEGURA: Yeah. So I know they're rules on-- so that's the first thing that I think of when you say that, I also just don't feel like-- when people talk about cancel culture with comedians or Elon's stupid fucking make comedy legal again, goofy shit that he said. It's like, what are you talking about?

You can say whatever you want to say. The thing you're really trying to talk about, is the fact that people react and you know about it. 30 years ago, there were people that hated-- I'm sure Robin Williams. And Carlin, they hated him. The difference is they would just tell their friend.

And if they really wanted to make a point, they'd get a pen and a paper and buy a fucking stamp and mail them a letter. Now, you have social media platforms and people can make videos and go crazy and you just hear the noise. But that's not like humanity has changed. You just hear people telling you that they don't like what you did or that they don't think you're funny or whatever. It's not that didn't exist before.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: But that's also because, thanks in large part to Rogan, but to others as well. Most comedians seem to control the venues in which they release their information-- podcasts.

TOM SEGURA: Yeah.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: I guess you could be thrown out of a club and not be able to present your material there,

TOM SEGURA: Sure.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: --but there's probably another one that you could open up. And that's happened too.

TOM SEGURA: Yeah.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: But podcasts people will now release their own specials, where it's pay-to-view. There's Netflix. There are a bunch of different venues where it doesn't seem like comedy is as centralized anymore, controlled by the major media houses.

TOM SEGURA: That is true. It's in complete control of the comedians themselves. You can put up clips of you doing stand up, you can make skits, you can do short films, you can do whatever, and you can release it, and find an audience like they say. Have an audience come to you. But I just don't buy this whole thing that you can't joke about that. You can joke about whatever you want, man.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: But not at work. I mean, if someone makes a joke or repeats a joke.

TOM SEGURA: Oh, well yeah.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Let's say an academic setting, for instance,

TOM SEGURA: Well, no.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Or the office place.

TOM SEGURA: No, your guys--

ANDREW HUBERMAN: I mean,

TOM SEGURA: --world is the worst when it comes to that. The academic world is--

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Actually it's interesting, in the last five to eight years, the academic world has actually-- around this topic has become safer because the rules are very clear. They're what I call thick black lines. It's when things are murky that people got themselves in trouble.

TOM SEGURA: Sure.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Right. So if you look 10 years back, it was really complicated. Now everyone kind of--

TOM SEGURA: Get's--

ANDREW HUBERMAN: --knows what the standard is.

TOM SEGURA: Yeah.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Might be uncomfortable for some, not for others. But they know what the standard is. It's very easy to adhere to a standard if you know where the fences are.

TOM SEGURA: Sure.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Where it seems to be still murky is in the workplace. Like in the boardroom, you'll hear about tech companies or in finance or at startups. Because startups, when they're small typically don't have an HR department.

TOM SEGURA: Yeah.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: The HR department is the standards that you create around the office, which could be a garage. So that's typically when-- when things aren't well defined is when there are problems. So yes, it's rigid in certain areas like academia, law offices, et cetera. But everyone knows what the rules are.

TOM SEGURA: Yeah.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: I'm not saying it's good or bad, I'm just saying--

TOM SEGURA: You know what they are. But I feel like we're talking about in comedy as a profession. You can joke about whatever you want, dude, but you can't dictate is how people will react to it. And if you're trying to say-- because some comedians do this, where they go, this was the joke. And what I'm mad about and what I'm going to be vocal about and complain about is that not everybody liked it. You're like, yeah, that's not-- I mean, that's essentially what they're doing.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Right.

TOM SEGURA: They throw a tantrum over the fact that some people are upset at the joke. You're like, yeah, that's how it goes. Like either it goes really well or it doesn't. And you can't go, oh, see, I can't joke about stuff because look how they reacted. You're like, that's how this works.

What you can also do is completely ignore that. And if you want double down on your joke, keep going. Do it even-- do a crazier version of your joke. But just be prepared that not everyone's going to go, that was the greatest thing ever. And that's what some comics do, is they go, I can't believe not everybody is applauding me on this thing.

They'll liken it to cancel culture, which is insane.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Right. Yeah, you have to be a professional. And part of being a professional is how it lands is as important as--

TOM SEGURA: You just have no say in that.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: I'm always fascinated by comics who will smirk or laugh a little bit at their own joke. And assuming that certain jokes and bits work exceptionally well and you carry them forward from trying it out to Netflix specials or big venues, huge venues.

You do huge venues. You do huge venues. Do you ever get tired of the material and worry that your amusement won't be there, and therefore, they won't respond to it? This is two questions woven, I'm realizing. Do you think your own amusement with a joke has an impact on how it lands? That's question one. And woven in with that is, how do you then work with the idea that every time you tell a joke, it might not be as funny as the previous time?

TOM SEGURA: No, those are great questions. Yeah, I feel like if I'm smirking or laughing at a joke of mine, it's probably organic. I don't try to manufacture one. You still want to enjoy the process of performing it. And when you lose that enjoyment of performing it, I do think the audience knows on an unspoken level there's something about it that doesn't come across the same way.

And yeah, you sense it. And I think typically what happens-- what happened to me over time is if you're on tour and your brain is walking up to this bit, you know it's next and you start to internally go like, [SHRUG] this fucking bit. What happens naturally is you start to drop it. And you're essentially listening to yourself. It's one of those-- it's like the same way you go, I don't like this person.

You go like, I don't think I want to be friends with this person. And you kind of like, don't return a text or you go, I'm not going to hang out with you.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Yeah, Slow exit.

TOM SEGURA: It's a slow exit. And what happens is you drop it. And the great thing about dropping it, is your brain goes, hey, you have room for something now. And that room for something also prompts your brain to start thinking of new things. That's how you come up with new material. is that you-- But you have to--

This is the danger, by the way, of these comedians. Sometimes there's these comics who are really funny, really talented people. And they'll have a 20-minute set. Right, you'll be working in clubs and you see them do a 20-minute set. And then they murder. Right, they fucking kill so hard. And then five years later, you see them and they're doing that 20-minute set.

And what happens is it's a very natural thing that you just have to deal with, is they have this great fear of not killing that hard anymore. So they don't stop doing that 20 minutes. And by not stopping, they just stop evolving and they stop creating. And they're the 20-minute set guy. You go, yeah, they have that great 20 minutes. And then it starts to get dated. And then--

ANDREW HUBERMAN: MMMBop.

TOM SEGURA: It's exactly--

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Only a fraction of the audience will know what I'm talking-- there was a song that was the song for a summer. You can replace MMMBop with any-- the song for a summer way back when.

TOM SEGURA: Yeah, it's a summer hit.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: It was everywhere. And then the band just disappears, because the one hit wonder.

TOM SEGURA: Yeah. Because you'll see the very best comics will do this. And it's something you have to wrap your head around. But then once you do this long enough, you go, oh shit. The most elite comics are completely willing to bomb at these workout shows. Not at their hour huge show. But at workout shows, super elite comics will go up there and be like, I'm just going to do-- because they know that you have to be willing to eat shit to come up with something really good.

And sometimes you'll watch them bomb. And your own insecurities flare up. You're like, oh my god, this is-- I can't believe-- all these people are going to be like, you suck. And these guys don't care. They don't care. Because they know you have to train to get stronger, basically.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: So beautiful.

TOM SEGURA: Yeah.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: When Josh Waitzkin was on this podcast, and he also did a conversation with Rogan, which is different, and if somebody's interested in this stuff, they should check out both because they're complementary conversations. But Josh, who was this child prodigy chess champion and then went on to do a bunch of other things at an extremely high level, he talks about the need and his lack of fear, which is very admirable, for cutting ties with your previous self.

Just being willing to say, you know what? That was an NBA championship. He works with the Boston Celtics, so this is very relevant right now. Or that was last year. We're a new team now. We're not the defending champions.

TOM SEGURA: Yeah.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Or musician had a platinum album, or this was a particularly successful podcast run. And just cut ties with it and be willing to just go completely now and future. You mentioned Rick. One of the things that I've benefited so much from being friends with Rick, in addition to the fact that I just adore the guy, is that he has so many stories about things from the past, if you ask him. But he never brings that stuff up. He'll indulge if you say, oh, tell me a story about Joe Strummer or something. He'll tell me.

TOM SEGURA: Yeah.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: But he really lives now and forward.

TOM SEGURA: Yeah.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: And I think it's Waitzkin that says you don't want to be on the train of life. You want to be at the strap to the front end, experiencing space and time as it's unfolding, which is a very philosophical way to put this. But that challenge of cutting ties with your previous self to continue to evolve your craft is so hard, but it's exactly what you're describing.

TOM SEGURA: I mean, I had this rule early on that I think I was just lucky that I told myself this. Which is that I recorded an album, I think, in 2010. And you want to get a special and a deal. But I didn't have one, so I recorded an album. And I put out the album. And at that time, people are buying these comedy albums. And you're starting to stream stuff, and also physical copies are still a thing, because this is 2010.

And so this was my work. From when I started stand up to this album, this was the best I could do. This was all my best stand up. And I put it out. And yeah, I mean, I had some marginal success with it. I was selling a lot of copies or whatever. Well, I told myself that even though I was not a ticket selling comedian, that everybody who was at a show had heard that album. That they all knew it, which was completely not true.

But by doing that to myself, it made me go, well, I need a new hour, right? So I was lucky that I thought that way, because I could have stayed doing a lot of that album. Because those were really worked out bits that would just crush. But I was just like, I knew that I wouldn't move on and evolve if I just kept doing them. And that was the thing that I--

And then the next thing I did was another album, and I did that again. I was just like, I gotta drop this stuff and move on. And that's, I think, what helped me and a bunch of other comics who-- now we're in the practice of like shooting specials, and then you just drop all of it and you go back to square one. But that helps you to continue being creative in standup. You have to just drop stuff.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: I love it. I think this pertains to so many-- basically all creative forms.

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On the topic of the finding the material humorous or being excited about the material, being crucial to how it lands with the audience-- I'm going to make this very brief. When I was an undergraduate, I was interested in what makes something funny, the psychology and neuroscience of humor. And there wasn't a whole lot of neuroscience on it at that time. But the basic takeaway from the literature, as I recall, was that the listener thinks that a narrative is going one way, and then there's this surprise element. Something you didn't anticipate coming. I think that characterizes a lot of bits and a lot of jokes.

TOM SEGURA: 100%.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Whoa, it's the pop. However, I've also seen you do bits and other people do bits where you're headed down a trail. And I'm thinking, oh no, he's not going there, is he? And you go there, and that's hysterical also.

TOM SEGURA: Yeah.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: So is there a name for this, or how does it work?

TOM SEGURA: No, I think-- I mean, you're right. So the most basic necessity for, I think, comedy at a very baseline level to explain it or define it, is the element of surprise. Because with that thing, if you go, I know where this is going, you're not going to react the same way. If it gets you, it's, oh my god.

But that second description of, is that person going somewhere, I think that satisfies something in human beings. Which is somebody saying the thing that we all want to say. And you can't say it. You can't say it in polite society. You can't say it at a nice dinner function. You can't say it at work. And you're just like, god, this is what I think. And you know other people think it. And then the guy's up there, and he's going, hey, you want to hear some shit?

And somebody says it, and everyone goes, this is-- it becomes a release. It's a release of, oh, he's saying the thing that we all wish we could say. And you're saying it. It's a very particular thing, because it actually is-- it works because you're in that building, too. It works because you all have the unspoken agreement that this is a place to do this in. Right, it's still different. If I just walk up to you on the street and start saying that shit, you're like, Jesus Christ, dude. You're a psycho.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Lock him up.

TOM SEGURA: Yeah, but in this context. So both things satisfy something, I think, in the humor realm. Right, the element of surprise will always be something, like the unexpected. But there's also this condition I think we live with where we go, we all think this but we can't say it. And that that's a very satisfying thing when somebody says it.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Well, I had the great benefit of getting a sneak peek at Bad Thoughts.

TOM SEGURA: Oh, yeah, thanks.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: And it's amazing. People should definitely check it out. And I don't want to give anything away, but the second one in the sequence that I watched, I thought, there's no way he's doing this. And it just kept coming at me. I was like, there's no way. Went to sleep last night. And this doesn't happen to me in a long time-- I woke up laughing.

TOM SEGURA: Oh, yeah.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Which is a wonderful experience.

TOM SEGURA: Yeah, it is.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: There are only a few states of mind and body that you wake up in and you're like, well, that was amazing.

TOM SEGURA: Yeah.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: And I woke up laughing. So it's seeded into my unconscious. So now I'm worried I'm going to say some of the things that you said.

TOM SEGURA: I hope you do.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: But one thing that occurred to me in watching Bad Thoughts is that you're not just a phenomenal comedian, but you're also a really good actor.

TOM SEGURA: Oh, thank you.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: And a number of comedians seem able to act. Which is surprising to me for reasons that don't make any sense to me.

TOM SEGURA: But no.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: If you look at-- athletes often are terrible actors. I mean, some of the best acting that athletes have done is when they're playing a buffoon. Or they're supposed to not be able to act well. I think of someone like the Naked Gun movies.

TOM SEGURA: Shout out to OJ, right?

ANDREW HUBERMAN: To OJ, right? I mean, he's not a good actor.

TOM SEGURA: Yeah.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: And it worked because he wasn't a good actor.

TOM SEGURA: Yeah.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: But you're a very good actor.

TOM SEGURA: Thank you.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Did you train for it?

TOM SEGURA: I loved making people laugh. And the first thing I did like in performing was I did a play as a kid. I did an improv troupe at 14, which is pretty young to be in an improv troupe. I did that for a summer. And my whole thing was I wanted to make movies. I had a plan when I was in college. I had the communications track, so we would do TV radio production.

And when we had video projects, I would always do comedy things and everybody would be like, what are you doing? Why are you making this? You're supposed to be making a video about the soccer program. And I'm like, this is a capsule you put in your ass and it freezes your shit. I would make like diarrhea commercials. And they were like, don't do that. But this is the stuff that would made-- that was making me laugh.

And I wanted to make movies. And I just was like, that was what I wanted to do. And then I moved out here. And I had learned. I knew that at the time, some of these big comedy movie people were a product of SNL. And that those people were usually products of Second City or the Groundlings. And since I moved to LA, the Groundlings were big in LA. It's the improv school and a performance play. They put on shows.

I was like, that's what I'll do. I'll just go to the Groundlings. And I took some classes there, and I got through a few levels. But I got into standup shortly thereafter that. Some of my improv friends were like, you should try standup. And I got so hooked by standup. And I also saw a path. Because I was also like, well, you have to make a living, right?

And the actor's life, to me, is so unsettling with like, you're on a show. And then they're like, I don't have a gig anymore. To me, the fact that standup, even though it's very, very, very low pay, especially as you're getting into it, the fact that you can just keep doing it, to me, made sense. It soothed me. And I feel like I stopped training as far as-- I did another acting class in LA at that time early on. But I always just wanted to keep doing it.

And so every once in a while, I would make like a short film. I made a few short films with friends or comedy shorts. And I auditioned for some things. I did small parts here and there. But I never really got to do all the types of things I wanted to do. So this show became this incredible opportunity where I was like, where are we going to tell this type of story, this type of story?

Because it's essentially a collection of short stories, is what the show is, right. And some of them are self-contained. Some of them are two part, three part. But it allowed me as an actor to play all these different roles, which was so fun. It felt like I was doing-- the 20 years I didn't really act that much, I got to throw in all these different characters in the show.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Well, you're a very fine actor.

TOM SEGURA: Thank you.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: As they say. I was like, oh, he's acting. This isn't just standup.

TOM SEGURA: Yeah.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Standup is its own thing. In previous Netflix specials-- but I've also seen you do in these bits in smaller clubs, like at The Belly up in Aspen.

TOM SEGURA: That's right.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Smaller places.

TOM SEGURA: That's right.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Where we just coincidentally wore the exact--

TOM SEGURA: The exact same thing.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: So same flannel, same jeans, same Adidas. So it was really weird. Did not coordinate.

TOM SEGURA: That's DNA.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: That's DNA. And the cosmic correspondence of the butterfly effect.

TOM SEGURA: That's-- yes.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: That's what my dad was trying to explain to me at one point. You do voices very well. In particular, the voices of your kids. I always think that when somebody impersonates somebody else, it's about grabbing the key elements, not the whole piece. They don't turn around and come back and say--

TOM SEGURA: Right.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Some people can just grab a few key elements of somebody. In this case, someone we've never met. It was your sons. And we feel like we know them and we're getting what clearly are key features of their personality coming through. Do you practice those, or do you just observe and it just is embedded in you?

TOM SEGURA: I think it's observed and embedded. And I think in that case in particular, because with your kids, there's this thing that happens where you talk about your kids a lot not on stage. In other words, I'm talking to my sisters or I'm talking to a friend about the kids. So you get this extra practice about them, because they are so much something that-- people always are like, how are your kids, right? And so you're just like, oh, I got home. This little shit came in. He was like, hey, fucking pick me up.

So you start doing impressions.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: What impression is that?

TOM SEGURA: That's the little guy.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Oh, yeah. He sounds like a piece of work, man.

TOM SEGURA: He is a piece of work, dude. He is something else. It's so funny. Sometimes, we call him Little Joe Pesci. Because he's just like, what the fuck? And we're like, yo, man. I don't say that.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: How old is he?

TOM SEGURA: He's six.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Oh my goodness.

TOM SEGURA: He's six. And he's like, he's fucking fucking with me all day, Dad. And I'm like--

ANDREW HUBERMAN: He get that from you or from your wife?

TOM SEGURA: I feel like it's more her. I feel like she's got those--

ANDREW HUBERMAN: I'll have to ask her.

TOM SEGURA: She's got those Hungarian roots where they-- like when I was a kid, in our house, there was not a lot of cursing, dude.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Oh, no. I'd get whacked if I--

TOM SEGURA: Oh, yeah.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: No, not hit. I think if I talk back. It only happened twice in my life.

TOM SEGURA: Yeah.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: I spoke back. I won't say to which parent. And I got hit.

TOM SEGURA: OK.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Nowadays people are like, oh, he was beaten up. I'm fine. OK? I don't swear at people.

TOM SEGURA: Yeah.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Very often. It's an extreme circumstance. Yeah, so, OK, so but he swears all the time, apparently.

TOM SEGURA: Dude, I mean, to the point where we're-- I mean, I know people, whenever you talk about this, people are like, you're a bad dad. I'm like, shut the fuck up. You've never been around-- these boys are-- I have two little wild dudes. By the way, I always share stories of extremes. They're sweet, adorable, loving, wonderful kids, right. But they're just two little dudes who, I come home, and they're like, it's torture time. They call it torture time, where I lay down and then they just get to fuck me up.

And then they'll think they're stronger than me. And I'm like, bro. Do you want to feel this? And then I just put them in some crazy wrap where they go, OK, OK, OK OK, OK. I'm like, yeah.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: How old's the older one?

TOM SEGURA: He's nine. He's nine. Dude, I get home every day. He's like, check this out. He takes off his shirt, and he's like-- he flexes.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Oh yeah.

TOM SEGURA: He's like, I'm going to be so jacked by high school. I'm like, yes. Probably. And he's lean. He's got the body for it. We go to the park, and he's just sitting there doing pullups and he'll bring weights. He'll bring weights to the park. And you see other kids.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: That's the age to start.

TOM SEGURA: Yeah.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: There's an Instagram account of this guy. I'll dig it up for the captions. His daughter is probably 11. And she's doing pullups with a 45-pound plate and ankle weights strapped to her waist.

TOM SEGURA: Really?

ANDREW HUBERMAN: And she's doing pullups through the chest. And she's not built yet. She's clearly before puberty. And she's just--

I'm like, oh my goodness. You just imagine the tendon strength, the joint strength.

TOM SEGURA: Going to be--

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Yeah, little gymnast, perhaps.

TOM SEGURA: Keith, he's so into it, talking about six packs. You think I could have a six pack soon? I'm like, yeah, sure. Keep going, man. He goes, why don't you have one? I'm like, just fucking--

ANDREW HUBERMAN: He's already busting your balls.

TOM SEGURA: Yeah.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: You told me a story once over dinner about your son learning piano. I don't know if you remember that. I think it was the younger one. And it was something like, how's piano going? And your son, he goes, it fucking sucks. It sounds like that's his response. He's ready to pop back all the time.

TOM SEGURA: Always. No, he's completely ready. The funniest thing that he did recently was-- they both go to jiu-jitsu.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: OK.

TOM SEGURA: And the older one's really thriving. He has a skill for it. And he's doing it well, moving up. And the younger guy, I mean, he's like a puppy. Well, he started when he was five. It's just different, right. You're pretty young. And so we're at class and he goes, I'm not doing this anymore. I'm like, what do you mean? He goes, I'm too busy, man. And I go, what?

He goes, my schedule. I go, your schedule? I go, OK, tell the instructor. So that guy comes over. And he goes, hey, how'd you enjoy class today, Julian? And he was like, good, but I'm done. And he goes, what do you mean you're done? And he goes, I'm too busy, man. He's like, what are you too busy with? He goes, I've have kindergarten, I have Spanish, I have drums. I don't have time for this.

I'm sitting there like, this is insane. And that guy goes, but you know what? You got to be strong in this world, don't you? And he goes, yeah. He goes, yeah, there's no option for being strong. So because you can't have the option to not be strong, right? And Julian's like, that's right. He's like, great. So I'll see you Thursday. And he goes, I told you, I'm way too busy, man. And then he just was like, I'm not doing this anymore.

I'm like, OK, dude, so--

ANDREW HUBERMAN: He's done?

TOM SEGURA: He's done. I mean, also, he can really advocate for himself. He definitely advocates for himself. I've never been the type where, you have to do these. I feel like the fun thing about a kid, boy or girl with sports, is expose them to a lot of sports. And I don't want to go, you have to do these. Whatever sport you like, you can do that one.

Clearly, this wasn't the one that drew him in enough. And I'm totally fine with it. It's like, cool. You want to try tennis? You want to try soccer? I'll let them try all the sports. I want them to be in activities. But I'm not going to be like, you have to do all these sports.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Meanwhile, they're becoming comics in their mind.

TOM SEGURA: Oh, they're-- yeah.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Both parents are comics.

TOM SEGURA: They're funny dudes. They are very funny. Yeah. They love to laugh. And it's fun, because you see kids. When a kid says something that's genuinely funny and you start laughing, you see that look in their eye. They're like, oh, that's cool. They just try to do it again. And if they do it too much, you're like, yeah, it's not funny anymore. You can't do it that much.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Yeah, that is a perfect cue for me to ask what I was going to ask earlier when we were talking about when you are amused by something, you really delight in telling this bit.

TOM SEGURA: Yeah.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: It impacts the audience and how it lands. There's a very famous patient in neuroscience. Probably the most famous patient. His name is HM. So we don't know his real name. He's dead now. But he had a lesion to his hippocampus, this brain area involved in memory. And he was studied extensively for decades. And most of what we know about human memory is from this guy. All the other stuff, we know from mouse studies. A little bit from monkey studies.

TOM SEGURA: Wow.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: So there's a very well-known study where you go in. And he has no retrograde memory. He can't remember anything that you told him before. But within a matter of seconds, he forgets it completely. And they've tested this every which way. OK.

TOM SEGURA: Holy shit.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: His brain is now in a jar. It's been scanned, et cetera. But so the study goes something like this. You go in and you tell HM a joke. And he laughs. And he thinks it's very funny. Then you leave and you come back. And he doesn't remember who you are. This has been tested again and again. He's not fibbing, OK. And there are number of ways that you can measure this, especially if you make it, sadly, some survival based things.

TOM SEGURA: Yeah.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: You tell him the joke again. And he laughs again, but a little less. And the next time a little less and a little less. And eventually he's like, yeah, that was not really funny.

TOM SEGURA: Yeah.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Same joke-- he does not remember the joke. But there seems to be some unconscious memory of the joke, which I always found fascinating. So it's almost like the narrative around something, we get saturated to it. We're all familiar with the friend at a dinner party that tells a joke and everybody laughs. And then they make the cardinal mistake, which is to tell the joke again at the same dinner. And it just burns it. It burns it there, and it burns it the previous time.

I mean, I'm not asking you to be a neurologist or a neuroscientist.

TOM SEGURA: No, no.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: But what do you think is going on here? Not necessarily in HM, the patient. But there's something about telling that funny punchline twice that you just-- I feel like men, guys seem to do this more. It's like, you got it. You nailed it.

TOM SEGURA: Yes.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Do not tell the joke again.

TOM SEGURA: Well, every guy thinks he can fight, fuck, is funny, and can drive. Those are the four things that every guy thinks he's awesome at. And you're lucky if you're marginal at one. You know what I mean? Every dude is like, I can drive. I'm hilarious. I can fight, chicks. Every guy has this thing.

And then the more self-aware ones go, I'm not good at these. I'm good at this one.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: So I'll train.

TOM SEGURA: You know what I I mean? That's--

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Cross-train.

TOM SEGURA: Cross-train, man. You gotta do them all. But the funny thing is, when you were talking about HM, what I thought you were going to-- the point you were making is that you go back in and it's not HM that is not laughing anymore at the funny thing. It's that the person telling is that you lose something. Because there is this thing in stand that is like a phenomenon. I don't have the answer to.

But any comedian you talk to will tell you that this is true, where you go and you say this thing. Right, it might be your opening thing. Or it could be a couple minutes in and you say the joke, you tell the thing. And it kills. And you're like, fuck yeah, this is awesome. Your brain just goes, lock it in. And then the next night, you go and you say it. And it gets laughs. But it's a little less.

And then this progresses. You keep doing shows. And it's like two months later, and you're like, the thing is not-- it doesn't really work. And then you'll go listen to-- I think I'm saying it the same way. It's like sometimes there's this thing where it's like there's a magical quality of if it just streamed out of you once, in this setting, in this room, at this moment, there's something about the way that you said it and the timing with which you said it that it evoked all this laughter. And that for some reason, this thing no longer connects and just, it doesn't register.

And you try to do the analysis of why that is the case. And you essentially just end up doing this. You're just like, I don't know why, but it just stopped being funny. To all new audiences, it killed over here, it doesn't work here.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: That's so interesting. I'm obsessed with mainly two things-- time perception and state changes in the human brain. We know so much about REM sleep and slow wave sleep. We know very little about waking states. Like alert and focused. Or we have these terms, but there's so much more going on there. And so the question is this. We're at a club or a stadium, and you're going to go on but I go on first, which means my bit sucks. It just sucks, because I'm not a comedian.

Someone else goes on. Let's say Brian Holtzman, I find very funny.

TOM SEGURA: Yeah, yeah.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: He's good, right? I mean when he's on, he's really on. He's very funny. Holtzman goes on and does really well.

TOM SEGURA: Yeah.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Who do you want to follow?

TOM SEGURA: Holtzman.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Because the crowd is in a state of being ready to receive the jokes.

TOM SEGURA: Exactly. Yeah, yeah. I feel like when you're newer, probably the typical answer for most comedians would be like, I want to follow the guy that didn't do well. Right, because then I can save the day. But the longer you do it, you realize that's not actually-- you actually want the guy in front of you to do well, even really well. Because it does generate this thing of, this is what this is. We're at a place of doing this. It's jokes. It's fun.

And we borrow the term, ride their wave. That guy just created a wave. And if you can jump on it. Sometimes you have to reset. You're letting the audience know, this is a different thing. Especially if they absolutely murder. If they destroy, you're like, whoa. You just go, yeah, I'm a new person. And the thing is, you don't want to go, I'm scared that that happened. You just go, this is my thing now.

But you have them in the state of this is-- we're here to laugh. Whereas the guy who just ate shit, they are all like, what the fuck is this? And then they basically dug a hole. So then you go up there. You're now the person that has to set the table and be like, so I know that last thing felt like a fucking eulogy. So now, I will try to get you out of feeling the way you feel and make you understand that it's joke time.

You'll often start slower by following the person that did poorly. Right, you think, it's, oh, you're funny. It's now going to go well. You have to cook it back up. So following the good comic is always the better choice.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: I'm thinking of giving toasts at weddings.

TOM SEGURA: Yeah.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: If somebody gives a really great toast, giving the next toast, you're saying, oh, that's a hard act to follow. No, actually, it's an easy act to follow.

TOM SEGURA: Yeah.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Because everyone's just basking in whatever just happened. It sounds similar.

TOM SEGURA: That's right.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: The state changes. Whether or not we're talking about running or you're talking about cannabis or you're talking about whatever it is, I mean, I find that so much of the creative process or the constructive process, science or comedy or whatever, is about accessing these states. And we learn how to do it through what becomes an unconscious process. But how to get there.

TOM SEGURA: Yeah.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Again and again. And so much of becoming a professional is about going through the peaks and valleys of bombing and coming back.

TOM SEGURA: Totally.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: So I'm curious, before you go out on stage now, given the size of the crowd, is just the memory of what's about to happen sufficient to put you in the state?

TOM SEGURA: So the thing is, the longer you do it and the more shows you do, you've performed in every state. Sometimes you have to remind-- I like to remind myself that I'm at my funniest. And I'm the best version of myself on stage when I have a silly mindset going. Meaning just goofing off. Being a kid, almost. So if I'm backstage and I have you in there and I'm just saying-- I'm poking you. Not roasting you, but being silly, right?

ANDREW HUBERMAN: We're related.

TOM SEGURA: Yeah. Just being silly. I feel like that mindset is the best version of me to go on stage. And you can forget it by-- I forget it all the time, right. Because I've performed tired, upset, sad, anxious. I've performed in every possible state. But I do like to tell myself, oh yeah, don't forget, get yourself into this silly state.

I also like-- I'm an introvert, right. There's some true extrovert comics, like Buddy Bert. A true extrovert. And his green room before a show will have 80 people in it. And I'm like, what? I like my green room to have either just me or two or three people. And chill energy. But it's still loose, right. It's not like a serious thing. But loose fun. And that gets me into the mindset of, this is going to be fun. I look over my set list.

You listen to what the crowd's like and you're like, oh, they sound they sound hot. That gets you excited. But I try to embrace that mindset of, let's have fun. Let's have fun. That puts me in a good place as a performer on stage.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Do you watch a lot of comedy? The greats. Do you--

TOM SEGURA: I don't watch a lot of comedy anymore, I would say. As a kid, I mean, I think the reason you follow this path is because you're just such a huge fan of it. So growing up, I watched a lot of the Evening at the Improv, Def Jam specials. It was also specials were truly special, right. Because there was six specials maybe a year.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Eddie Murphy.

TOM SEGURA: Yeah. Eddie and Chris Rock and Carlin. And all those guys would put out a special, I mean, once every few years. And there was only a few places. HBO was just the place. And then Comedy Central became the other-- HBO was premium. Real elite. Huge, huge talent. And then Comedy Central was everybody else. And then now the landscape has changed where we get-- I don't know, man. I feel like there's 300 specials a year. Right, because you can release them on-- they're on Netflix, they're on Max, they're on Hulu, they're on Amazon, they're on YouTube.

You're bombarded with-- it's great in one regard for standup, because it speaks to how popular standup is. And it's so accessible, and it's cool that so many people can put out their stuff. But it's just overwhelming. So I'll only check out-- I feel like in the last couple of years, I've maybe seen two specials. A lot of times, I'll start a special. Turn it off after 10 minutes. Want to see what someone's doing.

But I find it personally hard to finish a special. But I also find it hard to watch stand up in the room, at a club or something. I leave. I don't mean I leave the venue. I just leave the room. It's just harder for me to-- I feel anxious. I think it's really about me internalizing what I feel like the feeling is on stage. If it's really, really good standup, then I sit there and I go, oh my god, and I enjoy it.

But if there's any bit of it that feels like maybe that's not working or that guy's anxious or whatever, it reminds me of my own feelings on stage that are like that. And I don't want to be in that space. So I leave the room, and I'll just go sit somewhere else.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: I mean, so much of what we're talking about today, I just realized, is emotional contagion. It really introduces this question. This is very reductionist thinking, but how much of the success of a bit or a joke is the emotion that the person telling it is carrying, and how much of it is the actual words and content? It's probably that, plus the rhythm and the timing. There's a lot of things.

TOM SEGURA: It's really a combination of those things.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Emotional contagion is real. You're talking about it as a comedian watching comedy. It permeates you.

TOM SEGURA: Is that what it's called, emotional contagion?

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Emotional contagion. And some people are more emotionally permeable than others.

TOM SEGURA: Yeah.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: We could put this on a spectrum. We could even put it on the-- so what used to be called the autistic spectrum. People who really contained in their emotions. Things don't get them. But people at the far end of that spectrum, they have a sensory sensitivity. Autistic kids that are really severely autistic, the amount of noise in a typical room is overwhelming.

TOM SEGURA: It's overwhelming, right.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: They actually have discovered that that's actually outside the brain, that their sensory endings are tuned differently to the world. They're experiencing the world very, very differently. You have these certain people get scared when they watch a movie and they jump when the monster jumps out. Other people are less of a startled response.

TOM SEGURA: I get startled.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: I get startled. Yeah. I think that it's natural to get startled. I think that some people just have very flat affect, and some people can-- it's like a seesaw. And for some people, the hinge is tight. That doesn't necessarily mean they're calm. Some people are just pissed off all the time, and the hinge is tight. Some people are happy all the time and the hinge is tight.

Most people, that hinge can move. And so this thing of emotional contagion is largely-- this is what's so interesting, it's largely fed through the way things sound. Somewhat through faces, but largely through the way that things sound. And then there seems to be, and not a lot is known about this yet, a sixth sense where actually an energy in the room can start to literally cascade from one person to the next. And this has been studied in animals.

TOM SEGURA: Yeah.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: With the fear response. You can literally take an animal, scare it, take it out of that tube, put another animal in there, and it will show a fear response based on something molecular in the air.

TOM SEGURA: Really?

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Absolutely. I mean, their hormones work within us, pheromones between two members of the species. They're clearly pheromone-like effects. We haven't identified what those pheromones are. Same thing can happen in crowds. You can get a hysteria.

TOM SEGURA: We do feel like the best experience as a comedian performing is where you feel like the audience is one. They are one. It's not 10,000 separate people. It's like this is all together. When that's going as well as it can go, that is like an incredible rush. And the feeling is that they do mold. It's like they started as 10,000 people, and then they just become this one thing. And you're rocking this one entity out there together.

Same way that the opposite, when it's really bad. It doesn't feel like you can feel like, oh, they're together in not liking this. This is one crowd going, no. You know what I mean? That feeling is the opposite of bombing beyond emptiness that you feel. But you feel it. They are together. They're unified in how they feel about this.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: This is why some people, including me, fear going to theater. My sister loves theater. We go to New York in the fall for our birthdays. And because she loves theater, we go to theater. And if theater is great, it's amazing. If theater is bad, it leaves me feeling bad for the people. The tone in the room is like, ooh. It's heavy.

TOM SEGURA: Heavy.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: It's not just like, turn off the special. It sucks. It takes you to a lower place.

TOM SEGURA: Well, live is always-- it's just such a different experience. You know what I think about? I don't know if there's any science to this. But I always sometimes think about the fact that I feel like comedy specifically as an art form might be the most involuntarily subjective. Meaning that if you look at a photo or a piece of art, you might go, I don't like that. And then I might educate you in some way about it. And you look at it differently.

And then maybe over time, you go, I actually love this painting. Or music is definitely one where you have an involuntary response. But I have not cared for music and then actually started to it more. But I feel like comedy, it's not-- you're not really thinking-- when you laugh hard at something, you're not like, oh, I thought about it for a while and I'm going to start laughing now. Right, you laugh.

And if you don't laugh, you're just like, yeah, I don't find that funny. You don't usually come back and go, now that you've talked to me about it, I'm going to start laughing. It really is this experience where it happens without-- so your brain is telling you, this is what's funny. Right, it's happening separate from you. And there's no faking it. You're either laughing or you're not. And if you laugh really hard, it's this great experience. But you can't convince someone to laugh that hard.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: A very important point that never occurred to me. I love art history. In part because I like art. I've always liked art.

TOM SEGURA: Yeah.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: But by taking an art history class, I've literally fallen in love with certain artists and their paintings. And I look at certain paintings completely differently now, as you point out, on the basis of what I know about what the art represents, the history of the artist. If a joke isn't funny to me or a bit isn't funny, I don't care what the process was--

TOM SEGURA: Right.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: --for that bit. I'm like, it's just not funny.

TOM SEGURA: It's just not.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Yeah, it seems like it's one of the purest yum, yuck, or meh kind of things. Which is another point of neuroscience. The nervous system has degrees of this, but it basically bins things very quickly into yum, this is awesome, or hilarious, or whatever. Yuck. Like, no. And kind of meh.

TOM SEGURA: Yeah.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Within each one of those bins, there's a lot of variation.

TOM SEGURA: Yeah.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Love, love, love, hate, hate, hate. But your brain makes a decision really quickly. Yum, yuck, or meh?

TOM SEGURA: Right. Right. And especially with different arts. Right, I mean, literally, you look at the photo and your brain tells you, right. Most of the time, you're not going to go back to that and have a much different response. Right, I mean, with comedy, you're not going to have the response.

I did Spanish art history when I was studying in Madrid. And they would take us to the Prado Museum and give us our lectures in front of the pieces of art. Yeah, your brain starts to not just appreciate it. You start to fall in love with the paintings. And you go, oh, I view this differently. That type of experience doesn't really-- can't happen with comedy. I'm not going to be like, start laughing, dude, listen to how this-- you know what I mean?

It is what it is. Your brain, it's so quick whether or not it makes you laugh.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: And if something's not funny, if you tell me, he toiled on this for 40 years, I'd be like, well, then it especially sucks.

TOM SEGURA: It's really shit.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Whereas you show me a sculpture I might not appreciate, and you explain what went into that.

TOM SEGURA: Yeah.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: You can develop at least an appreciation for it. You're like, this is interesting.

TOM SEGURA: Versions of this happen all the time. Especially now, because everything's shareable. Where your friend goes, check this out. And you watch the thing and you're like, OK. And they're like, isn't that the funniest thing you've ever seen? You're like, no. They're like, you didn't like that? No.

And that's how it ends. They're like, yeah, but he's saying that he's late because he-- I'm like, yeah, I'm not laughing, dude. I don't know what to tell you. And then they go, OK. But they had a different experience with it that you can't-- you can't articulate and intellectualize the experience to someone where they go, oh yeah, now I think it's funny.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Well, I think this gets back to HM and this idea that there's a subconscious-- just an unaware process that dictates whether or not something's funny or not.

TOM SEGURA: Yeah.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: It tickles our brain below the level of precise understanding. And I'm so fascinated by this. Because as you point out, there just aren't other things like this. You could say this about people. Like, oh, liked this person right away, didn't like them.

TOM SEGURA: Yes.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: But in general, the more that we learn about people-- this is why all the efforts to try and erase racism, for instance, the more you learn about a culture, the more you tend to like the people of that culture.

TOM SEGURA: Totally, yeah.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Even if you were archenemies for decades or hundreds of years before, there's just the way the human brain works. Then with comedy, it feels like it's like chemistry.

TOM SEGURA: It does.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: And of course, you can say, well, you like or don't like the comic. But I have to imagine that you like it or not probably represent the bad boyfriend or the abusive dad to somebody or the friend that they loved in college. Let's make it positive, too. Or the guy they like to be around. I mean, you don't know that people's relationship to you.

TOM SEGURA: You never know.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: And so the humor may land or not land, depending on all sorts of unconscious stuff going on.

TOM SEGURA: So much. And you realize, too, that you can have a joke about a teacher. You know what I mean? It's part of your bit. You're not thinking of that. And you saying that has a ripple effect that you don't realize. To different people in the audience for dozens of different reasons. You could have just said the word teacher, and the person's like, I am a teacher. And then that's pleasing to them. They feel seen. The other person hated their teacher.

You know what I mean? They start thinking about all these little things where you go, I just said one word about this and you don't realize that it triggers other thoughts in people's minds.

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Let's talk about crowd work.

TOM SEGURA: Yeah.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Fascinated by it.

TOM SEGURA: Yeah.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Very, very distinct aspect of the comedy experience. You know what I mean? At a big rock concert, I mean, the singer might put out a fist to someone in the audience or even let somebody sing for a moment. But maybe let someone up on stage. But crowd work is like, you're really giving up a lot of control.

TOM SEGURA: Yeah.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Right, if you ask a question, I mean, you have to be able to work off whatever comes back. Do you do crowd work?

TOM SEGURA: I mean, I feel like crowd work is just part of the arsenal of skills you have over time as a comedian. You have to be able to improvise. You have to be able to handle crowd work. You have to be able to write material. You have to be able to do all those things. I don't go up and do crowd work shows. There are some people that are like, this is a crowd work show.

But I've been doing stand up 23 years. And especially when you're in the club system, when you're an unknown and you're just doing weekends and people are drunk, crowd work just becomes part of how you do it. You don't have an option to not-- you could just not develop the skill set and then just die up there. But you know what I mean? It's a necessity.

So at this point, I feel like I want to go on stage with, I want to do X, Y, Z. I want to execute these things. I want to get these jokes out. I want to say these things. But you're never, ever to the point where you go, and therefore, I am removed from having to do any type of crowd. Because crowd work is-- usually it's a response to something happening. You're being heckled, somebody's saying something.

There's this thing that if you're in a huge venue, you don't want to actually go, hey, what's going on with you, buddy? Right, because there's somebody up in the 300 section who's like, I don't know what's going on. But the other side of it is you cannot ignore the obvious. Meaning if a fight breaks out, if somebody throws something, if somebody is screaming, and you just go, I'm just not going to-- I'm going to act like that's not happening. I'm going to keep doing standup, what I wanted to do.

Then people go, this is weird. Right, because this person's ignoring the obvious.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Right, you're no longer connected to them in the same way.

TOM SEGURA: Exactly. They know that there's a disconnect now. You're ignoring that? So that's how you stay in having-- you have to maintain the skill set. Some people make it more of an emphasis of their show. And there's really, really good people at doing that. I feel like it's also part-- it's more of like the DNA of New York comics, too. I've always thought that the level of proficiency there is really high in that scene. More of a back and forth.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: It's the small venues--

TOM SEGURA: Yeah.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: I go to the Comedy Cellar when I'm out there. I don't know if it's still one of the main places.

TOM SEGURA: Oh, absolutely.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: If there's a better one, let me know. But my sister's always like, are we going to go to the Cellar again?

TOM SEGURA: Yeah, Cellar is fantastic.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Our favorite nights there actually were nights where it was pretty bad and we can laugh about that.

TOM SEGURA: Yeah.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: But there have been a few nights there where it just killed.

TOM SEGURA: Yeah.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: And actually, there was one night. I asked my sister, this happened. Chappelle just leaves Radio City Hall, shows up with his entourage, and just hops up on stage. And just, that only happens in New York City.

TOM SEGURA: Yeah.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: I don't think that really happens in Los Angeles terribly often.

TOM SEGURA: He's done that quite a few times.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: He just rolls in?

TOM SEGURA: Yeah, he's done that in LA a number of times. He's done it in San Francisco a bunch. I'm saying, it's pretty well known. He'll come into the store.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: That's his thing?

TOM SEGURA: Yeah. He loves the stage. And sometimes, he'll be up there in legitimately three or four hours.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Yeah, he stayed. We ended up going home because we eventually just called it a night and we were leaving. And his team was like, you're really going to leave? We'd had enough. But it was just unbelievable to me that at this stage of his career, that he was just going to wander in and start doing comedy.

I think it speaks to the intimacy of those small clubs.

TOM SEGURA: It does, yeah.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: I mean, it's still one of the few venues where you can see greats. I got to see you at the Belly Up in Aspen. That's a small-ish smallish venue.

TOM SEGURA: That was fun, yeah.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Or you can go to a stadium. What's the largest stadium crowd you've done? It's more than--

TOM SEGURA: The biggest crowd I did was a little over 17,000 at Climate Pledge Arena in Seattle.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Yeah, so huge difference of scale there.

TOM SEGURA: Yeah.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Not many public facing things occupy those levels of scale. I have a question about cultural standards.

TOM SEGURA: Yeah.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: And what's really funny. So if you look back to comedians at a time where cursing on stage wasn't allowed, pre-Lenny Bruce.

TOM SEGURA: Yeah.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Right? Is any of that comedy funny? Meaning, now there's been this expansion of what you can say, even just cursing. And so if we look at-- earlier, we were talking about working out. Muscular bodies looked very different in films in the '40s. You'd say, well, that person isn't very big by today's standards. But you'd say they're very fit, right. Or she was very beautiful and very sexy in the '70s, but very different look than the '90s and 2000s.

So standards change for what's considered ideal.

TOM SEGURA: Yes. The male one, by the way, is hilarious for the leading man of the '40s and '50s.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: They were very slender. Now they're like--

TOM SEGURA: I mean not--

ANDREW HUBERMAN: --superheroes.

TOM SEGURA: They'd be slender and also not even very well defined. And they'd be like, this is the stud of the-- you know what I mean? Of the movie. A guy who's not wearing a shirt. And you're like, this guy is not active. And you're like, no, this is the stud of the movie.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Right. Right.

TOM SEGURA: That's just a different time.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Just a different time, different standard. And then, of course, standards of women's bodies have changed. Sometimes more voluptuous. In the '90s, it was the waif-y look. And these things mirror what's going on in society to some degree. But if you listen to comedy pre-Lenny Bruce, pre-swearing, is any of it really funny to you?

TOM SEGURA: Well, to me, I feel like I would probably listen to most of that with that mind of-- because what happens with comedy, too, is, to be fair to those people, is you end up hearing so many versions of what they did. Things that are just derivative of other styles and types of jokes and types of performances. If I heard this guy in 1945 doing these jokes and he's killing in this room, I would go-- I'd probably hear the joke and be like, oh yeah, I know this joke. I know 10 versions of that joke, because I've heard them.

So hearing it just doesn't make me laugh.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Even though it's the original?

TOM SEGURA: Even though it's the original, yeah. Because I feel like that even happens with well-known comedians. I was born in '79. So my exposure, I wasn't really conscious and aware of the Pryor era, right. And he's like a god in standup.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: He's considered the best comedian ever. By most, it seems.

TOM SEGURA: By a lot of people.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: He's on the Mount Rushmore of comedy.

TOM SEGURA: He's definitely on the Mount Rushmore. But I felt like by the time that I heard Pryor, I had heard so many people that were influenced by Pryor, that hearing the original version wasn't like-- it wasn't like I'm doubled over laughing. I'm hearing every other version. They're clearly inspired and taking from him.

But so now I hear the original, and I go like, oh, I get that. That's the version of that. That can happen with comedy films, too. It's like you watch Animal House. If you hadn't seen it before and you see it now and you've watched a lot of comedies, you might just go like, oh, I get how this is the blueprint. Because I've seen so many people take from this that now when you see the original, you'll be like, oh. You're like, yeah.

But you don't realize that's the first time it was done. These jokes were done here originally. Everybody took from them. So I don't think that I would probably end up laughing very hard at the pre-Lenny Bruce comic, just for the reason I said, though. Just because it's been done. I've heard so many versions of it.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: So it seems with comedy, unlike with music or poetry or books, there isn't that much carry forward. So for instance, I mean, I was very, very young if-- and in some cases, not born when the Rolling Stones were doing their great work, or the Beatles, or Elvis, right. But that music is awesome.

TOM SEGURA: Yeah, yeah. That's different.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: The fact that many people have taken bits and pieces from those. You can't create an amazing Clash song the way the Clash did it. They did it best. And it will always like-- Death Or Glory will be like-- I don't care how many songs were derivatives of that. That song still kills.

TOM SEGURA: Yeah.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: And so comedy seems different.

TOM SEGURA: I think it's different in that regard. I definitely think it's different. I think that it's one of those things where it's always shifting. Also what's funny has-- it really is directly related to what's happening in the real time. In the time you're living in. You can see whether it's from stand up or movies, jokes that aren't funny, that were very funny in 1982, and 1995, and 2007, that you go-- it's just shifted, right. It's not funny anymore.

And I don't just mean because it's not politically correct. I just mean, there's this unspoken thing that happens, right, where you're laughing at something and then you go, hey, we collectively don't find-- this is just not funny anymore. So actually, a lot of those things might even strike you as not only not great. You might just be like, that's not funny at all.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Yeah, I once went to this thing in San Francisco around New Year's. And they literally wheeled out-- is it Henny Youngman or Benny Youngman or something? He was doing these knock knock jokes and he was probably in his late 90s. He was forgetting the punchlines. But occasionally he'd nail one.

TOM SEGURA: Yeah.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: It was not funny.

TOM SEGURA: Yeah.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: It was almost embarrassing. But you were like, wow, this guy still thinks it's funny. He's still going. So there was some amusement. But you looked at the older people in the crowd. And they were like, oh my god, it's bringing me back.

TOM SEGURA: Yeah, so--

ANDREW HUBERMAN: And you're like, oh my goodness. But no one else was laughing.

TOM SEGURA: Right.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: But as you're describing, some people might look at some comedy-- I'm not going to name names, because I'm not versed enough in comedy-- but from the '70s or '80s and be like, yeah, that's just raw. But it doesn't really do anything for me.

TOM SEGURA: I'll tell you, this is a very simple example. But I can recall that 20 years ago, if a guy was in a club and there was two guys sitting there in the front row together or whatever, a lot of comments would be like, what, are you guys a couple? And then that would sometimes prompt laughs. People would laugh. They would be like, oh, they're a couple.

And today, if somebody was like, what, are you guys a couple? They'd be like, yeah. And everyone would be like, OK. Right? It would be like--

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Yeah, yeah.

TOM SEGURA: It was considered, oh, it's funny you're implying that they're romantic couple. And I feel just the way society evolves, today, people would be like, and?

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Oh, yeah. I mean, growing up, when you-- I mean, I'm a little bit older than you are.

TOM SEGURA: Yeah.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: I remember the first gay characters showing up in film and reality TV. It was a huge deal.

TOM SEGURA: Yeah.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Right? And then so things have really changed. So what is-- yeah, things have really changed.

TOM SEGURA: No one's ever been funnier than Eddie Murphy, ever. Him in his prime of his being funny, there's just nothing-- he's a total prodigy, once in a lifetime type of talent. Right, so funny. If you put Delirious on for a 21-year-old today, they would be like, what the fuck is happening? There's things in it that are just-- they're just too dated now. You know what I mean? Just concepts that are-- he's still funny as shit. But those bits will not land like they would in '83. They just wouldn't.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Let's talk about the darkness of comedy. I once had the experience of going to the Comedy Cellar with some friends. And this guy got up there. I don't remember his name. And it was super dark. I mean, it was like clowns with vans doing terrible-- I mean, it was just so dark. And the only thing that was hysterical about it was the fact that he seemed freaked out by it, too. What he was saying was horrible.

TOM SEGURA: He was saying horrible--

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Horrible things that had gone through his mind.

TOM SEGURA: Yeah.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: But the fact that he thought it was horrible was what was funny.

TOM SEGURA: Sure.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: And we're like, whoa. We walked out of there and just when-- we felt like we'd been transported to someplace really unhealthy. And I was like, man, I feel like I need a shower after that. That was intense and scary. And--

TOM SEGURA: This is my favorite thing, by the way.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Whoa. And then we had the experience of running into him and his girlfriend later that night. And we were like, oh my god. And he just took off. He just could not handle the reflection about what had just happened in there.

TOM SEGURA: Really?

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Oh, yeah. I'm sure he enjoyed the attention. He's a performer, so. But two things occur to me around that example. One is a guy who's really dark on stage, seemed like a very loving guy, at least out in public with his girlfriend.

TOM SEGURA: Almost always the case.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Yeah. And the other one is that where he took us and where he went was so down in the dungeon. I still get a weird feeling in my body thinking about it.

TOM SEGURA: Yeah.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: But his shock at his own words was absolutely--

TOM SEGURA: Hilarious.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: --hysterical and brilliant. And it was like, hey, let's go down into the darkness of human nature.

TOM SEGURA: Yeah.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: I'm going to show you how dark it really is, and I'm going to leave. And you're just left spinning. And it still sits in my body. We're talking about that visceral experience. Still sits in my body. I don't know what to make of it.

TOM SEGURA: It's incredible, A, that first of all, that he can access it. It's great. If you're talking about just as the art form, the best thing to do as an artist, any type of artist, is, I think, acknowledge and produce with the dark thoughts. In other words, don't act like they're not there, because they're in everyone. And then put it into your art.

In other words, it's, if you go, I want to fucking rob a bank, it's better if you're an artist to channel that into art, whether you write a story about it, you paint a painting, you write a song. You talk about, as a comedian, your fantasy of doing it. Then to actually do it. So it's actually you're channeling it in the healthier option. And I also feel like 20 some years of doing this, dude, the best people, as people that I've ever met, are the darkest comedians on stage. And the absolute most terrifying people are the super clean guys.

Yeah, dude. Because they don't acknowledge the darkness. The darkness exists in all of us. The Dalai Lama has dark thoughts. It's just--

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Jung said this. I mean--

TOM SEGURA: It's just the way it is.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: It's humans.

TOM SEGURA: It's human beings. Now, some of us have not as present and overwhelming dark sides and thoughts. But there is darkness in everybody. The thing is, I feel like what some of the clean comics do is the lack of acknowledging it means that that darkness has to come out in some other way. It just does. So how does it come out?

Well, it might come out in their personal life. I mean--

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Yeah.

TOM SEGURA: I mean, there's very famous cases of, don't curse. And then you're doing some pretty dark things. That's a real thing, man. That hey, I'm going to talk about cookies. And where do you put your socks? I can't find my other sock. That's your fucking bit? Talking about socks? OK. What are you actually really up to?

Because the thing is, some of those guys, look, I'm not saying they're not funny. There's very, very funny, clean comics. Some of those guys are right on the line of, man, if you would just acknowledge some of this stuff, it would be even funnier. And then you don't know how that darkness is going to show itself, because it's probably going to show itself in a way that's not so pleasant.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Yeah. I completely agree with you. I have a friend who's a very, very well known musician. I won't say what genre. And what I love about his music is it encompasses every range of emotion.

TOM SEGURA: Yeah.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Every range. And I've seen him play to huge crowds and just get so pissed. And I've seen him do love songs, hate songs, revenge songs. Just everything.

TOM SEGURA: Yeah.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: But in person, he's the kindest dude ever. I mean, and he's so grounded. He and his partner are the sweetest people. And she's got it, too. She's an artist, too. And some of her art, you're like, oh my god. And then you meet her and you're like, you're so kind, so trustworthy.

TOM SEGURA: Yeah.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: So exactly what you're describing. They're in touch with it. They know how to channel it.

TOM SEGURA: Yeah. I think it's about doing that. And I think some people-- look, I think it's also a natural human instinct to not want to acknowledge or play with the dark thoughts that you have. Right? You don't want to sometimes, because you go, that's an ugly side and I don't want to use that for my art or even acknowledge that it's there. But I think it's definitely the better way to go, is to actually work with it.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: A lot of comics die of drug overdoses. These days as much, it seems like there's now the healthy comics. You're one of them. And I don't know what the numbers are compared to music, like rock musicians or something. But if I compare to science or I compare to law. OK, one could say, in law offices, there used to be a lot of drug use, especially in big cities and this kind of thing, stimulants. But let's just focus on comedy for the moment.

Do you think that comedy pulls from a group that has a larger percentage of people that are just struggling with inner turmoil, and they rely on substances to manage? Or are the substances part of the creative process for people? Writers, too. I mean, it used to be that many writers were drinkers. Have you ever wanted a voyage through alcoholism, read about the habits of writers?

TOM SEGURA: Yeah.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Not all of them, but many of them drank a lot.

TOM SEGURA: A lot.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: A lot, a lot.

TOM SEGURA: Yeah.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Amphetamines sometimes. But it was like drinking, it was like part and parcel with the writer's life, sadly. That's not the case now. But yeah, what are your thoughts about substances and comedy and comics?

TOM SEGURA: I think it's a combination of things. I feel like a lot of comedians, that world pulls from certainly people with traumatic backgrounds. There's a lot of mental health issues with comedians. There's a lot of clinically depressed comedians. There's comedians that come into it with severe anxiety, for instance, severe depression. Different mental health things. So usually, even outside of comedy, if you're talking about people with this type of mindset, these issues, substances come with that. People trying to regulate and deal with those issues.

To also throw some more gas on that, you're talking about an environment that is a nightlife environment where these things are readily available. And it can be fun. It can make you feel like you're helping your art form by partaking in these things. And then it's really just like, with most things, you see that some people go, oh, it's getting-- right now, it's getting in the way. And they acknowledge that, I'm better off without this. And then some people are just too far gone in it, right, where they just-- they're addicts. We have a lot of addicts in comedy. It's just one of those factors. You see it a lot, people that are complete hardcore addicts.

So that, coupled with mental health things and the fact that we're up late and we're with people that are also into night life, I think all that together, you get a lot of substance abuse. A lot.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Why is cynicism so unfunny?

TOM SEGURA: Is it? I mean, I feel like cynicism presented in the right way, a cynical person can be funny. I think the problem with cynicism is that it's really not-- ultimately, there's nothing hopeful in it. Cynicism takes away any feeling that things could get better.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Yeah. Like in the world of improv, the yes/and. I feel like cynicism shuts it down.

TOM SEGURA: Well, that's true. In the case of-- I'm just saying, some people have this cynical take on things that are still funny people. Yeah, if you negate a thought in improv, the whole thing is over. It just dies. If you're like, it's hot, and I'm cold. You're like, OK. We're not really going to do this, then, huh? You have to add to it.

But that's interesting. Yeah, I mean, if you're cynical, truly a cynical person-- because I guess the thing you find in comedy is there's a lot of faux emotion. The faux angry. You know what I mean? You put on this thing to sell your bit. That you sell an emotion with it, too. So somebody can manipulate that cynicism with humor. But I think if you're genuinely a cynical person, what you are really is usually someone that actually people don't want to be around. The very genuinely cynical person. Another way to describe them is just negative.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Yeah, a total buzzkill.

TOM SEGURA: Yeah. So you just go, I don't want to be around that. I think ultimately, the best mode to be in for comedy is you actually want to be inclusive. I mean, you're like, right? You're saying things that people want to nod along with. And if you're just like, shit's not going to work out, it never does. No one's like, this is fucking fun, man. This is really funny.

So that probably has some factor in it. I mean, yeah, you learn early on, at least I felt like it, that there's these really cynical comics. But the thing is, I'm not talking about the faux thing in a performance. They are just like that. And you can feel the energy vortex that they are. And you go, I got to not be around this guy.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Right.

TOM SEGURA: Because early on especially, you rely so much on hope. The fact that you signed up to do this thing that, on paper, it seems insane. You're going to tell jokes for a living? What, are you out of your mind? That's what people would say to me. They're like, what, are you crazy?

ANDREW HUBERMAN: I would say it worked out.

TOM SEGURA: I mean, I got very lucky in that it worked out.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: And you worked very hard. You worked extremely hard.

TOM SEGURA: I did work very hard at it. But that is the thing where you go, oh, this is an insane path to go down. I can't have the guy who's next to me who's also a comedian being like, this shit, they're never going to pick us. They're never going to-- this shit never works out. You're like, I can't have that mantra in my head all the time.

And you have to part ways with those people. Because they are like a virus. They're a virus. So yeah, you're right in observing, it's not funny. I think it's more that it's not productive to be around truly cynical people.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Along the lines of what we're calling emotional contagion, I realized, I'm not aware of any duet comics. I know it sounds silly. But in every other genre, like with music, people play alone, they play with a band, they play together. You offset voices. I mean, but maybe in comedy, stage comedy, that is, the audience is the other member of the-- I'm calling it a duet, which sounds so silly, but you get the idea.

TOM SEGURA: Yeah.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: That they're the one that you're resonating with and that you're playing off of, and they're riding with you. Because I've had the experience of going to the Comedy Store. I was there last year and Tim Dillon did a bit. Well, he went out for 20. He came out for 20 minutes and just murdered. And some of that's in his recent special. Just murdered.

And he crescendoed the whole crowd. And then just like typical Tim, just walked out. And you're like, whoa. And you feel like you were part of something, even though you were a passive recipient of what was going on or participant. So maybe that's where it is. Have there ever been two people that get up there and riff?

TOM SEGURA: Together?

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Yeah.

TOM SEGURA: Oh, yeah.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: And do it well?

TOM SEGURA: Yeah, there's a couple twins that do that.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: OK.

TOM SEGURA: Yeah. That's a good observation, that it is the audience is the other participant, right. It's you and the-- but then the Lucas Brothers and the Sklar brothers are-- they're twin brothers, and they go up there. Because you've probably done something about the twin phenomena. How these guys operate, both of these sets of twins together, it is an experience where you're like, whoa.

They don't go always, setup, punch. The setup sentence can come half out of one brother and the other. And it's seamless. It's like when you hang out with-- you ever hang out with twins? And they really answer in unison, even though they're not looking at each other and they're saying the same thing. That's how these guys work on stage. And it gets you, where you have questions afterwards. You're like, wait a minute, did you guys-- how did you set that up? Because it's so seamless, and they're literally going back, back. Back and forth, back and forth, back and forth.

And it feels like you had to go, hey, when I say and, make sure you-- but it's another level beyond that. They really flow. Even their talk over each other feels like it's perfectly done. You're hearing the end of this guy's sentence, the next guy steps on top of it, but you hear him clearly and back and forth.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: I have to check it out.

TOM SEGURA: Those guys are like-- it is like a phenomenon to watch them work. It actually is really, really cool.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: I'm coming to the conclusion that by being a audience member in comedy, one is experiencing a kind of an empathy with what the comic is experiencing. And that's where we're getting here. I didn't plan this out. But you have to feel it. It's got to be real for the comic. The audience can sense that. The delight, the silliness that you're bringing to it. So much of that is in the audience's nervous system as they're getting it.

And it's clear to me that comedy is the one way. I mean, you can say this about music, but like you said, it's so different, because so much of it seems spontaneous.

TOM SEGURA: It does. And I also feel like-- my buddy Kirk Fox, he's a great comedian. He always says this thing when he's on stage. He's like, I plan on being open, inviting. Hoping to leave the stage a better-- leave the room a better place. But this thing about being open, inviting, vulnerable is-- it's a very real thing. You learn it as you do it. You start off pretty much operating in fear as a standup. Right, you're terrified. You're terrified that you're not going to do well.

The longer you do it, you get more comfortable being up there, you realize that if you're vulnerable, if you're willing to be vulnerable, which takes effort and some courage, the audience senses this on an unspoken level and will go with you more places and will definitely laugh more and will basically be on your side, right. And if you don't learn to do that, it's a different type of performance.

You're basically going up there with, I'm the boss. If you're going up there, I'm telling you what's up. They still might laugh at things. But they don't leave going, I care for this guy, or I empathize with him. And if you can learn to be vulnerable onstage, your performances will get exponentially better. And honestly, you'll get way crazier laughs.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: So interesting. The reason I love comedy so much is that, A, it lets me forget about the outside world.

TOM SEGURA: Yeah.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: While hearing about the outside world. And I think stage comedy is especially powerful. And before we sat down to have this conversation, we were talking about how some people think-- they're like, oh, my friend is super funny, way funnier than any of the comics. But like a professional athlete or a non-professional athlete, in this case, can they do it on stage? Can they do the dance?

TOM SEGURA: That's the thing. The main question is-- because sometimes, like I told you, people will be like, my friend Greg is hilarious. He's funnier than any of those guys on stage. And you're like, I believe you. And you might hang out with him and be like, this dude is hilarious. He's really funny.

The difference is that, can he be that funny when it's just him with a microphone in front of people and take who he is in real life and be that on stage? That's ultimately the goal for every comedian. They say that the longer you do standup, your goal is to be who you are offstage, onstage. Because it's impossible when you start. When you start, you are funny with your friends. And then you get on stage and you freeze.

And you're trying to convey, this is who I am. Because what you're doing is you're going, this is how I see things. That's what your performance is. This is funny to me. I'm going to tell you how I see it, and that's why it's funny. Some guys that are-- women, I'm saying, just people, that are very, very funny offstage just, they can't do that to an audience. They're funny to be around in life. But they're not performers. I mean, there's an element to it that is, can you get up in front of strangers and make them laugh? They don't know you. You have to convey who you are in a moment and make them laugh. That's a different thing.

It's not unlike a guy that kills it at the YMCA when you play ball. And it's like, OK, but let's put you in an NBA arena. Right, can you actually play with these guys? It's a totally different thing. Look, some can. Everybody who ends up being a good standup was super funny to somebody offstage years ago. Right, they just worked at it and they were able to translate it. Some people just can't translate it.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Do you think it helps to really like people? As a general group. You're trying to entertain people. You're trying to be entertained by your own entertainment. Do you think you need to like humans?

TOM SEGURA: That's an interesting question. I thought I could answer that quicker, and I started to think about it. Because I started to think about the fact that so many comedians I know, so many go, god, I hate people so much.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: I mean, I'll frame it a little differently, then. My theory as to one of the main reasons why Rogan is the top podcast in the world. There are several reasons, I believe. His work ethic, et cetera. But it's because he has lots of different kinds of friends. And he can sit down with intellectuals. He can sit down with comics. He can sit down with criminals, writers.

TOM SEGURA: Yeah.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: He likes the understanding and communication with different kinds of people. And when you know a little bit about him, his life is filled with these people outside of the studio. So he's very comfortable in the presence of anyone. You put anyone in front of him--

TOM SEGURA: Yeah.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: And he can be genuinely interested in learning from them and sharing with them.

TOM SEGURA: Just genuinely a curious guy, too.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: You can't fabricate that. You can't manufacture that.

TOM SEGURA: I agree.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Whereas some podcasters, they're not that interested in what other people have to say. So they're not the best interviewers, unless it's someone directly within their genre of interest.

TOM SEGURA: That's a good observation.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: So as a comic, I guess it depends on the range of topics that you explore in your comedy, perhaps.

TOM SEGURA: Yeah, I don't think you can hate humanity and be a good comedian. Right, I think for sure, you have to genuinely love making people laugh. If you're going to be successful at it, you have to have an obsession with doing that. A literal obsession. Because you go through these periods on your journey of standup, of being like, hey, I don't have rent money. I can't pay for anything.

And you have the option. You want to go get a job? And you're like, no, I'm going to keep doing-- you're obsessed. You're obsessed with it so much that you're giving up things that people would otherwise in your position be doing in life, because you just are so in love with writing and performing jokes. You have an obsession. I do think you have to, on some level, though, I'm thinking about it, love people.

Because if you love making people laugh, you enjoy people. Because so many comics are so bothered by so many things that people do. That's a very normal. I'm very much like-- I fucking can't stand these. You know what I mean? Always just like, look at this dipshit. He's bringing fucking eggs on the plane. You're just like--

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Tuna.

TOM SEGURA: Yeah. And he's like, you asshole. You're like, Tupperware on the plane? Eat that shit at the gate. So we're always like--

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Noted.

TOM SEGURA: You know what I mean? You're always just complaining. Complaining is part of being a standup. If you never complain about anything, you're probably not funny. You know what I mean?

ANDREW HUBERMAN: You like humanity too much.

TOM SEGURA: Yeah, I feel like if-- here's the thing. If you go, I'm good with whatever, you're not a funny person. You're funny if you have a-- you either love or hate something. That can be funny. You can love this, and it can be funny. You can hate it, and that'd be funny. If you're like, I mean, I'm fine, then that's not funny.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: And that response doesn't do--

TOM SEGURA: It doesn't do anything in standup, yeah. So but I think somebody that complains about people can be very funny. You just can't be like, all people everywhere, I can't stand. That would be too extreme.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: There are all sorts of theories about how people's childhood issues or just their fundamental struggle feeds their art in incredible ways. I think I saw an interview with Jim Carrey, who, admittedly, I don't know much about his comedy. I was so busy in school when he was-- through his reign of physical comedy movies. I've never seen Dumb and Dumber. I've never seen The Matrix. I've never seen Goonies. Sorry, I just haven't. I love Stand By Me. I love other movies, but I need to see those movies. I just-- I'm busy. I'm trying. I want to do--

TOM SEGURA: Last night at dinner, I just admitted that never seen Braveheart, and I've never seen Gladiator.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Oh, those are amazing.

TOM SEGURA: Yeah. And guess what? I'm not going to see them.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Really?

TOM SEGURA: No.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: All right.

TOM SEGURA: I'm just not. I'm not going to see them.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Well, clearly just knowing a little bit about your children and the fact that they're related to you, I'm not going to try and push you to do anything. Because clearly, you guys are stubborn.

TOM SEGURA: Yeah.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: So the question I have after seeing this Jim Carrey thing, he said, the reason he did comedy is he wanted to make people laugh, to forget about their struggles. He had a chronically ill mother. And he used to throw himself down the stairs as a kid. I believe him. So physical comedy became his thing. Do you think that really successful comedians tap into a fundamental quest to resolve something?

You're trying to, whatever it is, fill in the blank. I don't want to fill in blanks for you.

TOM SEGURA: Yeah, yeah. No. I mean, I can speak for myself. I think in my own case, I was the new kid a lot. Right, I went to one school for first grade, one for second and third. A different one for fourth, a different one for fifth and sixth, a different one for seventh and eighth, a different one for ninth. And I switched again in ninth grade. So I was a new kid all those times.

And I felt like whenever I arrived and I over time go-- you start to develop this muscle for, how am I going to get someone to me? And it was like, try to make them laugh, right. That became a thing. I was trying to make them laugh. I think for me personally, there was also this-- just my own insecurities. I think I felt like if I got enough people to laugh, if I became successful at making people laugh and people acknowledged it, that I would no longer feel these insecurities.

And it doesn't happen. They stick with you.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: And thank goodness, because it sounds like it's the fuel for your art.

TOM SEGURA: I think it probably is. I mean, I just remember thinking if I were to be-- had a special and I got paid well, then I wouldn't have any self-doubts anymore. I mean, you think that. Then I'll feel fulfilled. And then you get the thing and you're like, yeah, no, it's the same. It didn't go.

I mean, you start to address it in other ways, because you just realize that the accomplishment or whatever isn't the answer to that thing. But it is a thing that makes you-- you think that it will make you feel complete. Right, and it's not the case. And I do think that being a new kid a lot is something that I'll probably never shake that memory, of just-- when you're a kid, your social acceptance is so dominating. It's different as you get older. I think you're not so concerned with being socially accepted everywhere. And you have a family and you're just like, this is my group.

But as a kid, it's everything. And being new every time every new school year is like-- yeah, it's traumatizing. Yeah.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: So it's the friction that creates the spark.

TOM SEGURA: I think so.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: And so you don't want to do too much therapy and resolve it.

TOM SEGURA: I mean--

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Seriously speaking.

TOM SEGURA: I mean, I've done so much.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Yeah, same. It doesn't ever go away.

TOM SEGURA: It helps in that you have certain awareness of things now. Certain dots get connected. I think therapy is phenomenal. I would not have traded any of the therapy that I had. I'm a huge advocate for it. I think it's great. You don't go same thing. Like, now I'm done. Everything's fine. It doesn't work like that.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: But it's like taking Jordan's competitive nature away. You wouldn't want that.

TOM SEGURA: No.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: That was the friction that created the--

TOM SEGURA: Yeah.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: --the phenomenon that is Jordan.

TOM SEGURA: A lot of comedians-- I spoke of myself. But I think a lot of us fall under the banner of, to put it simply, please like me. You know what I mean? You just go, please like me. I want you to like me. Because that's what you are when you're a new kid, and that's what you are when you walk into a room. And you just go, I just want people to like me.

And a lot of comics might not admit it like that. But it's definitely the case. You want to be liked. It sounds pathetic, I think. But it's true.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: No, I don't think it sounds pathetic. It sounds incredibly open and honest. And I think it's going to be very helpful for people who seek to be comedians. And just for people generally trying to think about how their challenge, that inner friction, can create amazing things.

TOM SEGURA: Yeah.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: And you've managed to do it over and over again. So maybe--

TOM SEGURA: You almost got me to cry. We talked about it. You almost got me to cry.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: I can keep going.

TOM SEGURA: No, no, no. Keep changing the topic.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: What's happening now? What's next?

TOM SEGURA: Well, I know people use this expression, but it really, truly was a dream come true to make the series. For real. I made no secret about it that the reason I moved to LA was not to be a standup comedian. It was to make movies and stuff. That's what I wanted to do. So getting the opportunity to make the show, it felt like I got paid to make 15 mini movies for the series.

And I mean, I've never had a more fulfilling creative experience. From writing to producing it to being in the edits and seeing this thing come together. So for me, it's such a thrill to have that experience. And to be able to put that out as something that I made with a bunch of great people. The difference in standup is you're alone. And on a show or a movie, you're with 100 other people.

And it was an awesome experience. And I get to do some more of it. So I get to do a movie this summer. And another show I got asked to develop. So, I mean, I'm over the moon that I get to do these things. It's like I get to do them 20 years after I thought I would do them. But I'm super grateful to have the experience.

So yeah, I'm most excited that I get to keep pursuing that, because I feel like it's been in my head this whole time. And now I actually get to act on it.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Well, listen, I'm so grateful that you came here to share with us about your process. I mean, we talked about the art and science of comedy and humor.

TOM SEGURA: I hope it was good, man. I loved it.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: It was excellent. Because you share so openly. And you pull back the curtain on your process and comedy in general. And I love what a deep thinker you are. And at the same time, how much you just pour yourself into your craft and enjoy it.

TOM SEGURA: Thanks.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: And your reflections are really appreciated. And I'm a fan. I'm also proud to have you as a cousin. And look, I look to you as somebody who really understands how to also balance work and family and merge the insanity of life into a craft. I can just say, I speak for many, many people very confidently on this. People can really feel your benevolence, even when you're pointing out the darkness and the ridiculousness of the human experience.

So you make our lives better. And I'm so grateful you came out here.

TOM SEGURA: Well, that's very kind of you. And also, I should say, I'm-- I don't know if enough people tell you, but I'm also very honestly proud of you for what you've done. And being a teacher is one thing, but being able to teach so many people and share. I always feel like the most generous person is the person who doesn't hoard information. It's a natural human instinct for people to have information about something, and they just go, I'll keep this to myself.

And so the fact that you share, you teach so much I pick up things from you all the time. And so many people do. And then it's become this thing where now people are like, what, are you fucking listening to Huberman? And you're like, actually, yeah, I am. My wife's like, what, did Huberman tell you to fucking take a shit right now? I'm like, yes. No, but I mean, it is great that you don't hoard information. You share it. And I think it helps a lot of people.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Thank you. It's a labor of love. And for people that know me as you do, that's the same on camera and off camera. So you're a great role model to me. I'd love to have you back to continue the conversation.

TOM SEGURA: I would love to. We'll do a five-hour one next time.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Yeah. And I'm going to finish the rest of Bad Thoughts.

TOM SEGURA: Please do.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: It's amazing.

TOM SEGURA: Yeah, thanks so much.

ANDREW HUBERMAN: All right, Tom. Thanks so much.

Thank you for joining me for today's discussion with Tom Segura. To find links to Tom's work, please see the show note captions. I should point out that Bad Thoughts is not suitable for children. If you're learning from and/or enjoying this podcast, please subscribe to our YouTube channel. That's a terrific zero cost way to support us. In addition, please follow the podcast by clicking the follow button on both Spotify and Apple. And on both Spotify and Apple, you can leave us up to a five star review. And you can now leave us comments at both Spotify and Apple.

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