Video URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExTFPDITHww
there's a lot of rumors surrounding jim and today he addresses some of them for good my dad he was out of my life from fairly young he was arrested he was in prison for a while he was definitely sociopathic i wonder what man i would be if he had stuck around oh i've lost count the amount of times i've been called a cheetah me and tony broke up just over two years ago me and sarah got together as far as the world is concerned a few months later but obviously that wasn't it because the world only found out me and tony broke up when we decided to tell them because i lost my [ __ ] the other day on on social media so i can take hate i've got a thick skin it doesn't it bounces straight off i don't care this is my job it's not a personal reflection on me but when it comes to somebody calling my pregnant fiance the names they called her and saying that my baby should be miscarried that's where i draw the line some people come on this podcast and they're cagey sometimes they even try and bend the truth protect their ego dare i say it sometimes they even lie not my next guest completely utterly brutally honest raw unfiltered and vulnerable he's a british celebrity with six or seven or eight million followers but you don't know jim you don't know jim chapman almost nobody does today we're talking about success the chronic curse of overthinking we're talking about love breakups rumors both of the similarities in our mindsets we're talking about how you need to be a contradiction in various parts of your life if you're going to be happy something i didn't realize until today until this conversation and we're talking about child abuse child abuse to an extent that most of us could and should hopefully never be able to imagine we're talking about paralyzing anxiety social media it's upsides and downsides and what all of this life stuff is fundamentally about unavoidably there's a lot of rumors surrounding jim and today he addresses some of them for good
without further ado i'm stephen bartlett and this is the director ceo i hope nobody's listening but if you are then please keep this yourself jim i always think the most important place to start when i have these conversations is getting to know the experiences that made you who you are today because for me that creates the context for everything we're about to discuss and a lot of the time people don't really know those things um so tell me about some of the experiences when you're younger when you're in school um that you think have contributed to the man you are today okay um i guess and god is instantly gonna sound like a sob story and it absolutely is not this is a positive thing i guess the first thing that brings to me is my dad so uh my dad was he did bad things like he he abused my mum um from even before i was born i got two older sisters who um you know dealt with it as well i don't think he ever turned a hand to them but he verbally was very i mean even i remember that and i was super young i remember him being very very hurtful and very unkind and just bullying to my sisters i think he always wanted boys so my brother and i were kind of like i've got a twin so we were like the prodigal children i suppose um i didn't know this because obviously i was born into it but it's not it wasn't until i got a little older and i'd have like sleepovers at friends houses or i would just be in the presence of other people on their parents and i'd be like wait your house isn't terrifying that's that's uh this is great you know and i think i got as i got slightly older i realized that things weren't quite right and it was one day uh my brother and i were in the room next door where we slept my parents and we walked in and my dad was like on top of her just beating the [ __ ] out but basically and my brother and i we're only tiny we must have been like five or six tried to pull him off but obviously he was huge so
just pinging us away and it was a wild night you know the police came took him away um etc etc just kind of he i didn't know at the time but he had been beating my mom and abusing her for years but of course she was trapped now my mom is a saint but also she doesn't tolerate fools she's not i think the thing about domestic abuse is a lot of people go oh just get out of there just get out of there it's not it's not as simple as that she had her kids to think of i remember being in the car with my dad and he would threaten to just crash the car and kill us all he drove like a maniac he was drunk quite a lot my mom couldn't just leave with four children because he found us we tried to leave he found us you know so i think um that he's very much a cautionary tale for me um he was out of my life from fairly young but never fully out because he you know was taken away by the police he was arrested he was in prison for a while but despite the fact that we had like a court order that he couldn't come near he still came near all the time at one point he kidnapped us a very strong word at one point he took me um it just kind of came to the window and i was his son you know he was my dad so i worshipped him and i still didn't fully understand so i remember going to the window and saying mom's calling the police you have to go and he just went okay and just took me with him and drove we're in a bloody police chase drove like super fast and the police had to kind of you know stop and pull him over um it was you know it was a very unsettling time for a child but because of that he was removed and i spent most of my childhood being brought up by my mum and my big sisters so i wanted for nothing um i was very well loved very well protected super well looked after and i think actually i often wonder and i was having this chat with sarah the other day because obviously we've got a child on the way
and i was thinking i wonder what man i would be if he had stuck around or or if we couldn't get away from him or whatever it would have been um and you know whether he wanted to or not he taught me a lot of lessons but i think mostly cautionary lessons because my family are bloody great you know there's uh i've got two big sisters i've got a mum i've got a twin brother and i would choose no one else on the planet to take those roles if i had the choice they would be the people i choose 100 um and he missed out on that because he was unwell i would say um he had ms and i always remember him you being a victim of it in a way that my sister inherited from it from him and she's so positive with it like she's not a victim she doesn't let it beat her she has times when she's tired it gets on top of her she has a little sob she goes to bed she recognizes the signs though and she goes right okay it's getting on top of me i need to rest for a while i remember my dad just being like a victim of it and being like ruined my life he did this he used to play football from what i understand a fairly high-ish level like kind of he played for west ham not in the a team but something and he was like oh the ms ruined it for me which i'm sure it did you know there's no question with that but life deals you cards and you react you behave in a way that you that you see fit um and he let the card's life doubt him ruin everything i think and i think because of that he was angry um i also i mean i don't say this lightly but i think he was definitely sociopathic he manipulated everybody and a lot a lot my mom didn't even know about until we were clear from him and then people start asking her for money because you know he owed it to them i mean he he went to prison for like armed robbery or something like he was just you know really bad things um so i think
for me that's kind of the first thing my mind goes to when someone asked me about kind of um childhood um formulation of me but i don't necessarily think of it as a negative thing because actually i think that because he was removed from my life by my protectors my mum my big sisters i had a wonderful childhood you know we didn't have any when he was around there was more money because i think he stole a lot of money and because he he took it you know there was two parents earning but also he he earned it by nefarious means suddenly we had no money um and my nan had to like buy the house that we lived in and we stayed at my mum's best friends for like a year or so because she took us in because we couldn't afford anywhere else but i was safe and i was happy and i was like my mum had more capacity to be a better mum because she wasn't constantly running for the hills you know so actually i think that it's a really positive thing um that happened because imagine if he was still around imagine if he was still my father figure now at 33 i'd be a mess for one thing i think but i'd also be i wonder if i'd be a not a nice man and actually i pride myself on being decent and kind um and he missed out on that i read a little bit about the story as i was doing some research on your book and things like that and one of the most startling parts of all of this is how much empathy dare i say you appear to have for this man which i think people would find surprising i think you said i don't blame him for how things happened yeah i don't i i actually i i think of myself as quite an empathetic person um i rarely have arguments with people um i do with sarah obviously because we live under the same roof um and like we have disagreements but your fiancee yes my fiance yeah um although not at the moment because she's pregnant so you can do no wrong um but i do have uh i tend
not to have like extra personal drama because i i do consider how it would be from someone else's perspective and i appreciate that yes okay i could have my say because i feel slighted about a thing and i could say well you did this and it made me feel that but that's my feelings on an action that they um and they will have equal and opposite feelings on the way i behaved because of their actions nobody i don't i believe nobody will go out of their way just to be a prick you know they've always got their thoughts and feelings and their motivations and i don't think anyone's doing it like oh that'll pissed him off i'll show you you know what i mean they're living their life we all live in our bubble my uh my therapist calls it the lifeboat we all live in our lifeboat right um but we're all in the same ocean so depending on how good your lifeboat is you will weather the storm or not right there's a storm on the ocean we're all in it especially at the moment it's pandemic right we're all in the pandemic together but it depends on the boat you're sailing on um and there are times when boats kind of bump into each other or someone's in a dinghy and you need to sort of tie them to yours for a while and help them get through things whatever but i really don't feel like anybody is purposely um an ass it might be manipulative they might see a way that they can behave that will um better them in a situation where okay i'll come off better with that and it might it might do him no favors but you know they're not doing it for that reason they're doing it for that reason they're doing it because they want to um have a better situation for them not just to piss me off so i tend not to have arguments i will say to someone that's not cool can you see that from my perspective um and you and and do you think so when you
think about your the situation with your dad it seems like from that you you avoid attributing blame to him and then so i i'm questioning myself i'm saying is that because you understand the reasons why he was the way he is or um you have empathy for i have yeah i just i think i just have empathy for people i don't i think there's definitely blame i think we all we all have to own our own actions um but i think there are also there are reasons behind actions i don't think it's ever as simple as he hit my mum just because he's aggressive i think you have to dig deeper like my my granddad was so his dad not okay i remember being i remember going to his house and he'd be like watching not porn but like softcore in front of us you know as just he was just i don't know i don't know if he was just a bit like um senile at that point or or what but you know it's not all right to do that with young kids around um and you see these generational cycles right 100 yeah and i'm very proud and very happy to have broken that cycle because you know my i don't i don't know what his dad was like but my granddad taught my dad his behavior not all of it because i actually i actually do think there was um i actually do believe my dad had sociopathic tendencies which isn't necessarily a taut thing it's more like a brain function thing you know um but i think there was definitely something there and it didn't help having his dad uh teach instill in him certain beliefs and patterns or whatever quick one starting from the minute the lockdown is lifted we're going to start bringing in some of our subscribers to watch how this podcast is produced behind the scenes means you get to meet the guests meet myself and see how we put all of this together if you want that to be you all you've got to do hit the subscribe button my mum is a very allowed person and that's a huge understatement like loves
to scream in people's faces very short temper my dad is a certain way and as i've got older and older i've got more conscious that at times i feel like myself becoming a little bit like them in certain moments and it scares me sometimes i think and i think well genetically of course i'm half of each of them so um have you ever has it ever concerned you in the same way that you might have picked up some of the unpleasant traits of either of your parents um is that across your mind i'm turning into my mom my mom my mom has unpleasant traits only in as far as she for example when i moved house wouldn't stop going on about parking like that sort of thing oh you better get a pokemon i live in london you don't get off street parking i've got a parking permit apart around the corner that's my life but she's like oh you need to get a driveway i'm like no i don't like that's the sort of thing she won't let it drop she's got a fact in her mind about um trump for example and she goes oh trump's bad he did this thing yeah but what about all the other things yeah you know so she's um that's her kind of annoying trait and if that's the worst i get then i'm fine with that um as far as my dad i don't think i mean yeah like i say he's half me or i'm half him i suppose um but i think that the thing is about my degree is in psychology right so i know a little bit about it and i'm always quite conscious like i know for example there are certain genes that will only get triggered under certain environments so yes all right i might well have his gene for something but if i don't if i'm not in an environment where it's had to uh where it would have expressed itself then i might never and i also think that there is an element of um i guess consciousness that can override that self-awareness yeah self-awareness and education therapy psychology totally yeah yeah i'm very um i work on and i said i hate this i hate
saying this as it sounds like really wanky but i work on bettering myself you know i i i know my flaws i work too much like i forget to bring my head up and i neglect sarah sometimes because i'm too busy typing away or i'm too busy in my own little world stressing about whatever i'm stressing about which doesn't need to happen but it does and i i'm aware of that and that's the sort of thing i work on but i've never been aggressive never been violent um i really do boxing quite a lot um but it's not about the violence of it it's about the chess of it like i really like the it's an intellectual sport you know you have to be smart you have to think about where you're positioning all the time um and i've never this is not i don't know if it's not in my nature but it's something that i won't entertain there are times where i get driven bonkers by sarah or by people and i just think oh my god i could just like nut you right now obviously i'm never going to yeah because it's just every fiber in my being is would not allow me because i've seen the impact i've seen i'm six foot three i could do some real damage um but i just never would so i i do get loud sometimes if i'm you know if we're having an argument i would kind of just talk louder and i think with me it's there in particular it's tricky because we're both quite smart and so when it comes to an argument we're just trying to outsmart each other the whole time which makes it really frustrating because we're both going no you're wrong because of this yeah and both of you are right yeah and actually yeah with truth in both um for sure um but it's really hard to see that when you've got your blood up you know what i mean but i totally think that there's no there's i've got i like to think i've got the best bits of my mum um and if there is any kindness in my dad and i remember moments i don't i don't have loads of memories of him and
90 of them are negative and scary but there are moments i remember him sitting down with me and reading there was a magazine i forget what it was called but you used to get like um a little bit of a figure every time and you'd make the figure and it was like something to do with bugs and we made a big spider 12 quid per magazine basically yeah really really overpriced i remember him um he would read it with me from cover to cover and we'd put the bug together now there would end up being six issues um that we didn't get done and we'd have to in one go because he wasn't around because he was gone doing whatever he was doing and um he would let me down a lot but i remember doing them and i remember loving that time with him um what kind of dad do you want to become because you've got a kid on the way now yes again yeah thanks um it's really hard to say this because i know that every first time prospective parent goes oh i'm going to be the best dad and actually you know invariably will all [ __ ] up at some point right it's gonna happen um i just i think for me if i can have a child and if i can instill in them the waste of time in anxiety like that just the the just the sheer nonsense of it like i i really want them to understand that worrying does nothing you know yes all right we can be stressed about things there are times when life is hard and things there's challenges to overcome but you overcome those challenges when they present themselves there's no my therapist one said to me when you worry you rob yourself twice right because the first time around you're overwhelmingly thinking about nothing but a potential problem which may never ear his head if it doesn't ruin his head then you've wasted time worrying about it if it does ruin his head then you're forced into action because you can't stay in that situation so why stress about something that's never gonna happen or you know something that you will solve if it does happen so i really want my child to
understand just be content i think um and to know that both me and sarah and all of our families so my my siblings my mum sarah siblings and her parents will always be there to help you know i think that if i can do that then i'll have done a good job um i want to be patient it's in my nature i'm a very patient person but i also know that i'll be tested so when i do snap i snap quite quite loudly so i want to be calm i want to be patient i want to be soft and considerate and again empathetic because the thing about kids is i i really appreciate is they get frustrated because they're obviously told what to do by their parents they can't necessarily verbalize or actually don't have the communication ability to say no that's not what i want you know they have to appreciate that obviously what i want overalls it for the most part because safety or whatever sure but i think they i also need to appreciate that they'll be frustrated because they can't communicate effectively why they feel pissed off because i said no um and that will often come out in like tantrums or whatever so and they won't understand daddy's world and why right when they're trying to get your attention they don't know you're on a zoom core pitching something for example just like daddy won't play with me you know so totally it's interesting i also want to make sure i'm around enough my job totally allows that like i have time i can work as little or as much as i want that's that's the beauty of my job obviously i'll work less i earn less but you know i can make those sacrifices i don't at the moment that's my problem i work constantly because i like what i do and because of the constant it's anxiety i'm constantly worried about if i take my foot off the gas what happens next i find that fascinating but i picked up on that before we started recording right because every time we talked about your screenplays or other things you're working on you would then end the sentence with but i might lose it all right and i i don't resonate like that i found that
interesting because it's not how i end my sentences right but it was it was like you would tell me something and then you would also then almost caveat it at the end with there is a chance i might not i might not get it or i might lose it yeah and i i i find it particularly because i don't think in that way right so where does that come from in you this my mum right uh 100 again she's wonderful she has like a like an ethos it's not a saying it's an ethos which is like a day doing nothing's a day wasted um she can't relax i can't relax as a consequence um if i'm sitting there just chilling even if i'm watching a film which for me i consider as research because i write films right if i'm watching something i'm like oh okay i see what they're doing there and it's like i don't watch them passively i'm constantly thinking about them um but even if i'm sitting there watching a film i'm like oh i shouldn't be doing it it's nine p.m right it's the evening and i'm supposed to be relaxing and i'm sitting there and i shouldn't be doing this i shouldn't be doing this that's my biggest what's your brain saying in that moment it's telling me off it's it's going dude you need to be you can't just be sitting here watching you need to be doing you need working and making what if this all goes wrong how are you going to earn the money how are you going to afford to look after your child and pay the mortgage and you know all that stuff a lot of people will resonate with that for sure um and you've addressed it in therapy yeah what have you learned i learned that i do it yeah which a lot of people don't even know right that self-awareness of knowing that it's a problem you have and it's taken me i've been seeing my therapist for christ six seven years something like that how often uh it's various if i'm going through a moment then more often at the moment like once every six weeks because i'm pretty chill um but it's taken her most of our time together
just to crack that and she sort of said you know with me it's my biggest um strength and also my biggest flaw it just depends on where it is on the dial like if i've got that at seven it's great because i'm motivated and i'm enjoying my work and i'm loving it and i'm sitting there god i'm really good at this you know and i'm typing away or doing whatever i'm doing if it's an eight or a nine it's torture paralyzed or yeah often paralyzed often paralyzed ironically into doing nothing because i'm so busy stressing about getting it done i don't get it done because i've got no brain space because it's too busy whizzing around in my head going get it done get it done get it done um so there's a point where it's sort of really um ironically kind of just it's the antithesis of what it's designed for yeah and i think i i think i get a lot of that from my dad because i remember being young knowing that it was easier to be busy and keep myself separate so i used to draw i'd be like this be really arty um yeah out of harm's way and i so you would just draw in the corner because you felt safe if he if you were busy and he wasn't if i wasn't in his in his eyeline i couldn't be chastised or it was safer i think my dad he was very unpredictable so which is terrifying for a kid right because you don't know if you're going to get love or you're going to get punishment for the same action um so i always spend most of my time just kind of getting on with stuff and because of that i've developed a real independence um a real creativity but if it's turned up too high it's crippling whereas if it's a good number um then it's what's got me to where i am i 100 would not be here without that because i just wouldn't work as hard as i do um but i don't need to work as hard as i do you know human beings have a couple of things they need to do they need to sleep they need to eat they have the option of procreating that's kind of it right what else is there the rest of it is just made up
right the rest of it is just made up [ __ ] that we've given ourselves to do society has told us that in order to be a complete person we need to and it's climb right totally and it's bloody stressful it's it's it's debilitating sometimes so when i have that turned up too high i end up doing nothing but i worry myself and sarah's like where have you gone like i just disappear and i don't talk i don't like i haven't been like this for a while because i'm pretty good at recognizing the signs and i know to take my foot off the gas a bit because of you know all the therapy i've had but yeah it's it's the bloody worst what has helped you um therapy yeah absolutely that being aware of it there's a point i always say this because i've actually a couple of my best mates have i don't know a guy that's my age that doesn't need it by the way um so a couple of my best mates i've put them in touch with therapists or sort of said something you know i think you should see someone and actually we're really open and honest with each other we're constantly looking out if one of us is quiet on the group chat we'll go dude you all right you've been a bit quiet um i said to him at the time i was like there's a really tough point with therapy where you start seeing someone at first you're really resistant and you're like no i'm fine what are you talking about but when they point things out to you like [ __ ] i'm not fine but you're aware of doing it but you have no tools in place of how to stop doing it or how to at least challenge it so you're just punishing yourself doing it like i remember going through that stage for a long time going i hate that i'm failing i hate that i'm still stressing out about being like working constantly or not working constantly or whatever it is i hate that i'm doing it to myself but i can't stop and you feel a bit like a junkie you know in a way that you're like you know it's wrong you know you shouldn't be doing it but you can't you can't not um and actually it takes a while to learn
the techniques you know mine is as simple as it's it's painful that i have to go right stop just don't do it take a step away from your laptop step away from your camera do whatever it is you're doing have five minutes if you feel better after five minutes go back to it if not then take the rest of the day off um and that's what i have to do i need to be sarah needs to keep me in check quite a lot because if i sometimes it thinks up on me and i'm kind of like at stage four before i even realized it i'm like [ __ ] i'm in too deep um so she's often like dude come back um and that's really helpful it's hard though because you don't want to be told by someone that you're not performing the way you should you know what i mean actually something that matters right right it's totally especially when it's your already your weakness um but you need to be like i actually really like criticism so it's good for me like if you know if i send someone some work or something and they go oh okay as long as it's constructive you know they go okay i see what you're doing here don't like that that that's not great i thrive on that because i'm back in there and i'm you know so i think having other third parties be like you're not doing right right now um and that's something that i really want to be totally aware of when it comes to my child because i don't want to be an absent father i don't want to be a dad that's always going no no no i'm just not my laptop come back to me five minutes i want to be able to obviously i have to work you know we will have a living but i want to be able to have my kid with me and be present you know and not them think that they're sort of auxiliary or like an afterthought or just an addition i want them to know that they are the center of my universe you know i say this every week but i'm going to say it again um it is a tremendous pleasure to have a podcast sponsor that
a you've used for maybe three years people ask me as well they say how many heals do you drink a day the answer is probably about two sometimes two and a half um but a podcast sponsor that you genuinely believe can help people change their life for the better um watching the team at huel argue with each other and be so uncompromising about the ingredients that go into this bottle or the bags or the bars all the hot and savory has only strengthened my evangelism for this brand watching the founder julian and the ceo james insist that only the best ingredients go in here and be so scientifically precise about what goes in this bottle and in the bars and in the bags has only made me love this more because i know they've got my back and i wish all of you could be in those boardrooms that i've been in and watch them fight for your and my health um via this product so professionally we talked a little bit about your work there one of the things that uh that you've said is you don't like being called like an influencer like a youtuber uh i think it's really reductive yeah um and i think that actually if you look you know if you just weigh up the quantity of work i do it's only about less than 50 i'd say um unfortunately i don't get paid for the other stuff yeah so yeah but i do lots of other stuff i appreciate that i communicate that other stuff online via my social media i just think that influencer is for one thing's an ugly word because it implies that you are um utilizing influence over someone whereas actually i just share the stuff i like even if it's an ad even if it's um i'm working with a brand i'm not going to work with a brand that i don't want to talk about right so it's i'm talking about things that i'm actually enjoying or passionate about or whatever it may be and i don't see that as exerting influence i see that as sharing joy or even if it's just sharing good tips or whatever it may be i see that as
a very different thing and i i also have a thing and i've mentioned this a few times as there was a void in um social media where myself and my contemporaries all started around the same time did it for fun did it for love did it for adventure we had no idea it was going to go anywhere and when it started to we were like oh my god and genuinely i looked back at it and i was such nostalgia i don't miss it but i love that i was part of it you know because it was such a cool journey to moment in history as well yeah totally absolutely was you know and we sold out these venues and we were you know we had screaming fans it felt like being in a small version of one direction you know um it was wild and just so much fun do you miss that no i loved it at the time when i was in my early twenties every young person and i saw some of those clips of your meetups in like parks and stuff right and i've never seen a line that long in my lifetime yeah it's wild but like like a thousand meters i don't even know how many meters that is of people right four like four deep in like this massive line just screaming and crying at times it's really hard to put it into words i tried explaining it to sarah when we first met because obviously videos yeah it's really hard and we get if i get stopped on the street now by someone she's like what yeah but she's also like oh they didn't scream or cry like yeah you don't get it it's never used to be yeah um but my what my point was is that like everyone thinks especially young people especially young men well all young people would love to be that guy and you're telling me you don't miss it no i loved it at the time don't get me wrong it was great but the novelty soon wears off because it got to the point where you couldn't i couldn't take public transport like i couldn't walk to the shops um you know and it sounds like i'm really exaggerating but actually at the time it really was that just i would even now if i'm walking along the street and i see a group of teenagers i'm like oh [ __ ] here we go it's not teenagers anymore they're all in their 20s but i'm so conditioned to being aware of teenagers now that i'm like oh my god oh
my god they're going to come for me and they're going to like scream and cry and it's i don't how is this played with your anxiety though that's not that's not what sets me off so that's fine um i've always got time for it if people stop and want to have a conversation as long as i physically have time for it i'm not rushing i'll always stop and have a chat you know i've got i'm i'm i'm really gracious in that i appreciate that without those people i wouldn't be in the position i'm in i don't feel like i owe them anything because at the same time i provided the content they wanted to watch but it's definitely like almost like a transaction right i wouldn't be there without them they wouldn't a lot of them have said like when i had amounts that i was pregnant sarah was pregnant a lot of them sort of said oh my god i can't believe you you like bought me up because a lot of these teenagers watched my content and my contemporaries content um but shay carl as well right totally because because they they loved like watching us and we were role models for them i suppose you know and that's a really wonderful thing to be part of and do i say you were idyllic in a way that it often with with the shape the shaytards and sheik shaykhal and his family right i didn't have a perfect family like that so it was it gave you felt like you were part of that yeah i think that and also the friendships with the others it was very identical but it genuinely was that was our life at the time it was just pure fun and like there was no stress we were young so we had no like um no responsibility no mortgages no no no like other things to worry about other than just like going out there and having a blast um and we just got to document that and share it no i accept nostalgic i'm really happy i had was part of it i don't miss it because i'm 33 i don't want 14 year old girls pawning over me i don't know what i mean or just kind of like desperately trying i remember one time being on the tube and this young girl just burst into tears and her dad looked at me and thought i was like would you blame him you know you're
crazy i was like i'm all right i'm on the internet which didn't help because he's like doing what um so yeah i don't i don't miss it uh because it's actually really invasive and like i say i don't care about the notoriety it was really lovely to be that person for some people um and to have even then a lot of those big numbers it was still fairly underground it hadn't really reached mainstream it was just online right so although it was lots of people it was of certain sort of sector of society it wasn't like older men it wasn't you know it was just teenagers basically um and it was yeah i'd say it was a real blast but i don't miss it i feel like actually i grew out of it fairly rapidly the thing about it being teenagers is that no one can obsess like teenagers so they would be desperate for the photo the selfie the um they'd scream and cry and go ballistic and actually but i'm really anti-climactic i'm just i'm some dude i'm really i'll often just go i'm really sorry that it's me so yeah i'm very like i say i'm very grateful for it and i love that i've got those memories and i love that i've made those friends um but yeah i don't miss it who's jim now then that's if that's old jim and that's your say your first chapter what is that what is your second chapter i feel like i've had so many chapters actually i feel like i've i've evolved the beauty of my job is i'm allowed to do that i'm allowed to evolve when it's forced it can be really ugly and i think that's how a lot of people lose their following um partly it's it's entropy you know people grow up and they move on they do other things but algorithms algorithms all that but i think mostly it's just people force it to try to get traffic and views and actually my life has just as it's changed i've grown up with it and i've been i've accepted that change okay like for example i'm really i'm really hoping i turn into a silver fox i'm looking forward to aging gracefully you know what i mean um and i think that that's kind of my my my role on social
media i'm not pretending to talk to young people anymore i'm not pretending to be the cool guy and like you know i'm i appreciate that i'm i'm getting older my life's changed my interests have changed my career has changed and i share that with people as opposed to desperately trying to still impress a young an audience that aren't right for me i speak to a lot of youtubers and we used to sign a couple and there was this really interesting moment where that first wave of youtuber because of algorithm changes i think predominantly algorithm changes what they were doing then just stopped working right the views went down and i swear to god i witnessed a form of depression and existential crisis right from these youtubers who suddenly were like what the [ __ ] has happened what do i do with my life now because their whole identity from whether it was like 16 years old to 22 was doing this one thing they never really understood work right and it's funny because i've never really talked about this before but one of the youtubers we signed you'll know his name maybe 18 at the time and we remember calling him and offering him 20 grand just to show up to a place and he's like nah right i'm not just shocked he's like no i just can't be bothered like and he had developed that sense of like complacency about his career and how you make money and how easy it is and then when [ __ ] changes i'm saying he can't make any money anymore and and he's spiraled down because i think life taught him that money and life was super easy the algorithm changes and now he's like [ __ ] and he has to go work at tesco that's something that i really can't tolerate in this industry it's when people have that attitude like i'm where i am um because i'm good to work with as much as the numbers and as much as everything else i've stayed the test of time because i am honest and decent with my audience and i respect my audience and i don't take the piece and don't take them for granted but also if i am offered a job i turn up on time i say my places and thank yous um i get a lot of repeat work because i'm good to work with and i pride myself on that and i have no
i have so little tolerance for ego like all of us if we're on set shooting a thing whether it's whether you're the runner or the director or you're me doing the bit to camera or you're the guy going to get coffee we're all just want to do our job and enjoy what we're doing and then go home at the end of the day and say oh that was nice you know we don't there's no space for any of that and i think it's particularly bad in this industry right more so than the other because when it comes to musicians or actors or whatever they are there's some people around them right who are um looking after them and who are saying no and who are advising them and also they're not their own content brad pitt doesn't play brad pitt he plays someone else right someone like me my job is to edit myself take my own photo make my own caption reply to my own comments and it's all like jim jim jim jim it's very easy to then think you're the center of the universe but actually for every person who's commenting going gym gym gym they're also commenting on everybody else's content because they just consume the content i might be their favorite i might not it doesn't matter i'm not um my i am not my job and i think that's really important for a lot of influencers to work out like they believe themselves to be important and actually i say this quite a lot if i were to die tomorrow there'd be my friends and family would be gutted obviously and they'd be really really sad and there'd be a few people in my audience who were like who um have a real connection with him but for the most part people go oh that's a shame i liked him and then move on and find someone else i'm not that important to them that they can't continue without me so funny because that it sounds really depressive to some degree to say oh i don't matter whatever but i actually think it's the opposite really freeing yeah it's the most liberating thing ever i remember i remember having the same
sort of existential conversation with myself and it really happened when i learned about the universe and space right and i got really into the cosmos and i was like wait a minute i'm [ __ ] not important at all totally when it like there's a scene in cosmos where it zooms out from and it just keeps going and you're like wait stop and it's like nope that's just the moon and then it goes out and it's like that's just the galaxy and then the galaxy becomes a piece of sand and you're like what the right but the freeing part is that means that all this [ __ ] doesn't matter and that's liberation like ego can be and this is the the powerful thing about psychedelics from the last person that's out there who's the biggest psychedelic investor in the world right is it dissolves your ego and says to you nothing you don't [ __ ] matter right and yeah so i just thought that was fascinating it's really it's something that's really important to learn i think probably one of my biggest uh learnings from my career because i went through it you know at the beginning when everyone was like obsessing over the the youtubers i was like wow i'm like a really big deal yeah yeah um i think it's really important to know your worth and to know your value and to um appreciate your position i know that i am worth a certain amount of money if i work with a brand or i know that i'm worth a certain amount of time if i'm doing a thing but i also know that i don't matter in the grand scheme of things and that this is a phase i might i might [ __ ] this up tomorrow do you know what i mean it might last another 10 years it might last for another 30 years and i might never want to quit equally i might get bored of it and go you know what i feel like it's too invasive now whatever it doesn't matter it's my decision and i don't owe anybody else but equally they don't owe me they don't have to watch me if they don't choose to and i think that's really important and a lot of people especially when they're young and they're just developing their sense of identity as a lot of influences are
and suddenly they're put in a position where they are reaching lots and lots of people um it's very very easy to think of yourself as the center of the galaxy and we're not and actually what really matters what truly matters is the people that matter to you you know and as much as i appreciate my audience i don't know them you know i wouldn't know i mean statistically there'll be a certain number of them that die every year just because of whatever right i've got no idea it's happening you're not sending cards you know what i mean like i've got no idea what's happening so it just so happens that i'm on the other side of the camera and these people connect to me and i connect to them but it doesn't go any further than that you know something really almost something your perspective is fascinating because on one end you're very you're very freed right on the other end you talk about your anxiety of of of worry and i'm trying to weigh those two things up this idea that you're like you know what i don't have a plan i've heard you say that i don't have a you know 10 year plan the future is the future whatever but then maybe when we zoom in and we look at the micro scale which is like right now today right it seems to be very yeah you know you're not wrong i think on the on the wider scale um i um it's very freeing to know this on the more individual scale like when you when you zoom right in it's the stress of survival i suppose of like um being enough to maintain do you know what that comes down to money i think which is unfortunate because like money is not my main motivator but i realize it's necessary where did you learn that i feel like is there anything in your past where money or the lack thereof beca you know became um compromised your safety no i don't think compromise my safety like i say we didn't have any um and i appreciate that life is um it's i like i said earlier there's a point
where you have enough and that after that point it doesn't matter anymore you know you can go from having a little bit of surplus so that you can enjoy holidays etc you know buy yourself some luxury things whatever you want after that point it's all numbers it doesn't really make any difference but when you go the other side of the scale and you haven't got enough it's a major stress you know because what blows my mind about it is it's all fake like it doesn't it's just it's literally going hey here's a piece of paper for loads of your stuff and you go okay cool i put value on that piece of paper it's bollocks but it's unfortunately the way our world works and that stresses me out just in terms of providing like i couldn't go back i mean i could i'd have to but i would really struggle if i had to go back to a conventional job just doesn't suit me like i was bloody miserable my mum thought i was going to kill myself when i was working those jobs you know i i was very very sad um i i think it's a it's a need for me to create and i know that sounds really ridiculous and really wank but like i i can't turn up to a job that is the same thing every day it it it for me feels like a prison um and i actually i i think the people that can do that are like special because how wonderful to know that you are um you can switch on do your job um you can know that you are earning your money you're looking after your people you know you raise your kids whatever whatever it is whatever your life is and also provide to the society and give back your taxes and all that stuff and just be you know a good egg and then go home and switch off again i just think that's the most wonderful sensation something i've never experienced and probably never will because my mind doesn't work that way so for me my anxiety comes from the fear of
going back to that or not being able to provide and the only way i know how to provide is in a very risky industry where i have to constantly churn out content have to constantly create whatever i'm creating in order to earn the money um and that's that's a scary thought yeah um but i also appreciate that it's it's the anxiety comes in the job of it i think the freedom comes in the um sort of the more i guess better of it you know like i don't matter it does whatever the the jim chapman's not really of any relevance um but for my life it's really important that i put food on the table for sarah and my child and that's funny because you know we always live in now right right it's only ever going to be now yeah and uh what you're saying is in the now there is urgency there is stress yeah so we never we're never going to live in the future it's never going to be matter that's not the experience we're ever going to have maybe if we meditate we can spend some time there but day to day we live in the we live in the present moment um it's it's yeah it's really really interesting to me and as you say you're in an industry where a lot of people aren't making a lot of money right the creative industry so it's particularly challenging um yeah very much so and i think people are following their passion i think the thing with influencing in particular is that the passion is so easily monetized but it's also so easy taken away and it's so competitive that it often i think some people are just passionate about the business of it um now i don't pretend to have a business mind at all i haven't got a bloody clue like i've got a production company that i've just started with one of my pals and he is in charge of the business when it comes to my my social media stuff my management are in charge of the business i just make the stuff i want to make and stuff that i think will be good um and i fully believe in letting
people do play to their strengths my strength is not that so i often get called like an entrepreneur or something i'm like you know all right i just i it just been it's been luck and timing and really bloody hard work um and the hard work i can i'm in control of the luck and the timing i'm not um and the other people around me are in charge of sort of i guess bringing looking after like the financial side of it and stuff you know it's the admin stuff that i don't you hate i hate the fiery passion yeah i hate it you said just a couple of moments ago the the proponents that have made you successful you said like you know luck hard work etc etc do you think you could have achieved what you've achieved over the last 10 years without hard work no absolutely not how would you square that with the culture we live in today that is almost viewing hard work as a bit of a toxic thing i've almost got to the point i'll never get there because i don't care that much but i've almost got to the point just to say again i will never get there right because i'm not going gonna lie to people where i sometimes feel bad being honest that i wouldn't be here without hard work i'm not telling you to burn out right but i don't know how if i hadn't have sacrifice in the way that i did i would of course that's my experience i've not lived another life right i can only tell you what i've done yeah i think it's really important it's like work hard play hard right it's really important i i i posted this on on my instagram stories of the days everybody there's like you're right there is a lot of people who are sort of um [Music] uh poo pooing working hard don't work too hard and there's also people who like on my instagram it comes up all the time hey i run three businesses and i do this and i'm only 12 years old and like yeah but that guy's trying to sell you a course for sure it's his business yes for sure that's that's what i mean he's broke
there's there's there's there's definitely something to be said and this is where i like again this is where i struggle when you work work hard like i r and work with passion like you know again sarah's dad says um work is a dirty four-letter word right if you find the other thing if you find something you love doing you'll never work a day in your life so work really hard and work with passion but also stop when you need to stop take your time off enjoy your evenings or you know again i've got a job which allows me to work as much as little as i please i wish i did like a four day week i would very much like to do that so i have a three day weekend or i take a day off in the middle of the week i've got the means to do so just i've got the brain to do so you know um and i think that that's a really important distinction otherwise you work all your bloody life and suddenly you're 60 and you've gone oh my god i haven't i actually enjoyed my experiences um i haven't actually you know i've got to do some really bloody incredible experiences and sometimes i'm too busy stressing about what's next in my diary or finishing a thing meeting a deadline or even stressing about the key messages i've got to get across when i'm on that adventure that i forget to enjoy the adventure and it's the biggest sort of um waste of time that my job has within it you know like i remember being in a on a helicopter and this wasn't me actually this was somebody else who i recognized in i was taken away um to new york i was going on a helicopter around manhattan and it was like you know what a cool experience and people don't get to do that very often um and this guy was sat next to me in the middle and he couldn't take his picture because he had to lean over me and i said i'll swap seats with you the pilot came over the um you know the whatever it said and said um oh don't swap seats because you'll unbalance the helicopter the guy was so pissed off he said no i want to swap i'm like well no because you'll kill us now so
it's a bit different i offered you my seat when i didn't think we were going to die for doing it and he sold so much because he couldn't get the photo he wanted and i'm like that for me really really kind of is the epitome of not enjoying the moment like just enjoy the bloody helicopter ride around manhattan you idiot um but that's prob by products of social media or something because yeah you know the part of the value of that was for him clearly was being able to tell the world he did it versus being in the moment for sure for sure and that and unfortunately that is job we have to tell well we've done something otherwise you know it hasn't happened right and then there's no point taking me on that really cool experience because i haven't told anyone about it you know so that there's definitely a a dichotomy there in that you need to prove that you've done it and you need to show your enjoyment um but you need to also not let that take you out of the moment and that's a fine line one of the things i've been thinking a lot about lately which links to that completely is because i sit here with people all the time and i and one of the things i keep noticing is that in order for them to actually be happy they have to try and be a contradiction or two completely different people in separate areas of their life and right a lot of the the lack of success they have either in their work or relationships or whatever or in their personal lives comes from them not being able to switch off from being from going like being super successful entrepreneur and then when they get home being loving patient right you know and then in the example we've just been talking about there i would assume happiness would come from being able to do your job and take the photo but then have experiences where you just don't give a [ __ ] if the world is watching that's entirely it like how that's not easy no it's not easy i um and dare i say the thing that put you on the helicopter might have been the inability to switch off in some degree because absolutely hard work yeah
you're interested i haven't i haven't got to where i am by switching off whenever i choose to you know what i mean i've got here because i work harder than i should um that's that's a massive sacrifice because i've missed out on moments i've missed out on um you know like there are times where i should just be more present with sarah but i'm too busy working you know i miss out on things but i get to go on a helicopter but you know more than that i get to live a really cool existence like i love my job so it's really difficult but my the way i kind of cross that tee dot that i i suppose is that i will very often much rather pay for a holiday and have a actual holiday yeah rather than just call in a trip yeah it's very easy i mean i you know without sounding like a real [ __ ] it's very easy for me to call tripping if i want to yeah i just email a pr say oh i want to go to dubai and they'll go all right when do you want to go right but i tend not to because i listen if it is oftentimes a thing will come to me and it's a place i've never been or experienced i've never had and i'll jump on it but i will tend not to request a free trip because honestly my time is more valuable than the money i can potentially earn so i would rather pay my money to go somewhere and switch off and read a book do the crossword puzzle hang out you know because i value that much more than the money i think that that's the thing i think some people put their value in money in my view too high um and i i don't value it like that i think my what's most important what i value more is people and time okay quick one quick story from one of my podcast sponsors fiverr fiverr.com is a lot of you will know if you've listened to this podcast before um one of the challenges we've had with this podcast over the last i'd say a couple of months since we've really cranked up the production is we usually promote the
podcast just on mondays so you've probably seen on my channels monday morning about 9 a.m i put the podcast out there and one of the things we've wanted to do is to keep that sort of momentum and height moving throughout the week from monday till sunday when the next podcast comes out but we've had a bit of a resource capacity because jack who produces all of this and edits all of this only has so much time and these podcasts are coming in thick and fast so we turn to fiverr to help us extend our capacity and we hired a video editor on fiverr who's now producing all of our video clips for this podcast so now in a very very very cost effective way we've been able to promote the podcast every single day from monday till sunday that is what five is all about extending your team giving you capabilities you might not have had and doing it in a very cost effective way one of the other really interesting things you said as we were talking maybe before we started filming was you were talking about the things that you're good at writing about with your screenplays and one of the things you said was love yeah i thought to myself i wonder why he's good at writing about love um i don't know actually i i i know my strengths when it comes to writing and it's one of those things where to begin with vulgar imposter syndrome right constantly i still got it 10 years on but i know i'm good at that um i know i can send a script somewhere they might not like it it might not be the thing for them and i get told no quite a lot but invariably they say you know what great script you've done a really good job there um so i am confident in my ability there and i know my strengths are dialogue um because i write how people talk but also get the point across like i can't i'm the worst person to watch a film with because if i'm watching something i'm like people don't talk like what is going you know um but also love i i just think i've got i i don't know i think i'm a bit of an old romantic and it comes down i think it really for me comes down to how you feel love you know if you can feel love and you can put pen to paper you can write love um and i i
i pride myself on trusting and loving like to i'm not a jealous person i'm not um i'm never gonna micromanage a relationship or anything like that if i love someone i trust them implicitly they can do as they wish they can go out with the boys or whatever i'm never gonna go oh who did you meet and what happened i'm never gonna like check their phone sure you know i'm never gonna do any of that because if i love someone i'm all in um and that for me is really important if you get your fingers burnt then all right then you then that's they get one chance you know um that's that's my life you had a very public relationship one that was shared on youtube for many many years you ended up marrying said person and um and then that relationship ended yeah um difficult i imagine to to have that experience in public right it's too impossible yeah like it's uh you know we were together for 12 years and most of that time was wonderful you know it was really great like i said we conquered the world together we were both part of that first breed of influences like social media people we had a wicked time and then we grew up together it was as simple as growing up in slightly different directions you know um and at some point you know are you gonna do the further you go on yeah like that why did the gap get i literally just did this for the first time last week on this podcast i was like i'm almost starting to see relationships like two parallel lines yeah and and if you imagine the parallel lines have just a one percent angle either way sure right they're either going to stay parallel they're going to go away from each other or closer together over time totally i look back at it now and i realized that actually it probably was a small a small incline or decline whichever you want to put it but it at some point becomes insurmountable becomes a chasm you can't leap anymore right so i look back at it and realize that perhaps it was uh it started much earlier than either of us anticipated even either of us
realized and we just kind of kept getting more and more distant until eventually we were just roommates basically um was it hard to break it off when you get to that point because you've got the world watching yeah it wasn't hard as a couple because we were both we both knew we deserved better right we both knew we're like this isn't working and we took a it took a long time to have the conversation because i think we both tried for a while we're like oh come back around we'll come back around but we're not stupid we both knew we deserved better so the com when we actually had the conversation it was for both of us quite freeing emotional because of all the time we had together but quite freeing of course you've then got the audience to think of who make assumptions right and i've lost county amount of times i've been called a cheater um just and poor old sarah gets called my mistress constantly i just i didn't even know sarah existed like she was not a person to me until well after we broke up you know like i met her on an app and like i'm really i'm really tempted at some point sometimes to get the app right i haven't got it anymore but i want to re-download it and find our conversation go look we started talking on this date um just just to prove the point because it's not sarah didn't sign up for this [ __ ] you know she fell in love with me um and it just so happens that i come with a bit of an audience who have opinions on things and you know we all gossip right you we've all got opinions on things that i watch people go through breaks up breakups on tv or i watch like the drama with say megan and harry or whatever and i have my thoughts and my feelings on it um but of course i'm not gonna dm them about it you know um and i think that is the issue that on the internet there's a sort of anonymity an anonymity and people can say things thinking there's no repercussions i lost my [ __ ] the other day on on social media because and i'd
never address it i very much of the like i said earlier i i'm inconsequential on the ground scheme of things so i can take hate i've got a thick skin it doesn't it bounces straight off i don't care like this this is my job it's not a personal reflection on me so whatever but somebody had dm'd sarah a bunch of pictures of my old relationship my previous life and said you'll never match up to her and then has sent another one saying and your child deserves to be miscarried and i lost my [ __ ] and i've never i've never behaved this way online but i went straight to my instagram stories and i told the person i said [ __ ] you to the person um and also i was very mad and perhaps i should have let cooler heads prevail but actually the amount of um support i had off the back of it people saying you know what bloody too right stand up for you stand up for sarah stand up for yourself stand up for your child um and i've we've had two years of it right because me and tony broke up just over two years ago me and sarah got together i don't know like as far as the world is concerned a few months later but obviously that wasn't it because the world only found out me and tony broke up when we decided to tell them we decided to tell them what we did because the press found out so actually it was much earlier than anyone realizes because we were trying to get our heads around it and work out how to do it with minimal um sort of like minimal backlash minimum negative energy negative energy right because we didn't have any towards each other at all um but when it comes to when it comes to me being called a cheater or whatever whatever it's fine it bounces back off i i hold my head high everybody who i know and care about and respect and love knows what really happened and that's what really matters to me i don't care but when it comes to somebody calling my pregnant fiance the names they called her and saying
that my baby should be miscarried that's where i draw the line the person that sent that message you know that they they probably wanted that reaction yeah i do um i one of the best pieces of advice that i was ever given was don't play around in the mud with the picks because you both get dirty but the pigs will love it right so i live by a motto i've never explained never complain i don't i own my decisions like i own my life i'm an adult i don't have to explain myself to anyone should i not wish to right simple um i am confident in my ability and my decisions that i'm like this is the path i'm choosing and you can like it or lump it basically um but i felt like making an example i didn't out anyone i didn't say any names i didn't you know share any usernames but i felt like making an example of that person especially with it being so out of character for me to do so would have had overall a positive consequence for the people who were thinking it but weren't writing it or the people that were thinking of writing it and actually do you know what sarah is getting much less of it now i'm getting more specific now um so i think in a way it was almost like cost-benefit analysis yeah in a way you know i i weigh these things up and i think there's always going to i've been thinking a lot lately because of um there was a couple of my friend is the global head of social media at manchester united right and there's a lot of black players right and so when the team loses what you see on the black players instagram there's lots of monkey emojis and um it's actually awfully my friend called me and said what do we do about this right he said we're gonna take this dance um as a club and you know they we talked a little bit about it on like a whatsapp group or whatever and the club stood up changed the cover photos and said like manchester united against races and the players got more racism because shining a light on it yeah it's like it's almost like it's not a
real thing how do i explain this it's it could be some 14 year old kid who who's leaving these monkey emojis who is actually quite an okay person but they just have this thing in them where they want a bit of attention right they see you or marcus rashford is not really a real human right and an idol and so they think just leaving they're not like an inherently bad person but when you get anonymity and you get and we all have this you know envy in us that comes from somewhere you know the lifeboat analogy right and so like i i'm what i'm i don't know what i'm basically saying is like i don't think we're ever going to be able to cure that problem with the only way i've actually seen is i think you'd kill 99 of it if social networks weren't anonymous and you had to upload your passport because i think if you connect real world consequences to behavior i fully agree it's why you don't get your dick out in public it's like well well that's not why but it's like that's the only reason it's why you don't go up to someone and say those things in public because there's real world consequences totally agree i think i think people should have there should be some sort of like identification process when you set up an account i totally agree with it because the amount i get the amount sarah gets um is it's a real bloody shame as well because especially because these people are like supposed to be and i use this in inverted commas fans they're supposed to care about my life my existence are supposed to you know they followed me for a reason yeah um and i refuse to believe especially because i'm i like to think i'm a force of positivity i tend i talk real talk and i share real things but even when i'm talking about mental health or a bigger issue i do so from a stance of positivity right at least i try to so i refuse to believe that somebody is that negative or hates me that much but in six mil you've got i know six how many followers you got uh uh across everything kind of don't think i've got two on youtube two on insta just over two on twitter i don't i don't
know about facebook yeah six seven eight whatever but then you're reaching more people you know the people that follow you aren't the ones that you're reached yeah of course if you took that many people and thought probabilistically how many of them would just not be like okay people but have the capability of sending out awful messages yeah there's gonna be [ __ ] thousands yeah you also guarantee that when i do like for example when i announced that sarah and i were pregnant um i went on to twitter and i was i was trending and like i haven't tried it for years i was like oh this is fun i haven't tried it for so long so i was going through it and 99 it was really positive but there was a lot of it that was just like um you know a little bit of hate and i had a really good time responding to some of it not like i wasn't saying anything like for example someone was like jim chapman still exists and he's not with tanya and he's having a baby who knew um and i just retweeted and responded god i know right what's happening for the books i am i'm still alive who are you um so nothing like i didn't respond to real negativity just people going wow that's like that's a funny old story oh it's not tanya um and like i really enjoyed like i i actually found that good fun because by drawing attention to it these people were then like oh my god i love you you're the best because obviously i've let them know that i've seen it and that i'm not tolerating [ __ ] but also i don't care enough that i'm going to write something really negative back i'm just like yeah i see that i acknowledge it i am here i'm also a human and it's yeah it's a really interesting sort of phenomenon that people can write what they want without any sort of consequences but when you give them consequences they'll suddenly be like oh wow you've noticed me i'm a really funny funny thing that happened this week this weekend it's yesterday um there's a story that came out in the press
something that i had done this kid had like dm to me if he'd made me a wikipedia page and was like i thought you deserve one so i made one and i offered him a job in 10 minutes i said what great show of initiative you've shown your writing skills like come work with us it was in the papers there's this like facebook page where one of the articles in the papers was posted there's 60 comments 59 of them are like amazing right and then there's this one comment which is like really [ __ ] it's like steve bartlett is like an evil guy he they said that i made a pr story out of the manchester bombings because we raised a huge amount we let our team have the day off right and we and we raised this huge amount of money for the families of the victims right and so he wrote all this awful stuff about me and i screenshotted it and i i messaged the guy and i said could you like i sent him the screenshot i mean could you explain this i've never seen someone just completely changed and i said and one of the things i said to him was would you would you be okay with me sharing this on my channels guess what he said well obviously not absolutely not right and i was never going to share my channels right but why wouldn't why can't i share in public well because he's written on a public forum right he's written on a public forum why can't i share on my channel why wouldn't you like three million people seeing that right and and he was like he literally i went do i have your permission to share this and he went absolutely not yeah i was like do i have your permission to respond to it publicly absolutely not and it was just fascinating to see the behavior because he obviously ate was in some facebook group didn't expect me to see it you know and this is i'm trying to over the last couple of i guess months trying to understand how to deal with this social media centric often group think driven because i'm sure all the cheating stuff was one oh yeah yeah there's a group of people and then they're like yeah yeah i would say tanya's never said anything um she's never come out and called me a cheater
she hasn't done the opposite um like i have if i'm being totally frank about it like you know i've sort of said there was nothing you've addressed it i've addressed it i'm trying to i moved on first sure as far as the world is concerned you know what i mean like it's really hard to say this without sort of making accusations whatever as far as the world knows i moved on first it's not necessarily i should stop there but it's it's tricky to be accused of something when they've only got limited information to to use right so because people see that i moved on first they think that perhaps i cheated so for me saying i didn't cheat and for sarah's saying i didn't cheat with jim um it doesn't necessarily prove anything right because of course we're going to say that because we want to deny our infidelity right um and it's tricky to keep going back to it and keep saying the same thing especially when it's so unfounded um but there's a point where you just have to let it go right you can't you can't change everyone's opinion about it like i said like there's there's like a a load of people watching you they all have opinions on you good or bad and the perks of this job is that we get paid well for it and that we get to live a bloody adventure like it's so cool i never expected this in my life i never expected to be able to do the stuff i get to do and live the life i get to live it was never planned out for me i never had like um the tools in place for it i found myself here and i've grabbed on with both hands and i've worked really hard to to maintain it so that's the perk of being a position i'm in unfortunately it comes with a few drawbacks which is that people make opinions on you and you just have to not care so much not easy though it's not easy at all
especially when they message your fiance it's not easy at all especially also when it's so untrue um and yeah and and also there's no way to rectify it there's no way there's no way i can rectify it or sarah basically yeah um that's difficult that's really difficult it is very difficult yeah yeah and and you must have this you see these falsehoods in the comment sections you must instinctively be like oh that's not true and that's harmful to my relationship to whatever i need to fix that i still really value tanya we're still we're still mates so i'm not you know i'm never gonna i'm not gonna uh make a big thing i i try to just when it comes up in conversation i'll just say yeah it's this we grew apart right because i respect her and i value her and i i don't want to keep bringing it up all the time because also it doesn't define either of us people break up all the time unfortunately they don't always break up in public but it doesn't define us we both still have our careers we both still have our lives we both still have our people um and that's very important it's just a shame that it comes up so frequently and it's so um untrue i had a sex therapist a relationship therapist on this podcast um two weeks ago and she had a really lovely sentence which i haven't been able to forget and she said just because a relationship ends doesn't mean it wasn't successful i still look at us as very successful yeah like i said we ticked all our boxes the next thing for us was what i'm now doing with sarah and um i i see now that tanya would not have been the person to do that with you know and sarah a hundred percent is and there are things that i have with her that i've never experienced before um and i'm very lucky and like i said earlier i
feel like when when tanya and i started going sep directions separate ways um it was earlier than i i think either of us kind of gave credence to um and so if we had i've done if you know if i have done the things i'm now doing with sarah with tony i don't think i'll it would have been for the best you know whereas now i'm i know that sarah is my person i've learned a lot i know what i'm worth i know what i can expect from a partner um and it's it's really i've never experienced it this way it's really lovely it's really fruitful it's really rewarding it's really dynamic and it's really reciprocal did you have a list of um attributes i was talking to a couple of friends the other day um mixed gender group and one of them posed the question like what's on your list for an ideal partner um so you're with the partner so i'm saying i guess my question to you is what does what did you look for but and also i want you to answer the second question which is what does a partner need to offer jim in order to be a good partner uh okay what partners offer me i think um i i need to like i said earlier if i if i love someone i trust them 100 right i expect the same in return i can't deal with jealousy i can't deal with someone checking up on me if i'm out or if i'm doing something i'm not gonna humor it because it's not me and i don't want anyone to consider that it might be me and if if as my partner you're thinking oh he's out somewhere he's with someone doing something he shouldn't be then i haven't got time for it so i expect that um but also i i i expect to be appreciated and reciprocated um you know i know it's complicated it doesn't happen all the time there are times when you're in a bad mood or whatever but as i was walking here sarah texts me saying i know i haven't said it at
lowe's because um i'm just feeling really sick you know with the pregnancy and everything but she went my my baby is hit jackpot with a dad you know and like i just want you to know i really do appreciate you um and i haven't said it much lately and that's that's that's all i need why does that matter to you so much because i i want to know that i'm valued um and that's that's that's the thing for me i don't care why um because if i'm going to give someone my all and like i said earlier if i'm in love with someone they get everything they get all my stuff if it's stuff i care about i get all my time they get everything right um and i need to know that there's value in me giving myself does that link to your childhood at all perhaps yeah perhaps i i just fully believe and maybe this is why i write love well i fully believe that if i'm with someone they've got it all right i don't believe in i don't mean that in like a really um codependent way because that's like the worst you know if you're kind of encouraging each other into something i feel like you both need to live your life independently but make a good team and like you when you team up together i think good stuff happens basically um and yeah perhaps but but i i think that i for me if i'm not if i don't feel like i'm valued enough i don't feel like my um it's not i say sacrifice not sacrifice but if i don't feel like what i'm giving isn't appreciated or but my worst nightmare is being tolerated like i'm with someone and they just go yeah all right and they just they just tolerate me i'm out the door um because i'm too good for that like i i have value and everybody does i'm not saying me is an individual each and every single person has their value right they deserve to be appreciated for that value and if they're with someone who doesn't appreciate it takes it for granted um
whatever then you're not with the right person you know i think the you you need someone who respects you and appreciates you um and who sees your worth uh perhaps more than you do i mean i i don't see myself that clearly sometimes um and sarah will often often say like you know the text she sent me saying you know my my babies jackpot with the dad that they've got coming up is you know this that means a lot to me i have no chance to reply yet but i will after this and that is it's a really big thing it doesn't it's so such little effort for her to send but it means a [ __ ] lot to me have you heard about love languages yeah have you ever done the old love language test no have you ever do you know what i tend not to no i don't believe in that stuff i just tend not to um i think ignorance is bliss sometimes because if i'm super aware of it then i don't know if it's like i said earlier with the therapy right when you're aware of your your thing your stuff yeah and then you do it more like ah and until you learn the tools of how to overcome it or how to at least challenge it it's frustrating and i feel like if i learned that i was this way inclined every time i did i'd go [ __ ] call me apparently i'm apparently i'm like the archetypal capricorn you want to do your love languages now go on shall we yeah i did mine and it's actually really you know i'm not that guy i'm not like a i'm not i don't look at this the sun and decide what's going to happen tomorrow because of where the planets are i'm not that guy but the the love language thing is based on asking you a bunch of questions about like what you value more so ultimately comes up with an answer and it says jim chapman values when someone does this and yours would be words of affirmation or recognition mine is slightly different so we'll talk about my motherboard interesting um we're going to do your love language now this is going to drive me mental for the rest of my life like i said like apparently i am the most archetypal capricorn and every time
i do anything that's sort of capricorny now and i never really believed in this sort of stuff every time i do anything now i'm like damn it my bloody stars told me or something okay here we go okay so me and jim have just completed the full love language survey which took um about 10 minutes and his results why am i nervous i know everything about you and i'm looking at all of your results here um so it says and this is not surprising this is what i expected from our conversation up until that point right jim's primary love language is words of affirmation right actions don't always speak louder than words if this is your love language unsolicited compliments mean the world to you hearing the words i love you are important hearing the reasons behind that loves um sends your spirits skyward insults can leave you shattered and are not easily forgotten kind encouraging and supportive words are truly life-giving to you and you rank as a 33 on words of affirmation which is high you rank as three percent on receiving gifts 17 on acts of service and then physical and physical touch and quality time you rank the same okay i would say gifts i i think it might be more to somebody else i think that my job comes with a lot of stuff yeah so i don't really care about it so much um i'd agree with that um like i said earlier we get lots of hate and it bounces off but if the hate comes from someone i love yeah that's an issue yeah if it's an insult as well insult yeah yeah that's that's a problem if it comes from someone um that i care about um yeah you know i'm really lucky because sarah does all of that she actually does most of everything um which is great um and genuinely i'm very fortunate to have her um she is everything that i want and i use the word want and not need because i think that's the difference between codependency and like a healthy relationship i don't need her i would be fine my life would continue but
she brings a little uh a little spice a little something extra you know what i mean and and it's much more enjoyable to have her by my side for everything for sure so what's next for you then you're working on a lot we were talking about this software yeah i am um i'm always working on on stuff like i said just i just love creating um so i have just started a production company with my friend we started in january or february last year so just as the world might explode but actually you know what has given us the chance to really knuckle down um and we've got some really good headway so far um we're having lots of big conversations with important people and people seem to like our stuff um i we do scripted and unscripted so i head up the unscripted sorry i have the scripted stuff so my writing so far i've got a couple of films on the go writing a book um i'm also working on a like a a show like a series and we've got a bunch of unscripted stuff that i also chip in on um but that's very much james my my business partner is very much his sort of um wheelhouse um and the difference in time it will take so he's constantly having meetings and constantly like churning stuff out whereas my stuff takes a lot longer so i often feel like i'm not pulling my weight but then i'll send him like i just sent him a document yesterday which is 20 000 words long which took me two weeks to write and it's like a an entire breakdown beat by beat of how i see this new thing working and he's like oh so you're doing stuff so it's it's weird but i think um we both we both are really invested we're both really good at what we do we're successful in our own rights um but i think there's something special about working on something that's just for passion we don't need this to work we just really really wanted to and that's really exciting you know if they say oh you know jim chapman was a success 10 years from now what would they mean um what would that mean to you i mean for me if i were saying about myself it would it would mean that i in terms of work
it would mean that i was respected in my field um it would mean people who my contemporaries appreciated my input but more than that if it were just in general success it would mean i got out okay you know what i mean i came out the other side of this and um i have i'm content for me contentment is sort of like a a goal you know and i don't think it is for many people um i don't want to stress about stuff unnecessarily i don't want to constantly strive for more um i don't feel like it's necessary i want to be really happy with what i've got and i have that very in spades with my people my family my friends um sarah my baby on the way i've got more contentment than i can throw a stick at i don't have it in terms of my career because i'm constantly worried about where it goes so have you ever i hope i do i hope i i think what it would take is um a project that is very successful so with my writing and then people come to me rather than me constantly knocking on flies you know what i mean it'd be really nice to be in a position where go hey you wrote that thing and it did really well i want to give you opportunities now rather than me chasing it and i have that in terms of social media like i'm very lucky to be in the position i'm in which is sort of i've been doing it for a very long time and have a good name for myself so people often come to me i don't have it in my the other part of my job and i'd love that but i'm still new in it i've only been doing it you know like i say i've been right in the first screenplay for three and a half years but that only got to a point where it was worth talking about a year ago you know so it's still very much in its infancy so i just hope that i get to a point where people um like my stuff and go you know what you're really good at this let's let's work with you on this project if it doesn't happen it won't be through lack of trying um and i won't hold it against myself i'm not gonna be i won't feel
like a failure um because i don't i don't really believe in that i i believe you can be a failure if you if you quit and you never try you never try it's all right but if you don't make it and you and you've given it a good bloody shot then you know you've done better than most yeah i said that tweet the other day and i was in the gym and i thought about it i thought you know the concept of worry and fear are so illogical because you know no human has ever done more than their best right and even on my [ __ ] days where i'm like really unproductive and whatever bad mood or whatever that was actually still my best that day yeah by definition so this you know um but it's fascinating and i um i looking over your story in your career one of the the key things i saw was this temptation from you to like resist your labels and to and to not be sucked into the world telling you who you are yeah i i i think it doesn't really you know what it's one of those things where you meet people and the second question they ask you is what you do for a living the first being hi what's your name right and there's more to all of us than what we do like i said earlier my job isn't what what my job is what i do not who i am right so i don't like being jim chapman youtuber you know um stifling it's like a box it's totally a box and in the same way the same way that you know an accountant might not want to just be called an accountant you know there's more to him he's got his own life and whatever um i just feel like it's it's pigeonholing and it's tricky in this industry because people don't like you being good at more than one thing if you're written about um in the press or whatever it's probably for you entrepreneur i'd imagine right for me it's youtuber still um and actually like i say that's a small part of i upload one video a week and i've only been doing that since we found out we were pregnant because now it's exciting to talk about stuff yeah other than that i haven't uploaded for six months you know what i mean so there's more to us we're allowed to
explore new avenues do new things but i think for the sake of um society understanding who which box you fit in right because in articles they have to use a word right so that the reader knows and they can't say jim chapman and then list your skills yeah yeah so they're like box which box right and i understand it because it's it's how we even down to like you know the a simple individual level we all stereotype yeah because yeah i mean that's just that's just psychologically it makes sense because totally and it gives us sort of like categories to work from if you're walking down the street and you see every single person as an individual it's sensory overload so you see someone in say a certain clothing and a suit you know okay you're a banker he might not be you might just like wearing a suit but in your head that's what he's done because it's easier just to sort of carry on with your day compartmentalise imagine if we didn't imagine if you know lion running towards us we thought i wonder if this is a good lion generally i said this to sarah just the other day we were having a conversation quite a heated conversation about something and um she's i call her worst case scenario sarah quite a lot because she often will catastrophize right and i said you're the kind of person that sees someone running and you assume they're running from i don't know a crime or a gun or something i'm the kind of person that assumes they're running towards a bus because i i i see the world as neutral right i don't think the world has an opinion on me um but i see my people as positive and i know there's lots of negativity out there but um i don't see the world as that kind of place in general whereas some people i think are geared up to think the worst it's like um you know the whole fight and flight thing um some people are geared i think i think i'd probably die right because i'd be geared up to see a stick as a stick whereas actually it makes much more
sense to see a stick as a snake because on the one time it is a snake you don't die yeah whereas like oh it's a stick and i get bitten and die um so i think uh if it were 200 000 years ago i would be no good but actually in today's society i do all right because i just like to see i think inherently i just see the world as a neutral or or at best positive um i don't want to think that everybody running is running from an explosion you know it's just not the way i choose to see the world i think that's a much healthier way to see the world like to think so i think it'll take you much further but anyway listen thank you so much for your time today i think you're an incredibly inspiring guy not least because of what you've achieved but because of your willingness to be honest thank you i think you know a lot of the stuff you've shared about your childhood and being open as a man about you you know the impact therapy has had on you i think is such an admirable thing and even your call to you know to men to go to therapy i think is something that i can completely get behind right um there's been so much stigma around it for you know you know a bunch of historical reasons right as a society we're overcoming but i but i really applaud you for that and i'm super excited to see what you do next you know you're clearly someone that's a brilliantly talented be it's incredibly hard working and um yeah and that that mixed with your your um so that your huge amount of self-awareness i think is going to make for some unbelievable i i hope so i also think that it could go totally the opposite way but either way you know i i will i know whatever i do i'll do to the best of my ability you know so if it doesn't go the way i intend i'll find the next thing you know i'm smart enough to do that thank you [Music] [Music]