 Hi there. Welcome to this evening's chat, The Dreamers and Unicorn Show. And today, of course, we have the beginning of the new year, so a very happy new year to all of you. I hope you have an awesome 2021. While 2020 was terrible in some ways, but I think one of the biggest things that I think was terrible was that it brought to light how boring, how incredibly boring the webinars can be, how incredibly boring conferences can be, how incredibly boring corporate training programs can be, and you've suffered through many of them. I know that. Alright, so what I thought was, instead of cribbing about it, let's do something about it. And so the best thing to do is to bring on the funny man, Papa CJ. Hey, Papa CJ, welcome to the show. And I'm delighted to have you here. Happy new year. I hope you're all set to answer embarrassing questions. Absolutely. And I don't think the questions will be embarrassing because I've been a stand-up comedian for the last 16 years. So self-respect walked out of the door many years ago. Very clearly. So then we don't need to worry about anything else at all. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to sort of invite everybody and tell them that you can add your questions. So if you are live, if you are going to be joining us with questions, so just let us know that you can hear all of us. And what I'm going to do is periodically as Papa CJ is answering the questions, I'm also going to sort of add your questions on out there live and I'll read them out so that, you know, we can also look at what you have to ask him. Alright, so CJ Abhijeet, for starters, please call me CJ. You can't be calling me Papa throughout this conversation. Papa, is that a question? Okay, alright. So either Papa or CJ, he had both rhyme actually. It's a good thing. But so CJ, one of the questions that people always say is, you know, the worst part of being a comedian is that when you explain to the uncles and aunties what do you do for a living? Do you often get asked the question that, you know, you create jokes for a living, tell me a joke. What do you sort of... Two things, two things happen. Firstly, on the living part, I remember when I moved back to India and I started off the English language circuit in Delhi. I had an aunt who came to me and she says, beta, tum kya karthiyo? You know, what do you do? So I said, auntie, I'm a comedian, I tell jokes. So she said, beta, even I tell jokes. You know, what do you do for a living? And even now, sort of 15 years later as comedians, we get no respect. Like if I do a good show, somebody will come to me afterwards and say, dude, you are a rockstar today. Nobody has ever gone to a rockstar after a show and said, dude, you are a comedian today. Thampada milenge. So it's not exactly a glamorous profession. In terms of yes, this is true. It is one of the most irritating things that happens. As a comedian, you'll go to a party and somebody will come and say, oh, you're a comedian, can you tell me a joke? Now, as comedians, we say, listen, nobody ever goes to a boxer and says, oh, you're a boxer, can you punch me around a bit? But I have come up with a solution to this problem because I remember I was at a party a couple of years ago and these two gorgeous girls actually walked up to me and one of them said, oh, Papa CJ, Papa CJ, I heard you're a comedian. Can you tell me a joke? So I said, no, no, no, I used to be a comedian. Now I'm a gynecologist. Yeah, she didn't want me to examine anything. Let's just put it that way. And then her friend tells me, oh, Papa CJ, the other thing that happens is outside of people asking you to tell them jokes. People want to tell you jokes and it's normally after a show, you will get a man who is 65 plus, who will tell you a joke that goes on for 15 minutes, has no punchline and then will say you can use this, right? But take my name. He's giving you free material. Yeah, supposedly. But this gorgeous girl told me, she says, Papa CJ, people tell me I'm quite witty. I must try my wit out on you sometime. So I just looked at her and said, well, people tell me I'm quite cocky. I don't think you've ever had that at the Dreamers in Unicorn show before. No, nobody who has been cocky. Well, we already have the first question from Ashwini Pandey. He wants to know, what is your New Year resolution? And we also have people who are asking us, what is it that we are going to discuss today? So why don't you explain to them what is the agenda? Vishay Garb wants to know that, Ashwini Pandey wants to know that and a whole lot of people want to know. And there is a question from Raja Kartik who wants to know, how do you handle sarcastic comments on live shows? Okay, so why don't you tell us what is the agenda? So here's what I'll say. Do you want to give them a quick one minute background of mine? So for me, a good show is where we don't talk about me, we talk about you. So as far as I'm concerned, I would be very happy for this entire show to be a Q&A show. We only talk about what you're interested in. What I can do is give you a little bit of a background about myself, so that gives you a context in terms of the kind of questions you can ask. I mean, Abhijit, would you like to do that? It's a bit weird if I introduce myself, but I can. I can do a weird introduction if you like. I mean, that's another safe option. So, you know, there is this part to CJ, which is great, which is that he's done something which is really what a dreamer and in some ways a market shaper does. You know, that's the interesting part that he was one of the first guys who decided in India to become a stand-up comedian. And this he did after doing something which was, you know, say he got an MBA from Oxford and decided to still go ahead and do stand-up comedy for his career. And so that's one part of it which actually first got me interested that it is called Naked. And then I sort of saw the show, which also has the same title. And it is something that CJ does for Corporates. Instead of saying I saw the show, it would be much nicer if you say I saw Papa CJ Naked and I really enjoyed it. Yeah, that would be one way to say it, but I'm not going to fall for that one. I'll give you a short succinct background. My father was a tea planter. I grew up in a middle-class family, went to a boarding school, went to Oxford, did my MBA, joined a consulting job in London, took a sabbatical, saw somebody doing stand-up comedy in the UK for the first time. Thought it was amazing, chucked up my job, started doing stand-up full-time. Did 250 shows in London in my first 10 months, went broke, joined the recruitment firm, eventually became an executive coach. So I did 700 shows in the UK. As a coach, I've trained over 50 companies all over the world, Google, Nike, Accenture, Deutsche Bank, etc. Then I moved back to India, started off the English language circuit here. This was in 2008, I moved back. 2009, I started off the circuit. And in the last 15 years, 16 years, I've performed about 2,000 shows in over 25 countries. So that's a broad background. So now feel free to ask me. I do a lot of stuff that blends the different disciplines of my background. So for example, I run a course which is called a Comedians Guide to Marketing and Content Strategy. So I break down how comics look at our business as professional comedians and how that directly applies to a business organization looking to restructure their marketing strategy. I helped startups with redefining their pitch. I helped businesses when they're doing sales pitches because as comedians, we are in the business of engaging people. In a world of limited attention spans, we grab attention and convert people to our point of view. Awesome. So that's a broad background. I mean, not only are you doing stand-up comedy, but you're also doing stuff that I do which is on coaching and training and also maybe one day who knows that maybe you and I should switch places. I'm never going to be as good as you in stand-up comedy, but you can be much better than me in coaching and training. So that'd be incredible. Okay, so there are a bunch of questions which have come up. We've got quite a few questions actually. So what's the difference between Western comedians and Indian comedians? So we are looking for short answers with a whole lot of questions. Okay, so here's where I see it. America is the McDonald's of comedy. It's like fast food. Here's a joke, here's a joke, here's a joke, here's a joke. There's not a lot for you to think. Also in places like the West Coast, stand-up comedy is a means to an end. People do a seven-minute performance. They hope to get noticed and then they want to get on TV. They want a development deal to get a sitcom. In the UK where I started doing my comedy, stand-up comedy is like fine dining. It is a part of the culture. People do stand-up for the sake of stand-up and the audience is patient enough for you to tell a three-minute story which has a payoff in the end. In Southeast Asia, audiences are very polite. So you almost have to be in their faces and they're like, that was funny, clap. And then they're like, you know. In India, I believe that stand-up is a little different to the rest of the world because all over the world, stand-up comedy is like a grassroots art form. Anti-establishment, anti-elite. In India, English language stand-up comedy is performed for the elite. And by and large, your audience is not necessarily more well-read but they've got more money in the bank, they've traveled a bit more. So you're coming at it from a slightly different angle. So that's my summary of... So would it mean that you make more money as a stand-up comedian who does comedy in English than, let's say, somebody who does it in Hindi? I mean, because you said... No, I can only speak for English language stand-up comedy. But Hindi is a far bigger market and far more lucrative. So today, Kapil Sharma from what I have heard, to what I have heard because it's a far larger market in our country. Now, Kapil Sharma from what I have heard used to charge between 75 lakhs to one crore for one live show. Gosh. Yeah, he doesn't have the time to come for like dreamers in unicorns. It's people like us. Exactly. He's already a unicorn. He's a market shaper. Yeah, that is true. So what is your New Year resolution? We have that question from Ashuni Pandey. Ashuni, here's the problem with New Year resolutions. In about 30 days' time, you tend to hate yourself because you haven't met them. So my strategy with New Year resolutions is to set the bar really low. So if my strategy is to exercise, my target is to do one push-up a day. And never increase that target. So you're meeting it every day. But from a realistic point of view, I think it's the real upside of the lockdown has been that one has been able to introspect and realize what are the things that matter. What matters to be more? What matters to be more? Now that you've reflected and you've come to that insight. For me, it's definitely human relationships. I remember I made a resolution three or four years ago that I would try and make a conscious effort to spend more time with the people I did care about. One of the upsides of my profession is that I get to travel many different places for shows. So I consciously used to take out one or two extra days whenever I went for a show to catch a friend for lunch, meet a relative, stay over with somebody. And I find that very gratifying. Oh, great. And here's a question from Dixit Patel. He says, what is the source of content for comedy? How do you go about doing that? And does it like I'm going to add a different question, which is that, you know, does it change from year to year? I mean, now that there's been COVID, are you sort of cracking a lot of COVID jokes? Absolutely, absolutely. So my source of content for comedy is my life, you know, almost everything I talk about is something I have seen or experienced or my point of view of something I have been through. All my jokes about the multiple different countries that I do are based on my travel experiences. So for example, I do a joke saying that, you know, I was in Singapore and if you've been to Singapore, you will know that nothing ever happens in Singapore. The last time I was there, front page of the newspaper, it says there was a pig on the street. Now, if there is a pig on the street in Singapore, that becomes headline news. In Germany, it becomes a sausage. In America, it became the president of the United States of America. Now, that obviously is, that's a Trump reference, but this actually came from the fact that when I was in Singapore, I opened up the newspaper and it says there was a pig on the street, you know. So a lot of my jokes come from life experience. So you just have to live life and be observant. Keep your eyes open to the things that are going on so you can create content from there. And a question from Yogesh Yadav, how do you know that you have that kind of hidden talent? How do you know that, you know, you have the ability to be a stand-up comedian? How does one discover that? So here's the thing, Yogesh, that's really important part of succeeding. I genuinely believe, especially in a profession like ours, is to not care about failure. Nobody has the talent. When you start doing stand-up comedy, you are terrible. I mean, for the first 100 shows, you are probably terrible, but you've got to want to do it enough. Now, in stand-up comedy, now, we get judged every 15 seconds. Every 15 seconds, if that audience is not laughing, you are failing. Now, when you start, you may not have the depth of material or the expertise to be able to change on the spot and adapt. There is nothing worse than trying to make people laugh and getting five minutes of silence. So you have to ask yourself on the way home, if I am ever again in the same country with a similar audience of a similar background, what can I do differently so I don't look like a fool? So for us, the only way to improve, only way is actually to fail and to keep failing in different scenarios so you learn how to deal with them. I mean, today in my 2000 odd shows, I have done Indian audiences, black audiences, white audiences, mixed audiences. I've done audiences with an average age of 70 plus. I've done 16-year-olds. I mean, you name it. I've performed at birthdays, weddings, anniversaries, baby showers. I mean, basically everything except for Suhagrata, I have done. But you never know. Maybe I'll get invited for that at some point as well. To come and do some stand-up. So, Sudip Majumdar wants to know, what was it like to grow up in Sunny Park? This is a man from the apartment building that I grew up in Calcutta. It was wonderful. You know, the beauty about Calcutta is always the warmth of the people. And for anyone who hasn't been to Calcutta in the early 1980s, if you want to know what it was like in the early 1980s, you can go there tomorrow. I'm kidding, but I think the beauty of Calcutta was that nobody knew whose father did what. There was no rich, there was no poor. Everyone lived in the same building. Everyone played the same games. In Delhi, for example, I've been in Delhi for the last, say, 10 years, and people here are either into business or politics. So, they're either kicking somebody's ass or they're kissing somebody's ass. So, when they meet you, they try and figure out where you are on that spectrum. And for me, I don't really fit into that plane. But Calcutta was wonderful. I mean, we all grew up in middle-class families. And when you grow up in a middle-class family, as you know, you all grow up with a certain set of values. The greatest value out of that is value for money. Because you will know this. Abhijeet, did you grow up in a middle-class family? Of course. Don't I look it? I won't answer that question. But you know what it's like, right? Like, I grew up in a house where shampoo never finished. It just magically became thinner over time, right? Yeah, where the bottle that had tomato sauce eventually became tomato soup. So, but it was, I think Calcutta was wonderful. And the people I grew up around were wonderful. So yeah, growing up in Sunny Park in Calcutta was fabulous. Question is, you know, as someone who wants to know how your consulting and coaching and training can help you in stand-up comedy. It's the other way around. So how does that work? So here's the thing. Everything furthers, right? It's about your ability to look at something from a different point of view. So the difference between stand-up and coaching, in stand-up, you are the star. In coaching for me, a successful session is a session in which you speak as little as possible. In fact, I don't even stand in front of the participants in a coaching session. I stand on the side and it's all about them. So I think the perspectives, what you can learn from coaching. One is maybe to be slightly kinder to the audience. But also you get a perspective into how people think. Because when people are being coached, they are able to dig deep and go within. Now the magic in comedy is for us as comedians to say things that other people think, but don't say. You hear a comment say something like, oh yeah. So what a comedian gets from coaching is insight. Insight into how people think. And that is something that we can then take on stage to be more relatable. I'm going to sort of take a detour and come back to what we originally started with, which is that when you look at a lot of content has moved online. So you have coaching, which is being done online, webinars, millions of webinars are being done online. Conferences are happening and most of the content is horribly boring. What are some of the things that we can learn from stand-up comedians to engage the audience better? What are some of the insights that you have as a person whose fundamental role is to be able to engage the audience? Two simple tips. One, customization. It's got to be about them. And secondly, engagement. Make it interactive. Today for me, my competition as a comedian during lockdown is Netflix. It's not another comedian, it's Netflix. Why should I watch Papa CJ when I can turn on Netflix and have a thousand comedy specials at my disposal? Why? Because, so for example, I did a corporate event on the 29th of December three days ago for a law firm. Before I got on the show, I had masala about every partner, every senior associate, every associate. My first 25 minutes was purely about them. And the fun is in being able to take that material and connect different dots. So for example, there's a partner in the firm called Jehan who's recently had twins. The information I had about him is that, oh, you know, when he picks up one subject, he talks about it for a long time, for two years. Like he was on a keto diet, he went on and on and on about that. So one of the jokes I cracked is that, you know, I was speaking to Jehan and he was, he kept telling me about this keto diet. He's like, CJ, you should try this keto diet. I got on it. I've become twice as productive. You know, in fact, before the keto diet, I was only expecting one child. But now I have twins. So, so, and I think that's how stand up is incredibly useful from a business point of view as well. Because we are able to take disparate pieces of information and somehow connect them to create value. You know, one of the, sorry, please go ahead. Yeah, but just to finish, I think, I think the interactivity is very important. You and I here can talk about whatever we want. People listening might get bored. Frankly speaking, I don't care about your questions Abhijith with all due respect. I mean, I do. But for me, I would much rather answer the questions coming in from people because then we are only talking about what they are already interested in. We don't have to try and be interested. Sorry, engage them because they're getting the entire discussion. Yeah. So, you know, when you think about using these kind of ideas, one of the pieces to think about is in many offices, when you say something funny or something off color about someone. Are those kind of constraints that you have to keep in mind with different audiences? You said you perform for people above 70 16. So clearly some of the jokes may not be appropriate for either of the audience. It depends. If I'm doing a stage show, right, you've come to a theater, you have come to my environment. I will do what I want. If I have come to your environment, I will respect the boundaries and guidelines of that space. I am there to entertain. I am not there to offend. Why would I do that? You know, so it's not. And you know, this whole thing about offense and comedy is a very long discussion. I mean, it can go on for hours. One of the things people often say that you know, you know, English comedians are vulgar. Right. I'll ask you this question. Why do comedians crack a joke? So that, you know, people laugh and it's something that they have observed, but we're not able to say. Exactly. First, your first line so that people laugh, right? There is nothing worse for me than me cracking a joke and you and you not laughing. So if you stop laughing at those jokes, comedians will stop cracking them. So my argument is you are vulgar. It is the audience that is vulgar. The problem that happens also in our country is, you know, all over the world, audiences evolve and they force comedians to evolve to get better to grow. Right. And to, and to raise their game in our country, as soon as an audience evolves, another audience comes and takes their place. So that pressure is not necessarily there for that comedian to get better and better and better unless it comes from within. Fabulous. So there is a question, you know, which is coming from, you know, which is about, is it different when you perform for a technical audience? I mean, and is there a different yardstick you would use if the audience is techies and you said you perform for Google and all that. What was different about that? I mean, there's a question from Marcia Panucci. Not necessarily. They are still human beings and we all have the same human emotions and feelings. But yes, again, what I would do is I would customize the content. So I would do background research. See, what is very important, Marcia, is the audience that you're performing to needs to have common references. So for example, I had a question that was asked earlier about Sunny Park. Now, if I start talking about Sunny Park, everybody who's listening to this, except for that one person will be excluded. Right. So I started giving you generic stuff about being middle class, you know, about Calcutta, which is stuff that everyone will get. So for a technical audience, as long as I know they will all get it, I will do background research on their technology and create jokes and parallels. So for example, if you get on YouTube and you Google Papa, CJ Scatter. There was an organization that approached me recently, they've come up with a marketing technology platform and they wanted me to write a script to market it. I created a parallel where I liken that platform to online dating and to dating itself. And suddenly because what I find with techies is they're often very good at what they do. I mean, I'm consulting a startup right now on their pitch, which is for a technology product. But it's a product that claims to make life much simpler for the user. But their pitch is so complex. And if I'm an investor, I'm thinking, wait, you're the guys who make things simpler. Why is there so much muck? So I take that technology and I relate it to a human story in a way that is understandable and that brings the joy out of them. And that helps them tell their stories as well going forward. Awesome. Swada Sundar Panda. His question is what do you suggest to address the day-to-day work pressures in this work from home scenario where there's effectively no work limit. You work pretty much all your waking hours. So how do you address this as a comedian? Is that a problem you face? Here's the thing, Swada. I mean, we've got Abhijeet here who is Mr. Corporate HR. So let me just throw the question straight to him. He should be able to answer this question. You know, which effectively means that CJ, you didn't have a great answer to that. You're putting me on the spot and that's not. I'm definitely putting you on the spot. Yeah. So what I would think is, you know, if you enjoy your job first of all, I think then this whole distinction between what you want to do and what you don't want to do disappears. But I also realize having seen both sides of the coin. Oh, these HR guys I tell you, they never change. Thank you. Thank you, CJ. But This is such a comprehensive answer. This is such a comprehensive answer. No, no, no, it isn't. It's infinitely easier if you are working for yourself. You can decide the number of hours you want to work. You also make choices in an organization. Some of those choices are taken away from you. So I decided to stay out of it because I just think that, you know, there comes a point of time you want to set your own choices. So you take a pic. You are welcome to do that. CJ, can you give me a better non HR response? So here's the things for that. I mean, the problem is this, you just have to set boundaries. You have to set boundaries because the fact is working from home is very difficult for most people, especially if you're a young professional. I mean, there's probably a husband and a wife working in the house. You've got a kid who's having to go to school. You're trying to fight to get the quiet spot in the house. Right. I mean, there are two sounds that are echoing throughout the universe. Right. One of them is am I audible and the second one and the second one is you are on mute. You are on mute. Yeah. So it is a very challenging time. But I think it's a case of trying to establish boundaries with the workplace to ensure that you are not working 24 hours because now what's happened is employers think that you are available anytime. And the normal breaks you would get in an office environment. I'm going to get a coffee or being in the car traveling to a meeting you're not getting. So it's very full on. But it is for you to find that the ability to manage your schedule. You know, the other two things I do is I do two exercises when I talk to people. The first thing I ask them is that if they have a if they had a billion dollars in the bank, what would they do? You know, what? How would they spend that time? A lot of people have said, so somebody said, of course, this is pre-locked on. I would travel. I said, okay, where will you go? I'll go to Europe. How long will you go for? I'll go for one month. When you actually do the numbers and you find out what it costs to go to Europe for a month, you find out that the cost of your dreams are often far lower than the imaginary figure you might have in your head. The second activity that's worth doing is to put actual numbers down and calculate from today till the day you die. How much money do you need? Right from that amount, subtract what you already have, then think of how many working years you have left and divide that. Most people who go through this exercise find that they're working far more than they need to work. I've had so many people who are saying, listen, I'm killing myself 13 hours a day, 6 days a week. Whereas if I actually look at the amount of money I need till I die, I can work 3 months a year and I'm fine. So that might be an activity worth doing. Because you know, as they say, we waste all our time trying to get money. We lose all our health trying to get money and then we waste all our money trying to get our health back. So I don't believe in this thing of I'm going to get to a certain point and then I'm going to enjoy. It's important to build in those things along the way. Sorry, that's a very long answer. There's a typical HR answer. Gosh, you should have been in HR. On a serious note, there's something which I'm reading right now. There's a beautiful book called Time Smart. She actually talks about this. She's a prophet, Harvard, who's written this book, which I really like. And she talks about most people prefer to be money smart. So they think about the money, but they'd never think about the time that they're giving up. And this whole question, you know, let me get this amount of money. Let me get the promotion. Let me have the house. And it never happens. So the better thing to do is to, you know, sometimes so she does this great exercise. She says that, you know, meets this person who spends two hours trying to get a, get a product which is $100 cheaper. She says, you know, if you are making anything more than $50 an hour, then that $100 less is not worth it. So this is my definition of it. As they say, what a man's basic needs, right? You'll hear this in the, in the, from the early days, the roti, kapada or makhan. Hmm. For me, the most important thing is roti. But for me, roti stands for return on time invested. Wow. Wow. So always ask. If you're not getting it because time is the only resource you will never get back. Yeah. And therefore you, you know, that's why I said that if you're on your own, you probably have more choices. I do way more creative work today on a sustained day-to-day basis than I ever did in all my years. If you don't respect your time, nobody else will. That's true. Even as a individual entrepreneur, I can decide to work from, you know, take on five more clients. You know, nothing stops me from being silly. Okay. So, Renal Kant has this question. I've seen stand-up artists, as they prefer to be called, doing well when they're enjoying what they, when they act on stage, they put the audience along. How do you manage to do that? What do you think about it? Any tips? Yeah, of course. When you're having fun, they're having fun. Yeah. The idea is to have fun together. I mean, essentially stand-up comedy is like having a whole bunch of friends home for dinner, right? You're in your living room. You're telling jokes. It just happens to be 500 people there. And it's got that level of connect and connection. So, I mean, that's not really a question. Sure. If you're having fun and I'm having fun, it's great. So Mridhula Murthy wants to know what you think of using humor and training or coaching sessions to enhance the idea of having fun while learning and making the attendees happy as well as delivering the objectives of the session. So what do you think? Absolutely. It's critical. I mean, that is one of the USPs of the sessions that I run. I mean, today, most senior executives, at least, have been for every kind of training. They do not want to see another PowerPoint. They do not want lectures. They don't want Gyan. What games can we play? How can we make it fun? How can we be making engaging and interesting and entertaining? I do a session called Naked Leadership, where for the first 75 minutes, I'm performing a stand-up comedy show that has been taken to Broadway. So they're just being entertained for the first 75 minutes. Of course, 80% of it is fun, 20% is quite serious. It's based on, my book is also based on this show. And after that, we do that session where we look at how we can draw out our personal and professional learnings from essentially a stand-up comedy show. And the kind of things people get out is authenticity, vulnerability, storytelling, risk-taking, communication. There is so much. Because at a more senior level, it's never about the hard skills. The journey is always inward. And it's about putting them in a frame of mind that allows them to dig deeper. Because you can only be a second best Steve Jobs, but you can be the best Abhijit Bahadurian on the planet. So our job as coaches is to make you the best version of yourself. And I think humor, as they say humor is like a rubber sword. You can make a point without drawing any blood. So it's an extremely powerful tool in communication and getting a message across. Some people, they say, don't just have a sense of humor. Do you believe that? No, it just means you haven't found it. And what does one do to find it? I'm just curious. What does one do? Do you practice telling jokes? Do you kind of think that? What do you do? Will you do observational skills? You find out what is interesting to them. It's never about you. It's always about them. And when you find out what is of interest to them, then you can find humor in those areas and connect it to things that they relate to. I mean, this is the mistake so many businesses. I mean, it's just a common mistake. Today you have a startup who's pitching to a VC and they go with the same standard deck. Why are you going with the same standard deck? If you're pitching to a Rajan Anandan, what do you know about Rajan that you can talk about? What is his background of investing? Does he play golf? Can you put in references to that? What is it that he's going to look at and say, ah, this is for me? Because in today's day and age, most people can do the job. People are going to work with you because they want to work with you, right? So in many cases, it doesn't matter what you're selling. You are the product. You are the service, right? And you are not interesting. People are interested in themselves. So how can you make it about them is what I would do. Karan has this comment. He says, okay, hello to the only other person who's watching with him right now. So he says that. Karan, what is this? Only other person. Abhijeet and I are both watching, okay? So there's like four people here. Yeah, which is a massive audience for me. Have you ever had that scenario? You expect to get, you know, 100 people and there are only four like today. Then what happened? I have done a one hour show for three people. And they were all billionaires. Let me guess. No, no, no. They were all billionaires. The Edinburgh Festival has 3,000 shows per day. You are competing with 3,000 shows for an audience. But here's the thing. It is an incredible learning experience. Because if I perform a show for, let's say a performer show for 2,000 people. If 500 of them don't laugh, no problem, boss. 1,500 people are laughing. I've done a show at the Edinburgh Festival in a room that seats 200, which has 12 people from 10 different countries. If six of them don't laugh, there is deathly silence. It is far harder to work with a small audience than it is to work with a larger audience. Once you can nail that, you can nail any stage in the world. So, Sonal Rane has this question. Did you get your return on time invested? Roti, everybody, I didn't know a lot of comments on that. Very clearly, you know, that seems to have hit home with a number of people. So they love that. Excuse me, Akkaran, if you're listening, there are many comments which means there's more than two people, okay. Yeah, there have already been a couple of people after that. So Karan himself says, aha, good one, well taken. There you go, so this is evidence. Karan has accepted defeat. So the question about Roti was, I didn't get the context of the question. No, the question, how did you sort of come up with that point of view and have you found what you wanted? I mean, do you get your time on, the return on time invested? I mean, do you feel you are doing that right now and what you do? I believe I do. I think it keeps changing over time. You know, as you grow, your priorities change, the things you want to do change. I mean, just this morning, I started doing some writing and I asked myself that, you know, looking forward to the new year, what do I want to do? And I said, okay, let me look back on the last 40 years of my life. What are the things that are more, that are memorable to me? What are the things I look back on and think, oh, that was great, or that was a fun experience? Because we spend so much of our time on things that just don't matter. And it's a good way to look forward is by looking back and saying, oh, what are the things I really enjoyed? If I'm on my deathbed today and telling stories to my children or grandchildren, what are the stories I'm going to tell them? What are the things that would make my life, and you're not doing it for somebody else worth living, but then can you look forward with that perspective? Are you really going to be telling your kids 10 years later, boss? I spent 14 hours at the office. I mean, is that important? No, right? Are you going to tell them I went with my dad on a motorcycle expedition to Ladakh and we rented these end fields and went to work Harjung La Pass? Yes, you are. So, I mean, I did that last year. Those are the experiences I want to look forward to creating. And Karan, just there is a comment from Usha Raghunath who says, there are 100 people watching. Karan, I think you should connect to Usha and E. I'm just kidding, man. Yeah, thanks. You know, I want to go back to a different portion that, you know, does influencing people change online versus offline? How did you react to this change of scenario at the time of COVID? You know, because everybody suddenly had to go online. What did you do? So, here's the thing. I'm a bit of a purist. All my life, I have gone around telling people that stand-up comedy is like sex. It's best enjoyed live and not in front of a screen. So, if you're watching it on a screen, you're surfing comedy porn. But to my surprise, I have thoroughly enjoyed being a porn star because I have found a way to make it work. And like I said, it comes down to customization and making it interactive. But here's the thing, right? I mean, and this is the, firstly, if you haven't read Abhijit's book, please read it. It's brilliant. And also, I believe he made it. I told him this, he made a stupid mistake because there's like five books worth of content in one book. So, can you give the name of the book? At least I don't know which one you are. Yeah, the book is called, Yeah, your latest book. I'm losing my chance. Yeah, so one of the things he talks about, like this phrase, the new normal, people are saying, when will things ever go back to the normal? Forget the normal. This is normal now, right? And things are changing all the time. You have to adapt. And I find that there are people here, there are people, it's a mindset thing. Some people will look at any situation and be miserable. Some people will look at any situation and think, okay, how do I adapt? What's the positive? I can get out of it. And if you have that mindset, you will find a way out. Can you share a joke here? No, Rajesh. You have to pay for the joke. And you'll come to the start. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, you know, I thought you were going to say, Amitabh's line, you know, I took money from those people who told me the joke before. And then, whatever you say, I'll tell you the joke. So, Sonal Rane wants to know what's the name of the book? The name of the book is Dreamers and Unicorns. So, that's the name of the book. I want to take the question to, this whole thing that, you know, they say that a number of people, when Robin Williams died, it came as a shock to the people that somebody who made the world off was so sad. I mean, you know, sort of, is that something I've seen the movie, Meranam Joker, where Raj Kapoor also makes a similar part, that, you know, there is a lot of sadness which makes the person cope with it like that. No, I cannot disagree with that. I think all human beings go through a similar set of emotions. As comedians, we just have more access to our pain. We operate in a profession that has no rules, no boundaries, no guidelines, no social norms. And I've always said that stand-up comedy, and in fact, many art forms, but stand-up comedy is an outward expression of an inward journey. And in many ways, they say comedy is tragedy plus time. We have access to our pain, and we find the way to find the funny side of it. And in doing so, when we make people laugh, other people are able to look at their pain and think, if he can laugh at this, why can't I? I mean, in my show Naked, the same thing with the book, The Book Naked, that was the most powerful show I've ever done in my life. For me, it felt like a step-change in my own personal growth, because some of the things I was talking about were really serious. I have had people who have stayed back after the show just to tell me that, listen, I went through this. I used to look at it very negatively, but I'm going to look at the world differently from now. So I think the reason you think comedians sometimes are sadder is because we are just more comfortable talking about our pain and talking about our suffering, finding humor in it, and hopefully helping others cope with their pain as well. I mean, even for me today, when I go through any form of suffering, any, while I'm going through it, I'm thinking, this is really painful now, but it's going to be hilarious on stage in six months. I mean, in June 2019, I had a huge motorcycle accident. I broke my leg. I broke my wrist. You can still see the scars here. I've got a metal plate in there. So you're the original Iron Man? Wolverine, baby, Wolverine. But I have written a whole new 90-minute show about it. I've written a whole new 90-minute show about it. It's called Unbroken. And I was taking photographs along the way. So I think there's a huge advantage of being a comedian because you were able to, I think it was Meryl Streep who said that, take your broken heart and turn it into art. You were able to process your pain and find the funny in it and that helps others as well. So Nelu Jain, in some sense, it's also the answer to Nelu's question. She says, Hi, Abhijith, would love to ask Papa CJ, how does he transition from stand-up comedy to life lessons while coaching individuals or senior leaders during the same session? How do you connect the dots? I guess it's the other way to ask that question. Okay. So here's the thing. I take human experience and human emotion and change and transition. And in stand-up comedy, I make that funny. Once I've made it funny and let people process it, then I bring them back to this level, to the deeper level and say we were able to laugh at this, but let's go back to this level and what can you pull out of that? And just remember that just because I say it's a stand-up comedy show, I don't even call it a stand-up, it's a show. In Naked, for example, in my show Naked, of the 75 minutes, 50 to 20 minutes are deeply intense to a point that... I've seen that. I've seen that and I've seen audience crying at that. I mean, you know, and I thought it was supposed to be stand-up comedy and you actually go through almost the nine nougats, you know, all kinds of emotions. I was very focused on that. Yeah, so 50% of the audience is in tears. Now, I don't feel the need to fit into a box that it is stand-up comedy or it is that it's a journey. I'm telling you a story, which is funny most of the way, but it's deep enough to make you reflect. And I think Neelu, right? I think Neelu, that's where the learning comes from is to go below that level of just the humor and dig deeper. And humor allows you to do that. It breaks down those barriers. When I get Naked in front of you and when I say Naked, it's metaphorically speaking, taking off those layers, you are more comfortable doing the same. I also think that, you know, in our head we have this kind of division that I certainly had that when I started my career in training and coaching. You know, you kind of think that this is a very serious piece. You know, you don't make it frivolous by, you know, laughing about it. And then you realize you don't enjoy it anymore. And therefore, you know, I think when you start enjoying the others enjoy it, you know, and then it becomes so much easier to communicate. So, you know, I think people have Marcia, Madhura, Swada, Neelu, all of them are talking about the fact that, you know, they appreciate the way you've connected the soul thing of processing your pain, changing it into a thought. Sometimes being able to laugh at it. But when you laugh with people or at people, this is better to laugh at yourself and with people. But unless they are politicians. Unless they are politicians. So, here's the thing. I find politicians have a sense of humor, but politics does not. If you catch most politicians on their own, they're actually really funny guys. But it's the nature of the space in which they operate that doesn't allow them to do that. Yeah, because sometimes laughing at something would seem to be insensitive. But that's true even in the corporate world. I mean, you know, sometimes somebody says something really asinine in a large town hall. The CEO may want to laugh at it, but they actually make a serious face and give a very prompt corporate response. You worked in the corporate world. Did you find that kind of a thing happening? You know, my corporate experience is a long time back. And then since then, whenever I've gone in, it's in the capacity of a coach where I'm also a little bit careful. But that being said, I do get a lot more leeway because I'm a comedian. They're like, I raise a comedian. But I think here's the thing. When it comes to offense, offense has to do with intent. And that is what is key. If you don't intend to hurt somebody. And sometimes people are just not informed. You know, I mean, if I look at our parents' generation, they will sometimes say things that are highly inappropriate because nobody has told them that listen, this is not appropriate for you to say anymore. You know, and this is why. And so you've got to look at the intention. And of course you fix it. You say, listen, you shouldn't be saying this any longer. But I think intent is what is important to look at. Yeah. And I think that as people start traveling more and more, you know, initially sort of we've started moving out of our own hometowns to other cities. So then all your stereotypes about those, you know, cities or their people, etc. I know that you've cracked jokes about Mumbai, you know, and you're from Delhi. And all of that is also there. But that's also based on reality. So the joke for the audience is that I say is that as somebody who lives in Delhi, I don't understand the language they speak in Bombay. You know, we call it bread, they call it pao. We call it pyaaz, they call it kanda. We call it a servant quarter. They call it a two BHK. So, yeah. You know, I'm sure you made plenty of friends in Mumbai because of that joke. But when you look at crafting a show of an hour, suppose you were to start, you know, from scratch and it's a very important show you've been given an hour and this is a very large audience or whatever it is, large or small, I don't know. But how long does it take for you to prepare an hour's show? What kind of work are we talking about? It's very different for different people. Now, here's how it works. If I write 10 jokes, 10 new jokes, I don't know what's going to work until I try it in front of a live audience. If I do 10 new jokes, maybe four of them will work or five. I don't know which five. If a new comic does it, maybe one will work. Now, if I get on stage and I do 10 minutes of new stuff and it doesn't work, the audience has lost confidence in me. So, I will do a new joke in between two old bits. So, if it dips, it comes back up. So, it's the process of creating material is extremely long. So, we're like the pharmaceutical industry. We spend a lot of time on R&D. We create this one product and then we milk it till kingdom come. We will let our audiences keep changing and then when we want to retire that material, we will shoot it, stick it on the internet and then go. Hopefully, in the background, we would have created a new show by then. So, it really varies. It depends on the work rate of a comic. So, there is Rene Chatterjee who asked this question. You completed 16 years as a stand-up comedian. What has been your most memorable performance? I do something called the happiness project where I go to people's homes in hospital rooms. This is pretty COVID and I perform for free for people who have been unwell for a long time. I think some of those experiences have been the most rewarding for me personally. I mean, I've performed at a full house at the Sydney Opera House. I've performed on Broadway. But it's these shows that are more meaningful. I remember doing a show for a lady in her house. 80 plus leg amputated. I was in her bedroom, just six of her family members. And when I finished the show, I said, Auntie, I lied. The show is not for free. Every day from tomorrow morning, I want to receive a laughing photograph of yours. That is the payment. After three days, her son sends me a message saying you have increased her lifespan. Now, when I send you her photograph, she wants to look at it first to make sure she's looking nice. So for me, it's things like that that are more meaningful for me. I remember I went to see a friend's father in the hospital. And this was, actually it was just a few days before he died. He was very unwell. He was really suffering. And when the mother met me at the elevator, she said, you know, he has lost the will to live. He just doesn't want to be there anymore. Awajit, I went into that room and for 20 minutes, I just performed for him. I have a photograph of that. His face just lit up. And for me, that is what makes it meaningful for me. So yeah, those are my more memorable performances. Not something that anything on a larger scale, that's for your own ego. But it's this stuff that matters more. Is that a pattern that we see in, you know, in any kind of work, that there is some stuff you do for earning and then there is some stuff you do for yearning, you know, with Awajit? Oh, absolutely. You know, it's very fashionable nowadays to say follow your passion. Boss, passion does not put food on the table. Right? You need to feel your soul, feel your soul, but you need to feel your stomach as well. Right? I mean, Shah Rukh Khan, he dances in weddings. Right? And it's the stuff that you do to feel the stomach that gives you the freedom to do the stuff that feeds the soul. So let's not, you know, put that down. No, not only that. I mean, you know, the other day we were having this conversation with someone who was talking about a certain actor who's done a, you know, a very commercial, really terrible film, so to say. Yeah. And said that, you know, this guy is like really ruining his image with the audience because he's doing these shows. Yeah. But you know the... How do you know what's going through? How do you know what somebody else is going through and why should you judge them? You know, I also... Sorry, I was cutting you off. I also remember my second year of stand-up in London. I went broke after 250 gigs. I joined a recruitment firm. I used to work in the day and perform at night. But while I may have been in the office for eight hours a day and on stage for 10 minutes, in my head I was doing stand-up comedy and the office gig was a side gig. So from an important point of view, that took priority and this was to feed the bills. Could that be the method with which you should be looking at your side gigs? I mean those... Today in the book I talk about the fact that careers are going to... People are going to live much longer. They'll have to work many times and shift many careers. So you should be probably all the time thinking about your next gig any which way because otherwise it's probably hard to jump. To be honest, I have declared war and the words should. I believe there is no such thing as should. It's different for different people. You cannot give a blanket. I at least never give a blanket statement. This is how you should be or this is how you should look at it. It depends on your circumstances. You've got to do what is right for you. What feels right to you and it'll depend on your circumstances. What you prioritize, what you don't. It's very easy for us, for somebody who doesn't have to focus on individual bills to say follow your heart. It's different for different people. So I genuinely believe again it comes down to the individual. It's got to feel right for you. There isn't necessarily a right thing or a way that you should do things. It depends on your circumstances. And also in many a times in creative work, a lot of people say that particular film was not as good as the other one that the person did four years back. Why did he do this? I wonder how he spayed his rent during these months. It's all a journey with art forms. In order for you to grow, you have to take risk. You have to experiment. You have to try something different. 99% of people don't get it right the first time. It's just that some people, their mistakes are more in the public eye so you get to see them. How many of us in our careers imagine if you were doing your job and somebody was judging you all the time. Today as a comedian when I get on stage I am judged every 15 seconds. Every 15 seconds if my audience is not laughing I have failed. Today imagine Abhijeet if you as an author if you are reading your book out and every 15 seconds I am saying that line wasn't good. Can you imagine that? Imagine if your audience here is working in their office and every 15 seconds there are 200 people looking to see how they are doing their job. First mistakes happen. It's part of life. Don't be so judgmental. Have a good time. I also think that the performing arts actually teaches you that whether you look at the best of people have had plenty of flops. Even the ones we declare to be successful the best of people every line of Ghalib has not been memorable. So I think who are we? So we are kidding ourselves. And you are supposed to look back at your earlier working cringes. Because that means you have grown. There is a famous Michael Jordan shot where he says I have missed I may have made 11,000 shots but I have missed how many millions. Correct. Yeah and therefore when you look at that who are we to stand in judgment this is coming to an end but I just want to say that CJ it has been an incredibly interactive show. I have never had so many terrific questions so thank you to the audience for doing all of that. I just hope that we will get a chance to come back and continue this conversation because as you said as long as the audience is asking questions they are already asking what they are interested in for me that was such a beautiful take away the other take away was return on your time invested I think everyone in the audience is going to think about the roti next time they say I am going for the roti so the rosy Who is the rosy? I will go for the rosy I will get the roti automatically Thank you so very much it was lovely and you know I truly appreciate you doing this thanks a lot. Goodbye