Podcast appearances and mentions of carvin goldstone

I had no idea what to call this one. Anyway, I gush about last night's comedy show with Robby Collins, Carvin Goldstone and Tats Nkonzo, and weigh in on a bunch of shit I'm completely unqualified to weigh in on. Enjoy.

Top SA Comedian Carvin Goldstone joined Carol Ofori in studio and it was hilarious!

Top SA Comedian Carvin Goldstone joined Carol Ofori in studio and it was hilarious!

22.06.22 Pt 1 - Carvin Goldstone is one of the biggest names in South African comedy, and he joins the team as a special guest co-host. He shares how he transitioned from journalism to comedy, and how he got hacked out of his social media. Jaco Voigt also joins to talk about the importance of having a data centre.

Carvin Goldstone is a comedian but you already knew that. Carvin is one of the most successful comedians to come out of Durban. With multiple successful international tours under his belt and a couple of popular specials on TV, Carvin has been living the stand-up comedy dream for a while now. So imagine my surprise when Carvin started this interview by talking about how much he's been enjoying staying put and withdrawing from public life. Like many of us in the entertainment industry, Carvin started the lockdown by furiously creating content but soon found himself questioning "Why?". In this episode, we chat about the online rat race and not wanting to participate in it anymore. We get into the importance of protecting your peace but how you have to try different things to really know whether or not they're for you. We also find out some behind-the-scenes info on how selling a comedy special in South Africa works, and we have an honest discussion about the past, present, and future of Durban comedy. Enjoy. Keep up with Carvin on Facebook and Instagram. https://almostperfect.co.za/almost-perfect-72-carvin-goldstone-returns/

Tell Us More — Carvin Goldstone is a Durban based comedian who's built an incredible fan base with his unique brand of nostalgic and feel good comedy. We chatted about his career as a journalist, finding his feet as a christian rapper and his meteoric rise in the world of stand up comedy.

Public speaking can be some peoples worst nightmare. It is important that if you are going to be an influencer or if you are going to run a successful business or climb the ladder in your company, that you learn to communicate in a more effective and powerful way.  Tamara is a Communications specialist coach. Day in and out she is teaching people who work in business about how to communicate, how to make a speech or do a presentation without losing your audience. It is quite a job to keep the attention of an audience. We see all these Ted talks and they make it look so easy. But it takes time and dedication to really nail the art of speaking Tamra teaches about breathing, taking a pause, using different words, our comforters and learning new things to get the neurons firing in our brains. If you are interested in improving your communication this is your first step in your journey. Find out what a person like Tamara Wentzel could do for you or for your business.    You can find Tamara on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/tamara-nicola-wentzel-28293212a/ Or on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/tamaranicolawentzel/   Transcription:  Interviewer: Welcome to the LifeShot podcast. We've got Tamara Wentzel. Tamara, welcome to the show.  Interviewee: Hi Clint, thank you for having me on your show today.  Interviewer: My pleasure, all the way from South Africa.  Interviewee: Yes. Interviewer: In sunny Durban, I take it? Or is it raining there?  Interviewee: A bit. Slightly cold. I think it's about 16 degrees, but you know, that's warm in the northern side of the world. But yeah, in Durban we're having Winter at the moment, so we're quite enjoying it. It's still sunny outside. You can still go to the beach. It's quite enjoyable.  Interviewer: Oh man, I miss the beach. I like this type of thing, because communication is one of my things. I'm speaking to a communications person here, but I just want to introduce you to the listeners. So Tamara is a communication specialist who helps people in corporate industries to communicate better. So using speech development, vocal range and tone, body language, gestures, eye contact, speech formula patterns. And her top four skills are public speaking, vocal management, customer service communications and English development frameworks. Tamara, it's so good to have you on the show. And today we're gonna talk about communication, like listening and speaking. You were telling me that you're gonna be traveling soon, just tell us about your travels that are coming up. [00:02:35] Interviewee: So I train different types of groups for different trainings in Durban and also locally and internationally. So it all depends on different workshops that we do. Sometimes it's customer service, sometimes it's communications and public speaking. For example, I taught a one day eight-hour public speaking conference yesterday with 10 people from a transport company and there are all different types of conflicts. Sometimes people are sales managers, some of them are executives or some of them are in management and they just don't know what to do when they come up to present in front of a class or in front of their team. And they freeze or they start stuttering. Interviewer: Stage fright. Interviewee: Stage fright. And yesterday we had one example of a man, he was a sales manager and he came up and I just asked him to read one passage. It was a speech from Nelson Mandela and three times in the passage he ran away. Because he could not keep standing there. And it's really this fear that we have of conversations, of dialogue, of public speaking. So I travel to all different places. I've been to Nigeria, I've done training there. I've done a training in Sao Paulo in Brazil. I'm often called after Johannesburg or Cape Town for training. I work with different corporates, like in Empangeni and Richards Bay and Kokstad. And at the end of September I will be going for a mini conference. One of my clients are setting up a public speaking forum at their academy and I'm going to just be talking about the aspects of accent neutralization as well as different phonic sounds when it comes to the English language. So that will be happening in Tel Aviv, in Israel. And I decided that I'm not just going to go for one day, fly all the way there for one day. So I've also joined a touring company. So I will be exploring Israel, Jordan and Egypt over 12 days. It will be my first time in those countries. I'm quite excited. But also, I'm going to be going looking at the history, historical aspects of different religions as well and obviously through the Christian religion as well. But I'm quite excited for it, because what I like about my job is that it takes me places. And wherever I go, I try and squeeze in an extra day or two to find out about the cultures, about the people and the languages. And I think people are amazing. You're really out of your comfort zone when you get to travel. And you also miss home a lot more when you travel. Interviewer: And you're taking your kids with you? [00:05:10] Interviewee: My son, Luka, he's 21 months old, so he won't be able to come with me. But I've got my grandparents and my parents and his nanny will be watching him. And this will be the longest away from him. I have normally gone five days. Last year I went twice to Nigeria for five days and I travel and I come back. So this will be the longest, but he is used to me traveling and then I often take the week off of work when I come back to spend time with him. He's still young, but I do like to take him when I travel as well. When I go to Cape Town, he comes with me. We're going back to the UK next year, hopefully in May. So he's going to come through. You've got to juggle it.  Interviewer: You have to come see us. Interviewee: Yes, I will come through. We're mainly looking to go to family in Bristol and Colchester and obviously Monmouth and Wales. But we will definitely find out where you are and just try and map it through. Interviewer: We can collaborate in something. Interviewee: Yes! Interviewer: You've got a small child and obviously the way we communicate can really help us in life or hinder us. Just give us a framework of why it's important. I think we all know intuitively why it's important to communicate well. But I suppose from your perspective, you're trying to teach people how to communicate well, maybe doing a speech or something like that. But just from the life perspective, would you encourage people to get better communication just for general purposes? [00:06:45] Interviewee: Yes, I would definitely recommend them because if you look at the human form in all types of nature, even when you're looking at animals, they communicate. Dogs through barking, lions through roaring, different gruntings. And when it comes to humans and the psychology, if we look into it, we have to communicate through eye contact, through gestures, different cultures have different gestures. You might find that Italians or Brazilians like to use their hands more. Different people like to have closed-off gestures. But your body without you even speaking is giving off signals all the time. Your body posture, your eye contact, what your eyebrows are doing, whether you're smiling or not, your head position. So that all comes into factor before even someone starts talking to you. If someone starts to talk to you and already they're squinting their eyebrows, you already feel, "Okay, this is quite serious. What are they saying?" And you might even think that the person is... Maybe they've lost their glasses and they're actually squinting at you because they can't see you. But you think, "Oh my goodness, they're so rude, so disrespectful". So communication is key to all elements because for you to be taken seriously, whether it's a conversation between a husband and wife, between a kid and the parent or a boss and his employee, we've got to take into effect our communication. And with having cell phones, we constantly have the screen in front of our face. So when we go to a restaurant, the first thing we do is we sit down and we put our phone on the table. And even though you're talking to a friend or a spouse or child, you are already adding a third person into the conversation. We've also stopped describing. So before we used to say to people, "You know what, I watched a beautiful movie on the weekend, it starred Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt. And it was in Venice. It had great stone walk areas. They had little cafes". Nowadays, we don't even describe colours or pictures or sizes or shapes. We just say, "I watched this movie on the weekend, now here's the trailer". So we're actually going back, we're not learning anymore. So then people coming to the workplace, often enough... There was a communication expert called Dr Leo Buscaglia, and a lot of his videos - he died in 2006 - so his videos are quite old on YouTube. But 30 years ago, he was talking about how we need to communicate better. And nowadays, can you imagine what he would say if he was here? So a lot of the time we stop using face to face interaction. We treat people like robots or machines, in a machine type of way and we are not like that. And I think it's so essential, even myself, we all make mistakes as parents, but I'm trying my best with my son. I only really look at my phone or laptop when he goes to sleep. Interviewer: Oh, that's tough. [00:09:51] Interviewee: It is very tough. Interviewer: I'm there with my phone. I'm thinking "I should get off this phone, but I just got to do this thing quickly". You always got to do something quickly. Why?  Interviewee: And you always feel like saying to the child or kid, "Just wait for me to finish. I'll be with you right now". Which is fine to some point, but I always say, even when you're out with the kids, I know myself when Luka's flown on the airplane, he had my phone and he watched Postman Pat. Because it's the only way for him to not scream and cause havoc. But when we go to the restaurant, it's also looking at the element of play as well with the kid. Describing things to your kids. Even on the table, you might have a salt and pepper. You might say, "What shape is the salt? What colour is the salt? What does salt taste like? What does salt smell like?" It's a simple thing like salt, you could really describe with your kids. The other night when I was in Empangeni, I was by myself and I went for supper and I found a couple and they had three young daughters. I think the oldest was nine. There was a five-year-old and a two-year-old. And the parents, the whole time, were on their phones. And there's these three little daughters waiting for their food. And the whole time the parents are like this. And I just felt so sorry and you can't intervene. I mean, I'm a communication specialist, I feel like saying "Get off your phones", which you can't, because they've got to realize it themselves. But these three daughters ended up playing with themselves and the youngest one obviously being two years old, running around and the parents disciplined her about three times. But I looked at that and I said, "You don't realize that you are the problem, being on your phone". So I always say, if you don't need it, if it's not urgent, you need to prioritize your time. So you can say to the child, "Look, two minutes. I've just got to message this person. I've just got to send this email". Then put it away and try to spend time with them. And we need to prioritize our kids and the communication factor. And I always say it starts at home because whatever starts at home is related to work. If you're successful at home, you're successful at work. If you communicate well with your spouse and your kids and your parents and whatever, you communicate well at work. A lot of people don't think it's interrelated to them. And every day a lot of people in corporate go to work for eight hours a day. You're spending eight hours with someone that is a colleague and you might not like that colleague, but you spend more time with your colleague than you do with your own spouse. Because you only see them at night, in the morning and the weekend. You spend more time with your colleague than your child. So say if you can practice communication at home and at work, it has a bounce-off effect and you'll find that you're more open with people. And life is to be lived once. I mean, tomorrow - if you think about it - if you didn't go to work, they would replace you. But if you had to pass away, God forbid, the next day, your family would suffer. And I always say, "No one ever remembers what you have to say, but how you said it". When people pass away, a lot of my clients, they always look at pictures of their moms and their dads, their brothers, but they say, "I just want to hear their voice one more time". And I always say to clients, "Make sure you record your voice". All our iPhones, all our devices have recordings. It's free. And sometimes it's just life advice, which I like, it's what you do, Clint, your podcasts. Because your kids, can you imagine, in maybe even 10 years' time, they are going to want life advice. And maybe you're traveling and you can't always talk to them. At least they can have somewhere to download your files, to inspire people. Because audio is so important when it comes to psychology and memory. Interviewer: That's brilliant. I spoke to Carvin Goldstone. I labelled him the master storyteller, he's really good at telling stories and it just really, really struck a chord when you said, "We don't describe things anymore". And for me, I find it hard to describe things, with all these pictures. So is it something that we could work on? Even now as adults, is the dog too old, basically? [00:14:02] Interviewee: No. We always have the saying "A dog is never old for new tricks". I've got clients, I had one neurologist, he was 74 years old and he spent his whole life figuring out the brain and surgeries and dealing with people with back injuries and strokes. And he came for an eight-week communications course and he said it was the first time ever in his life that he's actually heard his voice. Because every day you're in conversation with people, every day you're listening to what the person has to say, how to respond, how to diagnose. You're not paying attention to your pitch, your volume, your control, your breathing, your dynamics. Interviewer: It's almost embarrassing, in a way.  Interviewee: It is. Because he's this professed neurologist in our country and he goes to tons of conferences and he's like, "Oh, I didn't know that, my r's, I over-pronounce it". So what happens is, with our words, we need to be aware of how we sound, like recording our self every night. But also, what we can do is look at synonyms. A lot of clients, I say to them, "You need to get a thesaurus". And they go, "What, is that a dinosaur?" And I said, "No, thesaurus is a dictionary". They said, "What?" I said, "Yes, it's a dictionary for all the synonyms". So they're like, "What's synonym? Is it an ingredient?" I said, "No, a synonym is another word to describe something similar". And for example, we get very mundane. We say "That's very good. That's very great. That's good. That's good". All the time. I say change it up every week, adopt a new synonym. Interviewer: I caught myself on my podcast. I always said the word "Interesting". I said "Clint, you have to stop saying the word 'interesting'.  [00:15:47] Interviewee: Yes. So all you can do with Google, it's amazing. And when people use 'good', I say "Say perfect, say fantastic, say phenomenal, say amazing". All these words, you can even just Google every week and say, "What's another word, or what's the synonym, for interesting?" And then there will be at least 12 other suggestions and choose one of those. And every day, implement it. So every day say 'phenomenal'. "Oh, that is phenomenal. That's a phenomenal cheesecake. Oh, that was a phenomenal talk". Interviewer: So you have to change it every week or something? Interviewee: Yes. So say 'phenomenal' at least nine times a day with different circumstances applied to the right situation and then the next week choose another synonym. And you'll find that, "Oh wow, I'm learning new words". And also, the best place to learn and the cheapest place to learn is the newspaper. When we read, our attention span is so short, because on Instagram and Facebook we just swipe all the time. And I say, get the newspaper down, choose the front cover and read every single word out loud from every article on the front cover from the top to the bottom. And then you start to realize, "Oh, there's words there that I've never heard before. What does the word 'methodology' mean? Okay, let me Google it. Oh, it means this". I mean, Google is so amazing now, you've even got the Cambridge dictionary, you've got the normal Google, and it gives you the audio. So you can hear the pronunciation, the American and the British pronunciation of it. It's incredible. It's actually just us reteaching ourselves and keep on inspiring. I've got a bachelor of arts in English literature and a lot of people think, "Well, once you've studied there, that's enough". I'll still be learning new English words until I'm 90 years old. One of my goals in life is just to master myself. And that I think that's the process of it. No one can fully understand each language. And I believe also expanding our languages help. I'm fluent in Portuguese because I spent some time in Brazil and through that, a lot of words are similar. The letter structure... Interviewer: You see similarities, don't you? [00:18:08] Interviewee: English came from Latin. So in English you will have the word serpent. And in French the word serpent means snake. And then in Portuguese, there'll be a word 'differentia', which means differences. So it's not completely different. But I think the most important part of life is that we learn all the time, continue learning. My mom is one of the great examples. She got her PhD two months ago, in oncology nursing, in compassion fatigue. So she's looking at burnout for doctors who have cancer patients, so they get suicidal and depressed. So she looked at interventions and my mom's 56 years old and she got her PhD and she's continually learning all the time. And I get sick of it when people my age or in their thirties or forties say, "You know what, I've got a masters, I've got a PhD, I'm done for life". You're never done. And the learning is not always just at a university or courses. Learning is for anyone. Around us. I always teach this to my clients, in an office - like yesterday - I had 10 clients and within those 10 clients there were four languages, English, Afrikaans, Zulu and there were two Chinese people that spoke Mandarin. And I said, "Sometimes, if you notice someone who speaks another language, just ask them every week or every day, "What's the word for sugar, or milk, or conversation?" And you just get a little book and write it down. And then you've completely learned and you're starting to learn a new language". There are apps that are free, like Duolingo as well to help you with languages. But once you keep on learning, your brain develops new neurons and the more you have new neurons, the more intelligent and wiser you become, because you are more sensible and humbler to the world and it's understanding. Interviewer: We did have a whole lot of questions. We kind of covered a lot of ground already, which is great. So I mean, we can always repeat some things. I was listening to one of the guys you recommended.  [00:20:11] Interviewee: Yes, Julian Treasure.  Interviewer: Yeah. And I really liked what he had to say and I know you learned from him and others. So when I was younger, I got a Larry King book and I was like, "Yeah, I want to learn how to speak better". And in that book, he was talking about something like prosody and all that. So I want to get down to that question, why is the use of vocal intonation or prosody important? For people to hear our voices so that we're not monotone and we're so boring? What do you have to say about that? [00:20:44] Interviewee: So prosody, we normally simplify it in South Africa as emphasis and infliction. So when we're looking at the voice, there's all different aspects that you need to work on. Breathing, there's resonance, for example, if you're speaking from your chest resonance, your throat resonance, your nasal resonance. And then you look at all different aspects of the voice. But the most important we look through is prosody and modulation, which is really to say how your voice sounds different. So a lot of people are monotonous. They speak on one tone all the time. So their pitch is not falling through. And sometimes we practice pitch exercises, like when you're singing. Highs and lows, like if you can say the word 'sweet' for me? Interviewer: Sweet.  Interviewee: Very good. And can you say 'low'? Interviewer: Low.  Interviewee: So your e's and vocal range are normally higher pitch and your o's and ow's are lower pitch. So can you try say 'sweet', but say it low? Interviewer: Sweet.  Interviewee: Can you say 'low', high pitch? Interviewer: Low.  [00:21:53] Interviewee: Okay. It's uncomfortable. So what happens is, with our vocal range, you often find that we need to practice those through. So what we start doing is using infliction, because we use infliction every day. If you think about Sheldon from the Big Bang Theory, he was very sarcastic. So he was never asking the right questions. He might ask a question like, "Do you want a cup of tea?" You're not like, "Are you stating that? Or are you asking it?" So we have the rising infliction on "Do you want a cup of tea?" which is part of prosody, because it's an infliction. But if you have to denotate someone's name or let's say we have a really bad relationship with Larry, you'll put a falling infliction, you'll say, "Don't speak to Larry". So the Larry goes down at the end, the last R and the Y. So that's the importance when it comes to prosody because people know what you're saying. And they also have emotions to it. I'm not saying to you that Larry's a negative person, but just from the falling infliction of Larry's name, you know that you can't speak to him. So there's really a huge psychology behind prosody and how our mind wires it and it comes from parents as well. Because we have grown up with parents that speak a certain way. When we communicate at school, the teachers used to say to us, "Say the sentence". And we used to practice questions and answers as a child at school. So from there, our memory comes in and we know the differences between prosody high rising and falling, but sometimes when it comes to life, that falls away and we forget. So we really have to go back into that and make sure that we are asking right questions. I have a lot of corporate clients that end up asking this question, "Is the report finalized?" But they'll say, "Is the report finalized?" And you're like, "Is that a statement? Is that a question? Are you interrogating me?" If you want to talk fast paced, make sure that it sounds like a question. "Is the report finalized?" You might emphasize report. So 'is the' will be quite plain, 'report' will be emphasized, 'finalized' will then have the rising or falling infliction. Naturally, when there's quite a severe circumstance like death or if there's been an accident or something very negative, our voice will automatically go to falling inflections. Like "I'm so sorry to hear that". So it will continue to go up and down, up and down, but it's important to have prosody, so people can understand the emotion also behind it. Interviewer: Very good. You spoke about speech formula patterns that you teach. Let's say there's somebody listening to us right now. They want to get better at public speaking or they speak at their work, they do lunchtime talks, whatever they do. It's quite popular at my company where I work. And they want to be better at talking. So do these speech formative patterns play into that scenario? [00:25:09] Interviewee: Yes, they do. So speech formula is looking like the mathematical equation of how to make something. When you look at for example a cake, you need the ingredients for the cake to make the cake. Because if you don't have ingredients, the flour, the eggs, the milk, the sugar will just sit there. So when we look at the ingredients and we look at the cake, we need our method and that's what we look at speech formula for. We have our ideas in our brain on one side and then we have our speech on the other, but we're really not sure how to patternize it. So some people come on and say, "Hi everyone. Today I'm going to talk about..." The next minute as they're talking, something else comes up or someone talks to them. So they need sort of a structure. And that's what we call 'speech formula'. So there's all different types of speech formulas that you can find online that you can apply for. You do have your basic speech formula, which we also use for essays. So we normally say with that assignment or your speech formula, we have your special start. So you always start with your audience - be it in person or on radio, or whatever - with something special, to get their attention. Because you have seven seconds to get your audience's attention.  Interviewer: That's not a lot of time.  [00:26:30] Interviewee: So if you start "Hello everyone, welcome today...", you've lost the audience. A lot of people end up doing that. They'll say "Today I'm going to read..." and then all of a sudden everyone's off. So you can start a speech, general speech formula, special start, people like to use humour. Like a joke. Some people use statistics. I had a client once, she runs Blue Sky Society Trust. So they look at elephant conservation in Africa and she started with a statistic and she said "Did you know that 42 elephants are killed every day in Africa?" And then the whole audience kept quiet. That's the special start. Now you've got your audience's attention. So once you've got your audience's attention from the special start, just do your introduction. So you say "Today I'm going to be talking about..." And your introduction shouldn't be long. Normally with writing, we write a paragraph, it should be two sentences. So you can say like "Today I'm going to be talking about how to effectively use your voice for public speaking". Very simple. And then the basic speech formula you go through is your middle. So you cover a couple of points and then you summarize at the end and that's it. But I've managed to come through different speech formula patterns with different clients. And as the one I discussed with you here, I'm just gonna read it out a bit, as prep. So I've got a couple of clients that are in government as well. And what happens is, they need to have a type of acronym. And I love acronyms. I think they are fantastic because it helps you remember what you have to say. So the one that is often used is 'prep'. Like a preparation. So the P is 'presenting that idea', what are you presenting? So you might say, "I'm presenting a new water system to happen in the city". And then R is for the 'reason of the idea'. So you put statistics, the needs, the complaints, the recommendations. So you can say, "We've had a dire situation in Cape Town where there were water problems. There was dehydration and they're all statistics. Everyone knew about it. It was all over the world". Complaints, recommendations. And then you talk about the 'efficiency'. So you're going to say, "How will this idea be implemented?" The time frame and quality controls. So you can't say, "Oh, we will get it fixed next week". You've got to say, "Okay, it's a five-year plan or it's a ten-year plan and the Department of Waterworks or the local government or the different water companies across the world will be coming in. They will be constructing a dam or constructing new pipes". So you've got to talk about the efficiency of it and then you end it off with the 'purpose'. You have to sort of re-incline why we need it. So who will benefit, how the community will find purpose with this idea and where will this idea factor be within the next 5 to 15 years? Because we've always got to look to the future aspect if you want something positive. And this prep-acronym that we use as a speech formula has helped so many clients. Because sometimes they will get people asking questions at the R or at the E, the efficiency. And then they just summarize and remember, "Oh, I've done P, I've done R, I've done E. Well let me finish up, I've got five minutes left, let me finish the P". And it helps you in your mind to just gauge control of what you have to say, how you've said it. And also ending off on a positive note, making sure everyone will benefit. Because when people listen to you, they want to benefit in some way. So that is the speech formula framework. I'll go through them again, for the listeners out there, P: to present the idea, R: the reason for the idea, E: efficiency, and P: purpose, that is prep. So you can try and shape your speech patterns or formulas into that. It could be that you're talking at your school, it could be that you are talking at your office, it could even be a wedding speech or that you are doing it for a friend. That speech formula will help you to summarize and be concise. And it will help you summarize what you have to say and coherent in what you say. Interviewer: Yeah, that's a nugget there for the listeners. So go ahead and use that from Tamara, prep. So Tamara, we've spoken about some really good things thus far and I'm just conscious of time here. So I want to move on to eye contact, because it's something that I'm not the best with, at the best of times when I should be doing it. Because it probably takes a bit more effort to do it. But with eye contact, we talk about when we talk to someone and when we are listening. People who are not confident, they struggle with that. But how do we deal with it? How much emphasis should we put on eye contact? [00:31:34] Interviewee: I think quite a lot of emphasis on eye contact is very important, because within the digital age, we do become very distracted. So our eye contact is always going somewhere else. Even right now, I'm talking to you on Skype, if I just had to - while I'm talking to you - start looking over here, you can see that my eye contact is completely away from the screen. So then you feel like the person's not listening. So that often happens, I've got clients who like to take notes on their phone when they're in a meeting, so they're taking notes and then I say to them, "But then your team doesn't feel that you're interested". And they said, "Yes, that's so true". Because often they get told, "Are you listening? Is that important on your phone?" So I said "Rather take notes so they can see that you're not just distracted, but you are listening and they obviously have something valuable to say if you're taking notes", on paper and pen. Getting back to the importance of writing. Writing is so important. Typing is using the one side of your brain. Writing is using both sides of the brain at once. So writing is so important, as well as people feel that you're listening, especially with eye contact as well. So if you're taking notes, you're looking up to the person and you're writing, they can see it's more important than if you were on your phone. Because how often do we also just look on the phone for other things? We get distracted and see messages and emails. So with eye contact, you can also practice this through. So for example, the tellers at the shops, I don't know if it's in the UK, I know sometimes they have those self-service tills, which I got very confused about two years ago when we were trying to use them. But what I liked to say is, often enough when we go to the tellers, we don't think we need to look into their eyes. We just say "Hi, here's my card". We're almost too scared to use eye contact and I say use it as a practice with people around you. We do have like a cultural cloak sometimes to some cultures, especially in South Africa, they're told not to use eye contact, because it's disrespectful. For example, in the Zulu culture, in the Islamic culture, young women aren't allowed to use eye contact. But when it comes to the professional climate, I say we have a cultural cloak. And what we do is we take off our cultural cloak and we hang it on the door and we ask people permission. We are going to say to them, "Every one, I'm going to be using eye contact today. Not to be flirtatious, not to be disrespectful, but to talk human to human". And then you've got to work on your eye contact as well. Practice going through every person in the room, one by one. You don't want to bulldoze someone and give them direct eye contact or intimidate them, because they're probably going to run away. But you also don't want to avoid them. Because sometimes you don't like someone in the office. We all have people that we don't get on with, it's human nature. But if we completely avoid that person and talk to everyone else, that person who you are avoiding will take out their phone, take out their laptop and start talking to the person next to them. If you don't like the person, give them eye contact. Obviously don't be demeaning eye contact, but give everyone adequate eye contact and that's something you need to practice. You also have to assess it. I know there were studies being done at Cambridge University that children and animals, pets at home, they felt to be important in more adult contact. They felt that they needed a screen in front of their face. Because when you get home after a long day at work, you have your phone in front of your face. So kids and animals are growing up thinking that this digital device is important to have contact. And you know that when you come home from a long day, if you have a dog, he'll probably look at you and your eyes. The same with your kids. So we know eye contact is important, but somehow through awkwardness and all sorts of different types of disrespect, we think we can't use it. So it's something for you to practice with, making sure everyone feels included in the audience, as well as just practicing and implementing it every day. Interviewer: Yeah, I notice that, the other day I was in a social environment. There were a few guys talking. But one guy kept on talking at me and I'm quite conscious of body language and eye contact. And so, is it important that that person be rather looking at all the people in the group? Or is it just natural that people are like, "Oh he's an interesting person, I'm talking to this guy"? Even when there's three other people around? [00:36:14] Interviewee: It is hard, because I'm also a body language specialist, so I do assess the whole element. People who are tilting their heads, moving their hands, which fingers are moving. So sometimes you might find that someone's more comfortable with you, because you get people that are socially awkward. So they might find that by looking at you, you might not even know it, maybe in the circle of group of friends, you might have had someone who doesn't like eye contact. That they grew up in a family that doesn't use eye contact at all. And I think it's a British nobility thing, as a British culture, that if you don't like something, you turn your head away. So often we don't see things, like class and being superior and that's all to do with eye contact. So you might find that someone's grown up in an environment where they don't like eye contact. So this person might've been talking to them and they're looking on the floor, they're looking up or they're looking away. It's also very militant eye contact as well. So, in the military you don't use eye contact, you don't look anywhere but at the target. So when it comes to eye contact, sometimes that person might have felt more comfortable looking and talking to you because you're engaging with them. But then you feel like, "Okay, he's just talking to me" and you might then see that those people actually move off. And then it becomes a one-on-one conversation. And then they are probably thinking, "Did I say something wrong?" Meanwhile, it was just eye contact. You never looked at them. It's so important. Interviewer: We spoke about the body language and our posture and folding arms. And I find that quite difficult. And you had something to say about that as we were growing up. About when we're crossing our legs. What is it that you tell your clients about the actual body itself? [00:38:09] Interviewee: When we are speaking in public, so public can be one-on-one or it could be quite a few people, you might find that you are feeling uncomfortable. Now this could be for various reasons. It could be that you don't know the person. It could be climate, that you're actually quite cold and you need a jacket. It could be that you're just tired. But your body language, without you knowing, is sending off signals. Let's for example say that I don't know the person, or even in public, we're having a conversation, I'm feeling uncomfortable. So your body, psychologically, if you think about it when you were a child, we were hugged, we were held. When we fell on the floor, our parents would hold us. If you think of a baby, when they were born, they were swaddled, they were held. So in our subconscious, we have those psychological emotions that come through. So when we're feeling uncomfortable in public, you might find that you actually hold yourself. So that is crossing the arms, this is a comforter. So right now, I feel very good. So I have clients that sometimes sway. And that goes back to the swaying mechanism of when you were a child. So right now, I could have a really good voice and I could have correct pronunciation, a great facial expression. I could have a fancy suit on and amazing jewellery, but me just swaying and closing my arms is really distracting you. So it doesn't matter how you sound, your body has to be in sync with your voice. So what we always say is looking at gestures, finding out the right gesture to use, descriptional gestures. Because sometimes people use their hands too much. But also having your hands just on the sides of your body is better, so you don't fidget too much, we are not closed off. I do find a lot of clients, especially in corporate, they end up putting their hand here. And they think it's to be taken seriously. But if someone's looking at you like this, it's almost a closed body posture. So that's the most important thing that we need to look at, getting rid of our comforters. Some people use words as a comforter, like 'hmm' or 'ah'. A lot of people use the word 'so' or 'like'. So, to continue. So, so as we, so, so, so or like, like this, like that, like that. So the words are often used as a comforter for something you're feeling. Like insecure, you're not practiced in your speech, you're not practiced in public speaking. And it happens. But we always say, take a deep breath in, go back to your normal body stance, and you carry on. And it's about letting you have a deep breath. And you know, [00:40:55] said "There's nothing wrong with silence". A little bit of silence can't do any harm, especially if you're rushing and rushing and rushing. Your breathing will be fast, your heart rate will be fast. There's nothing wrong with just doing a pause. Interviewer: Pause, get your thoughts back together. [00:41:12] Interviewee: And then re-engage with your audience. You would probably know that, with all your experience and radio and recording. But a lot of people don't know that, and they feel that they have to talk fast because people aren't listening or they're wasting someone's time. But the faster you speak, the more that you can make mistakes. So you need to take that pause, that deep breath in and then re-engage with your audience.  Interviewer: No, the audience is not going to go anywhere.  Interviewee: No, they're not.  Interviewer: Not within two seconds.  Interviewee: And people can always go over-time, as long as you ask them. If you're really engaging, you might say to everyone, "Look, I'm just going to be an extra two minutes. Is that okay with everyone?" And more than likely, no one - unless they're very rude - will say "No, you can't".  So you can always ask the audience and just remember, when you have an audience, it's like having a conversation, everyone thinks it needs to be a performance. And within drama and performance, what I've studied, it's important to see the audience and yourself as a performance. But also, it's a general conversation. Can you just have a conversation with 50 or 100 people at once instead of one-on-one? So if we can treat each other just like a general conversation, be more comfortable, you'll feel more comfortable and they will listen to you more of what you have to say.  Interviewer: And then it could be more influential. Interviewee: Yes. Interviewer: Which leads me on to listening and being influential. So... There's that word 'so' again.  [00:42:43] Interviewee: It's fine. Don't worry. It also happens to me. And I'll be honest with you, because everyone thinks that when you're a coach, you supposed to be 100% perfect. I also review and analyse people in public. If you watch Prince Harry in the UK, he often has a comforter where he puts his hands in his pockets and he's been taught in public speaking because you can see it. Look up a couple of videos with Prince Harry, you'll find that he'll try put his hand in his pocket and then he'll take it out. So it's somewhere in the back of his head and he's like, "Oh, I shouldn't do that. Let me undo that". So even people in big public areas, people in monarchy, they also make mistakes, but it's knowing about how to make your way around it. We're human, we're going to make mistakes. But it's about comforting, the thought of it afterwards, to practice. There's even the king of Jordan, king Hussein, he has a comforter and it's in speech. He likes to say the word 'tremendous' all the time. "It was tremendous. It was a tremendous time. We had a tremendous number of people". And that's his comforter and he's been doing public speaking for 34 years. So there's always areas that we can all improve on. So it doesn't matter if you're top in the monarchy or just an average person like me, you will always find ways to improve.  Interviewer: Yeah. So this is going to be a good lesson for me. I'm on a journey. So my journey is one of  self-exploration, in a way. I've been intrigued by a lot of podcasts that I've been watching myself, with the London Real and Lewis Howes and Joe Rogan and Impact Theory, I've been watching all those guys. And so what I'm trying to do for my listeners, is to help them to be a better version of themselves and also to be confident about who they could be in the future. So when it comes to being somebody of influence, this is what I want to tackle right now, which is listening. Because sometimes we think that we always have to speak and speak to inspire and talk so that people can hear us. But what is it about listening? I've been listening to you awhile and I'm gaining a lot of information. But what could we do as listeners in a conversation? And it would also help us to influence people to say, "Hey, this guy is a good guy", even without saying words. "This guy is somebody who is influential".  [00:45:18] Interviewee: Well, a couple of listening techniques I just jotted down here earlier this week that's important, it's also just about knowing that the person is listening. So sometimes when you're talking to someone, you know they're listening if they're doing something like vocal or verbal signals like 'ah hah', 'yes, really', or nodding their head. I always say, put digital devices away. So, if you are influential and you know that you're making an impact to your audience, not a lot of people will be on their phones. And you are allowed to, as the speaker, to ask everyone to put their phones away. It's okay, I often say it. The biggest group I've ever taught was about 400 students at UK's Den, they've got this new thing where every student has a laptop. And I just say to everyone, 'I just want to this to be a professional climate. Please, could you just put your laptops away? And then once I'm finished, you can open them up again". I think it's very important information. You don't need your digital devices. You might find one or two people might have to take a call that is urgent, which is okay. But if you can address it in the beginning, you're going to help with problems later on. So I always say, put all digital devices away. Use your posture inclined towards another person. So what happens is, my body posture is right now to the computer to you. You know I'm talking to you. If I just had to swivel my body posture just over here, you can see my shoulders are posturing towards - obviously you can't see - the door. But if I had to talk to you like this, I can turn my head, but you will know that I'm not really listening because my posture's inclining towards somewhere else. We always say: Don't let architecture stretch your body. If a chair is stuck or even a podium is stuck, you can still move around on stage. There's nothing wrong with a short walk to get your audience's attention. I have a lot of clients, who have podiums at the city halls, who are stuck on the stage. And I say, there's nothing wrong with walking forward, backwards. Don't get stuck behind the podium or the microphone. Sometimes, if your audience is quiet enough, you can talk without a microphone. It's all about vocal projection. Or I get a handheld microphone. We'll try walk through with a microphone on a cord. But make sure your posture is always - we call it sometimes the performance V - so everyone is in your V. Make sure your audience is in your V, that no one's behind you, your posture's inclining towards everyone and that you can be open and talk to them. Because a simple thing like a square, if you have a boardroom and no one's in your performance V, then someone is going to feel left out. And then they won't be listening. Another one is use open arms and hands to show that you're listening. If you're pointing at people, people will start feeling a bit destructive, "She's singling people out". Also, if you have your hands closed, a lot of people do this, which shows sincerity, but at the same time it is closed. So, you know people are listening also when you mirror their body language. If they're open, they're like, "I agree with you". Then you know they are listening. Make sure your back is always straight, your shoulders are composed, it shows you are awake and listening. There's nothing worse than talking to an audience like this. Interviewer: Slouched in their chairs. [00:48:56] Interviewee: Because they are going to fall asleep. With some presentations, especially if I'm presenting towards the end of the day and people have been sitting in six and seven hours of meetings, I say to everyone, "Everyone stand up, take a deep breath in, breathe out and sit down". And then they're like, "Oh, that was refreshing". And that was a couple of seconds and their backs are straight, they're listening again. So sometimes you physically have to put them in that element. Nodding your head, using vocal or verbal signals like, 'aha' or 'yes, really'. And then also ask for clarification. So I often use this with my clients and I think it's so important. When you're talking to someone, get your fingers out of your hands and you portray it as 'what', 'when', 'how', 'where', 'who', and also 'why'. So we always say what happens. So when you're talking to someone and they are over-expressed and emotional, they are rushing you say "Okay, can you tell me what actually happened?" And then you move on to "When did it happen?" Time, what part of the week, the day, whatever. Then you say "When did it happen?" And then you say "How did it happen?" "Where, who was there? And do you know why it happened?" And with those simplistic things, already they know that you're listening, because you're asking for specifics. So you are reverting back questions to them. And that really helps with listening skills.  Interviewer: There is a steep rise in podcasting. I think it's because people, maybe they want to learn more. I don't know. Is there more of an appetite for education? I'm not too sure. Maybe there is, because for me personally, I'm starting to listen to more podcasts. I want to learn more, I want to become a better version of myself, I want to transform, I want to be on this journey of bettering myself. And so, there's this rise in podcasting and with the rise in podcasting, people need to talk and people need to listen. It's important then that, if you're going to be a speaker, that they take on some of this advice that you've been into. You've given us a lot of recommendations already today, but are there some resources out there? What could people do as a next step, to take their communications to the next level? [00:51:29] Interviewee: There are a lot of free resources on Google, there are also different vocal coaches in the world. And there's all different types of training companies that you could join. You could also always follow me on Instagram or LinkedIn. I'm very active on LinkedIn as well. There's a lot of places like the New York business insider, the London insider, they talk about communication skills, because if we look at soft skills, everyone used to call them soft skills. So people thought, "Oh, it is to be softer". So they've re-branded it as communications skills, which is much better. It all has to do with listening, to speaking and reading and writing and all these types of things that you need. But I think the most important is being aware of how you speak. And I think if anyone wants to do a podcast or any type of audio or going to speak in front of people, you need to go home tonight, take one page of a book, choose a random page, number 72, and read it out loud and record it on your phone. And after that, listen to it. And if the first thing that comes to your head is, "Oh, my voice sounds horrible!", then you know you need to work on it. Because you don't have a relationship with your voice. We're born with a voice and we die with a voice. But a lot of people end up not knowing how they sound. So you need to build a relationship with your voice. And that's what I do as a vocal coach, I often train people, but you can do it yourself. And through that, you need to start recording every week how you sound. So you can start to hear if there's improvements. The most important factors I look at is pace, modulation as you know is prosody, breathing and emphasis. So rarely looking at the pace of your voice, notice that most influential speakers use pace. If you are on a podcast and two minutes in, you are hearing, [talking fast] "Welcome today, and as we go through here, we're going to, la, la, la, la, la". That's all you hear. You'll switch it off. You know, so look at your pace. You don't always have to stop at the full stop or the commas. You can choose pace whenever, there's a difference between written and spoken language, like written and spoken English. So maybe after every two or three words you might pace yourself.  Interviewer: So changing the pace? [00:53:52] Interviewee: Yes. Changing the pace, you create your own pace. You might have a sentence, for example that will have no commas and only a full stop. "Hello today we're going to talk about the world". So there are no commas, just a full stop. Now if you had to talk with that on one breath with no pace, it would sound like this. "Hello we're going to talk about the world". So maybe for my example I'll say "Hello. Today, we're going to talk about, the world". So I've already added in two pacing lines. You, however, might do differently. You might say, "Hello, today, we're going to talk about the world". So you've got to figure out your pace. But pace is so important with speaking. You obviously don't want to be too monotonous with pace, like saying "Today.. we.. are.. going to.. par-ti-ci-pate in..", obviously those are the politicians, because they've been taught about pace, but they do it incorrectly because they're not practicing it. So you really have to figure out, where does your pace come into? And the next would be then modulation, the prosody. So looking at how you say words, are you going to be influential? Or are you just going to speak on one tone all the time? Because if you have good pace but you are speaking very low, you might find that your audience will doze off. If you're talking for 20 minutes and you really want to look at the fact that you want to sell something or you want to talk about the importance, you've got to find out when you can re-invite your audience to feel enthusiastic about what you have to say. For example, a song. You get the chorus of the song, that's the part when everyone goes mad, they love the chorus. You've got to find a part of your speech that has a chorus. If we had to take the song Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen, the whole Bohemian Rhapsody doesn't really have a chorus. But it continually goes up and down and up and down and up and down. But everyone knows that the most amazing part is the opera 'Galileo' and that guitar solo at the end. So obviously they emphasized to that point, but if Queen took the Galileo and the guitar solo by Brian May and put it in the beginning of the song, it wouldn't have the same impact. So you've got to look at your speech like Bohemian Rhapsody, which part of it do you want to emphasize? How are you going to emphasize it? Through pitch, through influence? You might play a song, you might even stop for a pause. It's really important. And with those things, you're going to look at inflection, asking your audience questions. And one thing you should do is ask your audience questions, you shouldn't lecture. When I was working at UK [00:56:51], I found that every time I did workshops or lectures, you've got to influence your students to keep awake. And the way you do that is with questions. Ask people questions. Don't always state the facts. Say to them, "How many of you got eight hours of sleep last night? Did you get to sleep last night or did you suffer from insomnia?" But if you had to state "Many people don't get to sleep at night, they suffer from insomnia", it's completely different when you turn it into question, because you personalized it in your audience. So they want to listen. And then I forgot what other elements I was talking about. [laughs] Mainly modulation, asking questions. And pace is the most important part when it comes to speech. And really also being enthusiastic.  Interviewer: Yeah, you have to love your topic, don't you?  [00:57:40] Interviewee: We've got to have more fun as people. We're so boring all the time. And then we have this Instagram post and we go and quote this amazing quote. I say every day should be enthusiastic. Like Leo Buscaglia, who I completely loved. If you watch this video online, it's called 'Only you can make the difference'. It's on YouTube, but it was recorded many years ago and he was saying that he would love to greet people on campus. He was the type of person that would say "Hello!" And he sometimes would get strange responses from people and they would say, "Do I know you?" And he says, "No, but wouldn't it be fun?" And the person said, "No, it wouldn't". So he walked off and then he said the next day he would go along the campus and say "Hello!" And the person would say, "Do I know you?" He said, "Yes, we met yesterday". So the whole element of it is just being fun again. You never know when that person comes back into your life, that audience member. They could end up being your next boss, your next partner in work. Maybe your family ends up marrying them. But the amazing thing about people is that we need to keep connected and we need to be enthusiastic. And if you're enthusiastic in your podcasts, you will find that people will listen to you. Also start to assess people that you listen to, on podcasts, there might be a certain people you want to listen to more. If we look at political figures, like Barack Obama in the USA, he had a very soft, comforting voice. Donald Trump, he has a very loud voice. Some people like it. Some people like Barack Obama, we may never know. But when you listen to your podcast, think of the people you currently listen to and assess their voice. Not to be a copy of their voice, but look at the elements. Do they talk loud or soft? Are they enthusiastic or boring? Do they use high pitch? Do they use low pitch? Where do they speak from their resonant passages and what do they have to say? Look at the words they use. Are they simplistic words, are they academic words? Maybe they repeat words throughout. And those elements apply to your own podcast and see how you are talking, how you can inspire others around you. Interviewer: Tamara, it's really been great talking to you and I'm really going to take on board some of this advice that you've given. Hopefully improve the podcast, yes. It's been really good.  [01:00:12] Interviewee: That's great. I'm so glad I can help you inspire. And I love to inspire people everywhere, to realize that you don't need a lot. You just need your voice to inspire. And certainly as people, we have a lot of noise around us. A lot of the time, we have audio clips or we have pictures and we have things flashing. But the most phenomenal people, if you think about it in your life, talks you've gone to, people you've listened to, they didn't have all that noise. It was just themselves. And that's the phenomenal part of about life. I think one of my most amazing performances, I have watched many people across the world, I've watched U2 live, Coldplay live, Foo Fighters live and if I look at U2, Coldplay and Foo Fighters, who happen to be my favorite bands, and I've watched them live and I've also watched Elton John and Mariah Carey. I've watched performances like Cats, all sorts of things. But within U2, Coldplay and Foo Fighters, the lead singers, Bono, Chris Martin and Dave Grohl, the most important part of the concert is when they get personal with the audience. When they sit on the edge of the stage with the guitar or they just sing with the audience. And that doesn't cost a lot. There's no noise, there's no extra lights. They normally black down the stage and people love that, because they're like, "Oh, they actually know their audience". And I think sometimes we need to take that sort of performance act and apply it with our audience. Be more personal, be open, but also be happy and enthusiastic. Interviewer: That's great advice. Tamara, it's been really, really good having you.  [01:01:51] Interviewee: Yes, I'm so grateful and yes, if you ever need to contact me, you know where to contact me from. And I think it would be great when I cut through next year, we need to meet up. I just want to finalize my flying dates and then I'll let you know where I'll be running around. [laughs] And we can definitely collaborate or do something. And I wish you well on your journey with podcasts. I will be listening more tentatively. I haven't had time to go through it, but that would be great. And well done for inspiring people, I think you're on a great track. I see you interviewed quite a few people so far. And I'm glad I got into the beginning phase with you, because I know Clint will be up there in the big podcast world.  Interviewer: I'll never forget. So how can people get a hold of you? What's your handle at Instagram? Interviewee: My handle on Instagram is very simple. It's @tamaranicolawentzel. That is the handle. Interviewer: I'll put it on the screen as well.  Interviewee: Thank you. It's the same for LinkedIn as well. Because I'm quite active with LinkedIn. And yeah, you can get a hold of me, you can follow me on my journeys, I always upload wherever I'm traveling to. It could be just a cup of tea with a zebra in the background. [laughs] Wherever it is, I like to make it fun and interactive.  Interviewer: Well, thanks Tamara! Interviewee: Thank you so much, Clint. Bye.  

Carvin Goldstone is a master story teller, his talent lies in telling stories that bring joy, laughter and comfort to his audiences, the world over. Listen in as he gives us a glimpse into his experiences and the ways in which he tell stories to influence others. My interview with Carvin Goldstone the Comedian was filled with life lessons. We spoke about building your personal brand, being able to laugh at yourself, facing your fears and getting in front of people to have conversations. Why story telling is so important and forms the basis for good natural conversations. http://www.carvingoldstone.com   Transcription: Interviewer: Welcome to the LifeShot. Interviewee: Happy to be at the LifeShot. Interviewer: So you are here, in England, you are visiting. You came to do a show. Interviewee: Yeah, it has been fun, hanging out with the people of England. Such contrasting experiences in different parts of the UK. Interviewer: You have been here before then? Interviewee: It's been a long time, though. Interviewer: Many years ago? Interviewee: Yeah, it's changed a bit. London is still very particular compared to the rest of England. It's so friendly and peaceful out here where you are. In London, it's still very... Interviewer: Everyone's competing, right? Interviewee: It's very aggressive, actually. You can't just get on a bus. There is no politeness there. You have to basically push people out of the way, which I am pretty good at. But I am also conscious that I don't want to be seen as the 'pushy guy'. But it's almost encouraged.  Interviewer: You have to push to get ahead. Interviewee: Yeah. Interviewer: Sometimes that is not a bad thing, though. But we don't want to step over each other as humans. Interviewee: Yeah, it feels like that. Interviewer: When we met, we started doing music first. And then, a few years later, you started to do comedy and it was a bit weird for us guys in the music group. Interviewee: Yes, this transition. Interviewer: It was like "Why is he doing comedy?", it seemed totally different to what we were doing at the time. So why did you like the media type, the comedies, now that you have carried on doing it, you have been doing it for many years now. Interviewee: Yeah. When we did music, it was difficult for us to really make a living off it, if you remember. Especially if you have a group with three guys or four guys. And you are getting paid a fee that is not even enough for one person and you split it among three or four people. We were eventually old enough to find jobs. Actually, I had a job. Interviewer: You were a journalist. Interviewee: I was a journalist, yeah. I was doing it more for fun. So the music and the comedy later were just side hobbies, just for fun. Because I had my full-time job, which I was quite passionate about. Interviewer: Why were you passionate about it? [00:02:28] Interviewee: Because I enjoyed it. I enjoyed journalism. I was a young reporter, I was excited about discovering new things, uncovering new things, telling stories. I was quite wrapped up in my journalism. The music was a different way of telling stories. And eventually comedy, the three fields that I find myself in - music, journalism and comedy - actually have the same base. They are just different ways of telling stories. I am essentially a storyteller. I am not so much a comedian or maybe a musician or journalist as much as I am in my core a storyteller. So these are just different ways of expressing my core. And I think I am about to discover a fourth one. Interviewer: Do you want to tell us now or later? Interviewee: I think the next step is going to be movie making. Interviewer: I remember you talking about making movies. Interviewee: Yeah, I was writing scripts a 15 years ago. Interviewer: I remember you wanted to do something with it, but never got around to do it. Interviewee: Everything runs its course, right? I think the music has run its course and so when we were getting toward the end of our album to be released, I could feel the shift and I can feel the shift again. So I don't think I will be a comedian for the next ten years. Maybe for the next few years and then the next phase of storytelling will take over. I think it's going to be definitely a movie or series-based route that I will find myself in next. Interviewer: So, as a storyteller, what message do you want to get out there? Is there something that you want to teach or do you just want to entertain people? Is it entertainment mostly? [00:04:18] Interviewee: Yeah. It's an important question, why do you do whatever you do? Why are you doing it? Is it to make a living, is it to pass the time, is it because you chose it early on in your life and now you are stuck with it? Because comedy wasn't a career choice, it was a hobby that has gotten out of hand. If I can call it that. I had to ask myself lots of questions, why am I doing this? Because I can drop this at any time and go back to my career. And I realized that my reason for doing comedy is comfort. I am here to bring comfort. Some people use comedy and storytelling for some sort of social justice or for an artistic expression. Or for conveying a message, political or otherwise. Mine is primarily to comfort the people that listen to me. So to bring joy and that is why my comedy is the way it is. It's clean and family-friendly. Because I pride myself in being able to perform to an entire family. Because it is a family experience, I am creating family experiences that are comforting. People that are going through difficult times, you can trust me with an hour of your life to make your life feel a bit better. To comfort you. And that is what the purpose of my comedy is. Interviewer: It's a shame to lose that if you stop comedy then. [00:05:47] Interviewee: Yeah, but you see, that is the core of what I am. Or why I am doing this. So my storytelling, a lot of it evolved in nostalgia and the warm, fuzzy feeling as you are hearing the story of "Ah, I remember that". It creates memories of your childhood or your Mum or your Dad. A lot of people say to me "You remind me of my Granny", or "You say things that remind me of my grandmother". Interviewer: It makes them feel warm and cosy. Interviewee: So the storytelling that I am going to do, and the movie scripts that I am working on, involve the creating of similar experiences and feelings. Because I feel it's more important to leave people with a feeling and an experience. Because that can last a lifetime. Interviewer: It's very influential, you can sometimes watch a documentary or a film and it can be inspiring. You walk out of the cinema and you feel a little bit elated. Interviewee: Exactly. And that feeling that I want to leave you with, is why I am here and why I am doing this. I feel that is my purpose in life. Interviewer: And that's a gift. You get on stage to make people laugh. Is that not something we should do in our everyday life, not take things so seriously and to laugh? And sometimes, to laugh with each other is to tell stories, I suppose. [00:07:02] Interviewee: Yeah. If you think of any home situation, you grew up in a family with lots of brothers. And then something happens and one brother comes and he says "You won't believe what happened today!". And he tells the story and the whole family laughs about what happened. The story that one of your brothers brought to the family, it wasn't necessarily a joke. It's a story. But it created an atmosphere of warmth and joy and laughter. And laughter is something you can't control, it just pops out. It's almost like your brain isn't able to process what has happened and the automatic response is laughter. So you can't really fake it. If someone says something and you laugh at something, even if it is inappropriate, your brain is like "I don't know how to answer this" and so you laugh. Interviewer: Are there any life lessons that you have learned while being on the road doing comedy that has changed your outlook? [00:08:05] Interviewee: Yeah, I think we are scared to take risks in general. We enjoy the comfort and the security of what we know and what we have always done. The comfort just to be sure of the outcome of whatever we are going to do. Interviewer: Be it worldview or our jobs. Interviewee: Yeah, your family, where you grew up, the people you hang out with. The familiarity makes you feel comfortable, sometimes too comfortable, safe. And comedy is one of those fields where you are judged immediately. You came to the show in the weekend, for example. You watched me and you judge me immediately. I tell the story or the joke and I know immediately whether it is good or bad. Because there is no later on to see the ratings. We know, all of us in that room, "That was not great". [laughs] And so, the feedback is so immediate that you have to stay on your toes, but you also have to take risks and be willing to fall. Interviewer: And that is the lesson that you can take outside of that? [00:09:15] Interviewee: Yeah, so that supplies now in every aspect of life. You have to take the risk to take the reward. The famous saying "Fortune favours the brave". Whether it is on stage telling a joke or if it is in business or relationships. Just taking a risk with someone you see in the train and have an opening conversation, "So what are you doing there on your computer?". That is a risk you take, right? Interviewer: Yeah, because they could say "None of your business". Interviewee: They could say that, but they could say something that changes your life or impacts or creates a new relationship. So the ability to face fear and not be too perplexed by the outcome. Interviewer: How do people handle rejection then? [00:09:59] Interviewee: This is the thing, the more you get rejected, the more you will be okay with rejection. And I think that is one of the things that you learn in comedy, because you tell a series of jokes over a period of years. And not all of them are great. And a lot of them are actually rejected. Maybe not the whole show, but that joke in particular, people are like "No". I have had a case where once I told a joke, I told a story as it happened. So at the Boston Marathon, there was a bombing at the Boston Marathon. And I had this joke about running the Boston Marathon myself. I will tell you the joke. But I told them on the day it happened. So the people were like "It's too soon". So I am one of those people in comedy who believes it is never too soon. It is just how well you contextualize what has happened and how quickly you give the feedback. If you wait, then you lose the shock and the impact of it. So something happens today, good or bad, you as the performer have to take the risk to decide how you contextualize the commentary. But the commentary is happening, no news agency is not reporting on it. They are saying something, just contextualizing in a way that makes you - the receiver - okay with discussing this. So the difference with comedy is that there is a laugh-element to it. We are further victimizing the victims and I am very conscious of that. In Africa, we had Oscar Pistorius who shot his girlfriend and there were a lot of jokes about Oscar Pistorius being a paraplegic or not having legs and how he shot his girlfriend. And I felt a lot of those jokes further victimized the victim, which was Reeva Steenkamp, who was killed in the incident. And I felt as if those jokes were not intelligent. So I did tell jokes, but it was never about the fact that Oscar tried to shoot his girlfriend. It was rather elements around the incident. So for example, back to the joke about the Boston Marathon, the joke was about me having a hard time running or taking part in the marathon. And I'd be so tired and if I heard "Hey guys, have you heard there is a bomb?". I would be like "I don't need to finish the race" and peeling off on the side. [sighs] "At least I don't need to finish, no one is watching anymore". And when I started it - now it's not in the context anymore, it doesn't sound so cool - the moment I said 'Boston Marathon', the crowd went "Ooohhh". The interesting thing was, I told the joke the next day, but I rephrased it, because I realized that I presented it in a way that it made it seem as if I was being insincere to the victims. The joke was more about me, being in a race. And the context of 'If this happened'. Interviewer: So was that a current contextual story, which people could relate to and you were trying to make it about yourself, not about the victims? [00:12:39] Interviewee: Yeah, the secret sometimes with telling sensitive stories, comedy lives in the world of controversy, of prejudice, of polarization. "You're from Manchester, you have a Welsh accent". He is black, he is white, he is male, she is female. A lot of those polarizing topics is where the prejudice of comedy lies. But it is the way you present that, it is a fine art and there is a very fine line between being prejudice, being racist and being observant and contributing to the conversation in a way we both laugh. Because it is our differences that make us so interesting. Sometimes, a comedian tells a joke on a topic that you have heard before, but it lifts you in a different feeling. It made you feel "I don't feel uncomfortable listening to this person". And maybe the context is even similar. It's because these topics, there is a fine line how you present them in a way where people feel a part of the conversation. And it's very powerful if you get them right. You can have a career that can transcend your own culture, countries and you can develop a fan base that spreads across the world. Interviewer: I remember talking at work once about it, a political, religious aspect of life. And people were a little bit like "Why are you talking about this in this context?". And they were a little bit uncomfortable with that, but the reason why I like to talk to people about things that are outside the normal conversation is to try and influence people to think outside of the box. And to think "Maybe what I am thinking is not right". I am not saying I have it right. But I just like to challenge people's thoughts. Do you do that a little bit? [00:14:27] Interviewee: If you have an office space and you are standing at the fax machine with a cup of coffee, and you are having a discussion and you say "Hey, what's up with this religion thing?", it's like "What is he going on about?". Interviewer: Don't start this topic, or that kind of thing. Interviewee: That is a risk and probably a risk I would not take in a conversation. But I would take that risk on stage. The topics of religion, politics and race, I would present them on stage. Only because I understand that humour is disarming. If you want to discuss those topics, humour is actually the best way to approach those topics. Because humour puts people at ease and a few laughs would make you more accepting about what I am about to say than if I come up at the coffee machine, it would be like "Oh, this guy really has some racist topics right now". You have to live in a world where you discuss polarizing topics, but you have an advantage in that you know people will be laughing. Because of the way the dynamic of a room works, I'm on stage, I'm elevated, I have a microphone. People have paid to come see me. I'm in a position of power. So, there is a power imbalance in the room the moment I step up. Which everyone has accepted by buying a ticket. But it's my job as the entertainer to level us. I will make a few jokes about myself. The reason for doing that is to level the room, so that you feel equal to me. And my style is very conversational. To anyone watching, it is almost as if we are having a conversation. It didn't feel like a performance. Because that is my style. Interviewer: You are engaging with that guy in the audience somewhere? [00:16:13] Interviewee: Yeah, it's a levelled room. It's bringing the room together. And then I know I can discuss topics where you are using humour. I am a flawed person. And the flaws make me easier to accept. So when I present my flaws to you - whatever they are - in humour, you then relax as an audience. You are like "Okay, this person is flawed like me. We can have fun". Interviewer: Should we do that in life as well, how do we do that in a social environment? Let's say we went to a party where we didn't know the people very well. If I went with my partner to a party and it's like "Some people I don't know there". [00:16:54] Interviewee: You see it often, you visit someone and they have a big house. And then you are like "What a beautiful house" and they are like "Oh, it's nothing, my Dad bought it". They try to play it down, so they are not on a pedestal. Or they bake a cake "Oh, it wasn't much". What they are trying to do socially, is trying to level. "I am not better than you because I made a cake", or "I am not better than you because this house is big". They try and give context "Oh, my Dad bought it", or "It's from the shop down the road", or "It's an old recipe my Gran had. It's not my intelligence that made this cake. It's my Gran's old recipe". Then we are all like "Yeah, I also have a Gran". So we are finding those common threads that make us equal. Comedy and good comedians are very good at creating that. But those social skills don't just exist in comedy, they exist as you rightly pointed out in social interactions between human beings. And there is a lot to gain from it. Even somebody who believes that they are socially inept or awkward or have no social skills. Those little titbits can be taught, you can learn those little tricks here and there that makes it a bit easier. And sometimes, all that is said in between us is that I see you as above me or you see me above you and therefore you have difficulty engaging. We'll meet someone, maybe someone who's famous and then you hear the comments after engaging with them. "Oh, they are so down to earth". Because in your mind, that block has been broken that the person is above you. You say "What a nice, down to earth person". The down to earth part is basically saying "He is just like us", or "She is just like us". That is the most important little leveller in social interactions, the ability to see people as you see yourself. Interviewer: You do a lot of shows and you must get a lot of different types of people coming to these shows. I am just assuming what might be going on in your brain is "These people have everyday jobs, they are going through struggles, I need to make them feel comfortable for the night and have a laugh". Everybody struggles in their life with wanting to be successful or wanting to make the most of this life. How should we see this life that we have? We have a limited time here on this planet. What is the best attitude or outlook we should have in this life? [00:19:24] Interviewee: Clint, I have known you since 2001. We are now 2019. So that is 18, almost 19 years that I have known you. We did music together, you made music as a band, I wrote some music for you. You made music for me, were part of the group that I was a part of. And at the time we had different goals, right? We were hoping to break through, maybe break through internationally, create a little label. We had little goals that we had set for ourselves, most of them retrospectively - after looking back 19 years - we haven't achieved. We never created the label. We don't own massive pieces of sound equipment that we could hire out. We have moved on with our lives. That whole experience that we endured, I look back at it so fondly, because it made me enjoy every moment as it happens. What we always do as human beings - and it's good to have goals - but we live in expectation and we are in-orientated "This is the road to there. Ah, I can't wait". The actual important part is the destination. But the true destination is actually the journey. So when I look back on the last twenty years or the twenty-year period or for the most part, the 10 years we did that, a little bit less, I realize that the goals weren't the destination or the joy. It was what was happening at the time. It was us in the actual bus traveling. That was the beauty. That was it. It was sitting in the studio and making the music. It wasn't the end goal, that was it. So our lives as 70, 80, 90 years if you are lucky, when you look over the course of 90 years, those moments, those five or six years we spent making music intensely, that was the beautiful destination. That was it. There was nothing necessarily coming off that, that we should have been ignoring this way. Not living in this moment, because we were waiting for the end. So I try as much - and for everyone - to live. Right now, we are doing this podcast. For me, this is the most important thing. Whether this podcast is getting 256 views or 256,000 views, the most important thing right now is you and me, my friend, we are doing this podcast and we are having this conversation. This is it. Interviewer: That's awesome! Do you think at the time when we were younger, we were enjoying those times at the time? Interviewee: Yes. Interviewer: But also, we probably think back more fondly on those times. [00:21:51] Interviewee: Yeah. Fortunately, we were enjoying ourselves. So it wasn't like we were having painful sessions, because we were looking for the goal. I think that's what happens to a lot of people at work. If you think about a job, a 9 to 5 job, you think of how many hours you spend at your job over a period, or if you have been at a company 20 years or in the field 25 years. If you don't like your job and you sleep 8 hours, you spend 8 to 9 hours at work, 2 to 3 hours traveling to and from work, you are looking at the half of your life awake, spending on something that you don't like. For 25 years, that's way too long. So people who are in that position are actually missing their moment. Because they are living in a world where they can't look back on it fondly and say "Wow!" What we fortunately were doing was, we were also building something. Building our lives and creating something. We were having as much fun as possible. So even retrospectively looking back on our lives of joy, of our complete life, you enjoy where you are now, you enjoy where you were then. What I am saying is, I wish I could have known this now and we would have enjoyed it even more then. Because we enjoyed it - fortunately for us we did - but we could have enjoyed it more if we understood "This is it". Interviewer: That's amazing, I love this message, because it helps me as well. Because obviously, I have goals and visions for what this might become. But you have to enjoy it right now. [00:23:19] Interviewee: You have to enjoy it right now. Just enjoy every interview, every podcast, every mic-setup, every lighting-setup. The anticipation of the guest coming, the meeting with guests, off-camera conversations, your pre-preparation when you are writing your notes. That's all the joy. The joy is this whole experience. It's not one day when this thing is a big deal and when you are like "This is what I did it for ". No, you are doing it for this moment. Interviewer: You built a personal brand. Interviewee: Yeah. Interviewer: Carvin - as we will see in the interview - has built a personal brand. I am building my personal brand. Do you think that even if people don't start their own business, that they should be thinking about their personal brand? [00:23:59] Interviewee: Yeah, definitely. I am in a position now where I am able to turn my brand into a legitimate business. So I have an accountant who says to me "Okay, your brand Carvin H. Goldstone, comedian, is an established brand. There is money coming into the brand". So you set up a business in the name of the brand. So my business set up is Carvin H. Goldstone. The money coming in or the income that comes into the brand is then now building up the brand's portfolio to do other things. So Carvin H. Goldstone, not me, the company, can at some point buy property. It can open a school. Interviewer: It could be a media company, maybe. [00:24:47] Interviewee: Yeah, it can open media, it can teach podcasts, it can do talks. Because the Carvin H. Goldstone brand that has been built - because it is not a company now - doesn't have to go through all the tedious processes of making its name known. It exists because it's quietly being built in the background for the last 10, 15 years. Now, all it has is a structure and a home to really expand. I plan to open a school of comedy and media. And I'll do it in the brand that has been built, not necessarily myself Carvin Goldstone being present all the time teaching and whatever. But the brand will be powerful enough to do the work. To do the work that I would have had to pay for if I started a new school, to open up a school of comedy. That is now rebuilding something from the ground, what is this? Who is Carvin Goldstone? So people have an idea, there are these clips that they can watch back, so they know what the product that I produce is about and they can expect it in this brand. Interviewer: So it's about leveraging all of this hard work in the past? Interviewee: Exactly, leveraging everything. Everything you are doing leverages for later on. But you have to be conscious to enjoy it while you are creating it. And that's the key. Interviewer: You were brought up in quite a religious background. And then you broke out of that, from what I see. Being in a religious setting can sometimes restrict you or limit your worldview or your outreach. So now that I am out of it, I feel like the world is a much bigger place. But there are obviously things that come with it, like family. So how do you deal with that? [00:26:43] Interviewee: I think growing up in Africa and growing up in African Christianity, we grew up Christian in Africa. We grew up with a very restrictive and legalistic form of the belief system. Christianity has its confines and its rules and laws. But in Africa, some of those things are exaggerated. So we grew up in communities where if you are Christian, you don't drink alcohol in any way or form. The legalistic framework kind of gives us a specific way of approaching and puts the God experience in a sort of box. And that box is everything to the people in it. So anything outside of their box is going to be offensive, it's going to be wrong. it's going to be demonized. And it's going to be seen as breaking down the comforting safe structure. Because that's what you are doing, when you challenge it. You are not just challenging, you are challenging the pillars on which people have built their homes. And when you pull those pillars away, the danger is that everything they have stood on and everything they have believed in collapses. That's why they fight it. That's why you fight it. Cognitive dissonance. The brain's inner ability to even take something that's logical and understand it, because it destroys your world. So your brain finds different ways to just prove it. Interviewer: You are so heavily invested in that thought. [00:28:14] Interviewee: Yeah. So I say "The sky is red". And you are like "No, actually it's blue". I'm like "No, it's red". And my brain convinces me that it's red, because the sky being blue is going to destroy this business that I've made, selling paintings where the sky is red. And this is impossible to now be blue. It messes up my whole world. But breaking out of that is very difficult if your society and the community you come from is very entrenched in it. So it takes a lot of courage to think differently. But I think, at the same time, sometimes you are just ahead of the curve, right? So new ideas and new thinking, it requires a few mavericks who step out of their comfort and think differently. The way we think now might be seen as evil or demonic or whatever. They demonize it. But in 10 or 15 or 20 years from now, you might find that we are not alone in our alternative thinking. Because we live in a generation where access to information is so much easier. So people will basically have access to alternative thought. You think of the reformation, people like John Calvin and Martin Luther, they were sort of the alternative thinkers of their time. Because they were questioning existing in a versatile church structure. Interviewer: They didn't get treated very well. [00:29:42] Interviewee: Yeah, they were ostracized, they were put aside, some of them were put to death, in those times. But if you think of the thought processes that they put forward back then, not all of them refined, but on the base, a lot of those thought processes found life way beyond their death. And the way of doing things was fundamentally changed for a large part of the population. Instead of everyone moving this way, and two guys moving that way, we now see a split where a lot of people are now protestant. Because those protestants, their thinking eventually found ground. So I think when it comes to thinking about how we think about God, I think the traditional Christian and especially in Africa, that way of thinking what God is in a very humble almost hand-out kind of way, that is going to be challenged by people being able to live a life where they have things. Christianity thrives in Africa, because poverty and disease thrive in Africa. So what do you do when people are poor and sick? You offer them hope. And religion is hope. And hope is always welcome in a time like that. In countries where maybe poverty is not such an issue and medicine is readily available for disease, you find less dependence on spiritual hope. Because the practical solution is right there, it's easy to take hold off. Interviewer: So there could be a paradigm coming? [00:31:13] Interviewee: Yeah. There is definitely going to be a shift. But I think it's going to depend on how Africa in particular - and maybe the third world - is able to come to grips with its core issues. Housing, water, sickness, poverty, hunger is a huge problem in Africa. What do you when someone's hungry and they have no option? What would you do? You pray, that's all you can do, because there is no other practical way of getting stuff. You live with last resorts, really. And a lot of people in religion find themselves at last resort situations. And so, they call on that. And look, it is comforting to at least think that there is a way out of this that is beyond your control. I think as human beings, in our darkest moment or in our trying times we want to know that there is a superior force that will bring us through this. That will take care of our needs. And the greater your need, the greater your basic need, like [00:32:19] hierarchy of needs, the base needs, the greater you are going to need your faith and your dependence. Because you need so much. Interviewer: This is what I am thinking at the moment, this is my world-view: Like you said, people reach out to a God that might help them at the time, which is like "It is my last hope". I think where we are being guided now, is to think that we can solve these things at a human practical level. So we should challenge what's going on in the banking system, in the world government systems, where it's causing poverty, it's causing inequalities. So we as human beings, the citizens of this world should get together and really make a movement that starts to eliminate poverty, starts to decrease wars, because of our actions on this Earth. So we can - in a sense - save ourselves. [00:33:22] Interviewee: Yeah. So the move toward a new humanistic approach to saving ourselves, as you point out, it comes from a disillusionment. This illusion with the state which has this unholy alliance with religion. So matter what first world country - the big ones, like the UK and America - if they get to the core of their religious relationship, it's with a Christian partner, so Donald Trump is quite big on Christian ethics. And he's got a good relationship with the Christian community of America. And the relationship between the Christianity and the government is very entrenched. In the UK, the queen is the head of the church, the Anglican church, which is directly connected, they can't be separated. State and religion and church cannot be separated in the big nations. And in the Muslim nations, this is the same thing. It cannot be separated, they are intertwined. But what is the result for the majority of people around the world? This alliance that they have has not brought relief to the people of the world. So what do you do? Do you keep supporting it? Do people keep quiet when they see governments that are intertwined with religious belief systems? Do they just let them continue? No, people are thinking "This is not working. If the world is the biggest government in the world and some of the wealthiest ones have this relationship and there is still so much poverty, then maybe this is not the answer". So I think people are thinking of other ways. Because if we think about the three big religions, or the ones that influence our way of thinking, our way of life the most, the Jew and Christian tradition, Islam being the third, they come from a similar sort of area, region of the world. The Middle-Eastern region, the Middle-Eastern religions and they offer exclusivity. So whether you are Muslim or Christian or Jew, you have exclusive access to a God through your faith in that belief system. Which is quite different to the Eastern or the Indian religions, Buddhism or Hinduism, which allow for a polarity of Gods and allow for different belief systems. These ones that are very exclusive, they spread the widest. Interviewer: Because they can control? [00:35:47] Interviewee: Because they are selling you almost admission to a club that you can't get in, unless you are a member. So you can't go to heaven unless you have faith in this particular thing. And that's got a lot of appeal. I am not sure what the rates of evangelism or Hinduism is, but I am pretty sure it's nothing near the rates of Christianity, because it's selling hope. But the countries where this is practiced the most, the relationship between government and religion, the benefit to the world is not tangible. Especially in Africa. You will find that people are as poor as ever. And if we look who colonized us, it were the nations who had this relationship. So what did they really bring? They brought religion and they brought slavery. So how do you reconcile their God with good, when the result has been bad? There has been a lot of disease and poverty. It's very difficult for people to reconcile that. At a thinking level, the more education you get, the more you begin to question "What was this all about, really?" Interviewer: Is it also maybe keeping them dumb, in a way? Interviewee: The power, I think it was Livingston who was quoted, who famously said, or in reference to Livingston... Interviewer: David Livingston. [00:37:13] Interviewee: He was a missionary and a colonialist and an explorer. It was "When they came to Africa, we had the land and they had the bible. Now we have the bible and they have the land". So the African story is one of exchange of the good. So Africa gave up a lot of national resources to visitors. Whether it was Jan van Riebeeck who came with the Dutch or the English, the British, the Portuguese, all the visitors ended up with a lot. And the people of Africa didn't end up with as much. In fact, until today a lot of them don't have any land or any possessions over time. What they do have, though, is their religion. Africa is deeply religious. Their love of Christianity and a lot of them are Anglicans and Catholics and Charismatics. And so, the hope is in this thing that they have over time really had to exchange their national wealth for. Interviewer: I think we need to break out of that. And I think, as humans, we need to fix the problem. Hopefully there is an enlightenment coming within Africa. Do you see that or do you still see that it can be hidden from them somehow by those who want to control? [00:38:35] Interviewee: This is the thing about breaking the chains of your oppressor, Africa is going to find itself a new master if they don't get to grips with themselves. Because the Chinese will not let Africa just pass by. Africa is rich with resources. They are basically offering to pay off debts of African countries, "Take a loan from us, we'll board your harbour. And then, if you can't pay back the fee, we'll own the harbour. Or you'll give us rights to fish off your coast". Chinese fishing nets are cleaning up the natural resources in the ocean, the sea creatures. Interviewer: So they could be aware of this? Interviewee: Yeah, that's actually happening at the moment, Africa now finds itself with a new sort of master that's on the doorstep. Interviewer: It's an alarm bell, really. [00:39:34] Interviewee: It's an alarm bell, and I'm not sure how Africa breaks out of it. Because if you look at the history of Africa, there was a time in Africa when Africa was powerful. There was a time when Africa was a trading point, places like Tanzania and Zanzibar were travel routes between the East and Africa. So trading between Arabia, trading between India. Those routes existed before colonials came. You saw places like Timbuktu and Kush where Africans established kingdoms and dynasties and Egyptians had lots of technology, mathematics and hieroglyphics. What would have happened to Africa if it wasn't colonized? Would Africa have eventually developed? I don't think so. I think technology development is a combined effort and we are all basically a combination of all the great ideas and thoughts. So today we have microphones and we are doing podcasts. Podcasts are a great idea. How many little pieces had to come together to design, before we got to podcasts? Microphones had to be designed, ideologies, psychology had to be thought out. Conversation had to be thought out, cabling, cameras. There are so many little pieces that eventually got us to this. So the podcast itself might be a creation of something awesome, but there are so many little bits and pieces that had to be created before we got to this point. So I think likewise for Africa to have thrived, it couldn't have stayed in isolation. What could have happened, though - I am not sure if you have ever been to Dubai - but whenever I go to the United Arab Emirates, I always think "This is possibly what Africa could have been". Because the United Arab Emirates, Dubai in particular, was like this little fishing village, where guys would dive, open clams, pick poles. That was the trade of the Emirate people. And then, in Abu Dhabi they discovered oil. Once they discovered oil, they realized that oil is a massive resource and this is going to make us very rich. But the structure they put in place was how they were going to take it out and stay in control of the wealth. Which is very different to the African story. For example, they got the British involved and a few other people to come help them get the oil out of the ground. So they can't get the oil out of the ground, they know who can. But they don't want them to completely own it. So they have these laws in place where if you open up a business in Dubai, you have to have an Emirate partner. And I don't know if it is still in place, that partner had to be the majority partner. So if you wanted to take any wealth, you made sure that you were also enriching a local person. Africa's story is completely different. If you ever go to Kimberley, the big hole where they found the Cullinan diamond, that sits in the crown, they found in Kimberley these masses of diamonds. And it was just like wild, wild west. It is almost like crypto-currency in a way. because everyone just goes and takes whatever they need and you trade it and you move. And people are building these digging areas and little rigorous [00:42:43] there and someone digs next to it and they get a little breach. And there were just holes everywhere. Until, I think it was the De Beer, he got the idea that no man can form a diamond company and we can control how the digging and all that is happening. But when all of that stuff came out of the ground, it went everywhere except to people. You went to Kimberley, right? It's a dead town, it's hard to believe. I think it's the second place to have street lights in the world, I think the first was Philadelphia or something. So Kimberley was ahead of its time, you had the Kimberley stock exchange. It had its own stock exchange, it was trading diamonds, trading gold before Johannesburg was a thing. It was a city ahead of the world in many ways. And it had this amazing resource of diamonds. It was discovered I think in a river. The story goes like this: There were kids playing in a river and they found a stone. They gave it to a traveller. So the kids were playing with it, the traveller said "I'll give you something for it". The man checked it out, they were diamonds. So they knew. And diamonds, they obviously were kicked out of the volcano at some point. So they formed out of a volcano and pushed out. So they were in the river that flowed down. So they knew there was something there and they were 100% correct. Now there is a massive hole. The hole represents the wealth of South African Kimberley. But none of that wealth exists for the people of Kimberley. That wealth has been exported to particularly Britain. I sometimes wonder if diamonds and gold had been discovered in a time like today, like how Dubai or Abu Dhabi was set up, that Africa would have been a better place. It just makes you wonder what type of world we would have lived in. Because if you go to the UAE, you find that foreigners or visitors and local people, there is a relationship they enjoy or they experience that is so different to Africa. They don't see foreigners as colonists, they see them as helpers. It's co-laborers in mining the wealth of Dubai. Whereas in Africa, the people see the colonists as oppressors. I don't know if that relationship will ever change, the way the African people view Europeans in particular, who came to the different countries, like the French, some parts of the Congo, the Belgians and obviously the British and the Dutch. The Portuguese in [00:45:24] and Angora. I don't know if there ever will be a time when African people will be able to hold hands with these people. Because for the most part, the African people until today are still poor while a lot of these great-grandchildren and grandchildren of the original arrivals are still wealthy. And that gap in South Africa is probably the worst, that gap between rich and poor. Interviewer: I think it's probably up to these countries now, in a way, to redistribute technology, wealth, knowledge into the entire world, so that we can all benefit. If Africa is stronger, the whole world is stronger. So I don't think there is any point in people and powers that be controlling this wealth and trying to control people. It is probably beneficial to them right now, but our future, as our planet, as our children and our grandchildren, we need to build a place that is equal all around the world. And we have to make this movement, we have to do that. [00:46:24] Interviewee: Well, the problem with that, Clint, political systems that exist... Socialism - which in a slight sense is what you are hinting at - is not popular in the Western world. The idea that the Westerners would somehow give up their resources to help the less, I don't think that is going to catch fire. I know America already has a problem with any form of socialism among their own people, their neighbours, people at the border, you read every day of how they don't want to offer healthcare to immigrants at the border. That is what you are suggesting, that's probably the closest that they can practice it, and they don't want to practice it. I'm not sure how the UK feels about moving from where it is now to a more socialistic approach to solving world peace. Democracy remains the preferred political system. Capitalism remains the preferred financial political system. And as long as those exist, it will always come down to who has more knowledge, who knows more, who has better connections. And those who don't, will fall back. Interviewer: Not that I am a socialist, I haven't really thought about this a lot, but I think that we are going to evolve a different type of political system. It may not even be a political system. But there is going to be a new way of... Not governing people, because I think that's the wrong word. A new way of living. [00:48:08] Interviewee: Well the idea of democracy was that people chose the government. Democracy was that the people shall vote and the people shall govern. But the problem with democracy is that you can't have democracy with an under-educated election. So if the people don't know the deal, what's going on, they shouldn't really be allowed to vote. That might sound like a very dictatorial thing to say, but if people don't know what is on offer and who stands for what, how can they make an informed decision on who should lead? And so, political parties prey on that, they prey on the ignorance of people. That's why you have these far right leaning and far left leaning parties and movements that keep rising up. The fact that Donald Trump is in power is a direct response to Barrack Obama being in power. So the left ruling for two terms, the right being so agitated, they don't really care necessarily what the policies are. They just feel like they are being isolated. And so the voting is along racial lines and it's along really personal lines about who I am as a person, what I look like. In South Africa, too. As opposed to "What are the policies the party is offering?" Interviewer: Well, it has been great talking to you, Carvin. I like this thought-pattern and I think that the more we talk about it, the more we start to think about it and hopefully, the more people listen, the more we think about it. I don't have the answers. No one has the answers right now. But as we collectively think, we might come up with something that is going to work, that is going to help. [00:49:52] Interviewee: As a political system - just to round it up - what I think should happen, in a country like mine like South Africa, we have the unfortunate legacy of apartheid and being freedom fighters. And then a government that needs to pay or thank freedom fighters for what they did. So there is a payment system that's paid through government, the government positions and head of departments and mayors and premiers. So these positions at this point in time are not necessarily going to the best people that could take a country like ours forward. There is a list of people that haven't received any benefits for fighting in the struggle and giving up their lives and losing partners. A lot of the older freedom movements like the ANC, there is a big struggle of how the party moves forward. Because when they elect people like Jacob Zuma to the presidency, any thinking person in and outside the ANC will ask themselves "Was this really the best foot forward? When they looked through all of the ranks of the party, with a legacy of people like [00:51:11] and Walter Sisulu, Nelson Mandela, then Jacob Zuma? This is our best step forward?" And I don't think that necessarily is the best step forward or anyone else that comes afterwards. I think we are just in this awkward age of still having to pay people who help fight for freedom. My wish is, once we get through this tricky period, that we start appointing some ideals governments. The best doctor in the country is the minister of health. And the most decorated police man, active working, is the minister of police. And likewise, the most decorated judge is the minister of justice. So I think a very professional [00:52:02] EO private type approach to government is the only way we are going to fix our political system. Because I think in that case, we will at least get a lot of experience, firstly, in those fields. And logical thinking towards the best systems. I think as long as it's politicized and the people put into these positions are actually politicians and not professionals in those industries, we are going to keep running around in circles. So my ideal political system in South Africa - and I suppose in most parts of the world - would involve the best available person in that field being the minister of that. So I will give you a small example of a little political situation. There are ten of us and we are friends and you are good at making music, I am good at telling jokes and Pete is good at break-dancing. You are not going to ask me to be the break-dancer. In our little political group, it's going to be him, he should be the minister of break-dancing, because he is the best break-dancer and that makes the most sense. So that's a microcosm. On the grand scale, if we could get that sort of thinking into our political system, the best results for us to get the best police results is to have the best police man. Kind of conducting, because all the experience and the know-how is what's going to give us an advantage. Because knowledge is power and it gives an advantage. That's why you have knowledgeable people in high positions. Because the knowledge and that experience just makes us more dynamic, more sharp, makes us think better on our feet. And we don't have that. Interviewer: Carvin H. Goldstone, comedian, friend, thanks for being on LifeShot Podcast. [00:53:52] Interviewee: Thank you, it has been fun. Interviewer: And I wish you all the best for the rest of your trip in the UK. And if people want to see more about you, where do they go? Interviewee: I have a website, it's carvingoldstone.com. And you can find everything you need there. Interviewer: Great. Thank you very much. Interviewee: Thanks.

Guests : Bulela Lesea The passengers drag themselves off the bus. After a hard day’s work, it’s good to finally be home. But their shoulders slump at the sight in front of them – a dilapidated bus shelter mirrors their fatigue. To Bulela Lesea, his neighbours’ despondency is unlike their usual liveliness. Lesea realised he could brighten up their environment and raise people’s spirits. Using his skills as a painter, he is spreading colour throughout Wolwerivier. A self-taught artist, Lesea brings luminous characters to life with the streaks of his brush. Children watch as he paints, captivated by his deft movements and the transformation of their home. Jethro Jaftha Self-love is Jethro Jaftha’s secret weapon. It’s a strength that’s taken years to hone. The words of others don’t hurt him like they did before. Growing up, children taunted him for his curly hair and skinny frame. Jaftha tried to fit in, even attempting to play sports he didn’t enjoy. Nothing helped. He remembers feeling like he was stranded at sea, unable to swim. Once Jaftha left school, a photographer invited him to step in front of the camera. The results of his first modelling shoot transformed Jaftha’s perception of himself. The source of his pain was in fact his power. Today, Jaftha believes his features are his greatest asset and harnesses this to celebrate his heritage. Now a successful model, Jaftha is using his experience with bullying to uplift others. Terence Mentor Terence Mentor has a confession. He used to be jealous of the bond that his two-yearold shared with his wife. When Mentor made the admission on social media, his fears resonated with other parents. Mentor decided to create an authentic, intimate handbook for fathers like him. The result is AfroDaddy, his online meeting place to share the challenges and triumphs of fatherhood. Mentor draws from his experience of fostering 14 children with his wife, Julie. In the past four years, they’ve opened their home and hearts to give children from welfare agencies the care they deserve. Mentor is now a full-time dad to Liam and Eli. Both boys feature in the AfroDaddy platform as Mentor gives an honest look into his life with them. With videos, blog posts, and podcasts, Mentor is breaking the silence on male parenting. The social stigma attached to men sharing their emotions, especially on public platforms, can make some conversations uncomfortable. Mentor dives into the discomfort and addresses issues across the parenting spectrum. Carvin Goldstone Every word out of Carvin Goldstone’s mouth is a biting observation of life. The comedian’s masterful range of accents cross cultural bounds, while his fiery wit keeps crowds in constant fits of laughter. Goldstone grew up surrounded by storytellers, and his Indian, black, and coloured heritage influence many of his jokes. Raised in Newlands East, Durban, Goldstone forged bonds with a diverse network of people. They became his foundation of support as he kickstarted his career. He voices their stories, sharing honest and hilarious tellings of life in South Africa. Laughter has the power to take us off the defensive, something Goldstone uses to grapple with difficult social topics. Recently, the comedian embarked on a world tour of 21 countries. While Goldstone garners international recognition, he’s still committed to his roots. To open doors for up-and-coming entertainers from Durban, Goldstone founded the Next Generation Comedy Show. The platform ensures that the tales of his hometown are never forgotten, and that there’s space for new ones to be heard. Most of all, Goldstone is uniting people through humour. Rather than laughing at each other, we can laugh with each other. Beautiful News has kicked off youth month with the above film. Hear some of the voices from released stories that make this country's youth extra special

In the first episode of The Almost Perfect Podcast I get to know Durban's comedy godfather, Carvin Goldstone. We dig into the early days of his comedy career, we discuss the pressures of his role in comedy, we learn a bit about his rap and journalism careers, and we find out what he gets from his parents. We also chat about his Comic's Choice Award wins this weekend and why he's not accepting them. I'm stoked this is the first episode of this podcast, Carvin is one of my favourite people and we'll definitely be doing this again down the road. https://almostperfect.co.za/ep-1-carvin-goldstone/

Mojak Lehoko jets in from Joburg to join our disjointed discussion. Leah Jasmine gives us a first-hand account of the 1st of August March against Gender Based Violence. Carvin Goldstone is around so that's always best case scenario. Bob finally admits to being Coloured. We also discuss: The Role of the ANC in Feminism Privilege and Power Dynamics Accents When you know a Job interview is not going your way Who's allowed to do good deeds with their money Viral Video Comedians

Whew... We did this one Live from the stage at the Heat City Comedy Festival in front of like 50 people. It was especially great. What made it even greater was having Leah Jazz come through as our guest, voice of reason, moderator, educator and so many other things. Also our main man Carvin Goldstone was on stage and we discussed: Deon Govender's now infamous Facebook post Trevor Noah 2013 tastelessness Leon Schuster Eddie Murphy Whether we should censor ourselves Women in Comedy And so much more... It's wilder and more shouty than normal. Which is saying a lot... We know we say this every week - but this is the best one so far. For realsies this time.

So I had a chat with Carvin Goldstone in this episode. Carvin Goldstone shared about the history of South Africa. He shared about the different trends of standup comedy over the years. He talked about the different styles of comedy that people adopt all over the world, how to get your audience. He shares the time that he did a show that is in a different language and the different kinds of laughters in different countries.  Not Again Podcast Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/notagainpodcast/ Not Again Podcast website: https://www.notagainpodcast.com Not Again Podcast iTunes Page: https://itunes.apple.com/sg/podcast/not-again-podcast/id1243363815?mt=2 Not Again Podcast Spotify page: https://open.spotify.com/show/2BqPbSFxoZn59pT8XM7Lbo?si=phHDtLakT8aelgPIIL8wsg Not Again Podcast Stitcher Page: https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/not-again-podcast Not Again Podcast Patreon Page: https://www.patreon.com/notagainpodcast

Carvin Goldstone joins us and we thought just his presence would make us sound smarter and more sensible in general. Also, that he would curb our instincts to say controversial shit. That didn't happen at all... In this episode we discuss: AKA's new album for 18mins without discussing the music at all. Who's really responsible for animal sacrifices. Whether we have to be sad that XXXTentacion Died. The Mail & Guardian. Capitalising on Wokeness and MUCH MORE! It's loud and screechy and full of swearing and its good.

Jen Su has singer/songwriter and LG Mobile Brand Ambassador Connel Cruise in studio to give away an LG phone. Carvin Goldstone from Proudly Coloured Comedy also joins Jen in studio.