The Art of Unstoppable Self-Belief - Joe Santagato - #1108

**Chris Williamson** (0:00)
Joe Santagato, welcome to the show.

**Joe Santagato** (0:01)
Wow, that was intense. You said my name like so British, I love it. Thank you for having me.

**Chris Williamson** (0:06)
I have to pronounce it correctly, okay?

**Joe Santagato** (0:08)
Yeah, it's a tough one. People just read it and they say Santiago, and I'm like, all right. Anybody comes up to me and they're like, are you Joe Santiago? I'm like, yeah, whatever.

**Chris Williamson** (0:16)
Imagine if there's a really famous Joe Santiago somewhere that's like, this guy keeps on taking all of my cred.

**Joe Santagato** (0:22)
I assume that that has to be the case, but it's just me, plain old white.

**Chris Williamson** (0:26)
That's true.

**Joe Santagato** (0:27)
Italian, Irish. That's true.

**Chris Williamson** (0:30)
Plain and white as you can get. Actually, plainer and whiter is British.

**Joe Santagato** (0:33)
That is fair.

**Chris Williamson** (0:34)
You have one of the biggest podcasts in the world and you recently sold out Madison Square Garden. If you were to draw a Venn diagram of your audience and my audience, how much crossover do we think there is?

**Joe Santagato** (0:56)
I think it would look like the front of a jeep, dude. Just kind of like, you know what I mean? I think so. I think that people are-
They like that one. Got them with the jeep.

**Chris Williamson** (1:11)
Yeah.

**Joe Santagato** (1:11)
I don't know that there's that much crossover. I don't know. But I'm sure that-

**Chris Williamson** (1:14)
You're not the big place.

**Joe Santagato** (1:15)
Yeah.
You know what I think? I don't really feel like I actually do have one of the biggest podcasts in the world. I think that I have a face that, because I've been on the Internet for so long, that people are like, I've seen this guy before, but I don't really know what's going on. You know what I mean? I think it's one of those things.

**Chris Williamson** (1:35)
But you do have one of the biggest podcasts.

**Joe Santagato** (1:37)
Yeah.

**Chris Williamson** (1:37)
You can brush it away. That was very British of you.

**Joe Santagato** (1:43)
It is.

**Chris Williamson** (1:43)
It was really nice. Yeah. Just do the self-deprecation. Well, you know, Medicine Square Gardens, actually, it's only if you-

**Joe Santagato** (1:49)
Yeah. See, that doesn't even enter my consciousness that that actually happened. It's kind of a crazy thing. It's like leading up to it, I went to a Noah Khan concert at MSG beforehand, and I'm sitting in the crowd and I'm looking around, I'm like, there's no fucking way, dude. I was just thinking about how many people work here even. That's a lot. Then we're going to-
come on.

**Chris Williamson** (2:11)
You're going to come into work for me?

**Joe Santagato** (2:13)
Yeah.
You're telling me that the shop's going to be open, or people are going to be selling Makers Mark out there, and I'm going to be on stage? Are you kidding me? Get the fuck out of here. But yeah, it happened. It was crazy. The little moments too is when it's the craziest because I feel like I have to mentally lock in in those moments in some way and just pretend like, yep, this is me, this is my show.

**Chris Williamson** (2:35)
I'm supposed to be here.

**Joe Santagato** (2:36)
Yeah. It's like a weird feeling. But then as you're walking to the stage, there's a big vinyl on the wall, and then it says the basement yard, and it says sold out show, then the date or whatever. It's like that was oddly a moment where I'm like, oh, fuck, this is happening. This is crazy. Then you're walking through the hallway and you see the photos of all these famous moments that happened there.
I'm like, what is going on, dude? My mom's really good at putting it in perspective for me because she shows up and she's just like, what are we doing? What is it going on? That's how I feel.

**Chris Williamson** (3:15)
Is that putting it in perspective?

**Joe Santagato** (3:17)
It is. Because you could get lost in just doing the show and doing the thing and you're like, this is the next show.
This is cool, but this is another show. But eventually someone's just like, yeah, we're standing in Massive Square Garden right now. I'm like, I know, what the fuck's happening? It's crazy, dude. And it honestly is, I don't know, it doesn't make sense at all. It almost feels like the support that we have from our fan, like I don't everyone says this, but like truly there is a, I feel like I can statistically show that the support that we get from our audience is so high compared to like the viewership, you know?