Stuart Goldsmith on being good at crises, and his no-wrong-answers mindset.

Stuart Goldsmith is a comedian, speaker and podcaster based in the UK. We first spoke with him in 2021 about how the pandemic was affecting his creative work and gained super valuable insights. Now, about two years later, we look back at his thoughts at that moment and how things are working out for him today.

Image from Venla Shalin/Redferns

At the beginning of the Covid-19 crisis, with most of his gigs cancelled, Stuart found himself in a predicament like many other creators. But from our first conversation, it was clear that his unrelenting optimism enabled him to quickly pivot and adapt to the new circumstances finding the silver linings behind the haze of the pandemic: He had more time to think and engage in activities that expanded his career perspective, and he felt empowered because he could still get things done even in a challenging time.

" It (The pandemic) gave me a sense of empowerment because I was among the first people to get up and make stuff happen at a time. Getting up and making stuff happen levelled the playing field in a way that I found enormously empowering and in a way that I hope I can hang on to."

Having a established fan base and a close relationship with his audience, allowed him to become a streamer on Twitch, in addition to working on his project The Comedian’s Comedian podcast, which has had over 20 million downloads since its launch in 2012. He also developed a project called Virtual Office Party, an interactive comedy show designed to be delivered on Zoom as an fun event for company teams and coworkers. Watch a trailer below:

Fast forward to 2023, we are thrilled to see Stuart working on new projects, as well as still promoting his Virtual Office Parties, and reaching an even greater audience by offering talks and events via zoom and other virtual platforms. His brand new comedy special "I Need You Alive" is out now at 800lb Gorilla, so make sure to check it out!

As a final remark, we wanted to share with you what Stuart told us when we asked for some advoce for new creators:

"...Try and cultivate the mentality that things going wrong is good, just as you would do on stage, just as you would do when writing jokes, when clowning, when trying to make people laugh. When something goes wrong, if you can have the mentality of thinking 'Yes!' it just inspires you to do more…."

"Part of being good at a crisis is feeling quite excited when things go wrong...That mentality of thinking there are no wrong answers, only accidents that are good data."

Click here to access “I need you alive” wherever you are in the world!