21.1 Tom Allen, comedian - Happy High Status

Can you be both insecure and confident at the same time? In this first of a series of Happy High Status takeover episodes, Viv talks to award-winning comedian Tom Allen, star of The Apprentice: You're Fired and Bake-Off: Extra Slice, about his life on and off stage and what he has learned about managing nerves, coping with the reactions of audiences and critics and, most of all, living with self-criticism. Tom tells Viv that it's a mistake to assume that comedians perform from a place of self-assurance: instead he has learned that his version of happy high status comes from being "confidently insecure." (Happy high status is a term from acting and comedy that is a sort of shorthand for "your best self.") He shares tips on dressing for confidence (like Fred Astaire, please), how to avoid being apologetic around people when you really should be taking charge and how to feel entitled to speak. How do you "make space for yourself" in a hostile environment? How do you recover your confidence when it's at a low ebb?

Viv's new book, Happy High Status: How to Be Effortlessly Confident, is out now.

@vivgroskop

For more on Tom Allen, for tour dates and his new book Too Much, go to www.tomindeed.com