22. I Quit Comedy the Week Before Kevin Hart's Show Found Me ft. Winston Hodges

Comedian and Funny AF finalist Winston Hodges joins Emma for a warm, funny, wide-ranging conversation about the strange truth that every good thing that happens to him seems to raise the stakes instead of lowering them. After ten years and a self-imposed deadline, Winston had made peace with not "making it" and was on a lake vacation when a casting email landed that turned out to be Kevin Hart's Funny AF — and his anxiety hasn't returned to baseline since.They get into the ten-day whirlwind of making the show, closing on a house, and getting a Cellar audition all at once, why success can feel more terrifying than failure, and Emma's uncanny (and hilarious) sixth sense for reading a room. Plus small-town life, the slow drift from young Republican to progressive, Winston's years teaching kids with autism, chain restaurants as a love language, and grief doing strange things to the body.