Fast Days
I don’t believe in laziness. I find procrastination is a signal or a symptom instead of a condition. Writers block or stage fright are treatable. Even some depression can be solved with tricks. Tomorrow, Chris Ruggiero and I are doing an interactive Zoom for you with techniques for getting unstuck. Methods we use and suggest […]
Selling Up
Tomorrow Chris Ruggiero and I are doing a Zoom workshop with your questions about selling creative work. Hopefully it will help people feel less creepy and get more gigs that make them giggle. My main technique is to talk to a potential client in a discovery call, get an idea of how to offer them […]
Easy Success
Tomorrow, I’m partnering up and doing a free Zoom workshop thing about my style and Chris Ruggiero’s style of managing tasks. We have two different ways of dealing with the endless todos of life. My style is based on GTD (Getting Things Done by David Allen) combined with time blocks. I’ll put more notes here […]
A Personal Brand Hack
It’s hard to see what our audience / clients see as our value. Really Really hard. Ken Honda offers a great question for examining our gifts from a different angle. Why were you scolded as a child? The things we did wrong are often the way we continue to stand out. Like every great hero, […]
Self-Abuse + Entertainment
Comedians have told me they don’t want to lose weight or gain weight because they will lose what’s funny about them. Writers have bragged to me about their isolation tendencies. I want you to know… There are people creating things in good health There are lots of people who are creating things while taking care […]
Getting That First Laugh
Comedians can lose confidence. Even in a week, we can feel like we don’t got nothing! Then, we get on stage and we get the first laugh and everything’s back. It’s not just feeling that we’re good. It’s feeling that being good doesn’t matter that much. We are useful. We are serving people. The key […]
Showhack Number 2
Yesterday I shared a showhack and I didn’t call it a showhack, but let’s be honest. That’s what it was. Emotion. Showbiz hack #2 Immediacy / recency. We can make things better by making them happen nowish. “I saw this guy a week ago” is not as good as “I saw this guy outside” or, […]
OMG! Emotions, Please!
I’m from the magic and juggling world. We are often seen as cheezy. That’s another word for shallow. Great jugglers and great magicians bring in their humanity. One thing humans have… emotions! Easy trick: include emotions in what we do. This applies to any entertainment. Audiences can not absorb anything without a story of a […]
More Experiments
We don’t know. Even the ones of us that seem most confident don’t know. We don’t know exactly what our brand is, we don’t know what people value in us, we don’t know what to do next. We can get better at understanding our wheelhouse and who we are to others, but all work is […]
Risk Poverty
If you can’t fail, you can’t succeed. We are tempted to take safe routes. We’re tempted to do things we know will work okay instead of pursuing things that might work wonderfully. The story of entertainment is a story of risk. Everything that we love is created daringly. Now, showbiz companies are trying to hedge […]
Is It Good Or What?
I know. I’ve been grossed out by people who try to sell it too much; people who boast; people who tell me their resume all the time; people who somehow plug every show without embarrassment. I went to this comedy show (kinda) one time. I was heading to a comedy show and was a little […]
Wasting Advice
We waste most of the advice we receive. I give way too much advice and I see it wasted all the time, it’s still worth it to me to give it because of that little bit that takes effect. Here’s how I see it wasted and here’s how to prevent wasting what we receive. Good […]