Yea, I think you're right to question anything that start's with "don't outshine." If you're in a position where you need to mute your talent, get out of there if you can. Any master worth the title is thrilled to discover a rising star, and hopes the new guy will, in fact, outperform him. If you're deliberately trying to make the boss look bad, that's a very different thing. Your job as an underling is always to make the boss look good, make your boss's boss as successful as possible, and do as much as you can to make the company successful. You should shine as brightly as you reasonably can. I think your author is making some cynical assumptions about power. We have tons of real-life examples of the adage about power as a corrupting influence. If true, then people in power are automatically suspect. How should we manage that? Whose "rules" do you want to adopt?
Independence on a bunch of levels. So true-- we are not as independent as we think we are. I mean, everything that sustains our lives is provided by somebody else. The most and best we can do is to try to contribute in some small way. If we can amplify that effort, all the better.
Intuition is probably misunderstood. If it's sort of an impulse, I'd say it is probably valuable as a starting place; but for any decision that could have serious impacts, it's great to collect data. I agree, you can't beat experimentation for producing data. I think you should try to design experiments that are safe to fail, though, when possible.
Not to be overly critical, here, but to me the underlying goof was NOT sending you the ad for your final sign-off before posting it. I'm pretty sure that will be discussed too, in the conversation scheduled for later today. (But I admit it's incomprehensible to me that anybody would have thought it would be fine to joke about killing somebody's family. Good grief.) Also, why didn't Facebook censor it? Also number two, maybe be a little more careful what you say when you know you are being filmed. We make enough mistakes when we don't know we're being filmed-- at least be a little more mindful of our performance when we know it's going to be documented, right? Yup. From now on, you're in the public eye. Another level of "performance," for sure.
Uh oh!! Midlife Crisis is coming to Tucson! Look out, Tucson people! Hahahaha! I think it's an omen, that you have already sold your first ticket this far in advance. It reminds me of the old iconoclastic cartoon book "Marketing Precedes the Miracle." You betcha it does.
Happy birthday Paul! We loved the show, and I think the comedy cop was possibly pretty pleased with your 20 or so birthday party invitees in the audience. Yes-- it was another absolutely amazing audience. I think JP is a magical place. I would love to think the secret sauce is concocted by JP himself and his adorable wife. Your set was golden, and I thought Josh's friend-- was his name Sean?-- was especially likeable. I thought the call-back to the tinder profiles at the end of Little Mermaid was genius! I hope you are already having a very happy birthday, and I'm glad you have a friend coming to town today to help you celebrate.
Ack!! I hope the headache is gone. I saw a brief bio about Lucille Ball's early forays into entertainment-- that poor girl saw nothing but rejection year after year, then began to land minor roles in VERY minor movies. Eventually she and Desi revolutionized their industry, and everybody loved Lucy. I think, for many dreamers, the ability and willingness to keep jumping right back into the arena, is the underlying predictor of success.
Huzzah for the Vegas trip, and for another semester in the School of Comedy Biz. I'm guessing you will volunteer to provide some of the comedy for your friend's Guiness Book of World Records gig. Your calculations on what it takes to get to a million dollars reminds me of the ancient joke, "How do you make a million dollars working for (insert any job)?" Answer: "Work a million hours." (That would take about 116 years, right? Assuming you could work the clock around, or get paid for sleeping.) I used 30 for the days in the month, though, so maybe you could get to a million a little sooner.
And you're off to Vegas again, just like that! Anchors aweigh. You are a very mobile dude, and you have cleverly positioned yourself to travel as much as you want or need to. Way to go! The ideal of community is interesting to me. I don't know who came up with the notion that we are the aggregate of the five people we associate with the most. I heard it first in about 1990-- so it's not new. I have also read that girls who are with beautiful friends are perceived as more beautiful than girls who are either alone or with average-looking girls. If either of those assertions is true, then we're either elevating our friends or bringing them down. So we do our best, if we buy this idea, not just for our own benefit, but to boost our friends' status too. You could take it either way. "I need to cultivate successful people." (Or, "I need to choose my friends on the basis of their appearance.") Or the flip side: "I need to achieve at the highest possible level to avoid dragging my five friends downward," or "I need to manage my weight, fitness and style choices so I don't tarnish my friends' image." I think either idea is wrong-headed. To me, community is the benefit, which is spiritual, emotional and material, of cooperation. Everybody contributes what they can, because of mutual love, respect, energy and effort. Often the contributions are not conspicuous. As you pointed out, There's the witty, original thinker who works hard on his jokes, and there's also the generous, sympathetic audience who are there to laugh and applaud. Neither succeeds without the other. In an ideal community, you might take turns. There is reciprocity, but not always quid pro quo. Maybe you never reciprocate by buying lunch, but you always offer to drive. Maybe you are not the one who shows up in a crisis, but you are reliably happy to make repairs or help with yard work. I think the benefits of community are impossible to measure, but vital to almost any measure of happiness. I think your "five people" are a complex web of gifts in all directions over time, while everyone changes and grows, suffers setbacks and triumphs, relies on the strengths of the others and shares the bounty when they can. I think it's a very shallow dimension to think of it as a mathematical average, even metaphorically. It is, in some ways, the essence of life.
Yay! If I had known there would be a PaulCast at 6 am, I would have got up a lot earlier. :) I like hearing about "Good times" at JP's. The regulars there are going to be able to trust you to deliver a great show, which means those tapes will be increasingly informative.
Once again, a super-useful, helpful mini-sermon about the way things work in real life (as opposed to the fabulous lives of the consultants who charge $2,000 for their "life-changing" events). People who look to you for inspiration don't need to spend a nickel. You have made all the details available in daily doses. It seems to me that you are often greeted after your performances by long-time friends, which is a neat metaphor, I think, for value. What is "performance," after all, if not the opportunity to delight your friends? You inspired me to plop myself down with my trusty legal pad and state my values. Not my purpose. I have no idea if I have a "purpose" now that I am retired. If so, I don't know what it is. But my values (in the moment. They will probably evolve) were Achievement, Relationship, Contentment and Fitness. I put these in a column called "Cultivate." I added a column called "Avoid." The entries here were Laziness, Selfishness, Victimization, and Rationalization. The following day I created a new scrum chart. It's simple. It only has the backlog and the prioritization of the "slices." (I adore Richard Lawrences "thin slices.") He says you can slice any task thinly enough to get a win. Yay! A concept I have embraced. It has served me. I am a more achievement, relationship, contentment and fitness-oriented person already. Thanks for posting the Paul Green Comedy PaulCast every day.
Call the suicide hotline and the old Karen at the other end tells you to f*ck off I wish I was joking 😂😂😂 No longer suicidal now just confused and angry which leads to laughter
I always love this combination of the daily increments of progress and the mental and emotional aspect of choosing an "impossible dream" and racing into the arena to take your shot at it, again and again.
Thanks for the details about the behind the scenes nuts and bolts of figuring out how to achieve your ambitious dream. The PaulCast is an important part of my day. The lessons apply to everybody's life, in my view.
Triple win! The booker, you guys, and your audience! You didn't even have time to report on how well you felt your show went over. This is the third (I think) time you have performed it live, so presumably it's getting a little more polished with every show.
It isn't every night that we get to hear from an epic Blippi actor/salsa dancer. Next up-- putting on a killer Midlife Crisis show to validate the booker's generosity and make everyone who bought a ticket proud of their decision. Can't wait to hear how that comes out!
Well now. That was one heck of a bedtime story!!! Is it easy for you to edit these after the fact? If so, you can change "June 4" to June 14 if you really want to. Also-- what an awesome constituent you are for your politician friend! Way to take good care of your friends. Very cool.
The death and marriage stuff does feel heavy or something. What I enjoy about you is you're sensitive and kind but you are also direct and have a purposeful way about you. I wish you would do more material on stories you've told that make me laugh. For example, when you had to navigate a neighbor's unsupervised, barking dog. Didn't you do some kind of noise cancelling warfare at which the dog's owner confronted you on? Also didn't you write a note to her? I remember the story was funny and I believe you can write it funnier. It's lighter, it aligns with who you are, which is funny and sensitive. We, the audience, would love how you navigated it as a highly sensitive person and can relate with conflict in our own lives. I also like how you described the credit card company as the mob. That was funny too since we can understand the relatability to playing the 'system. You're not neurotic. You are a confident and well adjusted human being. You are also well supported by your loved ones. The insight where you discuss marriage and being single is not as fun. It just doesn't ring true to who you are: a highly sensitive person reaching for his goals.
Well!!!! This episode was well-worth staying up for! At first, I assumed Blippi must be the Latin plural of Blip. Now I know! Best of luck on the audition!
You are so rich in resources that will launch you. Its so awesome to hear you acknowledge them. This business (or world) is tough and you see how brutal it is. You got this Paul.
Well, that's fun! This video is set to loop indefinitely at the Desert Ridge turn-down. Hmmmm. Gonna see if I can skip forward. Yes. I was able to skip over it. And now it also loops at the booker who books both venues. I see that anything I search for will work but it will also loop. Quite an adventure trying to figure out how to view this!
I loved hearing about your peers who have pushed through the obstacles of being new, inexperienced and unknown. I agree, it helps a lot to see for yourself, at close range, that hard work and workable principles pay off.
Michael Lorne had to help Farley out for the same reason 'playing to the back row' because of Farley's experience in improv. You're a great performer and play to everyone.
Very interesting. Of course I thought immediately about your longtime friend Mandy who called you out for being "aggressive," which might be something else entirely-- but I think it's probably related. I think it's a SUPER useful thing to be aware of; because you want your audience to like you. I think most people are at least a little bit triggered by the sense of being yelled at. In public places, it's a matter of common courtesy to be aware of anything you might be doing that's disruptive, including being loud. On the stage, it makes sense too. Nobody wants to be yelled at, and anything that even comes across as rage, or even rudeness, is scary. People who seem out of control make us nervous, and we have an instinct to dismiss people who seem rude as jerks. It's probably great advice to be aware of where to draw that line.
Ask your fitness guy to recommend a chiropractor. My best-ever chiropractor was recommended by my client's trainer. Also, I hope you will continue to fall asleep early and sleep peacefully for 8 hours! As you probably know, there's a lot of evidence to support the adage "early to bed, early to rise" (etc.).
Lots of nuts and bolts! Thinking about your Rocky montage, I just finished a terrific novel about a super-star actress-- and I appreciated the author's emphasis on the maniacally hard work this actress invested, from the time she was a little girl. She was universally acclaimed as super-talented, but she insisted that she had no particular gift. She just outworked the competition (at a magnitude of about 100x). I think you are spreading (and living) that message.
"It never hurts to ask!" (That's in quotes, because I'm sure it does hurt, sometimes.) But you said it correctly. You said "sometimes." I do think it's true, though, that we ask a lot less than we would be able to easily get away with. For sure we normally have to make our dreams. Thanks for providing this roadmap of the process, day by day, via trial and error. I think that's the way the world works, and in fact the way it's supposed to work.
The long wait for the 6/3 episode required a lot of patience! Way to stick to the goal, no matter how crazy the day was. Does RU-vid let you post a link to your other RU-vid shows in the comments? That would make it easier for your boomer fans to find them. :) (Notice how general I made that request sound?)
