Changing Direction

I have been focusing on my writing and producing. I have done a couple standup comedy performances of late.  I have lost my drive for doing standup. All of my comedian buddies say that I will get it back, that it is in my blood to do standup. Hanging around comedy clubs, and telling dick jokes at 2 am to a crowd of 6, isn’t fun anymore. I love acting, and as I keep repeating, I just can’t tolerate the traffic. I am enjoying writing, and self publishing. I still study and read all things personal development, psychology and motivation. It fits together with my newly discovered passion for playing tennis. I am slowly changing the web site, to gear it toward an author theme. Now that in my head I have backed off the standup, seems more opportunities to perform are put in front of me, not sure why that is happening. My wife and I recently went to a Tony Robbins live event here in Los Angeles. We had a super amazing time, and that will be the subject of my next post.

What a great night performing with Dwayne Gill and Kharum Sheik. All of us retired cops and stand-up comedians. All except Dwayne Gill who is still serving as a Michigan State Trooper. It was a sold-out crowd at Bonnie Castle in Alexandria Bay New York. This is a fundraiser I have been a part of for the past three years. All proceeds benefit the River Hospital Wellness program. Troopers Assisting Troops. New York State Troopers take veterans suffering from PTSD out on fishing trips. I have been stepping down my stand-up comedy performances in trade for time writing, and pursuing a motivational speaking career along with acting and producing. After a night like tonight, and getting so much positive feedback on my performance, it’s tough not to get fired back up for performing more stand-up comedy. I’m always trying to do it all, which makes many of my endeavors suffer a little. It was great to have family, friends and my most wonderful wife in the audience. Can’t thank the River Hospital Wellness team enough for they do to make this event a success.

I am overwhelmed by the response from the people who have recently purchased my public speaking book. I have had several people who have now started their speaking careers by buying the book and taking action. Several have joined Toastmasters and have already given their first club talk. That is just amazing. Proud to see people educated themselves and then take actions on what they have learned.  This has certainly inspired and motivated to get back to writing the next book. I have two in the works and a memoir. Public Speaking is one of those careers that can be very fun, and very lucrative. There are thousands of meetings and events held all over the country, and the world for that matter who desire speakers for their events. Yes, there are celebrity speakers that are going to be more in demand than someone just starting out. But not every meeting or event is going to have the fifty to one hundred thousand dollars these celebrity speakers command. But with just a little experience, great marketing tools, and the ability to hustle, you can start commanding two to three thousand dollars as a new speaker. So I am looking forward to mentoring more public speakers.

Conflicted most days lately. Although I have had great days as far as working out, eating well and staying in great shape. Today I worked out in the gym, played tennis and then jumped rope. I have had three days of hard workouts. Just when I decide in my mind I’m going to just be a writer and a motivated speaker in the model of Tony Robbins, I watch some movie or television show, and feel I should keep my heart in the entertainment industry. Today watching a show, my memories stirred, and they took me back to high school when I was in two plays. I played Mr. Darling in Peter Pan, and I was in Prisoner of Second Avenue, a Neil Simon play. Those some of the happiest days in high school for me. I really felt like I belonged. I loved being part of the cast, and camaraderie. I know I could make big bucks and maybe inspire and motivate a lot of people as a speaker. I guess I could still pursue acting, writing, producing, and still do motivational speaking. Maybe that would be my message to follow your dreams, and motivate people to take action on their true desires. And how people how to enjoy what they do while they pursue what they want. 

I feel like I’m about to start over. For so many years I was a cop by day and comedian by night. I also did some acting and felt my heart and soul was in the entertainment business. Now retired from police work and not happy with how my stand-up comedy career has gone, I’m ready to pivot. I’ve enjoyed over the past year or so producing some of my own shows on Amazon Prime. I also enjoyed writing and self-publishing two books. And I want to continue my writing. I get excited about my acting career, but I live about 30 miles east of Los Angeles and Hollywood. I get auditions that may take me 40 minutes to get to. My auditions sometime take less than five minutes, and I get on the freeway, and it could be 2 hours before I get home. Traffic in Los Angeles can be very trying. Many years ago I went to a Tony Robbins seminar, and it really changed my life. I should say what I learned, that caused me to change, changed my life. I’ve been hooked on personal development and motivations since. I am thinking of totally shifting to motivational and inspirations writing, producing and speaking.  I can have several income streams that all link to each other. 

I recently started playing tennis.  I have been practicing four to five times a week, and plan on competing soon. Acting, producing, stand-up, writing, with so many targets, it gets hard to hit a bullseye. So I teeter as I write this blog as to which I will put a laser focus on. At least I am now setting a new set of long-term and short-term goals. One weekly goal was to create a blog post four days. So I am on track. Stay tuned for whats next.

 

I started playing tennis almost a year ago after reading the book “Late to the Ball”. It was about the author who started playing competitive tennis at age 60. The book was very inspiring. I had just turned 59, and after playing in our yacht club tennis tournament, several folks told me I should pursue the game with the natural talent that I had. One of my good friends asked me if I had ever gone to the Paribas Open, one of the biggest Pro tournaments, that is held in Indian Wells California, not too far from our house. I have been wanting to see the U.S. Open in New York, but never heard of the Paribus Open. This year the Paribas Open is from March 5 through the 18th. Wasn’t too sure how my wife would like it, or myself for that matter, so we arranged to stay over one night and spend the day at the tournament before driving the 95 miles back home. I bought some assigned seats for stadium 3, which also allowed for us to see other matches in different stadiums in the open seating areas. We went the first day of qualifying, so we didn’t see any major tennis stars, but we had an amazing time. Stadium 3 is one of the small stadiums, and we were sitting right on top of the action on the south end of the stadium in the second row back, with no one in front of us. We watched two matches in stadium three, and then we went to big stadium two and watched another match. We had a fantastic lunch just outside of stadium two, before driving home. I’m very excited to plan next years adventure to the Paribas Open. I plan to see some of the later round matches, and spend several days attending the tournament. If you ever have the chance to see the Paribas Open in Indian Wells, you will not be dissapointed.