Tag Archives: Fear

Everyone fights fear

I’m supposed to speak to a small group of city workers in a town near me tomorrow night. I’m not nervous about who will be there. I’m not nervous about the size of the crowd, I’ve spoken too much larger groups. I’m afraid that I simply won’t be funny.

I saw a TV show several years ago featuring a bunch of very famous comedians, Jerry Seinfeld and Jay Leno among them. This show was after the completion of the Seinfeld TV series & whoever was in charge asked Jerry a very simple question.” Why are you still working on new stand up? You have all the money in the world, and more coming in each day. Why not enjoy your life?” His answer was ” I wake up every day wondering if I’m still funny.” He went on to say what if I don’t have it anymore?
Each of these successful comedians echoed the exact same sentiments. They were all terrified of waking up one day and not being funny anymore. My mom was watching the same television show in a different room. When it was over she came to my room and was almost pale. When I asked her what was wrong, she said: “you sound just like them”.
A couple of weeks ago I got sick and lost my voice for about a week. This happened while I was in Dallas with major plans to record several hours of audio content for my podcast Gaming Uncensored with my buddy Tommy. Turns out one of those days I was not able to do anything but whisper. We didn’t create the content that we intended to create and while I enjoyed hanging out with him, one of the major purposes of the trip was taken from me.
During this week of Silence. I started to wonder who I would be if I couldn’t speak? You are thinking “that’s dumb, it was only a momentary sickness.” While that is true logically, the question still remains who would I be? Honestly, I don’t know the answer. Speaking has always been a gift, a joy that was given to me. I’m very grateful this week that I’m going to get to use my gift.
Everyone has gifts, don’t take them for granted. Tomorrow is not guaranteed. You can lose what you’ve been given in a blink. I still wonder if I’ll be funny tomorrow but I’m going to use my voice with everything I have. Find a way to use your gifts. You’ll be glad you did. As always Thank you to Evie for expressing all my words in a single picture. It is a true gift.