As I type my partner is fuming in the kitchen, banging cups and plates around and lamenting people and their selfishness. She is a particularly selfless individual and this is part of the reason that I love her so much. Of course the downside is that she is constantly disappointed by the self-centredness of those around her, both in the community at large and *ahem* in her immediate circles.

It’s true when she says that I don’t listen very well when she talks about things she is passionate about but which I struggle to be very interested in (although it’s not true when she says I am not really sorry; I am actually).

And it’s true when she says that people are, to use what I presume is an Australian colloquialism, “pikers” (to “pike” means to cancel on a commitment, whether that be volunteering for a charity event or just morning tea). People are Pikers. So am I – although not anywhere as much as others are.

I tell my better half that, although it’s sad, she should stop expecting so much of other people. People are selfish and will, reliably and regularly, disappoint you. The more you expect people to behave in a certain manner, the more let down and hurt you are going to feel when, almost inevitably, they don’t.

So the best course of action is to lower expectations of others and get on with it.

Of course these platitudes just lead to another passionate blitzkrieg of righteous indignation – and she is right – it is a sad state of affairs to have to lower expectations to the level of “what is” as opposed to “what should be” but there it is.

I think the Selfishness Syndrome is an increasingly prevalent malaise. People are rushed, stressed, overwhelmed and, at the end of the day, scared. Scared of what’s to come. Scared of losing. Scared of being trampled on by a dog-eat-dog society. Scared, ultimately, of death.

And this fear leads to defensive behaviour – one of which is selfishness.

Keeping Up Appearances

I read today in a surprisingly sensitive episode of the Lefsetz Letter that “if you even profess doubts, never mind actually lose, you’re kicked to the curb these days.  We’ve only got time for winners” and the quoted struck me as being related to the above issue.

I have experienced this on more than one occasion.

People are very concerned with attaching themselves to what appear to be ascending stars.

I used to be in a band, and in our day, we were the toast of the town. People couldn’t get enough of us: other musicians, girls, the media, venue operators. Our phone bill took a dive almost overnight when suddenly the situation turned from us doggedly calling out, over and over, to everybody calling us, wanting a piece of the action.

But eventually the band, formerly the single most unified group of people I have ever been a part of, began to grow weary of each other and this energy was palpable. Did anybody stand up and say “Hey, you guys have been working very hard and in each other’s pockets for 5 years now; why don’t you take a break and meanwhile me and some other friends will help you to get through this tough time”?

No.

What happened was that the entire city, everybody we knew right down to our parents and partners, smelt the fear and deserted the ship like the proverbial rats.

“It’s over man, move on” was all I heard from anybody. In retrospect, despite my sage advice to my beautiful lady, I feel very disappointed in others about this. We could have used some support, but the same crowd that did not believe we could do what we actually went out and did, were the first people to give up the hope we ended up inspiring in them and scarper at the first sign of trouble.

I am not surprised mind you – it’s just like Lefsetz said – people only have time for winners and at the first whiff of self-doubt, they will drop you like a stone. Unfortunate, but true. On the flipside, I am aware that if you stop putting energy into a project, the buzz is going to fade. So I am not dissing people for not hanging around breathlessly waiting for us (the band) to get off our arses and start kicking goals again. That would be delusional. You get according to what you put in.

The Golden Solution

There is hope though. But before I get to that I need to gripe about one more thing:

Hello? Has anybody out there other than me ever heard of the Golden Rule?

You do know what that is right?

“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”.

Ok I am exaggerating – plenty of people do practice this … but MORE simply do not.

Let’s take an example that most bloggers and readers will relate to: social media.

The brilliant Gary Vaynerchuk repeatedly drums home that it’s counter-constructive to use platforms like Facebook, Twitter, etc. as one-way broadcasting channels to try to ram your shit down people’s throats. On a practical level it doesn’t work. In fact Gary quite rightly calls it spamming but this fact seems to be lost on many of my friends and acquaintances that are in bands, or run small businesses or what have you. Many of these people are never seen in my Facebook news feed until they have a new “thing” to promote and suddenly there they are jumping up and down screaming “look at me!” and “buy my shit” and “become my fan”.

I should point out that I have been guilty of this too in the past because it is hard to resist isn’t it? You sit there thinking to yourself “how can I get people to pay attention to my awesomeness” and you know they are all going to see whatever you post and it’s just so easy to bang out a mini-ad about yourself and hit submit.

But bottom line? It doesn’t work.

I have found that when I post something funny, insightful or useful to Facebook, I get responses. But when I post something like “Just recorded a new song, check it out” with a link, the response is usually muted.

Now maybe this is because my music is shit, but I reckon it’s because people hate (and gloss over) blatant self-promotion. I know this because I do it – big time.

I have a Facebook “friend” (who I have not seen since my teenage years) who is a painter and constantly touts her wares on Facebook.

Now – I know she’s a great artist but frankly, I tend to ignore most of her posts. I just don’t have the time or the desire to be marketed at by friends. After all, who likes a friend who wants to convert you to Amway or Born Again Christianity? Fucking nobody, that’s who.

Meanwhile you’re thinking – yeah but wasn’t this about the Golden Rule?

Well, yes it is – I’m getting to it.

So I have been reaching out blogging again and getting right back into social media, but I have come to the conclusion, like my dear charity-barbecue-organising lady, that people are simply too selfish to do much for you unless they see a very compelling “what’s in it for me” reason to do so. It’s the way it is. The Golden Rule is becoming the Forgotten Rule.

Sad but true.

BUT

I am trying an experiment.

I have always been pretty quick to help people out, especially online because I can do it from my desk, but what I have started doing over the last few weeks is taking this to a whole new level. I am devoting significant time and to going right out of my way to offer unsought after help to other people.

I am recommending music by other people to my network and to music industry people.

I am spending time in forums to promote another person’s podcast.

I am attending gigs that are an hour’s drive out of my way.

I am looking for more and more ways to help others to get ahead.

And I’m not asking for a thing in return.

I am doing this for two reasons, one altruistic, the other not.

The first reason is because we have to try to make this world a better place right? And, to use a cliché, you are either a part of the problem or a part of the solution. In this case the problem is people’s selfish reluctance to help others out. I want to not be like that because being like that sucks to the power of infinity plus four.

The second reason, ironically, perversely even, is that I want to see to what amount this affects people’s willingness to help me out, to promote MY shit, to recommend ME to others, even though I won’t ask them to.

I don’t know what the result of this experiment will be – but I truly hope that the Golden Rule is the Golden Solution to the (greater) problem of the Selfishness Syndrome and the (lesser) problem of how to sell one’s shit.

I will report back on how it goes. Thankfully, I am fairly certain that few people will read this far down so this post is unlikely to scuttle my cunning plan!

I was just reading a blog post that explained something I kind of knew but hadn’t really thought about – that the old gatekeeper barriers (to a career in the creative arts, creative business, etc) that the Internet has famously blown away were only ever a smokescreen anyway and that the real barrier still exists – hard work, persistence, focus – all that tough stuff that we don’t wanna do a lot.

Just so happens that I was also just reminiscing with an old friend who I used to live with in the 90s and with whom I have recently made contact with again ala Facebook. We were talking about where the time goes and how did we get this “old” already so fast and I said something about how I wish I could time travel so I could go back and tell the very happy-go-lucky 26 year old me to get the fuck on with it and do some hard work (that mattered, as opposed to tending bars until 4:30am like a crazed go-bot for minimum wage).

Then the thought struck me that I CAN time-travel and that I SHOULD and that in fact it is VITAL to do so.

I can and should travel forward through time to when I am 46, then turn around and travel back through time to now and be the 46 year old me and tell the current 36 year old me to get the fuck on with it and do some hard work (that matters, as opposed to lazily doing cool shit like write the odd blog post, build the odd website and strum the odd guitar chord until 4:30pm before going in for a pre-dinner snack like a dazed slow-bot).

Do you get me? What I am saying is that when I am 46 I am potentially going to feel the same about me NOW as I do about me ten years ago – which is that it’s all very well and very nice but for God’s sake – there is SO much opportunity right now for those who work their arses off.

Don’t get me wrong: I am all for, you know, being all like, Zen but Hey! News Flash! Zen dudes work harder than, like, anyone, you know?

ok I do work pretty hard, but I can always work harder.

Seamus.TV – A Musician’s Guide to Giving it a Red Hot Go

To “give something a red hot go” is Aussie slang for giving something a try, for having a shot at doing something.

It’s  not about me preaching about “how to be a rock star”, that would be not be keeping it real – that would just be silly.

Rather, it’s a diary of me getting my music out there and generally raving on like a loony hopefully inspiring you to do the same.

So I’ll be making great music, having fun promoting the music (on and offline), and trying my damnedest to find a  bigger audience to dig my musical vibe-ola.

Yes, I still REALLY need to get a better camera. Yes, I have a LOT to learn yet about video blogging. No, I don’t think it’s better to wait until all the ducks are lined up: Real artists ship. Check it out:

Seamus.TV – A Musician’s Guide to Giving it a Red Hot Go

If you like it, please subscribe to it, or connect with me via Facebook or Twitter and let me know what you think. That would mean the world to me.

Are You Suffering From “Trapped Musician Syndrome”?

Yes it focuses on musicians but it applies to all of us to some extent I am sure…

Click here to listen and/or download my music FREE (or pay what you feel).

How do you motivate yourself? Do you struggle with motivation? I sure do and it really is a bummer when you have great ideas but can’t seem to get on with it and make them work.

Well folks, roll up, roll up! I have the solution to your problem and then some – read on!

How I Get Off My Lazy Butt And Get Things Done

You see I love to dream but to act is another matter. I am just not a huge fan of ‘hard’ work (I am sure many of you can relate). But still I manage to get a lot done. I put this down to two factors.

1. If ‘work’ is ‘hard’ then I find it very, very difficult to get going on it. However (and I am aware this is not a revolutionary concept) if I find the ‘work’ fun, then I love doing it and things get done.
2. However even when you are working on a project that is fun to large extent, there are still usually moments when the Big Fun Project requires some not-so-fun hard work. For example when I was in a band, the concerts were so much fun as to be almost unbelievable, but the hanging around all day, sick in the stomach with nerves, grinding through another boring sound-check? That was just a hard slog. But it had to be done …

And here’s the Greatest Motivational Secret In The World (Hey, it made a good headline, OK?)…

FEAR IS A GREAT MOTIVATOR

Put a gun to my head and I will do pretty much anything you ask.

Plonk me in a strange land with three kids to feed and I will work like a dog to make it in my new country of residence.

Tell me that 500 tickets have sold for the next show and I will rehearse all week and stick through the sound-check until everything sounds perfect.

Why?

Fear – that’s why.

Fear of a bullet in the head. Fear of starvation. Fear of public humiliation.

Fear of whatever – it’s a kick up the pants every time for sure.

How I Got Out Of Cubicle Hell By Burning My Boats

Last year I was at the point where I just couldn’t handle it anymore – working for the man that is.

But the trouble was even though I was forever coming up with truly excellent business ideas, plans and even launches, I never seemed to make enough money to be able to let my depressing full or part time employment go.

Until I realized that I wasn’t making my own entrepreneurial exploits profitable because I just wasn’t concerned about money. I have reasonably low living expenses, and even with the family to support I could just work half or three-quarter time and scrape by comfortably enough. Therefore I would work on the 1% of business ideas, the creative, inspirational aspects of them, until it was time to crack into the 99% hard work part of the game, then I would just let it slide and move on to a new idea because I had enough money to get by on.

I am just not that motivated by money; I need stimulation. But the flip-side to this was the work-a-day jobs were eating away at my soul. I needed to do something to force the change…

Introducing – the Fear Factor

So what I did was I burned the boats – I quit my job and told myself that it was sink or swim time.

This scared the shit out of me because while I don’t care about money much I sure as hell can’t live without it – and I have a wife and daughter to support!

Well, now our business, SquareEyes, (which I run with Steve who also manages this blog with me) is starting to do really well and I put this down to the Fear Factor.

Every morning I sit down at my desk and I know that if I don’t hustle then there’s no money coming in next week. That makes me scared – and that fear motivates me.

There Are Many Ways To Motivate Yourself

The trick is finding which motivational technique works for you.

The reason I got to typing about this topic this morning is because I just got a copy of The Essential Motivation Handbook by Leo Babauta, of ZenHabits fame and my online mate, Eric Hamm of the excellent and popular Motivate Thyself blog.

I haven’t finished the book yet, as of writing, but it’s not the kind of book that you read straight through because after you read a page or two you get all revved up and ready to rock.

By this I mean this book is sure to make you want to get on with it; it will you motivate you to get out there and achieve your dreams and then some.

I know it certainly got me going this morning. It got me thinking about what inspires me to act; what gets me off my lazy butt and into top gear. It inspired me to write this post.

And hey – you may not agree with all of their techniques but some of them are sure to work for you.

For example Leo says that he likes to use public accountability to motivate himself, but for me this doesn’t work so well.

Don’t get me wrong – in my endeavors I find that a certain level of indirect public accountability comes into play: when you quit your job it suddenly becomes everybody’s business (I wouldn’t be surprised if my friends and family are secretly taking bets on whether or not SquareEyes succeeds or fails). But for the most part I have found that publicly announcing “I am going to do THIS” just leads to failure. I am not sure why but my guess is that I am just too secure in myself (and too used to public failure!) that I don’t really care what people think of me beyond being seen as a good-hearted, constructive and law-abiding father, partner, friend, relative and member of society.

What I am saying is I have an ego with skin as thick as a rhino! If I fail, I fail. So what? I won’t stay up at night caring what any one else thinks of that. It just doesn’t concern me.

So there you go – try out the Fear Factor – see if it works for you. And I heartily recommend you click our affiliate link and buy this awesome new eBook The Essential Motivation Handbook – it is sure to get you off your couch and pushing on towards success, especially on those days where you just. can’t. be. bothered.

In case you need further convincing here is a list of the chapters. I think you’ll find this fine tome is choc-a-block full of motivational goodness:

1. How To Motivate Yourself
2. The Only Two Secrets to Motivating Yourself You’ll Ever Need
3. A Guide to Beating the Fears That Are Holding You Back
4. Task Ninja: Form the Action Habit
5. Top 20 Motivation Hacks
6. The Ultimate Guide to Motivation – How to Achieve Any Goal
7. Progress, Progress, Progress! 5 Tips To Keep You Moving Forward
8. 7 Steps to Turn Your Self-Improvement Desires Into Reality
9. 25 Killer Actions to Boost Your Self-Confidence
10. 6 Small Things You Can Do When You Lack Discipline
11. 16 Ways to Motivate Yourself When You’re in a Slump
12. 5 Tips For Motivational Recovery
13. The Magical Power of Focus
14. 10 Ways to Beat the “Can’t Get No Satisfaction” Syndrome
15. 30 Incredible Places to Turn When You Need Inspiration
16. How To Deal With Negative Feedback
17. How to Doggedly Pursue Your Dreams in the Face of Naysayers
18. Achieve Your Dreams Despite Pressures of Work and Family
19. Why You Should Celebrate Your Mistakes
20. How to Actually Execute Your To-do List
21. The Yin And Yang Of Persistence
22. Enduring the Valley to Get to Success
23. How To Relax And Why It’s So Important
24. The Simple Guide To Single-Tasking Success
25. Stop Reading About It and Do It

Click here to view more details

So you’ve downloaded our free eBook, Curly’s Law, about the need to identify your One Thing, your True Life Purpose – but did you actually read it?

And if you did read it – have you managed to actually identify your One Thing?

It’s not always easy is it?

I gave my method for figuring out my One Thing in the book, but that was just one way.

I don’t really know what other ways there are, or at least I didn’t until I read Brian Kim’s excellent “How To Finally Find What You Love to Do AND Get Paid For Doing It!”

The Trouble with the “Do What You Love” Theory

When it comes to careers, the clichéd advice is to “do what you love” if you want to succeed BUT what do you do if you don’t know what you love?

And hang on a second – don’t you know plenty of artists, writers, healers, musicians and wannabe-entrepreneurs who know very well what they love to do but just can’t seem to make it pay?

Well, if that’s you – relax. Brian’s excellent little eBook (with the very long title) is a Godsend for those who are undecided as to what their true purpose is or who haven’t got a clue how to make their passion pay-up some cold hard cash.

4 Reasons I Highly Recommend this Book

I don’t know Brian Kim personally, but I have been twice now impressed with his work (read about the other time his writing blew my mind here). The reasons I so heartily recommend “How to Find What You Love To Do AND Get Paid For Doing It” are:

• There’s no hippy-drippy nonsense; no “open your mind to the Universe and let the love flow in” crap. In case you haven’t woken up and smelled the coffee yet, all that Law of Attraction baloney doesn’t work – not on its own anyway. You can sit around and wish for success all you like, but if you do, all you’re really doing is settling for a life of mediocrity. Instead you need concrete, practical advice about how to get off your butt and make it happen already. This book provides just that.

• It’s a very structured book, a practical workbook that gets you to work it out over a period of time. Brian will have you delve deeper and deeper into your own nature until you find your True Purpose inside of you, just sitting there like a brilliant diamond waiting all this time for you to discover it.

• It’s specific – you’ll learn “What” and then “How”. First you find ‘what’ it is you truly should be doing with your life – your calling. Once you know what this is (and you will) then you move on to ‘how’ to make it pay. If you know you can’t be happy while you’re working a dreary, dead-end day job that doesn’t leave you with enough energy to pursue your dreams, then take my advice – buy this book now and get moving. Life is short! Stop wasting time!

• There’s no fluff. Coming in at 52 pages, this book gets straight to the point and will have you up and at ‘em in no time. In fact Brian says that the book was originally over 200 pages long but he boiled it down to the bare essentials so as not to overwhelm you with too much superfluous information and padding. If only more authors would do this! I don’t know about you but I am a busy man and I like to just get in, get the information I need, and then get on with it.

Who Else is Ready To Get On With Fulfilling Their True Life Purpose?

If you’re happy in your work or have figured out what your life’s passion is – and how to make it pay so that you don’t need no stinkin’ day job, then don’t buy this book. It’s not for those who are content with their station in life and feel they have no more learning to do, no more adventures to go on.

But if that isn’t you then you need to find out what your One Thing is now and how to go for it and succeed. What are your other options? Keep working for the man forever?

Consider these pertinent questions from Brian’s website:

Why sacrifice almost half of your day (if you include commuting) 5 days a week just to enjoy your nights and weekends?

Why sacrifice the best time period of your life so you can enjoy your golden years?

Why put yourself through all this pain and misery for the majority of your adult life?

When did people lie down and accept drudgery, boredom and dissatisfaction as a fact of life?

It doesn’t make any sense.

As I said at the beginning of this article, I already know my true life purpose – and I am making it pay already – but reading this book made me feel even more resolute to move on up to the next level and “go for gold” as the cliché goes.

Now – I paid 25 bucks for “How to Find What You Love To Do…”, but for a short time Brian has reduced the price to about $19 so click through now to check it out and ask yourself this – if you spend $19 on a book that finally brings you the success you have craved all your life – then isn’t that worth it?

I reckon it is, so hop to it and Click Here Now to find out more about the book.

Photo by kirtaph

Probably depends what kind of a life you aspire to!

Probably depends what kind of a life you aspire to!

Today I had one of those “Little Kensho moments” where I just suddenly saw things exactly as they are, and in this moment I truly realised the inherent truth and power in the famous Yoda quote:

“Try not. Do, or do not. There is no try.”

In my case what I was thinking about was my three main goals for this year – to lose weight/get fitter, to greatly improve my French and to re-establish myself as a regular fixture on the Melbourne live music scene.

Of the three of these, the only one I have really been doing properly is the latter; I have been getting out and playing lots of gigs, networking and getting right back into the groove of being a busy, active musician again. I am just doing it. There’s miles to go yet but I have started the journey; I’m doing what needs to be done.

As for the other two, well I have been learning some more French, and I have been doing some exercise and have at least not gotten fatter – but the truth is I have been making excuses. Excuses like “I find it hard to find the time to practice my French skills” or “I can’t enjoy life without (excessive amounts of) designer beer and fine food”.

And so at the end of the day, I just haven’t been “doing it”. To do it just means to do it. Simple as that. And as the wise green grommit said, you’re either doing it, or your NOT doing it, there is no middle ground.

Reading about how to do it, isn’t doing it. Thinking about doing it isn’t doing it. Talking about doing it isn’t doing it. Only doing what needs to be done in order to get the result you seek is doing it, everything else is just bullshit and excuses.

Moving Stones Around

The qualitive difference in my two experiences, “doing it” and “not doing it”, is marked. In the case of getting my music out there again, I feel a flow and a sense of satisfaction that I haven’t felt in years. In fact, yesterday and today I was even happy to do very little (in this area) for the first time in a while, without a nagging feling that I should be doing something more constructive. I felt free to rest for a bit because I know I have some good momentum going. It’s like a bike ride: it’s not all uphill, you get to coast down some hills here and there.

But in the two cases of French and Fitness, I feel blocked (or at least I did until today). I felt frustrated and like I keep trying but to no avail.

The mistake I am making? There is no try! Only Do or do not!

But why have I been “Not doing”? Well, I believe it has to do with what’s going on in my head; my internal dialouges and beliefs are getting in my own way.

The lines of dialouge directly preceding the featured Yoda quote do a nice job of exploring this:

LUKE
Master, moving stones around is one thing. This is totally different.

YODA
No! No different! Only different in your mind. You must unlearn what you have learned.

In case you don’t remember or know, this whole scene tells the story of Yoda teaching Luke Skywalker to use the Force to raise Luke’s stricken X-Wing fighter from the swamp. Luke believes it is easy to make stones levitate but that he can’t use his mind to lift up the spacecraft.

And that’s what I have been doing, moving stones around instead of “doing it” for real. I have been going for a jog here and there, I stopped putting sugar in my coffee, but really it’s not enough to stem and reverse the middle aged spread that’s been threatening to engulf my hips. And I have been learning new French words at a nice steady pace with my little 16 month old daughter, but I still haven’t been knuckling down to learn all the “difficult” grammar stuff that will really mean the difference to my French language skills.

And why?

Because in my mind, these actions are associated with displeasure and negative beliefs. I believe I find grinding through French grammar “boring”. I believe I can’t enjoy life without eating too much cheese and sweet food and drinking too much beer.

In my mind, these hurdles were too big for me to leap, to which Yoda would say:

“No! No different! Only different in your mind.”

The truth is there is plenty of pleasure to be had from both these activities – but my mind has just gotten stuck in a couple of little dead-ends. If I am going to find my way to my destination, I need to reverse the old brain-car and meander back through the suburbs of my skull until I find the way through to the destination I want to end up at. There I will enjoy the pleasure of understanding what the hell all those Frenchies in my life are always rabbiting on about so effusively. There I will not feel like such a bloated old toad when I am on stage singing my little heart out. And along the way there will be plenty of enjoyable milestones too.

“You must unlearn what you have learned.”

The funny thing is, a couple of years back I was in just the same mental dead-end with gig-hunting. I had convinced myself that the way I felt about getting on the phone and hustling up live music gigs was still the same as it was when I was a depressed, marijuana-addicted, slightly paranoid 23 year old (I hated it then). In fact this was not the case, and once I broke that barrier I have enjoyed applying all the skills I have since learned towards this task, and have had no problems at all with it, in fact I am enjoying it even more than I did when I was a gung-ho 19 year old kid.

So on the one hand, it’s all a process, and sometimes you just can’t rush things…

But on the other, that’s probably just another of those mental ideas that I need to unlearn in order to speed me on my way.

I will leave you with another pertinent bit of dialogue from The Empire Strikes Back:

LUKE
I don’t… I don’t believe it.

YODA
That is why you fail…

If there is something you are truly shit scared of doing then I reckon that the best gift you can possibly give yourself is to step up to the plate and do it. But how do you get yourself off the couch and into the fire? Here’s a couple of personal examples of how I managed to confront my worst fears and come out reasonably unscathed.

Flying into the Face of Fear

Ok – so “feel the fear and do it anyway” has become one of many clichés in the Personal Development world, but nevertheless, like most clichés it contains a powerful truth. I have repeatedly found that if something is worth doing then it is probably going to be a bit scary. Why? Because it means stepping outside of your comfort zone and risking failure.

I can think of several occasions where this has been true for me: getting on an airplane to fly from Australia to Europe for example. Despite all the comforting statistics, my Taoist/Zen philosophies and my deep breathing techniques, I still hate flying and the longer the flight the more jittery I get. Nevertheless, it meant a hell of a lot to me to see Ireland, the country of my immediate ancestry and France, my wife’s country of birth, so I got on the damn plane and strapped myself in. The failure I was scared of was fairly remote (crashing) but like most fear, rational thinking had nothing to do with it. I was shitting bricks for months in advance and had repetitive nightmares (about falling out of a disintegrating airplane hull and down through the air to wind up bobbing about in a burning sea waiting to drown) in the weeks leading up to and during the trip away.

Well, suffice to say, the plane didn’t crash, although it did seem likely at one point. We were flying over the Himalayas and the old bird relentlessly shook and bumped like a bronco for three hours while lightning strikes outside briefly illuminated grim stewardesses faces, their South-East Asian complexions looking decidedly pale and disconcerted. Meanwhile my wife, who isn’t scared of flying – just of apparently imminent and genuine catastrophes – was sobbing uncontrollably into my lap about how she didn’t want to die this way.

That bit wasn’t so cool, but apart from that I enjoyed the trip immensely. If I hadn’t gone the pain of the real failure would have slowly have eaten away at me. Some opportunities you just have to take, not to do so would just lead to future dissatisfaction and remorse – and this would have been the real failure.

How To Puke and Shit at the Same Time

The airplane journey from Hell was a couple of years ago now, but just yesterday I confronted another fear and transmuted it into achievement: I stood up in front of a large crowd and delivered 5 minutes of my own original stand-up comedy material.

The reason I decided to do so was twofold. Firstly, I am a solo singer/songwriter and after many years of hit-and-miss banter between songs, ranging from brilliantly executed comedic genius to embarrassing, lame nervous mumbling, I have long desired to get my act together to the point where the bits between the songs are as reliably entertaining as the songs themselves. Secondly, I just love stand-up comedy so, so much and I have been writing my own material for a couple of years and secretly coveting this particular flavour of the limelight – after all, I know I am a funny guy, I just get too many laughs out of people to doubt this. So why not?

I’ll tell you why not … because cracking your mates up with spontaneous one-liners and standing up on stage delivering quality (funny) stand-up comedy are two very different things. I didn’t even need to have done any stand-up to know this is true – it’s just a well known fact. And making a mug of myself in front of rows of un-amused faces just scared the willies out of me.

So for years I avoided acting on it, but as part of my renewed commitment to my live music show this year, I decided it was time to bite the bullet. So I signed up (in a fit of bravado) online for the annual Raw comedy competition here in Melbourne, Australia. (Home of the International Melbourne Comedy Festival, Melbourne is an awesome place for live stand-up comedy.)

As the event drew closer I began to wonder if I should just call up and drop out. But no, I didn’t. Not because I am particularly brave but because the true extent of the fear I was going to have to face just wasn’t kicking in yet. Unlike long plane flights, I don’t get that nervous in advance of stage performing, mainly because I have been getting up and singing in public since I was eighteen (so that’s nearly half my life). But, I do get quite nervous the night before and all during the day of the event and I knew I would be super-nervous before this because of that fact that when it comes to stand-up comedy, quite obviously, I had no idea what I was doing. I was (and still am) a complete comedy noob.

Watching other people do something doesn’t prepare you for doing something. Reading “how to” books about doing something doesn’t prepare you for doing something. The only thing that prepares you is having a go and getting some experience under your belt.

Two weeks out from the event I realised that if I didn’t start preparing soon then I was a dead duck. But the trouble was I wasn’t sure where to rehearse. I sure as hell wasn’t going to do it at home on front of my wife and child, and I wasn’t about to shell out to hire a rehearsal room so I found a novel solution. I have been in the unenviable position lately of having to drive into the city between two and four times a week (for work). This drive takes me about an hour in the traffic, and everyday I see people apparently talking to themselves in other cars. I presume they are talking to people on speaker-phone into their cell phones. So, I figured, if I were to be practicing my stand-up routine aloud in the car to myself as I fly down the highway at 100 kilometers an hour, other drivers would probably assume I was just another tosser using his mobile phone on the go. Perfect!

After nearly two weeks, I had a routine that I hoped was good memorized, but I hadn’t yet bothered to time it. Often I would actually stop for a few seconds while I was running through it in order to concentrate on driving (it wouldn’t be very funny if I crashed while cracking funnies to myself now would it … or would it?). So I decided the time had come to go out to my bungalow office and put up with the fact that my wife and my neighbours could probably hear me and run through the routine with a stopwatch.

It came to 12 minutes! Whoops – the competition only gives each contestant 5 minutes each – and unlike the music business where people just tend to do little more than complain privately about stage-hogs who go over their allotted timeframe, in the comedy world you get a very blunt “fuck you” in the form of a red light in your face, followed shortly by loud music and a dead microphone should you fail to take the first hint!

So I went through the material and chopped it ruthlessly back to five minutes. Trouble was I had been over and over this stuff so much without any audience feedback that I had little idea if I was cutting out the funny stuff or not. I would just have to wait and see on that one.

The big day arrived, and although my wife (a classic ‘shrinking violet’) was apparently catatonic with fear, I felt ok. A little highly strung perhaps, but apart from a few truly non-Zen moments, I was cool … or so I thought.

It was an afternoon gig, and as I drove into town to face the music (although strangely not literally for once) I ran over my material one more time for good luck. Suddenly I was struck with a terror powerful enough to stop a nation. As far as I could tell, there was absolutely nothing funny about the useless drivel I had been rambling on about to myself over the past two weeks, and it would be best for everyone if I just turned the car around and went home and got really drunk by myself in the dirty gap under the house.

But no, fool that I am, I continued on. I walked into the venue and, as it was a first round heat of a competition, there were about twenty other wanna-be’s there for a briefing. I felt relieved that nothing the organisers had to say was disconcertingly new to me. Do your five minutes and get off basically. Not a problem. Then the doors opened and as I sat there waiting for my friend to rock up and hold my hand, it was just me and a bunch of gloomy, sweaty-palmed hopefuls sitting around, trying to avoid eye contact and sipping on beers a little too fast. It was very similar to the atmosphere in a plane shortly before take-off. Actually (minus actual screaming, I suppose) this was more like the atmosphere in a plane, shortly after take off, in which the captain has announced that he’s a lunatic terrorist and intends to fly the plane really fast into something really hard.

I truly didn’t care about winning the competition, I just wanted to do the gig, remember my lines, and hopefully get a few laughs, nevertheless the nerves began to play major havoc, especially when actual people began pouring through the doors in disturbingly large numbers. I had imagined a tiny crowd of about twenty other funny guys and their girlfriends, but obviously others in the line-up were not so shy of inviting their entire Facebook friends list along to the gig! Fuck!

Crunch Time…

(…”crunch” being the sound my balls make when they voluntarily compress together in an attempt to form a new black hole to suck me into in order to save me from hideous embarrassment and a life of bitter regret…)

Once I had watched about two contestants be really, really good (funny) and two others really, truly woeful, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to puke or shit or both at the same time.

Then my moment came, they called my name out over the pumping music, the applause still continuing from the act before and I was walking up the stairs to hit the stage.

How it went isn’t important, or maybe I am just saying that because it didn’t go fantastically well. Not that I can remember it very clearly. I don’t know about other performers, but my time on stage is usually all a vague blur to me as soon as it is over and the more nervous I am the more this is true.

I certainly wasn’t the funniest there on the day, not by a long shot, but I did get a few laughs here and there. That’ll do me for starters.

I didn’t forget my lines, but I went so fast due to extreme nervousness that I ended up reinstating some of the material I had axed. Really what I should have done (and I knew it at the time but just couldn’t seem to find the brakes) was slow down and give the jokes some air.

I discovered just how fucking horrible it is when you crack a joke and nobody laughs … and I felt the sweet, sweet relief when people did. I spontaneously dropped in a couple of ad-libbed moments, and to my surprise they got the biggest laughs. I don’t think this was because the jokes were better, but because they didn’t come out sounding scripted, which, to my detriment, the pre-prepared stuff did (but that’s the key to stand up, apparently, appearing spontaneous when delivering tightly scripted material).

Oh, and I didn’t get through to the next heat, but I really didn’t care about this. Why? Because I know for a fact that many of Australia’s most successful comedians didn’t make it through their heat in this long-running competition, and they made it anyway. How? Well, I don’t know but I can hazard a guess: persistence and hard-work. Or maybe they knew who to sleep with, I dunno…

I went home that night happy that I had faced my fear and rode it through. And I went home determined to do it again, and again, until I get better at it and can relax up there in the (incredibly bright) glare of the spotlight and just ramble away like I do when I am cracking up my mates.

So how do I suggest you face your fears and do it anyway? Well, just make the initial commitment and then get ready for the ride. Buy your plane ticket, book your spot on stage, or lock yourself in for whatever it is you want to do. Then, when the time comes, – - just do it.

…and you don’t even need a new pair of Nikes.

Photo by Fluzo