Tony Calabrese: This Comedy Coach Wants You To Break Out Of Your Comfort Zone To Find Humor In Your Experiences

I do really believe 100% from every part of me that everyone has the capacity to be able to do the things that they want and not to be held back by the mental baggage that's in our head that we want to push through.

Welcome to the do the Thing podcast. In each episode, we get down and personal with people who go after the things they want to make all their wildest dreams come true. Join us as we unveil and dissect a formula for what it takes to do the thing. Here is your host, Stacy Lauren.

Hey, everyone. Welcome to the do the Thing podcast. This is your host, Stacy Lauren. So, all right, guys. I did the Thing. I had asked myself what would terrify me a year ago, and I came up with stand up comedy would be the thing that would be the most terrifying to me. And I sat on it for a while. I didn't do anything about it until a friend of mine told me about this comedy workshop that was coming up. So I decided to join. And that's when I met our next guest. He was the coach who, honestly, this thing was so much more than I ever even imagined it to be. I thought I was going to learn standup comedy, but what I learned was all about myself and what really matters to me, what I find important. I tapped more into even my purpose of what I want to do with my life and what do the Thing is. And so it just added so much depth to the work that I'm already doing with this podcast and the challenges and even my public speaking experience that I wasn't expecting any of it. And so that's what was so cool. He has this natural way about him of just supporting and encouraging the people in the class. Even sometimes there were people going through something hard, things someone lost their mother going through, someone that maybe wanted to find a different job. And there was just so many people that had so much substance to the things they were going through. And in the workshop, he doesn't even expect you to be funny. He's just asking you to talk about what's going on. So it just opened up all these new possibilities because when you think of standup comedy, you think it's going to be this, like, really scary thing. But the way that he was able to frame it was really just about getting up and talking. And I think that's what was so cool about it. And so anyway, the timing is perfect because I was going to ask him to do the podcast episode when I did my first class. And I don't know what happened, but I waited and then all of a sudden I decided to ask him to do it this time. And it's so cool because I just went to my first class for the second workshop and I got to learn all these. I got to. I think because I was so in my head the first time, I didn't notice the way that he set up the class the first time. And so now I really got more even deeper into how he's doing it. So anyway, I'm excited to talk about that too because I got to everything that I didn't. I was too in my head the first time. I didn't get to hear all these things. So anyway, I am so excited to introduce Tony to the show. Hi, Tony.

Hi. Nice to see you.

Yeah, so nice to see you.

I know it's only been a couple days, but. Okay.

I know. It was so cool getting to start over again. I was loving. I was loving it already. Having some knowledge.

It's so you say it's so funny because so many people say the exact same thing that have taken the class once and then they come back and take the class again. I have people taking the class. Well, the most, I think, is 12 times, but people take it three, four or five times. People take it on a regular basis. They say, tell me it's cheaper than therapy. And I go, I'm not the stand up comedy they are able to. I don't want people just to tell jokes. I want to be. I want people to bring out their funny and by talking, to think, that's how you do it. So you, you're. You're already on track again now and you're doing great this time.

Thank you. Yeah. And it's the way that you do it. I think it helps kind of just become more comfortable even speaking. And so it just opens up a whole nother, a whole nother layer of your abilities.

I think there's a lot of standup comedy classes and books out there that focus on the construct and the technical part of writing a joke. And it's so much more than learning how to write a joke. If you don't have anything to say, what good is that? And so it's getting people to open up and talk more to find out what's funny and then we can bring the structure in. But I don't want talking heads. I want people just to talk. I don't want them to sound like a robot.

And I realized that too. It's especially being there this time. The first time I was anxious, right. So I was really, in my head, I could barely even hear what you were saying the first time, your advice, whereas this time I wasn't nervous at all. And so even the fact of what you say with just getting used to holding the mic, if you learn nothing else and you get used to holding the mic, then I've done my job. And I love that because you're giving them permission to just start wherever they are.

Right, Exactly. And everybody's different and people come from all different backgrounds, all different experiences. Some are actors, some have done improv, some are stand up comedians. People are professional speakers, salespeople, doctors. So they all have a different comfort level when it gets to be on, when they get to be on stage and they don't know how to hold a microphone. Some of them. And some of them have been doing it over and over and over again and some of them are doing over and over again and doing it wrong. And so I have to correct it.

Yeah. And then the homework, the homework that you gave was. And I love this because as you know, I'm starting the find your voice challenge and, and I'm actually going to be encouraging people just to, to record in their phone on and do voice notes. And I'm, I don't know if I got it from you then, because your homework was take these talking points and talk in your phone. Because the hardest thing you'll have to do as a comic is get used to your own voice. And I, I thought that was, I didn't even notice you giving that advice the first time. And so this time I was, oh my gosh, that's so interesting because that's how I found my voice was by speaking into my phone before comedy, doing the podcast and things. Because, like, once you're speaking out loud to things, the clarity happens with whatever you want.

Yeah. Stand up comedy isn't about writing, it's about performing. It's not a comedy writing. If you just want to be a comedy writer and not get up in front of people, it's two completely different things. Because when we write for the page, it's not the same as writing to perform. So you have to hear the sound of your own voice. So you hear what you sound when you're performing. It's different. So that's why I want you to do that.

Why do you think people don't like their voice? I'm just curious, do you? Because, I mean, that's, that happens a.

Lot of my voice. I don't like my voice, but that's my voice. I just have to use it. There's nothing I can do about it. I don't know why that is. I think because we think that we sound differently, maybe, maybe everybody thinks they sound a little bit different. And we are what we are. And that's the, that's the beauty of stand up comedy is that you just are what you are. It's the great equalizer. Doesn't matter whether you're rich or poor or skinny or fat or gender, you are what color you are. If the audience is laughing, you're funny. And if they're not laughing, well, you're not funny. You gotta work on it.

I love when you say that, I love that idea of that great equalizer because it's. Until you make people laugh, then you're just like no one cares who you are.

That's right. You're not connected. They don't care. You know, they, they're not unless you're super famous and they come to see you because they know you. When someone comes to see you when they go to a comedy show, they want to laugh, but they don't know you. They have no connection to you. So as a comedian, as a performer, you need to get them connected. So you have to be able to do something that's going to make them laugh. That's why they're there. They're not there for a philosophical discussion. There is no discussion. It's a one way street. But their response, their laughter is the second part of that. So you're the one that's giving the information. You're the one that's telling the jokes or the stories that have humor in them. And their listening is their participation. But they don't get to talk. So it's just, you know, you have to be on track all the time and you got to do it quickly to get them to like you or not like you.

Yeah, I know it's some people actually that's the routine is to get them to not like them.

Right?

Yeah. And I was also would love to have you share because we've had some conversations about failure and just being comfortable with that. It's almost conditioning.

It happens. And well, if you're going to choose stand up, you got to remember when you first start out, you're going to bomb 90% of the time. Bombing, for those of you that don't know, means suck, means horrible, means you're not doing the thing right. It means that you, that you're just not there yet. You need more experience, that's all. You know, whenever people aren't laughing, it means you're not funny in that moment. That's all it means. Just, that's what a comedian does, is we realize, okay, we sucked, we bombed. But there's always another stage, there's always another day, we get to get up again. And so you get that the people that get up again and keep doing it even after they bomb, those are the true performers, those are the true comics because they know they can get people to laugh. They just got to keep doing it and get better and better and better. It takes a couple of years before you are comfortable enough in your own skin as a comedian to get up there and know that you're going to do well when you get up there. It takes, it takes time.

How do you suggest somebody kind of persevere through that time and just being comfortable with the bombing? How do you get someone around that.

You have to set a goal for yourself of I'm going to work my material, I'm not going to allow the other people that are there, which if you're, when you're first starting out, it's just other comics in the audience for the most part, you're going to open mics and you're not getting a huge real audience. Other comedians are there. You might be 30 people on a show, each getting three minutes and you're going up at 11:55 on a Wednesday night, that's p.m. and there's just nobody left. And you know, it's, it's extremely soul sucking when you do open mics to do that because you're not getting the feedback that you want, which is the laughter. And so people fall into the shock comedy trap. They try and be as dirty as possible or say things that they know will get a response from the comedians. So you have to set goals and say, okay, my goals are to focus on this material. I'm going to record myself video if possible, but at least, you know, audio record yourself every time you're on stage and you're going to look, look and listen to what you sound like. And did I write that I. Did I say the jokes the way I wrote them to be said? Did I get this kind of response that I want? If you videos out, tape yourself, videotape, record yourself digitally. Did you get the, did you look with your facial expressions and body language the way you wanted it to be for that particular bit? Stand up Comedy isn't just the words. It's not just a set of punchlines and tags. It's also the emotion you were feeling at the time. So if you're telling a story and you're trying to recreate that story every single time you perform, the best way to do that is to recreate what you were feeling at the time. And so if you set those goals of I'm going to make sure that I did the things that I was feeling, what I was feeling when I wrote this, this is what I wrote, this is what I the way I wanted it to sound when I wrote it. And you keep focusing on that and let all the negativity go then each step. You know when you get that I did that joke exactly how I wanted it. I didn't get an audience response because there's no audience yet except that. But I'm going to keep that joke. I'm going to keep that bit series of jokes about a topic and then I'll move on to the next thing. And you just keep doing that over and over and over again. You will eventually get the laughs if you are on a topic wise, material wise the right track for the an audience eventually. And you don't want to fall into that horrible trap that I see so many people starting out when they're comedians and that's that like I said, that horrible. They get into the dirty jokes and shock humor and it just doesn't work.

Yeah. And that's what I like. I like how you're able to set up the expectations for what you think will be the best for them if they are going to make it a career. And there's a lot of people that are doing it that aren't wanting to be stand up comics. They're maybe doing it for work or to me I want to do more of like the humorous speaker. And I was just wondering for someone maybe listening and they don't want to do stand up comedy but they're still interested in taking a class. This or just have an open mind. What would you tell that person that they would get out of doing something like this?

Well, first of all, most of the people taking the class are not stand up comedians and they don't want to be stand up comedians. They want to cross something off their bucket list. The amount of doctors that I have that take my class, the amount of lawyers that I have, it cracks me up. There's always two or three doctors in every class. There's always two or three lawyers in every class, psychologists in every class. And then the other thing is salespeople. I have so many salespeople that have taken the class so that it will help them add humor to A sales presentation. And so those. I would say that's probably 75% of the people I've got three classes going and that's about 75% are people that are not looking to be standup comedians. So that's not unusual to see that. I've always wanted to do this. I got to try it just once. I would say most people do not realize how hard it is. They, they think you just get up there and talk and that's it. That is the, that's the first step is getting up there. Then there's way more to it after that. And it's. They don't understand how much work, how much writing, how much we put into it. We were talking about the reasons why people do this that are not stand up comics. Then I said, and I was saying that the most of the people say are not stand up comics. And what do they get out of the class. And I think, I think the main thing that people get out of the class that do not want to be stand up comedians is that they're. They got. Were able to get up in front of people that they do not know and make them laugh and get a response and it's a positive response.

It's like that idea that you're able to get up in front of people and then just start talking about things that you find funny and then kind of getting to see their reaction as well.

The thing that I like that I really enjoy is when I get somebody who hasn't taken the class in four or five years. And I've been doing this for 12, teaching the class for 12. That'll come back to me and I'll get an email saying, hey, this is Rachel. You know, I took your class five years ago to just to help me get over the fear of getting in front of people. I'm a salesperson. I just want you to know I'm now head of the, you know, the division and my sales increased 41%. You know, those are kind of things that it's amazing what this will do for people's self confidence. I think that's huge.

Yeah. The other thing I really thought was interesting was even for do the thing, you helped me connect the dots together because I got to, we're talking about the portals opening. I got to look at things in a different way. And then it opened up all these connection points and I realized I even I talk about. I don't know if I've mentioned it on the podcast yet, but the thing with directions, how I never realized by me being terrible at directions. Why. That's why I'm so good at being able to do the thing. It's because I never have a clear path of how I'm doing something. I'm always like, you get there. Yeah, I always get there eventually. And so, and so that the. I didn't actually ever put that together until comedy. And there was a few other things that I put together there. And I was just curious, what do you think that is? Because I think other people had epiphanies that in their own life too.

I think we live in our own little box and we observe everything around us, but we don't really ask ourselves the questions about why those things are going on around us or make comments about how we feel about those things necessarily. We keep a lot of stuff to ourselves. And standup comedians, we train ourselves to look at the world around us. And our mind never stops asking the questions of who, what, why, where, when, how. Why did this all happen? Because in the moment you might find something that's really funny and then you start breaking it down immediately and how you're going to perform this. And it just, it comes from, I've been doing this almost 30 years, so it comes from doing it over and over and over and over till you train yourself to be able to do that, you know, to think that way. And that opening up the portals is. It's basically just not. It's thinking outside the box. For people that are have not done stand up comedy or have not been done in any kind of performing, you gotta be able to just open your mind to everything, to all the possibilities. Understanding that it's not always gonna be funny. It's. If that's what you're looking for, sometimes it's not funny, sometimes it's just either. I think it was Carol Burnett that said comedy is tragedy plus time. Sometimes there's really some sad stuff out there. That's why at the beginning, when you hear people going through a lot of things, you gotta let em work through it. And sometimes people are able to bring some of that tragedy on stage because they're ready to talk about it and point out some of the crazy things. When I have people that are cancer survivors that take the class, one in particular, all she wanted to do was to be able to speak to cancer survivor groups and to cancer support groups. That's what she wanted to do. So she wrote almost an hour, she took the class six or seven times and all she wanted to do was focus on that. And so it was a Very. And she's a cancer survivor. She had stage four ovarian cancer. She was very ill and survived. And she wanted to talk about all the craziness that she went through, all the visits, all the doctor's appointments, all the chemo surgeries that she went through, and to point out the funny in it and to look at her survival and what she went through in a positive light and to share that with people. There are other people that have gone. I mean, the amount of people that go through divorces and take stand up comedy classes cracks me up. It's like the first step after getting a divorce is to take stand up comedy class. And maybe that's what people need and that's fine. And some people are ready to talk about that and some aren't.

Yeah, I think, I think that's what's so cool is. And I think I mentioned this in my first class when I did my talk of what why I was there is. I was. I really wanted to be able to make people feel seen through something I said, because I know that when you can make someone laugh, it just, it's a connection point of just a way to enhance it. Just. You were saying with, with the woman with cancer. I just can't even imagine going through something like that and then being able to laugh at someone that had been through the same experience and just laugh at the absurdity of all the stuff you have to go through. And so. And then also seeing that she's come out the other side and she's up there, I mean, it's. And we could talk about that for anything. Divorce, kids going out of college and leaving the house. I mean, there's so many different transitions that we get in our life. And then having someone that can kind of speak to that in a funny way and find the funny in it, I think it's really. It's really amazing.

And the great thing about stand up is that you might have, for example, 10 people that want to talk about their dating life. And we've all heard stand up comedians talk about dating and online dating and all this almost every comedian talks about, but they're all different. Everyone has their own take on it, everyone has their own situation, their own examples of what happened to them. And they're different and they're funny. And so people can relate to that because a lot of people are going through it. And then there's those of us who've been married for 45 years and there are. Well, fewer and fewer of us have been married that long. But we get to talk about our experiences of being married that long and how someone's willing to put up with a comedian for 45 years. You know, you talk about what we know.

Totally. What have you noticed in common with the people that take your class? And they do all the things. Because I know there's probably some people that can go and just not do the work right. But, like, what have you noticed with the people that actually do it?

Well, some of them are out there. You know, I have two of them that are stand up. They're professional comedians. I mean, that's. That's what they wanted to do. I got a couple that have dry bar comedy special. Dry bar is a. It's in Utah, and it's cable television in Utah. And they do clean comedy shows. And they do. When I did it back in 2017, it was a. You had to do 45 minutes, squeaky clean. And then they record it and they put it out on cable television in Utah. So they. It's a platform for a lot of comedians to go if you were clean. And so some of my comedians have been able to do that. Others are out there doing the Christian comedy circuit. That. And they're doing really, really well. They. Well, one of them moved to Nashville. She's performing there. It's. That's the. That's where she wants to be for is that whole Christian kind of clean comedy circuit. There's quite a bit of that in the south, so. And a lot of them are just, you know, some of them have been doing it two or three years and they're finding their voice as a comedian and they've changed their material and it grows. And I watch them grow, and I get really excited when I see somebody who started out at one point and then, you know, five years later at this, they're at another point. I have a lot of my, my comedians that are out there promoting their own shows now, and I love to see that too. You know, they. They don't want to go up and bar gigs and have those kind of crowds, so they created their own venues.

Have you noticed any common characteristics in those people that have reached that level of success? Like from the time that you were training them when they were working with you?

Yeah, I think that they're not quitters, that they understand that. When I was, when I used to coach my kids years ago, I, as a coach, I would say you have your goal and your dream. Your goal is to make the playoff. Your dream is to win the championship. Right. And I think for comedians It's. It's kind of the same thing as your goal is to keep getting up there. And your dream is to get to that level where you finally believe in yourself as a success. And you're on that roll when you're hitting it and you're doing everything that you want to do. Sometimes you can be in all of the right places, all the right time. You're clicking, you're doing everything right. You're funny, and you don't get there. That's just part of the entertainment business. You don't. And if you don't quit, if you keep at it, you will find over time, some niche that you fit into, that you feel good doing it. And then there's those that just. They just give up. And that's the people that. They lose faith. They lose faith.

Is that the biggest distinction then? The people that quit, they've lost faith in themselves in the process.

I think they've lost faith not only in themselves, but in. Yeah, in the. The world of comedy in general. It's tough. It is not an easy business. If that's what you want to do, you got to do the grind. I mean, you got to get up at every chance you can get to find a stage, every open mic. You've got to drive wherever you got to drive to get five minutes. It might be 200 miles just to do five minutes on stage. If that's what you want to do, you got to do it, and you got to do it every week, and you got to do it as many times as you can during the week. And sometimes if you can find two or three venues in a day that you can run back and forth, you know, you're at one venue. Can I get out of here early so I can get to the next venue? And it's that stage time. There is no substitute for stage time. I can't make someone funny. There's not a person on the planet that can make somebody funny. And they don't need a comedy class to be a comedian. You can just do the grind. But I. I hope I. I know I have, and I hope that I'm offering them a faster road to become a standup comic and to understand the. That it's not just writing jokes. I. The. The amount of people that buy a book and think they can become a comedian for buying a book is just cracks me up because it doesn't work that way. And there's so much more to it.

Yeah. So you have the other 75% of the people that aren't doing it for stand up comedy, they're doing it for other reasons, but they're still doing the thing, right. The ones that are like following through, there's two kinds. There's the people that take the class, they do all the homework, they're showing up to everything, right. And then there's the other people that maybe drop off or they're not doing the homework consistently. Just like anything, right.

There's always two, one or two people that quit. They just realize it's too much work, it's not what they thought it was going to be and they quit. And that's fine. That's, you know, I don't, you know, I'm not going to, I'll, you know, I'll do a follow up couple of emails and say, hey, what's going. But if I'm not going to spend time with them, they're not ready. A lot of them come back, but for the most part they'll take another class. But for the most part they just didn't realize something, wanted to try, it's not that much money, so they tried and they quit. Some of them realize that they don't want to get up in front of people. There's way. It's just too scary. You know, they don't like standing up there and sharing themselves with people and they don't know that till they try it. I can't. The more work you do, and it's like for anything in life, the more you put into it, the more you're going to get out of it. So if you do the work, whether you want to be a standup comic or not, you're going to get way more out of doing this. But if you don't do the work, there are people that I have certain people taking the class to, some of them for years that have never sent me anything to look at. And I don't know what they're going to do until the class, until the day of the class. And they don't do the homework, but they like to be held accountable so that they show up week after week and they're going to get the critique of not only myself but other people in the class before they go on stage. And they like that and that's why they do it. So I wish I had that answer exactly why people do that. But I think that's most mostly say they want to be held accountable.

Yeah, I think I like that accountability side of it. And then you do also. When we think of the do the thing formula, you also really do a good job with my people because you're creating this community of people that are really supportive and encouraging as you're up there. And so it gives you really a safe place to fail or to succeed basically. At the same time, when I started.

I had a very close knit group of comedians that we started with at the same time at the Comedy Store in La Jolla. And they're still my friend. The ones that are alive are still my friends today. And they're the nicest, sweetest people. And we're still, you know, one of them. Vicki Barbalak, who's been a finalist America's Got Talent, she's in Las Vegas. I've, you know, done, I've opened for her in Las Vegas. She is a sweetheart. She's one of the kindest, most wonderful and funniest people on the planet. We started out the exact same day at the Comedy Store in Loyal. We're still friends. You build if you, you will start. It's amazing how you form these little, I don't want to call them cliques because it's not a clique. There are definitely cliques in comedy clubs. But we, you know, you get a group, you start writing together, farming, you're always on the same shows, you become friends and you trust each other's ability to judge each other's work. And you take advice and give advice and you listen, but you're still your own person. It's a great feeling when you have that kind of group, that camaraderie and we, you know, there's, well, there's three of us left that have been around 30 years now. So.

Yeah, and I think what you're bringing up too is I remember feeling that with the people I was with with the first class. I just started the second class, so I'm sure it'll probably be similar, but it's just because you see each other in such a vulnerable state and you're able to just be there as you're, you're exposing yourself completely to the people. So it just adds to that connection, I think, with the, with the people that you're with.

And we have been able to live each other's failures. So when we see somebody bomb and then they come off the stage and you're next and they come off the stage with that this look in their eyes, like, was it as bad as I thought it was or was it okay? And then, you know, you've got to do it. You're like, oh God, am I going to suck? But then you Realize, no, I'm good. I'm going to get up there and do this. And then you bomb. And then you can talk about it together afterwards, or you both kill it. You both crush it, and you come on. One of the things we like to do as comedians, at least are my friends, is after they come off the stage and they think they've had a really good set and the audience is applauding and everything's going great, they come up to you and they want you to give them this, hey, man, you did great. You just say, did you go up yet? They look at you like, what? Didn't you. Did you go up yet? I didn't know if you went up yet. So it's just kind of that. Come back to earth. Yeah, that's another show. You got to get back on track. We don't. We've done it enough times that we don't need a pat on the back. And it's that kind of giving each other a hard time and all in jest, but we know when we say that, if you hear somebody say that, you know you killed it.

Yeah.

Said it in the first place.

That's so good.

You go up yet? It's just a little thing that we do.

Do you have anything that you've done that kind of makes me think of the keeping it fun part of mindset, which you have to do with comedy. Right. Is keeping it fun. But I was curious, like, do you have any other kind of mindset tricks that you've used or hacks to keep yourself, or have they noticed with your students that really help at this point.

When they're just starting out? It's repetition. They have to. They have to be able to do it over and over and over again. I repeat the same things in class a lot of times over and over and over again because you have to get used to that. I mean, it's 80% is in the editing of your work. You know, you've got to rewrite it. Sometimes it's just changing a word or two. Sometimes it's throwing it out and starting over again. But it's the editing. So you have a body of work. Maybe it's five pages long, you know, and when you're done, you end up with a paragraph. You end up with five lines because you edit it and edit until you just keep the meat of it or the best part of it and the rest of it gets cut out. There's no. This is not easy. There's no easy way to do it. There's no, to keep that mindset is it's just being able to do it over and over again. You have to understand that just takes time and it is repetitive. You know, you can't just play golf once and be a great golfer. You're going to be pretty bad at it for a while until you've done it enough times that you're good at it. And it's the same thing in stand up comedy. And sometimes you never get good at it. Some people are just not meant to be comedians, but they have the guts to get up there. They have the guts to get up on stage even though they're not meant to be a comedian. But I love those people. I love the people that just. I'm still going to get up there. No matter what, I'm going to do this. I know I won't mention names, but I've known comedians that have just. They bomb every. I've never seen them do well and they just, they're the. But they keep showing up and they. And eventually, you know, they kind of fade out. But sometimes it's 10 years they're doing it and I just keep doing it. And I think they just enjoy being around the laughter and the people and every once in a while they'll get a laugh. But for the most part they're just not comics. You can't teach timing. You either have it or be a dog. I mean, either funny or you're not.

What are you speaking about? Like, what do you think helps someone find their voice? And by their voice, I mean, we've talked about this because I think in comedy it means something different than what I'm thinking. But let me just kind of tell you what I'm thinking. We can kind of see what, what you're, what you're thinking. First of all, you're getting to know what you want to talk about. And so like a lot of times it's coming from your own personal history, which I love too, because it gives you a different frame as you're going about your day. You're looking for things that make you laugh or things that you find funny. And I just love that idea of. Because what you focus on grows, so it actually makes your day even more fun because you're all of a sudden looking for like, like cooler stuff. So there's.

Yeah, you're looking for the absurd, the ridiculous, the funny in life. And if you can identify it and translate to the stage, that's great.

Yeah. Which I love that part. And then there's also what I mentioned earlier with the connection points in your life, right? So you're starting to understand things. Like you said, asking the who, the what, the why, the where. So I think all that goes into finding your voice because you're, you're taking that time to self reflect. I think it's Tony Robbins that says, I can't remember the exact quote, but something you get to know yourself. What is the. What is it? He says, ah, dang it, I don't remember. But anyway, the whole idea of just how the more questions you ask yourself, the happier you end up becoming. Right? Because you're getting to know yourself on like a much deeper level than, than you normally would.

And it's not just, it's just, it's not just asking the questions, it's answering them.

Okay, I like that. Yeah.

So as a com, as a comic, as a comedian, trying to find our voice, you know, they say, oh, it takes 10 years to find your voice. I don't buy that. There is no time. When you find it, you find it could take 20 years, could take. It could take a week. There's no time limit to finding your voice. Finding your voice is being able to speak as your authentic self to the audience. For example, when you have, when you're with a group of friends and all of a sudden you've made them laugh, you didn't think about making them laugh. You weren't analyzing what you were saying to make them laugh. Whatever happened, the way you were speaking made them laugh. In that moment, the way your perspective and take on something came out. Yet your voice, when you spoke it, that was from the funny Stacy. So the. That's your true voice. And to translate that to the stage, that's what I want to find in people. It's not just writing a joke. It's being able to speak as you would normally speak or speak in the character that you've created for the stage. And there is a difference. That is your true voice. You know, you speak in your character's voice or you speak as your voice through your character. And there are people that do that. And I do that a little bit. You know, when I, When I, When I'm, When I'm trying to. If I'm performing in front of a group of Italians, I turn more Italian. It's still my voice. Just like, hey, how you doing? You know, it's that kind of a talk. When, you know, when you're just out with a group of friends, you don't talk that way. You know, it's just. You just talk like this. Yeah, that's how you should be talking on stage with your, the things that you see should be coming out as your authentic self. And the risk we take doing that as comedians is we don't want to become preachers. We, we don't want to be telling the audience this is what I think is my point of view. We want to be speaking with them, having a conversation with the audience and letting them into the, your world of the funny things that you see. And hopefully they're there for the ride and they want it, they want to go there, but you don't want to end up being a preacher. And that's what happens. I even, I have to, I have to caution myself at times because the older I get, I want to point out the stupidity that I see that isn't funny anymore. It's just stupid. But then you just label as a boomer that's complaining. So there's a difference between finding the funny and just bitching about something. People don't want reality, they don't want to hear the negative reality stuff. They want you to point out the funny in it. They don't want to have be preached at. And I think there are certain people that later on in life, very famous comedians unfortunately fell into that trap and they weren't funny anymore. It happens as you get older. I think you have to really remind yourself that.

And as you're wanna hear, as you're talking, it's making me think too. The other benefit that I got from it is I used to be the type person because I didn't like we talked about this, where I didn't really do public speaking before I owned a company, but I always had the safe space of my company. I didn't ever go outside. I did do networking events though, where you have to like speak for a minute about your, who you are in your elevator pitch or whatever. But when I would speak in those settings, 50 people in the room, I couldn't even hear the words that everyone else was saying because I'd be so like stuck in my head like, oh my God, I have to speak. Kind of going through what I'm going to say. And I think with comedy that. And again, I'm doing Toastmasters, but I think and I Toastmasters. I'm not saying anything bad about that, trust me, I really love it. But with this stand up comedy class, I think that's the thing that completely just broke that anxiety because of just the way that it's structured. So I do think for anyone that has to do anything in regarding networking or wants to just step outside their comfort zone and do something new. You said it right. It gives you more confidence in whatever you're doing. So I, when I'm speaking now, I'm no longer in my head. I'm still not as articulate and succinct as I want to be, but I'm not in my head anymore. It's coming straight from my heart now. And so I think that's been a huge benefit that I got as well.

Yeah, I love that people are able to get up. You know, Toastmasters do a really good job. I have a lot of people in Toastmasters that come and take my class at two completely different formats. They're more strict. They don't say like I do, but that's how I normally speak. So if, if people are just talking like they normally speak with the ums and ahs and likes and all that kind of stuff that they do, it comes across as more natural when you, when and anybody can do that. You don't have to memorize it exactly word for word. And I'm not going to say an um or ah that those are great things that Toastmasters does and they're excellent at giving speeches. But stand up comedy is just allowing you to be free. Just talk. Just. The jokes are. The jokes are. Everything's based on truth and you can just pull it out and find the absurd in it and talk about it the way you would normally talk. And anybody can do that. That's. There are people that are just too afraid to get up and speak. Then that's okay. I don't, I know my wife, she, she is incredibly intelligent. She hates speaking. She's laughing in the background now. She hates getting up and talking in front of people. Absolutely detests it. It has been a thing. She has to do it at times and she just hates it. But she's really good at it. She just, she just gets all in her head and she's super nervous. And it's a combination of stage fright and I think all of that. And some people just don't want to do it. They're never going to want to do it. And that's fine. You know, that's. We don't, we don't need 4 billion male comedians. But for those that do want to do it and those that get through will improve every aspect of their lives about their job or whatever they're doing when it comes to speaking, if they want to do it. I don't, I have no, nothing negative to say about people that don't want to do that, but if they want to do it, it will help.

Well, and I think there's a difference between the people that don't want to do it and the people that are scared of it. And then.

Absolutely.

I'm also wondering what helps people get out of their head and more into their heart because I think I'm still working on that. Like we're, I'm up there and I'm not in my head anymore, but I'm still, when I'm talking in the class, the workshop, that's how I'm supposed to talk. But when I perform, it's still more in my head. So I'm just curious, like what happened? What, what would your suggestion be for people that want to improve on that? And I'm actually thinking not even from a stand up comedy perception. I'm thinking about life because I think it helps you in regular life where you're able to, to operate more from your heart versus your head.

Every time you get up in front of people and speak, it's successful, it is a win. So even if you're in class, it's a win every time you get up there. The more you get up in front of people and talk, whether it's standup or whatever your chosen profession is, the better you get in your own skin, the more comfortable you are doing it. There's no easy route to it. There's no magic pill you can take to be comfortable on stage. It comes from, first of all, knowing what you're going to say, being 100% sure of yourself. You must have confidence. You have to believe in yourself. Even if you suck, you still have to believe in yourself. I believe I'm going to suck. This is the way it is, but I'm going to do it anyway. And you have to just accept the fact that the worst thing that's going to happen to you as a standup comedian, the very worst thing is they're not going to laugh. You don't die from that. Right. And nothing happens to you. Right. That's like when people say I'm offended. Well, okay, you don't die from being offended, Right. You're not physically harmed. It's an emotional thing. So if you can get past that as a comedian. Right. You know, well, worst thing that can happen, they're not going to laugh. That's not so bad. I'm not, I don't lose my job because of it. I don't get stabbed or shot. I don't, you know, I might have a bottle thrown at me. But other than that, that's, it's, there's the, the worst thing that happens to set up comedian isn't that bad. And when you're a speaker, what's the worst that could take what's the worst that could happen and say, oh, all right, that's it. And I've already told myself that's as bad as it's going to get. And I know that if I bomb, that's where I'm going to be. It's not that bad then because you wouldn't even know what it could be. And anything better than that is a win. Right. So if you don't do as bad. Well, that didn't happen. Some people laughed. Maybe I didn't get laughed for five minutes, but I got laughs for two minutes. I got laughs for one joke worked. One joke worked. If I can write 300 more jokes just like that one, I've got an hour. So take the wins.

Yeah.

And I like, understand the defeats.

I like that you brought that up too. Because I think the, the, one of the best ways someone can get through fear is to make whatever that uncertainty is certain. So that's why when you're able to ask the question of what's the worst that's going to happen? It's never as bad as what, what, what happens is never as bad as what you think will happen. But at least you have the certainty of the worst case.

Yeah. And yet, and it's, you have to have acceptance. It's not just, okay, I know this is going to happen. You got to say, I'm okay with that. It's knowing what the worst thing is and then being okay with the worst thing so that you can get up there again. I have bombed. When I started out, I bombed a lot. But I also got laughs. I also had some success. So I could build off that. And I mean, I have seen people completely turn around from literally bombing to finally realizing what they need to do and changing the way they do their stand up and understanding what the reality is and what is around, seeing everything around them and trying to write, rather than trying to write one joke at a time. They told the story and interjected humor in the story by pointing out the craziness around them. I see that you can see that all the time. If you're, if you're a regular at a comedy club, you'll see that all the time.

What I also thought was pretty cool was your story is insane. Not insane, but amazing. Where you were A president of a bank and then you owned a gym, then you got into comedy and now serious comedy where you're doing shows and all this amazing stuff and then now you're helping people. And I was just curious. Well, number one, I'd love to hear more about, like, about that. But then also curious, how did you take those risks leaving? And so I was just kind of wondering, yeah, just what you, what you think about that.

For some reason I always was in the right place at the right time. But I was also performing well in whatever job function I was in. I, whatever I was doing, I tried to be the best at it. Whether it was just as a new accounts teller back in the day or the drive up window. When I was, when I started out, I was in the drive up window of the bank when we had drive up tellers and I was a teller trainee. That's how I started out. And I was bored up there. So I used to get the newspaper in the morning and I would read sports scores to my customers in the drive thru and I would do it as if I was announcing like, you know, ladies and gentlemen, the Dodgers beat the Padres last night five to three. And people would come to the drive. We used to have lines at the drive through because they wanted to hear me do the sports scores and tell stories through the drive thru while we were working on their stuff. And it just got to be a thing. And then when I moved inside, I said, I'm going to open more accounts. You know, I got three. I did every, every single job in the bank. Everything. Literally. I started at the bottom and worked my way to the top. And if they say you can't do it, just keep working hard and putting yourself in the right place and you'd be surprised what you can accomplish. But you know, if I wanted to be a new account, so I was going to open the most new accounts if I wanted. When I became the merchant seller, I was going to count money faster than the machine. And I trained myself how to do that. And I just kept saying, I'm going to be this good at this, this good. I just kept working my way up. But along the way I made friends with all the people I needed to make friends with and I used my personality and my skills to get to the next level. So when I, you know, when the, when the first bank I worked for was sold, my last title was Assistant Vice President Bank Humorist. That was my actual physical title.

Wow.

So. And then when I left, we, I didn't leave. We were bought by another bank. And anybody who's been through mergers knows how soul sucking that can be. I mean, I went through. How many did I go through? 6 or 7. And I ended up leaving banking and I went as, and served as the head of a nonprofit organization that I was sitting on the board of. I sat as a volunteer on their board. And so, you know, I knew people through from doing those kind of things. And the person that was the board chair was ill and they asked me if I would be interested in taking over. And so I interviewed with other people for the job. I didn't think I was going to get it. I'd never done anything other than banking and I got the job. So I did that for four years and somebody came out to me and said, because you know, you're on the board of a nonprofit, you're doing all this fundraising and you're going out and meeting a lot of people. Would you like to get back into banking? We have, somebody was supposed to be bank president, he's ill, another one, so he can't do the job. Would you like to be president of a bank? And I said no, I don't want to go back into bank. And they said, well, we'll pay you this. And I said, yes, I would like to be the president of the bank. You'd be surprised how much more money bank presidents make than comedians. But it wasn't what I wanted to do at the time. But it was a lot of fun. We started our own bank at that time. We also, I also with my wife started a gym, a boxing gym. You just that you will through your life have a series of failures and successes and you hope that the successes outnumber the failures over time. But if you don't take the risk, nothing happens. You know, if you don't try now as you get older, you know, you have to minimize the risk. I mean from a standpoint of I need to be able to make sure I have, you know, money in the bank and I can survive. And so that you don't take as many risks, but you still have to take risks, otherwise you don't grow. I mean, I could be a stand up comedian until I am going to be a stand up comedian the day I die, then I'm never going to stop trying things. I try things all the time. I'm into video editing and photo editing and all this kind of stuff and learning how to do my own website. I mean, that's maybe nothing to my granddaughter. She can do it, you know, in five seconds. But to me, it's just learning and growing and doing things so that you're using your brain. And I'm going to I looking into starting some businesses with, you know, video editing and why not? The only thing that can stop you is a fear of failure. Well, if the worst case is this, do it anyway. Yeah, what the heck, I'll try anything. I've done so many things and I've had failures and successes. It doesn't matter to me anymore. And I'm not afraid of anything. Well, there's certain things that I won't eat other than that, you know.

Yeah. And I think we talked about this the other day with the trying something new every day because your brain's going to get to also perform better. And I love that. I mean, I totally love that idea.

Just the. If you. And try and write something new every day, even if you're not a performer, look at the world around you and write down one thing that you thought was a little nuts. What is one thing you say that's like, this doesn't make any sense. And just write it down and then look at it and have it make you laugh. There's so much of this, of that out there and people are so divided right now. We have to find some kind of common ground. That stuff that's if, if it's something just to get past all the tension. So try and do that every day for yourself. Believe me, you will end up having a much happier life. Don't focus on negative. Find the absurd. Just laugh about it.

So good. Well, actually, I just had one more question about the bank job. What actually got you to end up leaving that to do comedy full time?

Well, it was a merger. We went through a merger. And you know, I was, they, they had the title for like a year after they bought the bank. And I don't know if you've ever been through it. You can only get to a certain point in your career and you can't get any higher. And then if you're just kept around as a figurehead, it's kind of soul sucking. It's just like, okay, I get the money, but I don't have any authority. I can't really do anything. My heart's not in this anymore. And so they came to me with a severance package after about a year and I took the severance package and then I told my wife, I'm going to do stand up comedy. She said to me, wait, time out, wait a minute. No, she was Sam comedy. We're not going to have bank president money anymore. And I said, that's right, babe. And she goes, I'm going to shoot you. No, she was super supportive. She's been. My wife is the most supportive person. I could not do this if I didn't have somebody in my corner, like, so she's laughing again. She's. You wouldn't be. You can't believe what you just said. But, but you were very supportive and you know it. You still are. You wouldn't be together 45 years if we, if we weren't supporting each other. So. And I love her to death for, you know, being there. It hasn't always been, you know, as a comedian, there's. It takes a while to start earning and to make any kind of money doing this. I don't make the amount of money I make from teaching a class. I don't even think of that money. It's not, it's really. I do more to support the theater than anything else. So to get out there and perform, you know, when you're going to Las Vegas and you get a nice four figure check and that kind of thing, those are the wins. And then, you know, we had Covid and that kind of killed it. And it's coming back. I work clean. I'm a, I, I'm what I call a corporate comic now. And I do that because clean is green. You make money doing clean shows. And I can support my, myself in retirement doing that till I'm a hundred years old. I want. You know what I mean? It's like, it's just nice side money. It's a side hustle, I guess you could call it at this point in my life. But it's, you know, when we get it back to where it was pre Covid, it's a nice way to make some money and have fun and meet people. You're always meeting people.

Yeah, that is, that is a really great part.

I enjoy the research and doing Cover Cop. I have so much fun doing it. I did a show for the Asphalt Pavers association, okay. Now it was in Palm Springs. They had a golf tournament and they wanted a comedian and I had to do a breakfast show, right? So that was a lot. I don't, you know, comedians are vampires. We come out at night. So, you know, we're not really doing that whole 7am thing, but they had a. They wanted a breakfast show for 800 asphalt pavers. These people all from all over the country. A lot of guys from, hey, New Jersey, how you doing? Kind of guys, right? A lot of boss and so I went online and I started researching the organization. I found out where some of these guys went to high school. I got their yearbooks online, found out what their nicknames were in school. So when I went up there, they have no idea that I know all this information about them. This random comedian comes in and now I'm talking to Scooter and all these. How do you. How did you find out what my nickname was or who my high school teacher was and who I dated back then? And that kind of stuff I really have fun doing. And then that's why they book you to come back when you do that kind of stuff too. And it gives the audience a really great show. When you really. For corporate events, when you really get to know who's involved and, you know, I can make fun of what's there.

Yeah. That actually brings me another question, is what, how, how are you normally getting your shows? Are people spotting you or do you have to reach out proactively to like get booked?

For me, it's because I. The business. Here's the business. I have chosen because of the connections that I had in banking and, and the business world. So many people are people that I worked with in the past that are referral business. I mean, anybody in sales knows that referrals. As a professional entertainer, you're a salesman, period. If this is what you want to do, the more connections you make and the more you can draw on your past. I'm an older, you know, I'm an older comic, so I have a lot of connections from my past. I know people from that. I do shows for the yacht clubs and I do shows for different banks and I. It's because I know the people and they've seen me perform and they know that I'm funny. Sometimes they've seen me at the Comedy Store and they go, can we do a show? The Comedy Store might call me and say, hey, Tony, there's a 55 and up community in Borrego Springs that needs a comedian. Well, they come to me because I know I'm over 55, I work clean and that's what they want to see. So I have my niche and it works and I do it from networking. I. You have to have. And I do. I'm really not good at social media. I really am not. I hate. I'm trying to update my website right now and I just hate it. But you have to do it and you know, it's the, it's just the world we live in. You have to have the social media presence. And I do have my Facebook and Twitter and all that kind of Instagram and all that. But I don't like it. I just have to do it.

What would be something for someone that doesn't have the connections? Because I was thinking about this the other day when there was some people in the class that have been doing the open mic stuff for like 10 years. And how, what would, why wouldn't someone just go to approach companies or associations directly and then show their video of them performing? Like maybe if they had a showcase type of thing and do it that way.

We have, we, we. There was a time we were doing that. And, and when you're doing a corporate show, you have to deal with not only the audience, that's that company, but you also have to make sure that their legal department and their HR department is going to approve everything you're going to say because they don't want to get sued. And everybody's offended by something today. So you have to be very careful what you talk about. It's not enough to just to be a clean comedian, but you also have to know what topics are. No nos. And so there's a whole list of them. I think like if you wanted to do a, like a college show, now colleges have a list of like 100 and something things. You're not allowed to say, oh gosh, the. Well, as a comedian it's like, wow, what am I gonna do? Stand there and just sing? What am I gonna do? So the. Hey, it's. If you're going to go, just do the route. If you don't, and if you're a young person you want to do this, you are going to have to create what we call an electronic press kit. You're going to have to have at least seven minutes of you performing and then you're going to have to have another 30 minutes recorded of you performing. If they want to get past the first seven minutes, they're going to make their mind up about you in the first 30 seconds. I guarantee you that's if you get past that first 30 seconds, they'll know whether they want to hire you or not. And then you have to have something that says what you've done, where you've been and who else you perform for. It's a resume, basically. It's, you know, and it's the electronic press kit is really just a one sheet that's got links that can be opened up. You can email it to somebody that you know that's got a link to video, a link to your website, a link to all your social media pages.

And how do they get that?

Like, times have changed a little bit because of COVID and, you know, a lot of people have. The companies aren't doing as much in house anymore and you don't have. People are still working, working from home, although it's coming back. And so it's going to take a while to get back to where we were. But over time, I think it'll get back to where they'll have company events where they want a speaker. That's funny, that kind of thing. It takes time.

Yeah, I was curious too. Like, how do they. Who are they approaching? Are they getting. Are they looking up online? And then they're reaching out to people cold, like if they don't have a network already or is it coming from something.

Well, every city is different. I know in San Diego there's something called Inside Prospects, which you can get. It's an online directory that has. It's a subscription fee. It's not cheap, but it'll give you. Broken down by business, every business in the city of San Diego. And it gives their CEO, it'll give the number of employees, it gives all the information. There's just a data mining company and you can go there and find all that information. You have to pay for it. And then I normally would start with hr. People are always trying to do events, you know, and they're more, how can I do this politically correctly? They're more. They want to put on more woke events nowadays. Some of it's just absurd, but just. That's an HR mentality. If there's any HR people out there, I apologize. But you're all weird.

But that is my background, you know, that is my background.

But you guys are so paranoid. And I get it, I get why it's really bad. You are so paranoid that somebody's going to get offended. Totally. But that's. So that's where you got to start in my.

Yeah, well, and the reason I asked. Yeah, I asked on this podcast specifically. It was funny because I thought about it and then I was going to not ask and then this came up. So I'm like, okay, this, this is relevant because, like, I think there's a lot of people that think. Think they can just go to open mics and then that's all that they need to do. Right. But they could be. And someone's going to find them out of the audience or something, you know, and scoop them up. No, like, yeah, it's like you have whatever you want in life, whether it's stand up comedy, whether it's a speaker, whether it's a job that you want to apply for, you have to be able to be comfor talking to people, telling them who you are, what you do, what you want, what you can do for them, what's in it for them, and then be able to hear no enough that some, eventually some people are going to say yes, you have.

To make your own success. You have to do it yourself. There's no. People are not discovered at open mics. You know, it's just. Now, I shouldn't say that's a generality. I would say a very tiny fraction of entertainers are found at an open mic. That doesn't mean it can't happen. But I very rare. I, I mean I've had in 30 years of doing this, I know one person that I would call a natural, instant success kind of person. And she took my class and she didn't need to take my class. And I'm like, she became right away just went from doing my class to doing a dry bar special to touring all over the south that she was just. When she hit the stage, you just knew, you knew that this person had it. And you though that's rare. Most of us have to work at it. I would say 99% of us have to work at it. You know, if the success isn't a given, you have to earn it. And so you don't just go from open mics to the next step. What is the next step? Well, in San Diego, you would start out as well. We're so fortunate. There's so many comedy clubs now for the young comics starting out. But you got to do your open mics and if you're lucky enough to be seen by somebody at the comedy club that says, hey, you've earned a spot to be on the best of this week, Best of San Diego at the Comedy Store. Or you, you get to know the people and you can't just keep showing up. You got to get to know the people that are there. You know, know the managers, know the waitresses, know the bartenders, know everybody, hang out with them. You got to be seen. You, you've got to network to be able to get to that next step. And that's for any job. You have to know who the players are and you got to be able to play with them. That's the only way you're going to get to the next level. And if you don't, you, it doesn't mean you can't just keep doing what you're doing and enjoying what you're doing, but if you want to get to that next level, you've got to network and you've got to just push yourself.

Yeah. And I think this. I love that it's circling back at the end because it circles back to you at the bank. Right. You starting at the teller and you making it. Making your name known by being funny and adding a little bit of humor to your job and then working your way up to be the president. And then realize, now I have the money, now I'm going to work for a nonprofit, and then going back to the bank, and then, no, actually, I'm ready. I want to go do comedy. I don't know. There's just so much to this with the network and the wealth, the enriching experiences you've had. I feel like it just shows that you're just following, like, doing the work and then you're following your. Your path of what you want in life, and then you're not afraid, or at least you're moving through it anyway to be able to get there.

Right. You never stop. Never stop. Never stop growing, never stop learning. You die when you stop. I'm. I've No, I. So I don't want to retire. Everybody who retires eventually dies. I'm not dying, so I'm not going to retire. You know, I'm just going to keep going. That's it.

Yeah. Well, perfect timing. So I'm going to ask you a question. I know you gave so much great advice already, but I'd love to hear what you think is your. What would be your number one piece of advice for the listeners on Doing the thing?

Don't let the fear of failure get in your way. We're all going to fail. Don't let it get in your way. Do not let the fear of failure stop you. You know, no one, no one becomes an overnight success without hard work. So when you sit, when you see that person's an overnight success, they probably had 10, 15 years of something behind them that made them that overnight success. There's a lot of hard work that goes into becoming a success. Failure is. It's just a tool. It's just, you know, failure is an opportunity to begin again more intelligently. And I didn't say that somebody else did, but it's a quote that I've always remembered, and it's true. You know, you learn something every time you fail. So just don't let it get to you. Don't let that bother you? Failure is natural. Just a thing. Doesn't mean anything, you know, unless it's in skydiving. But other than that, there are some. If you're a bomb tech, failure is not good. But there's certain things that failure is not that big a deal, especially when you're doing. But I will say this. If you're doing the same thing over and over again and still failing, why are you doing the same thing over and over again? Do something different, right? If it's not working, change. If it's not working, do something different. Change what you're doing. If it's. If you keep sucking and you're doing the same thing, you're still failing. Hello? It's you, not them. You know, it's that simple.

Well, please share where people can find out more about you. And if they. If they're in San Diego and they want to take a class, I'd love to have you share that as well.

Well, I've been teaching at the National Comedy theater and the Point Lima Actors Theater, which is now called ActLiveNow.com for 12 years. That's where I started doing it. You can go to any of their actlivenow.com or point or nationalcomedy.com and my classes are listed on there. I do have a website under construction there, Tony calabresi.com and I have Facebook and Instagram and all that. And I'll post some funny stuff on Facebook. Sometimes I use Facebook as a tool to try out jokes that I'm going to do and see what kind of response I get from my friends and, you know, if I need to tweak them or something. But for the most part, you find me on social media now. I am there.

Thank you so much for coming on and thanks for all your support and your encouragement. It's. It's meant. It's really meant the world to me. I really appreciate it.

I'm really proud of you for getting up there and doing it, and I'm proud of all my students that have the guts to get up on stage. So I love doing this. I've been doing it a long time. I'm gonna keep doing it. Hopefully people enjoy it so well.

While we're closing out, I'm working on a tagline for do the thing. So what do you think is a good one for the end of this show?

What did you come up with?

I've come up with, oh, you. We do this all the time. We literally do this all the time.

What do you think.

What do you think? I mean, this is how creative. It's so funny. I'm waiting for these portals to them. But basically, yeah, it's like, do the thing. Do the thing that matters to you. Do the thing that's aligned with your soul.

And if you don't do the thing, what happens? Nothing. Nothing happens. If you don't do the thing, you stay where you are. There's no change. It always stays the same. So do something different. That's just. Do something different. Try something. It doesn't have to be stand up comedy. It could be acting, it could be improv. It could be just painting. It could be anything. Gosh. It could be just trying a different thing off the menu at your favorite restaurant. Do something different. Change your life. Try. Use your brain and your soul. That's all. That's what life is. Have fun. That's all I got. Okay.

That was amazing. That was so good. Thank you so much, Tony, for coming on.

All right, Stacey, I'll see you.

Thank you.

Thanks for listening to the do the Thing podcast. We hope you enjoyed the show. But even more, we hope you'll be inspired to do the thing. Do you have a burning question on doing the Thing that you'd like answered? How about an inspiring do the Thing story of your own that you'd like to share? We'd love to hear all about it. Just leave us a voice message at dothething callcast co or email us@helloothethingpodcast.com.