I was wrong. It was just as bad as the first time out, and this week rather than the inspired go-to I will improve this class every night, and it will become great, I accepted the mediocrity. I was in a depressed state that week, and saw that the class was serviceably mediocre. Unlike the first week where it was I-will-get-fired-awful, the class was now just mediocre enough to work. I let it be, and for a week I carried on with that.

When I got home after those five days out, I hunkered down and completely reworked the fourth hour. Then I went through, and hour by hour came up with new examples for each. I redesigned the slides, and scoured the web for more relevant examples. Three weeks later, I was back on the road, this time feeling good. The class continued to improve.

What I found was the act of talking with hundreds of different companies, hearing their individual stories, and workshopping as a classroom, got us to grow. On any given day there would be 2 or 3 people who were far more experienced in some aspect of marketing or social media, and I’d let them talk. Of the five hours, I’d give those people a half hour over the course of the day and hear what they did in their own experience. The next day I’d incorporate those lessons into my class. It took another two dozen classes, but I’m finally confident. I believe in my class. I start the day excited. It took hell to get through, but I can’t imagine a better way to learn it all.

My students leave the class now energized, excited to start applying everything that I’ve showed them. I leave the class excited to do the same. It’s forced me to start a blog. It’s forced me to become active. It’s forced me to write.

And I return back to that initial question – am I part of the New Rich or am I just employed? With enough money to sustain me, it becomes a question of what I’m doing on the days when I’m not teaching. So I write. And I draw. And I improvise. I host dinners. I see friends. I travel. I live the life I’ve only dreamed, excited to see where this all takes me.

And more than anything, I search for that next moment of absolute terror where I know there’s a chance to fail. For that’s the moment where real growth happens. As long as I keep pushing, I’m exactly where I need to be.

Read Part: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13

Featured Image via Michael Heiss

I was on USY on Wheels, at a spiritually high place in my life. We were staying at some hotel four weeks in and it was Shabbat. A group of people were talking in the Lobby at a table with one of the staff, Danny.

Someone had asked, “Why do we pray the same service every morning?”

I’d heard the same question plenty of times before, and never heard a satisfying answer. Most answers were along the line of “The regularity anchors you,” or “These are what Rabbis over a two thousand years gathered. Who are we to argue?” or even worse,

“Because God said so,” which to a degree is what any religious debate amounts to when you get right down to it.

Danny went for a more historical context. “Back in the temple times no one prayed at all. Instead they did sacrifices. The only reason praying started is because the temple was destroyed, and it was a way to maintain Judaism in a post temple period. It was a major departure, and not mentioned in the Torah.

“The idea of the service is to mimic the sacrifice. A lot of people think of sacrifices and associate it with some barbaric ritual that would never fly in this day and age. But what was it? A single animal slaughtered. The food got eaten, and the waste products were given up to God.

“The question, however, is why bother doing it? What did it signify? Some animalistic urge? In a way. The point of the sacrifice was to create a separation between the animal soul and the human one. To create a defining visceral experience that said this is where the animal side of myself ends. I’m cutting that loose and what’s left isn’t just the human side, but actually the Godly one.”

He then probably went on to talk about the range of souls, the Kabbalistic traditions of going through the various levels, and why it was considered and still is considered so important.

I spent last week traveling to places as exciting as Mendota, Illinois and Des Moines, Iowa. I even almost went to Gulfport, Mississippi. They’re about as exciting as you can imagine, so I decided rather than shifting off of Israel time and having the night to myself like a normal person, I’d continue waking up at a late time by Israel time zone standards. It meant on Saturday while still in Los Angeles I woke up at 2AM, bike road for two hours, worked out for an hour, and read for another hour before heading to services. On Sunday I got up at 7am, despite having been out till 3:30 the night before. On Monday, in Mendota, I went to bed at 9pm and woke up at 2:30am. I worked out and wrote for a long time before I got downstairs to start teaching at around 7:15 AM.

On Tuesday and Wednesday it was closer to 3:30am, but followed the same pattern. I got exhausted around 9pm every day, but that’s a small price to pay for 4 hours of bonus morning.

Image Source by Kagen33

I meant to do the same on Thursday, but instead I ended up being stuck in Ft Worth due to a flight cancelled due to weather. I was forced to wake up at 3:40 AM (read: plenty late) to make it to a 5:20 flight. It wasn’t a problem at all. The problem came when the airport system had no record of my freshly assigned ticket and needing to sweet talk my way into getting it assigned with about 20 minutes to go before the flight. The bigger problem came when after getting in to Houston, which was connection #2, I learned that just like the night before, my flight in to Gulfport was cancelled and there were no other flights to get there. But during the whole hassle, I was wide awake. I got to sleep in until 3:40, after all.

The Thursday class ended up getting canceled due to weather, so I flew straight home to Los Angeles 12 hours earlier than expected. I got to go to improv practice, and by the time it was done at 10pm Pacific Time people were worried if I was awake enough to drive. The thing is, I would have been falling asleep just due to the fact I’d been in central time all week needing to wake up at 6:30am.

This schedule is perfect. If I threw in a short daily siesta, there’s no reason I couldn’t wake up at 7am and go to bed at 3:30 every night.

That whole, “Early to bed. Early to rise. Makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise” thing has always been over ruled by “Early to rise. Early to bed. Makes a man healthy but socially dead” in my mind. Perhaps there’s a way to do both.

Or more likely, it was nice while it lasted.

“I’m not a teacher. This is a soft skill. They’re looking for someone like you – a public speaker who does marketing professionally. I’m quitting after this week.”

She reassured me that I’d be all right.

On the comment forms that first day the general consensus was, ‘He’s definitely an expert over the material, but a complete mess as far as teaching style,’ and an overall negative rating of the class itself. For me, that was a major accomplishment.

‘Really? I’m an expert on the material?’ I thought about it. I spend an hour or two every day reading the latest trends in the industry. I listen to half a dozen podcasts on the subject. I’d read a couple dozen books tracing out all the latest trends. I’d talked with various people knee deep in this full time. I guess I did know a thing or two. But only second hand.

People asked me questions the first day, and I didn’t have a clue where to start. I had no idea what an iframe was or how to sync youtube with twitter with facebook, or the professional options for tracking results. Those were actually the easy questions. The hard questions were, “How does this apply to non-profits?” or government agencies or schools where nothing can be posted online or a large corporation where no one actually lets them post. Etc. I didn’t know. It was that simple. I’d geared the class towards independent artists wanting to use social media to make it on their own. Not this crowd. A bunch of corporate types looking for something between a couple of tips and tricks to total online salvation.

That night I went back to my hotel room, and for four hours worked through answering all of the questions that I couldn’t answer in class. I modified the lesson plan to include those questions before they were even asked. I spent another hour listening to TED talks and the soothing voice of Seth Godin as I worked out.

The second day was still a disaster, but a slightly calmer one. No one cared about the questions from yesterday. They had their own set. A completely different set.

And that night I did the same thing. I spent four hours revising the lesson plan. Again. Answering the questions that I didn’t know the answer to – tightening up the places where people appeared bored.

The third day went a little better. The ritual continued, and on the fourth day people had a good time. I’d improved.

It was a trial by fire. Even with that, I told my travel partner, “There’s no way I’m ever teaching this class again.”

Next Week: Part 13. Which Brings us to the Present

Read Part: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13

Featured Image via gadl

Did it have some lasting effect?

It’s the first time I’ve had a fulfilling religious experience in a while. Possibly since High School, if I’m to be honest with myself.

I’ve been drifting away for a while. A long while. The whole notion of services and Rabbis and just about everything else associated with established religions bothers me. I go to a Synagogue, look at the list of events in an average Shabbat flyer and gag a little in my mouth. Oh, a middle school production of Fiddler on the Roof? A discussion on Medical Ethics from a Biblical perspective? Getting together to assemble Mishloach Manot? A weekly study on the importance of the Mishanaic tractate of Shabbat? My immediate thoughts go somewhere to, “Oh, this is what boring people do when they have no clue what they want. I get it.” I understand it’s a way to socialize with like minded boring as shit individuals, and it doesn’t really sell it for me. The charity work is nice, but seems more like an after thought than a focus.

Every trip, camp, and weekend getaway I’d staffed until this point left a bit of a sour religious taste in my mouth. The taste came from being forced to secretly brain wash and force feed the participants with religious messages they didn’t want. This includes staffing Ramah, a USY on Wheels trip, and a variety of religious school weekends.

‘Now’s the point where we’re all required to go to services,’ I’d say.

‘Now we need to say the after prayer meals.’

‘Let’s have a discussion on why it’s so important to be religious.’

‘God. God. God.’

‘Yes – this is also required.’

On all of these programs I saw the participants squirming in their seats watching us staff go through the service. It wasn’t resonating.They were so far detached from the service that rather than bringing them closer to Judaism, it pushed them away.

There was a collective thought, easy to hear: “Judaism? You mean that boring thing old people do because they don’t have any real hobbies? How about they grow a set? I have, and the moment I’m no longer under my parent’s wing don’t expect me to ever show my face in a Synagogue again.”

Despite that, it was also clear everyone involved was looking for a spiritual outlet. The version of Judaism we showed them was not it. They always had fun, but that’s a far cry from spiritually growing.

It was with that in mind that I signed up to staff a Birthright trip. Israel Outdoors seemed liked it was the least brain-washy.

When it started, I was surprised by how many inspiring religious stories the tour guide told. It was the first time I’d been inspired by a group leader on a trip I’d staffed. It takes a lot to make me care, but I love the feeling when it happens. I love the feeling of a connection with God, a spiritual reason for being, and a greater sense of purpose. It’s a rare feeling.

There was a subtle, but important difference in the way the group leader, Phil, presented everything. Rather than forcing the participants to do religious activities, he shared why others loved doing them. They weren’t forced to go to Kabbalat Sabbat services. They got the option to listen and experience it. They weren’t forced to sit through a lecture. They got the chance to hear stories on how past leaders dealt with their own spirituality. He made everyone care.

Watching people care was such a stark difference from past trips I’d staffed. I was used to dragging people through service after service, trying to say, “No, Judaism has some good things. I swear it does. It really does. Now let’s force feed you a bunch of crappy services.” This was the first time I watched a group of people actually transform and care about all of the different spiritual bits we threw at them.

Many wondered what was behind all of the different crazy traditions. I got so many amazing questions.

“Why do we light two candles on Shabbat?”

“What’s the deal with the Havdalah candle?”

“What is Havdalah?”

These were actual questions I got. That has literally never happened before. I’m used to questions like,

“Why are we saying the same boring service every morning?” and

“Why are you forcing me to go to services?”

They’re a very different breed of questions.

One participant said, “I went to Hebrew School for years growing up, and this is really the first time I connected with Judaism. I get it.”

A couple of people are planning to stay in Israel for a few more months.

A few of them had never done Shabbat before and wanted to do it again.

I’ve been in charge of plenty of potentially religiously uplifting moments (Staffing Hebrew High weekends a half dozen times, leading a group of high schoolers for six weeks across the US, staffing Ramah. I was once even offered a year’s position as an assistant Rabbi, which I turned down) This was the first one that resonated.

I’m forced to ask why.

Part of it was Phil. There’s no doubt about that. He told stories in a way that made everyone interested. Everyone hung on his words for each ten minute story he told. It wasn’t just a collection of random facts at each location. It was one man’s journey at a certain point in time. How Neberkenezer faced off with the Jews. How David brought together Jerusalem. How an alternative Temple was cooked up in the North. Some of the stories were historical. Others were biblical. All of them were fascinating. For all of his apparent Shaggy Rogers-ness (I dare anyone to find a picture of him where he doesn’t seem to be half yawning) he brought the group together in a way I’d never seen before.

On the bus ride to the airport at the end of the trip I said, “Many Rabbis live their whole life hoping to inspire others in the way Phil does on a daily basis with these tours.” I can’t speak for all of the tours he’s staffed, but I can absolutely speak for the one we were on.

Beyond Phil, the trip didn’t try to pander in a way that was unrelatable. It saw where the participants were and gave them something they cared for. Specifically, a connection to their roots.

“Here’s the place that you’ve read about for decades and why it’s important,” was what every stop screamed.

In the cities it was a matter of, “Here’s how us Jews live life in a place made for us. This is just simply the way things are.”

Spirituality resounded in everything.

It was also partially the group. They cared. They came in with the mindset of, “I want to make this meaningful. I get the fact that someone paid for a free trip for me, and I’m ready to take advantage of it.”

Did they drink and smoke hookah until 3am every night? Of course. Did that stop them from appreciating the hikes? Absolutely not.

It was an amazing group, and while I can’t say exactly what it did for any of the others, it had a profound impact on me. For the first time in a long time, my Judaism is stronger.

I’ve been drifting away for a while, and while I’m not going back to keeping strict Kosher or strict Shabbat, I did rediscover the spiritual path that I used to see in Judaism. That spark that gives me a deeper sense of meaning. It’s hard for me to understate that.

And that seems like a pretty good take away.

I’ve never been one to shy from public speaking. Or private speaking. Or speaking in general. What I’m saying is I like to talk. And write. As long as I’m the center of attention, I’m happy. I mean, let’s face it – I’m fascinating. We’re 5,000 words in to a story about me – and you’re still reading it. But enough about how great I am – where was I? I’ve never been one to shy from public speaking.

When I first got in front of the room to teach Photoshop I felt like a 24 year old kid with no right to be teaching these adults in front of me. Three years had gone by since then, and at 27 I was an adult. But with Photoshop I was an expert. I could do things – I’d done things – that none of my students were close to capable of. I’d gone to school for Illustration. I had a second job where I painted backgrounds for movies. I had 1,000’s of people online who considered me the go-to expert on the subject. With Social Media Marketing what had I done? Read a few books? Done some research? Basically nothing. Here I was going in front of a room of people who had done this professionally for years.

I’d like to put yourself in my shoes. I was going in front of a room of 60 people, many of whom were doing marketing full time – had master’s degrees in communication – almost all of whom were older than me, most with more hands on experience, and trying to tell them that I was worth listening to. For five hours.

It’s possible that first day, that first moment, is the most nervous I’ve been in my life. At least in a professional context. I didn’t have a choice but to give my all. 60 people had paid $200 to listen to my expertise for 5 hours. I thought I was close to ready that first day. I was not.

Next Week: Part 12. Trial by Fire

Read Part: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13

Featured Image via ToGa Wanderings

It’s hard to describe just how little I knew going in to this. I knew nothing about marketing. All I knew was if I didn’t pull off teaching a class on it, I’d be fired. I had two months.

In an ideal world, the class would be nothing but personal stories of my past clients. I do not live in that world, so I went with option B – stealing from the best.

My company mailed me a package of books that gave me a solid foundation. If all I wanted was to learn the subject, I’d have stopped there and started applying it, but I wanted more. I needed to have an answer to every question thrown my way.

I read blogs for as long as I could stand, but kept getting distracted. I dare you to try learning about social media without being constantly side tracked. The line between just reading blogposts and actually working was nonexistent. Worse, none of the information was sticking. It all felt like random pieces of data. I couldn’t figure out how to fit it all together. It’s as if I was given directions to 20 different overlapping routes, but had no idea what the map looked like underneath them.

I chased down the top rated books on Social Media, and over the course of the next three days lived in a back aisle in Barnes and Noble. I waded through seas of bullshit, trying to find actual advice. After thee days, I had a blurry vision of the map, but wanted more. I kept going.

Over the course of 2 weeks I went through 20 more books on the subject. At some point they all started running together. The map became clear. How were referrals related to tracking related to targeting? What’s the greater message that binds them together? It took over a hundred hours of reading, but I got there.

It reached a point where the reading became a stall tactic, letting me avoid actually outlining the class. I held off on that until after I observed someone else teach it. I got to go to one presented in Pasadena.

After observing the class, I created an outline. I took apart the slides my company gave me, removing anything that repeated, updating the old data, and making it simpler. I’ve never been one for business-y bullet points so by slide 7, I realized it would take longer to update their slides then it would to just start from scratch. So I did.

I wrote 20 pages, breaking the class down into one minute sections. It weighed in at 5,000 words, all color coded. Black meant I fully understood the subject. Green meant I knew it, but needed to find better examples. Red meant I didn’t understand it at all. Company facebook pages, for instance, were black. iFrames and Radian6 were red.

By this point, there was only two weeks before I had to teach the first class, so I moved on to the next phase – turning the notes into slides. I turned the major bullets into slides, and as I went through the five sessions, started pulling as many examples as I could.

By the time the first Social Media Marketing class rolled around I had five hours worth of slides that got slowly lazier over the course of the day. I was ready. Or I thought I was.

The first week was a disaster.

Next Week: Part 11. The Disaster

Read Part: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13

Featured Image via Practical Owl

You’ll find an article on why no one can market improv.

You’ll find an article on the sleazy side of the Dorito Video Competition.

You’ll even find an article on him as fake Stan Lee. Here’s Fake Stan Lee meeting the real Stan Lee. It’s kind of awesome.

He’s successfully doing what I want to be doing. He’s on a regular team (Trophy Wife) at one of the biggest improv theaters in Los Angeles, he’s working as an artist through his Photography and Design, and he even wrote and shot a pilot, even if it wasn’t sold.

He does all sorts of promotion for Trophy Wife from live streaming the shows to teaser trailers to posters like this:

It’s far beyond what you’ll find any other improv group doing.

I wrote him a letter, more or less along those lines:

I came across your website by way of googling marketing improv, and after looking at your website, I have this gnawing suspicion that you’re me, but 6 years in the future.

I realized that I’d actually seen you perform plenty, and am consistently  impressed by the Trophy Wife Posters/Trailers at iO [blah blah blah a bit about me, etc] Anyhow, I’m really not sure even what I’d ask, but I’d love to pick your brain, if you’d be up for getting together for coffee or lunch or some such – if you’re willing, I’d really appreciate it.

I guess mostly I’m curious how you’ve succeeded in juggling the same half dozen things I tend to juggle.

He was happy to get together. I just got back from lunch with him (or rather, on Monday, earlier this week).

I had two main questions for him. The first was, “Does all of the promotion you do help get butts in seats?”

While it gets a couple more people to the shows, he said, what it really accomplishes is recognition at the festivals. They’ve been flown across the country to do workshops and had their videos assigned as homework to groups in cities where there isn’t any great improv.

“I started putting them up because my mom and dad wanted to see the show,” he said.

These days, for better or worse, it’s not unusual for the shows to get three to four times the audience online as they do at the theater. The promotion sets the group up as an authority, which isn’t an exact yes to my original question.

You can see them every Wednesday at 9pm at iO West.

My second main question was ”How do you balance the 6 different sides of your life? Doesn’t the lack of focus on just one take away from the others?”

The basic answer was yes, but that’s kind of the point. If one really takes off, he’ll let the others compete for second.

His current view of improv is fairly zen, but it wasn’t always that way. He sees it as a wonderful creative outlet, complimenting the money he makes through directing, photography, and designing. Four years ago he wanted it as an end in and of itself, but he doesn’t think of improv from a business point of view as much now. It makes him sharper, he loves doing it, and others love watching it. For now, that’s enough.

He gave me a couple of websites and books to look at. He said I should read Getting things Done, a book that changed his life and his ability to manage his time. He also agreed that marketing has a dark side that’s an easy pit to drop in to and said I should check out: http://bajillionhits.biz/ - a guy making fun of all of it. It’s a healthy antidote to all of the endless self promotional mouth talkers I listen to.

——————–

I really appreciated Kevin taking the time to answer my silly little questions and helping me figure out what I could be doing better. Even if his responses largely were “It seems like you’re doing things all right” and “The big thing is to take on projects right now, now that you don’t have that many responsibilities” (which is true. I don’t. I’m able to spend time writing blogs like this rather than actually working.)

It was great talking to him, and seeing that everyone, even those at the very top of improv marketing, are still struggling. Still trying to figure things out, waiting for that big something to strike. With improv, it’s not about the ten other jobs we all juggle or the grand plan down the line. What’s important, is to just enjoy the moment.

All images by Kevin McShane

I asked for my old job as a trainer back, and they took me in. It was that same feeling one gets when returning to an old girlfriend.

‘It will be different this time,’ I told myself, forgetting what caused the original break up.

‘This time I’ll teach more than the same boring subject. It will be fun. I’ll love it.’ Going beyond teaching Basic Photoshop was a big step in our relationship.

First I offered to teach Advanced Photoshop. This was barely a stretch.

Then they asked if they could fly me to a company to teach them After Effects. I worked in After Effects on a daily basis at my day job, but teaching it was a major commitment. I needed to spend two weeks preparing for what amounted to a single day’s pay, but I said yes. It meant pushing myself, and that’s what mattered.

Soon after, I volunteered to teach a class in Web Design. I’d worked as a web designer for two years of my life, but trying to teach Photoshop, Illustrator, Dreamweaver, Flash, and Fireworks in five hours seemed like a respectable challenge. After that, I took on teaching Print Design. It was five hours covering Photoshop, Illustrator, Acrobat Pro, InDesign, and Bridge. It had been two years since I’d last used Illustrator or Flash, and I’d never used Acrobat Pro, Fireworks, or Bridge before. It was the sort of challenge I needed.

Every so often I got emails from the company asking if I could take on more classes. Could I teach a full day class on Adobe Acrobat 9? Programming in Oracle? SQL? I’d barely touched them and had no interest in learning them, so my answer was a steady no, until they threw another curve ball my way.

They asked if I wanted to teach a class in Social Media Marketing. I wasn’t sure I could. I had 100,000+ views on my youtube channel at that point and was friends with people who had over a million and made their full time living off of it. I’d worked with dozens of companies  to establish their online strategy, but was I qualified to teach a class? I’d been meaning to improve my skills in it ever since I failed to start my own business. Teaching a class on the subject would force me to learn it. And not just learn it, but become amazing at it. I felt woefully underprepared, but I signed up. I had no idea what to expect.

Next Week: Part 10. Preparing to Teach Social Media Marketing

Read Part: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13

        “How do you make a living off of this?” I asked.

        “What?” he said, surprised that anyone would ever a question as insulting as that.

        “Hold up – I meant that as a compliment. In that you’re doing clearly what you love, unlike so many other people here who are just doing it in a style that the company would want them to work – you’re doing your own thing, and I respect that.”

        “Uh huh”

        “But making a living doing it in your own style – that’s so hard.”

        “Well, I get hired, like on skateboards and buildings and shit like that.”

        “I think I saw a piece of yours in Juxtapoz,” I said.

        “Yeah – I was in there.”

        He never quite said how he got to a point where people were hiring him for it, but I got the impression he’d been doing it forever, doing it for free, and from there people started paying him. At first, he was living in poverty, but over time he started making enough money to move out on his own and make a name for himself.

        This is me projecting, as he told me nothing, and I don’t care to look it up.

        It’s the same for just about any artist or writer I respect. For a long time they did what they loved for close to no pay. They always took little pay over doing something they hated, as they believed in what they were doing.

        It’s the single minded focus, and a drive causing them to produce a ridiculous amount of work that got all of them to where they needed to be. Slowly, I’m starting to believe in my own ability to make this happen. I’m reaching a point where I’m amazed at just how much writing I’m doing. I’m surprised at the single minded drive I’ve been able to go at it with. My level of output recently has been crazy. But more than that, the amount of time I’m spending on it is even crazier. I can’t imagine anyone else spending/wasting this much time on something that has such a small chance of ever paying off.

        When I tell people I’m writing 1,000 words a day as a bare minimum, the common reaction is, “Wow – that’s crazy.” If they knew how little of it was usable, how much of it a collection of self doubts and depression they might say something else. The follow up, if there is a follow up is, “So what are you writing?”

        As it stands, the answer is, “A Modern Family script, a pilot, some sketches, a few short stories, and a longer novel – in an attempt for something to hit and to build a portfolio.” That’s a lie, however. The truth is I’m writing warm up entries and an endless series of blog posts for the sake of getting into the habit. The truth is I rarely get into a groove where I lose all track of time and go for hours on end. The truth is I worry about what’s next. And then I think back to that conversation with Skinner – just keep going. Do what I love, and see where it takes me.

All art in this post is by Skinner