110 – Be Funny Make Money: Tom interviews Jeff Justice

Episode 110 – Jeff Justice
[00:00:09] Welcome to Screw the Commute. The entrepreneurial podcast dedicated to getting you out of the car and into the money, with your host, lifelong entrepreneur and multimillionaire, Tom Antion.

[00:00:25] Hey Everybody it's Tom here with episode 110 of Screw the Commute podcast. Jeff Justice is here and this is a guy I've known for years that I learned a ton from him when I was starting my speaking career and he's built a lifestyle business that's just too fun to quit. He can't quit. So we'll talk to him in a minute. Episode 109 was one of my Monday training sessions and this is a really sexy one especially compared to Jeff's today business insurance I talked about. You probably just want to quit listening to Jeff and go back and listen to deductibles and premiums and errors and omission insurance but try to resist we promise to do a good show for you today. All right our podcast that is in the iTunes store and you can go to screwthecommute.com/app and put it on your cell phone and your tablet and it'll do all kinds of cool stuff when you take us with you on the road. And if you can't figure it out guess what. We've got entire training for you right there at screwthecommute.com/app now our on demand TV channel the public speaking channel just went live on Roku TV. If you have a Roku box please install that. You probably have oh jeez about one hundred grand worth of free training just for having a Roku box or a Roku TV and you'll also start seeing us on the Amazon Fire and a bunch of other channels that we're developing for on demand TV. All right our youth program is in full swing and we are very interested in highlighting entrepreneurial youth and when I say young it's up to about 22 years old. So if you know anybody that's doing great entrepreneurial things please have them get in touch with me at orders@antion.com and I'll let him know how what it takes to get featured on a special episode of screw the commute.

[00:02:26] All right our sponsor. Now if you do any speaking at all people in your audience expect an appropriate entertainment level whenever they listen to a presentation. So Jeff's been great at that and teaching people that for years and years and years now from the boardroom to the ballrooms you must put just the right amount of humor in your talk or you'll be considered a snoozer. So if you're speaking for money or aspiring to be a pro speaker using humor effectively will ramp your speaking fees up quickly. Now you can watch a pro level webinar I've done over and over again until you master the techniques in it and I can tell you from experience that adding entertainment value to your material can catapult you to stardom in the speaking and business world. So check it out at screwthecommute.com/makelaugh and we'll have that in the show notes.

[00:03:19] All right let's get to the main event. Jeff Justice hasn't had a real job since 1981 yet he has a 3000 square foot house in a prestigious Buckhead Community in Atlanta Georgia. He's traveled the world and he doesn't really need to work another day for the rest of his life. But the money is too good and too easy to turn it down. After getting screwed over multiple times by the system. Jeff developed the motto most amount of money for the least amount of time but always make it fun. Jeff are you ready to screw. The commute.

[00:04:00] First of all right off the bat. I want you to know you screwed me out of my evening last night because you told me to go listen to one of your past podcasts and I happen to turn on the one with Marc Bullard head genius and spent the next three hours on YouTube fixing all of my videos at 60 70 videos on there for one of my businesses and had to go through and change all the descriptions and everything else.

[00:04:28] Oh wow. Yeah well. So I screwed you but hopefully it'll pay off in the long run.

[00:04:34] You have amazing information. I can't believe you give it to these people for the price you do.

[00:04:39] Well yeah it's free that's the problem. So tell everybody what you're doing currently and then we'll take you back on a journey to the past to see how you evolved into this beautiful lifestyle business where you do not have to be on this call with me. And that's a beautiful place to be.

[00:05:00] I'm here because I choose to.

[00:05:02] That's the way we like it.

[00:05:05] I've got three parts to my business and that's of course on the side doing anything that my wife tells me to do. That's the main part of my business but I'm still a keynote speaker on humor in the workplace. How to laugh more stress less and avoid getting burned out and I teach stand up comedy. I do four classes a year six week courses where I tell people to send me money. I'll make them funny. And we do it live here in Atlanta. That's pretty wild because people graduate from that live on stage at the punch line in front of a sold out house and they're doing exactly what you were talking about before. These are mostly business people learning to add humor to their lives and to their speaking and then they go back and put their presentations.

[00:05:49] Yeah that's so important. And you know something happened I learned pretty well on in the beginning in the professional speaking arena is that you know I came on as a humorist and then I decided you know what maybe I should be an entertaining business speaker because you're a little worried about this. You can. They don't expect you to be funny and you are that's way better than I'm expecting to be funny and you aren't.

[00:06:14] That's the best that's the best I actually do some programs with a trainer and he always gets these huge laughs cause you know I tell people when I'm on there the bar is set real high. And him that just hoping to stay awake during it but then the third part of my business is the one that most people don't know about. And it's the main part of my business now is I provide continuing education seminars to of all things court reporters and I started doing that live years ago. And now it's built into a very nice online business.

[00:06:50] I'm just picturing a court reporter in the court the big murder trial. They bust out laughing and everybody looks or they look up.

[00:07:02] And they got like a bozo nose on or my bloodshot eyeballs.

[00:07:08] And it keeps happening over and over again through the trial.

[00:07:13] Putting a whopping cushion underneath the judge's seat for like your last day of work. Know I'm going to quit that day anyway.

[00:07:21] So how do you get into the CEU stuff.

[00:07:27] We always cross market everything that we do. So during one of my comedy classes I was talking about how I do programs on using humor to deal with stress. And this one guy in my class goes up man you know who could use a course like that. Court reporters and I said Well great but how would I make any money out of it. He said well they got to get continuing education credits and maybe you could put together a program and charge them to come to the program. And he said matter of fact we've got a state convention coming up you ought to contact them and see if it would work.

[00:08:01] So I called up the association told them what I wanted to do for the concurrent session and they asked me what I charge.

[00:08:09] I told them and they said we'd never pay anybody that much money and I said All right I'll tell you what. Why don't you just give me twenty five dollars for every person that comes to my seminar and that way you don't have to pay me for all the people that don't come because that's a great idea.

[00:08:22] They want to pay me five hundred dollars more than I originally asked for because court reporters are there programs they go to are just so boring they can cause death. Oh people reading out of a book the whole time and you know you can imagine how fascinating the grammar and punctuation is when it's delivered by somebody who's a super introvert and doesn't want to do anything except push keys on the machine. So I go in there are adding humor to it and these people are going crazy. And luckily for me over the years I have found the key to my success was to find people in that industry that were very knowledgeable and either could spoke well did a good job speaking or I could help them and add humor to their presentations and and helped them with their speaking skills so that they became a lot better. And with most of my work that I had one person didn't work out what but everybody else I mean they're the best programs you could possibly get as a court reporter.

[00:09:27] Yeah absolutely. And those people were just probably desperate for something exciting.

[00:09:35] Well and you know the great thing about doing continuing education I think you and I did a program on this once. You know years and years ago is the wonderful thing about it is that they have to get continuing education in order to keep their license whether it's a massage therapist or court reporters or doctors or nurses lawyers you name it. So if you can develop a program that they need and deliver to them in a way that it's you know interesting fun keeps their attention and they learn something you're going to do well with it.

[00:10:07] Have you thought of expanding the other industries or markets.

[00:10:11] Yes I did in the past. I did CPUs. Not that kind of work but CPA is the kind of people that they don't want any type of soft skill whatsoever. And back then we were doing stress management. Organized office. Things like that. And I just had one that just already died. Sent out 17000 brochures for people signed up for two seminars and one person had signed up for two of them. I stopped doing that and lawyers would probably good but I just don't want to talk to lawyers you know.

[00:11:01] Yeah I know that feeling. I was talking to somebody about that because they got covered to do CEU credits for attorneys by teleseminar and I know darn well those people got the speaker phone on in they're billing hours to other people while the thing is running in the background.

[00:11:19] Well you know this is a part of you as a speaker. You know I had some people that have been kind of like that as court reporters who sit in the back and they're working on a deposition or something that instead of really paying attention. And at some point you go you know what they just gave me a hundred ninety nine dollars. They're here for their 10 hours. If they don't want to learn anything I can't force them to learn anything.

[00:11:41] They hate to be on murder trial where they're in charge of the transcript.

[00:11:48] Well nothing I'm going to tell them is gonna save anybody's life.

[00:11:53] So tell us about. What's it called. What is that four week class six requests. What is it coming to class economy class.

[00:12:00] Yeah. Jeff Justice's comedy workshop.

[00:12:03] So is it mostly from the metro area. Because that's a long time. I mean people don't come in from far away. Or do they.

[00:12:10] I've had people that have flown down every week from Columbia is a come Columbus Ohio. I've had people. One guy in my last class drove from Jackson Mississippi and that's six or seven hours and he would drive in on Monday to do the class stay Monday night and then drive back. He worked in a prison. I mean anything to get out of there. So I would say the vast majority 95 percent of the people are from probably 15 20 miles from where I teach the class and the rest are from the Carolinas Alabama Tennessee because it's only class that's like this and that's. Comedy classes but you know I've been doing this for 30 years have graduated over 3000 people over the years so I kind of know what I'm doing after a while.

[00:13:02] Yeah you put them a lot of humor in the world that's for sure. But is there any kind of watered down online course that people can what can they take advantage of from you to get started even if they live in a long way away.

[00:13:15] Nothing. No actually if they are a speaker and they want to add a secret weapon to their speaker toolkit. I do have a great DVD called How to ad lib like a professional or just look like one. It's all the best ad libs. And this also comes with an e-book too. So that's all. All the best ad libs that I've come up with over the years and a few of them that were just too good to leave on the table that I heard. And you know it's just you know what is such a speaker if something happens turn the microphone back. Somebody drops something somebody walks in late and you make any comment at all. It's hysterical.

[00:13:56] Exactly. And it looks like you're a genius you just you're right in tune with everything. But these are all preplanned in case that thing happened and then you pull it out of your bag right.

[00:14:06] Right. The best ad lib is a well-prepared one.

[00:14:09] It seems like an oxymoron. But that's the other one. You know I keep a whole bunch of them in my mind like if the projector bulb goes out it's like I look at it real close. This is know last serviced by Thomas Edison. Anything is good and make you look really really cool and then you know it reduces the anxiety in the audience when you are not flustered they're not flustered.

[00:14:35] And exactly you're also acknowledging that you know something's wrong. It's like for example one of the ones all auto the trainers I'll say to them have you ever come back after lunch and you're doing a full day program and just not as many people in the class as it were before lunch I said Because you know what everybody else is they can oh man we could have left too. So I'll walk in there and go Wow I guess you're the ones who didn't have the tuna surprise and you know it gets a laugh and then everybody realizes Oh OK. Some people left but when you can acknowledge those things and you can use humor. Boy you just looked like a such a professional.

[00:15:14] And that's another thing when there's that distraction. You know some people just try to work over it work over it but it's totally ridiculous to try so address it. Right.

[00:15:24] Yeah. I do stuff like a siren go by cop siren. I'll take a step to the side to go oh my ride's here. Take a step and it's a big laugh or you know if there's noise next door. Oh great. Why do they always put me next to the juggler.

[00:15:40] Yes. So that it's covered on your DVD with the companion e-book right.

[00:15:45] Like how to ad lib like a professional or just look like one.

[00:15:49] And where do they get that.

[00:15:51] They can get that at the jeffjustice.com Web site.

[00:15:54] We'll have the show notes for everybody. So so tell us how that the comedy class works. I mean you how many people in the class roughly.

[00:16:03] I tell you what. I'll give you my 60 second commercial. So this is basically a six week course. We meet one night a week for six weeks from seven to ten thirty you learn all the basics of stand up comedy How to write jokes tell jokes how to take the things that are funny to you and make them funny on stage because there is a difference. And each week you come in with your jokes I point out what works and what doesn't work and if it doesn't work I help you rewrite it to make sure it does work. Only class in a country that actually helps you rewrite your jokes then I show you how to organize a routine how to memorize it and deliver it and then graduation is live on stage at the punch line in front of a sold out crowd. Drop the mic.

[00:16:44] Yeah. Amazing. Amazing. How many times you think I've said that.

[00:16:48] Oh a few. You could rewind everybody if you didn't catch all of it.

[00:16:53] So I take 20 people at a time and it's been sold out for years. And I don't market it. It's the only marketing is word of mouth. And I guess I do market it because I do pay for it. You know I didn't even think I'd pay for ad words on it because it just comes to the top. I mean when you search comedy classes and Atlanta stand up comedy classes.

[00:17:16] There's probably not that many though it's going to be you'll be the only ones.

[00:17:21] But it's it's one of the only ones. And. But when you compare the two it's like it's not the only thing. Reason why you would take one of the other classes is to save 100 bucks. And if you're shopping by price and I don't really want to talk yet anyway.

[00:17:40] So do you have any like really crazy success stories that you some of the people like. I remember one time I was doing a humorous seminar make them laugh thing all day long and this one lady was just totally never laughed. You can't miss that in a humor seminar when somebody doesn't laugh and you got to fight not to keep looking at them because you know you're going to get everybody else all down and at the end of the day she hung around and I thought oh man in my mind I'm going through all this stuff I wonder if I said some sexist or racist you know just wrong that puts it the wrong way. And so she's hanging around till everybody leaves and then she comes up in tears and you know I never thought I could have any humor in my life and she's cry and cry. So so I imagine you get a wide range of people that go into this class.

[00:18:35] You know I know this sounds egotistical but I mean it really changes people's lives. It's amazing. My favorite one is years ago shows how long ago this was. I was in blockbuster's with my kids and we're walking around and I'm you know hey you know I put that down. Get over here. I have a pretty distinctive voice. And this this guy that just walked in the door on the other side of the store and also he looks up and he comes walking over to me and he says he says Jeff I know you don't remember me but I took your comedy class about seven years ago and I did actually remember the guy. And I did remember because he goes I just want you to know that every great thing that's happened in my life is a direct result of me taking your class and my life has been fantastic and I just want to thank you shakes my hand turns around walks out. I'm like got tears coming. So yeah there's people that you know a friend of mine took my class years ago and we were out one new year's eve and he said you know I never told you this but before I took a class I always took everything so seriously and just really just not fun to be around. And once I took that class I realized laughing at myself was the best thing that I could do. And it is just made such an incredible change my life. Things don't bother me any more I don't worry about things. And it's just it's just amazing. You don't realize the changes that happen to people when you give them that permission to laugh or show them they can be funny.

[00:20:13] Yeah and a lot of them it might be the first time in their life because some of them came up with those families that are you know wipe that stupid smile off your face and they yeah they were they weren't encouraged to talk in adult functions it was like shut up and stay out of the way. And so that carried it through their whole life and a six week course with you this switch turned that switch for them.

[00:20:37] I had one guy who was going on. And he said a headhunter here in Atlanta. Like works with people that make like a half a million or more very straightest guy ever met my life. And at the graduation one of my students said Oh I met his wife before the show. She came up to me says I've been married to the guy for 17 years I've never once heard him say something funny. I can't wait to see this. And he was hilarious because he laughed at himself. He poked fun at himself for being so straight and so serious. Yeah and his friend his friends were in the audience and they were hysterical because he was laughing at himself.

[00:21:16] Right. Right. Right. And you know what. I did an informal survey years ago when I lived up in D.C. This was even before the Internet was around the Washingtonian magazine had classified section in the back personals you know for people wanting to meet each other. So I started collecting them over a course of a year. I subscribe to the magazine and every month I would count up the number of ads that said that they wanted somebody with a sense of humor. 70 percent of the ads out of those thousands and thousands of ads wanted a person with a sense of humor and or claim that they had a sense of humor. So it's a total life changing thing that you're doing here.

[00:22:01] Well then again though I do do remember a comedian used to talk about how women always say they want I want a guy with a sense of humor but they sleep with the rock star.

[00:22:14] Well at least you could. You can take it to the grocery store and buy all this stuff for you. Guy gets the benefit.

[00:22:21] Well I say my wife's always had a great sense of humor. And I had to I knew I had to marry somebody with that sense of humor. On our honeymoon this is actually the first time getting married for her. And I said Look I know you're 38. Never been married but is there any chance that I was first. She goes Well you could have been you look familiar.

[00:22:45] Did you ever get her up on stage.

[00:22:47] Never. She'd kill me. I've had both my kids on stage but not her. Well she's a singer songwriter too. She used to tour with as a backup singer with Tammy Wynette had her own album. So she's had that whole life and you know she would kill me.

[00:23:05] Tammy Wynette was really funny. So let's take it back. Like how did you start out your career. You have jobs.

[00:23:16] Well I graduated from college moved up to Atlanta and got one job working two jobs the first one was that WYZE fun country fourteen eighty five thousand white daytime radio station that changed for much about every other week.

[00:23:36] And what were you doing there.

[00:23:37] I was trying to sell radio time and it was a disaster. It was we're selling it for like 50 cents a spot. It was horrible. And then after that I got a job with a company selling this is when used to do projector shows where you'd have like 16. Carousel projectors synced up and stuff.

[00:23:57] I had that at my nightclub.

[00:24:02] So they said we were working with linear business products back then and I went to one of their big meetings and the backstabbing and under the table snide crap that I experienced during my one hour meeting between the lower echelon of executives and stuff like that. I just said there's no possible way I can ever be part of this. I mean that kid can happen and from there I picked up a few new jobs bartending then managing big actually assistant managing assistant night manager OK. Basically the bar back I made like that OK. But I had a hobby of magic and I would do magic tricks and sleight of hand at different places for people. And when I got out when I left the last place that I manage I got a job working at a little magic shop in Atlanta. And basically you would do tricks for people there and got the nerve from doing that to go on stage at an open mike night. I would the one that they have in Atlanta and there's a comedian magician on stage and after three or four beers I'm funnier than this guy. So I went up to the manager afterwards talked to him he said Come back next week you can go on up as a great what you want to do like five minutes 10 minutes. He goes you can do 20 minutes I had no act nothing. I've never been on stage I'd just been at my magic shop. So I went and took the routines that I did for the customers every day and tried to make them funnier went up there. Long story short killed nobody none of the other comedians got laughs. I just tore the place apart and I'm going. That's it. I'm supposed to be funny and go got to the manager. I go do you want me to come back next week because no come back about two weeks. Came back two weeks later with my girlfriend totally tanked. I mean like nothing. And what I realized was it was the same 35 40 people. And I was the first new person they'd seen in a long time but that did that. But hearing that laughter the first time. That's that's what got me. Eventually I sold everything I had took that 20 bucks moved up to New York 30 years old moved into my parents house again. I started to go into downtown to the comedy clubs there seven nights a week hanging out in the clubs two o'clock in the morning hoping to get on watching the professionals and eventually the thing that helped me in New York was I had 20 funny minutes and a car and they always needed somebody to drive the other two acts to the gig in New Jersey or Connecticut. So I always got the EmCee spot and I would talk to those guys and they'd give me advice and stuff and just basically made it into stand up comedy which led to doing some corporate stuff which when I got to Atlanta I started going to a local open mike night. On the days that I was home and I noticed there was some things that the local comedians were doing wrong whether they were put in a punch word in the wrong place not emphasizing the right thing. Know all these little things and I found the ones that I gave advice to and they took it. And you know not everybody takes your advice right. They immediately got funnier. It's like the next time they were on stage they were funnier and eight of them got together and said Would you do us a favor. We gave you some money. Would you teach us what you know. You know the things that were missing so I put together four week course. I Xeroxed a few pages out of one of Judy Carter's books stapled them together. And just out of chance right before the end of the class I said you know what. Why don't we do a show. Now why do you invite your friends over to Jerry Farber and they would like about 90 people and everybody would do your routines. You know a lot of fun. And it went great. They sold the place out. Their friends had a great time and I figured that was it that I might do one more time in a few years. And at the end of the show their friends came up and said Have you ever thought about doing this for normal people that looks like it'd be a lot of fun. Because their friends who were comedians definitely aren't normal. So this was before the Internet and I was like well give me a phone number if I ever decide to teach a class again. I'll give you a call. And that was literally three thousand people go was no it is just kept go on. You know I've gotten periodic newspaper articles magazine article was good on TV you once in a while but I would say the vast majority of it is word of mouth.

[00:28:56] Yeah. And you made a good living for many years just being funny right. So now a lot of people on the outside would say that the comedy clubs and stuff is a cutthroat business. Do you agree with that.

[00:29:11] Well it's a hard way to make a living. I mean there's a lot of funny people out there and I'll tell you a lot of my past students now that are out there working. I'm the first one to say there are a lot funnier than I ever was. I mean there are some funny funny people so I lucked out. I hit the comedy scene right at its resurgence and its rebirth. Let's say you know there's some Lenny Bruce and all that back then that it died years and it came back and clubs were opening all over the place. Everybody needed feature action headliners. A lot of them couldn't pay airfare or needed people to drive to. I mean it was just average in such a sweet spot. And that's not to say it didn't have a good act. But I had a comedy magic act. It was you know part stand up and part magic. Magic comedy. And I did very well with it. But to go out now I would never go out now again to 30 and start all over again all over again especially if I had a family. Cause there's not as many clubs there's as many comedians. There's a lot of people that are already funny but the worst part for me now there's a lot of people that are funny and really dirty. I can't follow a dirty act. I mean it just it ain't gonna. It ain't going to be work for me because I'm clean which is why I make so much money as you know doing corporate stuff. You know it's just the first time I figured out that somebody would give me as much money for 45 minutes as I used to get for a week or two weeks on the road that I got in this business now.

[00:30:49] So it really does make more sense if somebody does want to have this add more humor and be funny and stuff to go into speaking because there's way more opportunity.

[00:30:58] That's what I tell my students for comedy put it this way. And I would say the same thing for acting too. It can't be something you'd like to do or you want to do. It's got to be something you have to do. And when I first started I I had to be a comedian. I just I didn't care what happened if I had to sleep on couches in my car whatever I wanted to be on stage every night with the possibility of hearing that laughter again. And it was just addicting. It was like the best drug I've ever had. But there's a lot of people that you know you know how there were speakers right just like people going Oh national speaker association I think I'll join and become the speaker and the next year you'd never see them again. It's a lot of work. And as I always tell my students it was easy everybody be doing it.

[00:31:43] Yeah. That's for sure but. Okay. Well we got to take a brief break for our sponsor and then which is always me by the way but when we come back we'll ask the Jeff puts a typical day look like for him and how he stays motivated in his business.

[00:32:01] So folks if you do any public speaking or business presentations you can triple the effectiveness of your talk by adding appropriate amounts of humor. And I'm not telling talking about telling jokes. I mean is over 30 ways you can jazz up a presentation using simple techniques that anyone can master and none of them are telling jokes and presentations and speeches you're not trying to be a standup comedian you're trying to get your message across and keep the audience's attention and these techniques work no matter how serious the presentation. I mean even Shakespeare used Comic Relief for the middle of his tragedies because people can only absorb so much heavy information before they can't take it anymore and they zone out. So check out or make 'em laugh pro level webinar you can get a lot of these techniques that are pretty much self working you can check that out at screwthecommute.com/makelaugh we'll have the show notes but also get a hold of the DVD from Jeff because anything I've ever seen from him ever has been stellar and I learned a lot from him when I was getting started because he's way way older than me I think. So I was just a babe in the woods when he was.

[00:33:18] When I first took you under my wing.

[00:33:19] Yeah exactly. Mean I think somebody dropped me in a basket more like a big dumpster maybe in front of his door. But yeah I learned so much from it when I first got started and I really appreciate that so.

[00:33:34] So let's get back to Jeff. Jeff SO WHAT'S THE I MEAN YOU DON'T HAVE TO BE TALKING TO ME. YOU DON'T HAVE TO BE DOING ANYTHING RIGHT NOW YOU'VE BUILT UP A great business that supports you and your family. What is the typical day look like for you right now.

[00:33:48] Well to give you an idea we were talking to some friends about retirement and stuff and my wife was sitting there and we discussed what retirement will look like. She likes to make us. How would that be any different from what you normally. See honey. It works. That's how I've set up my life. My typical day I'll tell you what if I worked as hard as my wife does I would be a zillionaire. But I don't I don't I sleep late. Now I'm back to working out again so I'll get up a few days a week and do my kettlebell of my martial arts stuff. Do you do martial arts.

[00:34:26] Oh I've had my whole life. I've got a brutal self-defense class in the. It's multiple different disciplines no art to it at all. It's like just bust the person in the living.

[00:34:40] Yeah yeah well you know I'm a world champion martial artist.

[00:34:45] Here I am here. Come on. Yeah I know I have. Yeah.

[00:34:49] And Tai Chi push hands.

[00:34:52] I've won the Super Heavyweight Championship both the national one and international two or three times.

[00:34:59] What is it called. There you go. You're pulling my leg right now.

[00:35:03] Check out on the internet Tai Chi push hands. And the second part just push and competition push OK. Look at my name but you'll find me.

[00:35:17] There's got to be some punch line somewhere.

[00:35:20] No it's it it's fun. Well you know if you do martial arts how much fun it is to bring people around.

[00:35:25] Absolutely. Yes. Yeah.

[00:35:27] And I like laughs. I won my last one last summer at 67 years old and I'm going against these guys who are like in their late 20s early 30s 300 pounders and stuff. And they're their masters are standing there with them you know. These guys I've never lost a match but they don't know what I know.

[00:35:46] Well you get them laughing.

[00:35:50] Internal laughter. That's right.

[00:35:53] That's that. Yeah. I'll tell you when I became a believer as I had this teacher who is now a grandmaster and he looked like Jesus and he is just a tall skinny guy with long hair and he's help him he's back in the nightclub days when I'm learning achy jitsu and you know I couldn't just bust people up because they'd be in court all the time. So I had to learn lots of control techniques that create enormous pain but no bruising. So he's we're working out. He's he's he's got an open hand that's only about a quarter of an inch from my chest and he just kind of like goes and just like drops his shoulders maybe I don't know a couple inches and go and it felt like and I'm not I wasn't a believer at this point but it felt like an atomic bomb went off in my spine and went up into my head and I had a headache for two weeks. Yeah. And that was my ohh. There's something more to this than I'll ever figure out because that's all he did his whole life. Day and night and was able to start controlling Chi which is an internal power for those people wonder what I'm talking about.

[00:37:18] Yeah. Yeah he definitely did. He's an internal martial artist. If you want to see my guys name's Adam Mizner.

[00:37:27] Oh that's the Mizner method right.

[00:37:32] But you will watch his videos and you will swear it's all fake.

[00:37:35] Yeah and there is a set of fakers out there.

[00:37:37] Pressure is all right but yeah I was a believer after that so what does that matter. Mizner.

[00:37:46] Yeah. And he he touches you and just basically takes over your nervous system and you see these people what do you do unto him. And it's scary again and I've gotten a touch hands with him before at seminars and it's over. From the moment he touches you it's there's nothing you can do right.

[00:38:05] It's just hard to believe for people just watching some of this stuff. But yeah and like I said there's plenty of fakers out there that are there are trying to take advantage of this kind of stuff. But. So yeah. So you basically get up late and I remember hearing one of my favorites is Kathleen Madigan. Yes. So you know her.

[00:38:27] Oh yeah. Yes the way she used to be the opening act or a feature act for me in St. Louis.

[00:38:31] Oh she's hysterical she's talking about how she gets these letters from her saying some of her married friends you know every Christmas they send a letter out of what's going on with the family. She said oh well wonder what mind would say this is. Oh I get I get up late. I got extra money. Another thing that's favorite from her was she's talked about Canada she said it's just like her the US's attic. It says forget it's up there but there's a lot of cool things.

[00:39:04] I just love her whole presentation.

[00:39:05] I do too. I just love her. She's. She cracks me up and then Larry the Cable guys. Another favorite of course is at home depot and says he's mad at them because they threw him out but it wasn't his fault. They should have put a sign near those toilets for display purposes though.

[00:39:25] You know he's one of the highest if not the highest paid comedian.

[00:39:29] Yeah. And it just amazed me. So my friends just cringe. They can't stand it. But you know there's a lot of blue collar people out there. I mean that was the whole blue collar tour and everything. Jeff Foxworthy and all those guys.

[00:39:43] Yeah. one of my past students spend about two or three years on the road with him as his opening act. Oh wow. He loved it. He said you got to go all over the world. He says his audiences were just insanely great. And how did you get out there. 50000 people out there.

[00:40:00] Yeah. Yeah. This was a serious thing. Ron and of course Ron Whitefield the drunk he'd say. The police thought he had the right to remain silent. He didn't have the ability.

[00:40:17] Not Ron Whitefield was one of those guys and I love what he comes to my graduations once in a while to like work out new material. But I was in Fort Worth Texas years ago and I'm the headliner and the guy who's the feature act got some TV gig or something like that couldn't show and the guy says well I'm going to bring in a buddy of mine to be the feature act.

[00:40:42] Tell people what that means the feature act and the headliner how they're different.

[00:40:45] So in a normal comedy show that you see that shows three people there's the M.C. who opens the show brings on the other acts works out his material in between the two other acts. And at the end of the show comes back gets a big round applause everybody does the announcements for the club birthdays things like that. And he's low or she's a low man on the totem pole even though they've got like the hardest job.

[00:41:29] All right. So that's the low bit low person.

[00:41:32] Right. Then the feature act is 30 minutes he's got what we call the rocking chair spot because he's in a great position because if you if you like the M.C. you're in a good mood and you're looking forward some more. And if you didn't like the M.C. you're gone thank God they're gone. I'm looking forward to somebody. But you don't have to close the show. You get okay money but you do the 30 minutes in the middle and then the headliner is the one supposedly everybody came to see they do 45 minutes to an hour. They are the one who said you can make anywhere from like what I made I. I was probably one of the highest paid non celebrity headliners at that time and back then I was only making twenty two with twenty three hundred on a great week. But if you were a headliner that could pull people in you know you might get a percentage of the door so you know you might make five ten thousand dollars for the night.

[00:42:26] How many shows is that. I mean three shows a week.

[00:42:34] Oh so what it used to be it used to be Tuesdays through Sunday. So you do one show.

[00:42:40] Tuesday Wednesday Thursday and Sunday two on Friday three on Saturday. But now. Now it's usually less than that and a lot of the big headliners now they only come in for Friday and Saturday or at the most Thursday Friday Saturday. So they fly and do their three nights and they're gone and a local person does the other ones so maybe the clubs only open Thursday to Sunday.

[00:43:03] And how much time did you spend working on material.

[00:43:06] Not enough. Well you know like I say I had a funny act and I wasn't what you'd call a great standup comedian. I was taught by students I go I made it to the bottom of the top.

[00:43:20] Well let's just say that's something that is something that's a lot of meaning. Just think how many people never made it to the bottom. Think about it.

[00:43:30] But I know. I mean I had I had that Rocky Raccoon and a bunch of magic stuff and audience participation and I don't like to work an audience.

[00:43:37] And just yeah you did it in NSA where you had to be squeaky clean and yet rock the place. I mean I remember that vividly. I remember you cut the microphone cord.

[00:43:49] Yeah. Oh is that the handkerchief to the mike stand. Yeah. Hikers through the mike and all those things. So it's Chariots of Fire and all that jump is baby. Right. So now that you get to like lay around and do nothing all day. So how do you get motivated even bother to talk to me today.

[00:44:08] Yeah I'd like you know something to do. No I'm trying to just kill another hour in my day. Okay. Yeah I mean I think the all TV I'm walking a dog. No. I have different busy times during the year. So when my classes are in session one of the things that I offer for them is I help them rewriting their jokes. So when we get towards the last week or two of each class I'm spending a lot of time trying to make people funny trying to make their jokes funny with the court reporters at certain times of the year that they're credit to do and a lot more procrastinators. So where I might have like this month I might have twenty five people 30 people take my seminars online. December I might have two hundred and thirty two hundred and forty.

[00:45:00] Yes so the court reporter thing is a remote thing. That's not all. Atlanta people oh no it's all we know.

[00:45:07] Yeah. Yeah. It's remote. Yeah. So what I do now is I used to go out and do life seminars to make money. I think the most I ever did on one I'd made like seventy thousand bucks in one day. I had two hundred and eighty something. court reports sign up for a program was two hundred and forty nine dollars a person. It was like insane but those days are gone now. I'm lucky if I get 30 people 35 people that come to a live they're alive. There's nobody much to travel right. That's great for me because I'd rather have a small audience to videotape and I'm just saying the live seminars and videotapes. So what do I care as long as it pays for the hotel and my airfares and my other speakers. You know that's that's a wash for me. I'm going to make all the money on the back end right. The online courses.

[00:45:58] Yeah beautiful beautiful business model. They said especially since you don't have to do it anymore so. So that motivates you I guess. Right.

[00:46:06] It does. It gets me out of bed in the morning and art and trying to make things better. Like I said I spent three hours yesterday with Mark stuff going through all my videos making those better and increasing my SEO hopefully with it. I'm sorry I'm getting this thing in the background but my daughter's on it and some type of chat with my wife. I'm not sure how to stop it.

[00:46:28] We've heard the thunder. I heard you 40 when the other bird. It's all farting in that under the. If you started farting with little dings then I'd be worried.

[00:46:37] That was like when I first started my online business I didn't know how it's gonna go. And I was hoping that the first year if I had 30 or 35 people take the course online that was going to be like an extra six thousand bucks that year to hey that's great.

[00:46:53] No no extra income there.

[00:46:55] Well the first year I had over 300 people now and last year was a fourth or fifth year I've been doing it and I broke nine hundred and so and that I mean that's it's all automated except for the part of grading the quizzes.

[00:47:10] And I've got all the quiz answers memorized now so I can just look at a test and go see bad see Dad cat cat you know just. And I've got a lot of the things that he used to do by hand all done by macros now. So I'm in the process of trying to find somebody who can design software for me to do all this automatically then and then I really be doing nothing. I God I that I want to talk to Tom I'd have to pick up a phone.

[00:47:42] I do have a tip for that is that anytime you want to now I'm totally against software. Most of the time that's not off the shelf.

[00:47:49] I know what I know what you're going to say because I repeat it to everybody. What's that I'm looking for somebody to do this. My first line is this is a no brainer for anybody who knows what they doing.

[00:48:00] That's right. That's my right. That's absolutely right. There's one extra step in who shouldn't really be looking for a programmer. You should be looking for a project manager project manager. Yeah. Because see you guys like us are talking directly to a programmer. Somebody is gonna get hurt because they can't understand you. As soon as you say Well I'd like it to do this and they're like that's 40000 more lines of code. Crazy right. Yeah. And then they're trying to tell you stuff you don't understand. So project managers like an interpreter they can talk to the entrepreneur and then translate that into talking to the programmer so that nobody kills each other in the process. Well the project manager. Yeah that's good. Yeah. So it's the same thing in building. Yeah. So probably get to the job done much faster with less stress to it.

[00:48:55] So but I can't tell you how many times I've used that line. Yeah. And my wife to show you she needs to get something done on the Internet.

[00:49:02] Go home honey the first thing you want to say is there you go well have is spent so good catching up with you. I'm thrilled about all your successes and all the good vibes you've been putting into the world with these people that are turning their lives around because of you.

[00:49:19] So you too brother and you know what. I've got a little extra bonus just for your people here. As I put together a white paper a few years ago on the 20 mistakes most people make when trying to use humor. You'd have an edge. It's it's a great paper. And anybody that orders the Adlib C.D. will get the adlib C.D. the e book for that and also the white paper for 20 mistakes people make.

[00:49:49] Awesome. We're going to put that in the show notes so we'll be able to do that with no problem. It's really really great. The things the things you're doing and thanks for coming on me.

[00:49:59] My pleasure. Thanks for asking.

[00:50:00] All right everybody so this has been Episode One hundred and ten so you can go if you want to listen again to screwthecommute.com/110 and I'll go right to Jeff's episode make sure you get the podcast app because that'll help you take us on the road with you and if you're gonna be doing any traveling this spring or summer and you want to not do mindless crap that's on the radio mostly make sure you listen to podcasts they're really taking off and it's kind of a rolling university so check the show notes for all the details about Jeff and we will catch all on the next episode.

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