A little more than 9 years ago, my son Andrew and I were sitting at the kitchen table discussing his job prospects (or more accurately, his lack thereof). He was 23, had delivered pizza, worked for 5 minutes at a PR firm, and a few other minimum wage stints not worth mentioning. The stock market had just collapsed. We were entering the Great Recession.
In March 2009 President Obama extended unemployment benefits by 33 weeks as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. This was to help the 13.1 million people out of work. That was 8.5% of our workforce.
I was irritable because my son was collecting unemployment.
That unemployment check made me flashback to my own youth. I took food stamps for a few months in between gigs. I remember being ashamed and feeling like a mooch.
Some of our radio advertisers might hire him. A brand new casino was opening just up the road In Snoqualmie. Decent pay. Benefits. I could put in a word.
He was having none of it and proceeded to tell me he did not want to work in a casino, never again in a restaurant of any kind. No more crappy jobs. I started to think we’d spoiled him. Oh no. He might be lazy!
An aside to all kids and former kids. Your parents freak out if they think you’re a slouch, you know that. But do you know why? It’s because we think it must be our fault. We must have done something wrong.
I caught myself sounding like my own dad, who warned me there’d be no future in spinning records. He’d say “You’re going to end up digging ditches!”
It was the 70’s. Walmart wasn’t a thing yet. Digging ditches was considered “the” shit job.
Years later my Dad would brag that I got my deep voice from him.
I looked at Andrew’s face and suddenly realized he was trying to tell me that he wanted to do something meaningful. I tried to think of something I might say that could actually help. I had a thought.
“Maybe we are going about this all wrong son. I don’t want you to have a crappy job either. So imagine you had a magic wand. All you had to do is wave it and you could be anything you want. Astronaut. Athlete. Brain Surgeon. President.”
(Note: In those days being POTUS was actually considered an honorable job)
“If you could wave that wand, and instantly become anything you wanted… What would you be?”
He thought for a moment, and said: “At Keith and Leanne’s wedding when I did the toast, everyone said I should be a Comedian”.
Wow.
That is exactly what had happened. Andrew performed a 15-minute monologue that had everyone in stitches. Brought the house down. The normally shy younger brother had written a brilliant but warm roast of his older brother.
So I said “OK. I want to take back everything I said before. There are open mic nights almost every night.”
And one more thing. “You’re not on unemployment. Let’s call it the Obama Comedy Scholarship.”
At first, Andrew worked for free almost every night. He wasn’t on unemployment for long, but he continued to be a starving artist. He didn’t care.
He did what you do if you want to succeed. He showed up and never backed down.
It’s nine years later.
Now I’m writing a blog for a few friends, and he’s got 2 clips with 1.3 million views on Facebook in just a few weeks.
And like my Dad before me… I’m taking some credit. But not much. He did all of the work.
I still use the imaginary Magic Wand to this day, whenever I’m stuck, or a friend is stuck, I say “If you had a magic wand, and you knew you could not fail, what would you do?” It’s a way to bypass the fear of failure that often stands in the way of getting started.
Best,
Bob.
Thanks for reading, always curious if you have comments. And please forward this to anyone you think might enjoy.
Image: DonkeyHotey, Barack Obama – Caricature (32125530305), Cropped by BRS, CC BY 2.0
