3. Class: It’s easy to get bitten by what I call “the false-reality bug” and start looking down on other people. Class, to me, is having a high level of humility and likability—and knowing that all human beings are equal and worthy of respect, understanding, and consideration. Even if someone has done something that seems harmful to you, you still have the option of handling it in a classy way by responding logically instead of emotionally. Class is an investment that will pay off your whole life, because the people you interact with can become your greatest allies or your greatest foes. There are no positive consequences to showing up anywhere with an attitude.
4. Commitment: Whenever I do a performance, a film, or any type of production, I sign a contract. That contract spells out in specific words an obligation that I’m under. It includes being in a specific place at a specific time on specific dates for a specific number of hours. In other areas of life, the details may not be written out on paper, but if there’s a commitment, there’s a contract. If you have a child, that’s a contract. Your friendships and relationships—those are contracts. Your career, your projects, your goals, your dreams—all contracts. The most important contract of all is your word to others and to yourself. If you do not honor your contractual obligations, then other parties won’t honor theirs either, and you won’t get the results you want. Though you always have the option of renegotiating your contracts, you don’t have the option of breaking them unless they’re a danger to you or others.
5. Learning: The key to learning is to shut your mouth. Observe, listen, evaluate, and then choose. Every experience you have is a gift created to teach you a lesson. If you learn and implement that lesson in your life, then you get to receive the next gift. If you don’t learn from it, then that same lesson will keep coming back to you, over and over, until you die standing in the exact same spot where you started, blaming others for something you should have done yourself long ago. In this world, there is nothing but life lessons. Pay attention to them and the world will open itself up to you.
6. Passion-Centered Competitiveness: This is the engine that drives all of these qualities. Having a passion—something you love that gives your life meaning and focus—is just the beginning. (If you haven’t found your passion yet, don’t overthink it. Just start doing something you enjoy.) The key that turns passion into directed action, though, is competition. It can be competition with yourself, with others, or even with history. After I found my passion, I saw how much others before me had accomplished and I competed to get to that level. When I got there, I saw how many talented people were trying to get to my position, so I began competing to stay ahead of them. The important thing to realize is that you’re not competing against anyone, you’re competing with them. There are four aces in every deck, and there are an infinite number of decks.
7. Positivity: What you put out is what you get back. If you want to achieve positive goals and experience positive relationships, then put out positivity. If someone else is putting out negativity, then maneuver around them like you would a puddle on the ground. If you respond with negativity, you will only get dragged into the mud. It is a talent to stay positive and avoid negativity in the face of a sometimes cruel, unfair, and indifferent world. Cultivate that talent. It’s the secret to living a happy life.
8. Discomfort: This last quality is specifically for the high achievers. If you want to get far in life, then never get too comfortable. Don’t stop, don’t rest, don’t be satisfied. As soon as you get comfortable, you’re pressing a brake and halting your forward motion. It will be hard to accelerate again afterward. This may seem like advice that goes against almost every self-help book ever published, but it is work that gives our lives meaning. That’s not an original idea; that’s in the Bible. “One who is slack in his work is brother to one who destroys.” When you look back on your life, it should mean something. You should be able to say: “Wow, I made an impact on the world when I was there.” And you don’t create change by being comfortable.
Behold these truths that I have given you. Go forth, prosper, and don’t blame me if any of this advice doesn’t work. Blame yourself for following the advice of a guy who tells jokes for a living. Surely there’s someone wiser you could have chosen to listen to, like a professor or a philosopher or the Dalai Lama or the wisest person of them all—the person reading this book.
With E, Joey, Spank, Harry, Wayne, Na’im, and Terry
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thanks to the following metaphors for making it possible to write about comedy:
? Murdering, killing, destroying, assassinating, slaughtering, exploding, slaying, shredding, gutting, ravaging, smashing, battering, clobbering, pounding, wrecking, cracking, crippling, exterminating, decimating, terminating, obliterating, demolishing, annihilating, massacring, mutilating, crucifying, liquidating, nuking, vaporizing, blasting, bombing, crashing, tanking, dying, choking, and laughing one’s ass off.
? This book is also dedicated to all the lives that have been lost slinging jokes. To the Richard Pryors, the Redd Foxxes, the George Carlins, the Bernie Macs, the Patrice O’Neals, the Charlie Murphys, and many more—thank you for blazing a trail.
Thanks also to these individuals for helping put this beast together:
? Everyone already named in the text of this book. (You already got your shout-out. Don’t expect another one back here.)
? Dawn Davis, Lindsay Newton, Judith Curr, Yona Deshommes, Paul Olsewski, David Brown, Kimberly Goldstein, Paige Lytle, Navorn Johnson and the team in Copyediting, and all the good folks at 37 INK/Atria Books who we stressed the fuck out.
? Marc Gerald and Ethan Stern for pulling the strings behind the scenes.
? Laurie Griffin for the design heroics.
? Everett “E” Fitzgerald, Terry Brown, and Boss, three of the newest and ugliest members of the Plastic Cup Boyz road crew.
? Phoebe Parros, Benjamin Smolen, Brian Fishbach, Roni Brown, Charlene Lee, Molly Lindley, Ingrid Strauss, Tenn Strauss, Rico Rivera, Thomas Scott McKenzie, Alex Vespestad, Nikki San Pedro, Jane Adair Lauderbaugh, Anthony Errigo, Phillip Jacquet, and Christina Swing. You know what you did. Don’t do it again.
American Express, if you’re reading this, please run my credit again. I wrote this entire book just to send a message to you: I’m now ready to handle the responsibility of a credit card. I went out to dinner with Trey Songz last night, and he has a black card. That motherfucker is publicly on record singing about giving his card to random women and letting them max it out. That violates your terms of service. So why does he have one and not me?
Finally, thanks to you for reading this entire book, even the acknowledgments. Seems like you don’t want this story to end. Fortunately, it’s just the beginning . . .