Transcript
Speaker: Welcome back to another episode of Dirty Briefs.
Speaker: And first of all, thank you all for being here week after week and listening to my musings, which I hope are a little silly, a little inspirational, fun, and of course, short.
Speaker: That's the whole beauty of this podcast.
Speaker: It's supposed to be short.
Speaker: There's a quote that I love that I think about often, and it's from Ralph Waldo Emerson, famous silent film star, Ralph Waldo Emerson.
Speaker: And it says, the creation of a thousand forests are in one acorn.
Speaker: The creation of a thousand forests are in one acorn.
Speaker: I like to always think of myself as an acorn, that life can sprout from the things that I do.
Speaker: And that is why planting seeds is
Speaker: are so important.
Speaker: It's something that I think about all of the time as an artist, as a self-employed human being, but just as a human, we have to plant seeds and allow for things to grow.
Speaker: Building anything takes time, whether it's a business or a home or even tending a garden.
Speaker: It takes time, but you have to plant seeds every single day.
Speaker: You never know when they're going to sprout.
Speaker: You just don't.
Speaker: But if you don't do the work, if you don't plant the seeds, then nothing will ever grow.
Speaker: And then...
Speaker: what are you in a rock garden?
Speaker: I mean, those are fine for some people, but my guess is if you're listening to this podcast, if you're listening to me, you want a little bit more out of life than a rock garden.
Speaker: You want to see flowers.
Speaker: You want to see fruit.
Speaker: You want to see bees having sex with all of the flowers, then spreading that pollen as far as they will go.
Speaker: Even though we all know that bees aren't real.
Speaker: Neither are birds.
Speaker: Read the internet, everybody.
Speaker: Somebody told me something years ago, and I think about it a lot.
Speaker: They said, you'll get everything you want seven years after you think you deserve it.
Speaker: I find this to be endlessly true.
Speaker: It's one of those quotes that I love and I hate at the same time because it does say you'll get everything you want, but it will happen seven years after you think you deserve it.
Speaker: So I shot a Comedy Central set a couple months ago, and it just came out, and a lot of you have watched it.
Speaker: Thank you very much for doing that.
Speaker: I first started submitting my stand-up to Comedy Central because
Speaker: In 2016, it's 2023, seven years.
Speaker: I've been on the channel a couple other times, the roast battle and things like that.
Speaker: But to actually get my standup on there, seven years after I wanted it.
Speaker: This happens all of the time.
Speaker: But that's why you have to plant seeds.
Speaker: Every single time you ask for something, you're planting a seed.
Speaker: Every time you promote or you advertise, you are planting a seed.
Speaker: And some seeds are large.
Speaker: Some seeds are very small.
Speaker: But they're all seeds.
Speaker: You can't see what's happening under the ground.
Speaker: You can't see all of the nutrients that are rushing to that seed because of its magnetic impulses.
Speaker: You can't see it, but that doesn't mean it's not happening.
Speaker: But if you never plant those seeds, it's not going to happen.
Speaker: I did another podcast episode called create it, release it, stop giving a fuck.
Speaker: Same thing, right?
Speaker: You have to make things happen on your own.
Speaker: You have to do it.
Speaker: I think of everything I do as a brick in my castle.
Speaker: There are small bricks and there are large bricks, but everything is a brick.
Speaker: Let's say I do a 10 minute set at a comedy show with like 40 people in the audience.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: It's a small brick, pretty small brick.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: But then I do something on Comedy Central.
Speaker: That's a much bigger brick.
Speaker: But every, all of it are bricks.
Speaker: And to build a castle, you can't only use giant bricks.
Speaker: You got to use small bricks as well to fill in all the gaps of all the large stones.
Speaker: You can't see it happening.
Speaker: But that doesn't mean that it's not happening.
Speaker: You got to water your seeds.
Speaker: You got to make sure they're getting sunlight.
Speaker: You got to follow up on your seeds.
Speaker: You can't just plant a seed and forget about it forever.
Speaker: Every once in a while, you got to go back.
Speaker: Let's say it's something you want in business.
Speaker: For me, it's getting into comedy clubs.
Speaker: Well, I'll email a comedy club and I'll say, hey, I would love to play your comedy club.
Speaker: These are the dates I have available.
Speaker: Maybe they don't get back to me, but then I follow up again and again and again.
Speaker: I give it little gaps in between, but my wife who's in marketing and copywriting, she told me that it takes an average of people seeing something seven times before they actually buy it.
Speaker: Seven times.
Speaker: That one email, that's great.
Speaker: You perused the rack.
Speaker: But now, if you really want to go in and get them to buy, well, you're going to need to show them again and again.
Speaker: This podcast is a seed.
Speaker: Some weeks I don't really feel like doing it.
Speaker: I'll be honest with you guys.
Speaker: I don't always like doing it.
Speaker: This was something that I started when I was shortly out of the hospital because I needed something to do to fill my time, to feel like I wasn't being stagnant in my career.
Speaker: And I don't always love that I have to do it, but consistency is important.
Speaker: And right now,
Speaker: This is a small seed because there's only a few of you that listen every single week.
Speaker: Not to say I am not completely grateful for all of you that are listening and sharing.
Speaker: And I really hope that this is speaking to you in some ways, but that's the point right now.
Speaker: It's small, but I'm watering that seed.
Speaker: I am shining the sunlight directly on it.
Speaker: And this podcast has a heliotropic tendency.
Speaker: That's going to make it turn.
Speaker: toward the sun and allow it to grow bigger and stronger every single episode.
Speaker: That's why I do it.
Speaker: It also is a great outlet for me.
Speaker: I always feel like, you know, I do the daily lollipop on Instagram, which is a little tiny, silly piece of inspiration.
Speaker: This is kind of like a weekly lollipop, especially episodes like this, because these are things that I tell myself all the time.
Speaker: Hey, go plant some seeds.
Speaker: You never know when they're going to come back.
Speaker: I have had comedy clubs hit me up four years after I sent an initial email and said, hey, can you come do this weekend?
Speaker: Four years?
Speaker: I had forgotten I even sent that email.
Speaker: But that is why you plant seeds.
Speaker: Because you never know when and what is going to fruit.
Speaker: And the beauty of planting seeds is
Speaker: is that the more you plant, the more seeds will happen without you even doing anything.
Speaker: A tree doesn't think when it drops its acorns that it's just going to create a thousand forests.
Speaker: But that's what happens.
Speaker: Every time you do something, it plants another seed.
Speaker: Work begets work.
Speaker: Everything is linked together in this very...
Speaker: primordial way?
Speaker: Is that the word I want to use?
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: Ever since I had a stroke, some of my word retrieval is not as good as it used to be, but you get what I'm saying.
Speaker: Water your plants, plant the fucking seeds.
Speaker: That's how you are going to make things happen for yourself.
Speaker: You can sit around and wait for other people to come after you and maybe eventually they will, but it will happen a lot quicker because
Speaker: If you get in there and you make it known what you want.
Speaker: I think about this all the time, especially when I'm meditating or when I'm writing down goals for my career, I'm always thinking, okay, if I plant this seed,
Speaker: And it eventually sprouts into a massive tree.
Speaker: And that tree begins fruiting.
Speaker: How many other people are going to be able to come and feed off of my tree?
Speaker: Because it's not only for me, it's for everyone else.
Speaker: It's the community of people that surround me because that's what I want this podcast to be.
Speaker: That's what I consider it.
Speaker: Same with my social media.
Speaker: It is a community.
Speaker: Is it promoting myself?
Speaker: Yeah, of course it is because I got to sell tickets.
Speaker: Otherwise I don't get to eat, but I want it to be a community that makes people feel good.
Speaker: If you have a video that you love and you want me to share it because it's something inspirational to you, send it to me.
Speaker: I would love that.
Speaker: Alex super comedy at gmail.com.
Speaker: Send it on over.
Speaker: Go to HooperComedy.com because honestly, I got a lot of tour dates coming up and I want to see you guys.
Speaker: I really do.
Speaker: I want to see you out there in the world because this was a difficult year for me to say the least, but this is a building year.
Speaker: This is a, it's not a year for budding.
Speaker: It's a year for planting.
Speaker: for nurturing and for eventual growth that I can't yet see.
Speaker: But soon I'm going to be walking through this beautiful garden, looking at this giant castle and going, oh yeah, I spent all these years trying to secure these bricks so I can walk through this gorgeous garden and stare up at the giant castle that I have built.
Speaker: I'm glad you're here.
Speaker: It's a small brick right now, but it won't be small forever.
Speaker: Plant your seeds, everybody.
Speaker: Plant your seeds.
Speaker: What are you going to do this week to help future you achieve your goals?
Speaker: Think about it, and I'll see you next week.
