My New Job(s), Return to Standup Comedy, and Recommitment to Fiction Writing

When I left my job in April 2012, ending a nine-year streak in the Atlanta IT and marketing industries, it was certainly once of the biggest risks I’ve ever taken. I had nothing lined up, and I decided to take an entire month off just traveling around the country. The search for work officially began in early June. I returned renewed and refreshed, but unsure, uncertain, and facing the unknown. It has been a strange few months, filled with ups and downs, risks and dares, and upheaval that I’ve not experienced since 2002 and 2003.

While I worried myself sick at times (especially during early June), I’m now pinching myself every day. Yes, this is me speaking. In hindsight, taking the one-month sabbatical and pulling the rug out from under myself – Neil Young style – was the best thing I could have done. It was an instinctive move, but one that worked beyond my wildest dreams. I had allowed the grind of many years to pull me under, but like my Utica College professor Scott MacDonald once taught me, by leaving something “secure” behind, you open yourself to new and wondrous opportunities that you never imagined.

Without further ado, here is how my life is shaping out:

Gig #1 (Content Science)

Starting next week, I will have the pleasure of working with Colleen Jones’s Atlanta-based content strategy consultancy. It’s called Content Science, and the name is quite accurate. I read her book, Clout, back in January. It’s a great strategic and tactical overview of the emerging field of content strategy and content marketing. She’s a nationally known content strategy expert, theorist, and practitioner. I am humbled that my skills will fit with some of the projects she is working on, and I view this opportunity as both work and school. It’s like I will be going to content strategy graduate school, and I am excited. I officially start work with her next week, and you can also look forward to a monthly blog post from me on the Content Science website.

Gig #2 (Sophicity)

Yes, that’s right. My former employer from 2008 to 2011. I reconnected with Dave Mims a few weeks ago and got an overview of what’s happened in a year. He has boldly evolved upon the framework that the Sophicity management team crafted during 2008-2011, and it is interesting to see where my work still fits into the big picture. I am returning as a content marketing consultant and assisting with content creation to support their marketing efforts. Reconnecting with the Sophicity team feels like reuniting with a band at the right time, and I’m also looking forward to applying some new ideas based on what I’ve been learning about content strategy. I’m already digging into this work.

Career Focus: Content Strategy

Seeing “Gig #1” and “Gig #2,” you’ve probably already deduced that I am contracting. I find this to be an ideal arrangement right now. I’ll still be working hard, but my time is extremely flexible. I have the perfect gigs that allow me to become a student again. For my career, I am intentionally focusing on content strategy and content marketing to the exclusion of other roles. The stars have aligned. The terms “content strategy” and “content marketing” are new, but the skill sets are something for which I’ve been preparing my entire life. The field seems to be waiting for me, and I’m leaping in.

Standup Comedy: The Return

I will be taking Jeff Justice’s Comedy Workshop Part II starting July 23. The graduation will take place at the Punchline on Monday, August 27. I’ve already accepted that I will not do standup comedy professionally (no interest in hitting the open mic circuit), but the skill sets (writing, comedic science and craft, performance) still fascinate me and don’t preclude me from exploring more writing-driven comedy projects (skit comedy, video, etc.). Plus, my confidence was badly shaken this last year, and so this class will be a way to rebuild myself to where I was in early 2011.

Recommitment to Fiction Writing and Blogging

After I got back from my road trip, I realized that I had let life devour my creative energies. It is sad that I submitted to such dark forces. It was my fault, although it was hard to think clearly when I was so worn down and beaten. Recently, I happened to watch a lot of Inside the Actors Studio episodes and noticed a pattern with the best actors. Similar to how I felt in North Dakota staring out at the Badlands, it’s easy to let life’s bleakness take you over. Its inherent lack of purpose, its arbitrariness, and its relentless life-death cycle with no point can drive anyone to despair.

But these actors reinforced the lesson of creation. Creation, in its literal definition, is the fight against lack of inherent purpose. Whether you see it spiritually or not, the way we rise above our biology and circumstances is to imagine and create a new reality, a different reality, a reality that we and others may enjoy and that helps us appreciate our time on Earth more.

Thus, my perception on why I should write has completely changed. I see it more as spiritual devotion, a battle against chaos and the mundane, a quixotic quest that creates its own meaning. As a result, I have been getting up at the insane hour of 4:30am on weekdays. Generally, that means about 2,000 words between 5:30am and 8:30am. That means 2,000 words before the workday starts.

Since I know myself, prone to start up an early schedule yet let it drift back to my old habits, I have recruited a handful of other insane people like me to also get up early, log on to Skype, and make sure we’re all writing. It’s like having a workout buddy to make sure you keep exercising. I’ve been doing this for about two weeks now. The only disturbances to my schedule will be when I am out late (writer’s group, standup comedy course, etc.), but otherwise this early morning commitment keeps me writing and has already completely revitalized a novel I had abandoned back in December 2010.

In the last two weeks, I have written 20,000 words.

All Guns Blazing

When you throw all of this together, I am in a happy place. I have not used the word “happy” to describe my life in a long, long time.

First, it’s because my brain is on fire – especially since I know have the proper fuel. My fiction writing gives my creativity focus and purpose, unleashing ideas in unbridled ways. Whether I am talented at it or not, I enjoy it above any other form of creativity. Content Science is EXACTLY the kind of work I want to be doing, while Sophicity gives me additional content strategy practice. In both jobs, there is ongoing dialogue, intellectualizing, and communication about business, marketing, and content strategy. Since the contract work gives me freedom and flexibility, that means I’ve also been reading, networking, and learning.

Second, my post-road trip life is not just about devouring information, writing about it, and working hard. I’m also paying more attention to the social and intangible aspects of my life. I feel closer to family and friends than I’ve been in years. I am spending less time on Facebook and more time face-to-face. I have several mini-road trips planned with friends who live around the Southeast. A weekend trip seems much more doable after my 7,000 mile road trip! As I get older, my relationships become more enriched.

A recent New York Times article pointed out that beyond about $75,000/year, you don’t get any happier. The author asks, “Why, then, do so many of us bother to work so hard long after we have reached an income level sufficient to make most of us happy?” This 2012 data simply reinforces what Henry David Thoreau figured out in 1854 with Walden, and why Thoreau has had such an impact on my life for almost fifteen years. Content Science and Sophicity are enough right now. In the future, perhaps a full-time job awaits. But I am not desperately loading myself with freelance and contract work, I’m not starting a business, I’m not trying to hit a super high salary. My quality of life – with its balance of creativity, professional work, reading, and socializing – is much more important.

Like Goethe once said, “At the moment of commitment the entire universe conspires to assist you.” I committed to regain control of my life, to seek something other than professional prestige and security, and to walk the walk after years of spouting the benefits of philosophy and literature. And while it did not happen overnight, in less than three months I suddenly not only have my life back but find myself in a wonderful place that I could not have imagined for myself just a few short months ago. We often hold the key to our own prisons. If we learn to let ourselves out and commit to a new direction, the universe is ready to assist you – almost chastising you by saying, “What took you so long?”

Comments

[Jen (Parow) Cronk]

Wow Kevin... CONGRATULATIONS! I am very very happy for you... and encouraged by you and have confidence in you! You are a natural and you belong doing what you love and to say you are good at it is a HUGE understatement! I'm not even going to waste my time looking for an approrpiate and justifying word because I dont think there is one. So glad to see you happy and content and beyond excited... best wishes as you continue on your journey! And thanks for sharing.

[shakey503]

Thanks Jen! I appreciate your kind words. :)

[Stephanie Sesic Greer]

Congratulations! And hey, this makes my career as a poet and part-time college instructor seem so much less like fucking off and so much more like spiritual commitment! Seriously, you're not my first friend who's come to a similar conclusion in their thirties regarding what's really important. Pouring your creative energies into things that you love doing is obviously a much better way to deal with mortality than is working more and buying more and watching more TV, and it's fairly maddening that society encourages and rewards the latter more than the former.

[shakey503]

Thanks Stephanie! You know, I've never been able to shake the spirit of study at both Utica College and Kent State University. While the pay was low, there was intellectual freedom and encouragement to explore. Those kinds of experiences are the ones that often enrich us, and the deeper one gets into a career, the less that is encouraged. Work is cool, but it doesn't have always be about more, more, more. Otherwise, what are we living for?

[jeff@jeffjustice.com]

I'll see you Monday night at Comedy class.