alexanderadrian

Hi Ryan, first I want to say that your books have had more of an impact on me than any author. I've read all of them and I would have never adopted a reading habit when I was 19 if it wasn't for you. Now i'm 22, a college graduate, and after much soul searching i've realized what I want to do and that's stand-up comedy. I've been writing every single day and trying to hit as many open mics as I can over the past 2 months. I've performed enough times already to know that i'm naturally good enough to lose myself in it if I just continue to put in the work to get better. The only problem is that I live in South Florida (near Miami) and there's not as much of a comedy scene as there is in say New York or L.A. Do you have any advice for being able to break through and make a name for myself while i'm still in the apprentice stage without moving away yet? My goal is to eventually make a living from this touring similar to guys like Andrew Schulz and Bryan Callen. Thanks a bunch =)

Hi Ryan, I started keeping commonplace boxes of 3x5 index cards similar to the ones you recommend in your articles. The problem is that now i'm 2 bookshelves deep of books and about 5 boxes full of index cards with literally dozens of themes. When I first started reading often a few years ago it was much easier to remember everything I read and to organize the cards but now it's getting a little out of hand and i'm having trouble keeping everything both organized and still in my head. How do you manage to remember so much of what you read when you've read literally thousands of books and made tens of thousands of index cards?

I've heard you say you have a temper before. In the moments when it flares up how do you make yourself remember all the philosophy you've read and studied when every fiber of your being is getting emotional and telling you that all of that is stupid and you should act out now? Also, I found myself a very nice girl that's willing to deal with all of my bullshit and also supports me and complements me. She's very understanding but I have a somewhat difficult personality, how do I apologize in the moments I inevitably fuck up without making it worse?