I told you my secret, something inside of me blames Lesley for the show not working.
I have worked for myself for most of my work life. I'm not good with autority figures, never have been. I had a company that grew to 24 employees and then failed. I took a miserable job, in a miserable office doing debt consolidation. I was depressed.
My beautiful wife was the one who said,"You need to start your own thing."
I heard these words and they rang true. I started a talk show. Very naive yes, sometimes naïveté works for you. Not knowing the odds or the highly probable pitfalls keeps you in enough denial to go for something that is really crazy.
My wife had a job at the time that was making her 6k a month. At the time our monthly nut was probably 8k or 9k. Sounds crazy, what the fuck were we spending each month? I can't even imagine it now.
I'm good at inspiring people. I tell myself that I'm going to give this talk show three months. I'm heavily deluded into seeing succsess right around the corner.
Lesley is getting bummed because I'm not making it work quick enough. I begin to hear comments in passing that basically state that she would have been a succsess by now if it were her who started the business. Meanwhile, I feel that things are going well for me. There's a buzz. There's somethig magical going on. At the same time I'm very stressed.
I've started this new entity that was taking on a life of it's own but it was also taking me over. I was becoming stressed out beyond my capacity to do a good job. The editing, the planing, the booking, the organizing, the promoting, the growing, and every other new obstacle that was hitting me from every direction.
This on top of having two crazy little kids. We had a babysitter to help.
I'm all about following your dream. This is my mission. In my head I'm thinking about getting to this place where I become successful and then deliver speeches of how to go from nothing to something great.
Lesley is having problems at her work. Her job is selling yoga and she is teaching also. She has worked her commission deal so well that she was earning way more money than the regular yoga teacher. She's an incredible sales person.
The problem is Lesley's work. The people in the pay roll department are seeing these big checks that they are writing to Lesley. They get upset. How is a yoga teacher earning double what they are making? They complain. The company starts to give Lesley a hard time. They don't want her to teach yoga anymore during hours when they believe she should be selling.
She's fucking selling already! Anyone selling "yoga teachers" should be a "yoga teacher" you stupid yoga fucks!! She's making a lot of money because she's bringing you business so fucking leave her alone!
Lesley has a sales partner. The company wants to get rid of the partner. Lesley is loyal, plus she sees the company turning corporate. Any company that turns corporate goes from being cool and relaxed to being uptight, micromanaging, and basically turns everyone into back stabbing pricks. Lesley's been through that before and sees the writing on the wall.
The company isn't even that focused on what she is doing, they just want to be the 24 hour fitness of yoga. My wife sells yoga to people at work. They don't care about what she does.
My wife sees that I have given the finger to the man. This is inspiring to her. She says to herself (this is me speculating her thought process) "I don't need to be in this job that's trying to hold me back. I can do what Duke did and start my own thing, but unlike Duke I will quickly become a success."
She asks me, "Is it OK if I quit my job and start my own company?" But she says it in a way that really means, "I'm quitting my job and you better say yes because you are 'Mr. Follow your dreams' and if you say no then that means that you don't support me."
What the fuck am I supposed to say? I'm at critical mass here with my show. Great things are happening, I have something cool. I'm trying to be delicate with it so I can keep it that way. I'm juggling too many plates. We need Lesley's income at this crucial juncture. Looking back I should have said no, but we were in a bad place at the time. I added stress to the family but this decision for her to quit her job was really pulling the roof down over our heads.
I said , "Yes, I support you." But I didn't want to. Not because I didn't support her but because it was a terrible decision. It wasn't rational. I'm already being incredibly irrational so I felt that I had to let her be irrational too.
So eventually I become the bad guy for quitting my job? What about Lesley quitting a job with awesome income? Fucking bullshit!
OK, hindsight is 20/20. But I knew at the time it was not a good idea.
She quits. She starts a business.
Starting your own business with no base salary is stressful and has many more obstacles than anyone can foresee. She begins to see them. We are loosing money at an incredible rate.
Like I said, it soon becomes my fault, for quitting my job to "follow my dream." That is all that anyone seems to remember.
We are now both earning nothing. Credit cards are becoming maxxed out. We no longer can afford a baby sitter. I am with the kids all day. I have no time or energy to edit the shows anymore while caring for the kids all day. The magic begins to seep out of my fantasy, as if a bad decision pricked a small hole, and chemistry slowly began to leak from my balloon of a dream.
I become way behind on the editing of the shows. The magic of the first wave of shows carries us through the first six shows at the veteran's hall but my inability to focus and keep the train on track begins to catch up with us. Very slowly things begin to unravel, but it takes two years until the wheels fall off.
So I blame Lesley for pressuring me to let her quit her job and start a company when I was at a critical point in mine. She didn't see how much energy and time needed to go into this thing. She would give me shit for not editing her parts of the show quick enough, but never offered the time to help me do it. I felt she didn't give me the support that I needed.
On some level she didn't want me to blame her. Just like she didn't want me to blame her for the dream of being in a band getting smashed. But she didn't want me to succeed on some level. OK maybe that's harsh, but she didn't believe I could do it and because she didn't have the vision she didn't give me the support. She didn't try to contribute or get involved further than doing what I asked of her as a cast member. And she would always do that complaining.
I really thought I would write this article and it would become clear to me that I shouldn't blame her. But right now all of my secret thoughts and reasons seem to be backing up that thought.
Maybe I'm right, that she was the one that brought the momentum of the show to a halt. Maybe she didn't believe in me and secretly wanted me to quit from the beginning. Or maybe she is more comfortable seeing me fail so she can continue being a victim. Maybe she likes to point out that I'm wrong. I'm not saying that this is conscious.
Let's say all that is true. I still believe there is no place for blame. (After re-reading this I understand that what I was attempting to do was impossible, so it's hard to fault anyone for not believing you can accomplish the impossible. Maybe impossible goals should be kept to yourself.)
This is my new discovery. When you begin to blame anyone for anything, all it means is that you need to become aware and you need to look at the signs. (this is a Duke original)
It was this time that I was learning how to generate hits on youtube. I knew that the people who were successful were edited, short, clean videos. 98% of the successful videos on youtube were coming from just one person. Much of my stress was coming from organizing everyone together and at the same time getting the cameras in sync with everything. It was too much and I knew no one who was successful at doing such a thing. I could have focused on comedy, working on my act. I could have started making short, edited videos on my own.
A rich guy told me at the time that I needed to develop as a comic. He said he would help me. I didn't listen and became offended.
Maybe sometimes you need to listen to what offends you.
The blame only got worse. Not only did I blame my wife but I was blaming everyone around me. The signs were there. The sign is blame. When blame first enters your inner self it's not a bad thing, at least this is my opinion at the moment. The second blame reaches you is the second the universe is telling you to look around for the signs. What are your assets and liabilities and compare these to the signs. The universe is saying that it's time to make a change.
My wife is beautiful. She's a beautifully flawed human being. Just like me. I love her for all that she is. It doesn't matter what issues my wife is going through, the hard decisions are mine and mine only. When I say the hard decisions I mean the decisions of the soul. The decisions of your character. What is your truth? What is it that you were called to do? Doing it is turning from evil. Resistance from doing what you were meant to do is the real devil. That is true evil. Is it eating? Exercise? Meditation? Following your dream? Following the signs?
You know what you have to do, but no one but yourself can ever do it. Not following your gut gives you no one to blame.
When blame comes it's time to make a change. Change is very scary. Some people are so scared of change that they are willing to fail. Others are so afraid of failure that they are willing to change.
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