A MONTH-LONG BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION

A week after the actual date, it does seem like my birthday party hasn't waned a bit. Last night was my stand-up comedy debut and I was a hit. Or at least as much of a hit as one can be performing at Famous Johnny's Pizza Restaurant in San Bruno, California. But the audience gave me attention between bites and laughs and even some applause. And with my still good critical eye, I have to say I was probably the best performer of the evening, though there were at least two professionals there. They have some of the moves and timing down better than I do at this early stage in this new career adventure, but I have them on comfort in front of an audience and the quality of my writing. A couple of my biggest laugh lines:

Dogs even have their own Social Media site now, Buttbook.com
and:
Do you ever wonder what atheists text instead of OMG?
and "I met a woman who thought the limit of 140 characters on Twitter meant that was how many guys she could sleep with."

Of course, my modestly paying avocation of writing cartoon gags for some top cartoonists has helped keep my sense of humor sharp, and some of those gags can be converted into stand-up lines, like the buttbook line that I have one dog mentioning to another in the cartoon version.

Tomorrow night, I have a belated birthday dinner with my dear friend and theatre historian Bonnie Weiss, who is also taking me to see a one man show, Geezer, at the Marsh Theatre, where they specialize in one man and one woman shows--something I have long aspired to do.

Sunday, after getting a lot of laughs making an announcement about the upcoming film we're showing at Unity SF Friday night, several people came up and asked if I had ever considered doing stand-up comedy, and one was the wife of a prominent comedy coach--another promising connection. As I approach final freedom with parole at the end of August, it seems my life is building momentum in lots of interesting directions. I think it's exciting after being around so long that I have no idea what my major career will be a year or two from now. Will I have another bestselling book? Will I still focus lots of my creative energy on my audio club, and see it grow to one of the largest of its kind online? Will I be traveling the world doing Moneylove Seminars or stand-up comedy in comedy clubs? Will I accomplish my dream of someday doing a one man show in New York?

Or will it be none of the above, but something I can't even imagine now? Serendipity has always been a big factor in my life--happy surprises--and that's one of the things that makes it all so fascinating to me. This may be the best birthday month of all--at least until next year.

Jerry

Some exciting new ideas about prosperity and attracting what you want can be found on my other blog: http://www.MoneyloveBlog.com

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!

I usually don't think much about birthdays anymore, but that somehow changed this year as I realized it's an opportunity to take stock and celebrate life. I think we sometimes forget that a birthday means we have survived, and hopefully thrived, still another year. In this uncertain world, that is not always a given. Getting older is a real blessing considering the only alternative.

And what a great time of life this is for me, and becoming even more so. As I am finally off the restrictions of parole in August, this will be the last birthday in captivity of any kind, and I will finally be able to move beyond the Bay area into the rest of the world. Seminars and fun trips await and have been on hold for quite a while now.

Part of today has been spent listening to and editing my interview with David Friedman, whom I talked about in two recent posts on my other blog:

http://moneyloveblog.com/being-in-the-know-about-the-law-of-attraction/

This is for my newest audio program for The Moneylove Club, which you can read all about at the link on top of my MoneyloveBlog website. So much has been said and written about the Law of Attraction, and so much of it is pure poppycock, that it is a revelation to hear David's clarity of vision about how to get what you want.

And traveling from the sublime to the ridiculous, I have been writing material for my debut stand-up comedy performance at a local pizza restaurant next week. When I was sitting in my cell at Folsom State Prison, one of the aspirations that kept me going was the intention to one day audition for Last Comic Standing. That got put on the back burner with the launch of my audio club and other activities, but I am back on course, and eventually plan to offer a one man show I hope to take to New York.

And from the sublime and ridiculous to the ridiculously, sublimely beautiful, I just had a lovely one hour video Skype chat with gorgeous Rupa Cousins in Vermont, and we were even joined for a few moments by her very special cat, Eric.
And today, I got to read some touching birthday greetings from old friends and newer Facebook friends.

And there were special birthday gifts from my friends and super fans, Tony, Barry, and Ned (his Red Lobster gift card bought my birthday lunch), as well as the promise of a belated birthday dinner from lovely Bonnie. So in physical reality, I may have spent this birthday alone in San Mateo County, California, where I don't really know anyone, but because of the richness of my interior life and my creative energy and all the love being sent my way, it has been a full and joyful festival of celebration.
Jerry

TOO MUCH SELF ESTEEM?

My old friend Jack Canfield will probably have a conniption fit when he hears about this new research about self esteem. Jack was founder of The Self Esteem Institute, and largely responsible for the addition of self esteem training in California schools, and helped create a national movement to this end. There is no doubt that a lack of self esteem can be emotionally and intellectually damaging during a human being's early development, so that this was a good thing Jack and others were doing. But now comes some evidence that it might have been overdone.
My favorite conservative pundit, NY Times columnist David Brooks, whose bantering with Mark Shields every Friday on the PBS Newshour is one segment I never miss, just wrote a column on this subject:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/11/opinion/11brooks.html?_r=1&ref=davidbrooks

The example of men drowning twice as much as women was particularly fascinating to me, and I like the term "praise addicts" and the fact that college students would rather receive a compliment than a favorite food or sex. As much as I love compliments, even having as one of my favorite personal strategies, my Compliment Bulletin Board, if I were asked to choose between a piece of chocolate-covered halvah, a beautiful woman wanting to ravish me, or someone telling me they loved what I said on my latest blog post--I'm not exactly sure of my order of preference, but I am definitely sure the compliment wouldn't come in first.

But then again, I am fortunate in that I get probably more than my share of compliments as I am out there in the world with my blogs, my audios, my books, etc. If I were compliment starved, I might agree with most of those college students, and I could very well see myself becoming a praise addict.

It is interesting to speculate that we may have become a nation of slackers and underachievers because we now think so highly of ourselves. In other words, "I'm wonderful, why should I bother studying hard or working hard when success will come to me naturally and easily?"

I think we're talking here about the need for balance in this as in all things. A healthy appreciation of self is vital to create an attractive energy that will bring people toward you in business and your personal life. Too much appreciation of self can be a destructive force, creating a negative, unlikeable energy that will leave others cold--and prevent one from doing the work necessary to create prosperity and fulfillment.

I've struck a balance in writing this just now. I'm very pleased with myself for being able to articulate a few major points I wanted to make. At the same time, I think as I meditate on this subject, I will be able to write in much more depth about it in the future. I know I am merely scratching the surface and know I can do a lot better with more thought and research--but I feel good about what I have accomplished at this early stage of thinking and reading about this.

And how do you feel about yourself today?

Jerry

There are many paths on the road to prosperity, check many of them out at my other blog: http://www.MoneyloveBlog.com

THE HEART WANTS WHAT IT WANTS

I just finished watching Any Human Heart on Masterpiece Classic on PBS.org, and it really touched me. The story of a man's life through much of the 20th Century focusing on each of the women he's loved and who loved him back. As I watched it, I reflected on the women in my life over the years, who I think were more beautiful in the aggregate than his, and certainly more fascinating. An underlying theme of the story is a message he got from his businessman father as he was dying. That it's "all about luck, good luck and bad luck."

Of course, I often talk about "playing your luck," that we all have both good luck and bad luck as we go through life, and it's what we do in response to each that makes all the difference. Back to reflections on my past and the women who inhabited it, and still inhabit my heart to a lesser or greater extent, depending on both their place in my life at the time, and on what was happening at the time I knew them and loved them.

Part of why Rupa Cousins is so prominent in my heart today has to do with the amazing period in which we met, fell in love, and went through major life transformations in each other's company and with each other's loving support and inspiration. When we met in a Silva Mind Control workshop in New York, I was leaving in two weeks, having given up my broadcasting career, to move to Miami and live with a psychologist I had met while covering an Association for Humanistic Psychology conference for NBC. Rupa was an actress and married to an actor. But the heart wants what it wants when it wants it, and a few months later we were both in Miami and a couple. She became a yoga teacher and workshop leader, I wrote books and led workshops on love. We each went on, together and later apart in our separate lives, to discover many new vocations and adventures. And in some ways we are closer today than we were way back then. She is smarter and more interesting and just as beautiful as then, with an even more active lifestyle. And I am more creatively productive and starting new projects like a stand-up comedy career and eventual one man show.

In Any Human Heart, the woman Logan Mountstuart remembers most clearly is Freya, the wife who died during a World War II rocket attack on London. The actress playing her actually reminds me physically of Rupa, but Freya never got to grow and expand her talents and knowledge over many years. In that sense, I feel luck has been on my side, and I as eagerly look forward to the days coming as I do back to the days already come and gone.
It was Rupa's cousin, Norman Cousins, who gave me the phrase that has become a life mantra,
"Robust Expectations," and this human heart may not always be quite sure what it wants, but is always pretty certain something good will keep showing up.

Jerry

There is more in the form of another entirely different blog devoted to my work as a prosperity consciousness teacher. Check it out at: http://www.MoneyloveBlog.com