Nik Rabinowitz - How to be a happy comedian and what to do about the ego

In this episode of the Curious Cult, I have a fantastic chat with Nik Rabinowitz about how he got into the world of comedy, his relationship with comparison and dealing with the ego. Nik is a full-time stand-up comedian, a part-time sit-down comedian (thanks to Zoom and online comedy shows), a parent of three, and an all-round fascinating human.

In this episode of the Curious Cult, I have a fantastic chat with Nik Rabinowitz about how he got into the world of comedy, his relationship with comparison to other comedians, and dealing with the ego.

Nik is a full-time stand-up comedian, a part-time sit-down comedian (thanks to Zoom and online comedy shows), a parent of three, and an all-round fascinating human.

Key take aways from the episode

Don’t write off unique skills - you don’t realise where they might lead you 

When doing something that interests you, you might not know how the skills you are picking up could go somewhere exciting. Nik never realised he could be an entertainer by trade, telling his stories to an audience. Only when someone suggested he took to the stage, his career blew up.

Support goes a long way, but going against expectations can be surprisingly fulfilling 

Even if those close to you don’t see the same vision as you, it’s still worth trying something that could change your life. Nik’s mother was “concerned” about his idea of moving into comedy after getting a degree in business. But he stuck with his vocation and is now ticking all the boxes of Ikigai.  

Don’t let life happen to you - take the lessons and run with them

Life throws drama at us, it’s inevitable. But if you interrogate scenarios and change your perspective in life, you’ll get a lot more out of the circumstances - and grow from them.

Work through mental roadblocks - they won’t disappear unless you move them or move around them

“Nobody’s ever got talker’s block.” If you’re a writer and struggle to write - train against that. Just write through the writer’s block. If you’re creative and hit a mental roadblock - work through it. If you’re in another industry where you can get stuck in a lack of motivation - work through it. Motivation is just discipline that gets worked on. 

Comparison is the thief of joy

If you constantly focus on getting to where someone else is, you’ll find yourself struggling for happiness. Self-work is far more important than trying to get someone else’s life. 

Treat the ego like a monster - give it lots of space

Ego often gets in the way of critical, clear thinking and taking feedback positively. We tend to take things personally or completely disengage. Instead of trying to let the ego go, respect it, give it the space it needs and learn lessons with it and not against it.

To keep updated on Nik’s movements, catch him on LinkedIn, on Twitter and on Instagram. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it far and wide and let’s start changing the world with curiosity.

The Curious Cult Show - Episode 1: Trip Hawkins, Electronic Arts Founder

I have been playing video games since I can remember. I owned Pong. I owned the earliest Nintendo. I played Sonic the Hedgehog and just like hundreds of millions of other people I have spent many, many hours playing games produced by Electronic Arts.

Fortunately, I have been lucky enough to talk with Trip Hawkins, the founder of Electronic Arts for the very first episode of my newest podcast, The Curious Cult Show.

In this show I talk to interesting people about their obsessive curiosities.

Trip was kind enough to talk to me about his obsession with Dungeons and Dragons and how it led him down the path of creating a business plan at the age of 12 to build out what would become Electronic Arts.

Here’s the podcast:

Trip Hawkins, Electron Arts founder.

Trip Hawkins is an incredibly accomplished entrepreneur who has a vast breadth of skills and depth of experience. He is the founder and first CEO of Electronic Arts, was crowned "King of the Nerds" by the Economist, he designed, produced and marketed his first game while still a teenager and at that young age mapped out a 10-year plan that lead him to found Electronic Arts.

Reprobates and bloggers - The Digital Edge Podcast

I'm still not convinced by the validity of the Podcast in the local market. Yet Saul and Jarred continue to try and prove me wrong. They've been doing a relatively good job of it lately and even went as far as to invite me on to the latest episode of the Digital Edge.You can download it or listen to it live by heading over to the Digital Edge website.From the site:

We speak to Nic Haralambous of SA Rocks, Seth Rotherham of 2Oceansvibe, Exmi from Expensive Mistakes Cheap Thrills, Shaun Oakes of Shaun Oakes.com, Jason Bagley from the Incredible Connection blog and finally Se7en from Se7en.org. We round up that line up with a summary of the blogosphere by Justin Hartman, head of blog aggregator Afrigator.

Nothing particularly groundbreaking came out of the bloggers interviews: We are all egotistical, we all like to win stuff, we all brag, blah blah blah. It's riveting blogger "Days of our living lives online" sorta stuff.Definitely worth listening to. Do it.And thanks to Saul and Jarred for having me on the show. Always a good boost to the ego hey?!

ComedyTwist.co.za - Have a laugh on your phone

Last night I attended an absolutely hilarious opening. No it wasn't a joke, but there were lots of jokes present.It was the launch of a new mobile "service" called Comedy Twist Mobile.You can visit the website at comedytwist.co.za. And with that we have a problem number 1.The website isn't live and the launch was held last night to the media. That's bad. Even though the official launch is 1 September 2008, surely if you hold a press conference, comedy event and big fancy "Howzit" type party, you make your website live, even for a second to preview. We got nothing.There was a glimmer of potential when the host of the evening plugged in his cellphone and visit the WAP site, which we were never given the URL for. Oh well, no preview.I'm jumping ahead a bit. Let's go back a step.

What is Comed Twist

The basic idea behind Comedy Twist (CT) is comedic content supplied to you on your cellphone wherever you are. To quote from the flyer I received:

"It's a new digital content platform, offering high quality video and audio material for an extensive variety of South Africa's talented comics - all for mobile phones."

Phew, that's fairly intense. They are doing a lot. Or are they?From what I can see CT is trying to duplicate the success of sms subscription services that already exist with one exception, they offer video and audio and ringtones all about comedy. It's a relatively good twist I think (maybe that's where the name came from "twist"). The country needs comedy, I love comedy and I want to try this service.Enter issue number 2.

Premium Content

This is a very strange choice. I suppose that many social media, content producing, user generated content websites have struggled in the past with monetizing good ideas. But Comedy Twist think they have a solution. Make people pay for content.In my opinion this could be the downfall of the entire concept. The prices for what seems to be "On-Demand" content:

Video - R10

30-50 second live joke

Audio - R5

30-70 second live joke

Ringtones - R15

15-30 second looped funny ringtone

Video Discount Basket - R5

15-30 second live jokesThis brings up my next question: What does "Live Joke" mean? Anyways, that's besides the point.You do have another option, you can subscribe to the service which has a "revolutionary" one-click-opt-out. Nice selling point, but not new. You can SMS "comedy" to 38370 and a video will be sent to your phone every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Three videos.

Target Market

This seems to be a good idea, decide who you are targeting. Comedy Twist is targeting LSM 7-10. My immediate reaction is that's where the money is, they will pay for the content. But then my research tells me that LSM 7-10 have cellphones, they have cellphones that are able to receive video but they a) are not interested in SMSing a number to subscribe to a service that is going to bug them every other day of the week, comedy or not and b) LSM 7-10 have trouble visiting WAP sites on the their phones and by that I mean that many don't actually know how. This is not an insurmountable problem, but it will take a fair amount of marketing, above and below the line and a lot of education.That is not to say that LSM 7-10 wont be successful if targeted correctly and with money behind the project (I can't say how much money is behind the project) so who can tell how it will go.It just leads me to wonder about the approach. I know alot of kids (in their teens) who spend hours and hours playing games with others on their mobiles, blowing cash to interact, chatting on Mxit and using other free and subscription services. Why? Because they know how and they know that LSM 7-10 Mommy and Daddy will pay for their usage. Simple. To get to the money, go through the children. It's worked well so far.

Almost a potentially great mobile social network

I don't want to go on about this but Comedy Twist had the potential to be a cracking social network on the mobile platform. People love to laugh, people love jokes and love comedy. Even more so, people love to laugh at themselves, their friends and other people making fun of other people. This could have been used VERY effectively to create a social network around laughter, jokes, pranks and anything else in the genre.

It will survive

Why? Because some of the funniest people in South Africa are on board for the ride. Trevor Noah to just name one that I saw at the event. The man must be the funniest guy I've had the pleasure of seeing live. The comedians will save this ship from a certain premium-content go-slow.

Your .com death and more on Flamebait

We have just published the latest episode of Flamebait, in which Vince and I discuss some of the following burning topics:* The Facebook domain squat* Social networking for dead people* What happens to bloggers when they die or, rather, what should happen* Linkbait and general misinformation* Who is Phil Lynnot and why can I never remember the name of the band?Subscribe to the Flamebait feed. Visit the MG podcast page.

Let The FlameBait Begin - Bloggers Get The Knockaround

The time has come. Stupidity is finally being rewarded on the SA blogosphere. This just reward comes in the form of Mad Mahler (Vincent Maher) and the Hairy Ambush (that's me).The very first episode of the Mail&Guardian hosted FlameBait podcast has been released on the FlameBait blog.From the blog:

So here we are, Mad Mahler and Hairy Ambush on the podcast circuit with lots to say and little to back it up with. Sounds like it has all the makings of a killer blog and podcast and guess what - we don’t care if you think we’re talking shit because we probably are and you should get over it in your own way.

The first episode features some of the following:

Who is Steve Hofmeyr’s Harvy? What is the deal with Jezebel and the details of rimming? Is it true that eating cabbage gets you into the top 20 on Amatomu? Is it true that putting cabbage on your breasts helps you lactate? What ever happened to 1000brownmnms?

Head on over to the blog for this ridiculously witty and humorous baiting podcast!!

Blip.tv offers podcast hosting

Blip.tv has come out with an mp3 hosting service (that includes podcasts) for its users. You can now not only upload your favourite videos to the site but your own and favourite mp3's and podcasts. I think that this sort of service is coming out at a great time for many South African bloggers as there are many podcasts popping up and many new ones in the wings that I know of.Competitions like the one Mike mentioned on his blog, the getpodcasting initiative are awesome events for SA and online developments. Hosting services are incredible for many bloggers as it is firstly costly to own/run a website/blog/podcast and secondly it takes some know-how. With a hosting service this does become somewhat cheaper and simpler.My suggestion is to try the services that are available out and see if the bridge that gap that you are trying to cross.

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