If you want to master a sport, you have to consistently practice the skills to excel at that sport. If you're going to master an art form, you have to consistently practice the skills to excel at that art form. If you want to master happiness, you need to consistently practice the skills to excel at being happy! You can excel at happiness by practicing the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that lead you to be satisfied. You can't live a life of negativity, misery, and woe and expect a life of joy, bliss, and exuberance to come from it!

Yesterday was Doug's and my first wedding anniversary. We have been stressed getting another condo ready for Airbnb, so we decided a weekend getaway would do us some good.  

I had to put down our glo betta fish, Macauley, Monday night. Doug and I found him in an abandoned house two years ago, floating around in a dirty little aquarium. Doug was listing the house and was so busy taking pictures that he didn't even notice the aquarium sitting on the kitchen counter. I did, looked in, and saw the sweet little neon yellow guy with big black eyes staring back up at me. I don't know how long he'd been there.

2024 is looking amazing! I was selected to teach my Comedy Writing for Stage Hypnotists at the Performing Hypnosis Summit in February. In July, I'll teach my first 3-Day Certification of The Hilarity And Hypnosis Approach (HAHA!). This class is truly the culmination of my life's work as a comedian and a hypnotist.

When I went to hypnotherapy school, I began studying regression. You read about how regression works, and then you start watching video after video of people crying, screaming, and punching pillows, often while cussing out their family and friends. I came to hypnotherapy through a swinger cruise, and my first instructor (Renegade Hypnotist Mark Cunningham) used hypnosis to enhance pleasure. I had spent 15+ years using comedy and hypnosis to make people laugh. I had just given this hypnotherapy school thousands of dollars, and I just signed up for a side hustle that involves watching people punch pillows and scream and cry 40 hours a week.

Add my "perfectionist tendencies" to this mix, and now I'm cooking with a recipe for disaster. It's easy to tell myself, "You're never going to learn all that music." "You don't have the piano-playing chops you had in college, what makes you think you can play this now?" "These pieces aren't that hard. Why are you having so much trouble getting them?" "You can sing for comedy, but can you sing seriously?" "Your voice after that thyroid surgery 10 years ago isn't the same. Sure you want to sing again?" I finally saw what I was doing to myself. My "inner perfectionist voice" was getting verbally abusive. So I silenced her. Enough was enough.