The Nerdist Way_ How to Reach the Next Level (In Real Life) - Chris Hardwick [93]
ENJOY YOUR BURRITO!
NERDIST ORIGIN STORY
When you first start working in television, you pretty much have the mind-set that you have to take any old job that comes around. Jobs are precious, and you don’t have the luxury to wait around for something you really want to do.
OR DO YOU???
In 2007, work was slow. I was starting to get antsy. “I’m still doing the right thing here, being in this business, right??” I would silently ask myself numerous times a day. The life of a freelancer can be stressful, as you may well know. Even if I had a job, I always felt the tug of anxiety about the prospects (or lack thereof) for the next one. I had my shit pretty much together but no direction. I was getting frustrated just waiting for work to fall into my lap. Performing stand-up a few nights a week gave me the sense that I was moving forward, but comedy in L.A. pays zero dollars, so it was “for the love of the craft” type work. Mike Phirman and I had gotten news that we would tape our Comedy Central half-hour special later that year, but beyond that there wasn’t much else to talk about workwise. I started having daily freak-outs about my future.
One night in July while trying to swat away stress mosquitoes that were preventing my sleep, something snapped. I had felt pushed up against a wall and I was tired of living that way. Living through a fear filter is a horrible life. It’s hard to make good decisions when you’re in fear mode, because your main goal is usually to run around in circles while covering your head from the plummeting sky. For the preservation of my sanity, it would have to end. I decided that I was going to figure out the career thing, no matter what. I just was. There wasn’t a failure option. I don’t know where I was drawing this assurance and confidence from, but it felt better than the shit-cage I had imprisoned myself in for so long. I slept well that night. I dreamed I had organic web-shooters (unnecessary side note).
The next morning I woke up and had an epiphany: I needed to pursue work that involved my passions. This seemingly obvious realization felt so revolutionary to me. Why had it NEVER occurred to me to do this before? I loved tech, science, math, comedy . . . I could do something with that! Between the web and five hundred channels of television, certainly a career in the Nerd sector could happen now, where this type of niche (by TV standards) programming wouldn’t have existed even just ten years prior. I reasoned that I had tons of hosting experience, and mashing that up with comedy and sci/tech would create a space that I felt was new. I also felt that no one would be better at this than me (I was feeling oddly cocky). I would find this job, build a career around it, and only take jobs that revolved around the Nerdsphere.
I immediately called my manager, Alex, one of the smartest, nicest, and most level-headed dudes I know. He was supportive without pandering, but when I excitedly told him my plan I sensed a slight, “O . . . K . . . we can try on that . . .” It’s a weird thing for a client who isn’t working and has no power to dictate the jobs he was and wasn’t going to take, but Alex went along with it. My resolution was getting stronger.
I SWEAR TO THE GODS a handful of days later I was surfing the job breakdowns for the entertainment biz (technically something I wasn’t supposed to be doing) because I was in a “grab stuff by the ballbags” frame of mind and stumbled across a listing for