I used to be a comedy writer

You know, I’ve had a weird working life.

For the first ten years of my career I was a full-on techie, developing software for companies venturing onto a shiny new thing called “the Internet”.

And for the last ten years or thereabouts, I’ve been immersed in the world of online business: teaching people about blogging, digital marketing, online courses, etc.

But for five years in the middle I was… a comedy writer!

Not the most obvious career change, right?

The thing is, growing up I was obsessed with comedy. I loved Fawlty Towers, Spitting Image, Black Adder, and older stuff like Monty Python and the Goons. While the cooler kids at school were listening to music I had the Dead Parrot Sketch on repeat.

But it didn’t occur to me to try to create any comedy of my own until I was at university. Once I’d had a taste of writing and performing though, I couldn’t quite shake the idea that I might one day earn a living doing it.

So in 2007, after three years working as a highly-paid IT contractor for Disney, I’d built up enough savings to give comedy a proper try.

And looking back, it wasn’t a total disaster — I got a writing agent, had two “seasons” of a online mini-series (starring national treasure Brian Blessed!) produced by the BBC, and worked as a comedy script editor, also at the BBC.

But eventually I had to accept that comedy writing wasn’t a reliable way of paying the mortgage, at least not for me. So I drew a line under that chapter, happy that I’d given it a serious go and scratched that itch.

Something stayed with me about the business of comedy though. I remember hearing an interview with an actress who’d had a minor (but memorable!) role in just one episode of Fawlty Towers (as the deaf woman complaining about the view).

Many years after filming her scenes, she said she was still receiving cheques in the post, the so-called residual payments for her performance.

Imagine that. Doing something once and still reaping the benefits many years later.

(I also read an interview with Jon Bon Jovi the other day where he said Livin’ on a Prayer, a song he didn’t even think was very good when he wrote it, has bought him several houses over the years.)

That’s the power of assets.

And that’s exactly what I want to help you create via this newsletter and blog – digital assets that are working hard for your business even when you’re not.

Sound good? Excellent!

See you soon,

Glen