233: Plot Twist: How Surrendering and Letting Go Can Lead to Finding Your True Purpose with Kyle Cease, Transformational Comedian

In this episode of The Light Watkins Show, Light Watkins revisits a powerful and transformative moment from a past conversation with Kyle Cease, a comedian turned transformational speaker and New York Times bestselling author. Kyle shares a pivotal plot twist in his life, where his successful career in comedy took an unexpected turn that ultimately led him to discover his true calling.

At the height of his comedy career, Kyle was performing regularly, yet he began to experience intense anxiety and fear on stage, culminating in a moment where he considered ending it all. When conventional solutions failed to provide answers, Kyle was led to a bookstore, where he discovered Tony Robbins’ work. This encounter marked the beginning of a profound inner journey that would shift his entire life direction.

Listeners will hear Kyle’s inspiring story of how a series of seemingly negative experiences—crippling anxiety, a brush with suicidal thoughts, and a search for meaning—became the gateway to his transformation. 

Today, Kyle is known for his unique blend of comedy and personal development, helping thousands of people worldwide break through their own barriers.

This episode offers valuable insights into how life’s unexpected twists and challenges can lead to a deeper sense of purpose and fulfillment. For anyone who feels stuck or is facing their own challenges, Kyle’s story serves as a reminder that sometimes the path to your true calling comes through the most unexpected detours. Tune in to hear how Kyle turned his struggles into a powerful force for change and how you can do the same in your own life.

And to see what happens once he goes all in on his transformational comedy, click here.

Transcript

KC: “ I'll never forget. I'm on stage in Mesquite, Nevada. And I have this thought, I wonder if you could think about it enough, if you could make yourself faint. And then right when I thought that, I got dizzy, and I felt myself whiting out for a second. And I was like, I just remember everything going white and me just being like, what the F. And I had this fear.  On the external, I'm just killing. I'm doing a show, just having a great set. And inside, my mind is going, what the hell was that? I don't know what I'm even saying on the external. I'm much more listening to the inside while some habit is doing its thing. And I walked off stage, and I said to a couple of other comics, I have this bizarre thing that I could make myself faint when I'm on stage. And they're like, oh yeah, you totally could. You could keep thinking about it. And the underlying belief is that I hadn't gotten years later is if I faint while I'm on stage, then my career's over. And then I'm no person. I don't exist if I don't have comedy. ”

[INTRODUCTION]

Hey friend, welcome back to The Light Watkins Show. I'm Light Watkins and I have conversations with ordinary folks just like you and me who've taken extraordinary leaps of faith in the direction of their path, their purpose, or what they've identified as their mission in life. 

Today, I have another bite-sized plot twist episode for you. A plot twist is a shorter clip from a past episode where the guest shares the story of that pivotal moment in their life trajectory, where they found the gateway to their calling. And the idea behind sharing these plot twists is to inspire you to lean into those plot twists whenever they show up in your life.

Because usually when you get turned around from what you thought was going to be your path in life, what's actually happening is you're being detoured towards your actual path for this season in your life. And sometimes that looks like being betrayed or losing money. 

Or in the case of today's guest, transformational comedian, Kyle Cease, he was performing comedy on the road constantly and living on fast food, and he started to have anxiety on stage. And then he started to develop this irrational fear that he was going to faint in the middle of his performance.

And then that led him to the hospital because he was having these suicidal ideations. And when the doctors didn't have any good answers for him, Kyle's anxiety then led him to the bookstore to find books on anxiety, which of course are in the self-help section. And that's where he discovered a book by Tony Robbins, which became his gateway to doing inner work.

And Kyle is now the New York Times Bestselling author of I Hope I Screw This Up and The Illusion of Money. And nowadays Kyle brings his one-of-a-kind transformational comedy to sold-out audiences around the world, and he works with thousands of other folks in his thriving online community. Let's listen in. 

[02:49] KC: I one time I was in a club, and I asked a comedian. I said, “How do comics make really good money?” And he said, “Well, there's corporate parties that companies have a party or whatever.” I remember him also saying, “You're probably too young for that.” I didn't even hear that part. I was just like, “How do I do corporate parties?”

I asked my mom, I said, “Where do corporations meet up?” And she told me, there's this thing called the Chamber of Commerce, which is like all these heads of businesses meet up. In Redmond, that was like Microsoft, Sears, Nintendo, like all – in Redmond, Washington, many of the companies in the Chamber of Commerce were parts of enormous corporations. So, I called the Chamber of Commerce and I asked them, “Can I get the mailing labels for the businesses there?” And they said, “It's 50 bucks.” I remember my mom being like, “Why are you spending 50 bucks?” And I was like, “I'm going to go give them.” I drove over with 50 cash and was like, “Can I get the labels?” And they gave me, I don't remember, 500, 700 labels, and I made a very basic, “Are you having a corporate party? Looking for entertainment? Call Kyle Cease.” I mailed it to all of them and paid the stamp for whatever it was, 500.

My mom's like, “Why are you spending this money or whatever?” Next thing I know, I'm doing corporates at 15 for Sears, Nintendo. I brought a keyboard. I did impressions a lot at that time. I had a business card also that said, “Comedian Impressionist” and the things said under it. It said, “Finally, a good Julia Child impression at an affordable price.”

[04:08] LW: I love that.

[04:09] KC: That's what everyone’s looking for. My usual Julia Child impressions are too much. So, is there a price I can – it was funny because I would do the stuff and make agreements with these businesses, and I would go and do the gigs. Here's this 15-year-old being driven to their gig in like a full suit, holding a keyboard and I would do like Lexus’s corporate event. And that was just because my body was like, “Oh, how do I?” And then I just did it.

There was an oblivion that I'm realizing I had that was so amazing. And the oblivion was taking me from the world of, “It doesn't work that easy. You can't do that.” All of those things that people say like, “You'd be too young to do that.” Or, “If you want to get a movie, you need to do this and this and this first.” I booked 10 Things I Hate About You without an agent or audition experience or a headshot. And it was because you could just create your own thing your way, and I really believe the universe is trying to give you all these unique ways of doing whatever you want and there are no rules, as long as you're not hurting anyone and it's expansive.

So, usually, there's a route to do everything that everyone else does and that's what kind of makes you cattle. If you want to get in the movie, you're going to go through an agent and submit nine million headshots to agents, and then hope and do that process. At one point, I was so oblivious. I was booking work every day and I remember getting crackerjack boxes, and making an audio demo tape of me doing voiceover work and putting it in the Cracker Jack boxes and sending it to producers. I sent it out, and they would open the Cracker Jack box, and there'd be this demo tape that they put in the car. They'd hear me and then I'd get work. I was suddenly doing like voiceover for kids, educational software, and different things like that.

There was a company called Edmark that called me all the time. And it was weird, because at the time, I don't remember the price, but I might have been making like, somewhere between 150 and 200 an hour. But when you're 15, that's weird and it’s ‘94. That was a crazy thing to be experiencing.

[06:14] LW: Did you have any exposure to any sort of spiritual ideologies or philosophies back in those late teenage days?

[06:14] KC: Not really. But because of our kind of counterculture way of being, my family saw any of that as just a scam. Mainstream churches have an agenda. I remember there was a woman named Romfa. Do you know who that is?

[06:39] LW: Yeah, of course. Yeah. Read all her books.

[06:41] KC: Yeah. So, we lived in Washington at the time when she was really big. I think she still is, but that was just – I can't remember her name either. I want to say Rowling, but that's Harry Potter lady. So, I remember them being like the Romfas doing this thing. And there was this very – it was a bizarre combination of counterculture, making fun of things through comedy, meets mainstream media's belief system. So, we were very, like, we didn't go to church. If I asked my parents a religious thing, what is God? You just kind of feel this, like, “I don't know.” And then my dad wanting to look like he'll have a big talk, but he didn't really have a specific – he’s always, “Let's talk about that.” But there was not really, I don't know. But not saying I don't know, it was just kind of like, it was not a thing yet.

And then when I was in my early 20s, as a comic, I always look at what I do now. If you showed me at 23 as a stand-up comic, that what I will be doing a 45 will be often shifting 60-year-old women out of their traumas. I mean, my answer is all ages, but are absolutely everything passes, primarily women. There are moments I've been at like a retreat center, like in Rythmia or something, and I'm sitting with 10 people. If you show this aspiring kid who was on his way to Comedy Central and everything, “Hey, just so you know, here's you in your 40s.” I’d be like, “I’d become everything I make fun of, because the me in my 20s would have been making fun of what me and my 40s is.”

[08:00] LW: Do you have like an Obi Wan Kenobi figure in your life at that time in your hero's journey, kind of mentoring you or giving you insight about life?

[08:09] KC: Another weird oblivion that I had was I always connected to what I perceived as the highest frequency in the room even as a child. So, to give you an example, I was more bonded with – this is an embarrassing thing to say. But I was more bonded with the teachers than the students in school. It would almost be like me and my third-grade teacher, Mr. Sisal sitting there and maybe I'm like, “What are these kids going to be up to?” I'm acting like him, like I know what’s life’s like, and I'm seeing it through his perspective. But here's where that really got cool, though, was in stand-up comedy when I started doing big clubs in Seattle, I really loved the headliners more than the people, that were the beginners where I was, I saw them as people to bond with and every amazing artist, I would always think that's available. That level of good is available. So, I became good really quickly because I wasn't really in the open mic circuit as much as I did a couple open mics. Then was asked by those headliners to tour with them, and I was suddenly seeing only the best work. It's really powerful to see the very best and just continually be surrounded by that, versus getting caught in a sea of people that are all new at it, and we're all in this cynicism of how hard it is in that frequency.

Because I was a working comic really quickly, and almost oblivious to that it will take time, and it's not that easy and everything, and really moving up to the best me. And then when I booked 10 Things I Hate About You, I lived in Seattle. And when it came out, I moved to LA. I remember seeing the best comics there. And I would be in the lineup at night at the Laugh Factory with Dane Cook, and Howie Mandel and Rodney Dangerfield and Chris Rock, and I was there nightly. I remember when the best would go on. And sometimes, some comics would reject that. I remember Dane Cook going up in some comics, not liking it, or something like that, and leaving, and kind of staying connected to each other in their hatred of the ones that were successful or something. It's the same pattern as me bonding with the teacher, above the other students. It's like, who's the best I want to open to them? I did. It was amazing, because I saw those comics as permission, inspiration, and the level I wanted to be at.

So, I toured and had really good sets, because I saw a world where the hardest level of killing was possible. And that transcended to, after leaving the comedy world and feeling like that was done, seeing that in Wayne Dyer, or Michael Beckwith, or just the heroes of spirituality, and becoming friends with like Michael Beckwith and speaking at Agape and working with people that were the best that I could find. And now it's down to God, it really is. I'm noticing the teacher in the room now that I connect to is that higher self, that's trying to get me to be more that higher self. Boy, is that a revelation. That's the highest there is. That's the highest and your awareness grows. So, then the highest is you, and you are God or the universe or whatever. That's the one that I'm listening to the most now.

[11:33] LW: I have a couple more questions about these developmental years as a comedian, you've had a lot of experience, you put in your 10,000 hours, that college tour. But I'm curious, looking back now, what made you so successful compared to what everybody else was doing? And compared to what you thought made you successful back in the early days?

[11:52] KC: What made me so successful, and this is in the stand-up world?

[11:53] LW: You said you killed a lot, yeah. In the early days you were killing, which is comedy jargon for you. You were very effective. People love you.

[12:00] KC: They went very, very well. That's, by the way weird that it's called killing because bombing, which also means a type of killing. So, if you bombed, you did bad. If you killed, you did great. So, you have to have a very specific type of murdering if you want to do well. I think one thing that honestly helped me a lot was having booked a couple of big teen movies, and being college age, I would perform at these conventions of called NACA, where different colleges would get together, and they would book the entertainment for the year. I would have a set that was kind of edgy and talked about things that they grew up with, like blowing into the original Nintendo, the Pillsbury Doughboy, Sunny Delight. I had all these bits that were very topical for our age, combined with that I had been in those teen movies, and I got to do so many.

So, I, in my 20s, performed nightly either headlining a comedy club, or doing what started off as hour long sets, but kept going to longer, and always like boot camp for me. Because I would go on a tour – I remember one time doing – I don't know if this number is right. This might be wrong, but doing I think 168 colleges in a row, and literally no day off. So, you're doing two, three flights a day, you're exhausted, but you get to the gig, and just rip it and you'd have the set and I went up so many times that the act started writing itself when I was on stage. In other words, I'd have these little kinds of tangents on a bit that would go off and longer. Sometimes I'd pretend like I made a mistake, like in other words, and then go off and then do a tangent bid on that.

I just noticed as long as I kept going up, I did another set and I would get paid for it and prove to my mom that I was legitimate with a check that the colleges were giving me and they were crazy pay. And that was the constant drive that I overlooked my health. I overlooked sleeping. I overlooked everything. But boy, did I go up a lot. And then when I went back to LA, those are like showcase clubs. So, I'd be doing 10-minute sets, which was almost harder for me than doing an hour and a half. But like I had so much material just developing itself, and then you just kind of start trying a potential thing and it would write.

So, what made it go well was doing it every day. I mean, it's that basic. And I wasn't practicing every day, I was doing it every day, and they're different. Practicing is this kind of energy that later is better. This was, I'm in my completeness, every second I'm doing it, and it's getting better as I'm doing it. So, I'm doing it again, and I'm doing again. But that kind of energy over there is the goal, is doing it for that would be very minimal compared to the energy of me in this. 

[14:57] LW: You’ve written about how you got to a point where you just got bored, you stopped creating new material, and I don’t know which came before, but you started having panic attacks as well. So, can you talk a little bit about that period of time?

[15:10] KC: Yeah. So, that was the opening of my first shift, right? Meaning this is the first moment of me understanding, there's a matrix, there's more than this, there's a changing of thinking available. This is the beginning of the revelation. I'm a comedian before I'm a person and that I was also, because of all those colleges, I was able to do my act also pretty much in my sleep. In other words, if I wasn't writing more, there are times where I could go up on stage, do an hour and a half, and maybe I'd throw something in every once in a while. But it wasn't a challenge at all. On the internal, there was boredom. And on the external, I'm killing. I really believe if you don't keep creating, this is kind of a thing that I've said. This is especially for that consciousness. It's kind of I have new thoughts now on this whole thing. But if I don't keep creating, my mind will creatively sabotage me. Sometimes even though it looks good on the external, you might be living nowhere near what the truest you is or your potential. Just because I was able to go on stage and kill, doesn't mean that I was being challenged anymore. I could go on stage, rip the place apart, and be bored inside.

So, one day, my mind really creatively came up with this bizarre thought. I'll never forget, I'm on stage in Mesquite, Nevada and I have this thought, I wonder if you could think about it enough if you could make yourself faint. And then right when I thought that I got dizzy, and I felt myself waiting out for a second, because I remember everything going white and me just being like, “What the fuck?” And I had this fear. On the external, I'm just killing. I'm doing a show, and blah, blah, blah. I’m just having a great set. And inside, my mind is going, “What the hell was that?” I don't know what I'm even saying on the external. I'm much more listening to the inside while some habit is doing its thing.

I walk off stage and I said to a couple other comics, like, “I have this bizarre thing that I could make myself faint when I'm on stage.” And they're like, “Oh, yeah, you totally could.” I could keep thinking about it. And the underlying belief that I hadn't gotten to four years later, is if I faint while I'm on stage, then my career's over, and then I'm no person. I don't exist. If I don't have comedy. I'm not loved. If I don't have comedy. No one will see me. I don't need to be here. And so, the ego was like, “We got to fix this.

So, I remember the next day, me starting to obsess over it and being worried that when I got on stage that night that I'd make myself faint. I would think about it all day and I'd started picturing it. I started seeing me collapsing, and this started escalating so much more. Then this also happened, I think, because I didn't sleep years before. I was touring so much and eating drive-thru, drinking at night, and then drinking coffee in the morning with two hours of sleep, or whatever, nothing, just getting to the next gig. My body was just full of crap, was just full of drive-thru and nothing, whatever, and no exercise, nothing.

This ended up becoming an anxiety that became the only thing I thought of, became only what I was obsessed with. Every second was just – and all I would see when I see people all of a sudden on TV or something is them fainting or them falling apart, and basically, the belief was you can't not think about something. Right? So, the belief in my mind was, I'm not going to be able to not think about this, and so that's the whole thing.

While I was at the height of it, when it was at the very worst levels, I booked my first Comedy Central appearance with three months’ notice. My manager goes, it's a show called Premium Blend, and my manager It goes, “Well, don't blow it.” The first thing I thought was, “How would I blow it? What if I faint on that?” This became this obsession that every second for three months, it was in my body to a point where it got to even worse than just on stage. It was everywhere. I got to a point where I couldn't walk anymore. I got scared of – the biggest anxiety came once when I was on a gym floor with a junior high school doing an assembly. This created this reverse claustrophobia where I got really big anxiety when I was on a big hard floor that was wide open. I wanted small things that I could hold on to the side that created this anxiety.

So, for three months, I just pictured myself fainting on it and got really worried about it and worried about how it would ruin my career. This is my big shot with Comedy Central. I'm going to blow it and I just got all this practice, and I'm so good as a comedian and now I'm not going to be able to – it’s my one shot. So, I did premium blend, and I did it way faster than usual. Because every second was just me holding the mic stand like this, my feet turned into me thinking, “Don't faint, don't faint, don’t faint, don’t faint.” I walk off stage and I'm so happy, it's done. Seconds later, they're like you got a Comedy Central half-hour – but that was so good, you got a half-hour special. And I'm like, it wasn't good. Now, I'm going to worry about fainting on that.

The girl I was dating, I worried about that. Now, I'm going to hear you worry about that. And she had a point. But after that, there was a moment that was really big, while I was obsessing over it again, and I was like, I'm going to go get anxiety medication. I remember being at the beach before that and really picturing going to a gun shop actually, and just ending this because I was so miserable, that all the opportunities I've wanted are finally showing up when I'm not ready for him them of a sudden.

Yeah, I was like, I will go to – I guess I won't kill myself. I'll go to the hospital. And I signed in and the waiting took too long. I sat in the waiting room for 45 minutes and I heard a voice go, “Get up.” This was a big moment in my life. Because I wonder if they were on time if I would be alive because I might have been addicted to pills and not actually ascended myself and learn what this was. But I felt a voice go, “Get up.” And I just was like, “Okay.” But I had all the, yeah, buts, they'll be mad at me if you go, like everything. But I just got up and I walked out. I can't remember calling my mom. I'm going to face this thing, I heard a voice. My mom was just like, “Why do you have some weird anxiety thing?” It was just this, “Never mind. Okay, I'll figure this out myself.”

I went to a Borders Bookstore and I typed in anxiety into the search, aside from fixing anxiety books, the whole self-help section was where they were located. So, I found Tony Robbins. I’m like, “I've heard of that guy.” And I got a Tony Robbins book. I got Awaken the Giant Within. This new level of Hope started showing up. There was a thing he said, “It's true you can't not think about something”, which addresses the thing I was worried about. But he goes, “You also can't think of two things at the same time.” So, I thought, what if I replace something that's exciting and challenging, but is beyond what I'm used to. So, instead of me being like, “Don't faint on the Comedy Central half-hour special.” I thought, “How can I have the number one Comedy Central special?”

I started spending every day, with full anxiety, waking up jumping out of the bed, and saying out loud, “You have the number one Comedy Central special.” I'm like running around the house. “You're the best comedian ever. You're the blah, blah, blah.” I'm saying this to myself. I remember the first day, getting 10 minutes in and feeling the anxiety not having as much of a hold. And me being like, “Holy shit that was just 10 minutes in. What if I keep going?” So, I got excited about like, that was like the first day at the gym. What if I did 100 days? The special was going to be recorded like 90 days down the road or whatever.

So, every day I did this hour picturing it was number one thing. It's funny because where I live now is that such a different consciousness than this story. But it's really the beginning of just the changing your thinking level, and I got to the special, and I was excited about it and free of the anxiety, probably 90% free of it. It was the number one special. It was the most played special in 2006. I got a major standing ovation and it was great. And this was the beginning of this Tony Robbins, Make It Happen achievement phase that is a great stage in my life that was totally needed.

It's funny because Michael Beckwith has a book called Life Visioning and he talks in the book about four stages of awakening. This was the beginning from one to two. He talks about the first level is called To Me, where you're in this victim mentality of everything is happening to me. It's because of my mother, it's because of the economy or my ex. That's why my circumstances are this. The way I also phrase it is eventually, to me runs you into the ground, you become addicted, you become suicidal. Or you go into a second stage where you learned how to change your circumstances, which is that second, make it happen, motivation, by me stage, right?

It says in Michael Beckwith’s book, “You get to each stage by releasing something. First, the second happens when you release blame.” Now, you'll still have times where you have blame, but it's not the main running only thing. You start to get there as a you. You can change the circumstance or whatever.

So, the second of the four stages is By Me, and that's the achieving world. That's the people that have a million Lamborghinis and are building the businesses, and number one. My opinion is, eventually that also can run its course, because you're still under the illusion that you are these things you're achieving. And even though you're not run by your circumstances anymore, you're still a victim too if they fall apart. So, you're still very control based. So, I went through a few years of through massive effort and force and making it happen, having really good Comedy Central stuff, having a good comedy career, and Tony Robbins-ing my way through everything. Making it happen, achieving, and it was great. That's kind of how I got to the second stage.

[25:11] LW: I want to just go back and talk about one thing. You said that voice that told you to get up and leave, right? That voice plays a prominent role in your life later on. I'm curious, was that one of the first times that you followed it, or is that something you were used to doing at the time?

[25:28] KC: Yeah, I think that there's a level of volume based on what you're following. In other words, if you're following a lot, the more you follow, you're screwed, life isn't that easy, then that voice is really loud. By the way, this is not – I sure don't recommend this method to anybody. But I noticed, I always hear that new voice right after my edge of suicide, because it's actually the literal death of an old story happening. And I believe that it's not us that suicidal. Our stories are trying to die. Our ways that we were we're trying to die, and a belief system, a relationship, identity is trying to die. If you start to get your just this moment, and what you used to be is trying to die, this is going to be amazing, right?

But if you think that's you, you're trying to stop that voice that is needing to die from – thinking you’re the skin cells that are dying all day, and trying to trap them on and negotiate this. It's like, “Let’s not you fall off.” But I had that moment at the hospital where I'm in the waiting room, right after I was at the beach, figuring out if I should go buy a gun, and feeling the motions of really considering suicide. And finally, just feeling through that and crying a little bit and being like, “What do I do?” And then after a little bit of surrender, and like I'm lost, I don't know what to do, there's kind of an opening for asking God for help. There's kind of an opening for, I don't know – the old story of Kyle can't fix this. A higher level of Kyle that I've never seen before can. And I think that because I really felt through, I give up. I suddenly heard a new voice, because I wasn't fighting from the old voice anymore. And this voice was quiet. But I remember hearing it and following it and it got louder. Because I said yes to it, it could have been a passing voice. But I just was like, “I don't know what to do. I don't want to have an anxiety forever. But I don't want to just numb it and just have a bunch of pills too. I don't only want that.” And I sure don't have any problem with what everyone else chooses. But for me, there was something about that that was like a kind of a numbing giving up versus a good giving up.

Sometimes giving up is good, if you replace it with the universe, if you replace it with God. If you really let everything fall off that needs to, your giving up can be a real gift. Because then you can hear higher voices, and you can hear next steps, and you can hear permission, and you can hear synchronicity and miracles, and all of that's here. It starts to be normal when you follow i t, right? So, that voice was really a big voice in my life. Because I do think if I had ignored it, I don't know if I would have stayed a comic. If I just be on pills my whole life, if I would have never transcended it. Maybe I would have still had the same awakenings later. I don't know. I don't know what would have happened.

[28:29] LW: I imagine that voice was the thing that guided you to the Tony Robbins material. So, once you started absorbing that, as a student of life, like most comedians are, did you start working that into your comedy? When did the spiritual content start to make an appearance in the bits that you were doing at that time?

[28:50] KC: There was a subtle desire on both ways, for the comedy to have a little bit of positive permission. But also, I was just becoming also a coach and motivated. So, there were a couple things. There were bits that I did. I did a bit where I said, “It's so weird, because you can make anything fun.” Like, “I'm going to make my death fun”, like I say on stage. We're all going to die. Why not have fun with it? Why do we worry all the way until the death, and we're like, “You guys, I’m going to die.” And then we die and we're like, “See, I told you, I’d die.” And you're like, “How are you talking to me?”

I said, the last 10 seconds when I have everyone gathered around in the hospital, I'm going to get my body into a very nice, tight, entangled, yoga pretzel position, just like a really stiff not. Because I know that your body gets stiff when you die, and I want to make it very hard for my family to unscramble me. This whole bit formed from that, and then there was a great bit about the news is just trying to make you depressed. Can you imagine how not scared of flying we would be if the news just told us about the 30,000 flights a day that made it with the same with the same breaking news intensity, because that's also news. A plane took off and landed. That's way more news to me than the planes that didn't make it. So, I think every time a plane lands, they should interrupt whatever or whatever show you're watching and interview every person as they're getting off the plane. You'd be like, “Oh, I want to try flying.” And then I say something like – and then they don't. They scare the crap out of you. And then they list all these pills that have all the side effects in the commercials for anxiety that they just gave you. And I realized I'm kind of coaching them through stand-up, but not point blank saying it. I'm not preaching, but it is an angle that was feeling really positive and good and calling bullshit on darkness and making death okay. These are good spiritual principles, but made comedic.

So, in 2009, the Act started getting there. It had a combination of regular stand-up and observational stuff, but that too. I really went through a phase that I am letting go of, that I know I'm sure you know what I mean, that when you have your first awakenings, you want everyone to know about it, and you need everyone to know that they can have this thing. Because I went from suicidal anxiety to number one Comedy Central special through Tony Robbins and changing my thinking. And that same me that was oblivious to what everyone thinks, would just get in everyone's face and be like, “Dude, you can have everything you want. You're going to have an amazing” – and now I'm looking at me like, I might as well have knocked to their door and said, “Have you found Jesus or something?” I'm just coaching everyone uninvited, thinking that what I'm offering them they'll want. But really forgetting and not knowing until way later that a factor in my shift was my fall apart, my depression, my lostness, my need for it and not every – if I had coached the me in 2002, that me would have been like, “Get the hell away from me.” You know what I'm saying? Like the me that was showing everybody is just thinking they got to know about Tony Robbins and I'm going through this thing that I'm sorry, everybody, I get it now. You don't have to force everyone else to do that. But it was a given to me, they wanted that, and learning later. maybe not everyone does.
 
 [END]

That was transformational comedian, Kyle Cease. To see what happens once he goes all in on his transformational comedy, you want to go to episode 144 and start around the 54-minute mark. It's an awesome story of taking leaps of faith and manifesting abundance. And in addition to listening to the rest of Kyle's story, I also recommend following Kyle on the socials @EvolvingOutLoud. If you know of anyone else who's making the world a better place and they had an incredible plot twist in their life, please email me your guest suggestions at light@lightwatkins.com. 

My other ask is that you take just a few seconds to rate. And review the show. You hear hosts like me asking listeners like you to leave a rating, leave a review for the podcast, because that's how a lot of guests determine if they're going to be coming on to the podcast. So it does make a huge difference. All you do is look at your device, you click on the name of the show. You scroll down past the first five episodes, you'll see a space with five blank stars, and just tap the star all the way on the right to leave a five star rating. And if you're feeling generous, write a one-line review, just letting that potential new listener know which episode they should consider starting with and that can go a long way as well. 

Also, don't forget, you can watch these plot twist episodes on my YouTube channel if you prefer to see what Kyle looks like as he's sharing his plot twist, and don't forget to subscribe on YouTube as well. 

And otherwise I will see you on Wednesday with the next long form conversation about an ordinary person doing extraordinary things to leave the world a better place. And until then, keep trusting your intuition, keep following your heart, and keep leaning into those plot twists whenever they happen in your life. And if no one's told you lately that they believe in you, I believe in you. Thank you and have a fantastic weekend.