Big Blend Radio

Author & Comedian Claire Berger - How Much is Enough?

This episode of Big Blend Radio's 2nd Wednesday "Books & Authors" Show with Books Forward features comedian and author Claire Berger who discusses her interactive memoir, "How Much Is Enough? Getting More by Living with Less."

Claire Berger got her start as a comedian at the famous Second City in Chicago, catapulting her into the spotlight as a studio warmup comedian for Seinfeld and other iconic TV shows. And now at 67 years old, Claire is taking center stage with her first book that thoughtfully explores a universal question that lingers in the minds of many: "How Much Is Enough?"

From personal reinvention to resilience and a healthy dose of humor, Claire's got stories that'll have you laughing one minute and wiping away tears the next. Keep up with her at https://claireberger.com/

And, join the conversation in her Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2034107663612081

More about Books Forward at https://booksforward.com/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Duration:: 39m
Broadcast on:: 10 Jul 2024
Audio Format:: mp3

Welcome to Big Blend Radio where we celebrate variety and how it adds spice to quality of life. Welcome everybody. Today we are so excited to have Claire Berger join us. She has written a memoir and it's not any memoir. It's an interactive memoir. You can listen to it. You can read it. You can do workshop exercises. You can do a lot of thinking too and some laughing and that's a good thing. The book is called How Much Is Enough getting more by living with less and you can go to her website, clairberger.com. That's clair with an E and that's B-E-R-G-E-R. So clairberger.com, the link is in the episode notes so you can go directly there. And this is for our Big Blend Radio books and authors show that we do every second Wednesday for their friends over at Books Forward and keep up with them at booksforward.com. But welcome Claire. How are you? I'm great. It's so good to be here Lisa. Thank you. I love this set. Your background is in stand-up because I think my heart goes big for comedians getting up there and having to commit to it. Even if you know you're bombing, I always go, "Man, you guys have some cahonies." I don't know if I'm going to say that. It's our show over years, but I said it. I think it's so I listened to a lot of podcasts and we watch a ton of comedy. And as you know, we travel the country. We pet sit on the way. And so, you know, not for money, but it's like we'll be watching stuff and I'm like, "Oh, we better delete that." So people can't see that in our history, but the place that we're pet sitting. But I think comedians have some serious life lessons for folks because you are, number one, comedians, good comedians, are super intelligent, super observant. Find the quirky and the fun even at the most inopportune times when we actually need it. But you have to, like I said, get out there on stage and go through rejection, I think, more than what an actor goes through. Well, it's interesting you say that because I read a study when I was first starting out as a stand-up that said, "You set yourself up for rejection on the average of every seven seconds." Because that's how long it takes the audience member to sort of comprehend the setup of your joke. And, you know, someone calculated the average number of jokes and the 20-minute set. And I mean, it was all very kind of clinical, which, of course, comedy can never be. But it was a little daunting when I first heard that and I thought, "Well, the flip side of that is I could get validation every seven seconds. I have people listening to me. I have to strive to learn a little bit about a lot of things." And it's a great life path, you know, no matter what you do in life. Well, also, I love your book because you're looking at how much is enough. And I watched, it was like a biography of Michelle Obama talking about that her parents had kind of passive dad. It always said, "Do you really need that second piece of cake? Is that enough?" And I thought, "Yeah, we're kind of gluttonous, you know, as human creatures." And I think we start to become greedy even if we're not normally greedy people. We just go, "I do want to have that second piece of cake, but do we really need it?" You know? I think we come by that, honestly, though, you know, Lisa, whether you are a product of depression or poverty or, you know, just financial inequity. There's so many reasons why-- Survival. I mean, we're cavemen, you know, so as soon as you saw, "Hey, I've got an extra buck, I'm going to use it," you know? So that makes sense. But there's so many ways to enjoy an appreciate life that has nothing to do with stuff or money. You know that better than anyone with the traveling that you do, the choices that you've made for you and your mom to live this quality of life that you have, it reminds me of the college gift that I gave my daughter. What do you give an adult child who's about to leave you forever? I decided on a 10-day road trip hitting national parks. We love that. Yeah, we did Bryce, Zion, Monument Valley, and Grand Canyon. And it was the most selfish gift I've ever given anybody to have 10 days with an adult child who will be spending the next rest of her life separating and differentiating yourself from being your child was magnificent. And it really wasn't about stuff. It was about collective memories, which you can never have enough of, right? And road trips always have an obstacle. And if you didn't get any obstacles, it wasn't a good enough road trip. I'm just saying something has to happen. You know what I mean? So, and work through it together, and that makes some memories. It could just be like, I'm never going to get to that top of that hill or that mountain. And you do somehow, you push each other on, and having the right partner on a road trip is crucial. Because if you have the worst ones, right? You can kill somebody. It's just like, you know, but going back to the comedy too, when you go up on stage, what you have is you and your material and having to know, I know people use teleprompchers and stuff too, but you guys have to be good at it. Did you, do you use them or not? No, no, no one did. No one did a club clubs or in television. No. As a stand up, yes, it's just me and my material, but it's also the audience. The energy that I would get from the audience, my background is improvisation. I was trained and performed at the Second City in Chicago. I think improv training should be core curriculum for everybody, no matter what you do in life, because learning how to think on your feet, having the confidence to do so, gleaning knowledge from other people and other experiences will serve you if you're a bank teller, or a hotel concierge, or a bank, you know, it doesn't matter. I really believe improv is really, really important training. And so for me, relating to the audience, learning about the audience, kind of taking their temperature had a lot to do with my success in comedy. Yeah, and you did different avenues where others, you know, hey, we got to be an SNL and we have to be on all these different things. You're like, actually, I like this, and this is what's going to suit my life. So I don't need, you know, to me, I look at fame and going, Holy cow, I would hate it. I would hate that lifestyle. It would not be me, you know what I mean? I'm inspired to it. I really, my goal was to earn a living as a comedian and raise my family and be home to raise my family. So I did the road before I had kids. But once I got pregnant with my daughter and I, and I was on the road until about eight months pregnant with her. But then I lucked into the career as a warm-up comic, which is keeping the audiences entertained on sound stages where sitcoms are being shot. And this was, you know, in the 80s where it was really the heyday. It was perfect. Like it was just a perfect timing thing for me because I could stay home and be there with my kids during the day. And at night, go work on incredible shows like Seinfeld and Murphy Brown and Friends. Awesome. And Night Court. And so it was just the best work-life balance any comedian could ever dream of having. That's awesome. And the fact, too, you know, getting back into like less is more, right? Yes. And how much is enough? When you go up on stage, it is you, like you're saying improv is really good. It keeps your mind at tune, you know? But it is, the more you bring on stage, the more you're relying on props and stuff. So I know a lot of comedians, you know, have their props. Some are like, you know, some are totally, that's their thing. Right. But it's still, you know, less is more, right? So do you think being a comedian when you get up on stage, it's not like you have a band that's going to pick you up if you screw up on stage, right? It's just you. So that is like the ultimate that is the ultimate. Well, that's one of the reasons that I loved and had to leave Second City, because when you're in Second City, you're in an ensemble of five brilliant improv comics, and they will bail you out. You know, if you're floundering them right in there, there's there's the philosophy of yes and meaning, you know, you never stop whatever anybody else's reality is on stage, whatever they say, your response is yes, and and you build the scene. And I really see that as a great life lesson, if we can really adopt the yes and approach. But, you know, Second City wasn't real life. I wasn't going to have five people bailing me out of a troublesome punchline or a challenging audience. I knew I had to go it alone. And that's why I developed my career as a stand up and a warm up. Now, also, you know, with your book, I want to get into how you decided to do this and write it and the way you did it, I think is brilliant, because you get people, you've got nuggets of wisdom for people to contemplate and then ask them questions to write it down. Do some exercises. I always love interactive memoirs and interactive books, because I think if you're just telling people what to do, no one no one wants to be told what to do. No one wants that. They have to come to the answers themselves and you're also anecdotal. You're telling stories. So that's really brilliant. But it gets to me, like reading through some of the parts, it's like, you're getting people to think, make decisions. So it's like, every time you do something, you're making a decision. And it's almost like, how much do you want to stress over this? So I feel like you're an ultimate stress reliever through comedy. And then, and then through doing these exercises and making people think, and it's like, that's kind of how I look at it. Well, this book is so many things. I mean, I think it's like a very unique mashup of memoir and self help. It's equal parts of both. And the reason that I wanted to do that is because I set myself up when I wrote the memoir to really bear my soul and to tell my truths. And I've been extremely honest in every single chapter as it relates to the chapters topic. And I expect you, the reader or the listener to do the same. And so to help you, I've braided all kinds of prompts, like you said, questions, thoughts, you know, opportunities for self reflection. And I really hope people will read this book and come away from it, feeling more than anything else that they are enough, that we have enough that whatever our life circumstances are, we are living and making the choice to live our best life. Now, the other part of it is in the interactive is you've got a Facebook community too, right? Yes, yes, I really want to keep the conversation going. Lisa, I really wrote this book to start a conversation, like we're having right now, like I'm willing to have anywhere I'm about to head out on a six month book tour, I will be speaking in beauty salons, health food stores. I've got an event in a restaurant and in a assisted living home. I want and we'll talk to anybody about the concept of enough. And I don't care what age or stage you're in. You are asking yourself these questions. We all wake up in the morning with this, you know, unconscious inventory. The first thing I think of when I wake up, did I get enough sleep? Is there enough healthy food in the house? Do I have enough time to hang out with my grandkids today? You know, it just goes on and on and the and the commonality is enough, enough, you know, and are we going overboard? That's the other thing, you know, living a very simplistic life. It's so funny because we each have a suitcase because we drive around four. It's a small, I mean, everybody's like, well, you should get it this. And then I'm like, no, no, RV. You do not want to see that happen with me driving. I'm a really good driver, but I know enough is it? This is so perfect, right? And so we each have a suitcase. And then we have what we call is our overnight bag, which is a backpack each basically. And Nancy has a beach bag because she's like, I'm using this, you know, why, why throw stuff away? And I think in the in the era now of climate change and just things being stacked up in landfills, how much do we need, right? So that question comes in. But it's so funny because every once in a while, do we ever take the suitcase out of the actual car? Not if we have to. Now it's hot. So we know things good now to know what's in there. We do. But do we actually open the suitcase? I opened it once and I got one showed out and we've been here for just over a week. We will live out of this bag. We are so pathetic. And then we go, do we have any other clothes? Do we throw these clothes away? No, because what if? So there's this this thing over a suitcase each. And we'll go, okay, well, maybe we should just have one suitcase. That would be easier. No, because what about winter? This is the most pathetic thing over how much is enough, but this is crazy, though. This is a suitcase. But other people have to go in your house and do the whole detox, right? Of how because you have and we've done that and we've done it several times living internationally. You you learn pretty quickly and living in Africa and leaving African countries and you lose a lot. You just do. It just that's it. So we've kind of learned. Don't sweat the small stuff of stuff. You know, and in my chapter, I do of course have a chapter about stuff. I did a lot of research on the storage space industry. I mean, it's a Oh, my God. And honestly, storage spaces are just, you know, overpriced hiding places. Yeah, you know, I challenge my readers to go into your storage space and put your hands on one thing that you love, one thing that you want to pass down to your family. And one thing that reminds you of a horrible memory that you never want to see again. And I think once you start that kind of mentality, you realize it's it's much easier to get rid of stuff and nobody needs a storage space. They just don't, you know, well, that's kind of what we're looking at. We've had a storage space since we've been on the road. We started at a 10 by 10, I think or whatever around that. Then we came home for a couple years. And we actually did have a cups and and we had two wine glasses, two plates, two knives and forks, because we knew if we had to stop, it would be something small, get a quick apartment because we'd bail because we need to garden, you know, so if we get anything bigger, you're not leaving again. So we unpack everything, had already gotten bought the dishes, thinking, Oh, whoopsie, found the box of dishes at the very end, of course. And we had all these books we thought we had to have. We get the books out. Did we look at them? No. You know, and because we remember them, it's the memory of these books, carding them around the world. And then we gave them to people really wanted them, you know, and we love books where that's our money goes to books, music, and plants. And wine. Good life to me. And wine. Gotta do that. But and apparently the car. But it was really interesting. So now we're down to a nine by five storage. All our possessions are in there other than the darn suitcases, right? So you look at that and you go, okay, we keep going. Our storage space bill goes up. I think it is doubled in the last four years. No joke. And we look around like, why are we paying all this money? Why? I mean, you're paying rent for stuff. And, you know, for someone like you guys who are on the road, it kind of makes sense. It's, we have to keep the stuff in there for sure. Or for people that are in transition, they're they're in the process. And, you know, for me, we did that when when my 30 year marriage ended, and we split up the family. And, you know, we moved into two separate places. And there was all the sentimental stuff from our kids childhood. And we didn't know where to put that. But, you know, in time, and as my kids got older, I finally said, look, you have to take ownership over your stuff. And you need to go and and decide what is it that you want to pass on to your kids? What do you want to keep? You know, I don't think we're going on that family ski trip anymore. I think we can get rid of the, you know, the skis. And my son was a is a drummer, but did he need the first drum that we bought him at six years old? You know, that was for him to decide. So it was those kinds of really emotional questions that we all had to ask ourselves. But they're important questions to ask, because we can't define ourselves by whether or not we have enough stuff. Life's too rich. Yeah. Well, we have to keep our storage units, got all our slides and Nancy's artwork and stuff. So we really do have to my writing. So we're keeping it. But, but it is interesting these questions, because did we need the big one? No, we could go down to exactly what was really, really precious. And if we ever open that door, we're in trouble. But when you go through, you know, your book, you're the topics that you have in here, you even have travel. So we're on the scale of crazy travel, right? But that's a lifestyle. But like, when you talk about travel, how much is enough for travel? Are you getting enough? Or are you going exorbitant? Like, you know, and the way that you travel to, you know, I talk in the book about, I was I was in Venice, Italy, and I was watching these people on the gondolas and they and their selfie stick and their shooting pictures of themselves in the gondola. And they're completely ignoring the magnificent architecture, the waterways, the gondolier, you know, this unbelievably unique, romantic, beautiful, all they're doing is shooting the bucket list experience for many. Oh, my goodness. And the whole time I thought, how many are enough selfies for you to put down that stick and take in what is around you? It is so magnificent. Like you said, it's such a bucket list destination. And for me, there's never enough travel, because as a student of my life, and I like to think of myself as a perpetual student, I learned so much about myself. And and my country, quite frankly, when I leave, when I travel within the country, there are so many ways that Americans live. And as a stand-up, I got to be, I worked in 48 of our 50 states, and I got to really get to spend times and people, and I was amazed, just amazed at how diverse, culturally, socially, economically, our country is, and then expand that into Europe and Asia. I mean, it's just a big, glorious, beautiful world with a lot of problems. But at the end of the day, for me, there is not enough opportunity for travel. Travel is education. It really is. And it's self-education too. Like we were saying, a road trip, you go through obstacles and challenges and change, which life is, perpetual change. That's the that's the thing too. And I think if you're over-clad with stuff, it's harder to make a change that needs to happen, and a change will happen whether you like it or not. It's going to happen, right? It's like AI is here. But it's time for travel. Like there's so many people, I'm sure you know as well, that just work, work, work, work, work, their whole life, and they save travel for when they quote unquote retire. Well, what if you don't get there? What if you can't retire? What if you get sick? You know, to have put off something so fundamental and important and social and joyful. And there's a lot of ways to travel. You know, I'm a huge cook. I love cooking, and I think traveling on your plate is a great way to travel. You know, really experimenting with all kinds of cultural foods, learning, challenging, getting out of your comfort zone as you prepare your meals and mastering a new cuisine is a form of travel. It's not about spending a lot of money. It's just about expanding your vision, your comfort zone, and your understanding of what's possible. Yeah, and it's even when you talk about money, it's like, like people talk about eating healthy. Oh, that's so, you know, much more expensive. Yes and no, it depends on how you're doing it and looking at, you make decisions according to what you have, what your dreams and aspirations are, right? So it's like, Oh, maybe this is in season right now, right? So maybe that's what you perch. Well, I've never made spaghetti squash. Well, you could be like me and put it in the microwave and watch it explode. At least everybody has a good laugh and go, don't do that again. But at least I only paid like a buck for it or something because it was in season, right? So, you know, then you learn and then you laugh and then you try again, hopefully, and it was at, we did salvage it. Well, Parmesan does everything. It does everything Parmesan and butter, right? Yeah, you know, a regional palette is so fun. If you're traveling the way you travel, you know, you can't be corn in the Midwest in the summer and you can't beat stone fruit in the Northeast and the seafood on the in the Northwest. I mean, you have to eat locally because it's, it's the freshest, it's the best. And again, another way to expand your palette. There's never enough, you know, supporting small agriculture. You know, that's the other thing is, where, where are we putting our dollars? Where are we doing that? You know, are we putting it to the right places, the wrong places, sometimes buying the fancy in style thing is going to the wrong people and you're paying double. And that's stalling a dream, perhaps, right? So, is that part of the balance too? Of course, I've eaten in restaurants that are that they make the 100 mile radius commitment. So everything that they serve in the restaurant has to come from 100 mile radius. And there are these restaurants all over the country, all over the world, actually. And it's a fabulous social experiment too, because you have to meet your neighbors, you have to learn about the farmers, the, the resources that are available within 100 miles. It brings a community closer in the name of commerce and hospitality. I think that's beautiful. And happy. Yeah, and it's a happier community when everyone's supporting each other, right? So with this too, you know, going back into your career, right? In business, I think a lot of people try to put on too much on their shoulders, whether or not it's working for somebody else or not. And maybe we need some balance. And I think COVID really shook everything up. When people were at home and realized, Oh my gosh, I have a garden that's overgrown. And this is, I can grow. Everybody's like, I don't have a green thumb. I'm like, well, there are some basic, easy things you can do. You know, there's ways to do it if you want to do it, you know? Yeah, and talk about that in the work chapter, because not only is there a garden that you haven't seen in a while, there might be children that are growing up in your house, you haven't seen in a while. And they're like, gee, how did you become so tall? Oh, that's where all the food went. And that's the silver lining, I think, of the pandemic is that people really reevaluated. How much is enough time to spend away from my family at the office? Can I be productive at home? And what we've proved the last five years is that, in fact, we can be extremely productive at home and have a whole different quality of work-life balance and be more present for our family. And I can't imagine a better takeaway. And then that very scary time for so many of us, you know? Well, I know a lot of a lot of people, especially in it goes in stages, we all go through life cycles and it could be generational or whatever, right? But we all go through stages in life according to what we're doing as well. Our careers can change just because suddenly, I mean, we're from the print era. Well, look at us now. It's a little bit different, you know? So, you know, that's how we started was print magazines. I remember Nancy, my mom, we I used to work with her type setting, like actual sticking things on things, and it would be printed that way. And then she was one of the first people who had a processing computer that would process film in South Africa for the magazine. It was like, we've gone through this cycle. So, you know, everybody goes through changes. Through change, you can also go, you get creativity, which is great, but you can also burn yourself out. And so the world is going through a lot of change. And I see people kind of in this top-sea-turvy thing. And I know my age group, we're all going, holy cow, we need to take a breath because we've all been hauling so hard until you get to your middle zone, then some people buy Ferraris. I ain't doing that. You don't want to see me drive that either. But some people go, okay, wait a minute. I've been working so hard. What is it amounted to? Did it amount to the money? Did it? Did it not? What is it equated to? So, are you finding that kind of response to your book and the discussion in your Facebook community about sudden burnout and change? Because I think in COVID, it was great. We all kind of had this perspective. And then we had to get back out there. And some people really had to get out there and make money because they weren't. And now we're seeing another little wave. I know that in some of the restaurant industries had some real crushes. Even if they made it through, they couldn't power it out that next few years. So, I'm seeing this kind of widespread little feeling of burnout. And I think your book personally think it's perfectly time for people to get back out there, then overdid it. It was changed because work changed, how they work remotely, then that balance and everything. And now people are kind of like, we better reevaluate. Summer is a perfect time to do it with your family. So, do you think that do you see that kind of conversation of people's like, you know, absolutely, absolutely, you know, the only thing you can be sure of in life is change. And you have a choice to either be inflexible and resist it or be facile and reinvent. And I think if I represent anything to my kids, it's the beauty and the power of reinvention. You know, as a comedian and as a freelance writer, I've probably had over 100 jobs in my 40 plus years of... Wow. You know, the big secret about that, and all freelancers know this, is that your job is actually the coffee break from your real job, which is looking for the next job and then the job after that. So, it's a grind to be a freelancer, to be a performer. But we do it by choice because we do appreciate the opportunity to be facile and the beauty of reinvention. And I really see, especially all of my kids are in tech. And tech is constantly reinventing the wheel for all of us, technologically, but within their own corporate structure, whatever is current today is obsolete tomorrow. And that's just how fast the world changes. So, if you can't be facile, if you can't be flexible and open to change, you will cease to succeed in this world. I am sentimental about the old days. I can reminisce as much as the next person. That's one foot. The other foot is really appreciating progress and technology and all the things that we have, including this Zoom and the opportunity that I have to talk to you right now. Thank God for Zoom during the pandemic, right? I remember right before Zoom, we have a big blend radio community and now, but I was always dreaming of this. How do I network everybody I know together, you know? So, and I'd be like, you want that community. And finally got it. And before Zoom, I was teaching people about Zoom. And I had to do Zoom classes, you know? And it was like, everyone, we can do this because everyone is so used to calling into the radio show. We were doing live podcasts by their phone. And I just like, come on, you can do it. You can do it. Then Zoom happened during the pandemic. And then everyone's like, oh, we should do Zoom. I'm like, dude, what? Come on, I've been telling you this for years. Can we do this, please? So, it's kind of, it's interesting how it changes because eventually, if you don't go with the flow and make a change and bend, be the willow, you're gonna keep hitting your head against the wall and you're gonna be miserable. It is. Well, and honestly, we all know people that are chronically unhappy and complain about not having enough. And they're also unhealthy. And it's the lens that they look at through life. They're always wanting more. They want the bigger house. They want the better clothes. They want their children to succeed in a way that they may not be. They want to travel more. They want, they want, they want. And you're missing the forest for the trees, right? You're not taking a step back and appreciating all that you have, the fact that you, in fact, do have enough. You're just not taking the opportunity to really appreciate and see what it is that you have. And whether that's your job, or your relationships, or your things, or your opportunity, and most importantly, your health, there's all this pressure to look a certain way. Well, how about how to feel a certain way? We're all, I'll tell you what, we're all gonna die. And we're all gonna get older. And we can spend as much money as we like on plastic surgery, and fancy sport cars, to give us the illusion of being younger. Or we can just embrace the beauty that is our life and our age age right now. You know, there's, I know that are in their 60s like me, that are sort of mourning the days of, you know, having beauty be their currency. But the truth is, Lisa, for me, being at this age and actually feeling kind of invisible in society is a superpower to me. I love it for me to walk through the world and know that my beauty is not defined by social media and eyelash extension. I can't call from a stranger. You know, I am beautiful enough, because I'm here, I'm healthy, I have the relationships that I have. I don't really need anything else to feel beautiful. Oh, that's good point. See, I love this because it goes both ways. But the enough word, are you doing what you need to have that enough that is core to you, or are you overdoing so that you have too much instead of cutting off? I really think this book really puts a spotlight on the concept of enough in all aspects of our life. I think it's almost been an unconscious messaging that we've done. And my challenge to your listeners, to my readers, is, is that negative self-talk, or is that really positive reinforcement in your life? Well, you see, like going back to the change part of it, people are fearful of change. And they're also fearful if they're at the beginning of change. They want to wait for everybody else to go and make the passage for them, which I always go like, I want to be one of the first, you know, I do, because then you kind of know stuff. I don't know, you just kind of have a little bit more insider scoop. It's easier if you're not the first wave in to whatever it is. It's definitely easier to have somebody else pave the way. But I like going out there and checking it out as an explorer. You know, it's kind of like that. And you know, you're going to take extra beatings for it. But it's like, you know, I'm going to wear some armor. You know, it's like part of, you know, as kids, we used to go, this is my war wounds, you know what I mean? This like, I fell down here. Look at this. You know, we love to show off our scars as tomboys. And, you know, I was always up trees with kids, you know, so that kind of thing. So it's kind of like it was always like a badge of honor to go for it, you know? But I think if you sit back, I don't know, you're not really doing yourself any favors to jump in there. And you've already made it negative. So you're never going to truly enjoy until you step out there. And if you make a mistake, who cares? Yeah, you learn from it, you know, and you keep moving. We're a human. Humans make mistakes. That's just the way it is, you know, what I think, like we were talking about comedians bombing, right? That's actually funny in itself. It's kind of like, well, that didn't work. That's funny to me, you know, and also, you know, sometimes I would just do things for myself on stage. You know, there was a joke that I used to tell and I can't even tell you what it is. But I remember thinking this one's just for me. And whether the audience laughs or not. And I would say it was a 50/50 proposition. But I was entertaining myself at the same time I was entertaining my audience. And that was really, I think it really sharpened my vision and my perspective as a comedian, for sure. And leaving, you know, second stage, you know, it's going from that with the truth, like actually having improv partners right on stage and then going solo, right? You knew you had to do that. You had to make that jump, which is scary as heck, right? You know that that's scary, but it was scary, but it was also inevitable. Like I said, I never, you know, I knew there weren't going to be five people bailing me out on a joke. I had to stand on my own two feet. And the culture at Second City, they never really respected stand-ups. I remember talking to Joan River in Las Vegas after one of her shows. And she said, look, one of my badge of honors that I got fired from Second City. And she said, I got fired because I had a life outside of Second City. I had comedy in my stand-up career outside of Second City. And that's just real life. And nobody does just one thing anymore. I mean, that's the other reality of the working world. You know, people can call it a side hustle. But the truth is, I know very few people, and I'm guessing your listeners are amongst those that also know very few people who only do one thing. Musicians, especially, authors, anybody in the creative world, you have to have a second funding somewhere at the time. Unless you're Taylor Swift. Yeah, right. Or you have some family money hidden somewhere. Yeah. But I think that's the beauty of life. That's why we're at the blend. We were told only focus on one thing. And we're like, it's all connected, man. It's like, if you like birds, you may like gardening, and then you may like going to a park. And then if you like gardening, you may like to cook your own vegetables and fruit that you grew. You know, so it's kind of like, we just go, this is all connected. And the challenging and the challenge in publishing, Lisa, is that when you pitch your book idea to publishers, they say, well, it has to fit in, you know, what is it? Where will they put it on the shelf, the box? I'm not just interested in where it's going to go on the shelf. I'm interested in how it resonates with my readers and my listeners. And so the idea of mashing self help and memoir made perfect sense to me. Also, the opportunity to encourage the reader to read it in any order that they want to. I love that. And revolutionary too, right? There's nothing chronological about the concept of enough. It's something that we think about every day in so many different ways. Why shouldn't you read the book in any order that appeals to you and speaks to your sensibility? I'm going to go read the food one. I want extra pizza tonight. I already know it. So I'm good. Who doesn't want extra pizza? You know, somebody who doesn't out there. I know. But you know, I think this is so great. And I love that you have a Facebook community and have that conversation going and doing your book tour. So everyone can go your website. I'm going to put a link to the Facebook group in the show notes, the episode notes as well, because that is fantastic. So six months on the road, right? Yes. Yes. And I'm going to really count on that Facebook community to kind of keep me fresh. And I really want people to, you know, I think at the beginning, they were waiting for me to initiate conversations about the concept of enough. But I really want the group, the group consciousness to be a collective conversation about enough. So if you're thinking or struggling about the concept of enough in some aspect of your life, throw it into the group. And let's let us all discuss it and come to some understanding that you might not be able to get on your own. Yeah, exactly. You see, it's another community. I love that. Well, I'm going to go join the group. Please. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It was fun. That was awesome. Well, have fun on the road. I know you will. Right. And if you're on the best and just admire so much that, you know, mothers and daughters in this world can work and live and travel together. That's a beautiful thing. It is. She's waving from the other room over there with two little dogs that want to yap at garden people outside. So she's she's playing yapper patrol. Thank you, Lisa. Thank you. You take care everyone again. Go to claireburger.com also want to give a shout out to books forward.com. Thank you all for joining us. And don't forget how much is enough is the book. Thank you for listening to Big Blend Radio. Keep up with our shows at big blend radio.com.