And So It Begins...

The Set Up

About a year ago, an acquaintance once told me a true story so bizarre, so surreal, that I could not shake it. Something about it lodged itself deep in my brain and refused to leave. The more I thought about it, the more I realized it wasn’t just funny — it was painfully human.

Let's backtrack for a minute.

I love to write. Always have. My favorite class in high school was Honors Creative Writing. Everyone wanted to take that class. Only seniors could ever “crack the code” and get a spot.

Mr. Casper, a 60s hippie who claims he went to Woodstock, inspired us all to let go of our reality (very 60s, right?) and give ourselves permission to write whatever came to mind. And, this was actually when you “wrote” on paper, with a pencil. I know you youngsters cannot even fathom.

We all scribbled away. He would read our drafts and give us input, then we would scurry away to rewrite. Mr. Casper’s rule was that you did not need to turn it in until you were completely satisfied. And as long as you worked hard and he believed you were reaching your potential you’d get an A. This was not an easy A but it allowed those on different levels of writing to all succeed. It taught us perseverance, the value of hard work and the satisfaction of feeling proud and accomplished when we put our minds to something. He was a character for sure. But he set me on a course of finding my lifelong love for writing. I never told him that. I should have.

Fast Forward

I went practical. Got a business degree and skipped into Corporate America with that tiny flame still flickering. I wrote poetry for girls (huge success) and an excellent signature move for an early 20s dude. I started a few fiction novels but didn’t get far as life intervened.

So, eventually I resorted to finding an outlet in corporate writing and ultimately my newsletter here on LinkedIn. Which I have started, stopped, started, stopped and have now started again. Since the early 2000s it has been my only writing outlet. I found that sad but it was better than nothing.

If you have been paying attention and read my reference to a “signature move” it may sound familiar. I would love to take credit for coining it but alas I cannot.

You see, I’ve always believed there’s a little bit of a Seinfeld episode hidden in every day of your life. Those strange, awkward, ridiculous moments that reveal who we really are. The tiny social disasters. The contradictions. The absurdity of being human. If you pay attention long enough, life eventually becomes comedy – hopefully not a tragic one.

Back to the point. Acquaintance. Wild Story. Creative Juices…

So, I started inventing outrageous scenarios to put this person (soon to be character) in. It was just so easy, the ideas flowed. Before I knew it I had come up with multiple, maybe two dozen, situations.

The Deep Part

At first, I was chasing the humor. I kept imagining all the uncomfortable, chaotic, deeply funny situations I could throw this character into. There was endless material in the mundane. But the deeper I dug, the more I realized I was asking the wrong question.

The real question wasn’t:

“What ridiculous thing happens next?”

It was:

“How did this guy become this guy?”

That changed everything.

The Hook

Suddenly the comedy wasn’t the story anymore. It was the scar tissue. The coping mechanism. The by-product of a life that had gone spectacularly sideways.

That became my concept.

A story about flawed, messy, beautifully broken people trying to survive themselves. Not polished heroes. Not tidy redemption arcs. Just raw humanity stripped to the bone — funny, painful, absurd, selfish, loving, cruel, hopeful, and deeply recognizable.

I told a few friends about my idea and then would rattle off a few of my equally funny and maybe uncomfortable scenarios I had come up with. It might have shined a light a little too brightly on me – I am sure my friends were saying in their heads WTH. Heck. H. The H is for heck. We are not barbarians on LinkedIn.

Once they reconciled the depth of my warped mind, said a silent prayer for my soul – they began to laugh. Like really laugh. Not friendship laugh. They were entertained. It was original. I had something here, I could feel it.

Now What

So the RAD Dispatch Newsletter will be about my journey building HaPpY — and Radical Optimism Entertainment — from the ground up. What happens next. The successes. The failures and everything in between.

My hope is to inspire people, even if just a few. Whether you have a dream that was set aside long ago that you want to pick back up, enjoy watching someone else try from the comfort of your corporate desk or are just entertained by someone who thinks differently than you do. That is the point.

The more mature (more PC word than old) I have become, the more I have realized that life is zooming by. Now or never.

This newsletter is about what happens when you stop waiting for the right moment, the right circumstances, the right version of yourself that never seems to fully arrive — and you just start anyway. Badly, if necessary.

Conventional wisdom says I don't stand a chance.

I choose not to believe that. I choose Radical Optimism.