LAUNCHING COMEDY CENTRAL WITH ART BELL

Being fired is a terrifying, gut-wrenching roller-coaster that will leave you reeling and frightened. Whether you saw it coming or not, being struck by a train is going to hurt. You will undoubtedly feel as if you have been emotionally pounded. You've just lost your daily routine, your identity, and your self-esteem. But can you imagine how it feels to get fired from a job that was your idea?

Art Bell is my guest on this episode of the Everyday Leadership Podcast. Art is an author, writer, former TV executive, and the founder of The Comedy Channel, which subsequently became Comedy Central.

We discussed comedy as a passion, starting a 24-hour comedy channel, being fired from the television channel, and other key topics.

“Comedy Central, which everybody is watching out for 30 years… wasn’t shot out of a canon fully formed and completely successful the day it started. It was really, really hard work to get this thing up and running and it almost didn’t make it.”

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“I was about seven or eight years old when I noticed how important it seemed to be in my household to be funny. I had two younger brothers, and they were funny. My father was pretty funny; my mother was not very funny. But she laughed a lot. And I started watching comedy on television around that time and I saw some of the great comedians on the Ed Sullivan Show. And the power to make people laugh I immediately recognise as something that was really unique and something I wanted to know more about and maybe even become someone who could make people laugh.”

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“I think comedy is human. It's built into all of us. It's a way we communicate. It's a way we ease the tension when we're talking to people. We smile. We laugh. We try and interact in that way… It's an important thing to be able to laugh and to make other people laugh.”

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“It was a bit harsh… When you launch a comedy channel everybody expects it to be funny… That's why comedy is so difficult generally. But when we first launched, we weren’t in a position to copy the other comedy channel that was out there because there weren’t any. We didn’t know exactly how to make a comedy channel, and we had to figure it out a little bit.”

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“...never underestimate the competition… you may think you have a clear field, or you may think nobody is interested in getting into this particular arena. But you're wrong. Because the mere fact that you're doing something shines a spotlight on the potential marketplace for that.”

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“I don’t think a lot has changed. I know that the current culture is critical of comedians or anybody else who's crossing the line, whoever the line happens to be that day. And the line certainly has moved… offending people is part of life. You do it accidentally sometimes. But when you're a comedian, you want to push the boundaries… look at women comedians and what they've done for women in the last 30 years. When I first started in comedy, sure there were women comedians and stand-up comedians, but there are so many more now. So much progress has been made. Where would we have been if we hadn’t had some of these women comedians standing up and giving us through their lens what it's like to be a woman in America?”

This episode with Art Bell is jam-packed with life lessons. Aside from the obvious, that life goes on and we must pick up the pieces after a job loss, being fired can sometimes be a blessing in disguise. When you listen to this episode, you'll discover even more hidden gems.

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LAUNCHING COMEDY CENTRAL

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Sope Agbelusi is a husband, father, executive coach, Keynote Speaker and Founder of MindsetShift. MindsetShift is a leadership development compact focused on leaders, teams and organisations to create people-centred, inclusive cultures that harness each individual’s full potential https://mindsetshift.co.uk/contact-us/?

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