I’d like to tell you a story, if that’s ok.

I never wanted to do this. I didn’t even know “this” was a “thing.” It was never the plan. The plan, if you can call it that, was to be a comedian and write for Saturday Night Live. Look, when you’re 22 the voice of doubt and fear is a lot quieter. To be fair, I was doing the right thing to get there. Sort of.

After college I moved to New York and immediately began working and performing at The Upright Citizens Brigade Theater. Special education reading teacher by day. Comedian at night. Theater janitor by later that night. I had a weekly slot. The crippling silence of bombed jokes rarely plagued my nights. I gave myself a one year limit before putting my tail between my legs and going back to school. The parents would finally get the lawyer they always wanted.

Fast forward 364 days. I had a show that night. I killed. Twenty-one years later and I still remember the bits. Later that night at the bar a guy came up to me, told me I had a great show and bought me some whisky I couldn’t afford. The theater janitor doesn’t turn down free drinks. He asked what I did. I told him. I asked what he did. He told me. I didn’t understand a word of it. What’s an Executive Creative Director and Founder of a place called Mad Dogs and Englishmen? He said I’d make a good copywriter. Another word I didn’t understand. He said I should come into the office tomorrow and try it out.

Ok. Let’s pause.

It’s not that I thought this was a good idea. I just didn’t want to go to graduate school and this seemed like something slightly more legitimate I could tell my parents. So, I went. At 9AM. In a suit. I didn’t know what a copywriter was, let alone the dress code of “creatives.” All I knew was there was free coffee and as much Lucky Charms as I could eat.

Jittery and full of magically delicious courage, I finally met the man I saw the previous night. I was told to sit in the corner and write some sketches about a storage company. Make them funny. Make them sixty seconds. So I wrote 12 in an hour. I knew how to write sketches. I could be funny. This was easy. He read them, took one and said, “I’ll be right back.” An hour later he came back and said, “You just sold an ad. Good job. Let’s get you a desk.”

This really happened.

Looking back I get it. He had a meeting and didn’t love the work. So he had the idea to grab some comedians and take a random swing at the work. I just lucked out. I was never told to write an ad or commercial or headline. I was told to write sketches, jokes, and one liners. I was blissfully unaware of clients, KPIs, testing, metrics, CTAs or any other acronym. I just wrote things I thought was funny or interesting or worth watching.

That’s it. And that’s all I’m trying to do now. I just want to make things that are worth people’s time, no matter where they consume it. I’m just trying to be that dumb kid in a suit eating free Lucky Charms. I’ve never stopped being lucky, either. I’ve gotten to do this at Publicis & Hal Riney, Camp+ King, Wieden + Kennedy, 72 & Sunny, and Anomaly working on accounts like Google, Nike, Starbucks, Johnnie Walker, Axe, ESPN, Facebook and more.

And yeah, that first ad is still in my book. It’s the one with the dead moose having a heart to heart with his roommate about why he has to move out. See? Already funny.