Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Zako Ryan. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Hi Zako, thanks for joining us today. We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.

After watching Patrice Oneal’s special “Elephant in the Room”

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I make people laugh. Or try to. I got into comedy because I wanted a digestible way to deliver my message about the world the way I see it. Through my lens via my experience. I’ve always used humor to handle stress and cope. It’s my way of taking back the power of past trauma. My goal, for lack of a better word, is first and foremost to live a life of awareness and to encourage others to do the same. Humor makes it easier for me to admit to the troubles of my past and to allow me to be confident and comfortable with who I am as a person. Flaws included. If this helps the next person feel confident in doing so as well, mission accomplished.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

I was taught to earn the acceptance of my peers, but the truth is, they all have their own individual reasons why they are in the field. Their goals don’t necessarily align with mine and their reasons surely don’t either. The goal is to develop and speak to your audience. I’m no longer concerned with the back of the room or acceptance of my peers. Rather I strive for respect given begets respect received. Outside of that, it is ALL about the audience.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

There’s not too many art forms that resilience as much as stand up comedy. In the beginning you STINK. It’s bomb after bomb after bomb. You’ve got to really want it and really convince yourself you see it before anybody else does. Even further along your career you’re going to bomb, have a bad set in front of someone you’re trying to impress, lose a competition, stumble through a punchline, forget words, stutter, so on and so forth. The saving grace is the amount of output stand up comedy allows you. You can fail on Monday and win on Tuesday.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.zakoryan.com
• Instagram: @zakoryan
• Facebook: @zakoryanofficial
• Youtube: @zakoryan