We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Pej Ahmadi a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Pej, thanks for joining us today. We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.
I always had it in the back of my mind but allowed comfortability and safety take the wheel and it led to my major mood change and I lost my smile. That was until I rediscovered it waking up one morning at the age of 34 years old and everything changed from that moment.
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 lived the first 34 years of my life treating big changes presented to me as the wrong move when it came to my artistic careers. singer since the age of four and entertainer since my preteen years until now. My parents, especially my father really supported my singing and music career since I was 4 years old. However my itch for being funny always tickled my funny bone. My parents weren’t as crazy about that. Safe to say I got in my fair share of trouble being the one kid wanting to sit in a room full of Iranian adults teasing jokes and me chiming in always at the most inappropriate times. It was worth the trouble I’d get in I guess because I felt free when I’d get even one adult to laugh.
As I grew older I focused more on my music and eventually I allowed the “real” life take over. Though I earned my music degree and worked as a private and group music teacher I wasn’t feeding my cup anymore creatively. Fast forward to the age of 34 and I’m 5 years married not happy and severely lost my smile and melody. All of that changed one morning as I woke up in a separate bed than my then wife and it couldn’t be more clear to me what I had to do: pursue comedy and be who I was meant to be. That was the first day of me flipping my life back and have since then continuously been building on that career. Now I’m a few weeks short of my 38th birthday in Los Angeles in my car facing a Ralph’s grocery store on thanksgiving day 2023 and separated and I couldn’t be more proud of myself for pursuing my calling.
I should mention I’m a massive human rights activist as well and that could only be discovered within me when I decided to love myself and be kind to myself again. I wouldn’t have been able to remove that blindness have I not. It’s a daily challenge however I know that’s the basis to me achieving all my goals and more.
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
This would easily be me leaving everything I knew in Sacramento and pursue my career down here in LA. I left almost everything with my ex as well as my dog to come build on my goals. I miss my dog everyday and I have his photo on my phone to keep me smiling even in the hardest times. My ex and I are cordial, which helps a lot in me seeing his videos and photos every so often.
For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?
Sharing love and seeing people smile with all the reality and hardship that’s out there in the world.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://linktr.ee/pejthemaniac?utm_source=linktree_profile_share<sid=7f281a49-4e50-44dc-a250-a7ebbd477e90
- Instagram: @pejthemaniac
- Facebook: @pejthemaniac
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pej-pezh-ahmadi-1a536941?utm_source=share&utm_campaign=share_via&utm_content=profile&utm_medium=ios_app
- Twitter: @pejthemaniac
- Youtube: @pejthemaniac
- Other: TikTok- @pejthemaniac
Image Credits
Brian Carey