Leading With His Chin

Reading "Leading with My Chin" by Jay Leno

I was laughing most the time when I read this book, which prompted a waiter to ask what the book was about. Jay Leno always sees the funny side of life. Because of his job as a comic, he'd been turned down and ridiculed many times that it's just amazing he didn't give up early on. His love for his parents, his humorous childhood escapades, his hard life on the road, all his odd jobs are some of the funniest -- and inspiring -- stories of his life.

As I go through this pivotal moment in my life, Leno's life is, somewhat, an inspiration. I realize that with his persistence and his hard work, there was really no way he could have failed. A lot of people, too, helped him along the way, come to think of it, even those who tried to bring him down gave him the tenacity to persevere with his trade. I remember this quote: when you walk with purpose and perseverance, the world will step aside and let you pass. This is so true. People who have no goals and just drift through life will give way and, even, help someone who moves with purpose and determination.

Leno is very persistent:

"To audition in places like Catch a Rising Star and The Improv, we would start lining up outside the clubs at two in the afternoon with hopes of getting onstage sometime after eleven that night. You'd spend your whole day sitting in the curb, waiting and waiting. Inevitably, somebody in front of you would say, "This sucks!" and walk away. I always enjoyed that. All of a sudden, I had moved up! Without doing a thing, my standing had just improved! That process seemed to encompass my philosophy in life."

"The point is, any idiot can have a life. If you're breathing you've got a life. I've never been better at anything than anybody else. Which meant that I would always just have to work a little harder to keep up or maybe even pull ahead. Like the turtle who raced the hare, I plowed forward, slow and steady. Even if it meant sitting on curbs all day or sleeping on the back steps of comedy clubs all night."

I guess, this story summed up how I felt when I decided to make the crucial change in my life, too. From the book:

"One comic I knew just left for California and, within a few months, POW!, he was booked on The Tonight Show."

"That night, I was back in my Boston apartment, watching the Tonight Show. The comic did okay, nothing special, but there he was --- performing ten feet away from Johnny Carson's desk. I thought, "Geez, I often did much better that this guy when we played clubs together." And I couldn't shake the thought. Now my gut was burning and I knew it."

"I'd already quit my job at Foreign Motors to focus on comedy. Now it was time to make the next big decision. If I stayed in Boston, I would want to have a nicer apartment or a better car --- and suddenly I'd be stuck there, married to these possessions. In such pivotal moments, you either stay or you go. I imagined there'd been a fire in my apartment -- which wasn't far from the reality of what a dump it had become! What would have I really lost? A refrigerator? A christmas tree?"

"Sometimes before The Tonight Show ended that night, I just said, "That's it. Let me call the airlines and book the next flight to California."

"Which is what I did. I told the neighbors that they could take anything of mine that they wanted. I packed up whatever else I needed and just walked out of the door. And that was that."

It took him more than a decade before he eventually became the host of The Tonight Show.
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