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The practice that reinvented my speaking business was stand-up comedy. I am a youth motivation speaker with an expertise in substance abuse prevention. Until recently, I was known as a good speaker with real world prevention experience who uses interaction to engage the audience. Stand-up comedy took my developing career and made dramatic improvements.

My speaking mentor, Kevin Wanzer, encouraged me to be myself on stage and continually work to improve my skills. I never knew that his advice would apply so well to developing comedic abilities.

In 2000, I took a stand-up comedy workshop at a community college. As a PhD candidate and a perpetual student, I liked the idea of tackling comedy in the classroom setting. To my surprise, much of the introductory course was devoted to stage presence and learning to write material. Both of these skills I developed through speaking. Honestly, my material was not that funny when I started, but I had strong stage presence with a good underlying sense of humor.

Comedy changed my speaking business when I started doing comedy every week and injecting the appropriate material into my programs. In the beginning, I went to open mics and basically worked through being a terrible comic. Approximately, one year into the journey, I discovered a long lost cousin who happened to be a professional comedian. His name is Joe Matarese and he has a long list of credits, including Last Comic Standing. More importantly, his act is incredible. I had never seen anyone connect so well with an audience. The crowd loved him because he was himself and he was very funny. Following the show we met and hit it off right away. Within days, he was getting me guest spots of five to 10 minutes at clubs and colleges.

He provided two things that helped developed me into a professional comedian: guidance and repetition. Joe steered me away from hack jokes about airplane food and towards material about my life. The best part was the jokes fit in so well in front of speaking audiences. Suddenly, I went from being a good speaker with real world experience to well rounded speaker and comedian. This improved my marketability and my passion for the stage. Today, I perform often at top clubs like Caroline’s on Broadway and the Stress Factory in New Jersey. I still have much room for improvement, but I’m on the right path. Coincidentally, I’ve recruited Joe into professional speaking. It’s the least I could do.Matt Bellace, MS, MA, is a youth motivational speaker and comedian living in Hoboken, N.J. To contact him, visit wwww.mattbellace.com.