Meet Tom Clark

We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Tom Clark a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Tom , thanks for sharing your insights with our community today. Part of your success, no doubt, is due to your work ethic and so we’d love if you could open up about where you got your work ethic from?
Definitely my parents. My mom was a social worker and always tried to make a difference in other peoples’ lives. It helped me to appreciate what I have. It also inspired me to help others in my career as a social worker and as a comedian.

My dad was also a big influence. I’ve never heard my dad utter a bad word about anybody and he always let his actions speak for themself. He never told me to work hard because I could see how hard he worked and that inspired me.

There’s a lot of ups and downs in a career in show business, so you really need that work ethic and that belief in yourself when things get difficult.

Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?
I’m very excited for the upcoming year as I have a new TV pilot that I wrote. I plan on doing a live reading and if that goes well shooting it on my own. With everyone shooting their own stand up specials, I think the next logical step is to shoot our own TV shows and movies. I think if something is good, you can get a lot of eyes on it without having to deal with studios and agents.

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
I think first you need resilience. There’s so much rejection in stand up comedy and when it first happens you think it’s the end of the world and then you kind of realize everyone’s so wrapped up in themselves no one really cares. So just keep moving forward.

Second, I think you need the ability to be content. Too often I see people pushing themselves so hard and I think you reach whatever goal you set and you think it’s going to make you happy and it doesn’t. I don’t think you should say static in your career, but I think you should take time to appreciate your accomplishments and bask in it. Also, you have to remember what the root reason you got into this line of work was…hopefully it’s the opportunity to make people laugh. I try to always keep that in mind because when I forget that I lose my way.

Third, you need to trust yourself and your ideas. Too often I’ve sat back and thought this would be a great idea, but I fail to act on it. It could be a joke or a sketch or even a movie and I dismiss it. A few years later I’ll see that idea and realize there’s a reason it was floating around in the ether, run with it and see where it goes. Maybe nowhere, but at least you sought it out to its conclusion.

What was the most impactful thing your parents did for you?
I think it was just letting me make my own decisions and trusting me. After college I really didn’t know what I wanted to do. They didn’t pressure me and I decided to take a few months to volunteer in Mexico–that turned into six months. I honestly thought it was going to be a fun vacation, but I ended up in Ciudad Juarez working with hard core gang members. It was both the scariest and most rewarding experience of my life.

Over time I gained confidence and I would play guitar for them. I was really into Nirvana, so I would play these hard core Nirvana songs, like Territorial Pissings and Lithium. They thought it was hilarious and terrifying. Once I performed for them I realized no comedy audience is ever going to intimidate me.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.tomclark.com
• Instagram: instagram.com/tomclarkcomedy
• Facebook: Facebook.com/tomclarkfanpage
• Twitter: twitter.com/tomclarkcomedy
• Youtube: YouTube.com/tomclarkcomedy
• Other: tiktok.com/tomclarkcomedy

Image Credits
Tom and Drew Carey Tom, Steph Clark, Norm MacDonald Tom Steph Clark, Nate Bargatze Tom and Conan