Hello! I'm Brett and welcome to brettleake.com, motivationalcomedian.com, corporatecomedian.com, and geniuswithaj.com. I'm glad you're here.

I've redesigned the site with meeting planners in mind. You'll find my presentations more clearly described, promotional materials, and a six- minute video compilation tape of my five appearances on NBC's The Tonight Show along with video from the presentations, as well. Mike Morgan, my web designer has done a nice job packaging the videos at several resolutions so they can be available to more folks. If you should have any questions or comments about the site, please do not hesitate to contact Mike or me.

On a personal note, in the acknowledgment section, you'll find a special thank you to comedians, friends and family members who have made my career possible. Also, for those fortunate enough to travel, I've included some authors and websites that have made my 'getting there' more fun and my 'being there' more rewarding.

A 'Shout Out'
Another thanks goes out to clients, comedy lovers, and friends who have written to see how I'm doing or just to say 'hi'. I'm well. The scooter is a new addition and a timely one. It has provided me an opportunity to see if 'I walk my talk.'

A Confession
In the Name of Science

I talk the brave game, the one about 'with every closed door, a new one opens.' But as a man of science, Bretticus Experimenticus, I try to live the life examined, too. The task at hand was to reconcile the two - how could I prove that the joy I felt after making a change was greater than the feeling I would have felt not having changed?

Several times over the course of this slowly progressive disease, I have felt great relief letting go. Passing through the door brought joy. But, how could I be certain the happiness I felt was due to making a change? Doing nothing could have been the better way and easier to boot. Not much of a motivational speech, though. Was there a way to have the experience of both, compare them, and then choose to stay or proceed? To resolve this question, I was sure, would be doing science a big favor.

But how? Who would be my subject? Ideally, I needed someone who was participating in each part of the experience. I needed someone who could tell me what life was like before and after the door. I needed someone caught in the middle - unable to stay put but afraid to move forward. But who...?

Enter Pigeon...
I looked to myself. Was there some change going on in, say, my life that was met halfway? Aha! An idea! For the past few years, I had used a wheelchair at home but refused to use one on the road. What if, for the sake of science, I continued to use a mobility device in the relative safety of my own home, all the while I continued to walk in public, picking my way across slippery streets, gravel, minefields of stray gumballs? Maintaining the way I knew and the way I had always done it at the risk of landing flat on my face; health and career in jeopardy spending much of my energy placing one foot safely down then the other and half perceiving the world around me. Stuck in the doorway of change. Me as a subject and mine as the method was a masterstroke. Nearly hung up in the doorjamb so perfectly situated was I. More than ingenious, it was genius with a 'j'.

Best of all, this approach would require little change indeed. Putting off public use of a wheelchair was just the most recent change forestalled. For years, I had refused to sit on a stool to perform standup. Didn't want to be called on the carpet by a literalist now did I? A taste of my own medicine.

And, I liked the image of not bowing to change: "People admired it." I was, indeed, just the man for the job. The stars had aligned right under my nose. Subject and method, in place, awaited lights, camera, action.

A Fly in the Ointment...
Mother!    How did she get involved? Stay outa' this, Mom. This is between me and the love of knowledge.

A Speedy Resolution
Tiring quickly of the scientific method, she bought "Doohickey" at a yard sale for $400. A fifth of full retail! She pushed my button, the biggest button I've got, and science lost. I'm nothing if not frugal and it was love at first sight. I took to my better half immediately and it took to me, too. In the first year alone, we traveled to the edge of Bryce and Grand Canyon, up and down the boardwalk at Hermosa Beach, California, across Seven Mile Bridge in the Keys, and up to and alongside a bush pilot plane that then whooshed me off to Anaktuvak Pass in Alaska's Brooks Range. In the months that followed, I would approach Camel's Hump in Vermont, ride beside an esker and to the base of a three hundred year old white pine, the 'Grandmother Tree', in the Adirondacks, and travel to Westland, New Zealand and see its podocarp forest, the fern trees of the Cenozoic, breathing in the clean air of one of the world's last, still-standing examples of living coal. One door closed another opened letting in a brave new world at five miles per hour.

Results
Money — saved
Life-affirming message — reaffirmed
Experiment — a disaster
Mother — happy

I even got to feel the wind blowing through my hair. And, at 43 with not much hair left it was just in the nick of time.

"Let go and let in"
I'll keep preaching it until I get it.

I'm having more fun than ever and I think I might be performing better, too.

I hope you find what you're looking for here.

Thanks for everything. I'm grateful...

To change,
And To life,