Being a touring performer can be lonely. Sometimes I realize that I will go for 24 hours without ever speaking to another person. I am on planes, in airports, getting rental cars, checking into hotels, taking a nap, loading in and setting up. Then, seemingly magically, I am on a mic speaking for over an hour to hundreds of strangers and performing my show. Afterwards their is usually a few moments of pictures and high fives, followed again by an eerie silence as the room empties and I am left to pack out, head back to a hotel, clean up, sleep and then head back to the airport to do it all over again.

BUT

One of the nice things about traveling so much is that I now have friends and family all over the country that I am making an active point to try and connect with while I am away from home. My travel schedule is usually tight, but with forward thinking I can usually squeeze in a lunch or dinner with someone.

This week found me in Orlando Florida. I was scheduled for a late night show at UCF and my travel had me arriving in the morning. I called my cousin who just graduated from Texas Tech and moved out to Tampa for his first job out of college. I asked him if he would like to make the drive to Orlando and get some hang time, then come out to the show. He was stoked and made the trip. As he was driving to meet me around noon at my hotel, I realized that we could enjoy the time we had together driving around Orlando, or we could just jump in with both feet and go to Disney World!
I called up a friend who works for Disney, explained what I was looking to do and within 45 seconds got 2 comp tickets to get into all the parks. It was awesome. I called my cousin, who was stuck in Orlando traffic right next to Disney and told him to just park, I would meet him their shortly. I hauled ass to meet him and by 12:45 we were skipping through Disney World's EPCOT with childlike excitement. In 5 hours we were able to hit up Disney Springs, EPCOT, and Magic Kingdom, before we had to head back to the hotel, drop off is car and head to the venue for load in and sound check.

I can not stress how amazing the impromptu trip to Disney was. We had no stress for what we wanted to do. We had no agenda or map. We just walked around taking in the sights and sounds and street performances. We didn't have time to wait in lines for rides, so we got to explore the buildings and the vendors and really take in the park. I got to see people who were stressed with crying kids trying to drag them along so they could get to the next thing and have fun. Meanwhile they were missing out on the flowers and the birds and the beauty of the park.

I know that this kind of adventure is not the way most people would chose to do Disney, but it was a good reminder to me that you can't buy fun. Fun can be sitting home and making up a story. Fun can be having a light saber fight with Christmas wrapping tubes. Being at Disney doesn't guarantee fun. Being at Disney only gives you permission to let yourself have fun. I feel like in 5 hours we had more laughs and smiles and high fives than most people I saw there that day; many of whom were at the parks for days. My challenge to you is make sure you make joy a priority. YOU are the party. wherever you are at is the venue, and anyone can be on your guest list.