April 2022 – jj barrows

Hey friends,

As we venture further and further away from the year 2020 and that initial hit of a world pandemic, I just want to say thanks… to those of you who’ve hung around, bought my book, watched my comedy specials, and even more so shared my content with friends, and encouraged me along the way. It helps more than you know.

As I prepare for the year ahead, I have a lot of shows lined up. I’m excited to get back out there and I’ll soon be sharing a schedule where maybe I can see you live and in person! One thing I’ve always wanted to maintain no matter where I go or how far I get is my sense of self.

Last year I had the opportunity to film a project with the company A Kid’s Class About. For those who haven’t heard, AKCA a streaming platform designed for young kids to teens where they can discover careers, learn life skills and explore big ideas. The teachers break down challenging, empowering, and important topics in each class, begging the question: “Who do you want to be when you grow up?”

That’s such a loaded question for a young kid, and sometimes the younger you are, the easier it is to answer… the options seem limitless. I think though, as we get older, it gets tougher, to not only know what we want to do, but how we want to show up in the world

I had a chance to be one of the teachers for the platform, and while I am no expert on the topic, I was pretty excited to tackle… Authenticity. How abstract yet necessary to talk to kids about as they grow up in an ever changing world. And let’s be honest, authenticity is a topic for kids of ALL ages, even us grown up ones.

I may not know much, but I know as I pursue a life that involves entertaining people, I cling to these little things I know to be true about myself. I thought I’d share my “audition tape” here, as it came to be known, only because I originally didn’t know how to convey the importance of such an abstract idea, so I started by just sharing a little bit about myself.

Once we started the filming process, I was able to connect this idea of living authentically to how I approached learning how to surf, a beautiful and terrifying passion of mine. To find out more about A Kid’s Class About Living with Authenticity, watch the minute long trailer below, and visit https://app.akidsco.com/living-with-authenticity to view the syllabus and all the classes.

To anyone who is still hanging out here, or anyone new who may have come along in the process, this is me, the face and voice behind the words you’ll find here on this blog. I don’t tackle everything perfectly, but I try to show up and process as best (and as kindly) as I know how. I’m glad you’re here!