Steve Hofstetter has been doing stand-up comedy almost twenty years. Without spoiling the end of the book for you, he hasn't died, he hasn't quit, and he hasn't become a household name. Instead, he has achieved a level of success somewhere in between. That success was built on a large amount of failure, and this book is the story of the roller coaster of Hofstetter's first six years as a stand-up comic.

The experiences Hofstetter went through shaped him and allowed him to learn that his stupid dream wasn't so stupid after all. But how do you know whether or not your dream is stupid? How do you know you're not wasting your time trying to become a comedian or a singer or an accountant or a florist or whatever it is you want to be? Most of the time, there's no way to know if your dream is valid unless you try to follow it.

The most common question any comedian gets is "how did you start?"

Hofstetter started as a comic in 2002, before the existence of social media, podcasts, and YouTube. The avenues he eventually used to become successful weren't invented yet. If you're starting now, that might be the case for you, too. Maybe your hologram will be a huge hit. Maybe you'll fail on earth but be a big draw on the moon. Or maybe you'll crush it on the successful re-boot of MySpace. That last example may be far-fetched.

How Hofstetter started and how you'll start are two completely different things. The reason Hofstetter wrote this book is not so you can see how he started, but so you can see how he pivoted. Hofstetter wrote this book because people struggling, regardless of their field, shouldn't feel like they're alone.

If you've already started your journey, a lot of these stories will be relatable, especially when things went wrong. But if you're scared by the failure, that is the best way to know your dream is stupid. Everyone who has ever made it to the light at the end of the tunnel had to get through the tunnel first. And if you're too scared to start crawling, you'll never make it to the part where you get to stand up.