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When I started in show business, it was a completely different industry than it is now.

How do you stay relevant and keep building a career in an industry where stability is a myth?

Paul F. Tompkins knows better than most. Success doesn't mean security.

The thing I never got taught. At the time when things were going really good in the TV industry for me,

where I was working, things would come and go, but there was always in the back of one's mind that something will come

along.

Paul Lev Tompkins has been a fixture in comedy for decades, but even he has had to reinvent

himself to survive in an industry to keep shifting under his feet.

Now, I don't think you can say that.

I think you have to be the thing that comes along.

Paul's story might make you wonder if being really, really talented is enough.

The creative economy is broken, but some people are still trying to make it work.

We're here to find out how.

I'm Anna Marie Cox.

And I'm open Mike Eagle, and this is past due.

Hello, Paul. How you doing?

Mike, I'm doing okay. Thank you. How are you doing?

Good. I like the way you said okay. It sounded very authentic. Yeah. Like, it sounded like that's the right answer.

Yeah. And it's not, it's, it's a, it's a decent okay. You know what I mean? It's not, it could be worse.

It could be better. I like to say, I'm doing okay in Trump adjusted terms.

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