“My path through life has been fabulously strange,” says Michael C. Bryan, who at one time or another has been an actor, a motivational speaker, and an executive assistant to some big names in the entertainment industry. “People tell me, ‘Wow, you’ve had a really interesting journey to where you are.’” And where he is at the moment is in front of a keyboard, hammering out a pilot for a television show. It’s based on his experience as a life coach at the company he founded more than three years ago, MCBHappier. The show isn’t a satire about what he does for a living—he takes his work seriously—but it is very, very funny.
We all want more from life. And wanting more, when the world is determined to make us behave in the way they want us to behave, is a radical way of living. Anything else leads to the unhappiness that is so prevalent right now.
“I’ve gotten great feedback about the show,” the WeWork Bryant Park member says. “People who are spiritual really love it, and people who think spirituality is a crock of [bull] love it because the main character is so cynical about it as well.” It’s not the first time that the 52-year-old entrepreneur has turned to his own life for inspiration. His childhood was the basis for a memoir and a play. As for writing, he’s taking the advice he gives his own clients: always look for a sense of meaning and purpose in life. “I’m going back to writing,” says Bryan, “which I was born to do.”