Meet a Scientologist—Yermain Manrique Keeps 'em Laughing

The video interview of Bogotá comedian Yermain Manrique, released September 25, is the latest “Meet a Scientologist” video on www.scientology.org and the YouTube Scientology video channel.

Yermain Manrique is a fun-loving guy who likes nothing more than to make people laugh.

“Being a comedian is wonderful,” he says. “You are making people feel good, so you’re helping them all the time.”

But, although he always knew what he wanted to do, it wasn’t until he looked into Scientology that he began to overcome the barriers preventing his making it in his chosen career.

“I enrolled on the Overcoming the Ups and Downs in Life course and that’s when my career started taking off,” says Manrique. “Before that, I would try, but I couldn’t seem to win. After that point, I did. To me, it was a miracle.”

What changed was his own attitude. His talent was always there, but this course helped him gain a new perspective about himself and his ability, which, he says, made all the difference. He stopped buying into criticism and negativity and began to concentrate on succeeding.

“There will always be people who want to bring you down,” he says. “You just have to set aside what they say about you and focus on your goals.”

Where success seemed to evade him before, it has become almost commonplace. And Manrique couldn’t be more delighted with the way things turned out.

“I love being a comedian because comedy makes people happy,” he says. “I believe we came to this life to be happy. To know that, thanks to you, someone has forgotten his problems—that is something no amount of money in the world can buy.”

The popular “Meet a Scientologist” profiles on the Church of Scientology International Video Channel at Scientology.org now total more than 200 broadcast-quality documentary videos featuring Scientologists from diverse locations and walks of life. The personal stories are told by Scientologists who are educators, teenagers, skydivers, a golf instructor, a hip-hop dancer, IT manager, stunt pilot, mothers, fathers, dentists, photographers, actors, musicians, fashion designers, engineers, students, business owners and more.

A digital pioneer and leader in the online religious community, in April 2008 the Church of Scientology became the first major religion to launch its own official YouTube Video Channel, with videos now viewed more than 8.1 million times.