I'm incredibly inspired right now. I just got off the stage I shared with my improv troupe, Bull Skit. But I wasn't back to do improv. Not the way I used to anyway.
This time I was there to do a set of stand up, alongside Zachary Landry, and then we let the crowd pick our topics. Fully improvised stand up comedy. Even my fellow improvisers, people who make up amazing things every week, were terrified for us. I'm not going to pretend that either of us delivered pure gold, but that wasn't really the goal. It was more, "Can we even pull this off at all?"
And yes. We did that!
How it was going to go was secondary to doing it at all.
Tonight was just one of many nights that drove the same lesson home. I dug into the backlog of this blog and found this:
Two years ago, that was me trying to push past my own fears and need for perfection. The last few weeks have been me on the other side of that and moving further away from those issues every day.
I had the chance to teach an intro to stand up workshop, because while I'm no pro, I can definitely pass on what I've learned on my journey so far. The one lesson that I tried to pass on that hit me hardest was:
"Don't overestimate the stakes of any situation. No matter how great or terrible you think a set went, when you wake up tomorrow, you'll be the only person who was in that room who's still thinking about it. Even if it was extra memorable in either direction, That statement still runs true the day or week after. People are too self-involved to reflect on what you did that one night."
I'm a struggling, unknown, amateur comedian. People still notice me more for my day job then anything comedy related. And there's SO. MUCH. FREEDOM IN THAT! I don't have to play it safe. I don't have a career to ruin. If I stink up an open mic, there's another one coming the week after. I can screw up. Get weird. Take risks. Say yes to every challenge.
And no matter how any of that goes, everything is going to be fine. Better than fine, because I'm not worried about the result. I don't have to be. I just have to do the thing, and learn from the thing. That's it!
-Six months ago, I looked at roast battles and said to myself, "I'm not that kind of comedian". That was fear of failure talking. Now I've done three that went passably well, and I'm gearing up for my next one. And at one of those battles, a veteran comic gave me some kind words and told me "when you've got thirty minutes ready, let me know and you can head on the road with me." At the time, that felt like a really high hurdle to jump. A month ago, I did my first twenty minute set, and my first thirty is four weeks away. I just decided to try.
-A year ago, running my own show seemed like a dream. Six shows later, I'm a comedy promoter.
-Even then, I was baby-stepping my way into it, then Simon King called looking to partner up on some dates in the area for early December. The rub was I had to cold-call a handful of venues to try to book the shows. That was scary, but yesterday I booked a show that could make me hundreds of dollars.
-There are guys in my scene that two years ago were way ahead of me. Then I shifted focus and committed to getting at it. I just hit one hundred sets this month. Three months ago I was barely over seventy. A year prior less than half of that. Now, I feel I'm passing those guys. Not because I'm funnier than them. I'm just doing more. Pushing myself. Just plain trying.
Which leads me to tonight, where I decided to face forty people, and have them shout things like "Addiction treatment!" "Jello Shots!" and "Russian Hackers!" at me, and had to try to deliver comedy on the spot about them. Was it scary? Kind of, yeah. Did I kill? Not hardly. But did I prove to myself that it's something I can do? Yep.
Most of the things above didn't execute to perfection. None of them really. But if I hadn't tried them, I'd be back where I already was. And failing any of those things wouldn't have put me back any further than that. I lost nothing by trying. NOTHING! I didn't let doubt or anxiety slow me down. I didn't let others talk me out of them.
By traditional standards, I'm nowhere near "success". I'm not making money at this. No one knows me yet. My material and stage presence have a long way to go. But I'm pushing and challenging myself, and taking something away from every swing and miss. That feels like a win. Or at least puts me a position to win when the time comes.
Keep trying everybody,
B
