I showed this video to someone this week and was talking about how, when I was a younger and performing regularly, I wanted to do a 1-man show like this video featuring Reggie Watts. (The video is below, but please watch that last because I don’t want to lose you forever.)
What held me back was that I thought it was just a bit too weird. People wouldn’t sit through a stream of consciousness rant touching 9 different subjects per minute, meshing deep profundity and complete gibberish.
Ask anyone from one of my Improv groups and they’ll tell you that I’m not much of a singer. I actually have a nice-enough sounding voice, just no sense of rhythm I never know when to come in. So I’m a great back-up guy and love adding little flair bits. Never the lead though.
But I could do this sort of signing, ranging styles, tones, and time signatures.
What’s the point? Am I “Oh, So Cool” that I really could/should have done this sort of thing?
No. Quite the opposite.
The lesson is simple. Ideas are cheap. Ideas happen by the millions everyday. Everyone has at least a couple Every Day that could be turned into money; a song, a story, an invention, a character, etc.
What changes the world is implementation | action!
Sure, I could have done a performance like this. I was an improviser. I could make up stories songs, characters, scenes and jokes every night in front of dozens of paying customers, expecting to be entertained. I had no fear of failing in front of an audience. But did I do my one-man show? Nope!
It was fear and fear alone that kept me back from doing this or any other 1-man show.
But oddly, it didn’t FEEL like fear.
Your brain is a wicked trickster and it really only wants to keep you safe. When confronted, you will find a dozen conscious (and another dozen unconscious) reasons you shouldn’t do it OR other things that are more important Right Now.
You’re actually better off to FEEL afraid. At least then you’d have that trigger and you could think about it and make a choice to confront your fear.
But mostly it’s sneaky.
Here’s the trick: If you want to do/create/perform something and for some reason you don’t get it done, consider that you are simply afraid. It’s not always easy to do, but as long as you don’t get all judgemental about being afraid, then you can see that it’s fear and now you have a choice.
After realizing that it’s just that same old fear thing, you can now actually get things done.
Now imagine Reggie Watts preparing for his TED talk. Do you think his brain might have mentioned that TED talks are usually erudite elucidations of psychology, technology, ecology and other big-thinking ideas? His brain might have said, “Really? You’re NOT going to start with English?!?!?”
Thanks, Reggie for facing that and then doing it your own way!
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