11 Observations About The Comedy Business

After five years in comedy, here’s some random things I’ve found to be true.

Pretty much nobody, no matter how many TV credits and how much money they have, is happy about where they’re at in the business. And if they are happy, they’re about to fall off creatively.
Everything takes three times as long as you feel it should.
It feels unfair in the short run, it might balance out in the long run.
Spend as little energy as possible focusing on what others are getting and just work on yourself. This gets harder the longer you’re around.
You can always improve.
Your ceiling and your floor both increase over time. For example, a set you’d consider amazing two years ago, you’d now consider a soft bomb.
Industry, bookers, everyone, is scared. In general, they want to make decisions that they won’t get blamed for if they’re wrong, more than they want to take risks they’ll get credit for if they’re right. Accept it and adjust accordingly.
You don’t need anyone’s permission anymore. If you wanna create something, just go create it. But having permission increases the odds it hits.
Keep creating things and keep moving the needle. All you can really control is to continue creating and polishing ideas.
Doing comedy you’ll meet some of the greatest, most interesting people in the world. You’ll also meet some of the craziest. Sometimes, that’s the same person.
The more often you remember that you love doing this, especially on the rougher nights, the happier you’ll be.

Wanna try stand-up comedy yourself? I teach a Comedy Class in NYC. I also do private one-on-one comedy coaching (in-person or via Zoom).

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