Brian Regan’s 10,000 Hours
This weekend, I had the amazing opportunity to see Brian Regan at the Wells Fargo Theater in Denver, in the center of the 7th row. Not only is Brian the cleanest comic many can name on the circuit, he also brought in a sold out crowd of people ranging from probably 7 years old to about 60 + years old. Pretty impressive. As a special treat, his older brother, Dennis opened for him. I looked behind me as the lights dimmed. I turned to Anne, my gorgeous date and beautiful girlfriend, and told her, “THIS is what I dream of doing one day – being on stage in front of this many people and making them laugh and happy.” She quickly informed me that THIS was every comedian’s dream. The fact of the matter is, seeing the best stand-up comic show of my life a few nights ago has inspired me to continue working even harder to try and get where I want to be with comedy.
I am also in the process of reading “The Outliers” by Malcom Gladwell. I don’t know why I haven’t read this earlier, but I just haven’t gotten out to buying it until a friend offered it to me. It takes 10,000 hours of practice to become an master at whatever it is you do. Am I currently a master at anything? Sure. I’ve spent countless hours over the past 24 years being lazy. However, I think I’m in a pretty big crowd of people who can make the same claim of expertise. The good and bad thing about comedy is that there is a level of ambiguity as to WHAT that 10,000 hours of effort really needs to be put towards. Is it 10,000 hours of writing? Being on stage? Making people laugh? Networking and being around the comedy scene? I think it is a combination of all of those. I am remarkably lucky to not be forced into being funny in order to live right now, as I have a full-time job outside of comedy. Notably though, to my detriment, I do not have the time to focus on writing for comedy and getting on stage. I don’t need to, so it’s not always first on my mind. While many others are sitting with pen and paper, thinking of new jokes to craft, I am “relaxing” throughout the workweek , merely writing down the funny things that I encounter in my life.
The important thing is to remind ourselves of where we want to be with our passions. Do I want to be at Brian Regan’s level REALLY? No. Do I want to let my passion play itself out at a higher level than it does now? Most definitely. With that, comes the practice that I need to put in, and the idea that sometimes, putting too many things on our plate at once can lead to an increasing amount of time to get to our end-goal of expertise and contribution. That doesn’t mean we can cut the hours necessary to perform at that level short. However, being funny in the right place and at the right time can certainly help in one’s success. To plan out that scenario isn’t always something we can do. The only thing we can do is prepare for when that moment may come, else work even harder to achieve the level of expertise we desire.
