No replacement for doing it

“If you had 8 weeks to get someone ready to do 5 minutes on stage at an open mic, what would you do?”

In his book Tools of Titans, Tim Ferriss compiled standout moments from his nearly 800 podcast interviews with top performers in various fields. One interview stuck out to me with comedian Whitney Cummings, in which Ferriss asked that question. 

Cummings responded with perfectly ordinary advice. “I would get them on stage the first night [and] every night for all of the 8 weeks, whether they have material or not,” Cummings said. She went on to say, “The material is like 10% of it. Being comfortable on stage is all of it. So I would say, just get on stage.” 

Stand-up comedy is a notoriously difficult and unforgiving art form. Even successful comedians say their jokes regularly “bomb” when they’re performing new material. Cummings is saying that experience and confidence are the most important things. In such a high-stakes environment, those who have been there before will be able to focus and deliver.

There’s no replacement for doing it. You can read about it, talk about it, listen to podcasts about it, plan for it, vision-board it, and dream about it. But none of those things teach you even close to the amount you will learn once you finally…do it. 

Why delay the doing of the thing you constantly dream about? Nothing is as useful as experience or confidence. The internet age gives us all the tools we need to get started.

At this point, if you’re still procrastinating, it might just be perfectionism and ego.