3 Comedians on Life and Career Success

I’m doing some early-summer traveling, and in the interest of recharging my batteries a wee bit, I thought it might be a good time to share a few of my favorite kinds of videos – comedians giving commencement addresses. A few laughs plus some wisdom and life advice tossed in? What could be better?

Below are three of my favorites:

Steve Carell @Princeton

On the things that technology has stolen from us, and the best advice his parents ever gave him.

Charlie Day @Merrimack

On failure, and making choices that define one’s career.

Conan O’Brien @Dartmouth

On what happens when your worst fear actually does come to pass.

Ack! After Countless Hours of Practice...
Why Are Performances Still So Hit or Miss?

For most of my life, I assumed that I wasn’t practicing enough. And that eventually, with time and performance experience, the nerves would just go away.

But in the same way that “practice, practice, practice” wasn’t the answer, “perform, perform, perform” wasn’t the answer either. In fact, simply performing more, without the tools to facilitate more positive performance experiences, just led to more negative performance experiences!

Eventually, I discovered that elite athletes are successful in shrinking this gap between practice and performance, because their training looks fundamentally different. In that it includes specialized mental and physical practice strategies that are oriented around the retrieval of skills under pressure.

It was a very different approach to practice, that not only made performing a more positive experience, but practicing a more enjoyable experience too (which I certainly didn’t expect!).

If you’ve been wanting to perform more consistently and get more out of your daily practice, I’d love to share these research-based skills and strategies that can help you beat nerves and play more like yourself when it counts.

Click below to learn more about Beyond Practicing, and start enjoying more satisfying practice days that also transfer to the stage.

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If performances have been frustratingly inconsistent, try the 4-min Mental Skills Audit. It won't tell you what Harry Potter character you are, but it will point you in the direction of some new practice methods that could help you level up in the practice room and on stage.

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