When performing on the street, I realized that I could make people laugh the whole show, but if I made them clap more, I would get more money.
Some theories on this phenomenon…
people thought if they clapped more they saw better stuff
it was a way of getting feelings engaged in the body
when you support something, you fall in love with it
the cue and response cycle of doing something and getting applause was rewarding
A lot of times entertainers think “they clapped because they had fun” but when I’m in a more helpful mindset, I think, “how can I get them to clap so that they have fun?”
Obviously you don’t want to tell people over and over to clap…
… but there are a million ways to give the crowd signals even when they’re not having fun.
I think they all kind of apply, but 4th is the strongest reason to work on getting more applause. I want entertainers to be leaders and guide the audience through every show.
Not everyone is suffering. Some people are thriving.
Same with businesses.
Business can move fast. Panera created a curbside grocery service at all their stores in 14 days
People can move slowly. Everyone’s dealing with psychological, geographical, and organizational issues from a quickly changing world. Schedules get changed a lot and that’s okay.
People are creating entertainment online. A lot of it.
Most stage performers moved to livestreaming shows, creating on-demand content, social media content, teaching, or writing to make money.
Many entertainment pros have been digging in to projects they have put off that are maybe truer to their hearts.
Entertainment screws up when it is approached from “how do we modify what we’ve done?” Instead of “what will the audience experience?”
In the newly, truly global economy every business needs to niche more than ever.
Information is not worth very much.
Conversations are worth a lot.
Most people feel like frauds. They don’t understand how valuable they are.
Most people are trying to offer a small part of themselves.
Most people think they need to convince the world that they’re valuable.
Making someone smile is incredible
Zoom entertainment is a different tempo than stage shows and different from TV
Doing something new means being one of the best in the world instantly.
Changing context takes a lot of energy.
People don’t want to ask for help, but they want to be helpful.
The popular things that can be bought from China will be better every three months.
Mindsets are usually better to practice than skills.
People started doing live interactive streaming entertainment. Suddenly, the small town performer who dominated her 40 mile radius was in competition with the world. Local performers from everywhere could do shows for her area and might be better… and might be cheaper.
This shift also affected the world-traveling entertainers in a weird way. Just like the local acts used to be specialists (the best fire eater you can afford in Pooptown, MA), the big acts were specialists (an act worth flying in). Everybody needs to fit a budget and needs to feel like the best available option.
“Experience” changed
Although there’s some experience from stage that rolls over to screen, people doing shows online are not able to bring all of their stage skills to the Zoom window.
“Budget” changed
Some online events became lower-stakes moments as online meetings, some became higher-stakes global playgrounds. So, the money allocated to entertainment shifted tectonically.
“Quality” changed
Many people got really lax with what quality needed to happen. Folks began accepting that things online would not be as good. Other people started looking at the leaders of the medium and wanting that — even though it might be out of their “budget”
Be best
The response to this situation is still for us to be the best choice for the exact people we want to serve. That might mean that we have completely different clients. That might mean that we change what we do completely. That might mean that we get back to the woodshed. That does not mean that we keep trying to do the same thing we did and hope that someone saves us.
When our main project is in our mission, we don’t need side projects.
I have been an explorer for a long time. I’ve learned a million skills, tried a million types of entertainment and I am here to tell you some of it works.
What doesn’t work is side projects.
Side projects are things we do in order to feed a certain part of us. Let’s say we love comedy writing and that’s what we want to do with our life, but we miss the stage, so an improv troupe is formed to do free shows… or at least shows that don’t earn anyone a reasonable rate. We might be drawn into doing something like this subconsciously because we…
are not feeling fulfilled in our main project
want a cop-out from achieving / not achieving our real goals
are not pursuing enough self-care
These are big problems with lots of facets. Before we try to fix, let’s look at what we’re not talking about…
A hobby is not a side project
A hobby is something we do to get away from work. It’s probably best not being in any way related to the work thing itself. It’s a way to rest and enjoy problem solving with low stakes. It’s self care. Hobbies (and everything else in life) can inform our work, but the power of a hobby is that it has a strong mental delineation for us and gives us a vacay.
If we’re thinking, “hey this hobby thing could lead to something big!” We’re hobbying wrong.
An experiment is not a side project
An experiment in our main project is a planned test to increase our results in that main project. To make it work, it needs constraints, goals, hypotheses and monitoring. It’s work.
Dissolve side projects by improving our mission
If we aren’t solid on our mission, or our mission is limiting us so much that we need to diverge; we might need to reexamine what our mission is. We might need to talk it through with some people and get clearer on what would make us feel fulfilled if we worked on it our whole lives.
Dissolve side projects by changing our main project
Maybe our main project isn’t on our mission. Let’s examine that. Let’s figure out what part of that project isn’t feeding us.
Dissolve side projects by changing our mindset
Sometimes it’s as easy as reminding ourself why we’re on this mission, why this project is a worthy next step, and the expected result of this work.
Dissolve side projects by adding accountability
Checking in with people who allow for candor and don’t allow for cheating ourselves gives us the opportunity to stay on task. If the mission is right and the project is right, all we have to do is keep on going.
Jeremy Carberry likes stepping into the unknown of nature, but now he’s stepping into the unknown of entertainment. He’s been behind the scenes a lot, but now he wants to scratch his own itch and make a podcast that he thinks must be heard.
I used to believe that production value was detrimental to presenting authenticity in performance. I thought a stripped down street performance as more real than a Hollywood movie. I was afraid to make things too polished as to avoid pushing my audience away.
Entertainment is fake
A painter uses paints (pigments that block light) to represent light. In entertainment, we artificially recreate a truth that resonates. If we show up and entertain people, we are not being completely true, but we’re connecting with truth. Any tools can be used to connect with that truth.
Nobody that cares thinks a bathroom wall writing is more real than a New York Times best seller.
This kind of thinking leads us to questions like “Which magician do you trust, the one with the nice suit or the one with the tshirt?” The answer is “Neither, they’re both freaking magicians!”
Higher value is higher risk
The waste sticks out to me when I experience an expensive production that falls flat. I wonder, “How could all this energy go into something without a story. Something that seems so meaningless.”
This is the real issue with big stuff. When things go bad, we notice. We know that these people really tried and they failed. When a street show goes bad, who even knows what the intentions are?
Try
My suggestion is always try. Higher production value is trying. Give more. Make a bigger promise and fulfill it. This is generous. This is what an audience deserves. Taking responsibility for a commitment is one of the greatest gifts we can give to anyone.
We’re sending signals here
If we’re afraid to add to production value, a good first step is to identify what’s important for us to convey. Then, we use production value (and everything else we do and have) to push that importance forward to our audience.
We could add in fancy makeup and lights and sound effects to try to cover up our insecurities.
It’s a simple question. “Am I using production value to distract from the important thing, or am I using it to clarify it?” The question is not “Do I improve production value?”
Picture of me at Coachella with handmade clothes and too many cops
This is my favorite way to easily light for a portrait. Get out of direct sunlight and let the ambient light outside a garage door light the subject. It’s pretty straight forward. The ultimate would be a black garage, but this white one with all the garage-type stuff does fine. I have an extra light for a kicker on the side, but it’s not necessary. Enjoy.
Seth Godin recently put out a podcast about protecting ideas which funnily sounds like it was written by me. I don’t spend a lot of time trying to protect my ideas.
I have faith that the things I create are not easy to implement
I like making new things because they need to be made
I know I don’t want to spend time fighting someone who steals my ideas
I know I have more ideas
Generosity comes from a feeling of security, but also security comes from generosity.
There are people in entertainment who spend a lot of time trying to protect themselves by putting up walls, by scraping every last cent out of people around them, by being savvy, by being litigious… There are other people in entertainment that just keep making and giving.
Recently, my wife started a meal train for one of these generous people. It blew up. Everyone jumped in without question and contributed because they knew who she was and that she deserved it.
I can not guarantee that having a potluck for neighbors every week is better for home security than getting a tall fence, but I know that it will help, and will allow us to live with more sunshine.
I’ve spent a lot of energy in my past waiting for a hero to save me creatively, financially, business-wise, socially, etc. The hero always came, but it was always me.
I want to remind my readers that we have a lot of awesome parts. If we survived this long, we’re making it work. Things might not be working perfectly. Things might not be how we’d like them to be in the future, but that’s what progress is for. We’re capable of living the life we’re living right now and we’re capable of great progress.
We must get help. Look for people who empower us. We will never find the person who knows us completely and can fix everything, but we can find lots of assistance toward being our own heros.
We are not a fan of everything that we follow on Twitter, so why do we hope for everyone who follows us to be a fan? The percentage for me is probably less than .5%. Also, the number of followers we have is not directly proportional to how many fans we have.
Sponsorships
We can get more sponsors / advertising partners by having a big following, but we don’t really escape the fandom game. We need those sponsors to be fans of our following. If we have no purchasing power or demographic to offer the sponsors, they’ll be sheepish about our flock.
My relationship with practice was not good as a kid. I thought practice was about non-stop self-criticism and really sinking in to the fact that I’m messing up over and over. “I’m not good enough” was the mantra.
We’re now in an age of over-educated and under-experienced creatives. We have so many ways to learn about our field. We can download anything ever made, but we don’t get our hands dirty.
The result is
Standups that can reference any comedian in history, but don’t breathe on stage
Writers making impossible allusions, but not connecting with our hearts
Film makers that make a gorgeous thing that doesn’t represent anything
Practice is a gift to the world
It’s a cop-out to practice something tangential to what we want to do. If we want to be a great musician on Zoom, we’ve gotta get on Zoom as much as possible and play our hearts out over and over. The more we can do the whole thing in a practice session, the better.
I’ve practiced a lot of things. Some things I didn’t know I was practicing until it was too late — I was already good at them. I learned a lot about how a good practice session works from juggling. There was my own practice, then teaching lessons.
Goals
People are motivated by service of people and a higher cause. Here are mantras in order of reverse helpfulness,
“I suck at juggling”
“I want to be a better juggler”
“I want to be a cool juggler”
“I want people to see juggling in a certain way that nobody else is doing it.”
We can take the focus off ourselves. We can be positive. Progress will still be made.
Session Goals
Each time we practice, the primary goal is to show up. If I commit to doing an hour a day of juggling practice and I juggle for an hour, that’s a 80% successful practice.
Sometimes, the stuff we do in the practice seems like a big leap forward, sometimes the opposite. Setting goals like, “I’m going to get 300 throws without dropping” is great for keeping focus, but not a good measuring stick of whether it was a successful practice. We can’t always see the progress, and the sucking is why we’re practicing. The sucking can be celebrated, because that day that I had crappy practice is a day that I didn’t share with crappy juggling with my audience. That was a hurdle I had to get over to make something better for the future. That better for the future is my bigger goal.
Children see progress
I believe an important part of why kids are so good at learning is they don’t have baggage. They don’t have success. When kids stumble, they think “Wow, I walked further than ever before!” instead of “I’m supposed to be good at walking. I’m a grown up!”
So, three things to steal from kiddos…
Forget past success
Look at progress
Don’t try to know how fast progress “should” come
Focus… But not too much
The best way for our bodies and minds to learn is not by squeezing things in our mind-vise, but by finding a lot of periods of relaxed focus. I want to get in a state similar to driving a car. Paying attention, but not tense.
Long enough
Once we get warmed up in our practice, our brain can make progress. Usually, it takes me at least 15 minutes to get warmed up for something. With juggling, I would feel warm when my skin started to itch a little with the first sweat. Then, my arms were ready to learn.
Safe space
In order to do all this gentle and present practice, we need a safe space to do it. The stakes must be low and it must be not too laborious to step in and do it regularly and a lot. So, if we want to get better at writing jokes or photography, we can set up an anonymous instagram or twitter account and pile them on. See if they work. We’re not trying to get noticed or trying to build whatever. We’re trying to practice – and we’re succeeding.
The message is not positivity or optimism or silliness or cleverness. The message is a story of resilience. Even our saddest great journeys have a glimmer of hope for the hero.
Let’s send out a beacon of buoyancy to the world today. That’s the light that spreads. Positivity without humanity is cynicism.
