How To Fail, Keep Going, And Get Better
My Ego Got Exposed In Nashville (The Green Room #1)
Welcome to “The Green Room,” an exclusive area of MichaelHalcomb.Live. Here I open the door to paid supporters only and share real stories from the trenches.1 My hope? That this’ll create momentum for me and you. So, I encourage you to share and get real so we can help each other improve. Here we go…
A few weeks ago, I got booked on a Nateland lineup in Nashville, TN. By all measures, it’s a fantastic gig. I was excited when I got the email, excited when I got the details, and excited right up until I looked closely at the schedule. That’s when I noticed something my ego immediately wished it hadn’t noticed: I had the shortest set on the entire lineup.
Comedy has a funny way of making hierarchies visible. In most professions, status is hidden behind office doors, job titles, or organizational charts. In stand-up, the hierarchy is often sitting right there on the schedule for everybody to see. Who closes, who features, and who gets the longest set all tell a story about where people stand. When I saw my time slot, I instantly knew exactly where I ranked that night, at least in the booker’s mind and everyone else’s mind.
For a few minutes, I found myself doing what countless comedians do when they stop focusing on the work and start focusing on the scoreboard. I started looking at the other names on the lineup and quietly