I Bombed Last Night
Some Reflections On What A Bad Set Can and Cannot Tell You
Last night, I bombed. It wasn’t the kind of bomb where nobody laughed at anything. By my count, for a 3-minute set, I probably earned 4 genuine and decent laughs. That, of course, is better than complete silence for 3 minutes. But it was nowhere near what I’d hoped for, especially in a comedy competition where every laugh matters. Looking back, I think I can point to several reasons why it happened.
First, I performed 3 minutes of completely, 100% new material that I had written only a week earlier. Second, I briefly stumbled over a couple words in one section. Third, I was in my head before the show about tripping over the opening line because I kept changing it throughout the day. Fourth, I had to cut out two tags, one about catalytic converters and another about cooper wire, because the night before someone had a completely different joke but it included that imagery. So, I was deleting stuff. Fifth, I added a joke at the top that I had come up with earlier in the day that wasn’t part of the original. Sixth, I repeated a punchline that was a tag. I thought the audience didn’t hear it, but I’m pretty sure they were just still laughing at the punchline before the tag. So, I ended up stepping on one of the few laughs I actually earned. Ugh!
That gives you just a tiny glimpse of what often goes through a comedian’s head before or even during a set. Especially with new material, there can be a lot of questioning, changing, on-the-spot editing, and so on. I just wrote about how preparation can be a liability when you’re so prepared you have no flexibility to change things. But sometimes you can also sabotage your preparation by changing things too much and that becomes a liability, too.
Anyway, one thing that’s crazy about it all to me is how quickly my mind began trying to convince me the performance meant something much bigger than it actually did. This is all part of a 3-day competition and during the day there are workshop sessions and whatnot. At one of the sessions earlier in the day we had an instructor emphasizing how important it is to kill when you’re in front of people who matter. I did the opposite. With that in mind, before I even left the stage, I could feel my brain trying to turn this disappointing performance into a conclusion about me.
Again, it’s just crazy how that happens. It’s crazy how one bad interview, for example, suddenly convinces us we’re terrible with people. Or how one failed business venture becomes proof we’re not cut out to be entrepreneurs. Or how one awkward conversation leaves us wondering if we’ve always been socially inept. In such instances, we rarely stop at evaluating the event itself and, instead, we quietly allow a single outcome to become a verdict about who we are.
The strange thing is that we almost never do this with others. If a friend burns dinner, we don’t conclude they’ll never cook another good meal. If our child strikes out during a baseball game, we don’t assume they’ll never get another hit. We instinctively understand that one moment exists within a much larger story. Yet, when we’re the ones who fail, our perspective suddenly shrinks until all we can see is the latest disappointment. It really sucks and, to make matters worse, I’d actually gone into this feeling good about this particular set of 100% new stuff.
My decision to perform all brand-new material hadn’t felt reckless because the jokes had shown real promise. I’d performed the bit for my family a few days earlier and they were laughing hard. My college-aged daughter even looked at me and said, “Dad, I think that’s your best bit yet.” It’s amazing how much confidence one encouraging comment can create, especially when it comes from people whose opinions matter to you.
Of course, my family wasn’t lying to me. They genuinely laughed. But they were also my family and they were there and knew the content from a firsthand perspective. They already knew me. They understood the world of the story before I ever opened my mouth. A room full of strangers however? Not so much! Those strangers owed me nothing, and that’s exactly why their reaction mattered more. Essentially, they helped me discover that my material wasn’t nearly as finished as I’d imagined.
After my set ended, I walked to the back of the room and spent the rest of the evening watching comedian after comedian walk onstage and do well. Some crushed. Some really had the room going. Sitting there, it’s incredibly easy to compare some of my worst 3 minutes to someone else’s great or even good 3 minutes. If I’m not careful, admiration quietly transforms into discouragement, and discouragement begins whispering conclusions the evidence simply doesn’t support. At the same time, I know that when I’m genuinely happy for others, it’s easier to get out of my own negative headspace. So, I was glad to see some friends and others do really well.
Still, I’ve been doing comedy long enough to recognize my negative thoughts for what they are. They aren’t objective observations. They’re really just emotional interpretations masquerading as facts. And all of this is a process of learning to separate identity from information. Literally, every single performance produces information. It tells us whether a premise is working, whether a transition drags, whether a punchline lands, or whether a story still needs another draft. What it never produces is a final verdict about who we are.
A bad set may tell me something about my material, my preparation, or my execution, but it doesn’t suddenly reveal my value as a comedian or as a person. Ironically, I think success can distort our thinking almost as much as failure can. One great performance tempts us to believe we’ve finally figured everything out, just as one terrible performance tempts us to believe we’ve never belonged in the first place. Both reactions ask a single event to carry far more weight than it was ever designed to bear.
The reality is: Growth isn’t built on isolated moments. Growth’s built on patterns repeated over time. Looking back this morning, I’m actually grateful for last night’s set, even though I certainly wouldn’t want to relive it. The audience gave me a kind of feedback my family couldn’t provide. They exposed places where the story wandered, where the punchlines weren’t yet earning their keep, and where my execution still needs work. None of that felt enjoyable in the moment, but all of it became valuable once the sting began wearing off.
The audience told me, for example, that the story still needs work. They showed me where the pacing drifted, where the punchlines weren’t earning their keep, and where my execution still needs tightening. What they didn’t tell me was whether I’m funny. They didn’t tell me whether I belong on stage. They certainly didn’t tell me who I am. Does my bit still need work? Absolutely. And they helped me realize that. But there’s an important distinction between a bit being unfinished and me being untalented. So yeah, I bombed last night. But I’ll learn from it, keep moving forward, and try to improve the bit. That’s how stand-up comedy goes.
Along the same lines, let me just say that, if reflections like this are helpful to you, that’s exactly why I wrote Comedy Mindhacks. My goal isn’t simply to help comedians write better jokes. It’s to help comedians understand the invisible thinking behind better comedy. Every mental model becomes another tool for building momentum, and over time those small shifts in thinking have a way of producing much bigger shifts on stage.
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