The Best Thing Comedy Ever Gave Me

It Wasn't What I Expected (Comedy Mindhacks #116)

A few years ago, I signed up for a class at a craft store in Hawai’i called Ben Franklin. My wife thought it was hilarious and, to be fair, she still thinks that. The class was on resin art, which is basically pouring chemicals into molds to make decorative pieces. I enjoyed it enough that I started bringing my creations home and displaying them around the house, which only provided my wife with additional material.

That wasn’t the only unusual class I’ve signed up for over the years. Recently, despite not being a therapist and having no plans to ever become one, I enrolled in an online therapy course. I’ve found it fascinating. Psychology, communication, motivation, and personal growth have interested me for a long time. If there’s a class that helps me better understand how people think and grow, there’s a decent chance I’ll eventually sign up for it.

Looking back, I’ve noticed a pattern in my life. Whenever I become curious about something, I eventually end up studying it. Sometimes the topic connects directly to my work but sometimes it’s indirect or maybe doesn’t connect at all. Either way, I’ve always been drawn toward learning. The whole “lifelong learner,” yeah, that’s me. I think I’m that way perhaps because part of me is constantly looking for evidence that growth is still possible.

Well, that eventually led me to another class that, at the time I signed up, made very little life sense. It wasn’t connected to my career as a pastor and it wasn’t connected to my academic background or any long-term professional goal at all. In fact, it arrived during one of the more difficult seasons of my life. The class was on stand-up comedy.

The timing couldn’t have been stranger. I wasn’t twenty-two and trying to figure out who I wanted to become. I wasn’t fresh out of college with unlimited time and very little to lose. By that point, I’d earned five degrees, published more than thirty books, given a TEDx talk, delivered roughly a hundred academic conference presentations, and spent more than eight years in therapy trying to better understand myself and my story. From the outside, my life looked fairly established.

If I’m honest, I think most people would’ve looked at my resume and assumed the major construction project of my life was finished. But I think deep down that I knew better. I had a career, a family, responsibilities, and a reasonably clear sense of identity. Yes, my life had a shape to it, but without realizing it, I had basically started treating that shape as if it was permanent. To me personally, that’s kinda scary.

So, what attracted me to comedy wasn’t the possibility of becoming famous, the dream of a Netflix special, or sold-out theaters. If anything, I started stand-up at a time when comedy itself felt increasingly risky. There were constant conversations about hate speech, offense, cancellation, and what comedians should or shouldn’t be allowed to say. Yet something about the challenge kept pulling me toward it.

That’s also why what happened next wasn’t what I expected. I didn’t suddenly discover some hidden talent that had been waiting patiently for decades. And I definitely didn’t become an overnight success. What I discovered instead was what it felt like to be a beginner again. Ahh, yes! What a great feeling! Many people hate that feeling and I get why: It’s a little scary. So, for me, after years of operating from expertise, I suddenly found myself operating from the rookie level again. And it was invigorating.

One of the things I love about comedy is that it doesn’t care about how many books I’ve written or how many degrees I have on my wall. It doesn’t care about my TEDx talk or my conference presentations. It cares if my jokes work. If a joke works, people will laugh, and if it doesn’t, they won’t. For the first time in a very long time, as I ventured into comedy, I wasn’t the established pastor, professor, author, or speaker. I was the nervous beginner hoping a joke worked. I was the guy rewriting material after a bad set. I was the person learning a completely new skill from scratch. After years of competence, I suddenly found myself surrounded by uncertainty again.

That turned out to be one of the healthiest experiences of my adult life or my life at all. As I’ve mentioned on this site numerous times, every bombed joke and bad set became evidence. Every rewritten joke and awkward silence became evidence. Every small breakthrough and gain became evidence. And here’s a truth that hit me like a freight train when reflecting on this stuff recently: All of this was proof that I could still grow.

I think many people stop collecting that kind of evidence. Understandably (in a way), they become good at something and stay there. They build an identity and begin protecting it. They develop expertise and gradually avoid situations that might threaten it. The result is often success but also a life that becomes increasingly comfortable but predictable. But for me, comedy interrupted that way of living. It’s repeatedly forced me to risk looking foolish and to fail publicly, for instance. It’s also forced me to develop skills I didn’t already possess. Most importantly, I think, it’s reminded me that growth and becoming is a lifelong process.

That’s the best thing comedy ever gave me. Not stage time, laughs, opportunities, or even friendships (although I’m super grateful for all of those things), but proof. Comedy has given me proof after proof after proof that I can still become someone new (which, by the way, is one of the great promises of the Christian faith, too): We can all become new. The older I get, the more valuable that evidence becomes. And quite paradoxically, the older I get, the more I can become new.

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