No Excuses Leadership

Develop Your Set

There’s a great documentary called The Comedian.  It’s the story of two comedians and their journey to develop their act, or “set”.  One of them is a famous guy named Jerry Seinfeld.  Maybe you’ve heard of him?  In any case, it’s fascinating to watch the dedication it takes to develop a 30-60 minute routine of jokes and stories worthy of making people laugh.  While far more complex than I can describe in a single post, the documentary basically comes down to Jerry delivering and learning from three types of jokes or “bits”.

First: Which bits make people laugh right away and in so doing are worthy of repeating.

Second: Which bits bomb immediately and have zero potential to be made better.

Third: Which bits get mixed reviews but can be modified. These can become much better through fine tuning found in the way he changes the inflection in his voice or the timing of his delivery.

Throughout the documentary you will see, contrary to popular belief, none of this comes easy to Jerry.  Making people laugh requires work.  Real, dedicated, hard core, all in commitment, detailed planning kind of work!

TAKE ACTION

Clearly, you and I aren’t trying to be stand up comedians, but there are lessons we can learn from the process that Jerry Seinfeld goes through.  We can start by asking ourselves:

What can I do to create laughter and fun on my campus?

What have I been doing that I may think is fun, but others really don’t seem to want to participate in?

What do I need to modify in order to make the things we are already doing a lot more enjoyable?

Answering these questions will put you on a pathway to develop your "set" and make laughing mandatory on your campus.

BE BOLD

You may find the first 11 minutes of this video interesting:

"Jerry Seinfeld's Top 10 Rules for Success"

(If nothing else, watch 8:10-8:49 and see the connection to this post.)