Chapter 12
I'm the most patiently impatient person I know. On the one hand, I believe in making shit happen as soon as possible. Cut out the crap that wastes time or doesn't make sense to do. Cut corners as long as you are not hurting anyone physically, emotionally, or financially. If you ask for permission from someone else you are going to wait a long time to do what you want to do.
On the other hand, I can play the long game. Yes, I'm trying to make shit happen now, but I also have my eye on a much longer play down the road. I can wait out the idiots, the bureaucrats, the haters, and the cowards.
What I lack in talent, and it's a lot, I make up for in the ability to keep coming back again and again and again. I can accept short‐term setbacks because my goal is not immediate gratification but to be standing there at the end, however long it takes.
To both stay in the game and move it along, you need to be patient and impatient. If all you are is constantly impatient, you will oftentimes become frustrated at the perceived lack of progress. Everything can seem like it is taking an excruciatingly long time to move forward.
This often leads to discouragement and ultimately giving up on whatever it is you are pursuing. Chronic impatience can lead to a person starting a bunch of different projects but never completing anything. If you are in a leadership position, constant impatience can dramatically increase the stress and anxiety of your subordinates.
If you are patient to the point of accepting everyone else's timelines, you are going to waiting forever, sister. If you never force the issue, state your desires, or ask for what you want, you are going to be sitting at that cubicle for a long, lonely time.
Nobody is going to be running up to you breathlessly asking for your brilliant idea or opinion. You will be home on Friday night writing a book that no one has asked for (wait a second, that's what I'm doing right now). Life moves by incredibly fast. While patience may be a virtue, it can also be a sin in regards to making shit up and moving things along.
I have found that being impatient in regards to taking action is extremely powerful. Relentlessly push along the things that you tangibly can. There is always something you can do today for any project or idea you are working on, no matter how big or small. Sure, you will annoy certain people. They will tell you to slow down, ease up a little. As a general rule I tend to never listen to anybody who tells me that. Not saying they are wrong, I just figure I will push forward regardless and deal with the results. That is what I am going for, results. Not perfection. Not even near perfection, but tangible results that I can evaluate and then build on. The imperfect results are always better then the near‐perfect idea that never gets implemented.
Being extremely patient on the long‐term goal or outcome has probably been the main reason for any sustained success I have ever had. When everyone else quits or dies, if you are still there lurching along like a Walking Dead zombie, you have taken the lead.
This skill is absolutely learned. As a kid and a young adult I was all impatience and no finish. I never truly learned the ability to stick with much of anything and see it through to the end, unless I enjoyed it (football, school play). I was very immature and underdeveloped in the area of fulfilling commitments.
The upside of this was that I honed my skills at cutting corners, or as they are fashionably referred to today, “life hacks” (euphemism for cheating). The downside was I made things much harder for myself than they probably should have been. By not developing the ability to see things through to the finish in my early years, I ended up failing at things I really had no reason to fail at. I would have to repeat classes or tasks that I easily could have completed the first time around if I only had the wherewithal to see it through to the end.
To this day I still find it hard to consistently practice the patience part of the game. What I find helpful in sticking with whatever project or idea I'm working on is to make sure that I acknowledge the little successes along the way. I am not someone who creates from a negative place. Beating myself up has never been a particularly effective motivation.
Now, I'm not averse to the periodic “Whoa is me” moments, and have been known to say to myself “Stop being such a (unflattering word) and get your ass going,” but overall I have found that positively acknowledging the small things has given me the confidence to keep moving forward. The trick is to celebrate the seemingly insignificant stuff and turn it into a series of wins. You want to make 10 phone calls a day to set up meetings about your idea? Start with one call and acknowledge that you took a step in the direction of your final destination. That then gives you the confidence to make three calls, then five, then 10.
You get the picture. Since it will always be a long time before you get to celebrate the final product, be it a show or business or marriage, finding ways to positively recognize the progress you are making becomes very helpful in sustaining the patience that the longevity of creating something new requires.
How can you practice being both productively patient and impatient? Let's look at practicing impatience first. Take a look at something in your life where you are not getting the results that you want. It might be something as common as getting into shape. Quickly list some of the things that are holding you back. Maybe you think you don't have the time or you can't afford a gym membership or you're overwhelmed by the P90X/Gladiator/ Goddess/Insanity/whatever‐the‐hell workout you have been reading about.
Some people associate impatience with being annoyed. I associate it with taking action. So in this case what actions can be taken immediately? Don't have the time to exercise? Set your alarm one hour earlier. Don't think about it. Don't question it. Just do it right now. That took you all of 10 seconds. Can't afford a gym membership or don't know what exercises to do? When that alarm goes off, force yourself out of bed and go for a walk. That's it. By embracing your impatience, you have forced the issue to start exercising.
If you continue to be impatient and take these actions, you can start adding in jogging or push‐ups or planks. Most of us lack a certain amount of motivation. Trying to use the big picture to motivate ourselves can be intimidating. Committing to something small, like setting your alarm, isn't scary and can be done immediately.
I've always found that when I do something immediately, it begins to create momentum that helps propel me toward my goal. Being impatient helps create the motivation I need to do shit.
So how can we practice patience? There are great philosophers and far deeper thinkers than me that can set you on the path of self‐awareness and enlightenment. For me, it is as simple as showing up, again and again. Patience is about showing up and being there in the moment again and again without any major expectations of results.
This is actually the way I have built Improv Asylum. I have often been asked what was the secret of Improv Asylum's success? While I would love to say that it is a direct result of my creative genius, unfathomable talent, and singular vision to bring something extraordinary to life, that would be one crock of hot garbage. The single most important thing we ever did at Improv Asylum was to decide to open the doors, turn on the lights, and do shows. Night after night. That's it. Sorry everybody, if you were hoping for some mind‐blowing truth, I got nothing for you.
Quite frankly, the genius lay in the decision to make sure that the doors were open and shows were going on every night of every weekend. It had been our experience at other theaters that they operate with some kind of arbitrary number for audience attendance that must to be met, or the show will be canceled. For example, if they have 10 or more people in the audience, the show will go on, and if the audience is below 10, the show is canceled and the audience is sent home. I have always considered this to be the height of stupidity.
Let's take a look of this from a pragmatic point of view. If the breaking point for doing a show is having 10 people in the audience, then it certainly can't be about money. I mean, it is not like you are in the red at 9 people in the audience, but in the black at 11. Whether the number is 9 or 11 you are in the red! So if you are losing money either way, why wouldn't you just do the show for the nine people that came to see it?
The other, more damaging, thing is that if you cancel that show those 9 people who came all the way down to the theater to see your nonsense are going to be annoyed, if not outright pissed, and most likely will never be coming back to another show. On the other hand, if you go out on that stage and do your damnedest to make a great show happen for those nine people, at least some of them are going to be appreciative, and not only will they come back, but they will bring more people with them.
We had made the decision at the very beginning at Improv Asylum that we would never cancel shows because of the audience size. If five people were there we would do a show. If there were two people we would do the show. If there was one person who is willing to watch the show then we would put on a performance just for them (we actually did that). If nobody was there, then we would run through the show anyway, because we always need the practice.
This attitude has had a powerful effect on both our audiences and also our casts. In the early days those small audiences were incredibly appreciative of the fact that we would do a show for them. While performing for small audiences can at first feel awkward, when they see that you are truly trying to do good work just for them, they tend to get behind you.
What ended up happening was that as Improv Asylum became more and more successful, those people who had come to early shows when there were only 5 or 10 people in the audience would come up to us and almost brag that they were here before we became popular, and they were always so thrilled to now be a part of a sold‐out show.
They felt like they had something to do with our success, and they most certainly did. Had we sent those people away because of some artificial attendance number, we would have been losing advocates who ended up spreading the word and giving us marketing far more valuable than any ad could buy. Because we were there, night after night, people didn't have to guess whether the show was happening or not. They always knew that the show was on even if it was a very personal performance.
What it did for the casts was that it removed the uncertainty as to whether or not shows were going to happen. Uncertainty will always lead to anxiety and stress. Since the cast knew in no uncertain terms that we were always going to do a show, that was one less thing they would have to worry about.
The consistency of always showing up and always doing the show allowed for the gradual buildup to success. Was it patience? Sure. But it was active patience in the sense that we were there, showing up every time, without any major expectations for results.
What is something you can keep showing up to without worrying about or overly measuring the results? Is it a class of some sort? Maybe it's painting and you just keep showing up and you just keep painting without ever giving a second thought as to how “good” your painting is. If you keep showing up again and again and again, you will get better.
It is just reps. Everything in life is reps. And if you have the patience to keep showing up and putting in the reps, you will undoubtedly improve at whatever it is you are doing.