Do The Hardest Thing and Make It Look Easy
I’ve been happily horizontal binge watching Dave Chapelle, “The Goat” on Netflix.
“The hardest thing to do is to be true to yourself, especially when everybody is watching.”
Sounds simple enough.
If you have a business, everybody’s watching. You may not be alone on a stage but your potential audience is witnessing every move your company makes. Your business is telling stories about you in front of and behind your back.
Being true to yourself is a practice in biz and in life.
Chapelle’s been at this game since he’s 17.
It’s not that he’s just a genius writer.
“I’ve gotten so good at writing jokes…and this is not even an exaggeration, I actually write jokes backwards. I will write a punch line with no particular setup in mind.”
As a storyteller, Chapelle is completely mesmerizing.
He could also walk away from a television career because he believed it was not good for him.
“You’ve got to preserve what makes you natural,” he says. And we trust Dave. He makes the hardest thing look simple.
Where most businesses lose out is in deciding the simplest thing should be easy enough.
Seems like we should all be able to do this without focus or attention. Once I thought so, too.
Many (oh so many) years ago, I was one of the first handful of women doing stand-up comedy at the Improv in L.A. I was not good but strangers were very kind to me and I was a good writer and so got some interest. I worked hard on my “jokes” before I took my first mic. Terrified. Trying to figure out what was funny.
The first night I walked on stage wearing a neck brace. It wasn’t a prop. I had just been in a minor enough car accident. But it was my fault. My mother was in town visiting me and in my passenger seat. (Hello, Dr. Freud.)
I didn’t even know it was funny. I just knew my neck was sprained and I had to get up onstage that first night or I’d never do it. None of my jokes were about an accident.
I had tried hard to write what I thought was funny and what was shocking and funny was that I missed the obvious.
Metaphorically speaking, this is what most businesses, big and small are missing.
Being able to see who you genuinely are and what makes you stand up and out as the obvious choice for others.
You can’t uncover your big, winning idea without it. It’s the foundation of all branding.
Skipping over this is an unkind joke.
Let’s see if I may be the right person to help you.