Rising to the Occasion: Using Strategic Challenges to Improve
When Louis C.K. was developing his stand-up act, he was determined to improve.
Most comedians put their best material at the end so they can close strong.
But, as he told Jerry Seinfeld, Chris Rock, and Ricky Gervais on an HBO special, Louis did the opposite.
“One thing I started doing,” he said, “I’d take my closing bit and I’d open with it.”
Putting his best material up front meant that he’d have to follow with something even better.
“The end of your act cauterizes and it gets stronger,” he said.
As Seinfeld realized, “That’s how he got good.”
Getting Uncomfortable
In comedy routines as it is in all realms, there is a tendency to play to our strengths.
If we’re successful with something, we stick with it.
But, as Adam Grant explains in his book Hidden Potential, “playing to your strengths only deprives you of the opportunity to improve on your weaknesses.”
Worse, it can lead to decline.
In physical fitness, the concept is called the Plateau Effect: One’s body becomes accustomed to a given exercise routine and ceases to respond to a given stimulus.
That’s why trainers recommend challenging yourself regularly by increasing the intensity, duration, or frequency of your workouts, what Nassim Nicholas Taleb calls a “maximum lifts” approach.
As Grant says, “The best way to accelerate growth is to embrace, seek, and amplify discomfort.”
Challenge and Response
In his monumental Study of History, Arnold J. Toynbee showed how all great civilizations of the past arose as a response to a major challenge.
When a given people has everything it needs, it plateaus, it is arrested as Toynbee puts it.
If, on the other hand, it faces a geographical barrier or social impediment, the people must band together to overcome the challenge.
That banding together is the creative stimulus that makes a civilization.
Without the challenge, the creative response is not possible.
As Louis C.K. put it, “There’s a huge challenge in not having your old act, but I think you rise to the occasion. You don’t rise to the occasion if you don’t put the void there.”
