May of 2016 marked twenty years for The Panic Squad Improv Comedy, the company I own and act with. This weekend myself and some of the other founding members will perform a Panic Squad reunion show as part of the annual alumni weekend at Trinity Western University in Langley, BC, Canada. That’s where this journey began for me. TWU is where I first saw improv comedy and met the friends who would launch into this adventure alongside me.

With the reunion show drawing near, I’ve been reflecting on twenty years of performing clean comedy across North America. Front and center in the reflection pool is a key moment at the beginning of our career that defined who we are and impacted our trajectory over the next twenty years. Here’s the story behind that decisive moment and a challenge for you to take hold of your own work with resolve and excellence.

The Beginning

The Panic Squad was created through a combination of talented performers from two of the top improv teams in Trinity Western University’s improv league, 11:07. A number of us had graduated and simply wanted to find way to keep doing what we loved. Perform clean improv comedy.

We were young, funny, accustomed to success on stage and ready to take on the world. Little did we know we were about to be served our first big slice of humble pie. The first of many throughout our career.

Humble pie rarely tastes good, but it’s usually good for you.

Our first self-promoted public show was a partnership with a local coffee house and theatre called Club 316. Tickets were $2 each and the five Panic Squad actors were splitting the profits with the house.

Six people attended that first show. Two were one of the actor’s parents. Two were another actor’s roommates. The last two were strangers who actually attended the show without the obligation of family or friendship.

An audience of six, four of whom we already knew. Humble Pie.

It was hard on us. I remember sitting backstage with the other actors feeling dejected and not really wanting to perform a 90-minute comedy show for six people. We could have easily cancelled the show and refunded the audience. We wouldn’t be taking a huge financial hit since our half of door sales equaled a whopping $1.20 each. Surely our friends and family would understand, and we could live with two strangers hating us forever.

I think there was a part of each of us that really wanted to get out of there, rent a movie featuring successful comedians, eat hot wings and lick our wounds (Actually, I recommend against licking your wounds after eating hot wings. I imagine it would only complicate things.).

Instead we dug in encouraged each other. We talked about what The Panic Squad stood for and who we wanted to be as entertainers, both now and in the future. As different as we were individually, we shared a desire to consistently perform with excellence. The quality of our show has always been important to us.

What happened next has been a defining moment in my life.

We decided that night to never let the size of the audience dictate the quality of our performance. We decided to give those six people the best improv show they had ever seen.  We weren’t going to let pride wreck an opportunity to do something we loved, and do it well.

We took the stage and performed our hearts out for an audience of six people.

A few months later we were packing the room and breaking fire codes with over 500 people coming out to see us. We discovered that when you work hard to create excellence, excellence will work hard on your behalf.

“ When you work hard to create excellence, excellence will work hard on your behalf. —ANDREW BRIGHT

What started in 1996 as a way to keep doing something we loved and make a little extra money became our career in 2001. Three of us left our jobs and made the leap to full time comedy. It was risky, terrifying, challenging and so rewarding.

Since that first show for six people in 1996 The Panic Squad has performed across Canada and in 38 states. We’ve entertained audiences ranging from the original six to over 35,000. We’ve shared the stage with inspiring leaders and some of the top Christian artists from around the world. We’ve made great friends and have built lasting relationships with pastors, conference directors, fellow entertainers and fans along the way. Best of all, we have impacted hundreds of thousands of people with incredibly clean and funny improv comedy.

Unexpected Impact

Some of the most rewarding moments of our career have not been the milestones of success but the moments where we played a part in impacting an individual life.

I have a file of emails and letters that are priceless to me. Notes from students struggling at school or at home who were impacted by a message from the stage or a short conversation off-stage. Pastors telling of new families attending their church following a comedy outreach event the week before. A couple on their way to divorce who laughed together for the first time in far too long and left the show holding hands. Many others, struggling with depression, heartache or simply the weight of life who really needed a laugh and found it at a Panic Squad show.

An Important Question

As I reflect on the challenges, opportunities and impact of the last twenty years performing comedy with The Panic Squad I can’t help but ask myself,

“What if we had cancelled that first show?”

What if we had decided we weren’t up to the task and had given up. What if we had determined we were above performing for such a small crowd and called it a night? Peace out. Or what if we had reluctantly performed out of obligation, but had held back and given the audience less than our best?

Would The Panic Squad have ever gotten off the ground? Would I have missed out on 20 years of growth, opportunity and impact? Would I still be performing today?

How about you?

Take a moment to reflect on The Panic Squad’s decision to never let the size of our audience dictate the quality of our performance.  How might our decision relate to your own work? Does the status attached to your work, to your audience, affect the amount of effort and passion you commit?

Their will be times when you are feeling tired and defeated. The work that excellence demands won’t seem worth the effort. Well it is. Excellence is worth the effort regardless of the situation surrounding you. When you base your effort on what you hope to gain, you will rarely be satisfied. It’s more likely you will become bitter or jaded.  Pursue excellence based on who you are and who you hope to be. If you’re a Christian like I am, pursue excellence because God asks for our best in everything we do.

Here we go again

The funny thing is, in many ways I’ve come full circle and feel like I’m writing this to myself as I begin a new chapter alongside my comedy with The Panic Squad. I started this blog and wrote a book on Improv and Leadership this summer. I have put an immense amount time and effort into these projects.

To be honest with you, my list of subscribers is growing more slowly than I would like it to. To be completely vulnerable with you, my book sales have been less than I had projected and hoped for. Am I disheartened at times? Sure. Do I battle through feeling discouraged or inadequate? Definitely.

Will I give up? Not a chance.

Will I continue to pour my best into what I have now? Absolutely

Do I relish the opportunity to learn, stretch, grow and move forward? You bet.

While the circumstances are not ideal, those decisions are easy for me now. Because twenty years ago I performed my heart out for six people and it changed my life.

I started four businesses between the ages of 8 and 13. Not all were good ideas. My longest one lasted about a year. I shut down my shortest venture after 2 minutes. Each one taught me some important lessons about perspective, people and opportunities. Here is a brief and humorous synopsis of my childhood businesses. I trust that you will learn from them just as I did.

Business #1 – Candy Man.

My mom wouldn’t let us eat hard candy when we were kids.

“It’s bad for you.”

“You’ll choke on it.”

“You’ll break your teeth”

The problem was, the hard candy was the cheap candy. Most people buy big bags of cheap candy around Halloween. It seemed to be the go to candy of choice to hand out to trick-or-treaters. We ended up with a lot of left over hard candy.

One day in early November I was lamenting the tyranny of my hard-candy-hating parents to my friend Chris as he sucked on a green apple Jolly Rancher in front of me. He tucked the Rancher into his cheek and said, “I wish I still had a bunch of candy left over like you. I’m almost out.”

It was a Light Bulb Moment.

I waited another week, watching the candy count dwindle in the kids’ lunches at school. Like waiting for the last leaf to fall before you start raking, I wanted to be sure their last piece of candy was gone before I started raking in the cash. When the time was right, I brought my big bag of hard candy to school and dropped it onto my desk with a thump. Heads turned.

By then everyone had been getting candy in their lunches for a few weeks. They were thoroughly addicted to the sugar, but the sugar was gone. Enter the Candy Man. Over the next week, kids quickly parted with their precious nickels and dimes to get a piece of candy from me. I used most of the money I made to buy better candy that was also parent approved. It was awesome.

Lessons Learned:

You can turn a negative situation, like having candy restrictions, into something positive if you’re willing to look at it differently. Don’t wallow in self-pity. Keep your head up and look for ways to move past your predicament. You see and hear more opportunities when your head is up and you’re listening to others.

Business #2 – Cash for Klackers

Two years later marbles were huge in 5^th grade. Everyone was playing. The king of all marbles was the klacker. At least that’s what we called them at school. Probably from the old, banned kids toy that was like a giant marble on a string. These were not on strings, though. Just giant marbles. They were hard to get, and went for $2 each on the playground. Big money for a 10-year old.

I was shopping a garage sale with my grandmother when I saw a weird set of giant glass grapes. I didn’t see grapes, however, I saw over 20 klackers. The whole thing was only 50 cents. I bought it, cut the grapes from the wire frame, filed them smooth and I was in business. I sold out within two weeks.

I hunted for more at other garage sales, but never found another bunch of glass grapes from the 70’s. That’s too bad. I would have paid top dollar.

Lesson Learned:

When an opportunity is in front of you, move on it. You may not get a second chance. Had my venture completely failed I would have only been out 50 cents. I’m sure I would have eventually found something else awesome to do with giant glass grapes.

You also have to be willing to see things differently than most others do. Most people saw ugly grape artwork. I saw klackers at $2 a pop. Don’t let popular opinion squash a great idea. That said, not every popular idea is wrong. Common sense is common for a reason.

Business #3 – Royal Rupert II

When I was 12 my family was renting a home on a farm. There was a big barn on the property and my dad convinced the landlord to let us use part of it. He bought my younger brother and I a Holstein bull calf for $100.

My dad made it clear that the money was a loan. We had to feed and care for the calf, clean it’s stall, and take care of all the other chores involved. We also had to keep a record of what we spent on grain, hay, any medicine, etc.

The next year Royal Rupert II was a full sized bull and sold at auction for a nice profit. My dad cashed the check into small bills and brought them home in a sack. He told us what a great job we had done and then dumped all the bills out in a big pile on the living room floor. I’ll never forget it. My brother and I whooped and hollered. We threw the money up in the air and rolled in it.. We felt like billionaires.

Lesson Learned:

The best way to turn a profit is time and hard work. Be creative and look for new opportunities. Just be ready to work hard, too. Also, don’t forget to celebrate a job well done

Business #4 – Rain Man

This one is shameful. I shouldn’t have done it, but I did. I was 13 years old and always looking for the next opportunity. I thought I found one on a dark and stormy night.

An elderly neighbor was having a dinner party a few houses down from us. I had seen several white-haired couples arriving in really big cars. Later that evening it started to rain, I mean really rain. I had an idea.

I grabbed our biggest umbrella and headed down the street. I waited under a tree near the elderly couple’s house. What was taking so long? I thought older people went to bed early. Finally, they began to leave. As the first couple came down the front step, slowly trying to hurry through the rain, I made my move.

“Hi, may I walk you to your car?” I asked politely. They both broke into a smile at this chivalrous young man with the big umbrella.

“Sure, that would be wonderful.”

“It’s only 25 cents,” I replied.

“What? You’re kidding!”

The wife scowled and the husband told me I should be ashamed of myself. What a rude thing to do. Do my parents know what I’m doing?

After 2 minutes in the umbrella service business I decided not to solicit any more seniors and made my way home. It’s a good thing my parents did not know what I was doing.

I forgot about Grandma. I forgot that I live in a small town. I forgot that grandmothers in a small town know all the other grandmothers in town.

Grandma’s friend said that she and her husband were leaving the Smiths’* house when a horrible boy tried to make them pay to use his umbrella in a downpour. My wise grandmother knew where the Smiths lived. She also knew where I lived, and she knew me. Grandma put two and two together. It did not go well for me.

Lesson Learned:

Meeting a need is still a bad idea if you have to take advantage of someone to benefit from it. Integrity is a more valuable currency than cash. No amount of profit is worth your respect and integrity. I also learned that getting away with something now doesn’t mean justice isn’t coming later. Always do right by others and you can move forward without wasting time and energy looking over your shoulder.

“ Always do right by others and you can move forward without wasting time and energy looking over your shoulder. —ANDREW BRIGHT

*Not their real last name. I still live in the same town. They still don’t know who the horrible boy was.

Fear taunts us, stalls us, compares us to others who seem so much more equipped for success or are already more successful. Fear keeps us from voicing a great idea because we’re worried it may be lame. Fear is like those stupid trick birthday candles that never really go out. Just when you think you’ve extinguished fear, it flickers back to life again.

One night following a gig the guys and I were back in the hotel and ended up watching “Bad Ink”. In a nutshell, the show features people with horribly embarrassing or poorly done tattoos who go to some master artists for help. The tattoo artists miraculously turn the bad ink into creative, tactful masterpieces. They don’t remove the bad tattoos. They build over and around them.

We need to handle fear the same way. If our goal is to remove fear from our lives, then every time it flickers to life again we’ve failed. Rather, we build around the fear, master it, and turn it to our advantage.

Thrills and Chills

Personally, I love fear. I’m a thrill seeker. The higher, faster, and more dangerous something is, the more I am drawn to it.

Even if skydiving and bungee jumping isn’t your thing, my guess is that everyone embraces fear to some degree. Just think of how many people enjoy suspenseful movies. Take a minute to consider why roller coasters are so popular. Have you ever seen a billboard advertising the slowest rollercoaster in the country?

Come Experience The Tranquilizer! Gentle Slopes. Tedious Turns. Nothing Matches The Monotony Of The Tranquilizer!

Nope. Not interested.

I had the privilege of watching my boys, ages 5 and 7, experience Disneyland’s Space Mountain for the first time this year. They took some time deciding whether or not they wanted to ride it. As we got closer to the front of the line and began to hear the sound of the cars on the track and the screams of the riders, I could see them beginning to feel apprehensive. I had told them we could get out of line and skip the ride at any time, but they wanted to go ahead.

During the ride one of them screamed his head off and the other was so terrified he was completely silent. The photo waiting at the end of the ride was absolutely priceless. Better yet, they couldn’t wait to do it again. It had been terrifying and exhilarating. We all rode it several times.

Everest vs. Escalators

It’s the hard things that are the most rewarding. If I told you I had reached the summit of Mount Everest I’ll bet you would be impressed. That’s a short list of climbers. If I posted a picture on Facebook of me standing at the top of an escalator with the caption, “I did it!! Bucket list checked!” would you still be as impressed? Not likely.

Being fear-less, as in without fear, sounds pretty boring. I’m not talking about fear from genuine danger, like the fear of being harmed by someone. I’m talking about the fear that flickers to life, or maybe even envelopes us, when we’re facing hard decisions or taking a leap into new territory.

Here are 3 tips I’ve found useful in mastering fear.

1. Be specific. Fear thrives within uncertainty. Instead of saying, “I’m planning to write a book,”  say, “I’m going to write a  7 chapter book on Leadership Through The Lens Of Improv Comedy by July 31st.” Specific goals help you make specific plans to get moving.
2. Find some friends. One of the things I love most about improv is that I don’t do it alone. Someone always has my back. Don’t fight fear alone. Find others to keep you accountable, encourage you, spur you on. When we begin to doubt ourselves, it’s nice to know that others are cheering us on. I was recently part of John Acuff’s 30 Days of Hustle. One of the best parts of that course was hustling alongside and cheering on others via the Facebook group. This blog is a product of that incredibly valuable course.
3. Celebrate the small wins. You win more often than you think. In improv we celebrate all the time. We stop and laugh at each others’ jokes. Sometimes it’s just a subtle nod or wink to another actor that says, “that was brilliant!” It’s keeps us moving and having fun. Don’t wait until you’ve finished the big goal to celebrate. Celebrate often.

Rather than fearing fear, let’s embrace the discomfort and intensity it can bring and use it to drive us. There is something about fear and discomfort that lets us know we’re on to something great. Ride that wave. Clench your jaw and allow it to motivate you. Rather than working to remove fear from our lives, let’s take a note from the artists of Bad Ink. Let’s build around it and turn it into something awesome.

“ Rather than fearing fear, let’s embrace the discomfort and intensity it can bring and use it to drive us forward. —ANDREW BRIGHT

I’m in the middle of writing a book on Leadership Through The Lens Of Improv Comedy. I’m battling the fear of feeling unqualified. Who am I to write a book?  I’m also using that fear to drive me forward. It’s going to be a great book.

What is one thing you are working on that has you scared? I’d love to see your comments below.

Here we go. Post #1. Lift off. On your mark, get set, GO! Through this blog we will laugh a lot and learn together from successes I’ve found, secrets I’ve discovered, and horrible mistakes I’ve made. We will look at life and leadership through the lens of improv comedy.

I’ve been a professional improv comedian for 20 years. I absolutely love it. Not only do I get to bring face stretching, stomach clutching, tear streaming laughter to audiences across North America, I’ve been working in a teamwork and leadership crucible for 20 years.

Improv is the essence of teamwork and leadership. Trust is crucial. Fear and ego must be overcome. Forward momentum is key. Listening is essential. Improv has so much to teach us about teamwork, leadership and life in general.

I guarantee Improv has something to teach you, too. To be certain, let’s take a little test. Improv has something to teach you if:

1. You are part of a team with other people that don’t think exactly like you.

2. You lead a team with other people that don’t think exactly like you, or each other.

3. You want to move forward but feel stuck. It’s like you’re standing in Jello. You know what needs to be done but it’s hard to move and kind of comfortable. Who doesn’t like Jello? Then your competition eats you alive.

4. Taking risks and leaping into something new sounds wonderful and terrifying. Mostly terrifying.

5. There is a jerk in your life that you have to work with. The best part of your day is dreaming about epic ways they might fail. Dreams may include projects that tank, horrible faults being exposed in a very public way, Kanye West grabbing their microphone, their pet dying, or watching them catch the bus…from behind.

6. Your team hears you talk about the importance of transparency and vulnerability. But you worry about the future and keep your failures close to the vest.

7. You planned for one outcome but were dealt another. Like my first date. The girl said yes. My dad let me use his car. The date was perfect except for the drive home. That’s when I wrecked my dad’s car and covered my date in cow manure. True story. I did not marry that girl.

8. You tell yourself you are a creative, but in truth you are unorganized, inefficient and lack motivation. All of which hinders your creativity.

9. Fear is a part of your life like a bad back tattoo. You can’t remember getting it, and hate that it’s there. You feel like everyone is snickering or judging when you turn your back. The only thing that could possibly be more painful and costly than doing nothing is doing what it takes to have it removed.

10. Your ego makes Howard Stern look humble.

11. Your life has become more predictable than a Hallmark movie.

12. You are human.

So, did you find yourself somewhere on this list?

Me too. I’ve struggled with each of them at one point or another. The great news is that I’ve learned a lot as I’ve fallen flat, moved forward, listened to others and made difficult changes. I can’t wait to share it all with you via this blog.

A number of years ago I took a hard look at what really makes improv work. Then I created a number of professional development workshops that use improv to teach key elements of teamwork and leadership. We’ve had a lot of fun and great success as we’ve helped organizations navigate change and move forward.

Now I’m taking my years of experience leading a team of improv actors, and the best material from the workshops we teach, and bringing it to a wider audience via this blog. I hope you will join me in this journey. One thing improv has taught me is that we never stop learning. I’m sure you have something to teach me, as well. I can’t wait!

Here’s a question to get started.

From the “Improv has something to teach you if:” list, which ones resonated with you the most? List your top three. Feel free to list just the numbers, or include a brief explanation.

I have lots to share but I’ll make those items a priority as we begin this journey together. I can also give short insights and answer brief questions as I monitor the comments.

Thank you for joining me in this journey. Let’s get started!