Laughing Through Disability with Comedian Noah Crow

There are days when being a motivational speaker feels slightly fraudulent.

Today is one of those days.

I’m still in my pajamas. I’m tired. I have a bunch of things I’m supposed to get done, and I recently got rejected from a comedy contest I was actually pretty excited about. I thought I had a decent shot at getting in, so naturally my brain took that one rejection and immediately started questioning almost everything about my comedy. Maybe my clips aren’t good enough. Maybe I need all new material. Maybe I’m in a writing rut. Maybe I’m too old to be trying to do this again. Maybe I’ll never write anything good ever again.

You know, just a normal, emotionally balanced response.

This is especially funny because I talk about optimism, positivity, happiness, and resilience for a living. I’ve written a whole book about humor. I stand in front of groups and talk about how we can respond differently when life is hard. And then there are days when I wake up and think, Yeah, I don’t really feel like doing any of that today.

I don’t think that makes the ideas less useful. If anything, I think it’s the whole point. I don’t talk about optimism because I wake up naturally cheerful every morning. I talk about it because my brain can be incredibly good at finding what’s wrong, and I’ve had to learn ways to work with that.

Some of Us Are Very Good at Finding What’s Wrong

There’s an activity I do when I’m speaking to groups that always reminds me how differently our brains work.

I have people pair up and show them a picture. One person has to say something positive about the picture, and the other person has to say something negative. Then they go back and forth until somebody runs out of things to say.

I’ve done this with hundreds of groups, in all kinds of industries and different parts of the world, and there are always a few people who can immediately find something nice to say.

Good for them.

Truly.

Then there’s a much larger group of us who, once you give us permission to point out what’s wrong, could apparently continue for the rest of the afternoon.

What’s even more interesting is that the people who naturally see the positive start having a harder time staying there when the person next to them keeps pointing out everything that sucks. That’s one of the reasons I like the exercise so much. It feels pretty true to life. Staying positive can take actual effort, especially when you’re surrounded by negativity or when something legitimately disappointing has happened.

That’s where I think a lot of the advice around “being positive” gets annoying. Sometimes it sounds like positivity is supposed to be this personality trait you either have or don’t have. Or worse, that if you’re feeling negative, you’re somehow doing life wrong.

I don’t think that’s true.

Our brains are constantly deciding what to pay attention to. We can notice the good things happening around us, and we can also notice the things that are frustrating, threatening, disappointing, awkward, or completely ridiculous. If you’re a comedian, you’re almost professionally trained to notice what’s wrong and then figure out why it’s funny.

So I’m not trying to become a person who never notices the bad stuff.

I’m trying to get better at deciding what I do with it.

Why I Like the Idea of Rational Optimism

The phrase that makes the most sense to me is rational optimism.

That sounds a little awful, I know. It sounds like something you’d hear during an eight-hour corporate retreat right before somebody asks you to break into groups and create a vision board.

But stay with me.

Rational optimism isn’t pretending everything is fine. It isn’t staring at something genuinely difficult and forcing yourself to find a silver lining before you’re allowed to feel disappointed. It’s also not some vague belief that everything will magically work itself out.

To me, rational optimism is knowing that even when something isn’t going well, I can probably do something to make it better.

Maybe I can’t fix the entire situation. Maybe I can’t make the rejection disappear. Maybe I can’t suddenly become inspired and write the greatest stand-up set of my life before lunch.

But I’ve been discouraged before. I’ve gotten rejected before. I’ve had bad sets before. I’ve gone through creative ruts before. And I also have evidence that I’ve come out of those things.

That’s the part I find useful.

I don’t have to convince myself that everything is great. I can remind myself that I’ve made things better before, and there’s a decent chance I can make this a little better too.

The Stories We Tell Ourselves After Something Goes Wrong

The rejection itself probably isn’t what made me want to stay in my pajamas all day.

It was the story I started telling myself about the rejection.

That’s a distinction I have to remind myself of constantly.

Something happens, and almost immediately we form some kind of belief about what it means. Sometimes that belief is reasonable. Sometimes your brain decides one comedy contest rejection is conclusive proof that your entire creative career has been a terrible misunderstanding.

One of the biggest red flags for me is when I start using words like always and never.

This always happens to me.

I’ll never get this right.

I’ll never write anything that good again.

I’m always hitting these roadblocks.

That language takes something temporary and turns it into something permanent. I’m no longer dealing with one rejection. Now I’m apparently doomed forever.

Martin Seligman talks about this in Learned Optimism, which is a book I think about a lot and use in some of my speaking work. One framework in the book begins with A, B, and C: adversity, belief, and consequence.

Something happens. That’s the adversity.

Then we form a belief about what happened.

And that belief helps determine the consequence.

If I get rejected and my belief is, Okay, that sucks, but maybe they were looking for something different. I know the set was good. I’ll find another opportunity, the consequence might be that I keep going.

If my belief is, Maybe I’m too old. Maybe I’m not funny enough. Maybe I’ll never write anything good again, the consequence looks more like me sitting around all day feeling apathetic and wondering why I’m not motivated.

Same rejection. Very different next step.

Sometimes You Have to Argue With Your Own Brain

The useful part is that ABC doesn’t have to be the end of the process.

You can add D and E.

D is dispute.

Basically, argue with your own brain.

I actually like that framing because I don’t have to pretend the negative thought never happened.

I can let myself think, God, maybe I suck. I can feel disappointed. I can be annoyed. Then I can challenge the conclusion my brain is trying to make from that feeling.

If my brain says, You’re obviously not good enough, I can respond with evidence.

I recently won a comedy contest after being away from stand-up for years.

I’ve had sets that went great.

I’ve written material that worked.

I’ve created things that have been watched and shared millions of times.

I also know from experience that creativity comes in waves. There are times when I feel like I’m constantly coming up with ideas, and there are other times when trying to write feels like someone unplugged my brain.

That doesn’t mean the creativity is gone forever. It means I’m in a lull.

When I actually look at my track record instead of whatever dramatic story my brain is telling me in the moment, the story starts to change.

And that’s where the E comes in: energize.

Once I stop treating the negative belief like an unquestionable fact, I usually start to get a little energy back. Maybe I need to take a break. Maybe I need to watch a set that went really well and remind myself that I know how to do this. Maybe I need to write some terrible jokes for a while until one decent one shows up.

The goal isn’t to become wildly inspired.

The goal is to get moving again.

Be a Thermostat, Not Just a Thermometer

The metaphor I keep coming back to is the difference between being a thermometer and being a thermostat.

A thermometer tells you the temperature.

This sucks.

I’m disappointed.

I’m tired.

I’m not motivated today.

And I actually think we need that part.

I don’t want optimism to become another way of avoiding how I actually feel. If something sucks, I should be allowed to say it sucks. If I’m disappointed, I can be disappointed. If I want to sit around in my pajamas for a little while and sulk, I can probably give myself that too.

That’s just telling the temperature.

The problem is if I stop there.

A thermostat also reads the temperature, but then it does something about it.

Maybe it only changes the room by one degree, but it makes an adjustment.

That’s the question I’m trying to ask myself more often when I’m in one of these moods:

What’s my next best move?

Not, How do I completely fix my career today?

Not, How do I force myself to become wildly motivated right this second?

Just: What would move this one degree?

Maybe the answer is taking a break without feeling guilty about it. Maybe it’s going for a walk. Maybe it’s writing something. Maybe it’s looking back at work I’m proud of. Maybe it’s applying for the next thing instead of treating one rejection like a final verdict.

That’s rational optimism to me.

You acknowledge the temperature, and then you decide whether there’s anything you can do to change it.

I wish I could tell you there’s some point where you become good enough at this that your brain stops doing all the annoying stuff. Maybe eventually you become permanently optimistic, every rejection rolls right off you, and you leap out of bed every morning filled with purpose and gratitude.

I have not reached that level.

What I have gotten better at is noticing when my brain starts turning one bad moment into a story about my entire life. I’m a little better at letting myself feel bad without assuming I’ll feel that way forever. And I’m better at looking at the evidence from my own life and remembering that I’ve been stuck before and eventually got unstuck.

So today I’m going to let myself be disappointed for a little while longer.

Then I’ll probably change out of my pajamas.

No promises.

And after that, I’ll figure out the next best move.

Maybe moving the temperature one degree is enough.

Links:

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Episode Minute-By-Minute:

00:00 – What Happens When a Motivational Speaker Isn’t Motivated?

01:00 – Why I’m Not Naturally Positive All the Time

02:00 – The Positive vs. Negative Experiment I Use With Audiences03:00 – Why Negativity Is So Much Easier for Some of Us

04:00 – Staying Positive Takes Effort

05:00 – Optimists, Pessimists & “Realists”

06:00 – Why Our Brains Look for What’s Wrong

07:00 – What Is Rational Optimism?

08:00 – The Rejection That Put Me in a Funk

09:00 – When “I’m in a Rut” Becomes “I’ll Never Be Good Again”

10:00 – Learned Optimism & Learned Helplessness

11:00 – Adversity, Belief & Consequence

13:00 – How Negative Beliefs Kill Motivation

14:00 – Dispute the Story Your Brain Is Telling You

15:00 – Use Your Own Track Record as Evidence

16:00 – Creativity Comes in Waves

17:00 – Be a Thermostat, Not Just a Thermometer

18:00 – What’s Your Next Best Move?