Born Standing Up
A riveting memoir on perseverance and perfecting a craft
If you’d like to learn about a world class performer, who details how he perfected his craft, reached the pinnacle of his profession, and then walked away at the height of his career, I recommend the book, “Born Standing Up” by Steve Martin.
This best-selling book was ranked a Top 10 non-fiction book by Time magazine, and was called one of the best books on comedy by Jerry Seinfeld.
Steve Martin is a comedian, actor, author, and musician, who has won five Grammy Awards, a Primetime Emmy Award, an Honorary Academy Award, and the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor. In 1978 he was the biggest stand-up comedian in America, and in 1981 he walked away from stand-up at the height of his career.
I love this book because Steve details his experiences, struggles, and evolution, in the pursuit of perfecting his craft. This page-turning laugh-out-loud autobiography will resonate with anyone looking to do the same.
Here are some memorable quotes from the book that resonated with me:
On perseverance: “I did stand up comedy for eighteen years. Ten of those years were spent learning, four were spent refining, and four were spent in vivid success.”
On getting in the reps: “My act was eclectic, and it took 10 more years for me to make sense of it. However, the opportunity to perform four and five times day gave me confidence and poise. Even though my material had few distinguishing features, the repetition made me lose my amateur rattle.”
On consistency: “I learned a lesson: It was easy to be great. Every entertainer has a night when everything is clicking. These nights are accidental and statistical: like lucky cards in poker, you can count on them occurring over time. What was hard was to be good, consistently good, night after night, no matter what the abominable circumstance.”
On not taking yourself too seriously: I opened the show with the line: “I have decided to give the greatest performance of my life! Oh, wait, sorry, that’s tomorrow night.”
On creativity: As I continued to work, my material grew; I came up with odd little gags such as, “How many people have never raised their hands before?”
On trying new things: And my closer: “Well, we’ve had a good time tonight, considering we’re all going to die someday.”
