Ten Lessons from Steve Martin

I am a big fan of stand-up comedy. I have enormous respect for the men and women—whether professionals or amateurs—who get up on stage and do their best to make us laugh. And though I like many comedians, my all-time favourite is, and will always be, Steve Martin.

I discovered Steve Martin in the ’70s when I was a teenager. His album, A Wild and Crazy Guy, was a revelation for me. I would eventually get all of his comedy albums on vinyl—Let’s Get Small, Comedy is Not Pretty! and The Steve Martin Brothers—and spent hours listening to them. (I kick myself that I gave them away when we moved to Europe.)

Steve left stand-up comedy in the ’80s after 18 years. He has had a successful film career, published several books, written plays and even won a Grammy Award for his outstanding banjo performances the legendary Earl Scruggs. I could go on, but for those of you who are not familiar with Steve, you get the idea. He’s a talented guy.

I recently finished reading Steve Martin’s memoir, Born Standing Up. A terrific read. Jerry Seinfeld, another comedian whom I think is great, called it “one of the best books about comedy and being a comedian ever written”.

Steve Martin

As I worked my way through the book, I found myself taking notes because of all the insights that Steve shares about his life in comedy. I have listed some of them below, in the order in which they appear in the book. They are valuable lessons, not only for aspiring comedians, but for anyone who has to speak in public.

Ten lessons from Steve Martin

Lesson 1: If you want to get good at speaking, you must work at it. Being a good speaker is rarely an overnight thing. It takes time.

I did stand-up comedy for eighteen years. Ten of those years were spent learning, four years were spent refining, and four were spent in wild success.

Lesson 2: The audience comes first. You must remain focused. I can relate to the quote below. When I gave this speech at the Toastmasters European Championships in 2009, the audience was laughing so much that I really had to focus on what was coming up (in the speech) and also on staying with time. My analysis of the speech, along with my thought process while I was delivering it, can be found here.

Enjoyment while performing was rare—enjoyment would have been an indulgent loss of focus that comedy cannot afford.

Lesson 3: Don’t forget about the transitions in your speech. They help to hold it together.

I studied where the big laughs were, learned how [to get] the small ones, and saw tiny nuances that kept the thing alive between lines.

Lesson 4: As you change through experience, and as technology changes, so too will there be opportunities for your presentations to change. Look for them, try them out, keep what works and discard what doesn’t.

These albums broke ground and led me to a Darwinian discovery: Comedy could evolve.

Lesson 5: Be aware of what is going on during your day. Carry a small notepad. Jot down ideas that come from things that you see. Start a story file (hard copy or electronic). You never know when these experiences will fit into a speech. If you don’t write them down, you will most likely forget them.

I came up with several schemes for developing material. ‘I laugh in life,’ I thought, ‘so why not observe what it is that makes me laugh?’” 

Lesson 6: You may think you have nothing to say. There is always something to say.

I had a short-lived but troublesome worry. What if writing comedy was a dead end because one day everything would have been done and we writers would just run out of stuff? I assuaged myself with my own homegrown homily: Comedy is a distortion of what is happening, and there will always be something happening.

Lesson 7Self-confidence is very important. This is not to say that you should be smug or arrogant. Just the opposite. And humility and vulnerability are important too. But if you don’t look and sound like you believe in what you are saying, the chances are that I won’t believe in what you are saying.

I gave myself a rule. Never let them know I was bombing: “This is funny, you just haven’t gotten it yet.” … It was essential that I never show doubt about what I was doing. I would move through my act without pausing for the laugh, as though everything were an aside. … Another rule was to make the audience believe that I thought I was fantastic, that my confidence could not be shattered. They had to believe that I didn’t care if they laughed at all, and that this act was going on with or without them.

Lesson 8: Keep at it. Seek out speaking opportunities. You will get better. But don’t rest on your laurels. Hitting a home run with a speech is great, but it is more important to be good every time you step on stage.

The consistent work enhanced my act. 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 circumstances.

Lesson 9: A speech is composed of several elements: content; body language; voice; pausing; structure. They are all important.

The new physicality brought an unexpected element into the act: precision. My routines wove the verbal with the physical and I found pleasure trying to bring them in line. Each spoken idea had to be physically expressed as well. … I tried to make voice and posture as crucial as jokes and gags. Silence, too, brought forth laughs. … Precision was moving the plot forward, was filling every moment with content, was keeping the audience engaged.

Lesson 10: A great speech is one that the audience takes home.

“I believed it was important to be funny now, while the audience was watching, but it was also important to be funny later, when the audience was home and thinking about it. I didn’t worry if a bit got no response, as long as I believed it had enough strangeness to linger.

Steve Martin

Photo courtesy of David W. Baker

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mannerofspeaking

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  1. Hi John,

    Enjoyed the artcle on Steve Martin. Brought back memories how he was your idol in your teenage years.

    Love,

    Mom

  2. John, I liked your post. What came across from point 6 (and point1) and which is always a problem to aspiring writers like myself, is the tendency to hold on to your “gems” or priceless discoveries as you fear that there will not be any others. But whether in comedy or cutting of diamonds, you can always improve. The more you push away your current “bright idea”, you will be making room for more and even brighter ideas. This is at first counter intuitive but it works. I am not familiar with a lot of Steve’s early work, but am very impressed by the Pink Panther films. This clip is fantastic. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PkgntZqYDHU

    1. Thanks for the great comment, Conliffe. You touch on a very important point – the importance of being able to let go of what has worked well in order to discover even better things. Thanks for sharing the clip. Hilarious! If you want to hear some of Steve Martin’s albums, there is a good selection here on YouTube. It’s interesting to listen to those albums. His routine was so different from anything else around at the time, and that is what propelled him to his success.

    1. It’s true, Beth. There is always something happening. A few months into writing this blog, I thought that I would run out of things to write about. Almost nine years later, I am still going. Thanks for reading.

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Testimonials

John delivered a keynote address about the importance of public speaking to 80 senior members of Gore’s Medical Device Europe team at an important sales event. He was informative, engaging and inspirational. Everyone was motivated to improve their public speaking skills. Following his keynote, John has led public speaking workshops for Gore in Barcelona and Munich. He is an outstanding speaker who thinks carefully about the needs of his audience well before he steps on stage.

Karsta Goetze

TA Leader, Gore and Associates

I first got in touch with John while preparing to speak at TED Global about my work on ProtonMail. John helped me to sharpen the presentation and get on point faster, making the talk more focused and impactful. My speech was very well received, has since reached almost 1.8 million people and was successful in explaining a complex subject (email encryption) to a general audience.

Andy Yen

CEO, Proton Technologies

John gave the opening keynote on the second day of our unit’s recent offsite in Geneva, addressing an audience of 100+ attendees with a wealth of tips and techniques to deliver powerful, memorable presentations. I applied some of these techniques the very next week in an internal presentation, and I’ve been asked to give that presentation again to senior management, which has NEVER happened before. John is one of the greatest speakers I know and I can recommend his services without reservation.

David Lindelöf

Senior Data Scientist, Expedia Group

After a morning of team building activities using improvisation as the conduit, John came on stage to close the staff event which was organised in Chamonix, France. His energy and presence were immediately felt by all the members of staff. The work put into the preparation of his speech was evident and by sharing some his own stories, he was able to conduct a closing inspirational speech which was relevant, powerful and impactful for all at IRU. The whole team left feeling engaged and motivated to tackle the 2019 objectives ahead. Thank you, John.

Umberto de Pretto

Secretary General, World Road Transport Organization

I was expecting a few speaking tips and tricks and a few fun exercises, but you went above and beyond – and sideways. You taught me to stand tall. You taught me to anchor myself. You taught me to breathe. You taught me to open up. You taught me to look people in the eye. You taught me to tell the truth. You taught me to walk a mile in someone else’s shoes. I got more than I bargained for in the best possible way.

Thuy Khoc-Bilon

World Cancer Day Campaign Manager, Union for International Cancer Control

John gave a brilliant presentation on public speaking during the UN EMERGE programme in Geneva (a two days workshop on leadership development for a group of female staff members working in the UN organizations in Geneva). His talk was inspirational and practical, thanks to the many techniques and tips he shared with the audience. His teaching can dramatically change our public speaking performance and enable us as presenters to have a real and powerful impact. Thank you, John, for your great contribution!

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HR Specialist, World Health Organization

John is a genuine communication innovator. His seminars on gamification of public speaking learning and his interactive Rhetoric game at our conference set the tone for change and improvement in our organisation. The quality of his input, the impact he made with his audience and his effortlessly engaging style made it easy to get on board with his core messages and won over some delegates who were extremely skeptical as to the efficacy of games for learning. I simply cannot recommend him highly enough.

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National Education Director, Association of Speakers Clubs UK

John joined our Global Sales Meeting in Segovia, Spain and we all participated in his "Improv(e) your Work!" session. I say “all” because it really was all interactive, participatory, learning and enjoyable. The session surprised everybody and was a fresh-air activity that brought a lot of self-reflection and insights to improve trust and confidence in each other inside our team. It´s all about communication and a good manner of speaking!"

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General Manager Europe, Hayward Industries

Thank you very much for the excellent presentation skills session. The feedback I received was very positive. Everyone enjoyed the good mix of listening to your speech, co-developing a concrete take-away and the personal learning experience. We all feel more devoted to the task ahead, more able to succeed and an elevated team spirit. Delivering this in a short time, both in session and in preparation, is outstanding!

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CFO European Dairy Supply Chain & Operations, Danone

Thanks to John’s excellent workshop, I have learned many important tips and techniques to become an effective public speaker. John is a fantastic speaker and teacher, with extensive knowledge of the field. His workshop was a great experience and has proven extremely useful for me in my professional and personal life.

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Senior Sales Manager, Sunrise Communications

John’s presentation skills training was a terrific investment of my time. I increased my skills in this important area and feel more comfortable when speaking to an audience. John provided the right mix between theory and practice.

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Director of the Jura Region, BKW Energie AG

Be BOLD. Those two words got stuck in my head and in the heads of all those ADP leaders and associates that had the privilege to see John on stage. He was our keynote speaker at our annual convention in Barcelona, and his message still remains! John puts his heart in every word. Few speakers are so credible, humble and yet super strong with large audiences!

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Senior Director and Talent Partner, ADP International