Throw it All Away

Tags: career performance

Louis C. K. cranks out fresh comedy like it’s his job. Probably because it is his job. It wasn’t always his job, though. He spent 15 years churning through a crappy, awful routine that he hated.

His words, not mine, I’ve never seen that material.

George Carlin inspired Louis to get into comedy in the first place, and it was George again who inspired Louis to level up his comedy chops.

Well I just decided every year I’d be working on this year’s special and I’d do the special, and I’d just chuck out the material, and I’d start again with nothing. [George Carlin, as told by Louis C.K.]

The same Louis that makes us laugh with fresh, new material sat in his car after hearing George’s methodology, and “it made me literally cry, that I could never do that. I was telling the same jokes for 15 years.”

Do you have 15 years of experience, or 1 year of experience 15 times over?

Or ten, or five? How does intern you pale in comparison to senior software developer you? We don’t ever throw away all of our old skills, but we must constantly build upon them and selectively throw out the tired and broken tools that sustained us in the past.

I know people that cut their teeth building DBase applications, but they aren’t building DBase applications anymore.

What are you proud of this year that didn’t exist last year?