“Let’s joke about f****d up things, otherwise they’re just negative.” – Matt Rife
I know I’m late to the party on this one, but a few days ago, I discovered the comedian Matt Rife.
And honestly, I didn’t like him at first.
I turned off his Netflix special ten minutes in, and sat there wondering why there was so much hype around this guy.
Then I watched his crowd work.
Five hours down the rabbit hole (his YouTube channel filled most of my travel day to Costa Rica), I am officially sold:
Dude is a genius.
Not in the colloquial sense, but in the true sense:
When he’s interacting with the crowd, his genius — his unique blend of natural ability and dedication to the craft — is on full display, and you know it when you see it, because it looks like magic.
What seems impossible to everyone else is not only possible, but easy:
Matt isn’t thinking through what he’s going to say, spending mental energy to find the “perfect” response…
It just comes to him, as though the audience presses a button in his mind that generates an instant response, with precision accuracy and timing.
Of course, it takes years of dedicated work to build such a “button.”
It turns out Matt has been doing comedy since he was 15, and I have no doubt he works hard.
But behind Matt is a long line of comedians who have worked harder for longer and still don’t have Matt’s ability, which brings us to the point of today’s lesson:
Finding your unique genius — the thing that is difficult for others but comes naturally to you — is one of the master-keys that unlocks your life path.
Find that thing, and spend ten years working really, really hard on it, and it will be harder to fail than to succeed.
Thank you Matt Rife, for the reminder.
Also, please keep pissing people off.
Nobody does it better.
– T
P.P.S. Quick reminder that our daily emails may drop to a few times per week, while I’m working at this retreat in Costa Rica.
We’ll play it day by day.
In the meantime, make sure you’re subscribed on YouTube, where we just started dropping two new clips per week.
