Hey, it’s Graham here with another confidence expanding tip for you. And today I want to talk about the suggestion of getting up on stage at an open mic night, performing your musical talents if you have any or your comedic talents if you have any or whatever talent it is that you have, doing it up on stage and getting outside your comfort zone which is of course the way that you build confidence the fastest.

Any big city will have comedy clubs and entertainment venues that have regular open mic nights, typically on Tuesdays or Wednesdays because those are the nights where it gets a little bit quiet and a lot of the professional acts prefer to perform on Thursday, Friday, Saturday nights. So Tuesdays and Wednesdays are often open mic nights where anybody who has a bit of talent that they want to develop can go along and tread the boards, get up on stage and have a go at entertaining people.

I recommend that you give it a go. Like, this will make your heart race like nothing else. If you’re a bit of a funny guy and you’ve got some good wise-cracks, a few jokes that you want to run, I recommend that what you do is you work out some stories from your real life that have made you laugh that you think have been funny and that you put them together into a little five-minute comedy routine.

A typical open mic night slot goes for five minutes, so a five-minute comedy routine is perfect.  And all you’ve got to do is get up there and tell your stories, see if it makes the audience laugh and you’ll have a bit of fun and also scare the shit out of yourself which will help you to build your confidence because you’ll find out that you don’t die and everything goes okay.

The trick to making people laugh is to reflect things that you’ve found funny and do it in a way that is not try-hard-ish. You don’t want to be trying to be too intelligent about this because it’s basically just like telling the stories of things that have caused you some kind of personal pain or caused you some kind of grief that you’re now over and also some things that have made you laugh that you’ve just noticed.

It’s a good idea in order to get this sort of material to keep a notebook with you where you write down like just amusing observations about things that have happened to you, and then when it comes to actually putting together your comedy routine you just get up on stage and you start telling them the stuff that’s happened to you that made you laugh. And if people laugh back, then you’ve had a great time. And if they don’t laugh back, then at least you’ve given it a go.

Usually you need to book in for these things, but if you hit the websites of comedy venues or entertainment venues around your area, just start looking out for open mic nights. You’ll see them advertised in different places. And you don’t get paid for these generally. You just rock up and have a bit of fun with some other people and invite your friends along and have a bit of a good time.

So give this a go and just notice how much more confident you feel after having conquered this getting up on stage thing.

Build your self-confidence faster with The Confident Man Program


Graham Stoney

I struggled for years with low self-esteem, anxiety and a lack of self-confidence before finding a solution that really worked. I created The Confident Man Program to help other men live the life of their dreams. I also offer 1-on-1 coaching via Skype so if you related to this article contact me about coaching.

2 Comments

Lee · January 27, 2015 at 10:49 pm

if it wasnt for this snowstorm Id be at open night this week! so I’ll do it next week 🙂
Only question is in preparing a song to sing that the band knows… ??? any thoughts on that?

    Graham Stoney · February 2, 2015 at 11:24 am

    Well it’s easier if you can accompany yourself on guitar, say. Do they have a band there? Just turn up one week and find out.

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