Book Review: Born Standing Up by Steve Martin

I encourage reading biographies for inspiration and career and life lessons.  I personally love biographies of business leaders, entrepreneurs, and artists, and I have read several from comedians or comedy actors, all of which I recommend:  Jay Leno’s Leading With My Chin, Patricia Heaton’s Motherhood and Hollywood: How To Get A Job Like Mine, Fran Drescher’s Enter Whining.   Steve Martin’s Born Standing Up is one of my favorites.  It is lyrically written (Martin has published novels and short stories, including pieces for The New Yorker, and you can tell).  It’s beautiful prose, but also a fast breezy read.  It’s very accessible and honest, as if Martin is over for dinner and telling a story just to you.

Some of my favorite career and life takeaways:

Perserverance.  Martin started performing whevever he could from a very early age and worked certain clubs for years.  This is a great lesson for people who go from job to job quickly expecting that fast run to the corner office; sometimes it’s the day-in and day-out that builds the solid foundation. 

Grit.  Martin performed on The Tonight Show multiple times before getting recognized.  He writes about falling out of favor with Johnny Carson and being relegated to appearing only on guest hosted shows, but ultimately being invited back to Carson’s shows.  This is reassuring to people who put pressure on themselves to get that one big break.  Martin shows it’s not any one break but several, consistently over time.  And even if things seem to get derailed you can get it back.

Creative exploration and breadth.  Martin experimented with physical comedy, audience participation, magic, props, philosophy.  He generously and candidly shares his meandering path to finding a style that worked for him — even as his career was clearly taking off he seemed to be a perpetual work in progress.  It’s a great inspiration to anyone who struggles to figure out their niche.  Apparently the great and successful struggle as well; the struggle might even be a leading indicator of being on the right path.

I was energized by Martin’s commitment, not to any one tactic, but to continuing his craft.  He performed where and when he could.  He practiced and prepared.  He kept going and made adjustments when things went wrong.  His timeline over years of hard work before hitting his stride gives me inspiration to stay on my path.  Read this book!