What a great show this was.
One of the fun little surprises of living with your parents is when you come home and find there’s a different television in your bedroom. Actually, the television I found was my old TV/VCR that I bought with my confirmation money eleven years ago (holy crap, has it been that long?). Motivated by this newfound TV, I dug up some old videotapes I had in a box under my bed, and I found tapes upon tapes of episodes of Whose Line Is It Anyway?, one of my favorite shows.
For those who don’t know, Whose Line was a show hosted by Drew Carey where four performers (Ryan Stiles, Colin Mochrie, Wayne Brady, and a rotating guest) played improv games for half an hour an episode. It was an amazingly funny show, and such a simple, clever idea. In fact, I miss shows like this, instead of the cookie-cutter crime dramas and crappy comedies they put on TV today (boy, I sound curmudgeonly, don’t I?). So, let’s sit back and learn from Whose Line while enjoying some classic moments and great laughs, thanks to our friend YouTube.
Surround yourself with good friends.
On the show, it’s very clear that Colin and Ryan are great friends, as well as Ryan and Drew. When they all crack each other up, you smile knowing it’s a bunch of friends just having a good time. Companionship is one of the keys to happiness in life. You need to have a core group of friends that you enjoy being with, whose company makes the good days great and the bad days tolerable. It keeps the gas in your tank when life gets rough.
Turn a crappy situation into an opportunity to shine.
Life doesn’t always go as planned. And it could be easy to use Whose Line as an excuse to write “Improv life!”, but that would be lame and obvious. Instead, try to turn those unplanned mistakes into something worthwhile. Life snowballs when things go wrong, and it’s up to you to turn the tide. In this clip, Drew absolutely blows this game up, but Ryan tries to save it and it turns into a classic moment. They could have given up and started over (and if you don’t think they do that, you haven’t watched the uncensored bloopers on YouTube, like I have for the last hour instead of writing this post!), but they didn’t. They plowed through and made it a great segment to air instead.
Try something new and challenging.
You know what you’re good at. In fact, you’re great at it. So why change? Stick to your strengths, right? By not changing and learning new things, you stop growing. Life is all about growth – from the day you’re born until the day you die. Give yourself some room to grow by trying something new. Take a class. Start playing a new sport. Start that business you’ve always dreamed about. Don’t just plan it out – do it. The guys on the show are great at all the games they know, so they added a game called “Questionable Impressions”, where they all have to talk in questions, but also do different impersonations of celebrities while they do it. It doesn’t always go very well, but it’s fun to watch them try.
Use your own flaws to your advantage. Embrace them, don’t deny them.
Is there something wrong with you? Yup. There’s something wrong with me too. Hey, some of us aren’t great at sports, so why should we pretend? And if we don’t have a lot of cash right now, what’s the point of trying to look like we do? There’s no sense in faking it, especially if there’s no hope of “making it”. Colin’s bald. So they all talk about it and crack jokes. Instead of wallowing in it, he turns the tables on them whenever he gets a chance.
Instead of getting more crap, get more out of the crap you have.
Stop buying stuff. Is this so hard? Why do we rush out to put the latest gadget on our credit cards that we don’t need? (Yes, I’m looking at you, iPad!) People, before you go grocery shopping, take a look at your cupboards. Use a service like Supercook and see just how much stuff you can make without spending another dime. Finish paying off your car and run it into the ground before you buy a new one. Get your money’s worth already. If you started focusing more on the stuff you have, you’d be surprised at what you can accomplish with it (and how much money you can save!). Whose Line was a cheap show to produce: a desk, a few chairs, and a couple stools. Heck, they made a great, funny game out of a couple of stools called “Stand, Sit, and Bend”. Are you this creative with what you have?
Any other wonderful, life-altering advice you can get from this great show? If you can’t think of something, try to improvise something. Hiyoo.
Tom is an entrepreneur and freelance writer, working out of his apartment full-time, or wherever he feels like taking his laptop. He doesn't take long European vacations or blogs on the beach. He's an Average Joe that took control of his life. He wants you to do the same.
