Groundhog Days

Dare I say we’re in a groove? Edinburgh week 2

Aug 15, 2025

For anyone who hasn’t read the first three posts of this series, today’s post will make more sense if you check at least one of these out:

It’s been another week, I’m six shows wiser (we had a much-needed off day), and here are 11 thoughts:

1. What do you do when you can’t quit?

I thought about this a lot when it rained for the entire bike on the Ironman—on any other day, I would quit. But today is the one day I can’t. So what do I do with this?

Edinburgh is the same. In any other situation, I’d stop and reassess. But I literally cannot quit.

I think it’s really useful to put yourself in situations where you simply have to continue (I mean, you can quit, technically, but that’s pretty lame). The literal point of hard situations is to see how you respond.

I’d like to think that Tess and I are taking the challenge in stride and genuinely making ourselves better because of it.

2. Groundhog Day

One thing I love about my job is that every day feels different. One day, I’m doing a show in Miami, the next day I’m doing Stand-Up Magic in New York, followed by off days and then a corporate show.

Ironically, Edinburgh feels the most like a 9-5 job of any point in my life, simply because each show is at the same time, in the same place, every day.

And before each show, we go out to flyer in the same place, at the same time, every day. So does every other performer. So when we flyer, not only are we doing the same thing, but we’re seeing the same people, often in the same clothes.

You might be thinking “Yeah. Seeing the same people over and over is how anyone with a real job feels.” I’m not saying it’s unique. But it’s a new experience for me.

This phenomenon isn’t good or bad—it just is. But I find myself consciously making plans outside of the show to break up my day and make each one stand out a bit.

3. What is the ideal cadence?

One magician here suggested that the ideal cadence for doing (and, critically, learning from) a lot of shows is to follow each show with two days off. His argument—it takes time to digest a show, watch tape, and make necessary changes.

Edinburgh’s cadence—one show every day with one day off for 24 consecutive days—is too fast-paced for many. I know I’ve felt the struggle—I wake up with barely enough time to shower, eat breakfast, respond to emails in the States, before running off to watch a show, flyer for my own, and get on stage again.

I wrote about this in my tour reflection post, but Spaced Repetition is really important. Your brain needs time to process what it’s experienced. Or, to put it in athletic terms, absorb the stimulus. You would never, ever see an experienced athlete going their hardest for 24 days straight, let alone seven.

So, on one hand, Edinburgh’s cadence is too fast to properly digest what you’re doing. On the other hand, I love it.

While the tricks I’m doing remain essentially the same, the lines are changing every night. I’m finding tighter ways to get on and off stage, introduce a prop, and get a laugh. I’m obsessed with these tiny changes, and it’s so satisfying to get one right. The fact that I get to make that adjustment every day is wonderful.

4. Be imperfect

I thought I would run every day. I’ve run, like, three times. That’s ok for two reasons:

I just ran an Ironman
It’s ok (and encouraged, actually), to prioritize sleep and the show. That’s why I’m here.

5. You fill the time you have

Honestly, this is one of the most important facts in the world. I don’t say that lightly.

Wanna do cool shit? Understand this concept.

It’s Parkinson’s law: Work expands to fill the available time.

Our rule on tour, always, was to arrive at the venue 90 minutes before doors open. Meaning, two hours before the show. If we did that, we felt like we had just enough time to set up.

In Edinburgh, we enter the venue twenty minutes before the show begins, and roughly ten minutes before doors open. I thought that every day would be a mad dash to set up. But in fact, it’s not a rush at all. Ten minutes feels like the absolute perfect amount of time.

Steve Jobs would tell his employees to hit deadlines they regularly deemed impossible. And yet they would hit them, over and over again. While I’m not condoning his assholic tendencies, when he set a deadline, they tended to achieve it. We were told we have to set our show in ten minutes. So we set our show in ten minutes.

This goes so far beyond Edinburgh. Want to learn a new skill? Want to get something done? You can usually do it much faster than you think you can.

It doesn’t mean to rush, necessarily. It means to focus and remember that we spend so much of our time puttering around doing nothing.

Parkinson’s Law is a reminder that we can do so much more than we think we’re capable of. I will have completed an Ironman and done 23 shows in Edinburgh in the span of a month. That’s not an accident, and it’s not as crazy as it sounds. I just said no to literally everything else.

6. You’re not in Edinburgh to “make it.” You’re here to “DO IT.” “Making it” is a byproduct of the work

That is all.

7. Our job is to be consistent

The prophet Steve Martin has, I think, the best thought on this. And when people ask me why I’m at the Fringe, I think back to this every time. Martin said:

“It was easy to be great. Every entertainer has a night when everything is clicking. These nights are accidental and statistical: Like lucky cards in poker, you can count on them occurring over time. What was hard was to be good. Consistently good. Night after night. No matter what the abominable circumstances.”

Our job is to be consistent and kill every time. Fundamentally, that’s what I’m learning to do here.

A good show is not optional. We expect a restaurant to feed us well every time we enter, no matter the circumstance. That is their job. Performing can be a hobby, but the second people give you their time or money, you have to deliver.

After our show, I recommended Chris Turner to an audience member. Chris Turner is the definition of consistent. I’ve seen him perform probably a dozen times in New York. He has killed Every. Single. Time. I was willing to stake my reputation on Chris Turner because I trust him to kill.

That’s what I want people to think about my show. “Go to Max. It’s safe. Even on the bad day, it’ll be great.” I want someone to be willing to stake their reputation on me.

Anyone can kill, and anyone can bomb. But very few people can walk up and just be consistent. That’s what Edinburgh teaches you to do.

Because the thing is, steadily being good leads to steadily being great.

8. You can do a lot in an hour

Many lineup shows in New York are too long. The odds of me wanting to sit through 90 minutes of six different standups doing ten minutes are very, very small at this point.

With very few exceptions, every show here is 55 minutes. And you know what? Those shows get standing ovations. Those shows win awards. And I’ve heard approximately zero people walk out and say “I wish that was longer.”

Again, you fill the time you have. And when someone tells you to keep it to an hour, that’s just what you do.

Woodrow Wilson said “If I am to speak ten minutes, I need a week for preparation; if fifteen minutes, three days; if half an hour, two days; if an hour, I am ready now.”

Brevity is a skill. Rambling is not.

9. I don’t believe in Karma but I believe in good vibes

I threw someone else’s flyer in the trash before I did a show. The show didn’t go well. Causal? Maybe not. But I won’t throw someone’s flyer in the trash again.

10. Inputs and outputs are not equal

About a week ago, I flyered to a group of high schoolers. I’d say that, over time, about 30 of them came to our show.

Their presence meant that the show was full, which created a better vibe, and more urgency for other people to buy tickets once they saw that it was full. A positive feedback loop commenced, and our shows sold well for a few days.

80% of outputs come from 20% of inputs. Often that ratio skews 90/10.

We must look at this positively, because it means that anyone you flyer to might be a catalyst for success.

11. Generate anticipation

When someone anticipates a show, they enjoy it more, because anticipation is part of the experience. The show starts when someone buys a ticket.

So—the more word of mouth spreads, the more people will anticipate the show. The better that show will go. The better the word of mouth will be. And the higher the anticipation.

We’re trying to create an exponential positive feedback loop. We do that by showing up every day, having slept well, with a firm commitment to doing our jobs.

We’ve got ten shows left in the run. I’ll see you next week, seven shows later, and will report back.