It's Practice, Not Rehearsal

Every day if you read Twitter or the sports pages of your favorite NFL teams, you will receive a comprehensive breakdown of the team’s daily practice. Who did good, who did bad, and who might not make the final roster? I’m sure comedian Chris Rock must read these and laugh out loud. Why? Because Rock loves making mistakes — he loves bad practices. It’s the only way he gets better. 

Before Rock sets out on his comedic tour, he finds small clubs with an intimate setting to audition his new material, work on his delivery and body language.  Here is what Rock says about his preparation:

When I start a tour, it’s not like I start out in arenas. Before this last tour I performed in this place in New Brunswick called the Stress Factory. I did about 40 or 50 shows getting ready for the tour.

Imagine if reporters covered these shows? They would write about the jokes he did well, the jokes that bombed and Twitter would have a field day proclaiming the end of Rock’s career. Rock loves his bad practices, he relishes making mistakes, fine-tuning his craft, and showing improvement. Why? Because Rock understands the difference between rehearsal and practice. 

According to Merriam-Websters dictionary rehearsal means: “something recounted or told again.” Whereas practice: “to do or perform often repeatedly so as to become proficient.” Notice the difference? After we have practiced enough, we then go rehearse, which is exactly what Rock does. He practices his stuff in front of small crowds before he rehearses for the large venues.    

As talented and successful as Rock has become, he still needs practice before his rehearsals. He craves to make mistakes to expose his imperfections in practice — which is ultimately what makes him great. 

It’s human nature to allow bad practices to affect our demeanor. We walk off the practice field feeling down, not wanting to watch the tape, and often in a bad mood.  We personalize the bad day, feeling our teaching is not making progress. But, we have it all wrong. Instead of sulking, we should be rejoicing. We’re evaluating a practice as if it’s a rehearsal-which creates our unhappiness. We must shift our mentality.  We want to make mistakes in practice, we want to understand what works and what doesn’t. We need to be more like Rock, embracing the mistakes and teach those we lead the difference between practice and rehearsals. 

When we change our mindset, we shift our expectations and then we can improve — which is exactly what Rock does.