Tell your joke in front of a mirror. Practice it out loud. Repeat it to friends, family or co-workers — anybody who will listen. Repeat it over and over again until you can tell it without the slightest hesitation or mistake. Keep doing it until it becomes as natural as breathing and you feel comfortable and at ease. Record it on audiotape exactly the way you would tell it before an audience. Play it back. Listen to it carefully and objectively. Be hypercritical of your work. Make sure you’ve followed the rules you’ve
learned. Then, record it and check it again. Do this a half dozen times for each joke. Milton Berle says, “Security is knowing your lines.” Practicing the craft of comedy is the ultimate training ground. Groucho Marx wrote in his autobiography, Groucho and Me, “All good comedians arrive by trial and error.” Anyone who wants to flourish as a professional funny person can only accomplish this goal by constant and disciplined drill. Stand-up comedians sound spontaneous precisely because they are not. The material they use is constantly honed, refined and rehearsed. Doing your comedy homework will enable you to approach the audience without fear. If you want to master the skill of making people laugh, there really are no shortcuts. You must do the required work. Watching professional athletes before a game is a great lesson in what is required to become especially proficient at a particular skill. Before each game baseball players practice fielding, throwing and batting. They do warm-up exercises. They run sprints. And they do this before every contest whether they’re regulars or will sit on the bench throughout the entire game. They do it because they know the importance of practice. They have to be ready, prepared to participate at a moment’s notice. The following dictum is prominently displayed above my desk as a constant reminder: Failure to prepare is preparation for failure.
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