A two-year-old stole my set

She had no material and no plan. The room loved her anyway

Before the story, one quick thing. Next Tuesday, August 4 at 12pm ET, I’m running a free hour on how to be the most memorable person in the room. Save your spot for August 4.

A few years ago, I stood on a stage in front of a few hundred professional speakers and watched the whole room fall for someone else.

She had no material, wasn’t even on the line-up, and... was two years old.

It was a comedy night, and I was the one performing. Pretzel (my wife) and Pineapple (my daughter) were in the audience, which was rare, since they’re not usually in the room when I work. Pineapple got excited watching me up there, the way two-year-olds get excited, with her entire body. So she climbed on stage to join me.

I picked her up. She grabbed the microphone and held it for me like a tiny, unbothered stagehand, and we did a few minutes together. I have performed that set a hundred times. I have never gotten that response.

Then she decided she was finished, slid down, and on her way off she collected the host’s notes from the stool (which she clearly needed, for reasons known only to her) and toddled away with them. The room lost it.

As a father, I was incredibly proud. As a performer, I was miffed. Because afterward, not one person came up to talk about my set. Nobody cared about me. They wanted to talk about her. How comfortable she looked. How adorable she was. Whether I was bringing her back next year.

I have sixteen million views on a TEDx talk and fourteen years on stage. She had a baby smoothie and no plan. Guess which one that room remembered.

Adorable isn’t a strategy (for most people)

Kids have an unfair advantage. They’re adorable by default, and nobody expects them to have a point. Unless you happen to be an unusually impressive five-year-old who reads this newsletter (in which case, hi, tell your parents they’re doing great), you can’t build a career on that.

So take the adorable away and look at what Pineapple actually did. She was completely present. She committed to the bit. She grabbed the one real object on that stage and made it part of the moment. None of that requires being two, and none of it requires being naturally funny.

Being memorable looks like personality, so we treat it like it’s something that happens to a few lucky people. It isn’t. It’s a handful of small, specific moves. The reason the “naturally memorable” people look effortless is that they’re running moves the rest of us were never taught or picked up.

I was standing in a room full of professional speakers, people who are paid to be memorable, and the person everyone quoted for the rest of the weekend didn’t have a single credential. She had presence and a “toddle.” The first thing is more learnable than the people who have it ever admit.

Learn to be (more) memorable

Influence, that same conference, is happening again this weekend. I’m not there this year (scheduling, plus a talk early next week), which feels strange after all this time. But it has me thinking I’d rather teach the moves than watch from the audience.

So next Tuesday, August 4 at 12pm ET, I’m running a free hour, How to Be the Most Memorable Person in the Room. I’ll walk through three of these moves, and you’ll try each one on something real from your own work. You leave with a line you can actually use the next day, not a page of notes.

If you already know you want the bigger thing this hour leads into, the coaching app opens for enrollment July 28. Get on the founding list and you’ll get the link first, at a founding rate that locks in for good.

Wit Regards,
Andrew

P.S. Pineapple just turned five and remains, to my knowledge, the most memorable act I have ever shared a stage with. She is not available for corporate bookings. I've asked.