3.5 Ideas from Stand Up Comic Tim Conniff
3 min readApr 22, 2025
“When was the last time that you did something for the first time?” — Tim Conniff
Tim Conniff spent 30 years focused on his corporate career and family before rediscovering his passion for the stand up comedy stage.
Tim transformed himself from a nervous first-timer to hosting comedy shows and securing nearly 70 paid gigs.
What makes Tim’s story compelling is not just his rapid success in comedy, but his message about conquering comfort zones and embracing the “I can do that” mindset. His keynote presentation “Your Comfort Zone Is No Joke” combines clean stand-up comedy with powerful lessons about pushing beyond self-imposed limitations.
3.5 Ideas from Tim Conniff:
1) Have an “I Can Do That” Moment Instead of “I Could Never Do That”
- “The number one thing people say to me when I tell them I’m a standup comedian is ‘I could never do that.’ We have to be able to turn that on its head and have those ‘I can do that’ moments.”
- “One of the hardest things for people to overcome is the mindset that they couldn’t possibly do something challenging. That fixed mindset holds so many people back from discovering new talents and passions.”
- “Even when I bombed my first public speaking assignment in college, I didn’t give up. I found another opportunity and drove 2.5 hours to do an open mic in Philadelphia, which became the foundation for rediscovering comedy decades later.”
2) Being Clean and Professional Opens More Doors
- “If you could keep it network TV clean, you will never have a problem getting booked.”
- “It challenges me to be a better writer. How could I still get those same laughs, but do it as a writer and write good, solid jokes with a great premise, good punchlines?”
- “It’s afforded me so many more opportunities to do corporate work, Rotary groups, chamber of commerce, Kiwanis club events. I’ve been able to do events for all these community groups, churches. It gives you so many more opportunities.”
3) Creative Success Requires Constant Iteration
- “90 percent of the stuff that you write isn’t funny. If I were to print out all the stuff in my notes app, literally there’d be 40 to 50 pages of stuff, and 90 percent of it isn’t funny.”
- “It’s a very iterative process. You find the stuff that works and you continue to build on it. It’s like anything — you can’t just do it once for three hours and you’ve got it. It’s that constant flow, that constant grind, that constant iteration.”
- “All the sculptures in Italy — they just didn’t hit it one time. ‘Hey, there’s David, he’s done!’ No, you got to work on it a little bit, chisel some stuff away, add stuff, subtract stuff.”
3.5) What’s ONE LESSON Everyone Should Take Away?
- “Don’t wish it were easier, wish that you were better. I lean on that a lot, in the business world and in comedy.”
- “In comedy, they say you never blame your audience. There’s no such thing as a bad audience. If I were a better comedian, the audience wouldn’t have been as tough.”
- “Do one thing out of your comfort zone. Do one thing that makes you nervous or that you don’t think you could do, because you can do it.”
