Your Life Called. It Wants You to Stop Auditioning.
A practical lesson in becoming from someone who teaches comedians how to stop pretending
I was in the middle of worrying about fifteen different futures when my phone buzzed with a voicemail.
It was my life. Again.
“Hi, this is your life. Just checking in. You seem to be rehearsing conversations that haven’t happened, practicing failure in advance, and giving anxiety the lead role. Call me back when you can.”
Click.
Rude.
Accurate.
Deeply on brand.
So, I called Anne Libera, because if anyone understands the chaos of trying to control a scene that has not happened yet, it is a woman who has spent decades at The Second City teaching people how to stop gripping their lines like life preservers.
I told her about the swirling mental tabs I had open.
The overthinking.
The planning.
The pre-disaster rehearsals.
The imaginary arguments with people I haven’t met yet.
The meticulously crafted responses to questions no one has asked.
She listened quietly and then said:
“John, you’re not living. You’re auditioning.”
Silence.
Even my ego pulled up a chair for that one. Somewhere in the distance, I heard my to-do list spontaneously combust.
She continued, and the words hit harder than I expected.
“Real life does not cast the person who knows all the lines. It casts the person who is willing to show up.”
My inner control freak immediately began drafting a formal complaint.
Anne was not finished.
“Improv isn’t about being clever. It is about responding honestly to what is actually happening. Most people don’t have a creativity problem. They have a permission problem. They don’t trust themselves enough to stop performing.”
Ouch.
Direct.
Correct.
I have built entire chapters of my life on immaculate audition energy.
Trying to stay ten steps ahead.
Trying to manage outcomes.
Trying to predict scenes before anyone else has entered them.
Preparing for futures that may not even exist is exhausting, by the way. Zero out of ten. Strongly discourage.
But here is the punchline Anne dropped in my lap:
“You cannot become the next version of yourself while you are still auditioning for the old role.”
Sometimes, becoming starts with one step off the old script.
There it was.
Becoming isn’t the dramatic reinvention montage we bookmarked in our heads. No Chariots of Fire swelling in the background. No slow-motion haircut. No life coach materializing out of dry-ice fog like a budget Oprah.
It usually happens in a moment so ordinary it should come with a trigger warning for anticlimax.
You catch yourself white-knuckling a script you’ve been hating for three years straight. Your big, beautiful five-year plan? Yeah, that’s just anxiety wearing a blazer and pretending it has a 401k. All those perfect comebacks you’ve been stockpiling turn out to be panic with a thesaurus and a standing desk.
Then, in one tiny, slightly mortifying second, you answer the question that was actually asked instead of the one you prepared for your imaginary TED stage. You walk out without the lines memorized and, shockingly, do not burst into flames. Turns out you can muddle through a real moment without cue cards, mood lighting, or a Hans Zimmer score.
No dramatic reinvention required. One honest, half-mumbled sentence and the whole performance you’ve been giving collapses like a cheap prop wall.
That is improv. And, infuriatingly, that’s also how you become the next version of yourself.
We’re all waiting for fireworks: new city, new job, new personality patch notes. Meanwhile, the real shift happens the moment you stop acting like someone who has it all figured out and accidentally start acting like a person who can handle what’s actually in front of them.
Anne handed me the line I’m going to steal and claim as my own personal gospel:
“Stop auditioning. Start living.”
Your life’s been holding the door open for years, tapping its watch, wondering when the hell you’re finally going to walk onstage.
Want to hear the full conversation with Anne Libera?
This is one of the most fun and deeply human conversations I have had about creativity, identity, and becoming.
Listen on Passion Struck.
(It pairs well with the moment you decide to stop performing your old life.)
What part of your life do you keep auditioning for even though you have already outgrown the role?
Reply with one honest sentence. I read all of them.
John.
Listen to the full Ad-Free episode below:
Dropping the curtain of pretense and allowing the true self to shine thru… great stuff, John. Thanks for the read. - Wayne
Writing and talking about what I know with lessons learned, not about what I think others want; either in Substack or when I get up to teach staff accountants continuing education in a few minutes. Tell stories, don’t read the slide deck!