t
Accordingtoastand-upcomedian
W
hen Gilbert Gottfried
bombs, he bombs. “If
I’ve lost the audience,
I try to lose them even
more,” says the star of the recent
documentary Gilbert. “I feel like,
Eh, what the hell. They’re gone; why
not just go for broke?” After nearly
five decades on stage and screen,
he’s had his fair share of jeers—and
figured out how to learn a thing or
two from them.
Don’t get discouraged.
“You just have to march on,” he
says. “I don’t know how many
times I’ve gotten booed or gotten
silence or people talking amongst
themselves. You just have to,
like the song says, pick yourself up,
dust yourself off, and start
all over again.”
Mine criticism for truth.
“If you’re a restaurant owner
and you get that one person who
doesn’t like your food, you
can write it off as maybe they’re
just grouchy,” he says. “But if
loads of people don’t like your
food, maybe it’s time to change
the recipe.”
Don’t blame your audience
Gottfried has noticed a pattern
among comics who fail to hit
it big: They’ll walk offstage after
a rough set and immediately start
talking about “how stupid the
audience is and how he’s funny
and he’s intellectual and he’s just
more advanced than them,” he
says. “That way he never has to
change what he’s doing. Never get
to that point.”
t
Accordingtoaveryextreme athlete
WHEN LEN FORKAS participates
in the Race Across America—a
bike ride from the Santa Monica
Pier to Annapolis, Md.—he bikes
more than 260 miles a day on
as little as three hours of sleep. “I knew I had to
pull over and sleep for 15 minutes when I saw
translucent flamingos running in front of me,”
says Forkas, who owns a company that builds and
manages cellphone towers. “There are times when
you can dig really deep, but you have to respect
your boundaries.” When it’s crunch time, here’s
how he survives those late-night hours.
No processed sugar.
“It’s like cocaine. It may give you a jolt, but you
have to keep jolting to stay awake. And it’s not
sustainable.”
Take mental breaks.
“If I am really exhausted, I pull over and sleep in
my support van for five minutes, listening to white
noise on my earphones. It’s like a vitamin B shot.”
Pump that blood.
“If you’re sleepy, do 20 push-ups at a time in one-
minute intervals. That’ll elevate your heart rate.”
Attract positivity.
“Everyone’s going to become sleep-deprived,
and if you don’t have positive people on your
team who are unselfish and believe in a mission,
they’re gonna crack. And if they crack and they’re
negative people, then your team is doomed.”
46 / ENTREPRENEUR.COM / January-February 2018
PHOTOGRAPHS BY GETTY IMAGES/ERIK TANNER (GOTTFRIED)