Monday, July 16, 2018
“You can’t own results. You can only own initiative.” – Aisha Tyler
Aisha Tyler (@aishatyler on Twitter, Instagram, and Vimeo) is an award-winning director, actor, comedian, bestselling author, podcaster, and activist. She’s amazing. If you enjoyed my episodes with Brandon Stanton, Debbie Millman, or Adam Robinson, among others, you will love this one.
Whether you do any type of creative work, want to be too complex to categorize, or want to overcome rejection and beat the odds, this one has something for you.
Aisha voices superspy Lana Kane on F/X’s Emmy award-winning animated comedy series Archer, which won four back-to-back Television Critics’ Choice Awards. She is a regular on the hit CBS show Criminal Minds, now in its 13th season, for which she has also directed. Aisha continues to host the CW’s hit improv show, Whose Line Is It Anyway, and she is launching a line of bottled cocktails she created, Courage + Stone, in Summer of 2018.
Aisha was a co-host for seven seasons of CBS’s Emmy-winning daytime show The Talk, which she departed in September 2017 to focus more on acting and directing. She is also well-remembered for her character arc on Friends, and she was the first African-American to have a long-standing role on the show. Her feature film debut, the thriller AXIS, premiered 2017, and the won the Outstanding Achievement in Feature Filmmaking award at the 2017 Newport Beach Film Festival, then had a theatrical run at Arclight Hollywood, Landmark NYC and Alamo Drafthouse, Austin, Texas. A San Francisco native, Aisha graduated from Dartmouth College with a degree in Government and Environmental Policy. An avid gamer and passionate advocate (and occasional adversary) of the gaming community, Aisha’s voice can be heard in the video games Halo: Reach, Gears of War 3, and Watch Dogs. Aisha is a bourbon and hard rock fan, a snowboarder, and a sci-fi obsessive.
Enjoy!
Want to hear another podcast with an artist who tells stories in a unique way? — Listen to my conversation with Brandon Stanton, the photographer behind Humans of New York. (Stream below or right-click here to download):
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QUESTION(S) OF THE DAY: What was your favorite quote or lesson from this episode? Please let me know in the comments.
Scroll below for links and show notes…
SELECTED LINKS FROM THE EPISODE
- Connect with Aisha Tyler:
Website | Twitter | Instagram | Facebook | Vimeo
SHOW NOTES
- How is Aisha partly to blame for the existence of The Tim Ferriss Show? [07:42]
- The trademark question Aisha would ask of all her podcast guests. [09:15]
- Aisha tells us about her somewhat unorthodox childhood and family relationships. [10:52]
- How did Aisha answer the questions “Whose day is it?” and “What are you going to do?” every morning? [12:04]
- From where does Aisha get her general sense of optimism? [16:05]
- Has Aisha been good at following her father’s earlier advice? How does she feel about regret? [18:15]
- Contrasting Mr. Tyler’s free-range parenting style with the modern model that tends toward overprotection. [20:29]
- Having a bad day? You’re not special! [26:22]
- What did the young and scholarly Aisha want to be when she grew up? [27:38]
- Why was Aisha miserable at what she thought was her dream job? [30:06]
- Why did Aisha pick standup comedy to break into show business? [31:00]
- What it was like to keep a day job and do standup comedy as a hobby. [33:09]
- If San Francisco was known as a comedy town, why would Aisha commute hours away to do standup when she was getting started? [35:11]
- What made the comedy club bubble of the ’80s burst? [37:40]
- How did Aisha practice to get better at standup? [41:32]
- A memorable set Aisha bombed and the gift it gave her. [43:29]
- Dealing with hecklers Bill Burr and Kenny Moore style. [47:06]
- Aisha shares some of her own heckler stories. [54:18]
- Aisha’s academic approach to the math of comedy. [59:03]
- What’s the Rule of Threes? [1:01:37]
- Aisha may not have the discipline of Garry Shandling, but she has her own ways of gauging her evolution as a comic. [1:02:47]
- How comedians are like musicians, writers, and other artists. [1:04:53]
- The changing metrics of success and a common trap modern-day creatives can fall into if they’re not careful (or scrupulous). [1:05:30]
- What happens when you operate from a place of fear and want to please the nebulous majority more than you want to please yourself. [1:09:06]
- If one likes big butts, one cannot lie — even if it might tick someone off. Especially if it might tick someone off. [1:12:00]
- Sometimes constructive feedback does make me change my mind. [1:14:52]
- No matter how you present your art to the world, there are always going to be people who don’t get what you do. Aisha strives to do meaningful work that’s authentic to her experience. [1:15:18]
- Why being funny isn’t actually the most important part of comedy. [1:17:32]
- When you’re beginning in the creative game, expect that most things are not going to work out. [1:18:28]
- Why it doesn’t pay to emulate a master of a craft in their own field. [1:19:02]
- After wearing so many different career hats, how did Aisha decide to get started in filmmaking? [1:21:17]
- Aisha believes in personal aggression. [1:24:38]
- How Aisha piggybacked on resources being used for her Comedy Central special to make her first music video. [1:25:34]
- Aisha made music videos for her friends’ bands and other short-format films to learn more about the craft. [1:26:39]
- What lessons did Aisha learn from these projects? [1:28:22]
- Aisha talks about visiting the sets of Penny Dreadful and Vikings in Ireland and how it led to making AXIS. [1:29:42]
- How did Aisha get the time off and the financial resources to sustain herself on this trip? [1:31:42]
- What did the email Aisha sent to get permission to visit the set of Vikings look like? [1:33:33]
- Why you don’t have to be Aisha Tyler or even have a verified social media account for your kind words expressing appreciation for a show to be seen by the people who make that show. [1:34:27]
- How the Budweiser “Whassup” campaign came about — and a director’s career was launched — because of a catchy short film that was seen by the right people. [1:35:53]
- Why Aisha made AXIS. [1:37:45]
- Resources for people who are interested in screenplays or early stage tech investing but don’t have a foot in the door of the establishment. [1:39:00]
- What is AXIS, and did anyone try to talk Aisha out of making it? [1:40:14]
- How would Aisha describe her experience of being involved with AXIS? Why did she crowdfund its financial resources and shoot it in seven days? Would she make a movie this way again? [1:42:31]
- The magic, intensity, and clarity of operating on an aggressive deadline. [1:47:03]
- If everything we want is on the other side of fear, what is Aisha afraid of now or hoping to get on the other side of in the next year or so? [1:48:30]
- What is one of Aisha’s current struggles? [1:50:27]
- “If art imitates life, in order to create art, you have to have a life.” [1:51:40]
- As a workaholic, how does Aisha manage to live a life that influences her art? [1:53:03]
- How would Aisha’s life be different if she didn’t have exercise as an element? [1:56:03]
- What equipment does Aisha use to work out? [1:58:07]
- What does a prototypical workout look like for Aisha? [1:59:00]
- How does Aisha take her glutathione, and what does it help with? [2:00:00]
- Does Aisha exercise before or after breakfast? What time does she wake up, and what do her first 60 to 90 minutes look like? [2:02:28]
- Aisha works out at home to save transit time. What does she watch when she rows? [2:04:32]
- Does Aisha make New Year’s resolutions? [2:05:56]
- Aisha likens her first (unwatchable and destroyed) short film to the standup set she bombed. [2:08:27]
- When has Aisha been extremely proud of herself? [2:12:17]
- How the confidence developed in exploring areas outside of the box can transfer to future projects. [2:15:28]
- To grow from failure, you have to be aggressive. [2:17:45]
- Parting thoughts. [2:18:28]
PEOPLE MENTIONED
Posted on: July 16, 2018.
Please check out Tribe of Mentors, my newest book, which shares short, tactical life advice from 100+ world-class performers. Many of the world's most famous entrepreneurs, athletes, investors, poker players, and artists are part of the book. The tips and strategies in Tribe of Mentors have already changed my life, and I hope the same for you. Click here for a sample chapter and full details. Roughly 90% of the guests have never appeared on my podcast.
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