The Importance of Learning to Fail

“I got cut my whole life… and I learned failure quickly. In comedy and entertainment, there’s a lot of failure, and you have to handle it well.” ⁣ Gerry Dee opens up about failure, resilience, and why getting rejected in hockey helped him thrive in comedy and TV. ⁣ Catch the full episode on all major podcast platforms or on our website.

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A lot of people don’t know that you’re a very good athlete.

You played university hockey, which is outstanding hockey. You’re a very good dancer. Kidding aside, like I’ve seen you dance, you’re very good at that. Did your athleticism tie into this at all in terms of competitiveness and those types of things?

Great question. You know, when I, uh, when I was a walk-on at Saint fx. I said same thing, I wanna play university hockey. And I had no business thinking that, uh, I had done my degree at York, so I was a bit older and I had been sort of tearing up this intramural league, which was full contact,

Right.

said, I’m going to teach, go and do my teaching degree at St.

Effects. And I walked on, I made the team, and I was like, first line, first game, I’m standing at the center ice and I got four points. And I was like, what? Like what’s going on here? But. It caught up quick, like you quickly realized that I probably wasn’t good enough to stay up there and I eventually moved to the fourth line.

But what it taught me about the business I’m in is I got cut. I got cut my whole life from teams. Um, I learned failure quickly. And in comedy and entertainment, there’s a lot of failure and you have to handle it well. And I’ve seen people in my business. Pitch a show, not get it, kick up a tantrum. You don’t know what you’re talk, they never work again.

Right.

I think one of the things I’m most proud of is, sure, there’s people that don’t like me in the business or whatever, and I don’t really care, but I know I’ve maintained good relationships with good people, and especially the executives and the networks like and that, and that’s people that I know don’t have a problem working with me because I’ve always.

It’s been professional and you know, I’ve pitched, I’ve pitched a bunch of shows since Mr. D and they don’t get green lit. Um, but I don’t kick up rions. I, get the business, like, I get how hard it is for CBC and, and Netflix and these companies I know hard it is for them, so to be a baby.