A friend of mine, another comic, asked me what material I’d be bringing for a show we’d both be appearing in, and I told him I was going to do a set he hadn’t seen, one about marriage.

He told me he doesn’t know anything about being married, even though that was just the theme of my set, and that the night itself was completely open about what we chose to talk about.

I have no idea why he assumed he’d have to have similarly themed material to mine. That’s just the set I chose for the night. But further comments revealed to me that he felt insecure because his experiences weren’t the same as mine.

How do I articulate how much this is not an issue? This guy, though relatively new, is a great comic in his own right, with a wry point of view and good skills as a writer. He also has some unique experiences, growing up in another culture and able to provide an objective take on ours.

I’ve heard comics say that the essence of humour is to see the stuff we don’t even notice in a way an alien visitor might, pointing out the oddness in things we take for granted. If this is true, this guy has a comedian superpower. He’s not a while middle aged guy who’s been married, as I am, but he has plenty of his own ideas and perspectives to bring. In terms of life experience – an essential ingredient for good comedy – he has heaps, and most of it’s unique.

What I’d love to tell him is that the evolution from newbie to comedian is a process of finding your own voice; working out who you are, what you have to say and how you say it. Sure, we can all practice crowdwork, improve our mic technique, work on our segues, implement word economy, familiarize ourselves with joke structures… but the levelling-up is all about finding our voice.

Until we learn to establish who we are, the other stuff won’t “take” as effectively as it should for the effort we put in. And when we establish who we are, the other stuff more easily falls into place.

Comedy, like other arts and communications (and many other things) consists of both form and content. The trick with comedy is that content can be stolen, and in comedy it often is. Form, our our unique voice and style and point of view, is much harder to appropriate.

Tragically, someone can steal your joke quite easily and people might never notice. If they steal your act, though – your voice and character and perspective – the imposter’s job is going to be so much harder to get away with. Especially if your experiences and point of view are as individual as you are.

In the rather brilliant comic book graphic novel “Watchmen” there’s a great scene in which one of the characters, Rorschach, is locked up in a prison inhabited by hundreds of hardened criminals that he’d put there. They’re all screaming for his blood and letting him know that he’s in lots of danger there. The self appointed leader of these criminals sums up the precarious nature of Rorschach’s situation and asks him “What have you got?” and his reply, which should terrify them all, is simply “My perspective.”

In many respects, our “act” – that composite of character, perspective and style that emerges when we find our voice – is all that we have. But that’s OK because in comedy it’s more than enough.

Robin Williams once said, and I paraphrase because locating the actual quote is difficult, that the awesome thing about stand up is that it’s the one platform where you can bring all of yourself.

What’s in your inventory? Irony? Scientific knowledge? Musical talent? A phobia? A weird upbringing? Superstitions? A flair for the dramatic? An annoying friend? A talent for impressions? Religious faith? Webbed toes? An embarrassing memory involving a can of soup and your neighbor’s pet frog?

You really can bring it all to your act. Rockstars and Hollywood Actors can’t do that. The beauty of comedy, and a big part of why it’s the creative platform I’ve concentrated on at this point in my life, is that Robin was right; you really can use everything you’ve got.

And what you have is unique. Your experiences and possessions and beliefs and convictions and relationships and thoughts and feelings are combined in such a unique way that they’re replicated by nobody else on the planet. Your act or self is the best asset you have, your secret weapon that can even turn generic jokes into valuable assets once they’re filtered through your unique voice.

You’ve never been married? Don’t worry about it. You probably dodged a bullet. You sure don’t have to feel inadequate about the experiences you don’t have, and really need to focus on the ones that you do. Nobody else has exactly your memories or thoughts, and that’s not a weakness. It’s a strength.

Every comedian I know is a bit of a geek about it, interested in improving our technique and learning more theory about better writing and delivery. Naturally we all need to do this,. Every time we tell a joke it’s an important step in an ongoing continuous improvement process – I’m reminded of when a peer asked Gary Gulman when he knew that one of his best bits was finished, and he responded that it isn’t and might never be.

But all of this focus on our technical ability only realizes it’s maximum potential when we find our voice, develop our act, really define and articulate who we are. Sometimes the investment in our own self-awareness is every bit as valuable as the other practices we do.