I got to see a taping of “The Colbert Report” this week, and I’d never been to a taping quite like that. I’d been in studios for TV morning shows, and for high school quiz shows, but nothing like “Colbert.”

There’s something different about “Colbert.” When you’re waiting to get into the show, a woman comes out and tells you how important it is that you get excited and loud, because the crowd is the show’s soundtrack, and the show depends on you.

And then a guy comes out a few minutes later, and says the same thing.

And then they seat the audience, and a warm-up comic comes out and says the same thing.

And then the stage manager comes out and says the same thing.

And then Stephen Colbert himself comes out and says the same thing:

You are the soundtrack, and the show depends on you.

And then right before the show starts, just in case you weren’t sold on your role in this, Colbert looks out from behind the desk and shouts, “Have a great show, everyone!”

And after being reminded for 45 minutes straight that I needed to be loud and cheer like a maniac, what happened? I laughed really, really hard. I laughed like I was seeing “Colbert” perform for the very first time.

Yes, the show was very funny. But what was amazing to me was how well the show’s staff conveyed a simple message: You are the show’s soundtrack, so laugh your ass off, and then they spent a ton of time getting us into a great mood so we could do just that.

I was so impressed by how simple and direct the message was. They took an otherwise mundane thing — watching a guy read a teleprompter for 20 minutes — and turned it into a performance that we were excited to be part of. And it’s that simple message allows them to create a fantastic atmosphere for the show every single night.

Of course, I woke up the next day and watched the finished episode. I was looking for myself, sure. But more than that: I was listening for myself. Were we loud enough?

We were. And we really did make for a great soundtrack, and a really great show.

A thought about Vine, the social media video platform that everyone I know is obsessed with:

The reason Vine is so freaking great is because it has constraints. At 6 seconds per Vine, you don’t have enough time to make something big. So people are often turning to Vine not to capture the important moments in life, but the trivial ones, the goofy and the mundane and the silly. (Which, for what it’s worth, also happen to be the moments that are most universal.)

This is a wonderful thing about limitations: It forces us to be creative in new ways. It forces us to approach our work differently. And with Vine, the limitations have spawned some really amazing little videos.

The same thing can go for your work. Enforcing limitations — faster deadlines, stricter word counts — can force you to work in new ways, and sometimes, that leads to some amazing results.

This past weekend was Yom Kippur, the holiest day on the Jewish calendar. It’s a day where — most notably to the outside world — Jews fast from sundown to sundown.

To Jews, it’s known as the Day of Repentance. We gather together to ask for forgiveness — from ourselves, and from our God.

It is not a particularly happy day on the Jewish calendar, but it is an important day. It’s a day where we Jews are asked to take stock of our lives, and consider how we can do better in the coming year.

But something else occurred to me on this Yom Kippur: It’s a day where we get to say a lot of the things that we never get say.

On Yom Kippur, we are given the chance to apologize for things we have done. We get to hear others say the same. We get to talk about transgressions and misdeeds and mistakes.

And we get to do all this out loud.

There are certain things that we never really want to say, but on this day, we are given permission to do so.

What a wonderful thing, this opportunity. If only we had more days like it — more chances to say the things we want to say, but rarely do.

“The spirit, the will to win and the will to excel — these are the things what will endure and these are the qualities that are so much more important than any of the events themselves.” — Vince Lombardi

 
Football kicked off this weekend. This is fantastic news. I love football. A football Saturday or Sunday is a special thing.

And yet: This football season feels different than any that’s come before, because for the first time, I feel like the majority of fans have accepted these two simple facts:

Football is ridiculously dangerous, and will have to change, because it is too dangerous for humans to play in the way that modern football is played.

Football is really fun to watch, partly because it is so dangerous.

Something is going to happen to football as a result. Maybe parents will start keeping parents from playing, and will shift kids to other sports — soccer, lacrosse, wrestling. Maybe the rules will change dramatically. Maybe the technology for helmets and pads will get better.

But something is going to happen. And football fans will be outraged. They will bemoan the death of tradition. They will complain.

But this is how things works. Things change. The rules change. The game changes.

I do not know what happens next, but I know that things will change, and I know that a lot of people are going to be unhappy. But we won’t keep doing what we’re doing — we know there’s something wrong, and we fix our wrongs. It will not happen fast — this is just how our world works. There is too much money and too many players involved for it to move fast.

But it will change. We change, or we watch it change us.