There is something magical about one person using only a microphone and their mind to pursue and conquer the specific goal of making someone laugh. In my 22 years, I've found a bit of my own success at stand-up comedy. Although, this laughter was rarely generated by jokes - because I never understood how to write a joke.

I distinctly remember the first time I got a laugh on stage. It all started with the Grinch. I'd sketched out a few rough notes and just went for it.

On stage, there's no time to reflect and savor the moment, because I'm always pursuing the next moment to see how I can score even a bigger laugh.

Funny is a feeling. I can definitively say now, listening to the audio that captured my first punchline that achieved genuine laughter. It was funny. But why was it funny?

When I thought long and hard about it, the questions went something like this: Was this even a joke? What even is a joke? Was I just saying funny things? Is it how I am saying it? Are they laughing at me?

I set to find out answers, so I could learn the craft of stand-up comedy, and master it. Naturally, I typed "How to be a stand-up comedian" into YouTube. That didn't help, perhaps because I was too easily distracted by the "Top Ten Big Foot Citings. "(And YouTube still suggests it to me, maybe the algorithm knows something I don't?)

I decided to go directly to the source. Over the past couple of years, I have interviewed professional comedians and comedy writers hoping to voice memo the secret to crafting a perfect joke. After countless conversations with some incredible comedic minds and still not understanding, Wayne Federman finally struck a nerve.

"Just because this is the way it has been done, doesn't mean it's the way that it must be done," the comedian, whose lengthy credentials include "Conan," and "The Tonight Show," told me.

In my opinion, this was Federman's most important piece of advice. After at least 50 open mic nights, 32 classes and as many in-person discussions as I could land, I realize now there is no set method for writing stand-up material because it is so personal.

Stand-up is an art form that is usually one person standing on stage (get it?) with the specific goal of making people laugh. The comedian accomplishes this goal through a set containing numerous jokes, or routines.

If there is no winning formula for creating a set filled with strong jokes that guarantee a laugh, what is there?. There are countless methods comedians use to create their individual acts.

Where do we start? How about with a definition of a joke. Cue Federman

The premise is the starting point: The idea or thought that the comedian explores to deliver his jokes. A premise can derive from anywhere at any point in time. Fahim Anwar, who performed on "Conan" and "Late Night with Seth Meyers," defined two different methods of writing material.

The first is "egg timer style," giving yourself a finite amount of time to construct ideas. The other is by living life and when inspiration strikes, "Jot down the thought." One method captures ideas and the other manufacturers ideas.

Which brings us back to my friend the Grinch. The comedic premise is that he's the greatest of all time (GOAT) because he stole Christmas.

Comedians must, above all else, must write what they think is funny.

It's the classic Venn diagram, Fahim says. One side is what the audience thinks is funny. The other side is what makes you funny, and, "In the middle is where you want to live."

Constructing a bit is always a case by case basis, I pulled the original idea from thin air, but after realizing that this premise might have some potential, I implemented the "egg timer," method to figure out how all the different ways I could expand on why the Grinch actually is the GOAT.

What else about the Grinch could be a funny point I make to further my argument? Well, what do we know about the Grinch? What comes to mind to me personally, he eats garbage.

Now let's put a comedic spin on it. If he eats garbage, he must have an incredible digestive system that allows him to eat any food source that most people wouldn't stomach. How does this make him the GOAT? He doesn't have to pay for food.

This is another angle I came up with during a writing session. By thinking of all the different ways that the Grinch could be the GOAT, I was just trying to find things that were funny.

Federman, who teaches at the University of Southern California, calls this the "Cube Theory," a visualization of the idea that is more than one way to look at every premise. "Look at every premise from underneath, on the other side, the side I don't see," he said.

But it is not only the angle of your premise, it's how you express the angle on stage. In other words, it's how the comedian tells his joke.

"He stole Christmas, and he didn't use any reindeers, he only had help from his dog." Here I am pointing out funny observations I have made about why I think the joke is the GOAT.

Perhaps to express the fact that I think it's dope that the Grinch doesn't need to pay for food, I could impersonate the Grinch on stage, and say, "You could save a lot of money eating leftover Hamburger Helper."

Some jokes end with laughter, others end with the sound of crickets. Although, it highlights another key element not in only stand-up but comedy, but also in general. "Trial and error remain the secret for me in comedy," said Brent Forrester, a comedy writer whose credentials include The Simpsons and The Office.

If you watch a good comedian on stage, what you are watching is the distillation of perhaps a year of trying stuff out until they found the stuff that really works," he said. "When we see people that are funny, it is important to remember they workshopped it a ton."

Or, as Fahim puts it: "Your crowd is your editor."

In this story alone, I've given nine different renditions of the Grinch premise. Some of the jokes bombed, others went quite well. In fact, some of the jokes above, I told just to prove to you that there are a million different ways to tell a joke and if it doesn't work once, try again another way.

This is something that Lew Schneider, who has an HBO special, told me once in an interview that I'll never forget. He said that every good comedian completely commits to the premise. "If you are not gonna get a laugh that's OK, but if you don't get a laugh 'cause you didn't explore this thing or deliver it with all your heart, then you don't really know whether it works or not."

If it doesn't get a laugh do not automatically label the idea as not funny and discard it, because you may be throwing away the spark for your greatest joke to date. The mechanics of a joke that achieves laughter on stage are so incremental and specific that it may or may not work for several micro reasons. Maybe there's too many words or not the right word. Or maybe your crowd just sucks.

I've done sets at open mics in a room that had fewer people than basketball players on a court and I've performed in the middle of nowhere with low expectations, only to be surprised when the crowd loved it.

After all, a comedian is only limited by his imagination. Now that I think of it, maybe that's what the Grinch and I have in common.