Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: I am not a theater person. I did not grow up doing theater. I don't even consider myself a theater person now.
Improv changed my life. Applying improv is basically taking all the things that make improv work on stage, beyond the theater, into any place where people interact. Sometimes we can't see our way forward until we start moving.
[00:00:22] Speaker B: Hey there, billionaire. Yep, I'm talking to you. If you expect to live another 31 years, you're already a billionaire. Not in money, but in the real measure, wealth, time. That's because 31 years is roughly a billion seconds. But most of us waste time in ways we'd never waste money. The currency of time billionaires is micro moments. The 90 second to 15 minute gaps hidden between the structured parts of your day. This podcast is about reclaiming them with quick research backed ideas to help you feel more creative, productive and alive. Welcome to Time Billionaires. Let's make your next micro moment count.
Today's guest is my first ever improv teacher, which is so wild because it feels like forever ago and so recent that that was. It would have been, I guess, April 2023, I think it was. Your first class teaching my first class as a student, Is that right?
[00:01:17] Speaker A: I've been teaching for a while.
[00:01:19] Speaker B: Okay, then that's totally wrong first class at the upfront, or am I just
[00:01:22] Speaker A: totally wrong first class with you?
[00:01:23] Speaker B: Okay, well then I'm wrong. You had a lot of experience and it was, yeah, my first ever improv class that I very much did not want to do at all.
It took weeks and weeks, probably the entire eight week class of struggling to get out of the car every time I'd show up to the parking lot 15 minutes early and then force myself out. But you made the principles really easy. All of my insecurities about performing and being perceived or taking up too much space, really, we broke down in the class, which I thought was awesome. And you do that now with businesses, with individuals. You help them learn how to apply the principles of improv to more intentional leadership.
Let's talk about that, how you do that and some of the tools you teach.
[00:02:07] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I like how you said that. Applying improv, because we call it applied improv because it's basically taking all the things that make improv work on stage, beyond the theater, into any place where people interact. So the things that make improv work on stage, which, by the way, parenthetically, I am not a theater person. I did not grow up doing theater. I don't even consider myself a theater person now.
I don't even perform much.
And improv changed my life, shifted my relationship with my daughter. Amazingly, I've been doing improv since 2011, I think.
And so the things that make improv work on stage, which, when you had Holly Mandel, was that previous guest, great episode.
There's things like being present, seeing everything as an offer.
So not just things people say, but non verbal things.
[00:03:00] Speaker B: What's an offer?
[00:03:01] Speaker A: Yeah, an offer. That's great. Really, it's anything. It could be a word you say. Like you said, well, that was your first class.
And I said, well, in my brain I said, what can I say yes to? Yes, this was my first class. Teaching you, right?
[00:03:17] Speaker B: The positivity, I think so much of life, there's offers or bids. I've heard them called that our partners, our kids put out that our parents that we don't even notice. Like a sigh, oh, it's fine. There's some exasperation that we don't know how to share because there's always more going on beneath the surface. So looking for these offers, something that I as an improviser may think was just a throwaway filler line, you, as my scene partner, could grasp onto and make the most important part of the scene if you chose to. It's looking for those opportunities.
[00:03:48] Speaker A: Yeah, looking for. When you said bids, it makes me think of John and Julie Gottman. They used to have this thing called the Love Lab. My friend Sarah McMahon, you did that couples workshop, right?
[00:03:57] Speaker B: I dragged my husband kicking and screaming to it because he thought he was going to have to perform.
And he was so pleasantly delighted by the fact that it really was just interpersonal dynamics and fun. I think that's a big misconception that you don't have to perform to do improv. Even I didn't realize that until we had lunch. And you brought that up because I have been saying for a few months, I used to do improv because I took a hiatus from performing when my daughter was born. But no, you're saying we're all improvisers.
[00:04:25] Speaker A: We're all improvisers. I remember hearing those exact words from a woman. Patricia Ryan Madsen wrote a great book called Improv Wisdom.
It's got a goldfish on the front.
And I got connected with her. Talk about a gift. Just as I was starting my business about seven and a half years ago.
And she would send these little watercolor things at the bottom of her email and one of them said, we are all improvisers.
And usually if I'm talking with someone let's say a server at Old Town Cafe, my favorite place here in Bellingham.
I was like, you improvise all the time as a server.
This is not scripted. A conversation where even right now, the conversation we're having on this podcast.
[00:05:07] Speaker B: No, it's true.
We've talked about the concept of the smallest way of bringing this into our day. You shared with me games that you use the second you wake up.
[00:05:16] Speaker A: Seven things. Yeah. So there's a game called seven Things that learned from class, where I'd say seven things you find in your fridge. And you say mustard or whatever, and I say one, which is an equivalent of yes, ketchup, two, if you repeat mustard later on, I'm still going to count. The whole point is to get people ideating.
So I had this game just came to me, I don't know, six months ago. So first thing, when I wake up, before I get out of bed, before I grab my phone, I've been doing seven things I love about this very moment.
And it's just immediate. Like the way the light's coming in through the window, the warmth in my foot, just immediate things. And it's been this wonderful gift because it starts the day in number one. Noticing, which is this, like, micro skill, I would call it, because you can't.
If I don't notice an offer from you, I can't do anything with it if it's just so noticing and also appreciating.
[00:06:12] Speaker B: Yeah, no, it's huge. Something I found interesting with the micro moment exercises and categories is how much overlap there is. So the seven Things is a great warmup exercise that we can do backstage before a performance. You can do by yourself, starting your day at lunch. Seven things I notice, appreciate, love about this moment, but then you can also then think of that as a creativity exercise, as a reflection exercise. All of this has overlapping benefits, because even just the act of naming things, it can be surprising how the constraint seven things is harder than seven things in my fridge, which is harder than seven white things in my fridge. So these constraints that we then put on whatever we're trying to answer, I think is true about life, is that, like innovation, There's a saying in product design, innovation is the product of constraint.
[00:07:04] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:07:04] Speaker B: And there's a lot of this overlap of concepts we see in nature, of life and business, in improv, and. And fractals is one that you introduced me to, but I'd love for you to say more about.
[00:07:13] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
So fractals in nature, my limited understanding. If you look at an Oak leaf, there's an angle between the main vein and the secondary vein. Let's say it's 37 degrees. That same angle is between the secondary and the tertiary and so on. Right.
This is also true of the roots of an oak tree. Same 37 degree. So the pattern repeats at lots of levels. Or a fern or shell, like there's this, this pattern that repeats. So this also happens in organizations. If there's something happening in the C suite, chances are it's happening on the floor. If it's, let's say manufacturing or vice versa. And so sometimes the whole idea that lights me up about fractals is we can make a small change. It can have a big difference.
[00:08:00] Speaker B: It can, yeah. That compounding benefit, the saying how you do anything is how you do everything, I've always taken kind of issue with because I think there are certain things that make sense to do mediocrely so you can have more energy for other things. But at the same time, the intentionality of deciding what those are I think is important because. Right. How you do anything in an organization, how you are permissive about cutting corridors in one way has compounding impacts on how the rest of the organization operates and what they see.
[00:08:30] Speaker A: Well, I'll take that somewhere. So we had exercise. I just finished a wonderful five day training on Vancouver island taught by Raymond Van Driel Guy from the Netherlands. Apparently he was one Dutch improviser of the year, like the title for like four different years.
And he uses his play model, which is an acronym I may mention later in like 14 universities. Works all kinds of different corporations.
But my point is, one of our lessons was, and this is the L in play.
So P is presence. It's so important to notice offers. You have to be present.
L is to leap, to move into something not yet knowing. Which talk about a skill. Right. Step into the unknown not yet knowing. So we did this exercise and I'm going to try to speak about it without giving it away, but there was this sort of a puzzle on the whiteboard. You had to connect a couple circles and a couple other circles and, and he said, okay, who thinks that's not possible?
So someone raised their hand, he comes over and hands them the whiteboard marker and we all look at it together.
And I just did this with my friend over lunch and I counted the number of times. He's like, oh, this is not possible. He said it five times before he touched the pen to paper to experiment.
Once he started connecting these circles, it became apparent. Oh, it became obvious.
So part of the lesson is sometimes we can't see our way forward until we start moving.
[00:10:02] Speaker B: Right. And for a lot of the listeners of this show, planning over planning, pre planning is common. It's. Yeah, you're raising your hand. Me too, for sure.
Precrastinating of doing things years before they make any sense to do.
I find I do more of when I feel less in control. It feels really good to have more thought control. Rehearsal of something that may happen, may not happen, probably won't happen the way I'm imagining it, but it's not. And I've heard this analogy that the way we're more productive in planning our time in our life is thinking of it as headlights looking at yourself driving at night. You can plan as far as you can see in your headlights. You can't plan the route from the east coast to the west coast in your head in advance. And that's really helpful for the presence and actually taking in what's around us and the new opportunities that we.
[00:10:53] Speaker A: And I think there's also an opportunity. This is part of what I love about improv kind of things.
I mean, there's the play and laughter and joy of improv that I totally love. And it's super deep. Right. So I will. Yes. And something you said too, of like, because I can be an overthinker. That's part of why I got into improv. I'm like, oh, this is like a relief from my overthinking. How do we also have, like, you could say, self acceptance. Oh, wow. There's a part of me that thinks, and it's a pretty awesome part of me and a part of you, Rebecca.
[00:11:22] Speaker B: Right.
[00:11:23] Speaker A: And it's like seeing that as a part of me or a Persona. Like, wow, overthinker. Thank you for being here. I'm so glad you're here. You get to have Mike the mic some of the time, but you don't get to hog it.
[00:11:36] Speaker B: Yeah, that's nice.
[00:11:37] Speaker A: We can play with that.
[00:11:38] Speaker B: We can and can appreciate the benefits of that, I think. Yes. And Is one of the best cited but often most misunderstood principles. Do you agree? Of like. Yes, yes, I.
And tell me what I'm thinking specifically of an example. A friend of mine called me to help wordsmith an email for this touchy situation with a work colleague. And she was reading it to me and reads the sentence and something, but something else. And she gets to it. She goes, oh, she does improv. I know I can't say that I have to say. And, well, it did make the Sentence stronger. But yes and doesn't mean we agree with each other all the time. We absolutely can and should have different perspectives, different opinions. It just means we never negate the reality. Right. Like if we show up and I establish.
Right. That we are somewhere or we have a certain dynamic, you then deciding we're in outer space and we're siblings, that's a no. That's not a guess. It's a but if you and I decide yes, we are in this room with this dynamic, we can have differences of opinions all the time. And it's actually more productive to do that.
[00:12:42] Speaker A: Yeah.
I got my hair cut at a place that's just adjacent from where we're sitting.
[00:12:47] Speaker B: Argoslo.
[00:12:48] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. This is a number of years ago, maybe seven, eight years ago, and someone was asking me what I do. And I love that I can actually compared to my dental hygienist, who also loves improv, but I can't talk to my dental hygienist because they got stuff in my mouth. Hairstylist I can talk to. And I said, say you cut or color someone's hair and they don't like it. You don't have to agree with them, but the invitation is to accept that offer. So even internally in your head, if you say to yourself, yes, you don't like it, and what can we do? Right. But I want to also differentiate. I'm saying, yes, you don't like it, and what can we do? And in this case, it's like the thought is, I think there's a lot of suffering that comes from I don't want you to think or feel the way you do, or I wish you didn't. Versus can I allow you to think or feel that you don't like it?
[00:13:37] Speaker B: Right.
[00:13:37] Speaker A: And can I have. So there's that. But then also, I think this is a really important distinction in improv. The yes. And it's important for it to be building on.
So I want to distinguish it between a both and I can have my view. This is both and. And you have yours. And how can we work together with it creatively?
And then the yes and is like actually looking intentionally to build on what you said.
[00:14:02] Speaker B: I think that's so important. And a lot of the ways that are just our default to deal with someone who's uncomfortable, I think makes them feel worse. Right. If we are observing that someone's uncomfortable, oh, you hate your hair, but I like it doesn't make me feel better. Right. It makes me still feel like I'm stuck in this my reality isn't true. So acknowledging yes, you don't like it and we need to fix it is worthwhile versus just oh no, you're you look great. I love it isn't helpful or whatever number of things. They're like, oh, you're hurt by that. Don't be upset, they didn't mean it. That's not helpful. Yeah, I see where that's hurtful and as thou move forward on it right?
Part two of this two part episode is coming to you next week.
Thanks for spending this micro moment with me. If you found it valuable, share it with a fellow time billionaire and give us a rating to help others discover the power of micro moments. For more ways to reclaim your time, check out time billionaires.org and follow me. Rebecca Shattucks on LinkedIn. See you next time.
