Improve Your Communication With Improv Comedy Techniques | Kelly Leonard

27:05It just needs to exist, especially at the start. So there's this idea inside improvisation, and I think it's what's kept me going here for so I've worked at Second City for 34 years. And the idea is that the people who do this work, they approach it with grace and with gratitude. And here's the thing that's so unusual, which is we are known as a star factory for good reason. Amy Poehler, Tina Fey, Stephen Colbert, Keegan-Michael Key, Jason Sudeikis, Cecily Strong, A.D. Bryant, you name it. They all came out of here. These people are all practiced in an art form that they're taught to make their partner look good.

27:45that's what they did. Your star will shine and it will shine because you're putting a spotlight on others. And that is the way they behaved here. And I'm telling you, that is the way they behave when they got out of here. And that's how you get Ted Lasso. That's how you get that series is all these people grounded in this improv work, deciding to do something that collectively will be bigger than anything they could have done alone. Letting that star shine is accepting and building off of mistakes. So one of the key unlocks for a lot of our students is how the mistakes can actually create more of a scene and be even funnier than the perfect scripted set imaginable.

28:26And I know there's a principle that you shared in the book around how we build off of mistakes. And if we can't get to the point of mistakes, we're not going to get to the point of actually having a meaningful skit, a meaningful sketch, a meaningful moment on stage. Yeah. Rick Thomas, who's an alum of Second City and a director and teacher, talks about the need to fall into the crack in the game. So what is it? When you see that mistake, can you seize upon it? And we know from the history of various innovations like Post-its, like Slinkies, these things were all mistakes. They didn't start out being the thing that the person was trying to make.

29:07And you just discover at a certain point that you pivot. I guess Slack, right, is one of the most amazing things, which like that is a, you know what Slack is? Is a failed product. It was a failed product. And now, you know, it's an amazing product. But that took a reframe. And this is the thing, I don't know about you guys, but I certainly wish that when I was a younger person working, you know, both in sort of my creative brain and my business brain, that I understood this idea of reframing, that it is a, what a superpower that is. The ability to take something that is like, oh, this is the worst thing possible.

29:47What can I do with it? How do I have agency? My friend Scott Barry Kaufman introduced me to this concept of post-traumatic growth. So the idea that, look, we all go through incredible trauma and grief and problems, divorces, deaths, all those things. It's inevitable. But what if you take it in those moments and you look at post-traumatic growth, you're like, how can I grow out of this thing? How can I take this seemingly net negative and make it inform something positive in my life? When COVID hit, this was this moment for Second City. And this was a very turbulent time here. We went through a sale, so our longtime owners sold the place.

30:32We were getting just terrible press because any institution that had been around for 60 years was facing the fact that they're largely white owners and operators maybe didn't behave the best. We all got that. And I remember my friend who ran exec ed at an Ivy League school was now at a major soft drink company. I'll figure out. You can figure out which one it was. But she was like, hey, do you have any stuff that you could deliver on Zoom around resilience because my people are hurting? and my wife, Anne, who has worked at Second City two years longer than I have, and she's a long time educator and director here.

31:04I yelled downstairs. I'm like, what do you got? Resilience, exercise, what will work on Zoom? And she gave me one. This one's really good. I think your folks could use this very easily. It's not complicated. It's called wish. And what you do is you have everyone get a piece of paper and make three columns. In the first column, you write down a wish that you have that you're not going to get granted anytime soon. So at that point, it was like, I want to swim in salt water. I live in Chicago. That ain't happening. And in the second column, you write down the emotion you think you'd feel if you got that wish.

31:34And I wrote refreshed. And in the final column, you write down something you could do right now to experience that emotion. So if I wanted to be refreshed, I could put some water in my face. I could go for a run. I could work out. And the idea is we don't control what's happening to us, all the elements of a situation in the room, what we do control is our emotional response to it. That's a reframe. That is a crucial way that you can manage through the inevitable ups and downs that are going to take you through your day, through your career, through your life. You have the ability to see this thing in the way that you want to see it.

32:14It's not going to change it. It's not going to improve. It's not going to make things better, but it will give you the opportunity to have some measure of control in the world that you'd live in. Well, we might as well go ahead and connect the dots here for our audience because we understand how improv works nicely with acceptance commitment therapy and how those concepts, you will find them and see them in acceptance commitment therapy. So being able to practice them in a safe environment then allows you to then recall those in a tension, stress-filled situation. And a big part of that is to be present with your emotions of what is going on and a full consciousness of thoughts and feelings that you're going through and registering them, not acting upon them, not trying to manipulate or control them, but to observe those emotions, those thoughts and emotions.

33:21and those feelings the very first thought which the first part of that which is the acceptance yeah part yeah and and of course in improv it is a complete acceptance for the scene that is being created and the each brick that is being placed yeah and not trying to force this scene or uh this activity anywhere, but to be, to be okay with it and then to work then from within it. Yep. So we have a phrase play. You want to play the scene you're in, not the scene you want to be in. So that's that acceptance idea. Um, and, and then, you know, look, I, you know, you might get a suggestion that you don't like, uh, but in improv you have built up the muscles to not just to reject that bit like, okay, let's sort of see what's going to happen with my scene partner.

34:17And often you will surprise yourself. I mean, this stuff isn't easy. Part of the mythology, I think with a lot of creative people is that somehow they just got it. My experience with improv came from another angle. For me, it was music. As a guitar player, getting into improv jams. When you first get together with guys, you're just fooling around and you're noodling around and you're trying to figure out your, when you're new at it, you're trying to figure out your instrument and you're, you're trying to figure out what the capabilities are. And then of course, you're also figuring out what the strengths and weaknesses are of the people that you're in that room jamming with.

34:59And so of course it's the acceptance of where you are and who you're with and just letting things build and, and, and going from there. But the thing is, when everyone, anyone who watches a jam session, they're marveled, right? They're like, I can't believe what came out of that. That was beautiful. You guys didn't plan that. Oh, my God. Well, there was simple frameworks and rules that we've accepted that we all agreed upon in going into that jam that when you work within those rules, Basically, if I'm going to get on this soccer field and I've agreed to the terms of how we're going to play this game, then that game will play out.

35:42So yes, and the answers are always in the other person. To be active listening to what your partner is saying, all of these simple on a face value rules will then lay out a structure that you can work with it. And the more you practice these simple rules in your everyday life, or as we implemented it in our workshops so that our clients have an opportunity to practice all of these rules in a very safe environment so they can actually see what they're truly capable of when there isn't consequences for doing anything wrong. Yeah. All right. So we share this, right? So I come to this work also as a musician and a soccer player.

36:33So I was... I brought up soccer because... Yeah. Yeah. Thanks, Johnny. So starting center forward, went to the state finals, didn't win, but God bless. And I played guitar and I was a deadhead and a jazz fan. And Miles Davis has wonderful stuff around. There are no wrong notes. So I did not know that Second City created through improvisation. I came here as a fan of the comedy. And so when I, and I look, I wrote my college thesis on Jack Kerouac and spontaneous beat prosody jazz writing. So I was steeped in improv, but not necessarily this world, but all this stuff. And so we look at a sports context or from a Kerouacian context or a music context.

37:19It's not just scrimmaging. Every one of these disciplines requires you to narrow. You do these very specific exercises, especially at the elite level. Yo-Yo Ma does scales. The idea of thinking he doesn't need to is ridiculous. Yet how many people who are improvising their jobs every day feel that they need to practice listening? Guess what? You do. You are not a good listener unless you practice listening. So in improvisation, when we go into these companies and we're like, we're going to actually work on the skills of listening and they're varied. So we have an exercise called last word where we have two people improvise.

38:02And there's one rule. The only rule is that each of you has to start your sentence with the last word the other person said. It's not easy. No, it requires you to listen to the end of people's sentences, which we don't do. So that's number one. And number two, Two, because you're maybe going to say orange at the end, and that's not really an easy way to start a sentence, you have to sort of like, okay, how am I going to sort of game this or do this so we have a productive conversation? You realize, oh, I can just pause for a moment and figure out how orange could lead me towards a build on what the person said.

38:35And that might make me pause for five, ten seconds before you talk, which seems excruciating for the person who's supposed to say the word. But in reality, as a listener, you know what it makes me think? That person is considering what I said. So we get this wrong. We get these fundamentals of communication wrong because we're so in our heads, judgment of self, judgment of others. You can't be creative when you're doing either of those things. And then practicing these skills allows us then to adapt in the variety of contexts that we're going to face at any given day and any kind of meeting. because I listen to your podcast and I know you interview a lot of authors just like I do on my podcast.

39:17And so many people have to follow this format of like, I'm giving you the seven elements you'll need to be successful in your entire life. It's not that that's bullshit. Some of those things are important, but no one philosophy, no one operating system, no one kind of behavior is gonna work in a variety of different ways. And what I love about improvisation is it's never tried to be design thinking. We've never been like, we're the model. We're Six Sigma. You just got to follow this. It's like, no, we all improvise. Everyone improvises. And we're doing it now. We're going to do it tomorrow. We're going to do it the next day.

39:54Everyone does it. And there's a variety of things inside this field that you can take and be useful. Here's another one, which is the importance of storytelling. You know, how do we tell our stories, especially when they are essentially unscripted? And because, you know, people want, I always say this, which is when people, people hire us for storytelling all the time. And then you have to start, I know you get this. They're like, we want you to do a storytelling workshop. And you're like, what do you mean? Do you mean a sales workshop? Do you, yeah. Do you mean presentation skills? Do you, do you have to give a speech somewhere?

40:31What are you talking about? And what we say is all those things are important. And by the way, all of us are storytellers to a certain degree, whether just in the same way that culture is happening in your organization, whether you want it to or not, by the absence of you doing anything about it, doesn't matter. Culture is still there. Kind of probably a shitty culture, but it's there. Same deal with storytelling. We're always telling stories. So for us, because we work in dialogues and monologues, ours is like, how do we co-create stories? But then also individually, what we know is that people do not want to hear your successes.

41:08They want your fiascos. Give me your fiasco. I will relate to it. And the fact that you're still standing here in front of me and you're able to talk about your fiasco is meaningful. And that also has the benefit often of being funny, right? So that's also a terrific byproduct.

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44:12So if you are ending up on that stage, if you are ending up in that skit, it's the fiasco that created that opportunity that led to that other thing happening, the synchronicity. So if you hide and hold back your fiascos, you're removing any engagement with the audience. No one wants your resume. No one wants to hear the list of accomplishments and all the books you read. They want to hear how you grew up dyslexic. And it took you years to read at a high level. What's that term? Happy accidents? Yeah, sure. I was in a meeting the other day and my boss asked me, what's the worst thing you've ever produced?

44:47And I'm like, well, I got a couple. I created a show called Jusical the Musical that didn't do well. I had this hunch that this is an underserved market in theater. And it's just like, no, no one cared. And then I also got the rights, the stage rights, for the hockey movie Slapshot. And I produced a version of it in Toronto, assuming like, look, Canadians love hockey. Slapshot is a seminal movie. What I didn't consider is that mostly women buy the tickets to go to theater, and the last thing they wanted is more hockey in their lives. That was not a thing that they were desiring in Toronto. And so for both of those shows, what I didn't do was factor in the audience.

45:43I had an idea. It seemed like a good idea. The people around me all thought it was a good idea because I had a good track record and I was known for giving good ideas. What I never did was beta test this with the people who actually had to buy the tickets because they would have told me not interested. And then we wouldn't have lost the hundreds of thousands of dollars on both those projects that we lost. But also, you know, you don't know. You don't know until you do it. And I've had other. No. Yeah, I've had other times that this looked like we produced a show here on the Second City main stage called Pinata Full of Bees.

46:16And Adam McKay was in the cast, who your audience will know is the producer of Succession, the director of the big short. And then, of course, all the Will Ferrell hilarious movies. So Adam, who was also the head writer of Saren't Alive, he's a good friend. And we're like, we want to do something wild. we want to create a show that is completely improvised, which ended up being idiotic because there was no way eight nights a week we're going to be able to sustain the improvisation. Oh my God. But what it did turn to, but what it did turn into is we recognized, we pivoted. So we're like, nope, we can't do that.

46:47But what can we do? We can make the show have the spirit of improvisation. We can tear down the set. There's going to be no set. We're going to use punk rock music. And then we had these recurring themes in the show, one of which is that Noam Chomsky was substitute teaching a third grade class about what the real America is. And he was terrifying and traumatizing the students. Yeah. And it became this. The ones that didn't fall asleep. Exactly. We thought of Chomsky differently in those days. God bless. But it ended up being this huge hit. And it was a huge hit artistically. And the press loved it.

47:25Guess what? It was probably the worst selling show in the history of Second City. But what it did was blow the doors off the place, and it allowed us to shed an old audience and find a new audience. So sometimes these things that in the short term are failures by a cost-benefit ratio are actually the right thing for the business if you're looking 10, 20, 30 years down the line. And that's the way we have to look. We turn 65 next year. I want this place going to 100, which means we can't always play business as usual. No one can. You brought up a point there about engaging the audience, testing the audience.

48:06And one thing I've loved all the improv shows I've gone to and the games we play in class is it naturally does by getting suggestions from the audience. It's not you coming in pre-scripted with this idea of the scene you've been dreaming about on the subway ride over, and now you're getting all your castmates together and you're painting this big picture. It's the audience challenging you, throwing a suggestion that you got to go with. You have to commit to in order to set the scene. And those are the moments, the most outlandish suggestions that stretch everyone on stage in a way that creates real comedy.

48:43A great source of pride I have is when there was a Simpsons episode where Homer came to Chicago and comes to Second City and gives a suggestion that they improvise on, and then he demands to be paid because he wrote the show. I think this idea that we talk about with co-creating with your audience is vital. It's rapid prototyping of creativity, and it's the high-wire act that people come here for. They want to see what's going to happen. My wife, Anne, who I've mentioned, is a tenured professor of comedy. She runs the first ever BA in comedy writing and performance at Columbia College. Every parent's nightmare, comedy school.

49:22But one of the things she teaches about the difference between sketch comedy and stand-up is that sketch comedians do perspective taking. So we're like a Nielsen rating system of like, okay, what's on your mind? Great. We're going to give it back to you. Are you laughing or you're not laughing? What did you find funny? What did you not? Interestingly, stand-up comics, what they are required to do at the beginning of their act especially is perspective giving. They have to teach you how to watch them in the first five minutes. So I want you to take a moment and think about your favorite standup because you know what they do.

49:52And this relates to a thing where you talked about. They talk about what's wrong with them. You know, Patton Oswalt is a schlub. Amy Schumer is a slut. John Mulaney is a drunk. And it goes on. And that's they can change later once they're known. But that is the way they start. Because, again, what's that point of relation? And this is this is the thing. when I love playing around with status, which is a huge thing inside our work, both comedy and improvisation, because I think a lot of people think that people who have high status are constantly taking it. And I'm like, man, I'm telling you right now, the savviest people I know who have high status learn how to give it.

50:33Absolutely. Tina Fey, look at 30 Rock. She is constantly, how are you taking status from Alec Baldwin? It's impossible or any of them. She is constantly, but there is no question she's in charge, both as a character and as, so as Liz Lemon and as Tina Fey. Here's another person who does it all the time is Oprah Winfrey. Yeah. Like when she's interviewing and she gets sort of lower to like physically lowering her status, softening her voice. And, and so that is, and look, the, the, the other side of that is very Trumpian, you know, in terms of I'm going to take that. And that is effective, I guess, for him in some ways.

51:11I don't enjoy it. But I think really a great improviser and a great comedian learns how to both give and take focus and give and take status. My friend Nir Eyal says that it's not a superpower unless it could be used for evil. So everything I've talked to you about can be the province of con men. So look out. Yes. Yes. And people use yes. And to try to get their own way all the time, especially tech bros. Yeah. Well, let's, let's dissect some of these rules and talk about their effectiveness to leave our audience with something that they can work on from listening to this. We've brought up yes.

51:53And a bunch. And again, it's a incredibly simple rule. And basically, that rule is whatever the other person says, your first answer is yes, and then you go on to complete that sentence or your point or whatever. You add something. Now, let's talk about why this is effective. So number one, it gives value to the other person because you have acknowledged what they have said. so with an emphatic yes they're like oh my god i've won this person over that's right so this is why the con man is going to definitely use this because it's all about allowing the other person to feel amazing that's right i remember aj and i were in uh london and he brought this up the other day uh and there was a comment who was working for a club who was trying to do whatever he could to get the crowds into a club in Piccadilly Circus.

52:56And their first words to us are, Chick, you guys dress smart. And we're like, oh, thank you. Yeah, of course. You immediately believe them. Yeah, it's pro-social, right? It's a pro-social act. Absolutely. So then you're adding to it. And so you're building upon what they said. So the subject and its matter comes from the other person. So they feel validated. They're elated. Their emotional state gets pumped. And now we're creating, co-creating, and building upon that. And then, of course, you're going to add your piece, and they're going to add their piece as well. This simple concept will save and practicing this.

53:42And this is why AJ and I go to great lengths in our implementation sessions to give our clients an opportunity to practice this. Because let's talk about a situation, a first date. Yeah. A very tension, stress-filled situation. Everyone has preconceived notions going in. Everyone's minds are losing it. And again, acceptance of what is happening and what is going on is going to save you a lot. but also to be able to focus on what the other person just is going to say. You give them a yes, and then you add to it. You don't need to say the amazing witty thing. You don't need to be completely hilarious.

54:28You are already making the other person who's nervous, who's stressed out, feel comfortable, feel good. If they leave that date, maybe it's an hour, maybe it's 90 minutes, feeling good and comfortable, well, that's a second date. Yep. Yep. So there's one other thing going on there that I think is also worth noting, which is we talk about convergent and divergent thinking. So the convergent thinking is very easy for humans because we are pattern-making creatures, right? We see A and B and we then see C. Um, uh, original thinking, uh, comes out of divergent thinking, which is how do I break up the pattern?

55:12And yes, and requires you not to operate by rote because you have now, you've got to yes, this thing, and then you got to add to it. And it can't just be like, oh, well, I'm just going to top, top it with the other idea of it. No, no, no. I need to stay on where, where they are at. And that requires you to practice this, this level of divergent thinking. One of the exercises that we utilize to teach people this is called point and untell. And what we do is we hold up a bunch of images of different things like the earth, a red wheelbarrow, a chair. And we have one job for everyone to do, which is you need to point at that object and say what it isn't.

55:54It's not easy. It's not easy. It's really hard because we desperately want to say red ball. We see the red ball and we want to say, and it's very hard to say, yellow car. But you practice that enough and you start to loosen up that idea of pattern making that we normally set in on and allows you to sort of be in this discovery mindset. In Zen, they call that sort of a beginner's mind. The idea of like, this could be anything. How do we get to a place where this could be anything? And that relies the sort of like emptying of all those preconceived notions of all those things I'm walking in this room with.

56:35And by the way, you know, that idea of being fiercely present with someone in the moment, it feels really, really good. You know, we know that with someone we love. We know that in a great session of therapy, you know, but it doesn't need to be restricted to those moments of intimacy. It can be in your day-to-day conversations with colleagues. And, you know, it's unusual, and I get that, but it's unusual for bad reasons. It's unusual because we fear that kind of intimacy, and we want to look smart, and we think we need to be prepared in a kind of certain way for that. It's like, no, you got it.

57:15You have it all. You have the stories. You have the ideas. Do not worry about it. Be fiercely present in the moment with this person and see what happens. That next piece is the listening, right? So in order to yes and something, you have to be fully engaged in listening. And there's multiple levels to the listening that we're talking about here. So you bring up pattern recognition. and many of us are just listening at that first level of the voice in our head. Like, I got to say this next thing because Kelly just brought up Chicago and I've been to Chicago, so I have to talk about Chicago. Then there's, okay, well, what are the facts and information being shared?

57:57Okay, Chicago, Second City, comedy. Then there's the emotion. And really good improvisers can pick up on the emotion that's being communicated and mirror it back or react in an outlandish way to that emotion and play with the emotion that's being shared, then there's the unsaid. And when you actually dig that level deep of like, okay, you're painting the whole story for the audience and you're bringing them into a new dynamic that they haven't seen yet because all they have to go on is what you and the ensemble are doing on stage. And when you get to that unsaid level as a listener and get to that level of communication, you allow for so much more creativity.

58:38so for many of our analytical clients that's an unlock it's like not only getting outside of your head and the fear and getting beyond the facts it's once you get to the emotion and the unsaid levels of listening we're really this creativity and magic that we're talking about the humor the fun that's where it lives when i'm not lingering in the past ruining the past when i'm not imagining the future, when I am purely with the person who's in front of me, my job is to save them as an improviser. I have one job. And guess what? Their job is to save me. And so when that is the norms, and one of the things we talked about earlier that I know I wanted to sort of mention this, which is a lot of what we're talking about are covenants that we make to each other that we should be more explicit about at the beginning of our meetings, at the beginning of our days, at the beginning of our work lives, which is, hey, these are the things we believe.

59:38We. Do we all believe these? Let's make sure these are the things we believe. And if so, we have some really good guiding principles. Some people might call them ethics. If you don't like that word, call them norms, whatever it is. But with us, it's this idea of saving the other and the other saving us. And what a awesome place to start from that provides us with a kind of roadmap that it's going to be hard to really like get lost with because we kind of we're in this we're in this thing together. And Irving Yalam is a cognitive scientist and my friend Scott Barry Kaufman, who I mentioned, he introduced me to him as well.

1:00:19And he's got a great line. He says, sooner or later, you have to give up the hope for a better past.

1:00:28this kicked my ass. Yeah. Because look, man, bad shit happens. Um, and it was really easy to anchor ourself in that lat. I mean, we look, we all carry imposter syndrome. You know, you can Google me and I look pretty cool. Uh, do I still think about that thing that I said 25 years ago to that person? Yes, I do. And I know you do too. Well, and it's completely out of context as well. Yes. Because we have now ruminated and thought about that so much that we created. A whole story from it. This new, a full story, a new context that makes it usually 20 times worse than it, even the worst that it could have been.

1:01:20Totally. You've got to give yourself a break, man. You've got to show yourself some grace. You know, that's hugely important. One of these covenants that I heard you mention on another show that I thought was really fascinating, and I know you speak on stage, we're speaking here in a podcast, Johnny's performed on stage, and of course we've heard about stage fright. But for many in our audience, that could just be presenting on Zoom or presenting in front of the room. and you made this point, this covenant that audience members share that we don't often think about, which is they want you to succeed.

1:01:54They came to the improv show not to see you bomb. They came to the presentation, the TEDx talk to learn and to be informed or entertained or to engage in emotion. They didn't come with tomatoes waiting to pick you apart. But when you are in that role of being on stage, and I'm using air quotes because it's different for everyone, of us, you can often, again, get stuck in that head space of, okay, but if I fail, I'm going to fail, and this is going to be a failure, and that was a mistake, and ruminate on those things, missing the covenant that we all have, which is we want to be fully engaged in conversation.

1:02:33We want to be fully engaged in the team meeting. We want to see the comedian succeed on stage. Yeah. I want to add to that as well. As a musician, there are people who do come to see you fail but they're they're usually other musicians and they're highly critical and judgmental because of what they have in their own lives that are going on if you're in improv the only people that are judging you in that manner is going to be other improvisers absolutely yeah who have their own issues that they're working through a thousand percent so that again leans into what aj is saying so anyone there who's in bad faith has their own reasons.

1:03:12Yeah, no, no, no. I mean, yeah. It says more about that. Yeah, there's bad actors everywhere, but it's not most folks. And yes, this is actually a recent observation I had, which I sort of surprised myself with, which is like, yeah, I don't go to a movie or a play hoping it sucks or that the actor forgets their lines. I actually don't want that. And we tend to be pretty forgiving of people. I also don't need you to be incredibly charismatic. My friend Sunil Gupta talks about like we value conviction over charisma, right? And so if you look at the video and you can look at this on YouTube of Steve Jobs doing his presentation, launching the iPhone, he's not charismatic.

1:03:55He's like, he's not. He's not a great speaker by any sort of like normal standards. But you know what? You can tell he believes what he's saying. And we all see that. We all see that. So you don't have to be incredibly dynamic. You just have to know your stuff and believe in it. Believe in the thing you're saying. And I think that's one of the things that trips people up too, because they get in that position where they're trying to sell something they don't believe in. And man. Absolutely. This is good. This goes to the same with back to the first date. No one's going on that date hoping it's horrible.

1:04:29People are cutting out time of their day to get ready, to get dressed up, to put themselves in a state where they can deal with the stress and tension that comes from a first date. And if you show up swinging for the fences, you're going to have a hard time. But if you settle in and you are accepted of the situation and it's about the other person and yes, and you're going to cruise through that and that person is going to leave there going, that was fun. Yeah. I want to do that again. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I think this, this idea, and we mentioned jobs, right. And the idea of thinking different.

1:05:08Um, and I was talking to Annie Duke, who's got an awesome book called quit. Um, yeah. And, uh, she tells a great story in that book, uh, about Ash. She's the best. And she, uh, uh, very salty woman. I love her. Uh, she tells a story about Astro Teller at, at, at Google X. And one of the things that he has to teach his folks is this thing around the pedestal and the monkey. And the idea is that if your job is to get a monkey to juggle on top of a pedestal, don't start by building the pedestal. Because we all know how to build the pedestal. The hard part is going to be the monkey juggling. And when you build the pedestal, you get the illusion of progress.

1:05:49You know, the idea, oh, no, we're doing this thing. And it's like, oh, wait. Like the train in California. It's like the train in California. Exactly. And I love that because I just feel like that's such a go-to and especially like, no, I'm just improv and I'm yes and in this thing. It's great. You know, it's like, well, let's take a beat. Let's take a beat and actually step back and zoom out and zoom in, right? This is such a smart thing that people need to recognize is Ron Heifetz at Harvard talks about the need to be on the dance floor and the balcony. And great leaders go from the balcony to dance floor, dance floor to the balcony, zoom in, zoom out.

1:06:20And any sort of like deep thinker is going to do that because at some time you are working on the craft and sometimes you need to be like, no, is the thing I'm working on make sense? Do I have to ask some different kinds of questions? Because what you don't want to do is just spend all your time building these things that don't matter in the long run. And the wonderful thing about our work is that we're not doing it alone. we have 300 people every night telling us whether it matters or not because they're either laughing or they're not. And I'm telling you, if they're not laughing, our thing doesn't matter.

1:06:58Absolutely. And part of what you're talking about with conviction that I want to touch on here, we talked a little bit about it earlier, is body language in the communication. So much of improv is not just the words being exchanged on stage. there's movement, there's action, you're getting in different poses, up, down, you're moving your body and using your body language to communicate. And you had, I don't know if it's a great job, a terrible job you can share with us, the honor of watching auditions at Second City. And I'm sure a lot of people going up on that stage thought they're going to be the next Stephen Colbert.

1:07:37And a few people thought there's no way that they belong. And you were saying that just by watching them get on stage before the audition, you could predict whether or not it's going to go well in their body language. Yeah. So we're, uh, we're talking about this now because we're opening a theater in Brooklyn, uh, the first permanent second city in New York, which is really exciting. And we're holding auditions soon and we have thousands of resumes. Uh, and I'm going to even say looking at the resumes, I think I have a pretty good idea of who is going to go on that stage and do okay and who isn't.

1:08:09So when you're in the room, man, it's rough. It is rough in the sense that there are so many people who are so afraid and you can't improvise well out of fear. You just can't. It's like a surgeon can't do a good job if they're afraid of doing surgery. And this is the same for improv comedy. And so when I'm sitting in the audience for auditions and someone's walking on stage and I can tell they're wringing their hands or they're got flop sweat or whatever, it's just not going to go well. And we all know it. And it's, We're never wrong about that. We'll get surprised on the other end. If someone's neutral and then they blow it out of the water, that's awesome.

1:08:44And so it's much easier to tell the people who are going to struggle than the other folks. And then what great improvisers know is they have all these tools of their body at their disposal. I mean, working here when Chris Farley first came on stage, I mean, Jesus Christ. This guy, I mean, he called a fatty fall down, and I get it. Um, but he, he was so physical and I don't know if you know this, like, uh, Bob Odenkirk, uh, actually joined the cast when Chris was in it and he wrote him the motivational speaker, Matt Foley sketch. It started at second city. Oh, wow. Living in a, living in a van down by the river.

1:09:25I saw it every night for a year. Um, and it never got old. Like, and people, you know, people for the most part don't come to second city to see individual performers cause they don't know who they are. they knew who Chris Farley was. They came once, they came back. They wanted to see that thing again because it was like a force of nature and he just sacrificed. And also the other thing that Farley did that was amazing, like, yes, he would fall down, he was big and all that, which also meant when he went subtle, it was just a thing of beauty. And so know who you are, know what your body tell already is, and then find ways, different ways of expressing that.

1:10:06Like we talked earlier about status can be lording over someone and it can be kind of underneath someone. There's different ways of projecting that. And I think just in general, Annie Murphy-Paul, another, I'm a huge fan. She has a book called The Extended Mind. And there's so much in there about the importance of gesture and the idea that our bodies are telling us things before they tell our mind. And so pay attention to your body. And that's really important because we do live in such a mind first culture. We have this bad metaphor where thinking is like a computer and it's not. It's not like that at all.

1:10:42No, it's really not. And when we understand that our body is hearing it, hearing it first, we're going to maybe make some, some different choices. and even though the audience might not have that sort of intellectual understanding or physiological understanding, what they're going to get is the truth underneath it when you improvise it. It all goes back to that. It all goes back to finding these sort of truthful moments, these surprising truthful moments, which is the seed of great comedy. I mean, our work is all about playing to the top of your intelligence. That doesn't mean you're not going to do a dick joke, but that dick joke better be fucking smart.

1:11:23What a poignant way to end this episode. Are we really ending on that? Oh, no. What a bad move on my part to end on the dick joke line. All right. God bless. We'll make it work. We love asking every guest what their X factor is. What do you think makes you unique and extraordinary, Kelly? When I became the producer of Second City, I was 26 years old. It was 1992. My first cast was Colbert, Carell, and Amy Sedaris. Bunch of hats. But my friend, Anne, who's now my wife, she was my friend then and ironically caught the bouquet at my first wedding. I went to my friend, Anne. I go, what advice do you have for me?

1:12:00And she goes, when you make a mistake, tell people you're sorry. So if I look at a particular superpower I have is that I will own up to my mistakes. I will tell people I'm sorry and I won't make them again. I'll make other mistakes. I'll screw up in other ways, but I won't do that same one again. And I think that that's really served me well over the course of my career and has allowed me to, you know, do so many different things underneath this roof. You know, started as a dishwasher, was producing, ended up writing and doing public speaking and hosting a podcast. And now I'm back on the leadership team and we're trying to like, what does Second City look like for the next 50 years?

1:12:41It's really exciting. and it requires a level of humility that I think when I look at other people who've been around for a long time and aren't happy, it's usually that they lack a level of that humility and they think they're going to ride this thing. They're going to ride the wave the whole time and it's like, no, Matt, that's not what happens. Could not agree more. Thank you so much for joining us. It was such a fun conversation about improv. Where can our audience find out more about the book and all the work that you do on the business end, Kelly? So everything's at secondcity.com and secondcityworks.com.

1:13:20Those are our sort of two websites. And you can find me on LinkedIn. And I'm on Twitter right now. Who knows? I'm waiting for my blue sky invitation. We'll see how things, not holding out too much hope once Tucker's show goes live, but we'll see. Thank you for joining us, Kelly. Thanks, guys. I appreciate it.

1:13:48Johnny, improv is one of the core tenets of all of our training and coaching at The Art of Charm. It not only helps you think on your feet, be more conversationally fluent, but it increases your ability to handle life's foibles, mistakes, and overcome those inner fears and critics. You know, throughout this conversation, we discussed many of the preconceived notions that people have with improv. And I hope throughout this conversation that it has opened people's minds to all the benefits that improv can give. I mean, it is a core essential being able to think on your feet, be witty, comfortable in your own skin.

1:14:26It just goes on forever. Can't speak highly about it enough. Absolutely agree. This week, shout out goes to Peter, a former people pleaser who had been struggling with people pleasing for many years. He tried different methods to break free, but nothing seemed to work. Nothing until he discovered the X Factor Accelerator. Through our program here at The Art of Charm, Peter was able to identify the root cause of his people-pleasing behavior and was equipped with the tools to overcome it. He's learned how to set boundaries and adhere to them. And now, Peter is able to break free of the cycle, seeking validation from others, and learning how to prioritize his own needs.

1:15:02Peter now feels empowered, confident, and able to set healthy boundaries in his personal and professional life. He credits the X Factor Accelerator with giving him the push that he needed to achieve this breakthrough. If you're struggling with similar patterns and looking for a transformational program that can help you break free, join us at the X Factor Accelerator. If you listen this far, my guess it's because you want more out of life and finally succeed at work, love, and life. If that's the case, then join us, the Art of Charm team, and listeners just like you are experiencing breakthrough conversations, supercharging their confidence, and growing an incredible network inside our world-famous X-Factor Accelerator program.

1:15:39The X-Factor Accelerators, where high-achieving, like-minded people meet strategized to unlock your hidden X-Factor and to make sure that you get the most out of life's opportunities and unlock those doors keeping you from success. Every month, we feature an improv implementation session with opportunities to practice your conversation skills, rapport building, supercharge your charisma, to unlock the charm to attract the right people in your life. Imagine what you could accomplish with coaching and mentorship with the art of charm. What are you waiting for? Join us today at unlockyourxfactor.com.

1:16:10All right, before we head out, a huge thank you to our producers, Michael Harreld and Eric Montgomery. We hope you have an epic week.

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