[Music]
testing hi these lights are very
dramatic I love it
everyone can see me hi everybody so my
name is Claudia Norman and when I was in
primary school I was told that I was too
large to make the netball team I know
what but anyway in an act of defiance or
to try and give my Jewish mother some
nos some pride I decided I’m gonna try
out anyway and that’s exactly what I did
and I got and baby bear thank you
netball C team Reserve but let me tell
you something I was dedicated okay I was
at every single match mostly for the
oranges at halftime but I was there I
was there and what I was desperately
trying to do is I was desperately trying
to find something I could be good at
something
I was fantastic at I was constantly
kicked out of class and told that I was
disruptive on my progress reports I got
Clawdeen is erratic erratic I remember
running to my mother crying I’m here
otic and I was erratic I was I
desperately needed to express myself
that is better so I tried out for the
public speaking team when I got into
high school and I got into the finals of
the junior public speaking competition
and to my shock and my horror I found
out that there was an impromptu section
now we had half an hour to write house
features and in that half an hour I did
nothing and when my name was called up
to come out on stage I froze
I went blank I started to shake and then
I took a deep breath and something truly
amazing happened I surrendered I began
to improvise I started to talk talk as
if I was talking to my family talk as if
I was talking to my friends and for the
first time in my life I realized that
being authentic was okay not only was it
okay it was fun and it was at that
moment I realized what I needed to do
for the rest of my life so cut to my
adult life who knows if I’ve grown up
yet but I am a professional improviser
thank you thank you to the one person at
the back for shouting yay um thank you
so what that means that means that I am
in the business of faking it till you
make it
I get to perform but I also get to help
people whether they want to be
professional improvisers or not I get to
help them incorporate the fundamental
principles of improv into their everyday
lives I work with the most incredible
team of people and sometimes I have to
pinch myself when I look at who I work
with and we own a company called jittery
citizens we specialize in improv comedy
corporate entertaining entertainment
team building and training the question
I get asked the most is what is improv
what is improvisation it is the ability
to make something totally special out of
nothing
now improv is a learned skill which
means everyone can do it it just means
that some people are going to be better
than improv than others look at Jacob
Zuma fantastic improviser give him a
script with some numbers and not exactly
the same story so what I’m going to do
today is I am going to show you the six
golden rules of improv and if you can
incorporate these rules into your
everyday lives
it will change your
thinking change your relationships and
make your lives more abundantly awesome
rule number one is say yes and now a lot
of people think that improv comedy is
all about me being funny me being the
star of the show but it’s not improv is
all about making the other guy look like
a genius and we do that by creating a
culture of yes and now everything you
and I do in improv is called an offer
and in order to move the scene along we
need to accept each other’s offers and
we have to add to them so I’m gonna do
an exercise with you all now after
everything I say I want you to shout yes
that’s awesome okay so I want to teach
you about improv comedy we’re feeling
people I want to tell you about the
benefits thereof and I want to tell you
how improv can make your lives amazing
great now I want to do the exact same
thing but to everything I say you’re
gonna shout no I want to teach you about
improv comedy so as you can see from
their example saying yes feels awesome
it feels awesome because it validates us
it puts us in an open receptive space
okay it allows for the conversation to
flow and ideas to move forward what
saying no does is saying no halts
creativity it destroys ideas and it
feels really cook am I allowed to say
caca Telex I don’t know I’ve just said
it twice anyway so can you imagine if
you walked into your board room and the
moment you gave an idea or you shared a
thought everyone stood up on the table
and shouted yes that’s awesome your work
environment would be a very different
place wouldn’t it the next role is to
play be silly be weird
so we lose versus adults we lose this
ability because we taught to think
rationally think critically but we’re
not really taught how to play so what we
as jittery citizens do is we go into the
workplace and we encourage people to use
play as a method of creation now if
you’ve ever watched a child play you’ll
see the children play in the present
moment the excitement lies in the
uncertainty of what comes next
now children are mindful when they play
an improv and mindfulness is one in the
same thing so it’s fair to say that
improv is mindfulness in a social
situation active listening now in
everyday conversations we listen enough
to each other just to respond
we’re so pre cons are we so caught up
with preconceived ideas of how the
conversation should flow we worried
about what should be rather than what is
and what active listening does is it
allows us to listen with our entire
bodies with our entire beings and by
doing that we lose all form of agenda we
become open and receptive to change and
we live in the present moment and
because we are in the present moment we
are able to react intuitively learn to
fail so we fail all the time on my first
day of studying at second city in
Chicago we were told that this is a
totally creative space and all our ideas
are valid there are no mistakes and this
is why I find improv so liberating
because every time we stuffed up a scene
we’d laugh about it we’d learn from it
and we’d move on as adults were so
fearful we’re so fearful of what other
people think we’re so fearful of making
mistakes because we associate failing
with being a failure in improv we see
failure for what it is
an opportunity for something magical to
happen trust in improv we work from top
of mind consciousness okay
that means we trust our initial impulses
when we trust our initial impulses we go
with our first ideas it serves us in
improv to trust and actually hinders us
to distrust you’ll see if you have
co-workers who you don’t trust you won’t
feel safe with them you won’t want to
work with him so what we have found is
that Trust actually leads to greater
group cohesion and leads to positive
social health amongst co-workers Amy
Poehler once said that improv is like
the military you leave no man behind
now improv forms a great framework to
create a positive atmosphere for
productivity teamwork and collaboration
in improv every single person is a
supporting actor and what that means is
making the other guy look like a genius
is just as important in professional and
personal relationships as it is in
comedy what we found through training
through developing an awesome solid
improv troupe is that when we support
each other when we have each other’s
backs we create an environment to build
stronger teams to generate better ideas
to create greater work ethic and also to
give people the confidence to speak up
authentically within a group how do I
live an improv life well you got to
apply these principles by applying these
principles you will maintain a positive
outlook in life you will enhance
relationships and your lives will become
amazing okay
now what we need to do in order to do
this is we need to become yes people
because yes people are okay with being
silly they’re okay with trying new
things we need to listen actively with
our whole bodies and lose agendas so we
can be in the present moment we need to
fail all and love failure because
failing makes us brave because it’s an
opportunity for revelation we need to
trust ourselves and each other and
realize that when we do trust ourselves
in each other anything and everything is
possible
so improv is a wonderful structure it’s
a wonderful framework for you to find
your creative genius how amazing would
your lives be if you took the step to
improve your lives thank you very much
thank you
[Music]
you
[Music]
testing hi these lights are very
dramatic I love it
everyone can see me hi everybody so my
name is Claudia Norman and when I was in
primary school I was told that I was too
large to make the netball team I know
what but anyway in an act of defiance or
to try and give my Jewish mother some
nos some pride I decided I’m gonna try
out anyway and that’s exactly what I did
and I got and baby bear thank you
netball C team Reserve but let me tell
you something I was dedicated okay I was
at every single match mostly for the
oranges at halftime but I was there I
was there and what I was desperately
trying to do is I was desperately trying
to find something I could be good at
something
I was fantastic at I was constantly
kicked out of class and told that I was
disruptive on my progress reports I got
Clawdeen is erratic erratic I remember
running to my mother crying I’m here
otic and I was erratic I was I
desperately needed to express myself
that is better so I tried out for the
public speaking team when I got into
high school and I got into the finals of
the junior public speaking competition
and to my shock and my horror I found
out that there was an impromptu section
now we had half an hour to write house
features and in that half an hour I did
nothing and when my name was called up
to come out on stage I froze
I went blank I started to shake and then
I took a deep breath and something truly
amazing happened I surrendered I began
to improvise I started to talk talk as
if I was talking to my family talk as if
I was talking to my friends and for the
first time in my life I realized that
being authentic was okay not only was it
okay it was fun and it was at that
moment I realized what I needed to do
for the rest of my life so cut to my
adult life who knows if I’ve grown up
yet but I am a professional improviser
thank you thank you to the one person at
the back for shouting yay um thank you
so what that means that means that I am
in the business of faking it till you
make it
I get to perform but I also get to help
people whether they want to be
professional improvisers or not I get to
help them incorporate the fundamental
principles of improv into their everyday
lives I work with the most incredible
team of people and sometimes I have to
pinch myself when I look at who I work
with and we own a company called jittery
citizens we specialize in improv comedy
corporate entertaining entertainment
team building and training the question
I get asked the most is what is improv
what is improvisation it is the ability
to make something totally special out of
nothing
now improv is a learned skill which
means everyone can do it it just means
that some people are going to be better
than improv than others look at Jacob
Zuma fantastic improviser give him a
script with some numbers and not exactly
the same story so what I’m going to do
today is I am going to show you the six
golden rules of improv and if you can
incorporate these rules into your
everyday lives
it will change your
thinking change your relationships and
make your lives more abundantly awesome
rule number one is say yes and now a lot
of people think that improv comedy is
all about me being funny me being the
star of the show but it’s not improv is
all about making the other guy look like
a genius and we do that by creating a
culture of yes and now everything you
and I do in improv is called an offer
and in order to move the scene along we
need to accept each other’s offers and
we have to add to them so I’m gonna do
an exercise with you all now after
everything I say I want you to shout yes
that’s awesome okay so I want to teach
you about improv comedy we’re feeling
people I want to tell you about the
benefits thereof and I want to tell you
how improv can make your lives amazing
great now I want to do the exact same
thing but to everything I say you’re
gonna shout no I want to teach you about
improv comedy so as you can see from
their example saying yes feels awesome
it feels awesome because it validates us
it puts us in an open receptive space
okay it allows for the conversation to
flow and ideas to move forward what
saying no does is saying no halts
creativity it destroys ideas and it
feels really cook am I allowed to say
caca Telex I don’t know I’ve just said
it twice anyway so can you imagine if
you walked into your board room and the
moment you gave an idea or you shared a
thought everyone stood up on the table
and shouted yes that’s awesome your work
environment would be a very different
place wouldn’t it the next role is to
play be silly be weird
so we lose versus adults we lose this
ability because we taught to think
rationally think critically but we’re
not really taught how to play so what we
as jittery citizens do is we go into the
workplace and we encourage people to use
play as a method of creation now if
you’ve ever watched a child play you’ll
see the children play in the present
moment the excitement lies in the
uncertainty of what comes next
now children are mindful when they play
an improv and mindfulness is one in the
same thing so it’s fair to say that
improv is mindfulness in a social
situation active listening now in
everyday conversations we listen enough
to each other just to respond
we’re so pre cons are we so caught up
with preconceived ideas of how the
conversation should flow we worried
about what should be rather than what is
and what active listening does is it
allows us to listen with our entire
bodies with our entire beings and by
doing that we lose all form of agenda we
become open and receptive to change and
we live in the present moment and
because we are in the present moment we
are able to react intuitively learn to
fail so we fail all the time on my first
day of studying at second city in
Chicago we were told that this is a
totally creative space and all our ideas
are valid there are no mistakes and this
is why I find improv so liberating
because every time we stuffed up a scene
we’d laugh about it we’d learn from it
and we’d move on as adults were so
fearful we’re so fearful of what other
people think we’re so fearful of making
mistakes because we associate failing
with being a failure in improv we see
failure for what it is
an opportunity for something magical to
happen trust in improv we work from top
of mind consciousness okay
that means we trust our initial impulses
when we trust our initial impulses we go
with our first ideas it serves us in
improv to trust and actually hinders us
to distrust you’ll see if you have
co-workers who you don’t trust you won’t
feel safe with them you won’t want to
work with him so what we have found is
that Trust actually leads to greater
group cohesion and leads to positive
social health amongst co-workers Amy
Poehler once said that improv is like
the military you leave no man behind
now improv forms a great framework to
create a positive atmosphere for
productivity teamwork and collaboration
in improv every single person is a
supporting actor and what that means is
making the other guy look like a genius
is just as important in professional and
personal relationships as it is in
comedy what we found through training
through developing an awesome solid
improv troupe is that when we support
each other when we have each other’s
backs we create an environment to build
stronger teams to generate better ideas
to create greater work ethic and also to
give people the confidence to speak up
authentically within a group how do I
live an improv life well you got to
apply these principles by applying these
principles you will maintain a positive
outlook in life you will enhance
relationships and your lives will become
amazing okay
now what we need to do in order to do
this is we need to become yes people
because yes people are okay with being
silly they’re okay with trying new
things we need to listen actively with
our whole bodies and lose agendas so we
can be in the present moment we need to
fail all and love failure because
failing makes us brave because it’s an
opportunity for revelation we need to
trust ourselves and each other and
realize that when we do trust ourselves
in each other anything and everything is
possible
so improv is a wonderful structure it’s
a wonderful framework for you to find
your creative genius how amazing would
your lives be if you took the step to
improve your lives thank you very much
thank you
[Music]
you
[Music]
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