“Yes, but, I don’t want to.”

This was a conversation I had with myself pretty much every day for months. If you’ve read any book on productivity or motivation, nearly all of them talk about the benefits of waking up early and getting an early start.

First thing in the morning, I can be very productive. The problem was, waking up in the morning was something I didn’t want to do any earlier than I had to.

I’ve conditioned myself to wake up at a certain time without needing an alarm. So the thought of setting an alarm, and waking up tired, and having to deal with all that unpleasantness was kind of depressing.

 I had what I call a persistent “yes, but.”

A persistent “yes, but,” is defined simply as an idea that repeatedly pops into your head that you keep responding to with “yes, but.”

You undoubtedly have at least one – if not many – of these in your own life. It may center around your business, your health, your social life, a hobby, or anything at all. There are some ideas that have been bouncing around your brain for a long time, and you keep responding to them by saying, “yes, but.”

These often start with an “I should.”

Many people will tell you to stop saying “I should,” because it creates a sense of obligation and depression and is usually not helpful. While I agree with that on some level, for our purpose here, you may find it very valuable to pay attention when you find yourself repeatedly saying “I should.”

What you may not realize is that the key to your long term success may very well lie in listening to those nagging “I shoulds,” and tackling those persistent “yes, buts.”

The Benefits of Pursuing Your “Yes, Buts”

There are three important reasons to address your “yes, buts”:

1) That persistent “yes, but” may be the very thing you need to do to move ahead to the next level.

If you have a persistent “yes, but,” it’s probably persistent for a reason. There is some value to that idea. There’s some reason your mind keeps suggesting that this is something you should do.

If it wasn’t a very good idea, or if the idea didn’t at least have potential, it wouldn’t be persistent. You would think of it once and then it would go away.

2) Pursuing your persistent, “yes, buts” may lead to another idea that you never would have thought of otherwise.

Sometimes when we have one idea, we need to pursue it to come up with the next, even better one. Going back to my own example, I eventually got around to getting up earlier. I set my alarm for 5:30am, which was significantly earlier than I was used to waking up.

I hated it.

Whatever benefits there were, the downside was much worse for me. I became tired, stressed, and unproductive. I had committed to trying it for one week, and when that week ended I went back to my normal wake-up time.

However, by running that trial, it got my mind thinking, and I came up with a different productivity technique which did work. I never would have thought of this second idea if I hadn’t said, “yes, and” to that first persistent “I should.”

Sometimes we need to pursue the “yes, but” not because it is the solution, but because it might be the impulse that leads to the real solution.

3) Pursuing your persistent “yes, buts” will free up valuable mental space.

When you have a persistent “yes, but,” that idea is going to keep coming back, keep coming back, keep coming back to you, until you finally implement it. When you implement, regardless of whether that idea works for you or not, your mind will be able to let go of the idea, because you’ll have already tried it.

If you implement and it works, great! If you implement and it doesn’t work, that clears the idea out of your head so you can come up with the next potential solution.

Easy Steps to Make the Most of Your “Yes, Buts”

Here are three tips you can use to turn your persistent “yes, buts” to your advantage:

1) Take it one step at a time.

Sometimes we have giant, persistent “yes, buts.” For example, if you wanted to write a book, you might be saying to yourself, “I should write for two hours every day!” (That may sound crazy, but it is Stephen King’s advice to new writers).

Now, that is a giant task and of course you’re going to say “yes, but I don’t have time for that.”

Instead, take a look at that idea and shrink it down to one small step. You may not have two hours every day to write, so start smaller. Start with 30 minutes. Start with 10 minutes. Start with whatever commitment allows you to follow through on the idea you are “yes, butting.”

2) Use time boxing.

You don’t need to commit to pursuing your “yes, but” forever. That type of all-or-nothing approach is one of the things that often prevents people from taking the first step.

For example, when I set my goal of waking up early, I committed to doing it for just one week and then I would re-evaluate. Every day that week I woke up early, and knowing that I was only doing it for a short time made it much easier for me to set the alarm and get up. If I had started by saying, “every day I’m going to wake up super early,” I probably would have procrastinated and never gotten started.

So set a short time-frame to run an experiment; one that you feel will allow you to take action and get started.

3) Find a partner.

Whether it’s because it makes the activity more fun, it’s more motivating, or it sets up accountability, having someone else participating with you when pursuing your “yes, buts” makes it much more likely that you’ll follow through.

I had been thinking about trying the “Whole 30” clean eating plan for a long time, and of course it became one of my persistent “yes, buts.” The thing that finally got me to implement was the fact that my wife was on board with giving it a try. Since there were two of us involved we were able to work together. It made it a lot easier to get started and give it a fair trial.

If you can find a partner who has a similar “yes, but” to tackle, you can both increase your chances of success by working together.

Put Your “Yes, Buts” to Work for You!

So start paying attention to your “I shoulds” and your persistent “yes, buts,” and start asking yourself, “how can I pursue this in order to break through to the next level?”

Want Help Pursuing Your “Yes, Buts” and using “Yes, And” to Take Your Life, Business, or Career to the Next Level?

You don’t have to go it alone! Avish has three great ways to work with you to help you add the power of “Yes, And!” to your life:

1. Yes, And Keynotes – A 60-90 minute high-energy, interactive, hilarious presentation on using “Yes, And!” to lead, sell, serve and excel – in an ever changing world! Perfect for conferences and annual employee meetings. (More info…)
2. Yes And Coaching – Work one-on-one with Avish to identify your “yes, buts” and apply the power of “Yes, And!” to bust plateaus, improve relationships, increase confidence, and take your career or organization to the next level. (More info…)
3. Yes, And Training – Have Avish work in-depth with your group to master the application of “Yes, And!” in the real-world. The training is a combination of instruction, discussion, improv games, and targeted role-playing with a focus on application. Perfect for service companies and groups that want all their employees (not just sales-professionals) to transform every customer interaction into an opportunity for business growth. (More info…)

If you’ve tried this before, you can start to feel like you’re never going to get out of that rut and start making progress. You may start to fear that maybe this place you’re in and those feelings you’re having are going to be permanent.

The problem may very well not be that you don’t have the capability to change. The problem may instead be in the approach you are taking to try to make those changes.

Tweaking vs. Innovating

You see, when we try to make changes in our lives, we like to try to tweak. The problem with tweaking is that it’s just a small incremental change that doesn’t really make a lot of progress. In order to really create a transformational change that’s going to get out of that rut and start making huge progress, we need to innovate.

The importance here is that you cannot innovate by tweaking. By innovation, what I simply mean doing something new or doing something old in a very new way. To innovate, you have to break out of your comfort zone, throw something at the wall, and see what happens.

When you tweak, you take a look at what your already doing and then try to make a small change that will slightly improve it. Tweaking is fine if you just need to make little bits of improvement or if you want to test some things out.

Unfortunately, what got you to the level you’re currently at is often the thing that’s holding you back from going to the next level.

For example, I am a motivational keynote speaker. My original presentation got good reviews and got me bookings, but I wanted (needed!) to grow my business, so I figured, “Okay, I need to make my presentation better.”

The problem is that for a long time (longer than I would like to admit), I tried to make my keynote better by tweaking it. I would add in a one or two-minute segment. I would change a story. I would slightly move some things around. Using this approach, my business never really got a whole lot better because when you tweak, you tend to stay in the same arena or at the same level of success.

When I finally decided it was time to innovate my keynote, I made big changes to it. I added new improv games (link to video). I developed new stories. I changed the title and branding. It was after I did that – and only after I did that – that my business really took off. Not only did I start getting booked more, but I was also able to raise my fees considerably over the course of a couple of years with that new keynote.

Now I find myself at the next crossroads where I’m happy with where my business is, but if I want to grow it, which I do, I need to innovate again.

You have the same choice in your own life when you’re trying to get out of a rut or take your career, business, or life to another level.

You can tweak by changing little components one at a time or you can make big quantum leaps by making a large change that really propels you forward.

You can apply this to your business, be your small business, your department, or even a large organization. If you need to jump ahead, stop tweaking and start innovating. What is a big change you can make to propel your business forward?

You could do this on a professional level in your career. You can make a big change by getting a new degree or switching roles in your current organization You can also apply this on a smaller scale. Just start doing something new that you haven’t done before as a professional. This could be part of your job or it could be external, but just simply trying to do your current work better is not going to get you a huge innovation.

Finally, you can use this in your personal life. If you feel overworked, creatively blocked, or you’re just not enjoying yourself, stop trying to tweak and make small changes in your schedule. Make a big change, try something very new and different, and see what happens.

Here are five ways you can stop tweaking and start innovating:

1) Understand that this is a Messy Process

We like to think that innovation occurs in “a-ha!” moments, like Isaac Newton sitting there, getting hit on the head with an apple, and discovering gravity.

In reality, innovation is a very messy process. You get an idea, you try it out, it probably doesn’t work, and you fail. You make an adjustment, try again, over and over, until you either get somewhere or figure out that your idea won’t fly.

This is where tweaking works. The initial idea is a big innovation and change. Then as you try it, you keep tweaking the approach to see if you can make it work.

2) Risk Failure

Because innovation is a messy process, you will mess up and your first attempt probably won’t work. Have the courage to try anyway knowing there’s a good chance it won’t work, because eventually, once you work through it, you’ll reach a whole new level if you push through that fear of failure.

3) Remember that it’s a Step-by-Step Process

Try to think in terms of “learning,” not “succeeding.” That means that when you try to implement your new idea, don’t worry so much if it works perfectly. Rather, go in with the mindset of, “what can I learn from this experience?” That’s how you can tweak your innovation to eventually make it work.

4) Use the “Blank Slate Technique”

To use the “blank slate technique,” simply ask yourself, “How would I do what I’m doing if I could not do anything I’m currently do.”

For example, when redesigning my keynote, I asked myself the question, “how could I deliver these same key points if I couldn’t use any of my current exercises or tell of any of my current stories?” I also asked, “how can I make my main overall point without using any of the current sub-points I talk about?”

This is a tremendous creative exercise. It forces you to get creative and let go of everything you have done to this point.

This is just a thought experiment because you’re not going to actually throw everything away. When I redid my keynote, about 60% of it was the same stuff that I used to be doing, but 40% was completely different. But adding that constraint of not being able to do anything your current way forces you to innovate. By definition, you cannot tweak if you can’t do anything you’ve been doing.

5) Solve an Interesting Problem

This is all about raising the bar. Ask yourself a problem, or set a challenge for yourself that you don’t currently know the solution to, and that you can’t just pop onto Google to get the solution.

I’ve written an article that goes deeper into this topic, which you can read here:

Solve an Interesting Problem

This is one of the best ways to force yourself to raise the bar, be innovative, and create breakthrough transformations.

The next time you find yourself stuck, lagging behind the competition, or feeling like you’re capable of something more, stop tweaking. Start innovating. Raise the bar. Change the game, and get yourself moving again.

Want Help?

Do you want Avish’s help to get your team or organization to stop tweaking and start innovating? Then check out his keynote speaking and business training options

Do you want Avish’s help in getting out of a rut by innovating on a personal or professional issue? Contact him now to discuss how he can help you with one-on-one consulting options.

A TEDx Talk Versus a TED Talk

TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, and Design. There’s a TED conference, which is a huge event and brings in some of the top speakers in the world. The cost to attend a TED event is thousands of dollars and it is very exclusive. It’s quite an honor to be invited onto the TED stage and not easy to accomplish.

TEDx on the other hand, is related to TED but they are independently organized events. Pretty much anyone can put together a TEDx event, and they range in quality. Some TEDx events are excellent, with some talks being just as good as some of the talks you would see on a TED stage.

I want to be clear that when looking at a TEDx talk versus a TED talk, they are not the same and I don’t want to mislead.

TEDx Talks on YouTube

For me, being invited to a TEDx event was very exciting – and specifically TEDx Boca Raton, which upon my research was a high-quality event. I planned very hard for this event, knowing it was a huge opportunity. The day of the event came and, at the risk of sounding immodest, it went incredibly well. The crowd loved it. I got a huge response and great feedback. Everything I wanted to get done got done. I thought I was on my way. This was going to lead to a flood of new business. However, that didn’t happen.

As of this writing, which is almost two years later, my TEDx Talk on YouTube has about 2,500 views. That may sound like a lot, but the most popular TEDx Talks get over a million. In fact, a couple of the other speakers from that event have had their talks viewed on YouTube over 100,000 times. They were excellent talks, but I certainly don’t think they were 40 times better than my talk.

As I analyze what happened, why my talk didn’t take off, I realized I was in trouble before I ever took the stage. That problem was with my title. The title of my TEDx Talk was “Why the World Needs Improv.” My entire talk was about how improv relates to business and life, which is the point of my entire speaking business. It was a fun title. I thought it made sense. To me, it was very appealing.

However, what I realized is, if you don’t know anything about me and you have a choice of videos to watch, “Why the World Needs Improv” isn’t all that appealing. It’s not clear what the topic really is. It’s not very clear about what’s going to happen in the talk. I share some key techniques to deal with an ever-changing world in a way that lets you get ahead instead of falling behind. “Why the World Needs Improv” did not clearly explain that at all.

The other talks at the same TEDx event, which really did grow very fast, had much clearer titles. (I don’t want to take anything away from those speakers because they also put in some effort afterwards to do an effective job of marketing their TEDx Talks.) However, a huge piece of it is the title.

This got me thinking about what a better title would have been that would have helped my video spread more. Instead of going for something clever, if my talk had simply been titled “How to Handle Change More Effectively,” that is super, super clear, even though it isn’t sexy or exciting. Anyone interested in change or surfing YouTube TED Talks would see that and immediately know what it’s about. Unfortunately for me, I don’t own the TEDx Talks YouTube Channel, so I can’t go back and change the title after the fact. Now I have to work much, much harder to try and get my TEDx video to that 100,000-view mark and above. Even with that effort, with my current title, I’m not entirely sure I’m going to get there.

Clarity

This got me thinking a lot about clarity. Whether we’re talking about TEDx Talks YouTube views, marketing, adapting to change, being more innovative, performing improv comedy, or anything else, clarity is incredibly important. Clarity simply means being very clear in your communication and messaging so people understand exactly what you’re trying to communicate. I’m going to share three types of clarity that I learned from my TEDx Talk that you can use in your life, your business, or your profession.

1) Clarity of Objective: In my TEDx Talk, I had a clear objective in that I wanted this video to spread my message far and wide, to both get the message out there and have people learn about me as a funny motivational speaker. I was clear in my head, but I forgot about that objective when I was putting together the title. The title didn’t reflect my objective. In fact, if you look at the most popular TEDx Talks, they have a very simple, single point title which makes it very clear what the talk is about. These are the most popular TEDx Talks.In improv comedy, the clarity of objective is just as important. I’ve learned over the years that with improv, there is a battle between entertainment and art. Improv is an art form, and some performers fall in love with the art. That’s fine. The problem is, sometimes the artistic improv isn’t very entertaining for the audience to watch. I decided I wanted to do entertaining improv. That clarity of objective helped my decisions in how I train and how I put together shows.In business, it’s the same way. What is your objective as a professional or as an organization? By having this clarity of objective, decision making is much easier. It helps prioritize. It helps make you more productive. Because instead of getting caught up in the minor tasks that aren’t aligned to your objective, you can keep focused on the objective. That only happens if you have clarity of the objective.

2) Clarity of Core Elements: In any endeavor, there are a few key core elements that are going to determine success. In my TEDx Talk, I forgot that the title was a core element. I spent so much time crafting the talk that I forgot about one of the key core elements, which was getting people to see it. As a result, I blew a golden opportunity.In improv, there are also core elements. I discovered there are many, many things you could focus on that are fun and exciting in improv. If you adopt a few of those core elements (being creative, accessing your creativity, listening, saying “yes, and”, and having the proper mindset) everything else gets much easier and more successful.The same holds true in business. As a professional, there are probably thousands of things you have to do and focus on. But if you really look at it, there’s probably only a handful, maybe four or five core things that are the most important things you need to do to be successful. Even for a department or an entire organization, there’s probably only a handful of core things. Many people in many organizations get so caught up in all the things that have to do that they only give a small amount of time to those core elements. The more we focus on the core, the more successful we become.

3) Clarity of Communication: In my TEDx Talk, the title was my communication vehicle and it wasn’t clear. It didn’t have clarity. That’s why it’s not getting so many views.In improv comedy, when you are working together with a partner, you are making things up as you go along. My partner has no idea what I’m thinking or where I want to go in the exercise. If I am not very clear in my communication, then he will easily miss what I’m saying and we will be working against each other, or at the very least we won’t be aligned.In business, clarity of communication comes down to your marketing message when you’re trying to let clients and prospects know what you do. Clarity comes down to teamwork and communication. It comes down to customer service. The more clear we are, the more effective our communication. This even extends beyond business to personal life. In your personal relationships, clarity of communication is going to have a huge impact on how you relate to others.

In retrospect, my TEDx Talk, while I’m very proud of it and think it’s a great talk, languishes in terms of views simply because I lacked clarity. Don’t let this happen to you. Whether you are talking about a personal relationship, performing improv, wanting to do better in your profession, or putting together your own TED or TEDx Talk, make sure you have lots of clarity, because that is going to lead to your long-term success.

​​Quick

Why Sully? If you’re unfamiliar with Chesley Sullenberger, he was flying out of New York and shortly after takeoff struck a flock of geese which damaged the engines. He had to make an emergency water landing. He kept his composure, landed successfully on the Hudson River, and got everyone evacuated from the plane safe and sound. Here’s a link.

Sully responded to a ding moment quickly and effectively, averted tragedy and saved hundreds of lives. There are thousands of pilots making successful flights every day. Many of them are just as talented and capable as Sully. But we remember Sully because he had a ding moment and he came through it shining.

What are Ding Moments?

The lesson here is that in general, to stand out from the crowd, be noticed and be remembered, you either need to do something first, break a record, or do something remarkably different. Ding moments give you the chance to do something different.

What is a ding moment? As a change management keynote speaker and change management expert, I talk about ding moments as moments where things don’t go as planned. My background is in improv comedy. I open my motivational keynote presentations with an improv game called “Ding” where I tell a story and whenever an audience volunteer rings a bell I must immediately change whatever I am saying (if you want to see this in action, watch this video clip from one of my change management keynote speaker presentations).

In life, a ding moment occurs when you have a plan (like flying your airplane) and something unexpected happens (like you run into a flock of geese that damage the engines). Ding moments can be good or bad, but most often ding moments are something negative because they throw us off our plan. We normally don’t like ding moments because they increase our problems. I don’t wish ding moments on you, however, if like Sully you handle them well, ding moments can be your greatest opportunity to shine. If you don’t however, a ding moment can be what totally derails you and makes you fail.

Responding to Ding Moments

Think about it, if everything went according to plan, it would be easy to be successful. The real test is how we respond when things don’t go as planned.

For example, in 1982 Tylenol experienced the “Chicago Tylenol Murders.” This was a series of poisoning deaths resulting from drug tampering in the Chicago metropolitan area. The victims had all taken Tylenol capsules that had been laced with potassium cyanide. In addition to issuing a recall, Johnson & Johnson established relations with the Chicago Police Department, the FBI, and the FDA so they could have a part in searching for the person who laced the capsules and help prevent further tampering. The company’s market share collapsed from 35% to 8%, but it rebounded in less than a year to the highest market share for the over-the-counter analgesic in the U.S. – a move change management experts credited to the company’s prompt and aggressive reaction.

This could have been devastating to the company, however Johnson & Johnson handled the problem ethically and responsibly. And in the long run, they came out shining because of how they responded to that ding moment. They showed they cared more about their customer’s safety than about some of their immediate profits.

Another example is the story of how 3M discovered how to make things stick temporarily. An engineer was trying to make a more permanent glue, but kept making one that wouldn’t stick well. They used that ding moment to turn that into a product we now know as Post-It notes.

Professionally, ding moments are a great chance to shine. If you do great work at your job, that’s awesome. Things will move along, you’ll get promoted, you’ll advance, and that’s wonderful. However, it’s when you do great work in the face of a crisis or when something unexpected happens that leadership starts to notice you. That is when your career can really accelerate.

In our personal relationships, ding moments can dictate whether our relationship is a success or a failure. When we are in a relationship, whether with a romantic partner, friend, or family member, when everything is going smoothly it’s easy to get along with each other. However, when ding happens, how do you respond with the other person? Many people immediately feel stress or anger and sometimes begin to fight. However, if we respond to ding moments with positivity, collaboration, kindness and consideration, we build a strong relationship and the ding moments just make it stronger and stronger.

Shining in Ding Moments

How do we respond to ding moments in a way that lets us shine? A full, in depth explanation will be coming in a future post. For now, I will share three tips from my change management keynote speaker presentations that you can use right away.

1. Respond with, “Yes and”: When ding happens, you can immediately say either, “Yes but,” or, “Yes and.” To respond positively use “Yes and.” Eliminate “Yes but.” (Here’s a video that explains that idea)

2. Mindset: How you respond to a ding moment is directly impacted by the mindset you have. If you are negative or angry or focusing on the worst-case scenario you will have a mindset which will not help you respond effectively. However, if you use what I call in my keynote speaker presentation The Three Fs of the Improvisor’s Mindset – have Fun, be willing to Fail, Focus on what you can control and let go of the rest – you will shine in ding moments.

3. Don’t Create; Don’t Run: Don’t try to create your own ding moments but also don’t run from them when they occur. If ding moments are your chance to shine, it seems logical that you would want to create them. However, this is a bad idea as you can never plan a good ding moment – because then it wouldn’t be unexpected (definition of a ding moment) and people will realize that you are the one who created the problem in the first place. But just because you try to avoid ding moments, that doesn’t mean you should run from them when they do happen. When a ding happens, most people try to hide from it, try to get away from it, and don’t want to jump into it. If you become the person who jumps in and fixes the ding, that’s how you can start to shine.

One thing change management experts agree on is that change is a constant. The only thing for sure is that nothing is for sure. If you want to make the most of this uncertain world then the next time ding happens, don’t look at it as a problem, but rather treat it as an opportunity for you to shine.

​Change Management Keynote Speaker Avish Parashar

Would you like your team, department, or organization to be be better at  using Ding moments as a chance to shine? Then consider bringing in change management keynote speaker Avish Parashar to deliver a funny and motivational keynote presentation or conduct an in-depth training workshop.

​Contact Avish now to get started!

What is Creativity Training?

Creativity training is exactly what it sounds like: training your employees in a way that shows them how to access, develop, and apply their creativity. My definition of creativity training involves all three steps; how employees can access their own creativity, how they can further develop their creativity, and how they can apply their creativity to their work.

1. Access: All people are creative. However, as people grow up they tend to block their creativity. The first step in any creativity training program is showing people how to get past those blocks and access their inherent creativity.

2. Develop: Creativity is like a muscle. It’s not a switch that can just be turned on and off. Once it is accessed, it needs to be built up over time. A creativity training program needs to show you how to continuously develop those skills.

3. Apply: Being more creative in general will probably yield some results, but they will be accidental. A good, true creativity training program should show your team not just how to become more creative, but how they can specifically apply that creativity in their work and in their day-to-day activities.

It is very important for a creativity training program to contain all three steps because when you miss one or two of them, as many programs do, the result is far fewer benefits.

Why Creativity?

Why bother with a creativity or innovation training program for your business? Some people think of creativity as being a skill only useful in some specific areas. However, creativity training can help any business in several ways. For example, creativity training can help in the following ways:

• Improved problem solving: The more creative you and your team are, the more solutions you’ll be able to find to the problems that arise.

• Staying competitive: The world is changing very fast. Organizations that keep doing things the same old way will fall behind. Improving your organizational creativity will help you and your team not only stay competitive, but also move ahead of the competition.

• Stress reduction: One of the big reasons people feel stressed is because they feel trapped. They feel trapped when they feel like they have no options. Increased creativity gives your people a greater ability to solve those problems and come up with alternatives to reduce their stress. (Check out Avish’s Stress Management Training Workshop)

• Employee morale and retention: Employees become the most engaged when they are allowed to express themselves. When they are generating and acting on their own ideas, they have a sense of ownership, involvement, and accountability. This leads to autonomy, which leads to greater morale and improved retention.

Why Improv Comedy?

Even though you have considered a creativity training program, you may not have considered using improv comedy as the vehicle to conduct those creativity training programs. Creativity or innovation training is important, and improv comedy is a great way to implement those.

A creativity training program for business is only as good as two things:

1. The instructor leading the training and…
2. The quality of the creativity training exercises.

Instructors, regardless of methodology, come in all forms. Some are good, some are not so good. You need to vet them in each individual case.

However, quality creativity training exercises are critical. Creativity cannot be “explained” to people. Creativity is a skill, and it is a skill that needs to be practiced.

In the same way, you can’t just explain to someone how to do a great tennis serve. You have to actually get them on the tennis court hitting some balls so they can practice and develop the skill. Any creativity training program needs great creativity training exercises for it to be effective. This is where improv comedy becomes hugely beneficial.

Creativity Training Exercises and Creativity Training Games

Improv comedy has great training exercises. In improv, we usually call these “games.” “Creativity training exercises” versus “creativity training games” – they are essentially the same thing. But when we’re playing a game we are reducing the pressure of training. Here’s why:

• If you’ve been in the corporate world for any amount of time, you’ve been to training sessions. They are often met with low energy, low expectations, and a certain amount of dread. When we shift to improv comedy and add our creativity training games, we take away some of that dread and we change the focus from needing to learn corporate skills to simply having fun and playing games.

• Since the art form of improv comedy is so much fun, your participants actually enjoy the training, instead of being brain-dead.

• It’s interactive. Again, people need to practice the creativity skills to get better. An improv comedy workshop has participants playing improv games throughout, so it is incredibly interactive.

• It’s subtle. You may not normally think of the word “subtle” when it comes to improv comedy. But the reason I say “subtle” is that when you are teaching someone an improv game, you are approaching their business skills from a side door. Instead of directly hitting them over the head, which leads to some resistance and people saying, “I don’t need to learn that,” you are simply showing them how to do improv, which teaches them the creativity skills in a subtler way. This helps them learn the skill without the pressure of thinking of the immediate business application.

• When done right, it leads to great improv comedy applications. Yes, it is fun, it is interactive, and it teaches creativity through the side door, but a good improv comedy workshop will then make the connections for the group into how they can apply this to their business.

The creativity training program must have a purpose. It’s not just improv for improv’s sake. Improv is fun and people leave happy, but there needs to be a business benefit. Your creativity training program using improv comedy needs to ensure that people experience the right things with the skill. That is, an improv comedy game can be played in a variety of ways. You need to make sure the instructor is using the right games and teaching the right skills that are going to benefit your group.

Also, your attendees need to know how to keep developing these skills. As we said, creativity is a muscle. You can’t just come to one workshop and suddenly be creative, so they need to leave with ideas, exercises, and tools to help them keep developing.

They need to have ideas on how to apply the skills to their jobs right away. Even though some of these things take a long time to develop, you can apply some of these skills right away if you are given the right techniques and tools. These should all come out in the game debriefs. A good creativity training program using improv will not just be improv games, but will have quality debrief sessions after the exercises to address all these issues so attendees, in addition to having fun, get tremendous value.

What’s the next step? If you’re interested in using improv comedy for a creativity training program, watch some of the videos on this site. There are many games there, and you can adopt several of them very simply, even without needing improv experience or instruction. However, if you’d like to go further in depth, contact Avish now to discuss how his improv comedy training program will help you and your team or organization improve their creativity and increase their innovation.

“Business Improv.”

Sounds a bit weird, right? Can ridiculous comedy techniques help your business? If you have ever seen an improv comedy show, the last thing on your mind was probably, “Hey, that looks like it would be really helpful to me and my business.” After all, a typical improv comedy show will often have performers doing and saying some truly ridiculous things. However, the underlying skill-set that allows an improviser to do those ridiculous activities can be tremendously beneficial to any business or any professional.

What is Improv for Business Professionals?

Improv comedy is an art form where performers take the stage with nothing prepared in advance and then use audience suggestions to create comedy right there on the spot. Nothing is pre-planned. However, the performers have developed a skill-set that allows them to react in the moment very quickly to create comedy as they go.

The Improv for Business Professionals seminar is simply a business training program where business professionals are taken through a series of corporate improv games and exercises, taught the fundamentals of improv comedy and then shown how they can use the skills learned from those corporate improv games and exercises to improve their work and life and organization. If you have never seen improv comedy check out these videos.

Examples of a Corporate Improv Game / Exercise

If you’ve never seen an improv business seminar before, you might be a little confused. So here is an example of one my favorite corporate improv exercises. I’ve intentionally picked a simpler one that you can facilitate with your own group right away without needing an experienced improv facilitator.

The Two-Word Story:

Assign each person a partner and then have the pairs work together to create a story – each person contributing two words at a time. For example, the first person says, “Once upon” and the second person says, “a time.” The first person now says, “There was,” and so on and so on until they have a complete story. The end result is that the two people create a weird, wild, funny, and crazy story. (To see this game in action, check out this video).

The key here is that I tell them to go as fast they can and not overthink it, which is what leads to greater creativity and greater humor. I also tell them not to stop if either of them accidentally say three or four words. They should try to keep it to two. But it’s more important that they go with the flow than that they correct themselves.

There are many lessons you can pull out of playing this short improv game (it takes no more than a minute). You can talk about creativity. You can talk about collaboration. You can talk about dealing with change and getting unexpected results. You can talk about stress because some people feel stress playing this game. This simple improv exercise, which is funny, very easy, and fun to play has tremendous applications and benefits.

Benefits and Applications of a Business Improv Seminar

What are the benefits and applications of an improv business seminar? There are many.

• Improved Creativity and Innovation: Obviously, since improvisers are creating things on the spot with nothing prepared, they need to be creative. So by definition, business improv can help your team be more creative and innovative. Here’s an article on business improv that goes further into specific statistical benefits of using improv for greater innovation.

• Leadership: Improv leadership training is very popular simply because one of the best skills a leader can have is the ability to deal with the unexpected. It would be easy to be a great leader if everyone on your team agreed with you and always did what you said, and if everything in the world always went according to plan. The mark of true leadership is how you navigate those situations where things don’t go as planned or you get unexpected results. This is exactly what improv leadership training teaches.

• Reduced Stress: A big cause of stress is the fear of the unknown, the fear of the unexpected, and the fear of things not going as planned. With corporate improv training you learn to embrace uncertainty, you learn to make the most of the unexpected, and you really learn that “Hey, no matter what happens I can deal with it.”

• Dealing with Change: The world of improv is the world of change. Anyone who gets too fixed on one idea while performing improv is usually in big trouble. We need to be flexible and adaptable and deal with changes constantly. The same is true in the business world – change is a constant. People who have learned improv skills for business professionals will be much more effective in navigating those changes.

• Speaking: Improv comedy is performance. To do it well you have to stand in front of a group of people and essentially speak. One of the most powerful things I do as an instructor is show groups how improv comedy can help them be more effective speakers – not just how to deliver more effectively, but how to deal with changes in the program, how to deal with hostile audience members, how to think on your feet in tough situations, and how to be comfortable on stage. All these speaking skills are accomplished with improv skills.

• Better Teamwork: Improv at its core is a collaborative effort. You have a team of performers playing together. The skills of communication, give and take of control, and fundamentally making each other look good would help any business team.

Business improv is a powerful skill that you can use in your team, department, or organization to greatly improve creativity, decrease stress, improve leadership, more readily accept change, and many, many other things.

If you are interested in learning more here’s what you can do:

• Watch some of these videos to see what you can use right away.

• Bring Avish into your organization to run a business improv seminar or to conduct a business improv keynote presentation for a conference.

• Or you could just simply start by contacting Avish now to ask him how improv might benefit you and your organization – no pressure, no stress, just a simple conversation and see where it goes from there.

If you are planning an event, or planning on planning an event, then you could use some keynote speaker ideas.

A good keynote speaker can absolutely make your event. A bad keynote speaker, on the other hand, can destroy your event before it’s even gotten started.

Here are six places for finding great keynote speaker ideas, and some advice on how to make the most of them.

(For more info on different types of keynote speakers and a few thoughts on keynote speaker fees, check out my keynote speaker ideas page)

Finding a Keynote Speaker Idea #1 – Your Personal Experience

This should be obvious, but the best place for finding a keynote speaker is from among the speakers you’ve already seen. I have served as the programming chair for an association, and 90% of the speakers I brought in were people I had either seen or heard a good quality recording of. That is the best way to know exactly how that speaker is going to perform for you. However, you may have forgotten many of the speakers you’ve seen over the years, simply because you weren’t actively looking for one.

So, in addition to the speakers that come to mind, go back through your notes, your calendar, your e-mails, and look at the agendas of the conferences you have attended over the past few years. This can jog your memory and give you new keynote speaker ideas. You might be surprised how you may have forgotten about some of them, but they would be the perfect speaker for your event.

Finding a Keynote Speaker Idea #2 – Referrals

A personal recommendation from someone you know and trust, who has seen a speaker, is the next best place for finding a keynote speaker idea. Reach out to your colleagues and friends, but most importantly reach out to people who have booked speakers, not just seen them. You can get some great keynote speaker ideas from people who have attended conferences, but there’s a lot more to a speaker than just how well they speak. There’s how easy they are to work with, their level of flexibility, the scheduling, and the fees. Look for people who are on association boards, who plan conferences, and who have worked in meeting planning. Sometimes you can find forums online using LinkedIn, Google, or Facebook, where you can find these types of people to use as resources.

Also, be clear in your request when asking for a keynote speaker referral. Don’t just say, “hey, does anybody have any ideas for a great keynote speaker?” The more specifics you can give, the better recommendations you will get. When asking, let people know the size of your event, the topics you’re focusing on, and the type of feeling you want to convey (motivational, incisive, thoughtful, or humorous) because someone may know a great keynote speaker but they may not be a great fit for your event.

Finding a Keynote Speaker Idea #3 – The National Speaker’s Association

The National Speakers Association is a phenomenal organization consisting of thousands of people who speak professionally. I, myself, have been a member of this organization for almost 15 years. You can search for speakers on the National Speaker’s Association website (nsaspeaker.org). You can also visit a chapter website to search for speakers. For example, I am a member of the Philadelphia chapter (nsaphiladelphia.org). So, if you know you’re going to be doing an event in the Philadelphia area, you can go to the Philadelphia website and search for local speakers. This is a great way to find lesser-known speakers who would be a great fit for you event, and could potentially be more in your budget because they won’t have to travel.

Finding a Keynote Speaker Idea #4 – The Bookstore

If you are looking for a speaker to draw attendees, go to a local bookstore to see whose books are best sellers and what new business books are out there. See what topics resonate with you for having the author as a speaker for your conference. Keep in mind, if the speaker has reached a level where the book is prominently displayed at a Barnes and Noble or other bookstore, chances are they will have a relatively high fee. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t pursue them. Just be prepared.

On the other hand, you can get great keynote speaker ideas on Amazon.com. The Amazon.com best-seller authors may also charge high fees. However, because of the lower barrier to entry at Amazon (author’s cost for being there), you may be able to find speakers who don’t charge as much. You can search on your topic, and maybe look for some that aren’t in the top 10 or 20 best-sellers. You might still find some great books that resonate with you, and those speakers, those authors, might be perfect for your event – and they won’t be as expensive as a New York Time’s best-seller author.

Finding a Keynote Speaker Idea #5 – LinkedIn

Many speakers are now optimizing LinkedIn because they know people are looking there. To find a speaker, just type in your topic and ‘speaker’. For example, if you’re looking for someone who speaks on change, type in ‘change speaker’ and you will get a list of people who speak on that topic. The one nice thing about a LinkedIn search is, when you find the speaker, you will also see who is connected to that speaker. So, before you reach out to the speaker, you can ask your mutual connections their thoughts on them.

Finding a Keynote Speaker Idea #6 – Searching Online

You can search online using Google, YouTube, or even the TED website. Obviously, this can be the weakest place to find speaker ideas, simply because you have no idea what you’re going to get. That doesn’t mean it’s bad. I have been booked by people who just found me by online search, and they were thrilled with my performance. On the other hand, I know people who’ve searched online and found a speaker who wasn’t as good as they thought.

Just type in your topic and the word ‘speaker’, or ‘motivational speaker’, or ‘keynote speaker’, and you’ll get a large list of presenters. Google is a great place to start. YouTube is as good, if not better than Google, because you can watch a video of the speaker, which is the most important thing.

You can also go to TED.com and look for TED speakers. If you’re not familiar with TED, it is a short-form speaking format, and a tremendous amount of interesting and great presentations are on there. Unfortunately, the speakers who speak at TED are probably very expensive. If they fit in your budget, that’s great. There’s also TEDx, which are smaller events. They have a wide range of speakers, from those who speak for high fees, to those who are just doing it to get their message out there.

Finding a Keynote Speaker Idea #7 – Avish Parashar

Hey, I had to get in a little self-promotion, right? If your event could use a high-energy, interactive, funny, and relevant keynote that shows attendees how to improvise, adapt, and innovate in an ever-changing world, then you are already in the right place!

Check out my videos, keynote descriptions, and testimonials. Or skip all that and contact me now!

Finding a Keynote Speaker Idea – Summary

Those are six (seven!) places I recommend for finding keynote speaker ideas. I would suggest prioritizing them in the order I presented. A word of warning – make sure you vet your speakers. Once you’ve found them, even if they sound great, even if their book looks great, even if you’ve read their book and think it’s awesome, the only way to know how good a speaker they’re going to be is to watch them in action. Look at their videos or talk to someone you trust who’s seen them live, because that is the most important thing. Even if you get a referral, or know someone through The National Speaker’s Association, or it’s a best-selling author, they need to be vetted. I have seen people get burned, and I, myself, have gotten burned simply because I went off of someone’s reputation, or their content, without fully vetting them as a speaker.

The next time you need to find keynote speaker ideas, use these six suggestions and make your life a little simpler, and a little easier.

(Don’t forget, for more info on different types of keynote speakers and a few thoughts on keynote speaker fees, check out my keynote speaker ideas page)

Just when you think you’ve got a handle on things and start to feel comfortable, DING! The situation, economy, industry, or world changes on you.

Change is inevitable. And yet, no matter how much we all know change is inevitable, so many people resist it.

For many, their first instinct when a change occurs is to think backwards. That is, their primary thought becomes, “how do I get back to where I was before the change happened?”

Unfortunately, not having adaptability in the workplace not only shuts them off from flexibility and innovation, it often keeps them stuck in less than optimal situations.

For example, years ago I bought Intuit’s Quicken software package. I was going to use this tool to revolutionize the way I managed my finances.

I have used Quicken for about 10 years now, and you know what? It has not revolutionized my finances at all.

You know why?

Because to this day, I still only use Quicken as a glorified checkbook register.

I know it has lots of options, tools, and reports, but I never use any of them.

In short, I use the new technology to keep doing things the same way I have always done them.

I fell into the trap of thinking backwards.

The Importance of Adaptability in the Workplace

Too often, organizations, businesses, and individuals operate the same way. When a change in technology, regulations, economy, or organizational structure comes along, they scramble to figure out how to keep doing business the same way they used to in this new environment.

Instead of having adaptability in the workplace, their instinct is to “go back” to where things were before. However, “going back,” may not be such a great idea for three reasons:

• The old place may not have been so great.It might not have been a happy, profitable, or satisfying place. But it’s what we know, so we try to go back.
• Going back may cut off new opportunities in the present and future. Progress is made by going forward, not back. When you dig in and resist change, you cut off innovation and progress.
• The old place may no longer exist.Companies and entire industries get wiped out by trying to hold on to a past that no longer exists. For example, when technology changes the landscape, the “good old way” of doing business may not work anymore.

Organizations and individuals who don’t have adaptability in the workplace and try to go backwards are the ones that get left behind by the ones who say, “now that things have changed, how can we do things in a better way than we did before?”

Examples of Adaptability in the Workplace

• When you lose an employee, don’t ask, “how quickly can we replace this person?” Ask, “do we need to replace this person, and if so how can we adjust both the responsibilities and the qualities we are looking for to improve the position, department, and organization?”
• When a company-wide decision forces you to adopt a new software package, don’t ask, “what do I need to know to use this software so I can get back to work?” Ask, “what features does this software have that can help me be more effective, efficient, and profitable in my job?”
• When a new law forces you to change how you do business, don’t ask, “What are the minimum changes we need to make in order to comply with the law?” Ask, “what opportunities does this new law open up for us to serve more clients or to serve existing clients better?

You won’t always come up with a game-changing brilliant answer, but by building the habit of asking the question and having adaptability in the workplace, you open yourself, your team, and your organization up to the possibility of finding and leveraging opportunity in every change that comes your way.

Remember, when Ding! Happens (and it will!) think better, not back.

And that is how you start building adaptability in your workplace.

For more information, click here to read more about adaptability in the workplace.

If your team, company, or association could use help being more adaptable in the workplace, check out Avish’s Change Management Speaker info and his Change Management Training info.

Things will go wrong. Anyone can do well when everything goes exactly as planned. The real test of you and your organization is how well you deal with these Ding moments when they happen – because they will! The following 9 ideas will show you how to not only react to the Dings of life, but also how to find opportunities within them and to be a leader of change, not just a victim of it.

Do You Need a Funny Motivational Speaker for Your Next Conference or Event?

If so, Avish can help! Check out his demo video and TEDx talk to see him in action or read about his keynote presentations. Better yet, contact him now to see how one of his funny keynote speeches can help make your next event a success!

Improvise: React to Dings!

When Ding Happens, the first step is to simply react to it, quickly and effectively. To do that:

1. Focus on What You Can Control, Let Go of the Rest. Putting time and energy on things you can’t control is like standing in a storm, yelling at the wind to stop. It accomplishes nothing and tires you out. Great improvisers put their attention on one thing: what they can do right here, right now, only with what they have.
2. Have Fun. Having fun, laughing, and staying positive reduces stress, increases creativity, and makes you more able to stay calm and take logical action. Find a way to stay up, even when things are down. Trust me on this – when you make your living as a funny motivational speaker, you have to keep having fun no matter what goes wrong around you. This one technique alone has helped me survive many potentially disastrous situations.
3. Be Willing to Fail. Failure isn’t ok; it usually has serious consequences. However, focusing on the fear of failure achieves nothing but taking our focus off of the only things that matter: the activities that ensure we won’t fail!

Adapt: Take Advantage of Dings!

Every Ding has an opportunity hidden inside of it. If you want to move from merely putting out fires to truly making progress, then use these three techniques to starting finding those opportunities:

4. Improve the Status Quo. When Ding Happens, your first response may be to try to get back to where you were before things went haywire. However, that just keeps you at the “treading water” place. To take advantage of Dings, start asking yourself, “How can I get to a place that is better than where I was before?”
5. Act with Gusto.Great improvisation is about taking action; improv comedy is not a tentative person’s art form. Don’t do something foolish (like gambling away your savings) but don’t let opportunities pass you by because you are afraid to take action.
6. Say, “Yes, And!” Simply put, when Ding Happens, stop saying “yes, but” and start saying “Yes, And!” (A principle so important I wrote a whole book on it: “Say ‘Yes, And!’”). This may sound simplistic, but in 13+ years of being a funny motivational speaker, this is the one point that always has the biggest impact on my audiences.

Innovate: Create Your Own Dings!

If you want to be a leader in your industry or organization, or if you simply want to break out of a rut, get past a plateau, or achieve a goal you have been struggling with, then you may need to start creating some Dings of your own. Here are three ways to help you do that:

7. Add Constraints.Constraints are generally seen as a bad thing. However, adding constraints (trying to do things with less time, money, energy, etc.) is one of the best ways to increase creativity and force productivity.
8. Increase Complexity.I know, I know: We all want our lives to be simpler, not more complex. But the simplicity you seek may very well be on the other side of greater complexity. For example, if you want to make more money, you may need more education. More education means spending money, juggling schedules, filling out applications, and adding more work to a full calendar. That’s more complex. And yet, beyond that complexity are the results you want. For me, the big breakthrough in my business came when I focused on how to add challenging improv games to my funny motivational speaker business. This wasn’t easy, but once I pushed past that complexity, things got much, much better for my business.
9. Apply Creativity.Creativity is a big topic. In this context, it comes down to doing one of two things: doing something that hasn’t been done before, or doing something that has been done before in a different way. Start asking yourself, “what if?” “Why not?” and “what I am afraid of doing?” Those questions will open your creative mind and help you become a Ding Maker!

The next time Ding Happens to you, apply some (or all) of these nine steps and you will respond like a true improviser!

Do You Need a Funny Motivational Speaker for Your Next Conference or Event?

If so, Avish can help! Check out his demo video and TEDx talk to see him in action or read about his keynote presentations. Better yet, contact him now to see how one of his funny keynote speeches can help make your next event a success!

There are many tactics, but it all starts with realizing you have disengaged employees in the first place!

One simple way of checking this is to see how frequently your employees are responding to you with “yes.”

Having people around you and who work for you respond to your ideas and instructions by saying, ”yes.”
“How to deal with disengaged employees?”
It might also be a sign that you are in big trouble…

“Yes, And” vs. “Yes”

One of the primary rules of improv comedy, and one of the key things I talk about in my presentations, is the idea of saying, thinking, and responding with “yes, and.” (I even wrote a book on the topic)

Usually I talk about saying, “yes, and” as an alternative to “yes, but.” Here, however, I am talking about paying attention to what you hear your people say. If you are hearing a lot of, “yes,” and not a lot of, “yes, and,” that may be a sign that things aren’t so great.

Why “Yes” May Be a Bad Thing

Before I launched my own business, I worked a few different jobs in a variety of environments. Some I liked very much, some were just a paycheck, and some I hated.

At the ones I hated, and even at the ones that were just a paycheck, I said, “yes,” more than at the ones I loved.

Why?

Because it’s easy to say, “yes.”

• I could just keep my head down, do what people wanted, and get the heck out of there at the end of the day.
• I needed to care a lot more to say, “yes, and.”
• I needed to care to offer alternatives.
• I needed to care to innovate better ways of doing things.
• I needed to care to deal with the potential conflict of disagreeing.
• I needed to care to take initiative.
• I needed to care to push myself and grow.
• I needed to care to say, “yes, and”

I didn’t need to care to simply say, “yes.”

We think disengaged employees will argue, be negative, and rant and rave. Some do. Many disengaged employees, however, simply say, “yes,” do less than their best work, don’t bother improving themselves or the company, and quietly look for other work.

What Are You Hearing?

How about you? In your organization, in your department, with your team, do things seem very nice and peaceful because everyone just says, “yes” and goes about their business?

When people repeatedly respond with nothing more than a simple “yes,” it may be because they are disengaged, or that they don’t care, or that they are getting ready to leave. Whatever the underlying reason, the end result for you and your organization is lower productivity, a lack of innovation, and an increase in turnover.

“Yes” doesn’t necessarily mean that you are on the brink of disaster. But it is worth a closer look to see whether your people are simply saying “yes,” because they don’t care enough to say, “yes, and.”

Want Help?

Do you want Avish’s help getting disengaged employees into a “yes, and” state of mind? Then check out his keynote speaking and business training options!