I’ll be the first to tell you – improv isn’t all about comedy and making people laugh. However, improv can be a great tool for humor and is how most people are introduced to it. My own introduction to improv involved using it and comedy as coping mechanisms for the challenges life was throwing my way.

The fundamentals of improv have been a literal lifesaver for me in helping me deal with extremely stressful situations throughout my life. Stress is an everyday thing, and it can come from many sources. Some are the result of daily frustrations, while others come from unexpected challenges.

Do you remember the song, “Just a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down?” Mary Poppins was onto something. To digest something undesirable, but necessary, combine it with something sweet. You can take this advice literally, but if you’d rather not indulge in a sugar binge, why not give humor a try?

In a Forbes article by Jacquelyn Smith titled “10 Reasons Why Humor Is a Key to Success at Work,” she cites some statistics that validate the importance of humor. She writes, “Kerr says dozens of surveys suggest that humor can be at least one of the keys to success. A Robert Half International survey, for instance, found that 91% of executives believe a sense of humor is important for career advancement; while 84% feel that people with a good sense of humor do a better job. Another study by Bell Leadership Institute found that the two most desirable traits in leaders were a strong work ethic, and a good sense of humor.”

Humor doesn’t have to mean an on-the-job standup routine. It can be present in how you finish off an email, or a brief quip in passing to a colleague. It can also be expressed in kind and tasteful pranks. Laughter is a proven antidote for stress, and it comes naturally when the company culture is conducive to it. So be a part of it.

Resources:

• 10 Reasons Why Humor Is a Key to Success at Work

Eric M. Twiggs is the Chief Executive Officer and President of The What Now Movement, a group dedicated to building up high-performing entrepreneurs, authors, and career professionals to be ready for life’s unexpected challenges. He’s also the author of The Discipline of Now: 12 Practical Principles to Overcome Procrastination. As a certified life and business coach, Eric has conducted over 28 thousand coaching sessions, helping executive leaders and entrepreneurs transition from frustration to fulfillment.

When the pandemic started, there were a lot of people sitting around waiting for things to get back to normal. Eric heard it again and again in his circle, but he responded, “That’s the last thing you should be doing. You should be asking yourself ‘What now?’” And that simple question became a movement designed to stop people stopping and help them pivot.

Failure to pivot – or as it’s known in the improv world: adapt – is largely about procrastination. And the biggest way to push back against procrastination is to exercise self-awareness. For many of us, there are some things we just don’t like doing, and even if those things need to be done, you don’t have to be the person to do them. You can outsource those tasks, and move forward with the things that you love to do.

Someday, we’ll settle into a new sense of normal, but it’s still incredibly valuable to maintain that “What now?” mentality. You have to diversify your approaches so that you are never dependent on one technique. There’s always going to be disruption. It may not be as severe as what we’ve been dealing with over the past year, but every disruption is going to offer opportunities to close the gap and get ahead while others struggle to make the necessary changes.

Eric’s show, The 30 Minute Hour, is not your everyday podcast. It provides a lot of humor, as well as actionable advice that people can implement in their daily lives. If you’re struggling with procrastination, give it a listen and find out how you can take action in your daily life. Or pick up his book, The Discipline of Now, and learn more practical ways to overcome that procrastination, and pivot more quickly.

Don’t let perfection be the enemy of progress. Focus on the next step, don’t wait until you know everything you need to know from beginning to end. Just figure out the next step and take it. Then the next one. Before you know it, you’ll be amazed at how far you’ve come.

Click to Download the Full Transcript PDF

Resources:

• ericmtwiggs.com
• thewhatnowmovement.com
• Read: The Discipline of Now
• Listen: The 30 Minute Hour™

Has anyone ever asked you the question: “How do you eat an elephant?” This question – and its answer – provides a powerful metaphor for learning and development for all professionals. And that answer is: “One bite at a time.”  

If you tried to eat an entire elephant in one sitting, you’d get sick and give up. You’d never want to try eating an elephant again. If you take your time, however, you get to savor it at your own pace and you still manage to get the whole thing down.

If just the thought of eating an endangered species makes you nauseous, let’s look at another example from my personal life. I began experiencing back pain and wanted to strengthen my core by doing crunches. If I tried doing 1,000 crunches on the first day, my abs would likely give out, I’d be sore for weeks, and I’d probably give up altogether. But that’s not what I did. I started with just ten crunches and didn’t experience any muscle cramps. Slowly adding more as my strength increased, I was able to do 75 in a matter of months – but I still didn’t see the results, either in the mirror or in my back. Fast forward to nearly a year after I started, and I can successfully complete 1,000 crunches in less than 15 minutes – and my back is a lot stronger as a result.

When adopting the improviser’s mindset, acknowledge that it’s not going to happen overnight. You’re going to fall off the wagon. You’re going to go back to your old ways: not listening, making it all about you, and letting your ego get in the way. But if you take a “one bite at a time” approach, you can look for opportunities to apply that mindset everyday until it becomes a habit that’s so automatic, you don’t have to think about it twice – you just do it.

You’ve spent your education and early career developing your technical skills. That’s how you got to where you are today. But once those are sound, you need to shift to focusing on what I call “power skills”: communication, critical thinking, emotional intelligence, listening, adapting, strategic thinking, innovation, and more. When you sum all of these power skills into one, it becomes LEADERSHIP.

Now, take one bite at a time and start investing in your power skills so you can have a greater impact on the people you hire, on the people you lead, on your customers and clients, on the people that are your business partners, the people in your community, and the people of the world.

It was bizarre not traveling most of 2020 due to the pandemic. Going from an average of 130 days over the past ten years to only traveling five in all of 2020 was a shock to the system. At first I didn’t miss it – the hustle and bustle, crowded airports and planes, and the TSA – but after reflecting on it, I have some travel memories that I’d like to share, along with the lessons I picked up from them.

On a flight from Columbus to Washington DC the plane was diverted due to strong winds. In Baltimore, I overheard many passengers losing their minds at the poor airport staff – as if they controlled the weather. That’s the wrong approach. Focus only on what you have control over: your attitude. Stop blaming, and start thinking about what to do next. For me, my destination was Washington DC, so I looked at my options for getting there, hopped on an Amtrak, and arrived at my hotel three hours late but no worse for the wear.

My number one mantra when I travel is “Yes, and…” The improviser’s mindset has kept my stress levels in check, has allowed me to make alternate plans, and has allowed me to not be one of those passengers who blames people who had no say in what happened. If you’re kind to people who are just trying to do their job, the universe may just reward you. It’s all about the attitude that you choose.