Chris: [00:00:00] If you can’t make them believe that you’re actively listening and listening to understand them, you’re just going to get what they think you want to hear. And that is the most deadly thing that you can have in a leadership role — a bunch of people telling you what they think you want to hear.[music]

Peter: [00:00:26] Welcome to improv is no joke podcast, where it’s all about becoming a more effective communicator by embracing the principles of improvisation. I’m your host Peter Margarita’s the self-proclaimed chief edutainment officer of my business the accidental account. My goal is to provide you with thought provoking interviews with business leaders so you can become an effective improviser which will lead to building stronger relationships with clients customers colleagues and even your family. So let’s start to show. Welcome to episode 61, and today my guest is Chris Jenkins, who is the CEO of the South Carolina Association of CPAs. Prior to joining the South Carolina Association of CPAs, Chris served as the chief information officer at the Ohio society of CPAs. During his 17 years with the Ohio society, he created strategies to best leverage emerging technology trends and solutions to benefit the organization. Chris also served as vice president of Copy Sense, a technology consulting and training firm that created, planned, and implemented small business technology solutions. Chris is a magna cum laude graduate of Devry University and is a certified information systems security professional, a Cisco Certified network administrator, and a Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer. Chris has been published in numerous professional and trade publications and has spoken on the topic of Technology and Management at more than 30 events nationwide. So before we get to the interview, I’d like to talk about Listen, Learn, and Earn. I have partnered with the Maryland Association of CPAs and the Business Learning Institute to bring an exciting new learning opportunity for accounting professionals to earn CPE credits. You can earn up to one CPE credit for each completed podcast episode purchased for only $29 through the American Association of CPAs and the Business Learning Institute self-study website. The podcast episodes are mobile friendly. Open your browser on your smartphone, tablet, or computer, Go to the MACPA and BLI self-study account, and listen to an episode. Take the review and final exam while you’re working out or after listening to an episode on your commute to and from work – It’s that easy! While all Improv is no Joke podcasts are available on my website, only those purchased through the MACPA and BLI self-study Web site are eligible for CPE credit. You can get detailed instructions by visiting my website at www.PeterMargaritis.com and clicking on the graphic “Improv is no Joke for CPE credit” on my home page. OK now let’s get to the interview with Chris Jenkins.

[music]

Peter: [00:03:27] Chris welcome to the podcast. I greatly appreciate you taking time out of your extremely busy schedule to spend little time with me this morning.

Chris: [00:03:36] Well I appreciate being here and I thank you for having me. It’s going to be a fun time. I’ve got a feeling.

Peter: [00:03:41] I’m going to say I’m going to guarantee that because we’ve had some great conversations. Actually we just saw each other at AICPA interchange in Miami. And part of the conversation we’re going to have today… we’re going to revisit the conversation that we were having down in Miami, but before we get into that: Tell the audience a little bit about who Chris Jenkins is so they get an idea about you.

Chris: [00:04:03] So I guess the most important thing about me is I have five children. I have two grandchildren, so I have a very large family and I started very early in my life so I had to work really hard in order for all of them to eat. Because when they don’t eat, they get cranky.

Peter: [00:04:21] Hahaha!

Chris: [00:04:21] So I graduated high school. I had my first child right out of high school. Started college. Wanted to be a financial planner. I mean that was that was my goal in life. I needed a computer and I couldn’t afford a computer because I was buying formula instead of technology at that point. So I went and I bought a box of parts, and out of that box of parts I managed to build five computers. And I kept one of them for school and the other four I sold for a thousand dollars a piece, and my financial plan changed dramatically at that point.

Peter: [00:04:53] Yeah.

Chris: [00:04:55] So it was you know you’re going to leave college and I started a small hardware company and I was building machines and selling them to CPAs and attorneys, and then Dell and Compact and HP started really hitting the market and I said you know this is not a sustainable business plan. I’m never going to compete with these guys with these homegrown machines. So I changed my business model into networking and consulting and some training because I didn’t have to have a lot of inventory. It was all knowledge based. And again my my clients were attorneys and CPAs, and I at this point had had another child and I had a third one that was on the way. And I was doing well in the business, but during tax season it was amazing. I was getting calls at 2:30 in the morning because the mouse didn’t work. This didn’t work. That didn’t work. And between you know waking my children up and having a very angry wife, I decided it would be beneficial if I gave this up and got a real job with benefits. And at that point I went to work for the Ohio society of CPAs as a network administrator, and I had a great boss. In fact, I had several great bosses who taught me a lot about life and a lot about my job and they helped me grow. And they walked me through some of my personality abnormalities, if you will. And I stayed there for about 18 years and I really enjoyed my time and it was a great place to work. And then finally I went back to school and decided to get a business degree, and with that business degree I thought you know… I’m kind of disillusioned with technology at this point. I don’t like the direction that it’s going. I’m going to try something different. And I took over about two-and-a-half years ago as the CEO of the South Carolina Association of CPAs. So my entire adult life pretty much I’ve been working in associations.

Peter: [00:06:50] Wow that’s a great story. I didn’t realize you’re a grandfather. I mean you look like… I know that I’m older than you and I’ve got like a 17 year old, so that just that just blows me away that you’re a grandfather. But I didn’t realize that I could have, instead of sitting here on my Mac, I could be here on my Jenkins, if you kept building computers and turned them into a multibillion dollar business.

Chris: [00:07:17] Yeah but I didn’t have the style that the Jobs had. I try to emulate it now. You know I’ve got the mock turtleneck and the jeans and I do that quite often.

Peter: [00:07:25] I did see you wear the mock turtleneck and jeans when you did the gizmos and gadget presentation down in Miami.

Chris: [00:07:32] Yeah.

Peter: [00:07:33] That was a good luck.

Chris: [00:07:35] I try, you know.

Peter: [00:07:37] One of my favorite stories about you because we’ve known each other for a long time is… I was attending the conference, and you were on a panel discussion and I’m in the audience and I knew you from the I.T. perspective at the Ohio society, but I’d never seen you speak to a group. And I don’t remember what the question was, but I remember three people answered it and they were sitting down. And then it was your turn and you just grabbed the mic and you said “I can’t sit down.” You just stood up. You came out from behind the table and you gave your answer and you took over that room, and you absolutely blew me away on your presence, your style, the ability to command that audience, the ability to take over that room. And I went… is that Chris? is that our Chris? and you just just completely blew away — Where did you learn that? How did you pick that up.

Chris: [00:08:35] So I’ll tell you a couple of my speaking stories and how that progressed over time. My first professional presentation I still remember it because people called for me to be fired afterwards.

Peter: [00:08:48] Hahaha!

Chris: [00:08:48] It was at an OSAE event, which is the Ohio society of association executives. And I was to come in with a few of the higher ranking members of the Ohio society — Clarke Price, Jim Hartley, Laura Hay, and myself did a presentation on the future of technology and how it’s going to impact associations. And that was about a year into my career at this point. So I went in front of all these Association professionals and I was explaining the progression of technology and how operating systems were being designed to be self-healing, and eventually I.T. professionals were going to have to adjust what they did because there would be no need to fix machines. And we went through the entire presentation. There was somebody in the audience that asked the question “well when all of this happens, what are you going to do?” And I looked at them I said well I guess I’ll just transition into management. It doesn’t appear that you guys do anything.

Peter: [00:09:45] Hahahahaha!

Chris: [00:09:47] Needless to say, it didn’t go over well with the crowd. But you know, with my coworkers, they thought it was incredibly funny. But one of the things that Clarke and the senior staff at the Ohio society wanted is they wanted their staff to be able to go out and share information, and Clark was really big about giving back to the community. So he took all of his managers and he invested in speaker training for us. And the speaker training was with Rob Sherman.

Peter: [00:10:16] Oh yeah I remember Rob.

Chris: [00:10:17] So we had a group session where we all did presentations. It was very uncomfortable. And then we had people that got one on one coaching, and I was one of those people selected for a one on one coaching and I’ll never forget it. I walk in with Rob and we’re having our personal session. I do my spiel. I do it exactly how I would do it, that I’m comfortable doing, and he looks at me and he goes everything you’re doing is wrong.

Peter: [00:10:41] Hahaha!

Chris: [00:10:41] And he goes if you look at my book, everything you’re doing is wrong. And you know that was that was a little hurtful to me. I was I was a little upset because I felt very comfortable in how I was presenting. But then he followed it up and he goes but it works for you. I wouldn’t change anything about how you do it. It’s not how we train people to do it. But you’re so naturally comfortable in your style… Just keep doing it. You connect with the audience. And I said well that’s great. I guess you know that’s wonderful, but we paid for the session and I want to make sure I get my money’s worth. So here’s my problem. And I told Rob I was like Rob, I can’t engage with people one on one. If you put me in front of 100 people or a thousand people on a stage, I’m perfectly comfortable.

Peter: [00:11:28] Mhm.

Chris: [00:11:28] But when I have to go to a networking event and I’m at a table, I’m very uncomfortable. Or if I have to go up and greet someone, I’m uncomfortable. I don’t know how to end the conversation. And he told me he says well it’s because you’re pompous and you’re arrogant, and quite frankly you’re an ass. And I said Well I appreciate your observation. And he goes you just don’t really care what other people think or what they’re talking about. You want to talk about what you talk about, and I said that was probably you know why I didn’t date much… because I’m a little self-absorbed. He goes Well here’s how we’re going to get rid of that. And I remember we went very tall building. He goes for the next hour, you’re going to ride the elevator up and down, and everyone who gets on you’re going to greet and you’re going to talk to you and you’re going to find out what they do.

Peter: [00:12:16] Really?

Chris: [00:12:17] And I did. And first off I’ll tell you don’t write an elevator for an hour. You get incredibly motion sick. But when you’re in an elevator and you’re in that contained space and you catch people off guard by looking at them saying “Hi my name is Chris and I’m interested in what you do. How’s your day going? What is it that you do for a living?” People are shocked, and you very quickly get over that fear of engaging people. The other thing that I learned from that is how to stop a conversation because you had to do the conversation, and then end it properly before they got off the elevator. So I learned how to network and manage a room by being locked in an elevator, and then you know over time, as you do this more often, you learn there are little tricks that work for you. Some people need to rehearse for hours and go through their slides. I find that if I I rehearse, I’m not nearly as good. I want to speak from the fly. I want to speak from the heart. And most importantly I want to give something to the audience that they’re going to remember. So I do. I walk out. I shake hands. I’ll pick on you know I’ll try to pick people out of the audience that I can pick with a little bit. Sometimes people pick with me, and the majority of times it’s worked. There have been times where I’ve misread someone, and it hasn’t gone you know as well as I might have expected or hoped. But overall it just works for me, and I think when you’re doing things like this you’re expected to leave people with a sense of knowledge, excitement, and engagement, and if you want to sit down or stand behind a podium and hide, or if you are creating activities that are making your audience work with no real benefit to them, don’t do the job. Just don’t do it because, quite frankly, you’re there to make sure that audience has a great experience and you’ve got to do that. And if you go in understanding that, they’re all empathetic. None of them want to be standing where you’re standing. What they really want is to not be bored to tears for the next hour and just do the job. The fear melts away and you can just get it done.

Peter: [00:14:34] Well that’s great advice. I love the elevator story, actually, and I’m going to share that story with a friend of mine. She’s a partner in the firm. First time I met her I asked her why did you get into accounting. And she said because she didn’t like people. And she said all she wanted to do is come and do tax returns. But I said also you’re partner in the firm. You had to figure something out. And she said yeah I had to figure out how to like people, but she could do the same thing that you said. She could stand in a room of a thousand people and be comfortable as heck. But in any type of networking situation she didn’t know how to get into the conversation nor did she know how to get out of the conversation. And I’m going to share with her jumping in the elevator and greet people. Now as you’re telling that story… So if we get on the lobby level and I’m going up to 430 and you go hey my name is “Chris Jenkins What do you do?” I think I’m hitting two or three to get off because you just freaked the hell out of me.

Chris: [00:15:36] It does. It catches people off guard, and you have to learn how to manage that situation and make them comfortable. And I think you know a lot of people like myself who – I believe I’m an introvert people say I’m not – But when I’m in that situation I’m uncomfortable because, number one, what if they want to talk about something I don’t know about? Because I like to know what I’m talking about. By nature I’m an I.T. guy. Not a lot of sports talk. And every time that I go someplace there’s a lot of talk about sports. So I have to find my way through then I have to get comfortable, and if I can’t get to that point where it’s a comfortable conversation, what I was missing was how to end the conversation. In the elevator, You very quickly — they can’t escape until their floor comes so you have a limited amount of time to make them comfortable. So you can you can start by offering something up about yourself. There were several instances where I said you’re not going to believe this but this is actually part of a training program for me. I’m an Association professional and I need to learn how to engage with people. And that’s part of my job. So I’m on the elevator day and I want to know what what you do so that I can engage with you, and you have to learn how to be honest and put yourself out there. And I think that there’s more room for that type of training on how to engage face to face because of all of the technology. We’ve lost that skill, and I lost that skill because I was working with machines.

Peter: [00:17:00] Yeah.

Chris: [00:17:00] So I think that you’re going to see more of a need for that. And I think people are more comfortable now broadcasting to a larger audience, but they’ve lost the ability to actively listen and engage in a conversation. And what I mean by that is people are really good about screaming now, but not so much listening and then formulating an opinion that can be distributed one on one without causing offense.

Peter: [00:17:26] Well-put. And for those of you who are listening to this, take his advice. Actually I’m going to try it out next time I’m in an elevator. I love that technique. It’s something that was never introduced to me in my career, and I’m going to keep passing that along to people because I think that’s a great way…. You have a point. A lot of times we have forgot how to engage in a conversation. Active listening, or as I like to call it listening to understand (from an improv perspective) goes a really long way in connecting. And your job, especially now in your job, as the CEO of the South Carolina Association CPAs, you have to engage your membership.

Chris: [00:18:07] Absolutely. And that’s one of those job skills, and the reality of the job, that I think a lot of people miss. So when you say engage the membership, there are a lot of people that believe, in this job, that you can go places where there are 10, 20, 50, 100 people. You can pick your numbers. So it’s very easy to trick yourself into believing, as the CEO, my time is so valuable that I’m not going to meet a group of one, two, or three members.

Peter: [00:18:36] Right.

Chris: [00:18:37] You can’t think that way because quite honestly, if you were in a group and you’re trying to engage someone in a topic where you want feedback, people naturally want to be nice. They want to be polite, and in a group of 20, 50, or 100 you’re not going to get reliable feedback. You’re just not going to get it. So it’s so important in this job to be able to go in and make people feel comfortable with giving you bad news, or news that they think you don’t want to hear. So you have to build that trust, and the only way to do that is in very small groups and to lay yourself out there and say really what I’m trying to do. I’m not superhuman. I know that I’m the CEO and I’m supposed to project I have all of this knowledge, and I have a lot of knowledge, but what I really need to know is your honest assessment. As a member, what are the things that cause you to pause in the solution that I’m offering? What would you do differently? How would you communicate this? And if you can’t build that trust, if you can’t make them believe that you’re actively listening and listening to understand them, you’re just going to get what they think you want to hear. And that is the most deadly thing that you can have in a leadership role — a bunch of people telling you what they think you want to hear. I really would encourage everyone to focus in on that. Building relationships a lot — and I mean a lot of relationships, those one on one relationships — if you want to be successful in a leadership role.

Peter: [00:20:06] You’ve been in that role for two and a half years. How many members do you have?

Chris: [00:20:11] We’re up to 4600 members.

Peter: [00:20:13] OK. So you have 4600 members, and you’ve gotten to know probably a vast majority of them over the two and a half years, and in the association world I’ve been hearing this a lot: a shift in a word from member to a word of customer, and we had this conversation in Miami. And I’ve been I’ve been asking people in the association What’s the difference between a member and a customer? And I’ve had a lot of different answers, and I’ve told you this but quite frankly the one that you told me by far resonated deeply with me because I think you hit it on the head. So if you could explain what the difference we are a member and a customer is in this engagement process.

Chris: [00:20:58] Very simply, the difference between a customer and a member is the experience. So you have customer experience and you have membership experience. The word that comes to mind is fellowship. You know you have to look at your business and you have to see what you’re selling. From a CPA Association standpoint, we are selling, currently, what we’ve shifted to is selling CPE… But that’s not what we’re about, and it’s because the market has gotten so difficult that we’ve tried to balance between is CPE a member benefit or is CPE our profit center? And when we start looking at CPE as a revenue stream and membership as a revenue stream, it’s easy to start looking at people as customers. That’s not the right way to do this. An association — The power of an association is the fact that you have a group of people all fighting for the same or common cause, and CPAs want to protect, promote, and grow the profession. What they need is a network of peers that they know that they can count on; that they can rely on. They need a community and they need that fellowship, and that’s what we as an association foster. That’s why we were created. And I think that the big difference is, when you look at customer service, you want to make sure that that individual customer has the best possible experience. And then when they’re gone they’re gone. So a customer relationship is something that short. A member relationship is a long-term relationship, and it’s not just a relationship between the company or the association and the member. It’s about fostering the relationship between the members themselves. And when you look at how associations were built, and then they have chapters, that’s to create those networks; those personal networks. And that fellowship is the most important thing that we do as an association. You could take away everything else that we do and then go out and rebuild from ground up, if you have that community; if you have that fellowship; if you can start those conversations. But if we continue to say what we are is customer and business driven, we have a problem. You can look at it from the other perspective as well: as an association, our stakeholders are our members on our board. That’s who gets the pay out of our efforts. In a customer relationship, your payout is to stake holders who have invested in that company. So your goal is to get as much money as possible from your customers so that you can pay out to your investors. We have a completely different goal. Yes it’s a business, but it’s a completely different goal. Our goal is to give our membership the maximum value for the minimum price, and we’ve lost sight of that in many ways. Associations in general have lost sight of that because they’re fighting technology. They look at Facebook, linkedin, social media, and they’re saying well “this is creating that community outside of it,” and that’s wrong. It’s actually helping with those communities. Let me give you an example of this, and this is you know technology in general. In my generation, when I was born, the microwave was fairly new. There wasn’t a lot of microwaveable dinners on the shelves and there weren’t a whole bunch of those things going on. But I grew up in a time where that was all evolving and the microwave was new and it was cool and all of a sudden parents didn’t have to come home to make dinner. They’re going to go to the gym and they’re going to do aerobics in the 1980s and fancy hairdos. So you have Gen-Xers who are at home learning how to microwave their own food. And we learned how to do that and we ate and we did all of that wonderful stuff. But I’ll tell you what… By the time I was about 14, I wanted a home cooked meal. I was done with microwaves. And still to this day we have a microwave. We’ll heat things up in it. But I will never eat another microwaveable meal in my life. We have it in the office. I’ll skip lunch before I actually put a frozen meal in there. And I got sick of it. So when I go out now and I do student presentations, when I started doing them I was like we’ll go to our website, fill out a membership application, and you can be a member for free. And I would get maybe a 5 percent turnaround on that. When I go out now, I take paper with me. Everybody’s asking to go online and do stuff, but they’ll fill out the paper because it’s there in front of them and everything is fresh in their mind. The benefits are fresh in their mind. And the number one thing students asked for me is where can I go meet members in person? Where can I talk to CPAs: people who can actually tell me why I should continue on in my education and go through all of these hurdles to become a CPA. They’re tired of social networking. It just is. It’s like a microwave to them. It’s just there. Yes if I have a question I can go get an answer, but it’s not how I want to get information. Our unique value proposition as state CPA societies is the fact that we’re local. We have local networks in every community. We have a local network at the state level. We have local meetings with real people, both social and educational. And when we embrace the fact that we’re local — when we don’t look to compete with national brands for CPE; when we don’t look to compete with Facebook and we find our true competitive advantage, which is the fact that we’re here, we create a very strong network of professionals — and that network has incredible power. These are members are smart. We’re vertical. It has incredible power within the community. We can get things done. We make positive impacts. Students love that. We make impacts at the State House because legislators want to know what the decisions they’re making and how that actually impacts the economy in the state. We have the members to do that. And as far as revenue goes, we have a huge potential with our sponsors and our partners to get them in front of trusted business advisers; decision makers. We as an association again coming back to we need to provide the maximum benefit for the lowest cost need to be utilizing those agreements, Those partnerships, to further reduce the cost to the CPA to get them the benefits that they need to shore up that community and reduce their costs in running their business, and that’s where we need to focus. And quite frankly, when you look at what we’ve done — and we’ve all done it — we’re chasing CPE and trying to compete on a national level when really what we need to focus on is what’s right for our state, and this translates to all associations. Who are your customers? What do they really need? Have you had the discussions with them? Have you gone out and talked to them? Or have you gone to 14 different conferences and said wow that’s cool we should try that?Understanding your membership, creating fellowship between them, creating that relationship… That’s what we’re about. And that’s the difference between a customer and a member. The member is someone that you’re working with and for — a customer someone you’re serving. And that’s that’s a big difference. We need to create fellowship among the members.

Peter: [00:28:27] And in your two and a half years… I don’t know who your predecessor was, but I’m going to make an assumption that your membership has really gravitated to this model, per se. The thought process that you that you bring to the table.

Chris: [00:28:40] I think it’s just natural. It’s not something… I don’t I don’t go out and say here’s what we’re doing right and here’s what we’re doing wrong. I’ve made adjustments to how the organization functions. I focused in on experience and I’m going to continue those adjustments, but I look at… we’re responding to the world around us. We have increased our engagement. We have increased our membership. We’ve increased our membership by about 1000 since I’ve been here. I’m not going to say I’m doing the right or wrong things, but I will tell you that I believe in what I’m saying — that what’s important is that fellowship, and I hear that from our members. So you know when you look at something like a chapter, a state chapter, that’s where that local community networking begins. When I go out and talk to my larger firms, one of the issues that they bring to my attention is “We have new staff. We need them to be able to engage with other people and get comfortable with that.” And the way that you do that is through those local events and local meetings. And when I hear from people that what they really need is person to person engagement… That’s what this association was built to do. I’m just going back to the roots.

Peter: [00:29:54] So this person to person engagement… they’re asking for it, now is it is a generational? Because I hear all the time you know that’s what baby boomers want, but the millennials just want to be on line and stuff. But what I’m hearing from is just the opposite.

Chris: [00:30:08] Every person is an individual. So there’s there’s a lot of labeling going on in society right now, which drives me absolutely bonkers. Every person is an individual. Do the millennials understand that they can get information online? Yes. Are they efficient at it? Absolutely. But when you talk to them, they also understand the reality of a personal connection and an engagement. There is a difference in the mentality here… My generation, and I’m an X’er, but I was always told children should be seen and not heard.

Peter: [00:30:48] Yeah same here.

Chris: [00:30:50] So I was taught that you listen to your elders and you don’t really engage them. I’m not going to try to teach my grandpa something. In fact I tried on several occasions. It did not work out well for me at all, but the expectation now, from a millennial standpoint, is that they want to learn from someone, but they also want to share their knowledge because that’s the engagement level that they’ve had in their lives. Their parents have asked how do you feel? What do you want to do? So when they look for a personal relationship, they’re looking for a two-way relationship. I believe that’s changed. I think that’s generational. But I don’t think that millennials don’t want to have human interaction. I hired a millennial in Ohio. I mentored him, and it was challenging. I mean it was really challenging, but I was also challenging to mentor. So but we have a great relationship still to this day, and he appreciates that. And I did. I would listen to him, and sometimes it was painful to listen to him. Sometimes he had a great idea, and other times I would tell him he was wrong. And I think that that’s really the key: as professionals, we’ve grown up, we’ve built our careers, but we’ve lost the ability to take the time to listen, and they expect you to listen. And I can make a decision normally within the first 45 seconds of a conversation of hearing an idea of going “Yeah this is going nowhere.” And I’ve trained myself to stop and to actually let someone get through that idea and then say OK let’s look at your idea. And I’m just going to give you some things I need you to think through. If this happens, or if this were to happen… and I don’t pick it apart. I’ll give him two to three things to work on so that they can rethink their idea and they can make it stronger. Because I don’t want to give up on the idea. That takes an exceptional exceptional amount of time and patience. And when I go out and I do generational talks at firms, this is where it breaks down. Right? Well I don’t have the time to sit with someone for 15 to 20 minutes to go through and then tell them they’re wrong. Isn’t it better just to tell them up front so they don’t waste the time? No idea is wrong. I learned this from a professional speaker early on. No decision is wrong. No idea is wrong. From a decision standpoint, if you make a bad decision you’re just going to make other decisions to fix it. And any bad idea can be rebuilt into a good one. So we have to think that way — that’s what the millennials expect. And if they don’t get that relationship, if they don’t get that from you from the from the starting point, then you’re off to find another relationship. They’re not going to work with you to try to make you a better person because they don’t believe that you’re willing to make them a better person. So no I don’t buy into this concept that this entire generation all functions the same way. I have three millennial children. None of them functioned the same way. One is very liberal and one’s very conservative you know. It’s their own thought processes, it’s their own experiences, that are going to build them into the type of person they are. And we damage ourselves — seriously damage ourselves — by saying that this generation acts this way. It’s dangerous. There are definitely things that you can learn from generational research. But when you look at that… what I would what I would ask everybody to do is, when you when you do your genetic racial research, when you hear this, don’t put that on the generation. Take it back to yourself and say “How can I function differently to compensate for these expectations? How can I create more flexibility in my business to allow for these people to interact with the community?” And you’ll hear this in every millennial presentation. They want to change the world. How do you do that without engaging people? It doesn’t go together to say they only want to work online but they want to change the world. Habitat for Humanity, food drives, soup kitchens — You always see millennials. There are people there. If you want to capture millennials, have places where they can engage with people. And we all hear technology — and technology is a crutch. Everybody thinks it’s this magic thing that’s going to fix it, and when we do that we focus on tech now technology and we lose humanity. And you got to get away from it. Technology is not a savior — it’s a tool. It’s not a solution — It’s a tool. You have to get away from thinking that you can buy a gadget or implement a system that’s going to save your world or your business. It’s all about the people.

Peter: [00:35:54] Well said, and as I’m listening to you, you use a lot of the principles of improvisation in your management style and you said this work continuously through this conversation about listening, listening to understand, and the other one that you just brought up and an improv is bad ideas are just bridges to good ideas — no ideas lead to nothing. So I love that when it takes… like you said, your initial response whens someone gives you an idea, if you don’t think it’s right, you want to shoot it down. It takes a lot of patience and it does take time to explore that idea. Have that person tell you their thought process and you kind of you kind of guiding them and you’re you’re teaching them. Did you think about this? What about this? We need to look at that. And ultimately maybe they’ll find a way to come up with a better idea or they’ll create a whole new idea based off of the conversation that you’re having. But as as I said in a lot of my presentations you know… what I love to do is get a roomful of CPAs and, before we start my presentation, I go what business are you in? And I hear we’re in the auditing business, we do tax returns, we’re in the consulting business… I go that’s a byproduct. You know business you guys are in? You’re in the people business, first and foremost. Everything else is a byproduct. Without people, you have no business. You have nobody working with you, you have nobody to sell to. Once we figure that out, make the engagement and build those relationships because we’re not in a transactional business — we’re in a relationship business and it’s all about managing relationships. And I had a firm who was looking for a project management course, but they had two prior. And we sat down and we were talking I said You guys don’t need a project management course. You need a relationship management course because it’s about the people. Your people are your bottom. The lack of conversation that you’re having with clients is causing a lot of this backlog. So you’ve nailed it right on the head. It’s all about the people and It’s all about the conversation you have with them. Creating that fellowship. Because when I look at an association, I look to others within the organization, within the membership, that I can draw that knowledge or ask questions or engage with. You know to some degree we can be considered a club, and people join clubs to share that information, to have that fellowship, to have friends and stuff. And I see some associations that have completely lost that path. And we talked about this in Miami, and I got this from the author of The Trust Edge, David Horsager, that everything of value is built on trust, and once you lose that trust it’s hard to create the value.

Chris: [00:39:03] From an association standpoint, from that fellowship; that club mentality, you could have a question, you can go out to an online community, you could go to a white box, which is that you know the association has its own community where you can ask that question. And you might get an answer. In fact you’re likely going to get an answer. But what gives you more comfort? What do you trust more? Picking up the phone and calling somebody that you’ve met, that you know, and getting that answer, or waiting for five or six people to give you an answer online? And I think we have to have both. But at the end of the day, the person that you have that relationship with, that person that you trust, those are the people that you’re going to to turn to. And when we look at the value of the association, once again, you go into a firm… once they recognize they’re in the people business, they start trying to figure out professional development, and associations have tons of professional development topics. It’s hard to get people to go to them because everybody’s chasing the ANA and the tax credits. But if you want someone to learn how to network, how to create relationships, how to do business development… Don’t send them to a course. Send them to an event where they actually have to engage with their peers. Let them make those connections. Let them build that network in comfort. And they’re going to do that. They’re going to learn how to do that. One of the best things an association can do is actually build relationships with outside professionals. So you have things like the ABC forums where attorneys, bankers, and CPA are getting together. You can do the same thing with realtors, and really from the association standpoint, when you look at professional development — and when I say professional development I mean those soft skills about public speaking, engaging with people, and doing those types of things — the best way to do it is to have an environment where people have to do it. You go to a classroom for an hour to four hours, you can learn the underlying tools. I speak with Rob Sherman and he can tell me everything I’m doing as a professional speaker is wrong. But go ahead and keep doing it. But I’m going to apply the tools the way that they’re going to work for me. But when he actually gave me an action where he forced me to do something I became good at it. So when you have association networking events or social events or those types of events, that’s where the value of the association comes in. And we do see a decline in those programs. I hear from my chapters that nobody comes. Make a different event because we have to make those events and we have to impress upon people why they’re important. This is your hands-on professional development. That’s what it is. You’re not getting credit for it. You don’t want the credit for it. What you want is an action to come out of it. So that’s really again the power of the association. That is the power of business in general. You’re absolutely right. CPAs are in the people business, and in my my role, even with other association professionals… “Oh you got to work with the CPAs, That’s got to be fun.

Peter: [00:42:16] Hahaha.

Chris: [00:42:16] It is! CPAs are some of the most engaging people that you’re going to find. The majority of CPAs are very personable. They have to be. They can’t be successful unless they are. And I find that, in the firms, that’s the most frustrating things for partners. “My young people won’t go out. They won’t learn how to do this.” You’re not going to learn this in a college class. Right? They’re used to having a very tight knit groups that they’re assigned to. They get assigned to a group, then they make friends within the group, then they work well together. As a boss, you have to you know take that information that you know about this generation — how they were brought up — and say OK I’m assigning you to this chapter. You’re going to go to these chapter activities. You’re going to interact with these people, and that’s how they’re going to create their network. And it’s not a matter of forcing them to do something they don’t want to do. It’s encouraging them and letting them know that they need to do this.

Peter: [00:43:17] I challenge partners, when they talk about the people won’t go out and do, I ask them Do you take them with you to a client? Do you bring them along? What they can learn in a car ride, what they can learn, to your point, to the observation of how you’re interacting with that client– and also you know if a partner goes to the client, gets all this information, comes back, and gives it to a staff member… They’re not getting all the information. There’s stuff that’s been left out. I’ve always said that, when you have a meeting with a client, you take the whole team. So they’re there, they can process it, and it will save time and money down the road. The other aspect, which I find hysterical, is we go to conferences, but we don’t look at the conference as a form of networking. It’s in our mind it’s CPE. It’s learning. Why would I want to meet other CPAs? I was in Dayton and I did this networking class, and I had to get up, meet some people, business cards, all of that. And I tried to… I asked who brought their business cards, and most have raised their hand. So I asked what do you use these for? And this one lady absolutely said I use mine to put in the fishbowls so maybe I could win something from one of the vendors, and in a very polite way I guess is that the best return on investment for that business card? I think it’s just a change in thought process that you know CPE can be some of the best places to network, if we tell ourselves that versus I’m only here to learn, and even though there could be 20 people in the room, there could be 120 people in the room, there’s still people that they haven’t met. Just to say hello.

Chris: [00:45:07] CPE is broken.

Peter: [00:45:08] Yes!

Chris: [00:45:09] It’s horribly broken, and in so many different ways broken. When I came to South Carolina, it was a 100 year anniversary. So I came in and, in the office, there were a hundred years worth of minutes, and I’m a history buff so I wanted to go through these minutes and I learned a lot from them. And I learned a lot about the association and when it was formed. There was the Women’s Auxiliary. There were all of these groups around the association that were social in nature; that allowed for you to create networks and develop business. We look at a CPE program and how it’s developed today at an association level. Our goal is to get people there at 8:30 and out by 4:30. We do that to ensure that they don’t get stuck in traffic.

Peter: [00:45:58] Right.

Chris: [00:45:59] Well that kills any opportunity to have any networking event afterwards because nobody wants to stay — they want to beat traffic. So you kill your networking afterwards. We ensure that there’s not a lot of breaks because we want to make sure we get the total number of hours required for compliance, so there’s not a lot of breaks. There’s no networking there. When I go to a conference, people sometimes will make fun of me. And there are a couple of my peers that we work very well together because you won’t see us in sessions all the time. I will choose the sessions at a conference based on what I want to learn — not based on total number of hours or credits I want to get because I have to have… I have two credentials, both require 40 hours of CPE every year, and neither overlap. So I’m going to. But I’m still going to go to conferences. I may only get eight hours of credit at a 16 hour conference. That other time. Yes. I’m sitting in restaurants. I’m sitting in lobbies. I’m sitting by the pool. But I’m getting the best information I can get about running this association. These are all CEOs or CEOs or learning managers from larger or smaller states. I understand their problems. We share ideas. When new people come in, we try to encourage them to not go to all the sessions. To actually come join us in these discussions. As associations, when we build our programs, we don’t build that in anymore. All the time complain that our members, our CPAs, are just looking for hours. They want to be compliant. But we build a system to ensure that’s all they get from our programs! It doesn’t make any sense, and you’re absolutely right. When you go to these events, you have to think this is a business development opportunity, and then coming back to you know that car ride and what you can learn in those things… how many partners are still going out as often? Have we decided that that’s not good a good use of time for partners? Are they doing phone calls, conference calls, e-mails? Because you can’t read the body language. I don’t know how many times that a meeting has been put off and put off until the customer or the member is so enraged that you have to go speak with them. Whereas if you could have just had that communication in person, you would have been able to read that body language; you would have been able to see that up front. So again, when you go to an event now, what you see is a bunch of people with their noses in their phones instead of talking to people.

Peter: [00:48:26] Right.

Chris: [00:48:27] And when we have to deliver bad news, we always use technology because we don’t have to face the consequences. Again, using technology in a way it’s not intended to be used. And we’ve got to back off of that and come back to humanity and realize people have feelings. People want relationships. We have to put more emphasis on that human connection. And it bothers me to hear. Robots are taking over. AI is the future. We’ve got to come back to humanity. I read a great article this morning and I loved it. There’s a mall in D.C. that it put out its first Robocop. So its security guard was a robot, and they were all excited about it. This is the future of policing in the mall. It has gun detection and all this stuff. Ran for three days and went into a fountain.

Peter: [00:49:18] Hahahaha!

Chris: [00:49:18] Now if there is a point that humanity actually gets to the point that they can’t think and they do that, then the robots win. But technology is allowing us to do that. It’s allowing us to have attention spans of eight seconds. It’s allowing us not to communicate, to not have crucial conversations. That has to stop. And I’m a technology guy, and I can tell you that the magic in technology is not there. It’s all smoke and mirrors. The only thing that makes technology great are the humans that use it, and if you use it properly it’s a tool. If you continue use it improperly, it becomes a hindrance, and that’s really where we’re getting to. We have to create human experiences. As associations, we are uniquely positioned to do that and we have to come back to it. Will there be members upset that we have a 10 hour day and only eight hours of credit? Absolutely. But will they gain more value through those human connections? Yes. And we have to build that. And if we want strong future CPAs, if we want to take the millennials and make them into great professionals, if you want to take Gen Z and make them into great professionals, you have to give them the same experiences — the same advantages — as we gave the boomers, as we gave the Xers. Don’t take that away. Make it more important. That human connection is what’s made this profession great because that’s what’s required to make it work. As associations. quit taking it away. As businesses, don’t keep your young people in the office. Don’t fear somebody poaching them. Make a better office and go out with them to meet people and help them build those networks. That’s what’s required to really grow the profession and make it truly great, and we can help you, at the state level, with that. Sorry, sales pitch. I know it’s preachy.

Peter: [00:51:07] Oh no no no no — it is a great sales pitch by the way. But it is real, and I agree with you 100 percent that technology is a tool. We need to get back to the human factor. We need to show more empathy and realize that we are in the people business, and it doesn’t matter if you’re a state CPA society or a national association or a business or whatever. We have to get back to that. And we also have to deliver bad news face to face and quit hiding behind the damn phone, or the damn e-mail. Crucial conversations… Tell me when I’m wrong. I’m a big boy. Tell me when I’m screwing up. I look for that feedback. But we’re so afraid of hurting someone’s feelings… But if we stick to the facts, and keep emotion out of it, and deliver the message, it goes a long way. It’s just when emotion gets in the way, that’s what creates a lot of the problem in delivering those most crucial conversations. Chris, we could go on for another couple hours, and it would be a fun couple hours, but I wantt o have respect for your time. I know that you’ve a very busy man down in South Carolina and I cannot begin to thank you for sharing your thoughts today, and I hope those who download this listen… you may not agree with what Chris is discussing, but don’t tune him out. Do the whole thing about listening to understand. Listen to his position. I think — I don’t think. I know he’s on to something, and he’s been extremely successful down in the South Carolina Association and will continue to be, and once again I can’t thank you enough for taking time to be here today Chris.

Chris: [00:53:09] And I really appreciate the opportunity. I’m a little passionate about this and sometimes a little bit over the top, but I would say is if you don’t agree with me — or if you have a different observation — I’m pretty easy to find. I’m at the South Carolina Association of CPAs. I’m on Facebook. I’m on Twitter, and my phone number is posted on our Web site. My email is posted on our Web site. Call me. Have a conversation. Because I want to know what is wrong with my idea. I do want to have those conversations. The more transparent, the more open we are, the better overall ideas that we have. But again being a technology professional… it’s really hard for me to see a piece of technology and go that’s magic, and it has become, over time, easier for me to see the things that are problematic with the technology. I really do want to make friends. I don’t even need to influence others. So you know I’m here. I’m available. I love to talk to people. I hear this all the time: I know you’re really busy and I want to be protective of your time. My time is best spent learning and talking and listening. That’s what I do. So if if you want to do those things, feel free to reach out to me because I’m sure there’s something I can learn from you and I hope that there’s something that I can help you with. But that’s what it’s about and I want to I want to make those connections. I’m not just here to tell you how you should do it. I’m here because I want those connections and my network can always be stronger as well. If you’re one of those people listening that just like linked to me on on LinkedIn and never talk to me… You’re likely going to get pruned. I don’t except people on Facebook unless I know you in person, so if you want to be on my Facebook you got to call me. But those are the types of things, again, I’m interested in human connection. And Pete I mean we’ve known each other for a long time and it’s really great to get to talk to you and for you to allow me to rant… You know for an hour.

Peter: [00:55:11] Hahaha.

Chris: [00:55:12] And any time you want, we can talk about anything you want. So we can do technology. I’m always willing to come back. But it’s been a great time.

Peter: [00:55:18] I will have you back and we might pick up from this point and and run with it again. But for those of you who are listening, take him up on his offer. Go the South Carolina Association of CPAs and get his e-mail address, get his phone number, give him a call. Have a conversation with him. I think you’ll enjoy the conversation. You may help Chris learn something and I’m sure he’ll have you thinking in a completely different way. So Chris once again thank you very much for… I wouldn’t call it ranting, my friend.

Chris: [00:55:50] Hahaha.

Peter: [00:55:51] I would call it a passion that comes through that you are very passionate about this topic and the subject. And that’s what I love… when somebody discusses something with passion, but you’re different in a way. You also listen to other opinions. Some people who are so passionate they can’t… anybody else’s opinion is wrong. You do that listening to understand and you do the things that you know I talk about in improv in order to help create that community. So thank you very much. I’m sure our paths will cross again.

Peter: [00:56:33] I would like to say Chris again for being a guest today and sharing his thoughts on ways to better engage your audience and on association management. Personally, I’m going to try his elevator method and I’ll report back in a future episode, or I’ll be on the front page of The Columbus Dispatch. One of the two. I have partnered with the Maryland Association of CPAs and the Business Learning Institute to bring an exciting new learning opportunity for accounting professionals to earn CPE credits. You can earn up to one CPE credit for each completed podcast episode purchased for only $29 through the American Association of CPAs and the Business Learning Institute self-study website. The podcast episodes are mobile friendly. Open your browser on your smartphone, tablet, or computer, Go to the MACPA and BLI self-study account, and listen to an episode. Take the review and final exam while you’re working out or after listening to an episode on your commute to and from work – It’s that easy! While all Improv is no Joke podcasts are available on my website, only those purchased through the MACPA and BLI self-study Web site are eligible for CPE credit. You can get detailed instructions by visiting my website at www.PeterMargaritis.com and clicking on the graphic “Improv is no Joke for CPE credit” on my home page. Remember you can subscribe to my podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, and Google Play. If you’d like to purchase an autographed copy of my book Improv is no Joke: Using Improvisation to Create Positive Results in Leadership and Life, for $14.99 with free shipping, please go to my website, PeterMargaritis.com, and you’ll see the graphic on the homepage to purchase my book. Please allow 14 days for shipping. You can also follow me on social media. You can find me on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or Instagram. Remember to use the principles of improvisation to help you better connect and communicate with those in your organization.

—

 

Roxanne: [00:00:00] Every single one of us has a great leader inside of us. We just need to find a way to unleash it.

[music]

Peter: [00:00:16] Welcome to improv is no joke podcast. It’s all about becoming a more effective communicator by embracing the principles of improvisation. I’m your host Peter Margarita’s the self-proclaimed chief edutainment officer of my business the accidental account. My goal is to provide you with thought provoking interviews with business leaders so you can become an effective improviser which will lead to building stronger relationships with clients customers colleagues and even your family. So let’s start to show.

[music]

Peter: [00:00:47] Welcome to episode number 60, and today my guest is Roxanne Kaufman Elliott, who’s a founder and president of ProLaureate Ltd., a transformational leadership development firm. Roxanne is an i3 Leadership Master, a professional speaker, and a member of the National Speaker’s Association, and on the board of the Ohio chapter of the National Speaker’s Association. She’s also a certified executive coach, facilitator, and an award-winning business marketing strategist. She is the author of the book Never Wear Red, a leadership love story, which can be found on Amazon.com. Before we get to the interview, I’d like to talk about Listen, learn, and learn. I have partnered with the Maryland Association of CPAs and the Business Learning Institute to bring an exciting new learning opportunity for accounting professionals to earn CPE credits. You can earn up to one CPE credit for each completed podcast episode purchased for only $29 through the American Association of CPAs and the Business Learning Institute self-study website. The podcast episodes are mobile friendly. Open your browser on your smartphone, tablet, or computer, Go to the MACPA and BLI self-study account, and listen to an episode. Take the review and final exam while you’re working out or after listening to an episode on your commute to and from work – It’s that easy! While all Improv is no Joke podcasts are available on my website, only those purchased through the MACPA and BLI self-study Web site are eligible for CPE credit. You can get detailed instructions by visiting my website at www.PeterMargaritis.com and clicking on the graphic “Improv is no Joke for CPE credit” on my home page. OK now let’s get to the interview with Roxanne.

Peter: [00:03:05] Roxanne, welcome and thank you for taking time out of your crazy schedule to be a guest on my podcast today.

Roxanne: [00:03:12] Thank you. No thank you for taking time to talk with me. I’m excited. Been looking forward to it.

Peter: [00:03:18] I have myself been looking forward to this ever since our meeting at the National Speakers Association Ohio board retreat, really the first time I met you get to know other but you intrigued me with with your background in leadership and if you could kind of give us your story. Tell us about yourself so the auidence can get an idea of who Roxanne is and what you have built up over these years.

Roxanne: [00:03:44] I would love to do that and I could make this the saga over over many days but I won’t go there. I promise to keep it short and to the point. But but I think the background is really important in all of our stories and it certainly is in mine. So in a nutshell the journey has gone kind of like this. I’ve had three very separate and very different careers in my lifetime. The first part of my career was in the performing arts. I was an actor. I studied it in school I majored in theater. I worked semiprofessionally for many years and then started working in the administration of theater. So I traveled all over the place. We did a lot of historic restoration. But through all of this what I was learning was really the art and science of business, not only in for profit organizations but in nonprofits as well. And I found that my theater training and my background in the performing arts was a huge asset to the work that I started to do when I went into administration and management of running performing arts centers, one of which was connected to the Jackie Gleason Center for Performing Arts down in Miami Beach Florida. I worked on a restoration project down there on the Colony Theatre, which was a huge learning experience. So all of that was great and it just formed a foundation of really thinking about what is leadership and what does it got to do with success and failure happiness in life, and in our professional areas. So that’s that question started to bubble up in my mind. And then I made a giant leap away from nonprofits and, of all things, I went to work for what was then a very small company in New England that was a manufacturer of specialty resin systems in the construction industry. Believe it or not.

Peter: [00:05:42] Wow.

Roxanne: [00:05:42] [laughs] I know. But I just wanted to do something differently. Got a little bit tired of eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, to be honest about it. I wanted to see what it was like to you know go into the corporate ranks and see what that was all about. So I took all of my experience in helping nonprofits and performing artists and arts organizations, and in helping them create successful businesses. I took that into this little company and something kind of very cool was going on. And I don’t think we even realized that at the time but we were Musketeers. We were all for one one for all. We were a band of brothers and me, and we built an incredibly successful business over the course of about seven years, and then we were bought out by a huge global conglomerate. And the company started to fail because of a different way of looking at business. And it was from a European organization. So they were not American-based. But just a whole different philosophy, a whole different style, a whole different way of looking at talent within organizations. At people. I don’t think they ever understood the concept of leadership, and it was heartbreaking for me because it was a life-changing moment. I saw what happened when leadership, unbeknownst to us, which is what we were doing from the very beginning when we went to work together in this small group, was our highest priority. Collaboration, cooperation, really understanding other people’s point of views; really communicating with people; making it about the relationship and helping others to succeed. And then all that went away and everything failed, and I found I had to make a decision. I couldn’t have any influence anymore within the company after we had been bought out. And I was so heartbroken by it all, and yet so incredibly grateful for the learning experience. I traveled all over the world. I worked in all of these different kinds of organizations with people from all different cultures and socio economic background and business expertise and so forth. It was fascinating and I thought oh wait a minute. What have I done all of my life where I have succeeded? And it wasn’t because I was a performing artist or an actor or an administrator. It wasn’t because I was an executive on a team that formed this great little company. It was because of what I believed in, and that is that every single one of us has a great leader inside of us. We just need to find a way to unleash it. So I left the company. I resigned. I came back to Ohio, where I live now in Cleveland, and I formed my own company called ProLaureate, and people asked me what does that really mean. Well if you think about laureate, laureates is a term that came from the ancient Greeks when they were teaching people an expertise (men, primarily, all men of course) in various forms of endeavors, whether they be academic or scientific or whatever. And when they reached the pinnacle of their expertise, they were crowned as laureate, with laurel leaves. That’s where they came from in the Olympics. We still use that today in the Olympics. So I was thinking there’s baccalaureate, there’s poet laureate, there are Nobel laureates. Why not professional laureate? Because that’s where genuine leadership comes from. So I hope that wasn’t too much of a ramble but that’s how I got here.

Peter: [00:09:41] No, no. Well I’m fascinated in all aspects. One, the Performing Arts, which I had no clue, which kind of blew me away. And I’m sitting here trying to remember… there was an interview with Kevin Spacey recently. He left and went to England to manage that theater looking for something new. It was a great leadership… do you remember what that was from? What publication that was from?

Roxanne: [00:10:04] No I don’t. I saw it on television I think. There was a I think that was maybe it was a different one with him but he’s one of my favorite actors of all time. But I don’t remember what that was connected to.

Peter: [00:10:15] In reading this article, and between now and the time this goes live I’ll see if I can find it and put it in the show notes. But he talked about… he wanted something new, something different, and he learned a lot about leadership and helping to build this theater company profitable. Once it became very profitable, He kind of walked away to find something different. That aspect fascinates me, but the the culture change within a manufacturing company. And you said a foreign company came in and purchased you guys.

Roxanne: [00:10:46] Correct yeah.

Peter: [00:10:48] Where was the headquarters located?

Roxanne: [00:10:50] Of the company who bought us? Germany.

Peter: [00:10:53] Germany, and how many years ago was this?

Roxanne: [00:10:56] I left the company in 2003. The merger took place four years prior to that.

Peter: [00:11:05] So the headquarters was now moved to Germany. But you guys were located in New England.

Roxanne: [00:11:14] In Waterbury, Connecticut, yeah.

Peter: [00:11:15] Did they bring anybody over from the parent company to help through this transition?

Roxanne: [00:11:22] Great question. Yes they did. They brought some of their folks over. I would use the word help loosely. [laughs] If I’m being really honest, and I’m not mentioning any names, and by the way this story is in my book because it was such a pivotal time in my life and I’ve lived with it ever since. The lessons learned and the takeaways, and it’s really helped me to become very successful in my own business. But yes they did bring people over and brought them in and planted them in our headquarters in Waterbury, Connecticut, and that created all kinds of interesting scenarios.

Peter: [00:12:04] Yeah, actually last week I was at a client, and a fairly large client, but they were telling a story about when a Luxembourg company purchased them some years ago, and the struggle in culture change. Especially when it’s across the water. Completely different culture. And they’ve been one company now for a number of years, about 10, but there’s still this whole underlying leadership culture, foreign culture, you know it’s trying to assimilate into U.S. culture. U.S. culture is trying to assimilate into a European culture. And as you said, the view of leadership is viewed very differently.

Roxanne: [00:12:47] Yes it is. And that can make or break any kind of a merger acquisition. I’ve seen it go both ways. When when cultural due diligence is made as high a priority, and as important as financial due diligence and all of the other due diligence that we do in mergers and acquisitions, then you have a success. When it’s ignored, as it was in my experience by all the people who are involved, you can’t win. You cannot win. This is also one of the reasons why… really 2005 is when I incorporated. I was doing some consulting those first two years, 2003 to 2005, and then firmly established my firm and just went totally 100 percent into it in 2005. And then right around that time is when I discovered these two fellows who are scholars in leadership worldwide. They are so well known and I looked them up and reached out to them and started to immerse myself in the work that they have been doing. Their names are Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner. They’re the authors of The Leadership Challenge, now in its sixth edition. This has gone worldwide. This is in nonprofits. It’s in schools, churches, huge corporations. Fortune 50 corporations and everything in between. And it’s really a movement, and there are… I don’t know probably… I mean there are lots of people who use material, and then there are those of us who have gone through the certification programs and all of that to use the materials. And this is culture building, and what it does is level the field of what is leadership. It’s not about what country you live in, your gender, your background, your socioeconomic status, your educational levels, and so forth. It’s about authentic genuine leadership and building that within organizations. As You can tell, I mean this is a passion of mine. I love it. So this is just one aspect. I have three areas that I work in, in my firm, that are all of course very closely related. But the leadership challenge work, Barry and Jim’s work, and they’ve been doing research on this worldwide for almost 40 years now. So it’s empirical data. I mean it’s all it’s all studied and proven. It’s pretty amazing.

Peter: [00:15:17] To look at the information and think about leadership… is there a way of of summing their work up and in like a sentence?

Roxanne: [00:15:29] Yeah. Through all of their research, everything that they have done, they discovered that there are five practices of exemplary leadership that guide organizations and people to leadership success. It’s to model the way, inspire a shared vision, challenge the process, enable others to act, and encourage the heart. Over and over and over again, those five practices, and the development of the leadership behavior around each one of them, are what brings leadership success to cultures and organizations and individuals more than a sentence, I apologize. But that’s it. And each one of those five practices are the very tip of an iceberg that goes really really really deep into developing our own personal leadership, which always comes first, and then our ability to lead others. And one of the things that I love about these guys, and what first just captured me in learning more about it and becoming a certified coach, facilitator, consultant, etc. in this work is one of the things that they say. You know they say the key to success, in anything that we do, is to be in love. And that stopped me dead in the track. I went what?! this is so cool. Of course. Because think about it: when we’re in love, we’re passionate about what it is we are in love with. And in this case, it’s our business; it’s our people; it’s the work that we do; it’s the impact that we make; it’s the change that we bring. And that’s what really is the fire within it.

Peter: [00:17:11] So that explains the title of your book, Never Wear Red: A leadership LOVE story.

Roxanne: [00:17:18] Exactly right! Exactly. It’s all about the love thing, and a lot of executives, When I first say this, they go oh come on don’t get all warm and fuzzy on it. Oh no. Guys and gals this is the heart of it all. This is the passion that brings success to everything we do. Hence the name of my book, like you said Pete.

Peter: [00:17:40] So what’s the Never Wear Red aspect from the title of the book? That was one of my questions on my list. Where did that come from?

Roxanne: [00:17:49] Well all of us grow up with things that we hear from people all the time and we don’t realize how they embed themselves in our subconscious minds. And a lot of those things are harmless, seemingly harmless when they are said, but they really create obstacles to our success, and it creates those things we allow to get in our own way. Well everybody who’s listening to this probably doesn’t know this but I’m a redhead, and a redhead all my life. So when I was growing up, everyone told me, especially all my my women (my mom grandmothers and everybody), said Roxanne never wear red. Never ever ever wear red. It just doesn’t work for you. It clashes with your hair. It’s ugly. Well that manifested in my brain. Oh my gosh I better be really careful about what I do, what I say, how I act, who I present myself to be so that I’m not ugly and that I’m not clashing with myself. So this becomes not a conscious thought but it kind of sits in your brain. And I will never forget the day that I decided to resign my position in my corporate life and start my business. I got up I walked in to my closet and I had a big mirror on the door, a full length mirror on the door, and I looked at myself and I said “girl it’s about time you started wearing red.”

Peter: [00:19:17] Hahaha!

Roxanne: [00:19:18] Break down the barriers. Get rid of them. Figure out who you really are, authentically and genuinely, and for crying out loud – go out and be that! Some people aren’t going to like it and that’s their problem. Don’t worry about it. Be who you are. So that’s why you know when I’m doing book sales or I’m at an event or whatever people come up and they go oh my god I have my red suit or my red shoes or my red. Yes. Please wear more of that! And I explain what the title means.

Peter: [00:19:47] I’m glad you did because a colleague of mine wears, at every speaking event, a red blazer. And I had to figure out how to tell her you’re never supposed to wear red, but I’m glad you clarified that for me so I don’t have to tell her that.

Roxanne: [00:20:03] Well the first thing I did after I looked in the mirror and said to myself… I went out that day and I bought myself the most gorgeous pair of red high heels and I wear them for every speaking engagement. [laughs]

Peter: [00:20:15] OK there you go! I have a pair of red high heels too… But it’s a whole different story.

Roxanne: [00:20:23] Hahaha! I’m not sure you can share that one.

Peter: [00:20:23] But I’ll wear them to the next National Speakers Association Ohio chapter meeting.

Roxanne: [00:20:31] Yeah great. I can’t wait to see it. Awesome.

Peter: [00:20:35] My mother’s probably listening to this going Oh my god what happened? But moving forward… So let’s go back to the these five pieces that that you talked about. If you can to a little bit depth because I think my audience would be a intrigued – because I’m extremely intrigued – Maybe a little bit depth in each one of the five?

Roxanne: [00:20:56] Sure. Absolutely. OK. So Jim and Barry went out and did all this research. They’ve gone around the world. And there’s also another piece of this. Based on the research, they created a 360 degree instrument. It’s an assessment. I think most people are familiar with 360’s. And it’s called the Leadership Practices Inventory, and what this does is measure each one of these five practices. So it sets up… so there’s a leader. Let’s say you’re the CEO of a company and you want to take this 360 degree assessment. So you take a self-assessment and then you arrange for the other people that you want to take it. What they’re doing is they’re going to go through this 360 and they’re going to be six behavioral statements for each one of the five practices. And what they’re asking you, when you do this, is how often do you do this? Very rarely, seldom, every now and then, or almost always. So it goes through a range. So there are 60 statements that are constantly being tested to make sure they’re still valid, and then you get a rating of the frequency of behavior. We all do all five, all of the time, but we want to understand how we can increase our leadership behaviors based on the statements in each one of these practices to increase our effectiveness as a leader. So each one of the five practices has two statements that make up the 10 commitments of leadership that help guide us in understanding what each of the five practices is. So the first one is model the away. Simply put, Walk your talk.

Peter: [00:22:47] Okay.

Roxanne: [00:22:47] How many times have we had leaders say one thing and do another? So the two commitments for that practice are first to clarify your values by finding your voice, and then affirming shared values. So it’s saying out loud “these are my core values. What are yours? What do we share? How are we different?” And then secondly, do what you say you’re going to do. Set your example with your own behavior of aligning your actions with your values, and with the shared values that you have with your constituent. The second is to inspire a shared vision. This is so critically important because most people struggle so much with vision statements and really sharing visions and getting other people to buy in. So this is where it’s really really important that a vision has inspiration behind it. The two commitments for this are two envision and talk about the future by really getting in people’s imaginations, getting them excited, and ennobling possibilities. Think about how far we can go. There’s a famous monk – and I’m sorry… It’s Frederick and it’s escaping me at the moment – But he said You will never be bigger than the vision that you create for yourself. I’m paraphrasing, but it’s true. When you make a vision for something, make it pretty big because otherwise you’re going to be held to the limits that you create. And secondly, for envisioning, it’s talk with others. Ask them what is their vision. Share yours. And where do you intersect? What is similar? What is different? This is what creates those great relationships with people. The third one is challenge the process, and I’ll kind of go quickly over these two, but these are the guidelines. These are the foundations. When you challenge the process, this is a tough one for human beings, it’s looking for new ways. It’s looking for innovation; ways to improve. You know the old thing if it ain’t broke don’t fix it? Well if it ain’t broke, break it – and see if you can make it better. That’s what this is about. Experimenting, taking risks. Enable others to act. When you are enabling others to act, give away your power. Give away your tools/ Because it comes back to you a hundred times over. So you want to foster collaboration, building trust, and you want to strengthen others by helping them to develop their own competencies. Understand what people’s strengths are, give them the tools to get even stronger, understand what they need to do that maybe they’re not so good at and get good people around them to help. That’s how we all succeed. And then finally the last one: encourage the heart. This is my favorite. It’s so important. A handshake, a twinkle in your eye, a genuine appreciation and smile, and saying thank you… they go further than just about anything else. It’s great to get promotions. We all love to get more money. But I’ll tell you what… those day to day encouragements bring people onboard in a way that the loyalty just goes on for ever. So it’s just recognizing people for their contribution and then celebrating values, and celebrating victory. Celebrating accomplishments, especially the little ones.

Peter: [00:26:22] OK. Now you’ve got me even more intrigued. You know this whole thing… I mean the first one: model; walk your talk. There’s so many examples of where it has gone wrong, where the CEO has not walked their talk, but they’ve created a culture that people think, unless you’re doing the right thing… I’ll just say Wells Fargo, I’ll just say Enron, WorldCom, all these companies that leadership… They have those things out there, but they’re not walking the talk and they go they go awry. It’s very prevalent. But this also helped me understand your business because I also know, in doing my homework, that you are – these words might not be correct – but you are certified in DiSC training, as well as strength finders and the like.

Roxanne: [00:27:14] Right. Right. All of those. Yeah.

Peter: [00:27:16] So I think when you were talking about understanding your audience and giving them support, you have to be able to understand… well these tools help you understand because all leaders are different. All people were made up of different– we think differently, we act differently. Correct me if I’m wrong, but what I’m seeing is it helps you tailor your programming so they get the biggest bang, or you make the biggest impact, based on their personality style.

Roxanne: [00:27:45] Absolutely. That’s exactly right. You know you put that together precisely the way that it’s meant to. There are really three very specific things that I do within my business. One is the leadership challenge, and that’s primarily cultural development. So I work with organizations and many times go through the entire corporate population to really build a common language of leadership, and to help people really understand what it takes to have that foundation of leadership and to share, like we were talking about, different countries, different kinds of leadership. But to really get everybody on the same page with that. So that’s one thing. And I also do some individual work with that. But I also am an i3 master. i3 is an executive coaching program. It’s one-on-one, and it also has a small group component to it for executive teams that want to do strategic leadership and really get into not only leadership development but strategy development. So i3 is I to the power of three. And this goes more to the left brain development of organizations. So the three I’s are inspire, ignite, and impact. So each one of these coaching programs, or small group development programs, is built around those three segments. So the inspire piece is getting to that vision – is really getting to the heart and soul of the business, and this is a really deep dive into it. This is where we do the assessments, The Hartman color code, and the Kilmann conflict instrument to really understand the dynamic of the groups that are working together – individual strengths and weaknesses – to build a very clear and easy to understand communication. So we break down silos and then get teams working together. The second segment then goes into ignite. This is where we ignite that inspiration with left brain planning and thinking. It’s strategy, goals, short term, long term, all built around driving the success of the vision – of the organization’s shared vision of the people within the organization. And then the third I is impact. And this is the action step. This is where we sit down and we lay out the plan. OK what’s going to happen when, Who’s going to do it, who is accountable and how are we going to stay on track? and what are the red flags we need to recognize if we’ve got project creep or we’re going off the edge here or we hit barriers or an obstacle. So that’s executive coaching, and then the executive team coaching in small groups. So that’s one and two: the leadership challenge and i3. And then the third thing is my speaking work, and that’s ROXTalks.

Peter: [00:31:04] Hahaha!

Roxanne: [00:31:04] So ROXTalks is the whole speaking thing, which as you know is just great fun getting in front of groups and just talking about all this stuff. But again everything is totally customized to each and every client each and every group.

Peter: [00:31:21] I can imagine when you’re doing a speaking engagement that, as you are assessing the audience, as you are going through your keynote or whatever, you have to get a lot of satisfaction just because… I bet you see a bit you see that Scooby-Doo kind of look that they’re giving you.

Roxanne: [00:31:40] Yeah! I love it. Yes. I’ve never heard anybody put it quite that way. But that’s exactly – it is Scooby Doo.

Peter: [00:31:49] And I’ll bet you the big Scooby Doo moment is when you’re when you talk about love, and they’re thinking what? But after you explain it I’m sure they go ohhhh yeah.

Roxanne: [00:32:05] That’s right. And what I do is I save that. One of my keynotes that I do that that focuses in on that – I call it the secret sauce.

Peter: [00:32:15] OK.

Roxanne: [00:32:15] And that’s what it is. It’s the love piece, and I introduce that by saying OK I’m going to give you the secret now, but I want you all to prepare yourself. It’s a four-letter word. And a lot of people get really offended, and I go on and on about this and build it all up and then you know I spell it out for them and everybody goes Ah ha.

Peter: [00:32:40] Yeah I can imagine you do get a lot of that, as you’re laying this out, because I think I’ve had a couple of Scooby Doo moments just in listening to what you do, and acquainting it to leadership. I also see a lot of parallels, as it relates to improvisation, because you mentioned something about giving people the tools that they need to survive; give them the tools they need to be successful. And that’s one of the aspects of of Improv: providing support. Throughout this whole conversation, you have a tremendous amount of respect for your audience and they have a tremendous amount of respect for you. There’s a lot of listening, a lot of focus, so there’s a lot of parallels. But I love the the the aspect that you’ve added to this… OK so I’m going to say this. It sounds so simple, but we know it’s so hard.

Roxanne: [00:33:36] It is. It’s so true. Yeah.

Peter: [00:33:39] And my one question is, and I don’t know you share a similar frustration, but even when you come into executive coaching there’s a stop date. When you go in to do a presentation, there’s a stop date. So I look at that as OK so we’ve had an event, but you’re not there. I could tell by your voice you’re not there for the event. You’re there for the process. And I imagine that is somewhat of a challenge in all of our businesses when we when we work with others in other organizations. When that end day comes, is to keep that process moving forward. Do you have a way that you try to do that?

Roxanne: [00:34:18] I do, yeah. I do. And what you said is just again right on because leadership is is not an event. A lot of people think it is. I’m going to go to this two day training program or whatever it is. Nope. You know what if you’re doing that, great, you’re getting new knowledge, but that is an event. That’s that’s not self-development. Self-development is a lifelong goal. It’s a lifelong effort. It’s really being passionate about being the best that you can be – becoming that truly authentic genuine person that you’re meant to be. So when I do with most of my clients is I do put everybody in a SIT file, a stay in touch file.

Peter: [00:34:54] OK. Thank you.

Roxanne: [00:34:55] Yep yep. Stay in touch. And so everyone I work with knows – I get permission of course – and when that’s granted they go in my SIT file. And that file is a monthly video blog that goes out. I need to get you on that list, Pete.

Peter: [00:35:14] OK.

Roxanne: [00:35:15] It’s going out Monday. We postponed July just to Mondays because the holiday. But it’s a video blog. The series that’s going out right now is all based in the leadership challenge work. So these are reminders. It’s called a minute with Rox, and they are one minute. Pretty much a one minute, no more than you know 65 seconds anyway, that just touch on something that we’ve talked about, that we’ve coached about, that we’ve worked on to remind you to keep that up with others. So I do that for everybody. I also do quarterly check in. As we go along, I’ll just drop a note. I will make a phone call. And then I started using the Moodleroom. This is for clients that want to stay connected in more of a formal way, but only now and then. Maybe once a quarter, maybe twice a year. So we will do the Moodleroom, which is where you can create your own area for this group where you can go in and ask questions and have dialogue and carry on, and I can send them updates and even a little homework now and then. We can share books and articles and so forth. And it’s kind of a private little group thing. It’s cool. And then the other thing I do is I will go back in, if they would like to do this. I’ve been doing this with several of my clients right now. I just schedule time to go back in on a quarterly basis, or twice a year, just to have a couple of hours with the folks that I’ve worked with, whether it be the individual coachees, or the teams that I’ve worked with, or maybe we do a whole company. You know hour to two hour hey let’s go to the big room and have an interaction, let’s have some conversation. Let’s talk about what’s working and let’s talk about what isn’t, and what you can do.

Peter: [00:37:06] That’s great.

Roxanne: [00:37:06] There’s all different kinds of ways. Yeah.

Peter: [00:37:08] That’s great because I think that’s a challenge that a lot of us have. And I love your ideas and I’ll just go on the record: I’m probably still one or two of them because I love that.

Roxanne: [00:37:22] Please do.

Peter: [00:37:22] When I talk to audiences, I point them to the podcast. I point them to my newsletter. I pointthem to my writing, the articles and blogs and stuff, and just challenge them to read it; to kind of stay abreast and just kind of keep that… you know I always said it takes 21 days to create a habit, but I found out that was wrong. It’s really 66 days to create a habit.

Roxanne: [00:37:45] [laughs]I would say yes. Yes that would be right.

Peter: [00:37:47] So it takes a little bit longer than we wanted to, but in order… you know 66 days really isn’t that long. The hard part of it is maintaining that habit, after that time.

Roxanne: [00:38:00] That’s right. And I think a little prodding, and always ask. My suggestion would be that, when you do reach out… you know we all have social media, we all have the blogs and whatever we’re doing to keep people engaged, but they have to generate the energy and the concentration and the priority to do that. And in our world today, we’re just inundated every single minute, every single day, from so many different directions. Here’s here’s my suggestion, in two parts. First, take time every single day to turn off the noise. Go quiet. It’s so important to give your brain a rest from this. You’re overworking that computer inside your head right. Silence, And just going quiet and just allowing yourself to stop for a moment and just be grateful. Be thankful. Be thoughtful. Whatever it may be. When you go back to it, the second thing I would suggest you do is, when when you’re reaching out, make an ask every single time. Almost everything that I do – I can’t say it’s everything – but almost everything I do, especially in my little blogs that I do my written blogs that go out, the last sentence is always a question.

Peter: [00:39:19] Hm.

Roxanne: [00:39:19] It’s always a question. I make a statement. I share a view or an experience or whatever, and it always has to do with self-development or leadership in one way or another. And then my last sentence is always. So what are you doing today to make more of an impact on the world? What will you do today? Write it down.

Peter: [00:39:39] I love that, and I’ll just do a quick rewind here because, as you said, you have to want to do this. You know it’s an individual thing, and to put it into your words: you got to love this to do this. You have to put your heart into it, you get to put the passion into it, which is a driving force. And if you don’t have that passion, you don’t have the drive, you don’t have that love… you’re not going to make headway. You’re not going to get better. You are you going to be stuck in that rut. So I love that aspect of it. And you know you can take the horse to water but you can’t make him drink.

Roxanne: [00:40:15] That’s exactly right. That’s exactly right. To find out what the horse likes to drink and then put it out there and he’ll find it himself.

Peter: [00:40:23] Well that is always up to a whole world of opportunities now.

Roxanne: [00:40:30] There you go! [laughs]

Peter: [00:40:33] And when we’re done I am going to subscribe to your newsletter because I want to see the stuff that you’re writing and the stuff that you’re doing. How can people find you?

Roxanne: [00:40:45] Well in two ways. The Web site is www.ProLaureate.com They can go there. They can also go to LinkedIn. And I have a professional Facebook page and all that kind of stuff. And if they want to reach out to me directly, the best way to do that is through email really. And the best email for that would be Roxanne @ ProLaureate dot com.

Peter: [00:41:23] Simple enough. Lots of social media. I love your web site, and I love how you use the power of three. There’s a lot of threes in everything that you do. The i3 and on your Web site it’s inspire, emerge, transform. You’re a pro at the 3s.

Roxanne: [00:41:47] Well I’ll tell you why: I learned many many years ago the power of three. People, the human brain, a lot of my trade of occasions and training are based in behavioral psychology. I don’t have any big letters or numbers after my name, but that is just fascinating stuff to me. It’s it’s been a part of my development and my leadership stuff. But the power of three – think of headlines day in the news. They usually will mention that the top three leading headlines. Three leaf clovers are an Irish tradition based on the Trinity. 3. Mind body spirit. All of these things come in threes and the human brain is attracted to that. It loves seeing three things. It’s easy to remember. By the way, just as a aside, if you’re doing a presentation of any kind… If you can chunk it into three main areas of conversation – start with you know topics, go through details, and then wrap up with key points – Your audience will remember it better. The power of three is amazing. So everything just about that I do has some sort of that kind of format to it. Even my speaking. When I put a keynote together, I’m doing workshops and seminars, It’s usually you know what guys? I’d like to talk to you about three things today, and here they are. One two three. Let’s start with one.

Peter: [00:43:17] Yeah I do that too. I start a little executive summary. And then I go boom boom boom. I mean I’ve done stand up my day, and I know the power of three helps with the misdirection and helps with the joke. And I start thinking you have three bean salad, you have the three stages, a stop light has three three colors.

Roxanne: [00:43:37] [laughs] Exactly!

Peter: [00:43:37] Like Goldilocks and the three bears.

Roxanne: [00:43:41] Now you got it.

Peter: [00:43:41] The Nina, the Pinta, and the Santamaria. I mean there’s threes everywhere.

Roxanne: [00:43:46] Yeah!

Peter: [00:43:47] And because it’s easy to remember, and when I even thought I go quit thinking– I was working with a client and they had 12 things on their core principles within their organization, and I went can we just find out what your top three are, focus on those, and we’ll keep these others out there. But your people aren’t going to remember all 12, and they’ve had this up there for about 10 years and then I took the liberty of proposing – I didn’t check with the client beforehand – and they actually took me up on it. And we spent some time figuring out what the top three were, and they were making changes along those lines. So yes there is a lot to be to be said about the power of threes.

Roxanne: [00:44:29] Outstanding. Love it.

Peter: [00:44:31] Well Roxanne I can’t thank you enough. I’ve learned a tremendous amount from our conversation and I know my audience will take away a lot of… you’ve left so many nuggets out there for them to harvest and apply, and I would suggest to my audience to find Roxanne on the web. Connect with her and learn more about how she could help you. So thank you so very much for your time.

Roxanne: [00:45:00] Thank you. This has been just a great time. I love chatting with you and thanks again. Thank you so much. Been a real privilege and honor. I appreciate it.

Peter: [00:45:08] Oh you’re more than welcome.

Peter: [00:45:13] I would like to thank again Roxanne for being a guest today and sharing her insights into leadership and how we can become stronger leaders. You can find Roxanne’s book, Never Wear Red: A Leadership Love Story, on Amazon.com. I’d like to talk about Listen, Learn, and Earn. I have partnered with the Maryland Association of CPAs and the Business Learning Institute to bring an exciting new learning opportunity for accounting professionals to earn CPE credits. You can earn up to one CPE credit for each completed podcast episode purchased for only $29 through the American Association of CPAs and the Business Learning Institute self-study website. The podcast episodes are mobile friendly. Open your browser on your smartphone, tablet, or computer, Go to the MACPA and BLI self-study account, and listen to an episode. Take the review and final exam while you’re working out or after listening to an episode on your commute to and from work – It’s that easy! While all Improv is no Joke podcasts are available on my website, only those purchased through the MACPA and BLI self-study Web site are eligible for CPE credit. You can get detailed instructions by visiting my website at www.PeterMargaritis.com and clicking on the graphic “Improv is no Joke for CPE credit” on my home page. Remember you can subscribe to my podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, and Google Play. If you’d like to purchase an autographed copy of my book Improv is no Joke: Using Improvisation to Create Positive Results in Leadership and Life, for $14.99 with free shipping, please go to my website, PeterMargaritis.com, and you’ll see the graphic on the homepage to purchase my book. Please allow 14 days for shipping. You can also follow me on social media. You can find me on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or Instagram. Remember to use the principles of improvisation to help you become a stronger leader.

—

Production & Development for Improv Is No Joke by Podcast Masters

Karl: [00:00:00] In general we need to be better communicators and communication is a skill you can never be too good at.

[music]

Peter: [00:00:14] Welcome to improv is no joke podcast. It’s all about becoming a more effective communicator by embracing the principles of improvisation. I’m your host Peter Margarita’s the self-proclaimed chief edutainment officer of my business the accidental account. My goal is to provide you with thought provoking interviews with business leaders so you can become an effective improviser which will lead to building stronger relationships with clients customers colleagues and even your family. So let’s start to show.

[music

Peter: [00:00:46] Welcome to episode number 59. And today my guest is Karl Ahlrichs, who’s making a second appearance on the podcast. Karl is a human capitalist consultant and a far-thinking and future-planning individual. I interviewed Karl back in episode number five last July where we discussed some of the storms he sees coming on the horizon, particularly where HR and the next generations of employees meet. Even though our current economy is far greater now than it’s been in a while, Karl sees quite a few potential problems on the horizons that we need to be better prepared to tackle. We revisit that discussion and then take another look out into the current horizon to see what challenges we will be facing. Before we get to the interview, I’d like to talk about Listen, learn, and learn. I have partnered with the Maryland Association of CPAs and the Business Learning Institute to bring an exciting new learning opportunity for accounting professionals to earn CPE credits. You can earn up to one CPE credit for each completed podcast episode purchased for only $29 through the American Association of CPAs and the Business Learning Institute self-study website. The podcast episodes are mobile friendly. Open your browser on your smartphone, tablet, or computer, Go to the MACPA and BLI self-study account, and listen to an episode. Take the review and final exam while you’re working out or after listening to an episode on your commute to and from work – It’s that easy! While all Improv is no Joke podcasts are available on my website, only those purchased through the MACPA and BLI self-study Web site are eligible for CPE credit. You can get detailed instructions by visiting my website at www.PeterMargaritis.com and clicking on the graphic “Improv is no Joke for CPE credit” on my home page. OK now let’s get to the interview with Karl.

[music]

Peter: [00:03:01] Welcome back Karl. It’s great to have you back on the podcast. I can’t believe it’s been over a year since the last time we talked. And I know that you’ve just recently returned from the Society for Human Resource Management annual convention and I’m so looking forward to what storm clouds you see on the horizon because that’s where we that’s how we started our conversation a year ago. On those storm clouds.

Karl: [00:03:29] And actually if you go back year – First off thank you for having me back and I’m pleased that the statute of limitations has run out on some of what I said. But if you go back here and look at what I said I got it mostly right. I was pleased with that and I have uncovered a couple of things that I find kind of interesting about the next year. Let’s make this an annual thing.

Peter: [00:03:54] Of course.

Karl: [00:03:55] I want to let people know that globally the United States is very competitive in a couple of areas. One is productivity. They track how productive we are individually and compared to the rest of the world we’re killing on it. And it’s that productivity that’s kept our stock market alive, that’s kept our commerce going. And the volume of people working is holding steady. The volume of what we’re producing continues to climb. That’s because we’re leveraging technology and that’s because we’re changing how we do it. And there’s a couple of big changes coming on the horizon that might leverage that even further. But the scary thing is going to be it’s not applied to every industry. If you’re working in the coal industry it’s not so hot. If you’re working in natural gas exploration, you are busy. If you’re working in a job that could be automated… You need to start looking for a way to get client-facing, customer-facing, because a lot of the mid level positions… you know there’s the customer facing stuff and there’s a middle management and then there’s upper level. We’re going to see that middle getting so automated that those positions are going to go away.

Peter: [00:05:18] Yeah.

Karl: [00:05:18] So there’s a couple trends that are within. One is that it was interesting at this conference… everybody was rolling your eyes and they are tired of hearing about millennials. They are tired of hearing about generational horse hockey. And it’s kind of interesting. We’re starting to see people putting different ways of classifying people on the road map. For instance, instead of just pigeonholing people based on how old they are. When were they born. People are recognizing that there’s lots of different ways to bifurcate a crowd – to split a crowd into two. For instance, there’s a lot of attention being placed on people who are technically savvy and people who are digital immigrants, where they do tech but they do it with a heavy accent and they’re not comfortable with it. And that’s not age specific. I met several people at this conference who were in their 70s and were fully digital and connected and people who were in their 30s and were clinging to their Blackberries and hoping they wouldn’t have to learn another operating system. So look for a lot of the generational stuff too. I’m not saying run out of steam. I think we’re going to see more accurate ways to classify workers based on things other than purely when they were born. And there’s a lot of things driving this. One is just the maturity of our wisdom. Where we had been painting with broad brush strokes, Now we’ve been through two or three iterations of that and we’re seeing ways that we can classify people that are not just purely age related. Second because we had painted with such broad brush strokes. There’s a lot of people who pushed back on that with accuracy and said hey you know I’m not that way. So look for more language about how groups can be found inside the workforce. And they’re going to be groups that are based on diversity and inclusion, where you’ve had a common upbringing that does affect that. But also you know anybody that’s come from a family of two or more you look around and realize that your brothers and sisters all essentially have the same cultural upbringing that you did. But you’re so radically different because of the genetics involved – the wiring of the brain. The the nature versus nurture argument, and that nature has about half to do with this. And so a trend that’s going to happen is we’re going to see new technologies being applied to this in the sense that we’re going to see better and more continuous assessment of who we are. Assessment on the way in and talent management, where people are going to get screened. And there’s going to be pre-high or assessments that help guide us into a better job fit. But then there’s also going to be ongoing assessment and coaching. That’s not the old annual performance review. Within the accounting profession, Look at the work that Deloitte has been doing on moving away from annual performance reviews. We’re going to see more of this.

Peter: [00:08:52] Yaaaay.

Karl: [00:08:52] Oh yeah. But this requires people to be good at coaching and good at listening. Well good news: Most people in accounting finance are good listeners because they’re introverts. The bad news they don’t want to be go.

Peter: [00:09:07] Bingo.

Karl: [00:09:07] And so that’s going to have to change. How am I doing so far? These interesting things to you? I don’t want to bore you.

Peter: [00:09:15] Oh you never bore me Karl. And actually I applaud the fact that we are getting away from age segregation in the generations because I think there’s been way too much millennial bashing. And actually you addressed this last year about the digital natives and the tech savvy individuals. And I just said – I was at a client yesterday and there was a little bit of millennial bashing going on. And I actually used your words and I’ve been using your words a lot as relates to this. Really you know we have a lot more in common but where the big differences are, and I brought up your point, and I got a look of what are you talking about Willis? But after I explained explained it and the way that you put it, I saw the aha moment. And what’s really fun to watch that for the first time that aha moment like well you know you might be right about that. So I’m glad that you brought it back up to start to podcast because I think it needs to stay in the forefront of people’s minds.

Karl: [00:10:23] Well and these are times where people want things to be simple. I think there’s information overload out there and people just want a simple way to categorize. Don’t get fancy with me. And it’s a time where I’m pushing back and saying no we all really need to sharpen our critical thinking skills and we need to sharpen our conflict management skills. We need to get better at getting along with each other. Have you been paying attention to Washington D.C. lately?

Peter: [00:10:52] Yes I have been. Actually I’ll even throw in another piece. We also need to have the emotional intelligence aspect of it as well, which Washington doesn’t have a lot of that right now.

Karl: [00:11:06] Right. Well it’s simple… to have good critical thinking skills and to have good personal maturity and to have both knowledge and wisdom. And by the way those are the ways I describe what do you mean by emotional intelligence. That’s what I mean: critical thinking skills, maturity, wisdom, and having the communication skills to be bilingual to different kinds of people, or trilingual. That takes some willingness to be adaptable and flexible. It takes personal maturity and that’s tough to come by these days. One of the things that I am spending my time: I’m getting into junior high schools and I’m volunteering to teach critical thinking, to teach ethics, to teach some of these baseline fundamental skills into the 11 12 13 14 year olds because we have a chance of making a big impact – good positive impact on our nation – If we can upscale our youngins in all of these issues that we’re we’re seeing sadly lacking in our leadership today.

Peter: [00:12:21] So how do you teach these critical thinking skills to young adults as well as to older adults?

Karl: [00:12:31] Let’s agree we all have six second attention spans.

Peter: [00:12:34] What did you say?

Karl: [00:12:36] [laughs] Let me give you the punchline first.

Peter: [00:12:43] OK.

Karl: [00:12:44] We have to look at how young people want to learn and realize that everybody wants to learn that way. We have to gameify how we teach these core skills. We have to make it engaging and make it competitive and make it a game. So two days ago I taught critical thinking to a roomful of adults and halfway through it, after giving them the theory, I gave them what is called an inbox exercise, where it’s a game where they are handed the contents of a fictitious person’s inbox in a crisis in an organization, and this inboxes… I mean imagine your inbox. I can see it behind you on the table. There’s a pile of stuff. Some very important some is just fluff. They are then given a task and you have an hour: sort this, prioritize it, figure out with the big picture issues are, and in an hour I want a three bullet point list of what you’re going to do first what you’re going to do second what you’re going to do third And why. And to achieve that you have to use your critical thinking skills, and it’s competitive. And I have a big prize here of a… I was giving out a nice technology gizmo. And second prize was a set of steak knives.

Peter: [00:14:12] [laughs]

Karl: [00:14:12] And man. They were on it. This was a game that was competitive and they all wanted to win the little techno gizmo I had. The room got quiet and the thinking started. And boy… I had taught them I’d given them some little layers of wisdom and now they were practicing it in a game environment that was real. The Inbox exercise was real and it was language that was real. It was a situation that was real. It applied to their lives, and afterwards in evaluations they pointed to that game and said “All training should have this.” So answer to your question: gamify it, make it a game, make it competitive, get them engaged, and you’ll move the needle of learning.

Peter: [00:15:03] So we’ve been talking a gamification in training and development and education for a long time. Listening to how you just described what you did… I think we’ve been trying to make it harder than it is. I think we’ve been trying to computerize it, and I think we’ve been trying to–

Karl: [00:15:23] Yeah this was on paper.

Peter: [00:15:24] Went old school and went simple. But to your point, we don’t want complex anymore, we want simple, but we also have to make it interactive and engaging – and I’ll take this even to education right now in the high schools and junior high. We’re still teaching the same way we did in the 30s and the 40s and 50s.

Karl: [00:15:42] 1830s, 1730s.

Peter: [00:15:45] There’s very little gamification in high schools and junior high elementary school. But that’s how this new generation learns.

Karl: [00:15:57] Well let me give you… Can I give you a new and additional example that will reinforce… it will agree with what you just said.

Peter: [00:16:04] I like that then. Yes.

Karl: [00:16:06] OK. You’ll like it because it agrees with you.

Peter: [00:16:08] Exactly because it’s all about me right.

Karl: [00:16:10] Mr. Margaritis, you’re part of the problem, not the solution. We took 15 high school kids from an inner city school and taught them the principles of insurance in 45 minutes, And preparation for being adults. They had to learn what deductibles were, what premiums were, what the concept of risk transfer was, the idea that that you can join a pool and have people share the risk and if there’s a loss you’re made whole, and covered both from a commercial insurance standpoint, from an auto insurance standpoint, and from a health insurance standpoint. We had 45 minutes to do it.

Peter: [00:16:51] Wow.

Karl: [00:16:52] What we did was we gave them a pile of… each of them got $10000 of Monopoly money. They got a set of three scenarios. They were given one at a time and they could make decision. They had a range of decisions. You are a business owner and you have a convenience store and you can buy insurance for your store. You have three levels you can buy. You can choose to self-insure and take all the risk yourself. You can choose to partially insure and insure just the building but not the liability. If something bad happens. Or you can completely insure. These cost different amounts. If you want to save all your money you can self-insure and hope nothing happens. See how this works? So they all make their choices and then we have – you’ve Seen those carnival wheels? You spin them like a barker wheel.

Peter: [00:17:48] Yeah.

Karl: [00:17:48] Like Wheel of Fortune.

Peter: [00:17:49] Yeah.

Karl: [00:17:49] Well I have one. And so then when everybody is committed to their risk decision.

Peter: [00:17:57] Uh huh.

Karl: [00:17:57] We would spin what we call the wheel of misfortune, and half the time nothing happened. And half the time bad things happened. And if you chose to self-insure and a bad thing happened, you were bankrupt and you could no longer play the game. You were out. And if you made a proper level of insurance then you were made a hole and you kept your money. You didn’t get your premium back but your losses were covered. So we did that for commercial insurance, We did that for your homeowners and we did that for health care. You know we spun it oh you got a broken leg. At the end of the three spins, whoever had the most money – who had made the good risk decisions and fortune had smiled – The people with the most money were first in line for the pizza.

Peter: [00:18:51] Ahhhhh.

Karl: [00:18:52] Man. Now again, All I had was a carnival wheel and some sheets of paper.

Peter: [00:18:58] Simple is better. I think we have tried to make it a lot harder than it should have been because I remember five or six years ago, at the see AICPA level, they put together a task force on learning and they were going to do gamification. And it was this high tech… they were looking at computerization and and it never went anywhere because I do I think they make it harder than it really should be. They were way too complex.

Karl: [00:19:30] By the way, if any of — if either of your listeners.

Peter: [00:19:34] My mother and…

Karl: [00:19:36] Right, Me. Would like to see a short video clip that I shot of the insurance training exercise, I shot a video clip. I can email it to you and you put it up on your website.

Peter: [00:19:51] Please do that. I’ll put it in show notes. I’ll put a link to it in the show notes and I think people would like would like to see that.

Karl: [00:19:59] I mean it’s just me on a smartphone.

Peter: [00:20:02] But but you do wonders on a smartphone. So don’t sell yourself short on your smartphone.

Karl: [00:20:07] Hey, I’m an artist. Don’t you forget.

Peter: [00:20:09] Yes and we will talk about your book when we close our our our interview. But you also mentioned something in this conversation about ethics.

Karl: [00:20:19] Oh yeah.

Peter: [00:20:19] Have you gamified ethics?

Karl: [00:20:22] That’s next. I was thinking of that yesterday. I did an eight hour ethics in industry class, and I gamified it in the sense that we did some case studies where I threw out here’s the situation and threw it open to the class for how do we solve this. It triggered a good facilitated discussion. I want to take it to the next level and actually do like the wheel of misfortune. The concept where we could have a case where people make an ethical decision and then we spin to see what additional offense happened to complicate the ethical decision because a big thing with ethics is it’s never simple. There’s always a lot of layers in it where it’s not just that you have an idea that somebody is embezzling. It’s that the person who you’re concerned who’s doing the double billing is the nephew of the owner that you report. So that changes the game or that the… you know you think bribes are being made but you’re selling into a nation where the ethical standards of bribery are different. Do you want to get your shipping container delivered in Haiti? Because if you’re doing it through American standards it’s not going to happen. See what I’m saying? Ethics are so complex. I’ve been trying to figure out how to gamify it and I haven’t figured it out yet.

Peter: [00:22:02] I think you’re on to something. My question is can you take real world events – like Wells Fargo, like insider trading – and take those real life case studies and use that as the basis and gamify it.

Karl: [00:22:21] I think so. And also realize that with many ethical situations what you’ve got is a mix of somebody having a need and somebody having an opportunity and somebody not being properly trained, and maybe the gamification part of it can be that the variables of the opportunity shift. Where you know just a random chance that oh here’s a wallet and it has a thousand dollars in it. Suddenly there’s an opportunity. And then it also pops up that your child is ill and you have no money for a doctor. Does that change what you do with a wallet?

Peter: [00:23:02] Right. I used one sort of scenario that you’re the CEO of an organization and you’re senior vice president comes to you – and you know that his child is very ill – and comes to you and says I’m out of money. There’s a special treatment that they’re going to try but it’s going to cost a half a million dollars. Can the business loan it to me?

Karl: [00:23:28] And it is loan in air quotes?

Peter: [00:23:31] No. I will try to pay it back but I need a half million. But our policy states that our organization does not loan money to its employees. But I know you and I know your child and I know that you really need this help. Do I as an organization give you this money to help your child or do I stick to policy? And if I do give you this money what slippery slope does that open up? A lot of great conversations come out of that because, to your point, there’s many layers in there and that is not easy.

Karl: [00:24:09] I like this. I don’t think anybody’s got a great game of ethics and we need to do that.

Peter: [00:24:15] I think you’re right. I think that current ethics training in the accounting profession needs to be more real world, needs to be more gamified.

Karl: [00:24:23] Needs to be more entertaining and engaging.

Peter: [00:24:27] Exactly. I will give you a quote that was recently given to me. I was getting ready to do ethics program for an accounting firm. I went to the partner and explained that you know you’ve got me here for four hours however, in CPE time, it’s really three and a half. Now I can stay the whole four. But you tell me what you want me to do. Because I’ll make sure that you get your 200 minutes here. And his quote to me was I think my people are more concerned about the hours than the ethics.

Karl: [00:25:01] Wow. He was being transparent.

Peter: [00:25:04] He was. Hopefully I didn’t have that oh crap look at my face and the look of shock at the time, and I just kind of went I better get ready to start the class.

Karl: [00:25:17] Amazing.

Peter: [00:25:17] I didn’t know what…. exactly.

Karl: [00:25:21] I had something really cool happened with my 8 hour class on ethics yesterday. It was a room full of grizzled veterans who were just there to do their expense reports while I was in the front of the room. And I called them out on that. But there was a woman who had just been certified as a CPA. She passed passed the exam. This was her first ethics training class.

Peter: [00:25:50] Okay.

Karl: [00:25:50] That added a new dimension where everybody wanted to… you know it was like oh OK we’ve got we’ve got a newbie in our midst. What should we tell her? And that was fascinating. That was an interesting part of the exercise.

Peter: [00:26:06] What did they tell her?

Karl: [00:26:08] It was interesting. It started slow but the punchline to what they told her was that these were the most important classes she would ever take. That the real core of the profession was the fact that we as a profession are the flag holders – the foundation business people for ethics. We are the standard bearers for ethics. And it was really nice to hear that coming from people in different ways.

Peter: [00:26:35] Yeah. That is good. That’s a great way to introduce someone to the profession and to the ethics side of it. Back to the point of we’ve got to make it more interesting, we’ve got to make it more engaging.

Karl: [00:26:48] What I also did was I went on to YouTube and found interviews with failed CFOs who had done prison time for crashing their company.

Peter: [00:27:00] Oh.

Karl: [00:27:01] And played those videos and then threw it open for discussion of what have we learned.

Peter: [00:27:08] That’s… so what CFOs did you find on YouTube?

Karl: [00:27:15] The guy that crashed WorldCom health source.

Peter: [00:27:19] Oh yeah yeah yeah.

Karl: [00:27:21] The guy who worked with Richard Scrushy. And the interesting thing was the story he told – it was a one hour briefing. We listened to about 30 minutes of it – Richard Scrushy, the president that got him to do it.

Peter: [00:27:32] Yeah.

Karl: [00:27:33] You know the CFO did time.

Peter: [00:27:35] Right.

Karl: [00:27:36] The CEO got off.

Peter: [00:27:40] Yeah!

Karl: [00:27:41] It was great because when people got on their Google in the class and look up the CEO’s current bio and were incensed that he had written a book and was on the speaking circuit talking about ethics and this is wrong.

Peter: [00:27:56] But never admitted to anything.

Karl: [00:27:57] Exactly.

Peter: [00:27:59] Wow. I’m going to find those. But that’s that’s another good way to do this.

Karl: [00:28:04] Also people really respond to video.

Peter: [00:28:11] Yes.

Karl: [00:28:12] Imagine if this podcast showed you in your rumpled blue shirt and the wreckage of your office strewn around you.

Peter: [00:28:20] Yes.

Karl: [00:28:21] That it would add a new layer of… You have a face for television.

Peter: [00:28:26] I know it’s for radio but thank you.

Karl: [00:28:31] Hey, can we get back to my scary things on the horizon?

Peter: [00:28:35] Yes. What’s scary out there?

Karl: [00:28:38] I want to get back to things I learned at the Human Resources conference that people ought to be at least aware of. We covered that age isn’t it. We covered that gamification is coming. We covered that personal development and performance reviews are completely shifting in how they’re being done. Another big thing that was popping up is big data. With the power of algorithms coming and the power of all of this data that we’ve been gathering, We can now start drilling into it. We’re able now to predict what happens next, Instead of tracking what happened last week. There’s new resources out there. Look for huge amounts of new opportunities to use big data to be more effective. Let me give you an example. I stumbled across a company called synd.io. You’ve got an organization. You have a theoretical grid like organization chart. You know little boxes and lines. But that’s not the real thing. You use synd.io… so everybody gets a quiz on their smartphone and it says Who are you working with? who do you talk to any given week? On this project, Who’s in the project? Who do you talk to in your organization? Who do you interact with? And you you you enter that data on this mobile app and synd.io would allow… Let’s say you’re the manager trying to figure out job assignments and what’s up and what’s not. synd.io, in three dimensions, maps the network, the actual network, of your organization. All the hidden lines, all the people that like you didn’t know that the guy in charge of the mailroom is also working on two of your more leading projects because they happen to have some technology knowledge because of their role in the mailroom, and you didn’t know that. And so the output from synd.io is you get to look at your organization – live data, real data, real time – and you can look at it like a nest of people from three dimensions and you can turn it twist it figure out oh who’s important and who isn’t. You can figure out who your key employees are.

Peter: [00:31:09] Interesting!

Karl: [00:31:10] Yeah. And it’s not a lot of money, but hey I just wanted to give you that this is an example of a big data application to meet the need of… You’ve got a 100 percent firm and you wish you can figure out who the most important people are. Well this will be a quick way to figure out who the most connected ones are and who is being ignored. Who’s hiding? A lot of times low performers like to get off under a rock and hide. This would uncover Who is hiding.

Peter: [00:31:42] I’ll assume that also would help in defining who those high performers really are.

Karl: [00:31:48] Yeah, or the most valuable.

Peter: [00:31:52] So I’m trying to get my mind wrapped around an app concept of basically mapping out my organizational chart in a way that I can look on my smartphone and be able to look at the data and make decisions from that from an organization standpoint.

Karl: [00:32:13] Yeah, go look at that one. I mean it’s just one example. It’s just a quick example of how big data could be used because I want everybody to be comfortable that big data… Good news: It’s a lot of information. Bad news: It’s a lot of information. And I think these people have done a good job of making a lot of data simple.

Peter: [00:32:36] So at the conference because I’m thinking about the timing of it had Amazon announced its desire to purchase whole foods at the time You were at the conference?

Karl: [00:32:47] Yeah.

Peter: [00:32:48] What was the scuttlebutt going on about that, or was there any scuttlebutt going on about that?

Karl: [00:32:53] People were puzzled by it. I mean people are at the point where they just kind of shrug and say OK, and if you ask – I have asked – if you ask in your circles how many people have their groceries delivered… 10 to 20 percent of my friends are saying yes, and it’s interesting. Some of the unintended outcomes from that they are reporting that their pantry is filled with healthier foods now because they’re not making impulse buys look at this. Keebler cookies are two for one. No they’re sticking to their list and they’re buying the avocados and salads… so you know it’s producing a healthier product mix.

Peter: [00:33:41] And I think, either yesterday or today, blue apron – who is one of these delivery grocery type of things – went public. But back to big data and Amazon and whole foods, one they haven’t announced what they’re going to do, which is why everybody’s buzzing around. But when I think of big data I think you know what’s Amazon’s… Will there still be brick and mortar grocery stores, However there will be less people who are working there? Maybe stocking the shelves. But when you pick up a loaf of bread or you pick something up, there’s some data attached to that to your profile and then just continually gathering your shopping habits.

Karl: [00:34:24] I mean one of my grocery clients, for instance, they they know based on their big data that, if an unaccompanied male comes into their store after noon on Friday and before midnight on Friday and they purchased diapers, there’s a high likelihood they will also purchase what?

Peter: [00:34:49] Wipes.

Karl: [00:34:51] Beer.

Peter: [00:34:51] I was going to say it but I didn’t.

Karl: [00:34:52] Yeah I’m reading your mind. He has the kids for the weekend.

Peter: [00:35:00] Ohhhh. I didn’t… OK.

Karl: [00:35:02] So therefore the grocery store, at Friday at noon, builds an end cap of what in the diaper aisle?

Peter: [00:35:11] Beer.

Karl: [00:35:13] Yes. And they strike that Friday at midnight and replace it with hand lotion because the Saturday shopper who is buying diapers is the mom.

Peter: [00:35:25] Interesting.

Karl: [00:35:26] I mean retail has been working on this for decades. But I mean as I’m going through my local grocery store there are people with the grocery store logo on their shirts pushing carts through with an iPad checking off and picking for people who are either going to pull up front grab it or it’s going to get delivered to them. This is changing our world.

Peter: [00:35:54] Very much so, and in so many different ways. As someone once said, be careful what you Google because you will get those ads a lot. So if you’re out on Amazon and you surfing for diapers…

Karl: [00:36:10] Yeah I needed a specific computer part about a month ago and googled that are just to see where I can buy it. It’s been haunting me ever since. The one thing that all people need to be doing is listen to their high performing employees. I keep getting this from all of my clients. I keep getting this from all of my friends who are high performers who are frustrated. Right now, high performers can get a job in two weeks and not have to update their resume because of LinkedIn. It’s interesting that the management style of high performers has been incorrect in the last four or five years, where supervisors and managers have been misinterpreting their role and have been spending their time with the low performers trying to get them upskilled, and have been leaving high performers alone. They have been letting them… they’ve not been wanting to micromanage them they say. They’re doing fine. Let’s just give them room. Well they’re forgetting that high performers have a real hunger for a good relationship with their boss. And if you want to take one thing away from an HR thing, and this was kind of an HR talk today, and the one thing that people need to do this year to overcome all of the storm clouds on the horizon – what you have to do is keep your good people, and the one silver bullet thing you can do right now to keep good people is to appear to listen to them. To know they are, to if an a cat person or a dog person or a Chevy person or a foreign person, and know what their goals are and if they want to become a programmer and you can help them with that. Without that relationship, in the next year and you’re going to lose your good people. So there’s an excellent book out there, Susan Kane wrote it, called Quiet, and it focuses on the introverted leadership style and the power of listening. I’m an extrovert. I hate listening. That’s why I’m so focused on this.

Peter: [00:38:23] I know you I’ve known you for a while so I would say I don’t think that you hate listening. I think I always thought that you’re a good listener.

Karl: [00:38:30] No no no. I have learned to appear to listen.

Peter: [00:38:33] Oh ok.

Karl: [00:38:34] I have two modes. Im either talking or I’m waiting for you to stop. Did you notice at the start of this podcast I did like an uninterrupted 15 minute monologue where I barely breathe.

Peter: [00:38:43] I know I did see that.

Karl: [00:38:45] Then I was like Wait a minute hold it peters out there.

Peter: [00:38:46] That’s the extroverted style. But we all need to be better listeners. It’s a skill that needs to be redeveloped again.

Karl: [00:39:00] In general we need to be better communicators, and communication is to never be too good.

Peter: [00:39:05] Well as I like to say, they call it a soft skill but it’s awful hard to master.

Karl: [00:39:10] Ha ha ha.

Peter: [00:39:14] So pay attention to your high performers. From an HR perspective, answer this question for me: if we’re supposed to be paying attention to our high performers but we are paying more attention to low performers, those low performers should be out the door, Correct?

Karl: [00:39:28] Or at least in a better seat on the train.

Peter: [00:39:32] Like in the back of the train or.

Karl: [00:39:34] Well or a job that fits them.

Peter: [00:39:36] Because they might not be in the right job.

Karl: [00:39:38] Or they’re not a fit for their job.

Peter: [00:39:42] For the job they need to be doing something else. But, from an HR perspective, why do we hire fast and fire slow when it should be the other way around?

Karl: [00:39:50] Because we aren’t trained well in hiring, because we aren’t comfortable with it. We just want to get the warm body in there so we can get back to our real job. Most organizations don’t have somebody dedicated to hiring. It’s managers stepping in to do it and they’re not trained to do it. They don’t like to do it. They want to get back to the real job.

Peter: [00:40:13] And they’re just not good at it. Well some are really good at it but most people are uncomfortable having to let somebody go.

Karl: [00:40:24] The failure rate of hiring… you can set aside all the fancy interviewing and just do a coin flip and be statistically better.

Peter: [00:40:33] [laughs] And that’s coming from a human resource professional.

Karl: [00:40:38] Hey, next time you get somebody stand you up and you want to podcast, let’s talk about hiring.

Peter: [00:40:42] OK.

Karl: [00:40:44] I’m in.

Peter: [00:40:44] I will have you back in a heartbeat because that would be a fun conversation on just hiring.

Karl: [00:40:51] Oh there’s a whole lot of things going on in that.

Peter: [00:40:53] Yes. I want just tell tell people what you did. I’ve got a copy of it. Thank you so very much.

Karl: [00:41:00] It’s rare.

Peter: [00:41:02] It is. It really is rare. I love it. My wife is going that’s Karl? I’ve never met him but… Karl? I’m like yeah. And that picture that you took when I was in Indy, with the reflection. She goes he’s… she can’t figure out which is fun to watch.

Karl: [00:41:23] It’s the therapy talking. Let me jump to the punch line and work backwards from there. A class project of publishing and literature senior class at Ball State University hand produced a beautiful art book, a coffee table book, of photographs and poetry themed on the loneliness of business travel. Not the pictures of the destination but pictures of being in transit because, as a business consultant, I’m spending time in airports and shuttle buses and hotel lobbies and hotel rooms. And so you know we’re all observant of the world around us. And I have always had a camera. And so I gave myself the assignment to document the world of business travel and, as this book shows, the title of the book is called Spaces Between Places. Business travel is lonely. There’s crowds of people all traveling alone. And the message is that you know in all of this dehumanizing environment of shuttle buses and hotel rooms and hotel lobbies and airport lobbies that we all really fight to stay human. And it’s 100 pictures. It’s about 20 haiku. For those of you, haiku is a non rhyming form of Japanese poetry with the structure of a five syllable seven syllables five syllables. Here’s the most recent one that I wrote: anxious upgrade line \ All are platinum status \ So nobody is.

Peter: [00:43:08] Hahaha.

Karl: [00:43:09] That’s brilliant! It’ll get published in more accessible form, but at the moment the class only made 60 copies. One was given to Mr. Margaritis. But everybody who has loved it. So I’m going to try and build a more accessible version of it and get it out there. The Web site will be spacesbetweenplaces.net and I’ll let you know. So that was that.

Peter: [00:43:35] And they hang around this.

Karl: [00:43:37] Oh it’s handmade. The one you have is a handmade book.

Peter: [00:43:40] It is very very impressive. And you’ve been sent in haikus out to a group of us forever.

Karl: [00:43:47] I’m here to entertain.

Peter: [00:43:48] Well you’re entertaining me and, actually, over the last few days you’ve been entertaining Pam Devine as well because she’s been to get a kick out of some of the stuff that you’ve been texting Jennifer and I.

Karl: [00:43:58] I can’t make stuff up. I mean last night flying out of Minneapolis. I was 56th on the upgrade line for first class and they had 12 seats.You just can’t make this stuff.

Peter: [00:44:11] No you just can’t.

Karl: [00:44:14] Back in steerage, I made my own first class.

Peter: [00:44:19] Well you’ve inspired me to do more with my iPhone when I travel, and a lot of different photographs that I’m beginning to take because you’ve inspired that creativity. So I thank you very much. And I know you’ve got to go. I Thank you for taking time out of your busy day.

Karl: [00:44:34] I would love for both of our listeners. Thank you for joining today. And I look forward to returning with more observations from the front.

Peter: [00:44:45] Exactly and the next time it’s going to be hiring. So thank you very much Karl. Greatly appreciate it. And we will be talking so.

Karl: [00:44:54] Great. Bye everybody.

Peter: [00:44:58] I would like to thank Karl again for being a guest today and sharing his visionary outlook on the workplace and providing us with valuable information to help us manage this uncertainty. I’d like to talk about Listen, Learn, and Earn. I have partnered with the Maryland Association of CPAs and the Business Learning Institute to bring an exciting new learning opportunity for accounting professionals to earn CPE credits. You can earn up to one CPE credit for each completed podcast episode purchased for only $29 through the American Association of CPAs and the Business Learning Institute self-study website. The podcast episodes are mobile friendly. Open your browser on your smartphone, tablet, or computer, Go to the MACPA and BLI self-study account, and listen to an episode. Take the review and final exam while you’re working out or after listening to an episode on your commute to and from work – It’s that easy! While all Improv is no Joke podcasts are available on my website, only those purchased through the MACPA and BLI self-study Web site are eligible for CPE credit. You can get detailed instructions by visiting my website at www.PeterMargaritis.com and clicking on the graphic “Improv is no Joke for CPE credit” on my home page. Remember you can subscribe to my podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, and Google Play. If you’d like to purchase an autographed copy of my book Improv is no Joke: Using Improvisation to Create Positive Results in Leadership and Life, for $14.99 with free shipping, please go to my website, PeterMargaritis.com, and you’ll see the graphic on the homepage to purchase my book. Please allow 14 days for shipping. You can also follow me on social media. You can find me on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or Instagram. Remember to use the principles of improvisation to help you better connect and communicate with those in your organization.

Allison: [00:00:00] It needs to be a requirement that every person they take an improv class at some point in their life… because it’s not to prepare you to be on stage. It is to prepare you to not fear life… period.

[music]

Peter: [00:00:20] Welcome to improv is no joke podcast. It’s all about becoming a more effective communicator by embracing the principles of improvisation. I’m your host Peter Margarita’s the self-proclaimed chief edutainment officer of my business the accidental account. My goal is to provide you with thought provoking interviews with business leaders so you can become an effective improviser which will lead to building stronger relationships with clients customers colleagues and even your family. So let’s start to show.

[music]

Peter: [00:00:55] Welcome to episode number 58 and today My guest is Allison Estep, who’s a former creative services associate for the Indiana society CPA and a graduate of the conservatory program at the Second City in Chicago. Our conversation focuses on the everyday application of improvisation skills to help us combat fear, take risks, and become a more well-rounded person. I believe an interesting part in our conversation is when Allison states improv should be part of our current day educational system. She makes some very valid points to the statement and I know you’ll enjoy this interview. Before we get to the interview, I’d like to talk about Listen, learn, and learn. I have partnered with the Maryland Association of CPAs and the Business Learning Institute to bring an exciting new learning opportunity for accounting professionals to earn CPE credits. You can earn up to one CPE credit for each completed podcast episode purchased for only $29 through the American Association of CPAs and the Business Learning Institute self-study website. The podcast episodes are mobile friendly. Open your browser on your smartphone, tablet, or computer, Go to the MACPA and BLI self-study account, and listen to an episode. Take the review and final exam while you’re working out or after listening to an episode on your commute to and from work – It’s that easy! While all Improv is no Joke podcasts are available on my website, only those purchased through the MACPA and BLI self-study Web site are eligible for CPE credit. You can get detailed instructions by visiting my website at www.PeterMargaritis.com and clicking on the graphic “Improv is no Joke for CPE credit” on my home page. I hope you enjoy this exciting and flexible new way of earning CPE credit. OK now let’s get to the interview with Alison Estep.

[music]

Peter: [00:03:02] Welcome to episode 58. Today my guest is Allison Estep, who is the former creative services associate for the Indiana society CPA. But better yet, Allison was one of those very creative types and I’m in envy and awe of her because she got to spend three years studying improv at Second City and did another year of studying improv at an Improv Olympics, or otherwise known as IO, and for my audience I’m very good at improvisation but I may have met my match today because I’m dealing with a pro. So first and foremost Allison– Oh and by the way Allison speaking to us today from a pretty shabby location. She said she can look out her window and see the Rock of Gibraltar and that’s not a bar.

Allison: [00:03:52] I can pretty much touch it. [laughs]

Peter: [00:03:54] You can pretty much the Rock of Gibraltar. She is in Spain as we speak. Oh thank you for taking time out of your very busy day to spend with me on my podcast.

Allison: [00:04:09] Well of course. Anything I can do.

Peter: [00:04:11] Oh this is going to be so much fun. We may have to edit out laughter which has never been done before.

Allison: [00:04:18] Ohhh.. OK well we’ll get there.

Peter: [00:04:22] The two of us doing this… There’ll be a tremendous amount of laughs. But give the audience a little bit more about who Alison is and some of your experiences and your background.

Allison: [00:04:35] Where do we start? So I’m from Indiana originally and I started doing improv off and on and I would drive up to Chicago on a Sunday morning, take a class, and drive back that night to make it to work. I kind of got obsessed with it after my first class and the boyfriend at the time we actually ended up moving to New York to pursue it because he was like I’m not going to do this one day driving anywhere with you. And I was like well we’ve got to move That’s what I’ve been trying to do. So you know we did that. Longer story short I ended up in Chicago by myself in 2010 and I immediately started taking classes, went about three years with the program, and just had an absolute blast. And it’s it’s one of those things that it becomes so much part of your life that you get a little bit of separation anxiety when you’re kind of removed from it. Like when I moved back to Indiana in 2016, it was total… not complete culture shock because there is a smaller scene in Indiana. But my God do I miss it. There’s nothing like doing improv on stage in front of people and having it kill. I mean you can’t understand how like your soul lights up with that laughter. You know like you know we’re talking about you’ve done it… like it’s it just it’s amazing! It’s such a high it’s crazy.

Peter: [00:06:08] It’s my heroine, actually. When I can when I can do that and have the improv skills all come into line and have have the audience just laughing hysterically… there is nothing better.

Allison: [00:06:20] Oh yeah. When you’re vibing with a crowd it’s out of control. I did this one bit one time when I was a lounge singer, and I was out there most of the time by myself because that was that was the sketch that I had pre-written, and some of the riffs were just with audience members, and you know you’re out there by yourself- it is scary.

Peter: [00:06:41] Yes.

Allison: [00:06:42] But the second I say the first syllable, I’m out. I’m done. The fear has left to me and I’m ready to roll. I told you I’m going to go off the rails – you’ve got to get a reel me in or I’ll just keep talking. Or you’ll never get a word in.

Peter: [00:06:56] That’s OK. But tell me… I mean when you’re in Second City and you’re there for three years and I know they’ve got a curriculum outlined and the courses that you can take and they’re over I think like eight weeks… you fell in love with this. But what was it about the curriculum that just really inspired you?

Allison: [00:07:18] Well so I went through the entire program and you have to audition to get past a certain level. And I made it all the way through the conservatory and graduated the program, so to speak. The very first class… for me at least, by the end of it, it was something that I felt every person – it needs to be a requirement that they take an improv class at some point in their life because it’s not to prepare you to be onstage. It is to prepare you to not fear life period – to just not be afraid. I mean you know exactly right?

Peter: [00:07:59] You’ve said it right there. I mean you just summarize it all right there. That’s wonderful how you how you put that.

Allison: [00:08:07] And that’s that’s exactly how I felt from day one. And so I was like well I’m now going to be a disciple and prophet of this because it’s out of control. Everyone needs to go through that because I know so many introverted people that– So I know some shy people.

Peter: [00:08:38] Yes.

Allison: [00:08:39] That would really benefit from this. When I say I’m going on stage and it doesn’t scare me at all and some of them say that’s their worst nightmare… you know you should not feel that way and you should be able to. And I know that’s an inherent difference in people but we all have to talk in front of other people at some point for any reason – a number of reasons. And it really takes the fear out of that. And I used to be terrified – like I had a speech class in high school and I was absolutely terrified… my teacher told me to put my hair back because I would sit and play with my hair the entire time I was talking because my nerves were just running wild. If I would have had a class earlier in my life, I think it would have set me up a little bit… I would have succeeded in a few other areas possibly. Like you know mean? See I told you I’m just gonna ramble.

Peter: [00:09:35] No it’s fine.

Allison: [00:09:35] Especially when I get on a subject I’m passionate about I just go.

Peter: [00:09:40] Well you’re validating a lot of things that I’ve been saying for a long time. And the thing about the fear – it does help you get past that fear. And I used to be a very shy person and when I tell people that they just kind of laugh like I never.

Allison: [00:09:57] Yeah. But you would never know that.

Peter: [00:09:58] You never know that. But it took a lot but and I started getting that shyness. But what it really honed in is when I started doing improv, and you’re right. It takes that fear away, and you know people say standing in front of People’s their worst nightmare. I have two worst nightmares: One is the crazy guy in North Korea hitting a button we’re going to a nuclear war.

Allison: [00:10:21] Oh god. No kidding. Yeah that’s that’s a good one.

Peter: [00:10:25] And my other worst nightmare is the client’s check does not clear.

Allison: [00:10:30] Oh no [laughs]

Peter: [00:10:31] Those are my two.

Allison: [00:10:32] [laughs] Those are a lot of those are legit.

Peter: [00:10:35] Those are legit fears – those are worst nightmares. I’m not getting paid. You know the check bounces.

Allison: [00:10:42] Mhm.

Peter: [00:10:43] So you obviously discovered this early on and I forgot because we met, and just so the audience knows: I just met Alison about maybe three, four weeks ago.

Allison: [00:10:56] Yeah. I think like right at like three. Yeah.

Peter: [00:10:59] When I was at Indiana society of CPAs speaking, a good friend of mine – and Karl if you’re listening, you’re the man – introduced me to Allison. He just happened to be at the Indiana society that day. He was actually coming to give me a couple of pictures that he took that he thought I would like. And then I guess he struck up a conversation with you Allison and you mentioned something about improv and then on my break he said you got to meet this woman.

Allison: [00:11:24] [laughs]

Peter: [00:11:24] And it just just it just– I know my wife will be listen to this but after we sat down and talked, it was love at first improv.

Allison: [00:11:35] [laughs] Well and the reason I met Karl is because he overheard me talking to Stacy about that I was moving. And then you know we kept talking and he was like oh I’ve got to get the book after you know we kept talking and I realized who he was and I was like Carl! No! I’ve been stalking you.

Peter: [00:11:53] [laughs]

Allison: [00:11:53] You’re the member that takes all these amazing photographs, because Kara had some of them framed on her wall. And They were beautiful. So I had been trying to figure out who he was. It was very serendipitous that whole day.

Peter: [00:12:07] It was.

Allison: [00:12:08] Yeah it was very strange, in a beautiful beautiful way.

Peter: [00:12:12] So thinking back at your time at Second City, is there a point in time that you would say, whatever you were doing, That was the pinnacle. That was at the top of the mountain. It couldn’t get any better than that day or that evening when you were studying improv.

Allison: [00:12:30] It was a show case, our graduation showcase, and it was when I was doing that cabaret scene and I mentioned earlier.

Peter: [00:12:37] Right.

Allison: [00:12:37] Because that was kind of my own thing. And that’s… I just need to write myself a one-woman show because that’s kind of… that was a taste of where the pinnacle would be for me. You know I haven’t reached that pinnacle. My pinnacle at that time though would be probably… well my sketch group and I were in sketchfest and that was pretty big. But there were a few times just when just doing improv on stage in class shows that were kind of the height of happiness.

Peter: [00:13:16] So let’s talk about this one One woman show that you had mentioned, and just so my audience gets a feel of it… in writing a one woman show, it’s just not Alison just sitting there by herself and writing. It’s a collaborative effort between a lot of individuals that know you and your writing style and helping you build that one woman show, and then also getting feedback for an audience. It’s not you in a vacuum.

Allison: [00:13:44] No no no no no. That’s kind of workshopping. Well just two things. So my boyfriend and I… he actually is very good at helping me with character work because we’ll just start and offhanded comment you know and then just run with it. And now there’s a palm tree named Allen outside of the front of this hotel that we have a whole backstory for. Like there’s just silly rambling things that start something and you develop a character out of it. And that’s kind of how improv starts you get a suggestion – you get one little nook, you know one little tidbit of something, and it flourishes because the actors just go with it. They just run with it.

Peter: [00:14:24] And how do they do that? What’s the magic words that they use to get that to happen?

Allison: [00:14:30] Oh it can be bumpy. So sometimes it’s not just magic out of the gate. Like let’s not sugarcoat it. I have sat through many many an improv set Not laughing through The whole thing, by any stretch. I don’t want to say it’s fully saturated, but Chicago is very rich with the improv scene. And so they’re all walks, and I do fully believe that every person should take an improv improv course throughout their life. I don’t think every person is an improviser… you know those are very different things. It is very hard. It is very hard, and if you’re having an off day It can be crippling completely.

Peter: [00:15:12] So everybody’s taking Improv course but not everybody is an improvised, so that what I hear there is, with improv and this character development and this you know let’s run with it. It’s all around two words. Yes, And. It’s not negating. It’s positive. We’re moving things forward. So I see that, but I think those who might not be good improvisers are those who are thinking more about they’re trying to be funny, and they’re not listening and they have an agenda that they’re trying to push and it just doesn’t mesh, and that’s when it becomes you know cringey… when we don’t have cohesiveness of the team and somebody is just trying to be the center– the person wants to be a stand up comedian. But there’s no there’s no stand up in improvisation.

Allison: [00:16:05] No, there really isn’t.

Peter: [00:16:07] They’re two separate beasts.

Allison: [00:16:11] Yeah they are. They are completely you know separate animals there. You’re not out there for yourself by yourselves. You are very much with a team and everybody on that stage wants you to succeed. You know everybody off that stage wants you to succeed. Nobody really… I don’t think people typically like to feel embarrassed for other people. You know I think that’s where it gets cringey. Yeah nobody really wants to feel that, and with improv it’s all unknown. That’s why it’s such a scary thing for people that have never been through a class maybe, or don’t know everything about it, but it’s a little less scary for the people on stage once you realize everything you have to say is not a joke. It does not have to be funny. Sometimes the most mundane things can be the funniest.

Peter: [00:17:04] I’ve had people laugh when I’m doing improv just on the word “OK.

Allison: [00:17:09] Exactly. Because being the straight man sometimes is the funniest part.

Peter: [00:17:14] Right.

Allison: [00:17:15] You know, some of my throwaway lines… we did an improv. It was it was a Christmas special. God that was a riot. Actually that could have been one of my… See I have so many good memories. I don’t know, but it was really good and I was Mrs. Claus and I just said a throw away you know kind of line and this lady just lost it. You know when I was like oh my god… I kind of muttered it even. And she lost it.

Peter: [00:17:44] Because you know when I think about that.. Did you see Don’t Think Twice?

Allison: [00:17:50] I have not seen that. No I’m so excited, with Mike Birbiglia. I have not seen that yet.

Peter: [00:17:55] It stars Keegan-Michael Key. It’s a story about improv, an improv group, and there’s a couple of scenes in there where the main character, Keegan, starts to take over because he wants to turn it into him versus the group because he wants to go on SNL.

Allison: [00:18:14] Oh sure.

Peter: [00:18:14] Yeah and you could… And they did a great job with this because you can see the body language and see the other improvisers just kind of going oh here he goes again. It’s not about the team, it’s about me. He did a great interview with Stephen Colbert about the movie and he talks about the Yes, And, and improv, and he goes is the exact opposite of showbusiness because show business it’s all about me baby and in improv It’s about the group.

Allison: [00:18:44] Yeah. I’ve never– Yeah have never thought about it. It is the exact opposite of showbiz. But there are people who are trying to be in show business. And so that’s the thin line that you walk. Because to be kind of a stand out in an improv world… like the ones that are currently on SNL that I have seen… they were so good at listening to each other – the give and take – that that’s actually what made them stand out. Knowing how to walk that brilliant line between hilarity and timing and listening to your partner and you know like mining your inner gold from what they are saying. Those are people that really shine. Like Aidy Bryant. Oh my God. She was a riot to Watch, but she never stepped on anybody’s toes.

Peter: [00:19:35] Right.

Allison: [00:19:36] And even if you do, you know you back it up or you know you figure it out, but it really is such a collaborative piece. And when somebody tries to do that, like his character, it doesn’t go unnoticed by anyone.

Peter: [00:19:49] Right.

Allison: [00:19:50] And it doesn’t look great.

Peter: [00:19:52] It’s very obvious.

Allison: [00:19:54] Yeah! it’s so obvious… like you go off and do that. Exactly.

Peter: [00:19:58] So so I want the audience understand, when we talk about Second City and improv, they think you know if I go see a show it’s all improvisation, but it’s a lot more of sketch comedy with some improv built into it. But how they come up with these sketch comedies… it’s through audience feedback because I believe, if I’m correct, after – you know say the shows like Two acts or two sessions – they’ll have a third session and the actors will come out and just start improvising a scene and something that they’re working on, and those who stick around will give them feedback. So the co-creating with that audience… is that true?

Allison: [00:20:37] They don’t exactly give feedback, but it’s kind of based on what laughter – I mean feedback that way. They don’t actually say audience participation on that front. But yeah after they finish the show, it’s the third act and that’s where we used to go after class. Every Tuesday night, My buddy Adam and I would go and watch the third act and it was… God. There’s just… yeah there’s definitely some comedy gold on there.

Peter: [00:21:05] Hahaha.

Allison: [00:21:06] But that’s how they do. So they’ll finish their sketch show and then a third act is where they do improv and they will ask for suggestions or they’ll ask some standard improv questions and just go, and then the bits that really nail and like resonate well then they’ll try to grow sketches for the next show out of that. And that’s kind of how the writing starts over there.

Peter: [00:21:30] OK so let’s take all of that and… we talked about the fear. It helps you get past the fear. But what skills from improv were you able to bring into the business world in your role at the Indiana society of CPAs?

Allison: [00:21:46] You know it’s funny because people do tend to live, often – Not everyone – supremely fear based it is theory. It’s absolutely night and day from before I went to Second City and to after, if I was to even to give a presentation, if I was to you know give out a couple of ideas on a project, but my confidence level, in that aspect, is 110 percent better. I used to have a very hard time, If I had a design concept, being able to sell it. It is not that hard anymore. You know I’m far more confident in my abilities… it’s not because I’m such a better designer, it’s because I’ve done training. You know I’m still a good designer, Yes, but it’s not like I haven’t taken more classes along that line. It’s been classes on working with people. Basically.

Peter: [00:22:43] It’s that collaboration piece.

Allison: [00:22:45] It is and it’s not being afraid of what they’re going to say to you.

Peter: [00:22:50] In the corporate world, there’s this thing that kind of gets in the way of collaboration and creativity. It’s called ego.

Allison: [00:22:59] Mhm.

Peter: [00:22:59] And I think that’s probably my biggest challenge in dealing with the corporate world… I’m coming in in this collaborative team base. Give me all your ideas. I don’t care for bad ideas will make something out of it. We’ll make something out of nothing. But then the ego gets in there, the show business gets in there, because it’s all about me, and if they’re not able to control the meeting or control the idea… it seems to get squashed. And it’s just I think that’s the frustrating part of it.

Allison: [00:23:31] That is extremely frustrating. I do think it helps to be able to handle that person a little bit better. You’re always going to win when you’ve got somebody like that in the room you know but there’s a lot of egos when you’re on stage and you have to work with those people because… just is I’m saying, they teach you to listen to the other person. That doesn’t mean everyone follows those rules ever. At all. And so just like you know in a boardroom or whatever you’re going to have to deal with that person fighting for control. But it helps you…. I don’t want to say manage expectations.

Peter: [00:24:14] Maybe it maybe it might be just helping to manage the egos in the room.

Allison: [00:24:18] Yeah.

Peter: [00:24:19] Because everyone has an ego and some are stronger than others. And I look back and I think OK. I used to love watching whose line is it anyway. And then I look at I look at the four actors up there and they all get huge egos. But some way they’re able to park the agenda, put it aside for a bit, and become collaborative. Because they all want to be the one to say the funny thing that gets the crowd roaring, but somebody at some point time may have to be the And person that helped set up the other person for the laugh. I think that’s what’s helped me is you know recognizing what I’m what I’m working with. I guess I was the first one is figuring out how I can help manage that in order to achieve that goal. I don’t think I could’ve gotten there that quickly without some improvisation training.

Allison: [00:25:13] Oh yeah absolutely. Yes that’s a very strong point.

Peter: [00:25:17] I try to get to Chicago, if I can and it fits into my schedule, for three days a year to attend like a weekend immersion or something and go.

Allison: [00:25:26] Yes.

Peter: [00:25:27] And last year I got to do it twice, and one was a three day and one was a one day – they did improv for business. And I tell you every time I leave I’m just I’m outside of my body. I am just so giddy because it just…. it’s just like it’s my heroin. I just get such such a wonderful high. And let’s talk about some of some of the exercises they do because the ones that I remember from last year… do you know the human knot?

Allison: [00:25:59] I think I do. Go through it because I think I’m just remembering it called something different.

Peter: [00:26:04] Yeah you get six or seven people and you create a circle and you put your arms out and you grab the person’s arm so you kind of tangled up and you try to get them to get untangled out of this group of people. And you can’t let go and you violate The other person and yours personal space. But it’s a great way of really learning how to work together as a group to figure out a problem. And I will say we did not completely get untangled, and it took us about seven minutes, and it was probably the most interesting and uncomfortable time because… I mean you get males and females in this and you’re getting real close. But after it’s all said and done you’ve solved the problem. And as a team. That was one of the first games that we play that just resonated with me, and I think it’s a wonderful team building game. It just needs to be in the right atmosphere in order to really execute to it.

Allison: [00:27:20] [laughs] Right. With the right people in the right set up because that can get supremely uncomfortable.

Peter: [00:27:28] Yes yes it can. A few times it did. And so you know that was one that always resonated with me, but I think the thing about improv that has always stuck with me, and I’m getting better at it over the years, and it’s that whole thing about listening.

Allison: [00:27:49] Mhm.

Peter: [00:27:49] And it’s about listening to understand, not listening to respond, and and some of the games like I remember we would play a game like one word at a time, and last word spoken. Remember those?

Allison: [00:28:04] Mhm mhm.

Peter: [00:28:04] You want to have a little fun with one word at a time?

Allison: [00:28:08] Yeah! Let me say one thing about the knot real quick: That’s one of those ones that I wish they would have done sooner because I get very touchy feely. So if I’m excited on stage, say maybe I need to touch someone or I’m playing their girlfriend or you know something is happening.

Peter: [00:28:27] Right.

Allison: [00:28:27] It gets you comfortable with the people physically, and sometimes not everybody’s on that same page with me. And so it’s yeah it’s one of those things that it kind of breaks down those barriers first. That’s all.

Peter: [00:28:43] No. That’s a very good point. And I actually I didn’t think about it that way but it does. It helps break down some of those barriers if we’re going to be working in a close environment. And it also helps you get to know the other people in the group a little bit better and we can also… And usually what happens is someone in that group, we don’t know who it is, someone is going to start taking the lead.

Allison: [00:29:07] Yeah.

Peter: [00:29:08] So someone takes the lead role to help untangle. But you know there’s the thing about a team with the team we’ve got a leader, but another thing that I saw in that is someone will take the lead and then we’ll get to a point that we can’t solve… then somebody has the idea and they take the lead. So we transition from a team to an ensemble working together where everybody has a role, just at different points, in this leadership piece, in order to try to get completely untangled.

Allison: [00:29:37] Yeah yeah. And it’s a pretty cool game.

Peter: [00:29:41] Yeah it is.

Allison: [00:29:42] And just to watch.

Peter: [00:29:44] And you’re right. I think that’s one of the first things… because I think when I took the class five years earlier I don’t think we did…. I’m not sure if we even did that one.

Allison: [00:29:55] I feel like I didn’t… that might have been at IO that I finally did that because I don’t remember it being until much later, and I just I remember… in some of the first few you’d be thrown in different people in different classes all the time. And sometimes people are just not that comfortable with you touching them and I’m like hey look I’m a toucher.

Peter: [00:30:18] [laughs].

Allison: [00:30:18] We’re going to have to deal with this. So if we’re going to be in a scene, I need you to know that about me. And so it’s better making people comfortable when you forc them into that situations… it sounds weird to say that. But it’s a good game! Yeah.

Peter: [00:30:35] And we did it… Stephanie Anderson was the one who was leading us. And you know you’re there with seven or six other people that you don’t even know – you just met.

Allison: [00:30:46] Right.

Peter: [00:30:47] And you go OK this is… But you know you could see there was like two groups in the room and you can see the uncomfortableness at the very beginning… but it was amazing how quickly it went to solve this problem, let’s get comfort with one another, and let’s just let’s just do it.

Allison: [00:31:05] You’ve got to let that melt away so you can get the job done.

Peter: [00:31:08] Bingo. And that does translate into a lot of what we need to do at work and working with teams and stuff.

Allison: [00:31:19] Right.

Peter: [00:31:19] But talking about the listening piece, you want to play a little game of one word at a time?

Allison: [00:31:27] Okay. Sure I’ll do it.

Peter: [00:31:28] What we’re trying to do here is create a cohesive sentence. Sometimes it works sometimes it doesn’t. And we do it at one word at a time, and I still remember my teacher saying “Don’t think – just react. Don’t think just react. So I will let you start. Ladies first.

Allison: [00:31:51] No way! You start. I insist.

Peter: [00:31:55] Oh you insist. I.

Allison: [00:32:00] Went.

Peter: [00:32:01] To.

Allison: [00:32:02] The.

Peter: [00:32:03] Theater.

Allison: [00:32:04] This morning– Oh! Sorry. Already ruined it. Out of the game.

Peter: [00:32:10] Let me go to Google and see if this morning is one word. [laughs.

Allison: [00:32:14] I believe so. Dialect.

Peter: [00:32:17] Yeah there’s a hyphen in there somewhere.

Allison: [00:32:19] [laughs] This

Peter: [00:32:28] Morning.

Allison: [00:32:28] [laughs] that.

Peter: [00:32:31] I.

Allison: [00:32:31] Flew.

Peter: [00:32:32] To.

Allison: [00:32:34] Gibraltar (low hanging fruit).

Peter: [00:32:38] So.

Allison: [00:32:39] You.

Peter: [00:32:40] Can.

Allison: [00:32:41] See.

Peter: [00:32:42] The.

Allison: [00:32:44] Horizon.

Peter: [00:32:46] From.

Allison: [00:32:47] My.

Peter: [00:32:48] Room. Period!

Allison: [00:32:52] [laughs]

Peter: [00:32:52] There you go!

Allison: [00:32:53] Tada.

Peter: [00:32:54] A sentence! But the thing happens in this game, and it happened to both of us… the teacher always says “think and just react,” but a lot of times when you’re playing this game you’re thinking three or four words ahead because you think you know how this is all going to play out.

Allison: [00:33:14] Oh yeah.

Peter: [00:33:15] And when you do that and you hear another word you’re not expecting, there’s that oh crap moments like.

Allison: [00:33:21] Oh yeah. Well i’m rusty. Like I had those – clearly. This morning. I was ready. I had a whole narrative going. You’ve got to release that.

Peter: [00:33:29] But it really… I play this when I do my my keynote presentations and stuff. I do this with the audience. I have them do it in pairs and stuff, depending on the sized of the audience and how willing they are to volunteer. I may get somebody up on stage with me to play that game. And it’s amazing. Once you play it one time and you hear the feedback afterwards and you hear what the goal is, it immediately sticks with you.

Allison: [00:34:00] Yeah. Well it’s so fun in big groups. Because it just gets elaborate.

Peter: [00:34:08] And then… well I just did this last week when I was speaking at the National Association of Black accountants. I had a group in there and I was doing my I embrace your inner superhero, which is based around my book, which is based around improv. And we did one word at a time and they did such a good job I said let’s take it to the next level. Let’s work on it as a team. Do you remember the game.. I call it Dr. Know-It-All. It could be Mr Know it all. You get three people sitting in chairs.

Allison: [00:34:37] Yes!

Peter: [00:34:38] And they know the answer to every question that’s ever given.

Allison: [00:34:44] Yes.

Peter: [00:34:44] But they answer one word at a time.

Allison: [00:34:49] Yes.

Peter: [00:34:50] And three people immediately volunteered and came up and sat down and the first question was – I liked it – Why is the sky blue? And I’ll be – most people they really stumble out of the gate because they’re anticipating. But this group they nailed it.

Allison: [00:35:05] Oh nice.

Peter: [00:35:05] And I said OK let’s let’s take this to another level. I said why is the food in New Orleans so good? And they did such a good job of listening and not trying to think ahead. So I would say the last question – always the fun questions – this is the new question I’ve added to this. “Where do babies come from?”

Allison: [00:35:30] [laughs]

Peter: [00:35:30] Oh my god! The whole place was absolutely roaring.

Allison: [00:35:38] That’s fantastic.

Peter: [00:35:38] We kept it clean, But everybody… I mean I think people were crying we were laughing so hard.

Allison: [00:35:46] Oh that’s awesome!

Peter: [00:35:47] But it got the point across that they were able to really park that agenda, not anticipate / get ahead of themselves, listen to what’s being said, and then react to it. And I remember the first time I did this with the group somebody asked that question and they started off “well Mom and Dad got a bottle of wine and–” and then it went. And I mean hilarity galore. But you know to that point that you were saying: improv can be cringey. It’s when you’re not listening and you’re trying to formulate that into you want to steer that conversation versus let that conversation build something out of nothing.

Allison: [00:36:42] Yes.

Peter: [00:36:43] And.

Allison: [00:36:44] Oh! [laughs] I told you sometimes there are off days [laughs].

Peter: [00:36:51] It must be the time zone – it’s what… it’s probably close to getting to five o’clock and you’re probably preoccupied because happy hour starts promptly.

Allison: [00:37:02] Funny it is – it’s 4:52 [laughs].

Peter: [00:37:08] On a beautiful day in Spain as she looks out to the Rock of Gibraltar. It’s pretty beautiful.

Allison: [00:37:14] It it’s pretty beautiful.

Peter: [00:37:16] I don’t want you to miss happy hour, but I do want to say that I want to make sure that we keep in contact because.

Allison: [00:37:24] Absolutely! Well I’ve got time– I don’t know what your time is.

Peter: [00:37:28] No!

Allison: [00:37:29] We should try one more. We should try to do one more game.

Peter: [00:37:32] OK we’ll do one more game. You want to do last word spoken?

Allison: [00:37:37] Yes. Remind me again. Last word spoken. Just don’t mess it up.

Peter: [00:37:41] OK. So the last word in someone’s sentence becomes the first word in the next person’s sentence.

Allison: [00:37:49] Yeah. That’s what I thought.

Peter: [00:37:49] You remember that now? You’re picking up what I’m putting down?

Allison: [00:37:56] I’m picking it up. I don’t know if I like it but I’ll pick it up.

Peter: [00:38:00] OK you want to start or You want me to start

Allison: [00:38:03] I will start… no you start. I’m better at reacting right now.

Peter: [00:38:08] Now is a good time for us to play a game.

Allison: [00:38:12] Who is with me?

Peter: [00:38:13] No, the last word’s game.

Allison: [00:38:16] Haha! See, get out of here. My head is already downstairs at the bar! Games are what I like to play with my friends.

Peter: [00:38:28] Friends. You can never have too many friends.

Allison: [00:38:31] Friends for life, Some might say.

Peter: [00:38:34] Say you will but the movie… that the movie the show Friends was one of my favorites.

Allison: [00:38:41] Favorites. I have so many favorites saved in my bookmarks on Firefox It’s probably not legal.

Peter: [00:38:48] Legal. They made marijuana legal in Colorado.

Allison: [00:38:55] Colorado, the Show me and get high state.

Peter: [00:39:02] State… It could be the state of intoxication, it could be a state of altered memory altered memory.

Allison: [00:39:08] Altered memory Is probably what I will have by the end of this evening after Happy Hour.

Peter: [00:39:13] Hour. It seems to be 60 Minutes but sometimes hours can go by so fast.

Allison: [00:39:23] Fast fast fast is how that boat is heading out to the harbor.

Peter: [00:39:28] Harbor – That’s the name of a restaurant isn’t it? (And you never end it on a proposition, Pete, you know better than that.

Allison: [00:39:37] [laughs] or with a question!

Peter: [00:39:40] Exactly. But I mean that’s another… and actually I played that game with 400 CPAs in Nebraska last year at a conference. They paired up and there was a gentleman who had introduced me came up to me afterwards and said he absolutely loved that game because it really resonated with him. He was a CEO of a manufacturer of clay products in Endicott, Nebraska. So he loved this game so much, last words spoken, that he actually contacted me a couple of weeks later and wanted me to come out and work with his national sales team with this last word spoken and the principles of improvisation because he realized that his team was not that great at listening, as well as himself, and wanted to become a better listener. But even though that was really cool, when we were talking he said that he immediately went home that night took that game, last words spoken, and played it with his nine or 10 year old son, and his nine or 10 year old son absolutely loved it and he goes we play it all the time.

Allison: [00:40:45] Awww!

Peter: [00:40:45] That to me was the price of admission. That to me just kind of made my day – that he loved it so much that he introduced it to his son. And they play it all the time. So it’s a very powerful game and it really helps us and it teaches us how to become better listeners.

Allison: [00:41:04] That’s really cool. Well that’s the thing about so many improv games is that they do just have fundamental teaching skills. And it’s weird that they don’t… I mean I think… I can’t remember what it was founded on. Remember the basis for improv? I think wasn’t it… Like it was a teacher I thought that was trying to get kids to learn.

Peter: [00:41:29] Viola Spolin?

Allison: [00:41:31] Yes yes yes yes. Exactly.

Peter: [00:41:34] Yeah. She was trying to get the kids to learn and she came up with this new way of teaching and learning, which actually turned into the development of improv.

Allison: [00:41:45] Yes. Absolutely. I know I said this like six times already but it’s I don’t understand why it’s not taught everywhere because these are fundamental things that I think a lot of people would be a lot happier in life if they knew a couple of fundamentals, like listening to people. Exactly like that sounds like the most basic thing but a lot of people do not do it all the time.

Peter: [00:42:08] Right. Actually, one time when I was at Ohio Dominican University I was thinking about writing a course for the business department on improv for business and I had the OK from the chair and I had OK from a few other faculty members. So I was going to start on it, but then came the point I had to decide if I wanted to stay with the university or take my business full time so I never got to do that.

Allison: [00:42:32] Ohh, Sure.

Peter: [00:42:32] There’s actually a paper out there – somebody wrote a paper from the University of North Carolina on improv and teaching skills. I’ve seen a lot more stuff recently written on the power of improv to use it in teaching. And if you look at Second City and their training, they’re doing improv for autism and probably for Alzheimer’s. And there was a wonderful interview. It was an NPR piece. It was talking about how this couple used improv in dealing with their mother in law who’s having Alzheimer’s. But instead of sort of fighting with her, the son in law was using improv skills and stepping in her reality and it completely changed the mother’s outlook and they seemed to get along a little bit better versus you know how frustrating that can be. So there’s a lot of good use of a lot of power in it. And I agree a thousand percent. It should be part of a curriculum early on in life.

Allison: [00:43:39] Yeah. That’s amazing. I haven’t heard about the Alzheimer’s.

Peter: [00:43:48] While we’re wrapping this up, I’m going to see if I can find the name of that podcast. I think it was called a beautiful life. I believe it might have been that. And actually somebody had sent me a link to it and said I just listened to this and I immediately thought of you because of all the stuff improv that you do.

Allison: [00:44:11] Yeah.

Peter: [00:44:12] And it’s an NPR base. Or maybe it’s the American life. Something along those lines.

Allison: [00:44:19] OK.

Peter: [00:44:20] If I find it, I’ll do two things: I will find it, I will put it in the show notes, and I’ll also e-mail it to you so you can listen to it.

Allison: [00:44:29] Oh yeah. That’s perfect.

Peter: [00:44:30] I’ll do that. And it’s a three part podcast and I believe it’s the second part in there but it’s actually very powerful what they did and dealing with Alzheimer’s. And I know there was a curriculum in second city with autism. And you’re right, once again, it really should be part of a school’s curriculum.

Allison: [00:44:51] I mean it’s such a frame to think about it. It just helps you to not care what people think you know or just not harbor it so deeply, as many people do.

Peter: [00:45:03] Right.

Allison: [00:45:04] And follow the fear. I know Jay Suko always says follow the fear. He puts it on Facebook every Friday. What fear are you following? Show me what you’re doing. That’s when I said – I’d waited for months – and I’d put “moving overseas!” I’ve been waiting for this follow your fear friday for months.

Peter: [00:45:27] Yeah. Lean into it.

Allison: [00:45:28] Pretty exciting…. Oh absolutely! It’s all freek’n an adventure at this point.

Peter: [00:45:36] It is. And I cannot thank you enough for making a Tuesday even more exciting by having this conversation because I know you and I could probably sit and have a cocktail or two. And it would just be banter the whole time and so much fun and it would be the next thing you know we’d be… How did you get to be two o’clock in the morning?

Allison: [00:45:58] [laughs] Exactly. I would not be surprised at all.

Peter: [00:46:02] So we will keep in contact. And I can’t thank you again for spending time with me. I thoroughly enjoyed this conversation and I know my audience well as well.

Allison: [00:46:12] Oh thank you so much. I’m so pleased that you asked me on here. Thank you so much. And yes e-mail me that and talk to me soon.

Peter: [00:46:22] It sounds wonderful. Thank you again Allison.

Allison: [00:46:24] Thank you.

Peter: [00:46:29] I’d like to thank Allison for being a guest today and sharing her thoughts on the power of improvisation. I have partnered with the Maryland Association of CPAs and the Business Learning Institute to bring an exciting new learning opportunity for accounting professionals to earn CPE credits. You can earn up to one CPE credit for each completed podcast episode purchased for only $29 through the American Association of CPAs and the Business Learning Institute self-study website. The podcast episodes are mobile friendly. Open your browser on your smartphone, tablet, or computer, Go to the MACPA and BLI self-study account, and listen to an episode. Take the review and final exam while you’re working out or after listening to an episode on your commute to and from work – It’s that easy! While all Improv is no Joke podcasts are available on my website, only those purchased through the MACPA and BLI self-study Web site are eligible for CPE credit. You can get detailed instructions by visiting my website at www.PeterMargaritis.com and clicking on the graphic “Improv is no Joke for CPE credit” on my home page. Remember you can subscribe to my podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, and Google Play. If you’d like to purchase an autographed copy of my book Improv is no Joke: Using Improvisation to Create Positive Results in Leadership and Life, for $14.99 with free shipping, please go to my website, PeterMargaritis.com, and you’ll see the graphic on the homepage to purchase my book. Please allow 14 days for shipping. You can also follow me on social media. You can find me on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or Instagram. In episode 59, I interview Karl Ahlrichs and we discuss the storm clouds of the future. You might remember Karl from episode 5 where we have a similar discussion, but we take another look at those clouds one year later. Thank you again for listening. Remember to leave a review of the podcast on iTunes. I would greatly appreciate your support. Remember to use the principles of improvisation to help you combat fear, take risks, and become a better well-rounded person.

Jason: [00:00:00] And I know what that’s like. I know what it’s like to be a kid. You know you’re just trying to figure out how to deal with it – how do you get through the next day because you’re having such a hard day and you’re having these twitches and it’s uncontrollable and it literally feels like hell. And so I wanted to speak to those folks.

[music]

Peter: [00:00:27] Welcome to Improv is no Joke podcast, where it’s all about becoming a more effective communicator by embracing the principles of improvisation. I’m your host Peter Margaritis, the self-proclaimed chief edutainment officer of my business, the Accidental Accountant. My goal is to provide you with thought provoking interviews with business leaders so you can become an effective improviser, which will lead to building stronger relationships with clients, customers, colleagues, and even your family. So let’s start to show

[music]

Peter: [00:00:59] Welcome to episode number 59 and today my guest is Jason Michaels, who is a professional entertainer, speaker, and author with astounding experience in the arts of deception. A storyteller by heart, Jason loves to blend impossible mysteries with unforgettable tales. As an entertainer, Jason’s show, The Card Shark: a true story of scams, cons, and hustles, is a one man, autobiographical, sleight of hand show that dives deep into the world of confidence men, fortune tellers, and charismatic magicians. As a speaker diagnosed with Tourette’s syndrome at the age of six, Jason has overcome the impossible and become an internationally award winning sleight of hand artist and professional speaker. He motivates audiences to see beyond their challenges and self-imposed limitations and inspires them to take action by living bigger bolder lives with his keynote program, You Can Do The Impossible, Too! As an author, Jason has authored the book, You Can Do The Impossible, Too! His book details his journey of overcoming the debilitating neurological disorder Tourette’s syndrome to become a success in business and in life.

[music]

Peter: [00:02:20] Hey Jason, welcome and thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule to be a guest on my podcast today.

Jason: [00:02:28] I’m excited we get to chat. This is going to be a good time.

Peter: [00:02:31] This is actually – this is the first time that we’ve we’ve ever met. A mutual friend of ours, David Crone, who was on episode 35 of my podcast, actually connected us and said “Pete, you need to interview this guy. He’s got a wonderful message and you’re going to enjoy it.” So he set the bar really high.

Jason: [00:02:51] [laughs] Well I’m not sure what to say about that.

Peter: [00:02:56] You’ll deliver, you’ll deliver. Give the audience a little background – a little taste of who Jason is.

Jason: [00:03:03] OK. I am a professional magician. I got interested in magic when I was 16-years-old. That is approximately the exact same time I got fascinated with theater and I studied theater through high school and college – that was my major. I ended up becoming a magician. And over the years I’ve worked in a lot of different types of settings. I worked as a college entertainer and a corporate entertainer and a cruise ship entertainer and theaters and performing arts centers. Kind of all over the place because I’m constantly challenging myself I’m constantly trying to put my my entertainment out there. But then I also started speaking on kind of overcoming adversity. It’s sort of an interesting story. To go back even further than my beginning in magic and my beginning and acting and theater and all that… You know I have a genetic disorder called Tourette’s syndrome, which is just a neurological brain chemical disorder that manifests itself by what doctors refer to as tics, which is just basically uncontrollable movements or vocalizations. I dealt with this throughout my entire childhood through, through teenage years, into my early 20s. And so when I started speaking I was just kind of talking – some of my first speaking engagements were to school groups and youth groups, and I was talking about overcoming adversity. I was talking about some bullying. But I wasn’t really talking about the Tourette syndrome a lot because I didn’t want to be… I didn’t want Tourette syndrome to be the thing that you know defined me. I didn’t want people to go “oh this guy’s a pretty good entertainer, especially because he’s got this disability.” I just wanted to be good at what I was doing. I didn’t want to have that sort of label, but I have a really good friend, who is also a speaker, and he said man you have to talk about this. And after telling him for years that I was not going to talk about this.

Peter: [00:05:06] [laughs]

Jason: [00:05:06] He continued to invite me to see him speak and at some point it just kind of… I guess it got through my thick skull because I saw him. I saw the way that he was able to affect people with his own story, and he dealt with a difficult childhood. And I was able to see how this could connect with people; how people needed to hear this message that he was sharing and it made sense to me, finally, why he was telling me that I needed to share my stories. So in addition to being an entertainer and a magician, I’m also a speaker and I speak on what I like to refer to as being able to do the impossible. Because sort of one of the interesting things about my story and my past is that a kid with Tourette’s syndrome… you know when you have an uncontrollable like movement disorder – you twitch a lot or you know the people who have the vocalizations they’ll make clicking noises with their tongue or their throat… And it’s just kind of an odd thing. Because it’s unexpected, people will get freaked out a little bit by it. The idea that I would somehow become an entertainer or become a performer in live theater… that you know you’re standing on a stage in front of a big group of people… that that kind of doesn’t make sense. And there have been people that have said you know that’s kind of impossible – that makes no sense that you would be able to do that. When I developed my talk, which ultimately developed into a book, I started talking about being able to do the impossible because I think we all have things – and I mean everybody. I think everybody has things in their lives that feel impossible to overcome. And I like to talk about that. I think it’s important that we hear a message and we see examples of people who have overcome quote unquote “the impossible in their lives.”

Peter: [00:06:54] Exactly. And as you talk about the Tourette’s syndrome, and in our conversation prior to this, there’s some misconceptions about that. Would you like to address some of those misconceptions?

Jason: [00:07:07] You mean just like out in the public as far as what Tourette’s is?

Peter: [00:07:10] Yeah. When people think a Tourette’s.. how it’s been posed is uncontrollable cussing.

Jason: [00:07:21] [laughs] Yeah, which which definitely makes things interesting.

Peter: [00:07:26] [laughs]

Jason: [00:07:26] Yeah absolutely. That is sort of I guess… I remember years ago when Tourette’s kind of made it into the scene, the national consciousness, what you had was you would have these television shows that might have an episode about somebody with Tourette’s, and it would be this guy who just had these uncontrollable outbursts of inappropriate language and makes everybody very uncomfortable and freaks people out. News programs were done about this and that’s actually – while it is very real for some people, that’s actually a pretty rare type of Tourette syndrome tic. The most common tics are movement ticks. And a lot of people would just look at him and say he’s just twitching, although sometimes it’s a lot bigger than a twitch. Sometimes it’s an actual larger movement with a body part, like an arm flailing around or something like that. And the thing that is hard for people to understand is it’s movement as well as vocalization. So it doesn’t have to be words. It can be just clicking noise or things that you do with your mouth and your throat. I think the hardest thing for people to understand about Tourette’s is that when I tell you it’s uncontrollable movements or vocalizations… if I didn’t have Tourette’s I would just say “well no… just try hard or harder. Just control it.” But it’s not like that. It’s not like all the sudden you think to yourself “oh I’m about to have a a tic or a twitch or a movement or vocalization.” That’s not how it comes about. It’s not like you can try harder – the tics are usually described by medical professionals as uncontrollable, rapid, repetitive. So the rapid is what’s key there because it pretty much just happens. It’s just boom and there it is. And sometimes it happens over and over and over and over again until, for some strange reason, it stops happening. So it can be very difficult for… it can be a real sticking point for people with Tourette’s because they’re uncontrollable and they just seemingly come out of nowhere. It is embarrassing. I mean you know because you’re doing this thing that nobody else is doing. And even when people aren’t looking at you or laughing or making fun of or saying something along the lines of… well, whatever it is that they say that makes you feel alienated… you still know that you’re doing this thing and that, if you’re in the grocery store, that nobody else around you is doing this. And so you know and you can tell and you can feel this is an odd thing to do. So it’s just it’s something that for a very very very long time, as far as you know me personally, it was just something that was difficult for me to… it was extraordinarily difficult for me to talk about. I just couldn’t talk about it. I mean I’m talking about into my 30s. I just couldn’t talk about it.

Peter: [00:10:35] The thing that’s amazing about your story is that they’re uncontrollable movements.

Jason: [00:10:41] Right.

Peter: [00:10:42] But at an early age you want to be an entertainer.

Jason: [00:10:46] Yeah.

Peter: [00:10:48] You said it was hard for you to talk about, but you had no problem being up on stage in front of people knowing that this is going on but still getting past that point. And maybe I’m naive but I think that’s probably a bigger barrier.

Jason: [00:11:07] [laughs] it doesn’t make sense, does it?

Peter: [00:11:10] And jumping over that because yeah I mean it’s truly amazing that, at 16 years old, you want to become an entertainer and do illusions and sleight of hand, and in front of an audience that is sitting and looking at you.

Jason: [00:11:24] I’m still learning interesting things about myself and I was talking to somebody about the book that I just released recently and he said it seems to me that the theme of your book is that you’re constantly challenging yourself to do new things. I never really thought about that, but I’ve thought about it a lot since that person said that to me. And I realized that he’s right. I don’t like the status quo. It’s very rare for me to do something and get good at it and just keep doing it. Now I do that you. Like with some shows, I work very hard on the show. I have a show called The Card Shark, which is like the one of the main the main things that I do right now. And it’s the best work I’ve ever done. I put the most time into it. It took me years to be able to develop it. And so I do that over and over and over again for groups and for theaters and people that hire me to come in and do it. But at the same time, I don’t like just sticking with one thing. I like to feel constantly challenged. I actually think I like the feeling of being uncomfortable, and I know that probably a strange thing but I just like the idea that somehow I can just learn a new skill or try something new. So I think that with the performing… you know I love movies, as we all do when we’re kids, and I just think I saw these people in the movies and I thought I want to do that – I can do that! So you know when the opportunity to take a speech and drama class or to go out for a play was there for me, I was like I want to at least try it. Just to see. You know I just didn’t think about the tics. I just said I want to be that guy up on the movie screen.

Peter: [00:13:16] For most people, that fear is debilitating to get to that point. And you’ve jumped over that tenfold, and I’m somewhat the same way. I always like to try new things. I like to make myself uncomfortable – get outside my comfort zone, because that’s where the magic happens.

Jason: [00:13:36] Mhm.

Peter: [00:13:37] But still there’s that fear and being able to manage that fear and still be able to do it, all the while knowing that failure is an option.

Jason: [00:13:45] Oh yeah. No failure is absolutely absolutely an option. And it’s sometimes a very painful option. Yeah. I mean you know what’s interesting is that I’ve recently – my most recent thing that I’ve been working on is… in my shows, I’m not inherently funny. That doesn’t mean I don’t have humor and laughs in my shows, or even in my speaking, because I do – I do have humor – but I’m not the type of performer that people look at and say “oh he’s just funny.” That’s not me. I’m not naturally funny. So I just basically said you know what? I’m going to start going to some open mic nights to see if I can be funny. And you know it’s terrifying because the idea that you’re going to tell somebody “hey I’m going to come up here and try to make you laugh and that’s the one and only goal,” and then you step up there and people are like alright, make me laugh. It’s like oh my gosh. And so you know I think the thing about failure – and I’m learning this through this experience with just attempting some some standup comedy – but I’ve also learned it in other places. I think the thing about failure is that ultimately failure is not nearly as painful, and it’s not nearly as bad, as your imagination makes it out to be. Yes sometimes it is difficult. And yes sometimes it hurts. But what is in my head, what is in our head about how bad it’s going to be if I fail, is never that bad… except in rare rare rare cases.

Peter: [00:15:24] Right. So you’re in Nashville, correct?

Jason: [00:15:27] I am in Nashville.

Peter: [00:15:28] So you have to look up a friend of mine who I’ve interviewed on my podcast that I’ve been on his. His name is Rik Roberts. He actually does workshops and stuff down in Zanies in Nashville. He’s also a member the National Speakers Association. He’s got a podcast called School of laughs. Great resource for writing comedy. And another guest of mine he’s got a book out there who’s been read by, I want to say, millions. Her name is Judy Carter. And the book is.

Jason: [00:15:57] Oh, I have one of her books. I have one of her books!

Peter: [00:15:59] Do you have The Comedy Bible?

Jason: [00:16:01] I’m actually looking at it right now!

Peter: [00:16:03] Bingo.

Jason: [00:16:03] I do. I do.

Peter: [00:16:04] I’ve had that book forever. That’s one of my go-to books when I want to refresh my mind on the actual art of writing stand up, versus the art of standing up in front of people trying to make them laugh. But those are two great resources. You need look up Rik. He is a great guy. Got a great school. Does workshops and stuff. And he’s a clean comedian and he’s a good guy.

Jason: [00:16:32] That’s great yeah. You know what it’s funny. His name keeps popping up. Different people have told me “you should talk to Rik Roberts,” and I’m going to have to reach out to him because, when I hear the same thing from multiple people, I know that somebody is trying to tell me something.

Peter: [00:16:48] And I applaud you for doing something that is like, to me, jumping out of an airplane without a parachute – doing standup comedy and going to these open mics and and trying to make people laugh. And, in a lot of cases, trying to make drunks laugh, and they can be not nice at times.

Jason: [00:17:07] Oh yeah.

Peter: [00:17:07] It can be brutal, but it does… I don’t get to do it as much as I would like to, but I still try to go out there every now and then and find an open mic and work on a set I’ve been working on for 15 years. And it does feel good it does feel awkward, but there’s a lot to learn from doing stand up.

Jason: [00:17:30] Oh gosh. I tell you… I’m used to, because I’ve been doing magic for so long, I’m used to succeeding at it because I know that I can get up on stage and do well with magic because I’ve just done it a lot. I’ve got that skill set underneath my belt. But with stand up, it is just so unique and different and it’s just… and I tell you I’m not a nervous type of performer. I don’t get nervous. But when I do stand up I literally I’ll be sitting there right before I walk up going why are you doing this to yourself? Why do this? You don’t need to do this. This is not necessary. You got a good job as a magician. [laughs]

Peter: [00:18:09] [laughs] Oh my god you’re in my head too. Because I do the same thing. Why am I doing this? I’m 56 years old. Why do I think I’m doing this!

Jason: [00:18:16] Yeah. Yeah. What’s fun is that I’m always nervous before I walk up on stage trying to do comedy, but after I walk off, even if I didn’t do great, I always feel better. I mean I’ve had some times where I was like I didn’t get any laughs at the stuff that I thought should have gotten laughs, and it’s frustrating, but at the end of the day you’re not standing in front of a firing squad. So you may feel like it, but it’s not going to kill you. So you know go a little bit of failure is frustrating, but it’s not death.

Peter: [00:18:53] That’s true… You’ve got a lot of things going on. We’ve talked about that. We talked about the speaker. But I’m really curious about this book because you just had it published in the middle of last month. It’s out there live. Tell me about the book.

Jason: [00:19:11] So here’s how this happened. My buddy convinced me to start talking about Tourette’s syndrome and I said OK I’ll start talking about it. And one of the next things I did was I connected with one of the TEDx conferences and said basically I sent them a proposal of what I wanted to talk about. And it was me talking about dealing with Tourette Syndrome, and after going back and forth a little bit they said we’d love to have you come speak. So my first actual real speaking gig about Tourette’s Syndrome was that a TEDx conference.

Peter: [00:19:48] Wow.

Jason: [00:19:48] Which is just stupid. Why would you do that to yourself?

Peter: [00:19:52] [laughs.

Jason: [00:19:52] You know like really. You know it’s like oh this is going to be broadcast on the Internet. This is going to live forever. You are an idiot.

Peter: [00:20:02] Couldn’t you start with the Rotary Club or something? Come on.

Jason: [00:20:05] I’m not that guy. I like to literally climb up to – what is it? – the 10 meter platform or whatever. As high as you can go and dive straight into the deep end. That’s the law that’s the person that I am. I mean that’s kind of like when I decided to do Harry Houdini’s under water torture cell. So you know I just said OK I’m just going to do it… and So I did it. But we can talk about that in a second if that interests you. But to answer your question: So I decided to do this TED talk and I prepared just… I used all my skills that I’ve been honing for two decades. And the TED talk went fantastic. It went really really well. I was very very pleased with it. And then what ended up happening is I started to speak a little bit more after that opportunity. I was talking to a friend, who’s one of my trusted advisers. We talk business and creativity all the time. And he said you know in order to really talk about what you talk about, he said why don’t you write like a really in-depth bio and try to remember as much about being a kid with Tourette syndrome as possible. And that idea really stuck with me. And little by little I started just kind of writing down instances and stories, and then at some point I looked down and I was like wait a minute… I may have the outline of a book here. And so this idea of just trying to make sure that I was doing the best presentations that I could germinated into kind of the outline and the beginnings of a book, and then once I saw what it looked like and I went OK now I just have to tell these stories. Now I have to explain what it’s like. Now I can talk about this stuff. That’s kind of how the book came about, because I just wanted to make sure that, when I was talking to people, that I was giving them the best information, the most powerful stories, the techniques that I’ve learned over the years on how to deal with stuff and how to overcome the impossible things that I’ve overcome. And so that’s how the book came about – it came about because I really wanted to you know expand my talk. You know it’s an opportunity for people learn about Tourette’s and part of me wanting to release it… there were three audiences that I really think this book speaks to. There’s the folks who like magic and like entertainment and just want to hear about some incredible stories that I’ve had, adventures that I’ve had, traveling around the world and crazy stunts that I’ve done and stuff like that. And so it speaks to those folks and it’s a fun read. It really is. But then there’s the folks – the family members and the people around the world that have Tourette syndrome – and I know what that’s like. I know what it’s like to be a kid. You know you’re just trying to figure out how to deal with it – how and how do you get through the next day because you’re having such a hard day and you’re having these twitches and it’s uncontrollable and it literally feels like hell. And so I wanted to speak to those folks. I want to speak to the parents and the siblings who have somebody that they’re not really sure how to support the best way that they can. And so I said OK if I share my story maybe they will learn, from my point of view, some new ways to help their loved one, their child, their sibling, whatever. So there’s the magic audience, there’s the Tourette syndrome audience, and then there’s the audience of folks who want to push themselves. Folks who want to get outside of their comfort zone. Folks who need some inspiration – need a message of inspiration to let them know that they’re not alone; let them know that the difficulties that they deal with in their life – that everybody deals with certain difficulties and need a push, or maybe a little bit of motivation, to get outside of their comfort zone and make some incredible things happen. So that’s really – those are the folks that I hope this book gets in their hands.

Peter: [00:24:14] So as I’m hearing this I have to ask a couple of questions. One, you mentioned that in this book you talk about your magic.

Jason: [00:24:23] Oh yeah. A lot.

Peter: [00:24:24] And you said you said these two words, crazy stunts, which caught my attention. So I want to hear a story about some of these crazy stunts.

Jason: [00:24:32] So I write on several chapters on my experience attempting to escape from Harry Houdini’s under water torture cell. The underwater torture cell is the most famous thing that Houdini created and escaped from in his shows, and basically it is kind of like a phone booth except the door is on the very top of the phone booth. And you you have to be lowered into the cell from above it. And you’re lowered in upside down because your ankles are locked into the top stocks. So you’re head down being lowered into this basically a telephone booth filled with water. And then the stocks are locked onto the top and you have to escape before you run out of oxygen. So I attempted that and what ended up happening… I mean I talk a lot about it. I talk about how I trained for it. I talk about some of the the unexpected things that happen as I was figuring out how to how to do it. I basically… I sold this idea to a local mall, which was brand new at the time, and it was the biggest nicest mall in Nashville. And I sold them this idea as a Halloween stunt because they had just opened and I said this would be a great way to get people out. And they said We love this. I’d never done a Harry Houdini’s underwater torture cell.

Peter: [00:26:06] [laughs]

Jason: [00:26:06] But I was like Let’s do it because I’m a magician and I like to push my boundaries and so we did it on Halloween. And what’s crazy is that I had been doing a lot of press, as far as trying to get the word out – sending out press releases and getting the word out and all that stuff – and then one of the local news stations shows up to shoot the thing. And I was able to coordinate with them so that I got dunked literally – They cut to a live feed of me hanging above the water torture cell and then maybe two seconds later I get dunked into the water torture cell. So now the live 6 o’clock news here in Nashville… you know the audience has just seen me get dunked into a water torture cell. So now they can’t cut away. They’re stuck with this shot for like two and a half minutes trying to figure out if I’m going to drown or if I’m going to escape from this water torture cell. It was epic. It was fantastic.

Peter: [00:27:07] Wow. And clearly, since we’re talking, you did not drown.

Jason: [00:27:12] Well I guess you guess you got it all figured out. I did drown.

Peter: [00:27:17] You did escape?

Jason: [00:27:19] I did escape. Yeah. It was pretty awesome. I did escape. Yeah.

Peter: [00:27:23] Because I guess my one question in this is, if at some time during this process, if you see that it’s not going to work and you’re running out of oxygen, is that like a safe word or is there some way…

Jason: [00:27:37] I had signals with my team. I had an entire team of people on the outside. I had signals with my team – they could’ve got me out. Like it would have been a little bit humiliating, but yeah.

Peter: [00:27:47] But you escaped.

Jason: [00:27:49] You have to read the book to find out. [laughs]

Peter: [00:27:52] [laughs] Well I do know that you didn’t drown. I do know that.

Jason: [00:27:55] That’s right. Exactly.

Peter: [00:27:57] Wow. So yeah I could see that’s kind of crazy, since you’ve never done it before, even though you trained for it.

Jason: [00:28:03] Oh you just reminded me: I write in the book about the entire experience. But at the end of that specific story there is a link to my website where you can watch the video clip. So if you’re on – I don’t know if you’re currently online – but if you’re in front of your computer and you’re looking at my web site, where there’s a link that says the book, if you scroll down that page below the information about the book there there’s a clip of me doing that. The actual video clip from the news is on that page.

Peter: [00:28:34] Water torture cell live. I see it. I’ll have to watch this after we’re done. Holy Toledo. Man that’s that’s… That’s gutsy. I got nothing compared to that. So crazy stunts, and then the second thing I think that even bigger than the crazy stunts is being a kid with Tourette’s and having to overcome so many obstacles. Are there some stories that you can – I know there are some stories that you can share on this one. What comes to mind first that you could share of my audience?

Jason: [00:29:14] You know I remember instances where it was painful to deal with the Tourette’s because people would say things and you know really when you’re a teenager, or a young kid, you’re not really trying to stand out from the crowd. Now you know if you can become well-known because you’re like a quarterback of the football team or something like that then that’s one thing, but most of the time what you’re trying to do is you’re just trying to go about your life and trying to hang out with your buddies and you don’t want people to point you out or alienate your or anything like that. And I remember instances when when people would say things… I mean you know it happens. It’s two things. Number one my mom was amazing because she, when I was really little, when I was in grade school, she would go to my teacher before the school year started and and let them know what I was going to be dealing with, and she was willing to basically, if she had to, she would have gone to war for me you know because she wanted to make sure that I had everything as best in my favor. But you know I think one of the most interesting things was when I went out for the play. Because I went out for what was called the junior-senior play. It was the very first play… I was enrolled in speech and drama class as a Junior. First year I’d done that. The Junior-Senior year play was in the fall. So I had been maybe in class for six weeks or something like that. The teacher announces we’re going to have auditions for this play. I think OK – that’s why I’m in this class. I want to try to give this a try. Sounds fun. And I go out for this play and I’m up there and I’ve got a piece of paper with lines on it and I’m reading lines with other people and I’m having this audition, and you know the first day of the audition, after it’s all over, the teacher says I’m going to post the callbacks on the bulletin board. Callbacks just basically means the people who she wants to come back the following day and audition again. It’s kind of narrowing the field down so she can select who’s going to get what role. And the next day I saw the bulletin board and my name was on the callback list. So I’d done well enough. And I was in the running for a potential part. So I go back that night. Audition some more, and what was interesting is just that when I was on this stage it just felt so natural. It felt like it was the place I was supposed to be. And you know at the end of the auditions she says I’ll post the cast list tomorrow. I go to the bulletin board, go to the list, and my name is on the list. I had never auditioned for a play before. I’d never done anything like that and all of a sudden I have the lead role of the junior senior play.

Peter: [00:32:00] The lead role?!

Jason: [00:32:01] Yeah. The lead role.

Peter: [00:32:04] Gosh! Wow.

Jason: [00:32:06] And you know what’s really interesting is that I didn’t know what to expect. I remember standing back the opening night of the show and I’m like am I supposed to be nervous? What am I supposed to feel like? And I just walked out on stage and the twitches and all that stuff that you know may have driven me crazy when I was in another setting… that stuff literally was just gone. It is like a magic trick happened, It’s like I was exactly where I was supposed to be and I was doing exactly what I was supposed to be doing, and I was perfect on stage and got that huge round of applause at the end of the show and I’m hooked at this point. And you know that’s it. That’s all she wrote.

Peter: [00:32:56] Wow. So when you were auditioning and rehearsing and practicing… as you said to do when you walked on the stage all the all the the neurological tics and stuff went away. Did it also go away during that point? Or was it the first time you were in front of that audience and getting ready to do a performance for the first time not as a rehearsal.

Jason: [00:33:20] You know what… what happens with the tics is that – and I’ve learned that it happens with other people that have Tourette syndrome as well – when you are extremely focused on something, when you’re like really dialed in on something and you’re 100 percent locked in hyper focus most of the text just kind of goes away. What ends up happening, though, is you’re not going to maintain that level of focus. When you let down your focus, when you’re tired physically or mentally, the tics really really kick back in like doubly as hard.

Peter: [00:33:59] Oh wow.

Jason: [00:33:59] Like you’re going to pay for it later, but you have hyper focus at the time that you need it.

Peter: [00:34:06] Wow. Just based on this conversation I’m thinking your mind’s gone I don’t care for trying to be you know twice as bad. This is just… it felt so natural to be there. I don’t care about the back side of it.

Jason: [00:34:21] Oh yeah yeah yeah. That’s very true. I’m that type of a person where it’s like oh I don’t care what the repercussions are if I’m doing what I’m supposed to be doing, and this is, I’m going to just do it.

Peter: [00:34:32] So do you do you take the kind of message… So we we’ve got overcome adversity, and just these two examples alone, and you take that message out to the corporate audiences during your keynote presentations. And I can and I can only imagine the amount of people that come up to you afterwards and all but briefly share their story or how what you just shared with them made them see things in a different light.

Jason: [00:35:00] It’s one of the great pleasures that I didn’t know was going to happen – to get to talk to other people about the things that they’re dealing with. And I tell you it is highly emotional for me to to have somebody come up and be willing to share with me this very personal… sometimes very personal pain that they’re dealing with. And I get really really emotional about it because I know how difficult it is to talk about this stuff, because I didn’t want to for a very long time. And so to hear people who because I shared my message and because I shared with them, and when I share my message I share some of the principles and some of the techniques that I’ve learned over the years, and some of the things that I’ve just kind of naturally developed over the years, on how to do the impossible in your life. And so when they’re telling me… you know I had a lady talk to me about how she was just dealing with unbelievable pain after the loss of a child and she is telling me about how my talk gave her new hope and helped her see a new direction for what she needed to be out there doing. I mean I’m sitting there and I’m I’m crying. I mean it’s so emotional, but it’s one of the great blessings of being able to to share my message with other people.

Peter: [00:36:23] And have that type of impact on other on other people.

Jason: [00:36:27] Right.

Peter: [00:36:28] I can’t imagine… I’ve had people come up to me after a few of my presentations, when I talk about my son and not listening to him and finding out that he had ADHD and I was just being a really bad parent because I wasn’t listening to the signs, and people have shared that with me and I got emotional… but I can’t imagine somebody saying the death of a child and then how you’re… I would been crying just as hard.

Jason: [00:36:54] Yeah yeah.

Peter: [00:36:56] But it’s amazing that, for all the time you didn’t want to talk about it, but the effect that you’re having on people because you are talking about it. I mean that’s… That’s awesome.

Jason: [00:37:08] Well thank you.

Peter: [00:37:08] How many people you have helped and how many people you will be helping has got to be overwhelming at times when you think about it, especially after as long a time that you didn’t want to talk about it, but that message is so powerful and so inspiring that I want to thank your friend who who pushed you to start talking about that because man you are making a big impact on people’s lives.

Jason: [00:37:37] Well thank you. I really appreciate you saying that. It means a lot to me and it’s good for me to hear that sometimes. And you know this: when you’re out there and you’re just trying to get your message in front of as many people as possible, sometimes you deal with frustrations and difficulties and certain opportunities open up and other opportunities that you wanted to happen don’t happen. So I really appreciate you saying that because sometimes, when I’m dealing with frustration just trying to get the word out there, it’s good to remember that that the message is important and it’s getting in front of people that need to hear it. And I tell you it does drive me to put this message in front of as many people as I possibly can because I’ve… And it’s not even what I think. It’s what I know now based on my experience. There are a lot of people who need to hear this.

Peter: [00:38:31] Oh yeah and it’s it’s amazing. I mean if you just take this message of doing the impossible and overcoming adversity and you take that to a corporate market… I mean just think about all the adversity people go through in corporate America and just trying to survive a day. And you’ve got an overbearing boss and you’ve got these dreams and you’ve got all this stuff going on. And I believe people, at some point in time, they give up and they need a voice to inspire them again to not give up and to keep on trying, and to keep on trying to do the impossible. And you’re that voice.

Jason: [00:39:11] Well I appreciate it. I really do. And you know in lieu of actually being at every event I hope that the folks that hear this podcast, I hope that they hear the folks that hear my story or see something on line, I hope that they do have the opportunity to check out the book because they can get that message of hope on their own time. By reading the book at their own pace they can laugh and maybe cry a little bit, but certainly be inspired. And you know what? I just realized we’ve just been talking about the book. The book is titled the same thing that my keynote is titled: You Can Do The Impossible, Too! So I want to make sure we knew that.

Peter: [00:39:54] And what I will do is we will put links in the show notes to your Web site, which is www.JasonMichaelsMagic.com, and I’m looking at the Web site right now. You can buy the book either ebook or paper form on Amazon.com.

Jason: [00:40:16] That’s right. Absolutely.

Peter: [00:40:18] Obviously those of you who have been listening to this you should be so moved that, as soon as you finish listening, you go out and buy his book. Great message. And go to his Web site. I mean it’s a well done Web site, and you know it’s fascinating because it opens up about the card shark and it has a great picture of him in a gray suit and then some smoke comes out.

Jason: [00:40:47] [laughs]

Peter: [00:40:47] It’s a really entertaining Web site that talks about you, and then there’s a picture of you doing the TEDxChattanooga thing. I mean it’s very well done. It’s a great book. Wonderful message. And if you happen to be a meeting planner or a corporate executive listening to this podcast, get a hold of Jason. Book him for an event. If you need an inspiring message, he’s the man. Look him up.

Jason: [00:41:18] You’re the best. Thank you so much. I appreciate it.

Peter: [00:41:21] Jason, it has been a wonderful opportunity to meet you. I hope that our paths cross here in the near future. And if you ever get ready to do an open mic night let me know because, if I have some of some free time, it’s a Southwest flight. I’ve got Miles on Southwest. I’ll come down and perform with you.

Jason: [00:41:46] I love it. I love it. That’s great. That’s awesome! I fully expect to be running into you sometime soon. This type of stuff – the way people connect. This isn’t random stuff. This is the way it’s supposed to be I’m sure we’ll meet up soon.

Peter: [00:42:01] I’m sure we will too, and I can’t thank you enough for sharing your story with my audience. It’s very powerful and I wish you all the best. And I can’t wait to meet you face to face. But please don’t put me in the Houdini get out of the water thing.

Jason: [00:42:19] [laughs] You’re all good. You’re safe.

Peter: [00:42:21] Alright. I appreciate it. Thank you so very much Jason. It’s been a pleasure speaking with you.

Jason: [00:42:26] Yes Sir.

[music]

Peter: [00:42:29] I’d like to thank Jason again for sharing his powerful and inspiring story with us. As he discussed, his ability to overcome his fears and deal with the adversity because he could do the impossible is a parallel message to the power of improvisation and Yes, And. It boils down to having a strong positive mental attitude and taking on adversity and your fears head on. As I like to say, and as Yes And proves, moving forward in a positive direction. Listen, learn, and learn. I have partnered with the Maryland Association of CPAs and the Business Learning Institute to bring an exciting new learning opportunity for accounting professionals to earn CPE credits. You can earn up to one CPE credit for each completed podcast episode purchased for only $29 through the American Association of CPAs and the Business Learning Institute self-study website. The podcast episodes are mobile friendly. Open your browser on your smartphone, tablet, or computer, Go to the MACPA and BLI self-study account, and listen to an episode. Take the review and final exam while you’re working out or after listening to an episode on your commute to and from work – It’s that easy! While all Improv is no Joke podcasts are available on my website, only those purchased through the MACPA and BLI self-study Web site are eligible for CPE credit. You can get detailed instructions by visiting my website at www.PeterMargaritis.com and clicking on the graphic “Improv is no Joke for CPE credit” on my home page. I hope you enjoy this exciting and flexible new way of earning CPE credit. Remember you can subscribe to my podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, and Google Play. If you’d like to purchase an autographed copy of my book Improv is no Joke: Using Improvisation to Create Positive Results in Leadership and Life, for $14.99 with free shipping, please go to my website, PeterMargaritis.com, and you’ll see the graphic on the homepage to purchase my book. Please allow 14 days for shipping. You can also follow me on social media. You can find me on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or Instagram. In episode 58, I interviewed Patrick Donadio, who’s taken his decades of experience and crafted a results-based process for his new book, Communicating with Impact. Focused on improving communications, increasing profits, and boosting performance in less time. Thank you again for listening and remember to use the principles of improvisation – and You Can Do The Impossible, Too! – So you can achieve your goals, all the while not letting adversity stand in your way.

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