SAVE yourself or actually VAES yourself!
Resources for my latest workshops!
Happy 2024 to all of you! In spite of being 2.5 months late, I would regret not saying it. The year is off to a steady start, with all of the New Year’s resolutions reaching somewhat of a steady state.
My most exciting development in 2024 was the creation and execution of four brand new workshops. The themes were Vulnerability, Authenticity, Engagement, and Stories. We had a great group. Faculty Development events at my institution are tricky business because they are mandated to be free events so lots of people sign up but much less actually attend and there is attrition between each one. So there were over 40 people that signed up for the first workshop on Vulnerability (a new record for our faculty development workshops!). I was hoping for 20 attendees. We had 18, but they were a fun group so I count that as a win. The remaining attendance was 12, 8 , and the last one had 9. The win in that is that the numbers dipped but increased in the last one! The workshops themselves have some exciting ways that they can be improved based on the ideas that resonated with the group. I can incorporate many of the themes into all of the improv experiences I have upcoming, which is nice!
From the movie Caddyshack
The topics for these workshops developed once I started teaching improv class. The improv workshops that I originally developed in 2018 were all the ways that improv helped me as a physician. Those workshops attracted people who didn’t interact with patients and noted ways that the improv activities helped them. Many of these ways that improv served people were otherwise known as leadership skills. One of the coolest things about these improv skills is they will have people view you as a leader even if you don’t have a title of a leader, so they applied to people with an official title as well as people entering their role. I have done those eight workshops for five years and I feel very comfortable with them. As I did these workshops and teaching improv classes, there were some basic requirements to get into the activities that workshop and class participants had to work through. It was essentially years of education and unintended socialization working against their ability to put themselves out into the unknown (everyone to varying degrees at various times). How can someone go pretend to be something new if they are not able to verbalize what it means for them to be authentic? How can someone do something silly for their scene partner to react to if they have agreed that they don’t need to be silly…ever? What are the stories they have told or are currently telling themselves, that are limiting their ability to be in the moment? No one who participated in a workshop or class literally asked themselves these questions. What they did do was stand on the side of the stage and think that they don’t have a “good” contribution to the activity or that they couldn’t possibly do the activity (despite both of those predictions proven demonstrably false a few moments after their conception). These limiting beliefs had been beaten out of me through improv without my specific intention. I was not aware of it until I saw other professionals and brave people struggling with those issues prior to ever being able to engage with the improv activities of the day. I discuss this in my TEDxOmaha that I did back in November, 2023!
Almost every improv activity involves some aspect of each of these topics but I thought it would be beneficial to really hammer in these ideas to have a fun way to push people beyond their current state. Another beneficial aspect of improv activities is that no matter where a person is on the spectrum of skill development, there will be some aspect to get better at. It is a process. It is an infinite game. It is both fun and mentally challenging. Those are descriptions that do not often go with increasing your vulnerability, authenticity, and engagement so you can understand and create better stories in your life. Since it was not as directly applicable to interactions with other people, some of the intended discussion points were not as concrete. Most participants recognized the activities benefits in terms of how they are practicing skills that will help them interact with both the people and groups in their personal and professional life. It was less immediately available to participants that the vulnerability they demonstrated in the simple exercise will make it more likely that they will be vulnerable in service of better understanding the world once they left the workshop. The discussion did get there but many of these ideas and skills that were practiced in these workshops are just difficult to dig up and examine. They are deeply buried into what we think defines each of us. I saw a blog post from Tim Ferriss that talked about how most people don’t need more “How to” lists or instructions on what works. What most people need is a painful and emotional reckoning. I don’t agree that it needs to be painful and emotional. It does probably need to be memorable. My hope is that the fun, discomfort, uncertainty, and laughter came together to help participants explore and improve their vulnerability, authenticity, and engagement so they could understand and create better stories in their life (VAES! → rearrange those letters and you will SAVE yourself).
This is what happens to me when I practice improv!
I relied heavily on the Upward Spriral of Improv to discuss these ideas. I will give a free coffee to anyone who can connect the dots and comment the connections!