Reject Rejection And Improvise To Be A Better Human Being

If you could increase joy in your life and have a massively positive impact on every single person that you interact with, would you want that? I can show you how to do that? It is by living by the principles of improvisation.

I am an improviser. Improvisation completely changed who I am and change the way that I view the world and the way that I interact with every single person in my life. I know that it can do the same for you. So come with me for a moment as we explore that.

Total Opposite of Rejection

Top of your mind that if you have an idea, something you're really excited about, really stoked or jazzed, and you go and tell this person about it, they'll shoot it down. You know that before you even bring it up to them, they'll say something negative and they'll suck all the excitement out of the idea and shoot it down, no matter how positive it is or any of that stuff.

Yes, you all know somebody like that. They're everywhere. I have a story about that. A couple of years ago, I was having a conversation with my friends about rejection.

And this guy, one of my friends, Lucky, and told me his story. Lucky was planning on running a marathon. Never ran a marathon before in his life, he was super excited about it. He had friends that were supportive, and he called his dad to tell him about the idea. This is how the conversation went.

Hey, dad, I'm thinking about running this marathon, and his dad immediately responded with, oh, really? Are you sure? I don't know, running is bad for your body and it's miserable. And what's the point of a marathon? You can't win anything. 

So after that conversation, and even though he was super excited about taking this on, he ended up not running the marathon. 

All right, because his dad's negative response sucked the enthusiasm out of his idea and planted that seed of doubt and enough that he didn't do it. So what does any of this have to do with improv? Everything? I've been improvising for about ten years and still practicing it.

Making Other People Look Good - Take This Into Your Life

Improvisers take suggestions from the people around them, and then everything that they do is made up on the spot. Inspired by those suggestions, improvisers have a brilliant set of principles that they follow to make improvisation successful. If you take those same principles and use them in your life, it will change the way that you interact with every single person that you come across. 

The common misconception about improvisation is that being funny and quick-witted and thinking fast on your feet and being clever. That is false.

Improvisation is about making other people look good, which is so important. I'm going to say that again, improvisation is about making other people look good. Everything in improv is centered around this core concept idea of yes. And that is the meat and potatoes of everything improvised. And so in Improvisation, everything you do and everything that your partner does is an offer.

And you must accept your partners' offer and add more information to it. Surrounding that core concept idea of yes. And there are a set of tenants principles that make improv possible that every single improvisation student knows from day one of it. 

Here they say yes, which means to accept ideas, make other people look good, which means to support. And instead of trying to make yourself look good, focus on making other people look good and validating them and to be positive, which means to use positive language to be optimistic and good-natured.

Being Positive and Be Careful - Best Piece Of Advice

It looks like magic, but it's just a very simple, brilliant strategy. So if you use the same principles of yes, and in your life, you will impact positively the way that you connect and deal with every single person that you come in contact with. 

Let's go back to Lucky, and the marathon is dad wasn't purposely trying to say no and be negative. He was just carelessly giving his opinion, unaware of the impact that it would have on the situation. And what actually, you know, the truth of it is that his dad would have been proud of him if he ran the marathon, right?

Lucky would have been proud of himself for taking something new and accomplishing it. So let's take a look at what actually happens instead acted the opposite of yes and say yes. He didn't. He rejected the idea immediately. Make other people look good.

He wasn't trying to make it look good. He was trying to make himself look good by coming across as the voice of reason and being knowledgeable about running and being wise and giving advice and being positive. He could have said something positive. 

Instead, he said a bunch of negative things and destroyed the idea of running it. So if Ian's dad instead was an improviser, dedicated his life to living by the principles of yes.

Photo by Sebastián León Prado on UnsplashAnd here's how that conversation could have looked. Hey, dad, I'm thinking about running a marathon. That's awesome. You're gonna be great.

The most amazing part of the story is that in also told me in that conversation that if he had spoken with me ahead of time, he wouldn't have let it affect him because he could see now what his dad was doing, which is just carelessly saying no and not realizing it. 

How powerful is that? And once you start to see the world in terms of people saying yes and people saying no and the impact of those two things, everything you view, the way that you see the world completely changes.

Be An Artist Of Improvisation

This is the red pill. It is the Matrix people to prove that this is a choice. I'm going to teach you a fun game that you can play on somebody the next time you have an interaction with anyone, I want you to choose ahead of time that you're going to use, yes, and on them without them knowing about it. 

So you just say yes to everything, make them look good and be positive, and then feel what it feels like to say yes to this person and watch from an outside perspective how that impacts this person, of what they what their experience is with you.

It's unbelievable.

If you want to have a better marriage, try that. Get a glimpse of what it would feel like if you made an effort to great yes and marriage. It's incredible. 

You're all going to say that's awesome to everything that I said.