WEBVTT 00:00:01.199 --> 00:00:04.339 Hey everybody and welcome back to the SoCap Improv 00:00:04.339 --> 00:00:07.040 Comedy Podcast. My name is Ralph McLeod. I'm 00:00:07.040 --> 00:00:09.980 your somewhat genial host. I'm also the owner 00:00:09.980 --> 00:00:13.060 and artistic director at SoCap Comedy on the 00:00:13.060 --> 00:00:16.579 Danforth in Toronto. That's SoCap .ca, S -O -C 00:00:16.579 --> 00:00:20.399 -A -P. We do all the usual improv stuff. Shows, 00:00:20.500 --> 00:00:24.500 improv classes, corporate events, rentals. Now 00:00:24.500 --> 00:00:27.120 if you're in Toronto and the surrounding area... 00:00:27.359 --> 00:00:29.679 And something you hear on here sparks your interest. 00:00:29.820 --> 00:00:33.939 Come and take a class with this old shoe, this 00:00:33.939 --> 00:00:37.340 old hunk of leather. And if you're outside of 00:00:37.340 --> 00:00:40.119 Toronto, you know, I've done Zoom classes and 00:00:40.119 --> 00:00:44.060 I wouldn't be opposed to doing them again. Actually, 00:00:44.119 --> 00:00:47.039 there's a lot of on Zoom is an interesting way 00:00:47.039 --> 00:00:50.840 to teach improv. And I learned a lot. And Zoom 00:00:50.840 --> 00:00:54.320 has a couple of advantages, which I've talked 00:00:54.320 --> 00:00:57.100 about before and we'll talk about again. All 00:00:57.100 --> 00:01:00.460 right, so today I want to talk about the old 00:01:00.460 --> 00:01:06.200 mistake. You know, there's, you know, these things 00:01:06.200 --> 00:01:11.239 happen all the time. And people, I say mistakes 00:01:11.239 --> 00:01:13.379 because people treat them like mistakes. They 00:01:13.379 --> 00:01:17.340 misspeak and they try to, oh, I feel they feel 00:01:17.340 --> 00:01:20.260 bad about it. They want to take it back. They 00:01:20.260 --> 00:01:23.530 want to undo it. They want to explain. And I, 00:01:23.590 --> 00:01:25.209 you know, I totally understand that. I mean, 00:01:25.209 --> 00:01:27.670 in the world, that's what we've been, you know, 00:01:27.670 --> 00:01:29.769 drilled into us. Don't make mistakes. You get 00:01:29.769 --> 00:01:34.469 that big red X on your thing. People make fun 00:01:34.469 --> 00:01:37.790 of you, you know, and so there's a lot of, there 00:01:37.790 --> 00:01:41.010 can be a lot of stress over getting things right. 00:01:42.150 --> 00:01:44.450 Also, it's just sometimes in certain exercises, 00:01:44.489 --> 00:01:48.530 people want to make sure they've got the rules, 00:01:48.810 --> 00:01:51.540 quote unquote. correct so that they can play 00:01:51.540 --> 00:01:55.599 along and not be, you know, not appear dumb or 00:01:55.599 --> 00:02:01.239 in some way, not entirely with it. But for me, 00:02:01.239 --> 00:02:04.359 and what I would like to encourage in this podcast 00:02:04.359 --> 00:02:07.760 is to think of improv mistakes as not a mistake 00:02:07.760 --> 00:02:10.000 and not just improv mistakes, just mistakes in 00:02:10.000 --> 00:02:14.949 general as a doorway. A doorway to learn, a doorway 00:02:14.949 --> 00:02:18.370 to a new way of looking at something, to a new 00:02:18.370 --> 00:02:20.810 avenue that would not have been explored if you 00:02:20.810 --> 00:02:24.969 hadn't made that mistake. You know, now this 00:02:24.969 --> 00:02:29.030 is not always true, but by and large, for the 00:02:29.030 --> 00:02:31.949 most part, a mistake is only bad if you treat 00:02:31.949 --> 00:02:38.229 it as bad, right? Here's an example. I have thousands 00:02:38.229 --> 00:02:40.849 of these. Well, not thousands, but I have a lot 00:02:40.849 --> 00:02:43.430 of them, a multitude, a legion, if you will. 00:02:43.990 --> 00:02:49.069 But this one happened. I have performed with 00:02:49.069 --> 00:02:51.389 these three nincompoops called the Coincidence 00:02:51.389 --> 00:02:55.830 Men, the four of us. And this was a few years 00:02:55.830 --> 00:02:59.349 ago. We were doing a montage, which is a series 00:02:59.349 --> 00:03:02.509 of scenes. And you need to know that for one 00:03:02.509 --> 00:03:05.449 reason, which is coming up. But a montage, you 00:03:05.449 --> 00:03:08.090 know, it's the same group of people. You start 00:03:08.090 --> 00:03:10.810 a scene when that scene's over rather than, you 00:03:10.810 --> 00:03:13.789 know, stopping and doing a new one. Someone sweeps 00:03:13.789 --> 00:03:16.889 it or somehow edits it and it's gone and you 00:03:16.889 --> 00:03:18.669 do a new one. You do another scene and another 00:03:18.669 --> 00:03:21.889 scene and another scene. And over time, because 00:03:21.889 --> 00:03:23.629 it's the same people and it's the same show, 00:03:23.870 --> 00:03:26.169 you know, games develop and patterns and all 00:03:26.169 --> 00:03:28.710 these other wonderful things. I love doing montages. 00:03:29.870 --> 00:03:33.050 Again, I won't go into that now, but I love doing 00:03:33.050 --> 00:03:35.669 them. And, yeah, so you basically get a chance 00:03:35.669 --> 00:03:38.469 to do several scenes. Anyway, on this one particular 00:03:38.469 --> 00:03:44.949 night, one of my fellows tripped. And, you know, 00:03:44.969 --> 00:03:47.449 fell. It wasn't bad, but he kind of just tripped. 00:03:47.789 --> 00:03:50.830 And I believe it was Gord Oxley misspoke. And 00:03:50.830 --> 00:03:52.990 he meant to say, well, that's unfortunate. But 00:03:52.990 --> 00:03:55.840 he said, well, that's malfortunate. And the audience 00:03:55.840 --> 00:03:58.159 laughed. They tittered. They ha -ha in their 00:03:58.159 --> 00:04:03.039 head at the mistake. And whenever I hear something 00:04:03.039 --> 00:04:05.900 like that and I'm on stage, I just put that in 00:04:05.900 --> 00:04:08.979 my pocket because, oh, they laughed. It registered. 00:04:09.599 --> 00:04:11.860 So I just hang on to that because you never know 00:04:11.860 --> 00:04:14.900 when you're going to need it. Anyway, that scene 00:04:14.900 --> 00:04:17.339 got swept. We started a new one. And in this 00:04:17.339 --> 00:04:20.279 one, it ended with someone getting shot. And 00:04:20.279 --> 00:04:24.220 as they were dying, I said, wow, that's unfortunate. 00:04:24.889 --> 00:04:30.069 And the audience laughed harder. And the third 00:04:30.069 --> 00:04:32.250 and fourth and fifth scene, we kept ending them 00:04:32.250 --> 00:04:35.269 with, that's Malfortunate. You know, by the sixth 00:04:35.269 --> 00:04:38.149 time we came out to start a scene, the audience, 00:04:38.290 --> 00:04:41.730 they're buzzing. They're vibrating. And they're 00:04:41.730 --> 00:04:43.310 just like, well, please say Malfortunate again. 00:04:43.490 --> 00:04:48.850 Please, please, please. And, you know, I remember 00:04:48.850 --> 00:04:53.449 it ended with, again, something happening and 00:04:53.449 --> 00:04:57.370 me. I just paused and I went, boy, you know, 00:04:57.389 --> 00:05:00.189 there's a word for what just happened. And I 00:05:00.189 --> 00:05:02.589 can't think of the word right now. And everybody's 00:05:02.589 --> 00:05:05.110 just like, say the word, say the word. And it 00:05:05.110 --> 00:05:08.870 was very fun. But that all happened because somebody 00:05:08.870 --> 00:05:14.930 made a mistake and misspoke a word. But that 00:05:14.930 --> 00:05:17.629 became the whole, basically the whole thing. 00:05:17.769 --> 00:05:21.370 The whole show, our 20 minute or 25 minute thing. 00:05:22.089 --> 00:05:24.949 was variations i mean that's not the only thing 00:05:24.949 --> 00:05:27.350 we did there were other things going on but this 00:05:27.350 --> 00:05:30.709 we would call it the Malfortunate you know show 00:05:30.709 --> 00:05:34.750 or the Malfortunate set uh because that simple 00:05:34.750 --> 00:05:37.189 little mistake because we didn't treat it as 00:05:37.189 --> 00:05:42.290 such became a fun thing and uh there's a real 00:05:42.290 --> 00:05:47.759 life example uh and i uh If you go on YouTube 00:05:47.759 --> 00:05:54.600 and Google Herbie Hancock and Miles Davis, Herbie 00:05:54.600 --> 00:05:56.800 Hancock tells this story about Miles Davis. So 00:05:56.800 --> 00:06:00.420 Herbie Hancock, a jazz musician, keyboardist, 00:06:00.439 --> 00:06:04.180 I believe, mainly. And Miles Davis was one of 00:06:04.180 --> 00:06:07.899 the greatest jazz trumpeters of all time. Anyway, 00:06:08.079 --> 00:06:11.180 Herbie's telling the story about... They're in 00:06:11.180 --> 00:06:13.899 Germany, and they're playing, and it's a real 00:06:13.899 --> 00:06:16.439 night. It's a groovy night, and Miles is starting 00:06:16.439 --> 00:06:18.459 to do his solo, and he's in the middle of it. 00:06:18.720 --> 00:06:22.420 And inexplicably, in the middle of this, Herbie 00:06:22.420 --> 00:06:25.579 on the keyboard hits the wrong chord. And he 00:06:25.579 --> 00:06:29.399 says, I'm paraphrasing, that it just sounded 00:06:29.399 --> 00:06:32.899 all wrong, and he didn't know how he did it, 00:06:32.920 --> 00:06:34.660 and he panicked, and he pulled his hands off 00:06:34.660 --> 00:06:36.579 the keyboard and just grabbed his head and went, 00:06:36.680 --> 00:06:39.980 oh, no, oh, no, and he felt so bad. But he said 00:06:39.980 --> 00:06:43.920 Miles, the professional that he was, paused for 00:06:43.920 --> 00:06:47.139 a second and then played a series of notes that 00:06:47.139 --> 00:06:50.319 made that wrong chord, quote unquote, right. 00:06:51.259 --> 00:06:55.459 So Miles Davis, you know, he didn't call out 00:06:55.459 --> 00:06:58.500 the mistake. He didn't stop. He just absorbed 00:06:58.500 --> 00:07:02.220 that into what he was doing and did this thing 00:07:02.220 --> 00:07:04.819 that I call the bigger circle. This thing that 00:07:04.819 --> 00:07:06.740 seemed to be outside the circle is not outside 00:07:06.740 --> 00:07:09.139 the circle. It's now actually inside the circle. 00:07:09.279 --> 00:07:11.839 And we're off in a new direction, a direction 00:07:11.839 --> 00:07:15.519 we never would have had if someone hadn't done 00:07:15.519 --> 00:07:18.620 that, quote, mistake. So this mistake became 00:07:18.620 --> 00:07:21.560 a new direction, you know, and Herbie says himself 00:07:21.560 --> 00:07:24.420 in the thing. It's like he uses that in music. 00:07:24.439 --> 00:07:26.220 He learned a lot that day about music and also 00:07:26.220 --> 00:07:30.819 in life. And that's the thing, too. You know, 00:07:30.819 --> 00:07:34.569 when I teach. And the way I live my life, like 00:07:34.569 --> 00:07:39.889 I live, I teach all these improv nuggets, philosophies, 00:07:39.889 --> 00:07:42.709 you know, best practices, whatever you want to 00:07:42.709 --> 00:07:44.970 call them. And I live my life like this. So the 00:07:44.970 --> 00:07:48.069 same thing with mistakes. You know, we make tons 00:07:48.069 --> 00:07:50.850 of mistakes as we go through life. You know, 00:07:50.850 --> 00:07:55.009 we befriend the wrong people. We cast off the 00:07:55.009 --> 00:07:57.750 wrong people. You know, we say no to opportunities 00:07:57.750 --> 00:08:00.870 we shouldn't have. And we say yes to opportunities. 00:08:01.680 --> 00:08:03.500 that we shouldn't have, and all these things 00:08:03.500 --> 00:08:06.540 and mistakes. And you can look at them as, oh, 00:08:06.560 --> 00:08:08.560 bad choices, and oh, I wish I could undo them. 00:08:08.800 --> 00:08:13.860 But these bad choices, these mistakes, they're 00:08:13.860 --> 00:08:17.180 our teachers, and they teach us. You know, when 00:08:17.180 --> 00:08:19.100 I was teaching my daughter to skate, and she 00:08:19.100 --> 00:08:21.180 was like five, and she kept falling, and she'd 00:08:21.180 --> 00:08:22.800 get frustrated. And I'd say, like, look, man, 00:08:22.899 --> 00:08:25.399 every time you fall, you're learning how not 00:08:25.399 --> 00:08:28.220 to fall. So you're learning how to skate. And 00:08:28.220 --> 00:08:29.500 when she started thinking about it like that, 00:08:29.819 --> 00:08:32.159 A few, a little bit later, she wiped out, had 00:08:32.159 --> 00:08:34.360 this big fall and she got up and beaming. She 00:08:34.360 --> 00:08:36.000 said, dad, did you see that wipe out? I said, 00:08:36.039 --> 00:08:38.679 that was amazing. You are so learning how not 00:08:38.679 --> 00:08:41.779 to fall. So mistakes are only mistakes by and 00:08:41.779 --> 00:08:44.240 large. If you think of them as bad, they don't 00:08:44.240 --> 00:08:49.559 have to be. And just, you know, just thinking 00:08:49.559 --> 00:08:51.740 about this because it happened literally like 00:08:51.740 --> 00:08:55.080 two days ago in my class where another, again, 00:08:55.159 --> 00:08:57.669 another character misspoke. And he had meant 00:08:57.669 --> 00:09:00.870 to say, you never cease to amaze me. But instead 00:09:00.870 --> 00:09:05.049 he said, you cease to amaze me. And people laughed. 00:09:05.070 --> 00:09:07.590 That same kind of like, ha, ha, ha, laugh. That's 00:09:07.590 --> 00:09:12.009 not right. And they kind of laugh. I don't know 00:09:12.009 --> 00:09:13.570 what you'd call that kind of laugh. It's not 00:09:13.570 --> 00:09:16.370 quite self -conscious, but it's certainly not 00:09:16.370 --> 00:09:19.149 a belly laugh. It's an interesting laugh. And 00:09:19.149 --> 00:09:23.990 then later on in this class, when one character 00:09:23.990 --> 00:09:27.600 was confronted. by another character who gave 00:09:27.600 --> 00:09:31.759 them this ultimatum, that person who was given 00:09:31.759 --> 00:09:34.879 the ultimatum said, you cease to amaze me. And 00:09:34.879 --> 00:09:39.019 the room exploded. They lost it. And what's really 00:09:39.019 --> 00:09:41.940 special about that, you know, these games, these 00:09:41.940 --> 00:09:44.759 references that we create in the moment, is for 00:09:44.759 --> 00:09:47.240 the eight or ten of us in that room, you cease 00:09:47.240 --> 00:09:50.399 to amaze me means something. And it's special. 00:09:51.220 --> 00:09:54.850 It means something only to us. Like even hearing 00:09:54.850 --> 00:09:56.509 this, it won't mean the same to you. You might 00:09:56.509 --> 00:09:59.269 be able to appreciate it if you have similar 00:09:59.269 --> 00:10:02.669 experiences. But it's really powerful. And that 00:10:02.669 --> 00:10:05.909 only came about because the mistake, although 00:10:05.909 --> 00:10:08.330 originally in the class, the student wanted to, 00:10:08.389 --> 00:10:10.429 oh, oh, oh. And I was like, no, no, no, no, no. 00:10:10.470 --> 00:10:12.649 Say it again. You cease to amaze me. There you 00:10:12.649 --> 00:10:14.970 go. That's it. And we're going to hang on to 00:10:14.970 --> 00:10:21.070 that. You know, I know like in scenes and in 00:10:21.070 --> 00:10:23.919 life, we don't like to make mistakes. But mistakes, 00:10:24.039 --> 00:10:27.139 you know, they humanize us. They make us relatable. 00:10:28.700 --> 00:10:31.259 They create these inside jokes and callbacks. 00:10:31.700 --> 00:10:36.360 They generate games you could never plan. They 00:10:36.360 --> 00:10:39.100 bond the audience. They open up all kinds of 00:10:39.100 --> 00:10:43.620 doorways to you. And, you know, one more real 00:10:43.620 --> 00:10:48.379 life example. For Canadians, especially of a 00:10:48.379 --> 00:10:50.720 certain age, I mean, I wasn't old enough to really 00:10:50.720 --> 00:10:53.419 appreciate this, but 1972, the Canada -Russia, 00:10:53.519 --> 00:10:57.639 USSR at the time, hockey game, hockey series, 00:10:57.899 --> 00:10:59.740 eight games, four in Canada, four over there. 00:11:00.220 --> 00:11:02.059 And everybody in Canada thought, oh, we're going 00:11:02.059 --> 00:11:03.519 to wipe the floor with them. Well, they came 00:11:03.519 --> 00:11:05.500 to Canada and I think they won three out of four 00:11:05.500 --> 00:11:07.879 games. Like they dominated us. And then we went 00:11:07.879 --> 00:11:12.620 there. And on the first game, game five, the 00:11:12.620 --> 00:11:15.580 first game of the Soviet Union. I believe it 00:11:15.580 --> 00:11:17.879 was Phil Esposito, one of the captains or the 00:11:17.879 --> 00:11:19.740 captain of the team, went out on the ice and 00:11:19.740 --> 00:11:22.879 fell. And the audience kind of jeered him. And 00:11:22.879 --> 00:11:25.200 he didn't get upset. He got up and he bowed to 00:11:25.200 --> 00:11:28.620 the audience. And I'm not saying that was the 00:11:28.620 --> 00:11:31.039 turning point. But after that, Canada took control 00:11:31.039 --> 00:11:34.340 of that series. And it lives in Canadian folklore. 00:11:35.440 --> 00:11:39.980 So mistakes aren't mistakes. Only they're bad. 00:11:40.220 --> 00:11:42.929 Only if you think they're bad. You think about 00:11:42.929 --> 00:11:45.250 them a different way and think about their opportunities. 00:11:45.929 --> 00:11:49.490 That's the thing. Not bad. They're possibilities. 00:11:49.649 --> 00:11:52.809 They open up the life and open up life of the 00:11:52.809 --> 00:11:55.669 character and the scene and in real life, right? 00:11:55.950 --> 00:11:59.870 So in real life, mistakes equal growth, right? 00:11:59.909 --> 00:12:02.470 You understand, oh, okay, I shouldn't say yes 00:12:02.470 --> 00:12:04.169 to these people. I shouldn't do these things. 00:12:04.230 --> 00:12:07.230 I'm learning, figuring out, navigating my life, 00:12:07.330 --> 00:12:09.289 you know? Move to the wrong city, get the wrong 00:12:09.289 --> 00:12:15.200 job, wrong relationship, all that stuff. So we're 00:12:15.200 --> 00:12:18.120 changing away from like, oh no, to curiosity. 00:12:18.559 --> 00:12:22.519 Like, oh, what's this new thing that I never 00:12:22.519 --> 00:12:27.059 would have figured out if I hadn't made that 00:12:27.059 --> 00:12:30.919 mistake? So a mistake is only bad if you label 00:12:30.919 --> 00:12:34.509 it that way. 95 % of the time or more, it's an 00:12:34.509 --> 00:12:37.409 opportunity. And start there. Start with the 00:12:37.409 --> 00:12:40.330 opportunity. You know, maybe it is, maybe a mistake 00:12:40.330 --> 00:12:42.429 is bad. Like, I'm not saying it's never bad. 00:12:42.889 --> 00:12:45.529 It can be, right? And especially in certain situations, 00:12:45.750 --> 00:12:47.789 you can make mistakes. Uh -oh, I'm sorry, and 00:12:47.789 --> 00:12:50.710 you apologize, and you move on. But far too often, 00:12:50.769 --> 00:12:52.789 we go, oh, no, that's, oh, what have I done? 00:12:52.990 --> 00:12:56.289 Right? Think of them as opportunities, as doorways, 00:12:56.389 --> 00:13:01.620 as a new way of thinking. You know? all that 00:13:01.620 --> 00:13:05.740 stuff in improv and in life. And in both those 00:13:05.740 --> 00:13:09.419 places, growth happens at the edge of your comfort 00:13:09.419 --> 00:13:12.620 zone, right? People come to me and they say, 00:13:12.659 --> 00:13:14.019 Ralph, I want to get out of my comfort zone. 00:13:14.139 --> 00:13:15.899 I'm like, no, you don't. But you might want to 00:13:15.899 --> 00:13:17.879 push up against the edges of it and expand it. 00:13:17.960 --> 00:13:20.000 Sure, that's fine. I get what you're saying, 00:13:20.200 --> 00:13:22.139 but you want to get it bigger. And that's where 00:13:22.139 --> 00:13:24.299 growth happens. If you stay too far in your comfort 00:13:24.299 --> 00:13:27.720 zone, nothing happens. No risk, no reward, no 00:13:27.720 --> 00:13:30.659 growth. Outside your comfort zone. Chaos up against 00:13:30.659 --> 00:13:33.600 the edges. Yes. All right. That's my time for 00:13:33.600 --> 00:13:35.860 today. So thank you very much for tuning in. 00:13:36.120 --> 00:13:38.799 I hope to see you again. Check us out at socap 00:13:38.799 --> 00:13:42.779 .ca. And, you know, we'll look forward to hearing 00:13:42.779 --> 00:13:45.559 from you and getting all your questions. Thanks. 00:13:45.899 --> 00:13:46.299 Bye.