Hello, everybody, and welcome back to the SoCap
Improv Comedy Podcast. My name's Ralph McLeod.
I am the owner and artistic director of the SoCap
Comedy Theatre in Toronto, Ontario. We're at
154 Danforth Avenue above the Black Swan Tavern
on the second and third floor. We do shows, classes,
events, corporate events, rentals, you name it.
If you come to me with an idea, I'll run with
it. And every podcast has a sponsor. Today's
sponsor is Burt Reynolds Boat Rentals. That's
right. Burt Reynolds Boat Rentals. The late Burt
Reynolds Boat Rental Company. So if you're looking
for a boat to rent, come to Burt Reynolds Boat
Rentals and we will fix you up just off Highway
69. Anyway, I hope you're all doing very well.
Yeah, so what this podcast is about is about
improv and more related to improv, not for performance
so much, although I certainly will cover performance
topics, but also like why somebody who has no
interest in being a comedian or getting on stage
would ever want to take an improv class. What?
Why? Why would you want to do that? Well, I've
gone over some things, and today what I want
to talk about is how... improv can help you build
empathy uh it's i think it's estimated that something
like one percent of the population are psychopaths
and sociopaths and i don't even know uh how many
narcissists there are although according to robert
green uh in his book uh about the 48 rules of
power laws of power uh his new one whose title
escapes me but robert green is a great writer
and i and i recommend If you're interested in
human nature, pick up any of his books. The Law
of Seduction, 48 Laws of Power, and this new
one. That name, I can't remember it. But if you
Google him, I'm sure you'll find it. Anyway,
he says that we're all narcissists. Because sometimes,
of course, it's a spectrum and we can all be
a little narcissistic at times. But he puts most
people in the healthy narcissist category. tend
to like having people talk about you. You like
to be their center of attention, but you don't
need it and you don't resent it every time someone
else is the center of attention. Anyway, one
of the ways that they are treating psychopaths
and sociopaths is by developing their empathy.
It's really interesting. One thing they're doing
is they show them pictures of hands touching
and then ask them to describe what they're watching.
And it helps activate the centers of the brain.
that are a little less, shall we say, active
in psychopaths and sociopaths. So they learn
how to empathize with people. But if you're not
a psychopath or a sociopath, or even if you are,
because we don't judge. Yes. Well, okay, now
I've said it. No, SoCap is open to everybody
except people, except abusers. That's, you know.
So the one rule at SOCAP or a rule at SOCAP is
don't come if you're an abuser, if you abuse
people. But we take everybody. I don't care your
religion or your age or anything. Just don't
just don't be enough. But anyway, back to the
topic at hand that I was talking about is empathy.
And, you know, because we're all like. in our
little worlds we do our things and uh you know
you may be you know a boss you may not be a boss
you may be a parent you may not be a parent you
may be a teacher you may not be a teacher but
what improv allows you to do is role play all
different kinds of scenarios you know you can
if you're uh if you're male you could play a
female character but vice versa and uh when i
teach at least uh i always encourage people to
be the smartest versions of themselves there's
an interesting thing about improv uh whenever
anybody plays like a doctor someone said this
and i wish i knew who said it because it's absolutely
true that you would never go uh as a patient
to an improv doctor uh because i mean of course
you wouldn't anyway but you wouldn't because
everybody who plays a doctor uh, will be a bad
example of a doctor. Like they won't know what
they're doing. They'll operate with chainsaws.
Uh, they'll just take a heart out in the middle
of the afternoon in their living room. You know,
they don't. And, um, I'm always encouraging people
to be, no, no, no, no, no. Be a competent surgeon.
Uh, if you're a surgeon or a doctor, like the
best, I mean, obviously, you know, if you have
no experience and I had no experience, I don't
know, but I've seen it on TV. I think enough
to, that I could, um, fake my way through it.
In a way that if a surgeon watched me, I mean,
of course, they'd find lots of problems and faults.
But it'd be like, okay, you know, for someone
who doesn't know anything about what they're
doing, that's okay. That's what I'm trying to
get to. It's like, it's trying to not butcher
being a doctor. Because I think people think
that will be funny. It'll be funny if I'm a doctor
who operates with a chainsaw. And it's not, right?
It's just weird. As I describe it, I'm sure you're
like, that's just weird. And it is weird. But...
And weird, what I mean by weird is unrelatable.
You would never look at that and laugh at it.
Not in a way that connected with you, like a
belly laugh. You might go, oh, that's weird and
crazy. I don't know what that person's doing.
You might laugh at it derisively, but not in
agreement with what you're watching. But when
you come to an improv class, let's say that you're
like me. Okay, I'm a white middle -aged man.
Well, I'm not middle -aged anymore. 56. So as
a Clint Eastwood once said, I'm on the back though.
Um, so, uh, and I have children and I have, uh,
almost have very little experience working for
other people. I've always been an entrepreneur,
I guess, or self -employed or a deadbeat, whatever
acronym, an acronym, whatever label you want
to stick on me. Um, but when I improvise, I can,
I can, I can be a woman. I could be a mother
or I could be a childless adult or I could be
married. I'm not married, but I could play that.
Or I could play like I'm a boss. I'm an employee
and I have a boss. And what that does is it allows
me glimpses into the worlds of other people.
And what that does is it helps create an understanding
of other people's journeys. And of course, it's
an approximation of one. really understand the
journey of another human being but some insight
into it you know there's there's the three kinds
of empathy and since we're talking about empathy
i'll just run through them very quickly because
they're interesting uh and i have all three of
these and if you're an empath uh i'm sure you
do uh but of course we all have varying degrees
of these things anyway the first one is the first
empathy is uh understanding what someone is feeling,
like, oh, you're upset or you're angry or you're
happy. The second one is hearing somebody's story
and having an idea or an understanding in some
way as to what that was like. And then the third
one is when you hear somebody's problem, is you
take it on yourself and help them. solid so uh
the the way it's described to me that i like
it makes it easier to understand is let's say
you're walking down a road and you come across
there's a big hole in the ground and there's
a person in the hole and you look down you see
the person first thing he's like oh they're scared
or confused or whatever the second one is like
oh you're in the hole oh that must be terrifying
or discommodulating or whatever. That's the second
one. And the third one is you jump down into
the hole like, okay, your problem is now our
problem. Let's get out of this hole. And of course,
that's where empaths have some problems is taking
on other people's problems and solving them for
them in order to get liked. And sometimes that
works out and often it does not. So that's the
thing. But building empathy and understanding
of other people's journey is... I think so important
because without it, you know, we, we all just
look at everybody else through our narrow experience,
right? Like every time I hear that phrase, like,
well, if I did it, anybody can do it. That's
no, that's not at all true. Like you did it.
That's great. But you don't know anybody else's
journey. You don't know what they've had to go
through, you know? And so what improv does is
it allows you to play a range of people and to
really if you play it as smart as you get to
the height of your intelligence, as I say, or
as to be to honor that whatever you're paying
as playing as much as possible, you will start
to get an understanding of how other people live
and exist. And, you know, there's this thing
about our brains that if you. So wherever you're
sitting right now, listening to this, if all
of a sudden the door opened and all these puppies
ran in and you played with them, that experience,
whether that really happened to you or you imagined
it, as far as your brain is concerned, is the
same. And so we manifest our reality. So you
can sort of build different pathways in your
brain. Brain plasticity, which is an episode
I'll be talking about at some point. Another
benefit of improv, you know, generating new pathways
in your brain, which, you know, is good for improv,
but then that's also very good in a lot of other
places in your life. Practicing divergent and
convergent thinking when trying to be creative
or, and again, creative. It's good to be creative
when you're on stage or when you're in a class,
but it's also good to be creative at work or
with your family or relationships. You want to
think of other possibilities to solve problems.
But today, what I really want to just emphasize
is empathy, that you can develop more of an understanding
of different people, which hopefully will allow
you to suspend some judgment. about other people
and going okay okay you know there might have
been a time i'd look at such and such a thing
a person to type whatever with a bit of like
then i'll link that but okay all right all right
i can uh can understand maybe why your journey
has not been so easy or whatever but that's that's
what i'm trying to get at is that you can start
to think about other people Anyway, that's my
time for today. Empathy is very important. Improv
will help you develop it and make you more of
a human being and not a human doing. I don't
know what that means. But anyway, thanks so much,
everybody. I hope you have a great week. We'll
see you back here next time for more of the Socap
Improv Comedy Podcast. This week brought to you
by Burt Reynolds Butt Reynolds. So for all your
Butt Reynolds needs, contact Burt Reynolds Butt
Reynolds. Take care.