on with us that would be awesome too if you want to go ahead and
explore Farrell and say hey man can you jump on the show that would be great
and uh at the same time we'll we'll we'll have a great time even if well
doesn't show up um so and you want to discuss the
movie that you have coming out at all is that something that you want to
highlight
all right welcome in to vision pros live the Jackson Callum i'm your show host
we'll be doing interviews for visionary entrepreneurs
and guests guest leaders who are building fantastic visions out there
ultimately i just want to go through some of the things that
might help you with your vision if you have a vision that you're pursuing
drop a link in the comments and let us know what that is if that's a business
or a brand um if it's a non-profit that you run be happy to promote it be happy
to talk to you about it and if you like to apply to be on vision pros and be
entered to be viewed about that vision then by all means feel free to reach out
hi there and welcome to vision pros live i'm your host Jackson Callum
founder of first-class business co-founder of abel health ceo of podbooker
and i'm super excited to have christa gaino on today she is the co-founder of
innovative improv solutions and she's all about
laughter and making better cultures creating better better feelings within
company cultures i'm excited for her to explain that even better than i can
she's got so much experience as a former executive director of ground leans if
you look at ground leans ground leans is one of the the incubators for s and l
cast members so uh will ferrell went to their program melissa mccarthy went to
their program a lot of people went through uh i shouldn't say that program
but that that learning opportunity to become actors and become famous so
uh very very cool uh background in terms of working with people that you and i
are both familiar with watching on the big screen uh she knows a lot about
producing movies too we might talk about that a little bit today but most
importantly i want to make sure that i extract from her the value she puts out
there for entrepreneurs um who are striving to build great organizations
because she has some super secret powers about how to unlock great relationships
within a company within an organization so without further ado uh christ i'm so
happy to have you here let's get you on live with me hello it's great to have
you today thank you for being here yeah thanks for having me i'm excited
absolutely um so christ and i met a couple weeks back and some of you all
know on the show that i've been i put out this uh message to a bunch of thought
leaders and uh people in some type of leadership capacity they either had to
be a coach an entrepreneur an executive some type and the question was um about
cultures and uh you know what's what's going on with negativity in cultures i
loved her answer we went pretty deep on that and we just formed this friendship
and bond over it we really we really aligned in like how we see the world
and and how we want to treat people and how we want people to feel and i was
like man she christy you're so amazing i gotta bring on the show and talk a
little bit more about your vision um so i've done a little bit of an introduction
you want to expand on that a little bit tell us a little bit about yourself
so i mean i was i was just a girl with a dream um i i was very you know i came
up through theater through live theater and then into film and um and then i was
fortunate to be working at a pretty high level and started to notice um how many
of the skills that i seem to have innately that others just didn't that
in they just didn't have whether you know when you're an actor you really
under you start to watch human behavior it's what we do right and so even
though i don't maybe have a degree in psychology or some of these things i was
i was able to really intuitive see and hear and know what needed to be done to
help people sort of connect faster and and that's what theater and film really
is it's creating great teams with a variety of artisans who have a variety
of backgrounds so that's all that's what filmmaking is and and so um at the
groundlings when i you know that was i would say running groundlings is like
running a a small country um
of comedians a small country of comedians um
that what would i learn at one point i thought you know these skills that
that we have an improv give and take uh listening uh respect trust tone
commitment um setting each other up for success
joyfully struggling joyfully all of these concepts where concepts that could
be brought over into a corporate space to help make things better
and so uh i partnered with my my founder david who's an alum of the groundlings
and we started really working through like how how do we work through the
process which i know people know the at yes and although i think it's been
perhaps misused and overused but how do we really bring those concepts into
places to help them have um have just better days and and then i started
consulting for Kaiser Permanente which was so phenomenal because not
only was i helping doctors on the front lines and giving them tools that they
could use immediately when they went back to work but with both their staff
and their patients um but they were happier and they were more efficient
and then the wonderful thing about working with Kaiser is that they because
they're such a big company they do their own um they do their own sort of
studies and they have this great studies around empathy in the workplace and
and so it was really it was you know it was really awesome to go from this like
i know this helps but no one can you know i used to have companies call and say
it's working but i don't understand why and i go i don't know
it just does and so and so it was really great to be working within an
organization that really did put some of those studies down into context they've
got some great papers out about communication and empathy in the
workplace and to really be able to scientifically prove what we already
knew which is why this is helping. That's awesome i want to dive right
into this power of laughter um you know and the empathy and and how this comes
together for a company environment um so talk to me about this what what do you
know about the power of laughter that we should all know?
I think it's a great space for us to let down our guard be vulnerable and learn
and and also see each other down our guard
so we have to do that um and be vulnerable who we are and learn so how
do you how do we go about that go ahead sorry so that's a great concept and
it's like whoa. Laughter is the modality you
know there's a few things that when you really think about it think about people
who are at a huge sports championship and
someone does i'm not a sports person but somebody shoots the winning basket
because we just had basketball and you could be sitting next to complete
strangers and everyone's going to uh joy joy joy joy lab i'm gonna hug you i
don't even know you and what happens is everything is stripped away our guards
are down and we're left with humanity. Laughter does the same thing.
Oh i got chills. Yeah so laughter does the same thing like we're all in a room
together we're you know we're laughing together and all of a sudden
i'm gonna make this up all of a sudden donna from accounting isn't quite as
is irritating anymore because you realize that on the weekend she plays saxophone
and she has two dogs named birdie and and uh you know
bodey you know all of a sudden her humanity is cracked open and we are
allowed to see each other as humans and to and to have vulnerable moments but
the modality was through an exercise that brought us through laughter to see that
so that's how i see laughter and i think there's a great book that we love
called play here i've got the name play by Dr. Stuart
Brown um and he from a from an MD standpoint talks about what play does to
us physically how it lowers our heart rate how it
creates space for us to think differently from what we say is our
lizard brain to our wizard brain um yeah how we can yeah it's not fun so
that's a really great book for for people to look at what why bringing play
into the workplace as scary as some leaders may find it because they think
we need to be super serious at work um that it really actually is the opposite
it's incredibly helpful and it also creates longevity
um healthy physically healthier staff members and um and efficiency to be
honest that's awesome okay so emotional waste that's the other
lowers emotional waste excellent so you've you've very much piqued my
interest i'm thinking of some of the offices that i've been a part of and i
think of the show the office too right you got people who seem
almost impossible to break open what's that what's that like how do you you
know how do you get people to go from like almost an inner hostility
to vulnerable do you mind revealing some of those secrets
i don't i actually think we all desire to connect and i always say we want to
we we are as humans we're as human beings we're built to witness and to be
witnessed so in some cases it's actually not that
hard at all to get to lower people's defenses because they are so
surface they are they are a mask so to speak that we wear um
because we are we've got an we've got another emotion on the outside
nervousness um fear whatever that is so when you create a say and i'm not going
to say it's easy i don't know if i can give you a tip i think part of the
reason why you bring a company in like innovative improv is because we have
specialized for 16 years in making safe spaces for people to be able to do this
and it's not it's not the i mean the improv is a modality the the
extra the experiential exercises is is a way to get there
um but it's you know david and i are also very good at
just having a space where we can be open honest and safe together
and do it very quickly partially and using the tools that we teach
everybody else in those workshops so um but i don't think it's that i think
people are aching for it so i don't think it's as hard as what
you think i like that so let's dive into this
you brought up something i think is super important it's the obvious uh
to me it's the expert in you talking about it the safe spaces
um there's the implementation of this that can occur right the good
the bad and the ugly um and the you know let's talk first about the
companies who might attempt to do this on their own right i hear you talk
about i'm like oh you know what i'm gonna i'm gonna go in my company and
let's exaggerate a bit here but i'm gonna go and i'm gonna demand that
everybody laughs on fridays um you know or uh i'm gonna go and i'm
gonna create this game and it's gonna be super fun and everybody's just going
to love it right i i know what's gonna happen right we have our
silly expectations in life that sometimes get in the way but uh can you
think of some stories or some maybe more importantly
what does ugly look like what does the bad look like if somebody does attempt
to do this by themselves what are some of the dangers that that
actually exist because i can think of a few off my head but i'd love to hear
from you first yeah you know i think it's a loss of trust i mean
when you're trying to say i'm gonna go into a space and i'm gonna build trust
and then there's a loss of trust you know how to um
a comedian who is a great comedian that's just it looks effortless
like they just sort of woke up funny one day in fact i had someone say that to
me about wil ferrell they said they i someone did a sketch for me and
and and i said i gave them some feedback and they said well i just don't
understand why you don't think it's funny because i mean wil ferrell is just
funny and i was like wil ferrell worked for a lot of years for you to feel like
he effortlessly is funny you know and it doesn't mean that funny isn't
doesn't exist in people and we don't when we go in we i just want to make it
just because i'm using an example we do not train people to be funny we train
people to communicate which is what improv improvisers do but
there's i think that when there's something is fun
or appeared or is for others something that looks like it's a hobby
that there is a misperception that it wasn't that it didn't take
craft to get to an expert level so i will sometimes have people say we don't
want to do we don't want you know your help with applied improv because
um james took improv in high school and he's going to lead it
it's a great idea how awesome was that james is james did improv in high school
so he's going to lead it well james all do respect to james
and and and his high school experience doing improv
it's you know to teach it um hold space for it uh know when to push and pull
to have everybody in mind who in that space and what their experience is
without having the immediate ties to like oh that's my boss
or oh i don't like linda or whatever that is like these are you know when it goes
badly it can go really badly um and and you know and for us we
don't we don't have some of that first of all we've been doing it for years and
years and years and years and years and there's zero fear from us
there's zero you know we're excited to be there we're gonna joyfully jump in like
it's like nobody's business and we also just don't have some of the
interpersonal situations that might be have but so that the other group might
be having that so we can be an outside observer and there was a great mentor i
worked with who said you should never be teaching or coaching the class you
should be a part of and that's why you should bring
an outside person in because if someone from your workforce or who is a
who is an employee or who is a team member whatever says nope i have this
thing i swear i can do it they are still coming in tied to an experience there
they're not an outside so so it's like i don't want to trust
james because i don't you know whatever like there's a baggage there
already that does it that will impede the ability for people to relax love that
you should never be teaching or coaching the class that you're part of
you should be a part of yeah like for example if you are you should not be
teaching a class on grief if you are in the smack dab center of grief you know
we need to have perspective of being on the outside in order to hold
space for others to have the experience not us i love it i love it so diving a
little bit deeper on this good bad and ugly scenario one of the things that i
would say from my experience having been in a similar class with a doctor
who was doing this for a networking group you know it was it was interesting to
see that the bad and the ugly came out but she was well prepared to redirect it
towards good yes and that you know the rest of us would not have known or had
the capability of doing so so what ended up happening was she did this exercise
with us that was a lot of fun and it was pretty intense and you could instantly
like see and feel the vibes of the people who were you know leading well and
participating well on those who were trying to control the experience and
kind of like ruining it for people and one of the people who was most who was
ruining it most for everybody was the director of the networking group
um right so she's in charge and she's causing all these problems so
she at the end is trying to like dissect why things went wrong and
you know and and kind of pointing fingers at people and i think most of us were
uh we were seasoned enough to know that the journey was really the goal yeah
but she was not catching it at all and we weren't in a position to be able to
help her catch that she learned something completely different but through the
facilitation um the the abilities of the doctor who was running this she was
able to help her see what she was supposed to learn out of the experience
and none of us had to call her out uh or or ruin our networking experience
or our position with her in this organization that we had because we
had an expert there to facilitate that so is that that allude to kind of
the experience absolutely and you know i can push where others can't too you
know and um because it is like and one of the things that we i used to do with
kaiser permanent is actually incredibly risky for many um they had this great
part of the program where we got to sit where we we had a coach and an improv
actor who we would build a scenario i i i see other people terrified to do this
i this is one of my favorite things to do but they built built a scenario that
they are personally struggling with so i um i am having a lot of conflict with
the with the nurse i work with i don't feel like the rooms are restocked and
i'm having to have a coaching conversation with her about it and um i want to try
it out and so we say okay great so uh give me some of the traits that the nurse
has and she they say she's defensive she's this she's this and so we'd go out
with the actor we and we and we'd come back in in a second we'd say go and then
i would sit on the sidelines and when things started to go awry i would go like
okay pause how are we doing you know and and and i only and i bring that up not
because i think i personally think it's brilliant it takes a lot of bravery
Kaiser Permanente wow i mean like awesome work but the reason i bring it up is
because in those moments because i created a lot of safety before we stepped
into those small group rooms i was able to and the actor was able to say
this is how it felt when you said x when you said i all i want from you Darla is
to stock my rooms i felt like you were saying i don't ever do a good job ever
and in the moment because i always say like you know it's very rare you have a
coaching conversation and then when afterwards you can look at someone go
like how is that for you right and so and we were able to really do that using
improv and using a space after we had a lot of fun and laughter to then say okay
now let's work on something very personal and private and it took it and
hands down i'll tell you i 100 percent of the time i think i've got a 100
record maybe i remember one that didn't have fun doing it so maybe 98
i uh i they would say i don't want to do it i don't want to do it and i would
just sit there and go like listen we're all going to get in the hot seat every
single one of you so someone's going to go now so let's go and we would just do
it and then hands down that was the most valuable thing i've ever learned in my
career so being able to also be in a space to
say i'm going to push you a little bit into maybe a space that you're not used
to being in and we're gonna and i'm gonna hold you through it
um and we're gonna have fun and we're gonna laugh and we're gonna like to not
take it too seriously but we're also gonna talk about stuff that really
matters in our day-to-day so reframe that one more time for me the number one
thing that you learned and in new words was
your words on that what you said the number one thing that you learned in
your career was it was it to push and to get somebody onto
under that hot seat it's to help people be brave
sort of for them really i mean that's what i do like i create a bridge between
like the the thing that you want and where you are
and i get to be the bravery bridge right go well let's go try it out
let's go play let's play and it's an invitation still
right so you're inviting them but you're inviting them to go with you
um you say let's i think these it's these dynamic word choices that
sometimes cause all the difference right you know let's make fun of this a
little bit like let's say there's a romantic comedy um you know and and
something the the woman says i love you and he goes i like you
uh like you know what's coming next in that scene
that's what we say with yes and right it's like yes and is really about
whether you're saying yeah and or but so i could say to you
this was a great actually a great example for the doctors
i could say to you um if i were your doctor and you were struggling with
diabetes i'd say i could say um jackson it sounds like you want to control your
diabetes with diet and exercise but it's time for you to consider insulin
okay and say the same thing we can change one word jackson
i i understand you want to um control your diabetes through diet and
exercise and it's time we consider insulin
yeah my heart feels better that is better because you're saying i heard what
you just said and i want to add to it as opposed to i heard what you said but
here's my agenda and it's just one word yes same words one word
change and and and here's a tip for anyone who's out
there start it in your email don't even try to start it in your verbal
just start it in your emails every single time you want to write but
figure out a different way to say that sentence and and usually like you said
and and it's with the word and right so um and i love that you
you put a caveat in the beginning for those who are more on the expert level
of communications at least with this terminology right some people overuse it
um you know and you can abuse it just like the words i love you
you know you can if you as a kid you learn to do that to your parents you
know to try to get what you want is the more i say i love you or if i give more
hugs um you know then i'll get out of trouble faster and that that manipulation
wears off um right it doesn't work the same way because it's not
authentic um and at the same time if you learn to use yes and in a healthy
fashion where you really mean it um you know you're trying to bring people up
then it can have a very positive effect and a lasting effect on your
relationship so speaking of that and it's a mindset right
it's a mindset not just the words so when you're in an improv with
with with say with yes and which is the reason why it was or how it was created
you know someone could come up and say start as a scene by saying um
wow uh that storm is that storm that's coming is really bad
and if you and if you're going to disagree that that storm was bad
you you can disagree you just have to acknowledge that you both were talking
about the same thing right so it's not yes and is a mindset of how can i
acknowledge you and build on to something together as opposed to i'm just
going to constantly say yes and and then still say bad stuff anyway like you
know it really is a mindset it's so true it is it's the same and it goes
parallel with the mindset now you maybe think about this now um with the
mindset of problem oriented versus solution oriented
yeah they're very similar glasses half empty glasses half full right
we once we learn what the glasses half empty glasses half full
thing means it's no longer a valuable analogy
right because we know what we're supposed to answer but it doesn't
necessarily mess with our psyche but this yes and concept or rather and this
yes and concept helps us understand are we are we focusing on
the problems of the negativity or are we seeing the solutions
and when you start your emails you can go delete delete delete delete delete
which is why it's a great place to start to think about it differently
because i don't write i usually don't will not tell anybody something i can't
do any longer i love that i'm going to circle
back real quick to timothy uh timothy thank you for your
comment i know this is in relation to will ferrell what we talked about the
results are from what they don't see of what happens in the dark
um right so in other words whatever your practicing behind the scenes your
guitar player um you know if you are acting whatever it is there's
so many things you have to go through and do in order to win
it's it's usually not just a natural born
given talent where you just come out singing like an opera singer
um so well said timothy thank you for contributing and uh
ten year and overnight success right exactly ten year overnight success um
so why is uplifting teams important to you christa um we spend a especially in
this country i think a vast majority of our time working
and i think you know when we have this idea or this ideal
that we should like what we do and that of course is not even if you're in the
thing that there's i do what i i'm very blessed that i get to do what i love to
do and there's a ton of the stuff involved in this
dream job supposedly that i have that stinks so
like really like the admin chasing things like said you know
the tech like there's a lot of stuff that's a slog no matter what you're
doing and so i guess for me i just feel like if we're
going to spend in some cases more time doing the work with our teams and we
are in at home at different you know different if
especially if you're involved in a project or in different times then you
should figure out how to enjoy it get along and and make things
faster easier and better um you know so i guess that's why it's not just about
i mean i want people to be able to have that work life
balance by being able to have a work life that
is you know has some fun infused into it i'm gonna go cheesy on this uh because
i like cheesy but like you basically said you understand the value of
fulfilling the american dream um you know for for others is what i heard is
that ideal of wanting to love what you do wanting to have that you want to bring
that to other people and when you do something like that too
like it does it does fill you when you get the chance to see
the results of that but like you said too it's uh there's a lot of hard work
that goes into it um you know and you don't you're not always putting the
ball in the hoop for the winning shot to go back to the sports analogy you know a
lot of the work that has done is the types of workouts that that i dread
um you know i i dread 10 000 steps and i dread you know 100 sit-ups but those
professional athletes you know that's a walk in the park for them at this point
because they have hours and hours and hours of body maintenance that they're
up to and mind maintenance that they're up to in order to compete at the highest
levels uh so i also think too checks in that we i i see at least that a huge
amount of training um because a lot of it's technical so this is not a knock
on anybody on trainers or coaches or anything like that because a lot of it
has to be technical but i think a lot of it is a slog
like it's not like someone wakes up in the morning goes oh i got this eight hour
training i get to go to today so you know and i think you know and often when we
we need to use your analogy about working out finding the time to work out
feels for many of us like it's just hard to do finding the time to train or to
improve our communication skills i could look at people all day long and say
you will feel better your days will go better you will be happier if you can
take this chunk out of time to spend on yourself because it really is self-care
at some level um and for leaders it's self-care for their people and yet it
feels like a slog and that is because we have sat and looked at computer screens
or power points or you know telling us how we could be for so much time that it
feels like it's gonna be hard and the thing that is i think a breath of
fresh air from what we do is we just don't do any of that
i mean it's just it and in in the same way of wrapping a really beautiful
thinker into a film and having people later go like
huh that was funny but was also really about you know pay disparity in a
country you know like you know in the same way of doing that what we do
does that around communication it's fun it's delightful people leave
energized but they also go i'm more self-aware i understand how i could use
different tools and i understand that if i have a presumption of positive intent
that maybe my day will go better that's exciting
that's really exciting so you've you probably work with a lot of executives
um you know these firms that you've worked with i saw sony on the list
um you know you've you mentioned um other big companies
my question for you is what advice do you have for entrepreneurs um you know and
and a lot of the listeners here are newer in the field of entrepreneurship
let's go towards those that are three to five years in business
okay have teams of uh 10 to 50 um you know that are in place or that's their
aspiration is to go to that if you could plant a seed of confidence and value in
an entrepreneur's mind so they can understand the true value of this what
what would that look like what advice would you give them
work doesn't always have to look like work
sometimes i understand especially when you're an entrepreneur because i am one
too you know i have had the full night the all night long
literally pressing a button 500 times trying to figure out what button i miss
to get the thing to show up on the website like we we're and we are going to
reframe what you said a little bit because you said it the positive way i'm
going to go towards a consequence a little bit if work always looks like work
it's not going to work yeah no i know what we get stuck on as
entrepreneurs is we want to drive tasks sometimes too much
and we're drivers exactly right i was gonna say we're drivers and we're also
this is my pitfall i can say it flat out why am i consultant
is that it's hard it like it might is is that you how do i say this there's two
different things i've had to really learn that my work ethic is not the work
ethic of my team and and to really leave space for that and to
take the voice that sits back here that says why aren't you doing what i want
you to do because a lot of it and go like wait a second they have work like
balance you might actually envy them if you look at a moment like i you know so
that so that is a big piece of the puzzle for entrepreneurs but i also think
this you know you will get more from your people if they are
delighting in being there and i may as well happen to me in the
background so i gotta bring him on he's going jackson's like that jackson
no you're muted hi me but it come back when you're not muted
for sure but that is the truth you know we are drivers and there's a great
there's there's an upside to that like we can move mountains but the but once
you the mountain needs to be moved with a team
yeah you you have to adjust on how the and how the health of the team
um like taking a pause to allow to ask yourself what is the best way to have
that my team healthy and strong which is not always the work sometimes it is in
the play the be they will do anything for you it's sort of you know they always
teach you as a you know when you're parenting or in leadership like how many
coins can you put into the bank in order to ask the favor later but you have to
be putting the coins into the bank you have to be saying go home there's the
project doesn't need you right now you've got a kid who needs you or you've
got to be able to say let's laugh together let's all have lunch and just
and for no reason no one's not no there's not any like hey we're gonna like try to
we're gonna like try to talk about goals in the middle of lunch
but and i know that's hard as an entrepreneur because
we usually this is our idea it's our thing we're
passionate about it i i have friends who look at me and go you know i just
don't want to talk about work and i'm like what
i don't know it's what you live for but your team isn't like that so we have to
meet them where they are yes yes so so well said and
and i i always hoped that my team calls me out on it when i'm not
right that's like the ultimate aspiration that i have is because it can be
very hard when you love what you do right and if you love what you do and
this is like your your everything um then it can be very hard to
remember there's other sides but if you take the opportunity and i'm really
bad at this yes and thing i'm realizing that more and more on this call
um so it snakes up on you right it really does um so i'll own that
the the opportunity that i have to turn to my team and realize like okay there
are other areas of balance that i need to be gravitating towards so i've i've
kind of opened my eyes to that i found my team
driving more balance into me which ends up in turn driving more value for
everybody and i love the analogy from the bible
you know that that basically i don't know the exact scripture but it says
you know like the head can't tell the hand that it's not important
um you know that same thing with the eye and the foot like
every part of the body has a very different role in what they do
um you know and so if you've got somebody who's operating
as the pinky um you know they're not gonna do
the same weight of of tasks as the shoulders
will but it doesn't mean they're not valuable right it's just different and
until you can learn to make space for those realities uh i call our design
team the hardened stole a first-class business they
are their their work comes out and every time you see it you're just like
like that picture says a thousand words um you know there's but that's your
creative team right yes see and that's the thing i think
people don't understand often when they're working with creative teams and
more and more and more now that you have to have content now that you've got you
know people are have the admin is having to work with creative
and there are lots of times where creative looks like they're not doing a
darn thing and because the creative good creative comes
from space it comes from often you know there who was it there's a famous
screenwriter who takes like 13 showers a day because that's where he gets there's
actually a lot of science around the ideas you get in a shower
really i had some visions in the shower yeah because there's and guess why
because you're naked and vulnerable under warm water and it allows your brain
to open up a different passage than someplace else so they're creative the
cold shower thing that helps people talk about yes you can do that but it's
going to shut that vision down now but it is there i mean there are people who
will take multiple showers or they need to take a bike ride or they need to do
creative the success and creativity looks different than a linear
nine to five drive to a result for admin and so to get those two sides of the
you know of the struggle to understand each other to understand that admin
does need things so that they can actually take your vision and put it into
reality based on goals and also for for admin to
understand that creatives might need to go take the bike ride in the middle of
the day and if they watch them struggling up against a wall they might want to
suggest it those are things that are very important when you're when you're
starting to work with teams in those different in those different ways of
processing information i love that and i love that and you bring
up such a great point like also helping the departments understand
the different styles of work right and create a level of empathy
okay this is task oriented and therefore it needs to be done
you know as a as a documented registered process of
of like over and over and over routine type thing whereas again helping them
understand the difference in the art side but also creating a
we also have an opportunity to create space in a company for
people who may be misplaced you know right somebody who's
who applied for and started as an admin and they've got the unique
capability of also doing design and if you're not communicating with them
you know about what they want to do that can build up a sentiment
of resentment you know and like feeling left out or
or feeling misplaced not everybody's blessed with
you know those candid communication skills of hey i really want to be over
there you know can i apply for it so
whoo a lot a lot to learn for entrepreneurs right and i think yeah
and that's the challenge right i mean i think it's really important as an
entrepreneur to probably understand that nobody else in the room is going to
want is going to want to succeed as much as you
and they and it's not their job too you've hired them to do a job and it's
not their job to hold your vision in the same way you're holding your vision
however at some point you probably if this is not your
it's also recognizing where you're where your gifts are because if your gift is
not in what you said seeing someone else's gifts and maybe helping them
transition then you should find someone to bring to your team to be the eyes and
ears in that space if you are not able to do that and work with them
because i mean i think being an entrepreneur is often like being a
film director it's about building a team and then making sure that the team is
healthy and safe to do the best work they possibly can on behalf of your vision
and that is and and in inciting you know exciting them about that vision so
that they do come to work excited to do their to put their best artistry forward
um that's really uh so you know when people go like how's your how are your
two balances and i'm like well i'm a film you know my film producer and director
and then i also do this they're really in many ways the same thing just a
different location i love it yeah absolutely so i want to
ask you about the program itself for innovative improv solutions um if a
company wants to go to the process of understanding this is for them you know
what what types of aspirations can they have
um and about what what that looks like how does the onboarding work uh do you
do like an analysis upfront tell us as much as you can about
uh what that would look like if somebody were to reach out to you
so we will often work with um a learning and development team at our larger
companies for for our smaller companies some will just give us a call
and not surprising jackson we're an improv company so we will uh we will work
with you we will sit down with you and say what are your goals what is the
demographic of your company what are you hoping to get to what are the
what are the things that you think might be coming up over and over again that
you're that you don't know how to address what is what do what does all
of that look like and then um we will uh so we'll just
talk through and then we will david and i will go and for the most part sit down
and say and come up with a program that we would suggest for you
and or or several different programs and then we'll bring it back to you and
say let's talk it through and see what works and give the client the
opportunity to say i love this i hate this is there something for this
and and oftentimes there have been lots of lots of uh programs that we have
created exercises specifically for the needs of a certain
client and um just pulling from other exercises that we know we have and how we
can shift it and change it so it worked in an applied improv
space and then we go from there so it's actually
even though there are parts of the programs that we offer that are not
customized because they are the parts that get us into the space of safety
we have said like the beginning of each one of our courses is very similar
it's sort of like a warm-up like we just got to get people feeling like well
i'm not going to die everything's okay and then and then after that we can
really customize it to um to do a lot of different
things talk about empathy in the workplace talk about presentation skills
talk about um how to uh connect how to um how to change our tone of voice from
you know aggressive to assertive what people are seeing like we can do all
kinds of things once we get you know into that space of safety
i love that and and to remind everybody uh it's not about the activities
that are done and you can find the activities on Pinterest or Google
you can do those things but you won't have that facilitator
who can manage appropriately the bads and the ugliest the the types of conflict
that can come out of that you really do need somebody to help facilitate that
from the outside i'm a very firm believer in that i love
that that we brought that up today and that that you recognize that as a
company and that we didn't accidentally overlook the the power of that for
for the audience who's listening in so if you want to get in touch with
christa i imagine you can reach out to her on linkedin
Facebook all the traditional social media platforms that exist you can also go
to her website and read through more about um what it is they do and see some
pictures of of the experience but at the end of the day
it's going to come down to your ability to jump on the phone and talk to her
vulnerably i imagine about what's going on in your workplace and what results do
you want to have and the more vulnerable and transparent you are about the
reality of your situation the more you're going to empower her and
david to know what to do to help you move forward faster um you know
strip yourself down to that point of being able to be open and honest about
it is there anything else you'd like to add today christa i want to say that for
entrepreneurs who are out there who are in maybe some of those smaller teams
that you're talking about um often they're skewing younger and this is
this is how millennials and gen z love to learn they love to learn
experientially with laughter they love to learn through entertainment they love
to this is so for for so don't you know really think about
this type of thing this is right up the alley of a young team
um and it's a great way to start things off
um you stay young team and us millennials we're now like 37 ish
um you know i'm 35 but i'm 50 so you know you're still young to me i appreciate
it um and so and and yes that i would agree whole heartedly from what i've
seen from what i'd like as well the experiential learning
means so much um you know and being able to belong
you know and feel like you're part of a team that cares about you those aspects
are super important uh yes the salary is nice yes the benefits are nice
um you know the type of perks that can exist a nice desk and things like that
but when it comes down to it we want to belong we want to connect with those
around us and we want to know that we made a difference in their lives
um and that they're enjoying being connected to us as well so christa thank
you so much for being here today this was awesome
vision pros if you have any questions don't hesitate to ask them in the
comments if you have any resources you'd like to add don't hesitate to do so as
well um we would love to to continue the
conversation offline feel free to reach out to any one of us
shout out to the water project didn't dive into that too much today but i know
christa's on the same page we always want to be giving back we always want to
be looking to do more for others there's people out there who don't have water
right now not healthy filtered water it's an awesome
opportunity to contribute contribute one dollar five dollars whatever you have
to be able to do that shout out to our sponsors epiphany and abel health as
well feel free to go check out their websites and see what they can offer
you abel health in terms of improving your health and if you're
female and you're looking to improve your ability to uh have children the
fertility program is fantastic on epiphany side if you're looking for
operational support um and connecting your systems and you're you're
struggling with a team of tech engineers that really can't grasp the vision of
what you do i highly recommend reaching out to rick there
it's been awesome to have everybody today all these links will be in the
comments as well as we release the official episodes
everybody have a fantastic rest of your week and christa again thank you so
much for being here today thank you bye everybody
thank you for being here today i'm really happy that you tuned into vision pros
live i'm looking forward to seeing your reactions
as these episodes continue to move forward we optimize them as the months go
by this is going to get more and more fun we'll have more and more engagement as well