Yes, AND?

Improv is an art of public speaking where performers improvise the characters, the scene and the premise with a goal to entertain the audience. My original motive to study and practice improv was to only get better at thinking on my feet but I found myself applying improv to my daily life with great results.

One of the main rules of improv is that every scene builds up incrementally and when things are said they become facts, you cannot negate them. This is the famous “Yes, AND?” rule in improv. Yes AND is so great because it makes you a much better listener, to add to something you need to first listen to whats being said. Furthermore my usual reaction in real life to new ideas is “But this wont work because”. But this is a really bad reaction because every idea initially is a bad idea and you need to give it some space for it to nurture. Ever since improv, I always apply “Yes AND” to new ideas and that has made me a much better collaborator and team player.

Initially, after improv scenes I used to be quite quick to judge a scene as a “bad scene” or a “good scene”. But one of the things you learn during improv is there is no such thing as a good scene or a bad scene, they are all just Improv scenes! It’s a strangely liberating realization. Just like there is no day as a good day or a bad day. Its just a day! Some days are more productive than others, some days are super stressful but they are all getting you somewhere and the productive days wouldnt exist without the stressful days. So you end up accepting all the days just the same. Now the day to day variability doesnt affect me and helps me put in my best regardless of the result.

In improv, usually the most entertaining scenes are where the performers make strong choices about their characters and then really commit to those choices. If its a peas in a pod scene and you are being a monkey be the most monkey you can be. If its a weird person normal person scene with a teacher who loves talking about his pet cat during the math class, be the weirdest cat loving teacher you can be. The most successful human lives are similar. They care deeply about a few things and then they really devote themselves to it. The Gandhis, the Martin Luther Kings, they made strong choices about what they care about and boy they committed to those choices. So yeah make strong choices, really get the hell behind those choices and dont look back. Be yourself, be that person, rule the world!