1:02:44
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
bucket list item, joe, bucket list, people, improv, andrew, business, business improvement, year, damon, pete, ira, thinking, awesome, alaska, hear, helping, strategies, run, troy, unwritten rules, Business broker, Business value builder, M&A consultant.
SPEAKERS
Andrew Deutsch, Damon Pistulka, Mary White, Ron Higgs, Ira Bowman, Andrew Cross, Pete Alexander
Ira Bowman 00:01
All right. We’re running a little bit slow because Damon’s internet is literally being powered by a gerbal running on a wheel.
Andrew Cross 00:14
The gerbal farms are in Sorth Dakota.
Damon Pistulka 00:19
Joe needs to turn his camera on if it turned off and his mic because I don’t see him coming to stage. I see that he’s on stage. I can
Ira Bowman 00:25
show his I think he’s having some internet.
Damon Pistulka 00:28
There we go. There we go. Joe’s doing good.
00:32
My internet go out. So are my camera go off.
Damon Pistulka 00:36
Okay, all right. Yeah.
Andrew Cross 00:38
It’s a real thing.
Ira Bowman 00:39
Oh, you missed my miss my dad joke. I said that. Damon’s internet is being powered by dribbles this morning.
Damon Pistulka 00:45
Yeah. Well, I will tell you that I didn’t realize how many wind turbines they put up out here in the Midwest. I went on a road that I hadn’t been on and I don’t know it’s 10 years or so. This last week and man hand there are wind turbines everywhere where they weren’t before.
01:01
Wow. Pretty strong.
Damon Pistulka 01:03
Yeah, they’re strong. things. Yeah. Yeah, they’re busy. They’re busy. Well, they have to have the out in the crops so they can feed the durables that turn the turn. Yeah. All right. Well, I’m just really excited here from the zero a business roundtable to have Joe van hake. Am I saying it right, Joe? van King?
01:27
Like, like hacky sack.
Damon Pistulka 01:29
Oh, Jesus. Oh, man hacky? Great. Great, great. Awesome. So now we got it. So Joe, was actually introduced to me by Melissa, where l who’s on our panel from time to time and on participates in the Thursday event often and said, Hey, you gotta meet Joe. He’s doing some interesting things with improv. And and really helping people in business use improv as a way of improving communication and solving problems and teamwork and other things by having them work through situations.
And as I was thinking about this, I said, we’ve been doing improv forever in business. We just didn’t call it that. When you talk about the sales training, how many times have you in sales training event, you had to do the, like roleplay. And, and go through that. So you know, some of it has been done in the sales arena, but I really don’t know how much of it’s been done like Joe does, in in the actual operations or the the office type setting of a business. So it’s pretty cool. So welcome, Joe.
02:34
Thanks, Damon. I’m honored and pleased to be here.
Damon Pistulka 02:37
All right. That’s great to have you. So we’re gonna we’re gonna pull some people up. Andrew is going to be pulling some people up just to say hello. We don’t have a lot of people in the in here today, but we can easily get.
02:51
That’s kind of fun. It’s kind of fun. Oh, yeah.
Damon Pistulka 02:54
We’re gonna have fun with the improv today. So we’re going to do that. And there’s going to be bringing people onto the stage. Again, introduce yourself. And our question. Question of the day.
03:06
Troy first and last today,
Damon Pistulka 03:09
all right.
03:12
So
Ira Bowman 03:13
he’ll drop. I’ll drop the bomb on us later. No, excuse me.
Damon Pistulka 03:20
I was talking. Yeah. I’ll go. I digress too far. If I start talking about Andrew, in a good way, Andrew. I was talking about something the other day about how funny he is. But
Ira Bowman 03:34
he said he’s gonna he resembles that insult in the chat. I mean, I always
Damon Pistulka 03:40
think that if someone’s talking about me, maybe it’s just because I’m interested, please. That’s Oh, so
Andrew Cross 03:45
this is our actually our form of improv, I guess, right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Christian up here. And you know, so we’ll see what Joe thinks about this.
Damon Pistulka 03:54
So here we go. So
03:56
Nope, no judgment going on.
Damon Pistulka 03:58
Okay, good. Good.
04:00
That’s good.
Damon Pistulka 04:01
It’s awesome to have everyone here. And I was thinking about this a lot this week. And I think one of the things that I’d really liked to to have people think about us, what is one bucket list item that you want to get done in 2021? bucket list item now, not just I want to do something, but what’s a bucket list item? So introduce us, introduce yourself what you do and then answer a question like that.
04:31
So Troy, you’re up first. All right.
04:46
Well listen Troy niehaus. Financial Advisor with Bernstein. We are global investment research and management firm and I work with with business owners. That’s where I focus most of my practice. In particular, those founders who are thinking about taking a company public are excellent. And we help with a lot of that planning in the beginning, and to hopefully get to manage some of those assets on the other end of it. I’m out here in Seattle love the Northwest. bucket list. Goodness gracious. You know,
05:22
I’ll,
05:23
I’ll, I’ll say that my son is graduating from college. And so it’s a bucket list for me to be able to go and experience the graduation for all three of my kids. I’ve had one, one who graduated from college, Boise State. My son is graduating this year from Cal Poly. And that would be a bucket list item for me is making sure that I get that hopefully he gets to have a normal, somewhat normal graduation and we get to all go out there and celebrate with him. So that’ll be a bucket list item.
Damon Pistulka 05:55
Awesome. One, Troy. That’s awesome. Good, good. Well, great to have you here. Thank
06:00
you. So
Pete Alexander 06:03
Pete. Hey, Dan. Good morning. So it’s probably quite cold. where you are, Damon?
Damon Pistulka 06:11
Yeah, we have four inches of snow and it’s supposed to be single digits on Saturday. So yeah. Oh, you dropped off, Andrew. Oh,
Ira Bowman 06:19
he was. He was so scared of this snow he had to run. Yeah,
Andrew Cross 06:24
we do. Whoops. Wrong. Sorry, guys. Wrong. But my German running a little slow today to
06:31
the snow does have a chilling effect.
Ira Bowman 06:38
Yeah, Andrew does Andrew, they were in Park City. They don’t measure by the enterprise. They measured by the foot. So
Damon Pistulka 06:44
yeah, true. So go ahead, Pete. Sorry. We
Pete Alexander 06:48
No worries, no worries, I’m so keen, Alexander helping leaders better protect their health and handle challenging situations with grace and success. on my bucket list. It was an interesting one to ask about that, Damon. And I never thought I would have this as a bucket list item. But it’s actually to be able to spend Christmas with my kids, which I didn’t get to do last year. And that was the first time in their entire life that I wasn’t there for Christmas. So. So that’s, that’s, that’s my number one bucket list item. So you know, it’s at the end of the year, of course, but that would be tops on my list.
Ira Bowman 07:34
There as the pandemic has changed our lives, because I guarantee you that wouldn’t have been considered a bucket list item. And if I heard somebody say that, I’d be like, that guy’s just corny. But now, after the pandemic of a year of this crap, like that’s like, yeah, I didn’t have my oldest son. I haven’t seen my oldest son in a whole year because of the pandemic. So
07:58
yeah, exactly. So
Pete Alexander 08:01
good question. Thank you for that. I’m awesome. Looking forward to improv. This should be awesome.
Damon Pistulka 08:06
Oh, it should be. It’s gonna be great. It’s gonna be great. So Ron, awesome to have you today. Tell us a little bit about you know,
Ron Higgs 08:13
do your introduction and then answer the infamous question. Okay. Ron Higgs, currently in transition operations professional looking for some something Director of Operations for a small large company CEO of a small company, somewhere where I get to work with all the major operating functions of the business to move the company’s mission forward.
As you guys know, I think I told you the last time we met I was doing a series of interviews with one company called Data miner I did four interviews with those guys and they decided to go somewhere else a little disappointing but now I’m doing some thinking about you know, a different direction may be buying a business or something else but more to follow on that next time. bucket list items. I got to tell you guys a story.
So when I was in the Navy you guys know I used to fly airplanes in the Navy we were we had a an aircraft carrier up north of the Arctic Circle as flying one night and I’m like what are the what is this these lights man this is beautiful. It was the northern lights that I got to see right. But you know, we were in the North Atlantic event you know above the Arctic Circle of bad weather.
So we got to enjoy the lights for you know, like a couple minutes and now back to reality, trying to get this thing back on the deck of the carrier in 20 foot seas so I really didn’t get to enjoy it. So my bucket list item which was for 2020 which I wasn’t able to do I hope I get to do it this year is I want to see the Northern Lights. So I’m working on a plan to do that either in a place called desolation sound and Canada or just flying up to Alaska and spending a weekend in someplace in Alaska that over the summer. I can see
Damon Pistulka 09:59
that Awesome run my wife actually used to travel into Alaska for business a lot and she was in Fairbanks and oh three four years ago and that I would check out Fairbanks because they have an ice sculpting it’s worldwide I sculpting event it’s a month long deal. So I mean they do like the size of houses I sculpting up there. And you can see the northern lights at the same time. And she took some absolutely stunning pictures where she got in the rental car and middle of the night drove out into the country in the 25 below weather and just took some just, they’re unreal. They really are unreal picture so
Ron Higgs 10:38
yeah, I want to get I just want a chance to enjoy it. I didn’t I saw him last time I did the last time I did. I wasn’t. I didn’t enjoy it. Now I want to be able to kick back and
Damon Pistulka 10:49
enjoy the experience. There you go. Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. Awesome, Ron. So Mary, great to have you here today.
Mary White 10:55
How are you? Good. Good to see you guys.
Damon Pistulka 10:58
Yeah, if you could introduce yourself and and answer the one bucket list thing you’d like to get it done in 2021 question?
Mary White 11:07
Well, um, my name is Kiki. riposo. White, I’m representing my blog post your next dimension. And I am very interested in doing one of two things. March is my 30th wedding anniversary. And our plan was to go to Hawaii and not think I’m going this year, next year, maybe the year, whatever. But I do want to go to Alaska. I want to do the Northern Alliance. I want to take the cruise I want to do all that. You know, then go right up to an iceberg and go Wow, you’re cool kind of thing. And a friend of mine two years ago, did the did a trip up to Antarctica for down to Antarctica and to hang out with the penguins. And that to me would be Oh, another cool thing to do.
Damon Pistulka 12:03
Oh, yeah. Yeah, no doubt. I’ve been lucky enough. I was I did a just a summer tour up in Alaska. And and I saw that the glaciers calving man, that is something sitting there and watching it fall in the water rushing out from it. Wow. Yeah. So that was cruises would be awesome.
Mary White 12:24
Yeah. Yeah, that would be a very cool thing to do.
Damon Pistulka 12:27
Yeah. Awesome. Well, great to have you here.
12:29
Good to see Ron.
Damon Pistulka 12:30
You bet. You bet. Mark. How are you today?
12:34
I’m doing all right. Thanks. We’ve got I’m in Chicago. So we’ve got about nine inches of snow here. Then you’re all weekend. So I am a fractional operations. sec. My first client recently My background is in e commerce, operations, marketing and product development. And so my bucket list, you know, this is a weird year for bucket list items, right? Most of my bucket list items would involve travel. And if I could, there’s a number of places I haven’t been to like China and India, I would love to go to I don’t know if this is the year to do that.
So my my fallback bucket list item is kind of boring, because I’ve mentioned it before, but I’ve got a novel that I’ve been working on for years. And it’s in progress. It’s getting closer, it’s inching forward to completion. And this is probably a good year to do it since I’m stuck at home anyway. I just need a little bit more time if I took maybe a month. And that’s probably not going to happen. So I’m gonna have to chip away at but my bucket list is to complete my novels.
Andrew Cross 13:42
Awesome. Well, it looks like Damon is the dribble are getting tired.
Damon Pistulka 13:46
Yeah, no, it’s jumping in and out. Um, I don’t know.
13:52
We’ll see.
Damon Pistulka 13:53
All right, there we go. Coming back. That’s awesome. Mark. And I think it is like that when if you can if you can chip away at it a little bit and get a chapter here or there. I think that’s the way to do it. But right. And, and like, you know, when we had Khan and Dr. helia on explaining it, you know, getting that outline done and working down just like anything, you can get it done.
14:14
Right. It’s cool. They were impressive. Thank you.
Damon Pistulka 14:16
Yeah, yeah, good stuff. Good. All right. Andrew Deutsch. How are you?
14:24
I’m doing good. How are you?
14:27
What was the question again?
Andrew Deutsch 14:32
bucket list.
Damon Pistulka 14:36
Look at this look. Awesome. Awesome. Well, it’s because you you every time you think of one you just do it right
Ira Bowman 14:45
now wait a minute. That bucket wasn’t computer generated. That was an actual bucket bucket. That’s extra credit for that one. desk.
Damon Pistulka 15:00
Yeah,
Andrew Deutsch 15:02
it helps. It helps a bit of the business selling buckets years ago.
Ira Bowman 15:06
At least that’s probably leads people want to sell you, right? Yeah.
15:10
Yeah.
Damon Pistulka 15:11
That’s great. Legion people go.
Andrew Deutsch 15:13
Yeah, I’ve done. I’ve done so much the bucket list thing is is kind of bizarre to me. But I have certain things I want to get my book published is probably one of them.
Damon Pistulka 15:25
Yeah. Tell us about yourself.
Ira Bowman 15:29
Get your course published. I could take it. It’s published. I didn’t know that. I’ve been waiting.
Andrew Deutsch 15:35
So long. It’s you should have known we launched yesterday. Actually, I’ll throw a link in the chat that anybody who wants to get that Yeah. Get $50 off because it’s on sale.
15:50
Come on, bro.
Damon Pistulka 15:52
Nice, nice.
Ira Bowman 15:54
advertise for you.
15:55
I appreciate it.
Damon Pistulka 15:56
Tell us about what you do and your list?
Andrew Deutsch 15:59
Well, we’re a global global sales and marketing, consulting, we help companies go back to their core, really look at what their strategy is, and convert every touch into vibrations advocates for their brand. And we’re in a we have network in about 120 countries where we can help you grow your business overseas.
Damon Pistulka 16:18
Awesome. Awesome. And yeah, if you haven’t checked out the his video course and you haven’t seen his video, expertise or shenanigans, as as they come out. do yours. Oh, I got on the link. I didn’t do anything. Well,
Andrew Deutsch 16:36
well, we’ll help you get get get you out of the box. Yeah.
16:45
All right.
Damon Pistulka 16:46
Thanks. Thanks. Well, we’re we’re getting going here and and it’s awesome art is that Andrew was the last person right.
Andrew Cross 16:52
That’s it. That’s it, I think. All right.
Damon Pistulka 16:55
So let’s hit people on the stage. So Joe, you’re going to start us off. So introduce what I tell you. What. We’ll let you go last. Yeah, there we go. And then and then we’ll start the improv right after that. So IRA, okay, let’s get going.
17:13
For me, introduce
17:16
myself, where
Ira Bowman 17:17
am I just doing my bucket list? Because you all know who I am. Right.
Damon Pistulka 17:20
Okay, there you go. We know Yeah,
Ira Bowman 17:21
yeah, I work. I work with oma digital media, we help build digital audiences, for small business owners. Basically, I help exit your way with the clients who we are helping, who don’t have enough website traffic who don’t have enough social media following I helped build that up. And that helps add value, obviously, to their business. So that’s what I do for exit. Right. And my bucket list is actually, I think it was Nancy, Who said it? We were supposed to go to Alaska on a two week cruise in? No, I’m sorry, it was June of 2020.
They got canceled. So I want to do that. I don’t know if the cruise is gonna, they’re gonna let us cruise this year or not. But last year, 2020. I was supposed to go to Hawaii, which I did. And Alaska, which are two states I’d never been to. So it was bucketlist kind of thing. And I, as soon as we got back from Hawaii, Hawaii is when they started to lock everything down. So I was like, okay, so I want to do that. And also, I’d like out here to kind of copy what Pete said to you know, I got that one daughter came home from Florida. But there was just nine of us, just nine of us in the house. I’d like to get the whole band back together. Get Chris.
Damon Pistulka 18:34
There you go. Yeah, good stuff. Good stuff. Well, now, we got to remember to when you come to Seattle, and if we’re able to get around a little bit, which we should be if they’re allowing cruises, that Pete and I are up there and a couple other people are up there in Seattle, we’ll definitely have to have to do that. Because we’re the cruises live in such as is. There’s a lot of fun stuff to do.
Ira Bowman 18:57
For sure. And I’ll bring all my camera gear for that get together so that we can reach prosperity.
19:04
Yeah, looking forward to. Yeah,
Damon Pistulka 19:06
Yeah, that’d be fun. That’d be fun. All right, Andrew, here up, man. Yeah.
Andrew Cross 19:11
Ah, well, a lot of a lot of people going around with travel. And I think that’s a company. You know, we’re all adventurers. Here. I think that’s one thing we all have in common, but and I’m like Andrew to Edward Deutsch, too. I’ve done I just have already done a lot of my bucket list stuff already. But you know, my I go right back to travel. I’ve been to Alaska. I did a cruise up there.
And I spent some time up there and it’s that that would definitely be a swing through but I you know, I think around the world in 80 days, that old julesburg book, you don’t need 80 days back then you did when he wrote that to get around the world. He could barely get around the world in eight days now but spend some time and smell the flowers I do around the world in 80 days and get all this stuff done.
19:56
If I yeah
Damon Pistulka 19:59
that’s cool. Yeah. Cuz I mean, that would be a hell of a trip. That’d be a hell of it. Yeah.
20:03
Yeah.
Damon Pistulka 20:06
Yeah. Yeah. Very cool. No. So what what are two places you’d have to visit if you’re going around the world?
Andrew Cross 20:13
Machu Picchu. Definitely want to, I’d want to get to the top of that. And I we looked at doing that a few years ago. Now. I bet that’s really high. And it takes some training to get ready for that. But now that I live at 7000 feet, I feel like I could. I could drag my last up to the top there. That would be one of them. Yeah, all the Hawaiian Islands.
20:36
Tahiti,
Andrew Cross 20:36
I want to get you there. I want to see China. I haven’t done that yet. You know, so even though there’s a lot to do, cram it in 80 days?
Damon Pistulka 20:46
Oh, yeah. Yeah, would be well, especially when you started going to the best of the, you know, the must go places. And then trying to connect the dots. Just between there? I think you would, yeah, it would go real quick. Yeah. So cool. Cool. So I’ll go me people know who I am. What we do. helping businesses, get them bigger, we have make them easier to run really, that’s that’s the core of what we do building empires.
Building empires that exactly so people like people like Troy can help our clients make sure that they help us money, eight, their risk and, and show their shoulder next generations, how to manage it, and all the good thing, but we’re really trying to help them create wealth that they can, that changes generations, and I’m just, I’m just pleased that we get to do this, you know, we, we’ve been able to help help a few people do a lot of that.
And it’s it’s so much fun to be able to, to see that, you know, people go from I don’t know what I’m going to do in my business to, they’re making money. And they’re starting to talk about real life changing wealth, and, and making and in their businesses running better. So it’s a lot of fun for us.
So bucket list thing for me is and Pete knows this because he and I’ve been talking about this, I’m going to run a marathon. And I think I’m going to do it in February next year. And I’ve said it a couple times the shoes are sitting in my house, it’s out there in in Seattle. So I got the shoes beat my daughter said they showed up and I’m gonna run a marathon. So by the end of the year, I should be able to get pretty darn close to running a marathon if I can do that. That’s a bucket list item. I’ve
Andrew Cross 22:30
talked about it since I turned digital. Which one if you got it picked out yet.
Damon Pistulka 22:34
I was looking at the schedule. So Pete and I he’s gonna make me decide one. And I’ve got a schedule. And actually I got my brother might do it with me as he’s a couple years younger than I am. And I’m looking at one in Dallas in February, I think Dallas as soon as your Dallas or San Antonio or something like that, but I think in Texas, the weather would be you know, could be about 60. So degrees would be really good place San
Ira Bowman 23:00
Antonio, not Dallas. If you’re doing in February, okay. Yeah. Take Take it for me. You’ll have 60s and 70s and San Antonio, and you’ll have 30s and 40s in Dallas.
Damon Pistulka 23:10
Yeah, see? So that’s why I’m kind of looking at
Ira Bowman 23:13
Texas is a big place just yeah, south south. before May, South Texas is the place to be after you want to open up higher seas. And you just never want to go to Houston. It’s always humid.
23:28
Yeah,
Damon Pistulka 23:28
I don’t need to do that. But that’s what that’s my deal for this year and am getting excited about getting rolling on that and doing it. So without further ado, though, we are here with Joe Van heiki and our hacky sack. Excuse me.
23:45
That’s all good. Jackie.
Damon Pistulka 23:47
I think in hacky sack after I said it, I said I didn’t do it right. It took me like six months to learn how to say Doctor Elia. Right. My speech speech difficulties but Joe is you were may still be a teacher, you’re helping people with improv and business improvement to solve. Challenges work together better, but I’m gonna let you explain it much better than I can. And we’re gonna get some people on stage with us. It’s gonna be a lot of fun. So take it away, Joe.
24:17
What? Well, Thanks, David. So yes, I’ve had a number of different careers as an interactive media for a while adult training then education. About 20 years ago or so I was living in Kansas City and I discovered the improv and audition. And since then, I’ve just fallen in love with this art form. Two years ago, I just feeling the need to break out of what I was doing, which was teaching full time. So my wife and I talked and I left the teaching profession and I’ve hung up my signposts to bring improv into businesses and there’s a global organization called the applied improvised improv network.
And and we bring this skill over We’ve learned as improvisers and we bring it to the business improvement world, the medical world, the education world. I firmly believe that these are skills that anybody can use, if you’re ever want to set foot on stage, public speaking is not for you. That’s okay that I’m not trying to push you into anything. But I want to teach you these skills that you can use as a leader to make and help create a safe space for for your people.
Your team can use that become better communicators, stronger listeners, and gives us the tools to be authentic, and real and honest, and even build our empathy, which is really becoming some of the most important things that we need in business right now. So I’m very excited to be here. I love talking about improv. And I’ll try not to geek out too much. Stay focused here on what we want to do. So what I need is, we’re going to get as many people involved as we can so as many people, I don’t know how that works, Andrew, if you bring them on to the stage, if we can get some volunteers to join us on stage.
Andrew Cross 26:01
Oh, they don’t they don’t get to volunteer.
26:03
Oh, Okay, then. And I’m
Ira Bowman 26:07
happy to I’m happy to be your pet dummy today too, because I love this stuff.
26:13
Okay, sounds good. Thanks, Ira. If you need to hear me, yeah. Good to know.
Damon Pistulka 26:19
Yeah. We’ll get some folk. Well, while we’re bringing people on the stage. One of the things if you haven’t seen it yet, Alex B. Shepherdson on LinkedIn, Alex B. Sheridan. They do think it’s on Tuesdays, they do a business improv thing. He’s a video guy. But it is hilarious. It is hilarious. He’s got he and two other guys getting on. And it’s basically the crowd gives them a situation and they act it out. Almost like what was the show that Drew Carey used to host with the improv guys?
26:55
Is It Anyway? Whose Line is?
Damon Pistulka 26:57
Yeah, I mean, so it’s something like that. But with business improvement, it’s really pretty cool. So we’ve got Mary up here. Who else we’re gonna bring up, Andrew. All right. So let’s, oh, he
27:06
was
Ira Bowman 27:09
a question for how many times in school we call Joe Van Halen.
27:14
Quite often, thank you for that. Yes.
27:18
And yes, in fact,
27:21
I would write my name van hacky with the little wings or wherever you are. You guys,
Ira Bowman 27:28
you guys know just step up. Right? So Joe, just called Joe. guy. I had my eight year old Yeah, record Joe the finance guy calm for his. His outros on his videos. She had a Freudian slip last night. She said, Joe Biden, the finance guy.
27:48
Did I said that, Joe?
Ira Bowman 27:51
So he’s now Joe Biden, the finance guy.
27:54
There you go.
27:56
All right.
Damon Pistulka 27:58
Okay, well, we’re gonna get some others up to here. Yeah. How many we bring up
Ira Bowman 28:03
is the limit. So we could bring up? Yeah, tennis. So unless somebody is going to share their screen, you could have four more.
28:16
Let’s see how it works.
Damon Pistulka 28:19
There we go.
Andrew Cross 28:22
That mark, get everybody up here.
28:25
Oh, yeah,
Ira Bowman 28:29
I could turn my camera off. If we want to bring everybody. I think
Andrew Cross 28:32
we might just do that. Let’s see if it works.
Damon Pistulka 28:39
It’ll be fun.
28:41
Ah, excuse me. So I bring improv workshop. I’m going to do my bucket list first. Yeah, one of the things yeah. One of the things that I want to do is I want to get down to Orlando to visit my father. He moved to 2526 years ago from from the point Lando and I don’t get to see him as often. And it’s probably been three or four years. We were scheduled to go last year in June. And as we all know, COVID put the kibosh on that. So that’s my bucket lists. Secondly, my mid two finger two of my business, looking forward to turning some larger sales.
So just add 112 improv workshops that would dress really make my year because I think once they get going there, the ball is going to be rolling fast. And then it improv workshop, we’ll do some of these activities. And then oftentimes, we’ll talk talk, stop and talk and debrief on what’s being happening internally with individuals or what we see happening with the group.
So there’s a big debrief session on how to run one or two of those as well today, if we have time, just so you get the feel of like, Okay, you know what, it’s not just us because I think there are some improv teams that come in and for half an hour, we’re just gonna do this fun, silly stuff. I like to bring into like, we’re going to do this fun engaging activities. Overall, it’s going to pay attention to what we’re learning.
How does that apply to us daily? And how can we start making changes in our strategies and change our habits to create a more positive and more engaging environment? So we can be more productive and, and be excited to get to work rather than having to go to work today?
Damon Pistulka 30:24
Yeah, well
30:26
take it away. Okay. Wonderful. Great. So let’s go with this. Let’s first of all, let’s set a a pattern. So what I want you to do is either call on Andrew is duich. Did I pronounce that correctly?
Andrew Deutsch 30:41
No.
30:42
Okay, thanks. So, so I get a call Andrew, then Andrew is going to call my name. Next, so that’s going to help you remember who’s before you and who’s after you. Okay, so I’m gonna go Joe. Andrew Gooch. So I’m sorry. I apologize, boys. Thank you.
31:09
All right.
31:12
Now I’m all embarrassed.
Andrew Deutsch 31:16
So I say your name, my name and then somebody else. Right? Correct. So Joe, Andrew, Ira.
Ira Bowman 31:24
I gotta go Pete because he’s ready to fan.
Pete Alexander 31:27
But don’t you have to say it all together.
Ira Bowman 31:30
Oh, sorry. Okay. Andrew. Ira. Pete. They say my name. My No, I say my.
31:36
Yep. Just Just so we hear it and you hear it, and it’s reinforcing that memory and your IRA Pete.
Pete Alexander 31:42
But so we’re not saying Joe.
31:45
First. Oh, no, sorry. That was right before you.
Pete Alexander 31:49
Okay. Okay. So that so I’m keeping it to three then
Ira Bowman 31:52
as you say I repeat. Right?
31:55
I repeat, Damon.
Damon Pistulka 32:01
Okay. So P Damon, Andrew Krause.
32:07
I’m IRA, yo, Mark. No, no. Okay. So, the other thing that I teach is that in an improv world, there’s no judgment. We’re gonna take judgment without judging each other and we’re not judging. Yeah, of course we are. So Andrew, you would start with Damon? Because Damon called you so you go, Damon, Andrew, and then whoever is going to follow you.
Andrew Cross 32:42
Okay. Dave? Damon, Joe and mark.
32:46
Yeah, marier. Mark.
32:50
Andrew, Mark and Mary.
Mary White 32:54
Okay, that’s mark, Mary, and we’re gonna pick on Andrew.
Andrew Cross 32:59
Which one?
Mary White 33:01
Oh, dinner joints.
33:04
Okay, everybody, hold on a sec, hold on a sec. What we wanted to do,
Ira Bowman 33:09
she was the end of the week. Oh,
33:10
so we’re gonna wipe this off. And we’re gonna we’re gonna start again. Because what we want to do is want to set a pattern bouncing between our video windows and who were calling. So we know so we have in order to know when we go in this Can I don’t know, can we rename our rechange our names in this in this platform?
Damon Pistulka 33:32
I don’t know how to do that. And I don’t think you cannot it
33:35
just gonna start building a pattern. That said though, everybody will be involved in everybody. It’s one opportunity. So I’ll start and then after go through the nine or 10 people have me be the last one to choose. If it makes sense. Okay, so I can go
Ira Bowman 33:56
on seven. We lost. We lost Andrew. And who else do we lose? We lost somebody else.
Andrew Deutsch 34:03
Um, God.
Ira Bowman 34:03
I don’t know if they’re coming on. No, I’m sorry. Andrew Krause. I’m not sure if they’re coming back. Oh, is Troy right now? Yeah. Okay, well,
Damon Pistulka 34:12
let’s start. We’ll start
34:14
with what we got. and go from there. So, uh, yeah, I’m gonna go Joe, and then I’m gonna call Pete.
Pete Alexander 34:21
Okay. And I’ll say, Joe, right. Because I the person previous So, right. Joe, Pete. We got an out now we got Joe Pete. Mary.
Mary White 34:35
Okay. Pete, Mary Damon.
Damon Pistulka 34:41
All right, Mary Damon. All right.
Ira Bowman 34:45
Mary IRA, Mark.
34:48
Ira mark. Damon.
Ira Bowman 34:54
But Damon’s already been picked.
34:55
Okay. Ira, Mark. Andrew, go. Ah,
34:57
there we go.
Andrew Deutsch 34:59
That’s it. That’s one. So Mark Andrew
35:03
Ross comes back in
35:04
because he’s been in.
35:06
Yeah, he’s okay.
35:09
So Andrew, you come back to me that, Joe? Yeah, Marcus. I go, Andrew, Joe. Pete. Okay. Okay. Yep. All right. So the first thing we’re gonna do what I work with companies and industries, where people, whether it’s in person or virtual, the first thing you want to do is, first of all, establish a safe environment. And there are some people that are more engaged and willing to participate in something like this, and then not so I really strive to create, and then everybody will hate this is a safe environment that we want you to participate.
So the first thing we do is, this is just word association. So remembering the order that we just established, we’re just going to associate words so I’m gonna say a word, and then he’s gonna say whatever the first thing that comes to him is, and there’s not going to be in judgment, we’re going to put our inner critic aside, that person has no, no place here. And we’re not going to worry about Am I right or wrong? Anything that you say? is automatically right.
36:12
This is gonna be flight.
36:14
Yeah. So So this is, this is our first level and then we’re gonna take it up a level here in just a moment. I just want to practice to make sure that we remember our order as well.
36:23
Did you write your names? I did. Oh,
36:28
yeah. Good. No, there’s no cheating here. That’s good. That’s good.
Ira Bowman 36:32
I saw Mark doing it. So I copied him. You’re right. I knew I knew what you’re doing.
36:40
I’m old. Okay.
36:42
So let’s go ahead and get started. And
Pete Alexander 36:48
he’s Isaac, you can’t you cut out. You cut out bicycle, bicycle. bicycle,
36:55
tricycle.
Pete Alexander 36:57
And then, so I say to somebody else, right? No,
37:01
you just said Yeah.
37:03
Yeah, who fought who followed up?
Mary White 37:05
I did. Um, okay. It’s gotta be kind of like that word.
37:13
No. Anything. Just another word. So as soon as you hear tricycle. What’s the first thing that pops into your mind?
37:20
wise? Perfect. I’d say
37:29
y equals mc squared.
Ira Bowman 37:34
I thought Mary picked me.
Mary White 37:36
That’s Yeah, it was supposed to be Damon. Yeah.
37:39
Did you pick me? Oh,
Damon Pistulka 37:41
yeah. So you said Mary, the word I said was wise. And wi se. Wow. I’m just gonna say old
Ira Bowman 37:53
like that. Does anybody remember who picked me cuz now I’m confused at that.
Damon Pistulka 37:58
And then it is. Okay, so I wrote Europe. I
Ira Bowman 38:03
say notre DOM is
38:07
scary. Was it me? Yes.
38:15
bat.
Damon Pistulka 38:20
There we go.
38:27
Who’s after I said,
38:28
I said, Fine. So then Pete. Oh, that’s
Pete Alexander 38:32
nice. I like because I didn’t see Andrew talk. Yeah, he went
38:38
to hear me talk.
Pete Alexander 38:39
Yeah. Okay. It was fly.
38:42
Yeah. Delta.
38:46
We’d love to fly in it goes.
38:50
Oh, me. Yes.
38:52
Yes. Oh.
38:56
Hmm.
Mary White 38:58
I’m thinking thinking thinking logical.
Damon Pistulka 39:07
Okay, logical. Math counted.
39:12
Spock.
Damon Pistulka 39:14
account do Yoda
39:19
swamp. Okay, so we’re going to stop for a moment. So we’re getting getting the rhythm and you’re listening for people coughing? So I’m just gonna pause it all. What are you feeling? What’s going on? What do you notice is happening?
Ira Bowman 39:33
So for me, I’m trying not to say something that’s already been said. So I’m trying to pay attention to the words that are used. And then my strategy. Okay.
39:40
So this is kind of a debrief. Just quickly. So IRA, you’re building strategy? What if you repeat work?
39:47
I would feel stupid.
39:49
Why?
Ira Bowman 39:50
I don’t know. Because that that was the point is not to repeat. I don’t know. I mean, you didn’t say that was part of the rules. But that’s that’s what I felt like. Okay.
40:00
So if I if I can paraphrase you’re, you’re making up some rules for your own on how to how to play right? Oh, yeah, yeah. Okay. Does that ever happen in in in daily life? Oh, yeah.
Ira Bowman 40:11
everywhere all the time and decoding the unwritten rules, right?
40:16
Sure. And are there are times I try to phrase this? What? Those unwritten rules sometimes that we make up ourselves? What can that lead to?
40:31
problems? lots of problems.
40:33
Oh, tell me more about that.
Ira Bowman 40:35
So if I have an unwritten rule, I think, Okay, this is this is just understood. And then you break it, and I get pissed off at you because you broke my unwritten rule.
40:46
Right. And I certainly hope that that you don’t feel until stop because I’m not. Anybody else want to chime in on that, that idea of unwritten rules?
40:56
Well, you make a lot of assumptions, right, what people are thinking or expecting from you. And, you know, there’s the old SUV thing. So, you know, it’s a recipe for misunderstanding, I think and unnecessary. Waste of
41:13
time. Okay. And as leaders, how can that disrupt our team, our business or whatever? Careful with assumptions. Exactly. So
Ira Bowman 41:29
right, interpersonal drama, that where there wasn’t really any, but you had, you had some lack of communication or non communication, where one person perceived it one way, or the other person didn’t even know about that. So they’re, like, clueless to the fact that the person is upset. Now you’ve got you’ve got an issue there.
41:49
Yes. So we’ve discussed that those the concepts of unwritten rules and, and how they can affect us. What’s, what’s something that we could take away from this that we can learn and apply later today? Or tomorrow?
Pete Alexander 42:05
no judgement? I think that’s a, that’s a tough one, for people to, you know, to be able to really implement.
42:17
No wrong answers. Yeah,
Ira Bowman 42:19
well, people have different standards, too. I mean, this is something I’ve learned a long time ago, especially when I’m studying religion. It’s like, you know, just because I believe something doesn’t mean another person and said, Well, I think I’m not going to do this, because of my beliefs, my values, if you will, you know, other people don’t have those values. That doesn’t make them wrong, or bad people or anything like that. It’s just, it’s, it’s a different and you can apply that to anything. That’s just one example. But
Andrew Deutsch 42:44
if you’re wondering about cool, if you’re wondering about an unwritten rule, learn to ask questions.
42:51
And learn to listen and learn to listen to me use your skills
42:55
100%.
42:59
But you guys are awesome. You’re pulling out concepts and ideas out of just word association that I hadn’t even pulled together. Great. So I wanted to take it to the next level. Now, I’m sorry, Ira.
Ira Bowman 43:15
Do we get to judge this time? No.
43:18
You’re itching to judge IRA? Yeah.
43:24
All right, you, you may judge silently to yourself.
Ira Bowman 43:27
Alright, we’ll do it.
43:29
So we’re gonna do this. I can’t tell if we lost anybody or not. Okay. We’ll keep going. And if you hear like, oh, maybe I should jump in and do do something, go for it. So we’re gonna say stick with the word association. But this time of randomly, if somebody says something that that piqued my ear, I’m going to say name, tell that story. Because there’s the theory that the words that you’re saying and sharing with the group, there’s actually something behind that subconsciously, that you chose that word.
Ira Bowman 44:03
Be a little tougher.
44:03
Okay. Yeah. And, and this story doesn’t have to be profound or anything. We just want to hear that story. But part of this is we’re helping build kit and make connections. Okay.
Ira Bowman 44:15
So order because we have a couple new players.
44:19
I think that would be a good idea. To reach your I get to keep mine. I’m going to go Joe to Pete.
Pete Alexander 44:27
And then you want me to change it to somebody else then.
44:31
Yes, we want to we want to make sure that we involve Ron and Troy as well. Okay.
Ira Bowman 44:39
So what’s the word? But you’d say, Joe, and then who you’re picking.
44:46
Yeah, so let’s we’re gonna read out a new a new order first, and then we’ll get into the word association.
Pete Alexander 44:52
And I’ll pick Ron.
44:54
Okay. Okay.
44:56
I’ll pick mark.
44:58
Okay, so I go round. Mark and
Andrew Deutsch 45:02
Mark Andrew Damon.
Damon Pistulka 45:09
And then I will go Andrew Damon.
Mary White 45:12
Marry Damon marry Iraq.
Andrew Deutsch 45:17
Right.
45:18
Marry Irish Roy.
45:22
Is that it? Do I have anyone?
45:24
Yep. Joe.
45:29
Irish really good. Okay, good.
45:33
Do we need to practice that? Are everybody thumbs up if you’d like? No, let’s get going.
45:37
I think we’re good. Okay.
Damon Pistulka 45:39
All right. Good.
45:40
So my first word is water.
45:45
Air. Right.
Damon Pistulka 45:56
Fly cron.
45:57
There you go run. swatter. Awesome.
Andrew Deutsch 46:04
Whoo hoo. Said sweater. Writer.
Damon Pistulka 46:17
Spider tarantula.
46:21
tell that story.
46:23
Can anybody ask for a story?
46:26
It’s like the person that says that that said the word. So Damon. You said tarantula. Yeah, let’s hear that story. I
Damon Pistulka 46:35
was talking. While we were talking about spiders the other day, because I’m with my family. And my brother lives in Texas. And he was talking about the fact that you know, there’s a certain time of year in Texas. When tarantulas are all over the mating season.
They’re out on the roads, or everything’s just nasty. And he was explaining about this last summer, so he was driving during this time, going down the road really fast, obviously, and went by a spider. And he said the spider just spun on the road like that. It was out of the way but it was like, like, big, like big and ugly. So that’s my story. But I think that would be pretty wicked things just walking around. Wonderful.
47:19
Thank you for sharing, Damon. And now.
47:23
Joking anybody asked tell that story at any time?
47:28
Yes, that was going to be my that’s our next level. I have like a sub beyond the facilitator. Anybody can say, tell that story. Thank you for asking. So David, why don’t you start us off and you can continue with tarantula or a new word.
Damon Pistulka 47:48
I will. I will keep that word. And it’s going to be Who is it? Mary? I’m gonna go with the Guana
Ira Bowman 47:59
burrito.
48:01
Mexico.
48:03
Yeah, tequila.
Ira Bowman 48:07
I like where this is going. We got some tequila, some burritos in Mexico. Let’s go.
48:16
Okay, so tequila to you, Pete. Oh, I’m
Pete Alexander 48:19
so I it’s so weird cuz I don’t see your your mouth moves sometimes. Joe
48:24
Oh, okay. All right.
48:30
Rob, beer.
48:41
Salt. Pepper.
48:50
habaneros.
Mary White 48:51
That’s a tough one. tortilla
49:00
flour,
49:01
corn.
49:05
fields.
49:09
Iowa.
Pete Alexander 49:14
I’m sorry. Okay, well, I’m sorry. I’ve never actually been in Iowa. I’ve flown over Iowa many, many times.
49:24
What’s that? I waved. When you Oh,
Pete Alexander 49:28
yeah. And I think I heard corn and I heard fields and I started thinking about corn fields and corn mazes and getting lost in the maze. And I that’s something that I always liked doing with the kids during Halloween when they would do you know, the big corn mazes. So that’s kind of where I was going with that.
49:50
Wonderful, excellent Pete, that’s for you. Thank you for sharing. Let us know if you mess up and you can stick with fields or iOS Or you can change a trial to another word.
Pete Alexander 50:02
I’ll do a different word. How about mountain
50:10
Mount Rainier
50:13
biking.
Andrew Deutsch 50:18
Flying
Damon Pistulka 50:23
flying the Great Salt Flats
Mary White 50:38
I was gonna go with sailing.
50:44
skydiving
50:46
wings and blue
50:52
rod.
51:01
I’m sorry, sorry, what was that again? tell that story Troy. Yeah.
51:13
I went to got my undergrad and I had an opportunity to join the wings of blue. But it didn’t appear that way. So when you do your skydiving there you get five freefall dot and you’re jumping 4000 feet you spend about a week in ground training. Then they bring you up on the plane. They had we did our hold ground training we they lined us up to get on the plane I was probably number seven or number eight we get up there 4000 feet, the throwing out the markers they realize it’s a little bit too windy.
Let’s come back down and land. So we come back down and land and wait an hour or so for the winds to calm down. They rely on us back up Guess who they put number one on first jump me. We get up to 4000 feet. You know I’m freaking out a little bit they’re setting you stand in the door so I get in the door. You’re supposed to follow a particular routine the way you jump out the things you do. They said oh I Superman out. Suddenly I’m out this and the wind caught me and I’m literally tumbling and tumbling, tumbling. And then I remembered oh crap I need to go through my countdown.
So in and so I ended up Archie. I forgot to count down I forgot all the steps. I finally by Archie has. I wasn’t slipping like this. Instead I was spinning like this. About what time and did I hit 10 seconds or 10 seconds pick my car, my car. My core. I pulled it you’re supposed to hold on to it. Of course I threw it. Finally the chute opens up. Because I could be spinning like this.
If you take like a pair of shoe strings, shoe strings and from your shoe and you spin it out cripples. Well, that’s what my shoot did. So my head was kind of down like this. And I remembered Okay, I got a bicycle out of this thing and it opened up and I had perfect landing. Well, I didn’t get graded really well. So I had to go back through a couple hours of ground training. My core jumps were score points and 999 100 I was asked to join the wings of blue jump team. I didn’t because I was a racquetball player at the academy and and that was when the blue would have been my sport but that’s my story.
53:29
Wow, I knew that would be impressed. That’s an awesome
53:34
that’s a mic
53:38
is Troy sharing really appreciate I Cognizant our honor respect everybody’s time I have one more activity that I want us to do. Excuse me. So this one is called sway stop. So when I say sway, just start swaying, but left. I can stop. I have to stop. Easy enough. Right. Okay.
54:05
Are we going to okay?
54:09
Stop. Sway Stop Stop. Stop. Sway.
Andrew Deutsch 54:27
You didn’t say Simon says
54:29
and stop. I did not say Simon says you’re correct. Okay. Pretty easy. So I’m going to mix it up for you this time. This time when I say stop, I want you to sway and when I say sway, I want you to stop.
Ira Bowman 54:42
I have this like theory in my head.
54:44
Okay, um, sway.
54:49
Stop.
54:53
Stop. way and stop and swipe. Okay, good. keeping those two in mind, I’m going to add two more. There’s near move near to the camera. Whatever that looks like far.
55:21
Okay?
55:26
sway. Good stop. Near sway
55:38
are
55:44
far. Stop.
55:49
Stop.
55:51
Do you happen
55:51
to have camera issues
Ira Bowman 55:52
during this right
55:58
away? Okay, good. You guys are picking up quickly. Again this time I see when I say near me lean back as a far you come close to the camera. Are you ready?
56:09
I hate you already.
56:13
My work here is not
56:17
far
Ira Bowman 56:19
late. It’s near.
56:23
or near my bed? I thought I thought I’d stop. Far.
56:33
Near
56:36
stop. Okay,
Andrew Deutsch 56:41
this guy from my workout today. Yeah.
56:47
I actually have two more, but I do want to stop. Now again conscious of your time. But IRA, you’re saying I’m going to hate you already. And I’ve heard some other comments which are great. I welcome what’s happening. Feeling What are you noticing?
Ira Bowman 56:59
Well, so I let the cat out of the bag. I have dyslexia. So when you start to mix up, then it’s like my brain is confused. And then you know,
57:11
okay, good to know. Thank you, Ira for sharing. I appreciate that. So we’re confusing our brains? And how are you? If you don’t mind? How are you? What’s your What are you to help work around that knowing that? Yeah, maybe you’re just like, our new
Ira Bowman 57:28
that’s one of the things that I’ve learned to do like in those situations to adapt to my my handicap or whatever want to call it I mean, it is what it is to my my hard wiring is different. So, you know, visual clues helped me.
57:42
Excellent. Anyone else? Whatever strategies were you using that made you successful?
Mary White 57:49
I write I write down everything. I write down notes. And I’m so that I can follow the track without getting lost.
57:57
Excellent. Okay, great. Thank you, Mary. How did it feels energetic it feels
58:07
it feels energizing. Because you’re really I’m really having to think in real time about the opposite, doing the opposite. Whatever you say. Great. Thank you, Mark. And I see everybody else doing that. And same time. Excellent.
Ira Bowman 58:21
A minute, turn it down.
58:27
And how did it feel when I every time I’ve popped and you you picked up on the idea of like, he’s going to change the rules again.
Ira Bowman 58:35
Now that that we were doing exercise three, I knew exercise four was coming in. I was like, this one’s not hard. But the next one’s gonna be harder. Exactly. I
58:43
think if I add another level, and so especially now, I think to me, the pandemic, and and the way work has been changing, has even magnified the amount of how dynamic our work actually is. And daily life isn’t how quickly things change. And I really believe that there are people out there that are struggling a lot with that, through the skills, we can teach and build strategies, like I mentioned is like, I always used visual cues for what everybody else was doing.
Perfect, awesome. Maybe somebody else hadn’t thought of that. And so as we work in workshops, and and collaborate together, we start sharing these strategies more and more to help us all be successful, and help us build coping tools and skill that can relate to relate to how can we be successful and help each other lower that stress while we’re becoming comfortable in the uncomfortable, which at times is almost our daily routine anymore. So that ladies and gentlemen is a very brief introduction to applied improvisation.
Pete Alexander 59:53
It’s awesome. Thank you, Joe. This is a lot of fun.
59:57
Yeah, it’s great. If you’re in class. Thank you, everyone. For participating. I really appreciate it. And it’s raining cash. Thank you, Andrew. I appreciate that. Yeah. Yeah. Contact information coming though.
Damon Pistulka 1:00:17
Yeah, you can drop that into the comment in the comments that would be great. And and I just want to thank thank everyone for for coming today we’re gonna wind up here, Andrews not on he said to drop off its internet and get in trouble. So good there. Thanks for stopping by Joe van hackey. awesome to see you awesome to, to learn from you on this stuff and just understand how this can be used.
And I think that we’ll definitely look at this down the road again, because I think it’d be something that we could do in a little different setting and maybe with some different exercises, to show, show people how you can use it, because I think there are ways here and as you’re saying that the dynamically changing work environment and the other things are really forcing us honestly to look at new ways to to help each other.
1:01:11
Exactly. I will I love I love to come back. And I’d love to talk theory. When I do extended relationships with with organizations, we get to see work, role playing, if you will, but I really did teach like that’s where the emphasis on listening comes in. We start building as a team, and then becoming more mindful of our feelings and learning that we can choose our emotional reaction instead of just reacting to what our gut says.
Damon Pistulka 1:01:40
Yeah, yeah. Awesome. Awesome. Well, just want to thank everyone for stopping by today. And in participating always awesome to see you. And I’m trying to figure out what I will get out what is what is next week I’ve got scheduled all the way into the middle of March now. So we got some great speakers coming up. Trying let me get I don’t have it on my this this computer I’m using for me right now.
I’m not in my office right now. It’s a it’s a pain in the butt. But thank you so much, Joe. awesome to have you here today. And awesome for the people that attended. I hope you enjoyed it. We’ll be back again next week, Thursday, same place, same time, and I’ll have the invite updated tomorrow and get it out as usual. And we’ll go from there. We’re going to drop back to the tables now so that we can continue the conversation at the tables and continue to build those relationships. Have a great day.
