Episode 36: Say ‘Yes, And...’ - Applying Improv Principles to Business Success with Ian Keeling

Episode Summary

In this episode of The Future-Ready Advisor, host Sam Sivarajan welcomes Ian Keeling, an actor, author, improv artist, and corporate coach. Together, they explore how the improv mindset can help us adapt, collaborate, and thrive in today’s unpredictable world. Ian shares how his journey into improv transformed his life and work, leading him to develop powerful tools for professionals to embrace change and foster deeper connections.

The conversation dives into key improv principles, like starting with "yes, and," suspending judgment, and being present. Ian emphasizes that success isn’t about perfection—it’s about consistently achieving good outcomes. He shares memorable stories from his career, lessons learned, and actionable advice to help listeners integrate improv skills into their professional and personal lives.

Key Takeaways

• Adaptability and collaboration are essential skills in a fast-changing world.
• Improv techniques like starting with "yes, and" and suspending judgment foster creativity, engagement, and better communication.
• Letting go of failures and successes helps you stay open-minded and present, creating stronger client relationships.

Key Quote

• “Improv is basically the ability to adapt to change with other people. It's collaborative.”

Sound Bites

• “Starting with ‘yes, and’ and suspending judgment fosters creativity and efficiency.”
• “Sometimes it’s okay to be average. It’s okay to be okay.”
• “Adapting to change isn’t just about survival—it’s about thriving in uncertainty.” – Sam Sivarajan
• “When we stop trying to control every outcome, we leave space for genuine connection.”
• “Slowing down and being present are underrated skills in business.” – Sam Sivarajan

Topics Covered

[00:00] Introduction to Ian Keeling

[03:16] The Power of the Improv Mindset

[10:53] Adapting to Change and Collaborating with Others

[13:46] Starting with "Yes, And..." and Suspending Judgment

[17:33] Active Listening and Understanding Others

[20:00] Fostering Creativity, Engagement, and Deeper Connections

[23:28] Improv Skills for Everyone

[27:06] Memorable Experience and Valuable Lesson

[32:55] Embracing Imperfection and Letting Go

[37:32] Adapting to Change and Suspending Judgment

[44:16] Being Present in Client Engagements

[46:53] Following Your Instincts and Taking Opportunities

[49:50] Slowing Down and Giving Yourself Permission to Pause

[51:19] Building Trusted Relationships with Clients

[48:43] Applying Improv Principles to Life and Work

Resources Mentioned

Ian Keeling’s website and workshops

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• Join the conversation on LinkedIn—share your thoughts and connect with other forward-thinking advisors.
• Explore more insights on Sam’s website.

Keywords

Improv mindset, adaptability, collaboration, active listening, suspending judgment, deeper connections, business success, Ian Keeling, client engagement, trusted relationships, letting go of failures and successes, applying improv principles

Now you work with a lot of business leaders. You are one yourself, and if somebody walked into a room and said you always have to say yes, you can't say no, you're gonna get shown to the door pretty quickly.

What the actual philosophy is, it's not that you can't say no and it's not that you always have to say yes. But what we do is basically.

Suspend.

Judgment and we start with that, yes. And we can say no 15 minutes later, but especially nowadays information is so accessible literally in the last 20 years, information went from for thousands of years.

The issue with scarcity, you know, when we were growing up, we had to go to a library to find stuff and something. And then often that library had to order it from somewhere. Nowadays, with all this information.

Right.

Available. It's very easy for everyone to consider themselves an expert, and so we snap to judgment. We automatically see the reasons why this can't be done as opposed to if we just start with yes and open ourselves up. Slow down a little bit before we make those judgment.

OK.

This is the future Ready Advisor, a show about transforming your financial advisory.

Practice. I'm your host, Sam Sivarajan, a wealth management consultant, behavioral scientist and keynote speaker. In this podcast, I dive deep into the real challenges advisors face and bring you insightful conversations with top industry experts. Together, we'll explore practical strategies.

Grounded in behavioral science to help you better serve your clients, optimize your time, and build a future. Ready.

Hi everyone I'm your host Sam Sivarajan. Welcome to today's episode of The Future Ready Advisor. Today I'm here with Ian Keeling, actor, author, improv artist and corporate coach. Ian, welcome to the show.

Hi Sam, I'm glad to be here.

Pleasure to have you. Let me quickly introduce you to our audience. Ian is an actor and author. He is a member of the Emperor of theater community in Toronto and teaches at 2nd.

He also leads corporate workshops and uses the improv technique to create agile mindsets, aim to improve leadership, build teams strength and presentations, increase problem solving skills, and reduce stress. Exactly the approach to adopt and excel in this increasingly uncertain world.

In just diving in, can you introduce yourself to the audience and share a bit about your journey as an actor and what led you to improv?

Were there any pivotal moments that significantly shaped your career?

Yeah, oddly enough, my my career as an artist began wanting to be a novelist. I wanted to be a writer since I was like 12 years old, but along the way I ended up stumbling into improv in high school, a buddy of mine said there was this group called Theater Sports, and he suggested, hey, let's go down and do this workshop. So we went down back then.

It was basically pay what you can.

And I went. I loved it. The guy I went with never came back. I've been doing it now for over 30 years, and the interesting thing is that's eventually what led me to professional development is after I finished university, I came back. I rejoined theater sports. I very rapidly began.

Teaching and facilitating workshops on sort of the artists.

Along the way, I figured if I was going to starve as a writer, I may as well starve as an actor too. So I started doing more traditional acting. Theater didn't get very far in film when we might talk about that a little later. When we talk about how to handle stress and some of those sort of ups and downs, you go through, which I think improv helps you navigate, but.

Rapidly, we started doing corporate workshops facilitating things, simply things like communication or presentation skills. And then I've been doing that now for over 20 years. I do it freelance. It eventually led me down a path where I also now do a lot of public speaking coaching because so many of the things.

Associated with public speaking are actually tied to like mindsets and the way we approach things. And so, and oddly enough, one of the companies that I ended up working with on the public speaking front, I got involved with because somebody in one of my professional science fiction writing groups had moved up. The corporate world started doing.

Keynotes and they had gotten in coaching themselves because they were terrified of it.

And that was the connection that I ended up making. And that's the thing I love about.

Of is I think the number one thing it teaches you to do is just to be open to any change that comes your way. And that's that's sort of the way.

I've always approached.

And that's a great.

Point to perhaps expand on for our audience. Can you talk a little bit about that improv mindset and what it is? Define it a bit, but then maybe expand that a little bit to explain why you believe that improv mindset is particularly applicable to today's world and all of the uncertainty and complexity that we face in the professional or person.

The.

Yeah. One of the first things I'm going to do is I'm going to separate the term improv and the ability to improvise, even though they are directly tied together. One of the things that has happened over the years is improv is automatically being associated with its artistic side. The performance element of it. Literally, if you look up improv, every single diction.

Somewhere in the very first definition, it talks about it as a performance technique, but the ability to improvise is something that we've been doing literally for thousands and thousands of years, and that, to me is the interesting part of what we call improv is. It's not necessarily about getting on stage. It's not necessarily about being performing.

Or certainly even about being funny, because that's often what it gets associated with, which is comedy.

Improv is basically the ability to adapt to change with other people. It's collaborative and that's the essential part of it, because let's face it, we've all had to adapt to change over the last five years, and I know this is so much a part of your thought leadership and the way you approach what you do and that to me.

That, to me is the reason why I'm I'm always telling people improv is the most important skill of the 21st century. It's not about getting on stage, it's about slowing down, being present.

And then adapting to that change, if you want to call it the agile mindset, you can, but more importantly, doing it collaboratively. We have to be able to do it together.

I like that and I think it's an important point that you make and it it thank you for that distinction, because I do believe that most people will think improv as a performance at the local theater. And while that's important.

I think the point that you're making is critical and it's in a more professional mindset. It is the word that I would use and have used is adept right. This is skills that human beings have evolved with over thousands of years and we adapt and we need to adopt and in an increasing uncertain world we need to be.

Better and build that skills to adopt and adapt collaboratively, and that improv mindset and training.

To your point, and we'll dive into it a little bit more is crucial, I think to help kind of build those skills in that resiliency to be able to adapt to things that are unexpected.

Yeah, absolutely because.

For most of human history, changed happened at a relatively slower pace, but it's been accelerated and accelerating over the last 100 years, and it's accelerated even more in the last.

10/15/20 and and literally some of the paradigm shifts that are happening in the ways that something as simple as the way we process information, it's constantly evolving and there is one thing that human beings, oddly enough we are extremely good at adapting to change because it is literally one of the reasons why we have evolved the way we have.

But oddly enough, it's also one of the things that there's a part of our brain that is resistant to that fears it especially.

Because for most of our.

Thousands of years of history. Those changes at least happened at a more leisurely pace as to as opposed to something nowadays where you blink and there's something new coming up, you know, whether it's, you know, ChatGPT, or whether it's just every social media. I'm terrible on social media because I'm 50 years old.

Hmm.

And every single time I start using a platform within two years, I'm like, oh, oh, nobody over 30 uses that anymore. OK, there's a quote I have on my website, professionalimproviser.com.

In the long history of humankind, those who have learned to collaborate and improvise most effectively have prevailed.

That's not from an artist. That's from Charles Darwin. And that's the huge thing about improv is, I think it's always been important. We've always, oddly enough, been pretty good at it. But more and more reminding ourselves of some of those things that let us just slow down a little bit in this fast changing world. And then.

The present.

That's, I think what is going to be extremely important in this century and probably for some time to come.

You're absolutely right. I think these are skills that we've always had and change has always been a feature of humanity. And your point is valid that perhaps 500 years ago the rate of change wasn't as fast as it is now. The skills have always been there.

There are times where I feel that those.

Bills of atrophy to some extent because we don't use it as much and maybe the the best example they would use is that before GPS the skills about orientering yourself and navigating with a map or getting a general sense of direction at least. Perhaps that's just my, you know, my my perspective, but I I would have thought it's deteriorated.

In the world of GPS, but most people don't know where, where North SE, W is without having a GPS to tell the.

Yeah, or something as simple as. And. I mean, we've all probably experienced that thing where Google Maps or like one of the apps tells us all right, this is the way to go and you're looking at the traffic in front of you going.

I'm pretty sure it's not. And The funny thing is GPS is probably accurate most of the time, but there's still times where we can get locked in and not necessarily like trust our in.

Things and and there's this. There's been multiple studies about creativity and the fact that like before, we're five years old, we're amazing at it. And I have, I I've been saying for years because I've also worked with kids for, like, over three decades. And it's amazing. You get kids under 10 years old and they're like, automatically brilliant improvisers.

Thanks.

Uh.

You know, but as we get older, we get more locked in and I've certainly this is a discovery that I've made and I've especially been working on more over the last decade as I've realized how often we get locked into, like, oh, we're gonna watch this specific thing on Netflix and we're not going to experiment as much as we did when we were younger. And I think one of the things that improvising.

Hmm.

Lets us do is we have these skills but it taps us back in to that exploratory mindset that we had when we were younger.

That sometimes can atrophy a bit as we move on through.

So let's talk about that a bit. The practice of improv has obviously evolved and certainly believe that you're seeing it more and more outside of traditional call it, theater settings and more in in real life because as you say, the skills are about adapting.

Can you talk a little bit about that, how you've seen that evolution play out and the how it resonates with the non theater crowd, the professional crowd, how is that resonating?

Yeah, well, one of my favorite things, and this has been true since I I started teaching in the 90s is.

When you have an improv class, and even if it's in, you know, a theatrical setting like, say, someone takes a class at Second City.

You're not just getting people who want to be actors. You're not just getting people who are artists. You get people from all walks of life. You get a lawyer, you get a math professor, you get somebody who's like, works in healthcare. And so a you're getting all these different perspectives, which.

Automatically makes it a better learning than.

Using you.

But the other thing that you get out of it is within about.

Two or three months.

I almost inevitably have students coming up to me and just saying something like, you know, I'm using this a lot.

And the the two most common things I hear are people saying they're using this.

Outside of class and then the other one.

Is.

This is the most fun night of my week because it's also it's interactive, it's collaborative. It is fun. I tend to approach this.

Right.

In a setting like this, a little bit more seriously, especially because I'm sort of fighting against that, it's not all, you know. Yuck. Yuck.

But they're also the most fun things that you can do. When I do a workshop, especially if we have like a few hours to do it, it's not just somebody sitting listening to me. It's getting up, putting these things into practice. And the other funny thing is.

People tend to associate humor with jokes.

The humor that's accessible to most people is those moments that we have, where we're just sort of riffing off each other and so automatically. Also, people end up laughing.

That's a great point and I want to dive a little bit deeper into this idea that you said. The first point that people make months after the class is that they're actually applying it in daily life.

So can you talk a little bit about how they're applying it and for business leaders and financial advisors, what might be some of the techniques?

Improv techniques that they can adopt to help better navigate in in day-to-day life, whether at work or at home.

Yeah.

With this, the big famous one which is start with yes at Second City yes and has literally become a brand.

And the interesting thing about that is.

There's sometimes a misconception that that means you always have to say yes. In an improv scene I I taught in a lot of high schools where we do outreaches and I'd go in and I'd say to the class, you know, can you say no and an improv? And they'd all like, look at the teacher and go. No, no, of course you can't say no now.

And.

You work with a lot of business leaders.

You are one yourself and if somebody walked into a room and said you always have to say yes, you can't say no, you're gonna get shown to the door pretty quickly.

What the actual philosophy is, it's not that you can't say no and it's not that you always have to say yes. But what we do is basically suspend judges.

And we start with that, yes. And we can say no 15 minutes later.

But especially.

Nowadays, where information is so accessible literally in the last 20 years, information went from for thousands of years. The issue was scarcity. You know, when we were growing up, we had to go to a library to find stuff and something. And then often that library had to order it from somewhere. Nowadays, with all this information available, it's very easy for everyone to consider themselves.

Right.

Expert and so we snapped to judgment. We automatically see the reasons why this can't be done.

As opposed to if we just start with.

Yes.

And open ourselves up. Slow down a little bit before we make those judgments. Not only does that lend itself to creativity.

In my experience, it's actually a lot more efficient, because so often we'll end up cutting things off and it turns out that we have to go back and fix it later because a lot of times the things that our brain is certain of.

May not have always been.

The right answer depending on the circumstance, and especially when you're dealing with any kind of industry where you are interacting with human beings and you're interacting with an constantly changing environment.

Hmm.

I like that.

A lot. Ian, I think your point about it fostering creativity is bang on. I presume it also fosters engagement, right? If you're not immediately cutting off somebody that is coming up with an idea or a thought and you're hearing them out, I think it's it's got to be good for engagement and the camaraderie.

If you will, between whether it's with a client and advisor or colleagues etcetera and there was something very important that you said you're just suspending judgment, that doesn't mean that you don't say no.

It's that your immediate response when somebody comes up with something isn't. No. You might be thinking it, but you're suspending judgment or saying anything to hear it out, to hear the idea of.

Being fleshed out.

And give it proper consideration and 5 minutes, 10 minutes. 15 minutes later you might still say no.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean I have, I have ADHD and to a certain extent one of the greatest days of my life was when I was officially diagnosed, because that explained why I've spent my entire life cutting people off halfway through a sentence and and so often we do it. And one of the things I've actually been teaching for.

Years in our my improv classes is the fact that because we're so good at adapting and we're so good at thinking forward as a species even in the moment. So when somebody starts speaking often, halfway through the sentence, we're like, oh, I know where they're going, I can jump in, you know, let's be efficient.

And the strange thing is, 9 times out of 10, we're probably right, or at least in the right ballpark. Now the problem is that one time out of 10, we're not right. We're usually when we're wrong, we're not like a little bit wrong. We're like, ohh, we're going off the rails. Kind of.

Wrong, but the other thing is when we talk about listening and more and more, we've discovered this.

Yes, it is important.

For us to actually hear the content of what somebody is saying, but sometimes the thing that gets lost is.

For a person speaking, it's not just enough that they're being heard.

They have to feel.

Mm-hmm.

Like they've been heard. And that's where letting someone finish. There's literally a game that we played called first line, last line, first work, last work where someone speaks a sentence.

And then the response you have to begin with the last word.

In the previous speakers sentence, so if somebody said something like, you know, I'm gonna go on a podcast today, the first word of my response has.

To be today.

And it can lead to some very grammatically incorrect conversations.

But what it forces you to do is stay there for the whole sentence.

That's a great point. It's and it's a it's a skill that we all need to develop. I'm the first person I can tell you my my family can tell you that there's a certain passion that is involved and that can translate into interrupting, right. And somebody told me so I'm a work in progress, trust me. But somebody told me, and I love the way that they put it. Most of us listen to.

1.

Some listen to listen.

And the very, very few. And this is the pinnacle of what you should strive for is that we listen to understand. And I think that makes a a real big difference in, as you say, the other person feeling understood and their.

And I had a boss that told me this as well. If the person has been understood and and they feel understood, you can say no and it's still OK. At that point, they feel that they've said their piece, that you've understood it and that you have other reasons.

For saying no, that and they give you the benefit of the doubt. If you are listening to to respond, you don't get that benefit of the doubt from the other from the other person.

Yeah, because immediately you've removed all of those frustration emotions. All of those things that often get in the way of us just.

Approaching a conversation from what's actually being said, also sometimes it's.

What's the inferred thing that people are saying? And sometimes we can jump to that.

But I find with that kind of information I once worked with an artificial intelligence expert and they talked about the difference and I hope I get this right because it's been a while, but the difference between data information and inference.

And when he started explaining what it was in terms of data is like the raw piece of information, information is in more depth. Inference is what that information might infer. I suddenly realized that there was an exercise called information.

Mm-hmm.

That I've been doing for years and it's very simple. You somebody acts like they're working at an information booth one at a time. People come up and ask questions. I usually give people the setting of the mall.

And I'll demonstrate it for the group, but then I'll have them do it. And the first thing I always encourage people, because it is a comedy class and people often want to be clever or funny. And they say you're not gonna be funny. You're not even gonna be interesting. Just give the person what they want.

And immediately, now we're not cutting people off, but the thing that's that's happening is and the example I give with an information booth is often somebody in a shopping mall. It say might walk up to an information booth and go, excuse me, is there a pet store in the mall?

Now there's different ways you can answer that question. One is you can just provide the data which is literally there are only three words that you can use to answer that question. If you're just looking at the answer to the specific thing they asked, is there a pet store?

M.

In this mall.

Yes. No, maybe.

But the minute I asked the class, well, what does the person actually?

Want.

What's the information that they're looking for? The information they're looking for is, where is it?

But then in even deeper and I think this.

Is where that?

Active listening and actually paying attention to all that is being said by the person, and especially if we're in person, that also includes nonverbal communication is.

What's the want that's also under that? So with the pet store example, right? Is there a pet store in this mall? Yes, it's up the stairs to the left. That's great.

But there's also an inference.

That person is probably interested in pets. That person is probably maybe they even want something by the end of the day, and now, I mean, if you're talking about sales now, you can get into things like upselling where maybe the person doesn't want the next thing that you offer. They can say no.

But what it does do is it now leads to deeper conversations and much deeper connections, because so many industries, no matter.

Where you work.

It's about networking and making connections in some way shape or form, and when you suddenly realize those simple ways, we're connected all of a sudden. Now we can have simple conversations, even if it's something as simple as like, oh oh, you've got a pet. Hey, you know, what's your dog's name?

And that's where now we can connect on a human.

That that's a great example, Ian. I love it. I love that differentiation and and you're right that going to that inference involves deeper listening.

Processing but creating that sense of engagement that you're building a deeper connection and and you're right in the you know, in our working world that deeper connection, whether you're an advisor with the client or whether the person that you meet in line at the store, I think that's kind of important, right.

Well.

You've done this like these examples like the information booth. You've done this in workshops.

How have people like the professionals, the business people, the people call it cut and dried? How have they reacted when you've introduced these types of improv techniques in getting them to think about it and what have the results been?

There are two reactions, especially let's say this isn't something where someone's come to take an improv class, which, by the way, I'll say this at the end, and I am probably undercutting my own professional career, but the most efficient, cost efficient thing that every business can do.

Just.

Pay for everybody to go take improv classes, but let's say they're higher professional like me, and the company finds out they're going to do an improv class. Often they may not even tell the group that's going to be involved. And I mean, we could be talking about 15 to 20 people. We could be talking about 300.

But if they have been told ahead of time, first we get that misconception getting in the way. And I often hear things like, OK, so just just so you know, you know, a lot of people are really excited about this, this, there's probably gonna be like 3 or 4 people that like you might not, you know, they might not participate.

And I'll say, OK, because my philosophy is always being, if you want to sit out, that's fine. When I used to teach in, in certain schools that were, say, in tougher areas of Toronto, a lot of times, if you come in with some kind of arts thing, there's going to be a few kids who are like, yeah.

This isn't my thing, and I'd always tell the kids it's like, look.

Give me give me the first exercise and after that if you want to sit out and just observe, you can and and it's funny the minute you give people that opportunity of choice.

Mm-hmm.

It's amazing how.

Quickly they'll come on board and what I find is.

I'll hear that. Oh, there's going to be some people.

Who aren't going to participate at all.

We'll begin the workshop and we begin it with something as simple as just a quick little like. Let's get to know each other a little bit. Exercise.

And I would say by halfway through, let's say we're an hour in, I can't tell who the people are who are going to actively resist. There might be a few people that I can tell. Alright, you know, you needed a little bit to come on board.

But once people do, they start to realize, well, one, we're not doing anything that you actually, you're pretty good at this already. You know how to do this. And once they realize, you know, I'm not necessarily gonna put them up on stage and make them do.

A.

Song and dance. Instead, we're just working on like ohh how do we connect? You know, how do we tell each other?

Stories. How do we actively listen to each other? All of those things become.

Skills that very quickly become something that people go. Oh, OK, I see how they can use this.

A really common one I find is people who are, say, running.

Meetings.

Or something as simple as that again.

Improv often teaches you to suspend judgment. It also helps you to slow down just a little bit.

Which again, we're facing a crisis of speed worldwide. With everything is changing so rapidly.

That by just slowing that down that little bit all of a sudden.

They're running meetings or they're being in meetings, where now they're coming out of the meeting and not having that thing that I'm certain everyone has experience, which is you sit in an hour long meeting and.

You walk out and go.

So what was that about?

Again, and all of a sudden our our communication just becomes clear. It becomes more efficient and more importantly, people feel like they've been part of that process.

Makes sense. So Ian, what is 1 memorable experience from your improv career that stands out to you? And what lesson did you learn from it that you think applies and can be valuable for business professionals?

This is one of those. This is almost like the tell me about yourself question you get in job interviews where it's.

Like you kind.

Of dread it for me. So the interesting thing for me is maybe the most memorable experience that I could sort of direct.

The tie that ties to a lesson that affected my entire life.

Oddly enough, is more about a failure.

It starts with a great success.

The first really good improv scene you do, and in terms of, let's say we're talking about performing, that means all the scaffolding disappears, those kind of whose line is it any way type of games which are very structured, you get to a place where eventually all you do is get one suggestion from an audience and then you perform like a five to seven minute.

Long sketch and often it doesn't turn out great. You can get to a point in your career where you can make sure that it's always.

Like pretty solid, that's what we need to do in corporate. It's like I always tell people, if you see a corporate improv show, you're probably not going to see a lot of 10 out of 10 scenes.

You're probably going to see a lot of sevens or eights because that way I don't end up doing a three.

M.

But there are those magic moments where all of a sudden you do a scene. It's like, oh, that's amazing. Like, people are talking about it at the bar afterwards. People are talking about it like four or five weeks later, seven or eight shows later. They're like, oh, you remember that scene you did?

Hmm.

The first time you do that the first time.

You do that great.

Not average? Not OK, not even pretty good, but great scene.

Well, what's the instinct in that situation?

What do we want with our next scene? We want to bottle it and it's gotta happen again. And it's gotta happen again. And it's gotta happen again. But like so many things in life, you're not doing a 10 out of 10. You're not hitting a home run.

Model it right.

500 times in a row.

The first time that happened to me it what happened to me happened to a lot of people, which is you can kind of get inside your head and now you over analyze.

And you got to make everything perfect. There's this zero to 10 mindset.

That's started to be talked about a lot in a lot of different ways in I find with the public speaking clients that I have imposter syndrome as a concept that comes up a lot.

And it's so much of it is tied to that perfectionism.

And I got into that headspace for about 5 years. I mentioned I didn't have much of A film career, literally because right around the time that this started happening, I started over analyzing everything, everything I was doing, comparing myself to everyone.

And I got into this headspace for like 4 or five years and and I managed to sort of keep going professionally, but it did affect a lot.

Of my growth opportunities.

And in this mindset, one of the things that happened was I got to the point where I couldn't audition for film because I was just so inside my head. I couldn't even do that thing where film auditions you often show up. And the first thing you do is look into the camera and you tell them, hi. I'm Ian from talent, talent, talent. And then you turn to the left because they want a profile shot. And I struggled with even that.

And it wasn't until about 5 or 6 years late.

Later, I'm out at a bar. I I ran into an old friend. I hadn't seen him in a long while and he was, you know, somebody I performed with for years. And he says to me, hey, I haven't seen you around. What's going on?

And.

Out it all came and.

Far more extensively than I'm going to do on a podcast where we have a limited.

Time.

But for me, it felt like for about 5, maybe even 10 minutes, I just.

All of that sort of self recrimination, you know, beating myself up came out.

And at the end of it, he looked at me and said, yeah, no, I get it. It's easy to get inside your head.

The average.

And that thought hit me really hard, and it took me a few years to sort of process it. One of the things I realized very early on and this sort of relates back to that, you know, you always have to say yes, thing was, he wasn't saying you should be average all the time. He wasn't saying you can't strive for excellence, which is something we should all strive for.

We should train so that we try to hit the home run, we win, as it were. But if you just accept the fact that sometimes it's OK to be OK, it's OK to be average.

All of a sudden you've removed that zero or time 10 mindset.

I'm often telling my my speaking clients because everyone wants to memorize exactly their speech, and I'm always telling my speaking clients you don't have to ever memorize the speech again, know your information if you have some statistics, maybe have those in some notes.

But that pressure of getting everything perfect, it's a it's not sustainable. It's also not efficient because then we waste all this time trying to reach this unattainable goal as opposed to let's strive for excellence. Let's put in the.

Work.

But then when we need to say I.

Don't know, do a podcast.

Now let's just be in the moment and trust that we've put in the work. And hey, if we hit a home run, great.

Sometimes it might.

That's such great advice.

Just be pretty good.

That's such great advice, it's hard to follow. It's especially for type A type personalities, but it it is great advice and.

It's so hard to follow.

But the reality is, and you use the home run analogy, the reality is that a top baseball player who hits lots of home runs.

Hits next and gets a hit. If they're batting 300, meaning three times out of 10, they get a hit. They're considered top of their sport.

Right. I mean, yes, baseball is slightly different than professional day-to-day work, but to your point, I think the improv mindset allows people to kind of be fluid. So maybe the beginning of your conversation or your meeting isn't a 10 out of 10. But if you give it time and if you are more forgiving.

With yourself, perhaps the the opening that the client or that the colleague provides you, you can.

Find a way to get get to 8-9 or ten, the other 10 type of meeting, but it's a fluid situation that evolves, but you have to. You have to stay at the game. You gotta be at the plate. Continue to get that opportunity to bring it to a 8-9 or ten out of 10. If you sit there and think right at the beginning. Oh my God, this is.

At 3 out of 10, it's going horribly and pull yourself out of the game if there is no opportunity to get a a better outcome.

Yeah. And it's funny. One of the first things that so many I've heard, so many other improv teachers say is, you know, go fail. I'm always telling my classes. It's like, you know, you should feel uncomfortable at times and it's OK to fail. And that's something where let's say we apply it to, I don't know, investing.

And all of a sudden that's that seems like.

Ohh alright that's that.

That's certainly not what we want. When people are investing their money. And yet, and I could be.

Speaking out of school here but.

As an investor, not every investment will always pan out.

And I would imagine in order to be able to make the the strongest investments at time, you have to take risks at times you have to.

Play it safe but also.

If.

You need success in every single investment you make.

I'll turn this around and ask you the question.

How long are you going to be able to mentally survive in that?

You can't. I I think you hit the nail on the head. The the reality is this is what we talked about portfolio diversification. I don't care who you are. Not even Warren Buffett makes every investment is a winner.

What makes Warren Buffett successful is that most of his investments are winners, and so that they win by more than his bad investments lose and I think.

I know that is what good advisors do is that they recommend diversified portfolios for their clients with the idea that on average or better than average, most of those stocks in that portfolio or the investments in that portfolio will do well someone.

And that's the mindset that you're talking about that you should have this, the idea of failing is a good mindset to have and you forgive yourself and you're you're prepared for that so that you're not trying too hard. The idea is not to get 10 out of 10 in your investment.

Portfolio, you get 7 out of 10/8 of out of 10 consistently. That's a great track record.

Yeah, because.

When?

Just it's so easy to get trapped where if you're trying to. If you're if perfection is the only goal, what ends up happening is you just end up wasting time because you OK, well, I'm gonna do it in, in, in the writing world. Let's do one more edit. Right. Let's say I was doing a play. Oh, I gotta rehearse it one more time. But especially, I would imagine if you're dealing with something.

Time sensitive as investing.

Whether or not you get it perfect.

The opportunity is only going to be there for so long and that's one of the biggest things is if we if we let go a little bit of that perfect mindset, we're more likely to actually take the opportunities when they're available and they won't always pan out. But we'll also have more opportunities.

Look, one of my favorite sayings is the the perfect is the enemy of good and the idea is that you can always wait for something that is perfect and in in reality that means that you should always be waiting because there's always the potential that there's something better around the corner. But the problem with that mindset is that you're always waiting.

Let.

When I got stuck in that mindset.

It literally prevented me from writing some books. There was a the third book of a trilogy that I wrote. I put off writing the third book for two years.

Because I kept telling myself I wasn't smart enough.

To write my.

Own book. So there's a mindset there, but also that it's got to be right. I've got to get, like, everything prepared as.

Opposed to.

Just write the first draft. It's probably not going to be that great. I'm always telling people like the first draft of anything and this could be like research and development. It's meant.

To be bad.

Create that pile and then start working through it and finding the success and it's such a more efficient way of working.

That's a great approach, having written a couple of books, I the the challenge with.

Word processors and I'm a word processor user is that you believe that the the words that you put on the page, they're they're sentence done right and the the the old fashioned way of writing it out and scratching it out. It's more time consuming. Nobody does it. But there was something to that that made you feel that this was a draft.

That was one of my big inhibiting factors. What's on the page has to be Earth.

I can't tell you how many drafts I went through. It took me so long to put the first draft together, but once that first draft was on paper.

I think I went through 20 drafts in a matter of weeks just because that first drop was the big hurdle to get through. And then once you see it on paper, as long.

As.

Good authors say Kill Your Darlings, right? And that's a hard mindset to get into that you can always do better. But I I think to your point.

It comes with mindset as to if you sit there and say this has got to be perfect. When I put it out there.

It's scary and it can stop people from trying anything, whether it's writing a book, whether it's getting on stage on improv, or whether it's actually taking, yeah, trying new initiatives to build out the financial advisory practice.

Yeah, because time is always going to keep moving forward. And so with improv, because sometimes we're doing this on stage in front of an audio.

If halfway through the scene, the scene is struggling, we don't get the stop, analyze what's going wrong and then fix it.

You fix it on the fly and you do the best you can, and it's amazing how often you will actually end up with something that's pretty strong.

And there's so many.

Places where the world doesn't stop and let us.

To get it exactly right.

And there are places where. Look, I want some perfection.

Heart surgery.

If I'm.

Yeah, if I'm working with a.

Surgeon.

I want them to have a 10 out of 10 mindset. I want even them to have a little bit of that God complex.

In the operating room, on the other hand, when they're done and they're speaking to the patient and they're about to outline. So here's how the next six months are going to go.

Well, if I'm the patient, I'm not going to be able to live up to that level of perfection. I'm probably not going to do every single thing that I'm supposed to do in the next six months.

Hopefully I will do.

Right.

Most of it. And so a little human being.

Inside.

That surgeon, a little imperfection, is actually something I'm a more likely to relate to. It also means I'm probably more likely to listen.

And not just give up halfway through the instructions and going well. I'm not gonna be able to do all of this. And so I'm actually more likely.

To do most of what is required of me.

And that's there's so many places where, yes.

There are times where it better be excellent, but one of my favorite misconceptions that I like to address is the whole failure is not an option. That's a quote that gets thrown a lot around a lot, and I certainly seen it thrown a lot around a lot in corporate circles. I love space. I'm a big space. I'll watch every little YouTube video about like how there's a hexagon.

On the top of Saturn, and like all those interesting facts.

So one of the things you learn is ohh failure is not an option comes from the Apollo 13 mission and it's a it's a line that's literally said in the movie that was done 20-30 years ago.

And I've heard people say things like, well, we didn't get to the moon, you know, failure is not an option. Like, that's a NASA proverb. And I'm like, let's settle down because aside from the fact that we know that it so, you know, it wasn't Apollo one or Gemini one that landed on the moon, there had to be a lot of them, even in that specific circumstance. The person who said it was a guy named Gene Krantz.

He was the flight director for that specific mission when he said failure is not an option. He was talking about a specific circumstances. These three people, this was the mission where basically there was a problem with the spaceship on the way to the moon. The module got damaged and so.

It looked like those 3 astronauts might not make it back.

And so the flight director said failure is not an option with the specific aspect of those three people are coming back a lot.

In order to make that happen, they put somebody in a flight simulator where they literally ran the potential mission. Thousands of thousands of times and failed.

It.

Work. And so The funny thing is, not only was failure an option failure with that mission in order to get that one specific outcome.

Actually require.

An excess of failure in order to finally lead to that success. And I mean that's the other thing that improv teaches you is it's not possibly perfect. It's not possibly perfect with other people because you have your ideas, they have theirs.

But we figure out a way.

To make it work.

That's a great segue to the last question before we dive into the rapid fire sequence so.

Mm-hmm.

Failure is a reality and you have to work with other people that you don't know how they're going to react, and this is the reality that advisors face on a daily basis. So in terms of client engagement and building that trusted client relationship.

Not knowing what they're going to.

Say how? What?

Would you say that advisors should take away from this conversation about improv principles and using that to build more productive, positive conversations, more trusted relationships and better outcomes with their client?

Yeah, I think it starts with suspending judgment and being open. You're gonna have some clients where they are a little bit more risk averse. You have some clients who want to take more risks and.

The flip side of this is you want to be open minded, but you're still going to come with your expertise. There's a myth in improv that there's no structure, there's no plans at all. That is not true for me. If I expanded the definition of the ability to improvise beyond just, it's the ability to adapt, to change with other people. If I were to define adapt to change.

What that means is.

It means the ability to adapt whenever.

The plan alters or shifts, or perhaps the plan wasn't present at the beginning of whatever endeavor you're beginning.

But there's still some structure. It's like jazz.

And so as a financial advisor, you're going to come in with your knowledge and we don't want to get rid of that. We don't want to surrender that.

Hmm.

But the ability to come in and then listen to whatever your client needs to slow down enough to just be present and oddly.

Enough.

In doing that, you'll also probably be able to get your client to slow down a little bit and not make those rash snap judgments. I'm a huge sports fan and every single time an owner buys an NBA team, they immediately trade for the best player in the league and, you know, don't worry about it. We'll just give up the other nine players.

And our future draft picks and it's like great, now you have, you know, Kevin Duran.

But you need 5 people and maybe even a few bench people as well. And this situation can be pretty common. And it, by the way, it wasn't that the instinct was wrong, but sometimes it might just be. Let's just slow down, suspend judgment and you know.

What?

Maybe we'll make that choice tomorrow or the day after, or even an.

Hour from now.

That's that's great. And I love the analogy around jazz because that really brings and paints that picture.

So Ian, we're coming to the end of our podcast. So I have a few final rapid fire questions for you that I asked all of my guests.

So #1 professionally, what is the most important lesson you've learned over the?

There.

So the most important lesson I've learned, but I'm still working on applying as much as I can, is letting things go, and the one you most common here is. You've gotta let you know the failures go and not, you know, carry those with you, but relating back to some of our conversation, I think you also have to be able to let go your successes.

And learn from them and strive for them. But also don't make them again that zero or ten mindset where it always has to end up this way and then the other one that.

Comes to mind is and this is the thing that improv gets you to embrace. Sort of. The more some of your more subconscious thinking and your gut instincts. Because sometimes again, you're you're gonna have to think.

On.

Your feet and the one I have found that I think is important for an artist, but I imagine it's also important for any kind of opportunity is.

If your gut says there's an opportunity here.

You should pursue it.

As much as possible, without any excuses, it's like follow that instinct and it might not always pan out, but there's a lot of things that sometimes get in the way of us all.

Doing that.

So those would be my two things. Let things go, and if there's an.

Opportunity go for.

I love that the the point about success is letting go of the successes. I think that is so powerful.

#2 what is 1 practical tip you would offer listeners keen on applying the insights that you've discussed?

So the thing about the practical tip is so much of improv is collaborative, so so many of the exercises we do, you're going to want to do with people. I do sometimes get people asking, well, what can I do at home?

But the one that comes.

To mind that relates to.

Let's just say the concept of slowing down and I find often we have to actually start with just giving ourselves permission to do it.

If I'm doing a public speaking workshop, just giving yourself permission to pause. But even sometimes just permission to just take a second and process.

Uh.

And so one of the things I find people can do is if you find a low stakes environment right, there should be some stakes. So let's say a meeting and let's say you wanted to just work on the concept of being present and slowing down. So we just start with the idea of.

Just actually make yourself do that. So at the next meeting you have in the first two or three minutes that you're going to be speaking.

Deliberately pause.

Four times.

It only has to be even for a second, because oddly enough, yes, sometimes it'll be more effective if you pause longer, but all we're doing is actually just making us.

Present.

With what we're seeing in the moment.

And then practicing the actual giving ourselves permission, where if we need to pause.

Then we have that tool available to us, and that's sort of one very simple thing you can work on if you're working on trying to be more present and just slowing down a little bit.

That's great.

Ian's fantastic discussion. If listeners want to learn more about you or find out about your work, where should they go?

You can find my website at professionalimprovisor.com vis osr like Doctor you can find me on LinkedIn but a lot of my social media I'm in the process of rebranding and I am terrible at it. So I would say go to the website first.

I have a book coming out at the end of the year. It's actually a simple public speaking tip book. I'm halfway through the first draft of a of an actual improv book about it's important that will hopefully come out sometime next year. And then beyond that, the the one thing I would just like to encourage everybody is go.

Take an improv class.

It will. You'll be using it a lot.

Awesome, Ian. Thank you for joining us today on the future Ready Advisor.

Thank you so much for having me.

In this episode, I spoke with Ian Keeling, actor improv artist and corporate coach. Here are my three key takeaways from this day.

Question.

Number one, improv as a mindset for adaptability, Ian explains that improv isn't just for performers. It's a way of thinking that helps you adapt to unexpected changes. Collaboratively. This mindset, essential in today's fast-paced world, fosters creativity and builds resilience in both personal.

And professional setting.

#2 the power of yes. And while not always about agreement, this technique encourages suspending judgment and exploring ideas fully before making decisions. For advisers, this approach can enhance client engagement and open pathways to deeper.

Connections and innovative solutions.

#3 failure is part of the process.

Ian emphasizes that striving for perfection can inhibit growth and innovation. Instead, focus on progress and learning from mistakes, whether it's a first draft of a speech or a meeting that didn't hit all the marks, the key is staying in the game and trusting the process.

These insights remind us that flexibility, listening and letting go of perfection can transform how we connect and lead.

Thank you for tuning in to the future Ready advisor.

You've been listening to the future Ready advisor. If you enjoyed the show, please leave a review on Apple Podcasts or a rating on Spotify, or share your feedback wherever you listen. Be sure to follow the podcast so you never miss an episode. For more insights on how to keep your practice.

Future ready visit www.samsivarajan.com.

You can find the link on the show notes. There you'll find free tools and resources along with exclusive bonus content from these podcasts. Thanks for tuning in and I look forward to sharing more strategies with you in the next episode.