Episode 153: The Full Proof Business Improv Activity that Will Help You Be More Present
Often times when we think about presence or being present, we think it’s a matter of determination.
Ehhh (wrong noise beep). Presence exists more like a battery percentage. We can use it as much as we like, but when we’re on low, we’re on low. When we’re out, we’re out. It’s not a matter of determination, but availability.
If we’ve used up our presence for the day, we’ll have to recharge before we can expect ourselves to give more.
In this episode, Erin gives you an improv activity that will help train your mind to be present throughout the day. It’s kind of like taking a cold shower to train your mind to tolerate stress. Let the gift-giving begin!
ICYMI – Your Post-Episode Homework: Try the improv activity Mirror Your Presence and send in your thoughts to info@learntoimproveit.com or post it on the socials and tag us! Take the quiz below to determine your wellness avatar type and download your Wellness Workbook, free as can be.
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Connect with Erin Diehl:
Connect with Erin Diehl:
Email Erin: info@learntoimproveit.com
Erin Diehl is the founder and Chief “Yes, And” officer of improve it! and host of the improve it! Podcast. She’s a performer, facilitator and professional risk-taker who lives by the mantra, “get comfortable with the uncomfortable.” Through a series of unrelated dares, Erin has created improve it!, a unique professional development company that pushes others to laugh, learn and grow. Her work with clients such as United Airlines, PepsiCo, Groupon, Deloitte, Motorola, Walgreens, and The Obama Foundation earned her the 2014 Chicago RedEye Big Idea Award and has nominated her for the 2015-2019 Chicago Innovations Award.
This graduate from Clemson University is a former experiential marketing and recruiting professional as well as a veteran improviser from the top improvisational training programs in Chicago, including The Second City, i.O. Theater, and The Annoyance Theatre.
When she is not playing pretend or facilitating, she enjoys running and beach dates with her husband and son, and their eight-pound toy poodle, BIGG Diehl.
You can follow the failed it! podcast on Instagram @learntoimproveit and facebook, and you can follow Erin personally on Instagram @keepinitrealdiehl here. You can also check out improve it! and how we can help your organization at www.learntoimproveit.com. We can’t wait to connect with you online!
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Episode 153 Transcription
Erin (00:00):
Welcome to the Improve It Podcast!
Erin (00:11):
Improve it peeps. Welcome back to another episode. It's gonna be short, it's gonna be sweet, but guess what? It's gonna give you a for proof business improv activity that will help you be more present. We're talking about this theme of bravery. We're talking about this idea that we have to show up and have no fear. Well, guess what? Fear is a thing that we are going to have to figure out. It's a thing that we're going to ha let, let go of, and it's a thing that if we allow ourselves to be more present in our bodies, we'll dis up here. Hmm. So I want you to think about your own presence in your life. Maybe today you're listening to this show after jumping from meeting to meeting Zoom after Zoom in and outta conference rooms, in and outta conference rooms. Or maybe you've been to a conference where you are on all day networking and you are just done.
Erin (01:20):
We have to remember that our presence is a gift. So how can you wrap up your presence with a bow and give yourself that gift? Because your presence is actually a gift to the people around you, but it's more importantly a gift to yourself. Imagine listening to a conversation, maybe this one in not thinking ahead or thinking about what you're gonna wear, what you're gonna cook later, what shows you're gonna watch tonight, even though those sound really exciting to think about. What if you were fully present in every moment? What if being more present allowed you to combat those shaky nerves to get into your body and to live a more peaceful, intentional life? What if that happened? How cool would that be? So I want you to think about a time where you realized that you were fully in the moment with someone.
Erin (02:30):
Name a time that you are fully present with someone in your life. It could be a coworker, a direct report. It could be your family. Think of that time, and I want you to think about what emotions come up for you in that time. I want to place a bet, all right? Not in Vegas, but I'm gonna do it right now, that you felt joyful. If it was a happy moment or you felt whatever emotion you were supposed to feel in that moment, you felt something, you weren't checking your phone, opening another tab, looking at something in a newspaper. You are fully in that moment, and you felt my friends, I was today years old when I decided that I had the tools to get myself back into the moment to be fully present. So today, I'll just share this story. It's actually today that this happened.
Erin (03:49):
So you're getting it real hot off the press. Super fresh. So it's about four o'clock in the afternoon right now, and I have been talking nonstop all day. I have literally recorded, this is my fifth podcast today, some of which I was guest spotting on, some of which for this show, I always batch all the shows. Just so you know, on Wednesdays, this is my podcast recording day. So I was doing the most. It's also my nanny, who I am obsessed with, who watches my son. It's her birthday, and so I wanted to make sure she felt super special. I also am single parenting right now because my husband is out of town, and I also got a phone call that I needed to go pick up something because there was an emergency. So I had to leave in the middle of a podcast, go pick it up, come back home and prepare for this episode.
Erin (04:50):
And I literally have this moment right now to give you this episode because my son is asleep in the other room, and he will wake up in 30 minutes and I have to go get him. And it's just me here right now. So at two o'clock today, right after maybe the fourth, third or fourth podcast, I hit a wall. And I'm talking about like it was <laugh>. I could not compute. I was having an out-of-body experience. I was on a guest spot podcast. So sometimes I go be a guest on other shows. And so I was on this, this guest show and or I was a guest on this person's show who was lovely. I was late because my sound wasn't working. So fail fluency. And he asked me as we got to the end of the hour, if I had more time, and I said, sure, I should have said no because I was so done.
Erin (05:47):
I had been talking for so long and giving of myself for that entire time, plus the other shows I recorded before that. So long story, I could not give him complete answers. And I could tell that he knew I was done by the way I was answering his questions, which isn't fair because I should have not booked this many things back to back. I couldn't be present because I had given too much. I had lost my presence. I could not give him that gift. So I had a little break in between there to get myself back together because I was a shell of me. And let me say this, as I'm recording this episode now, I applied this technique that I'm about to teach you to myself, and I got back into the present moment. So I am living proof. I'm a walking case study that what I'm about to teach you to do works.
Erin (06:55):
Because if I gave you the shell of me, you wouldn't receive what you need. You need me to fully show up here. Just like your family needs you to show up for them, just like your team needs you to show up for them, just like your clients need you to show up for them, our presence is truly a gift. And when we're lacking our presence, we aren't giving what that other person needs. We aren't connecting fully. So I wanna share with you this activity called Mirror Your Presence, and it is pulled from the Play Your Way into Wellness Workbook. This is an awesome free resource you can get on our website. You start by taking a quiz to recognize your wellness avatar. So how well do you take care of your wellness? Take the quiz, it gives you your answer, and then through your answer, you get all types of different chips and tricks to help you play your way into wellness.
Erin (08:01):
And they all use this through line of improv. We'll give you an improv activity, an energy booster, and a ritual you can incorporate every day. So this is from the Player Way into Wellness Workbook. And I just wanna give you a word of caution. This game will feel a little silly at first. And one of the biggest rules of the stage as performers is we have to really lean into this silliness, but we also have to do that by being extremely present. So think about an improviser on stage. Nothing is worse to an audience member than seeing a person on stage not be fully in the moment. The same goes for anybody presenting, anybody doing a keynote speech. The idea of this activity is to get you to be fully on stage and the scene of your life and less in your head, a k a thinking about the next thing on your to-do list or just being so mentally drained that you can't give of yourself fully. So here's how to do this, okay? You're gonna go to a space in your home that's quiet, free from interruption, and I want you to put on your favorite playlist, and it needs to be kind of relaxing, chill music and stand in front of your mirror. I told you it was gonna feel silly. You're not doing your hair makeup, we're just standing there. Then I want you to set a timer on your phone for one minute.
Erin (09:36):
All you have to do for one minute is stare at yourself. I really want you to take a moment to look at that awesome person in front of you. Give them a high five, maybe even a smile again. This will feel extremely awkward. And that's the point. Round two is coming up. So in round two, you're gonna set the timer again for another minute. However, this round comes with a twist. You're still staring directly at yourself, still facing the mirror, but I want you to give yourself a task to count something in the room. So if you're in your bathroom, you could count the number of ceiling tiles, the number of tiles on your floor. You could count the number of tiles in your backsplash, whatever it is. After your one minute goes up during round two, I want you to take out a piece of paper and I want you to write what you felt in round one.
Erin (10:38):
And then what I want you to write about what you felt in round two, the chances are that round two felt more comfortable for you because in round two, instead of focusing on the awkwardness of the silence or this forced activity, you gave yourself a task which actually led you to be more present on that same piece of paper. I want you to answer these questions with any type of thought practice or anything else that comes to mind. So here's question one. How can you be fully present in your life, just like you were when you were counting in round two? Let me repeat that. How can you be fully present in your life just like you were when you were counting in round two? Here's question two. What can you do to allow wellness to flow into your life rather than view it as another task to complete like in round two? So how can you allow more wellness, a K, a presence to flow into your life rather than view it as another task to complete like in round two?
Erin (12:02):
So when you show yourself how presence works in its simplest form, staring at yourself in front of a mirror, you begin to see why it's important to your entire being to you as the professional, you as the friend, you as the sister, brother, parent, what have you. So let's talk. Let's say this, like let's say you're taking an Epson salt bath, but your mind is really finishing the project proposal at your desk. You're not really absorbing any of the benefits of the Epso salt bath. And even though you're not working on this project, your mind and body absorb the stress just the same as if you were sitting at your desk typing. So essentially, you're doubling the stress in your life by separating your mind and your body, and that my friends is so last year we're not there anymore. We have transformed. So if you can aim to be where your feet are, and when you feel your mind wandering off, you know exactly how to welcome back that mind, that presence with open arms, you're gonna live a more peaceful existence. It is truly going to bring freedom to all areas of your life.
Erin (13:19):
I am so excited for you to try this. If you try this and it feels super silly, I want you to take a picture and send it to us at info, learn to improve it.com, or you can even put it on your socials and tag us to see you actually doing this activity. Because I gotta tell you, it feels very icky at first. But once you start looking in that mirror and fully embracing the person that you are, you're gonna make yourself so proud, and you're actually gonna really like who you see in that mirror. But it comes from being fully present in yourself to do so.
Erin (14:03):
So here's the outcome of using this activity today. I had a break. I did this activity right before I came here to give you the gift of my presence. And just think of yourself as giving the gift of your presence to others. I am not conceited. I'm talking about, I'm really truly giving you the gift of all of me right now. There's literally nothing else I could give other than this. And in order to do that, I had to be fully present in my body. And I'll tell you what, I feel it. I'm here talking to you right now. I have notes. Most of what I talked to you about today is coming from my heart. I have an outline, but I felt present enough to not even really look at that outline, to just be able to give you myself fully here in this moment.
Erin (15:02):
And it's because I used this tip mirror your presence. So I want you to really try this, especially if you're having one of those days where you are not in your body, you don't feel present, and you have something coming up on your agenda that must require your full being. Please try this and let us know how what, how it goes, how it went. I'm so proud of you and you know what I'm gonna say. I want you to keep failing. Keep improving because this world needs that very, very special It that only you can bring. Keep being brave. Keep showing up for you and give the world your gift, your presence. See you soon. Hey friend, did you enjoy today's show? If so, head on over to iTunes to rate and subscribe. So you never miss an episode. Now, did I mention that when you leave a five star review of the Improve It podcast, an actual team of humans does a happy dance? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. That's right. So leave a review for us on iTunes, screenshot it, and send me an email at info learn to improve it.com. I'll send you a personalized video back as a thank you. Thanks so much for listening. Improve It Peeps. I'll see you next Wednesday.