Episode 87: Behind the Scenes Bloopers: Professional Development Workshop Woes
Picture this: You’re in a professional development workshop that’s using improv comedy to train you on your power skills. You see the skilled improv professionals show up buttoned up and ready to go, and you’re right there with them, ready to rock.
But do you have any idea of the things that happened behind the scenes? Or the things that are funny that occurred on the way to the workshop or in the workshop, that weren’t even supposed to be part of the funny?
There are SO many stories, and today we are highlighting them for you in a behind the scenes blooper reel. That's right. Bloopers from behind the scenes here at improve it. You're going to hear some of the funniest moments that have happened before, after and during our workshops from our very own improve it! team.
This is a fun one – so listen in your car, run, walk or wherever you need a smile.
Enjoy!
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Connect with Erin Diehl:
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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If that sounds like you, please consider rating and reviewing this podcast! This helps Erin support more people – just like you – move toward the leader you want to be. Click here, click listen on Apple Podcasts, scroll to the bottom, tap to rate with 5 stars, and select “Write a Review.” Then be sure to let Erin know what you loved most about the episode! Also, if you haven’t done so already, subscribe to the podcast. That way you won’t miss any juicy episodes! Thanks in advance, improve it! Fam :)
Episode 87 Transcription
Erin (00:00):
Are you a leader or change maker inside of your business, organization or corporation? Are you looking for new, innovative ways to drive morale through the roof? Are you looking for fun and exciting icebreakers, team building exercises and activities that will foster team growth, friendship, loyalty, and completely transform your organization from the inside out? Have you been searching for a fun and unique way to create change instead of the same old, dry, boring leadership books and ice breakers that aren't actually working? Hi, I'm Erin Diehl, Business improv entertainer, failfluencer, professional Zoombie who is ready to help you improve it. My mission in life is to help you develop teams and leaders through play improv and experiential learning. In this podcast, we will deep dive into professional development team building effective communication, networking, present skills, leadership training, how to think more quickly on your feet and everything in between. We have helped everyone from fortune 500 companies to small mom and pop shops transform their business, their leadership, and their people through play. So grab your chicken hat. We are about to have some fun, welcome to improve it! The podcast!
Erin (01:35):
Oh, improve it family. Welcome to the improve it! Pod. Today is a fun show. This is for your entertainment. I hope that you are driving right now or on a walk, taking some time for you to relax to recharge and what better way to do that than to laugh. So this week's show is a compilation of bloopers. That's right. Bloopers from behind the scenes here at improve It. You're gonna hear from so many members of the improve it! Team, some of the funniest moments that have happened in workshops before workshops in the office video filming because we're making some really cool videos for pre-work in the beginning of our workshops in 2022. So I'm so excited for you. Sit back, relax, grab a fun coffee, cocktail, whatever you're feeling and just enjoy the show. We're gonna start off with one of my favorite memories from our director of talent, Cristy Mercier. And this happened years ago, early, early improve! She's been with me since day one. So this is a very funny memory of a game that I tried. I won't call it a game. It's an activity that we tried in one of our very first improve it! Workshops that failed me miserably. And as you know, here, there are no mistakes, only gifts. So listen in to this blooper from Cristy Mercier, our director of talent.
Cristy (03:16):
So one time Erin and I were just starting out. We have one of our first workshops that we're trialing out with a whole group of people. We get hired to go do this workshop in the suburbs and it's just Erin. And, she goes, Hey, do you wanna go over the workshop at the beginning? I say, no, we're good. I feel good. She goes, well, there's a few new exercises. I said, oh no, well, it'll be fine. So we get in there and it's a bunch of like engineers, plumbers, you know, kind. And it's mostly all men in the room. It's you know, 20 some men and one woman who's like the administrative assistant <laugh>. And so we get into the workshop and halfway through, she does this new exercise and she says, okay, so what's gonna happen now is you're gonna hold.
Cristy (03:54):
You're gonna find a partner and then you're going to close your eyes and you're gonna hold at each other's Palm. And you're going to draw on each other's hands, hobbies that you have. And I look at her and I'm like, what, what is this? And she looks at me, like I told you, this was new. Anyway, I pair with the woman. She starts drawing on my hands and I'm like, like nodding and, and we're not supposed to really talk. And she's like, yeah, yeah. And I'm like, I'm drawing. And she's like soccer. And I go, yeah, sure. And so I'm like, I have no idea what I'm doing. I opened my eyes. I'm giving Erin like an evil glare. And then I look around the room and I see all these men holding each other's hands. We got pick of the car after the workshop. And I think we were crying, laughing, going. I don't think that worked. And I go, what were you trying to do? She goes, was trying something
Erin (04:43):
Okay. That still to this day makes me laugh so hard. Oh, the MEMS, the MEMS, the MEMS. All right. So I've got another one for you here. This is from Sam Martin. Now, if you don't know Sam, you gotta know him. He's one of the funniest people I've ever met in real life. He literally makes my cheek, my cheeks hurt from laughter all the time I cry laughing. And this memory he's gonna describe was on the way to a workshop in Michigan. We were coming, we were driving. I think it was like a four hour drive. We got up super early, drove from Chicago to Michigan for this workshop. He left out one of my favorite memories, which I'll tell you about after you hear his blooper, but Sam's one of our lead facilitators. One of our co-facilitators, you might see him on some of our laugh breaks. And Sam is just known on our team as never letting a bit die. And if you don't know what a bit is, it's in the comedy world, it is just bits on bits on bits. It's just adding little jokes on top of jokes. And Sam is always the king of, of bits. We always say, Sam cannot let a bit go. And this story right here just makes me laugh endlessly. So enjoy this blooper from Sam Martin, one of our lead facilitators, and co-facilitators here at improvement.
Sam (06:08):
Okay. So my silly, funny blooper has to do with the time that myself and Erin Diehl, the one and only. And I believe Patrick and Cristy were on the way to an improve it! Workshop. We had to arrive fully dressed, cuz like as soon as we got there, it was go time basically. It was a bit of a drive. So we stopped at a Wendy's for some lunch and everybody got some lunch. Everyone knew had they, they had to be careful. And I got a frosty chocolate frosty. It was great. And you know, when you get to the end of the chocolate frosty you, you kinda have to scoop out the rest of it or sometimes you have to tilt it, just kinda get the, get the rest of it. Well, I tilted it and a little too much of the chocolate frosty went on me.
Sam (06:57):
It got in my shirt and it was pretty big and obvious. And everyone looked and they laughed and it was very funny, objectively, very funny. And we also found that as if, as long as I kind of covered it up with my tie and my coat, we were fine. There was no time to go anywhere to get cleaned up or there was, you know, I mean it was just chocolate ice cream. There's nothing you do. Like, it's pretty obvious. So that's my blooper. It's not much of a story. Really. It's just a, I spilled ice cream on myself and that's that's just kind of ridiculous. Thank you,
Erin (07:33):
Sam Martin, you cracked me up. So he also had a song that went with this. He was like spill on my, on my pants, spill a to on my pants. And so we sang that song, the entire car ride back to Chicago. Now next we have another one of our lead facilitators and Andrew has also been Andrew, Sam, Cristy they've and a part of improve it! Since day one. I mean, day one. And Andrew is just one of the, my favorite favorite people. All of these people are my favorite people, but he also makes you laugh consistently. He is seriously a great travel buddy. We always have so much fun on the road together. And story is real. It's really real. And you'll, you'll hear him tell you about an experience. You know, I'm ruin it. I'm gonna ruin it. I'm gonna have you sit tight. Here is our blooper from Andrew lead facilitator at improve it.
Andrew (08:38):
First blooper that comes to mind it's when we were doing a big workshop and we were doing ad campaign where people were supposed to make their own advertisements. And there was this one guy who was very tech heavy. The only way I can describe him is that his haircut kind of looked like dock the bow hunter. So he was kind of a little bit intimidating, but he was a very nice guy. And he said that the only way he really wanted to participate was if he was allowed to use his drone. And, you know, I figured that he would just kind of, you know, not really do that for real, but like, you know, make a noise or something. But when we started the piece, it actually turned out that he pulled an actual humongous row, like the size of an Eagle out of a briefcase and was full on planning to just have it fly around in this convention center.
Andrew (09:22):
And we had to, we had to stop that and we came to an agreement where two people would just carry it and make a noise like a buzzy noise and that worked. But I definitely learned that time that you really need all the information for something or else you might not know what you're dis subscribing to <laugh>, but it was definitely a learning moment. Another thing that comes to mind is when I didn't know what I was subscribing to, and I witnessed Mike Garrity eat 13 chili dogs after dinner in Detroit. I learned a lot that night, too.
Erin (09:53):
Okay. That story from Andrew still cracks me up. I was a witness to the drones. He is. Speaking of, I was not a witness to the chili dogs that he mentioned, one of our co-facilitators Mike Garty eight in Detroit. That was a trip I, I did not go on. And we had 12 improv profess drive from Chicago to Detroit for a very awesome set of workshops. We did six simultaneous sessions. The team had an absolute blast. Those are some of my favorite memories is when we get everybody in the car and we drive and we have snacks and we laugh. I mean, I will, wasn't on this trip. I've been on many of the other trips, but I did hear about this famous chili dog eating from Mike Garrity, who you'll hear next. Mike Garrity is just a Teddy bear. I mean, truly the kindest sweetest guy.
Erin (10:55):
And he's, he's a man. So when you look at Mike, you're like, wow, he's big. He is truly has a heart of gold. And again, I, I love all of our people so much. So his blooper is actually really heartwarming, heartfelt. He's gonna talk about the chicken dance, which if you don't know, is something that we use in, in all of our workshops. It actually started in the very beginning with Andrew, Andrew. I was the one that said, Hey, we're gonna use a chicken to be a part of our workshops. Anytime you hear the word improv, we're gonna pass this chicken hat. It's a physical chicken hat to the person on our right. And he yes. Ended me and said, yeah, and we're gonna do the chicken dance on top of that. That became a thing. And 2015, and it has stuck with us ever since we still chicken dance over zoom. So you'll hear Mike talk about that in this next blooper, but Mike Garrity. Oh, such a guy, such wonderful guy. Enjoy this blooper from one of our co-facilitators Mike Garrity.
Mike (11:56):
One time at the end of one of our improvement workshops, we asked everyone, what is something that you got out of this workshop? What did you learn? And a lot of people said, oh, I, you know, I bonded with my coworkers. We had some laps, it was fun. Then we got to the boss, like the manager of this entire group. And, and we said, why did you get out of it? And he said, I learned that when my employees talked to me, I should stop typing and listen to the words they say. And I thought, how did this guy work his way to the top of this company? And not know that he had to listen to words that people say to him, especially as employees and coworkers. And then, then I realized that as a performer and improviser, we, we take things like communication for granted.
Mike (12:41):
Cause we do it at, at an elite level. It seems so natural. And so many people don't need that skill or have that everyone needs it, but not everyone has it. And it's not demanded of everyone. And I thought, man, this guy's gonna take this workshop home to his wife and all of a sudden make his marriage better. And his family better and probably his workplace better and everything. But I mean, all cause we made this guy do the chicken dance. I think we, we changed his life. And, and I, I, I forget that there's so many people out there like him whose lives, we are literally changing with our improv workshops, which is, which is amazing to me.
Erin (13:21):
Okay. I told you, Mike was a Teddy bear. I was not lying. He is a Teddy bear. And one of the kindest humans as our, all the people we have here, they say the traits of a great improviser make up the traits of, for great human. And I stand by that, improve it fam. So this next blooper is from, if you've worked with us in a workshop capacity before you know her Jenna McDonald our client, excuse me, our director of client experience. Jenna has if you haven't listened to episode, I need to go back and find it. But there's an episode where we talk about Jenna's story here with us and improve it. It's truly one of my favorites. It's it's a beautiful episode. We'll find it. We'll link to it in the show notes. As I'm recording this, I do not have it handy. Am I prepared? Yes. Am I prepared with this episode? No, but Jenna is just, I mean she awesome. She is everything to improve it and she helps us behind the scenes. She helps before the scenes behind the scenes and all the scenes. And actually speaking of behind the scenes, this blooper is a behind the scenes. Look at what happened very recently in one of our virtual workshop. I'm not gonna spoil it for you here. It is with our director of client experience, Jenna McDonnell, a blooper for your virtual Workday.
Jenna (14:45):
We recently did a workshop for a client that was recorded virtually for program participants who could not join the live session. And when everyone was split into breakout rooms, our facilitators were left in the main part, which was where the video was still recording. So there were probably eight to 10 breakout rooms throughout this workshop. And in those moments, our facilitators who just so happened to be our founder, Erin and our director Cristy singing simply the best by Tina Turner overanalyze the meaning of common words, including the word blooper and did bits on bits, including a bit where they were both themselves, but elderly versions of themselves with voices and everything. And knowing that we didn't edit any of that out to share after the workshop with our client and his employees who weren't able to make the workshop still makes me laugh. And hopefully it made them laugh too, even though they had to miss the live session.
Erin (15:44):
Oh, Jenna, Jenna, Jenna. She has truly, when I say she's seen it all, she has seen it all. So that, that still makes me laugh. That was a pretty recent blooper. And speaking of recent, we got another one coming up. So we've been doing some in person workshops since you know, this whole pandemic started. We've gotten back to in person. This next one is from one of our lead facilitators, Catherine Savage. And I love me some Catherine Savage. She is just so quick. It smart. She's from Boston. So I can say wicked smart. She is hilarious, smart, funny, just a kind human being. When you're in her presence, you just feel like you wanna be a better human. So she's gonna reference something called the circle of yes, which is what we do at the end of our work workshops, where we get everybody fired up and we leave with this really positive energy. It involves a fist bump to the air. If you will, I'm making the motion. You can't see me, but I'm making the motion. And I'm gonna let Catherine tell you this story here. It is from one of our lead facilitators, Catherine Savage, a very recent in-person workshop story. Here you go.
Catherine (16:59):
So I was recently running a workshop in Arkansas and we were closing with our circle of yes, which is where we go around the circle and everyone punches their fists in the air and yells. Yes. And we always, you know, make a note to punch up, not out so that you're not punching anybody. So we made that disclaimer, and we're going all the way around the circle and we get close to the end. And one guy just got so into throwing his fist up in the air and yelling yes. That he sort of left into the air and ended up punching the ceiling, which was made up of those like tiles. It's a part of the tile like popped out and fell to the floor and he had got dust all over him and we had to stop the circle of yes, cuz everyone was laughing so hard. And he came up to me and the fabulous Felicia McCloud who was co-facilitating and gave us each a chunk of the ceiling to take home. So that was definitely the most exciting circle of yes I've ever had. And a very funny moment.
Erin (18:02):
Oh. OMG the things that we, we literally could write a book with more bloopers and I wanna just let you know, I did just, this is only our Chicago team you're hearing from today. We only have so much time on this show, so we can only give you so many bloopers, but this is a, a portion of our Chicago team who is giving you some of the behind the scenes access here. We've got people in Chicago, we've got a team in New York, a team in LA, a team in Charlotte, North Carolina, but to round out our bloopers, you're gonna hear from our very own podcast manager, Rachel Oliveros. Now Rachel started off as an intern with improve it! In, I believe 2015. And I, she was still in school, watched her graduate, study abroad. And the thing she's gonna reference is during her internship, but Rachel is just a boss.
Erin (19:03):
She gets it done. She has a full-time job with a really awesome company and then helps us with a podcast here at improve it! And be able to work with her again, we always knew we were gonna stay in touch and you know, keep very closely connected, but for her to be able to come and work with us as a real gift, I love working with her. And she's she's who helps all of this come to life for you. So we're end this show with Rachel Oliveros' blooper, which to this day we still say. Enjoy from our podcast manager Rach.
Rachel (19:39):
So when I was an intern over and prove it, I was very lucky to be able to attend a workshop. And of course I got there early to help with prep and everything. And when you arrive at the building, there's a doorbell that you have to ring and obviously say who you were. Cause that makes sense. Totally. And when they asked who I was, I didn't think to say my name. Instead I said improve it. Yes. And so now that has been a running joke in the team and Erin and even her husband will always remember that story about me because I said improve it instead of my name, gotta love the memories here and improve it!
Erin (20:32):
Improve it! Family. It's me. That story literally makes me laugh. Every time Rachel calls me and Johns near me, we go improve it. So improve it. Fam I hope this gave you some entertainment. You enjoyed meeting some members of the improve it team. It made you laugh. It made you giggle all it gave you a little laughter levity positivity for your day. Wherever you're at today. Here is my only ask. Actually got two asks for you. Number one, if you have not left review for this show, this is a real ask <laugh>. If you have not left a review, could you give me a holiday gift by just go into iTunes? If you're on Spotify, you probably have the iTunes app on your phone. Just going to iTunes, scrolling down to our show, hit iTunes improve it podcast to the bottom, hit five stars.
Erin (21:28):
I forget to leave reviews for some of my favorite shows too. So I totally get it, but that's what helps us get more amazing guests for this show. So if you haven't done it, please leave us a review. Subscribe to the show. So you never miss an episode. Now here's my second and final ask. After you leave, have a review. Here's what I want you to do. I know that this hopefully provided you a little laughter, levity and positivity today. I want you to pay it forward. You can share the show with somebody, make them laugh. You could just share a smile or buy somebody, a coffee behind you in line, or just tell somebody, Hey, I hope you have good day. Share that. Laughter levity and positivity because the world needs it. So my improve it family. I want you to keep failing, keep improving, keep laughing, keep doing all the things you're doing, cuz you're nailing it.
Erin (22:24):
And the world needs that special. It that only you can bring happy holidays. Happy 20, 22. We'll see you next year, which is crazy right here on the improvement podcast. Talk to you soon. Hey friends, thanks for tuning in to improve it. I am so happy you are along for the ride. If you enjoyed this show, head on over to iTunes to leave us a five star review and subscribe to the show. So you never miss an episode. New episodes drop every Wednesday. Now, if you're really feeling today's show and you've improved it even just a little bit, please take a screenshot and tag me at keeping it real deal on Instagram and share it in your stories. I'll see you next week, but I wanna leave you with this thought, what did you improve today and how will that help your future successful self? Think about it. I am rooting for you and the world needs that special. It that only you can bring see you next time