00:00:00 Ian Keeling
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.
00:00:10 Ian Keeling
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.
00:00:16 Ian Keeling
Suspend.
00:00:17 Ian Keeling
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.
00:00:30 Ian Keeling
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.
00:00:37 Sam
Right.
00:00:39 Ian Keeling
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.
00:00:40 Sam
OK.
00:00:57 Sam
This is the future Ready Advisor, a show about transforming your financial advisory.
00:01:02 Sam
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.
00:01:22 Sam
Grounded in behavioral science to help you better serve your clients, optimize your time, and build a future. Ready.
00:01:30 Sam
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.
00:01:46 Ian Keeling
Hi Sam, I'm glad to be here.
00:01:49 Sam
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.
00:02:00 Sam
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.
00:02:21 Sam
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?
00:02:31 Sam
Were there any pivotal moments that significantly shaped your career?
00:02:36 Ian Keeling
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.
00:02:57 Ian Keeling
It was basically pay what you can.
00:02:59 Ian Keeling
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.
00:03:20 Ian Keeling
Teaching and facilitating workshops on sort of the artists.
00:03:24 Ian Keeling
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.
00:03:43 Ian Keeling
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.
00:04:03 Ian Keeling
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.
00:04:23 Ian Keeling
Keynotes and they had gotten in coaching themselves because they were terrified of it.
00:04:29 Ian Keeling
And that was the connection that I ended up making. And that's the thing I love about.
00:04:32 Ian Keeling
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.
00:04:40 Ian Keeling
I've always approached.
00:04:42 Sam
And that's a great.
00:04:44 Sam
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.
00:05:07 Sam
The.
00:05:08 Ian Keeling
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.
00:05:28 Ian Keeling
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.
00:05:48 Ian Keeling
Or certainly even about being funny, because that's often what it gets associated with, which is comedy.
00:05:53 Ian Keeling
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.
00:06:13 Ian Keeling
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.
00:06:23 Ian Keeling
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.
00:06:33 Sam
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.
00:06:46 Sam
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.
00:07:06 Sam
Better and build that skills to adopt and adapt collaboratively, and that improv mindset and training.
00:07:14 Sam
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.
00:07:25 Ian Keeling
Yeah, absolutely because.
00:07:28 Ian Keeling
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.
00:07:40 Ian Keeling
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.
00:08:03 Ian Keeling
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.
00:08:10 Ian Keeling
Because for most of our.
00:08:12 Ian Keeling
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.
00:08:18 Sam
Hmm.
00:08:33 Ian Keeling
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.
00:08:47 Ian Keeling
In the long history of humankind, those who have learned to collaborate and improvise most effectively have prevailed.
00:08:53 Ian Keeling
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.
00:09:13 Ian Keeling
The present.
00:09:15 Ian Keeling
That's, I think what is going to be extremely important in this century and probably for some time to come.
00:09:23 Sam
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.
00:09:40 Sam
There are times where I feel that those.
00:09:43 Sam
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.
00:10:04 Sam
In the world of GPS, but most people don't know where, where North SE, W is without having a GPS to tell the.
00:10:13 Ian Keeling
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.
00:10:24 Ian Keeling
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.
00:10:34 Ian Keeling
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.
00:10:34 Ian Keeling
Thanks.
00:10:46 Sam
Uh.
00:10:55 Ian Keeling
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.
00:10:59 Sam
Hmm.
00:11:17 Ian Keeling
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.
00:11:26 Ian Keeling
That sometimes can atrophy a bit as we move on through.
00:11:32 Sam
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.
00:11:50 Sam
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?
00:12:01 Ian Keeling
Yeah, well, one of my favorite things, and this has been true since I I started teaching in the 90s is.
00:12:09 Ian Keeling
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.
00:12:17 Ian Keeling
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.
00:12:33 Ian Keeling
Automatically makes it a better learning than.
00:12:36 Ian Keeling
Using you.
00:12:37 Ian Keeling
But the other thing that you get out of it is within about.
00:12:42 Ian Keeling
Two or three months.
00:12:44 Ian Keeling
I almost inevitably have students coming up to me and just saying something like, you know, I'm using this a lot.
00:12:51 Ian Keeling
And the the two most common things I hear are people saying they're using this.
00:12:56 Ian Keeling
Outside of class and then the other one.
00:12:59 Ian Keeling
Is.
00:12:59 Ian Keeling
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.
00:13:04 Sam
Right.
00:13:07 Ian Keeling
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.
00:13:15 Ian Keeling
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.
00:13:31 Ian Keeling
People tend to associate humor with jokes.
00:13:35 Ian Keeling
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.
00:13:48 Sam
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.
00:14:00 Sam
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?
00:14:09 Sam
Improv techniques that they can adopt to help better navigate in in day-to-day life, whether at work or at home.
00:14:17 Ian Keeling
Yeah.
00:14:19 Ian Keeling
With this, the big famous one which is start with yes at Second City yes and has literally become a brand.
00:14:27 Ian Keeling
And the interesting thing about that is.
00:14:30 Ian Keeling
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.
00:14:33 Sam
And.
00:14:48 Ian Keeling
You work with a lot of business leaders.
00:14:50 Ian Keeling
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.
00:15:01 Ian Keeling
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.
00:15:10 Ian Keeling
And we start with that, yes. And we can say no 15 minutes later.
00:15:16 Ian Keeling
But especially.
00:15:17 Ian Keeling
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.
00:15:34 Sam
Right.
00:15:38 Ian Keeling
Expert and so we snapped to judgment. We automatically see the reasons why this can't be done.
00:15:44 Ian Keeling
As opposed to if we just start with.
00:15:48 Ian Keeling
Yes.
00:15:49 Ian Keeling
And open ourselves up. Slow down a little bit before we make those judgments. Not only does that lend itself to creativity.
00:15:58 Ian Keeling
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.
00:16:10 Ian Keeling
May not have always been.
00:16:12 Ian Keeling
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.
00:16:21 Ian Keeling
Hmm.
00:16:27 Sam
I like that.
00:16:27 Sam
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.
00:16:46 Sam
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.
00:16:59 Sam
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.
00:17:10 Sam
Being fleshed out.
00:17:11 Sam
And give it proper consideration and 5 minutes, 10 minutes. 15 minutes later you might still say no.
00:17:19 Ian Keeling
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.
00:17:38 Ian Keeling
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.
00:17:58 Ian Keeling
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.
00:18:12 Ian Keeling
Wrong, but the other thing is when we talk about listening and more and more, we've discovered this.
00:18:19 Ian Keeling
Yes, it is important.
00:18:21 Ian Keeling
For us to actually hear the content of what somebody is saying, but sometimes the thing that gets lost is.
00:18:27 Ian Keeling
For a person speaking, it's not just enough that they're being heard.
00:18:30 Ian Keeling
They have to feel.
00:18:32 Sam
Mm-hmm.
00:18:32 Ian Keeling
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.
00:18:44 Ian Keeling
And then the response you have to begin with the last word.
00:18:49 Ian Keeling
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.
00:18:57 Ian Keeling
To be today.
00:18:58 Ian Keeling
And it can lead to some very grammatically incorrect conversations.
00:19:05 Ian Keeling
But what it forces you to do is stay there for the whole sentence.
00:19:10 Sam
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.
00:19:34 Sam
1.
00:19:35 Sam
Some listen to listen.
00:19:38 Sam
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.
00:19:55 Sam
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.
00:20:08 Sam
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.
00:20:20 Ian Keeling
Yeah, because immediately you've removed all of those frustration emotions. All of those things that often get in the way of us just.
00:20:28 Ian Keeling
Approaching a conversation from what's actually being said, also sometimes it's.
00:20:33 Ian Keeling
What's the inferred thing that people are saying? And sometimes we can jump to that.
00:20:38 Ian Keeling
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.
00:20:53 Ian Keeling
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.
00:20:58 Sam
Mm-hmm.
00:21:07 Ian Keeling
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.
00:21:18 Ian Keeling
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.
00:21:34 Ian Keeling
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?
00:21:49 Ian Keeling
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?
00:22:01 Sam
M.
00:22:02 Ian Keeling
In this mall.
00:22:04 Ian Keeling
Yes. No, maybe.
00:22:07 Ian Keeling
But the minute I asked the class, well, what does the person actually?
00:22:10 Ian Keeling
Want.
00:22:11 Ian Keeling
What's the information that they're looking for? The information they're looking for is, where is it?
00:22:17 Ian Keeling
But then in even deeper and I think this.
00:22:18 Ian Keeling
Is where that?
00:22:20 Ian Keeling
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.
00:22:31 Ian Keeling
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.
00:22:40 Ian Keeling
But there's also an inference.
00:22:43 Ian Keeling
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.
00:22:58 Ian Keeling
But what it does do is it now leads to deeper conversations and much deeper connections, because so many industries, no matter.
00:23:06 Ian Keeling
Where you work.
00:23:08 Ian Keeling
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?
00:23:25 Ian Keeling
And that's where now we can connect on a human.
00:23:29 Sam
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.
00:23:38 Sam
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.
00:23:57 Sam
Well.
00:23:58 Sam
You've done this like these examples like the information booth. You've done this in workshops.
00:24:05 Sam
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?
00:24:18 Ian Keeling
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.
00:24:35 Ian Keeling
Just.
00:24:36 Ian Keeling
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.
00:24:54 Ian Keeling
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.
00:25:15 Ian Keeling
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.
00:25:32 Ian Keeling
This isn't my thing, and I'd always tell the kids it's like, look.
00:25:35 Ian Keeling
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.
00:25:44 Sam
Mm-hmm.
00:25:46 Ian Keeling
It's amazing how.
00:25:47 Ian Keeling
Quickly they'll come on board and what I find is.
00:25:51 Ian Keeling
I'll hear that. Oh, there's going to be some people.
00:25:53 Ian Keeling
Who aren't going to participate at all.
00:25:55 Ian Keeling
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.
00:26:04 Ian Keeling
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.
00:26:17 Ian Keeling
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.
00:26:31 Ian Keeling
A.
00:26:31 Ian Keeling
Song and dance. Instead, we're just working on like ohh how do we connect? You know, how do we tell each other?
00:26:37 Ian Keeling
Stories. How do we actively listen to each other? All of those things become.
00:26:43 Ian Keeling
Skills that very quickly become something that people go. Oh, OK, I see how they can use this.
00:26:50 Ian Keeling
A really common one I find is people who are, say, running.
00:26:55 Ian Keeling
Meetings.
00:26:56 Ian Keeling
Or something as simple as that again.
00:26:59 Ian Keeling
Improv often teaches you to suspend judgment. It also helps you to slow down just a little bit.
00:27:05 Ian Keeling
Which again, we're facing a crisis of speed worldwide. With everything is changing so rapidly.
00:27:12 Ian Keeling
That by just slowing that down that little bit all of a sudden.
00:27:16 Ian Keeling
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.
00:27:29 Ian Keeling
You walk out and go.
00:27:31 Ian Keeling
So what was that about?
00:27:32 Ian Keeling
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.
00:27:44 Sam
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?
00:27:57 Ian Keeling
This is one of those. This is almost like the tell me about yourself question you get in job interviews where it's.
00:28:01 Ian Keeling
Like you kind.
00:28:02 Ian Keeling
Of dread it for me. So the interesting thing for me is maybe the most memorable experience that I could sort of direct.
00:28:08 Ian Keeling
The tie that ties to a lesson that affected my entire life.
00:28:13 Ian Keeling
Oddly enough, is more about a failure.
00:28:17 Ian Keeling
It starts with a great success.
00:28:20 Ian Keeling
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.
00:28:40 Ian Keeling
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.
00:28:48 Ian Keeling
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.
00:28:58 Ian Keeling
You're probably going to see a lot of sevens or eights because that way I don't end up doing a three.
00:29:03 Sam
M.
00:29:04 Ian Keeling
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?
00:29:16 Sam
Hmm.
00:29:17 Ian Keeling
The first time you do that the first time.
00:29:19 Ian Keeling
You do that great.
00:29:21 Ian Keeling
Not average? Not OK, not even pretty good, but great scene.
00:29:27 Ian Keeling
Well, what's the instinct in that situation?
00:29:31 Ian Keeling
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.
00:29:31 Sam
Model it right.
00:29:42 Ian Keeling
500 times in a row.
00:29:45 Ian Keeling
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.
00:29:53 Ian Keeling
And you got to make everything perfect. There's this zero to 10 mindset.
00:29:58 Ian Keeling
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.
00:30:09 Ian Keeling
And it's so much of it is tied to that perfectionism.
00:30:13 Ian Keeling
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.
00:30:25 Ian Keeling
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.
00:30:32 Ian Keeling
Of my growth opportunities.
00:30:34 Ian Keeling
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.
00:30:54 Ian Keeling
And it wasn't until about 5 or 6 years late.
00:30:56 Ian Keeling
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?
00:31:08 Ian Keeling
And.
00:31:09 Ian Keeling
Out it all came and.
00:31:12 Ian Keeling
Far more extensively than I'm going to do on a podcast where we have a limited.
00:31:15 Ian Keeling
Time.
00:31:16 Ian Keeling
But for me, it felt like for about 5, maybe even 10 minutes, I just.
00:31:21 Ian Keeling
All of that sort of self recrimination, you know, beating myself up came out.
00:31:27 Ian Keeling
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.
00:31:33 Ian Keeling
The average.
00:31:36 Ian Keeling
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.
00:31:58 Ian Keeling
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.
00:32:09 Ian Keeling
All of a sudden you've removed that zero or time 10 mindset.
00:32:14 Ian Keeling
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.
00:32:29 Ian Keeling
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.
00:32:43 Ian Keeling
Work.
00:32:45 Ian Keeling
But then when we need to say I.
00:32:47 Ian Keeling
Don't know, do a podcast.
00:32:49 Ian Keeling
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.
00:32:56 Ian Keeling
Sometimes it might.
00:32:56 Sam
That's such great advice.
00:32:57 Ian Keeling
Just be pretty good.
00:32:59 Sam
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.
00:33:04 Ian Keeling
It's so hard to follow.
00:33:07 Sam
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.
00:33:16 Sam
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.
00:33:25 Sam
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.
00:33:46 Sam
With yourself, perhaps the the opening that the client or that the colleague provides you, you can.
00:33:52 Sam
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.
00:34:13 Sam
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.
00:34:21 Ian Keeling
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.
00:34:40 Ian Keeling
And all of a sudden that's that seems like.
00:34:43 Ian Keeling
Ohh alright that's that.
00:34:45 Ian Keeling
That's certainly not what we want. When people are investing their money. And yet, and I could be.
00:34:49 Ian Keeling
Speaking out of school here but.
00:34:52 Ian Keeling
As an investor, not every investment will always pan out.
00:34:56 Ian Keeling
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.
00:35:03 Ian Keeling
Play it safe but also.
00:35:07 Ian Keeling
If.
00:35:08 Ian Keeling
You need success in every single investment you make.
00:35:13 Ian Keeling
I'll turn this around and ask you the question.
00:35:17 Ian Keeling
How long are you going to be able to mentally survive in that?
00:35:21 Sam
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.
00:35:35 Sam
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.
00:35:46 Sam
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.
00:36:03 Sam
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.
00:36:20 Sam
Portfolio, you get 7 out of 10/8 of out of 10 consistently. That's a great track record.
00:36:29 Ian Keeling
Yeah, because.
00:36:31 Ian Keeling
When?
00:36:33 Ian Keeling
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.
00:36:54 Ian Keeling
Time sensitive as investing.
00:36:58 Ian Keeling
Whether or not you get it perfect.
00:37:00 Ian Keeling
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.
00:37:20 Sam
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.
00:37:39 Sam
Let.
00:37:39 Ian Keeling
When I got stuck in that mindset.
00:37:43 Ian Keeling
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.
00:37:52 Ian Keeling
Because I kept telling myself I wasn't smart enough.
00:37:54 Ian Keeling
To write my.
00:37:54 Ian Keeling
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.
00:38:00 Ian Keeling
Opposed to.
00:38:01 Ian Keeling
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.
00:38:11 Ian Keeling
To be bad.
00:38:12 Ian Keeling
Create that pile and then start working through it and finding the success and it's such a more efficient way of working.
00:38:22 Sam
That's a great approach, having written a couple of books, I the the challenge with.
00:38:28 Sam
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.
00:38:49 Sam
That was one of my big inhibiting factors. What's on the page has to be Earth.
00:38:56 Sam
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.
00:39:06 Sam
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.
00:39:17 Sam
As.
00:39:18 Sam
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.
00:39:26 Sam
It comes with mindset as to if you sit there and say this has got to be perfect. When I put it out there.
00:39:33 Sam
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.
00:39:48 Ian Keeling
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.
00:40:00 Ian Keeling
If halfway through the scene, the scene is struggling, we don't get the stop, analyze what's going wrong and then fix it.
00:40:07 Ian Keeling
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.
00:40:16 Ian Keeling
And there's so many.
00:40:19 Ian Keeling
Places where the world doesn't stop and let us.
00:40:22 Ian Keeling
To get it exactly right.
00:40:24 Ian Keeling
And there are places where. Look, I want some perfection.
00:40:29 Sam
Heart surgery.
00:40:29 Ian Keeling
If I'm.
00:40:30 Ian Keeling
Yeah, if I'm working with a.
00:40:31 Ian Keeling
Surgeon.
00:40:32 Ian Keeling
I want them to have a 10 out of 10 mindset. I want even them to have a little bit of that God complex.
00:40:38 Ian Keeling
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.
00:40:50 Ian Keeling
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.
00:40:58 Ian Keeling
Hopefully I will do.
00:40:58 Sam
Right.
00:40:59 Ian Keeling
Most of it. And so a little human being.
00:41:03 Ian Keeling
Inside.
00:41:05 Ian Keeling
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.
00:41:14 Ian Keeling
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.
00:41:21 Ian Keeling
To do most of what is required of me.
00:41:25 Ian Keeling
And that's there's so many places where, yes.
00:41:29 Ian Keeling
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.
00:41:51 Ian Keeling
On the top of Saturn, and like all those interesting facts.
00:41:55 Ian Keeling
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.
00:42:06 Ian Keeling
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.
00:42:27 Ian Keeling
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.
00:42:44 Ian Keeling
It looked like those 3 astronauts might not make it back.
00:42:48 Ian Keeling
And so the flight director said failure is not an option with the specific aspect of those three people are coming back a lot.
00:42:55 Ian Keeling
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.
00:43:05 Ian Keeling
If they ran it 1000 times, they failed 999 times before they found the one way to make.
00:43:11 Ian Keeling
It.
00:43:11 Ian Keeling
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.
00:43:21 Ian Keeling
Actually require.
00:43:23 Ian Keeling
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.
00:43:36 Ian Keeling
But we figure out a way.
00:43:37 Ian Keeling
To make it work.
00:43:41 Sam
That's a great segue to the last question before we dive into the rapid fire sequence so.
00:43:48 Ian Keeling
Mm-hmm.
00:43:50 Sam
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.
00:44:07 Sam
Not knowing what they're going to.
00:44:09 Sam
Say how? What?
00:44:10 Sam
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?
00:44:25 Ian Keeling
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.
00:44:39 Ian Keeling
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.
00:45:00 Ian Keeling
What that means is.
00:45:01 Ian Keeling
It means the ability to adapt whenever.
00:45:05 Ian Keeling
The plan alters or shifts, or perhaps the plan wasn't present at the beginning of whatever endeavor you're beginning.
00:45:16 Ian Keeling
But there's still some structure. It's like jazz.
00:45:20 Ian Keeling
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.
00:45:20 Sam
Hmm.
00:45:28 Ian Keeling
But the ability to come in and then listen to whatever your client needs to slow down enough to just be present and oddly.
00:45:36 Ian Keeling
Enough.
00:45:37 Ian Keeling
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.
00:45:57 Ian Keeling
And our future draft picks and it's like great, now you have, you know, Kevin Duran.
00:46:05 Ian Keeling
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.
00:46:19 Ian Keeling
What?
00:46:20 Ian Keeling
Maybe we'll make that choice tomorrow or the day after, or even an.
00:46:24 Ian Keeling
Hour from now.
00:46:27 Sam
That's that's great. And I love the analogy around jazz because that really brings and paints that picture.
00:46:35 Sam
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.
00:46:43 Sam
So #1 professionally, what is the most important lesson you've learned over the?
00:46:48 Sam
There.
00:46:49 Ian Keeling
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.
00:47:09 Ian Keeling
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.
00:47:23 Ian Keeling
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.
00:47:34 Ian Keeling
On.
00:47:34 Ian Keeling
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.
00:47:42 Ian Keeling
If your gut says there's an opportunity here.
00:47:46 Ian Keeling
You should pursue it.
00:47:48 Ian Keeling
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.
00:47:57 Ian Keeling
Doing that.
00:47:58 Ian Keeling
So those would be my two things. Let things go, and if there's an.
00:48:01 Ian Keeling
Opportunity go for.
00:48:03 Sam
I love that the the point about success is letting go of the successes. I think that is so powerful.
00:48:10 Sam
#2 what is 1 practical tip you would offer listeners keen on applying the insights that you've discussed?
00:48:22 Ian Keeling
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?
00:48:35 Ian Keeling
But the one that comes.
00:48:36 Ian Keeling
To mind that relates to.
00:48:40 Ian Keeling
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.
00:48:47 Ian Keeling
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.
00:48:57 Ian Keeling
Uh.
00:48:59 Ian Keeling
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.
00:49:13 Ian Keeling
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.
00:49:22 Ian Keeling
Deliberately pause.
00:49:24 Ian Keeling
Four times.
00:49:26 Ian Keeling
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.
00:49:34 Ian Keeling
Present.
00:49:36 Ian Keeling
With what we're seeing in the moment.
00:49:38 Ian Keeling
And then practicing the actual giving ourselves permission, where if we need to pause.
00:49:44 Ian Keeling
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.
00:49:54 Sam
That's great.
00:49:55 Sam
Ian's fantastic discussion. If listeners want to learn more about you or find out about your work, where should they go?
00:50:04 Ian Keeling
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.
00:50:23 Ian Keeling
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.
00:50:41 Ian Keeling
Take an improv class.
00:50:43 Ian Keeling
It will. You'll be using it a lot.
00:50:48 Sam
Awesome, Ian. Thank you for joining us today on the future Ready Advisor.
00:50:54 Ian Keeling
Thank you so much for having me.
00:51:10 Sam
In this episode, I spoke with Ian Keeling, actor improv artist and corporate coach. Here are my three key takeaways from this day.
00:51:20 Sam
Question.
00:51:21 Sam
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.
00:51:43 Sam
And professional setting.
00:51:45 Sam
#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.
00:52:05 Sam
Connections and innovative solutions.
00:52:08 Sam
#3 failure is part of the process.
00:52:12 Sam
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.
00:52:30 Sam
These insights remind us that flexibility, listening and letting go of perfection can transform how we connect and lead.
00:52:39 Sam
Thank you for tuning in to the future Ready advisor.
00:52:46 Sam
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.
00:53:04 Sam
Future ready visit www.samsivarajan.com.
00:53:09 Sam
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.