Biz Bites for Thought Leaders

How entrepreneurs can get free media coverage and become the go-to expert in their field. Now, whether you are spending money on ads or not, I bet you’re posting on social media every day and you’re still struggling to be seen as the go-to expert in your space. Meanwhile, your competitors are showing up on tv, radio, and in the press, and it’s not because they have a big PR budget, it’s because they know something you don’t.

My guest today, Kate Engler, is gonna spill the beans on this. Because she’s the founder of a Meet the Press Masterclass and has spent 30 years in the publicity and media space helping entrepreneurs earn free media coverage. That’s right. Not paying a PR agency a single cent. In this conversation, you’ll discover why earn media is more powerful than any ad you’ll ever run.

The one thing that will permanently get you black band by journalists. And how a finance expert walked out of Sky News with 120 new leads, $95,000 in revenue without mentioning his business once. This is a episode that all business owners, anyone in the thought leadership space needs to listen into because I can tell you.

That media and podcasting go hand in hand with one another. This is a robust, and lively conversation where we give you so much information and tips. You do not wanna miss it. I’m Anthony Perl. Let’s get into Biz Bites for Thought Leaders.

Hello everyone and welcome to the program. We are gonna have a really great opportunity to talk about how you might get some real publicity for your business and making that work and doing that for us is Kate, welcome to the program. Thanks so much for having me, Anthony. It’s great to be here with you and your listeners.

And I’m gonna let the listeners in on a little secret. We had some technical hiccups, so it’s the third time that we’ve actually doing this introduction. So Kate for the third time, let me ask you and the first time for listeners can you introduce yourself to the audience? Sure. I’m the founder of the Meet the Press Masterclass.

I’ve been in the publicity and media space for, oh, over 30 years, which makes me sound incredibly. Old. And I guess the most important thing for your listeners is to understand that when I worked in PR agencies on both sides of the country, I would see amazingly inspiring entrepreneurs, much like the people listening to this podcast, come into the agency.

So excited about the prospect of free media and what being interviewed. By a journalist as the expert in their field could do for them, and they’d leave the agency with their tail between their legs because they couldn’t afford the five, six, $8,000 month after month after month. That agencies typically charge.

And I love entrepreneurs. Like I don’t think there’s much sexier on the planet than an entrepreneur that takes their ideas and their credit card in one hand and their bollocks and their courage in the other, and they leap forward to create what they call their own business. And so as I watch these gorgeous entrepreneurs leave the agency so despondent, I thought there’s got to be a better way.

So 14 years ago, I created a better Way, and that’s called the Meet of the Press Masterclass. And we are definitely gonna dive into all of that, because I think, as you say I’m the same as you. And not just through the podcast, but through other things that I’m doing. You meet so many entrepreneurs all the time, and you just go, oh, wow, that’s just such an amazing idea.

Even earlier today, I sat in on something, whether it’s probably about 50 or 60 people online. Even just what someone was presenting and let alone the other things that people were throwing in and just go, oh my goodness. These are, there are just so many great ideas out there at the moment, so there’s so much opportunity but the reality is for most businesses, they’re.

Not getting the attention they deserve because they just dunno how to go about it. Yeah, that’s so true. And you’re so right when you talk about all these big brained entrepreneurs out there, it’s oh my God, that’s an amazing idea. But they don’t know how to go about it. And the reason I referenced the agency in my introduction is because if people contemplate.

Generating free media coverage or engaging with a journalist, they do think the only way to do that is through the front door of an expensive PR agency. And when that’s out of reach for them in terms of their budget, they sadly put a big fat red line through free media and think, oh, it mustn’t be for us.

And it absolutely is for all entrepreneurs. Yeah, and I think the, I think the thing that we need to make people aware of as well is that it’s not about doing it once. Oh, like once can work great. But it’s, I often used to say to people look, if I could get you the front page of, pick your paper Sydney Morning Herald Age, depending on where you are tomorrow to say, you are the greatest business ever.

Everyone should use you. Which of course there’s no way on this earth you could ever make happen, but just in theory that you did that. How much difference would it make to a business as a single hit? It’s not going to make that bigger difference. And the fact is you can’t get that. So you have to, this is about reputation building over a considerable period of time, which is why agencies in the PR space exist because they’re aiming at largely at larger businesses because they need a bigger budget, and it’s about being consistent.

But there is a different way about going about it and still getting some of that attention. Yeah, I think you’re right though. Consistency is super important. I had an application call earlier this week and the woman said to me, post masterclass, how much time should I set aside for this?

And I said, if you did one hour a week, which isn’t a lot of time, right? If you did one hour a week where you were thinking about your pitching, some weeks pitching, but just had that consistent thinking about your business through that media lens, because it’s a very different lens through which business owners need to look if they’re approaching media versus approaching their customers.

If you just spend one hour a week thinking through that lens. You will generate a lot of ongoing coverage, which then you add to your website, you add to your proposals, you add to your social media. It’s not just about getting the media coverage in the first instance. It’s about then leveraging and ramping that up.

And I think there’s a few things to unpack here for business owners as well. I know what it’s like for some. I had a conversation with someone yesterday who was appearing on a podcast for the first time. And she said, oh, I can’t stand public speaking. I hate it. And I don’t, I’m really nervous about all of this.

And I’m like, this is just a conversation between two people. But a podcast is one thing, but I suppose that’s the hard part for people when they suddenly see the TV cameras and or even if it’s a phone, even if it’s on the phone and doing it to a radio station or to a journalist writing for a a written media.

It’s still that perception. Suddenly people think about the millions of people that may or may not be reading, listening, whatever and they just tighten up, don’t they? It’s really important to get them out of that headspace. Yes, absolutely. And I think the other thing that the feedback we get a lot from graduates at our masterclass is, oh my God, these journalists are just normal people.

And indeed they are just normal people and they want to showcase a story that their readers, viewers, or listeners can use and take away and apply. So one of the lenses that we introduce our graduates to is news they can use, and by they we mean the journalist and their audience. And y The listeners on this podcast, Anthony, they are the expert in their field, in their niche, in their category.

They know way more about what they are doing than the journalists. So allow the journalist to ask the question that give you permission to showcase your opinion on the issue. Your advice on the issue. It’s not about selling your thing, it’s about elevating you above your thing and have you talk like an industry leader.

It is such an important differentiation because I think business owners are so commonly I would say almost bred into this idea, particularly like from networking, where you go in and say, I’m gonna sell myself. I’m gonna do the elevator pitch in, 15, 30 seconds, a minute, whatever it is that you get.

And they’re really fixated on that. And often they don’t even do that particularly well, by the way. But I think that. The challenge is that when you are being called upon by the media, they’re not interested in you giving your life story on your business. They’re not interested in what you think you want to be talking about.

It’s about what they isolate as being the issue at the time, and they’re asking for your expert opinion on that. So even though you may wanna be talking about, all these other things you have to you, you can’t look at it like a politician does. So a politician is quite different. And I think it’s an important differentiation for people is in the media, politicians typically will answer the question that they want to answer and will frustrate the media.

But because they’re in public office, they’re going to get repeated opportunities. But if you’re in business. You’re not going to get another opportunity if you don’t answer the question and you don’t add value to to the audience that they’re targeting. Yeah, absolutely. But there is still a way within the questions that are asked where the business owner can put forward their key messages and bring the interview.

Back to the point they wish to make, but you’re so right when you talk Anthony about the interview not being about the thing, the product, the service, the business. One of our masterclass graduates who’s a finance expert, was on Sky News talking about the inflation figures and what he felt.

As an expert, the inflation figures meant for the market. Now, interestingly, he did not mention his business once his name and business name of course came up on the super on the screen. By the time he’d left the studios at Sky News and got to his car in the Sky News carpark, there were 120 new leads in his business that he turned into $95,000.

So you don’t need to be the hard sell in a media interview because that means you won’t be asked back. We must, as you say, give the journalists what they want. The interesting thing that you say about that actually applies outside of the media as well, which is, so many businesses owners, as I saying before, are conditioned to try and sell.

But in actual fact, when you offer value, when you offer an opinion and people see you as being the expert, then the opportunities then present themselves because it’s actually the counterintuitive to sales. It’s that if you don’t sell. But you elevate yourself, then you actually are selling. I’m not discounting the fact that there’s plenty of avenues for businesses to do proper selling, but when it comes to this kind of, open environment and the media is the perfect example.

You have to be elevated as an expert. And that’s the great thing is that the media are actually doing that for you. They’re coming to you as the expert. So all you have to do is fulfill that based on your knowledge and your stories, and give them something that is going to talk to their audience. I think that’s the key as well, isn’t it?

You have to know who the audience is so that what you are offering is gonna resonate. 100%. Yes. So an example of that exact thing is we have a. Masterclass graduate Luke, who’s a former detective, really important. He’s a former detective, so he is no longer restricted by the badge. He. With the escalating crime spree in Sydney.

He started pitching into the Today Show ’cause he’d met the producers at the masterclass. I can make a comment on that shooting. I can make a comment on that car accident. I can make a comment on that home invasion. And he gave them like an insight into what the police may be doing from a former insider’s point of view.

And now the Today Show. Contact him regularly. For that expert commentary because he gave them what they want in the first instance. So it’s really important that you make your first media interview an absolute winner. And I think what’s always fascinating is, having watched the media over the years, and I remember, that we are going back a little while, but, people like Dick Smith and even Pauline Hansen, who, the reason that they’ve got so much attention over the years is because they’ve said something different and been prepared to stake their reputation on it and be out there with an opinion.

So it doesn’t mean you have to be out there and say something ridiculous. You actually have to believe in it. But the thing is that if you don’t say anything of interest, then they’re just gonna pass you by and go to the next one. And that’s why a lot of these people, you see them keep getting media attention that’s almost disproportionate to, the level of people that are actually, following them.

Particularly or supporting them directly, and and I think that’s an interesting aspect as well, is that you have to have something interesting to say and be prepared to say it in a way that is going to be entertaining to a degree. Yes. You’re so right. It reminds me, when I was at uni I was doing another course, personal development course and I became friends.

Research fellow at the Walter and Eliza Institute of Research at Melbourne University, and the media would always come in when they had a medical breakthrough and they would speak with my friend and they’d also speak with one of the other scientists, and they always used. The other scientist. And so my friend was, went home one night and was complaining to his gorgeous wife about, they never quote me, they never use my vision, they never use my interview.

And she said, I’m sure she had milk and honey in her voice when she said this. But she said to him, that’s because you don’t say anything quotable. Which sounds nasty on the surface of it. But he said he was able to reflect and go. Actually, you’re right. I want to be really safe. He’s a researcher, he’s a scientist.

Very wanted to be very factual. So he never deviated from the actual facts. He never proffered an opinion. He never went off script. And so of course his colleague who was able to proffer a different opinion, perhaps a controversial one, was always the one that got quoted. Not the vanilla guy. As nice as he was a bit vanilla.

And it’s funny you say that. I don’t wanna keep referring back to politicians. This is not a big hobby horse of mine, but I recall working in a newsroom and we are going back longer than I care to remember. Let’s not talk about that. And a former premier that then became a premier and went on to other things.

But he used to ring the newsroom at whatever it was, five 30 in the morning when he knew there was only one person in the newsroom and would say. I’m here, I’m available. I’m going to give you a quote on something. And all he would give them would be 20 seconds. So they had no choice but to run exactly that.

And he actually. Manipulated is a strong word, and I don’t mean it in a particularly harsh way, but he utilized the media or manipulated them in a way that meant that his specific idea was always getting across consistently. Almost on a daily basis because all he gave them was that to work with.

Now times have changed a little bit more and there’s more social media and more other things that are happening. But the point is still there that you need to get that good grab across so that’s what they’re going to use. ’cause that’s what they’re looking for. ’cause I think that’s the other point people have to remember is that particularly if you’re doing TV or radio.

It’s a very limited time that you are going to have, here we are doing a podcast. It’s a, 45 minutes where you don’t get that on a, on a news grab at all. You get a fraction of that. Absolutely. A fraction of that. And to your point, this gentleman of whom you spoke knew how to play the media game, and that’s something I’d really love your listeners to understand.

It is just a game. Media is just a game. It’s a competition for eyeballs and eardrums. That’s. All it is Channel seven want more eyeballs than Channel nine, than Channel 10 than a, B, C, et cetera. But once you know the rules of the game and you have the tools of the game, you can play the game effectively with any journalist anywhere at edit time.

And your politician was a perfect example of knowing the game and playing it with a plum. Yeah, I think that that, that’s a really important point is that you have to know the game. You have to understand what they’re trying to trying to achieve because if you are not aware of. The audience, you’re not aware of what they’re trying to get to and the headline, and they want a great story.

They want a headline of something that they can use. Then they feel like they’re wasting their time. And even though in business we’re under pressure for deadlines, the media are under extraordinary pressure because it’s, the news is at the top of the hour. Yep. Top of the hour. The news doesn’t wait for anybody.

And if you listen to talk back radio. You’ll hear a caller that’s banging on and banging on, and they’ll say, I’m sorry to cut you off, Anthony, but the news waits for no man and almost cut the person off because the news, as you say, waits for no man and in it’s really important that.

People understand the difference between pitching for news, whether it’s TV news or radio news, versus pitching to a program like a breakfast TV program or a current affairs program. And then that differs again from print. So each media outlet has its own rhythm and its own wants and its own must haves.

And knowing those nuances is really important for people. Yeah, and I think that’s where you have to get, as you offer some training in place to do that, because I think just walking into that and thinking you can do it doesn’t come naturally to most people, and so you do have to understand and go through those trial situations and be prepared for that, but also understand that as you said earlier, that the journalists are there to do a job and they are just human beings and unlike.

Something where it’s a current affair. Knocking down your door saying you’ve done something wrong. This is the complete reverse. You are going to them and offering an expert opinion on something, so you are actually helping them. So they’re not going to be antagonistic. They’re going to be probably demanding and wanting something.

So understand that there is a time pressure. Understand that they want. You to deliver something really quotable and think about that in advance. What is the key thing that you want? But also listen, I think that’s the other bit that I find so often that people go in, they go, this is going to be my message, and I’ve nailed it.

Don’t try and memorize stuff. I always think that’s terrible. And, but. You go in thinking that you’re just going to deliver that, but if you don’t listen, you don’t know that there might be another opportunity to say something even better or different. Yes, and follow. These journalists are professional at asking questions.

They are inherently curious. There are some journalists that we work with and I just love their curiosity. It really warms my heart. Just how genuinely curious they are about our masterclass graduates. They want a great story. They want to produce a great product, whether that product is print, radio, or tv, but knowing what they want is crucial.

And I think that leads me to talk a little about tv. TV because often people don’t understand that TV is a moving. Medium. It sounds really obvious, but it’s a moving medium. So if you are going to pitch to tv, think about what vision can the journalists come out and shoot? Or alternatively what B role vision, which is vision that plays while the person is being interviewed?

What overlay or B-roll vision can you provide? But most importantly it is what can the journalists shoot if they do an interview with you? Yeah, it’s so important. I know my background originally started in radio and spent some time in TV before going back to radio, but the fundamental difference between the two is the pictures that in tv, if you don’t have the pictures, they’re not really gonna run the story because sitting and staring at people’s faces for three, four minutes is not what they want to show. They need to be able to have some kind of vision going, even if it’s a short bit sometimes where they show it three or four times in the case of one’s one little segment.

But it is important to have something there because if it’s. There’s no visuals, they will struggle to put the story to air because they’re fundamentally built on the idea that people are watching. Yes. TV’s a moving medium. I once had a woman, she wasn’t at the masterclass at a keynote that I did, and they had this accommodation.

Place in regional Australia and she wanted the Today Show weather to come out and shoot from her property. And she was explaining to me that they have wild kangaroos then come and eat out of the hands of the guests. And I’m like, that’s amazing. That’s really cute. What else have you got? She goes no.

I don’t think you understand. These are not pet kangaroos. These are wild kangaroos and they don’t come up to us. They come up to every guest and eat from their hand, and I said, that’s really awesome. What else have you got? She said, I don’t think you’re listening. I said, I think one of us isn’t listening.

I’m not sure it’s not me. Because if The Today Show was going to go into Regional Victoria, which means an overnight stay for their crew, which means a satellite truck at the cost of about $25,000 if they are going to spend that sort of money. They need more than Skippy. They need more than Skippy. Yeah.

So it’s got to be a really visually rich pitch if you are contemplating approaching tv. Yeah and I think that’s it’s an important thing, but even if sometimes then if TV isn’t, your, isn’t going to be the thing that’s relevant. Radio is an incredibly powerful option as well, and doesn’t require that kind of investment.

That’s the great thing is that it is the cost of a phone call, which is nothing much these days. If anything, if you’re. Calling someone on a WhatsApp or a Zoom call, so the, there’s no cost almost involved in that. And so then there’s the opportunity, but then you have to counter that with, you have to be a great storyteller in order to make it interesting.

So if you haven’t got the pictures, you have to be able to tell a great yarn in the Australian vernacular, and you have to be able to put a spin on it. That makes it interesting and worthwhile and takes whatever they’re talking about to another level. Yeah, absolutely. And just to pick up on the cost factor, that $25,000 I was talking about, that was a cost to the network, not a cost to the client.

Absolutely. So just to be clear, we’re talking free media coverage, but to your point about radio, the great thing about radio and the perfect way for your listeners to showcase their expertise is to offer to take talk back. Questions because that shows the producer that you really do know your stuff.

You know how the radio game is played because the key to talk back radio, funnily enough, is people talking back and it may, it showcases you as somebody who really understands. What their listeners are wanting, and that is engagement with the expert online. And it also shows that you’re willing to back yourself because you don’t know what the talk back caller questions are going to be, right?

So if you say to the producer, you do your pitch and say, and I’m happy to take questions from your listeners, it instantly elevates your expertise because you’re willing to back yourself. And I think what’s important there is you don’t know what opportunities present themselves from that situation.

I’ve certainly worked in radio where we’ve had exactly that, the intention, oh, we’ll get this person on. It’s quite interesting. They’ve offered to come into the studio. You take one or two calls at the time and suddenly the switchboard lights up and afterwards and people say, can we do that again?

And suddenly becomes a, a semi-regular segment. Yeah. You go from one small opportunity to something being larger that can lead to other things. ’cause I, I, I know someone that for example, came on and was doing, video movie type reviews and it was a one-off segment and then it turned into a regular segment.

And I think at one point he even had his own dedicated program. So it’s you don’t know where these things land and it’s and I’ve seen it done on antiques and all sorts of business things as well. So there’s always opportunities out there to to take on. And I think you have to be prepared that’s the hard bit.

If you’re taking talk back, you have to be prepared for. All sorts of questions that are going to come your way, and you have to have an opinion or at least be able to confirm that you’re gonna be able to come back with an answer sooner rather than later, because there’s nothing worse than having someone come in and say.

Yeah, I’m not really sure about that. And then you’re not going very far, very quickly. So yeah, you need to have that confidence and it does take a fair amount of confidence. So let me ask you that as well, that, how do you actually go about building that confidence? ’cause you, we talked about before, someone sitting there going, oh, I’m scared to death of public speaking, let alone being in front of the media to having the confidence to be able to.

Push their opinion and do it in a structured wage. Yeah. I think preparation is the key there because they will ask you questions about the pitch that you’ve made, about the subject matter of that particular. Pitch. So if you prepare all of your key messages around that central theme, they’re not suddenly going to ask you if you are a nutritionist, for example, talking about malnutrition through chemotherapy, which a lot of people suffer from.

And we’ve had somebody at the masterclass do that. So they’re talking very much about the nutritional requirements and the side effects of chemotherapy and how you can keep yourself nourished. During that time, they’re not going to go off script and suddenly ask you about what you think of the NRL being in Las Vegas or what you think of the geopolitical situation in the world at the moment, they’re going to stick to the pitch.

So in preparing the pitch, you also prepare your key messages and know them. Know them, not just in your mind, but really know them in this. Cells of your body because then it doesn’t matter what questions you get asked. And I did this exact preparation with the woman I’m speaking about, Alex.

She was on today Extra and on radio, but when they started asking her questions, they weren’t the questions she thought she was going to be asked. But because we had done so much preparation. She just took a breath and like I know this, and she just settled in and it was a beautifully authentic, honest, raw, very human interview because she had done the preparation.

So that’s the key for any media interview. Prepare. And I think the good thing too, that once you are in a situation where you have cracked it a few times and you’ve been on a Today Show or sunrise, and any of those programs, the once you’ve done it a couple of times, they will call upon you again.

So they might call upon you with not much notice. I know this happened not that long ago with a client of mine. In fact, we were a shout out to Andrew. We were. About to record his podcast and literally got a phone call from Channel 10 saying, and this was, the project was still on air, so it was going back about a year or so and saying, would you be on the project for a short segment?

Can we send someone around to you like now to do that? So we, pause the recording of the podcast. So in order for him to be able to do that, it wasn’t a particularly long piece, but because he. Knows his stuff. He was able to deliver that and he’s, because he is had experience being on a number of those programs in the past, it wasn’t a difficult thing of saying Sure, yep.

Happy to do that, and away we go. And it was interesting because it was a topic we were going to be covering on the podcast anyway, so it worked hand in hand, which is an interesting little tidbit for people as well, that often you talk about being able to, not being able to sell yourself.

Because it’s not a sales job. One of the great things is that if you do have a podcast, most media outlets are prepared to also put up on the screen host of such and such podcast, or put it at the bottom of an article because they don’t feel like they’re selling a business. They’re selling another.

Option to hear more information from them. And that is a really great way of bringing people into your universe further because it isn’t a hard sell. So it’s a really nice way of doing that. That’s why, I do what I do, but it’s, it is an important aspect that it does work. Really nicely to help get more publicity.

Yeah. It’s a really subtle sell, and it’s another channel to market. It’s another channel where their viewers, readers, or listeners can learn more about that particular topic without saying Buy now with a 30 day money back guarantee. We are not DeMel. It’s not, this isn’t paid advertising.

Editorial and that distinction is really important, and I often describe it as two sides of the media coin. There’s the paid side. You pay this, pay the money, you get the space or the time it runs. You can say what you like within reason. And it’s guaranteed to run. Editorial is the other side of the media coin, the free side of the media coin.

And it’s in, it’s so much more powerful because it’s not you showcasing how great you are. It’s actually the media and the journalists showcasing how great you are. And suddenly in people’s minds, you’re the expert. And I think it’s also important for people to understand as well that the media’s changed so much over the last, 30 years that you and I have been doing this stuff, that it’s it’s scary how long it’s been, but it’s the kind of investigative long term journalism where, there’s stories that will take weeks to, for them before they’re going to come to air.

Doesn’t really exist as much anymore. Mostly what they’re after is something that’s going to happen fairly quickly and and so that being able to understand that there’s a quick turnaround time and an opportunity to capitalize on things and therefore staying on top of what’s happening in the.

In the news for your universe. Yes. As you said before, you don’t need to un, you don’t need to be on top of what’s happening in the NRL or in politics on the other side of the world, but in your space, you need to be on top of it because there’s nothing worse than getting that opportunity and say, would you be happy to speak about X?

And you suddenly sitting there and going. Okay, they want me on in five minutes and I now have five minutes to research it. And if you’re using AI or something like that to do the quick research, in that scenario, you’re probably not gonna be in the position to tell them anything that’s interesting or new.

You need to stay on top of what you’re doing 100%. And that is where news jacking comes in. The and setting up Google alerts. In fact, there was a piece of publicity published today by one of our graduates. She had a Google alert come in, she news jacked that she gave the journalist and.

Extension to the story, something that the journalist hadn’t considered and it was published today. So staying across what’s happening in your industry is super important. But you did mention AI and I do have a very timely AI warning for people. We have there’s this brilliant. Brilliant business journalists Ali Kane, and she has written for the Financial Review.

She’s written for accounting magazines. She’s a brilliantly smart sharp woman. And she sent an email as a bit of event to the founder of Source Bottle and I last year just bemoaning the fact that people are using AI to create their pitches. And here’s the thing, if the journalists just wanted to know.

What opinions were already out there. They’d search AI themselves. What they want is your opinion, your unique take on that. And no AI bot on the planet is yet implanted in your brain. Knowing what your thoughts, your opinions, or your take on a particular matter is. And that’s what the journalists want.

They want something new. They want something fresh. They want something that’s authentically your original. Thought so, Ali actually said if any pitch comes across her desk with any hint of ai, she not only doesn’t pick up the pitch, but she black bans that person. So there’s a real reputational killer.

At people’s fingertips called ai, and most journalists will not run something that they know is AI generated. And even on source bottle, which for those of your listeners who don’t know what source bottle is, it’s like a dating site for journalists and experts. There will often be call outs on source bottle with journalists looking for particular experts, and they will specifically say, no AI submissions.

So ai, whilst it’s, making a whole lot of PE areas of a whole lot of people’s lives much more streamlined and much more efficient when it comes to the media, you are the star, not ai, and your opinion is the one that matters most. And I think there’s such a true point in that because people forget that what differentiates you from the next person is your stories, your insights, the way you’ve seen things and even to the point where, I think we can all relate to this, that we’ve been in a conversation where maybe it’s you and your partner having a conversation together.

One, here’s one thing and one, here’s the other thing. You end up in a nice little argument as a result of that because the other one, SWOS swears you said this, and the other one said, oh, I didn’t say that. And that’s the point is that your experiences and the way you perceive things and do things is different.

And it’s different to the next person. That’s why I always say to accountants, for example, an accountant is not the same as the next accountant. You all have different experiences and different ways of perceiving things, so there’s always an avenue to do that. And the other thing about our stories is that we tell them differently every time.

We might have a favorite top 10 stories that we’ve probably told a hundred times each. It’s almost certain that you haven’t told it the same way each time. That each time is finessed a little bit different depending on who’s in front of you, how long you’ve got, other variables that come into the equation.

So when you comes to the media, so long as you say to them. I’ve got a great story about X. That’s gonna be a nice way of showing them that you have some insights and some expertise that is 100% not going to be AI driven. Yes, absolutely. And those human stories, those personal experiences and those personal opinions, that’s what the media is looking for.

They don’t want a rinse and repeat of what AI has turned out for you. And what’s interesting about that as well, of course, is that it’s not what the audience wants either. Yeah. And that’s who your businesses are trying to attract. Like not many businesses I think are doing businesses with other ais, like you are actually doing business with a human being.

Yeah. So if you’re doing business with a human being, they want, we all want and crave that original, authentic engagement. There’s nothing that’s. Better than that gives you that experience. And, we’ve lost that whole idea of service and other things that we could go onto on about for ages.

But the main thing is that if you bring that human element to the table and you bring your unique stories, you’re going to be a step ahead of everybody else, or, yeah, absolutely. I think it was Simon Sinek that said, people don’t buy what you. Do they buy what you stand for? And I’ve had that experience myself with media coverage that has not remotely been talking about my business or the Meet the Press masterclass or anything to do with work.

Some of it’s been quite personal publicity that I’ve generated for myself over the years and I’ve had, with this particular example I’m thinking of, I had women contact me and say, we don’t even know what you do, but we just liked what you stood for. Tell us more because. They saw something in me that was real, that was human, that they could relate to.

And then they went about exploring whether even the business was a fit for what they were doing, but they were just keen to connect. And that’s the true power of great publicity, is people feel they know you and they can trust you, and that you’ve been held up as the expert and there’s a trifecta that is really hard to beat.

I always give a little tip to people having spent so much time in TALKBACK radio in the past is that the trick to building an audience is pretend that you’re having a conversation with one person. And the whole idea is that the people that are listening in. Is that person, if you’ve got an audience member that’s sitting there and going, oh, they could be talking to me, that’s ideally what you want.

And it’s no different when you are having that conversation. Even if you’ve got a journalist standing at the other end, you, they’re a medium. You are just, you are talking to who they’re trying to talk to, not necessarily talking to them. And I think that’s an important part as well, because the journalists.

Is not necessarily your key audience. Yeah, exactly. And that’s really important to understand when people are preparing that written pitch to get the ball rolling, they’re not, in that case, they are speaking directly to the journalists because the journalists will decide whether the pitch sinks or swims and if their audiences are going to be interested in what that pitch is.

So they’re re. Assessing the pictures and reading the pictures with a mind on two things. Does this fit and will my audience be interested in it? But you’re so right Anthony, when you talk about when you are actually face to face with that journalist, whether it’s in front of a TV camera in the radio station, doing a phone interview, you are just having a conversation and you’re just exploring the issue at hand and having a conversation from one human to another.

I wanna bring you back full circle to where we started this conversation as well. And I think that it’s so much, there are so many great entrepreneurs out there, and I often say that, that his program is Biz Bites for Thought Leaders. And yet there are so many people who would classify themselves as thought leaders because they’re unique in their space and they.

Are going ahead with their business, but they’re not really thought leaders ’cause they haven’t got an audience, right? I don’t think you can be a thought leader if you don’t have an audience. And that means sharing with it beyond your small, immediate workforce. People need to understand.

Your brilliance, what you are capable of, what your insights are, why you might be different, all of those things. And it comes from being prepared to speak and being prepared to speak in the media is a really important aspect for how you might actually take your business beyond rather than just having to think, okay, all I can do is try and pay a fortune for advertising, which is a really expensive path to go down.

Often not affordable for most businesses and very difficult to get the return on investment for for so many. Whereas this is an avenue that is so much easier in that to, to get your opinion across. Yeah. And it costs zero, right? Free media is free for a reason because it’s earned media and what we mean by that, it’s not paid.

It’s earned and the journalist sees something worthy in what you have pitched, and we are really big advocates of, once you secure that media coverage, what do you then do with it? How do you then leverage that expert voice to expand your audience? And we’ve great, got great social media channels that we can do that.

And most people don’t fully take advantage by leveraging their coverage. They so they think they get the coverage. Yay. And it is, yay. But there’s so much more that can be done with the media coverage, post it appearing. Yeah, there is. And think I think one of the favorite things that’s happened more and more today is that people love the behind the scenes stuff.

I actually, I don’t think it’s all that new, but I go back to my early days in, in Channel 10, and I remember was working on the late edition news and a friend of mine who was studying medicine at the time and. Since a very, quite a well known doctor had caused to want to come in and he said, oh would it be possible for me to come in and watch in the newsroom and I’ve got it cleared?

Not a problem. Come in. There were many people there at that time of night. He was high on that story for years afterwards because seeing behind the scenes in a newsroom and everything, which was. Straightforward to me ’cause I’d grown up on it was exciting. And I’ve seen similar things where people, it’s the, almost the publicity of, here’s the selfie of me about to go on the Today Show is more important than actually appearing on the Today Show in terms of the leverage that you can get in social media, for example.

’cause people get excited for you. So it now it draws more eyeballs onto the whole thing. Just because all you’ve done is taken a selfie in front of the, with the cameras and the studio set up behind you. Yeah, 100%. And I always recommend that if you can go into the studio, even for radio interview Yes.

It’s easy to pick up the phone. Yes. It’s easy to stay in your gym jams and do that interview from your couch. Sure, but you don’t get the leverage that you’ve just mentioned, Anthony. So wherever possible, even if it means flying up to the studios in Sydney, I always recommend that people go into the studio physically, if they possibly can, because of all of that behind the scenes content that they can get.

And then they’re also connecting with the producer. That has put them on the air and building that relationship time and time again, it’s invaluable. I cannot stress how important it is where possible to be physically in the studio. Look, there are so many more things that we could talk about here for hours, but we can’t do that.

But I do want to I do, I would love you to share a little bit more about how people come to work with you part, particularly in terms of the masterclass that you offer, but also just the initial discovery session and things, because this is such an important avenue for businesses and I think too often is neglected.

So I’m hoping that. Lots of people listening in today are going to be wanting to jump on the bandwagon, say, this is something I can do. Yeah. We actually have an offer at the moment, a free 30 minute media angle discovery call, so you can, we will explore what your media angles. So there’s that’s an option.

People can also apply for the masterclass. It is an application only process. Anthony, because we only take one business per category, the journalists don’t wanna hear from five physios. They wanna hear from one. So we only have one business per category, which means if you are not in the room, your competitor probably is.

So we do have an application process. At the masterclass we train people on day one to within an inch of their life about that lens of news they can use. And then on day two, they shoot a TV interview guaranteed that goes out on the Ticket TV network. And they actually get to pitch to between 10 and 12 of the country’s top journalists.

So the major daily papers in each. Each of the states, Melbourne and Sydney, major radio stations, mama, me, and Money Magazine, smart company inside Small business body and Soul. All of the big guys are all there actively leaning in. Looking for new experts and looking for new stories. So it’s a complete fast track, and unlike most events where there’s a big, sneaky, cheeky, little $30,000 upsell and a Fijian cruise and a set of steak knives waiting for you at the back of the room, the masterclass is an upsell free zone.

So in terms of knowing the media game, we teach you the whole shooting match so that you can go forth without needing us. Or any other PR agency. Again, it’s really the teach you to fish model, so it’s a bit of fun. I love it. And I know having been involved in watching people going through these kinds of things in the past and being on the other side where I’ve been in the media and watching people coming through that it’s a fun journey and and I encourage people to definitely have a go at it because I think there’s so much to be gained from it, and there’s very little negative that can come from it.

You’ve just got to get out a little bit out of your comfort zone to do it. Just to wrap things up, there is a question that I love to ask all my guests, which is what is the aha moment that you wish more people knew they were going to have when they come to work with you? That’s a great question.

I think there’s several. I think it is the lens of news they can use that it’s not about their thing, whatever their thing happens to be, their product, their service, their thing. It’s oh, I need to fall out of love with this a little bit. Yes my darling, you do. So I think that’s a big aha moment.

I think the other bigger aha moment, because people are literally belly to belly with a dozen. Journalists, they do realize that they’re just human beings and they’re just doing a job. And because the news cycle, as you mentioned earlier, is now really pacey, it’s a genuine 24 7 news cycle. The journalists do need new experts and new content all the time.

So that’s why journalists love coming to the masterclass. Mum and Mia very kindly calls us the best content farm in Australia because they actively need new stories and experts. And I think when people realize that. That they are just as much of an asset to the journalists as the journalists are to them.

I think that’s a real aha moment, and that’s just gorgeous because they build relationships. They have their first dance with the journals at our masterclass, and they continue dancing with them for years and years to come, which is just awesome. I. I love it. It must be so much fun when you turn on various media and go, I know that person.

I know that person. They’ve been through this class and that class. That must be that, that It’s like having little children out everywhere, isn’t it? I love Little Tick. I get so excited. I know they’re excited that even after 30 years of doing this, I bloody love seeing them on the air. It’s just very thrilling and very exciting for them.

Kate, thank you so much. It’s been an absolute pleasure to talk to you and I know we’re gonna do it again and in fact we’ll do something again on my other podcast. So I’m gonna cross promote my other podcast done for you show. And we’re gonna talk a little bit more in detail about source bottles, something you mentioned there.

We’ll do that another time very soon. But for now, Kate, thanks so much for being a part of the program and we will include all the details on how to get in touch with you in the show. Fantastic. Thanks so much for having me, Anthony. It’s been a blur. And of course everyone don’t forget to share and subscribe and leave your comments and make sure you never miss an episode.

We’ll see you next time. Hey, thanks for listening to Biz Bites. We hope you enjoyed the program. Don’t forget to hit subscribe so you never miss an episode. Biz Bites is proudly brought to you by podcast done for you, the service where we will deliver a podcast for you and expose your brilliance. To the world.

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Intentionally boosting your performance as a thought leader, as a business leader. That is the focus of today’s episode of Biz Bites for Thought Leaders. Special guest, Clint Ray. There are so many tips in this particular episode. I’ve never before considered myself as being a cognitive athlete, but that’s a term that you’re gonna become a little bit more familiar with and you’ll understand better why this is so important to every business, not just for yourself as the leader, but also for your team.

Jam packed with tips and things for you to do and implement. You don’t wanna miss this episode of Biz Bites for Thought Leaders, so let’s get into it.

Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of Biz Bites for Thought Leaders. I know we’re going to have a very interesting discussion today covering all sorts of things, but firstly, I just want to introduce my guest. Clint, welcome to the program. Thanks, Anthony. Looking forward to it. We’ve gotta start off by letting you introduce yourself to the audience.

So why don’t you tell everyone a little bit about yourself? Yeah. Great. Thanks. My name’s Clint Ray, so I’m a high performance coach speaker facilitator and recent author. Of the cognitive athlete. So I’ve been my story started years ago in the RAF fs. I’ve taken a lot of military training that I’ve done over my career and I transitioned into a corporate life.

I’m a business owner as well, so I’ve taken a lot of those learnings from years ago, put them into corporate and as I run a lot of trainings and I do a lot of coaching and what’s really interesting is that. Back in years ago, we were actually, I think we were quite ahead of the game in terms of like cognitive performance, physical performance, whether it’s productivity, time management, or energy.

And then now in, in the corporate sphere and being a business owner, I don’t see any of that, any of these principles I learned years ago. So really, I focus on bringing. Practical, actionable steps into, in, into corporate life really to help my clients and to help business owners achieve more. And especially with the time that, that everyone has, right?

I’ve got loads of stories and no doubt we’ll get into it as we go through. So that’s me in a nutshell. Absolutely. I love it. And I, taking things back to the basics it’s such an important thing to do because it gets so quickly glanced over there’s one of those things that happens, isn’t there?

There’s this assumption of knowledge and assumption of things being done, yet they’re not actually being done. Yeah. Correct. And look, I think, we have, and especially nowadays, there are so many notifications and so many apps and so many ways of doing things and tools that. People just forget all of that stuff and it becomes too hard and they just, had a saying, you always default to level of the training that you’ve had and if you’ve actually had no training, then you’re swimming against the tide I think a lot of the time.

So let’s just delve a little bit into your background because I think it’s important for people to understand that. ’cause you touched on it a little bit. So tell me, back in high school, early university days where the study, where was the dream and where did you end up going? Yeah, good. I think out of school, I dreamt of being a professional footballer, right?

In the Premier League, like everyone does, but then reality hits and I was, I’ll say it was pretty fortunate. My, my parents were in the military, so they’re in the army back in the uk and. And there was an ultimatum, then they said Clint you’re either gonna get a job in the UK or you’re gonna come back with us.

And I was fortunate enough to apply for the RAF as a physical training instructor, and I was accepted. And and that’s when my journey started really, in, in the military. And, so many valuable lessons within there that I learned. And and I guess the dreaming, I was doing a levels, which I think it’s, I’m not sure what they’re called here, maybe hires hHSC. Yeah, HHSC. So I was doing physical education, so it was like a really natural fit. I’m, good at sport or play all different sports. And going into the military in that environment as a fitness specific fitness instructor where you actually get to train and teach all of these skills and. And sports was just phenomenal.

Let’s, it is one of the best decisions ever made. And then, you start your military career and you realize, oh, that, so there is sport and there is fitness, but there’s also military aspect on that as well. And it’s given me some, amazing opportunities. And I think being I was what, 21 at the time?

I think. And it just sculpts you, it helps with your decision making and your work ethic and puts a really good grounding into where we’re at today, pretty much. So what became the focus in the military? What were you mostly doing? Yeah, so look, I, we all start as a fitness instructor.

We start in the gym. So we, we’re training military personnel for operations in whether it’s Iraq or Afghanistan or the Middle East or wherever they’re deployed. So we keep the base level of fitness up and we work on their teamwork, resilience mindset and then. That’s one part of it.

And then we have, I’ve worked in another part in which it’s trainees. So we’re working back at recruitment level. So when people come into the military, no matter what trade they are, whether they are aircraft technicians, whether they’re pilots, whether they’re medical or navigation or or pilots, nav, we, take them through their training. So we build the robustness and resilience within them. So then when they do finished training, they go out on deployments, then they’re good to go. So that was the sort of foundational core cornerstone. And then as you then progress up my specialty, then I went into a stream of adventure training.

So you could either choose to be a, like a physio remedial instructor, a parachute jump instructor, didn’t fancy jumping out of planes. Perfectly serviceable planes for a living, or you can go adventure training, which is like that whole outward bounds aspect. So I really focused on that. And we used to take people for a week at a time, and we used to take them into Wales or Scotland, and we used to work on their personal and professional development.

So work on communication skills and leadership and delegation all within a week. And then we’d set them free then. So we’d give them this sort of structure. Put them under pressure, work on some really good skills that they’re gonna use out in deployment in a, I say in a safe environment. So we used to go down the mines in Wales with head torches.

So we used to go up on high ropes and, sit from down zip pines in a controlled environment. So then when they go out to, wherever they’re going out in the Middle East, they’re able to deal with the pressure a little bit better because we’ve showed them skills and techniques. And as a result of all of that stuff, I was really fortunate enough to work with premier League football teams rugby league teams loads of other different sports from skiing to hockey to, to rugby to canoeing and kayaking.

Using the skills of that we’ve learned really around robustness and resilience, especially with your mindset as well. Say that’s, in a snapshot, my background in the military. Like I said, it is just phenomenal. The experience I tell all young people, join up no matter what force it is, you’re gonna get looked after.

And, they give you some really great experiences there. What an amazing little snapshot of a career you’ve had there. Just casually dropping not only the military, but various sporting areas and things to get into. And that must have been a fascinating area for you. Obviously, as you said, the childhood dream was premier League, so getting to work with Premier League teams and work with, and back here in, and you’ve now moved to Australia and Rugby League teams and the like.

What’s that experience like and how do move away from that experience? ’cause you no longer doing that, are you? So what’s interesting that is if I go to where my book is at the moment all of the, these skills, so working, if I think around the military, so we had it’s called pre-deployment training.

So before you go out to a deployment, wherever that may be. We do 12 weeks of, and if I think around periodization, so you do conditioning phase, you do a transition phase. And then you’re in this performance zone which actually is your deployment. And then we have a decompression, so like a recovery.

Now I’ve used that with athletes. We do that naturally on deployment training within the military. And once we once actually understood that, we used to go in, so going back to your Premier League football teams and other championship teams, we would then work on their, their condition face.

So before the season started, we would take, we’d take them out, we’d build up their fitness robustness and resilience out outside of the football pitch. So then when they’re put under pressure as the season goes on, we’re building this, resilient mindset around certain behaviors and boosting their sort of base, core level fitness up.

And you will see this within I read a book recently around the All Blacks, they. They go and they work with the SAS or the, they go work with the commandos to just a different level of training, different intensity. Military and sports are pretty similar with that. When, and I’ve really loved that environment because it was, we, it was planned.

We’re planning 12 weeks here, we’re planning four weeks here. And then when you come back from your operations, then, having two, two to three weeks off, and then that whole cycle starts again. Same within sports. I think the difference is when we are working in that environment, if you get an injury, then yes, it’s a setback, but there’s a, a recuperation, there’s a, there, there’s a, we need to then fix the muscles to then do our rehab, to then get back on the pitch.

And when I came over in the corporate life, I don’t see any of this at all. We’re expected to be. After Australia Day in, in Australia, in Australia from, yeah, end of January, we’re supposed to be on peak performance all the way until December, right? So I don’t see any planning, any preparation.

There’s no rest and recovery for a lot of corporate professionals. I’ve taken all of that experience and I’m working with clients, and businesses on that as well because we have these peaks and troughs in the season. Working in, in seasons in professional sport, there’s a start and there’s a finish and we know what winning is.

Winning is being, whether it’s Premier League champions or win willing, sorry, winning the cup. Being premiers, we know that and we know it’s between these times and, corporate, we don’t have it. And I started to question that when I transitioned across and I thought, this is it’s unsustainable.

We can’t keep doing that. And especially now as a business owner. You are on all the time. But cognitively that doesn’t help you. So we’re taking the principles of sport and then applying them to, to our brains and the way that we think and how we manage our energy as well.

Yeah it is a really interesting idea that if you look at a typical sports team, a football team, doesn’t matter which code, the season is usually 20 plus weeks long. There’s no way that. Players are conditioned to be performing an optimum level round one in the same way that they’re gonna be performing grand final day.

You have to build up to that over a period of time. Yet in business, we’re expecting people day one of the year to be showing up at that high performance level and to continue sustaining that at a high performance level until such time as they take a break. If they take a break it’s crazy, really.

Yeah. Yeah. Look a absolutely. And I started to think about my experience and I thought, yeah, this is ridiculous. And I’m coming from, yeah, it got me into a bit of trouble. I’ll be honest, when I started my second career, my corporate career, because my frame of reference is different. I had boundary, I had really quite strict boundaries.

Start at 8, 8 30, a finish at five, and that was it. It was done and people were staying late until six, seven o’clock at night to do their work. And, I said is anyone gonna die? If you wouldn’t, if you were to leave now, is anyone gonna die from the results of that? If the answer is no one’s gonna die, leave it till tomorrow.

Because guess what? Work is never gonna diminish. Because the more effort you put into work, the more work that gets generated. So the work is always going to be there. Your health your happiness, you know that could be taken away at any point. And the interesting thing is I started writing the book and I started doing a lot of research.

Your body keeps the score. What that means is that your body accumulates this low level stress over a certain period of time, and you can get away with it when you are younger, but when you get into 50, maybe it’s 45, 45 to 50, 55, when you are a C-suite, you’re a business owner. You need to be peak energy, you’re absolutely diminished.

And you’ve got health complications on top of that as well. You’re right, we need to start thinking of our. Of our business of our working life as seasons, and we need to be able to peak and we need to recover. And there are natural peaks and troughs within everyone’s year. So we need to be a little bit more specific in and intentional with, how we look at rest and recovery.

How we look at our, just our conditioning, our habits. And then when we have these peak moments where we need to be, on the ball, we can manufacture that so that’s the whole. Premise behind, taking all this sports and military concepts into corporate to just, to be able to help.

That’s what’s interesting to me is how do you work that out, what those peaks and troughs should be? Because again, in the sports analogy, it is easy to go okay, we are working towards grand final day, so we need to know, we need to know that at a certain point we’re gonna need to peak because that’s when it has to happen.

It’s not as clear in business necessarily, because you don’t nec, you don’t know what’s around the corner and you’re operating against other things. You could say, okay, look, right now, February looks like it’ll be fairly easing into it. But then suddenly you get a phone call on the 1st of February saying, we need this now.

And suddenly you’ve gotta go from relaxed holiday mode to peak performance. How do you coach around that? Yeah. Good point. Each industry we have seasons and business owners have seasons. What you’re talking about there. Yeah, a hundred percent. I get it. Especially if you are like a solopreneur, for example, and you’re the only person to do that work.

If I think about a business owner, and I’ve worked with a few of them and they are absolutely run off their feet and they have teams of people. So I said let’s look at your year. So the first one we need to do is look at your previous 12 months and we need to then identify the peaks and troughs.

So when we were always on or when, when it was a bit slow. Then we look ahead and we try and plan out as best we can in terms of our peaks and troughs. Like in let’s take a, let’s take business owners. Maybe we could work quarterly, right? So maybe we work in quarterly sprints. And then at the end of the quarter, I’m not gonna say, oh, you need to take a week off because they, it’s pretty difficult, right?

But maybe we can take. A Friday and a Monday off. So then we have a longer holiday, and then that could be our decompression before then we go into our next quarter. I think if we look at the whole year in totality, and we don’t break it down into these quarters these quarterly sprints, you end up just running on fumes.

And this time of year you’re more susceptible to, to, for, to getting sickness and illnesses because of the let down effect. We need to, look at your previous 12 months, identify next 12 months, and then let’s start plotting in. I times when we are on peak performance, we look at automotive, I’ve worked in automotive.

There are sales cycles. Everyone has a sales cycle. If you’re like me as a consultant, we know January is a dip. So we can use this time to recover. And then it’s not until March, April that it starts to pick up. And then we have a bit of a dip again because of, Easter and public holidays.

And then we have the mid dip, the midyear dip. And then from Octobers, SEPs, sorry, September, October, November, we’re looking at p we need to be in peak performance before we then start to tail off as we get through to December. So everyone has a cycle. It’s just to really stop and reflect over our last 12 months and then look forward to the next 12 months of booking those holidays.

And how much does adrenaline play a part in it? Because, again, using the sports analogy, adrenaline’s pretty easy to to, watch because. Things ramp up in the course of the game and the adrenaline increases and so on. But in a business sense it can flow on day to day, right?

Where you have a day where things just are being fired at you and you’re having to step up until you are, and then that adrenaline carries on and suddenly you are operating at a different level. How do you manage that process as well? Yeah, look, good point. Especially if we think about this time of year in December, adrenaline is firing a lot.

So we’ve got a lot of adrenaline. We’ve got a lot of cortisol and what tends to happen that suppresses all of our immune system to keep us, working. But then when it comes to end of December, our body goes, ah, of course. Then suddenly we get sick and but what’s been happening is we got sick about two weeks ago, but our bodies, keeping the immune system fighting before we then switch off we can take if we think around periodization, for example, what I’m talking about is, let’s look at your annual training plan.

Then let’s break that down into smaller, let’s say quarterly chunks, and then we can break those quarterly chunks down into weekly sprints. So if we’re looking for a week and your adrenaline is high, we need to think about, okay, let’s say Thursday for example, we’ve got back to back meetings all day and it goes all the way through the night.

What are you doing on Friday to a. Lower your cortisol, what are you doing to lower your adrenaline to recover before we go again for the next one. Because if we ha, and this is this is the low level stress we’re talking about over the accumulated effects of low level stress, high adrenaline for 30 years, that has a massive impact on diseases that, that you’re likely to get.

As a result of all that accumulated stress you could have things like cardiovascular disease, diabetes. Coronary artery, coronary vascular disease. We could have celiac, for example, any number of autoimmune conditions because we haven’t had an outlet for getting rid of the, the corsol and the adrenaline as we go through.

What do you do to recover? What are some recovery strategies? Rather than going back to back with whether it’s meetings, whether there’s high intensity work that you have to do. All the research is clear. Your brain needs a break. And what’s interesting is if you’re a female, for example, you’re 80% more likely to suffer from autoimmune disease brought on through years of stress, right?

And that’s what all the research is saying at the moment. Where’s our stress load? What are we doing about it? Can we then put in, moments of recovery? I’m not saying a week off, maybe it is, 30 minutes, a 30 minute break in the day. So you can de, deregulate, downshift before you then upshift again.

Yeah, it’s an interesting one because I know I personally, make sure that there is a switch off period from Friday afternoon until. At least Saturday night. And normally it’s Sunday as well. And it’s part of, it’s training your yourself and training your clients as well, that you’re not gonna be available in that period of time.

And it’s amazing what happens when you do train those around you that this is my time to not be at work. That it actually, people go, okay, that’s fine. And suddenly they can save things up for Monday. Absolutely. Look and we are in Australia and New Zealand, we are the poor cousins, right? And this is a fact because we, if we think if you’re working for a global organization, you are on 24 7, right?

And the higher you get, the demands and the expectations just don’t stop. And you could, you’d be starting work at 6:00 AM and then you’ll be on. Zoom and teams calls at 10, 11 o’clock at night, and then you are answering emails from your US team at six in the morning, and then you’ve got your Australian team.

So it’s just this cyclical cycle and we are people pleasers in Australia because we need the business. We wanna say yes to all these global heads of businesses, but at what cost, and I guarantee and it’s strange when I say this to people like say no. And they’re, I can’t say no to my boss.

I’m like let’s train it then. I’m not gonna say a flat out, no. I’m gonna say, Hey, are there any available other available times given the fact it’s two in the morning my time? Can we shift this to another? Most people don’t even think about that. They just accept, okay, I’ll just turn up at two in the morning.

And I’m like, are you gonna be cognitively making the best decisions because. I guarantee you’re not gonna be. So then are you making the best decision? Are you thinking clearly? No. Are you getting good sleep? No. So what is the impact the next day? Oh, I’ll just have a glass of wine before bed and I’ll knock myself out.

And I’m like, yeah, but you’re accumulating all this, sleep debt all this cortisol, all the adrenaline at two in the morning. It’s really disrupting your hormonal balance. So it comes back to a lot of discipline. But what you said there, training people around you is so important.

I’m not gonna say to people you need to say no, and you have to these boundaries. It’s let’s see, set these boundaries up. And the way we do that is by communicating our availability and training people. So we delegate and we train and say, Hey look, this is what I want you to do. Here’s, here is the outcome that I’m looking for.

Here’s a template. Go and use that between these hours and those hours. And, intentionally unavailable. So we talk about time blocking. So if, for example, Fridays us, let’s say you are you are slower day because everyone solved their problems for the week and you’ve got like a block or two or three hours, use that for strategic planning.

But. Block it out. Book a meeting room, turn everything off. You know your phone off. Do not disturb. Put your out of office on turn, your notifications off. Then you can work in deep work and you can have that break. Same when you are resting and recovering. If Friday afternoon you want to go and play golf, go and do it, but put you out of office on Do Not Disturb.

What I tend to find is when people, they’re like, I can’t do that because I get emails all the time and I get phone calls. I’m like, yeah, but you put your do not disturb on. Guess what? People have to phone twice. So it’s a bit of a barrier to stop people, getting hold of you for you to solve their problems because we’re, we’re creatures a habit.

We try and take the path to least resistance. So I’ll just phone my boss. Hey Anthony, can you handle with this? Oh yeah, absolutely. Just do this. So what we’re trying to do is actually empower our teams to take greater responsibility by delegating effectively and then blocking those times in our.

In our calendar for us to be effective and deregulate ourselves, so our on peak performance. There’s so much in what you just said there and I know, but just it made me recall a story. And this goes back I, I’m gonna say it’s go back. It’s gonna go back, 20 plus years. And so phones weren’t quite as sophisticated as they are now.

And so the do not disturb and, switching off notifications wasn’t as available. And I’ll never forget there was A-C-E-O-I was working with at the time. Was traveling. He went to the uk. He didn’t tell everyone that he’d gone to the UK and one of the senior managers rang him to ask him something and the CEO picks up the phone stupidly at what was two o’clock in the morning in the UK and said, is it something urgent?

No. And he said look, I’m actually in the uk. It’s two o’clock in the morning. And the senior manager said I’ve got you awake now, so I may as well ask you the questions and proceeded to, take him on for the next 10 minutes. And we all had a bit of a laugh about it at the time, but the truth is you do have to respect.

People’s boundaries and part of it is putting on those notifications and keeping to them and understanding I’m not going to respond at this time because I know personally I’ve been very guilty over the years of just being completely responsive to it. And if you are responding to emails and phone calls all day long, you’re not gonna get any work done.

You think about this, most people, that’s the case, right? And the more, guess what, the more emails you send, the more work that you are gonna get back, the more emails you get back. And we can put another, a layer on top of this as well and think about what’s your chronotype. So are you a morning person?

So you got your peak energy in the morning. Is it afternoon or is it, are you an owl in the later hours of the day? Do you come alive? Our body’s got these natural rhythms, circadian rhythm. It’s a 24 hour timing device that your body’s got, and people have got different circadian rhythms, so it’s working with your rhythm too to get the best outcome.

If I take, if you’re a morning person, for example, your peak window is probably gonna be from eight 30 to nine 30. So about an hour where you are on peak concentration, peak focus. So what are we doing between those two tho that hour? We’re checking emails, we’re, firefighting. We’re putting all these things out, and then our bodies naturally will go into this trough which is your mid-morning slump, which we then bridge with a coffee or a red bull or something like that for us to then go up to our afternoon peak, and then we dip down again.

So we have these like peaks and troughs as we go through the day. So we need to be prioritizing ourselves, for us to be able to deliver effectively. The work that we need to deliver. So my advice a lot of the time is, here, fill out this questionnaire. Tell me what chronotype you are. Let’s look at your calendar.

Let’s start really protecting these peak performance hours. Because if you are working against your circadian rhythm, it’s taking you more often, not twice as long to do your work. Yeah, I’m an afternoon person, so between three and five I am on fire. But in the morning it takes me ages to get going, so I wouldn’t, do any accounting or finance or spreadsheets or anything I need to spend detail on, because my natural energy is not peaking in the morning.

It’s peaking in the afternoon. So it’s working with those with your body type as well to really protect that. But you really need to communicate that to your team. So I would recommend getting a team in to, to look at each individual and then look at your. Workflow as a whole and then really time block and be disciplined about saying no to things.

A lot of the time, you know a lot, and you’ll know this a lot, a lot of my clients, they get bombarded in the morning and the first thing they say to them is if anyone comes into you says, oh, hey Anthony, can you help with this? You say, tell you what come back at five 30 if you’ve still got that problem.

How many people come back at five 30? None of them. It’s the same with teams messages. If they message you on teams and you work for an organization, I would just intentionally leave it until the afternoon. Nine times out of 10, you just send them a little message to say, oh, hey, I’m just catching up on this problem.

Oh no, it’s all fixed. No worries. We’re building in some little filters to filter people out. Because guess what? If they. If on your phone they phone twice in a row, that comes straight through. So you know something’s urgent and important. If it isn’t, then you know they’re gonna leave a message and then that’s another triage thing, and then you can get your phone to email you that message or to text you that message.

So we’re building in these barriers to say no, but it all comes back to that discipline to. Not look at your emails when you’re on holiday or schedule a time in to look at your emails and then push everything out because we, we can’t be living in this world of constant triggering. And, our attention is being grabbed by everywhere.

So when we’re recovering, and when we’re working. So it’s just you’re working with your rhythm whether it’s you, your body your team. It’s interesting what you say there because it just made me flash back to a Seinfeld episode from that going back somewhat sometime, but talking about the fact that we don’t give people an opportunity to miss us anymore.

They’re constantly able to access us no matter what, and you get frustrated when they don’t. I know this morning I had to go to the shops and my wife had asked me for a couple of things. I’m at standing at the shops and I’m not sure which one she wants, and I’m trying to phone her, and then I’m getting frustrated that she’s not answering her phone.

It’s but this is the norm, right? This is what the expectations are. So we have to change those expectations for the people around us. And I think one of the challenges though, that many businesses face is, and even smaller businesses, is you’re dealing with time zones. And that might be internally as well as externally.

Many teams have. Or many small businesses, I should say, have teams that are located overseas, and so there are time differences that you have to deal with. So then when you’re talking about optimal times for people to perform. It could be that you have two people that are morning people, but one’s three hours behind you.

And so by the time you are hitting your lull, they’re in their peak. So you have to be mindful of all of those things as well. And I think that’s an important idea that you are suggesting is mapping out where everyone in the team is. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. And we’re not always gonna be in the same zone, right?

People are so different, but. What we can do, let’s say they’re two or three hours behind, or maybe two or three hours ahead, is maybe to share the pain, right? So maybe we have one meeting in my time, one meeting in your time. Maybe we do the questionnaire together. We work out, ah, actually guess what? It works out that your afternoon, when you’re on peak is my morning.

So that works out really well for us to be able to, to work together. But what I’m saying really that this whole thing is just to be mindful, right? Yeah I’m working on my own different time zone in terms of my peak focus and energy. You are working on your own. There are gonna be times when you’re gonna ask me a question and I won’t be able to think straight.

So I need to then be able to respond effectively back to that. And it’s the same thing with these back to back meetings in teams, since COVID, everyone’s on teams and they can look at your calendar and just b, keep booking appointments. I think the practice of being intentionally unavailable is so key.

Our parents, like you mentioned, had this where you finish work. There’s no mobile phones back then. There’s no emails. Everything was left at the office, and guess what? They all survived. So I know the expectations though, it will be around customers, right? So when customers phone you, how long does it take for you to answer that phone call?

And this is where I think it’s really interesting times at the moment with AI and chat bots. And is there some integrations that you can then work into to the way that you do things so then customers don’t feel disappointed? Or can you just automate some of your processes to, to take the. The heavy lifting off.

’cause what? What we are ultimately, we’re cognitive athletes, we are knowledge workers, so we use our brains to, to make decisions, to think clearly, to be creative. All the processing stuff of a production line worker, for example. That can be done by ai. So you’re not having to then look through your calendar and go, oh, I’m available between this time and that time.

You can just send them a link. It’s all done automatically now. So we need to really be able to harness our zone of genius as a human, which is using our brain to make decisions to, to look at information, to be creative, to think clearly. Rather than just being a production line worker going through emails click.

It’s I love the term, and this is a good bridge into the book that you’ve got the cognitive athlete that’s that whole idea of what that is. I guess we don’t traditionally think of ourselves, particularly if you’re, a business owner as many of the people listening to the program would be, you don’t tend to think of yourself as an athlete in that way, but what you’re suggesting is there is a.

Cognitive athlete inside of us that we have to look after and so how have you found that term resonating with people? Because it’s certainly the first time that I’ve thought of it in that particular way. Yeah. The first thing I get is that I’m not an athlete. I don’t spend hours in the gym.

I’m like, you’re right. You don’t spend hours in the gym. However. You are an athlete of your mind, how much time do you actually use conditioning your mind and the researchers of some great research from Microsoft, the Human Factors Lab, in which they put EEEG skull caps on people to monitor brainwaves and they had back to back meetings and, by the third meeting, the stress levels were high.

When stress is high, you’re unable to think clearly because oh, I’m gonna get nerdy and neuroscience. But cortisol inhibits the, goes into your prefrontal cortex, which it, which inhibits your thinking. You get brain fog, you’re unable to think clearly. Your, you got weaker control of your thoughts or emotions.

And that just increases the more meetings we have back to back and what they did, they had that study. They had one group. That. And then they had another group have five minute breaks in between meetings and it was massive stark difference night and day between, decision making outcomes and clarity of thought, and also just being calm and un under control.

We need to. Think of ourselves as athletes of the mind. We may not move like athletes, but we’re using our brain like an athlete, and we need to be able to train our brain for us to peak at the right time. So in, let’s say a difficult conversation or a pitch or even a podcast, we’ve done the pre-work.

So then we’re able to perform and we’re able to take questions, we’re able to think clearly. We’re able to be able. To relay information and communicate and things like that. And I guarantee most people have, whether it’s a performance review or conversation, they’ve ended, they’ve gone in there prepared, but when the pointy end of the stick comes, they’ve forgotten what they’re talking about or they get sidetracked really easily.

So it is all around being really intentional with, how we set ourselves up for us to. To peak at the right times. Hence goes back to that question like let’s look at our year. When do we need to be on Foreman and on five for us to be able to get the result? And then we need to recover.

And a lot of the time when I talk about recover people, they see it as a weakness. But actually it’s, it’s such a positive. And nasa, did a study on nasa. I call them Nana Naps. Like a 26 minute nap, how that boosts cognitive performance. So we need to, that’s why I’m bringing all of this in to help people to be able to think clearly, to get better results.

And you’ll find that, you’ll be more productive with that as well. So rather than time, it’s looking at your energy. We’ve talked about a number of things and I’ve appreciated all of this, so thanks. Gimme a bit of a, so much. Yeah. Give me a bit of a rundown. If there’s a top three kind of ideas that you would recommend people take on board, what would they be, aside from number four being read the book and we’ll tell them about the book in a moment, but what would be the top, what would be the top three things that they should start thinking about?

Yeah, look I think that the first one is we need to, then, we need to look at our previous 12 months. To then inform off our next 12 months and look at it as a performance gap to go here’s my season, these are the most important times. And then what I can do is then schedule in holidays, whether it’s a week or whether it’s two weeks or whatever.

And then we can then look at that the sec. So that’s the first part. The second part, we need to then work out what our rhythm is, like what’s our circadian rhythm, and then we need to then third bit is then look at your calendar to go, what can I say no to? When am I in my peak focus area, I need to then block that in to do my project work or deep work.

And then the final part is learn to say no. And you can do that really simply by putting in do not disturb. We can, turn your notifications off out of office, off train people how you know how to solve their own problems. I think if we are always available then. We’re not getting our work done, which we’re being paid to do, right?

We’re running round with our heads and fire. And then as a result, if we’re not doing any of this when we are 70, 75, we’ve got these chronic health conditions brought on by long-term stress. I guarantee you people are not, looking at themselves going, man, I wish I said yes to more of those little meetings with no agendas.

I really miss those complete waste of my time. Or whether they said, man, I wish I actually booked in more intentional recovery breaks for me to sustain my performance over the long term. Definitely it definitely very great advice to be looking back on those kinds of things.

’cause you just can absolutely spot on. When you look over a year, how many wasted meetings we all have. How many times meetings have gone well over what they should have because we haven’t contained them. It’s really quite interesting when you say to someone, I have a hard out at this particular time.

And yeah, people tend to respect that because they’ll get to a point and they’ll start speeding up or they’ll say, look, can we book another time? And you can make that decision much more deliberately rather than just allowing things to continue to go on. So there’s lots of great. Advice here. So tell me a little bit about the book and what people have to look forward to with that.

Yeah, can I just add one? This is the, one of the best tips before we get on the book is you can go into Microsoft right on your calendar and outlook, and you can change the default setting for your meetings. So in the Dece the default set is 30 minute meeting box, right? Change it to 25. And then if they book an hour, change it to 50 or 55 minutes, that’s gonna give you a five minute buffer.

And then if you’re working in a team, then what you can say to your team is right, you are gonna be the timekeeper, you are gonna keep us on the agenda, you’re gonna be the note taker, and then we can then spread. Spread this word out to say, look, our time really matters. Again, there’s more research to say between 30 minutes and 45 minutes, you are getting no extra value outta that meeting.

So being very disciplined within that. But those are the hacks that you can do. So then when people go into calendar to try and book a 30 minute meeting, they’re like, oh, why is this 25 minutes? And they’ll send you an email. I can only book 25 minute meeting. And you say. That’s because I’m a cognitive athlete.

I need a five minute break in between my next meeting to go to the toilet, to have a drink, to have some food, for me to be, on a point when I’m at that meeting. And a lot of, yeah, I was just gonna say, and there’s a lot of software that people will be using, whether it’s through your CRM or various booking things that you might be using bits of software that also have that opportunity to add up.

Buffer on either side of the meeting. So even if you decide to have the meeting as a 30 minute meeting, you can actually put a five minute buffer so the next meeting can’t start at until five minutes after that. So you can have that break. So it is an important tip and whether you’re using Outlook or something else, and I’m pretty confident you can do it in Gmail as well.

Which is probably the other main hosting for emails. As I said, all the other software do allow you to create that, and it’s such a simple but easy tip to have. Yeah and look and I do come across quite passionate about this. Do I still struggle with that? It’s a daily work on for me, right?

So there are times where I get sidetracked, but I always come back to what’s the most important thing I need to get done today? And then I’ll come back to that. It’s a work in progress for everybody and it’s just been intentional behind how we spend our energy rather than the time factor.

So let’s bring it down to the book, because we are running out of time in this podcast particular, so we don’t we’ve kept people waiting for a little while. So tell me a little bit about the book and what people can expect. Yeah. Cool. So here it is. I’ve got a copy, Vance copy so that the book is all my experiences from.

Working in the military and working in high performance sport. And I’ve taken all of those concepts and I’ve got loads of stories in here, not just from my time, but some really good case studies. It’s all backed on really, validated research in neuroscience to look at ourselves like we mentioned as a cognitive athlete, someone who uses our mind to make decisions, to think clearly to look at information and dissect it.

So it’s really taken that lens of it and it goes through all the different phases of cognitive periodization, from conditioning phase to transition phase, performance, and then recovery. So we, I break it down in, into really bite-sized chunks and steps. And at the end of the book, it gives you a really robust, four step strategy for you to take away and to implement, not just individually, but also teams as well.

And I’ve, yeah, and it’s got loads of case studies in there from real clients that I’ve worked with over the past, 10 to 15 years to implement a lot of this information that that I’ve accumulated over time. Just in there. It’s, it’ll be available, it is available to pre-order now, but it’s in, it’s gonna be in the shops on the 29th of December.

Published through Wiley. So they’d be really good to, to get it out. It’s gonna be. In the airport. So a January must read if you are doing any traveling to just, really think about yourself in a different way. It’s not a productivity hack or a book about that. It’s about you and it’s about, spending time for you to look at your season, to work out what your peaks and troughs are for then.

You’d put a plan into place, so then you’re not looking when you’re 75, 80 back on your life going, man, all those meetings you’re looking back going, yeah, I’ve still got the energy, I’ve got the drive and the motivation for me to still be producing, whatever that looks like at 80. I’m not 80.

Yeah. But I do know, that the more that we look at. The way our brains function the clearer thinking that we’re gonna have and the better results that, that will naturally fall out of all of that. Amazing. And the, and correct me if I’m wrong, but there’s a scorecard as well, isn’t there, attached to the attached to the book that people can access now?

Yeah, absolutely. So if you go onto the website, cognitive athlete.com au, there is a scorecard. So right now you can go on there and you can find out, where you score, so you know whether you are at risk of burnout, whether you’re actually a cognitive athlete already and not knowing about it.

And it’ll give you a really good strategy for you. A couple of things to think about for you to then implement moving forward. It comes down to like things like sleep. It comes down to breaks, comes down to focus. Alcohol is another one. Exercise your diet and nutrition. All of these have a big impact in your score.

You are of all of those, and give you a result. And then you, yeah, give your report so you can take that away and have a think about it. There’s a link, to talk about if you wanna conversation with me about it. So it’s, there’s Elizabeth and there’s also the podcast as well that he dives into a lot more detail.

That’s in the book. So my first draft of the book was like 75,000 words and publisher said, no, it needs to be 50. So I’ve had to take a lot out. And that’s what, the podcast and the newsletter I’ve got on LinkedIn, on Wednesdays. It goes into a lot of the research and and things like that.

Fantastic. And we are going to make sure all of the information on how to get in touch with you and all those links are going to be in the show notes. Just one final question to wrap things up that I do like to ask all my guests. What is the aha moment that people have when they come to work with you that you wish more people knew they were going to have?

Yeah, that’s a great question. I think really it’s not a drastic change. People are already using some of these tools, resources, techniques but it’s really to look at, okay what’s one thing that I can do to boost my performance? And it’s different for everybody. So people are already doing good stuff, but now it’s being intentional.

And then when we start looking at people’s calendars that Oh yeah, emails, yeah, I should maybe push them out. ’cause there are other people’s jobs to do lists, right? A lot of the time they’re doing the right things, but it’s about. Really dialing down and then looking at what’s my recovery strategy?

And not many people have a recovery strategy. They don’t even factor that into their diaries. For me, that probably from all of this is around, that recovery. So what am I doing to recover? And it’s not going for a holiday. It could be I’m going out for a walk in between meetings, I’m listening to some music, I’m talking to a colleague.

And if you intentionally put that through the day. People end up, being happier at the end of the day. And then that has a flow on effect into their, family life, a outside of work. So it’s like schedule recoveries and you all yeah, you do well. I’m feeling much better after talking to you.

’cause now I feel like I’m, I can call myself an athlete, so that’s, yes I’ll live by that. So thank you so much for being a part of the program. It’s such a fascinating area and absolutely encouraging everyone to pre-order the book or if you’re listing and it’s. The book’s already out. Go and get the book.

It’s it’s gonna be a must read. So many great things that you’ve given us in that episode. So thank you so much for being part of the Biz Bites for Thought Leaders podcast. Hey, thank you Anthony. And yeah, it’s been good to be on. Excellent. As we said to everyone, take a look at the show notes for more information and don’t forget to share and subscribe so you never miss an episode.

Until next time. Hey, thanks for listening to Biz Bites. We hope you enjoyed the program. Don’t forget to hit subscribe so you never miss an episode. Biz Bites is proudly brought to you by podcast done for you, the service where we will deliver a podcast for you and expose your brilliance. To the world.

Contact us today for more information, details in the show notes. We look forward to your company next time on Biz Bites.

Kevin Hutchman on improv training and building high performing teams. Welcome to another episode of Biz Bites for Thought Leaders. What if the key to Better business performances wasn’t another productivity hack, but learning to laugh together? My guest today, Kevin Hutchman, has discovered that training in improv comedy develops the exact soft skills that every business desperately needs.

This is a very fun episode, but it’s a very different way of looking at building culture, building teams, and really creating unbelievably successful way of breaking down boundaries and improving performance. You don’t want to miss this one. So let’s get into this episode of Biz Bites for Thought Leaders.

Welcome everyone to another episode of Biz Bites for Thought Leaders, and this is going to be a different kind of episode ’cause we legitimately are gonna have a bit of fun with this one. Kevin, welcome to the program. Thanks for having me. Excited to be here. So let’s kick things off as we do by allowing you to introduce yourself to everyone.

I am a entrepreneur, comedian keynote speaker. Team bond bonding, fun guy. And yeah, corporate facilitator that likes to work with companies to help them have comedy skills in their professional world. Yeah, there is a lot to cover in that alone. And I wanna point out to everyone listening in that what we’re gonna cover a fair amount today is, of course a about the role that some of this stuff can play in building teams and really building a sense of community and a sense of fun in your organization.

I wanna start things off, Kevin, that’s interesting about how you introduce yourself. So what do you see yourself as first? What is the first thing? Is it entrepreneur? Is it comedian? Is it, where do you sit? I’d say it’s probably entrepreneur. I think that entrepreneur allows me to. I, there’s a various amount of businesses that I do outside of the one we’re talking about.

I’ve always been interested in a unique path, but more just about solving unique problems. And so I’m really just drawn to different areas of industry whatever that might may be, and using my expertise that I’ve had over the years to, apply some solutions to those problems. I’m a problem solver, and if I haven’t said it enough, and I love I love being an entrepreneur, and so I try to apply that in whatever I do.

I love that it’s being an entrepreneur is such a a wonderful asset and a way of thinking to have, but I think you apply it in a different way, particularly with a comedy background. So I know you call yourself a comedy nerd, but where did the comedy stuff begin for you?

Yeah, so it really began at the dinner table. I am youngest of six kids. Always loved comedy. But I was introduced to comedy from all my brothers and sisters. We used to watch Saturday Night Live. Ever weekly when I was a kid, like real young all the way up until, currently watch it.

So I’ve been exposed to all different types of genres of comedy my old life. And I didn’t really take a big leap until I moved to New York City after college and started at a company called Splash where I was one of the first 10 employees. But simultaneously, while I was there, I started training in improv comedy.

And me and my two brothers and my best friend, we started a group called The Brothers in Flaws, and we would do three hours of comedy training of improv comedy a week, and it was just the most fun ever. We just would laugh our butts off constantly and we thought, I thought it ended there, but it wasn’t until I would go into work the next day.

Fresh outta college. Not a lot of professional skills, but what I did have were these new skills I was learning in the comedy world. So I was able to apply those to work. And, you know what I call them comedy skills. I’m not talking about being able to make a joke, but I’m talking about active listening and empathetic communication and collaboration and creating psychological safety taking risks, going off script.

There was just these crazy lists. Of skills that I were protruding from me and I was able to communicate better with my team, collaborate better, which you absolutely need when you’re on a small, scrappy squad. I was able to reel in clients better. I was able to talk to customers and prospects, learn about their problems, prescribe custom solutions, go off script.

And I truly believe that it wa, if it wasn’t for immersing myself in the low stakes environment of improv, I wouldn’t have been so successful early on in my career because I was able to use those skills while I got, it got the chops of the business world under my belt. So I really attribute learning those skills in comedy as a way to really jumpstart my career.

I think it’s a fascinating way of bringing those things in because yes, immediately you think, okay, you can’t, there’s only so far that you can have jokes in the workplace because things have to get serious at some point in time. But you’re right there that, that safety that is created, but also I find fascinating with improv is that everything always has to be a yes, right?

You can’t say no to things, and that is a skill within itself, particularly in the business world. How do you actually say yes to things? How do you actually make it work? Yeah. And I think that understanding what the yes is not, I’m gonna be now doing the thing that you’ve told me to do. And it’s more about accepting the current circumstance that you’re in.

And adapting. So the phrase is yes, and rather than just Yes. So the yes is more of a validation. The yes is a validation of, Hey, I’m accepting your idea that you’re throwing my way. And yes, that is great. And you’re validating the person that’s giving it to you, whether it’s on the stage or in the boardroom, and you’re validating that individual.

Then you’re adding and to it, right? You’re saying, and here’s how I feel, whether it can be positive or combat, not combative, but contrary. And, the whole idea is that it’s the validation that you’re giving people with the Yes. And it’s the acceptance of what they’re saying with the Yes.

And it’s then bridging what the words that you’re going to do the, and is really for the individual. So is the yes as well, but it allows you to say, Hey, how can I just be very collaborative in this effort and eliminate words like, no, but or because those are words that can really stop the train. And that’s all about what applied improv is about.

And improv performing in general, but it’s about saying yes to the experience and the situation that you’re in and playing the next play off the top of your intelligence. Not coming up with a canned response or a, or something that you were gonna say. And, you wish you said it earlier, so now you’re saying it now.

It’s really about living in the moment of being present, and that is the best thing that you can do. To create a laughing moment is allowing people to create rapport and build rapport. Because that is, it’s not even if you go and back to someone and you try to explain why you laugh today, they’re probably not going to understand it.

’cause it’s not like some joke, but it was a situation that you were in and that’s what happens on the improv stage. If you go and tell someone why you laugh so hard at an improv event, people are gonna be like, that’s not funny. And you’re like it was ’cause I was there. And we’re in the moment and in the zone.

But that’s because we’ve created the psychological safety where it’s like, Hey we’re in a silly fun area, now we can laugh. Or we’ve created vulnerability now we can trust each other to laugh with one another. So it’s really about listening, communicating, building that trust and vulnerability so that people can effectively communicate.

I’m a big fan of watching shows like, whose Line is it Anyway, where? All about improv and for anyone who hasn’t seen it, I recommend you do watch it. It’s interesting what you’re saying there because they definitely create that sense of safety because clearly they’re given things that they don’t know what it’s going to be, but there’s so much trust in each other that they know.

That it’ll go somewhere that will work for both of the people that might be appearing on there at any given time, or it could be three or four, whatever it is that appears on the stage. And I think there’s a lot of valuable lessons to learn in business there. I think we, you’re not necessarily suggesting everyone in business goes and learns how to do improv, but it’s a good way of demonstrating it.

I’d say that is exactly what I’m hoping people will do because improv is something that is an incredibly accessible art form. You don’t need to go into it with any sort of knowledge. That’s what our business primarily helps people train in, improv and train. We call it laughing and development.

And it’s this workshop, series of workshops in person or virtual. The virtual ones are actually. Amazing because everyone has to be so focused and dialed on their squares. You’re al already dialed into like your environment and looking at other people and they, the whole goal of this is that we should be training in improv, and it’s called Applied Improv.

I’m not saying people need to go and perform improv. That’s a completely, totally different beast. And if you’re gonna perform and invite your friends, you better be good. ’cause you’ll give improv a bad name if you stink. The, but the, but training in improv and training in comedy is totally different than going out there and performing in front of a huge group of people.

While that also can have its benefits, I’m not saying everyone needs to do that, but I do think everyone can benefit from. Getting into the EQ gym, so to speak, working on their soft skills like listening and communication and adaptability, and what are those different ways that we can do that. And improv offers a wonderful environment for people to feel safe enough to make mistakes and really be silly and show up as your most authentic self.

Then when it’s time for a business situation or professional setting or any sort of like even serious high stakes situation, you can tap into that muscle that you’ve been training and your performance might not be in a comedy setting. Your performance is going to be in the real world where these skills are going to benefit you and you’re not gonna receive a laugh.

You might receive. A sale, you might receive trust, you might receive a new friend, whatever that might be. And so that’s why I truly believe that, training in these comedy skills is not to make you the next Jerry Seinfeld, but it’s to make you the best version of yourself so that you can always bring yourself into a place to connect with others.

Yeah. I wanna pick you up on a couple of things that you’ve said there that I think so important. Yes, you’ve said the listening, and I think that’s incredibly important, but it’s really about, to me, that ability to adapt. Is incredibly important. That I think is often overlooked, but we do it in business every single day.

No matter what business you’re in, you don’t know what is going to walk through the door or come through in an email or in a call, in a, in the next, five minutes and it can throw you for a loop. Sometimes it’s not always exactly the same as whatever happened previously. So we have to adapt and we have to learn how to utilize those skills.

And I think then the second point about that is, is then developing trust as a result of that. I think that is where the important skills lie, particularly for business. Absolutely. Those are, that’s the foundation of any sort of business relationship, whether it’s internal or external. And and people find their own ways to do it.

And I think that, again, communication, trust. All of those different components I’ve talked about are a really great way to build that foundation with your organization. So tell me a little bit before we get into what it actually looks like for people now. How did it happen? How did the progress happen to get to where you are now in terms of offering, offering comedy and improv and these ideas to the business world?

So we started out I’ll take you all the way back, but we did I started this business in 2019, just as a way for me to get more stage time. And, I, after I did my improv journey I kept training in improv after our group broke up. And we went and I just went and did more improv training and then eventually I got into the standup comedy scene, started hitting more open mics, doing some clubs in New York.

And then, we had the opportunity to throw an event at my office that I worked at, and we had this awesome stage and lighting and the just sound system was perfect and. I also had one of my best friends at work played the drums and could work the lights and the sound and, suddenly we were our own Jimmy Fallon and the Roots situation.

And we went and started throwing what I would consider at that time, the best comedy show in New York City on a Wednesday at 7:00 PM and it was electric. The comedians that we had on this show were some of the best, not just in the, in New York City, but in the whole. Country. And I’d say since we first did those first 10 shows, there have to be at least 10 people that have done Netflix specials.

It was that kind of talent that were on our shows and I was incredibly grateful for those experiences because one, I got to perform alongside mega huge stars and that was so cool. But I also got to. See how they prepared, what they were like before they got on stage, what they were like after. Then I would be, some of them I’d be able to pick their brains like, Hey, what is, what was it like to prepare?

How do you learn from certain situations? So I’d bug a lot of them and be like, just, I wanna get into your psyche about what it’s like to perform at such a high level. So this was like one of the first times I was able to really. Work with comedians at this level, both producing and hosting and performing in these shows, but, performing alongside of them.

And that was a really cool experience. And then, about 10 shows in, I was like, let’s, no, let me do this full time. So I was, I’ll leaving my company doing this full time and then the pandemic hit and I was like, what have I done? This is a horrible mistake and. We got really, it was a blessing in disguise and we went into corporate comedy and we said, how can we put these comedians that I’ve been working with over these last 10 shows in New York, and how do we put them to work?

Because all those comedians were actually out of work because of the pandemic, and they weren’t legally allowed to even perform in comedy clubs. Doing virtual comedy was a good outlet for folks. And I had the opportunity to give some comedians corporate gigs. And so I started to get into that corporate scene and see what it was like for people to how they were at work.

And, COVID was a Hal. Its own thing, but people were so not pumped to be at work or be at this event, or like their day was like just absolutely killing them. It was the first time I was actually able to see. How our comedy shows were impacting people during the workday. And it wasn’t just like great show in our post-event surveys.

It was, thank you so much, I really needed that. I’ve had a horrible week or a month or something’s going on in my life and this was the best outlet. It was these like incredibly impassioned things. And since it was COVID, people were like, I haven’t bonded with my teammates like that since we were back in person.

I also, I started to see. This was making people less depressed. It was bringing people more social bonding. It was, people suddenly leaving their jobs. Men mentally for a second and showing that they could have fun in the same environment, AKA, the zoom link that they were having some of their most boring and mundane and probably brutal experiences.

It was a very good, immersion therapy, I’m sure as well, to be like, oh, this is a really good experience. So that was the first moment where I was like. Comedy at work works, and I really want to keep going down this. How else can we serve these organizations, especially as we go back in person, but more importantly as people stop to think about how do we meaningfully spend our budgets on team building or professional development?

Because there was a shift and said, Hey, we gotta tighten the coffers and we can’t really just be doing. Cocktail making classes and, comedy shows were thrown into that mix too. So we started, that’s when we first developed laughing and development. And I brought, I went back to my time starting comedy and starting my professional career.

And I realized that was the key. That was the key to really unlocking folks, is taking them pretty much through my journey that I did myself, because I saw firsthand the impact that. Training in improv could have if I applied it to the workplace. So that is really when our business took off. And we were able to, have real meaningful impact.

That was another thing. Although the comedy shows are awesome, we still do they’re a huge part of our business. We still do a lot. There’s a time and a place for a comedy show. There’s a time and a play and that’s a celebration. It’s having a lot of fun. And, but when it comes to every quarter, every month or offsites or moments where we need to really dial in and figure out people’s why that we’re able to come in and have real meaningful impact, that helps companies, through us tell their message to their employees about.

This is an environment where we value collaboration and we want to communicate more effectively and we wanna listen to one another and we wanna go to war with each other at work, and we wanna support one another. So that really was, added a whole extra meaning to what we were doing. First it was in the world of let’s just get people to laugh more, have fun and brighten up their day.

And then it turned into, okay, how do we help people really start effectively? Communicating and using these skills at work to make each other smile at the very least, hopefully it leads to a laugh. So are you going in with businesses and talking to them in advance so you understand what the messages are that they maybe want to give over so that is worked into whatever it is you are delivering for them?

Oh yeah, absolutely. It’s a very prescriptive solution that we’re offering, whether it is a. Entertainment comedy show on the virtual. We do virtual comedy shows that are so specific and tailored that we have attendees completing pre-event surveys to tell us office buzzwords to incorporate or memes to incorporate.

But then on the other side of things with professional development, we will ask the event organizer to tell us. What do you want out of this event? And there are so many different exercises and games that we can incorporate into our sessions. So we wanna know exactly like I have them rank a list of 12 outcomes from one to 12, which they think is the best, outcome for their group.

And a lot of the times people are like, they’re like, they’ll write in a note. I couldn’t, I wish I could. Put all of these at number one. That’s how like pe, how much people resonate with the material. But we then try to take like the average of the six and say, let’s create a theme connected with what their purpose of it.

We asked them, why are you doing this event? Or what challenges. Is your company seeing, we have a recent one that we’re working with now. It’s hey, we are a new sales team. We’re coming people that have, one style of selling with, a transactional style of selling and we need to bring them together as a group.

And, and then we also need to have people be more comfortable creating relationships with clients. So we wanna help build that rapport. And it’s stuff like that where we then say, okay, we have a series of games and exercises that we think are going to lead you in this right direction, so that in the OutCo outcomes of all of this, people are going to feel like they can take these skills and apply them to their, to the next day at work.

And that’s where you are using things more like the improv and those kinds of ideas, rather than it necessarily being a comedian. ’cause I imagine the comedian’s gonna be a little bit harder to adapt to some of those things, but I gather that’s still part of it as well, potentially. Yeah, but not really.

We’re all business when, it’s silly and it’s fun, don’t get me wrong. Like laughing and development is, it’s in the name there. It’s a lot of laughing. People are going to have a lot of fun, but it’s not gonna be from a comedian telling jokes, like if you had hired us from an entertainment perspective, this is all.

Parentheses funny business and we are trying to, help your team accomplish your goals. And so these facilitators, I don’t call them necessarily comedians, even though they are all comedians, but they’re facilitating a session with the group. And that’s different than the entertainment side of our business that we offer.

It’s a completely separate thing where, we are one side. We’re trying to create a great comedy show that’s for this moment. Then the other side of our business is we’re trying to create a really great team building and professional development experience that will have people really learning or even bringing out some of their skills that they may have had dormant.

What a great business to have both sides of the things that you can, do the straight out entertainment side and you can do this stuff that, that really gets into the that’s the best. Yeah. The man of business. I’m interested though, ’cause you talked about. This coming out of the COVID period and o obviously operating in a virtual environment, which I know you do.

And for those that are in Australia and watching or listening to the podcast at the moment, there is opportunities to do some of this stuff in a virtual environment. And I think we talked about before, could be coming soon in a real world environment as well. But talk to me about the virtual environment because.

It’s a lot harder to get responses, right? Comedy doesn’t play as well when you’ve got one person delivering something and you’ve got these other people that may or may not have microphones open, but you’re not feeding off one another in the same way as you are in a sitting down in a live audience.

So how does that play out in not just comedy, but in the improv and other things you’re doing? So just in the higher arching of everything, you’d be surprised in that virtual, in a non-corporate setting. You’re right. It doesn’t, I don’t think it works very well. It’s like a bunch of strangers.

I remember being at that in the beginning of the pandemic and we started to this idea of doing like that was got what got very popular public. Virtual comedy shows and see had 200, 300 people in, you had to mute some people were listening on their phones, like it was just like a complete disaster.

And so I remember going, we’re doing this, but not that. And what I mean by that is. The public nature of it. Now, when it becomes corporate, your company is sponsoring your event and your company is asking you to attend this event, and your company is asking you not just to attend the event, but you’re attending as a member of the organization.

So there is this built in sense of I have to be, I’m at work, I’m getting paid to be here. So there is this sense of I need to focus and dial in and I was very surprised at it. But the, just the nature of a corporate virtual event has a like, like bouncer feel to it.

Like that, like you’re, the company is the bouncer being like, you gotta, you better pay attention. And so much so that we don’t even have to we, I’ve never kicked anybody out, ever. And we’ve done so many things of of events that people are being like rowdy or not good. Or not paying attention whenever it might be.

I’ve had other people that, like the companies have kicked out because like they’re so dialed into it. So that’s just one kind of misconception that comedy can’t be done virtually. I think the setting is so incredibly important. And we also, on the virtual comedy side of things, and I’ll get into the improv side of things, but on the virtual comedy side of things, we started to say, okay.

First we started with just standup, and then we realized what’s another way that we could bring people to always be focused on what’s going on. So we went from standup to what I said before was, let’s have the content be about the people in the room. So let’s do pre-event surveys with the attendees and get information.

We said, all right, maybe let’s layer in images on top of screens when comedians are doing shows, like it’s a late night format. So creating another virtual element of it or visual element of it. We also started to get into musical improv where, or we have comedians that will create songs about your company live on the spot from ideas that they have in front of you.

It is actually amazing when the audience is dialed in and everyone’s on their mics and everyone’s on their cameras or as many people that can be, it is as fun as it can get on virtual. Obviously nothing beats in person, but it is as fun as it gets, and you’d be very surprised at how fun it can be.

Now when it comes to improv, it’s the same thing. People, we recently did an event where there was actually one of the women, that was, had to catch a flight. And so she was actually like going through, she was in a cab and then she was going through security and then I think she had to, when she got on the plane, she had to turn her phone off, but like this was a moment where you see.

We put people into breakout rooms, like we do warmup events where we get people assimilated, create that psychological safety. Then we’ll do two person activities. So we’ll put them into a breakout room and then we’ll do five person activities, put them into a breakout room. The beauty of the virtual side of things is that we can.

When we’re trying to do team building and professional development, we can leverage the technology that virtual softwares have, like breakout rooms to make sure that people are getting that, high level engagement from one another. And then on the entertainment side, we don’t use any breakout rooms and we’re just like, bring the laughter in.

Let’s just have a good time. So it really is dependent on it, but we found ways to be. The leader in our category as it relates to doing any sort of comedy experience online improv. The improv let’s, to make it work. It’s, and it’s amazing how you’ve adapted the business and found ways to make it work and made it probably larger than it would’ve been ’cause you would’ve otherwise been looking at very localized offices and operating perhaps just in New York.

And now you can operate globally. It’s the coolest thing. There is the first, I’d say 2021 was the first year where it was like, whoa. Maybe even early 2020 or like at the end of 2020, but it was 2021 where we had like at one point 13 events in one day and it was. So also not only like the volume was crazy because the demand was so high because of the pandemic.

We were doing so many events that it was starting at 9:00 AM my time and ending at 9:00 PM. My time. And so it was this full, like using Eastern time zone to, or, sorry, not eastern time zone, but like we do a show on that in the European time zones. Then us time zones, then APAC time zones.

And it was this very we had companies that were hiring us for like, all three of their holiday parties and they would just have different time zone areas. So it’s just very cool. We’ve performed on nearly every continent. Which I never thought I’d be able to say. VIR obviously virtually.

And, we get to reach so many different audience members and that’s what’s cool about performing for remote audiences and remote workforces. And do you get much opportunity to perform or you it’s just stuck in the entrepreneur space. I’m a host of a lot of these events, so I get to get the crowd going, that’s my natural position is the host.

And so anytime I have a chance to put myself into the event, I usually do. And but it’s very fun to be in that host space, get the crowd engaged, make sure people are, on the virtual side of things, have their cameras on, mics on, do some crowd work, practice what I preach a lot of the, of what I’m doing.

And so the performing is always very fun, we always like to. The people that we’re bringing in are just the best at what they do. And so we really respect that and these companies are paying good money for great talent. And, we wanna make sure that we’re delivering the best show possible.

So there are moments where I gotta step out of the limelight and let the real craftsman take over. Tell me, you’ve done a lot of shows for the business. Have you collected the data? Do you know where the main problem areas are that businesses are highlighting and where you are seeing a result after what you’ve been doing?

I think the best way to answer that question, and I think ’cause we went through a bit of a, we’ve been through a bit of a wave in terms of what our offering was and it was virtual entertainment to in-person. Laughing and development. So there’s been like a very large wave. And so in the beginning, people had bad cultures, frankly, they weren’t transitioning well in the COVID space and they didn’t know how to connect with people.

And they were really open to trying new things. They just wanted people to have more fun. Now I would say I’m able to dial in so much more. I love being on the. Professional development and team building side of things because I’m really able to now ask questions about what is wrong with your organization that you think you need to do a laughing and development experience.

And what I mean by what is wrong, it’s more what do you think that you can improve? Not like I can’t believe that you’ve come to us but it’s like, what do you think? You can very be very honest and I would say the biggest thing is. AI has lowered our EQs a bit across the board, and that can either be veterans in the professional world or it can be people that never started a job or you had to go in person five days a week or go out to meet with a client over lunch or whatever, or pitch in person.

I think that’s really the biggest trend that I’m noticing is that a lot of people are still, assimilating into this new normal because we all went through an experience where virtual was normalized. And I think that people got some of their muscles atrophied on the EQ side of things.

And so people are, organizations are really looking to get that mojo back and what we’re able to provide is, I like to it’s like a gym, we’re able to help with those muscles and, the people that work with us best are the, are not the ones that do this one time. It’s the people that do intermittent sessions with us that can allow for people to, really work.

Better with each other and work better with their clients. And it’s because they’re working on these skills. I think that’s an important point for people to hear from you as well, is that this is not about a one-off kind of gig. It can be, but I assume, but ultimately you want people coming back and continuing to work and obviously seeing a level of improvement that happens in that.

So are you seeing a lot of that and do you, are you able to track it? It’s the organization. It’s, it all depends on what the organization allows us to track, obviously. But the ones that continue to do more events with us. We do not have to reset and start at zero. If we are doing an event with an organization, we can pick up into 1 0 2, 1 0 3, eventually get them up to 2 0 1, 2 0 2 0 2.

So I think that’s the best thing is you what, when I was training in improv, I didn’t see the value the first day after. At work the first day after I left or went into work after doing improv, it was until like probably a month or so in where I had done it so many times that it was now a part of me and it was a, it was now a muscle and a skillset that I had grown and developed.

And I think it was when I started to combine both of the two, I was more conscious of it and said, oh, this is like improv and listening and communicating and going off script, adapting, all that stuff that I’m now conscious of. But it took my subconscious a while in reps to do I think that, that is what people can really benefit from is seeing that and my goal is that there’s gonna be.

A sales team that comes through and wants to do a case study with us. That’s very clear. I’ve seen case studies done with organizations like Salesforce, where I saw that they had a I think a 20% increase in, in sales conversions when they trained their sales reps in, in improv. And that’s a case study that I’ve pulled from the internet and.

Those are the things that are so fascinating, but you also have to have people that are in in it with you to want to grow and have the same people and the same studies and go from there. But the good news is I don’t need to prove this to anybody. These, this is in medical journals, it’s in case studies.

I’m just picking up where a lot of people have already done the hard work. And how much resistance do you get from people, because obviously there are people that are going to be embrace it straight away for whatever reason. And you would have, I imagine, people who are more outgoing and then you have the people that are more insular in their approach and maybe a little bit reticent if you, when you start doing some of these exercises.

So how do you bridge that gap? Yeah, I would say. The first five minutes are a lot different than the last five minutes. And that’s basically everybody comes in with preconceived notions, whether it’s improv or not improv. That’s also, we don’t call it improv ’cause that’s a scary word for a lot of people.

We call it laughing and development. And so I think that is, no matter what, you gotta shake those cobwebs off. And so I think that the. The important thing is like how do you create psychological safety in the beginning of the event to be like, Hey, we’re gonna have some fun. And so whether that’s an entertainment event that we’re doing or an IMP or a laughing and development improv event that we’re doing, you need to spend those first five minutes of.

Doing really easy warmups with folks and icebreakers with folks so they get familiar and create that psychological safety so that you’re able to take them into the deep end and and everyone ha can have a lot of fun. How much baggage does the term laugh carry? Because I imagine and maybe you can tell us what it was like the first time you jumped on stage as a standup, because most people can’t really imagine what that’d be like.

But you stand on stage and the audience is sitting there going your job is to make me laugh, so go on, make me laugh. That’s hard. Yeah. I think that, that’s definitely the worst audience member that could be if that, that they’re coming with that attitude. But you’re right. No, that is the, that is what people pay for a show.

And I think that what I learned is that there are comedians that take that part very seriously. They go and they’re not just doing a throwaway show and throwaway event. They know people that have come out. They’ve paid money. They’ve gotten babysitters in some cases. Not for me, obviously I’m not in this category, but I think what I’ve noticed is that you try to take it with that same approach and mentality.

You try to prepare. And I think that’s a really. Good lesson that I learned from folks is really giving a crap, giving, really making this very important to you. And so that you not only prepare what you’re gonna say, but you’re very dialed in and focused and very present in what’s going on in the room.

And then the next thing is like reps, like it’s scary, but it’s only scary if it’s your first time or second time, third time, it’s, the scare the scare turns to nervousness and this, and the nervousness is different than the scare. Because the nervousness is because now you want it to go really well.

You know that nervousness is just meaning that you care about it. And so you can ask other comedians like, do you still feel nervous? Where you get on stage, people that are huge, and they’ll say yes. And that is coming from a place of I want it to go very well versus in the beginning. It’s scary because you’re not used to it.

You haven’t gone through the ups and downs or the bombs or the failures, and so you don’t know the worst that could happen. But most comics, they have to go through the worst before they can have really good sets, myself included. I have so many moments where I’ve bombed for five, 10 minutes straight.

It’s the worst feeling in the world. But that’s those are scars and calluses that I can leverage. Not just for future performances, but sort of anything that I’m getting into of being like, I know it can go bad, but also I’ve survived a lot of crappy awkward moments where my body is telling me they hate it.

At the end of the day you survive. And and it’s just another story that you can tell yourself that you’re resilient. Is it, tell me when you talk about laugh and development, is it that. It just puts a smile on people’s faces and brings the barriers down. Or does it carry some level of expectation in a similar way for people?

Do you find? I think that the laughing component is to let people know that this is going to be fun, and that is the mo most important aspect. We’re not calling it jokes, and development. And I think that’s a very clear distinction between jokes and laughter. People can laugh in a whole different number of ways, and the whole, the goal is that we are going to do these games and exercises, and I almost guarantee you are going to laugh out of the experience and you’re going to laugh probably within the first five minutes because we’re going to do something silly.

Enough that you are going to break down your barrier and you’re gonna make a mistake and you’re gonna laugh at the mistake and you’re going to laugh at others making mistakes, and suddenly nobody really cares. And you’ve broken down these barriers. So the laughing component of it is, it’s a result of what’s gonna happen and when and then the development part of it is also another result of what’s gonna happen.

And when you can combine laughing and development together. When you laugh, you and you associate a new skill with a moment of laughter, your brain remembers it better. So our goal is to always be combining the laughing with the development. And that’s why we named it that because applied Improv and applied standup has have so many opportunities for people to laugh and connect with one another, and then simultaneously learn something that they can take away and use in the future.

And we didn’t. Talk too much about it but the musical comedy side of things as well. So I’m open to having a musical comedy version of the, of this show. So whenever you’re ready, just just pluck out the guitar and get going. But no, I, in all seriousness, I wanted to ask you as well, you talked earlier on about learning from a lot of the comedians and things.

So tell me what are some of the biggest learnings that you’ve had? And if you wanna name drop a few people, go for it. But are there some particular things that you’ve learned that have then transferred across to this stuff that you’re doing in, in, in laugh and development, I can name a lot of comics that I’ve worked with and I could talk forever about this.

I’ll just focus on one. And someone I’ve worked very close with over the years, a comedian named Jessica Kirson. She’s, your favorite comics, favorite comic. She is amazing. She’s such a killer. And I had the pleasure of opening for her once. And, I was opening for her and I remember doing my set and it was whatever, my, my experience my I did the job I hosted, it was a fun time.

But when I saw Jessica go up there, you open that door and it was the loudest laughs you’ve ever heard she’s killing for. And I only did 10 minutes, she’s doing 60 and she’s. Lighting the room on fire. She’s absolutely crushing. And I went up to her after and I was like, how do you kill every single time?

And I was like, that is what I heard in my room versus what it was like when you were up there. Those are two different sounds. How do I get to where you are? And she said, Kevin, I’ve been doing this for over 30 years. And that was it. It was, that was the answer. It was like, I have been in it, I’ve been in the trenches.

You’ve been doing this, for seven years or whatever the number was at the time. You, we don’t compare and experience, and it was one of these like aha moments where it’s especially in comedy, but throughout all of our, professional experience. We wanna cut the line and we wanna, get to that goal faster.

And the older that we get, the more we realize how important those years of struggling are to our final story and how hard we could kill it in the professional world. And so I think that was one of my let me zoom out for a second and realize where I am. And I’m on a, I’m on a journey, whether that’s in comedy or as an entrepreneur.

And, I’ve had a lot of lows during that time. But that is ultimately for, I’m investing in my ability to have really big successes in the near future and beyond. So that’s how I look at it. And that was probably my biggest skill I took away from a comedian. What I really enjoy about Jessica and I followed her for a while on in my feeds on social is that a lot of her stuff is bouncing off the audience.

She’s, it’s not it’s amazing. See, great comedians like a, like a Jerry Seinfeld and the like, and they have a pre-prepared routine. They do know how to respond to an audience jumping in as well, but a lot of her stuff is built around what is in front of her. That’s she’s a killer.

She’s, she is, she knows how to work a room. She’s very adaptable. She really embodies a lot of the stuff that we’re learning or teaching and laughing and development. She’s really good at improvising and she’s really good at working with what she’s got. She’s really good at her act and her material that she’s honed over the years.

She. She can, I’ve heard her do sets back to back to back. So I’ve heard like them do run consecutively and the breaths that she takes are conscious, like she is such a master at her craft. And not only does she work with what she’s got to. Bring the audience back in. She’s doing that to bring them in so that she can really knock them out with a tried and true joke that she knows is kills in any environment.

So she’s constantly rope a doping, the, her audience members and no one kills harder than her. And she’s and it’s because she’s got, it’s she’s like out of a helicopter, like shooting like two giant guns. You know what I mean? So she’s just but it’s she’s awesome.

And she’s amazing at what she does, and she’s a good friend. Two quick things to wrap things up. One is, are there some top tips that you can give businesses from the things that you’re doing and that you’ve picked up to open their minds as to what you can do with this sort of stuff that you are doing?

My lesson to businesses always, whether they work with us or not, is find a way to improve your team’s active listening skills, which will then help them more empathetically communicate, which then will allow them to be more vulnerable and that will allow people to trust one another. And those steps are very important and that’s what we aim for in all the workshops that we do.

Is with that ultimate goal of kind of building people up in that mentality and that can pay the dividends for internal team collaboration. It can be external with clients and prospects, and it’s really investing in your team’s emotional quotient. And that’s, it has to, I’m not saying don’t do other types of trainings and professional development.

It’s allowing people to be very well-rounded. But don’t forget that these emotional skills are invaluable and could arguably be the X factor in helping your team reach its full potential. So one final question. I love those tips by the way, and thank you for that. The final question that I have, and I always like to ask all my guests this question, what’s the aha moment that businesses have when they come to work with you that you wish more people knew they were gonna have in advance?

The aha moment is that is a lot more fun than I thought it would ever be. That’s the, we do a survey before the event and after the event, and almost always the, before we ask people to say one word or a phrase, and the phrase always before is tired. Don’t wanna do this apathetic, just neutral or negative.

And the words that they end with are. Enlightened ex inspired, energetic, open to new experiences. It’s just completely opposite of what they had going into it, the experience they had. So that’s I show that to people to say it doesn’t matter. This is a work event.

People in general are just gonna feel negative about a work event. But here’s what people feel afterwards, and it’s always gonna be opposite and exciting. And so we try to really help people understand that everyone just gets into it and we build our programs to make sure that the first five minutes is, are way different than the last five.

Thank you so much for all of those insights and we’re going to remind everyone that we’ll put lots of details in the show notes of how to get in touch with you, but it’s Laugh Events is the website address where you can find lots and lots of information about how to work with you. Kevin, thank you so much for being a part of the program.

Thoroughly enjoyed the conversation. Yeah, thanks for having me. All right, everyone pay attention to the show notes so you can get in touch with Kevin and we look forward to your company next time. Don’t forget to subscribe so you never miss an episode. We’ll see you next time on Biz Bites for Thought Leaders.

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