Speaking and Communicating Podcast

Staying in the game in an improv performance means don't give up. Don't quit on your teammates. Don't quit on your idea. Do something, make choices to stay in the game for it to be successful. Welcome back to the Speaking and Communicating podcast. I am your host Roberta. If you are looking to improve your communication skills, both professionally and personally, this is the podcast you should be tuning into.
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Communication and soft skills are crucial in your career growth and leadership development. Whether you're about to speak in public, make presentations at work, pitch to investors, or are an entrepreneur looking to showcase your innovation to a wider audience, you would be glad you joined us. The Speaking and Communicating podcast is part of the Be Podcast Network, which is a centralized hub.
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that helps listeners become their best selves at work and in life. To learn more about the Bee Podcast Network, go to beepodcastnetwork.com. Let's get communicating!
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Today we have the tadaa energy in the room. This podcast is going to be full of enthusiasm, energy and excitement because my guest, Joel Zeff, is a keynote speaker. He's an emcee, author of the book, Make the Right Choice. And in all of his conferences, he brings tadaa energy. And you might think that's only reserved for your corporate conferences, ah ah.
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Joel even advises you when you finish using the bathroom, you must say to yourself, ta-da! Like children do. And before I go any further, please help me welcome him to the show. Hi Joel. Hi Roberta. That was a fantastic introduction. I don't even know where we go from there. That was so good. Ta-da! I'm glad you liked it. Ta-da! Welcome to the show. That was great. Thank you. Thank you for having me. Thank you for being here. And like you were saying, there's so much we-
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do the so much greatness that we accomplish, but we never give ourselves that ta-da moment. But before we get into that, please tell us a little bit about yourself. Oh, thank you. So I started as a journalist. That's my degree. I have a degree from the University of Kansas. I'm a Jayhawk, very proud of that. And so I was a newspaper reporter for a couple of years, then went into advertising, PR, worked for a couple of agencies. At one point I found myself unemployed.
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The newspaper I was working for had closed. And so I had a lot of free time. So I started doing standup comedy and then found my way into improv comedy, which was just love at first sight. It was just what I was meant to do. And I always tell people the first time I went to an improv comedy show, it was a lot like that movie, you know, where the main character has that moment and you go, and the music goes, and sometimes if it's a cartoon, there's
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little birds that are flying around. It was that moment. I mean, it was literally that moment. I mean, I had seen the light and I didn't know how that was going to be part of my life at that moment, but it became my life. And I performed for many years with that comedy troupe doing improv. And then one of my PR clients was Texas instruments and they were having an executive retreat and they said, Hey, we know you do improv on the weekend.
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Can you come up, do some of those improv games with us? It was all executives, VP level, technology. I think it was their notebook computer division. I said yes. And I actually took another performer with me, had no idea what I was going to do, where it was going to go, how I was gonna get from point A to point B. We just kind of went with it. And a big part of improv is just saying yes. And so we said yes, and we were playing these games with these executives. They loved it.
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I loved it and the little light bulbs started flickering. So I started offering it to other clients and just one thing led to another. And now 2,500 events later, I'm the to-dub guy and I use improv to talk about teamwork and leadership and communication and being present in the moment and finding success during change and disruption. And I'm extremely fortunate that I followed my passion and found that love and was able to make a career
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with that passion and with something that I truly loved. Which is what we all dream about, find what you love and make a living out of it. Right, right. You know, sometimes I speak to college students and one of the things I always say is, just figure out what you would do for free and follow that. And you'd be surprised how you can find a career if you just follow what you love and what you're passionate about. When I first started presenting, doing keynotes, many, many,
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events were free. And if you gave me a $25 gift card to like Chili's or Applebee's, I was thrilled. I was like, Oh my god, I love Applebee's too. A Chili's gift card. And then you know, a sweatshirt, a paper weight with a clock in it. I mean, many, many times, because I loved it. At that point, I really didn't have a plan other than I loved sharing what I learned from improv and what improv meant to me. And
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playing these games with people that needed this energy. They needed this outlet. They needed to laugh and have fun to kind of re-energize their spirit. And I love that one thing led to another and it built. And just like anything, your name gets passed around. And I just followed what I loved and what I would do for free. And I say that to college students or any student and adults too, you know, in the workforce that I speak to, just if you're unhappy, follow what you love, follow what you would do for free and you'd be surprised.
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what magic happens when you do that. Absolutely. Just for the sake of context, if you started working the newspaper business, that means you started this a long time ago, no? No, I'm like 24, Roberta, you can't tell. I'm like, I just like two years. For any listeners, Joel's 24. No, I did. I graduated university in 1990 and worked for newspapers for a couple of years. Then the newspaper I was working for in Dallas,
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close, which was a very monumental moment in my life that day. And I say that all the time that the birth of my two children when I got married and the day that I lost my job at the newspaper are monumental moments in my life. It just kind of was a time for reflection and discovery and finding my way. And, and that's when I started doing standup because I had a lot of free time because I didn't have a job. It was when I started taking improv workshops and just kind of
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following that love and passion, not having a plan, letting everything kind of take its course. And that's when I kind of discovered that I could share this love of improv and what it meant and the great messages and choices that it taught me and that people would be interested. Once I started doing that, just like anything, if you do a great job, people pass your name around. That's what happened. I loved what I did. I was fulfilled and I just kept doing it.
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kept passing my name around and it kept building and building and building. I have many clients that go back to the beginning and clients that I've done dozens of events for, I'm very fortunate, very lucky, and I love what I do. And I just followed that passion. If any listener is listening to you and they're thinking, I'm not funny. So improv is not for me. What would you say to them? Improv not necessarily is about being funny. In fact,
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It's about making these choices, working together as a team, finding this success. It was originally designed as a teaching tool back in the late thirties, early forties at NYU, a professor named Viola Spolan created improv to teach her students. She felt that when you're in that play mode, you retain more, you engage more, you kind of bring your, your barriers down a little bit and it helps you learn. And so.
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And when I'm on stage and I bring audience volunteers up to play an improv game, you don't have to be funny. You just have to be part of the team, work together and make these choices. And the creativity and the fun always happens. Hey, this is Tata. I tell people all the time, especially if you are interested in being a better communicator, which is obviously a big part of what your podcast is all about. Improv is an amazing tool. And I recommend.
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executives all the time. Take an improv class at your local improv theater. You know, your goal isn't to be entertaining. Your goal isn't to, I want to be on stage and be an actor. Your goal is to be a better communicator and improv is a wonderful tool to learn how to be a better communicator. Which means I should sign up immediately. Oh, you'd be great. Yeah, you would be amazed what you can learn, what improv teaches us and how we communicate. Sometimes as communicators, and people always talk about
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You know, the fear of public speaking. Well, it's really a fear of making a mistake. It's a fear of being judged, not taking a risk. You know, improv is all about taking away a lot of those fears because you're making choices. There's no script. There's no rehearsal. It's just there in the moment. And so it teaches you that mistakes are part of the communication process. Every time I speak on stage, I'm going to make a mistake. I'm going to flub a word.
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I'm going to forget something that I wanted to say. That's part of it. And improv embraces that. When you embrace that, you take away some of those, the fear of making a mistake, the fear of forgetting something or not doing a great job. You take away those fears and that elevates your confidence, elevates your skillset, and then you actually become a better communicator. You take some of those worries and fears away and it gives you that freedom. And that freedom is very powerful.
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Hmm. So when you take away all the fluff, the real talent, skill, gift, whatever is inside of you is what actually comes out. Yeah, you're pressed down with those fears. And it creates stress, creates worry. And then you're not at your best. You have that skill set, you have those abilities. But most of the time, it's those fears that are pushing us down or not allowing us to be successful.
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When did you decide that part of your main theme when you do these conferences is remind adults, because we lose this as we grow old, I would think, oh, it's for children to celebrate and say, oh, I just want to do this, ta-da! Nobody does that. When did you decide you were gonna incorporate that into your work? Well, that positive support is such a big part of improv. I mentioned earlier, when you're on stage and you say,
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We should go to grandma's house. The other performer has to say, yes, let's go to grandma's house. If they say no, the improv stops. You've hit a wall. So yes is a big part of improv and yes. And you're adding to it. And I discovered early in the process that I needed to find a better way to communicate what that meant to executives, to frontline, to middle managers, to any type of industry or employee.
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You know, it was really about being positive and supportive and what that did, how that fueled our abilities, fueled us as far as reaching our goals, being better communicator, better leader, better teammate, better innovator. And that positive support was so important. And so it was just kind of building on that and finding a way for that celebration, because when the audience applauds and laughs, you can literally see when I have an audience volunteer on stage.
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they, he or she does more. The audience laughs and applaud. The person on stage does more. You can even see in their body language, they become more confident. You know, their voices is better. They communicate in a better way. And so is that positive support? How important that feedback is. If it's not always there, we have to celebrate ourselves and we have to celebrate our successes when you're little. And my kids are now 16 and 20, but when the kids were little,
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everything's a celebration. We celebrate everything our children do. They eat a cheese sandwich or like you ate the whole sandwich. Look he tried to stand up and banged his head on the coffee table. You throw a ball, I mean anything. You make any you you put some red marks on a piece of paper. And they make a mess on the wall. You're an artist. We celebrate everything and when you celebrate
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You could see it builds their confidence, right? Especially, you know, think about when they're trying to walk, you know, it builds their confidence. They're excited. They have a big smile. And you give them that positive support and that confidence. And that's what TADA is all about, celebrating these moments. And as we get older, we need to celebrate these moments more. We don't celebrate enough moments. You know, maybe once a year we have an award. We hand out awards. But we need to celebrate every day.
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customers, for your team, for your partners, for your vendors, for your support team, something I guarantee you that deserves that celebration. And it is moving the ball forward. It's creating, it's building. And so we have to celebrate and we celebrate our passion goes up, our stress goes down. You know that principle of you cannot give something to people if you don't give it to yourself or if you don't have it yourself.
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Could that be the reason sometimes we don't celebrate others? Cause we don't celebrate ourselves to begin with. We forget, we just get into the mindset. We gotta work hard, we gotta get everything done. We gotta get to our list and we forget that celebration is a part of work. And it's not just when you do the big deal or you have the big sale or you do something or you create something.
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And that's a big moment. It's these little things. And when we celebrate and create that positive environment, it's very important. I always talk about, I have a job where I get a round of applause. When I do my job, people applaud. I don't even have to be that good, Roberta. I could be just like, I can have an off day. People still applaud. People will, I mean, okay, he was fine. I mean, he was okay. Not our favorite, but he was okay. And so most people...
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don't have a job where they get a round of applause. I'm very lucky that I have this job. I get a round of applause and it fuels me. It's so special. It's an amazing moment when you get that round of applause. And I love it. I need it. And most people don't have a job where they get around applause. They deserve it. Teachers, nurses, everybody deserves that round of applause. They put so much effort and work into what they do. They deserve a round of applause and they don't receive it. And I say, look, if someone's not giving you a round of applause, then you give it to yourself.
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As soon as you show up for work, you just...
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the way you're looking at me now, Roberta. And you just go, yeah, I'm really good today. I'm really rocking the IT, accounting, HR, nails, whatever you do. And it fuels you, it gets you that energy going. And it's so important, you know, that fuel is so important in what we produce every day. And if we don't have that fuel, we're not gonna be a great communicator, a great leader, a great teammate, or great innovator. Have to have that fuel.
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Do you think that ties in with one of your key principles, which is be in the moment, which is what you said improv teaches you? Yeah, I think it's very important. When you're really present, you know what everybody around you needs. You're a good listener and you're present in what's happening. And you know that that person that you're working with needs a little encouragement or positive support, or maybe some mentoring. So important. We talk about being present in the moment in improv, because it forces you.
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Improv is an art form. It forces you to be present. You can only think about the game, the what you're trying to accomplish. You can't think about anything else. And it's a really amazing place to be. And we're not going to be present in the moment every second, but we need to spend more time being present in the moment, because that's when we're at our best as a communicator, as a leader, as a teammate. What are some of the feedback you've received over the years from companies that you've worked with and done conferences for?
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I'm curious, especially as to some of your previous videos, first of all, do they know what to expect that you're going to get them to do what we consider silly, but now we know it's tada and how has bringing that out of them benefited them in their work afterwards? No, certainly they know what to expect. I mean, the companies with bad cultures that don't care about their employees that are all about the bottom line, they're not going to hire me. Right.
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I work with companies that have great cultures that care about their employees, that care about their success because they know their success means success for the company, means success for the bottom line, means success for their customers. And so they want them to rise, to be better, to learn, to grow. And those are the types of companies that bring me in. There's no greater honor than when a company brings you back. I have clients that I've done dozens of events with.
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year after year after year after year. And companies that I work with, and then five years later, they call me and bring me back or two years. They bring me back and that's a huge, huge honor. And people want to play. They want to laugh. They want to be energized in today's world. People are asked to do more with less, you know, the stress is there, the frustration. We have to kind of find our energy. We have to understand.
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There's no better way to spend time with a group of people than through laughter. It creates an energy. It connects us. It creates a level of respect. It builds relationships. It's an important aspect of how we work together and what we do. And when I come in and create that energy and we laugh and we have fun, I say right up front, I go, look, if that's all you get out of it, I'm cool. There's no better way to spend time.
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with your team or your customers or the people around you, then through laughter and fun, again, it connects us. It builds relationships. But we're going to talk about these choices. And improv is an amazing art form and it taught me a lot. And I want to share some of these choices. We talked about being present in the moment. We talked about positive support, but there's also these amazing choices in how we deal with change and disruption and how we create opportunity and how we help each other be successful and how we stay in the game.
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when we learn to be better communicators and better teammates. And that energy is part of that. If any grownups are listening and they're thinking, if I finished cooking dinner, you want me to go, tell her I finished cooking dinner. I do. I want to mix it up. Especially if it's good. And then they think if anybody's in the house, they're going to think I'm silly. I'm going crazy. I should take my meds. What would you say to them? Well, I think silly is a big part of life and I think it helps reduce our stress. And.
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helps create that energy and that's important, you know, that fuel that we need. Laughter is a very powerful medicine for everything. And it really is important that we laugh and we have that fun and silly is a part of that. Whimsy is a part of that. It's a crucial aspect of how we grow and how we communicate. And it's a big part of my life. And I love sharing the importance of laughter and fun and silliness.
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And because it really brings us together and connects us. And when do you think we lose that? I don't know if that's a psychology question or it's fair to ask you, but when do we lose? Cause as kids, we have it naturally. When do we start thinking? Because sometimes we do discourage others when they do that in our presence. And like, stop being silly, be a grown up. You know, I think it comes a little at a time and we don't even notice. We start making decisions that aren't based on
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Is this fun? You know, I look at my kids, you know, that are 16 and 20 and most of their decisions are based on, is this fun? Am I gonna go do this? Is this fun? Am I gonna go work out? Well, is it fun? Am I gonna go hang out with my friends and go to this movie? Is it fun? You know, most of the decisions are based on that. And then little by little, we start making decisions that aren't based on fun. They're based on career. They're based on family. They're based on income. They're based on many other things
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the fun isn't the priority. And all of a sudden people sometimes wake up one day and they're working for a company they don't believe in. They're not passionate about what they do. They made choices and they're like, how did I get here? And where's the fun? And I think they have to kind of evaluate what they're doing and you can have fun at any job. I remember I talked about this in my book that one of my first jobs, I worked at a movie theater. I was cleaning up people's trash and you know, you smelled like popcorn all the time. And you know.
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You clean the popcorn machine, the hot dog machine. And, but it was then that I discovered that just because you're working hard or just because you're at a job, this isn't going to be your career. You can still have fun and put passion into it. It will energize you and you'll get more out of it and you'll be better at what you do. Let me tell you another story. When I was working at the newspaper, the Dallas Times Herald, and the day I found out that I lost my job, they called me up and said, the paper's closing.
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Come clean out your desk. Tomorrow's the last day. I had just moved to Dallas six months prior. I was working in Michigan, had a great job there, friends, packed everything up, came to Dallas. Six months later, I'm out of work. That should be a sad, tough day. And I had to make a choice that day. I could say, well, I'm gonna let them choose for me. The situation's gonna choose for me to be frustrated and stressed and discouraged and disappointed, or I get to choose.
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And I'm going to choose to be positive and passionate. And I'm going to choose to see this as an opportunity. I'm going to choose to see this as a door being opened rather than door being closed. That was my choice. And it was a really important choice that I'm not letting the situation or something out of my control choose how I feel. I'm going to choose that day. So they said, come clean out your desk. And when I left my one bedroom apartment with.
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Hardly any furniture, by the way. I took- I'm wondering what happened to the lease agreement, because that's what we would be asking. What do they think I'm gonna do with this lease? I just moved to Dallas. Hey, they gave you a severance check. So I left my one-bedroom apartment to go clean out my desk, and I took this magic harmonica. This is a magic harmonica. Have you ever seen a magic harmonica, Roberta? Of course, of course, yes. It's a magic harmonica.
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And so, but have you seen a magic harmonica? You've seen a harmonica but has a different- I've seen a harmonic. I don't remember anybody labeling them the magic. So I'm wondering what the difference is. This is magical. Yep, I'll tell you why it's magical. I have no musical ability, Roberta. I'm tone deaf. I love music, but I can't sing. I can't play music, but I can play one note on the magic harmonica. And I bought this because I went to a lecture in college and I don't even remember it, Roberta. I just remember.
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that I bought this harmonica. And I think it was obviously a harmonica player, had to be. So I don't know why anybody else would sell harmonica. And it's not like I walked out of my apartment grabbing the harmonica before, I didn't. I just had it. And for some reason, when they said, come clean out your desk, I grabbed the harmonica. And I surveyed the situation when I got down in the newspaper and I saw everybody had a range of emotions that we just discussed. You know, they were disappointed, they were discouraged, they were sad, they were stressed, they were angry.
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They're confused. They're not making that choice. The situation is controlling and making them make that choice. The media had collected at the back loading dock. And I went out there and I don't have any memory of why I did it or what my plan was. And so I kind of surveyed the situation and I pulled out my magic harmonica. So the cameras, the TV cameras, the news, you know, this is a big deal. When the newspaper closed, it's a big deal in 1991. It's a big deal.
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that a major newspaper closed. And so I kind of looked at everybody and went, I lost my job. I got no money. I lost my money and my job. I just moved here six months ago. I got nothing. That was really, people are probably listening to your podcast going, that was the worst harmonica playing I've ever heard. I should call Simon Cowell on you. Yeah.
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It's not that good, but you can play harmonica and sound like you know a little bit what you're doing. But in all honesty, it's very good, though. Good improv. You made the song on the spot, I'm guessing. Yes, I did. Yeah. So the cameras went, you could actually hear Roberto, you could actually hear the cameras go. And so I was on like the local news and the newspaper put a big photo of me.
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I went as viral as you can go in 1991. Back in the 90s before. Back in 1991 before social media. People like across the country go, I saw you playing the harmonica on this news story. And I'm like, oh, they must've picked up the story of the paper closing. So it was just me being silly. We talked about silly, right? Yes. It was me being silly, but it was a choice that energized me and it allowed me to take control back.
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Right? I just lost my job. I just moved here six months ago. That little bit of whimsy, that little bit of silly gave me the ability to take back control of how I felt, of what I was going to do, of my state of emotion. And it was important, right? And if I didn't do that, I probably would have been stressed and like, what am I gonna do now? I just moved here or where am I gonna work or how am I gonna pay my bills? But I took control back.
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And that silliness was really important. And it really taught me something. How important that was that most changes out of your control. We only control how we react. We choose how we react to change. And I chose to embrace that fun and silliness and it really energized me and helped me in the months following, you know, as I decided what I want to do. And I started doing standup for the first time. It motivated me to do standup, to follow that passion.
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to take more improv workshops, to follow that passion. And I auditioned and got in the troop. This is all why I did during the unemployment phase. And it was really, really important for me. And that moment led to this moment. If the paper didn't close, if I didn't lose my job, I might still be a newspaper reporter. I might be on CNN right now. I don't know where that path would have gone. But because I lost my job, because I had this free time, because I started...
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doing standup got into an improv troupe. And then one of my clients who saw me asked me to present at their event. And then I kind of followed that. I didn't even know speakers existed. I didn't even know people hired keynote speakers. And so that moment led to another moment, which led to many moments, which led me to this podcast and has led me to my 2,500 events of sharing my love of improv.
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and sharing it with a vast array of different organizations and industries and associations, bringing that energy and that joy and talking about these choices. And that moment led to those moments. You know, it's the irony of that story. Usually when things that, like you said, are out of our control happen, we get frustrated because we feel like we're losing control. The frustration and the stress is, how do I still control it? But you said,
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I lost my job, I have no money, here's my magic harmonica. I'm gonna take back control of the situation. Yeah, it was important for me. I don't know if I knew that's what I was doing at that moment, but it was important choice. And it was funny was I remember somebody and I can't see the face. So I don't even know if it was a man or a woman, but when I was playing the harmonica on the back loading dock, someone grabbed my elbow.
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and made me stop. Someone from the paper. I don't understand because nobody works there anymore anyway. It's closing down. And I don't remember who I can't even see the face. But I do remember what they said. And they said it was just like from a movie. They said, you'll never work in this town again. It was literally like a film noir movie. You'll never work in this town again, because I'm playing the harmonica and acting silly in front of everybody. Well, obviously, that's not true. But that's
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Absolutely what happened? Someone said that to me. I'm taking control and someone saw that and like, no. And again, that was a big learning moment too. If you're going to put yourself out there and you're going to take a risk and you're going to try something new and something different, someone's always going to be next to you saying that's a bad idea or you can't do it or you're not good at that. Or you're terrible. I always say, if you're ever on, like if you ever get shipwrecked, if you're on a
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come along very shortly to tell you what a bad idea it is. Immediately like, hey, hang on, I was coming by. I heard you had an idea. That's terrible. That won't work. As if they've tried it before. Nobody's gonna wanna do that. And I know people said to me when I started speaking and doing improv and taking, cause at that time nobody was doing what I was doing as far as one person. Now people were.
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performing improv for corporate events. We're gonna do an improv show and we might, as a group, you know, four or five people, we might say a few things about what improv is, but nobody is by themselves as an individual. And I'm gonna take executives or employees on the stage and we're gonna do an improv game and then we're gonna talk about it. Nobody was doing that. And I'm sure many people said, this is not going to work. I mean, people would call all the time.
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And they said, well, I don't think my people will do that. Or I don't think that will work for our group or that won't work for our audience. And none of that is true, but they just don't see when they're presented with something new, an idea, something different, our first reaction is to say no. Fear of the unknown. Fear, yeah. Which is why during the pandemic, why did everybody push back on everything? Because we didn't change one thing, we changed everything.
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changed where you worked, how you worked, how you shopped, how you entertained yourself, how you socialized. Of course people are gonna freak out. You've literally changed every aspect of their life and you weren't very good at communicating why or how or when if there's a lack of communication, you're gonna put something in that spot. And if you're doing it yourself more than likely, whatever you're putting in there- It's a horror film.
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Yeah, you're going to, you're going to fill it up with something wrong because you don't know any better because there wasn't the right communication or enough communication and we changed everything. That's where the pushback came from. You're one of the motto that you live by in Virginia conferences is stay in the game. Stay in the game. So when you have that arm grabbing off, you'll never work in this town again. What is the one advice you'd have for somebody to stay in the game?
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Don't listen to that person. They don't know that person doesn't know anything. They never do. Right. If we believe that we would still be sitting around hoping lightning strikes a tree so we could have fire because that's the way we always did it. That's how we got fire. Right. Lightning struck. Well, there's fire when lightning strikes a tree. I always say, if anyone ever says, well, that's the way we always did it. You just run from that person. They will infect you, but the stain in the game is one of my.
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absolute favorite messages that improv taught me. In improv, again, there's no script, there's no rehearsal. So somebody could say something that doesn't work or takes the performance down the wrong road. And so staying in the game in an improv performance means don't give up, don't quit, don't quit on your teammates, don't quit on your idea, do something, make choices to stay in the game for it to be successful.
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And it was important, it was an important message, stay in the game. You're gonna find a way to find that success, to get it back on track. So we take that to our work lives. What does that mean? What improv teaches us, if we stay in the game, we're going to find success. It might not be tomorrow, it might not be next week, it might not even be next month. But as long as we stay in the game, we're gonna find success. And what does that mean? It's hard, it's hard to stay in the game. I'm not saying it's easy. To quit something is easy.
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When you quit and you say, well, it's too hard, or I don't want to learn something new, or I got to put too much time and effort into it, or I got to train too much, it's easy to quit. There's no work after quit. To stay in the game means you might have to learn something new. You might have to get out of your comfort zone. You might have to work differently, try something different, communicate differently, come up with an idea. You might need more training.
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You might have to work harder. You might have to stay late. It is hard to stay in the game, but what's the result? We're going to find success. Yep. It's going to be there. If you stay in the game, if you quit, the guarantee is you're going to fail. If you stay in the game, you're going to find a way you're going to make choices to find success. The best message improv ever taught me. Best message I could say from stage could teach my kids to stay in the game. You're going to find a way.
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You will have to work hard. You will have to get out of your comfort zone. You will have to do more train, study more, practice more, put more effort in. But the result is you're going to be fulfilled. You're going to, you're going to be rewarded. That's the important aspect. They in the game. When you wrote your book, make the right choice. One last question before you go make the right choice. What is the one right choice that improv taught you?
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that you will play in your life as well? I think just what we mentioned, staying in the game, I think that's, improv is by far, it's just such an influential and huge part of my life and it lands on every aspect of my life. And so all the message of staying in the game, being more present, I have to work on that too, I'm not. Even the expert has to work on it, right? You find moments where you're like, oh, I'm not really present right now, or.
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I'm not being as positive and supportive as I should be or as I can be, or creating opportunity or helping the people around me be successful. And improv, we didn't talk about this, but improv is constant change and disruption. And so improv teaches us how to find that success during change and disruption. And look at all this change and disruption going on. Yes, exactly right. And what improv wants, improv embraces that change and disruption. That's the difference. It embraces it.
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And it teaches us to make certain choices how we find success. And to be more open and flexible is a choice to be more successful. To be more prepared for change is a choice. To be more present in the moment, which we talked about, is a choice. And when we make these choices, change and disruption aren't as scary. And we embrace it and we get out of our comfort zone and we find that that change and disruption will help us.
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find that success, right? To make that next choice, to make that next move that gets us to where we want to go, to find that goal, to reach that goal, to overcome that challenge or obstacle, to be a better communicator or innovator or a better leader. And we have to embrace it. Change is going to happen whether we like it every single day. It's how we react to that change. Words of wisdom from the Ta-da man, Joel Zeff, who is a keynote speaker.
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MC and author of Make the Right Choice and improv expert, Joel with Get It Ta-da! Sam's the best podcast in the history of podcasts. Right there. In the history of all podcasts, this just happened. If you're not paying attention and listening to Roberta's podcast, you're missing out on probably the greatest podcast in the history of podcasts.
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Thank you very much for that shout out. And before you go, if we want more tata encouragement, where can we find you on the socials and websites? I do a lot on LinkedIn. That's how we connect. Yes, we talk a lot on LinkedIn. Yeah, LinkedIn. So very Joel's F, it's very easy to find me. Z-E-F-F, very easy to find me. I'm on Facebook at TheJoel'sF as well. I've taken a little break, but I'm gonna get back on there. The goal, Roberta, the goal is to start that Instagram page.
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But LinkedIn and Facebook, Joel's pretty easy to find me. I bet your kids will help you with the Instagram for sure. I don't know how this works. And of course my website is just my name, joelzef.com, which I'm updating. And so new websites should be out fairly soon. So I had an absolutely awesome time with you, Roberta. Thank you so much. Cut out for me. This has been awesome. Yes. Thank you so much.
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Thank you for being here, bringing your energy. Literally anybody who's gonna be listening to this on audio will feel the energy, the enthusiasm, all of this. It just literally comes out of the screen from you. So thank you so much. Plus they got free harmonica. And free harmonica. Roberta, probably the best podcast in the whole wide world. Make sure you listen to Roberta's podcast. With the great Joel Zeff.
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Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome, the Roberta Podcast
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The Speaking and Communicating podcast is part of the Be Podcast Network, where there are many other podcasts that support you in being a better leader and becoming the change you want to see. To learn more about the Be Podcast Network, go to BePodcastNetwork.com. Don't forget to subscribe, leave us a rating and a review on Apple and Spotify, and stay tuned for more episodes to come.