 Hello everyone Okay, I have about bad coughs. I'm gonna just start out by saying excuse my voice So how many of you are familiar with emotional intelligence Okay, pretty much everyone. How many of you are familiar with relational intelligence? Couple, okay. How many of you are in the business of relational intelligence even though you don't know what that may be Okay So relational intelligence is the process by which we center relationships and I am a researcher of play and a consultant on relational practices So let's play a little bit. This may be a very familiar slide If you work with children or had children or having around children, you know that they instinctively Learned through play, but how about us adults? What happens to us? When are we going to catch up to the children? research shows that For learning when learning is occurring we have synaptic connections being made in our brain and It takes 400 Reputations for that connection to be made And as Pablo was talking earlier when we are in play the learning the repetitions take only 10 to 20 Yes So what's play of all the population in the world? That knows his best is at this conference because improv is play So play with me What is play in your best possible playful way whether it's quiet or out there Whichever way your style is just turn to your neighbor shout it out whisper it out. We don't have much time just 30 seconds Maybe 20 and then when the music stops Rather they should say when the music starts go and when the music stops pause. That's all so Go music Okay That was a quick play Just call out. What was play what came up fun? What else? freedom Present present from the world. Oh gosh. I'm just making up words here flow. Thank you exuberance laughter excellent Scripted unscripted I've got a script folks Anyway, I usually don't do script. I challenge myself to go for this version. So I As a consultant of relational practices and researcher of play use play as a methodology to enquire about what is play? I do play workshops all over the world from China to India to this part of the world and I start out by asking the very question you were kind of playing about what's play and Then at the end of the workshop, I say what's play again Starts out with fun and as you can see very quickly the differences are pretty stark Improv is kind of hidden out there in the first and it just comes forward creativity engagement learning and The first one is more like child focused if you may games playing as an activity But this idea that play is so multidimensional Hardly is in our awareness and this is thanks to Aristotle That we are all following just like the mind-body split how many of you do the mind-body split work trying to combine We have Aristotle to thank who divided work and play So that's a whole another call Yeah, thanks. So for me, what's most important in doing this work is To bring home this idea that life is a creative activity. I challenge your research methodology too So that's another whole workshop for me as Barbara was talking this morning life is about bridges and in play we make bridges as Person who's worked with couples and teams and Looked at how we bring leadership and agency What I notice is one of the first things to go when we get serious is guess what play and Paradoxically The one the number one thing that we need most when things are stuck in the serious stuff of life as Pablo was talking earlier is play so Here's a challenge for all of us Number of you maybe long term maybe new to improv in your personal life How many of you have had whatever with your partner children brother or sister Parents, how many of you have had an argument? Okay, never right. It's right. Thank you. He's our consultant so how many of Ever tried barking during that argument You're tried. Okay, how many have you done any kind of gibberish? I Mean, it's usually senseless to the other person what you're talking because now it's about me being right and you're wrong So it's all gibberish to them anyway, but actually done gibberish Okay, we all know our animals Think again 30 seconds we have Think about your animal think about a person that you're either mad right now or were mad this past week Let it come up feel Feel that energy Remember your animal from last night Using that animal Imagining that person just make that sound so if I was a dog I was a lion so I'll try the lion dog is easier for me With my clients as a couples therapist I get them barking in sessions So try this It's more like a monkey, but that was my lion version that was angry do your animal version for me Okay Try that and that's my question How come we as improvisers Have separated our life on where we do improv and the kind of improv we do and What we do or don't do in our personal lives or in other quarters of our life For me the question is how might we approach our lives as the biggest stage of applied improvisation I am challenging all my friends here With this question. How do we move beyond a Mindset, how do we move beyond thinking of improvised tools as Games as facilitation how do we move to thinking about it as relational intelligence where improv is Just a way of being in play right so quick wrap up The first thing about improv that I learned was yes, and I've been doing it for 20 years never call it improv by the way Built don't block In my part of the world the relational practices world We talk about accepting offers, which is a familiar language here, too When you accept offers you have to be responsive. You guys were responsive I could do the crazy dog angry lion thing because you didn't make me look bad because you accept him I offer and were responsive in that moment. You made me intelligible anybody watching this Video will think later on if you guys are all silent gosh this person is crazy But you were crazy with me in that moment We all let go me included of what it means to be a professional what it means to be whatever idea we have of being at a conference which this whole conference is about and We embraced something that most people find it hard to do in the middle of an argument or when they're trying to make Their case which is how do I step into uncertainty? We know how to step into uncertainty because we get curious in the improv world We call it coloring and advancing how are you detailing it and how are you moving the story forward and Moving the story forward We make a good laugh. I mean we just had a fantastic laugh, right? They just made it up Can we take it beyond the stages of entertainment into our relational lives? where It is about reframing stories and Getting to a place where we are making more generative joyful stories And so as my time is getting up I'm gonna leave with a couple of sides and that is the challenge on how do we? live in all the other spaces, but your improved spaces as Playful beings and if you would like to join me in that inquiry, here's my invitation in my last slide and that is How might we inquire about the improvisational process of relating? In our everyday lives at work and organizations because for me improv is the turn-by-turn Relating with each other. Thank you