 Thank you for that. Hello. We can see people. How good is that? About a year and a half ago, Alex Timmis, my colleagues and I, and the rest of our group at the Mopco Improv Theatre, started a podcast. We knew we were starting it improvisationally. We didn't have a lot of skills to be transparent. And we weren't exactly sure what it was going to be. But we started it with a premise, and the premise was this, that the skills and philosophies and approaches of improvisation didn't just live within the walls of our theatre, or even within the highly structured bodies of work that we were doing in organizations, and weren't just to be trotted out in structured form for training purposes, but that they could also be found organically out in the wild, just in life. And we thought, let's go looking for them. Let's explore them. We named our podcast Dare to Be Human, because we wanted to seek out those principles and find them and reflect this human experience and that it took courage and it took vulnerability and that there was something a little daring about showing up and living these principles that we professed, like focusing on your partner instead of yourself, or celebrating failure, or saying yes and to whatever offers presented themselves in the moment without pre-planning and being able to control everything. We also wanted to name it Dare to Be Human because it sounds a lot like Brene Brown's writings and we want her to find us and to sue us because it will increase our visibility. Brene, we dare you to sue us. We decided to not only provoke Brene Brown, but to begin all of our episodes by asking either our guests or one of our amazing hosts to begin with a Dare to Be Human story. Some examples of people we've spoken with before. John Register is a Paralympic athlete who talks about his encounter with Michelle Obama and then becoming friends. Mikaela Bly is a renowned storyteller formerly of the Moth. She tells a story of a triumphant and healing return to middle school, which is something I think all of us can only dream of and imagine what that would be like. Our very own Jeff Katzman has spoken to us and told us a human story about connecting with an Uber driver who is trying to learn more about empathy. So enough of talking about what we talk about when we talk about things on our podcast. We figured we would do our very first live broadcast of the podcast here on this stage at the AII conference and we have asked Gabe Mercado to help us out. Please welcome Gabe. Gabe, do you have a Dare to Be Human story for us? I do. I'm so glad you said that. We wouldn't have known what to do if you said no. Right. I'd like to take you back to the year 2006. At that time, I was actually married for five years and I had unexpectedly found out through friends that my wife was actually having an affair and I was totally crushed by that, being brought up very traditionally male. It was a huge blow to my ego and I was sharing with my friends how crushed I was and how surprised I was at suddenly being a single parent she had left us and I was sharing with friends and we were walking down the street and we passed by this place where a band was playing and the band was familiar because it was the band of the man she had an affair with and so I said, look, his band is playing and my friends were all with me and I said, let's go in. And this was just like a month after it happened so I walk in and he had a very good band but they were not popular so there was no audience. I walk in and this is the stage I walk to where Marion is and I just stood there in front. I stood there and I had a bag. As you can see, I like bags, so I had a big bag. I had a sling bag in front and it was the last song and I go up on stage right after the last song. He's packing up. I go up on stage and say, hello. You know me. And he put his hands up immediately, looked at my bag and said, is that a gun? Do you have a gun? Are you going to kill me? And I said, and then I had to make the decision to lie that it was a gun or just to assure him that it wasn't a gun because I made the decision not to answer the question and I told him, step outside. I'm going to talk to you. And so I had a conversation. He was saying, you know, she said you were in an open marriage and all of that and you know, I'm the victim here. He said, so what I did was I slapped him very playfully on the face and I said, shush. Me and my son were the victims. And then I walked away and never told him I had no gun but just acted as if I had one. And it was very empowering just to make somebody think that you had a gun and that you were willing to use it. That's my story. Wow. I wish we had our 45 minutes of podcasts to talk to you about this story. Thank you so much for your story. I guess one of my first questions is, how did that moment transform that experience for you or what was different after that moment for you? Being left like that is one of the most emasculating experiences that I had ever felt that I felt, wow. And apparently it was public knowledge, the affair. Everyone knew except me. And so I was feeling less than human, less than male in the old construct of what a man should be. And I felt that just walking in and just standing in front of the stage helped me claim some of the... that I'm not going to be the one walking around in shame. I'm going to reclaim it just by standing there. The bonus part was he thought I was capable of violence. Apparently I can give off that aura. That there's something about the way other people see us and the stories they project onto us which transforms our sense of ourselves. The two moments in that moment that are sticking out are when you stood and just paused and didn't say anything the whole time and just looking at him and then when he asked you just pausing and not saying anything. What part of man-ness do you think that speaks to? Well, for one, I think it made him... I guess I took the status from the room. He was the performer. But I was the lone figure on the floor watching his talented band which had no one else watching him except me and my friends. And not saying anything and not attacking and just putting him in a position where he had to explain without me accusing him of anything. That made me feel that, wow, okay, I'm taking control of the narrative that this is day one that it's not me who should be ashamed. It should be them. The other thing that struck me right away gave about your story is you said my wife cheated on me and I was such a man and there's nothing more emasculating than that. And I'm sure that's true. It was obviously true for you. And being cheated on is so universally heartbreaking. I can say as a woman, being cheated on sucks. And I think it can be really destructive and debilitating. And so I think there's something so universal about it. So it struck me and I don't know what the word is, but there was something sort of heartbreaking about the added isolation of hearing you say as a man, it was so hurtful. Filipino culture is very, well, our roots are very Hispanic. And you can say things about that culture where a man, in the Philippines, it is not normal for a man not to have a mistress for a certain generation. They have that. So it was almost like a double insult that I was the one. And it got into even more personal insecurities about being small, being not tall and all of that. So it was difficult. Well, I'm so glad that it was a story of triumph. And I'm going to now walk around as if I have a gun whenever I need one. In the best sense, maybe not, I don't know, in this world. Maybe not, maybe not. There's a different world at that time. Well, I say that now and I think to myself, wow, we're living in this world and we have all of those associations. And now you've even transformed walking around as if I have a gun can now be a secretly positive thing for me even with all of those terrible associations. So look what stories can do. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thank you. This is what we want to leave you with in the last 10 seconds that we have here with you today. We're going to offer to you that you can go out and dare to be human and seek these moments for yourself and not just have them but capture them for yourself as stories and share them because it is in the sharing that you give other people not just the courage to have them for themselves but their permission to go out and have them in the first place. So share them. And please share them with us. Email, phone, talk to us in person. We want to hear your stories. Thank you. Thank you.