 So, as many of you know, I am a nerd. In addition to that, I also do stand-up and improv comedy. And I've done nearly a thousand shows in my lifetime, all around the world, in 49 states, 14 countries, and on three continents. When I was recently at my high school reunion, not too long ago, I was telling some friends, some old friends from school, that I did stand-up and improv comedy. And they said, but you're not funny. And they were right, especially with how they knew me, because this, if we can get this to work, is not the face of funny, right? Yes, it is a funny face, right? Because there's a lot that is funny about this picture, and none of it is intentional, right? I have the old school Justin Timberlake die tips that I was going for, baggy clothes that are far too big for me. The theme at the bottom is Into a Dream. And I am no one's dream in this picture, right? Because I was never the life of the party. I was never the class clown in school. I am very much an introvert, right? If you know Myers-Briggs, I am INTJ. If you know Star Wars, I'm R2D2. It's a translation, right? But what I've learned since then is that we are not our personality assessments, right? A personality assessment is only a single moment at a single point in time. And we are, in fact, more of what we do, right? We are defined by our actions. So if we act as a comedian, we are a comedian. And for me, if I act like someone who is socially capable, I am actually socially capable, as opposed to being someone who is socially awkward, right? And I learned it through comedy. When I was at the Ohio State University getting my degree in computer science and engineering, my best friend wanted to start an improv comedy group and he needed people to join. So he forced me to do it. That's how I got into improv. And as you can tell from this picture, we were not very good. At least to start, right? Because we had no idea what we were doing. We watched Tuesday's line, is it anyway, and tried to repeat what we saw. We knew nothing of yes and or of the various schools of thought and stuff. But with practice and repetition, we got better. And over time, after I graduated and started working at Procter & Gamois, I started to realize that the same skills you need to be an effective improviser are the same skills you need to be an effective conversationalist. And that's very, very important because conversation matters. Now, for many of you, especially the extroverts in the room, this slide seems really weird. Why would we even need to explore why conversation matters? But as an engineer, as an introvert, I wanted to see if there is a slight possibility, if maybe, just maybe, I didn't have to talk to other people. I wouldn't. But the reality is that we have to because that's how we get jobs. 70% of jobs are found through networking, through conversing with other people and the same is probably true for us finding our clients as well. It also will make us more productive. In one study they found by increasing the amount that coworkers were able to talk to each other, they increased productivity by 8%. But it also impacts us as human beings. It improves our ability to enjoy this life that we have. In the Harvard Grant study, one of the largest longitudinal studies ever done that looked at what makes for a meaningful and happy life, the founder of the study said, the only thing that really matters in life are your relationships to other people. More so than anything else. Our relationships, right? So it means it leads to our happiness as well. So it does matter. But for me, I started to understand, okay, so then how do we converse? How can we actually do things? So as an engineer, I developed a three-step system. Right? Of course, right? Step number one is to ask compelling questions. If you read How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie, you'll say the key to being a conversationalist is to ask questions, right? Because after you've had that conversation with someone and you've asked questions and they've talked, they'll be like, oh, wow, you're a really good conversationalist. And you'll be like, yeah, it's because I shut up and let you talk. Right? But in improv, we sometimes learn at least at the basic level not to ask questions, right? Because it's putting the work on the other person. But we realize later that if we ask value-added questions, if we ask questions that add information, it becomes easier. And that's why we want to ask compelling questions. Because so often we hear the normal, same questions every single day. And if we ask the normal questions, we get the normal responses. And we're not really having a conversation so much as having a dress rehearsal for all the things that we've planned, right? So we ask compelling questions. Instead of saying, what do you do, we can ask, what's the coolest thing that's a different response? Instead of asking where are you from, you can ask what's the best thing about your hometown? Instead of asking how have you liked the conference, you can ask what's the most useful thing you've learned so far, right? You're going to get the answer to the first question, but get a lot more in the second question as well. Step number two is to tell interesting stories. When we talk about asking compelling questions, it doesn't mean only ask questions. If you're in a conversation and someone is like, ah, so tell me why you decided to start humor that works. You don't turn it around and be like, why did you decide to start humor that works? Because that doesn't even make sense. Right? It shouldn't feel like an interrogation. It shouldn't feel like 20 questions. You still want to actually answer the questions other people ask of you. But rather than just giving a straight response, you can tell a story. Because we are natural storytellers, right? That last session, we hear the power of a story. But not only that, in one study they found that facts told in a story are 20 times more likely to be remembered than facts told in bullet point form. Right? It helps people remember who you actually are and gives context to what you're doing. As improvisers, we learn that as a story spine, right? Ken Adams' phenomenal story spine. In business, we might learn that as context action results. Because reality is a lot of the people around you are still going to ask those same questions. You're still going to get asked, what do you do? And instead of just saying, oh, I'm a facilitator to improv, you might say something like, oh, well, I've always been obsessed with efficiency. But then I learned later that there's a difference between being efficient and being effective. Right? And we have to be effective with human beings. And I started to realize that the skill set that allowed me to be effective with people was improvisation. So now I teach organizations how to be more effective using humor and improvisation. And as a result, they're more productive, less stressed and happier. Right? I've given the context the action and the results of that. So I've answered their question, but in a way that they're more likely to remember. And in those individual connections that we share things, that's where we're going to connect and build our relationships. Because when I mentioned that I'm from Ohio, the people from Ohio are going to come up and talk to me like, oh, I'm from Cincinnati. I'm from Cleveland. Go Buckeyes. Oh, H. I.O., right? If I mention that, oh, I love comedy and I love studying comedians. And one of my favorite comedians is Eddie Izzard. If you love Eddie Izzard as well, we'll come up and we'll talk and we'll talk about cake or death or we'll talk about the Death Star canteen. We'll talk about these great things. If I say I'm an introvert, my fellow introverts will probably not come up and talk to me, but we'll have a knowing look across the room. And we connect and we build our relationships. The third step is yes and. Because this is how you know what questions to ask, what stories to tell is we use our natural ability to yes and the conversation. Because I love this question. Right? This is the heart of small talk, right? This is the heart of where everything feels like it starts to get awkward. And I love this question for a number of reasons. One, I just love talking about the weather. The weather is fascinating, right? I recently found out that there are 1,800 tornadoes in the United States every single year. 1,800. So many of our relationships have started with this question of how about this weather. And no one remembers 20 years from now, people aren't like, I have a really good relationship with this person, but I remember our first conversation started talking about the weather, so I don't like them all that much. We forget about it, but how about this weather is great and you can yes and this question. How about this weather? Yes, it's beautiful out. And if you had another day here at Blueberry Lake, how would you spend it? We can get into more fascinating areas. So this is our three steps of conversation, our three steps to go from socially awkward to socially awesome, right? We can do this. And I would tell you that I'm still very, very much an introvert, right? Sometimes feel like this. And please don't take this the wrong way because I have loved this conference. I have loved all of our conversations together. I love the conversations that I'm going to have. But later tonight when I'm at my hotel, I'm going to be very happy when I don't have to see any of you. Right? Because that is my time to reflect. That is my time to recharge and to think about this conference. And I'm going to think about all the incredible impact that we have as improvisers. I'm going to think about Jim and the work that he's doing with kids and autism, and Marv with the stuff that he's doing with Alzheimer's patients, and all the incredible things that we're doing at a big scale with improvisation. But I'm also going to reflect and think about the things, things like improv the individual, introverted computer geek actually get up and be able to share their message and talk with other people. Thank you guys very much.