 Hello everybody! First of all, thank you Applied Improvisation Network for letting me do this little presentation. I wanted to be with you and I was invited to come to present a workshop. Unfortunately, due to circumstances here in Ukraine, I cannot do that, but I'm allowed to share with you a few thoughts that I have had during this war and the insights that I have gotten because I have been involved with the Applied Impro for many years and I loved doing improv myself and I loved using Applied Improvisation in my teaching materials, whether it's English as a second language or personal development as a manager or all kinds of different workshops and seminars that I have done in the course of many years. So here are a few thoughts. Before I share the thoughts and before I share some points, I want to underline that all this goes under a big title, Improv for Resilience. These are the thoughts and these are the tips and the life hacks and insights that have turned me into a soldier from being a public presenter, entertainer, teacher, TV host in the course of just a few hours. As you remember, everything started February 24. Well, for us it started back in 2014 when Russia annexed Crimea. So the war broke out back then, then it slowed down for some time and on February 24 Russia has taken a full-scale invasion onto our territory, killing thousands of people, destroying hundreds of cities and towns and villages and on February 24 I woke up a different man. So here are the thoughts that have helped me to stay afloat, have helped me to stay in my mind, have helped me to stay sober, concentrate and be effective in what I have never done being a soldier. I put on the uniform and for four and a half months I was in the frontlines doing my assignments, fulfilling the mission that I was given and these thoughts helped me a lot. One, of course yes and of course this is the rule, the principle, the core of Improv. This is the only thing that helps me creating Improv on stage, but this is the skill, not knowledge, the skill that when you play Improv you concentrate on being flexible enough to accept whatever comes your way regardless whether you like it or not, regardless how much value you see in it, regardless how much you know or you don't know about this. So yes, accepting an end is what are you going to do with this. So this was the main thing for me because that was the attitude that I have developed since 2009 by just playing Improv, but this is exactly the skill that will help you in whatever comes your way. In my situation on February 24 it was the war. In my situation it was the complete change of everything I did. It turned my life upside down 100%. I left all of my projects, I left all of my ideas, dreams, thoughts and in spite of my emotions, in spite of my fear, I accepted it because what else can you do if you cannot change it that way? It already happened. Don't bargain with it, don't think it's going to go away by itself, you have to act, you have to accept. So the faster you accept it, the faster you come up with an end and the faster and the sooner you get a chance to change the circumstance and be a winner. Number two, remember we play Improv with God. I don't know how much you believe in God, you can call it the universe or whatever, but I call it the way it is. We play Improv with God. He brings the circumstances. He has the freedom to change the circumstances. He gives us the all the ideas and you know thoughts or the things that happen around us. We as good improvisers, we have to learn to play with this. We have to learn to accept it, we have to learn to develop it. You are given the circumstances from the birth and then you're given a lot of circumstances during life. Just remember in the last week how many times your circumstances have changed and it didn't depend on you, it depended on many other facts, factors from all over the world or from so many other people or systems or businesses, friends, partners, family members, from anyone. Well we're talking about even health, we're talking about even delivery boy that didn't bring pizza on time or coffee was not made the way you like it or the future partnership hasn't come out the way you wanted or the offers from partners you didn't get the way what you really wanted and what you really worked on or you wake up you don't feel as good as you should have or as you wanted or the rain came when you had your best long-dreamed picnic. God is our partner in the improv, God is our partner in while we improv improvise our life. So how are you going to accept it? How are you going to play with this? If you have played with other improvisers you know you cannot control what they think, you cannot expect them to understand what you think so the way you communicate and the way you develop your skills that's one side but then you still have them other improvisers bringing in some other things and thoughts and ideas and you have to play on with it, you have to develop it, you have to work on it because they're your partners so I believe and in my case God has allowed this to happen. I don't want to go deep into the theology but it happened so in my case I have to play with this so applied improv that's what it's all about. Number three it's not about what happened, it's about your reaction to what happened, it's not about the circumstances, it's about how you react to those circumstances. In many cases in life we notice that it is our reaction that turns a typical situation or a small difficult situation into a conflict or into a problem. Until you call something a problem it's not, just want to remind that one more time, repeat it, until you call it a problem it is not, it's just a situation, it's just another case, it's just something different, it's just something that has changed the typical course of your life. So I know that war is a problem, I know that war is a bad thing but in my mind it was the acceptance of the circumstances regardless how I treat it, regardless of my attitude, I knew that I have to act upon it, I knew I had to keep on going and I knew I need to do something so that's why I put the uniform, that's why I joined the territorial defense and that's why I do all my best to kill the enemy and to bring freedom into our country. Point number four creativity, you know in improv we always think of creativity as jokes, as something funny, and in a sense it is if we talk about improv on stage because after all it's improv comedy, however in life creativity is not about jokes, creativity is about finding a way, once you accept, once you accept the offer then you find a way to develop it, but before you accept it sometimes people think oh I don't know how to deal with this, I don't know what to do, I don't see the option, I don't see any other options, I'm in a dead end, that's it, really let me tell you, improv develops creativity, when you play improv you work on creativity, you work on new neural connections that help you find the way, help you find other doors when this door is closed, help you find the doors when you think you are against the wall, so I want to tell you this, that in my case it was the acceptance that helped me find the path, helped me find the action plan, what to do, what to do next, I don't have all the solutions, I don't have all the steps, but neither do I have them when I improvise, when I do solo improv, the best thing I know is only step number one, accepting, accepting the offer, so you make one step, you do what you can and then other ideas come a long way, what's the point of thinking of step number three, step number five, step number ten, if all the circumstances in the world around you do not depend on you, they can change in a second, so there is no point to that, so sometimes you get into stupor, you get stuck, if you think too far ahead, the moment when you accept the offer, the moment when you start thinking only of your first step, this is when you open up for other creative ideas of step two, step three, and on and on, and then you believed as I have right now four and a half months in the war and you have new ideas, many other ideas, the ideas that I did not have on February 24, but now I see the light at the end of the tunnel, I see other options, I see many other opportunities, so please accepting helps you develop your creativity, and so please improvise, improv, do improv on your own, don't just teach it, improvise yourself, please, because this is the way that you can develop your own creativity to find the way out when you think you're stuck but you're not, and final point number five, just to quote from the bible, from the good old bible, if you are faithful in small things you will be trusted with bigger things, this is exactly about improv, this is exactly about our life, sometimes we're overwhelmed with a lot of things, well trust me I know what it means to be overwhelmed, February 24, the first several weeks of the war have overwhelmed me a lot, but it was improv that helped me first to evaluate my thoughts and my emotions, it was difficult to handle them because of so many new emotions, traumatic emotions that I have had, but because improv when it's trained, when it's done, when it's on the level of skills, then your neural connections bringing all the best that you have trained in the real life situation and sorts out through the overwhelming, basically the only way the you know, overwhelming that's the thing that really sometimes gets the person into stupor situation, condition, gets the person into being stuck and not knowing what to do and people of course go to counselors or psychologists, psychotherapists to help them find the way, basically the professional help is good, the professional help sometimes just basically the coaching helps you to find the first step, the second step sort out the things that you cannot control and the things that you are able to control. Okay, so but most of the times when you do improv yourself, you can do it yourself. So you sort out the things that you cannot control, and you put them aside, and then you're free to concentrate on the things that you can control, what you can do right now. This is the only way to get out of the overwhelming, the only way to get out of being stuck and find the way. All right, so faithful and small things means do what you can, doesn't matter what you cannot do, doesn't matter what other circumstances are out there and you have no control over them. Okay, will you put your life in the hands of the circumstances that you cannot control? Well, that's a very reactive thinking. Now we're talking about proactive thinking. Okay, my favorite book is Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. The only difference is that this book is a good theory, applied improv is the practice applied improv is something that gets the theory into your skills. Instead of I know it, I know about it, you will be the kind of person that can say, I'm able to do it, I do it. So be faithful and smaller things, concentrate on something that you can do. Don't worry about other things that you cannot control. Concentrate on the things that you can do. And this will help you be victorious. Guys, thank you very much for letting me share these insights. Please remember, we will win with your support. And my biggest dream is to bring you together to help Ukraine, to develop the programs, the clinics that with the help of applied improv, we will be able to help the soldiers, the refugees, and the children. So please, let me know if you're if you're interested. Let's put our thoughts together. I don't know step two, but I know step one, and I'm trying to do it. Step one is appealing to you with all of your expertise with all of your help with all of the international support, we can develop a movement which we can help all the existing improv studios teach them in applied improv principles that they can, after war, develop their studios and then use the applied improv principles. Because improv, just for the sake of teaching people to be funny on stage, is not enough. We're talking about the rescuing minds of people, souls of people, that they come back to being good people that are able to take the responsibility over their life, find creative ways how to live on, how to move on with all of the losses that we have had, how to still still see a possibility, still see an open door, and bring life back together from all the different pieces that this war has caused. Thank you very much. So let me know, I will share my email here, just write to me, give me your thoughts, give me your feedback and let's let's make it happen. Slava Ukraini!