 Subway, it's like the metro. It was morning rush hours. And it wasn't pretty. I was crammed in that train car with the other citizens of New York City. We weren't awake yet. We were trying not to spill coffee on each other, clutching our cell phones. And to top it all off, there's a young mother sitting with a screaming toddler. Screaming. Over by the door, there was this gentleman who I noticed because he was taller than everybody else. And he was wearing this spectacular suit. But I think what really caught my eye about him was the fact that it was as if he was in his own cool little bubble while the rest of us were suffering. To my surprise, this man suddenly spoke to the people around him. Excuse me, pardon me. He walked right over to that screaming child, crouched down next to him and he said, what do you need, little man? The kid stopped screaming. The mom's face flashed from hopeless to terrified to relieved. The two of them chatted for a few minutes. I couldn't hear what they said at this point. But I noticed that the shoulders of every person on that train car dropped. A few stations later, he got off. And I guarantee whatever he was going in that fabulous suit, when he got there, he didn't do that performance. What do you need, little man? No, but he got there, he did a very different performance. But all of us on that train car were so grateful for the risky, creative choice that he made in that moment. So I've told that story many times. The business executives that I work with and performance of a lifetime workshops find that story helpful to think about all the choices that we each have available to us all the time. Forgive me, I'm so emotional from all the talks this morning. I want to say, so I brought this up with me. Okay, yeah, so I want to talk about his choices. So he could have yelled at that mom. He could have said, get that kid off the train. He could have just stayed quietly in his cool little bubble, silent, not doing anything. But instead, he made this improvisation of choice to walk toward the screaming kid, to say yes, and engage. So many of us here know that improvisational game, new choice. Yeah, well that's basically what we do with our clients at performance of a lifetime. We help them imagine, improvise and perform new choices, choices that diverge from the status quo, choices that might feel impossible or unnatural. And it's kind of subversive, really. It's a subversive thing to do because we're helping people break the rules and make up new ones. We're saying things don't have to be the way they always have been. You don't have to be the way you always have been. We're encouraging our clients to perform their way into new possibilities. So speaking of possibilities and subversion and subways, the history of performance of a lifetime, some of it can be found on the subway. Our CEO and co-founder, Kathy Saylid, some of you know her, longtime AIM member, she is a radical community activist and in the early 80s, she with a small group of other people got together and decided they wanted to change the world. Specifically, they wanted to start a union of poor people in New York City. The way they would do this is they would get on the subway trains and they would make announcements and they would do scenes about the importance of empowering the poor and the crisis of capitalism and other lefty pronouncements and they would sell their radical newspapers. Now, this performance that they would do, it was unusual. People were not getting on subway trains in those days and making announcements. In fact, we can probably thank them for all the people that now get on subways. It seemed impossible. It was hard. They got arrested a lot. But they kept doing it. They kept asking people to stand up, citizens of New York, and help the poor. And it worked. The nickels, dimes and quarters that they raised funded free legal clinics all over New York City. And in the end, they built a union of over 8,000 people on welfare. So Kathy and her comrades were subversive. They wouldn't have called what they were doing improvisation because improv wasn't in the common lexicon yet. But they were getting on these train cars and making up scenes. It looked different every time. Instead of simply saying no to what was happening in the world, they said yes and they built with what was there. And that use of performance for social change is happening all over the world. It's becoming a global movement. It's what I'm hearing from all of you over the last couple of days. It's one of the reasons I'm so emotional. And like yesterday we heard from Caitlin about the book that she did with Teresa. All the stories that are being gathered of the work that people are doing and the impact that it is having and how your stories are going to be in addition to three, four, five, six, and seven. So we're all using applied improvisation in different ways. And we don't talk about it in different ways. But what we're doing by helping people perform in new ways is helping them subvert their own personal status quotes and the larger cultural status quotes. They're saying we're helping them be who they are and who they are not yet. Who they are beckoning. So I want to talk about this idea of beckoning very briefly. A performance of a lifetime we call becoming principal. And the core of the idea is that in order to grow and change you have to tap into some of the basic human capabilities of being able to perform and pretend and play. And that's what enables you to grow and change. It's cute. What's she doing? She's performing. And the nearest adult joins in that performance and says I know sweetheart, cell phone service is terrible here. That's when something amazing happens. In that ensemble performance, because that's what enables that little girl to learn how to talk. Because in that ensemble performance, the adult is relating to that child as who she is and who she is not yet. Who she is for growth, for transformation that we have as children. It doesn't go away when we grow up. We can reignite that with performance and improvisation. And that's what I hear everybody talking about. That's what you are doing. When we work with veterans with improv or with teenagers or in Israel in the army or in Japan in the educational system. We are helping people subvert their status quo. We're reminding them they can change their lives. We're helping them be who they are and who they are not yet. Who they are for coming. So I want to close with one of my favorite quotations. Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. This was said by cultural anthropologist Margaret Mead. And it's true that a small group of people can change the world for good or ill. It's one of the reasons she became one of the biggest citizens. They're coming to hug me. So Margaret Mead was a rule breaker. She was a change maker because she taught the world that we can, she showed the world that the rules that we think of as our culture are changeable and they look different all over the world. And she was also my grandmother. She would love you all for being the thoughtful, committed citizens that you are who are changing the world. Thank you.