 How about now? It's the magic of electricity. Collaboration. So, I would love to, hi. Hi. Oh, which one is mine? Sorry. Talk amongst yourself. It's that one right there. Okay, it's all right. Well, this comes up. So, lately in my life, so this is me, this is actually me. I'm Gary Hirsch, and I am part of a company called On Your Feet, and we've been, thank you. Thank all two of you. Thank you. Three. All right, cool. Oh, stop it. So, we've been playing with this applied stuff since 16 years, actually, going on it. And I've had this lately, like in the last, I don't know, three or four months, this sort of overwhelming sense of just sort of crazy, deep, I can't figure it out, appreciation for my own life, actually. Like looking at what I have and what's going on and go, holy shit, I cannot believe this. So, in this work that we do, that you do, that we do, I get to do amazing things. I get to draw, I get to play, I get to play with grown-ups and make them draw. I mean, I get to do all sorts of crazy stuff, and I get paid for it. Just nuts. It's absolutely nuts. And I get to feel exhilarated and surprised and sometimes scared. And I've been lately going, wow, how did this happen? How did I find myself in a place that this is my reality? Because it is nuts, and it is not like the reality of a lot of other people out there. It's not like the reality of a lot of people that I work with. And so I was just thinking about it more and more, and I thought, is there something I can put my hands on and go, that's why? Because honestly, and this is the truth for me, and I do believe it, this is for me appreciating my own sort of life. It's not because I'm incredibly talented, definitely not good-looking, the tall people always get success, I'm not one of them. So it's like, what's this about? And I hit on one idea, and that's the one I wanted to share with you today. And it's not my idea, it's stolen. It's this one. If you're not familiar with this idea, I learned it, and who knows where it actually comes from? I'll bet you do. But I learned it from this guy a long time ago when I took some classes with Keith Johnstone. And he says that, or I understand it as this idea that there's something big and scary out there. And at least on stage, what the audience wants you to do is to go towards it, because that's more interesting. They don't want you to leave the opening of the scary cave, they want you to go towards the thing that's in the scary cave. And I learned that as sort of learning how to become an improviser and perform on stage. But as I keep looking back at my own life, I keep seeing this thing reoccur all the time. And so I want to share with you a story of Meet Your Monster from my own life. You just sort of reflect on it, and then I'm going to ask four people to come up and share a story from their lives of meeting their own monster. And I've never heard them, and I have no idea what they're going to say, but I wanted to have a collaborative experience as well around this idea. So when I was young, oh no, sorry, one other thing. The other reason why, that's Keith, there he is, he's there again. The other reason I'm really attracted to this idea of Meet Your Monster is because my 17-year-old son decided to adopt it as his band name. I know, isn't that awesome? So this is Meet Your Monster. I don't know what the hell they're doing, but they're doing something. Actually, we'll move on. So when I was little, and this is kind of how this thing all got embedded for me, when I was small, I had a ton of night mirrors. And these weren't just that sort of like ambiguous, oh, I wake up frightened thing. When I was young, I woke up with these vivid images in my mind of the door of my bedroom busting open with this giant hand that would grab me. If that wasn't scary enough, then this monster that owned this hand would eat me. If that wasn't scary enough, he had a graveyard in his belly, and the zombies would come out and chase me around some more. It just kept going. It was really pretty scary stuff, and it would reoccur and happen a lot. So to deal with this, I would go to my father, and I would say, dad, I'm having all these night mirrors. And he was a wise soul and still is, and he said, well, come on down the kitchen, and I'm going to make you something. Would you like to eat it? I said, cinnamon toast, please, with lots of sugar. And he'd make it, and we'd sit down, and then here's the thing he asked me to do. He would ask me to take out a pencil, deliberately a pencil, and to draw them, to draw these monsters in pencil, pen, whatever you could find. And so I did. I would draw them. And then, i.e. collaboration, if that's the theme here, he and I would name them. We'd start to name them together. What's this one? Big, scary red monster. What's this one? Giant, crazy, going to kill you monster. And these are the drawings. Yeah, it's awesome. I have them. This is so cool, because they saved them. And so we would draw these things, and this is his handwriting here. I can't really see it, but I know that I have the actual drawing. This is Lobster Monster. They get named. And I have giant boxes of these in my attic. So we would do this for a while. And then what my dad said to me one night, and I do remember this really vividly. Probably about six or seven. He said, okay, let's draw those monsters again. So I drew them. And then he said, I want you to turn your pencil around. Instead of drawing them, I want you to start to erase them. Smart. So he started to erase these drawings. And night after night, we did this. And these things slowly went away. So he didn't have them anymore. So he had me meet these monsters and look at them and confront them. And since then, I can't stop meeting these monsters in my own life. And so I have gone on to create imagery and art, and these are recent, that still bring these things to life and put them out into the world. I've got my monsters. Face them. Don't run away from them. Thank you, Keith. And do something with them. And they've evolved, and they've become these small little things that now the monsters are getting distributed a lot, because I can make thousands of them and put them out into the world and see what they do with the world. And so this idea of meeting your monster, it prevails through this On Your Feet thing as well. I don't have a business background at all. I had to actually practice how to ask for my very first fee on stage. Someone said, you need to practice saying $5,000. And I was like, I can't even say that. So I go out on stage and go, hello, mom. I need $5,000 to practice saying it. And it continues to reward me. And this talk is simply an invitation to ask you to keep doing this if you are and start doing this if you're not. And the last thing I'll say before we sort of do something with this is that it's a simple idea. Go towards the thing you're scared of. I think it can be really hard to do. It's really fun to try. And I am really interested lately in, i.e., this idea which I've learned from Kat Coppett, which is story is meaning. And if you tell a lot of stories about something, you're going to learn more and understand more about it. And in that spirit, I am really interested in collecting stories of people meeting their monster. Because I want to understand this more. It's been really impactful for me in my life. And in that spirit, I'd like to invite any of you to share with me any stories you have around this idea. Whatever it really means to you, there's no real definition. It's sort of an idea. And finally, in the time that we've got, I'd love to find a way to create a collaborative experience around it. So I've asked four people that I know, but I don't know what they're going to say, to tell us a meet your monster story from their lives that are true. And I want to do it with a stolen improv form as well that I stole. I give all my improv forms that I can't think of who to credit. I just credit Rebecca. So Rebecca, Rebecca, you probably taught me this. I can't really remember. So can I have Greg and Amy and who else? Terry and Brad. You guys, you around? Give them a hand, please. Excellent. We have six and a half minutes. It's totally doable. All right. Hi, guys. Thanks for coming up. Yeah, just to sort of a straight line here. So this is Greg and Amy and Brad and Terry. I've asked them to come up. I said, do you guys have a story around this meet your monster thing? That's true for you in your life. And they're like, what the hell's meet your monster thing? So I had to tell them. And then they're like, yeah, I think so. Maybe I'm not sure, but they boldly came up anyway. So thank you. And what I want to do is do a orchestrated story or a story weave around this. Also, because I think this is such a kick-ass form and you should be doing it if you're not. It's a great way to get stories out into the room in a way that's dynamic. So here's how it's going to work. In a moment, I'm going to point at one of them and probably actually hold the mic up for them or pass you the mic even. And I'm asking them to start their story. And whoever I'm pointing at, they'll keep talking. As soon as I take my hand away, they'll stop. I'll point to someone else and they'll pick it up. They'll take their story and start it. When I come back to a person, they're going to just keep telling their own story. So essentially, they're telling their own story but interrupted and fragmented by the other person. So some of you know this. It's cool. So here we go. Here's some stories. Let's see what we can learn about this idea of meat, your monster. So the truck pulled in and I saw him and my heart started pounding. I was behind the counter at the hardware store I was working at. Last week, he had done the math and figured out I was gay. I had this fear of heights since I was really, really young. I remember vividly nightmares about a fear of heights and falling down buildings and stairs with holes in between. And also I'm not a fan of fast motion and big twisty things. So not long ago, I found myself for a work engagement at Disney World. So I was at a conference a lot like this with a lot of people who are really competent at what they do and very exciting and dynamic. I got asked to do this thing in front of everybody and it scared the shit out of me. I had heard about people running marathons and I thought, wow, what is that like? I'd read about people climbing Mount Everest and I thought, what's it like to be in the death zone? What is it like to be running at mile 24 when you've been running for hours? And so I decided I'd try one. The week prior, he belittled me and I'd never been faced with this kind of bigotry openly. So I had talked to my manager and supervisor and said, if this happens again, I'm going to go off. In a respectful manner. And I thought, okay, okay, okay, what can I do here? How can I do this performance that I don't know what it is? Well, I could tell the story about when my kid almost died or I could tell the story about when I had to go barrel racing and I was afraid of it. Wait a minute. So I was hanging out with my cool, uber-relaxed colleague, Brad. And I wanted to be cool and uber-relaxed too. And we met this really nice lady that worked at Disney World. God knows why she came up to us and she said, hey, I think I can get you guys to the front of the line for expedition Everest. I trained. I definitely put in my training runs. And the only thing was that on this November morning it was about 50 degrees and raining. And so I headed out with a group that was on a pace to do it at four hours. And I thought, that seems reasonable. Well, I'm really interested in the narrative. And so I told myself I was really interested in seeing how they did the narrative of a roller coaster at Disney World and that somehow that interest was going to override this lifelong fear. And so I went to the front of the line. It was a great experience for me to say, what is it that I'm learning here? Wait a minute. What is it that I'm learning? And I could look at all the people that were there as being part of my assistance, my help. They could teach me what I needed to learn and I could forget my fears until my name was called. So the door swung open and I heard it. He's like, hi, princess. And I was like, come here. We're going to have a little talk about respect. And I said, look, I treat you with respect every time you walk through the door for the last year and a half. So if you can't afford that to give that to me, I'm going to call your manager and you'll never be back in someone else will. Well, they buckled us in. I held on tight. And it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. It was actually about 25 times worse. At mile 13, my iliotibial band started to tighten up on me because of the cold and the wet. And the pain started to be very sharp in my knee. I actually climbed into the back of somebody's station wagon and started stretching out. I hope that that person was a race official. So he looked left and looked right. There was another African-American guy standing there. He kind of looked pleadingly at him. And that African-American guy says, you better listen to what the man says. And he went out with his tail between his legs. My stomach fell into my stomach and my sweat glands started exuding sweat and my throat started to close. And I thought, maybe I'll say no at the last minute. And then I realized that I had just learned all that I needed to know to get over it and move on. And that it had to do with having a giant eraser. And that I could just erase the monster and fill that void with something positive for myself. So I had to change up my stride and I ran like a little wind-up person. And all of a sudden I was passing people and passing people and passing people and passing people. And I couldn't even believe it. And then I hit the wall. And then it really didn't matter how I ran. Part of my fear I realized was not just the fear of the fear itself, but the fear of looking super afraid. And this ride pushed me so far beyond that that I couldn't even control my leg anymore. It started kind of involuntarily moving. And when I got off, I felt kind of nauseated and trembling for about 36 hours afterwards. And came to the conclusion that I would definitely rather give birth again than go on expedition at rest again. Meet their monsters. Thank you guys. Thank you. Thanks guys. Thanks for the stories. Thank you.