 So I'd like you to imagine if the world could be a place where we would all stop fearing about our own future. So I would like now to close your eyes and to also imagine if life could be the opportunity for you to bring in the best in this world, to bring in the change you want to see in this world. And now I want you to imagine if planet Earth could be the playground for you unique personalities to be fully expressed. Doesn't it feel good? My name is Tessa Manuello and this morning I want to tell you about my personal journey of how improvisation can not only build great scenes but also great lives. And this morning I will tell you about how I did this crazy thing of applying the principles of improv into my personal life. So it all started in 2007. This is me with Professor Thercier who was at the time chairman of the International Court of Abitration. I was living in Paris and I was a legal professional helping businesses and sometimes states resolving international commercial disputes. So that may seem like a really cool and interesting thing to do and yes it was great. I was working 12 hours per day sometimes. But that was great because did I tell you that I'm a radical optimist? It means I had another 12 hours for myself. It's radical optimists they see the empty part of the glass when the other part which is filled is filled with bad stuff so there's another half which is actually empty. So that's great. So with those 12 hours per day you take off like the sleeping time you take away eating, you take away shopping. I had like about three hours where I could really enjoy myself. And so I started an improv workshop because I really wanted to have fun and this is where it all started with this improv workshop. This is how my life started transforming. Wait, wait. I have to think about, wait. Thank you, thank you. Yeah, well maybe let's try the next line. Yeah, that's transformation. This is how I transformed. I arrived in Canada so my environment transformed. I transformed and the only thing that did not change was that I continued doing improv because a lot did so much. And actually I really got serious about doing improv. I started my own show, a bilingual show here in Montreal and this is me with my partner where I was playing, it was an improvised long-form theatre play. And so yeah, and so this is how everything started with improv. And then I decided, wow, I can do that on stage. I can create great scenes. I can behave like a random person and turn his or her life into something great. Like I can make those people become heroes on stage. And then I said, wow, why don't I do that in my real life? Why don't I become the hero that I want to be? And this is how I said maybe I could try applying the principles of improv in my real life. That was my enlightenment. That was my epiphany. I was like, let's do that for real. And so I started saying yes and to offers in my real life. And it's kind of interesting what happened. So I discovered I had a passion for writing poetry. Yes, and I started a blog for 100 days every morning writing poems. Then through the writing community, I got offered a possibility to write for a journal. Yes, and I even suggested to write about this woman who was making a documentary about a female in actually the mountains of Turkey, the Kurdish women fighting. You know the story, you've heard about the whole thing happening and she still went, no matter what she went there, to make the documentary. I wanted to do new things at work. So yes, and I started volunteering for a new initiative on the voluntary basis helping women gather with other women to learn about leadership. And yes, I wanted to continue improv. So I applied for a French festival in Montreal and we got this beautiful Improspection show done. So that was a little crazy doing all of those things because I was like, oh my God, what comes next? What are the options now available? What am I going to do with that? And it feels great, but it's also very frightening. And it's frightening because psychologists say that. There's a psychologist Schwartz in the paradox of choice. He says that having so many options is great, but it can actually incapacitate you because it's frightening. You don't know what to choose anymore. And then this is how I continued with the Improved Principles. When it doubt, state the obvious. Use whatever you have on stage. Don't you find that sometimes on stage we want to bring in things to serve us on stage while we already have everything we need? And so we bring in like stupid things sometimes because we are so afraid. And then you have so many things to handle, you are getting lost. And so this is why I decided, okay, I'll do just the obvious. I will pick whatever I have. Stop thinking for some more things. I will use what I have. I wanted to continue writing. So I said, yeah, I should maybe take a creative writing class. I wanted to write scripts for movies. So I said, oh yeah, I'm going to take a class in scripting. And I met with a friend of mine who was a writer. And he was also a copywriter. And I asked him, should I be a poet? Should I do that? Should I take those classes? Should I be like with eyes, like with light in the eyes and hope and good intentions? And he said, no, Tessa. No. I said, why not? I want to do that. He said, no. You have to go back and do this low thing. You have to become an attorney. You spend so much time doing that. And I crumbled. I said, I don't want to be an attorney. He said, you have to do that. And I said, yeah, it's really the obvious thing to do. I don't want to do that. But it's so obvious. I'm going to use the principles of improve. And I'm going to stick to it. So I went back to law school in Canada to take the classes I needed to take to be competent here in what I know what to do. And so I went to the University of Sherbrooke. And eventually, just before moving on, as an improviser we accept offers and we're always smiling and happy. So I did my best to do that. Yay! I'm going back to law school. I'm super happy about that. Yay! Then in improv we say, you are not alone. You have a team of improvisers with you on stage. So team up. Give you 100%. So I said, okay, I have to give my 100% to make it work. Even if it's frightening, sometimes emotionally you're not really sure about what you're doing. Maybe sometimes financially you make change. It's frightening because your financial situation changes and not for the better when you do those changes. But you have to commit 100% on stage to make it work. If you give you 50%, the scene does not work. So in life I said, I'm going to do the same. I'm going to give my 100%. And even until yesterday, actually, I had an offer to work for the federal elections in Canada that are coming up very soon. And I said, well, that would be nice to make a little bit of money but then I said, no, because this is not what I want to do. I have to give my 100%. So I canceled. I said, look, I cannot do that. I am in this conference. I'm learning so many great things. So next week, instead of working for the elections, I'm going to be just like transferring the knowledge of all the great stations that I've seen here today. One minute? Yes, continue. So Viola Spollin said, the fear is not of the unknown. Of not knowing. So what I want to, the message I want to convey today is that we tend to stay in our conference zone because we are afraid that we don't know what's going to happen next. And my invitation for you would be really to just say yes and to offers that will take you to some places where you don't know what's going to take you. You don't have the answers. And so maybe at this conference, you've met some people that have suggested made offers to you, maybe for a business partnership working together. Maybe there's a significant other here that has expressed some good intentions towards you. Maybe you have some resistance. Maybe you want to say yes and and see what happens. Finding your true nature. So I invite you to serve yourself with yes and offers and explore what you don't know yet. Thank you very much for your attention.