Unless

Unless, from Dr. Seuss' The Lorax

This word has been ringing in my head a bit lately.  It has actually come up for me a couple times this past week.  It’s a big feature in The Lorax, which I went to see last week and the central theme in last weeks TED Talk Favorite post.  I never really thought about unless being a powerful word, but it makes a lot of sense, and it makes the impetus to action really powerful.

First off a bit about The Lorax.  I really liked the film, but I did not love it.  The Lorax is my absolute favorite Dr. Seuss book, so the film had a lot to live up too.  I always get nervous when short children’s books get turned into the movie, because in obvious terms the film needs to get some added backstory, and usually it is horrible.  Usually the added backstory ruins the original theme and feel of the story, with the Lorax the backstory seems to fit in pretty nicely.  The actual Lorax seemed a bit of a weaker character then in the book, but the one thing I really liked was the change in the Onceler character.  The film portrayed the Onceler and Lorax to be a bit closer, the Onceler didn’t seem to want to cut down the trees, but quickly went down a terribly destructive path by making several seemingly insignificant decisions.  That is my theory on how people go bad.  This was encompassed by the quote from the film, “what way does a tree fall, the way it leans, which way will you lean?”

One of my favorite Seuss quotes comes from the Lorax, “Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better, it’s not.”  It really puts the action into the activism cause.  If you care about something, you need to go out and make it happen.  No one else is going to do it for you, and we all have the power to make things happen.

In the Larry Smith TED talk, he basically throws failure and inactivity into your face.  The ending crux of his talk is the word unless, right along with The Lorax.  Unless you take action of your own life, unless you find your passion, unless you don’t let other things distract you from your dreams, you will be unhappy.  There you will be living a second rate life, and who wants to do that. Unless action is taken, a move towards our ultimate dreams and passions.

Vacation Vindication

My family enjoying Disney World during on of my recent trip!

Ask anyone who knows me I am a vacationer.  I find it very important to get out of dodge on a regular basis, even if it is for short bursts of time.  I like to visit my family, and they live pretty far away from me, I love to go to new places, I love to go to Disney.  It might also have to do with some of my goals, one being to set foot in every state.  Those things require me to get out of the office and utilize my vacation time.  While that might not always be the most popular idea, this recent article by Fast Company might prove those ideas wrong.

Unlimited Vacation Doesn’t Create Slackers–It Ensures Productivity

Vacation sometimes seems like a dirty word.  Overall my experiences have placed a value to vacation and putting the time to use, but sometimes it doesn’t always feel that way.  Numerous times I have put my nose to the work email while I have been away, or not getting “everything” done before leaveing and then thinking about or doing work while on the road.  According to the article I am not the only one.

One of the most important aspects for me is not living the 9-5 lifestyle.  I know I know I currently work in the 9-5 environment and definitely live that life.  One of the best aspects of being a live in staff member is I do get to work some funky hours, and I always feel pretty supported in making those long hours work out in positive ways.  This is where the above article comes into play.  Apparently some companies are moving into an unlimited vacation policy, and apparently it is working positively.

Actually productivity is up!  If you hire the right people, those who want to be there and be productive, big shocker, they won’t abuse the system.  The companies have found people are more productive and people work vacation around their busy times and deadlines.  Instead of leaving all the time, people don’t feel the pressure of working these mythical hours around when they can actually take off.  One of the biggest benefits of the new system is no forms, no lost productivity or extra work in tracking everyone’s vacation, no arguments when an employee leaves the company fighting over pay outs and vacation time.  I can relate as I currently moved through that in my job transition, and I have watched fellow employees save up the time for an extra paycheck, something I never believed in.  I always had a firm stance of finding the balance is more important than an extra pay check; you may get more money, but lose something more valuable, time!

I am all about changing up the traditional structure.  How do we make changes, give people more freedom, but push people to be more productive and accountable.  You may say, won’t people take advantage of the system?  I am sure there are a few, but they are the same few who probably take advantage of the current system or don’t work hard anyway, so my thoughts are what’s the difference?  Maybe one day when I own my own company I can give this process a whirl, until then I will live in the 9-5 and time accruals, but doesn’t this new paradigm just sound great?

Live Your Life and Do Good!

The DSI Comedy Theater

I recently accepted a new job, and started the process of moving across the country from my current life.  I have been living in Chapel Hill North Carolina for the past 4 years, and very quickly I received and offer for a new job, accepted, and got whisked away in the process of moving and transition.  The great things about transitions is we get to sit back and be introspective, we see the good the bad and the should have done’s!  I have really enjoyed these last couple weeks, and I think they have really forced me to solidify my life philosophies and purpose going forward.  While this has been something I have been thinking about for a while, this direct major crossroad in my life has forced me into action.  So sit back relax and enjoy as I wax and wane a bit about what I have discovered.

I have always been an easy and quick transitioner.  When I went to college, within one evening I had friends and a purpose, when I moved to Arizona the first time, I quickly found my way and excitement.  When I moved to North Carolina, none of that happened. Maybe it was because for the first time in my life I didn’t have school, and it took me awhile to find out what that meant for me.  Maybe it was because I didn’t find the friend connections to really push me.  For whatever reason, I spent a lot of time struggling.  So much I thought about leaving during that first year, I thought about my options and what that would mean to make another transition so quickly.  Happily I did not do that, and truly that was probably never actually an option, but the thought process existed.

Then a few things changed.  First and foremost I took an improv class at DSI Comedy Theater.  Improv was something that I was enamored with for a long time.  I loved Whose Line, I watched the improv team at my grad school, and just wanted to always give it a try.  I knew DSI existed, and why I waited so long, I am not sure, but the right things come along at the right time.  From that first night of class, with the ever awesome Paula Pazderka, I knew this was the thing I wanted to do.

My staff on the last night I lived in North Carolina

At some point I also found another shift.  In all fronts, I found some people who truly cared about me, be it at work, church and the improv world.  I am reminded directly of the Amy Poehler Harvard graduation speech, “find a group of people who challenge and inspire you, spend a lot of time with them, and it will change your life.”  I found some great people, the one’s who challenge you on a continual basis, the one’s who want you to be a better, the one’s you can argue and debate with in a mutually beneficial way, where everyone leaves the conversation better.

Life in improvland flourished.  Soon I was a company member, I kept collecting teams to be apart of, soon I was allowed the awesome privilege of teaching and coaching others.  Improv became a very important outlet and purpose in life.  I had friends and deep connections outside of work, one of the best outlets that I developed in going to a place where I did not have family or friends before moving there.

One thing I have always known about myself is I need to be connected on an emotional level to the things I am apart of, and the people I am with.  I found these things in improv, DSI is a real gem, a place where “yes and” truly lives and people get to work together to make great things happen on stage.  The Newman Center where I have been attending church was a place where I was also finding community.  At work I had solidified a great friend group and hired a staff of students I truly cared about and worked best in my style of supervision.  All of these things add up to a very difficult place to leave, hence the current state of separation that I am working through.

Through all of this work I have learned several things.  First and foremost I am 100% emotionally connected here.  I am a Tar Heel and I am proud of that, I have gotten to meet and work with amazing people.  At my core I am an improviser, that is something I will NEED to have in my life forever more, and probably the thing I want to spend the most time with going forward.

Also, over the last couple days I have received very humbling words of thanks and love from all aspects of my world.  At work we had a goodbye lunch that was every emotional and kind.  At DSI I was given the opportunity to perform several shows over my last weekend and was given maybe one of the nicest gifts I have ever received, in which people wrote out what the liked about me the person and as an improviser.  I have had many authentic and genuine conversations with people recently about what I meant to them, some that I have known and many impacts I have had on others that I was unaware of.  While it has been amazing to have these conversations, I wish we took the time to tell the people we love that we love them on a more regular basis.  There are so many people I want to say nice things to, and tell them this is what you did for me, and sadly with my limited time schedule those things won’t be able to happen.  I hope to not let that occur in the future and be freer with my authentic conversations.

Lastly, this whole experience has really allowed me to fully actualize my life philosophy.  At some point during this past year I started using the following to phrase “live you life and do good!”  For the first part I think we need to spend more time actually living the life and doing the things we want to do.  Everyone spends too much time not doing what they love, or day dreaming about that cool idea instead of going out there and actually doing it.  Limit the should have done’s, create an actual to done list!  No one else is going to tell us to follow our dreams or take that big step, actually its quite the opposite most people ask you to think out your options and take the safe bet, but we should not.  As in an improv scene we need to make bold choices early and often.  And the last part is do good, a pretty simple adage.  If at every moment I ask myself am I doing the right thing or doing something that is good for myself and others then I am probably on the right track.

Steve Jobs 1955-2011

Steve Jobs was a visionary that did some amazing things, a real creative icon.  In thinking about his passing I wanted to share the 2055 Stanford Commencement video which I think is amazing, and some quotes.  I love quotes, and these are the ones from Jobs that spoke the most to me!

“Sometimes when you innovate, you make mistakes. It is best to admit them quickly, and get on with improving your other innovations.”

“Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart. … Stay hungry. Stay foolish.”

“That’s been one of my mantras — focus and simplicity. Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it’s worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains.”

Magic Kingdom Construction

To celebrate the 40th anniversary of Walt Disney World the Disney blog posted this rare video of the construction of the Magic Kingdom.  One of my favorite things about the park is the vision which led to a #BoldChoice to buy 30,080-acre in the swamps of central Florida.  When the true reason behind the acquisition was leaked, most people thought Walt was making a terrible decision buying a huge parcel of land in what was such a remote area?  Most people were also confused as to why Walt would create another park when he already had Disneyland in California, but Walt proved them all wrong and provided the leadership to initiate the construction of the world’s ultimate vacation destination.  Walt said, “We keep moving forward, opening new doors, and doing new things, because we’re curious and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths.”  This push to continually try new things and get better is one of the best qualities of the Disney corporation.  The Disney parks are never complete and it all started with this original construction. I love looking at this film and just thinking about all the magic that would be created at Walt Disney World!

ESPN is Everywhere

I am really proud of the small undergraduate university that I attended.  Misericordia University, which was known as College Misericordia when I was there, has grown leaps and bounds in the past couple years.  Taking on the status change was a big deal along with increasing the buildings on the campus map by several buildings since my time there.  Also one of the biggest areas of growth has come in the athletic department.  While Misericordia is a Division III school, they have taken steps to really improve the athletic status of the institution.  Recently we upgraded to a new conference with a higher level of competitiveness, and in an added bonus, shorter travel distances.  But the biggest #BlodChoice came last fall when the school announced they would start playing football.  For a school that was originally founded by an order of sisters, and was all female school for most of is history, this was a really big deal.  While I often wonder if football is the right choice, I know it is a step in the right direction to strengthen the stature the school as a University.

The latest addition to the Misericordia athletic department was a partnership with ESPN, which was announced in this press release at the end of last week.  ESPNWilliamsport which is a radio affiliate out of central Pennsylvania, will broadcast all of Misericordia’s basketball games across the radio waves and internet this upcoming season.  To me this is the biggest step forward I have seen us take.  While I don’t ever expect Misericordia to be a leading athletic institution, this certainly shows the strides the campus is making in taking our athletic programs to the next level.  ESPN is a nationally renowned name in sports, and to have it linked to my small undergraduate institution is a new source of pride!

Baby I Like It!

Since I was a kid, I have had a strong affinity to traditions; I want to live out old traditions or work to create new ones.  Though this I seem to very quickly get into patterns and then do not like to stray too far from them.  I like to go to specific restaurants, eat certain meals, and if something happens that is fun I want to keep doing it in the exact same manner.  While I have some great traditions that I love to follow this sometimes keeps me from living outside of the box.

This issue has recently come up to directly confront me at improv rehearsal.  I have been a performing member of Improv Slam, our short form performance ensemble for the past two years.  In that time I have really gotten into the patterns and actions the group typically keeps.  I also have now been on a harold team for five months, so again gotten into the routine.  In these practices over the past few weeks we have done some things to really upset the patterns and try new things.  In an activity where we make everything up, and the philosophy is to yes and anything that happens, I get really apprehensive and not excited about trying new exercises.

While I bring my apprehension into the exercise, I have always had the same experience.  After working through the activity, I really loved trying out the new things.  It’s interesting how quickly you can make a decision that something is not a good idea or will not be fun, and then once you get into it, the new things quickly becomes an awesome experience.  These switch ups not only help us to add new improv tools to our tool belts it also spices up the rehearsal to keep the ensemble fresh and having fun, and that is some of the ingredients that make improv great.

This is an experience I need to bring more into my everyday life!  Spice up the everyday routine, try things that our outside of the box, and really jump into new experiences.  As I go into my fourth year in the same position at work, it is very easy for me to say this is how things happened last year, let’s do it that way.  While last year’s plan was great, it might be better to spice it up and try a new experience.  The best improv starts with #BoldChoices and when we try new things, we are lead to a place where it is easier to make a bold choice!  Variety is the spice of life, and it’s time for me to jump into that philosophy!

Can You Feel the Love Tonight…Again?

The Lion King 3D Movie Poster

3D films really took a hit this summer, while highly regarded as the next generation of movie theater technology; the novelty seemed to wear off this summer.  Most people going to the theater were choosing to watch films in traditional 2D, and skip the extra fees of an already expensive trip to the movies.  In an interesting move Disney choose to take one of its most popular animated classics, The Lion King, and release it for a limited time in the new 3D format.  Disney did not need to wait to be king, as the film took the top spot in the box office this weekend.

The Lion Kind 3D racked up over 29.3 million dollars this weekend putting it into the top five of September releases.  Several Hollywood studios have a large number of great films just sitting in their archives.  All films make the most money in their original run, but there seems to be a market for a second release in the 3D format.  One thing I don’t want is a rerelease of every great film of the past decade, but we do have a place for these films.  Disney selected The Lion King, one of those films that really captured a generation.  Everyone alive today can remember going to see that film when it was first released, The Lion King really transcended age groups.  While Disney was really cranking out the hits in its animated resurgence of the early 1990’s, The Lion King certainly topped that list.

One of the greatest things about this rerelease was the ability for parents to share this awesome film with their children.  I saw numerous tweets and heard several stories highlighting how magical it was to share this film with their kids.  I work on a college campus, and also heard a large number of college students commenting on how they needed to go see this film this weekend.  There was this strong desire to take an animated classic, and see it again in an updated format.

Bravo Disney for making an excellent #BoldChoice is bringing The Lion King back to the big screen in a whole new way.  While I don’t want to see every Disney film trolled out through this new format, I do think there are a few other animated classics that should make a swing through the movie theaters.  Beauty and the Beast was always my favorite childhood film, and I would love to see Be Our Guest in all of its 3D grandeur.  While the nostalgia train is really running rampant these days, I think we need to be careful on how far we dig back into the past and roll it out in the present.  This rerelease just hit the heartstrings of what we wanted, nothing too much, but a way to relive the past. With this resurgence of bringing back the past, my rules are do not destroy the original world that was created, ahem Charlie’s Angels, or over saturate the market, AKA the Who Wants to Be a Millionaire  issue.  Awesome idea Disney, now let’s not kill it!

New Fantasyland Renderings

My love of Disney, and their #BoldChoices and continual change was highlighted in my blog about the New Fantasyland back in January.  Fantasyland hasn’t gotten an upgrade in years, and Disney is working to double the size of the land in the Magic Kingdom park in Florida.  One of my favorite portions of this part of the park is how they are building another castle in the park, the Beast’s castle from Beauty and the Beast.  I think it is amazing the imagineers could put another castle into the park and not let it take away from Cinderella’s Castle, and not let each be seen in the park.  If your interested in how that happens check out this Disney Blog on Forced Perspective!

Anyway, take a look at these new renderings of some of the new attractions in coming to the New Fantasyland!  New attractions start with fresh renderings, and I love these first looks at some of these new attractions, thanks to the Disney Blog!

Be Our Guest, a new restaurant in the New Beast's Castle.

 

Enchanted Tales with Belle, where guests will get the Beauty and the Beast story told by Belle!

The Great Goofini make over of the old Barnstormer attraction

Make Bold Choices NACURH

So I know I have been posting a lot about this conference, and today is the last one, I promise!  I just had a refreshing and insightful time, and it’s important for me to process and share my experiences when I go through those moments!  Today I want to share a little bit on how NACURH is the ultimate “yes and” positivity experience, and think about how can that be translated to everyday life.

So this conference involves a lot of cheering to represent your school or different regions of the country.  It also involves a lot of dressing in crazy costumes, and playing childhood games when there is down time.  This automatically puts people in a heightened state of being, and provides an atmosphere where you can step outside of your normal comfort zone to try new things.  In improv world we set ourselves up for these experiences by playing warm up games or giving ourselves a moment to shout ready before a scene.  It’s taking that moment to hype yourself up, get a bit of adrenalin flowing, so you can really put it all out there on stage.  Now imagine being in that heightened state for a weekend where you can just have fun!

So the conference is not just going to crazy town with costumes and yelling, there are a ton of learning elements throughout the weekend.  From motivational speakers, roundtables, to educational sessions called programming put on by conference delegations.  While I was at the conference I presented a program called Bold Choices.  It was meant to show some improv games and techniques and connect those ideas to personal development and leadership.  My session did not go as well as I had hoped, and I was really in my head about the whole thing.  Leading up to the start of the program I was having doubts, and thinking about ways to change the ideas, on the whole my flow was not in a good place.  

Luckily NACURH gave me just want I needed, the top 40 programs, as picked by the participants, get to be resented again, and somehow mine was selected.  With my second chance, I decided to rock it out, and I put more positivity and a huge gush of excitement into the event.  This allowed me and the participants get into a great flow, and really put the program on trajectory for higher level of success.  Afterwards I had several people staying around to talk about the event, and one of my favorite comments was, “I always wanted to try improv but never did it, and I thought where else then NACURH to really go and do it.”  It was awesome, and I totally felt in the zone.

Sometimes we get exactly what we need, and NACURH gave me that chance.  I had the opportunity to “yes and” the opportunity to present my program again and it rocked.  Coming out of that experience I evaluated the difference between those two programs and how I approached them.  That insight will help me to be a better presenter in the future, and I am excited for the next time I really get to teach some improv!

So my question is how do we take the NACURH environment out into our everyday life.  To end my session I challenged the attendees to make bold choices in really taking their organizations and the people in them to the next level through a positive manner.  I also asked them to evaluate the number of times they said no in the coming week, and to step into the opportunity of saying yes!