Coffee on Purpose - Meredith Grundei

Let's see if we make it. The streak remains intact. We are live. Welcome, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to a bonus episode of Creative on Purpose Live. These episodes I'm calling Coffee on Purpose Mondays at noon. I'm just going to bring in one of my favorite difference makers. We're going to choose one word and we're going to unpack what that word means and how it broadly applies to anybody that's out there trying to make things better by engaging in an endeavor that makes a difference. I couldn't be more thrilled to have my friend Meredith Grundy here on the call with me. Meredith, I'm going to let you introduce yourself. Who are you? What are you up to these days? Where can people go to learn more about you and the difference you're making?

Heck yeah. Hi. I'm so— I have so much gratitude to be here with you on a Monday at noon to have a juicy conversation. So thank you, Scott, for the invitation. I'll start there. So I'm a public speaking coach and I'm a multi-hyphenate. So let's just put it that way. So I'm a public speaking coach who can't speak. I'm a public speaking coach. I'm also a performer. I have a directorial background as well. And I have been using improv, have been an improviser, have been using improv to work with teams, work with individuals, and now predominantly working with people in public speaking to help them bring their stories to life on stage and to embody their stories and then find that adaptability that is so needed when you are going to be in front of an audience or just one-on-one with another person. So I find so much delight in helping people step it up in terms of their confidence and their own physical presence and how they choose to tell a story.

Love it. Well, I knew that you were the perfect person to ask, uh, to discuss this word improvise or improvisation. And I think we should start by talking about what exactly do we mean when we're talking about improvisation. You're the expert here, so I'm going to go to you first.

Thank you. Yeah, so improvisation for me is about, yes, being present, being in the moment, being in that place where you can be adaptable, uh, so that if things do go awry, you're easily able to be flexible in the moment. And The training that I've had, which is I've trained and taught at the Second City and then in IO Chicago, and then most recently taught a little bit here at the PIT in New York City. And I just love the form itself. And I've also studied, and I just want to be clear about this too, I have studied improv comedy forms and I've also studied movement forms as well. So like the Viewpoints training for actors and other other practices within the movement world. I have also practiced, studied that extensively. And so I kind of try to pull from all of those different places to help people out with their public speaking and improvisational skills. And to touch back on the question that you asked, I also feel that it's about providing as many containers as possible. So a container, for example, would be a game, an activity, or an exercise, because I think we hear those things differently. So that people can really flex what that means to be in the moment, to make something up on the spot and have a really safe and brave container in which to do that. And so that is my goal with people is to provide that so that they can really hone in on what it means to be present.

Love that. I've always— so my background before Creative on Purpose became a thing was I was a musician for many, many years, mostly blues and jazz. Improvisation is a big part of that tradition. And the definition that I came up, came to was actually had a lot to do with my, my struggles around feeling free and present in my improvisation. So I think of improvisation as responding and not reacting to your circumstances or the people that you find yourself with. And so most often the things that would be— make me complicit in my own suffering as an improviser was the chatter going on up here. Oh my God, he's so much better than I am. Oh goodness, I just stepped all over her vocal line. What is that guy in the front row thinking about this? Oh, I think I recognize that guy in the back. He's a much better guitar player than this, all that, all that stuff. You, you referenced this, is that to improvise is to be present, or to improvise well is to be present. And just wondering, in addition to the presence, you know, what are the— are there kind of natural human skills that we're all born with that we can apply to impro— improvising, or is it all come down to technique and training?

I think that's a really great question. I think that we do inherently have what the tools that we need to be improvisers. One of them I think is listening. I think being cultivating that skill to be a deep listener I think is really important. I think returning to one's breath. So whether that be a meditation practice and whatever meditation looks like to you because I think it can take on a many different forms. I think noticing your breath, returning to your breath is also something we can cultivate as humans in the world. And then the other thing I would say too is to realize that in those collaborative moments, and it doesn't matter if you're standing on stage by yourself, you are in collaboration with the audience, you are in collaboration with the space, you are in collaboration with the objects in the space. To me, it's about noticing all of those things that surround you energetically that you are in collaboration with. And that if you can notice that, be present with the space that you're in, and then have the— essentially take it off of you and make it more about them. Then you're doing— it's the hugest gift you could give yourself is to just say, actually, it's really not about me right now. It's about serving my audience, giving them value, and/or just being a great listener. Right. And that's dependent on what space you're in. Again, if it's one-on-one or in front of an audience, it's still about serving that other person.

Yeah. Well, I love that you touched on that. So the first thing I heard you talk about was listening, and I Couldn't agree more that, you know, improvisation is what we're doing all the time. This is an improvised conversation that we're having. I didn't script out my part, and I'm pretty sure you're not reading from a script over there. And so it's, again, this act of being responsive and not reactive, taking in the stimulation, the information that's coming from you and from the environment. And then giving yourself a moment to process that and reflect back what you're hearing. And I love the generosity piece because one of the things that I would teach my students, uh, when I had my guitar studio was this idea of serve the song, don't make the song serve you. And oftentimes, especially in artistic pursuits, especially in— well, might be true of all sorts of performance arts, but in music, uh, things can tend to be pretty competitive. And not always, even when you are collaborating on stage, when you're in a band situation, there's a lot of posturing, there's a lot of one-upmanship and that sort of thing. And it's really, uh, contradictory to the purpose of what you're doing. You are creating a moment and you're sharing that with an audience. It's the, the You're— if you serve the song, the song serves the audience, and then the audience gives you the feedback that you need so that you can continue to, to, to serve, to, to give. Um, just really, really important. And that's the other piece of it in terms of just human— the human skills is the need for connection. That, that seems to be a really big part of it. So Again, you know, what are— as children, we are improvising our way into all the things that we want to do. We improvise our way into speech. We improvise our way into walking and moving. We improvise our way into riding bikes and making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and all sorts of things. At the same time, there are some pursuits where we, there are skills that we want to learn that, that will make us, that will make us improvisers within specific domains. What, what role do you think that, um, skill development, learning, coaching, teaching, that sort of thing has in, in terms of improvising? It sounds like you've got some great, uh, coaching along the way.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, um, I first, I want to touch upon something that you just said, which is It, you know, viewers who are watching this, if you are a performer and you happen to be super young, like what you, Scott Perry, you just said, I think takes up someone a very, very long time in that industry. It doesn't matter if it's— if you're a musician or an actor or, or whomever it is. So it can be so competitive that it becomes very egocentric. And so the, the— if the sooner you can realize it's about serving the story, serving the song, serving the playwright, serving the writer, serving the audience and it's not about you, oh my God, you are going to be a gazillion miles ahead of most people who have chosen to take those industries on as a profession. So I just want to touch back on that because I think you hit upon something major, which I wish I had known earlier on in life. Right.

Likewise.

Yeah. Yeah. So to touch upon the question that you asked too about— and just please reflect back if I'm not hearing it right. Is what kind of a container have I used? What have I learned in the past to help people who may not be performers find more of that adaptability, flexibility, improvisation, if you will, and through the exercises that I do? Yes. OK, awesome. So I bring a lot of like— because I come from this improv background and I'm going to call it applied improv, because what my goal is, is to take the improvisational exercises, activities, games, if you will, and We— I teach that game to either an individual. Sometimes I do it one-on-one in some of my one-on-one coaching sessions with people and/or with a group of people. We do the exercise. It's a lot of fun. We get to smile. We get to laugh, right? If it's a group of people and you're smiling and laughing, you're building trust automatically, regardless of what comes after that and how it applies. But then we do talk about the applied piece of it. So from this experience that has no real-world consequences, what can you take from this experience that you just had and apply it towards something that you do on a day-to-day basis? And I don't— whether that be your work, whether that be parenting, whether that be in relationship with a partner, how can you take what you just learned and apply it? And I always like to start with the feeling, like, what is the feeling that emerged for you and where does it live in your body? Because I have found over time that people have a really difficult time talking about feelings. They can't really target what the feeling is. So they give me long explanations of what the feeling looks like, but never really touching upon the feeling itself. So I really feel that it's a wonderful way to get people to tap into that place where they're not invited into often, and to be able to say, ah, man, I felt I felt scared, or I felt excited to— and then I get to say, okay, well, tell me about that. Why did you feel scared? Well, because I was afraid that I wouldn't have something to say, or that my contribution was stupid, or whatever it is, those voices that we have in our head. We can then talk from there. And then, so there are many lessons, and that's just one example of from these games We get to hear these, the feedback, the debrief. And I think, you know, I get to co-mod this Clubhouse room with two of my favorite people, Izzy Gazelle and Hillary Blair. And I just adore them both. But we talk often about, like Izzy often says, it's not, there's no real world impact that this is going to have. We're just playing a game. And It's so, it's just the deep, and the magic is in the debrief is what we all say. And so, yeah, I think it's just about, it's multiple things. I feel like I've talked a lot. I could go on, but now.

Well, you touched on a couple of things that I would love to highlight. Yeah. Circling back to your comments on my comment, the last piece that I'd like to layer on to all that is what you were touching on, which You know, the, the person that— the only person that really conspires against our success as improvisers in whatever domain that is, is usually ourselves. And it's usually because of ego attachments. You know, I, I'm tying my status, my well-being to how well I play tonight or how well I do on the solo. But there's also the, um, in improvising in the way that we're talking about it, it's, it's You know, nothing derails an improvisation between two people faster than one person wanting to drive a result.

Yes.

Like get to a predetermined, you know, someone comes into an improvising situation with an agenda. This is what I, this is where this is going to go. And so I haven't done much in that kind of, that kind of work, but I love that idea of yes and, like just being open. And whatever the other person says, you say, "Yes, and," and then you just, whatever comes up. I also think just the idea of improvising is a skill. It's a muscle that gets better through practice. So just putting yourself in low-risk, low-impact situations where you can just say, "Hey, I'm just going to try to pay attention to my breath, be present, be aware of what's going on, and then I'm going to respond to the situation." You also touched on the idea of playfulness and having fun. And that's tied to this idea of not taking yourself too damn seriously. We've been talking a lot in the Creative on Purpose community about the discipline of designing for delight. Just delight is such an easy renewable resource if we pay attention to doing things that delight us in service of delighting other people. It just becomes this virtuous cycle, and then the outcomes just don't really matter because what's happening in the moment is people are having a good time, and, and you're making something out of nothing, just out of a moment. So last thing that you said that I wanted to, um, just highlight is you've kind of circled back to this a couple of times now, but paying attention, paying attention to the internal dialogue, the internal feelings, and also paying attention to all the, the things that are out there. One thing that I would like to just kind of add into the equation here that's tied to that is I've been playing with this, like, noticing, naming, and then navigating, because oftentimes we're letting our like a moment carry us away, or our anxiety carry us away. And you've spoken to this, like it's important to wait a minute, hit the pause button. I feel that something is happening, and now that I feel it, I'm going to name it. I'm going to hold it at arm's length so I can negotiate with it and navigate my way through it, or leverage it to, to make the moment Even better. So wondering if there's tools like that, that those kind of presence-building tools, and that also help you in the moment name the thing that might be upsetting the cart a little bit so that you can right the ship and move forward. And I just mixed a bunch of really bad metaphors, but go ahead.

I love them. I love them. I think they're great. Yeah, I, well, I, Allen Ginsberg has a really great quote that I use often, which is notice what you notice, which I feel is what you're speaking speaking into. And I think it is so important to— I always say to people, be transparent about where you're at. So for example, I'll just— at the beginning of this interview, I was stumbling on my words, right? And so I have choices in that. I could stop the flow of things and say, oh, uh, can we just start this over because I really don't want people to see me stumbling on my words, which becomes like we get in our heads about how other people see us, right? And it's really not about that, and most people don't really care. And then second is I have a choice to say, God, Scott, I was feeling— I'm feeling nervous, right? And what that could immediately do is expel— like, then you get to hear, you get to see where I'm at, you get to meet me with where I'm at, I get to say it out loud. We all know how Meredith is feeling. Or I could do the third choices, which I chose to do, which is just like I kind of laugh at myself a little bit because I think it's kind of funny sometimes when I get choked up on my words, and then I move forward, right? So we have choice You notice what you notice. And we have— and so when I am conducting a class or we're in the middle of a game or we're doing the debrief, I always encourage people to use what's there. Just be present with what's there. Like, if you feel nervous, use that. If you're having a hard time trying to find— like, oftentimes we use suggestions as a form of inspiration for something. So for example, I would say, give me a suggestion of something you see outside. And you look outside, you go, a tree, right? Or your suggestion is umbrella. Well, sometimes I'll invite other people into the room to give me a suggestion, and oftentimes what happens when you put someone on the spot is they freeze. They get in that kind of fight-or-flight phase. And so I just say, okay, let's just breathe. It's a— you just— what was the first word that popped in your head, right? And sometimes I— they can't find that first word that popped in their head. And I said, okay, well, look directly in front of you. What do you see? A chair. Awesome. There's your suggestion, right? And sometimes we get so wrapped up and we do that blood rushes to the back of our brain that sometimes the simplest choice can be the most difficult. So what happens when we can just stop? Like, what— notice what you notice, breathe, and use what's there is such a gift.

Yeah, I love that. Well, and I love that you also wove in this idea of context, and that was something that was really powerful for me as a musician. Like, you know, is anybody gonna go home from this crappy Holiday Inn gig and say, you know, that when that guy missed, you know, started to play out of key, uh, during the third song, he ruined my whole life, he ruined my evening, I'll never forget that? I mean, most of the time they just didn't even notice. Um, and it's, you know, sometimes people say, well, that's, you know, what's the point if nobody cares? Um, But I just think there's a lot to be said for, you know, every moment is a moment to be engaged in your practice. And, you know, there will be moments, some moments will be more important than other moments. And the training that you do during those kind of like who cares gigs, you know, the way that you treat those is a way it's going to have an impact on what happens when you do get a bigger shot or find yourself in a situation where there are more stakes.

Mm-hmm. Yeah, well, I think people do care, but I think that's the mistakes piece where it's like we can beat ourselves up over it, or you can look at it as a gift. Like, okay, so I made a mistake. You know, my husband's a musician, right? And I would go and watch some of his shows, and he's also jazz trained. And but the shows where he had to, you know, actually play the music, not improvise. I remember him sometimes like, I didn't play that the best that I could. He's a piano player. He's like, I didn't play that the best that I could. And I'm like, well, I didn't notice. Or like, if he made a minor mistake, like, well, I didn't notice that either. But oftentimes what we could do is we could transform that, look at it as a gift. Well, if you did mess up or if it didn't go as well as you would have liked it to have gone, then what did you learn from that? And then what can you do differently next time? And/or maybe that gift actually inspired something in somebody else. So sometimes our mistakes actually can turn into something gorgeous that we didn't expect, right? Especially if you're an ensemble of people that are in deep listening and they pick up on the mistake and then they can heighten it and then they can create it and make it something magical.

Yeah, reminds me of the stories of Thelonious Monk going, you know, on tour. He didn't travel with a piano. He had to take whatever piano happened to be there. Usually they were pretty, pretty poor. And he would, he would run his scales and find, find it, find the key that was really, really bad. And he would leverage that wrong note all throughout the course of the evening. And he would turn something that was dissonant into something that was consonant and actually made it a feature of the performance. And Miles Davis, also famous for leaving it— no fixing in the mix. We're going to leave the mistakes in there. It makes the rest of it really shine. So I totally agree that we can amplify our mistakes and turn them into something magical. It's also, I think, an extraordinary gift to— and just like you displayed at the very beginning when you felt yourself stumbling over your words and said, yes, I'm a speech coach, and I can't What a gift that, you know, we're allowed to make mistakes. We're allowed to not always be articulate. We're allowed to not be perfect all the time because so often, especially, you know, in social media, we're putting a heavy polish and a veneer over everything. And I think people really respond to human moments of frailty, of experiencing fraughtness and, you know, just making a simple mistake or misstep. Um, it's, it's a way I would prefer to get the mistake over with at the very beginning because then I can relax for the rest of it, is, is kind of my experience.

Yeah, yeah. And sometimes those mistakes, like especially on stage, are like the best moments of the whole night because it's the most truthful moment, you know. I mean, that all good art really, I feel, comes from a genuine place of truth. And, and so Uh, yeah, that's all I have to say about that.

So, so for people that are tuning into this broadcast, you know, they are supposedly people that are engaged in making a difference in the world. And, and a lot of, a lot of folks that are, you know, either aspiring to or advancing an endeavor that seeks to help enhance the lives of others are, you know, they They spend a lot of time constructing and designing and, you know, developing things. What are the gifts of improvisation that could help people like us make the difference that only we can make even better and maybe actually have a little bit more fun along the way?

Yeah, thank you for that question. Uh, multiple things just like are seriously swimming around in my head at the same time. So I'm going to start with the first thing that comes to mind, which is the permission piece. I think that what is really lovely about improvisation is that it gives you permission to fail and be and learn from it. It gives you permission to what you had mentioned before, to be a listener so you're not reactive. It gives you permission to try new things, to explore, to be able to be in concert with other people and use this tool of yes and to create something bigger than yourself. Because that to me, to me personally, is the beauty of it is that more brains. And I seriously, and I know this is difficult for a lot of the solopreneurs out there. And that's why we got to find our tribe of people that can lift us up is more brains are better than one. If you can use this tool of Yes, And to cultivate and brainstorm how you can grow as an entrepreneur or as a community, I think it's a It's a wonderful tool for that, that yes and really is. And so, I would just say, you know, if maybe you're in a mastermind, play with that. Like, we're just going to spend the first 10 minutes yes anding every idea and we cannot say no, no, we can't say yes, but we're just going to yes and every idea. And I don't care how silly you think the idea is, we're just going to yes and it. Because I guarantee what happens when that happens is It may not— you might put something out that you're never going to go back to or use, but it could inspire the next great thought.

I think that reminds me very much of what Seth Godin says about you won't get any good ideas until you get past all the bad ideas. And sometimes you just have to keep going until you get to the good one. Well, Meredith, this has been a really great conversation. I really appreciate you taking the time. To chat with us about improvisation and hope that this conversation is enriching and inspiring your journey as a Difference Maker, that you can take the gifts of— see, now I can't talk— the gifts of improvisation.

We're going to applaud that. Say yay! Yay!

Scott screwed up. If we applauded every time Scott screwed up, we'd be applauding all day. Everybody would have biceps of steel. Anyway, ladies and gentlemen, We appreciate the gift of your time and attention. Please take the lessons, insight, and the inspiration from this conversation and bake some of the ideas into the difference that you're making in the world. Meredith Grundei, thank you so much for the time and wisdom that you shared with us today.

Oh my goodness, Scott Perry, thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it.