In this Business Blast Podcast episode, host Tyler Wagner interviews Dave Collins, founder and CEO of Oak Reeds, a corporate training consultancy that leverages improvisational techniques to improve communication and collaboration. Dave shares the story of founding his business, emphasizing the importance of acting amid uncertainty and using improvisation to navigate the unknown. He highlights the core "yes, and" principle as a tool for building on ideas rather than dismissing them, and offers practical business advice such as prioritizing sleep for better decision‑making. Dave also discusses the value of clearly articulating one’s goals to facilitate networking and support, outlines his view of happiness as a balance of regular exercise, good diet, purposeful work, and strong friendships, and shares personal takeaways from his favorite book, Harry Potter, and his guiding mantra of honesty. The episode concludes with a plug for his website, oakandreads.com, where listeners can learn more and get in touch.
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Welcome to the Business Blast Podcast. I'm your host, Tyler Wagner. This episode is brought to you by Authors Unite. Authors Unite provides you with all the resources you need to become a successful author. You can learn more about Authors Unite and join the free community at authorsunite.com. Now let's jump into the episode.
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All right, everyone, welcome back to another episode of the Business Blast podcast. I'm your host, Tyler Wagner. Today I have Dave Collins with us. He's the founder and CEO of Oak Reeds, which is a corporate training consultancy that specializes in using the tools of improvisation to train on techniques for communication and collaboration. So welcome to the show, Dave.
Yeah, thanks for having me, Tyler Wagner.
Of course. Thanks for joining us. And we'll dive in. The first question that I have for you, Dave, is what's the best story from your life that has an underlying valuable message?
The best story from my life, honestly, right now is the founding of this business. What I do and what I train people on how to do is how to work through uncertainty and deal with the unknown, deal with change. I've used the tools of improvisation every step of the day while starting and growing this business. There's so much unknown that I've had to interact with, and pretty much the lesson there has been, basically, if you don't know how to do something, start doing it and then figure out all the things you don't know after you've already started, because otherwise you'll just be paralyzed by fear.
And what's the most valuable piece of information we should know that's within your expertise or industry?
The most valuable piece of information is the tool of "yes, and." It's this idea in improvisation where everything, every idea you interact with, you basically have two options. You can negate it, you can say no, or you can say yes to it. And there's reasons for doing both. There's always times to say no to an idea, whether it's a terrible idea, dangerous one, whether you're not quite sure how, um, the amount of risk that it involves. But more often than not, there's you're probably saying no to more ideas than you have to. And if you say yes to an idea and you accept it, and you try to find a way to build upon it, that's the "and" part. It's really interesting the different roads you can go down. So that's the biggest thing that I try to coach my clients on is try to find a way to take an idea and build upon it rather than negate it. And the amount of adventure and creativity that comes just from that one idea can be really profound.
And what's your best piece of overall business advice? So not necessarily industry-specific.
Get more sleep. That's it, honestly. Get more sleep. Everyone is sleep deprived and the way that affects us in our decision-making, our attitudes, and just our general health. If people just got more sleep and were less, I guess, less heroic about the lack of sleep that they get, I think we'd all be in a lot better place.
And if you could give your younger self one piece of advice, what would that be?
I think part of it is to say what you want more often. It's no good if you have a dream, or even beyond just a dream, just a simple idea of what you're interested in and what you like to do. If you keep that in your head, if you're ashamed of it, then it's much less likely to come true. And what I found, especially doing a lot more networking now with this new business, is you have to clearly be able to articulate what you want. And if you can do that in a simple way, people are often very willing to help you reach that goal. People enjoy helping other folks do that because it's a benefit to them and a benefit to you. So I think just be confident in your ability to articulate what you want, even if it's a long-term goal, because more often than not, you can actually get there a lot quicker.
And in your opinion, what's the key to happiness?
Wow, that's a big one. The key to happiness, um, regular exercise, good diet, something you do that fulfills you professionally, something you do that's just for fun, and good friends.
And what's the best book that you've read and what was the number one thing you learned from that?
The Best book I've read. Oh my gosh, that's a good one. I'm looking at my bookshelf right now. It's hard to remember all of them. But I think what I learned from Harry Potter is that if you trust your friends, you can go amazing places.
And what's your favorite quote and why?
My favorite quote. Hmm, I don't know. I don't know if I have a favorite quote. The thing, the sort of a mantra I like to live by is just be honest.
And I love that, and it's fine if it's a mantra. And thank you so much for coming on. The last question I have for you, Dave, is what's the best place for people to find you online?
Go to my website, www.oakandreads.com. Com. You can find how to contact me and lots of information about what I'm doing.
Perfect. Thanks again for coming on, Dave. We appreciate it.
Yeah, thanks for having me.
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