Improv

“No but” – you can hearing it coming and you know it’s going to wind you up.

We’ve been told to try to avoid “No but” as the first words someone hears from us and yes, like a bad penny, it turns up time and again…

  • No but what you have to understand is” << no I don’t, you’ve just wound me up 
  • No but it came out wrong” << don’t care, you’ve still wound me up
  • No but let me make it clearer” << I don’t care, let me make it clear – NO BUT isn’t the way to respond…

In improv, where the comedian just doesn’t know where the conversation, observation, focus is going to go – no clue – you’re taught to say “Yes and…”

Yes << I hear you and am not disagreeing (nor 100% agreeing either)

And << let’s add to that my spin, another thought or another pathway.

So, this very days, the very next observation, opinion, option you have to say “No but” – pivot (or pirouette) and say “Yes and…” instead.


Notice the shift in the response AND the the other person’s energy.

This may not be new to you and you’ve heard this before…. YES, and it bears repeating as it’s easy to fall back into the old, familiar “No but” ways which make you work harder than you have to for someone to hear you and come with you.

Yes, and why would you want to do that?  I don’t. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptTnCHa-3pI  <  reiterated here in a short TED talk for you.

I can hear myself saying “Yessss, and…” virtually all the time and no one really notices unless I don’t.  Unless I say “No but”…. which, of course, I never do!

Or in someone else’s words…

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Improv Your Life : Pippa Evans : 9781529344851 : Blackwell's

And in other news…

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One of the things I learned to love about speaking and presenting live and in person was that element of “oooh, what’s going to happen next?” or “What will they ask me” and learning o trust myself to take a breath, say “Hmmm, now that’s a good question” and then “Yes and …as I think about etc etc”.  


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Kay White
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Improv Your Life : Pippa Evans : 9781529344851 : Blackwell's
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