Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Okay, great. Here we are. It's actually Thursday. I'm Bradley Schromaner and that is Spencer Waldron and we are here on a Thursday because it is Thursday. Thunder. You don't know this, Spencer, but in the past I started this because I was making fun of lightning. Because lightning gets all the depressed, right. Lightning is all shiny and bright and powerful and stuff. But I found that thunder is where the power is. So the lightning happens on maybe Monday or Tuesday, you've got your new idea. But then Thursday it kind of rolls in and it's the power of the good stuff. Exactly. That's where that came from.
[00:00:38] Speaker B: You stole my first question. That's what I was going to ask. Where the thunder came from.
[00:00:42] Speaker A: Oh, cool.
[00:00:43] Speaker B: But your story reminds me of as a child, always whenever there was a storm and my mother used to say, okay, if you count the seconds from the lightning to the thunder, you know how far it is away. So as soon as you said that, I remember being like, I don't know, nine or ten. Counting one, 1002, 1000.
[00:01:02] Speaker A: Yeah, I did the same. I did the same. That's true. That's cool.
Cool. So we are here today. I just.
Spencer and I met a little quick background here. Spencer and I met at Boom, Chicago in Amsterdam, which is a. It's mostly improv comedy, right. I think they do some stand up, but they're known for their improv comedy. We met in an improv comedy workshop and what, like already a year ago?
[00:01:29] Speaker B: Maybe even more, I think year and a half.
[00:01:31] Speaker A: Wow. Is it really okay?
[00:01:32] Speaker B: I think so, yeah.
[00:01:33] Speaker A: And so we've both been doing improv like ever since. And we're both just in love with it. We both also have a very, very presenting and present or presentation and public speaking backgrounds and also in teaching it, in helping others, becoming better speakers in variety of ways. Spencer and I'll let you introduce yourself in a minute as well. Me sort of from toastmasters public speaking side and combining that with improv and then you more from kind of corporate and your work at Prezi. So now we have combined courses and what we're going to talk about today is not our workshop, but our play shop. Because play shop is much more fun than workshop. Who wants our workshop? We're going to have play without that. I'll let you introduce yourself briefly, Spencer.
[00:02:26] Speaker B: Yeah, sure. So as you can hear from the accent, originally from the UK, although I've not lived there for a long time. And yeah, my presentation journey started I guess around 15 years ago. I had co founded together with somebody else, a marketing agency. And one day, we had a client that suddenly said, we've got 21 presentations. Can you help make them better? And that was the pivotal moment that basically morphed the agency into a presentation design shop. And I spent probably four or five years really just helping people develop the story and the design for their presentation. But then I would always give the very nice presentation to somebody to go and present. And then I joined Prezi back in 2014 and worked for them for nearly nine years. So I'm a marketeer by trade, so my full time role there was a marketing role, but I used the excuse almost to develop my stage speaking skills because that's what I wanted to continue with. And, yeah, and then over those nine years, I ended up being almost like the unofficial official evangelist for the company. So I was the one they sent to conferences. I was the media spokesperson. I was doing workshops with all of our big customers, helping them be better communicators. And, yeah, so 15 years, it's really become my passion. And then, yeah, and a year and a half ago, I joined boom, where we met. And that, for me, was really looking at, okay, how can you have confidence on a stage when it's not planned? Because when you go to speak at a conference or you present your, I don't know, your QBR at work or whatever it is, then it's something that you plan and prepare and practice. But whereas with improv, it's about a bit like this conversation we're having now. We just say you get up on that stage and you just. Your only job is to react and to partner with your, with your scene partner on the stage. And so, for me, it was this lovely way of looking at confidence in a different way from the normal kind of stage speaking, but so, yeah, so that's me and me in a nutshell.
[00:04:48] Speaker A: You know, you just mentioned the word confidence, and we're talking a lot about confidence. And I remember first starting at boom, first starting with improv, and. And people were saying, oh, I can't do that. Well, I can't do improv comedy. I'm not funny, or I wasn't born funny, or I could never become funny. And then one of the first comments out of the boom instructors was, oh, we're not talking necessarily about funny, and we're also not talking about sort of born talent.
The idea of improvisation is they keep talking about a skill, a skill that you can learn and get better at. And our workshop, our play shop, we're not just doing improv comedy, but we are using some of the elements that we have learned in improv to help you get your message out, to help you better communicate what you, what it is you want to say, whether it's a personal story, whether it's a YouTube channel, your TikTok videos, or your corporate presentation, or your anything speech at your cousin's wedding, how can you get across your message in a more impactful way? Yeah, and we're going to be doing that with multiple tools that Spencer and I have in the coming weeks.
[00:06:12] Speaker B: Yeah, definitely. And I think, like, for me, I think one of the things I'm most excited about helping people with, because it's something that really helped me, is it took me a while to understand that we're, when you think about confidence, we're all exactly the same because it's human biology. And there's this, you know, kind of like you look at something like imposter syndrome, which I used to have. A lot of it just comes from your biology. It's your fight, flight, or freeze tendencies warning you to be careful. And who am I to say this? And what if I make a mistake? And then eventually you kind of start to understand that, like everything, you can manage those feelings. You can learn a almost see confidence as a skill. And it's through having.
I think that's why, like, when you look at boom and the, the classes that we've taken together and things that I've done with helping people, doing stage talks, it's the same thing. It's about come spend some time in a place that's a safe space that you can practice and laugh and fail, have fun and figure out, how do I, how do I find my way of expressing my ideas? Because I think once you kind of find that genuine voice that you have and you do it enough times, you start to love it and you start to feel like, now I understand how I can get my message across. And then we add layers of, okay, here's a bunch of structures about how you can make that more impactful when you say, when you're saying it to people.
So I think for me, it's just this idea that, like, yes, some people seem naturally more confident than others, but I absolutely believe that you can bring anybody up to a good level of confidence given the right support and skills and structures to do it.
[00:08:06] Speaker A: Yeah. And you mentioned several things there. And I don't even know if we mentioned this clearly, but we're putting on this play shop, this workshop, playful in person.
We both live in the Netherlands. We're going to be doing in the Netherlands? Yeah.
We'll share a link below where you can get more information to join the wait list. And it's in person. And if the week, the day event, if you think it's going to be sitting in your chair and taking notes the whole day, it is going to be you on stage getting over our fears, getting over our imposter syndrome, because we're in a safe environment where this is exactly what we're doing and why we're doing it. And you will have individual feedback from us, you'll have feedback from the other participants, and you will quickly, quickly get over your fear, if you have a fear of public speaking. And frankly, I think most everybody on the planet does. And we're going to get over that quickly because we're going to be doing it in person and getting some immediate feedback. And we will be giving you skills because as we both said, comedy is even can be a skill. Confidence can be a skill you can get better at. I've been doing this Thursday Thunder since I can't remember who's 2020 or 2021, but I basically started to get practice. And now all I need to do, I take my camera, I walk with my dog pepper in the woods. I hit record. I usually have a vague structure in my head, and I can boom, boom, boom, ABC 123 do a nine minute presentation on a weekly basis. How can I do this so easily? Because I do it every single week. It's easy for me. And so this is the kind, these are the kinds of practical applications we're going to be doing. And of course, it's just a one day play shop, but we're going to get you started. We're going to get you maybe started on a habit of creating and show you tools that you can use when you leave the workshop, that you can use on a regular basis to improve your own methods, whether it be it be speaking in all different forms. You know, there's TED talk you want to do or even one on one conversations.
That's where some of the improv stuff comes in, too. So I wanted to hammer that point home about having it in person is such a big difference.
[00:10:23] Speaker B: Yeah. And I think, like, when you look at confidence, specifically about when you're standing up in front of a group of people, whether it's you and two people in a room or in a big meeting at work or on a big conference stage, you know, you grow your confidence basically doing two things. One is practice. Like you said, Bradley, it's like any fear, the more you do it the less it becomes scary. And the second thing is going back to those emotions because emotions are a physical thing that happens to our body. And if you look at fear, what's fear? Fear is your heart beating faster. Sweaty palms, blood in, adrenaline in the blood system. But then if you ask yourself what's excited, excited, it's the same thing, right? My heart beats faster, I've got adrenaline in the blood system. It's just that now I'm on top of a roller coaster, I'm not like doing something scary. So even by in those five or ten minutes before you go on stage to think to yourself, hey, I'm pretty excited, I get to do this, maybe I get to help somebody do something different. Maybe this meeting is going to help my career, maybe whatever. Insert what it is that makes you excited about it. So for me, those two things are a great place to start. And the other thing that you inspired me just to tack onto the end of it. The other really great thing about doing the confidence play shop with us is that you will get an automatic stand innovation every time you stand up and talk. So there is no risk at all. The crowd will go wild when you've done your thing. So it's all good.
[00:12:04] Speaker A: And speaking of crowds, we have a special discount if you bring a friend. And we were talking about sort of the psychology behind this. It's not just money and discounts, it's great. And you really, so it really is, you bring a friend and you're both paying 50%. And we'll more on the pricing and the details down at the link below. But what's going to happen then? The idea of the friend is first of all, we want this to be a fun thing you're looking forward to.
Spencer and I are also putting on a presentation about tax law in southern France after World War Two. But that's later in the year and that's less fun that you're going to ask your boss for time off. But this should be a fun day where you think, I want to go to this thing. And that's what we're going to make happen too. Spencer and I, we both just signed up for another improv class. It's called improv to storytelling or storytelling to improv or something like that. And both of us said, oh yeah, I'm there, I'm good. Oh, Wednesday night's great, I'll be there. And didn't matter. Actually that one, speaking of cost and stuff, didn't matter. But then Spencer was saying, oh, Bradley, you're going, I'm like, oh, Spencer, you're going to go? Well, if we both go, then I'll definitely go. So with the idea of the friend, that's also. There's accountability as well, because now we know, oh, I know Spencer's going to be there tonight, so I'm going to go, too. And if you bring a friend to this day, you also, depending on the friend, you have a history together. You might know things about each other. You might be able to help critique, maybe a talk or even help bring out a positive element that you know about the speaker that they maybe didn't know themselves, even. And so the element of fun, the element of doing something together is we're also creating a memory, really. We're going to have a super crazy fun day. We're going to have guaranteed laughs and we're going to learn something, that skill that we can use for the rest of our lives. And to do that together with someone just, like, deepens the learning aspect because you're doing it together with someone. So check out for our. Check out our coupons for. We'll share all that stuff with you on the details page, but bring a friend and it's really going to double the fun and half the price. Who would have made that up? I like that. Double the fun and half the price.
[00:14:25] Speaker B: Maybe, Bradley, you could share something about the venue, because it's a very gorgeous location where we're going to do this thing.
[00:14:32] Speaker A: Yeah, it is. And it is now spring in the Netherlands. And I promise I saw blue in that. That thing above that sky element thing. And there was blue in it.
[00:14:42] Speaker B: What was that yellow thing in the sky? Like? There was a bright yellow ball in the sky. I wasn't sure what that was.
[00:14:49] Speaker A: I think it was a UFO. I don't know because I haven't seen it in so long. We are clearly deprived northern europeans here, but this location, it's in Driberfen outside of Utrecht. And it is, by the way, as far as getting there, there's free parking and there's also.
It's five minute walk from the Driberten Zeist train station, so super easy to get there. Direct trains from. There's even direct trains from Amsterdam, depending on the scheduling. And then it's a eight minute train from Utrecht. And the location is a really nice combination of, you know, just away from the train station, but it's green, there are woods. We'll have a little walk at lunch and in nature and there's trees and it's outdoorsy and the room we're going to be in is all windows. It's called the Seira, and it's gorgeous. And it's just really prime for opening up, getting on stage and getting over our fears in a happy, fun, safe and well lit environment by that big orange thing in the sky that we've seen occasionally. No guarantees that we're going to see it that day, but chances are better.
[00:16:03] Speaker B: Definitely.
And I recall your amazing way of describing the day earlier where you said, imagine that Tony Robbins TeD talk and improv comedy had a love child.
[00:16:18] Speaker A: Yes. Yeah.
[00:16:19] Speaker B: That's the day that we've created for you.
[00:16:22] Speaker A: That's the day that we've created. So that's like, Tony Robbins is very inspirational personal development speaker. Rah rah. You know, loud and powerful. TED talks are impactful and have the message and the storytelling, and then boom. Chicago is improvisation and comedy and learning some, some tricks and skills to deal with something when you don't know you forgot your line or you messed it all up or how to deal with that and how to play with it and how to make your partners look good and elements like that that Spencer and I have a lot of experience in. Yeah.
[00:17:01] Speaker B: Yeah, definitely. I think it's, it's the kind of day that we've been working very hard to show you how you can communicate with confidence and clarity and impact in any situation that you find yourself in. So it's, I'm excited by it. It's going to be a cool day.
[00:17:22] Speaker A: We're creating this exactly for something that we would also both want to do, that we would want to sign up for that. I'd say, like, it is a day where if we weren't doing it, I'd say, hey, Spencer, we got to go to this Saturday thing.
[00:17:37] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:17:37] Speaker A: You gotta go.
[00:17:38] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:17:38] Speaker A: And then knowing what we're both interested in, I just need a few minutes of, a few seconds of explanation. He'd be like, oh, I'm in. Just like, the improv to storytelling. We talked about it. I don't think you hesitated for a moment. You're like, I'm signed up.
[00:17:53] Speaker B: Yeah, it was a no brainer. So, yeah, yeah.
[00:17:57] Speaker A: And we want that to be this, that kind of emotional reaction. We want you to want to be there. We don't want you to be there because your boss needs more educational hours on your docket. Right. And you think, oh, I got to go to this thing and learn about public speaking. No, this is ideally something you personally would like to improve in better improve your communication, your public speaking, your speaking of any kind. If you. Anything you're looking to do with it for your YouTube channel or you're doing reels on, you know, Facebook or Instagram or whatever, anything where you think, how could I be more confident in my presentation of my message? How do you speak your truth? And how do you dare to get it out there and share it with the world? That's what we want to get across on our Saturday.
[00:18:46] Speaker B: I'm in.
[00:18:48] Speaker A: I'm in.
Hey, bring a friend and you both pay 50%. We'll have lunch. I can't guarantee sun, but I guarantee it'll be warmer than it is today.
[00:19:01] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:19:02] Speaker A: And this is only the first of many. So come on in. Get in on the ground floor, as they say in, like, cheesy infomercials. Get in on the ground floor and come, come join us. And it's going to be awesome. And it's going to be even awesomer as we work through it and make this day happen and help you with your communication and build your confidence through a play shop. And there won't be much work at all. In fact, if. I don't know, I don't think there needs to be any work. It should all be fun, because when you're laughing and when you're having a good time, you learn, you take it in. Even better if it's a boring thing.
[00:19:40] Speaker B: Exactly. And it's like, you know, like the improv stuff we've done before. And we kind of take a lot from the spirit of improv here, but it's the idea that, like, you can just come for a few hours and just laugh. It's like therapy. It's like getting free therapy thrown in to the. To the experience of the day. Like, I know. For me, like, even though I started improv from. From a movement of, like, okay, how can I be more confident on the stage when it's not prepared? But eventually, it became a weekly dose of therapy where I just come and have a laugh with good people and enjoy it.
[00:20:14] Speaker A: Yeah. So, hey, speaking of laughing. Yes, I know some people, because at improv, I remember when people, they were thinking of it, or they. They would say, oh, I'm not funny, though, right? Or so I'm thinking, if you're thinking about signing up for our play shop, then you think, oh, but I'm not funny, or, I can't be funny. There's no requirements whatsoever. The only requirement is that you would like to improve your speaking, you would like to improve the delivery of your message. That's it. We're going to use some techniques that could help you be funnier because humor does help with the delivery of messages. But you definitely don't have to be funny. In fact, we were talking about confidence earlier. Do you have to be confident to come to the confidence play? Confidence play shop? No, you only need to be confident enough to join us. That's it exactly.
[00:21:05] Speaker B: Yeah. This is, for anybody at any level, the games that we're going to play, the experience that we're going to have together, it really doesn't matter. Your background, your experience, your. Whether you're introverted or extroverted, it's accessible to all. And the emphasis is on, we'll take you from the beginning of the day at one level and we'll raise you up to another level regardless of where you start from.
[00:21:34] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. You started a three and we're going to get to a seven. You started at six. We're going to get you to a nine. Wherever you are, we're going to boost you up.
[00:21:43] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly.
[00:21:44] Speaker A: And that's about. I'm excited to go.
I'm really excited to do this. I've been wanting to do this for a long time. We will tell you when we see you on the day. We can tell you some sort of behind the scenes secrets about how this has come about. Also the location and the timing, why this is all happening. Now, there's some interesting elements as to why we're doing this, but I'm going to leave that as a cliffhanger. And you can find out that kind of juicy tidbits when you come show up on the Saturday.
So mic drop.
That's it. Okay. Spencer. Hey. It's been great having you. It's been great talking with you and looking forward to coming weeks. And I'm really looking forward to our play shop.
[00:22:26] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:22:27] Speaker A: On a Saturday soon. There's my vagueness of when it's actually happening.
See you soon. Thanks, Spencer. Cheers.
[00:22:36] Speaker B: Bye bye.
Okay, this is where I tell you.
[00:22:44] Speaker A: Fuck.
[00:22:44] Speaker B: I wasn't recording.
[00:22:48] Speaker A: But you were.
[00:22:52] Speaker B: Okay, let me stop.
