Improv for Confidence: The Blog

Exercises, tips, and stories to boost confidence, collaboration, and communication in the workplace.

Improv is weird and silly and unpredictable, so you get to practice being thrown off and messing up, so you can practice thinking on your feet and recovering with aplomb. And the best part is, you don’t have to do it alone.

You can’t help but feel more confident going into a situation knowing that you’re part of a team, and you can handle things not going exactly as planned.

Browse the categories below to learn how to fear less, and confidence more:

Improv for Business: Team Building & Collaboration • Listening & Communication Skills • Leadership & Management Skills • Presentation Skills • Health & Wellness • 100 Ways to Play at Work

Improv for Anxiety: Anxiety Tips • How I Overcame Anxiety

100 Ways to Play at Work #37: Act Out Your Stories

Sure, I could tell you how my weekend was, or how the meeting went, but wouldn’t it be better if my whole body brought this story to life? Yes, yes it would.

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This series was inspired by people asking me “How do I keep doing improv?” after a corporate improv workshop. There are, of course, improv classes, more workshops, team building exercises you can do with your group, but these games are specifically ones you can do on your own to practice “Yes and” and get into a state of play.

100 Ways to Play at Work #36: Change Your Appearance

A variation on “spot the difference” where you change little things about yourself throughout the day. Change your shirt. Add a scarf. Wear a ring. Change your necklace. Grow a mustache. You’ll be wonderfully mysterious, and each time someone sees you they’ll look at you with intrigue and say, “Did you always have a face tattoo?”

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This series was inspired by people asking me “How do I keep doing improv?” after a corporate improv workshop. There are, of course, improv classes, more workshops, team building exercises you can do with your group, but these games are specifically ones you can do on your own to practice “Yes and” and get into a state of play.

100 Ways to Play at Work #33: Have your own Competition

You know that scene in Mr. Bean where he’s trying to outdo the guy at the buffet? He grabs more food, eats it faster, wolfs down oysters… anyhoo, watch it if you haven’t. Point is, get into a playful mindset by having your own little competition.

But it’s not about a battle between two or more people. In fact, the key is that the other person doesn’t even know they’re in a competition. Write on the whiteboard just a little faster, bigger, clearer than them. Win gold for whiteboarding.

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This series was inspired by people asking me “How do I keep doing improv?” after a corporate improv workshop. There are, of course, improv classes, more workshops, team building exercises you can do with your group, but these games are specifically ones you can do on your own to practice “Yes and” and get into a state of play.

100 Ways to Play at Work #32: Talk without Talking

If someone all the way on the other side of the building makes the gesture of shoveling food in their mouths, you know you’re being invited to lunch. No need for words. We do it all the time. Here’s where the challenge comes in, try and communicate everything this way.

“Did you get my email?” (point to them, typing fingers, shrug)

“I love your new shoes!” (lift your foot high, point to your shoes, point to them, heart shape hands)

“Someone used the company photocopier to print out 200 pages of a file called ‘MyStory-novel-final-v.13.2’ at 10pm last night, was that you, you li’l rascal?” (you got this!)

Act things out, use your facial expressions, clearly mouth out your words, get your whole body involved, or simply learn sign language.

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This series was inspired by people asking me “How do I keep doing improv?” after a corporate improv workshop. There are, of course, improv classes, more workshops, team building exercises you can do with your group, but these games are specifically ones you can do on your own to practice “Yes and” and get into a state of play.

"What do you do for work and for fun and do you do them at the same time?"

Whenever we meet someone new, either networking, or dating, or small talk in the dentist’s waiting room, there’s two popular questions we ask to quickly sum humans up:

“What do you do for work?” and “What do you do for fun?”

As though they’re always two completely separate things.

“What do you do for work?” is essentially, “What do you make yourself do with your days to make enough money to put food on your family?”

And “What do you do for fun?” is like “What silly things do you do with any leftover time to try and help you recover from work?”

Instead of treating them as polar opposites, and that fun/play/joy could only possibly exist outside of work, try asking what I like to call a combo platter:

“What do you LIKE to do AT work?”

It forces them to think about the positives of what they do for a living. Are there little moments that are the highlights of each day? Is it the people? That they’re making a difference and helping others? The snack drawer? Do they just generally like their job?

In other words, as we’re always saying, look for the joy in work.