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Let's talk about the magic that is improvisation, or what us cool kids call "improv." It's an art form that's all about unleashing your creativity and performing without a script or plan. Sure, you may have heard of it as a side-splitting comedy act, but improv goes a lot deeper than that. From acting to business to mental health, improv skills can be applied in various areas of life.\xa0\n\nEnter Kelly Leonard, the VP of Creative Strategy, Innovation, and Business Development at the infamous Second City in Chicago. Kelly, who over the decades has produced hundreds of original revues with comedians such as Stephen Colbert, Tina Fey, and Seth Meyers (to name a few) has a unique understanding of behavioral science through the lens of improv.\xa0\xa0\n\nRegaling us with lessons and stories from his career and book, \u2018Yes And\u2019, we learn how to utilize improv to help us adapt, empathize, communicate, trust, and collaborate better. We are reminded that saying \u2018yes\u2019 to new ideas and experiences sparks creativity and can lead to beneficial outcomes. From deepening our relationships with others by practicing active listening and learning to accept and appreciate new ideas, regardless of their origin. It also teaches us to think on our feet and work together to create innovative solutions to problems.\n\nListen and Learn:\xa0\n\nHow Stephen Colbert came to write a blurb for Kelly\u2019s book, Yes, and: How Improvisation Reverses No, But Thinking and Improves Creativity and Collaboration\n\n\nWhy so many successful comedy performers have an improv background\xa0\n\nHow improv skills can help us to empathize, communicate and collaborate\n\nThe idea of the \u2018Yes And\u2019 exercise\xa0\n\nWhy Kelly prefers to use the word ensemble vs. team\xa0\n\nImprov's positive impact on caregiver burden and depression\n\nAn introduction to the \u2018I Am Somebody Who\u2019 exercise\n\nWhy adopting a Yes And mentality helps create a psychologically safe environment\n\nHow improv can be applied in therapy\xa0\n\nIf improv were an animal, what animal would it be?\xa0\n\nWhat\u2019s next for Kelly\u2019s work in science and the arts\xa0\n\n\nResources:\xa0\n\n\nLearn more about Kelly: https://www.secondcity.com/people/kelly-leonard+\n\nGet your copy of Yes, And: How Improvisation Reverses No, But Thinking and Improves Creativity and Collaboration: https://bookshop.org/a/30734/9780062248541\n\nCheck out The Second City website: https://www.secondcity.com/\n\nListen to Kelly\u2019s podcast, Getting to Yes And: https://www.secondcityworks.com/podcast\n\n\nAbout Kelly Leonard\xa0\nKelly Leonard is the Executive Director of Learning and Applied Improvisation at Second City Works. His book, \u201cYes, And: Lessons from The Second City\u201d was released to critical acclaim in 2015 by HarperCollins and was praised by Michael Lewis in Vanity Fair who called it \u201c...an excellent guide to the lessons that have bubbled up in Second City\u2019s improv workshops.\u201d Kelly is a popular speaker on the power of improvisation to transform people\u2019s lives. He has presented at The Aspen Ideas Festival, The Code Conference,TEDx Broadway, Chicago Ideas Festival, The Stanford Graduate School of Business and for companies such as Coca Cola, Microsoft, Twitter, Memorial Sloan Kettering and DDB Worldwide.\xa0\n\nKelly co-created an initiative with the Center for Decision Research at the Booth School at the University of Chicago, The Second Science Project, that looks at behavioral science through the lens of improvisation. He also hosts the podcast, \u201cGetting to Yes, And,\u201d for Second City Works and WGN radio that features interviews with academics, authors and leaders such as Brene Brown, Adam Grant, Michael Lewis, Lindy West, Ash Carter and Amy Edmondson.\n\nFor over twenty years, Kelly oversaw Second City\u2019s live theatrical divisions where he helped generate original productions with such talent as Tina Fey, Stephen Colbert, Amy Poehler, Seth Meyers, Steve Carell, Keegan Michael Key, Amy Sedaris, Adam McKay and others. In 2019, Arts Alliance Illinois awarded Kelly and his wife Anne Libera with their Creative Voice Award.\xa0\n\nLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices