In this episode of Yes, And, I dive into the idea of thinking in terms of experimentation, not execution, especially when it comes to reaching big, impossible goals. As professionals, we're often encouraged to follow rigid plans and execute them to perfection. But in a world of constant change, creativity, and uncertainty, sometimes we need to let go of fixed plans and embrace the process of experimentation.
I share stories from my own life where I used this approach to take my keynote and business to the next level—through trial, error, and adapting as I went. Instead of adhering to a step-by-step execution model, experimentation gave me the freedom to try new things, learn from my failures, and ultimately find success in unexpected ways.
Listen in for some valuable insights on how you can apply this mindset to your own goals, whether personal or professional, and learn how embracing experimentation could lead to greater innovation, growth, and resilience.
Key Takeaways:
Shift from execution to experimentation: Learn why experimentation, rather than rigid execution, can lead to more innovative and effective results, especially when dealing with uncertainty or creativity.
Real-life application: Hear how I used this approach to transform my keynote, from initial failures to eventual success, and how small experiments led to big breakthroughs.
The power of flexibility: Understand how flexibility and adaptability can help you pivot and improve your approach when things don’t go according to plan.
How to experiment in your own life: Tips on how to apply the experimentation mindset to both your personal and professional goals, particularly when you're feeling stuck or overwhelmed.
Un-Edited Transcript
Welcome to Yes And, the podcast where we explore the powerful idea of saying yes and instead of yes, but, and how you can use it in your career, your business, and your life. I'm your host, Avish Parshur, and this is yes and. Hello, and welcome back to yes and. Today, we are diving into the idea of thinking in terms of experimentation, not execution. Now if you are like me, you've been in the business world at all. You've read anything, motivational books, productivity books. People value execution.
We gotta execute. We got our plan. We gotta execute it effectively, thoroughly. We gotta stick to the plan. And, you know, in a lot of cases, those are right. But through my background in improvisation and as a speaker and working with individuals and organizations, I think there are a lot of scenarios where we need to think in terms of experimentation, not execution. And this is a bit of a follow-up episode to my interview from last week with Roger Corville.
Now with Roger, we talked a lot about, technology, webinars, virtual programs, all sorts of things like that. And you can there were a lot of different ways I could go in terms of how did I wanna follow-up that episode. But what I wanna talk about here was the idea of change because, essentially, what Roger was talking about was change. He was at the forefront of change when it came to virtual presenting, virtual events, virtual meetings, getting people on board way back before, the pandemic when everyone started using Zoom, even way back before, you know, at home broadband was a thing. So he was often getting people to change. And because one of my big areas of expertise, one of the things I talk about in my keynotes and work with organizations, on in my, workshops and training sessions, whether it's for employees or managers, is about how to embrace and lead change. And one of the big things I talk about there is thinking in terms of experimentation, not execution.
It's a big idea, that kinda comes from the world of improv. I love it for improv. I love it for dealing with change and innovation, and that's what I wanna talk about here today. So I'm gonna explain what I mean a bit about this idea, and, I'm gonna talk about it in my own history and how I used it. And as usual on these solo episodes, I'm gonna drop in an improv game, that doesn't necessarily demonstrate the point as much as it is a pivotal component, in the story that I'm gonna tell you about how I use this idea of experimentation, not execution to take my business to the next level. Before I get into that real quick, if you like what you are about to hear, if you enjoy it, 3 things you could do for me, I'd really appreciate. Number 1, go ahead and give us a 5 star review or rating on whatever podcast platform you're using, specifically, whatever it is now.
Apple Podcasts would be great. Number 2, if you really like this episode, go ahead and write us a short review on Apple Podcasts or whatever platform you use that really helps the podcast be found. It helps other people give us a try, which is how, this podcast grows. And, number 3, maybe the other people you think could benefit from this idea. If so, you can send them this episode. You could send them linked to this episode, or just share it on your social media platform, Facebook, LinkedIn, TikTok, whatever you use. Just post a link to it. Say, hey.
Listen to this episode. Found it really valuable. Thought you might like it too. Again, just trying to get more listeners and grow the podcast and would love your help with that. So let's get into the idea of experimentation versus execution.
Now execution can be great. It has its moments and its uses. Specifically, if you're talking about a proven system or process or repeatable process, like working on an assembly line, for example, or if you're following a system that you know gets results. It's a proven system. It's your system. It's someone else's. If I do x, y, and z, then I know a, b, c will happen.
Then execution, I think, works great. But when we introduce uncertainty, when you're talking about human communication and emotion and psychology, or when you're talking about dealing with change and stepping into uncertainty, or when you're talking about the the messy quagmire of creativity, where it's not a linear process. Like, oh, if I do a, b, c, then d, e, f happen. Right? Now there are ways of making things repeatable. Like, obviously, I know if I sit down and create and write every day that something good will eventually happen. But even that is more experimentation and execution because you don't know when the success is gonna happen.
You don't know how the success is gonna happen. And a lot of those cases, like, when it comes to dealing with change or other people, you're not even sure if you follow the process that you'll get any kind of result you wanted. Right? This is where I think scripting, falls into so many problems. If you're going by a straight numbers game, like you are in a call center or you work for a call center or you're doing cold calling, you have a script. It's a proven script over years, and you know that, hey. If I make a 100 calls, I'm gonna get 7 people to at least listen to me, and one of those people will be willing to, make an appointment for a deeper meeting. Alright. You've done it enough. That's proven.
You follow the script. All you gotta do is execute. Make those 100 calls and make 200 calls, whatever, and it works. Right? Now switch that with, hey. I have a team of 5 employees, and I need to go talk to one of them about their performance. And let me follow this script that I came across on the Internet.
And if I just execute this script, everything will be fine. Well, now you're not dealing with the law of large numbers, which is what statistics is, which is where execution comes in. Now you're dealing with a human, and now you're dealing with communication. And who knows what their emotions are in that moment? Who knows what their history is? Who knows what their psychology is? So if you're just thinking execution there, like, let me say these words, it's gonna fall apart, and this is where experimentation comes in.
It's sort of like being a scientist. Right? I was a big math and science guy in high school and to a lesser degree, but in college as well. And I remember in in, like, physics class, right, I did AP Physics, and we'd have to do these, labs. Like, I forget once a week or once a month, and usually with some kind of physics experiment. And you had to start with a premise. Like, the question would be, how much force do you have to apply to lift this counterweight if you've got 3 pulleys or something like that?
Now one approach is to think in terms of execution, which is like, let me try to get all the calculations exactly right and then figure out the right weight. And then the first time I do it, I'm either gonna be right or wrong and then be done. Right? Because that's what execution is. Execution is binary. It either worked or it didn't. And if it doesn't work, then I fail.
The other approach is experimentation, which is, yeah, you run some calculations and get an estimate. Say, alright. Let me see. I think it should be about this much. And then you just put that weight on there and see. Did it lift the weight?
Yes or no? Did it lift the weight too much? Right? There's a certain level you wanna lift it to a certain degree with the pulleys. Okay. Then you go back and modify. That was your first experiment.
If it didn't lift the weight at all, you need to add more to your weight. If it lifted the weight too much, too fast, then you change it and take some weight off. And you repeat, repeat, repeat until you get the right weight that kind of counter balances correctly. That's all experimentation is, is that you start with a premise, and you don't believe necessarily that that premise is gonna be correct. You hope it is, and if it is, that's great, but you go in understanding that it's a starting point. And then you need to see what happens and make an adjustment and repeat. So if you are trying to roll out a technology change sort of like Roger talked about in our interview last week, you may have this whole plan for how you're gonna roll it out to your team, and you've got all these things set up, and then you go in and execute.
And then there's pushback, and you're like, oh, well, this didn't work at all. I'm just gonna bull forward to my plan, and and I don't care about their buy and they have to do it. Or you can think of the terms experimentation, which is like, alright. Here's how I think my team's gonna react to this change, and here's how I think they're gonna benefit from it. And I think this is the best approach to roll it out to them. And then you go and you start, but then you see what happens. And if they're buying into your logic and your reasoning, awesome. You're done.
Your experiment worked. But if it doesn't, and it often won't because people are unpredictable and random, then you pause and say, oh, why didn't it work? What can I do about this? How can I change my approach for the next time? Sort of like deciding, do I add more weight to my experiment or less? It's like, oh, do I need to lean into the practical benefit side? Oh, are they pushing back against the, resources they're gonna need to expend to use this new technology?
Or are they expressing concern about the, overwhelm they're gonna feel having one more thing on their plate needing to learn a new piece of technology. Okay. Well, let me go back and address that. So we're being in the moment, and we're thinking experiments step by step by step. And this is really how improv comedy works, and this is one of the reasons I believe so strongly in this idea. Because in improv, you know, you'll start an improv scene with a partner, or you're just playing a game solo, and you'll sort of start going in one direction. And the worst improvisers are the ones who will have the end in mind for their scene.
Let me give you an example from my life. This was terrible. We did this really big show. It was a big show when I was doing an improv group in Philadelphia. And it was a big show because we managed to get 3 reviewers from local papers to that show on the same night, which, you know, I had been sending press releases and trying to get reviewers. And finally, just by chance, of course, the way it works out, 1 night, 3 different reviewers were coming. So, we did our show, and this is back when we did short form improv comedy, like you'll see on Whose Line Is It Anyways.
But we would always end the first act with a long form, which is about a 30 minute piece where you get one suggestion from the audience and then improvise on it the whole way. And it's very fun and very rewarding when it works right, but when it doesn't, well, it can be a disaster. Sadly, maybe because of the pressure, maybe it's just happenstance, this night with with these 3 reviewers there, it ended up not going well, and here's why. Because the suggestion we got from the audience was Kool Aid, the drink. And we started improvising, and no one was doing anything interesting. Nothing really funny was happening, and it is because all of us without discussing it or talking about it felt the climactic moment of this long form would be the Kool Aid man bursting through the wall with someone yelling, hey, Kool Aid. Now if you don't know what that means, you are probably young and don't remember these commercials.
So go watch it on YouTube. But there was a whole string of commercials where people would want something to drink, and the kids would yell, hey, Kool Aid. And the Kool Aid man would come bursting through the wall. Now when we got to that moment in the long form and someone yelled, hey, Kool Aid, and the Kool Aid man came into the scene, we did get a laugh. But it was at the expense of 20 minutes of nothingness happening. And it was because we had a fixed end in mind. Right? We were not thinking experimentation.
We were like, alright. We just gotta execute and get to this point at the end. We got very rigid, very unfunny. And one of the reviewers, you know, afterwards in the review, they they called that long form interminable, which believe me, interminable is not, what you want, your, reviewer to say to drive people there. Now he was very gracious, and we spoke on the phone afterwards. And the review he actually wrote a a fairly balanced review that talked positively about the rest of the show. But, man, it hit me in the gut.
And I did learn a valuable lesson there that day about the distinction between execution, which is driving towards a fixed end point, and experimentation, which is about trying things and learning and adapting as we go. In retrospect, we should have busted out that, hey, Kool Aid in the first 3 minutes. And you're like, oh, well, if you start with that, where would you go?
Well, I don't know. And that's the fun of improvisation. That's the fun of experimentation. You might uncover new things you had no idea about. About. So I want you to think about in your own life. Where are you thinking in terms of execution where maybe thinking in terms of experimentation might be better?
And if you want a place to start, I would go back to the last 2 podcast episodes, not the last 2, but the first two of this year which is are the 2 before the interview with Roger, where I talked about your persistent yes buts and impossible goals. Because one of the reasons why I think we get stuck on our persistent yes buts and we don't attack impossible goals is we get stuck in the process of execution. We have a persistent yes but, and maybe we try something for it. But because it's such a a big goal, something that we feel deep down is gonna be hard or impossible, execution doesn't work. Because if we could just come up with a simple plan that, hey, if I just execute this, it'll work. We wouldn't have that persistent yes, but.
We would just have achieved that goal. So instead, think in terms of experimentation. Take that persistent yes but. Take that impossible goal and just try something. Say let me see Let me take one step. Let me try something to see how it works.
Did it work or not? Did I like it or not? Did I learn something or not? And then take the next step and next step. This takes a lot of pressure off, and it gets you moving, and it may end up make you a lot more and better progress than you would if you thought in terms of execution.
Speaker 2
So let
Avish
me talk about how I use this myself. In those 2 episodes I mentioned, the persistent yes, but and the impossible goals. Right? I talked about how one of my persistent yes, buts was about really taking my keynote to the next level, about how raising the bar and about how my business had struggled. And it wasn't till I really worked on getting better, making myself a better speaker with a better keynote that things really transformed. I don't think I went so deep into those podcasts though on the process I did to make my keynote better. And it wasn't totally it wasn't an execution thing.
It wasn't linear where I just said, I'm gonna make my keynote better, and then the first time I did it, it got better. In fact, I struggled. I started with just the idea. Alright. I wanna make my keynote better. How can I make it better? Then I threw away everything.
I said, okay. If I had to rewrite rewrite my keynote from scratch and not use any material I've ever used before, what would I do? And this was a struggle, and I tried to figure it out. And I didn't wasn't really getting anywhere until I really switched my mindset, and I tried something new. Now I was fortunate because I had this opportunity to try something new in a safe space, sort of, depending on your perspective. See, I was invited to do a participate in a comedy night for the National Speakers Association, And they said, okay, you get to do a 5 minute bit. And it was me and about 12 other speakers.
And the way they set it up was they said, for this 5 minute comedy bit, we're gonna give you 8 speaker cliches. You know, at this point, it's been so long. I forget exactly what the word but there are 8 phrases that are, like, cliched motivational phrases, and you need to incorporate these in a way, that's funny. Any way you want. And so what happened is most people did kinda humorous bits, little funny speeches, funny stories where they wove in these 8 sentences, and it was fine. What I said was, you know what? I'm an improv comedian, so I need to improvise this.
And I thought about what could I do. And I said, you know what? I'm gonna play an improv game, and I'm gonna play an improv game called Blind Line. Now this was way back in, like, 2012, and blind line is an improv game where you get a bunch of sentences written down on piece of paper, that the audience writes down. And the way I play and the way I always played it was I didn't know what the audience was writing. We would just give them paper or index cards and say write down a sentence. And then we collect them, and then as you're doing your story or your scene, you pull out a card and read whatever sentence is written on there.
Huge crowd pleasing game, and we didn't play it that much just because of logistics at an improv comedy show. You have to hand out the pieces of paper. You need to make sure you have pens for distribution. If you're doing it in a theater without tables, it's harder for people to write. Blah blah blah. So, basically, I gave in to the, difficulty of it and didn't do it. But for this, I'm like, well, what if I had each of those 8 sentences written down on a piece of paper, and I would pull one out periodically and incorporate it.
Now that sounded good, but I knew that it wouldn't be funny enough because those sentences, just from experience, they wouldn't add that much humor. So then I thought about the fact that I play this improv game called Ding, which you've probably seen if you ever see me speak. If not, go to the videos page on my website, avishparshner.comforward/, videos. And there's a TEDx talk and my demo video and me playing the game, ding. You can see all these clips. In that game, I get an audience volunteer with a bell, and I start telling a story. And every time they ring the bell, I, change the story.
So if I said, once upon a time, there was a girl with a pet dog, ding. Once upon a time, there's a girl with a pet cat, ding. With a pet mouse, ding. With a pet giraffe, ding. Whatever. And on and on. And so I said, what if I combine those 2?
And so what I did is at the comedy night, I wrote down those 8 sentences, each on a different piece of paper. I had the emcee, who was a friend of mine, Judson Lively, who does the evolution of dance. I had him do the bell. He had a little improv comedy background, so I knew he knew to the bell. He was my bell ringer. And what I did is I brought up a random audience member, and then I said, okay. I'm gonna tell this story.
Judson over here is gonna ring the bell, which is gonna make me change it, but you volunteer. Anytime you want, you say the word line. And whenever you say the word line, I'm gonna have to pull out a a card or, the piece of paper and read that sentence on there. And so it's risk. Right? It's improvised, and I got Judson who I kinda knew, but he was gonna ring whenever he wanted. A random volunteer I knew nothing about.
And I will tell you that game rocked. It got a standing ovation, blew the house down. People were commenting about all convention long. This is the opening night of the convention or the night before the opening. It was a preconvention. People coming up to me. It was it was great.
People coming to me all convention long talking about how great that was. I realize I'm bragging now, but that was really kind of a career highlight moment. And what I wanna do now is I wanna drop the audio of that in just so you can hear the game and get a sense of what I'm talking about.
Speaker 2
For you. I should let you know that I have not prepared in advance
Avish
for this event tonight at all.
Speaker 2
It is because in my real life, not that I'm gonna set
Avish
up a real life, but in my real job,
Speaker 2
I am a improv comedian who applies improv comedy principles to business and life. So rather than write something in advance, I figured I would improvise it for you tonight. However, I'm going to do it by playing a combination of a couple of improv games, which I'll explain to you. 1st, I'm going to need Judson's help. Judson, come on up here. First, I'd like to point out that the word butter does not rhyme with my last name, Parisher, as it rhymes. With Parrish.
Meaning clearly racist. That's it. Alright. So it turns out that, I'm I'm not the only professor with a bell. So, I have a bell here. I'm gonna use it in a very different way, however. In a moment, I'm gonna hand it to Judson.
Then when I begin telling my speech, anytime Judson wants, he can ring the bell. When he does, I have to stop, go back, repeat what I said, but change it to something different. It can be anything at all as long as it's different. So for example, if I was telling a story that started out, once upon a time, there was a girl who had a pet dog. Once upon a time, there was a girl who had a pet cat, who had a pet mouse, who had a pet llama, whatever. As long as he rings, I have to change. When he stops ringing, I continue telling the story, but only as if the last thing was said.
So in this story, the dog, the cat, and the mouse would be gone, we'd be left with a
Avish
story about a girl and her pet llama. That's the first part of it.
Speaker 2
The second thing is, though, we've got this whole cliche thing going on. So just let me hand that to you. I've written the cliches down on 8 different cards, which I am now shuffling up. What I'm going to need is a volunteer to come up from the audience, stand here, and whenever you want, you can say line,
Avish
at which point I need to alright. Come on up, sir.
Speaker 2
That's always a bad, bad sign. So, what is your name, sir? Kevin Brown. Kevin Brown.
Let's give Kevin a hand. Alright. So what's your understanding that mic is recording for you? Alright. So, Kevin, anytime you want, you can say line when
Avish
you do want me to
Speaker 2
take whatever card and incorporate that immediately into the presentation as well. Alright? The final thing just to prove to you, because you might be like, oh, maybe Kevin's planted and Judson's the host. It's all pre planned, which would really be far more impressive than actually improvising it. But just to prove to you that this is improvise, I am also going to let you be my branding expert. So from this kind of half of the room, call out some verbs. What are some things other than speaking, what are some verbs? Rod. Rod, what was that back there? Fishing. Fishing. Oh, I like fishing. Alright. Kevin, are you ready? I'm ready.
You can yell line up to 8 times. You can say after that, but I don't know what we're gonna do.
Are you ready?
Avish
I am ready.
Speaker 2
Are you guys ready? Yes. Here we go. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for joining me here tonight. I'm here to share with you the power of hairy fishing. Not many people are aware of this, but when you go fishing, it can unlock some secrets of the universe from within yourself. It can unlock the key to your neighbor's house.
It can make you grow strong and virile, and in fact, it will teach you how to sell the sizzle and not the steak. And here is why. Because when you are out there hairy fishing, you're not normal fishing. You're looking for hairy fish. You are looking for porcupines that have put themselves in the river. You are looking for a submarine that is thinking outside the box. Because submarines that have hair on them are like submarines that have hair on them are like checkups from the Necka.
Because when you got in your head when you've got a hairy submarine, you're like, I must be crazy, which is clearly what checkup from the Necka means. Let me just share with you a story to illustrate the meaning behind all this. You see, there was a guy named John, and there was a guy named Chuck. There was there was an elephant named Magoo. Magoo needed to build a bigger pie because Magoo Magoo was his boss was repeating his entire tribe of elephants, but he only had a little pie. But what he realized is out there,
Avish
it's hard to make a pie, so he's like, I need to go fishing.
Speaker 2
And when he did, he said you've got to be hungry to go fishing because fishing is so boring that if you're not hungry, you'll give up very quickly. So Magu the elephant went to the lake and and he said something, awaken the giant within. He yelled it at the fish, and this fish just erupted from the lake, and this fish just died when he said, come on. This fish talked to him, and the fish said, we've become what we think about. And Magu the elephant looked at the fish and said, hi, hairy fish friend.
If I just think about it, then I will think and grow rich. Damn. And so I am here to tell you, all of you, I will tell all of you, you can awaken
Avish
the giant within again, evidently.
Speaker 2
If you if you follow the example of Magoo, the elephant, don't go for normal fishing. Don't go for building bigger pies. Use the power of hairy fishing, and you will achieve all the dreams you could ever want.
Avish
Now this occurred about 2 or 3 months after I had resolved to make my keynote better. And about a month or so before, I had my kinda first in a string of 6 keynotes where I was gonna really try to roll out this new content. And I went back, got back home after that convention, still on a high from this performance being, like, wow. And I realized there's so many things I wasn't doing there. I had been playing ding, but I hadn't really been doing this blind line thing, and I thought, So that was my first experiment. Let me try it completely unrelated to the keynote. Let me try up there, and it worked great.
So I learned something. Then I said, okay. Well, this works so good here. Can I use this in my keynotes? So the first time out, I tried this version, but it didn't really work well because the sentences didn't work. And then in the game, having 2 volunteers, it worked in the NSA, the the Speakers Association Convention.
Because I knew Judson. He had an improv background, and I met with him before just to make sure he understood the proper technique for ringing the bell in the way I liked. Doing this in front of a motivational as part of motivational speak in front of a professional audience, having 2 different volunteers doing 2 different things was too confusing. There's also a little bit of an art to when you pull out the blind line card. There are moments that make it better or worse.
Now I was very lucky. The guy did a good job of it at the comedy performance. But if you don't, it it can make it not go so good. So I'm like, alright. That was an experiment in front of a live audience or in front of a professional audience. Let's go back to the drawing board. So then I thought maybe the multiple ding thing was the key.
So then I tried this version to as a closer for my keynote where I had 3 volunteers. Each of them had a bell, and they were allowed to ring anytime they wanted. And I thought, oh, this will ratchet up the tension. It'll be more dinging, which makes the game more fun. And I tried that, and I gotta say it didn't work. It didn't work at all, because the 3 people because they're volunteers from an audience, they just sort of rang 1 at a time. It wasn't very fun.
It just had no rhythm. It was miserable. Experimentation number 2 was a failure, or that was actually experiment number 3. Number 1 was the comedy show success. Number 2 was trying that in the same as a keynote. Didn't work.
Number 3, this version. Then I went back to the drawing board and said, okay. What can I learn from this? Like, well, number 1, multiple volunteers doesn't work. I thought, Well, what if because this was my closer, I wanted to have as much control over it as possible because the uncertainty can lead to great things, but it can also sort of create this, challenge. Right? I open with ding where I bring in a volunteer, and that adds uncertainty, which if the bell ringer doesn't do a great job, the game doesn't work as well.
And I figured out a way of coaching them so it works better, but still once in a while, it doesn't work great. But the thing is at the beginning of a keynote, I have the whole rest of the keynote to fix that, address it, get the audience back. At the end, having all these volunteers, putting my hands in the fate of people with no improv background I haven't worked with was a lot riskier and more complicated.
So why would I wanna have 3 volunteers? Send the what if I had 0 volunteers? And then that got me thinking, okay. Well, what if I did just the blind line game without, the ding elements as they do ding at the beginning anyways? I thought, Now this led to logistics issue, but this time, I said, well, let me try it. So I don't like the logistics of having to bring these cards and make sure people have pens and find time in the middle of my speech to collect them. But I said, let me try it.
Let me experiment. And I did it, and you know what? It was a great ending. And then I did it again, and it was a great ending. And I kept doing it. And in fact, still to this day, I talk about how there were 6 keynotes that, were trying this new material. On my website, on the videos page of my website, there is a blind line game from a Delaware SHRM conference of 2012.
I still have the video club of this. It's this one that has sort of a brown curtain background if you wanna go check it out. That's the final version. Right? That was me playing this game blind line at the end, and it went great. The audience loved it. It was a huge finish.
And now now 13 years later about, that is still my closer, and it works great. Audiences loved it.
Now I've tweaked it. I've refined it. I figured how to make it better. Now, again, I I would hesitate to tell these stories where things work out really well for me in the end because it makes it seem like I'm bragging or whatnot. This whole thing happened though because of the idea of experimentation, not execution. It would have been real easy for me to just sit here in writing and not try anything until I had something I was a 100% certain would work. And then if I went out and did it and it didn't work, if I tried to execute, to simply give up and say, like, you know what?
I tried to execute. It didn't work. It either means I gotta do the exact same thing I tried better or I gotta give up. And that seems an extreme case. You look at my keynote and be like, obviously, you wouldn't do that. But how many times do we do that in our lives? We come up with a plan to achieve a goal.
You know, could be business, could be career, could be communication, leadership, could be at work, could be health. And we come up with our plan, And, you know, it's New Year's right now. I'm recording this the beginning of the year. This is being released in January. Maybe February. I don't know when this is gonna be, but it's coming out soon. But, you you come up with your plan and say, okay.
I'm gonna go to the gym during these times. I'm gonna eat this way. And you go into your 1st week, and you fall off the wagon. Right? You don't go to the gym when you said you would. You don't eat the way you said you would. And what do most of us do?
Well, one of 2 things. We resolve the next week to do it right. I'm gonna execute better, or we give up. We say, you know what? I was overly ambitious with this goal anyway, so let me just go back to what I was doing before. This is why what it is, like, 80% of New Year's resolutions and goals fall off by the end of January. It's because of execution, not experimentation, and I'm applying this to myself.
I'm the same way. Right? I've fallen off on so many goals. Now instead, what I want you to think about is think experimentation. You've got these goals, whether it's a New Year's resolution for health or a business or or hobby or whatever.
Make your plan. That's great. But think experimentation. When you go into your plan, when it doesn't work, don't just resolve next week. Oh, I'm gonna work my plan better, and don't give up. Instead, go back and say, well, that first week or that first iteration of this plan, that was just my experiment. Let me think about what I can change.
How can I make this better? What can I do differently next week, to improve my chances of success? And then try it. And then after that week or after that iteration, ask yourself again, oh, how did that work? Oh, you know what? That didn't work so great. Maybe I need to do this differently and so on and so on.
And by experimenting, by thinking experimentation, not execution, you'll make progress. It might be slow in the beginning, but you'll eventually develop a process and a system that works for you. Then once you've got that dialed in and figured out what works for you, then you can think in terms of execution.
Speaker 2
So that's the idea of thinking
Avish
in terms of experimentation, not execution. Great idea to use an improv. A great idea I've used for myself, and a great idea I hope you find lots of ways of using too.
Do you have questions? Are you curious about how this work, or do you want help applying this to your own life?
Well, let me know. Go to abhichebarasure. com. My email is there. My contact form is there. My phone number is there. I'd love to hear about it.
And, again, remember, I would love for this podcast to grow. I'd love to reach more people with the message of yes, and. So if you like this episode, share it to your social media networks. Send the link to someone. Also, leave me a 5 star rating on your podcast platform. And if you feel so inclined, a short 2 or 3 sentence review goes a long way to helping others find me and helping this grow. Thank you so much, and be sure to tune in again next week when I will be talking with Lisa Ryan about the power of gratitude.
It's not just a soft squishy thing. It is a strategy that leads to hard results, and you don't wanna miss that episode. Thanks so much, and I will see you next week.