Yesterday I took a some clients to an improv show in Chicago. They asked the guy to act out “Pole Vaulting.” But before he could come out on stage, the emcee took suggestions from the audience:

Instead of vaulting with a pole, he vaults with a….. WORM
Instead of landing on a gym matt, he lands on….. MAYONAISE
Instead of vaulting over a bar, he vaults over….. A LLAMA

He didn’t know the code but he had 5 minutes to figure it out. The players on his team had to communicate all of this to him with only grunts, hand motions and gibberish. And he had to get every word exactly right:

“I’m pole vaulting but instead of a pole, I’m vaulting with a worm, the gym matt is mayonnaise and instead of jumping over a bar, I jump over a llama.”

They did this several times and he got it right every single time.

Everyone’s just shaking their head in disbelief. How does this guy DO this?

A: Improv runs on RULES.

When you’re watching improv – like the Drew Carey show – everyone looks like they’re inventing everything at lightning speed and it seems superhuman. But in reality they’re operating within very narrow rules, which paradoxically open up freedom for creativity.

You gotta know the rules first. Then you know when somebody’s breaking them, and you know when you NEED to break them, and when you need to follow them.

Once you’ve mastered the basics your performance is like what Arthur C. Clarke said: “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”

Perry Marshall