Chester Grant

Veritas: Truth Across Cultures is a book I compiled. It identifies common sayings/proverbs that have been independently discovered across cultures that I call Truths. It is my proposition that, due to our human nature and environment that common patterns recur, and cultures document these through their sayings. For instance, this Truth below:

This is a pattern that independent cultures have identified and documented that we tend to become like our associates. This is a pattern I already knew. What follows are patterns/Truths that I didn’t identify or acknowledge previously.

1. People confuse kindness for weakness - I knew it was a thing, but I didn’t know it was this widespread. This is one of the Truths that has me updating my belief system. Boundaries are necessary because it’s human nature to take advantage of a situation. One can’t rely on others being considerate. But do like the Persians: “Do not be so sweet that you are swallowed up, nor so bitter that you are spit out.” It is something that requires balance.
   
   
   

2. Easy sell - As the former President of Antigua and Barbuda Chess Federation, I had identified that Chess was an easy sell for me. What I mean by an easy sell is that it was easy for me to invite people to join the federation, enlist help from others, and charge others for services. Fundamentally, I believe that it is a net positive for anyone engaging in the federation’s activities; I was making people’s lives better. It is similar with Veritas; knowledge of these Truths will lead to people conducting their lives more wisely. At a minimum, they will be saving time on compiling the sayings.
   
   

   

3. Change is Hard - All the preceding Truths are based on habits. They all point out that once a habit has been set, it is hard to change. It makes sense. It has been estimated that human behaviour is 40%-50% habitual. Without these habitual behaviours, we wouldn’t be able to document them in Veritas, and choose how to move intentionally. Maybe the relevant question emerging from Veritas is what habits do I need to build for my long-term prosperity?

4. Leadership Isolates - This is something I knew through experience, but I hadn’t realised that it wasn’t just me; it was universal. It is a point to note if I keep going down this path of being in situations of leadership, isolation is something I would need to address. It wasn’t a one-off thing; it is something that is structurally built in.

If you’re interested in reading Veritas, you can purchase it here. And, if you do decide to purchase it, please leave a review along with a Truth that resonated with you. 

Would you leave your infant in the care of a robot, assuming that the robot could perform every practical caregiving task that you could? I would venture that most of my readers would say no, although for varying reasons. In this post, I will outline why AI will not completely replace humans in education.

1. Biological responses

During human-to-human interaction, we are not merely conveying words. Touch and social contact can also trigger biological and hormonal responses. When a mother holds her infant, for example, skin-to-skin contact can stimulate oxytocin-related processes. Oxytocin is associated with bonding and attachment, while physical contact can help regulate an infant’s stress response.[1] Infants deprived of normal touch and sensory stimulation may experience developmental delays and difficulties with emotional and physiological regulation.[2]

You might say, “That applies to infants, but what about teenagers and adults?” Research suggests that loneliness and social isolation are associated with changes in gene expression and epigenetic markers.[3] These changes may be connected to accelerated biological ageing, increased inflammation, and altered immune function.  By replacing human interaction with machine interaction, we may be giving up something valuable. There is no free lunch: the more time devoted to interacting with machines, the less time may remain for interacting with other humans.

2. The expression of non-PC ideas

Your friendly neighbourhood AI tutor was developed by a company. That company does not want to be sued or become involved in activities that could tarnish its reputation. Consequently, the AI will be aligned, as the developers call it, with certain institutional values, limiting what it can say or discuss.

Learning could therefore be mediated by what a group of executives considers appropriate. What is said in a traditional classroom is also mediated, but students are not necessarily limited to the perspective of a single teacher.

Teachers also have skin in the game. On one side, they face the possibility of losing their jobs for expressing non-PC ideas. On the other, they may feel a responsibility to express truthful ideas that could make their students more capable and resilient in life.

Consider Richard Feynman’s idea of being “actively irresponsible.” Feynman explained that, as people become more successful, increasing demands are placed on their time. They are asked to sit on committees, accept administrative responsibilities, give interviews, and attend social events. These activities may appear to contribute to further success, but they can also prevent people from doing their most meaningful work. Can you imagine an AI recommending that you become actively irresponsible?

3. Building trust

If classroom education were strictly about acquiring subject knowledge, you could simply get a library card or, in modern times, watch YouTube videos. Classroom education, however, also includes mechanisms for establishing trust.

First, your grades provide a measure of how strongly a lecturer believes that you understand the material. Then there are recommendation letters, in which a teacher vouches, in their own words, for a student’s character and capabilities.

Teachers may also recommend students directly to employers and professional peers. Unlike a formal recommendation letter, this support may not be prompted by a request. It may arise because teachers genuinely want the best for their students. Students may similarly promote and recommend their classmates.

4. Status

We are already beginning to see a status distinction emerge. From the use of the term “AI slop” to the growing demand for proof that genuine care and effort went into something, AI-generated work is increasingly associated with lower effort and, in some contexts, lower status.

Just as people may choose between factory-manufactured furniture and handcrafted furniture, education could develop into a two-tier system. One tier would provide inexpensive and readily available AI tutoring. The other would provide expensive human instruction that signals class, care, and sophistication.

AI will not eliminate status competition. Although it may satisfy many basic needs, scarcity will continue to exist. For example, several people may be romantically interested in the same person. That person’s attention is scarce, and who ultimately attracts that person may be influenced partly by status.

AI has its place. Just as I would not place handcrafted furniture on a beach, there are circumstances in which traditional classroom education is unsuitable or impractical. Suppose, for instance, that I want to learn string theory. How many people in Antigua, where I am from, are qualified to teach it? This would be an ideal use of AI. My conclusion, however, is that AI will not fully replace classroom teachers. As outlined above, too much would be lost in the process.

[1] Scatliffe, N., Casavant, S., Vittner, D., and Cong, X. “Oxytocin and Early Parent-Infant Interactions: A Systematic Review.” International Journal of Nursing Sciences, 2019. 

[2] Ardiel, E. L., and Rankin, C. H. “The Importance of Touch in Development.” Paediatrics & Child Health, 2010. 

[3] Lynch, M., et al. “Associations Between Longitudinal Loneliness, DNA Methylation Age Acceleration, and Cognitive Functioning.” 2023. 

Let’s do a Gedanken experiment, i.e. a thought experiment. Let’s assume that AI has advanced sufficiently to satisfy our physiological and safety needs. What would we then need to worry about? Again, we are going to use invariants to determine what may happen in the future. I previously discussed invariants as a means of predicting the future here.

Now, what is the invariant in this scenario? The invariant is land. The amount of land on Earth is unlikely to increase from now until the distant future. It may even decrease. I think it is reasonable to assume that we are not getting any more land on Earth. There are three scenarios to consider. The demand for land, driven partly by population size, may increase, decrease, or remain the same. In scenarios where the demand for land decreases or remains the same, there is no serious problem.

However, if the demand for land increases, we may eventually need to make some tough decisions. It is possible that demand could increase to such an extent that we would no longer be able to sustain ourselves collectively. Before AI, population growth was partly restrained by the fact that children had to be supported financially. Looking ahead, parents may limit the number of children they have if they do not possess the resources needed to provide for them. However, anyone who lives in the real world knows that some people ignore their lack of resources and continue having children they cannot adequately support. Now imagine this situation being intensified by AI covering the cost of food, clothing, and shelter.

“Hope for the best, but plan for the worst.” I certainly hope we reach a future in which the demand for land is lower or remains the same, but we should still plan for the worst-case scenario. In that scenario, I do not see how reproduction could avoid being controlled in some form. Can you think of an ethical solution to overpopulation that does not involve some form of reproductive control?

I am not suggesting that we should immediately impose reproductive controls. In fact, I may be discussing a problem that never arises. The current trend among people with greater economic resources is not to have more children, but fewer. Before considering stronger forms of reproductive control, voluntary methods should be used to encourage people to limit the number of children they have.

If you are interested in this type of thinking (invariants for analysing the future), I have written a book called Veritas: Truths Across Cultures. It catalogues 94 recurring sayings, truths, and invariants found across diverse cultures.

You can find samples of the book here. You can get a copy here.

It is my belief that, as a society, we are climbing Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs:

1. Physiological Needs - Food, clothing, shelter, and the other basic requirements for survival.

2. Safety Needs - Personal safety, a stable environment, and protection from danger.

3. Love and Belonging - Friendship, family, romantic relationships, community, and the feeling of being accepted.

4. Esteem Needs - Self-respect, confidence, achievement, recognition, status, and the respect of others.

5. Self-Actualization - Becoming the fullest version of yourself by developing your talents and creativity, finding purpose, and pursuing meaningful goals.

I have a saying: “To think a thousand moves deep, think in terms of invariants.” If we think about what is not going to change, whether it is move 1, move 50, or move 1,000, then we can reason far into the future without having to predict every individual move.

Jeff Bezos applied a similar reasoning to Amazon. He asked what would not change about amazon customers. His answer was that customers would continue to want low prices, and fast delivery. Amazon could therefore invest heavily in those areas, knowing that customers were unlikely to ask for higher prices or slower delivery.

In light of the rapid development of artificial intelligence, what is not going to change about human beings? I propose that one consistent framework is Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. From now until the year one million, and beyond, these needs will still have to be satisfied.

Let us look at each level. I think AI can be used to satisfy our physiological and safety needs. At the higher levels of the hierarchy, however, this is where AI begins to tap out. I am speaking generally here, so do not come at me with edge cases. I do not see AI fully satisfying our need for love and belonging. I do not see it satisfying our need for esteem or self-actualization. In fact, I can see AI having a negative effect on some aspects of these needs. Imagine trying to gain the respect of your peers through artificially produced work, with little or no creative input from yourself. I do not see such a person being held in high regard, whether now or a thousand years from now.

Prediction: In the future, our physiological and safety needs will largely be met through AI and automation.  As a society, we will therefore largely pass levels one and two of Maslow’s hierarchy. However, our higher-order needs will still require significant investment from us. AI may help us communicate, create, and organize, but it cannot simply hand us genuine friendship, family, community, earned respect, purpose, or self-actualization.

Prescription: Find your tribe. If society is moving beyond levels one and two, then the next major challenge is level three: love and belonging. 

If you are interested in this type of thinking, I have written a book called Veritas: Truths Across Cultures. It catalogues 94 recurring sayings, truths, and invariants found across diverse cultures.

You can find samples of the book here. You can get a copy here.

I have always been interested in ideas that have stood the test of time, particularly proverbs. If you have read enough proverbs, you may have noticed that independent cultures often discover the same underlying “truths.”

This book is my attempt to catalogue those truths. In total, I have compiled 94 truths across five categories: Human Nature; Power and Leadership; Effort, Time, and Discipline; Relationships and Reciprocity; and Courage and Action.

Here is a sample of three of those truths:

What follows is 7 samples of recurring saying across different cultures on the topic of leadership. I have identified 94 such patterns in my book: Veritas.

I have always been interested in ideas that have stood the test of time, particularly proverbs. If you have read enough proverbs, you may have noticed that independent cultures often discover the same underlying “truths.”

This book is my attempt to catalogue those truths. In total, I have compiled 94 truths across five categories: Human Nature; Power and Leadership; Effort, Time, and Discipline; Relationships and Reciprocity; and Courage and Action.

Here is a sample of seven of those truths:

Read all 94 truths in Veritas: Truths Across Cultures.

1. This is a book about the nature of reality. It elaborates on the best hypothesis we have today, based on leading-edge science and analytic reasoning, about what reality is.

2. The scientific method can only definitively answer questions of behavior: what nature does, as opposed to what it is.

3. After all, science is based on controlled empirical experimentation: it poses a question to nature in the form of an experiment, which nature then answers by doing something in response.

4. This doing is a behavior of nature, not an unambiguous expression of what nature is, as different hypotheses about the essence of reality may be equally consistent with the observed behavior. Moreover, the litmus test of scientific theories is their ability to predict what nature will do next, which again is a question of behavior.

5. Indeed, in addition to science, this book also leverages the methods of philosophy, particularly metaphysics, the area of philosophy dedicated to questions of being.

6. More specifically, beyond the empirical adequacy of the hypothes is it puts forward, this book also leverages softer truth guidelines such as conceptual parsimony, internal logical consistency, overall coherence, and explanatory power. These guidelines cannot lead us to definitive answers to questions of being, but surely allow us to rank the hypotheses at hand and figure out the most likely one. This is the spirit of this book.

7. This way, Analytic Idealism embraces realism (i.e., there is an external world out there, independent of our individual minds; independent of our observation, volition, fantasies, preferences, rituals, etc.), naturalism (i.e., the phenomena of the external world unfold spontaneously, according to nature’s own inherent dispositions, and not according to external intervention by a divinity outside nature), rationalism (human reason can recognize and model the regularities of nature’s behavior), and reductionism (complex phenomena can be explained in terms of simpler ones).

8. However, Analytic Idealism then infers that the external world is of the same ontic kind or essence as our individual minds. In other words, it posits that the world out there is mental

9. For now, though, notice that technology necessitates no ultimately correct understanding of the nature of reality; it only needs empirically convenient fictions. 

10.To see how, consider that a 5-year-old kid can be world champion playing a computer game without having the slightest idea of what the game actually is—that is, of the computer hardware and software that constitute the game. To  be world champion, all the kid needs is a convenient fiction in terms of which to relate to the game. 

11. And it may go like this: there is a little man inside the screen; I am that little man; if I shoot those other little men in the screen, I score points; if I get shot or touch this or that wall, I die; and so on. Each and every element of this fiction is utterly false: there is no little man inside the screen; you are not inside the screen; you are not shooting, or getting shot by, anyone; there are no walls to touch; and you don’t die from playing the game. 

12. Yet, the fiction is convenient in that the game behaves, for all applicable purposes, as if the fiction were true; and that’s all the kid needs to play it well and be crowned world champion.

13. We believe that our perception is a kind of transparent window into the world, revealing to us the world as it is in itself.

14. Take an airplane, for instance: it has a number of sensors—such as air speed, pressure, and orientation sensors—which measure the states of the sky outside the airplane. The resulting measurements are then displayed to the pilot in an encoded manner, in the form of dial indications in the airplane’s dashboard. As such, the airplane’s dashboard conveys accurate and important information about the sky outside, albeit in an encoded form. The pilot must take this encoded information seriously, lest the airplane crashes.

15. Just like the airplane, we, too, are equipped with sensors to collect information about the world surrounding us: our retinas, eardrums, taste buds, mucous lining of the nose, and outer surface of the skin make measurements of the states of the environment surrounding us. The results of these measurements are then represented on the screen of perception: what we see, hear, touch, taste, and smell. As such, the screen of perception is entirely analogous to the airplane’s dashboard: both display information about our environment that was collected by our sensors. 

16. Yet, as we’ve just seen, the airplane’s dashboard does not need to look like the sky to convey accurate, relevant, and actionable information about the sky.

17. Instead, perception is like a dashboard of dials: it contains information about the world only in an encoded form, thereby limiting the entropy of our internal states, just as a dashboard of dials intrinsically limits the entropy of information pilots have to contend with (incidentally, this is why flight manuals, despite being thick, are finite in length and do not have to tell the pilot what to do for every possible configuration of the sky).

18. To avoid this dysfunctional scenario, the computer’s operating system represents the files not as they actually are, but in an encoded form that conveys what is salient about them in an actionable manner; i.e., as little rectangular icons. The same goes for perception: if evolution had built our perceptual system to cognize the world as it really is, it stands to reason that we would be driven to extinction because of non-actionable information overload.

19. We are airplane pilots who were born in the cockpit of an airplane without windows; an airplane that can only be flown by instruments.

20. There surely is a real world out there, independent of perception; a world that would still be there even if we were not here to perceive it; a world that doesn’t care whether we like it or not, believe it or not, wish it to be different or not; a world that doesn’t change merely because we fantasize about its being different. 

21. But that real world is not the ‘physical’ world that appears on the screen of perception.

22. For the physicalist, the real world is physical not merely in the sense of being describable by physical quantities, but of being constituted by physical quantities.

23. The thing that is ultimately described through its physical representation—i.e., that which is represented—is out there, while the descriptions themselves are ‘in here,’ so to speak. But the physicalist flips this upside down or, rather, inside out: it is only the descriptions that are out there—i.e., the kilograms, the meters, the liters, the seconds, etc.—while the things described somehow arise from, and are given substance by, the descriptions. This is literally equivalent to stating that the map precedes the territory and somehow generates the territory.

24. Let us take memory, for instance: a core premise of Physicalism is that memory is information physically stored somewhere in the brain, just as your files are physically stored in your computer’s main storage drive. This premise has a scientific implication: we should be able to find memory information in physical brain states.

25. Science has been trying to find this secret information storage for well over a century, with results that often contradict the physicalist premise. For instance, in 2013 researchers reported on an amazing study: little aquatic flatworms called ‘planaria’—which have the remarkable ability to regrow amputated body parts, including their head—were trained to navigate an irregular surface to find food. The researchers then decapitated the planaria—thereby removing their neurons, which are in their head—and waited for two weeks until a new head grew. 

26. With a brand-new head in place, the planaria maintained their originally trained ability to navigate the rough surfaces to find their food, without additional training. Somehow the planaria remembered their training even after their head was severed, contradicting the premise that memories are physically stored in (networks of) neurons.

27. If a person becomes unable to recall short-term memories because of damage to certain areas of the brain, maybe ‘physical’ structures correlated with memory access have been compromised, not memory storage itself (otherwise, the well-known phenomenon of ‘terminal lucidity’—look it up—wouldn’t be possible).

28. Indeed, we’ve known at least since the late 1940s (arguably even as early as the late 1920s), with the advent of Quantum Electrodynamics, that what we call ‘particles’ aren’t particles at all: they are merely local patterns of excitation of a spatially unbound quantum field. Think of particles as ripples on a river: each ripple has a certain height, thickness, speed, and direction of movement, which are the ripple’s ‘physical’ properties.

29. “There’s a ripple!” Yet, there is nothing to the ripple but the river itself. The ripple is not a standalone entity, but a behavior of the river; it’s not a thing but a doing. This is why you cannot grab a ripple and lift it off the river.

30. At first sight, however, mind-space seems devoid of boundaries: I can seamlessly access my memories, thoughts, emotions, fantasies, ideas, etc., as if all these mental contents were part of a unitary database. I don’t need to open cognitive doors or pass through cognitive walls to access them. Yet, appearances are deceiving.

31. This ‘parking’ of a part of your mental inner life is the creation of a cognitive wall inside your mind. Psychiatrists call it ‘dissociation.’

32. People with DID present with multiple so-called ‘alters,’ or ‘alternate personalities.’ Each alter tends to think of itself as a distinct conscious agent, with its own volition and inner life, separate from the other alters and the host personality. Alters can alternate in taking executive control of the body. Often, they go by unique names and can also claim to have an age and gender different from those of the host personality. They sometimes are aware of the existence of other alters, but sometimes also not.

33. Technically, each alter is a segment of the host personality’s mind so severely dissociated from the rest that it acquires its own unique vantage point and sense of identity. As such, each alter becomes a distinct center of awareness within what is, otherwise, one single mind-space. The dissociative boundaries that separate alters from one another are thus cognitive boundaries, not physical or extended ones; alters are defined by cognitive isolation, not physical separation in spacetime.

34. In other words, according to Analytic Idealism, we are all dissociative processes—‘alters’—in the one mind of nature. The idea is that nature-at-large—which is a mind—undergoes a process analogous to human DID. Just as DID patients present with seemingly disjoint centers of awareness called ‘alters,’ nature-at-large also presents with multiple disjoint centers of awareness that we call us. Analogically speaking, we—and all other living beings—are alters of nature-at-large.

35. Under Analytic Idealism, nature is one spatially unbound field of subjectivity.

36. be. Particular experiential states are merely particular patterns of excitation, or ‘ripples,’ of this one natural subject. Each different pattern of excitation is thus a discernible, countable experiential state. That’s how the unfathomable variety and complexity of natural states is accounted for in terms of the simplicity of one field of subjectivity: just as a single guitar string can oscillate differently so to produce many different notes, the one subject of nature can ‘oscillate’ differently so to produce what is represented on our cognitive dashboard as blackholes, quasars, pulsars, nebulae, galaxies, stars, planets, moons, mountains, volcanoes, oceans, etc.

37. This is how we can visualize dissociation over a field: a particular alter in the mind of nature is akin to a ‘whirlpool’ in the ‘river’ of natural mentation.

38. In precisely the same way, there is nothing to an alter of the mind of nature but, well, the mind of nature. The alter is not a thing, but a doing of nature; and this particular kind of doing is what we call a dissociative process. Yet, we can point at an alter of nature and say, “There’s a person!” We can precisely determine its location and delineate its boundaries, just like a whirlpool in a river.

39. When a DID patient is cured, all alters are reintegrated into the host personality. At that point, the host remembers the memories of the alters, and realizes that each and every alter was the host all along. 

40. The patient doesn’t mourn the death of the alters, even though the alters indeed come to an end at the moment of reintegration. The reason why the host doesn’t mourn the death of the alters is that the illusion of dissociation is seen through, and the reality of each alter’s identity becomes evident: the dead alters weren’t actual entities, but mere doings of the host.

41. Here’s another example. When you dream while asleep, you experience a form of dissociation: you identify only with your dream avatar, but not with the rest of the dream. You don’t think that you are the buildings, trees, and people you see around you during the dream. Nonetheless, the buildings, trees, and people you see are being done by you, the dreamer—who else? When you wake up, the dissociation comes to an end and your dream avatar is toast. Yet, you don’t start crying and mourning the death of your dream avatar upon awakening. Why not? Because the end of the dissociation is structurally paired with a seeing through the illusion: immediately upon waking up, you know that your dream avatar wasn’t an entity, but just something you were doing; it was you all along, and you didn’t stop existing because you stopped doing your dream avatar.

42. It is thus reasonable to infer that, when the dissociative alter that goes by your name comes to its end at death, and the true you wakes up, you won’t mourn the death of your waking-life avatar. And you will still have its memories and insights, along with its core subjectivity.

• SUGARY FOODS 

• ALCOHOL AND DRUGS (INCLUDING VAPES) 

• PORNOGRAPHY 

• SOCIAL MEDIA 

• GAMBLING

• ONLINE SHOPPING

2. When you are listening to someone speak, play the game of repeating in your head what the other person is saying as they are saying it, word for word (you can do this out loud, but you might come across as slightly insane).

3. Doing this forced me to stay focused on what exactly was being said and would stop my mind, at least for a little while, from wandering to other topics.

4. Another technique is to make and hold eye contact with the speaker. Eye contact is probably one of the most, if not the most, powerful ways that humans can communicate with each other.

5. By focusing on other people when they speak and actively listening to what it is they're saying, our minds are freed from thinking, which allows us the ability to respond. “Thinking fast” is more a function of being able to respond to what you hear than of thinking of something to say. This in turn allows us to understand and process more information, which invariably leads us to make often‐unexpected connections. And making unexpected connections is just another way of saying “making shit up.”

6.  An improv actor knows that the other actors are going to do the same thing, so each has the confidence to add on and build off of the initial concept. The goal is to take the thinking out of it and focus on listening, making a connection, and responding.

7. In the initial ideation phase, as long as you're responding to what was said by the other actor, it doesn't really matter what you say. As long as your response is inspired in some way by what your scene partner just said, then there is no wrong answer. 

8. Let's take a look at a basic Word Association exercise. I'll start with a word, any word; for example:

Pineapple 

Chunk 

Goonies 

Movies

Popcorn 

Butter 

Ball 

Masquerade 

Intrigue 

Assassination 

9. All I did in this exercise is to associate directly from one idea to get to another. The initial concept is “pineapple.” By associating from one word to the next, I quickly build to the end concept, which is “assassination.” While this is a very basic ideation exercise, it essentially illustrates the fundamentals of improv: listening and building off of other ideas.

10. For one thing, we are generally not raised to make other people's ideas better. Pretty much our entire lives we are taught that there is great value in being an original thinker.

11. Curiosity has been one of the main reasons that I have been fortunate enough to live such an interesting and creative life.

12. I have always found that by doing the things that I am curious about, I have been able to get a deeper understanding of whatever subject I am exploring.

13.  The ability to jump on the spark is the single most important thing for making shit up, in my not‐so‐humble opinion. Look, every asshole has ideas, it's the assholes who do anything with the ideas who can make a difference in their lives.

14. For me the key to identifying a spark is when I get unabashedly excited about something. When I have a positive emotional reaction to an idea, that usually means there is something there to take a look at.

15. One hundred sparks will die out for every one that flickers to life. That is perfectly okay and acceptable. I'm sure there are more talented people than I who have a higher spark‐into‐flame rate. For me it is all about volume. I firmly believe that if I allow enough sparks to start, eventually one will catch.

16. The fear of looking stupid is often one of the biggest reasons we don't go after the things we really want.

17. Maybe you don't immediately hit the open mic stage, but rather you sign up for an improv class. That's all, just sign up. You don't even have to commit in your mind to go, just execute the simplest first step, which is signing up. You don't even need to tell anyone! Then once you do that, force yourself to go to the first class, no commitments after that.

18. What is even stupider than the fear of looking stupid is not pursuing those things in life that you want to try just because you are worried about what other people might think.

19. If we accept that each person thinks mostly about his or her own self then we can infer that everyone else is thinking very little about us. And that is a liberating thing. 

20. The reason that public speaking is consistently in the top three of the list of fears of human beings is because the fear of being humiliated in front of groups is a deep‐seated primal emotion.

21. What I have found helpful is to be declarative in anything that I'm doing. In improv we are trained to make declarative statements wherever possible. This helps drive the action in the scene and also to make very clear to our scene partner as well as the audience what we are trying to achieve.

22. Strong declarative statements help narrow and control the narrative.

23. This is what a declarative statement would look like: “Let's grab a coffee at Dunk's.” This is a strong statement that gives the other actor and the audience clear understanding of the first actor's intent.

24. I have often found that making a strong declarative statement along the lines of “So, I'm doing X now,” tends to stop other people from offering overly negative judgments about what it is I'm doing.

25. It is easy for people to point out why you shouldn't begin something, but it is much more difficult for people to tell you why you should stop doing something, especially if you follow up with the reason why you like doing it. Even the biggest blowhard tends to not want to crush someone else's good vibes. 

26. The declarative statement takes the power of judgment away from the responder.

27. From a functional standpoint, declarative statements shut down negative statements and send the message that you are not overly interested about how the other person feels about what you are doing. By practicing this technique you start to develop somewhere in your brain the ability to care less and less about what people think. This in turn removes one of the biggest obstacles to creating or being original thinker. 

28. Another fun little technique that you can practice is responding to negative thoughts or opinions with two simple words, “Thank you.”

29. “Heightening” is a technique where a concept is built upon in such a way that it grows from a seemingly normal, practical idea into a crazy, outlandish end product that makes people lose their minds.

30. In an improv scene heightening is what builds the stakes and tension and generally leads to humor.

31. The same original premise was still there – customer walks into a coffee shop to buy a cup of coffee – but by making exaggerated choices at different parts in the scene, it became far more compelling to watch.

32. Here is an example of a general idea, heightened: I'm interested in rescue dogs.

What if I rescue stray dogs? 

What if I create a home for them? 

What if that home was a farm? 

How about a ranch? 

10 acres. 

50 acres. 

100 acres. 

1,000 acres. 

A ranch where hundreds of dogs could live. 

Thousands of dogs. 

And I call it Dogland Ranch.

33. I am of the belief that it takes just about the same amount of effort to think big as it does to think small. If I am going to exert my admittedly limited mental energy, I might as well have fun and think big.

34. All communication can be broken down into three avenues of approach; yes, no, or maybe. Do you love me? Yes, no, maybe. You want to grab a beer? Yes, no, maybe. 

35. No. Say it out loud. No! You can feel the power in this simplest of words. No is authority. No is discipline, the parent, the teacher. No by its nature is negative. No is often fearful, afraid of change. No is risk‐averse, happy to maintain the status quo. No is safe.

36. Used correctly, no can help shape the creative process. Wielded in a haphazard way, no can stop the creative process before it ever gets a chance to begin.

37. The idea of “No” has great influence on the creative process, especially at the beginning. In improv we are taught to avoid saying “No,” especially at the very beginning of the scene. If an improv actor offers an idea and their scene partner immediately says “No” to it, then that scene is effectively over.

38. Here is an example of a “No” scene: Gabby: Hey, you want to grab a cup of coffee? Lucy: No, I don't like coffee.

39. Saying “No” at the very beginning of the scene also tends to leads directly to an argument or one‐on‐one conflict. While this can get laughs at first, they will quickly die out as the audience becomes frustrated that no new information is being added and that the story isn't going anywhere.

40. Here is another way this scene typically goes: 

Gabby: Want to grab a cup of coffee? 

Lucy: No, I don't drink coffee. Let's go get some tea.

Gabby: Tea is gross. I hate tea.

41. Saying “No” leads to uninteresting and uncomfortable scenes.

42. When we say “No” to one idea we are typically saying no to three, four, or five ideas.

43. If, though, you are going to have repeated interactions with a person, constantly saying “no” tends to push people away.

44. From a team creation standpoint what can be at least as bad as “No,” and is oftentimes even more problematic, is the “Maybe.”

45. YES, AND. So if “No” stops ideas from moving ahead and “Maybe” slows them down, how exactly do we move ideas along to bigger and better concepts? In modern improvisational theater the actors are trained to use the concept of “Yes, and” to quickly move ideas forward and build to completely new and unexpected concepts that each member of the scene can feel ownership of.

46. If all we ever do is say “Yes,” then we are ceding any control completely to other people. By only saying “Yes” while not offering any of our own ideas, we are taking a very passive approach to the creative process.

47. It is the “and” that kicks the idea in the ass and moves it forward. The “and” leads us to the next action or possibility.

48. Does that mean that we go around on stage constantly saying “Yes, and, Yes, and”? Of course not. That would be terrible and artificial and unbearable to watch. Hell, I will even say something that is practically blasphemous in the improv world: “Yes, and” can sometimes be overblown as a concept. If we never explore conflict or disagreement onstage, then we will miss the opportunity to explore opposing points of view or authentic representations of human interaction.

49. Do we actually say “Yes, and” onstage? Rarely. What we do is try to find ways to agree with our scene partners, and then introduce our own perspective on what is happening. “Yes, and” can be said a hundred different ways: Cool, let's… Awesome, we should… Great, now we can… Sweet, let's go… Nice, now I'm going to…

50. “Yes, and” concept is far more collaborative and leads to a multitude of different possibilities, whereas the “Yes, but” conversation will be far more antagonistic and argumentative and lead to fewer new ideas.

51. Oddly enough, the concept of “No, but” is an effective way of saying no while still keeping somebody on your side and exploring other opportunities.

52. Improv actors are trained to limit their questions onstage and instead make declarative statements.

53. Am I saying we should never ask questions? Of course not. Open‐ended questions, questions of possibility, the “What if” or “How might we” or “Why does” type of question helps us discover new information. Open‐ended questions are excellent tools in the ideation phase of the creative process.

54. Once you get to the “making shit happen” phase, though, they can slow the decision‐making process down to a crawl.

55. The actors are never worried about what the final outcome of the scene would be because they are focused on being in the moment, listening to what is being said, and then continuing to make a series of small decisions.

56. And that is a key component of making shit up. Make a decision and get on with it.

57. In general, people follow passion and energy, not ideas.

58. Humans are drawn to other humans who create energy and stimulate emotions.

59. A simple way of increasing this energy is by consciously moving just a bit faster than we normally do.

60. The first and easiest exercise is to speak louder. I know this must seem like an incredibly trite insight, but I can assure you this, if you consider yourself quiet or shy or an introvert, just increasing your volume a small amount will return great dividends in terms of the energy you exude.

61. If I could give one piece of advice that will immediately make any speech better, it is to inflect different words when you talk. I don't care which ones you pick to INFLECT. They can be NOUNS or they can BE verbs or any other DAMN word you choose. But by simply inflecting different words when you talk you will automatically be better than 90 percent of the speakers who drone on and on, never once altering how they emphasize words. 

62. I decided it was a good opportunity to demonstrate this technique, not only for him but the rest of the group.

63. It read something like this: 

In case of an emergency please exit through the fire doors that can be found at either end of the room. Fire extinguishers are placed in the front and back of the auditorium. Please exit in an orderly fashion and assembled in the designated team area.

64. First I read the instructions in your typical corporate/10th‐grade oral report monotone. Then I read it again like this (caps indicate inflection):

In case of an EMERGENCY please exit through the FIRE Doors that can be FOUND at EITHER end of the room. Fire EXTINGUISHERS are placed in the front AND back of the auditorium. PLEASE exit in an ORDERLY fashion and ASSEMBLE in the DESIGNATED team area. 

65. Through the simple act of inflecting, adding emphasis to various words to break up the monotonous pattern, I took a simple instructional sign and gave it some life and passion.

66. I have found that being impatient in regards to taking action is extremely powerful. Relentlessly push along the things that you tangibly can.

67. Not even near perfection, but tangible results that I can evaluate and then build on. The imperfect results are always better then the near‐perfect idea that never gets implemented.

68. I've always found that when I do something immediately, it begins to create momentum that helps propel me toward my goal. Being impatient helps create the motivation I need to do shit.

69. Patience is about showing up and being there in the moment again and again without any major expectations of results.

70. The single most important thing we ever did at Improv Asylum was to decide to open the doors, turn on the lights, and do shows. Night after night.**

71. I believe that pain tolerance or lack thereof directly correlates to success or failure in the long run in any endeavor we decide to embark upon.

72. You need to go out and put yourself in a position to be lucky. To the best of my knowledge, no one has ever been hit by a train without being in front of it. It is the same thing with the luck. You need to get out and put yourself in situations or environments where experiences and opportunities can happen.

73. If you manage any kind of team, group, reading circle, whatever, my recommendation to you is to “fire the assholes.” They may be high‐performing, they may generate sales, they may be extremely talented, but over the long haul the assholes will always bring a team's performance down. Assholes are demotivational to those around them.

74. Whenever I am facilitating a meeting or directing a group, a technique I use to disarm “the devil's advocate” or anyone else being overly critical during the ideation or initial creation phase is to make sure that no one can offer negative comments without having some intellectual skin in the game. What I mean by “intellectual skin in the game” is that if someone offers a negative comment or observation, I as the person in charge of the group immediately ask that person to offer an idea or potential solution on his or her own.

75. I will not allow someone to sit back and sharp shoot ideas without offering some of their own.

76. When I want to know how our culture is doing, I just take a look the performance of the ushers. If they are happy and having fun and not quitting in droves, then I know that the culture is strong and that managers above them are setting the right tone and leading by example.

77. If you want your team to reach new heights, take a good look at your culture. Because it is your culture that will propel you to the next level, no matter what level you are currently at.

78. As soon as you identify that there are more important tasks or ideas that you need to/want to work on in your business, hire somebody to do the things that are keeping you from doing them.

79. And the best way to learn about anything is by doing it. You can study comedy all you want but until you actually get on stage and do it, it is nothing but high theory.

80. So here is a list of some positive words and phrases that you can start to use in your everyday dialogue: 

Yes and 

We should 

Cool, let's 

What if 

We can

Agreed, 

You are right 

Fantastic idea 

I love that 

So awesome 

Pretty damn good 

Outstanding

81. In a completely contradictory statement, making shit up has also meant not listening to other people when I felt that their views and opinions were not being offered to help me find a way forward, but rather to stop me from pursuing something far greater for myself.

82. Celebrate your wins. Get ice cream and laugh and rehash the awesome plays that everybody made to help win the game. It makes life more enjoyable.