[00:00:00] Stuart Paap: Welcome to Stand up to Standout, the podcast where we help you master clarity, confidence and influence.

[00:00:07] Gil Rief: Join over 10,000 listeners worldwide and unlock.

[00:00:10] Stuart Paap: The power to turn your goals into reality. This podcast is designed to bring you insights from the industry and some inspiration to get it done.

[00:00:18] Gil Rief: At DN8, we believe that better communication leads to better outcomes.

[00:00:23] Stuart Paap: So let’s dive in.

All right. Welcome to another episode. I am so excited to talk to. I’m going to call you a friend, Gil. His name is Gil Rife and He is a 13 time Emmy Award winning writer and producer and he wrote for Ellen DeGeneres, for Jennifer Hudson. You know, I usually have a 10 Emmy minimum, Gil, so you knock that out of the park. I just want you to know he has written for top hosts and celebrities, creating comedy segments for Grammy winning artists. He has very smart guy degrees from UC Berkeley and also a master’s in business administration from San Diego State University. And now he’s leading workshops on unlocking creativity, using the power of comedy to boost joy and resilience. And I really want to dive into this whole creativity thing because innovation, creativity, they go hand in hand. And it is what every company needs, Gil, to really unlock growth and potential, new products, services and innovation. So I want to start there. I think you were saying you were just at your alma mater leading a workshop on creativity and maybe you could tell us what the topic was and how that went.

[00:01:41] Gil Rief: Oh, yes. Well, first of all, Stu, thanks for having me on on your podcast. And it was a lot of fun. So I went to San Diego State where I did an MBA program and I’ve been very curious to test sort of this writer’s room model of creativity I’ve been thinking about for many years. And I’ve noticed there’s just so much synergy in a writer’s room. There’s so much burstiness. There’s the ability to generate, I think, way more ideas in a very compressed period of time because of these very hard deadlines. There’s, you know, and it is a kind of a high stakes environment. You’re trying to come up with stuff that’s going to be seen potentially by millions of people and you sometimes only have one hour to come up with it. So I kind of created this three step process that I wanted to share with people in other industries and see if the application was there.

Regardless of whether you could be in finance and tech, there were people in the class because it was executive MBA class. So there were people from military, there were people in construction. So I was very excited I went through the presentation with them and then I broke them into these little mini writers room groups and had them generate ideas. And then, and then part of the model is in how do you evaluate the best ideas based on the context. So I had them go through that process. And what I did, just to make it a little more targeted, I said, you know, it’d be fun. How about this is the size of your playground. Like, because. Because creativity loves constraint. You can’t. If I were to say to you, give me three ideas about anything in the world now, you would be overwhelmed with possibility. But if it’s like, come up with three ideas for a game involving trivia and animals, you could, you could hone in and latch onto that. So the, the parameters were an app targeting college students. And it could involve something social, something involving fitness, home delivery, budget. But I gave them this sort of playground, almost like mind mapping. And then I, I created an environment where it’s very low stakes, where it’s like, we’re just gonna, there’s no, you know, there’s no bad idea here. We’re just gonna build upon ideas and let’s see how many you can generate. And then we’re going to have time to, you know, I call it writing drunk, then editing sober, and then lastly acting caffeinated. How do you spring into an action plan? So it was really fun to go through the exercise with them and get their insights on how they could apply it.

[00:04:05] Stuart Paap: Well, so there’s a lot to unpack here, and I want to. Actually, what you said reminded me of a quote, this sort of writer’s room, and I want to unpack that. There’s a quote by Leonard Bernstein. I think to achieve great things, you need to have a plan and not quite enough time. I don’t know if that’s the direct quote, but there’s something about that that forces creativity. But first, let’s just explain to the audience what is a writer’s room. And of course, you’ve been in and run writers rooms and these very popular television shows and for artists. But essentially, what is a writer’s room and what is the function of a writer’s room?

[00:04:44] Gil Rief: I think a lot of it is to deal with the immediacy, the need to ideate really quickly. And sometimes there’s the individual component where we have individual assignments. So in the context of the Ellen show, you might be assigned a monologue individually. And so you’ll take a first draft yourself. But once there’s feedback and then there’s a rehearsal and then A show in one hour. Any, anybody will dive in when there’s notes. Because it’s a team, you know, it’s, it’s a very team oriented thing, even though there’s a lot of delegating and sometimes it’ll be two person teams working on a segment or three person teams and other times, hey, we need all eight of us, all 10 of us. Because let’s say like Walmart wants a game and they need to, we need 10 ideas by noon, then it’s sometimes fastest if we all just get into a room together and just pitch ideas and then the head writer can filter them down and say these are the best eight, bring them to the executive producer and say these are the best three, and then take it to Walmart and they can say, we like this game or we want to do this tape piece or whatever the comedy segment is. So there’s, there’s a real need for execution fast.

[00:05:58] Stuart Paap: Yeah. So what I’m noticing here is something that I also tried to do with my clients, which is use the power of the room, whether it’s a team of 10 people, use the power to quickly get the ideas out and to test each other’s thinking and then distill down and then prioritize and then action, as you said. So that process seems pretty universal and it’s in, it’s in high need. Because what I’ve noticed is happening, Gil, is when you get into most professional settings, there’s a lot of premium on people doing things on their own. You know, you go home this weekend and work on this thing alone, or, you know, you burn the midnight oil and work on this report. And I think there’s always a time to do that. But I’m hearing with this writers room concept that you’re talking about, if you get out of the comedy or entertainment world, it’s really about collaborating, it’s about sharing ideas, it’s about supporting each other, prioritizing ideas, and then of course, maybe putting them into action.

Did I get that right?

[00:07:01] Gil Rief: Yes, yes, 100%. And I think this is my observation is people rush. So I see it as a three phase thing where, you know, the idea phase requires a different type of creativity. It, it’s thinking really wide. It’s the ability there, there’s an openness to it and it can start on the individual side where you come at, you know, whatever the problem is you’re trying to solve or whatever you’re trying to generate. I, I always think you need to look at it as a playground because it’s it’s a playful state of mind. And I think what happens is people rush that phase because they can’t execute till they sign off on an idea. So they feel it’s like a kind of like a bottleneck and they rush it. But I always think you should use the full amount of that deadline because rarely is the first idea the best idea, the most quick, impulsive idea. You haven’t thought deep or looked at it from a totally different angle or brought in other elements that might create some novelty to innovate. So I think what happens when you have a writer’s room is there’s a way, a low stakes way to test ideas really quickly because the iteration of hey, what about this? Sometimes like the half baked idea that would get shot down or people would withhold because they’re scared to share, it ends up being the gem. So I think it’s super critical to share.

[00:08:23] Stuart Paap: So there’s something there that I think is exactly what is the challenge in a lot of professional settings. Because a lot of people I work with are extremely bright, they’re high achievers and by the time you get your place on a very high performing team, the last thing you want to do is be seen as somebody who’s offering substandard ideas. However, however the creative process dictates that we get those ideas on the table. And I’ve done this experiment with people, I’ve called it the bad idea game, where I say the purpose of the game is to generate volume, like the amount of ideas. So you actually have to spit out as many as you can in a short time and only then do you get to assess. Actually I first invert it and say find the worst ones, the ones that make you laugh. And that’s where the absurdity comes. But of course what happens is the good ideas sneak through because you’ve lowered the stakes and you’ve allowed your brain to do what it does naturally, which is solve problems.

[00:09:26] Gil Rief: Yes. You know, kind of a good metaphor. I think for this I, I love racket sports, I love to rally. I think so much of it’s about flow state, getting into the right playful state of mind. And there’s different types of competition. When you go, if you go and if in your mind you’re thinking, I just want to outshine all these people, that’s the goal, then you’re going to be very strategic of what you share and you miss. The organization misses out on the potential value of the burstiness of ideas and the ability to cross pollenize these ideas and Lead into something amazing. So if everyone’s like siloing, you know, and just very, very cautiously just being caring more about optics as soon as you’re self monitoring, which is really what I consider the edit sober stage, which is now it’s time to judge and there’s a place for that. Once you have volume, like what you’re doing, I agree with. Because generating volume is valuable because you put that through a filter and now you got a range of options and you can really identify the best potential idea. But until you’ve explored, you have no idea if you’re staying within a narrow bandwidth. You don’t know what kind of innovation you left on the table. So I think that when you’re in a state where you’re cooperating rather than competing with the competition in your case, and I agree with that exercise to generate volume is a competition, but it’s a cooperative competition versus individual competition. My idea is going to be better than your idea. How about the group idea is going to, is going to elevate because we’re all pitching in.

[00:11:06] Stuart Paap: It’s funny, there’s a book that I refer to written by Adam Galinsky and I think Maurice Schweitzer and it’s called Friend or Foe. Now Adam is a professor at Columbia in the business school. But it, the subtitle is when to Cooperate, when to Compete and how to succeed at both. And I think there’s something that is unspoken which is this kind of, you know, work environments can be competitive, right? People want to be promoted, recognized. It’s, we’re a very individualistic society in some ways. But also you can’t do it alone if you’re solving hard problems, whether it’s in medicine, whether it’s in energy, whether it’s in education, you know, it takes a sustained effort over a long time so that you need that collaborative energy. What I like about your approach and I think is, is a premium that’s needed is lowering stakes, treating each other as collaborative partners and then letting the meritocracy, the best ideas winning really be the guide and not just a personality that can sell an idea that maybe doesn’t deserve to be the best idea.

[00:12:24] Gil Rief: I, yeah, I totally agree with that. I think there’s kind of a bubble up theory of ideas where good ideas can come from anywhere within, you know, any aspect of the organization. It doesn’t have to be this hierarchical thing where only, you know, in the context of say a talk show like the Ellen show or any talk show, it doesn’t just have to come from the writers. If, you know, there was a time when I was a production assistant and I was submitting jokes and they were getting used and they recognize, okay, there’s value from this kid. Or I wasn’t a kid. I had an mba, but I was still. You know, it’s easy to dismiss somebody who you don’t think is at that same level or status. And I think that’s a big mistake because ultimately you say we’re an individualistic society, but it’s also meant to be a meritocracy because ultimately it’s about the quality of what you’re trying to create as opposed to this personality of who gets credit. So that’s a real tension between, you know, people seeking credit and then what’s really best for the organization, which is innovation, collaboration.

[00:13:28] Stuart Paap: So I’d like you to indulge me for a second having led and run writers rooms just for people who have never experienced this. Walk me through a typical day, let’s just call it any production day, where it’s sort of from the time you show up till the time you’re out. I’ll cap you at five minutes here. But I think it’d be interesting to understand the process through that lens. And then of course, we can think about how that would apply to other settings, whether it’s in different industries. But walk us through this sort of a day in the life of running a writer’s room just so we can see and be kind of a fly on the wall or peering through the window.

[00:14:05] Gil Rief: Yes. So I can say within the context of when I was as a head writer the last two seasons, it’s a different kind of role than as staff writer because you have to also oversee. You’re assigning other writers different segments of the show and you’re a filter for everything they write.

But because we were pretty lean writing staff as a head writer, we also assigned ourselves things. So a typical day, come in, it’s 8:40 in the morning, and I’d pop into the other head writer’s office and we’re slammed with stuff. We have a 10am deadline to basically write a monologue that day. So we’ve usually generally thought about a topic, but sometimes something topical occurs and we’re like, we should. This is what we. Or this is what Ellen would want to talk about.

[00:15:00] Stuart Paap: And just to pause you there, can you just give the lay the land of a monologue. How many minutes? How many jokes? What’s the general structure of it? And then we’ll go back to this. Sure.

[00:15:10] Gil Rief: Yes. So a typical monologue, and there were various kinds, but one that would be more of like a talking kind of monologue versus a game, something that had other elements, would be like a mini standup routine, essentially. So it could be anywhere from three minutes to five minutes. But it was basically, you know, Ellen would come out, greet the audience, and launch into this monologue. So there’d be some topic. It could have been super bowl commercials. It could be anything. And you also have to really think about the visual elements, because television is such a visual medium. So you have to deal with graphics. You’re very much creatively, like the blueprint of the whole opening of the show and various other segments. Sometimes we take over.

An entire talk show would be seven acts. So the first act would be maybe 12 minutes to 15 minutes. Then commercial break. Then Ellen would come back with the first guest. So maybe have Sofia Vergara on for a couple segments. But then every now and then, there’d be an open act, and they’d say, hey, can you come up with a game? Or can you guys write a funny hidden camera segment? Because Sofia Vergara wants to wear an earpiece and go to Starbucks. So there’s a lot of creative needs that you’re trying to juggle. And so as a head writer, you are. You have to look at the entire week and as much lead time as possible. Because when there’s production elements, you have to. You know, there. There’d be these producers who were kind of the liaison in our department to then go to props and say, for this game, we really need. We want to play giant beer pong from up high, and we need, you know, giant balls and this and that, and we need this type of wardrobe for this bit. So there was a lot of. A lot of moving parts. You move very fast. So, you know, in a typical day, you get in, you try to have a little chit chat and loosen up, but the day just kind of can hit you in the face in the morning. Because all of a sudden it’s like, okay, ellen’s there at 11. We have to have everything printed ready to show the monologue. Because we would go through together the entire opening act of the show. We’d all read it together, get notes, and then we discovered the most efficient way. And this is why I like the writers room model. It often used to be very individual at the show, where people would. If you were assigned a monologue, let’s say, and you got notes, you would go off on your own and tackle those notes initially. But then we switched it to a much more collaborative situation where we all pitched in. And that was really valuable because A, it was faster. I think there was a lot more learning for the other writers because you’re involved with way more segments than you typically would be, but less heavy lifting and lowering the stakes on the individuals because kind of like on a basketball team, you don’t really care who makes a winning shot as long as somebody does. So one day it might be you. You have the open shot, you at nothing but net. And another time somebody else steps in and has the winning joke you need because there’s quick turnaround times. So a typical day, you’re really rushed up until the show and then you get a breath of fresh air later in the afternoon where I’d go play ping pong, go for a walk, go to Starbucks, whatever.

You do need to decompress, but super. That’s a kind of a taste of what it’s like.

[00:18:29] Stuart Paap: So. And let’s talk about just the structure of a joke for people. You know, I’ve done comedy, you’ve done comedy. There’s a structure to it, right? There’s a premise or the idea that you’re trying to talk about. There’s the specificity. So you could say, you know, whatever it is, like traffic drives me nuts. Specifically, I was trying to get into work today. And then you could get into the increasing sort of levels of scenes, right? This guy cuts me off. And then of course, you’ve got to add the element of surprise, right? Like, what’s happening here? Right. I’m honking at this guy. And then I realized, you know, it’s, it’s. It’s my dad. And so I got angrier, right? So there’s a surprise. So you kind of. There’s a structure to it, but most people don’t, don’t know that structure. I had to be sort of taught that structure. And you see it a lot. Is there in a five minute monologue or three minute monologue, is there a structure to like, we’re going to do a series of four jokes and it’s going to build an intensity or how did you think about structuring that monologue when it was more topical or based on something that was happening in the news?

[00:19:34] Gil Rief: I mean, I think that all good story or whatever is, you know, you want to build towards something. So often, you know, you need a good opening. You know, you come out and the opening might not even be about specifically the topic of the monologue. Sometimes it’s about the audience. It could Just be just a quick line or observation. But there’s always a comedic premise. Like you’d see something in the news and you’re always looking for an angle. You know, like a lot of, I would say like Ellen’s style of comedy and where it resonated with me is very observational style. So I’m always, I see comedy. There’s comedy everywhere. You know, as you know, you go out in your day, you go grocery shop or something your kids do. And so a lot of it was just capturing observational comedy because we had a lot of freedom. It wasn’t a very topical hard news show. Often we would, we might take something in the news, like it could seem political, but we, that we would zig and zag and now we’re talking about reality like Dancing with the Stars or whatever it is. So for example, like I would make, I would make an observation. The other day I was watching the NBC Nightly News or listening to it and I hear that opening like dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun. And that made me realize of course the news is going to be depressing because just that theme song, it’s so dramatic and of course like it’s going to be about war or it’s not going to be about a baby duck who can salsa dance. You need, you know, it’s got to have a different theme song for that. So you might make think of an observation and pitch that and like, oh yeah, we could totally build around that. And then there’s other funny theme songs we could, we could bring in and talk about the effect of music on, you know, so I think there was a thread to every monologue and whenever we can do topical references that would resonate with that particular audience. Like the typical viewer of the Ellen show was a 40 year old mom. So I became very good and at the time, you know, my wife was a 40 year old mom. So it was easy to test that type of comedy out because I knew the demo. But it’s so much knowing your audience, what they will relate to and figuring out a thread that kind of can build so you, you can have a nice button at the end, some closer because it’s like George Costanza, and Seinfeld. You want to go out on a high note so you want to kind of hook them in at the beginning. Whenever I do standup, I always try to put the new stuff in the middle because you don’t want the stuff at the beginning or the end to bomb. You want. As long as you start strong, end strong, you can kind of, you know, fail a few times in the middle.

[00:22:15] Stuart Paap: Right? Yeah. Woody Allen used to talk about putting his material, the new stuff in between. When a joke worked and another joke would work, that’s where you try out the new stuff. So. But there’s some lessons here too. So we’ve been talking a lot about, like, show business and a very specific show and all of that.

What I think are some universal truths that can be applied are number one. I think it helps to frame the problem. So you talked about the game. If you said, think of anything, you kind of go crazy. But when you scope it down and say, let’s put this on the table and let’s leave this out of the table, I think that’s critical that you understand, to use your word, the playground that you’re playing in. So if you’re trying to innovate a new idea for a device at your company that could help people be more productive around a certain task, now you’ve got the framework to say, this is really what we’re talking about. And the intended outcome is one thing. The second thing I’m getting is that having a time limit is really beneficial. And I see this all the time that I challenge clients to try to do as much as they can in five minutes. And pretty universally, people are actually quite surprised when they focus on something intensely for a short time. They can be unbelievably productive. I think that the default mechanism is people get distracted and go multiple ways. So that’s the second component. Having a time. So framing. Having a time. The third thing I’m hearing is this concept that we haven’t vocalized yet, but I think it’s gotta be there, which is this idea of yes and. Or building on. And I want to talk about that because in the writer’s room, you know, which is like, has a premium on producing creative work. Sometimes people don’t know that that’s the expectation in their domain. Right. They just know they’re in a meeting. But no one ever says the purpose here is to produce good work. And. Yes, and is one of those simple tools that people teach. And it’s from improvisational comedy. It’s to build on things so that you’re having good rapport, you’re letting things flow. And to use your racquetball, it’s like, I hit the ball to you, you hit it back. And all of a sudden there’s a game. And now it’s bigger than just the two of us.

Is. Yes. And something that you need to coach or Teach people to do. Is it so obvious in the writers room and then beyond the writers room. Have you seen that people need to be introduced to this concept to kind of get their head around the beauty of. Yes. And as collaboration isn’t just a nice to have, it’s a need to have.

[00:24:54] Gil Rief: Yes. And I. Yeah, I agree.

[00:24:58] Stuart Paap: I set that one up.

[00:25:00] Gil Rief: I agree. Switch.

Yeah. I do think it probably takes. It might be counterintuitive to people the way the process that they’re used to. It takes a lot of non attachment to your own ideas and to be willing to really listen to what other people pitch and just in flow state just naturally react to it in a supportive way. I think it’s. It’s more about the atmosphere when it’s a cooperative. When I watched, for example yesterday when we did the workshop and I observed the students, I could see they weren’t as attached to their ideas. They were having fun because everyone was doing it. I think that as long as everyone in the room has bought into this, that we’re all like, I’m sure in improv it doesn’t work if you have a team. I was watching this show. I don’t know if you’ve watched the show Hacks, but. But there was a scene where I’m trying. Remember the name of the actress, Jean Smart. She has to do in. She’s. She goes to visit UC Berkeley actually and she ends up joining some improv group and she’s never done improv and she’s not really buying into the exercises like they’re. They want to do all these warm up exercises. And she’s like, no, no, I don’t do that kind of thing. And I think it does take that buy in where if everyone is in it together, it works. It doesn’t work when there’s people who aren’t comfortable with the collaboration. But I think once it gets going, everyone is sharing ideas and it can be cultivated. I think it does have to be learned because it’s not something typical in most businesses. I think it seems at odds with a lot of the way the culture would be.

[00:26:57] Stuart Paap: Right. But there’s something to it that produces unexpected and wonderful results. Right. So I think that what is the premium here and why people need to, you know, do more of, you know, these workshops and what, what you’re doing is there’s untapped potential that’s hiding in people’s subconscious or their minds that isn’t coming out because they’re fearful or no one’s asking them or they fear being judged or some combination thereof. So to really create the conditions that, hey, you know, you’re in this company not just for you, but for the potential that you have. I think you need these tools that you’re. You’re bringing to give people the language and the words to say yes and to know that they’re building towards something. Plus, it’s a lot of fun. When’s the last time you go to a work environment and just have a total blast? That also has unexpected results. Team building rapport, building friendships and the like. And, you know, laughter is the shortest distance between people, said Victor Borga. And I think of that often. You know, laughter is. Is a way that you. You’re both saying, we. We like each other without even saying we like each other.

[00:28:12] Gil Rief: Oh, yeah. I mean, I fully agree. I think a lot of it, too, is about cross collaboration. So it’s not only within. What I’m hearing from a lot of people is they’re siloed and they’re not interacting and collaborating with various departments. And so in the context of a television show, you’re forced to do that because there’s no way to produce a show unless we talk to the wardrobe department, props, graphics, talk to the line producer, handles budget, all kinds of. And everybody brings something to the table. They all have unique skill sets that you don’t have. They have ideas for how you might execute it. You don’t know it’s possible.

So you talk to them. I spoke with someone yesterday at the course at SDSU who was in the military, and he was describing their brainstorming sessions.

And you realize, like, it doesn’t matter what the organization is. There’s a need to generate a lot of ideas at first, and you’re not going to tap into. There’s all the untapped potential that until people feel comfortable, that psychological safety to. To share ideas and bounce ideas and rally, basically, that you’re not going to fully explore the playground. You’re only hanging out on the swings when there’s a seesaw and there’s like, a trampoline. There’s all this amazing equipment you’re not even tapping into. So I think there’s huge value in that burstiness of ideas.

[00:29:39] Stuart Paap: Yeah. So I want to talk about storytelling. You know, storytelling is ubiquitous. It’s. It’s how people share ideas. There’s a million ways to. To go about it. But essentially, I always think of storytelling as, you know, in acts, right. There’s three acts. There’s always something you want to do, whether it’s in A company, we want to bring new innovation. There’s something in the way. We don’t know how, we don’t know where, we don’t know who, or whatever. And then there’s a resolution. It could be a proposal. So we suggest we innovate or we should try this or let’s build this in the lab. So I kind of think of the three act structure. I’m curious what your perspective is on storytelling because I think when a lot of people hear feels simple yet overwhelming. It feels like, okay, this is the most obvious thing because we talk about our weekends or our kids or our lives. But at the same time, if you ask people to create it in a business setting or in a non creative setting, people get a little bit overwhelmed with how to whittle down complex ideas. How do you think about storytelling in terms of structure? How do you build stories when you’re telling stories, whether they’re comedic stories or just having a narrative arc. And how have you used that in your career with writing and running rooms?

[00:30:55] Gil Rief: You know, it’s so much embedded in our DNA, a love of story. You know, like as 10,000 years ago, we were just sitting around campfires and people were just telling stories. And so much of how people process information because if you get too conceptual, it doesn’t resonate until you paint a picture and tell a story. So I think, I think a lot of it, a lot of good storytelling is so much about also like what’s not there. It’s like, like good writing. So much is in the edit and knowing how to. Because I think an issue with storytelling. If you watch the pilot to a sitcom, let’s say whatever, the greatest sitcom ever, they’re often not that great because they haven’t honed in on who the characters really are. And there’s so much exposition because you can’t understand a story unless you give a certain amount of context. You got to know the characters, understand their problem. And so I think people get bogged down in too many details with stories. So I try to think of story much like with standup. It’s an iterative process because you tell a story and it’s almost like workshopping it. You see what resonates with people and what doesn’t. And when you read that, you say, you know what? I don’t think I need to give that much information at the top of the story. I could launch. Sometimes a good scene in a movie is about getting in late and getting out early. When, when I, when I write screenplays or things like that the. Sometimes the biggest issue is it’s too dense and it’s such, it’s. It’s very much like having the precision and it’s almost like a haiku where you don’t need as much there. So a lot of it is rhythm and pacing. And I think what a lot of people get wrong with story. And maybe I’m being too long winded in this explanation, but I think they’re too long winded. So it’s very much about pacing and building and tapping into real universal human emotions.

[00:32:49] Stuart Paap: Yeah. And I agree. I think you win in editing. You just need to cut down the story to its essence. And there’s a famous Ernest Hemingway story that’s the six word story. Because Hemingway would write these tombs. Right. Or tomes, I should say, not tomes, but he wrote. Yeah, but he wrote a six word story. And it is for sale. Baby shoes never worn. And that was the challenge that he accepted. And it’s, you know, six words. And you create this three dimensional movie in your mind. And so I tell people that if you’re good at getting to the essence of that story, their supercomputer mind will create so many details around it. It’s like seeing live, you know, virtual reality being created where they can create cities like Inception, right. Where the whole city just happens magically in a nanosecond. And I think that what you’re talking about getting to the crux, like getting into the. Where the heat of the action is. I almost think of it as like, let’s go right to the edge of the cliff where the hero is hanging with their fingernails and they’re about to fall. That can be a metaphor for anything you can say like, if we do not figure a way to innovate over the next two quarters, this business will be out of business. Right. That’s like, okay, thus, here are the conditions that we need to create. And then I propose, like, that’s a simple three sentence story that can really be the blueprint for a one hour presentation.

[00:34:23] Gil Rief: Sure. And also, you know, there’s a, there’s a linear way to look at story. But if you started with somebody on the edge of a cliff and then you back up, how did we get here? You know, it’s also often about a hook. So there. A lot of the best movies, they’re not quite linear. They, they. Because like we talked about earlier, it’s about surprise. You know, if you can telegraph if you watch something and you’re like, all right, I know that that’s, that’s the murderer. It’s obvious. It’s. You’re not gonna be as compelled. But if they keep you guessing, they keep you on your toes. And that works in drama as well as comedy. And I think that has business application, because you want people compelled. You want. If you’re trying to get a message across, you want them to be on the edge of their seat and go, then what? What happened next?

[00:35:10] Stuart Paap: Well, and I always tell my clients that if you have an hour for a meeting, no one pays attention in a linear fashion for an hour. No one’s sitting there going, give me your data. Right. They’re bored, distracted, overwhelmed, tired, just like everyone is. So if you can cut right to the essence, the reason we’re here is this. And this is what’s changed, Right. This is what’s different. Those are cues to the mind to pay attention here. And we’re here to do this. If you can give people focused attention, this is what we’re focusing on people. That’s a gift, because now they can put their brain to work on what it does naturally, which is solve problems. Yes.

[00:35:49] Gil Rief: And if you can frame that comedically at all, just here’s the problem. But some little joke that everybody can relate to about that to diffuse even the stress of the situation, you know, just to show we’re all in it together. And I think that has huge power to get a group to feel they’re a team. And, you know. Yeah.

[00:36:15] Stuart Paap: Well, you’re also talking about something that if you can make everyone feel like they’re on the same boat going down the rapids together, and I think that these workshops do, then. Then people are fighting the same battle as you said. So I’m just echoing what you’re saying. I also, I’m recalling a friend of mine who worked at a company that has since been acquired by a big. A massive consulting company. But what they did was they did these change management workshops where they basically get people in a room, and they wanted this group to change the way they did things, but they didn’t tell them. They said, here are the conditions that are happening in this world. How would you go about solving them? And when you involve people in the solution, they’re much more likely to own and. And adhere to the. The decided upon Action Plan vs hey, Gil, this is what you’re going to do, because your natural instinct is big. You don’t tell me what to do. I’m Gil Rife. I do my own thing. So. All right, well, there’s so, so many ways I could go here, but I want to kind of bring this to a landing. I’m curious, just because you’ve. You’ve been in these rooms. We looked at the writers room. What’s it like to win an Emmy award? I mean, you won 13 of them, so at this point, your hand is calloused from holding those Emmys. But what’s it like? Or maybe the first one, you know, how did that feel to get not only nominated, but to win, you know?

Yeah, tell me.

[00:37:50] Gil Rief: It was very exciting. Every time was exciting because it was just a bonus. I actually. The first time I won an Emmy, I didn’t even know it was possible. I had no idea we were nominated. I didn’t know anything. All of a sudden. I mean, when we got the nomination, I was just shocked. And also because at Ellen, I was a producer as well as a writer, so I was eligible for two. One for writing and one as a producer of the show. So the first year I was there, I suddenly won two, and I was. I never expected to win any, let alone two. So I was very.

Just euphoric to win any Emmy because it was just a bonus to me. I just wanted to write jokes, and anything else was gravy.

[00:38:38] Stuart Paap: Yeah.

[00:38:38] Gil Rief: Then it just became kind of a running joke with my friends, and I actually lost one of my Emmys in a bed at my brother’s bachelor party.

And I have. Maybe.

[00:38:49] Stuart Paap: I don’t know if I want to know that story, but anyway. Go on, Gil.

[00:38:52] Gil Rief: The funniest thing, though, is usually we’d come back in from a weekend, and we didn’t have time to ask about our weekends. But that day, there was a little technical glitch with the. With the television. So then Ellen was asking about stories. Hey, what did people do this weekend? And someone said, gil lost an Emmy. And then I’d explain that. Try explaining that to your bosses how you lost the award.

[00:39:15] Stuart Paap: But.

[00:39:16] Gil Rief: But the best part is my brother’s friend has it on his resume as Emmy winner, and he’s in the medical industry, but he does get asked about it every time he interviews for something.

[00:39:25] Stuart Paap: That’s so funny. Well, it just sticks in your head because you hear the word about 1 million times, but you rarely meet somebody who’s actually won one. You’ve just heard Emmy, Emmy, Emmy.

So that. That. That’s cool.

I was hoping you could indulge me in one thing that I haven’t really paid attention to in 15 years, which is the actual structure, like the analysis or the anatomy of a joke, because I think a lot of people When I was a kid watching comedy, it felt like a magic trick. I couldn’t believe that someone could say something and then vocalize something, and then you would. You would evoke laughter. It just. It felt magic. And of course, you and I know that anyone who’s funny, it seems like they’re just doing something that’s beyond the page. Like, what is happening here? How do they have this ability? But I was hoping without, you know, I don’t want you to dissect it. That’s the best way to kill it. But can you explain to those who have never written comedy how you actually go about it? And, of course, how the creative process will support that?

[00:40:35] Gil Rief: So, you know, when I was doing my MBA program, I actually did my thesis on. On humor in the workplace. And because it was an academic paper, I was sort of forced to do a much deeper dive on comedy. And there aren’t different types, but there. But like, there’s some. I kind of frame a lot of comedy as, like, ludicrous juxtaposition is the best way I could say it. It’s like two things that you don’t expect to go together. You know, a lot of time, what it is, it’s almost like seeing the world through a different lens. Like, often it’s like. Like, almost like a funhouse mirror where there’s. Things are distorted, there’s a universal truth, but you step it out, you exaggerate it to make that point. But there’s a lot of. It’s so much about misleading, you know, it’s this joyful. And what’s so beautiful about it? You know, when I was a kid, similar to you, I would watch these, like, comedians, and I was probably 7 or 8, and just like, watching magic. Like, for me, that was real magic, because it’s like creating this involuntary reaction of just euphoria. And when I was able to make family laugh or friends laugh and then strangers laugh, it’s like this beautiful, incredible alchemy of stuff. You’re like, wow, how do you put these words together and get that reaction? So there is. There’s art and science to it. I think that there is.

It doesn’t always have to have. There’s a surreal type of comedy where it’s just like, more out there, but then there’s also just pure truth where people recognize and it’s kind of like the court jester who’s willing to say stuff to the king. There’s a lot of joy in being able to point out all the hypocrisy, all The. Somebody once said, like, comedy is all the. All the stuff that scrapes off when you put the. I’m trying to get this right. But the round peg of truth through the square hole of, like, logic, like, there’s, there’s, there’s so much. It’s a very intellectual, I think, art form, you know, more so than most. And there’s something about observation and reality but distortion at the same time. But that resonates because people see it in their own lives.

So I think it all starts with observation and then it’s a skill to craft it. How do you then deliver it? What’s the delivery mechanism where 200 people in a nightclub are all going to be on the same page and laugh?

[00:43:09] Stuart Paap: Well, it says something true about us, but in a way that doesn’t feel like an assault or an attack. Right. Because when the comedian is saying, this is what I struggle with, we’re all saying, me too. But that’s not for me to say. You say that. So we really do respond to that. And I think there’s something about that. And you can get away with a lot if you say it in a way that. That’s humorous. Not to make fun of anyone, I never would do that. But to make fun of the awkwardness or the uncomfortableness of the situation, if you can use humor to diffuse that, it gives you permission to go a bit deeper. The second thing, I think, and this is something I think anyone can use, it’s a comedic principle, but it’s not necessarily funny. That comedy is predicated on surprise.

If you set someone up and say, we’re going down this road, we’re going down this road, we’re going down this road. We were never on a road. That element of surprise is funny for me or for an audience, so they’ll, they’ll hear. It’s the old joke, you know, take my wife, please. Right. So it’s like you thought they were setting you up with, you know, consider my wife. And then, of course, they were saying, you know, to take or to remove. And so that element of surprise, which is, you know, an old vaudeville joke, but what I think people can do is they can share things that are surprising to them in any story that said, you know, you could be a scientist and say, you know, I’ve looked at all the data and all the numbers are as expected except for one. Everyone will lean into that and go, oh, there’s an element of surprise here. So I think you can take this concept and apply it in ways that you share insights.

[00:44:57] Gil Rief: Absolutely well, there’s one slide in the presentation I did yesterday, a good example of surprise, because I use statistics in this one. So I say, like, did you know that? And I have a. You know, I reveal it with the slide, too. But did you know that companies who foster creativity have employees who are 17% more productive, 78% happier, and 99 billion percent better at making up statistics?

[00:45:25] Stuart Paap: Yeah. Right.

[00:45:27] Gil Rief: So. So, I mean, so much that, like, that’s kind of like the comedy rule of three, right, where you. You set up an expectation and you violate that expectation. You know, so that elicits a response. So I think, you know, like, a comedian will often be able to telegraph these jokes, you know, just like anybody in their craft can spot. If you are a martial artist, you can spot all the techniques. And for some people, like, it just feels like more magic because, like, I don’t know the craft. But that’s kind of an anatomy of. Of surprise, where you set up an expectation and you violate it in a good way, in a delightful way.

[00:46:07] Stuart Paap: Absolutely. All right, so to bring this all home, I think one of the things we’ve talked about and that you’re doing in your workshops is helping people kind of use this writer’s room or this creative template where they can get together, scope out a problem, set the timer, collaborate, come up with ideas, and then come up with their best ideas, that creativity blueprint that you’ve got. And, you know, I think that this is something that is in dire need in many different companies, whether it’s coming up with ideas for new products and services or new ways to work together or just, you know, to come up with more ideas. And, you know, I think everyone could benefit from. From something like this because they need somebody to guide them through that process, make them feel safe in that, and really take action on that. So, Gil, is there anything we didn’t discuss or I didn’t ask you that I should have, or you wished I had or you wanted to bring up before we bring this podcast interview to a close.

[00:47:09] Gil Rief: No, I really enjoyed our conversation. I mean, I could just keep yapping for hours and hours, so it’s good you cut me off.

Just like setting timers with generating ideas, you got to do them for podcasts as well. Because I enjoy these conversations, and now I feel we covered everything.

[00:47:28] Stuart Paap: Yeah, that’s great. So where can my audience go to find you and your work and to keep up with everything you’re doing?

[00:47:38] Gil Rief: So the best, if you just go to my website, gilreif.com, g, I L R-I-E F.com you can connect with me there. If you want to reach out to me, you can do so through the website.

And one other project I’ll mention, because I’m excited about this one, but I developed with a friend this animated kids project and we released a music video on YouTube. So if you have kids who are in preschool, please check it out. If you were to type in Giddy the Goose, G I D D Y the Goose, you could see this pilot we’re doing for a kids show. This is a music video, so please check it out if you have kids.

[00:48:24] Stuart Paap: I will indeed. Well, I want to thank Gil Rife for being on our show and for sharing wisdom about this creative process and all the stories. And here’s to your 14th and 15th Emmy.

[00:48:37] Gil Rief: I might just lose more of them in bets, but we’ll see.

[00:48:40] Stuart Paap: Well, look, you’ve got enough to have a buffer. All right, Gil, thanks again and we’ll see you on the next one.

[00:48:47] Gil Rief: Thank you so much, stu.

[00:48:48] Stuart Paap: Subscribe@dn8.com to get access to our cutting edge research, expert insights and deep dives with industry leaders shaping the future of biotech. You’ve been listening to a podcast production from dnate.com all rights reserved.