How Improv Can Improve Your Entrepreneurial Spirit
“Improv makes you an amazing listener,” says Kevin Benson, who coaches entrepreneurs. “Listening involves more than just speaking and hearing. Listening is a deeper level of awareness for the communication and messages being sent by others.” Improv performers learn to pay attention to details and nuances...
Entrepreneurial Talent and Improv
If you’ve ever been to an improv theatre, you’ve seen performers who are quick on their feet, creating storylines on the spot while they collaborate with the other performers. In fact, improvisation and the entrepreneurial process have a lot in common: improvising with the materials on hand,...
Learning the VentureLab Way: Raising Questions and Inspiring Curiosity
When you encourage childrens' curiosity, you're actually enabling learning at a profound level. Take the case of Sue Kolby, a single mother: “My friend salvaged a flat panel television that someone had left beside a dumpster and brought it over to me,” she said, “thinking her kids might...
Fostering Frontiers of Knowledge in Children
What if you don’t have the answers to a child’s questions? What if you can’t answer a question about the aerodynamics of feathers? What if you can’t satisfy her curiosity? That’s fine and may be even better for a child’s development. For example, when he was...
Developing Free-Range Curiosity
A curious mind can find things to explore almost anywhere, especially outdoors. I call it free-range curiosity. Take feathers. If you walk through a neighborhood where lawns aren’t cultivated like crops, and where nature’s “irregularities and imperfections” haven’t been blasted away by leaf blowers, chances are...