In today’s episode of The Dietitian Success Podcast, Krista Kolodziejzyk sits down with Kystal Merrells, Registered Dietitian. Through her practice, Krystal has taken her background in comedy and improv to work with healthcare providers on improving counselling communication and confidence.
Krista & Krystal chat about:
- The missing link of communication skills in dietetics and healthcare education
- How we can utilize basic improv skills, like feeling more confident working without scripted lines and scripted dialogue to feel more confident with clients
- Learning how to listen and react in a genuine way
- Moving from “no, but” responses to “yes, and” responses
Links:
- Check out Krystal’s website & workshops here
- Connect with Krystal on LinkedIn
- Click here for a FREE Business Planning Workbook
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Episode Transcript:
Welcome to the Dietitian Success Podcast. Here at Dietitian Success Centre, we’re all about making it easier for you to build your confidence and expertise. Whether you’re a dietitian or a dietetic student, we’ve got something for you. I’m Krista, your host and the founder of DSC. Now, are you ready to ditch the imposter syndrome and join our incredible, vibrant community?
If so, let’s jump in.
Crystal Merrill’s is a registered dietitian located in Ontario, Canada, who works with individuals who have experienced traumatic brain injury. But in addition to her one-on-one work. Crystal has taken her background and love for improv. Yes. Like the comedy kind and turned it into education and workshops for fellow RDS and other healthcare providers on improving counseling, communication and confidence. So today, crystal and I are going to talk about how she got started in the world of improv theater. What caused her to bridge the gap between comedy and counseling and some tips she has on how to navigate lack of confidence. In your counseling and coaching skills.
Crystal, welcome to the podcast. Thanks so much for joining me. Feel free to say hey to the audience. Hey audience, and thank you so much for having me on. Absolutely. I’m excited to talk to you today.
You have a very unique set of skills, and I think you’ve combined your dietetics education and degree with a very unique area that we don’t see a lot in dietetics practice. Why don’t you bring us back? I want to hear a little bit more about your, background. So what brought you into the world of nutrition and what was your sort of dietitian journey like?
And then I also want to know, at what point did the comedy and improv piece start to come into play? It was a very hard decision for me actually when I graduated high school as to what I would go to university for. And I had been in drama classes and I had loved drama and we did some improv back then but in my high school, we didn’t.
We didn’t do the competitions like they do here in Ontario. It’s like everyone I talked to was like, oh yeah, in high school, we did these Canadian improv games. I’m like, what? But I was really torn. I had considered going to university for theater. But I also really loved sciences, and I always come back to that, I was a huge fan of the X Files, and I was, there’s actually publications on this uptick of women entering STEM as a result of being a fan of Dana Scully from X Files.
Oh my gosh, that’s so funny. Yeah. Yeah. Whether, I don’t know how accurate is that, but I can definitely, yeah, I can, I definitely resonate with it. Yeah. I thought at the time I’m going to have, maybe an easier time finding a career if I follow, my passion for sciences.
And I did, and When I was studying science, I realized that everything I loved about biochemistry, which is what my degree was in, had to do with food and had to do with nutrition and Oh, that’s why we need to eat those vitamins and minerals. That’s what they do in the body. And so it was through just following my interests, right? Like first I want to be a forensic scientist, like Dana Skelly. But that didn’t work out. And then just discovering that I’d love to hear about how nutrition is biochemically used in the body. And then I reached out to people at the university of Manitoba and research.
And was just like, hey, I don’t know what I want to do with my life, but I seem to like nutrition. So can I come work in your lab? And I did get a job that way. And I had I worked 4 years in a nutrition lab and through doing that. Which I had a, I had an amazing supervisor and I even, she even let me lead my own research study at one point, which was super cool.
And I got to be published and go to conferences, but it was through doing that I discovered. I think I prefer working with humans than rats. And, I love the, I love pipetting. I love centrifuging, but I’m missing that kind of human connection. And so that’s when that’s when I was like, okay how can I work with humans and do this nutrition science thing?
Becoming a dietitian. And so then I did the studies for that. But all throughout this time, my interest in theater never left me. I still, when the first university I went to was a francophone university in Winnipeg. So I would go to like theater productions there and I wanted to participate, but then didn’t feel I could.
Juggle my science schedule with all the labs with doing theater. When I studied nutritional sciences there at the University of Manitoba, there was an improv group there and I went to one of their sessions and participated and I was like, yeah, I love this. And then when I moved here to Ottawa to do my internship, after my internship was done and I started working, I was.
I remember telling colleagues I so miss theater. Is there like a local theater here? What can I do? And and then someone I knew was like there’s this new acting company opening up and they have classes. You should check them out. And yeah, as I became a dietitian and started working.
Then I was like, okay, now it’s time to go back to this. I started acting classes. I started doing improv through that. And and I want to say like the rest is history, but it’s like not history. I’m living it right now. Like it’s happening right now. The combination of this like dietetics path and then also this theater path.
Yeah. Wow. That’s so interesting. And. What’s like your nine to five schedule? Like right now, are you working as a dietitian and then also doing this on the side or how is this happening for you? Yeah, this is something I feel like I am discovering as I go. Right now my clinical work that I do, I have my private practice in brain injury nutrition.
My life has been a series of events of discovering something and then just following that path and seeing where it leads. So I unfortunately have had multiple concussions. Oh wow. Yeah, through that. Through going through long recoveries and being in the community of dealing with chronic fatigue and chronic pain and having these symptoms that are invisible they’re like a lot of health issues and disabilities.
There’s a lot of diet culture information out there. That was one frustrating as a dietitian to see that wow, there’s all these like really restrictive diets that are being recommended for brain injury. And none of this even considers what it’s like to live with a brain injury. And here I was.
A dietitian who, I considered myself a bit of a foodie someone who used to be able to like cook. You don’t say. You don’t say. I think we can all, a lot of us listening to this right now are probably like, yeah, food. But yeah, like I was someone who could like, MacGyver meals and just what do we have and throw stuff together and cook and follow recipes and all that.
And then I had my own brain injury and. I could barely make a sandwich some days. And I would try to follow a recipe. I would read a line, turn around, do the thing, or try to do the step and completely forget what it was I was supposed to do. Multitasking was near impossible. I once had a fire on my stove because just the, just.
The cognitive issues and the fatigue and all of that. So seeing that kind of diet culture information out there for people with brain injuries was frustrating, but also it’s there’s no one even just making nutrition accessible for brain injury. At least not in the world of social media and.
And private practice. So yeah, so I found myself then wanting to help others like me. And so I started my private practice doing that. And I would say at this point in time, that is the bulk, like the bulk of my work. It is more of the day to day that I am. Working on my business, which, has a lot of facets to it.
But then also seeing my clients doing reports. I also work through like motor vehicle collision insurance as a, with a group of dietitians who who have been doing that for years. And that’s. That’s another ball game in terms of, writing detailed reports for adjusters, insurance adjusters, and knowing what to ask for and advocating for your client and stuff like that.
So I would say my day to day is that stuff. And then but again, theater always calls me. And I have been an improviser since
2014, something like that. And so with my local improv school, I teach and I do applied improv workshops for other organizations. And this has led me to really want to bring this to our profession and to the world of healthcare. I honestly, truly, genuinely believe that our healthcare system would be better if we were taught improv as a part of our training.
Why? Because we go through all of our education talking about how we need to collaborate with other healthcare providers. And talking about our role in our scope of practice and how they might align. And yet. We don’t ever actually truly collaborate with other health care providers along the way. We graduate, we’re thrown onto the floor in a hospital, we’re thrown into a clinic, and now we’re all expected to play nice after years of this individual endeavor of trying to get the best grades.
And have the best CV to be able to get the internship to be able to like excel in our profession. We’re not, it’s not built in to to collaborate on top of that. I don’t know about you, but I didn’t have any training on how to work with clients, on how to counsel them, what to do when they.
Breakdown crying in front of you what to do when they share something that’s that’s traumatic what to do when your plan isn’t working when, the set out medical nutrition therapy plan that we have learned to put together isn’t working because the communication isn’t there and the person’s not understanding it.
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So those are all things that are very teachable, and improv and using these theater based exercises is the funnest way to do it. It’s it is it, these exercises just so naturally integrate these skills without even noticing that you’re learning something so crucial. Okay. And so say more about that for somebody who has never done because I completely relate to what you’re saying right now with regards to just this.
And I think, yes, absolutely. The, the ability to work well in a cross functional team. But I think, what comes across stronger for me, and I think for a lot of dietitians is just this Okay. This fear that when we go from internship into practice, and it really just depends on, I think it’s luck of the draw in terms of, the placements that you get the preceptors that you get the exposure that you get to actually working one on one with clients.
That, a lot of people don’t get that exposure that they need in order to really feel confident actually going into a client session. And so there is so much of that fear and anxiety and uncertainty and all of those pieces. So for somebody who’s never actually done improv before, say more about what that looks like and how, like, how do those skills come into dietetics practice and into actually working.
With clients, because I’ve never done improv before. I’ve never done, I’ve never had that experience. And I’m just I would love to understand, how do we take those pieces and help ourselves with the confidence.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And I think a lot of people hear the word improv and they’re scared. Oh, 100%. And you and I have talked about this before. I’m like, when you promote your workshops, do you actually use the term improv? Because I feel like that would scare off. Some people would be like, okay, I’m going to jump right in.
And then some people would be like, ah, Get me out of here, right? Yeah. Yeah. We picture the great skills of the professionals on Whose Line Is It Anyway being put in these very deliberately awkward situations because that’s entertaining and that’s comedy to us, right? Totally. But that is not the improv that we do in terms of theater based exercises.
And yes, and that’s more how I describe it, because it, improv is, it’s a type of theater, and all it is at the end of the day is working without a script. The idea of being able to speak and act without having scripted lines, scripted dialogue, or someone telling you what to do. Guess what?
That is all of our life. Oh my god, totally. 100 percent I don’t know that there are many people out there who have a script for what they say to their colleagues when they enter a meeting or what they say to their neighbor when they step outside of their home. We all already do, we all already improvise everything we do and say.
And so doing these like improv theater based exercises is just honing that skill and practicing it to be able to do it in a way that is more aligned with our true selves, with our objectives, and the things we’re trying to achieve. And that is it. At the very core, theater is… It’s all about listening and being able to react and react genuinely.
And I think that’s, there is an element of that, that we want in our client session. We, have you ever gone to a healthcare provider who like has their like checklist in front of them and they’re just like, they’re just reading the script and telling you the same thing they told the person in the next room.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We hate that as a client, we hate feeling like we’re being given a cookie cutter answer to a question we feel, we hate just sitting there and having someone go over this checklist and you know we’re like snapping being like, Hello, I’m right here like I have things to say, and I want to contribute to my health care.
And that’s why theater exercises are just like so great for our client building our confidence with our client counseling, because it helps take the pressure. It helps take the pressure off us having to know exactly what to say and having the exact best response because there isn’t one. The best response is.
Actually listening to the person in front of you responding to their concerns, their thoughts, their emotions, what they’re presenting to you, and then genuinely giving an answer that is in line with the philosophy of how you work or the type of nutrition you do, or, just your own priorities and values.
Yeah, I was just gonna I was just gonna say to that. I think as you were talking, I was thinking about how I almost feel like that idea of a genuine response is almost conditioned out of us a little bit during throughout our education and throughout our training, because I think that we’re, it’s so very much ingrained in us that, there’s a right way to phrase a question or a right way to phrase a response.
There’s a motivational interviewing framework and a CBT framework and there’s certain right ways to ask things and wrong ways. to ask things, and you don’t want to sound, judgmental, or you don’t want to have a tone to your voice, or you don’t want to have all of these things.
And so it’s really interesting because I think when we have so many of these sort of rules put around just our communication style, and I understand, we all have to learn, right? We all have to learn from a place with a little bit more structure. But. I think sometimes as people who maybe identify as being, tend to identify as being a little bit more perfectionist than other people, we maybe grasp onto this framework of Oh, but I just, I want somebody to tell me exactly what I should say and exactly how I should respond.
And we like that, but then we’re put into these client interactions where that never works. Like you can’t. Yeah. And let’s relate that to food for a second. There are clients and people who feel very comfortable having the food rules, tell me what to eat and what not to eat. And there are people who like that gives them confidence, but then what do we know as dietitians?
What is the actual outcome of that repeated over time? We see those food rules start to create rigid thinking, unflexible abilities with food in different situations, and we see it isolate people. So what happens when we put all of these rules on top of our communication? Where we’re like, I can only say this, I can only do that.
You’re gonna get the same thing. And yeah, no, absolutely. And I think that’s the thing that theater exercises teach us, is that ability that we can be flexible with our approaches. And we still can have Some scripted things in our back pocket for when we’re stuck and there is nothing wrong with that We have that in improv too.
There are you know scenarios where sometimes you’re like, this is one of those stuck moments I’m gonna pull out the card, tell me more or what is this really about? Very classic things that we can pull out at any time but yeah, but going back to just like What is it? What is it actually like you were asking?
And like for someone who’s never done kind of theater exercises before improv. What is this experience actually like? Because the whole idea is to build confidence. I’ve often, I’ve given these workshops like at the Dietitians of Canada conference. I’ve given them to other, to sports scientists, to other healthcare providers in different, like both online and in person workshops.
And, people come and there might always be like one or two people. That are like, Oh, I don’t want to embarrass myself. Yeah. And I’m like, yeah, no kidding. I don’t want. I also don’t want that. Exactly. I don’t want that for you. I don’t want that for me. It’s if I do my job correctly and I do nobody’s going to be embarrassed because I am just trying to create as safe a space as possible for people to feel.
Comfortable stepping out of their comfort zone a little bit, and that is it, everyone in the group is is, has control over their own participation, just like in our client sessions. We don’t want our clients to feel forced into sharing anything or doing anything that. That they don’t want to do, right?
It’s not no, we’re going to cook this soup right now and you’re going to like it. I don’t know if that’s ever happened but but the same thing. And so these exercises are very much, done in groups, done in pairs. And they’re very simple things. And you know what, Krista, honestly, the best way to do this is just to demonstrate one.
I didn’t clear this with you beforehand, but would you be willing to try one with me right now? Absolutely. Okay so let’s do a very simple one. The idea of collaborating. We’re going to, we’re going to plan an event. Krista, what kind of event do you want to plan? Are we talking diet dietetics related or not?
It could be anything, absolutely anything you want. Okay, let’s say we are planning a cooking show. A cooking show. Love it. So you and I we’re the two head organizers and we’re going back and forth giving ideas. Okay. But we’re gonna, for this round, we’re going to start each idea.
You’re going to respond to my idea saying no, but no, I don’t like that idea because blah, blah, blah. But, and then you’re going to give an alternate idea and we’re just going to go back and forth like that a couple of times. So yeah, so I’ll start off giving an idea and you respond, no, but okay.
Okay. Okay. So for this. I’ve already forgotten. It was a cooking show, right? Cooking show. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Alright. Okay. So for this cooking show, I think that I think that we should be cooking like a big stew. No, but stews tend to take a really long time, right? They could take hours to cook. What if we did something that took a little bit less time?
No, doing something that takes less time means that there’ll be nothing to film because it’ll be so short. But, what if instead we did something where we brought in a bunch of kids and we had a bunch of kids helping us cook? No, but that could get a little bit chaotic and I feel like that could turn into a little bit more of a daycare type of a situation versus an actual cooking show.
And so I think maybe we should do it for adults instead. Okay, awesome. I’m going to stop us here because this is painful for people to listen to. But I’m just going to round of applause to you and to the listeners for that. So we’re going to do this again. We’re going to choose a different event.
So start thinking of a different event. But this time we’re going to give ideas and each time we’re going to say yes to the idea and we’re going to add on to it. Okay. So first off a new event, a new a party, a celebration. Okay, so let’s do a birthday party. Let’s do a birthday party. Okay, so you start off, you give me an idea for the birthday party. Okay so because it’s the summer, why don’t we plan this birthday party outside and let’s make it a summer barbecue theme?
Yes, summer barbecue. Everyone loves a good summer barbecue. And let’s make sure that we got some water slides. Let’s just rent a water slide park and bring it to the party. Oh, yeah. That would just be so much fun. And let’s also make sure that we have the most incredible food, too. So let’s bring a food truck in and let’s get all sorts of different barbecue themed dishes going.
Yes, food trucks are so hot right now, and to this, we might as well get a stage and invite the Spice Girls out of retirement, because that’s spice and barbecue, they go together. I could not agree more. And why would they not come out of retirement for this? amazing birthday party that we’re throwing. I know.
We’re throwing a birthday party for your mom, my mom is good and a joy birthday party for my mom, even though her birthday is in January, but it’s a belated birthday. Because how your mom and my mom deserve the summer birthday they never had. You’re so right. All right.
Round of applause. Round of applause. All right. So we went from no, but to yes, and what did you notice? Oh my gosh. That’s. Yeah, that’s hilarious. I like, because as we were talking, I was like, there’s such a, with the no buts, it’s like you, it’s such a dead, every single response is a dead end. You have to think about Oh God.
Okay. But then where, you have to almost come up with then an alternative, whereas I feel like the yes, was it yes, but or yes, and right, yes. And it’s it then turns into this like big culmination of all of these awesome ideas into something great. So it’s like there was the dead end on the one side, but then there was the like, let’s just, there was endless creativity on the other side, which is really cool.
It was like the yes and was like expansive, whereas the no but was just like really restrictive. Yeah, it was a black hole in comparison. So how Krista might this apply to work? Yeah, that’s so interesting, right? It’s I think we can really reflect on how are we, even if it’s not a Even if we’re maybe not using that language exactly, it’s like, how are you approaching conversations with colleagues?
Are you approaching them from a are you trying to just get your own way? And, your own way is the highway, and you’re in the no but territory, or whatever. Yeah. Are you willing to actually collaborate and build off of each other’s ideas? And you’re more in the yes and category.
That’s what I’m thinking. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There’s no wrong takeaway from these exercises. And what you said there, I think when I think of our profession, when I think of healthcare in general, we are taught to be very critical and for good reason. So we’re taught to look at peer reviewed studies.
We’re taught to like, look for what the downsides could be. We’re taught to look for look for the cracks in plans. And that has really taught us to be very critical of any idea that is given to us. So then when we are working with either our colleagues, maybe developing a new program, maybe we’re trying to work on a different like clinic schedule, maybe we’re trying to develop a business and there’s different ideas coming in.
If we are still in that very critical no, but no, but we are not going to get. Anywhere, we are not going to get anywhere. And I think we’ve all been on the receiving end of that, where we have a great idea for how we can make our workplace better. And and we go and we bring it to the meeting and everyone’s yeah, no, but or even Yeah, but the passive aggressive response.
Whereas it really does cost us nothing in an ideation phase to just. Be like, yeah, okay, let’s run with that idea. And let’s see how far it takes us. I also find in client counseling again, have you ever been on the receiving end in a health care appointment where it’s you have a question about.
A certain idea or treatment or thing and the person is just yeah, but that’s not the good and none of the, and, again, maybe for good reason, right? People come to us all the time and they’re like, I saw this cleanse. Should I do it? And we’re like but if we are constantly no, but no.
We’re going to lose that connection with our client. So how do we collaborate with them better? How do we like agree to, to the reality and to their question and what they’re facing and then. Build on it. And that’s what that is a key that yes, and is a key tenant of improv. It is the idea of just agreeing to the reality presented in front of you.
And we’re going to get further if we just agree to it and build on it right away. That doesn’t mean we can never say no. Even in improv, you can say no, and you should if something is crossing a boundary, right? But but yeah, but this idea of agreeing and building gets us further faster. And I also think too it’s as you were saying that I was thinking about how one of the things I’ve been thinking about a lot with regards to just entrepreneurship in general is how and I don’t know, I don’t think they’re completely the same thing, but it’s the same idea, that I think we have to be okay with the, I think we get really stuck if we stay in the no but.
Territory and I think a lot of people do, especially at the beginning of their entrepreneurial journey, where they’ll start on an idea and then they’re so fearful that it’s not going to work that they get trapped in this Oh, no. But that’s not going to work. And because of this and this, even though they’ve never tried it before, they just have all of these, I think, preconceived things and mindset blocks and all of these issues coming up around why it’s not going to work, even though they have no evidence to support that versus taking a bit more of an And that’s a good question.
I think it’s really important to have an expansive perspective when it comes to entrepreneurship and ideas and really understanding that entrepreneurship is really just a whole journey in trying things and seeing what works and what doesn’t work. It’s like there’s no rule book. There’s nobody, there’s no yes or no when it comes to entrepreneurship.
And so anyways, that thought crossed my mind as you were talking just this okay, we need to embrace that in ourselves as well. Yes. When we’re thinking about our own journeys and our own. Just our own paths in business, we know, but ourselves all the time, constantly. And I think one thing I remember in one of the cause there’s we were talking about before there’s lots of publications actually on improv and the use of theater exercises in healthcare and One of the things I enjoyed Most out of reading one of them was the idea that improv and theater based exercises really helps with ambiguity what is entrepreneurship or working with a client or working with your colleagues?
but just this big question mark of ambiguity of like We don’t actually know exactly where this is going to go. And going back to all of our training up until, we, we finished high school and we started university and there was a very clear and distinct path of you do step one, step two, step three, step four, and then you get a degree and then you get a job.
And there was, there’s some ambiguity in that, but not a lot, it’s a one direct path and then you get thrown out into your career. Regardless of whether you’re working in a hospital or you’re working in entrepreneurship, but yes, I will agree with you totally as someone who runs their own private practice, it is such a different ballgame of now all there’s no straight line.
All of these, there’s different ways this can go and there’s not one or right, wrong way, and you really need to be comfortable just jumping into those scenarios. And seeing where it takes you. And that’s the other beauty of like improv and theater based exercises is it’s practicing that feeling. It’s practicing that following your intuition and just jumping in.
We have this there’s a couple of exercises particularly that I love doing. With new like with people who are new to this one of them, one of them is simply called freeze. It’s a classic, very classic theater exercise. People stand in a circle, two people are in the center doing doing any kind of scene.
It doesn’t matter what it is. It’d be silly. It could just be like, we ran out of toilet paper. Oh my gosh. I can’t go to the store until next week. Any, okay, I guess we’ll use my thesis. Anyways whatever. So to be able to say, and it doesn’t, we don’t want it to go on forever. We want it to just be like a few lines.
And whenever someone feels an impulse on the outside of the circle, they’ll clap and they’ll yell, freeze! The two people in the center will freeze in the exact spot they’re in, and then someone the person who yelled freeze comes out, takes one of their spots, takes the same kind of body position, and then starts a completely new scene, right?
So now it was, toilet paper, now it’s oh my gosh, being on the moon is so great, wow, gravity is different, whatever. For some people, what this, I like doing this with new people, but I don’t do it in the very first class because it is a little bit like, oh, my God, I’m being put on the spot.
And I, we want to work up to that. But the idea of feeling comfortable just jumping in. Feeling following your gut when you feel like, oh, this seems like a good time and not ignoring that because so many people do even in improv, right? And so we’re training that no, go with it.
And then also knowing that You’re in a circle of people. Everyone’s got your back. Everyone has got your back. When it’s looking like, when you’re like, I want out of this. Anyone can say I want out of this. Someone call Freeze. You can and someone will step in and help you out. And I think that’s a great also lesson for us in our entrepreneurial journey or in our like, dietetics career.
Again, our training and education for a lot of it was an individual endeavor. Yeah, you may have studied with some study groups and yeah, you may have had some group projects, but at the end of the day, it was you writing that test and it was you like reading at home. And it’s this very individual thing.
Whereas in our careers. How much better would it be if we had a, this better mentality of no, there’s a circle of people around me who have my back and I can reach out to anyone of these other experts and these other colleagues to help out Oh, that needs to be like in our training from the get go.
Yes, oh my gosh, that is so true. And it’s pretty baffling, actually, if you think about it, the fact that and I totally remember this when I went out into practice, and I was in, I was a retail dietitian, and I was like, How do I didn’t even know the first thing about like building a referral network of other people because I’d never been taught it and I’d never seen it done before.
So I felt like I needed to have all the answers and that was absolutely terrifying because we don’t have all the answers. So that is so true. That is so true. Yeah. Yeah. True. Wow, that’s awesome. Thank you so much for explaining that and thanks for going through all of that. That was so fun to, to go through that exercise.
And I think it just was really helpful in terms of actually, just making it a little bit more clear what that looks like. So I love that. Okay. So I’m curious then what is next for you and your business? Ah, that’s a great question. So now I am so my brain injury, like private practice that is established.
And so now I’m really looking to share this love and passion of improv and theater in healthcare. So I have been really working on trying to get this out to more people. Get the word out and also getting more people experiencing this because every single time I do a workshop, people are just like, everyone needs this.
Like every team, it’s this and yeah, so the next kind of steps and what I’ve been working on has been reaching out to different clinics and reaching out to different people like you as well. And the people through this podcast, the magic of technology to know that if you’re not feeling confident.
In your client sessions, if you’re afraid of those moments of silence when you’re counseling your clients, if you feel like you’re like stuck and having a hard time collaborating within your team, you’re not alone in feeling that. And there is a very simple and fun solution to the problem. And it’s not just my opinion I love that I can now be like, here’s a lit review.
There was there was there was like a huge study done out of the University of California, where it was the Department of Theater and the Department of Nursing. And they were studying, Interprofessionalism and how that improved with an improv curriculum, and that is just like one of different studies that have been done in different med schools and nursing schools and whatnot.
So yeah, getting the word out and also being able to do this more because I don’t know if you notice was like, I definitely. I love how alive I become when I’m talking about it. I love how alive I see other people become when they’re doing it. And even for you here, as we were doing those exercises, and I’m like, the parties that we planned, what did you notice?
Like you were just like, wow so much came from just that one exercise. So yeah, that’s what I am. Yeah. That’s really cool. It’s so true. It’s yeah, there’s just so much, there’s so much reflect, like internal self reflection that comes with doing any of those exercises, right?
Which is, that’s really the important work, I think, because that’s what we take with us and we’ll think about the next time we’re having a client interaction or what have you. So that’s awesome. Thanks so much for that. That was great. That was a lot of fun. So good to talk to you. Thank you. And where can the audience find out more about you and the work that you do?
My website is
kjmnutrition. com on there. It’s both at this point in time, it’s both my brain injury website, and then I have a webpage on there. Healthcare communication, which describes all of. The current offerings I have in terms of these workshops. As well as links to different articles. Otherwise people can find me on LinkedIn.
Just spell my name correctly in the search, which is tough. It’s a tough name to spell. Yeah, I’ll throw, I’ll put the link in the description. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, cause on LinkedIn is where I’m posting a bit more on like articles and when I do workshops and the takeaways. And so I have a few workshops coming up, so I’ll be putting them up as case studies.
Yeah. Awesome. Cool. Okay, great. I’ll put all of those links in the description of this episode. And can you just drop your email too, just in case people wanna email you directly or is it better to go through your record for sure. Nah, you can email me. It’s k j m [email protected]. That is k j m [email protected].
Awesome. Perfect. Okay, it’s so good to talk to you. Thanks so much. Yeah, thank you.
