Ep. 360: David Allen and Gina DiRoma  🔗 **Source:** [Ep. 360: David Allen and Gina DiRoma](https://share.snipd.com/episode/6a09661c-a49f-4c7b-a5a9-ef6754135033) ## Highlights - **How Family Play Led Gina To Improv** - Gina discovered improv by chance in the early 1990s and immediately connected to its fast, collaborative play. - She compares her large family’s constant riffing to improv’s rule of accepting ideas and making partners shine. Transcript: Gina DiRoma So there's, what I officially do is I work in an improv comedy theater. I, I've been performing there for about 25 years. And I also, I also work in the corporate department, which is where we take our shows on the road, so to speak, or we might do some improv training for companies. But primarily my focus is on relationships, on people, on the people I meet, the people I get to know, things like that. David Allen And you are where? Gina DiRoma Oh, I'm sorry. I'm in Orlando, Florida. David Allen Okay. And family, partnership, what's your environment? Gina DiRoma I have a husband that I live with, which I say that because his father didn't live with his girlfriend. So I find that interesting. And then I have a big Italian family. And then, and of course, John's family, John's my husband, and his family. We're, it's interesting. We're very different. They're very Anglo. We're very Italian. We're very loud. They're very quiet, et cetera, et cetera. So if it is a great time, but our wit and our the clever wordplay and things like that, both sides of the family have that. So it's just a fun, almost like you're just sitting in a stand-up scene you know you're just riffing and talking and joking so well i'd love to talk about your experience with gtd but but David Allen Because you mentioned improv as i think i told you you know i work with you know some improv people and professional folks and i love the idea. I love the whole context of improv. And how do you make somebody that you're working with as a partner look better? Yeah, that's exactly it. Yeah. And, and that whole idea of improv as a, as a model is, is fabulous. How'd you get into improv? And what still turns you on about it? Gina DiRoma Oh, gosh, it's funny, because I thought after a few years, it would get old, but it's only gotten better, if that makes sense. Well, it turned me on to it. We would go downtown, we would see these lines out of the door, you know, of this little place. And they had speakers on the street, and you'd hear these improv scenes going on. But, know, improv was relatively new. This was in the late 90s, early nineties. And, uh, as we would pass by the, sometimes they'd have people outside going, Hey, you want some free tickets? You want some free tickets? And, and in our head, we were like, well, there's a line, but they're giving away free tickets. So how good could it be? You know? And so, so we decided one night to go. And as soon as I walked in, I was hooked because what, not only were they making things up quickly, not only were they ridiculously intelligent and fast, they were also playing together. Like they were, they were, it was as if they had it done where two teams competed. And it was as if the only goal between the scenes was to just screw around with the other team and I just thought that I thought that I was like I love that um and I and the reason it was attractive To me was because I come from a family of seven and we did everything together and if somebody had an idea or a bit we we didn't judge we just you know jumped on and in improv you don't judge Any idea. You just jump onto it and you just keep going. And like you said, your whole goal is to make your person, your partner, your audience member shine. And so that's kind of how our family was. Every time we would make jokes together. ([Time 0:02:00](https://share.snipd.com/snip/9479a895-6d41-449b-9e43-0619bc36042b)) - **GTD Made Space For Grief** - GTD helped Gina clear grief by getting everything out of her head so she could actually feel and process emotions. - The Kairos assessment revealed she inputs from many senses, explaining why an external capture system was essential during bereavement. Transcript: Gina DiRoma Well, I felt I felt honored to be asked here for many reasons. But I think my intention today is to help perhaps people who may not be in the corporate world, actually, because if this is OK with you, the when I we were home for COVID and we had to work At home and it was very different. And I was feeling a little uneasy and uncomfortable. And then my brother passed, which was horrible. And so when that happened, you know, grieving sort of alone. David Allen Was that expected or unexpected? Gina DiRoma Unexpected. It was it was from COVID and it happened rapidly and yeah, very unexpected. And what I found was that, OK, so I'll kind of back up. When I worked with Meg as my coach, we did a Kairos assessment. And would you like to explain what that is? Okay, great. David Allen It's just your cognitive preferences, how you like to process incoming and outgoing information in your brain. Brilliant stuff. Yeah. Gina DiRoma Yeah. Brilliant. It was brilliant. And so I was, I was outside and I was reading your book and I like to do yoga. And so I had my toes in the ground and I was just I just started reading it in the part. And the part where you said, you know, if you have something, you put it by the front door and you just leave it there. And my husband and I laughed because I leave stuff there for three or four days. So I didn't forget, you know, my meeting on Friday. Something. And he, and I just, I literally started crying both from grief, but also from seeing, just hearing what you had to say, because that's how my brain works, but it doesn't do it with one thing Or two things. It does it with thousands of things. I have a, I discovered during Kairos that I input things from, from all of my senses and what was happening. Yeah. David Allen Yeah. Gina DiRoma And it started to make me feel, are you really? Okay. I had a sense. And then I, I sense Meg is as well. So, um, but very fascinating because when I learned that it was like, oh yeah, that's why I, my, my brain doesn't stop in grief. My brain wasn't stopping even more. And so I started to, I not have places for things to go. And when I read your book and I started the process, things started coming out of my brain that were emotional, grief, some things that I experienced that I recognized, I wasn't feeling Safe in certain things, but I only got to that by clarifying what was going on in my head and by bringing it out. So probably the biggest thing that I got out of the book was getting everything out of my head so that I could clear my head so that I could grieve and so I could kind of go back to finding myself Again. ([Time 0:06:28](https://share.snipd.com/snip/7ace4eca-4126-415f-9caf-5689f07de035)) - **Do The Mind Sweep And Get Help Clarifying** - Do the mind sweep even if it takes days; trust the process and accept that a large capture volume is normal. - When clarifying stalls, hire a coach or ask structured questions to convert vague items into next actions. Transcript: Gina DiRoma So we go. We go. And I start I just look. And so I start I start doing the mind sweep, you know, and I start to I think I read someplace that you said that, you know, just taking the time to do the mind sweep could take several hours. The mind took almost a week and that's okay because it was, it was perfect because it took everything out of my head. I also loved the acceptance of your book, if that makes sense. For example, I didn't feel like I had to, that it was a bad thing that I had a week's worth of, you know, things to call. So I just kept on, um, I did that. And then I, then I, to be honest, I got anxious and stopped because it felt overwhelming. There were, there was so much stuff and I thought, okay, trust the process, trust the process. Because at that point there was just crap all over the house. Um, and then my husband gets an award because this was not a short term thing. This was this went for a long time. What was great was then when I started to actually do the next part of the process, which was clarifying, I got stuck. ([Time 0:10:06](https://share.snipd.com/snip/36d01559-fabf-4fa2-be26-4468712bac06)) - **Clarifying Purpose Changed Her Performance** - Clarifying your purpose shifts how you perform: Gina realized improv’s focus should be the audience, not just other players or gags. - That reframing improved her connection and reliability onstage. Transcript: Gina DiRoma And I didn't know what, and so they all started coming together. And then suddenly I said, Oh my gosh, I have been doing improv for 20 something years, but I can connect better with an audience member now than I ever have. And that's because I was clarifying, why am I doing this? Really, I am doing this for the audience. Sometimes the focus can go to the other players. Sometimes the focus can go to, you know, just a gag or something. But it's like when you focus on the audience member, you can't mess up. ([Time 0:11:59](https://share.snipd.com/snip/2c711bb9-1d67-42ec-a77b-5673c348bb74)) - **Use Yes And To Build Fast Connection** - Teach teams to connect quickly by listening, asking questions, and using 'yes and' to accept and add to ideas. - Use short improv exercises to lower anxiety and make cold calls or brainstorms more collaborative. Transcript: Gina DiRoma Gosh, what's cool is listening to them. We worked with a sports, like a gaming company, EA. They do video games, sports video games, and some other things. But they just wanted more help brainstorming. So we just went in and said, tell us what you do and we'll help you brainstorm a little bit more. So we can we can kind of really get to the crux of I can teach you how to how to do something quickly. I can teach you how to brainstorm quickly with just a few improv tricks and I can teach you, or we might teach sales teams how to connect quickly on a cold call. How do you connect quickly when you call somebody that you absolutely don't know? And it's just about asking questions, listening, and accepting and adding and making the conversation collaborative, if that helps. So I think probably... David Allen Oh, by the way let me stop you there pause button you know Charles in his new book talks about there's three elements of connecting and there's the the the content called what are you trying To accomplish etc there's the there's the emotional content. How are you feeling about this? Yeah. What's going on with you about that? ([Time 0:19:24](https://share.snipd.com/snip/446382b1-8b66-4b5b-b3e4-a9b5757260db)) - **One Line Drawing To Kickstart Collaboration** - Gina runs a drawing exercise where participants add one line at a time to a shared picture to get rapid, visible collaboration. - The exercise reveals how each contribution changes direction and creates immediate connection among strangers. Transcript: Gina DiRoma Start them out by playing together, by building things on paper, actually, so that they don't have to worry about what they're saying. So they don't have to, you know, feel like they have to think a lot. And the exercise that we do is we add to a drawing just one line at a time. And the interesting thing that happens is the drawing changes every time you add a line. You can twist the paper and it might look like something different and so what people sort of mind mapping in 3d yeah exactly and you can put anything you want but it ultimately comes out To be some type of a picture good or bad but you've built it together and the the joy is that people start to recognize oh as i've added a line it changed it oh my input meant that this went In a different direction oh now we're we're deciding together what this is and you suddenly suddenly work with a partner that you may not know and you're suddenly building something And you're having a great time because now you're seeing oh wait but it's you know you're recognizing the changes and now you have a commonality and it's an immediate connection with Somebody that you may not have connected with before. And why did we connect? Simply because we were creating something and it became something we didn't expect it to be. ([Time 0:23:26](https://share.snipd.com/snip/1e47c2c2-f687-417e-8fc5-7bd13d3399f6)) - **Build Confident Narratives With Fake Facts** - Practice rapid improvisation by agreeing and adding plausible details (e.g., fake coffee cup facts) to build confident, persuasive narratives. - The rule: repeat the last fact, say 'that's right', then add the next believable detail. Transcript: Gina DiRoma They're not as anxious. Then we teach them a couple of quick games, my favorite of which is where I might say, okay, David, you and I, we're going to be talking about a topic. We're going to be experts on coffee cups, whatever it might be. And we just, we start, I maybe say one fact about a coffee cup. It's a made-up fact. And you add right on to that and we're now suddenly people on tv a news show an expert show you know something and we're talking about a coffee shop a coffee cup but we are making it sound So convincing and so and we're so confident in it and that's the instruction and the only job is to for you to say yes to the idea that I give you by saying, that's right. If I said coffee cups were invented in Sweden, you would say, that's right. They were invented in Sweden. So you repeat what I say, and then you add right to it. And you just add the next little bit of information. And then I go off of that. Suddenly, we have a five-minute explanation of how coffee cups were made. And it sounds plausible. And it's total BSs but it's fun there's ([Time 0:26:11](https://share.snipd.com/snip/7d356ffd-511a-490d-87d1-2f9b00cc031f)) - **GTD Turned A Passion Into Actionable Steps** - GTD sparked a philosophical shift for Gina: capturing ideas made a long-held passion project (helping people in crisis) become practical and actionable. - As she clarified steps, relevant people and opportunities started appearing in her orbit. Transcript: Gina DiRoma Interestingly, it was more philosophical. And I'll explain what I mean by that. The process of doing it, of course, helped me with work. Of course, it helped me be more organized. Of course, it helped me, you know, get things out of my head and put them in motion. But the biggest thing, and I don't know if you experienced that, so please share if you do. So what happened was over the years, John, my husband, and I have experienced some interesting situations where maybe there were sick family members or we had a lot of miscarriages And a few losses, you know, a lot of losses, but they were very close together. And if anybody's ever experienced loss, first of all, I'm sorry, but second of all, there's a hard, you know, you have to kind of manage that through in addition to living, right? And so I felt very strongly as we were going through all this, that there could have been more resources and or the resources could have all been in one place. And it was so hard to find information about we dealt with alzheimer's and and some uh dialysis and things like that and so there were all kinds of things that we dealt with and what was Interesting was along the way i i absorbed all of these great uh i found great resources great people uh a lot of great help and so so as i was doing this process, and some of that started Flooding back to the front of my brain, some of that stuff that I learned started just kind of going, hey, don't forget about me. And then I started to kind of formulate this passion project to help people in crisis that I would never have done had we not done this thing. I think it's always been there. I think it's always been, gosh, wouldn't it be lovely if all this would be in one place wouldn't it be lovely if I could help people in in the world but I had not started that nor did I ever Think I would because it felt so overwhelming to well where where do you put all this how do you make a website I've been in comedy for 25 years I wouldn't know the first thing about starting Something like this. And then suddenly I started to break it down into bite-sized pieces. I started saying, well, if I were to do it, where would I start? Why do I want to do it? What would I want people to get out of it? How could I make that accessible? How could I make it sustainable? So I started to outline all of those little pieces using GTD and it started to suddenly become more surmountable. ([Time 0:28:50](https://share.snipd.com/snip/7e3ce892-db22-45fe-ae90-9d00bb15da36))