Prepare to be Unprepared

My thoughts on Amy Poehler's MasterClass

Welcome to DPP, a weekly newsletter about the real life trials and tribulations of pleasing, and how I leverage emotional intelligence for proper recovery. Letters land on Tuesdays (and some Fridays), please allow me a first-class seat with your inbox?

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I was influenced by my coworker to purchase MasterClass. YouTube had been hard-core peer pressuring me to commit for the last year or so, but nothing beats a totally innocent comment from a colleague about what they watched over the weekend to inspire the most FOMO in me.

I didn’t even use the 14-day free trial. I bought access to the full year immediately upon payday, thinking this would pay itself off in the BOATS full of writing knowledge and overall life knowledge experts across all fields would provide to me. To say I have been unimpressed with the courses, would be an understatement. Much of the content feels more like a surface-level 101 class, not a “MasterClass”. **Since I fully commit to paying the annual fee, I am allowed to gift 14-day trial to you. I get nothing in return, and MasterClass gets free advertising. You already have access to this offer just by visiting their website. I’ll let you decide what to do about that from here.

So, what are we talking about today?? The one. The only. Theeee Amy Poehler. She created a MasterClass (worthy of the platform title) on Improv not only for comedy but for life itself and I viewed the SHIT out of her course: Prepare to be Unprepared.

Amy Poehler on MasterClass

By chasing success as fulfillment, you miss the journey along the way.

-Amy

As a millennial, the SNL days of Amy Poehler, Tina Fey, Maya Rudolph, Keenan Thompson, and Kristen Wiig (I could go on but won’t -except Bill Hader I still love you & think you SCORED with Ali Wong. #CoupleGoals), were premium.

I read Yes, Please, her 2014 memoir with hilarious personal reflections and advice to readers as I watched her star as Leslie Knope on Parks & Rec. I was and still am enamored by her. She has a special quality about her.

Welcome to MasterClass

So I don’t actually know what the rules of MasterClass are, and since I don’t own any rights, nor do I want any of my rights read to me, I will share my high-level takeaways for you instead of getting myself arrested today.

First, Amy arrives with FEELING. She openly states that she is weary of calling herself a “Master” which I loved, and she also says that [most] people who hold celebrity status, have gotten to where they are by failing. A LOT.

It’s not necessarily what they know that got them famous, but garnering what NOT TO DO after failed attempts. Over, and over again.

Key takeaway for us: Don’t give up. Failing means we are getting closer to whatever it is we want.

Another lovely bit about her MasterClass, is that she performs in front of a live audience, which is all filmed. From what I have viewed on the platform thus far, an expert or, in their words, a “Master” of some kind of craft, sits in a velvet chair, wearing important person clothes in front of a wall of books. They bless the viewer with their mere presence and knowledge over a series of episodes, and then leave you stranded to figure the rest out all alone.

Not Amy.

She does it on a stage with an audience, and she doesn’t talk AT them, but WITH them.

One of the first things she advises the crowd is something I have written about here before. Like Young Pueblo (and other qualified gurus) say, sometimes you gotta learn the lesson a couple of times before you really GET IT, ya know? Even if you haven’t been reading DPP since its inception (I forgive you), all people who know anything about improv, know what I’m about to say next:

Keep Saying Yes!

**Imperative side note from me to me: While improv is all about saying “Yes, And…” on-stage and off, as a life-long people-pleaser, this assignment is less about saying yes to others (like I always do) and more about saying YES to myself.

I reflect:

• What opportunities come my way that I actually & genuinely want to jump on? Am I saying YES to them?

• Saying No to someone else can be seen as saying Yes, to me. And that is allowed. Fricken finally.

Here’s my 10 cents, my 2 cents is free (name that song):

If you happen to be someone who says “No” to everyone all the time, have great boundaries, serve YOU and only YOU, maybe please consider trying the opposite approach of me and SAY YES to someone else perhaps? I’m no Amy Poehler, but I feel she would support this motion.

Another essential nugget of wisdom Amy drops:

Find Your Team

Hot damn. I have struggled with belonging. I have struggled with finding my “team”. I am always 10 toes deep in whatever job I hold and tell myself that my coworkers are my friends, but I never actually make a move to do anything besides WORK with said friends.

Amy talks about moving from Boston (her hometown!) to Chicago to pursue comedy. She talks about finding her “people” there and founded Upright Citizens Brigade with her proverbial team where she met Tina Fey. 🥹 She found her people and they pushed her to cultivate her passion. Guess where that took her? That’s right. Amy Poehler landed on Saturday Night Live.

I want to take a moment to say here, that I did not grow up on any teams or clubs in school. I don’t play sports and I don’t have a single athletic bone in my body. I also hate competition, as a people pleaser I’d rather just see you win. Your win is MY win, get it?? So while I have always had a really hard time finding my “team”, it’s important to me to shower each and every one of you reading here with me in love and gratitude for your presence. To have witnesses to my experience is unreal. To my fellow Substack writers: I can honestly say for the first time in my LIFE I feel like I am HOME with each of you. We love to write and we love to support each other on the ride?? This is how it feels to find your team?! WOW, have I been missing out. Thank you all so much, & please never give up on this vocation we share.

I’ll leave you with the last word of advice from Amy’s class:

Learn Your Currency

This was by far, my favorite piece of the entire course. And guess what- it didn’t come from Amy’s list of “Improv to Improve Your Life Tips”. “Learn Your Currency” was called out from the audience.

Amy loved it so much, that she used her currency to hand the MasterClass over to the woman who called it out- asking her to share what that meant and take over the rest of the course based off her own lived experience. She was asked to get up on stage and teach everyone in the room (and at home) about why it is so important to KNOW OUR WORTH.

Part of Amy’s currency as a woman who has “made it”, paying it forward and creating access to those coming up behind her is one of her core values. We see it displayed in her very own MasterClass where she tosses herself into the audience seating and listens as this woman takes over her course as teacher.

Her approach deeply resonated with me. I don’t hold the same currency as Amy, but I believe deeply in creating access, and sharing our currency, not gate-keeping after a major breakthrough. That’s just me though- I get that for some, a breakthrough cost something valuable and after a sacrifice, we can feel entitled or think that not all people are ready/deserving. It kind of goes back to the quote about how every single person we ever meet has something they can teach us. Some people buy into that (me) and some don’t. I like to think about it that way.

Before I sign off, I have to sneak just a pinch of EQ in here. Those just joining us at DPP, Welcome! EQ stands for emotional intelligence and I am slightly unhinged about the concept and its four pillars. For those of you precious fools who have been with me for a while, sorry to bore you with the basics. Newbies, amiright? 🤣

As I was saying, when it comes to “Learning our Currency” or knowing our worth, this correlates to the first pillar of EQ. Self-awareness. Learning and applying EQ to my life, is an ongoing process. Self-awareness is the first pillar in EQ because without it, we can’t authentically connect to anyone else. People-pleasers like me have a really tough time finding and understanding ourselves. I have gone much of my life not really knowing who I am, what I want, or even who I like because I have been so concerned about if they like me, first! I am very much in the beginning phases of learning my currency and plan to develop here for the rest of my days. My self-awareness will evolve as I do. 🪷

That’s All, Folks!

I would love to know if you enjoyed my MasterClass on Amy’s MasterClass- please head over to Yelp and leave me a 5-star review for your chance to win a brand-new-to-you 2012 Toyota Prius. Don’t all run at once now.¹

From my spirits currency to yours,

K. Alexandra 💰✨

1. This offer does not exist. Here is the proof that I told you.