Saying Yes your way

In Malcolm Gladwell's "Blink", a point that stood out for me is made fairly late in the book where he says that it is a rule of improv comedy that the good player does not say, "No".  He gives the example of one actor saying to another "It looks like you have a leg growing out of your ear."  Saying something negative such as "No, that is not a leg.  It is an ear with the extra ability to walk" does not carry the action along as well as a positive response with a twist.  Anything that begins with an affirmative tends to swing the whole show along better.  Saying something like "Yes, I am working on having my ears do the walking" leads to better comedy, a performance that is wittier, faster-moving and brighter.

I am taken with this idea.  I know in wrestling trying to stop the momentum of a charging opponent cold is much harder and more likely to lead to injuries that going with the direction of his body but modifying the direction and effect in my favor.  I listened to the astronomer Neil De Grasse Tyson say that if Earthlings are destroyed by another planet crashing into the earh, it will be their own fault.  They know how to avoid such a catastrophe and they can do it if they want.  All they have to do is attach a couple of cheap rockets to the sides of the oncoming body and use them to deflect its course on a angle past the earth.

As my brother-in-law said about marketing and politics, it is better to find a way to go with the flow but toward your interests.