On Monday, students, faculty and staff gathered in the Church-Chapel fellowship hall for a lunch-and-learn session with Andrea Wetherald, a social worker, comedian and   Amazon No. 1-bestselling author.

The event started with a meal provided by the Mennonite Economic Development Associates. Guests were seated at tables of eight and had the opportunity to communicate with various entrepreneurs, business owners and Wetherald. 

Michelle Horning, professor of accounting and chair of the business department, was the one responsible for organizing the event. She met Wetherald on a panel of speakers at the MEDA convention in Montreal last fall.

“I thought she would be a great person to have on campus to talk about leadership during times of uncertainty …  we are always trying to bring experts to campus beyond just the normal people that our students interact with,” Horning said.

One of the main takeaways from the presentation was the idea that uncertainty is a normal condition of life and leadership. Wetherald compared navigating uncertain times to improvisational comedy, explaining that “life is improv … people rarely have a script for what will happen next.”

Wetherald described the core improv principle of “yes, and,” explaining that “‘yes’ is listening and ‘and’ is summoning the courage to add your thing on top of it.” She added that the balance of humility and courage is what helps leaders respond constructively when there is no clear plan.

The session also focused on practical strategies for maintaining stability during uncertain times. “Habits don’t change as quickly as circumstances can,” Wetherald said as an encouragement for leaders to build routines that support resilience.

She went on to discuss the use of breathing techniques to regulate stress by sharing a personal story about taking a polar bear plunge into icy water. 

“That first shock of cold is intense, but your breath is the tool that keeps you grounded … your body wants to panic, but your mind can lead you instead,” Wetherald said.

Peri Mast-Hochstedler, a senior psychology major, was one of the students in the audience. “I really enjoyed how she explained that breathing can really calm down the nervous system and can make you not be in that fight or flight state,” they said.

Wetherald led two interactive improv games to illustrate her points. In “Words of Wisdom,” tables built one-word-at-a-time phrases of advice, practicing listening, quick thinking and collaboration. The second game had participants pair up and use phrases from their text messages as book titles, then create a genre and description for each “book.” 

Mast-Hochstedler said, “Her humor and her interactive games made the presentation more engaging without distracting from the message.”

Besides having an undergraduate degree in social work from Bluffton University and being an author with a passion for comedy, Wetherald is also the founder of the Center for Brave Communication, a project created to provide coaching, training, retreats and speaking engagements for corporate, nonprofit and organizational clients across North America.

Horning said, “Much of her company’s work involves helping people with the culture side of business or human resources. She’s an engaging person to talk to and delivers really good content.”

Horning also believes that the content presented by Wetherald is especially important for Goshen College students since leading in times of uncertainty can be interpreted differently depending on the perspective. 

“For college students who are ready to graduate, the uncertainty is, ‘What am I going to do next? What does my job look like?’” she said.

Concerning the general adult public who attended the session, Horning said, “Hopefully they will go back as a group of people to their organizations and talk about what they learned, maybe even incorporate some of the games with people they work with.”

On Tuesday, Wetherald conducted an improv workshop with students from the business department in the morning, as well as serving as a guest speaker for a marketing class in the afternoon. 

“It’s valuable to have someone on campus interacting with several different classes, several different groups,” Horning said. “Improv is a fun way to learn how to become comfortable with the uncomfortable … even skeptical business students ended up laughing, having fun, but also learning at the same time.”