My Word of the Year for 2026
Vulnerability. I don’t like this choice because it threatens me. I know the power of the word. I teach it often in my improv and storytelling classes. I ask students to say the first thing that comes to mind, to put their characters in peril, to raise the stakes by increasing vulnerability. But making it my word of the year? I don’t like it. Which means I’ve got work to do. A dear friend of mine, Diane, uses vulnerability alongside another word: visible . Visible and vulnerable. Not just…
Originally Published on https://www.yesandexercise.org/
Dr. Robert Cochrane is a graduate of UNLV's Integrated Health Sciences department. He's researching the effect of improvisation and storytelling on Parkinson’s disease. He received grants from the Parkinson's Foundation and support from the Davis Phinney Foundation along the way. He is a popular, unique and high energy Keynote speaker, bringing joy, optimism and practical tools for people in the PD community to thrive today.
He has a background in filmmaking, with the Artisan Entertainment release, The Playaz Court, and two Stephen King-based short films among his credits. His father, Dan, was diagnosed with PD in 2001, which shifted Robert’s artistic lens to health. He made his first documentary, the award-winning Boys of Summer in 2004. There are two follow up films in the series with the fourth film coming in 2023.
He moved his family back to Walnut Creek, CA, where he grew up. He lives there with his beautiful wife, two teenagers who are, indeed, "all that" and is a proud care partner for his amazing parents.
