How to Use Humor in Business

Happy September and welcome back to my newsletter!?This week, I’ll be sharing insights on humor from Jennifer Aaker and Naomi Bagdonas - the professors of Stanford University’s popular course Humor: Serious Business! Today I will also be hosting my weekly Newsweek interview series, Better, at 12 pm EDT / 9 am PT/5 pm GMT. My guest is Katy Milkman, who will talk about how to make the changes we want to make in our lives stick! For a day-of reminder, click here.

In exciting news, I was honored to learn that my LinkedIn Learning courses Strategic Thinking and Interpersonal Communication were both in the Top 20 as the #2 and #16 most popular courses around the world for 2021! In recognition of this, they have made both courses unlocked and free for everyone from September 1st until October 15th, so be sure to check them out! You can access the Strategic Thinking course here.

Humor is not traditionally regarded as a necessity in business. Jennifer Aaker and Naomi Bagdonas, authors of Humor, Seriously, shared how powerful humor can be for all of us in our careers to help connect and persevere. Below are just a few glimpses into how we can identify our humor and use it to our benefit. If you would like to listen to our conversation in its entirety and learn more, you can watch our discussion here.

The healing nature of humor:

“One thing that's so important to recognize, is we think of humor as this fun frivolous thing that's just for the good times. In fact, it is such a powerful tool for us when times get hard. And part of this is what happens to our brains when we laugh together. When we laugh together, we release this cocktail of hormones that make us feel better in a whole bunch of ways. It makes us feel more connected to each other, makes us feel more powerful, more resilient, gives us a happiness boost, lowers our cortisol, it makes us feel less stressed. There are all of these ways that laughter and humor are actually incredibly powerful during times that are hard. This is a time when we need humor probably more than ever."

Laugh throughout the week:

“We often talk about laughter being this fundamental melody of human conversation, this way of really connecting. So, while jokes across different cultures might be very specific, this idea of what it takes to make people laugh and what people feel when they laugh together is incredibly universal. A second way to think about the universality of this study from 166 countries. Over a million and a half people were asked this question, ‘Did you smile or laugh a lot yesterday?’ The answer is yes when you're 16, 18, 20, and then all of a sudden at 23, universally not just in America, but everywhere, the answer becomes no. It plummets. So, there's this incredible humor cliff that everyone really experiences right around the time they go into the workforce, and it doesn't pick up until around age 80, which is horrifying because the overall life expectancy is 78 for most of us.”

Don’t share jokes, share your story:

“We have so many executives who come to us and want coaching on how to be funny in the talks that they give or in the workshops they're delivering. They'll say, 'Can you tell me some jokes that I should write here?’ And our response is always, ‘Forget jokes, forget the script, just tell us about yourself.’ What do you love more than other people? What do you dislike more than other people? What's bothering you right now? What's exciting you right now? What's your relationship like with the people that you love? What's your relationship like with your colleagues? Mining your life for those details, for those stories, for those things that feel really personal to you is where we're going to get humor that's more connecting and more authentic. That is really the place to go rather than thinking about jokes that you can tell.”

Thank you for reading my newsletter! To learn more about Naomi and Jennifer, head over to their website at humorseriously.com. Next week’s guests are Carrie and Dave Kerpen, who will share with us how to sell your business. For a calendar reminder, click here.

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Wishing you health and success -?

Dorie