Medicine for the Soul

Humor, laughter, and lightheartedness. It’s medicine for the soul, music to the ears, and memories for a lifetime. It deepens relationships and makes life just a little easier to handle. And it creates a welcoming environment where people can let down their guards and be themselves. This is true at home, at work, and everywhere else we do life.

Life isn’t always a bowl full of cherries. Sunshine and rainbows don’t fill all our days. But we can choose how we handle those rainy or cloudy days… We can create little rays of sunshine to pierce through the clouds and darkness. We can do that for ourselves, and we should be doing that for others. That’s leadership!

I was reminded of this over Mother’s Day weekend on a long car ride with my two sons.

What Happened

Two months ago I drove my sons 3.5 hours to spend Mother’s Day weekend with my wife who was taking care of her grandmother for a couple weeks. We spent Sunday afternoon eating a delicious meal at a Mother’s Day brunch with both my wife and her grandmother. We enjoyed it immensely but I probably ate just a little too much.

It was time to head back home. And sitting in a car with a full stomach listening to the steady hum of the wheels for 3.5 hours was a recipe for a snooze fest!

My wife’s explicit and strict instructions to my boys were: “Keep dad awake!”

My 20-year-old volunteered to sit in the front passenger seat to keep me awake. Ten minutes into the drive he was dozing off.

My 17-year-old sat in the back and was wide awake and alert. Seeing his brother dozing off, he decided to fulfill his younger brother role and harass him, reminding him that his job was to keep me awake.

After some initial arguing between the two of them (which kept me awake), my oldest finally said, “Fine! I have an idea… Let’s read some dad jokes.”

Grabbing my phone from its holder, he opened the dad joke app. Yes… I have a dad joke app! There’s an app for everything… why not dad jokes?! Besides, they can come in handy in a pinch. (That’s my justification, and besides… this is a judgement free zone… right?!?)

He swipes, laughs, reads it out loud, and says, “good one!” Sometimes we agree with his assessment, sometimes we think they’re horrible.

After a while, my youngest wants a turn. My oldest is having too much fun with this but eventually gives him the phone.

And, of course, what my youngest thinks is “a good one!” is different than what my oldest thinks is funny. So there’s some groaning and “that’s horrible!” But we’re still laughing.

Then he says, “Uh oh!” and I immediately think something is wrong with my phone. Or maybe he did something to it…

“We’ve reached the end!!”

Then… “Wait, what’s the My Jokes thing?”

When I explain that the app allows the user to enter their own dad jokes, we’re off to the races again…

“Lets make up our own!”

I won’t bore you with the details. I’ll just say that some were a good start. Some were just mediocre. And some… well… some were truly awful.

But we laughed, had fun, and arrived safely at our house… and it didn’t even seem like 3.5 hours had passed!!

Why It Matters

Other than keeping me awake so we could get home safely, there are leadership and life lessons about humor and laughter. I touched on the benefits of humor, laughter, and lightheartedness earlier…

• Medicine for the soul
• Music to the ears
• Memories for a lifetime

And they:

• Deepen relationships
• Make life just a little easier to handle
• Create a welcoming environment for people to be themselves

If that’s true, how do we do this? (wherever we find ourselves… even in a car!)

How It’s Done

We all have different types/styles of humor. In fact, my wife just told me last night that I’m the corniest person in the world! She said this with an emphasis and a passion that I simply can’t convey in writing. I wasn’t sure how to take that, but felt like maybe I was just roasted. (See what I did there?! You know… corn, roasted… Oh, never mind!!).

Despite our different styles and personalities, each of us have ways we can insert humor, laughter, and lightheartedness into all of life’s circumstances.

Appropriately placed humor, laughter, and lightheartedness is an important part of leadership! I’m sure you have many ways you do this, but here are a few to get the creative juices flowing…

Tell funny stories that relive humorous experiences. Admittedly, some of these experiences weren’t funny when we experienced them, but we can now laugh at them and use them to help others laugh or lighten the mood. We have these stories in our families and among friends, and they exist at work as well. Just be careful that these stories aren’t at the expense of someone else, point out someone’s embarrassing weakness or flaw, or generally just put someone else down. The best humorous stories are the ones about something you did or said, not about someone else.

Laugh at yourself. Be comfortable in your own skin. Learn to turn a mistake or a misspoken word/sentence into humor. For example, if I totally misread an email, I might say, “I clearly need to retake my 5th grade reading class!” We’re often much harder on ourselves than we need to be. Besides, maybe that awkward moment becomes the funny story to be shared later… as mentioned above.

Tell good jokes. Don’t just tell any joke… tell good ones, funny ones. What’s a good joke? One that that doesn’t put others down, make fun of others, or be negative. Some people think raunchy or dirty jokes are funny (or at least ok); I don’t. Using humor to put others down, point out others’ weaknesses, or make others less than human is never acceptable or okay. Lift others up. Encourage others. Reach for excellence, not the gutter. It’s still possible to do that with jokes. I’m partial to dad jokes, but hey… that’s just me.

Create an environment that’s welcoming to laughter and fun. This isn’t just the responsibility of the people managers, we’re all responsible for this! Traditional, titled leaders need to model this, but individual contributors are also leaders and need to be examples for their team mates. Culture starts with the leader of the team but is also maintained, cultivated, and strengthened by everyone on the team (who are in their own right, leaders)! Culture needs willing participants.

For Reflection

What are some ways you create lighthearted moments (at work, at home, and wherever else you do life)?

Have you seen the positive impact this has on yourself? On others? How so?

Do you struggle with equating laughter and fun with work? Why?

How do you balance fun/laughter with focused work and getting things done?

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