What did I read? August 2020

As I was stacking these books to take the header photo you see above, I thought to myself “Wow, this looks like a trilogy of insecurity.”

A book about introverts, a book about how to be funny, and a book about how to get stuff done. Like most of the nonfiction books on my shelves, I’d bought them each in a moment of “sure, that sounds interesting” and never dove into them.

I pulled these three off the shelf specifically because after being blown away by Michael Pollan’s Omnivore’s Dilemma last month, I was hoping to find equally rich stories in the studies of laughter, of personality, and of focus. And rich stories there were.

So what did I read in August?

The Humor Code: A Global Search for What Makes Things Funny by Peter McGraw and Joel Warner

The Humor Code is similar to Moonwalking with Einstein, the book about the competitive memory-training circuit, which you may recall was one of my favorite books of the year so far. The books share a similar nonfiction premise: a journalist connects with an obscure expert for the sake of an assignment, only to become enamored by the subject and embark on a quest to become an insider.

Although in the case of The Humor Code, the hero’s journey is now a duo: journalist Joel Warner partners with behavioral economist Dr. Peter McGraw in pursuit of understanding what makes things funny, with the ultimate goal of putting a sweater-vested academic behind the microphone at one the world’s most competitive stand-up comedy events.

McGraw is the fearless scientist, throwing himself into whatever self-effacing experiment will give him more insight into humor. Warner, the narrator, is more self-aware, more introspective—and interestingly, the one drawing more conclusions about the human condition. From an initial newspaper interview, they become fast friends—dare I say, even a little bro-y—as they chase social experiments around the globe, including:

• Los Angeles, where they interview with comedians and comedy club owners about the characteristics of successful comedians and material
• New York, where they learn from cartoonists at the New Yorker about the process of creating comedy, and how to thread the needle between laughter and business
• Tanzania, where they traced the origins of a “laughing epidemic” that gripped the countryside to understand whether laughter was truly contagious
• Japan, where they studied the subjectiveness of humor, and how varying social and cultural constructs provide the context for the absurd
• Denmark and Sweden, where they unpacked what happens when humor goes too far: the fine line between comedy and ridicule
• Israel and Palestine, where they analyze the disarming role of humor in conflict
• Peru, where they joined a clown brigade to lift the spirits of some of the poorest people in the world
• And finally, Montreal, where McGraw put the duo's learnings to the test by participating in a world-renowned comedy festival.

Unlike Moonwalking with Einstein, there’s far more time spent describing their exploits than actually underpinning them with research or concrete conclusions. So it became a lot more about interesting characters and interactions than any truly insightful discoveries. More DaVinci Code than a code for humor.

McGraw’s central thesis, introduced in Chapter 1 and revisited in the final act, is that all humor boils down to a Venn diagram: a subject that the audience finds benign in one circle and an unexpected violation in the other. At the intersection is “funny.” A premise too far into the benign territory is safe, casual, even boring. Too far into the violation side is seen as offensive, aggressive, or even tragic. But if you can steer squarely into the overlap, McGraw argues—dentist + first-timer, to reference the classic Tim Conway sketch, for example—you get bonafide comedic gold.

The strongest argument for the theory is that it’s difficult to disprove, as McGraw and Warner proceeded to demonstrate that everything from knock-knock jokes to internet memes to Saturday Night Live skits fits the model. But at what point is a model so broad that it’s no longer useful? Humor is so wonderfully subjective and dependent on external variables like timing, delivery, context, and reaction that I had a hard time accepting this thesis. And while it may explain what makes things funny, at first glance it doesn’t seem to help much in the process of reliably creating comedy, as there are plenty of benign-violation pairings that aren't funny. To their credit, the authors included the counterpoints of a few scholars that felt similarly.

When I first cracked the book's spine, I'd figured that two authors trying to boil humor down an equation was probably going to be unsatisfying, and even though I didn’t get the rich insight I’d hoped for, I still enjoyed the story, even if it was cringeworthy at times.

I thought I was going to read a book about scientific breakthroughs (benign) but as it turned out The Humor Code was more of a globe-trotting buddy comedy (violation). So I guess—technically—that’s kind of funny.

Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can’t Stop Talking by Susan Cain

I’ve been familiar with Susan Cain’s phenomenal TED talk for years, but when the VCU Ad Club recently asked me to do a webinar on Networking for Introverts, I took the opportunity to pull her bestselling 2012 book from my shelf and really immerse myself in her point of view.

Cain, a former lawyer, spent the first part of her career suffering from a sense of inadequacy and insecurity that we now might call Imposter Syndrome. After one particularly intense-but-successful negotiation, she realized that her introspective nature was actually an incredibly powerful asset. It made her more attuned to subtle cues and dynamics, a more compelling listener, and more committed to achieving the goal that she had envisioned. Once she understood how to read her own signals, she recognized the opportunities that it created for her as a professional, a leader, and as a parent. She left the legal profession to become a writer and ultimately found a consultancy that helps businesses, individuals, and parents embrace the advantages of introversion.

Quiet is not only meticulously researched, but also compellingly written. Cain summarizes a wealth of studies proving that what we commonly call introversion is not simply about a person being shy or solitary, a counterpoint to extroversion. She explored psychological, physiological, and anthropological research that showed that the spectrum of introversion-extroversion instead refers to a sensitivity to and awareness of stimuli.

So it’s not that an introvert isn’t interested in parties or concerts or networking events. It’s that the same influx of new people, new conversations, and new environments that energizes extroverted people can be taxing on an introvert. Introverts tend to read body language, pick up subtext and connections, and notice details to a greater degree than extroverted people, which drains cognitive energy when it’s too much to process at once. In other words, introverts want to come to your party but they might also be the first ones to leave—not because they’re not enjoying themselves but because they feel exhausted and crave space to recharge.

But Cain proceeds to explain—and even show examples from history and business—of how this greater sensitivity to stimulus makes introverts more innovative, more collaborative, and perhaps counterintuitively, even effective leaders. She also noted that introverts can train themselves to flex outside their comfort zones and successfully take on skillsets that come more naturally to extroverts, like public speaking, debate, and steadfastness. However, she refers to this as a "rubber band" concept because it’s important for introverts to snap back to their true temperament to avoid feeling burnt out or unfulfilled. In fact, a significant portion of the book is dedicated to raising introverted children and helping them understand how best to socialize, learn, and grow in environments that are often structured for extroverts.

As an introvert married to an extrovert, I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I needed it. One of the underlying themes of Quiet is about how introverts can protect and ensure their own happiness and success in a world that idealizes extrovert characteristics. Cain’s multidisciplinary approach gave me a better understanding of how my own brain works and provided a lot of helpful tips for engaging in professional and social circles while still carving out time for myself. It even helped me be more empathetic to extroverted people and their hunger for stimulus and interaction.

Smarter Faster Better: The Secrets of Being Productive in Life and Business by Charles Duhigg

If there was one book I would try to squeeze into the final days of August, it would make sense that it’s a book about productivity. New York Times journalist Charles Duhigg explores eight concepts that present choices for how to frame our day-to-day goals and responsibilities, choices that—when recalibrated—can lead to breakthroughs in learning and success. These eight concepts are:

• How we choose to motivate ourselves
• How we structure and work in teams
• How we summon and harness the power of focus
• How we define our goals
• How we manage expectations
• How we think critically about decisions
• How we create new ideas
• How we interpret and apply data

As I mentioned way back in February with A Beautiful Constraint, I love when educational books use obscure stories to illustrate the concepts, and Smarter Faster Better is no exception. Duhigg provides minute-by-minute recounts of airplane crashes to illustrate how preparation affects focus. He explains the false starts and early drafts of the Disney creative team working on what would become Frozen to illustrate how time constraints and minor disruptions can trigger major breakthroughs. He tracks new recruits for the Marines through boot camp to understand how reframing orders can inspire teams to take ownership of their own fates. Not only are the stories artfully told, but they are accentuated with the medical research and psychology that explains why the stories are relevant.

But perhaps my favorite part of the book was the appendix. Duhigg takes a step back and explains how he applied each of these eight concepts to the writing of the book as he was researching them. In doing so, he provides one more relevant story for the reader: his own. He confessed his struggles to motivate and how he re-structured his work time to allow himself to build momentum and block out distractions. He included pictures of the scribbled notebook pages where he outlined his specifics goals for each chapter. He explained why he had to cut one anecdote that he really liked because his defined action plan helped him understand that it didn't fit into the narrative the way he had hoped. He sketched out his critical thinking process when he had to makes choices between his book, his job, or his personal life. It was a really interesting—and meta—way to illustrate each of his major themes in a way that made sense, since I had literally just had my hands on his output. In the days after I finished Smarter Faster Better I found myself more aware of the choices I was making as our work days and personal time continue to become more intertwined, and the hours seem even more scarce.

Whether traveling the world with a new buddy in a fanatical quest for the secret to comedy, seeking out quietly powerful leaders in the halls of universities and office buildings, or learning about how the choices that we have power over in our day-to-day lives can make us more successful, August was a month rich with inspiring stories.

Have you come across any transformative stories lately? Let me know in the comments below.