A recorded interview (Sept 9, 2020) on Bill Gallagher’s Scaling/leadership show featuring comedian and “humor scientist” Matt Kazam. The conversation explains Kazam’s approach to teaching humor as a learnable ‘science’ for leaders: joke-writing, storytelling, and standup coaching to boost retention, engagement, and culture. Topics include adapting comedy and training for virtual/remote events during the COVID-19 pandemic (virtual team-building, 75-minute joke-writing workshops, breakout sessions), practical speaking tips (setup → description → punchline; self-deprecation vs. superiority), anecdotes (large stadium gigs, prison shows), and personal/family references (daughter Tulip, parenting). The interview stresses humor’s measurable benefits for memory, trust, wellness, and remote culture-building and notes Kazam’s programs and website (theylaughyouwin.com).
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So she has to write her own jokes. And so, you know, that part is cool, but great. Great to be here. Sorry about all the craziness. But, you know, it's a crazy new world, so we're just gonna roll with it. Oh, oh.
It's a crazy new world. So. Hi, everyone. So we got Matt Kazam. We're gonna talk about how to use humor to make your companies. And my name is Bill Gallagher. I'll tell you about Matt Kazam in just a minute. I'm your scaling coach. I'm host of the show. And our show is all about how to scale and grow no matter what the economy is doing, what the world is doing, no matter what your industry, your neighborhood, etc. What part of the world you're in, even. And you can find all of our shows, plus lots of others at. Listen to that. The music just changed.
It is power. Protest is rolling through. It sounds like. Like the protesters might be rolling through.
This is actually one of my favorite old movies. Spike Lee featured in do the right thing. Yeah. Yeah. So as I was saying, we've got hundreds of episodes. So we've been doing these shows for, like four years now. And everything to do with scaling up plus the leadership, right? The four decisions, people strateg execution and cash or the area. I love to focus on a lot. The fifth decision. What kind of leader are you going to be? The leadership decision. And at our website@spectning coach.com, we've got downloads of all the past episodes, plus the tools and the notes that all of our speakers talk about. So you can get all of those there for free. For free. And we've got all that stuff there. Plus we'll give you a copy of the book Scaling up for free. Just pay the shipping and handling. We'll send it to you for free. Also, if you're looking for a coach, and we've never had more demand than now during the pandemic, than ever before. We've got 200 coaches in my world and probably I tend to stay pretty full. But I could help you find a coach that fits you from our world of scaling up coaches. So get in touch with us. Go to scaling up scalingcoach.com, subscribe there, follow us and that kind of thing, and we'll help you out. Or drop us a note infoscalingcoach.com and we will help you out. So on to the topic of the day. Matt Kazam. Matt, you are in Las Vegas, right?
I am, I am. It's. I mean, Labor Day weekend. Gave us a little bit of a glimpse, a glimpse of what it, what it was before. But I mean, there are no shows, there are no. Half of the casinos are still closed. So, you know, but we, we did get a ton of people here this, this weekend. So, you know, at least it. And it's going to be dead until the end of the year. But yeah, I am here in Vegas for sure.
So guys, Matt's a humor scientist. He's a headliner comedian from Vegas. He's got year decades of experience in the world of comedy, but also in corporate training. He's done work worldwide, both in entertainment side of comedy, but then also the corporate training side of it. And for the last 15 years, he's been a guest lecturer, speaker, a workshop leader in, at the Smithsonian and in other places. The creator of the stand up and public speaking program. He's coached CEOs and entrepreneurs, people like Kevin Harrington and Joe Polish. And he's even crafted two rows of Richard Branson delivered on Necker Island. And those things are still held dear by Richard Branson. Today I met Matt Kazan through a mutual friend and I did the standup challenge and Matt coached me to develop a standup routine and then deliver it at a top comedy club in New York City to a crowd of indifferent and cruel.
He actually stole the show, which was weird because it didn't look that way in all the, you know, in all the coaching sessions, you know, there was. And then you went rogue and then put your own stuff in there. But really, whether I'm coaching speakers or leaders or CEOs who want to be comedians, it really is just about teaching the highly intelligent with an aptitude for learning the science of humor that lives inside of all of us. So what you did is exactly what I wanted to do. Now some people are too afraid. They want to, you know, go to stage with my words. But really what I want to see happen is the science take effect. And, and you were a perfect example of that. And, and I, we didn't really know what the show was going to be until you got on the stage. But you know, with your background, I knew the talent was there because, you know, you had been on radio and you had been a speaker and you had, you know, done all these things before. But it is, it is some of the, my science that I teach, but it really is the science of, of humor and how we're wired as people, which especially now, you're already doing so much more to accomplish less. You know, no matter what you're doing, whatever it is. Humor is the secret sauce to making it better and more engaging and, and, and, and more memorable. You know, people only remember 10 to 20% of anything that they hear or see or read. You embed that message with humor goes up to 50 or 60%. So, you know, you know, yes, it was great to see you do it over there, but really what I'm excited to hear about is how it's helped you since then and, and it must have been whether it's with the podcast or speaking or anything. Actually, you did a scaling up show like two days after that happened. You had done Stand Up Again, which I thought was awesome. So we haven't really talked since then, but, you know, but I'd love to hear about that.
Well, so before I talk about how it is now, we talked about facing a crowd at a Comedy Club delivering 17, 18 minutes in New York. Right? That's a terrifying thing. And, and I've never been so scared of anything, never been so intimidated in my life. My wife is watching me like, whoa, you are like level 10. There are a bunch of things I need to get through that. But let me step back actually for a minute before, because I, I think like, as a kid with my dad, the background, like that kind of thing, I started out destined to be a teacher and a speaker, right. Like, it just is in my DNA, in my experience, but I didn't recognize it, right. So I went off and I did different things. I accidentally, I found myself on the radio as a young man and then more and more speaking, and I was just drawn to it, right. By the time mid career or the beginning of my career, I was highly professional, but getting consistently mediocre feedback and scores, conference and other speaking. And I think that's a key thing that like, I'd gotten so afraid from like embarrassing experiences in middle school to early career problems. I'd gotten so afraid of effing everything up that I would make it all bland. I hear your daughter, you know, you're not the only one right now whose kids and homeschooling is like, I go.
You know, everybody wanted to work from home, but in our remote, in our home, working remote fantasies, the kids were at school, you know. You know, now, now, you know, we're six months into this and I'm like, hey, let's take our chances with the virus, you know, but, but it's, she's, I don't even, you know, just not.
Appropriate to use a ball gag or a muzzle with the kids.
Not, not anymore. You know, it's a new world. There was a time. Listen, we're both, you know, of a certain age where, you know, like. Like I go. It was different parenting back then. Like my mother had a pool queue. We didn't even have a pool table. You know, she just kept it around in case we didn't listen. So, you know. But now it's. It's her world and we're just so. But. But I'm. You know, I'm. And I always say I'm 50, I'm 52 with a 5 year old because I'm a genius. So. Tulip, please, please. Thank you. So. But she's a good kid. And then she's. And it is a family business, you know, my. My business. She was developing some programs for children to raise emotional intelligence with humor. And Tulip is gonna, you know, hopefully be out there, you know, running that program to 8 year olds, you know, in a couple of years. So right now we're training that since.
We can hear her. Why don't you bring on camera for a minute and.
Give me a yes me. Here she is. You're not bringing that. Bring this to the desk now. Come on. Say hello to everybody. You're live world. Say hi. Hi.
Ah, good for you. Hi.
Tulip, tell them. Is making people laugh great? Is making people laugh great? Do you like it? No. No. I don't want you to say it. I was asking you a question. Do you love to make people laugh?
Yeah.
Yes. Okay. Tell them a shark joke. Why did the shark eat the light bulb? Why did the shark eat the light bulb?
The light bulb?
The light bulb.
I don't know, Tulip.
Why Tulip? Because it wants to be in his mouth and it was a crape dark. Okay, so now can you be quiet over there? I gotta help all these people. Be funnier. It's one big punch line here. It's so. But you know, it's funny. She has changed my act, you know, ever since she came along. You know, late in life, you know it. I'm working on a new show called Old New Dad. And you know about being 52 with. With the 6 year old. Because in like I tell her all the time, she is so lucky to be quarantined in 2020 than in 1973 when I was six years old, you know. Right, right. All of us. Right? I mean, you know, three stations on T. She can watch every cat video, every TV, every movie. But when. When 1973. Three stations on TV. And to anyone who's young, I know you got some Young listeners. I don't mean at once, I mean all the heck we had. And then even worse, I know you remember TV used to end at midnight. Just all of a sudden at midnight. They didn't even explain it to you. They would just go read a book, you know, in the home of the brave. Yeah, that was it.
So Mars and Tone. You know, I remember having a very strong preference for one grandparents house versus the other grandparents house for one big reason. Now there turned out there are a lot of other reasons, but the reason at the time as a kid that I focused a lot on is one grandparents house was in LA and there were lots of TV choices and the other was in Las Vegas where there were like two.
Yeah, yeah.
And when I would go visit the grandparents in Las Vegas now they had a cool pool in Las Vegas with a picnic table umbrella in the water so you could sit and eat your lunch in the water.
Nice.
Was amazing. But the one had only one channel with any kids shows on it in Vegas at the time because there was like nothing. Right. And the Vegas kids show had stuff like Captain Kangaroo. I hated Captain Kangaroo. I know that's not like the PC thing to say, but I just thought he was the most boring thing in the world. And I also, although I've come to love and appreciate him today. Right. Mr. Rogers also just dreadful. Right. But I was a little bit of a kid beyond that age, most appropriate for it. And there's not enough. Well today, right. There's the iPad, there's the computer, there's the YouTube, there's like whatever. There's a million sources of things. Yeah, it's more about managing that.
Yeah, yeah. No, and the great thing is all the things that she has right now, she just finished painting and you know, now she's literally doing some playing, actual playing with toys, you know, not, not no device, there's no batteries. Just sitting there, creating her own thing. So you know, I think that part of it, but, but only because I was 52, you know, 50 years old and had a kid, I have a frame of reference of what life used to be like. But you know, if you're a 30 year old, you're going to raise them with all the technology because you never lived in a world without it. So you know, you know what, it's.
It'S funny because we have a, I mean many parents and folks are like, oh, let's limit screen time. But I'll tell you, both my kids are pretty accomplished already and well beyond where I was in their early 20s. So both my kids are 20s and they're already beyond where I was at a comparable time. And they're both highly tied to things online, technology, media, computers, that kind of thing. And because of that exposure. Now I remember we gave our son a laptop early on. He was the older one, so he got his before she did. So we give him the laptop and we put in all the parental controls. We locked the whole thing down using that stuff, right. And it wasn't very long before he'd rooted the thing, figured out how to get the root access and reprogrammed everything, eliminated all the stuff. And my wife and I had this side conversation. We're like, should we. I'm like, no. If he knows how to do that, he clearly is intelligent enough to figure out what's good and bad to put in his brain. Yeah. So we, you know, he's gonna let him have access to the universe. I mean, when I was a kid, I had to go look up the formula for explosives and you know, and find the pornography in the hard ways and that kind of thing.
Today the kids have in the woods or something.
Well, I remember like I blew up a tree in my parents back, like I made some black powder and, and other kinds of things and, and I blew this. Dad came home, he's like, what happened to the branch? I'm like, I don't know.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Why is it burned? I.
They were always kind of like random fires when we were. If you. Again, if you're over 50, they're always. We would get the random fires like. And I use this in joke in my act where I talk about. And even to this day there were three of us and, and I do not know which one of our fireworks started the fire, but is the second I saw the smoke and I saw the guys bushes go on fire, I just go immediately home for the ass whooping, like immediately. Because I knew it was coming. I'm like, maybe let me get this out of the way now. Maybe I could salvage the weekend, you know. And sure enough, before I even got home, I knew I was gonna get beaten because my. I saw the guy in the house go for the phone. Because back then, you know, everybody in the neighborhood had everybody's number. You know, he didn't have to send her a friend request on LinkedIn, you know, or you know, email or he was just, hey, listen, your son burned down my. And so my mother's waiting for me in the street with the pool cue. Because, you know, back then they would be publicly like, you Know, like we were Malaysian or something, you know, and, and you know, she's beating me in the street and the neighbors are just watching, just out the windows, just watching, you know, because there were only three stations on tv. This was better than anything on there. And, and, and you know, they didn't know any better. That's all I said back then. If something didn't work right, they hid it, right. Lawnmower didn't work. You hit it. It started. TV had squiggly lines. You hit it, kid didn't work right? You hit it. Didn't know. But you know, it's, it's, it's, it's amazing how much the world has changed. And that's, that's a big part of the show. I do 40's not the new 20, you know, and it, it's kind of a last look at how we grew up. And not just the lunacy of three stations on the TV versus a thousand, but what did we sacrifice? What did we give up by letting technology come in? You know, I think we've given up self reliance and creativity. And these are important things that kids are going to need to have in addition to being technological technology savvy, you know?
Well, you know, you talk about things you give up, right? And going back to the experience. So there I am mid career and I'm getting like crappy reviews and that kind of thing for my speaking. I'm highly professional, right. I speak smoothly and I'm organized and I cover my points. But BO and like fitting the Persona, not surprising white guy with a business background. And so you expect me to be a little bit boring. And I delivered on by focusing on not embarrassing myself. And I think about like the time in the first year in high school when I didn't know the answer to something and I had a whole anxiety attack, right? And I, and, or the time that my executive vice president at a Fortune 100 company just ripped into me and humiliated me with profanity in front of my peers. And I was like so determined not to fuck up that I became so safe, so boring. And I think that's true of corporate leaders and corporate speak that in many cases today they're just like boring. Like stab your face, your, your eye out, kind of like somebody say something engaging or funny or whatever. But we're terrified of offending someone or like. Right?
Yeah. And that's, and that's a big part. I teach humor in 2020, which is infinitely different than it was in 2010 or even 2005. So you know, if you're going to do it, which is now you're going to have, there's only two options you have. If you're going to speak or communicate. If you want your message to be heard and not just when I say heard, not just heard, but actually, you know, digested, it's either humor or storytelling. Because information you process with the conscious mind, humor and storytelling go right to the subconscious where you're not connecting with every long term memory, every belief, every emotion that they have. And most people just think. Speaking and communicating is the delivery of information. And yes, it may have been that way before, but there's no more room in the inn, you know, there's no more room in the conscious mind, Tulip. There's no more room. So you're gonna have to find the back door in. And humor, storytelling are those things. And up until now it's been organically. There's certain funny leaders who were funny before they got that gig and now they use humor. And I'll get letters all the time from people, emails all the time from people going, you know what, you're 100% right. I've been using humor in my business, you know, leading my people. And these people will take a bullet for that guy. Meanwhile, the guy delivering the information, you know, they really have no emotional attachment to it all. So that's. That, that's kind of what I do, even in the standup challenges, because I hope that they will take this skill and not just be organically funny, but strategically funny. Being able to go in there and go, I'm going to use humor and story to make this content better and accomplish all the things I want to accomplish, which they say it takes 17 interactions to gain someone's trust or you make them laugh once. Which one do you want to do? All the things we're looking to do to be more authentic. Hey, you were on stage doing stand up. There's nowhere to hide. You have to be present and in the moment in a way that there's nothing else out there. And that's what it was. It's taking you so far out of your comfort zone that you had to grow. And that's. And then once you have that new understanding and be able to go, listen, I'm gonna probably suck anyway, you know, and the great thing about humor, because it's based on empathy, you get credit for the attempt because in order for me to make you laugh, and I think we think about humor as the art form and Tulip, Tulip, please. We use humor as the art form, and that's fine. But in the art form, it's kind of what I think is funny and I'm just gonna do it and then the audience will come to me. But if you're gonna use it strategically, it's what do I know about this audience? So in terms of doing that, you've shown that you care enough about them, first of all, that you don't want it to be boring. So I think everybody worries about, oh my God, I'm not gonna get a laugh, I'm not gonna get a laugh. But you got such a wing just for attempting it versus not that. And you'll dial it in and then what happens is just like stand up, you create the same content that can be used over and over and over again. Because whether it's media, podcasts, how did you start the business? Tell your origin story, everybody's got one. And that's the power of working in the business world versus we give comedians way too much credit. All they know is how to do it. The real fuel for comedy lives inside of you with these depths of life. That's why comedians talk about airlines, about airlines and Chipotle, because that's all they do. You know how many times you could talk about masturbating at Ramada Inn? That's all they got. You have these amazing stories, they're just too long and you don't know how to tell them. But you know, that's where I come in that.
And you did help with that.
Think about that.
I'm a business guy, right? A white.
The white's implied.
We can see the white North America. But then in writing the, the set I put in gender, race, sex, money, religion. I like covered all these things. Class and, and some of the things I put in intentionally, like, oh, my kids are going to be there in the audience when I do this show, so I should throw in a little sex just to mess with them. You make them feel comfortable. It did kind of work in that regard, but I could have taken it up a little bit notch by saying, my kids are here tonight, whatever. So let's talk about sex.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, yeah. And remember, we're doing a stand up piece at a comedy club, so all of that stuff was on the table, you know. Now if you're doing, you know, again, speech in a corporate situation, you may want to leave the sex and, you know, the other stuff out of it. But, but like I said, when I do coach someone, I give them metrics, you know, especially now because somebody can be offended because you talk about sex, you know, but you may not lose your job over it. Tulip, Tulip, seriously. However, if you. There is 5% of comedy, I think that can go the wrong way because people laugh for two reasons. They laugh at a commonality, they laugh at a superiority. And even I can hear where the laugh comes from because they don't come from the same place. A superiority joke doesn't have any value to you. Like all the things I say can accomplish, you know, to gain people's trust. People may laugh, but they're laughing because it's the release of nervous energy because you made them feel uncomfortable. And then, you know, and it happens the same way with sex or cursing or any of those things. But it's a superiority laugh. So I always tell, I give people the example. If there's a victim in the joke and it's not, you don't tell it. You know, I mean, and especially you white male, you know, I mean, if you're a, if you're one of these groups, maybe you can get away with it. But I don't think there's any real value then because then it becomes a commonality thing.
Well, so what worked for me was the self deprecating, right? When I made fun of being that lean into it. And then I raised it by surprising them with some of the things that don't fit that, that appearance or that Persona, right. And those two things I think in the whole set worked better than the rest of the stuff.
And it's just, it's more engaging and more personal and, and it's easier, you know, you know, self deprecating stuff because we all do it and we all understand it and, and you know, a lot of this is intuitive. And so even when you're performing to an audience, you know, you've gotta, you have to understand that they. It's some somewhat the favorite because it humanizes you, it connects you. It's, it's what I do to Richard Branson and Kevin Harrington. How can I take, you know, these billionaires and make them relatable to the guy in the mailroom or the rank and file? And it is the self deprecating stuff. But, but a real quick point about the superiority, where superiority does work is in your business, what, you know, what your business does. Why is your product better than someone else's? You know, it's kind of like I tell people, it's like the flip phone. When we make fun of the flip phone versus this phone, you know, obviously this one is superior to the flip phone. And as long as we keep the jokes and the material about the phone and not the reason why the person might still have a flip phone in 2020, then. Then, you know, you know, then it doesn't come off as mean, you know, but, you know, there could be a horrible reason why somebody still has a flip phone in, you know, 2020. But as long as you keep it about the products and not about the people, the superiority will get away from it. But the real meat of comedy is what we have in common, you know, especially now with Corona and everything that's going on in the world. I mean, humor is the way to get past this. I mean, we only have two natural emotions, anger and anger and humor. And if you lock humor down as part of the equation, all you have is anger, and that's really coming to manifest itself. And why, you know, it's my passion to bring it back to the workplace. And even if I do that through helping speakers become more engaging and entertaining so they can spread their message better, you know, I'm at least, you know, you know, at least contributing to the solution and not being part of the problem.
So let's talk about where it goes off, because you said this in the preparation for our show here. You said everybody's funny, we're born funny, and we think about how entertaining kids are. Right? Your daughter. Yeah, yeah. You know, but you said we shut that part off of ourself and it needs to come back. And that's what I resonated with, like my own personal experience is how at some point, midlife or mid career, I got really boring. And then I had to, like, get unleashed and let go and swing out a little bit in order to actually bring back the funny and the engaging part. Like, it took conscious work on my part over time. Bring it back. Yeah.
I mean, why I'm a great ambassador for this and certainly the person to articulate this is I get live in that space, in the comedian space, 24 7. Like, for the last 30 plus years, I've been a comedian up until then. So I never have to go, you know, be a regular person, and then come back and go, oh, I got to be funny now. So, you know, I see things that other people don't see because I'm always tuned into the humor part of my personality and maybe, maybe not some other. Other parts of that. But the writing, the data says children left 400 times a day, adults left three. You know, three to 10. You know, I mean, somewhere along the line, humor is not becoming such a priority to us anymore. And the ones though where they haven't shut it off are intensely successful. Have you ever seen a homeless guy who was funny? No, but we've seen CEOs, we've seen salesmen of the Year. Every single time that Salesman of the Year is a funny guy. Okay? Now why should humor be left to only those people? If it lives inside of us, I can unlock it. And that's. I'm doing this team building joke writing program. 75 minutes in that 75 minutes, I'm helping some of them because at the end I can see that they're changed. And, you know, but the reason I'm able to do it is because it's already there. You know, I'm not teaching physics where they have to learn something. You know, they already know what I'm telling them. They just, it's just not something they go to. And the reason we were given humor is as a defense mechanism to put up with all the bullshit. So if you don't allow yourself to look at the light side of situations and look for the funny and always think about how maybe it could be worse. I mean, you know, I don't have a bad day. I've never gotten a speeding ticket. I really haven't because I'm able to take that negative situation and turn it into a pos. Most people just take a negative situation and make it worse, but it's not their fault because they don't have that, that part of the human experience that we were given to deal with this and humor is it, you know, and if you look at cultures, I've studied all of this in cultures where bonding and community are important, humor is an all day event. They're laughing still 400 times a day because it's never been shut down. And I'm talking about, you go to the Amazon, Africa and all, you know, Alaska in these places. Humor, such an important part of the society where, you know, they and these people live harder than we could ever imagine, you know, and so, you know, that's the great thing about my business is the data is there. And it's not my data, it's the data which is, which is really cool. It's just that we've also been told that you can't teach funny. I mean, that's, that's so ingrained in people. But I think my approach to it is I'm not teaching funny, I'm just unlocking what it's there and then giving you the blueprints on joke writing. And how to take your stories. And we went through six weeks of this mining for those stories. You swimming the triathlons and really diving for your truth. And that's the other thing too. If you start off with your truth, it engages people right away. Then a lie, the truth engages, a lie disengages. You know, it's. I'm passionate about it, but I do think in a post corona world we're gonna have to unpack all of this. And humor and story are the best ways to do it. And you know, how are you using.
This now with teams and corporate culture, given that people are working remotely and connecting online and limited sense in the, in the workplace, how does that show up now? What kind of work are you doing there that.
Well, you know, we can't get together live so, you know, the speaking coaching business is gone away and this is something to think about. If you thought most people were bad live, imagine how bad they are virtually now. I've been lucky. I've been working in this space for the last two years. But like on stage, if things aren't going so well, you could throw more energy at it and maybe that gets you back where you want to be. You can. I know a guy out here with a confetti cannon. He's shooting it virtually like it's going to have some effect on these people. That's what I'm saying is nobody really understands the space in the medium and, and they'll make a million excuses for it, but it is different. But if you just understand that and realize you're really good at it, because it's like radio to me. You're performing to an audience that's out there. They're just, you just can't see them, you know. And so I used, I lean on those skills. But what everybody is looking for because finally in the last month people have accepted, you know, they went through the levels of grief and the last one is acceptance. And they've accepted that this is probably gonna be our life for the next year. So everybody's looking for these, these connective type of events virtually. And you know, they're learning juggling and magic and mixology. But I put together a joke writing program where over, you know, definitely engages them because what you need in this space is vulnerability and to see each other in a different light and connect with each other in a different way. And you know, drinking in a happy hour isn't going to get it done. Six months into this, there's going to have to be more. So I put Together this, this virtual joke writing team building program. And I also have one on storytelling and improv. But the joke writing one has gotten the most traction. And it's beautiful because I'll see over that 75 minutes. You know, I do stand up for, you know, five, 10 minutes. Then I teach them joke writing for 20 minutes, and at the end they break out into breakout sessions and they write jokes as a group and then elect one person, they come back. But when I get into those groups, they're writing material as a group using skills that they didn't have 30 minutes ago. So, you know, I'm really hoping that this is when I can scale. Speaking of scaling up, because I have all these comedy coaches I've trained to work on the stand up challenge. And now, because we don't have live events, stand up challenge went away. So I've adapted this virtual world. But I do think after it's over, some point, part of virtual is going to stay around 100%.
100% that lesson away. Some of this remains. It's never going back to normal. It's always a new normal. Right? That's.
Yeah. I mean, do we need to get on a plane and fly to all these events anyway? You know, you know, some of these things should be done virtually, you know, and also it's another revenue stream. If you're putting together an event, not everybody can pack up and go to Vegas to come here. Why not charge them, you know, something to be able to watch it online? So, you know, I, I do see, so. And I'm hoping, because, you know what? I don't ever want to put on pants again. I have no, I have only shorts on right now. So, you know, I hope this world does stay and I can have more impact. I can help more people, I can reach more people, and I could, you know, again, I was a slave to airlines and Tulip, this is not. My camera, but you know, that, you know, in the future this is, you know, this is the way it's going to be done. So if you have to, you know, and I help people selling from webinars and things like that that were already in this space, but those are not necessarily live. So you just got to find a way to, to be more engaging in this because if it doesn't go right, then, you know, you, you, you made a hard situation even worse and just, just wasted your time.
So I think a lot of our teams are figuring out, so they get tired of this, how we make it better. I'm like, okay, CEO, if The. If the zoom reality sucks a little bit for you, it sucks for your team too. So together, figure out how to make it more real. So maybe get rid of your virtual backgrounds and really open up about the closet that you're living in. Maybe bring in a prop. I bring in Elmo when I want to.
All right.
Maybe do a scavenger hunt. Maybe share something embarrassing or maybe share a sweet moment about how this weird time has given you something back. Like time with your kids. Maybe too much time with your kids.
Right, Exactly. Right. Yeah.
I mean, you know, about where it's struggling. Right. Like, you know, what is creating an issue for you as well.
Yeah, you know, and I've. And I've been on some of these where it's. It's been. It's been great. And I think, you know, six months into it, people are starting to figure it out, which is what I've been waiting for. Because they've only been doing the virtual happy hour because it's all they knew, you know, and, you know, as a. What I do think them being able to break out into groups and come together on some, Some plan, you know, is why the joke. Writing one works really, really well. And. But, you know, I'm booking everything from virtual Christmas parties now to, you know, the sales teams have, you know, it depends if it's a small group. I did a show for 1200 people for a company. I could see 10 of them doing stand up virtually. I have 10 people in the room and then 1190 behind them that I can't see. And if I'm in a stand up show and it's not going well or something's happening, I see the audience. So I know what area of the audience I gotta kind of engage more or, you know, if there's trouble over here or whatever. If I gotta. I can't see being able to just do the stand up show for these 10 people and hope that the experience they're having translates to that. It's a chess game for me now, but if I figure it out, it certainly is something I can scale like there's no tomorrow because, I mean, I'm now booking events in Europe and Australia. And, you know, it's. Humor is global. You know, it. There's one slide I have. It exists in every culture on the planet, in every form, in every modality. You know, it's. It's even your facial expressions. I. Those, those. That's humor, you know, I mean, you can get, you know, it's amazing. Sometimes I get a bigger laugh with saying nothing, you know, than I would if I would have just said something, but just by giving the audience a look and holding them there and. And, you know, and I think the totality of the science I teach, because a lot of people say you can't teach timing. But the problem is most people write humor to be read versus to be said. So when they're creating content, they write in the paragraph form. Paragraph form. That's why I taught you the formula. Set up, describe the situation, punchline table. So you're breaking out that dialogue, and it's easy to see where the wasted motions are. It's easy to develop timing when you, when you learn how to write it. So, you know, it's not like I'm, you know, I feel like there's been a lot of people in this space selling humor, and these were people who couldn't get laughs at the comedy club, ran back to corporate America and held them off, held themselves off as humor experts. But. But they never really understood the science. But, you know, in my case, I've broken it down so that the average person, whether or not you think you're funny, doesn't have anything to do with it. You know, we are all funny as humans. And I've broken it down to kind of. Even if you haven't been doing it with intention for the last 20 years, I can bring you back up to speed for sure. And I did it with you. Look at that.
You.
I mean, again, all the show.
Well, I, I find I'm still using humor now online. Little jokes and asides, bringing in something that's happening. Oh, something goes off with one person or a kid runs in or whatever. Use that, bring that into the thing and then interact with it. And there's a mix of, like, settle, like, settle into something, feel it, don't step on the laugh or whatever it is. And then. And then come unleashed and like, bring some energy back into the thing and then let that kind of incorporate and then read what's happening with people. It certainly is easier if you can see a little bit of what's going on in the room than if you're just like in a webinar kind of thing where you're just trying to broadcast out.
Yeah.
The timing is harder to feel unless you're like, really centered yourself and you. But you don't know what's having traction. And then you go in your head and then you're really not present. And then. Yeah.
Or you look to the chat, you know, I mean, they, they, they. Some people Lean on the chat so much where it's like after every statement they make, they're like looking for instant feedback, you know, and it's like some of this, you've got to trust your instincts. And, and I think a lot of people are too, thinking that they're going to go back to the real world. So why should I get good at this? But we just said, you know, a part of this is going to stay around real world.
This is virtual world. This is, it's all kind of a continuum, right?
All this. And this is another big thing I go, all this did was bring us to a place that AI was going to bring us to anyway. You know, I mean, that we were going to lose part of the labor force. We were going to find more efficient ways to do things. You know, email is going to be replaced by video mail. I mean, you know, so you're going to have to be better virtually. If you don't think that then, you know, then you have. Then you're going to be out of a job. You're going to be one third of the economy taking angry Andrew Yangs, trying to live on $12,000 a year because you are no longer employable. Now, from a culture standpoint, the exciting thing for me, and why I know I'm on a collision course with a billion dollars, because once you've, once a robot has taken your job, whatever's left, that means a robot couldn't do your job. First of all, the robot can't do your job. Why the hell do you want that job? You know, I mean, it can't bring you any joy. It's a joyless job. But, but if you, whatever's left after that is going to be treated, is going to have to be treated more human. You're going to have to engage your human assets in a different way. Once we've, you know, cut out the, you know, the fat of the organization, that means a robot can't do your job. So you're going to have to retain that person, make that person more productive, more innovative, more creative. And again, humor is the. It just. People see it as a time waste. But I go, you know, if you allow that, first of all, they're stealing time from you anyway by running to Facebook every 37 seconds, looking for connection, looking for humor, looking for entertainment and engagement. When the workplace used to offer that, you know, people used to have the water cooler. If you felt that same way, you got up, you went to the water cooler and you accomplished it. I want to bring back and Even virtually bring back the virtual water cooler because the benefits are huge. And you know, and now I'm getting contacted amazingly from wellness departments because the data on humor and mental health and employee wellness. Laughing lowers your blood pressure because we're at our safest when we're laughing. So of course the blood pressure would go down. Of course it would be the least toxic state you have because no one's ever, I mean, there's nervous laughter obviously, but you know, if a lion was attacking you, the last thing you're probably be doing is laughing, you know, if something really bad is happening. But if you're laughing, we're at our best as humans when we're laughing. So, you know, on, on a level.
That'S like as soon as we can laugh at it, there's a beginning of, or even an advanced state of acceptance.
Oh yeah, you've taken power away from it. You've taken the fear out of the equation. You no longer have to be a victim to circumstance. You have control. And that's what I'm really trying to teach people. You know, the business was what it was, but great businesses grew out of adversity. You know, I mean, my business, which was about to be, you know, scaling it to over seven figure business with no live events, nobody, nobody wants to do stand up virtually. It was about going to Broadway, going to Vegas, you know, standing on the same stage that Seinfeld stood and Chris Rock stood, you know, not that long ago. So you take that out and you're like, hey, I can do a virtual comedy show. Not, not really the same thing for the newbies, but, but they left. You win was always about bringing humor back to the workplace because like you, I did radio for so many years and I realized, you know, it's the most depressing part of people's day is going to work and why does it have to be, you know, it really doesn't. So, you know, and it wasn't a conversation people wanted to have five, 10 years ago. And now they're coming to me, you know, again from the wellness departments, which is the smallest bucket in the joint. But that's okay. I mean, the fact that they want to have the conversation is really exciting to me now.
So let's talk actually, before we talk about the Houston Texans.
Oh yeah.
Some of the programs and stuff like that. I just want to remind folks if our show is helpful to you, share it with somebody else. Pass it along to somebody. Of course, it's always nice if you like it and it's nice if you subscribe especially for you because you'll get our shows every week. So we do at least one new show every week. We're starting actually to add more shows in now and you can get all that. If you want to drop us a line, give us some feedback, tell us that show sucked or I want more of this or less of that, send an email to infocalingcoach.com and before I forget and we get into your story and some of the things you've got, I want to give special thanks to Vern Harnish, author and creator of the Scaling Up Framework and this, and to Lucy Summers, who produces our show. The audio is edited by Albert Burge at Podfly Productions, and our show notes, which will come after the live here are written and compiled by Ein Codena and then proofread by Tim McGowan. So talk to us about the Tell us the the Houston Texans.
Yeah, it's a great story. And by the way, Vern is doing the Stand up challenge. He was going, he signed up ahead of time Corona and you know, John Ratliff got him all excited about it. So, you know, one of my first shows back, I'm hoping Vernon Vern will be on that show. But so it was, I don't know, maybe 10 years ago, 13 years ago at the moment, now 12 years ago, I'm working in Houston and I have a buddy at the NFL Players Association. If I'm ever in the town and there's a game, I can call him. He calls the people over there and gets me some tickets and I go to the game. So it was, it was New Year's Eve day. I had a show that night and it was the last game of the season, Fan Appreciation Day. So we show up to the stadium and the guy goes, hey, it's the last game of the year. We're going to give away prizes at every timeout. Would you sit in the owner's box and just pull out a number and then make a joke and give away a TV or motorcycle or whatever they were giving away? And I said sure. And he goes, oh, by the way, at halftime we're gonna give away a car. Can you go to the 50 yard line and there'll be five keys and you'll start the car and then you'll give away a car. And can you do five minutes of stand up before, you know, before you give away the car? And again, that's where I've been in my career is I'm too stupid to say no because I know something but, you know, hey, listen, I mean, you know, 72,000 people. I mean, this is not my norm. You know, that night I was going to perform in front of 300. He has 72,000 people. And I realized. So I said yes. And then they announced me. And I start running out to the 50 yard line and I realized to myself, I don't even have an opening joke. I mean, literally, I'm at the 10, I'm like, oh, like in the comedy club. My opening joke, we're in this stadium. I get to the 20, I get to the 30. And then it hits me that it's taken me a really long time to run 50 yards. On TV, this looks much easier. And then I realized, bam, I had my opening joke, that it was going to be about that. And. And you know, how weird the situation was. And. And that's what I say. Every speaking gig, you have opportunity. And everyone is so limits themselves to the script instead of looking for the opportunities that are there. Every single I call crowd using where, you know, because the hit rate, the engagement rate that is 100% because they can all relate to it. Whereas your story about, you know, going to Bali, you know, is maybe relatable to 30% of the people, you know, but every time you go in there, there's something that's going to happen. And when we do it in New York, I talk about it. Everybody's in Times Square, you know, they've got to walk up the street past the Naked Cowboy. The ball drops, you know, two blocks from where we're doing. Hamilton is playing across the street. If you can't find a way to make this speaking engagement unique, you know, you're not looking for it. So. So I didn't really do much material. I just kind of made fun of the whole situation and the 50 yards and how out of shape I was and how I didn't win the genetic lottery. And. And before you knew it, I gave away a car. And I learned something, you know, pretty powerful, which is, you know what? It's really hard to make people laugh that are like behind you, way up in the chief seats. But one thing about making that many people laugh is you don't hear individual laughter. You just see the volume of the planet rise. And you're the one who did it. So up until then, I hadn't done a show. I did a show for 35,000 people, and that was amazing. But this was another one. And I also done three Prisons, which were much scarier than either of those gigs, for sure. But you know, that's why I'm able to teach it. Yeah, I know I'm still on my call. But you know what? This is more, this has been more frightening than the 72,000 people trying to do a podcast with a wonderful six year old.
So some things to share with our listeners. So Matt's doing programs for groups, for companies on culture, on stand up, on speaking. He's got a range of things. You're going to find all that stuff@they laughyouwin.com right. They laughyouin.com right.
The virtual programs are just. They laugh, you win forward slash virtual. Or you can Find me on LinkedIn. Happy to answer any questions. And we'll just nerd out about comedy. I remember some of our calls and I told Lucy this too. I go, know the thing about Bill is he looks like a guy that doesn't have, who isn't new. You know, we even made some funny stuff about that is that, you know, once we're getting in there, we're talking about, you know, being in Monaco and traveling the world and being a DJ and running these businesses and doing 27. Was it 27 triathlons?
45.
45. See, I'm only half there. I'm, you know, but yeah, no, no, you, you look like the guy who's like the lawyer for the, the triathlon event. You know, like you would be sitting there with a, with the, you know, a press pass or something and. But you know, it's amazing. It's a swam, swam the channel from Alcatraz to San Francisco. I mean, you know, you're interesting guy. So some of our time was just that, you know, was just talking and, and I miss that. I tell you, I do miss that part of the process because I got to most highly successful people on the planet to, to get them to be so vulnerable and open up about, about everything is what was the best part of that job, you know, and then watching you take it to the stage, you know, I, I don't care. I've done over 6,500 shows. It's not like any audience is going to be like, like, oh my God, that's what I was missing. I needed that show. But every single time my students perform, it's a new experience for me and was, was super cool. And the same thing with my coaching people when they, and in that one, you know, in the stand up comedy show, the metric maybe is laughter. In my coaching business it's conversions. So being able to take what they're doing and double their conversions.
Oh, my gosh.
That's, you know, not just from the money standpoint, but that means the science is right. And that means I can help a ton more people because science can be replicated and duplicated. It isn't you. You were great because you have some other skill sets, but you would agree that, that the science that I taught.
You, you can work at wherever you're at. You can raise the bar from there. Everyone. Dot com. Go elevate your game. Make your meetings, make your company more fun, more funnier. Just raise your game. This is a best time to reinvent yourself and to up it all. So thanks, everyone. Thanks, everyone for listening. We'll keep scaling up.
