Jennifer Aaker and Naomi Bagdonas - Authors of Humor Seriously: Why Humor Is a Secret Weapon in Business and Life (And how anyone can harness it. Even you.)

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I'm Guy Kawasaki and this is Remarkable people. This episode's remarkable guests are the dynamic duo of Jennifer Auker and and Naomi Bagdonis. They both teach at Stanford's Graduate School of Business. The subjects that they cover in this bastion of boring business are happiness, meaning, and humor. Jennifer has a BA degree in Psychology from UC Berkeley and a PhD in Marketing from Stanford. She is the recipient of the Distinguished Scientific Achievement Award from the Society for Consumer Psychology and the Stanford Distinguished Teaching Award. She is co author of the Dragonfly Quick, Effective and Powerful Ways to Use Social Media to Drive Social Change and the co author of Humor Seriously, why Humor Is a Secret Weapon in Business and Life. Naomi has a BA in Economics and Psychology from Claremont McKenna College and an MBA from Stanford's Graduate School of Business. At Deloitte, she facilitates workshops and off sites for leadership teams from Fortune 500 companies. She also worked for IDO. Naomi is the co author with Jennifer of Humor Seriously. This is from the description of the course that Jennifer and Naomi teach together. Our goal is to pin you down and not let you leave Stanford without a healthy dose of humanity, humility, and intellectual perspective that only humor can bring. This class is about the power and importance of humor to mention, make and scale positive change in the world and also surprise to achieve business objectives, build more effective and innovative organizations, cultivate stronger bonds, and capture more lasting memories. When is the last time you read a course description like that? By the way, in most episodes I spend a lot of time making sure that my laughter doesn't step over whatever the guests are saying. But in this case there was so much laughter, as you would hope in an episode about humor, that I let the multiple tracks step all over each other. I'm Guy Kawasaki and this is remarkable people. And now here's Jennifer and Naomi. Why teach at the MBA level? Isn't that a little too late to really form people, give them great insights and education?

It is never too late, Guy. We can't give up no, it's actually a really wonderful time to be teaching. So Naomi and I teach three classes. One is Rethinking Purpose, which MBAs need. The second is a new type of leader anchored on purpose, fueled by humor, which MBAs need. And third is humor, serious business, which, again, MBAs need. And so it's actually a perfect time because you've got all of these students that have just worked so hard to get to where they are, and it's a really wonderful time to reflect on not just what's really meaningful and purposeful in their lives, but also how do they want to approach leadership moving forward.

You feel the same way, Naomi? It's not too late for those MBAs.

It's not too late. And we also teach. We teach at Stanford's Graduate School of Business and then also programs with inmates of San Francisco's county jail. And so our students there range from 18 to over 60. And it's amazing how this idea and these concepts are resonant and no matter your age and no matter your. Your background.

So just a second. So pre pandemic, were you actually going to the jail and doing the class there?

Yes.

Wow. I once visited San Quentin with a bunch of bloggers as the scariest experience I ever had. You turn the corner and you walk into this prison yard, and it's just like the movies. There's some people lifting weights, some people playing tennis, some people playing basketball, all segregated by RA and there's guards with rifles. And I was there with two bloggers who, let's just say, not exactly in prime physical condition. So I told them, you know, if they all turn and attack us, I don't have to outrun them. I just have to outrun you two fat white boys, and I'll be safe. It was quite an experience. Including your jail inmate students. It's easy for me or anyone to do research and figure out what you are trying to teach your students. But I'd be curious. What have you learned from your students?

Oh, it's such a good question. What we find is what is really meaningful for students does seem to change pretty. You know, over the last 20 years, which I've taught, what matters and what's important to them, what really creates meaning and purpose has really shifted pretty dramatically. So watching that and understanding that, absorbing that has been a huge area of learning, I would add. I.

My whole life, I've been steeped in the world of comedy as well. So I worked as an executive coach and ran these workshops by day, and then I was doing improv comedy by night for 10 years before I started doing this. And what I found is for people who are really steeped in business and don't have access to those sort of comedy skills. And people are. Our students are surprised at how accessible it is. And so I'm constantly reminded how, how close breakthroughs can be of recognizing that humor is not that hard, recognizing that having more joy in our lives is not that hard, recognizing that there are just a couple of small behavioral shifts we can make that change everything about our lives. And so I'm constantly re energized with that energy that brought me into the comedy world at the start of this, by our students who are experiencing this for the first time.

What is the meaning of happiness?

Oh, it's such a good question. The meaning of happiness. It's very much based on this idea of what brings you pleasure. And so one set of studies that we recently ran was to ask people, what is happiness for you? And then two, what brings meaning in your life? And we asked it in this very simple way. First we said, on a scale of 1 to 7, are you happy right now? And then we said, what is happiness for you? And then on a one to seven scale, how meaningful is your life? And then we also said, what's meaningful for you? The first set of findings that we had from this study is so interesting. First of all, happiness and meaning oftentimes go hand in hand, but they don't always. And so when you focus just on the people that say, I have a lot of happiness, not a lot of meaning, and the people that have meaning but not happiness, you find that happiness is defined differently than meaning in a few ways. One, people that rate themselves as really prioritizing happiness over meaning, they tend to be more self oriented. They tend to really want to experience a lot of positive feelings and not a lot of negative feelings. And they tend to want to be focused on just how they're feeling right now. Meaningfulness individuals, they are much more other oriented. They tend to want to feel good too, or feel pleasure, feel happy. But they also know that life is very much defined by anxiety or fear or anger, that there is value in these negative emotions. And then finally, they're much more likely to anchor on the past, the present and the future. So as you think about happiness in that context, it really is defined as kind of pleasure, what you're feeling for yourself right now, Whereas meaning is much more about what you're creating for others, something that's more lasting and something that might be associated with feeling both Good as well as bad.

And how does one's definition of happiness change over the course of life?

Such a good question. If you think about yourself when you are a teen, what brought you happiness?

Guy.

Cars and girls.

Okay, and now. And by the way, now what brings you happiness? If you say cars and girls, that's just not gonna work. You have to say something else.

Cars and my life.

Oh, and surfing and learning and creating something quite remarkable so that others can learn.

Oh, you mean I'm supposed to have meaning my life?

Exactly. And that's what we find when we ask people, what is happiness for you? When we ask this to teenagers, they basically say, it's about excitement, cars, and maybe girls. And then when we ask them at their age 20, they are more likely to say, conquering the world, power, money or status or the opportunity to get those things. When we ask at age 30, they're much more likely to say, balance. Feeling more aligned across work and home and health. And then we ask around 40 and 50, they start saying, meaning and impact in the world. How am I serving? And then usually around 60 or 70, they start to say, savoring, just being in the moment, being content, feeling lucky, blessed and grateful.

What is the relationship between money and happiness or meaning?

One way to think about that is when you are in your, let's say, 20s or certain age, times you do, there is a higher correlation between money or the opportunity to have money and happiness. But that fades over time. So we have research to show that over time, people start to understand what actually creates meaning in their life. That's the surfing, the learning, the new podcast, et cetera, that allow you to connect to all these others and have such a remarkable contribution in their lives. That's what actually will drive lasting happiness. So over time, people start to understand that having over and above, a certain amount of money. Danny Kahneman and his colleagues at one point pinpointed it at 75,000 per year in California. That was old research. So it's higher now, but over and above a certain base amount, it doesn't bring as much happiness in your life as you would think. And so one set of studies that we really like, Naomi and I have a colleague, Mike Norton, with his colleagues, he asked people, I'm going to give you $5 or I'm going to give you $20. And he either said, how are you going to spend it? And later he asked people whether they were happy. And there was one tweak to this experiment. He either forced people to give the money to someone else or Themselves spend it on themselves. Two things that were really interesting about this one, the people that were the most happy, what condition do you think it would be? $20 for yourself, $20 for others, or $5 for self, $5 for others. Out of those four, which one do you think created the most happiness?

The optimist in me wants to say, $20 for others it was.

But also, $5 for others was just as important. And so what was interesting was that when people actually made the decision, 100% of them said, I'd like to have $20 more than five, and I'd like to keep the money myself. I can decide to spend it on others if I want. So what was so fascinating is that what people decide to do with their money, have more of it and keep it, is not correlated with what would actually create happiness. And people start to learn that over time.

What is the effect when bad or unfortunate things happen on people who are trying to pursue either happiness alone or meaning?

When bad things happen, we find that oftentimes in those contexts, the degree to which you can understand and comprehend and create meaning from it has a huge impact on not just your ability to adopt a growth mindset, but also your ability to actually handle significant challenges in the future. So those individuals where something negative happens, but meaning is extracted from it, those individuals tend to have a higher level of lasting happiness overall. So I'll give you a specific example. This is actually in my life. I got to know you guy when Andy, my husband, and I wrote this book called the Dragonfly Effect around how do you make positive change in the world? And the key story for that book was a story about Robert Chatwani's best friend, Samir Bhatia, who had leukemia and didn't find a match in the bone marrow registry. And so Robert, who was my student at the time, actually harnessed the power of social media and the power of story to fuel or to basically drive people to go put themselves into the bone marrow registry. And in the course of 11 weeks, right after my class, he actually got, I think, 25,000 people into the bone marrow registry. And in that time, found a perfect match for Samir Bhatia. We were so inspired by this story that Andy and I ended up writing this book called the Dragonfly Effect. Launched off of that story story, and we decided it would be far more inspiring versus just selling the book to actually try and get 100,000 people on the bone marrow registry. So that's what we did that year. And we ended up working with 17 different families who had children or parents that had leukemia and they wanted our help. And we would, you know, basically create these campaigns for them to try and get people in the bone marrow industry and find matches for their loved ones. In that year, we lost 16 out of the 17 people we helped. I think I slept for two years. It was soul crushing. We just weren't as effective as we had hoped to be. And so after sleeping for two years, spent a lot of time thinking about what was the meaning of that process, of spending the year in that way. And one of the things that came out of it is really understanding the power of humor and levity. Because for one, the one person who actually survived has so much humor and levity around him and his friends and his network that actually running drives, you know, created all of this momentum. And it was really fascinating. And I spent a lot of time thinking about what is it about humor and levity that allow people to get through hard times so they can have a meaningful life, but also be able to make progress on their goals? And watching him do that was incredibly inspiring, but it also actually led us to this very conversation, why Naomi and I started working on this work together on meaning as well as humor.

I missed the nuance in that. So Sameer got the right match after a few weeks using social media and crowdsourcing. Yes, but are you saying 16 of the 17 did not and failed to find a match and died?

No, we actually found a lot of matches for them, but either it was too late and they died, or if we did find a match for them, sometimes people reneged. Even if they. If you found a match, the person wasn't willing necessarily to donate. So, yes, the answer is 16 out of the 17 people we worked with for that year died. So it's an example of something very personal to me that was a very negative event in my life or experience in my life. But after time, I tried to think about what was my learning from this, what was the meaning that came from it. And that's what we find, is that when bad things happen to us, the degree to which it will actually end up being important in your life is how much meaning and learning can be extracted from that negative event.

How does one find meaning in life?

One of the things that I was really grateful for in working with Jennifer through this work is understanding. This is understanding exactly that. How do we create meaning in life? And it's the reason that we've spent the last six years collaborating. And where that started was as Jennifer's entire career is spent understanding Meaning. And how do we drive human well being? As it turns out, one really powerful window into understanding meaning in lives is to look at death. And through a body of research conducted by hospice workers, we have come to understand what it is that people wish for in their final days of life. So these hospice workers interviewed people asking, what is the thing that you had wish you had done differently? Or what is a regret that you have? And what they found was five consistent themes. And those themes are boldness, authenticity, presence, joy, and love. Now, what is powerful about what we have found and the reason we decided to partner, is that humor actually mitigates all of these regrets that we deeply believe. Cultivating levity in our mindsets, cultivating joy in our day to day helps us mitigate these. So, for example, boldness, the regret was, I wish that I had been less fearful of change and that I had lived more boldly. Well, we know from the research that humor moves us through negative emotions more quickly, that it diffuses tension, allowing us to take bigger, bolder risks, and also strengthens our social connections. So when we do fail while taking on these big, bold risks, we feel like we have a community there to support us. Authenticity. I wish I had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life that others had expected of me. We know that humor empowers us to share parts of ourselves that are risky and unconventional. And so when we're finding joy and we tend to care less about what other people think, and we tend to do more of what we believe. Presence, the wish that I wish I had appreciated the moment more, that I had lived less in my past or my future and just been present here today. We know that humor requires us to be fully present. There's something about seeking those moments of truth in every moment of our day that takes us away from our wiring towards the past or towards the present and. And reminds us viscerally that every day, every moment as it unfolds, is our life. And when we're finding humor, we're in that moment. Joy is probably the most obvious one. But what's surprising about the regret around joy is the phrasing of I wish I had let myself be happier. I wish I hadn't taken things so seriously. And so what we teach in our course is not about being funny. It's about cultivating an environment where joy comes more easily in our lives, where we talk about, navigate your life on the precipice of a smile, look for reasons to be delighted to push you over the edge. And when we do that, we have more joy in our lives. And lastly, the last regret is love. And the regret is, I wish I had the chance to say I love you one more time. We talk about how there are few acts as easy and generous sharing a laugh with someone. And we know that laughter can cut through tension and divisiveness and forge connection. The last line in our book was actually by the author, Michael Lewis. We interviewed him, and he said, where there is humor, love isn't far behind. And so how I would answer that question of how do we find meaning in our life is really tied to humor. And that's really why Jennifer and I decided to partner on this six years ago. Because this isn't just about jokes. It's not just about laughing. It's really about cultivating lives of greater meaning through having levity.

Jennifer, you got an answer to that same question.

Oh, my goodness. I would not have said it any differently. I think that's okay. Exactly correct. I think that one thing that's interesting also is if you think about the stories that define your lives, those that are most meaningful. For me, it was really these stories that my mom would share. But, you know, Naomi, I don't know if you want to share a little bit about your family stories that were most meaningful and how, you know, levity made their way into those stories, which made them incredibly meaningful. But that was what definitely bonded us, that exact question.

Mm.

We're gonna segue, since you guys already did it, into humor now. Okay. My first very basic question is, what makes people laugh?

First of all, let me just say the way that you think about these ideas, if we know that people that who are anchored on meaning versus just what brings them fleeting happiness, they end up having more lasting happiness in their lives. They end up having fewer regrets in their lives. But the question is, how do you basically have this fully meaningful life? Sometimes it gets heavy, sometimes it gets dark. Certainly the personal story I shared about Robert and Samir, for me, was incredibly dark. And so that's what I think illuminates the importance of humor or not taking yourself so seriously. In fact, people who say they have a sense of humor live eight years longer than those who don't. And those are high quality funny years too, because you start to get funnier as you age after, like, 70 or so. And then, not only that, but you're. When you have laughter really defines your life. You're more resistant to severe disease. There's research showing that individuals who, again, say they have a sense of humor versus don't and the bar is very low. So it's just any sense of humor. They tend to be 30% more resistant to severe disease if that. If it strikes, which is incredibly relevant right now. But the way we talk a lot about it is that laughter is this fundamental melody of human conversation. So we laugh to the signal for approval and warmth and joy and delight, but it's also one to diffuse tension and discomfort. So it's this tune that we all know, and when you hear it, you often can't help but sing along. So there's actually quite a bit of nuance in what makes people laugh. But from a strictly comedic lens, we laugh when we experience this alchemy of truth and surprise. So truth, that's where people think humor is inventing something from thin air, but it's actually naming what is true in the moment. So we often laugh because we think, oh, I felt that, or I've seen people do that, or some sort of recognition. Right. And then there's the surprise or misdirection. And laughter really springs from this unexpectedness when we are, you know, think someone will zig, and instead they ham sandwich. So that revelation tickles our brains.

I didn't get the reference to ham sandwich.

Well, you're supposed to say when you think someone will zig, and then they ham sandwich.

Totally random. Totally random.

I see.

The idea is that went right over my head. You think that someone's gonna say zig versus zag, but then they do something totally random, and it creates that surprise. So that's the basis of humor, or, you know, that basis of truth and surprise.

Should we try my story on Naomi?

Do it.

Yes.

You haven't prompted her.

I didn't tell her.

I know nothing about this. I can't wait.

Okay, going back to the topic of meaning for a second. I'm 66 years old now, and if you look at what I'm doing right now, this podcast has really added meaning to my life. I feel like a moral obligation because I can get to people who are as remarkable as you that I should document their wisdom so that other people can be more remarkable. And if you look at my podcasts, I've had truly remarkable people like npr, Terry Gross, quality people. So I have Gene Goodall, Margaret Atwood, Arianna Huffington, Christy Yamaguchi, Stephen Walter from Steven Pinker. So I've had truly remarkable people in my podcast, and I humble brag. I'd say my guess is as good as anybody's on npr. Okay, so the other night, I was telling my wife in your wildest dreams, did you ever think that I could have a podcast with Jane Goodall, Margaret Atwood, Christy Yamaguchi, just go down the line of all these famous people, Steve Wozniak, et cetera, et cetera? And my wife said to me, you know, honey, you're not in my wildest dreams.

Oh.

It'S both comedic and so sad.

That's misdirection. Absolutely it is.

It's misdirection. It's other deprecation, different than self deprecation. And I wonder if your wife's humor style is a sniper, because snipers. I'm curious. Okay, so there's this style of humor that builds intimacy and love through teasing. So guy, is teasing a core part of humor in your relationship?

The answer to that is yes. But to be completely transparent, I think I heard that story from an elder at a church in Menlo Park. He stood up and he said something along those lines. Different circumstance. And he said, yeah. So I told my wife, can you believe that? I. Whatever. And she said, honey, you're not in my wildest dreams. And I heard that story, and I thought that was such a great story that I adopted it to my speeches. So now I use it when I speak at a particularly prestigious event, like some gartner Group, all CEOs, entrepreneurs, organization, YPO, something like that. Truly, truly top notch people. I open up with that story, and it has never failed to get a laugh. So my wife actually did not ever say that.

Okay. I love this story. Anyways, and you're illustrating these two principles that Jennifer talked about, which is surprise and misdirect, or truth and misdirection. We often. We think that humor is hard. We think of humor as inventing something from thin air, and it's actually just saying something that feels a little bit true. Like, people hear that and they're like, yeah, that makes sense. Would my wildest dreams really include my partner? Maybe not, you know, wilder. My wildest dreams and misdirection. Obviously, it's a heartfelt tale. It feels like you're going in a direction of sincerity, and you flip by saying, you're not in my wildest dreams. So there you go. It's picture perfect. And just so you know, Jennifer and I now, in all of our talks, are going to start to tell that story.

I just want credit after you tell the story, because I credit the person that I ripped it off from. And one of the things that I learned from Steve Jobs is you have to know what to steal. Just being a thief is not good enough. You have to have good taste. So Steve Jobs could have gone to Xerox PARC and stolen the idea for three prong outlets. Instead, he stole the idea for the Macintosh user interface. You got to know what to steal. Why do you say that? Humor is a serious business.

So one reason is that it just impacts the bottom line. Basically, reorienting toward leading with humor is a fundamentally profitable enterprise that's underappreciated, not used, and I think misunderstood. So one study found that adding a simple mildly funny line at the end of a sales pitch increased customers willingness to pay by 18%. And again, the bar is so low that it doesn't even have to be that funny, just mildly funny like your wife's story. That was good. The bar is low. Another set of studies found that leaders with a sense of humor at work are seen as 27% more motivating and admired, and their employees are 15% more satisfied in their jobs. And so part of this is that, you know, shared laughter, whether it be in a remote setting or an actual setting, it accelerates a feeling of closeness and trust. So there's another study where it shows that when pairs of strangers laugh together for five minutes before completing a self disclosure exercise, their interactions are rated as 30% more intimate or close. So that it cultivates trust at a moment in time where trust is really hard to come by, especially within business settings. Given the context we're working in right now, we really think of it as what is the ROI in investing in humor or levity? And it's an underinvested asset.

I would say humor works with business people because business people are people. And fundamentally humor changes our brain chemistry. So we are hardwired to react to humor and laughter. Jennifer said it earlier that laughter is a fundamental melody of human conversation. We all recognize it. We all get on the same page when we laugh together. And so when we laugh and let's talk about the brain science for a second. When we laugh, our brains release this cocktail of healthy hormones. We release dopamine, endorphins, oxytocin, we lower our cortisol levels, and these hormones change not just how we feel more confident, more relaxed, more creative, more able to access higher order thinking, but also how others perceive us. So others perceive us as higher in status, as more trustworthy, as more likable. Our research shows this humor cliff, that when we hit age 23, we go to work and we all stop laughing. But we also find that on Monday through Friday, we're not laughing and on the weekends we are. So part of what this body of work is trying to do is say you already have the secrets to being more joyful and more successful at work with humor. Just bring more of what you're doing on the weekends, more of your true, authentic, joyful self into work. And as Jennifer mentioned, the ROI is actually significant.

So who should we look at as good examples of humor in business?

We are so lucky we are able to bring out these incredible leaders into our class like Sarah Blakely and Leslie Blodgett, Dick Costello. It's been a total joy to see how they actually use humor. So I'll give you a couple of examples. One, Sarah Blakely, she has not only trained in stand up and improv, but she's actually really put it to work in her teams and at the organization, not to mention in her family. One great anecdote about her, when she was trying to launch Spanx, she's the CEO and founder, she was trying to get basically stores to adopt her product, which is weird. It sounded weird. It was a weird product. So it was very hard to start. She shipped a shoe to a buyer at Neiman Marcus with a handwritten note saying, just trying to get my foot in the door. And again, like, the humor doesn't have to be necessarily great, it just has to be differentiated enough for you to be able to take note, to actually read that note A second of our. Like actually, who's the CEO ambassador of our class? Leslie Blodgett. She's a best selling author and the former CEO and founder of Bareminerals, a beauty company that she took public 2006. And it was really based on this incredibly strong consumer community. But in 2009, the business slowed because when the recession hit, everything slowed. And she really felt like, I want to help women feel beautiful even when the economy is ugly. She just is very authentic. And so she just decided to take out this full page ad in the Times. She like, no pr, no branding firm. She wrote it all herself. Like literally. She wrote it out with grammatical errors and all. And she started the advertising. Experts tell us that people don't read lots of copy. I really hope not because this cost a fortune. And then in this little ad, she talked about products and loving the customers. And she ended up saying, thanks for reading this long thing. My husband was convinced she wouldn't read this far and he's not even an ad exec. And if you're ever in San Francisco, maybe we can chat over a cup of coffee. I'm not kidding Call our main office at blah blah blah blah blah. And then generally Hilda answers the phone. Lots of love, Leslie. Xo So this ad was unexpected and vulnerable and real and funny. It was not a stunt. So what was interesting is a sales skyrocketed. But more importantly, Hilda, who sat at the office where everyone passing by could hear her, these incredulous calls where she said, yes, that number is real and yes, they could really schedule a coffee date with Leslie. It just bonded the whole team. It made it so that it was this living and public example of their values. And the closeness made everyone within Bear really feel stronger. Leslie also did have a ton of coffee that year. But it's basically, it illuminates that humor can be a superpower, but you in an authentic way, that's where you get really the actual ad. And we also spotlight an Apple story in our book as well. So what we found is in cultures where there is an intensity that especially within creative units, there's even more power in humor to diffuse tension. And that unlocks much different behavior.

This was Hiroki Asai's team when he was running creative and marketing for a while alongside Steve Jobs. And he talked about how fear is the greatest killer of creativity and that humor is one of the most powerful insulators a culture has from fear. And so he took humor really seriously, especially in his orgs all hand meetings. And so in every all hands meeting, he would plan for months some spectacular weird off the walls moment that would accomplish a really simple thing, getting all 2,000 people to laugh at the same time. And so one example is he found out that one of his junior employees in the group did gospel singing on the weekends. And no one had any idea. This incredible junior designer who was pretty quiet. And so he concocted this plan where at the all hands meeting he said, and Anne, I want to bring Ann up onto stage real quick just to share something that she's working on, right? So everyone's looking around going, why is this really junior designer going to share what she's working on? So she gets up onto the stage and she grabs the microphone and then the curtains come back and all of a sudden there's a flash mob gospel choir that emerges from behind her and comes out from the audience and they're singing this huge song that's a parody about Apple and everyone is just burst out laughing and there's this electricity, right, that's going through everyone and this humor that is messaging to everyone not by saying it, but by having people feel it, that we are here to do serious things, but we're also here to play. And we're here to celebrate each other's unique talents and each other's sense of fun and levity. And we could tell. I mean, there are 10 stories of every all hands, right? From everyone dressing in Blue man group attire and doing a performance to these crazy videos that they created. He chose very carefully, a moment that would get everyone laughing.

I would make the case that his actions were particularly impactful because of the juxtaposition between him and Steve.

Yes.

And you can say many great things about Steve, but I don't think many people would say he was a fun and funny guy.

Right.

He had a sense of humor, don't get me wrong, but he would never do something like that anyway, in my humble opinion. So the juxtaposition makes it even stronger and a pressure relief system. Do, do you have any, either of you have any political leaders that you would hold up as particularly humorous?

Definitely. One of our favorite stories in the book is by Secretary Madeleine Albright and Secretary Albright, she would be negotiating in high stakes situations. For example, negotiating with Russians. And there was one story that she shared with us and also the class where after a particularly tense meeting, she ended up up actually proposing and participating in an actual musical called East West Story. And it was like this really kind of remarkable thing about, like, how she would be able to take a moment in time that seemed tense and literally flip it or convert it. Another thing she would do is she would wear pins on her suit. And, you know, people would oftentimes say, like, why are you wearing a pin? And it was often to diffuse tension. So, for example, there was one story where she shared where she had gone into a meeting where someone had called her before the meeting a snake. And so she had this brooch which was an actual snake. And it, you know, it created this sort of moment to laugh together where the individual she was working with, she could kind of say, like, I know what you said about me. I'm not going to take it too seriously and we're going to laugh about this. And what it did for her is it created a moment where people started interacting with her as a human, not Secretary Madeleine Albright, but actually as a person. And so a lot of times these things aren't about, as Naomi said, not about jokes or being funny. They're actually more about coming off as a human and allowing people to relate to you in a very different way.

Meanwhile, Europe tells Mike Pompeo to stay home. Yeah, antithesis of Madeleine Albright.

Oh, I have another really favorite one that you guys. I don't know if Naomi will remember this. We used to do this long time ago. But do you remember, Naomi, how Ronald Reagan would have a list of jokes that he would keep with him at all points in time? And the reason this is so powerful is that you referred to this story earlier on where your wife supposedly said something about never thinking about you and your dreams. That works every single time. And Ronald Reagan noticed this as well. So he just basically wrote down these signature stories that always got a laugh. He would keep the little list of these stories or jokes literally just written down in his pocket. He would update it over time when he noticed other people laugh at a news story. And so he had this evergreen list, list of laugh lines that he could always whip out. That very tactical thing that he did. Any leader could do. You. You. You do it naturally. But that idea of just writing down what are those stories that do get laughs and why, and just keeping a running list of that tends to be incredibly useful.

As an ad side as opposed to an aside. Get it. Can I tell you that the Remarkable People podcast is sponsored by the Remarkable Tablet Company. I think that if Ronald Reagan were alive, he would be using a remarkable tablet to write down funny stories. It's a single purpose device that will help you focus on taking notes. It has the feel of a pencil and the battery life of no other device that you have. Naomi, I have to apologize. I've been pronouncing your name Naomi. Naomi Noemi. My daughter's name is Noemi N O H E M I. And I'm so used to pronouncing her name that I now cannot pronounce Naomi without thinking, how do you pronounce that? People have butchered my daughter's name in so many ways. Noemi Nohemi. No, Himi. I mean, you name it. So now when I introduce her to people, I ask them, have you heard of Susan Lucci? And most people say, yes, the soap opera star. And then I say, yeah, and Susan Lucci has been nominated for the Emmys about eight times, and so she has no Emmys. And that's how you pronounce my daughter's name.

Oh, my gosh.

Wow.

I need something like that. That's bold, and I love it. The one that I use is because my last name is Becky Bagdonis. That's Lithuanian. Thank you. And I always tell people, if you want to make an office really happy, bring them not just a box of donuts, but a Bag of donuts. And that's how you pronounce my last name. Bag, Donuts. I love Noemi.

Yeah. Okay, so Noemi. Noemi. Naomi. Let's say that somebody's listening to this and they buy into this theory of the power of humor in business. And they're sitting. Okay, so I buy it. I believe I've heard you could carry a list of surefire lines. I hear you can break out into song with a, you know, flash mob of opera or whatever. How do I. Tell me some tactical things. How do I put this into action now that you've convince me, I would.

Say the first place to start is with truth. And this is really. It is debunking this myth that makes humor seem so scary, which is that I have to be funny. And the reality is you have to be truthful and bake in a little bit of surprise. So truth and surprise is the winning code here. I'll give an example. So Connor Demon Dialman is our co lecturer at Stanford, and he also is the CEO of a large nonprofit called Merit America. He's a serial entrepreneur. He's been the CEO of multiple companies, but he was joining Merit America as their co CEO a couple of months ago. And as you might imagine, it is a challenging time to be stepping into a leadership role in a new organization and trying to build that trust and sense of leadership amidst some really challenging times for this nonprofit. So he's on his first Zoom call with the entire org and you know, he gives his spiel that he's going to give and he's got his screen shared on Zoom. And then he passes the mic over to his co CEO to start talking. Well, when he does that, he leaves his screen share on and he closes his presentation. Everyone in the org can see his desktop. He opens a Chrome browser. You know, I mean, everyone's brain breath is being held as they're thinking, what is this poor guy about to do that we all can see? So Connor, he goes into his Chrome browser, he types in google.com and then he types in things inspirational CEOs say during hard times, and everyone loses it. And his co star CEO who's in on this, you know, pretends not to notice as Connor. So Connor says, actually Rebecca, I have a few more things to say. Do you mind if I just. And she's like, oh, sure. So he proceeds to read verbatim for what comes up in Google. And so everyone's just laughing and laughing, but it's this moment, right, of truth. It's truth. And Vulnerability. He's signaling. I really want to be there for you. I want to be inspiring and supportive. And I. You don't quite know how. And it was also very carefully planned. It was a moment that he wanted to signal to his organization. And of course, there was surprise baked in there. So it's not necessarily a recipe for people, but the technique, the tip that I would say is don't think about what's funny. Think about what's true for you, and think about communicating that in a way that is surprising or with some misdirection.

Yeah. I also think using these simple techniques from comedians. So we have this incredible chapter three, chock full of all of this, these tips. So first is simply, for example, observe. So as Miami was. Talking about, humor isn't really about inventing the perfect one liner from thin air. It's just noticing what's true. So one thing we find is just write down five observations from the day. Simple things like how excited your dog is at dinner time, or how you take a walk around the block every afternoon to break up the day, and then add some simple techniques like contrast, exaggeration, or like the rule of three. So, for example, you might say, the best part of my day is when I take a break from zoom calls, get dressed to the nines, and take a walk around the block just to feel something.

Oh, I know.

Just to feel something. I feel that right now. And then I feel like, no, that's not a commentary on you, guy. By the way, Guy, you can steal that Conor joke that we just said if we hear. If you want to do the googling of inspirational leaders, just give Connor credit for it. He'll be good.

Yeah, but give us credit in the interim. Just how we're gonna say, Guy Kawasaki stole this from someone else and we're stealing it from him?

Very meta. Or another example might be like, I miss all those subtle things that make office life like hallway conversations, supportive eye contact in meetings, pants wearing pants. So this idea of, like this, you know, this rule of three where you take that last item and you make it a surprise and you exaggerate it. These very simple techniques are incredibly easy to do.

Do you think, based on your scholarly work in humor, that a sense of humor is correlated and maybe even causative with intelligence? In other words, can dumb people be funny?

Everyone can be funny, but it is, you know, positively correlated. Having a sense of humor, both the ability to generate humor and the ability to appreciate it has been found to correlate with measures of intelligence. So, for example, in one study, researchers had participants craft humorous replies to ridiculous questions. You know, if you could experience what it's like to be a different kind of animal for a day. And Guy, I have a feeling I know what you would say, what kind of animal would you not want to be and why? As well as draw the funniest, most amusing looking depiction of each animal that you can. And a set of anonymous judges in this study then rated these pictures and stories on their humor. And people whose submissions were rated as the funniest also scored the highest on an earlier general intelligence test. Now, what's hard to kind of unpack? Is there any sort of causation between these types of constructs? That's not at all clear, but there is some evidence of correlation.

And what's the best story you heard about not being a kind of animal?

What's the best story we've heard?

We actually reached out to them to get these drawings. Like we literally reach out to the researchers and they didn't have them anymore, so we didn't get to, to see any of the pictures.

But I think what's really interesting also, Guy, is as you start to think about how do you actually develop a sense of humor? Because a sense of humor is really like a muscle. And at the end of each day for one week, just write down three funny things. That starts to help. Write down things that you notice about truth in the day to day. And when you do that, studies show that people report fewer instances of depression and less stress and more control in their lives. But the other thing that really unlocks things for our students is on day one of class, they actually take a humor quiz. So people go into the class thinking I'm either funny or not. But the reality is, is that there's all sorts of types of humor styles. So Naomi and I have run studies for the last six years or so showing that people tend to fall into these four broad humor styles. One is the stand up. And these are bold, natural entertainers who aren't afraid to cross a line and ruffle a few feathers for the good laugh. They build intimacy through teasing and will often hear stand up say, if I'm making fun of you, it's a sign I like you. And then there's we're going to ask you what you are guy at the end. Next is the sweethearts. They're more subtle and affiliative, and so their humor often uplifts others. So it's not so much teasing or poking fun. They tend to be earnest and honest and Understated, so you have to listen closely when a Sweetheart is in the room. And then there's snipers, and they're edgy and sarcastic and nuanced. They pick their moments carefully and joke more often to make a point than to lift people up or tear them down. So they don't really seek the spotlight, but they also won't hesitate to cross a line for a laugh. And then there's magnets, and they're affiliative and expressive, that big personality who gets everyone laughing in this kind of positive way together. And they're outgoing and they keep things warm and uplifting, avoiding controversial humor while radiating charisma. And so, Guy, what would you say are your two primary humor styles?

So there were.

The four were Sniper, the Stand up, the Sweetheart, the Sniper, and the Magnet.

I am a combination of Sniper and Sweetheart. I would say the more I like you, the more sniping I am. And. And I have to give you a caveat. I love to snipe at irony or hypocrisy. So, for example, I'll give you a snipe. I listened to Jim Jordan talk about voting against the impeachment, and the hypocrisy of him saying, now is the time for us to come together as a country is so hypocritical that I cannot resist sniping that. So that's an example of the kind of humor that I love.

Humor is this really wildly powerful tool to illuminate incongruity in the world. And snipers are particular artists at taking an incongruity. Right. They're sort of. Their form of humor is more sort of intellectual. So they'll look at something and they'll say, hold on, there's something backwards. There's misdirection and surprise built in. So all I need to do is surface that thing. And that's humor in itself.

That's me.

Great.

Unless the two of you are going to tell me that I'm something else, it would be good to know.

Oh, that's a good thing. I would have also imagined that you score high on magnet because, for example, example, if you listen to your podcast, 90% of the time in your podcast, you start with laughter, actually, 90%. And a lot of times we find magnets do that as well, because, you know, they tend to be more extroverted, and they use laughter and humor to build these bonds, which you have to do when you're meeting new people or revealing key insights. But Sniper and Sweetheart make sense, too, by the way. You can go to humorseriously.com to take this quiz if you aren't entirely sure what you are.

Okay, that's good to know. I would argue that is more valuable than the Myers Briggs.

We would agree.

I could cry at that time.

I agree.

Okay, we should just end the podcast right here then.

Done.

I like to bring my guests to tears.

Wait a minute. Oh, that was so good.

No, you're not off the hook.

He was feigning.

What happens in business if you try to be funny and you bomb?

Oh, my gosh, I'm so sorry. We were supposed to be with Adam at 2. Yes, so sorry we were late again. I'm gonna pop on, but we can do more later too, if you want.

Can we divide and conquer? You go to Adam and I'll stick with Naomi.

Noemi. You can just call me Noemi.

That sounds good.

Okay. Bye, Jennifer.

Bye, Jennifer. I love Noah.

Susan Lucci will be proud. So what happens if you try to be funny and bomb?

Well, there are a couple different types of bombing, and your reaction is dependent on what type of bomb you make. So there is the benign. You did, you said something and you just got cricket because it didn't quite land, but it was completely benign. And in that case, we actually advise from a comedic angle to double down. So you make a joke, it doesn't land, and you say something like, well, that one didn't really go well, or thanks, I'll be here all day, or something like that. And even the acknowledgement, diffusing that tension of the fact that it didn't work will often get a laugh. Now, the other kind of failure is more dangerous, of course, and that is if you offend someone in, if you ruffle feathers, if you say something that sort of crosses a line. And what we talk about here is when you fail in that way, first of all, the answer immediately is to genuinely apologize, but also to figure out why it was that you crossed a line. When we fail with humor, there is this tendency to say, oh, well, they.

Didn'T get it right.

It's something that. It's something about them. It's not about my humor. They didn't get the joke, or they can't take. Or they can't take a joke. And the reality is humor is one of the most uniquely context dependent, context dependent forms of communication. And we simply don't know what other people's contexts are. And so we talk about, instead of thinking that it's their fault, get really curious, lean in and understand. What was it that you said that Offended. How did you offend? Could you have said something differently? And the reason this is so important for leaders in particular is as we rise in status, we lose our calibration of what's funny. We lose our calibration because laughter is intrinsically tied to status. So researchers have run these studies where they have someone tell an objectively lame joke, like just a super lame joke. And they have two conditions. In one condition, they tell research participants that this person is a really high status person, an important person in the organization, and they're here to give a presentation. They tell the lame joke, the room erupts in laughter. They do the exact same experiment, but they say this is a person pretty junior in the organization. You know, they're giving a presentation, exact same joke, crickets. And so this tells us something really important, which is that as we rise in status, we can no longer take laughter to mean that we're funny. And so in those moments when we fail, when we offend, we gotta get really curious about it and really try and understand what is it that we've failed at so that we don't step on landmines later. There are so many really nuanced aspects of status that are deeply woven into our psyche that we aren't even aware of. And humor, because it is so tied to status, it illuminates some of the discomfort around what's actually going on status wise and other aspects of our lives. So we talked to a CEO, a very powerful male CEO who used to have another member of his team join his all hands and have banter with him on stage and really make fun of him, right? And this was totally appropriate. The organization loved it. It because it showed that this guy could take a joke, that he could take a punch, and he had a great sense of humor about it. And by the way, the employee that he brought up, who he was good friends with, also happened to be a woman. And so it was this, you know, way of showing, you know, there is unfortunately, you know, there is an inherent power structure there as well. Now that woman then went to become a senior leader in another organization and she wanted to use that same tactic. So she took a couple members of her product team and she said, I want you to come on stage with me and I want you to make fun of me to show that I don't take myself too seriously. Not a single person would do it. They were all male. And they said, there's no way I'm going to get on stage and I'm going to make fun of you publicly. In that juxtaposition lies a really important element of status that's uncomfortable to talk about. We are okay with men making with women making fun of men because men are the higher status gender. We are not okay with men making fun of women because women are the lower status gender. I'm not talking about what I believe. I'm talking about in the way that we have been conditioned for hundreds and thousands of years. There's this concept in comedy of never punch down. You never want to make the target of your joke someone of lower status than you. And that's exactly what those product designers were feeling. They were like, wait a minute, something doesn't feel right about this. I don't know if I'm going to comfortable making fun of my female boss. If you look at SNL, if you watch SNL episodes 10 years ago, 20 years ago, humor is such a mirror to culture that it reflects what are the deeply held cultural beliefs, what feels normal during that time. And what we also know about humor is it isn't just a reflection of society, but it shapes it.

Nomi. Nomi, Naomi Noemi, whatever your name is. Bag of donuts. Thank you. Bag of donuts. Thank you. Somebody's gonna say I was offended by you calling her a bag of donuts.

Women have enough pressure on their image, you know.

Thank you very much. Have a great weekend. And I hope when I end the recording, we captured it all.

I hope so too. Thank you so much, Guy. It was a delight.

I hope you learned why it's an effective ploy to send Neiman Marcus one shoe. I hope you learned a great story to open any speech. And I hope you learned how to be funny by telling the truth. Let me tell you a story. About 20 years ago, my family was living in San Francisco on Union street, just where Union street dead ends into the Presidio. It's a very nice part of San Francisco. So one day I'm outside and I'm trimming the bougainvilleas, and an older white woman comes up to me and says, do you do lawns also? And I said to her, because I'm Japanese American, you think I'm the yardman, right? But I own this place. She says, no, no, not at all. You're just doing such a great job up with the bougainvilleas. I wanted to know if you do lawns. A couple weeks later, my father visits me from Hawaii. He's second generation Japanese American. I'm third generation Japanese American. I fully expect him to just go off on this situation. How dare that woman ask you that question. You went to Stanford, you work for Apple, you've written books. But to my utter surprise, he says to me, son on Union street in San Francisco, a Japanese guy trimming a hedge. Statistically, mathematically, most likely, you were the Yardman. So get over it. I'm Guy Kawasaki, yardman and podcaster. You've been listening to the Remarkable People podcast. My thanks to Jeff C. And Peg Fitzpatrick. I would be happy to do their lawns because they do such a great job making this podcast remarkable. Please wash your hands, don't go into crowded places, wear a mask and get vaccinated. Mahalo and aloha. This is remarkable people.