4 Outcomes Of Selecting A Funny Keynote

In-person events are back and so are the stresses that come with them.

From picking a venue that fits your needs, to making sure you adhere to hundreds of dietary restrictions, to ensuring the A/V team has the right dongles so that a presenter’s audio plays and the entire room doesn’t have to sit through the speaker sweating as the team troubleshoots in real time.

One thing that shouldn’t stress you out is picking the right keynotes. Does your client have the budget to bring in 2? 1? Is it a multiple day event where multiple keynotes are needed? This seems like it would be stressful, but there is one thing you should look for in your speaker selection process that can alleviate that stress: make sure those speakers are funny.

“But this is a legal conference and all the client wants are cut and dry informative topics. There’s no time for funny speakers.”

When you attend a concert you can be sure of 2 things.

1.    The main attraction sure as hell isn’t opening the show – there’s another performer whose job it is to warm up the crowd and get them in the headspace to get the most out of the main act.

2.    That main attraction is ending the show with one of their biggest hits to send everyone home happy.

Think of planning out the conference in the same way: create positive momentum so they’re primed to learn, then close the conference on a high note so they’re primed to look back fondly.

But why do the keynotes have to be funny?

The effective use of humor has a powerful effect on human beings, and when you have a conference room packed with hundreds of humans, you want to make sure they’re fully engaged and excited, and laughter can take them from zero to whatever number the client wants them to reach. I’m not saying to book Gallagher for your conference, as I’m betting the client probably doesn’t have an allocated watermelon or poncho budget, but certainly find a speaker who can weave elements of humor in and out of their inspirational talk.

Here are 4 outcomes you miss by NOT booking funny keynotes:

1. Connection

When a room is packed with hundreds of strangers, nothing brings people together quicker than sharing laughs. Once that opening keynote gets that first laugh, you can literally see people relax in their seats. When the group continues to laugh together to open an event, no matter what the rest of the sessions contain, you’ve broken down silos so that when people are standing in the buffet line, worried that their specific dietary restriction might not be accommodated, one person can turn to the stranger behind them, quote something funny the opening keynote said and create an instant bond. I’ve both done that and seen it happen. We’re still connected on LinkedIn.

2. Creativity

When you attend a conference, there’s a preconceived notion for how it will turn out. The beauty of humor is that it interrupts unconscious thinking patterns and presents new possibilities and perspectives. Though the rest of the day’s sessions are probably geared to be informative, giving attendees an opening to consider new perspectives up front can positively impact the way they absorb the information throughout the rest of the event. If neurological studies conclusively show that getting a joke primes the brain’s problem-solving capabilities, then not opening the day with laughs is failing to grease the gears in your audience’s heads.

3. Retention

In a study involving 500 college students, those who attended a humorous lecture on Freudian Personality Theory scored significantly higher than those who attended the same lecture, but delivered without humor, on retention tests given 6 weeks later. If you want the information taught throughout the rest of the day to stick better, be sure to open and close the event with laughs.

4. Connection Part 2

Not only can humor be used to connect people with one another, but humor can be used to connect disconnected ideas in our own heads. This is why closing the event with a speaker who gets the laughs going is the ideal bookend for your day. If you really want to make an impact, ask the closing keynote to stick around for the full day and weave the key points from earlier programs into his or her stories, anecdotes, and jokes so that the audience is mentally engaged in connecting the assorted topics they heard about earlier. If they charge extra to do something like this, pay it. The value of a fresh set of eyes sharing what everyone in the room saw that day cannot be overstated. Just like Phil Collins closing with a powerful rendition of “Take Me Home,” this will send your attendees home on an unbelievably high note, and have your client knocking down your door to book next year’s event.

There are a number of phenomenally funny keynote speakers out there who can amplify the success of your event. If I’m not your cup of tea, here are a few others that I stand by:

Jeff Rogers: https://www.meetjeffrogers.com/

John Garrett: https://thejohngarrett.com/

Karyn Buxman: https://karynbuxman.mykajabi.com/

Andrew Tarvin: https://drewtarvin.com/

Ray Engan: https://leadershipthroughlaughter.com/

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Why This Election Doesn’t Matter… Yet

It might be just a rock, but it’s OUR rock (Source: NASA/JPL-Caltech)

This election doesn’t matter. There, I said it. Not only does this election not matter, this pandemic doesn’t matter, this blog post doesn’t matter, your ideas don’t matter, your opinions don’t matter, and you don’t matter either. But neither do I.

You are matter, but that doesn’t even matter.

“But David, you’re supposed to be a motivational speaker. You always talk about uplifting other people, and this isn’t uplifting.”

Well stick around, idiot, because you’re about to get uplifted.

When everything feels so important and it feels like the bad thing that’s happening is the worst possible thing that could ever happen in the history of the universe, remember: you’re on a rock hurtling through that universe, and that universe is expanding infinitely… but no one’s talking about that this election.

Where’s that question in the debates? Neither Biden nor Trump acknowledged the inevitable supernova of our Earth’s sun, black holes, or the fact that a particularly violent solar storm could wipe out electricity across the planet, the only planet (that we know of) that supports life. When the sun goes supernova, Earth will be vaporized like it never existed in the first place, in the meantime, sure, let’s argue about healthcare.

Everyone should have access.

Controversial? It shouldn’t be, but when money, a manmade construct, comes into play, the argument becomes not about doing what’s right, it turns into “Who’s going to pay for it?”

Making cities and technology green so that everyone can enjoy the fresh air and water that was a package deal with this planet? “We can’t afford it.”

Overhaul education so that human beings are engaged by learning, creating, and sharing new ideas to innovate new technologies that allow us to stop doing demotivating jobs and start engaging our brains with new occupations? “But we’ve never done it that way before.”

We’re on a rock hurtling through space.

Mathematically, the fact that we even exist is an anomaly, so the fact that we’re arguing about how certain things aren’t possible is laughable. Our schools educate the concepts of infinite possibility out of us at a young age, confining our imaginations to a system filled with manmade limits that is centuries old… in the middle of a universe that’s expanding infinitely. Yet, nobody has even brought up the education overhaul we so desperately need. I would argue that it’s the most pressing issue because it could literally solve all of our problems. For example:

Income inequality: teach students the concepts of creating wealth through altruism

Inequities (gender, racial, religious, socioeconomic, and cognitive): teach students the concepts of empathy, acceptance, and communication

Climate change: teach students the concepts of relevant ecology, innovation, and collaboration

That’s just the tip of the melting iceberg.

You know what doesn’t care about money? The sun. The only time we talk about the sun is when the president looks directly into it, but the worst day in the history of our planet pales in comparison to the day the sun explodes.

I know this particular blog post is pretty meta, and I’m bringing up some pretty out-there concepts, but somebody’s got to. I mean, for God’s sake, we’re arguing about wearing masks in the middle of a pandemic. Really? That’s the hill you want to die on? Because it’s a hill that’s hurtling through space in an infinitely expanding universe.

Infinity isn’t a concept that our simple, human brains can understand, I mean, our symbol for infinity is an eight that fell over. Think of it from the perspective of an ant. If you try to explain the human world to a single ant, it would probably just carry a grain of sand somewhere else because that’s what it knows. Compared to the complexities of the universe, your brain ain’t shit, but compared to that of an ant, it’s a Milky Way of molecules. Unlike ants, humans can look at where we are, learn from where we came, and plan for what’s to come. Looking back, humans have been arguing about things that don’t matter — politics, profits, and power, to name a few — instead of innovating to create things that do. If Earth were to be destroyed by a celestial body tomorrow, religion, economies, and political ideologies would be destroyed along with it, and the universe would remain unmoved by the devices of human imagination. Arguments over these imagined orders have driven some innovation, sure, but they’ve also created a stasis that challenges those who challenge said stasis instead of considering the validity of their ideas.

In the scheme of the universe, the entire planet of Earth is a single electron on a single atom on a single grain of sand on a single nude beach. However, our individual problems, concerns, and ideas feel like the most important thing in our lives. The point of this particular blog post is to remind you that even though the election looms large, in the scheme of the universe, the ripple it causes is like a single ripple of water in the ocean — it’s meaningless… unless the conversation shifts to how we can come together to strive for infinite growth by reaching for our infinite potential.

We need to give people the tools they need to explore new ways of reaching the infinite possibilities the universe has in store, but if what you’re doing isn’t learning, growing, or expanding infinitely every day, make the shift by asking the questions:

How did I get better today? What did I learn?

How did I help others get better today? What did I learn?

How can I apply these things tomorrow?

These are just small ways to make infinity relevant to you.

Sometimes we all just need a reminder that WE’RE ON A ROCK HURTLING THROUGH SPACE! AND SPACE IS EXPANDING INFINITELY!

We gotta figure out ourselves, then we gotta figure out this rock, and then we gotta figure out space, because in front of us is infinite possibility, but like explaining capitalism to an ant, we can’t quite comprehend it… yet.

“Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every “superstar,” every “supreme leader,” every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there-on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot.

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.”

— Carl Sagan

7 Ways To Raise Your Happiness Levels In The Middle Of A Pandemic

Happiness is a lot like baseball: you remember it from last year, you’re waiting for it to happen this year, and the further into 2020 we get, you start thinking that maybe it isn’t going to happen at all. But unlike baseball, you have the power to determine when your happiness season begins.

When you see a genuinely happy person, they make it look easy, but just like baseball, this perceived ease actually takes a lot of work. You can’t pick up a bat and glove and expect to be great at baseball on your first try. Also, why are you holding a bat and a glove at the same time? I’m starting to think you don’t even know what baseball is.

Happiness is a muscle, and with all that’s going on in the world, it doesn’t take an umpire to see why it would atrophy. With consistent daily practice of simple actions, you can finally get the hang of swinging that happiness bat without shying away from the curveballs life continually throws. (Sorry, but not sorry for all the baseball references. I miss it.) Some of these actions aren’t for you, and that’s fine. Just like it wouldn’t make sense for a pitcher to practice being a catcher, you know which actions will work in making yourself happy.

Here are 7 things you can do every day to improve your happiness levels and your mood:

1. Meditate

If you’re not good at meditation or if you’re like me when I first started doing it, (I fell asleep EVERY time and my mind would start to wander like, “Argh, baseball is on. I wonder who’s winning? It doesn’t matter – you can watch baseball any time you want,  it’s time to meditate.”

Meditation grows your left prefrontal cortex; the part of the brain responsible for making you happy. So if you meditate, you give yourself a little brain boner and you start feeling good. If you’re not sure how to meditate, there are guided meditations on Spotify and YouTube or meditation apps that’ll guide you through. Put in some earbuds undisturbed for around 20 minutes tops – you don’t want to do much longer than that, otherwise, it’s a nap.

2. Find something to look forward to

Granted, this is a little more difficult… now… but get creative with it!

Look forward to your birthday.

Look forward to the next Marvel movie.

Look forward to the next time you’re going to get laid.

Look forward to the 4th of July… 2021.

Look forward to Halloween.

Look forward to getting laid.

Just find things to look forward to!

Schedule a phone call with some friends that you haven’t talked to in a long time, and be sure to put whatever it is on your calendar as a reminder. Sometimes, the anticipation is as good as – if not better than – the actual event.

3. Commit conscious acts of kindness

Altruism decreases your stress levels and contributes to enhanced mental health. If you want to reap the psychological benefits from committing kindnesses for other people, do it deliberately and consciously; not to make yourself feel better. Do it because you ACTUALLY want to help other people. There’s a reason I’m doing this blog post, and it’s not just to entertain myself (it’s just to entertain myself). It has nothing to do with entertaining myself (it has everything to do with entertaining myself). It’s 100% not – I’m FINE. EVERYTHING’S FINE! (It’s not).

4. Infuse positivity into your surroundings

Okay, we don’t necessarily have control over ALL of our surroundings, but we can infuse them with a little positivity and some elements that make us happy. Make your desk at work more fun – whatever that means for you. Pictures of your family? Pictures of someone else’s family? Pictures of your favorite porn star? (When people come to your desk and say, “Oh, I recognize her. Why do you have HER on your desk?” You can respond, “That’s my SISTER! …My STEPsister.” That’s fun, right?) Put lots of plants in your house – make it feel like the Rainforest Café and install misters and strobe lights so it feels like a thunderstorm a few times an hour. Put “Live, laugh, love” on the wall, just so you can remind yourself to do those things. Remember what you do have control over, and adapt those things to your liking.

5. Exercise

Run, walk – I dunno – climb a tree? Do some physical activity to get your heart pumping and get endorphins flowing through your body. Are you familiar with the feeling of runner’s high? Those are endorphins, which are a great momentum booster for your day… or so I’m told (I vowed never to work out until baseball comes back).

6. Spend money (but not on stuff)

Spend money on experiences for yourself, or if you want to magnify the effect, use that money to share experiences with people that you care about.

7. Practice signature strengths

Visit viacharacter.org/character-strengths, figure out what YOUR strengths are, and think about all of the ways you’ve used them recently. Think about all of the ways you CAN use them right now. Humor is one of mine, for example. I find the funny in EVERYTHING – almost too many things. I have a podcast (You Can’t Laugh At That) based around it, I perform stand-up, so I’m always writing new jokes, and I do a keynote speaking program based around the power of humor in the workplace. Find ways to use YOUR signature strength.

Just like with baseball, continued practice at happiness makes us better at being happy, so pick just one of the seven things from above and find a way to infuse that into your day. Once you do it with one, do it with a second, and a third, and so on, until you’re so happy that you forget that it’s July and the baseball season still hasn’t started.

Play Ball!

I mean be happy!

6 Ways To Make The Most Of Your Quarantine

Fun fact: each second, your brain receives 11 million bits of information. Out of that, it processes 40 to 50 bits, so it chooses what it takes in. That’s great news because that means each of us is consciously choosing what bits of information to take in.

During this coronavirus crisis, it’s easy to find the negatives because we’re being constantly bombarded by bad news on TV, on social media, or from our friends and family giving us “helpful” updates on the most recent closings. Personally, I’ve been forced out of my service industry job, I’ve had speaking gigs cancelled, and I have no outlet to get on stage and make people laugh. Suddenly, I have all of this free time to swipe, scroll, and get sucked into a vortex of negativity.

NOT SO FAST

Instead, I’ve made it a goal to do my part in making other people smile when there doesn’t seem like there’s a lot to smile about. It gives my days meaning, distracts me from the negative news that I literally can do nothing about, and hopefully creates a different narrative for others, as we experience the same uncertainty.

I want you to know that you have options, no matter how limited they seem. Here are 6 ways to make the most of the coronavirus quarantine.

1. Maintain the Losada Ratio

Psychologist Marcial Losada specializes in using human behavior to develop high performance teams. In his years of hands-on study, he discovered that people perform best when they balance every negative interaction with 3-6 positive ones. Negative moments weigh heavier on our brains because our survival depends on focusing on potential dangers vs. the positives in our environments, hence the 3-6:1 ratio instead of a 1:1 ratio. If we want to outweigh the negatives, we must find 3-6 positives in our lives. Every time you read a negative news story, or are bombarded with a “the end is near” mentality of a loved one, find 3 uplifting news stories, funny memes, cuddle with a pet, send someone an email thanking them, etc. The more you do this, the more you train your brain to find what’s good.

2. Be a positive broadcaster

While the rest of the world is filling the airwaves to the brim with negative, stress-inducing stories. Instead of complaining about this, do your part and share the stories that are going to bring smiles to the faces of others. If it makes you smile, don’t hesitate – SHARE IT! Through all the negative, there’s a lot of people doing good out there. I just got a free oil change and tire rotation as a service offered by Automotive Specialty Services to ease the mental tension of their customers. Last month, after being laid off from my last job, my barber offered me a haircut, calling it a “Getting-Back-On-Your-Feet Cut.” My current workplace is preparing pre-cooked meals for any service industry employees who were laid off due to the quarantine, regardless of where they work. If you find a story like this, don’t keep it to yourself, SHARE IT.

3. Make a daily to-do list

Sitting around watching TV, falling into a YouTube vortex, and playing video games while pounding Miller High Lifes might seem like a good way to distract yourself from the fact that you’re not working, but it’s actually doing more harm than good. Our brains need stimulated so that they’re releasing dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin, and endorphins into our bloodstream; these chemicals counterbalance the stress that can run rampant while thinking about paying bills without work. A simple way to release these “good” neurotransmitters and activate your brain is to set and achieve goals every day. They can be as simple as finishing a book you’ve been reading, putting furniture together, learning something new, meditating daily, or finally organizing that desk. You can be as ambitious as finishing a book you’ve been writing, getting your weight down, or putting together a new resume for after the quarantine is over. Make a list of at least 3-5 things to get done the next day, right before you go to bed.

4. Create Positive Momentum

Hanging around the house in your flannel pants and ratty hoodie is comfortable, sure, but what kind of message are you giving your brain? Communicate that today is going to be a good day to get something done by treating the morning like any other busy morning – except better. Get dressed, exercise, shower, dress your best, eat a healthy breakfast, and get working on your biggest to-do of the day. Whatever you do, don’t turn on the news before you start your day. If you’re going to watch or listen to anything, put on something that motivates you or makes you laugh. Now is as good a time as ever to create new habits.

6. Practice Gratitude

Whenever you feel yourself becoming stressed, depressed, or anxious, find at least one thing you’re grateful for in that moment. For example, when I start thinking about and getting stressed out by what I don’t have, I remember to be grateful for the opportunity to get a bunch of projects finished that I’ve been working on for months, even years. At the very least, right before you go to bed, make a list, mental or physical, of three things you’re grateful for that day. They can be as simple as being grateful for air, water, or the house you live in, just do it as you lie down, so the last thing going through your head is good vibes. It can always be worse, which is why it’s important to consciously remember why it’s always better than it seems.

What we see and how we see it determines how we feel, what we do, and what we get. Shift the first thing and create some positive momentum, even when it seems like doing so is impossible =)

For your daily dose of good news: https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/, https://www.sunnyskyz.com/good-news, https://www.positive.news/

 

 

3 Reasons Why Leaders Should Use Humor To Unlock The Potential Of Others

Another sideways glance and furrowed brow from a presentation attendee around 25 years my senior after another presentation about how humor makes better leaders: “I get where you’re coming from, but I don’t see why I should change what I’ve always done.” I’m used to this response by now, but at first, it was hard not to snap back, “WERE YOU LISTENING AT ALL!?” Then came the realization that I was tucking a fake mustache and a papal mitre into a suitcase while this sharply dressed, more-successful-than-me executive questioned my credibility. I get it. When you picture a successful business executive, what do you see? How do they carry themselves? Dignified? With importance? Are they stern? Some Mad Men-esque Don Draper figure pops into many minds, but with a little bit of humor and a loosening of the tie, leaders can take an already successful enterprise away from renting a Bentley from Enterprise to blasting off into the cosmos on the Starship Enterprise. A little bit of humor coming from the top can unlock maximum potential in your people, and here are three reasons why:

1. Makes you more approachable

A warm smile and a hearty laugh go a long way to make you appear approachable to the people who call you “boss.” When we’re able to laugh, especially at our own mistakes, it makes you more human, thus more relatable, by communicating to those who may be too shy to come to you with ideas. I hear the platitude, “My office is always open,” from many managers, but just because it’s open, doesn’t mean people feel comfortable coming in. By having the vulnerability to be able to laugh and be open to others laughing at you it makes others actually want to see you succeed as a leader, as long as you’re open to their ideas.

2. Sparks creativity and trust

When people genuinely laugh, it’s when they’re at their most authentic, and seeing someone in a leadership position so open to being real creates a natural sense of trust.  When we trust our leaders are authentic, it gives us an intrinsic motivation to want to help them overcome challenges and difficulties or come up with new ideas. If you’ve ever had a boss you’ve loved, you know that feeling of wanting to overdeliver for them. By laughing and being real about your own mistakes, it communicates that your employees don’t have to be perfect. Think about it, would you rather be around someone minding their Ps and Qs and calculating what they’re saying or someone who is real?

3. Reduces sick days

What? How do you reduce sick days by laughing? I don’t want to dive too deep into the biology of what happens when we laugh, but at the very least, it increases blood flow, reduces muscle tension, and massages internal organs. That’s not something a chair at Brookstone or a masseuse at your local strip mall can do. All of these unintended results of laughter being a core part of work allow your employees’ blood pressure to go down so they’re feeling better, taking less time off, and working with a renewed energy.

If what you’ve been doing as a leader all of these years is working, by all means, stick with it! I’m not saying you should overhaul the way you run manage, but you should definitely find more reasons to laugh, especially if it’s at your own mistakes. We’re all human; communicate that it’s okay to be more human to your team and you’ll unlock even more of their potential than you even dreamed.

4 Reasons Why It’s Important to Say “I Don’t Know”

The 2020 presidential election is in full swing and with it, all of the platitudes, cliches, and mudslinging that accompanies it. Watching politicians jockey for position by having answers to every question, even though it’s evident they’re beating around the bush to avoid admitting they don’t have the answer, is one of my favorite parts of elections. Appearing to have the answer when they don’t actually hurts them in the long run as leaders. When was the last time you watched a political leader respond to a question with an “I don’t know. I’ll have to do further research to answer that question.”? I know I don’t remember.

We can learn from this in our everyday lives, whether we’re in a leadership position or we’re looking for relationship advice. In the quest to look like the smartest person in the room, we miss out on opportunities to say “I don’t know” and open ourselves up to new information. Though it seems counterproductive on the surface, the willingness to admit that you don’t know something has some advantages. Here’s 4 of them:

1. NOT KNOWING SPARKS INNOVATION

We’re on the precipice of a new era because of the advances in technology based on automation. This is a technological revolution that will dwarf the industrial revolution, which required more algorithm-based thinking and management. Change is already occurring at rates we’ve never seen, and with people in previously untouched places around the world like Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East logging on, that change is only going to exponentially increase. This means you will be competing with, not only people around the corner, but companies in Manila, Dubai, and Buenos Aires. With so much information being uploaded at any given moment, if you want to inspire innovation within your organization, it is vital for you to admit to not knowing what you don’t know. Even if you’re 100% sure you’re right, being open to the fact that there’s constantly new information that can counter your current position is key to growth. Besides, if your mindset is already fixed, then where is the room to expand?

2. UNCERTAINTY BREEDS CONFIDENCE FROM OTHERS

Though this may seem like a stretch, there is a big difference between “I have all the answers,” then being proven wrong, and saying “I don’t know.” Though our egos want to make us appear at the top of our game, shutting out new information with this “I’m right, you’re wrong” mentality lowers the confidence that others have in you. This loss in confidence means that people will be hesitant to approach you with new ideas, limiting your potential as a team. Saying “I don’t know,” makes them more comfortable with their own levels of not knowing, creating an openness to new ideas and collaboration that isn’t present with the barriers that come with having all of the answers.

3. IT EXPANDS PERSPECTIVE

By being unsure about something, it activates our intrinsic human desire to explore and learn. When we are actively trying to solve a problem by trying new things, it activates  our brains in a way that expands our perspective. This opens us up to more pathways to solutions, rather than the limited strategies we can use when we already know “everything.”

4. IT CAN COUNTERACT STRESS

By being steadfast in how sure we are, it closes us off from discovering new things. When we do discover a new solution to an old problem, our brains release dopamine, a neurochemical that limits the stress chemical cortisol.  Less stress means better health, strengthened relationships, and more creativity, and achieving that “Aha!” moment can be a life hack to the creation of excitement while your stress levels dwindle.

3 Ways to Maximize Your Guest Speaker’s Impact

You’ve been tasked with finding, vetting, and hiring a guest speaker for your meeting, conference, or seminar and you want to make sure the audience gets the most out of the experience. There are an endless supply of speakers you can hire, but you’ve narrowed it down to the one you think best fits the bill. You’ve seen many speakers – some good, some not-so-good, so you want to be sure the audience receives the presentation as both you and the speaker intend. Here are a few ways to make sure you and your speaker knock it out of the park.

1. Be clear with your audience what they should expect

Make sure the speaker has sent you a summary that explains the premise and purpose of the presentation – complete with audience takeaways, a concise biography, a link to their website, and a video link. Then, post all of these to an email to your potential attendees or some sort of event page, that way the audience has is fully aware what is about to happen. As a speaker who employs humor in a way that pulls no punches on the current status quo of the modern workplace, I have received feedback from previous clients stating the audience was offended by some of my content. Each time, the client provided merely my name and the title of the presentation without any further context. Being clear about what people should expect will save the audience from attending a presentation that may be uncomfortable, uninteresting, and irrelevant to them, while saving you the hassle of negative feedback along the lines of, “The speaker is not what I expected. Wish he had told fewer jokes.”

2.  Allow the speaker to use his or her own A/V upon request

If the speaker asks to use their own computer for a slideshow, it may be out of the ordinary for you, but there is a good reason why they made this request. LET THEM USE THEIR OWN EQUIPMENT. Every time past clients have requested I run my slideshow off of their computer, I have run into technical difficulties. I have had downloaded fonts I use in slideshows get reformatted on the new computer, jamming the on-screen text into a jumbled mess. Once, the font I used got reformatted into Wingdings on the new computer, so a very information-heavy slide looked like a Hieroglyphic-laden joke and I had to take the time to explain that it wasn’t intended that way. My presentations also incorporate music, which, when I have to run them off of another computer, I have to disrupt the flow of the presentation to play the music off of my phone.  My presentation files are also take up hundreds of megabytes in storage space and have frozen and even crashed a previous client’s PC laptop. I warned them, but they insisted. This note is for your convenience as much as that of the speaker. It may take a moment to switch the projector from your slideshow to the speaker’s, but I promise it’ll be worth it in the end. Put your A/V specialist (or the guy who knows what plugs go where) in contact with the speaker and allow them to communicate their needs. Remember to have the speaker arrive early.

3. Do not introduce the speaker while the audience is eating

Do you want your audience to get the most out of your speaker? Of course you do, but it’s tough to truly place 100% of your focus on the information the speaker is sharing when they’ve got a build-your-own taco in front of them. I get it, you want to kill two birds with one stone and maximize your time, but it might be more effective to ask the speaker to shorten their talk rather than have the audience trying to saw through their chicken marsala, pass the bread, and take notes on effective ways to communicate. Comedians hate performing while servers pass the checks – it’s a distraction to both the performers and audience – and the same goes to event servers dropping off the dessert while the speaker is trying to list ideas for building a better company culture. I open my presentations with a bit where I have attendees close their eyes and imagine themselves in their happy place. When watching the video of the event, I noticed about half of the attendees blatantly ignore this and continue eating. The follow-up punchline died on stage, and, because the opening is vital to the rest of the presentation, I never established a connection with a majority of the audience. Be sure the venue gets the main course on the table at least 15 minutes before the presentation begins, read the room, and introduce the speaker once desserts have been dropped off.

Humor and Grief: Putting the ‘FUN’ in Funerals

When a close relative of yours gets murdered, it shakes the foundation of your existence; it can send you on a downward spiral of depression, dependency, and regret. One of the toughest moments of my life was learning of the passing of my aunt, Kristie, at the hands of her own daughter – my cousin Taylor. I was lying in bed around 7 AM after a late night of shock and questioning reality – we had already known Kristie had been killed, but when we went to bed, we didn’t know the culprit – when my dad burst into my room with hate in his voice, declaring, “Taylor did it.”

My first thought was, “Christmas is going to be awkward this year.” I stopped myself from laughing: “This isn’t the time to make jokes.” The next few weeks were miserable – every day we learned more and more gruesome details about the murder. If you were to drive by our house, it would’ve been the one with the black cloud hovering above it. You always hear people say things like, “That kind of stuff happens on the news, it doesn’t happen to us,” so none of us really knew how to cope. We spend a lot of time together, consoling and comforting one another. In college at the time, I confronted my vulnerability by skipping two straight weeks of class – the only percentage I got was the .09 I blew into a breathalyzer. Needless to say, none of the family could find a way out of the black hole we were stuck in… until the funeral. That’s when I finally gave in to the humor of the whole situation.

During the eulogy, the minister said, “This is a celebration of life!” I don’t know about you, but when I hear the word “celebration,” I think “party,” and not one person was partying. Besides, if you were to invite me to a party, then inform me it’s at a church, everyone would be crying, and the DJ would be bagpipes, I’d politely decline. And one more thing: he called it a “celebration of life…” with a dead body in the middle of the room – you couldn’t get more contradictory. That’s like having an open bar at a sobriety party. I had to laugh – and the moment I did, it was like a weight was lifted off of my chest. I began to notice even more incongruities: the first three letters in ‘funeral’ are ‘F-U-N,’ Kristie found joy in the happiness of others and, ironically enough, EVERYONE THERE WAS CRYING, and a stranger no one there had ever met sobbed uncontrollably into the microphone for five minutes, blubbering on about how he wished more people had known Kristie, while we wondered who the hell knew who that guy was.

In the face of tragedy was the moment I realized the power laughter has over our fears, stress, and sadness. But it shouldn’t come as such a shock: science has known this for some time now

A study from the University of Berkeley, bereaved widows and widowers able to laugh about their loss were observed to be happier, better equipped to deal with distress, and better socially adapted.

A study done at Kent State and reported in the American Journal of Hospice and Palliative Care revealed that humor was present in 85 percent of 132 observed nurse based visits. Amazingly, they found that 70 percent of the humor was initiated by the patient.

Humor provides us with relief, not by washing away bad feelings, but by activating them, along with positive ones, so that we can enjoy a complex emotional experience. Tragic circumstances are an effective breeding ground for humor because they provide the same release as horror movies, allowing the participants to confront their emotions head-on.       –Scott Weems (author of Ha! The Science of When We Laugh and Why)

How have you used humor in the face of tragedy? How have you helped others experiencing tragedy, trauma, or even just a bad day smile?

Each of us has had a “Christmas is going to be awkward this year,” lean into it and let yourself laugh.

 

How a Workplace Taboo Can Increase Employee Engagement and Productivity

“This is not the time nor the place to laugh.” “Why are you laughing when you should be working?” “Work is work. You’ll have time to play when you’re done.”

These should sound familiar to many of us, especially coming from the mouths of our managers and executives as a hearty guffaw is stifled before it can breathe life into the otherwise routine, stressful, and mundane workday.

Comedy and productivity are two things you probably don’t associate with one another, but believe it or not, the evidence is overwhelming:

Comedy (humor, to be more precise) in the workplace increases productivity, counteracts stress, builds trust, strengthens relationships, improves performance, builds leadership skills, engages employees, reduces sick days, enhances learning and memory, provides needed perspective in the face of failure, opens lines of communication, attracts great people, drives creativity, strengthens confidence, and transforms workplace culture into one centered around the well-being of others, making work meaningful, and a breeding ground for happiness.

So sure, make your work environment “humor free,” but eliminating light-heartedness from work is no laughing matter.

We have been entrenched in a culture of work focused on appeasing shareholders, reaching quotas, and meeting deadlines for as long as the humans on this planet have been alive – and even longer than that – so the “work-is-work” mentality is ingrained in our DNA. It’s no wonder a majority of workplaces don’t place very high value on the power of laughter – they have no idea of the benefits. It’s not like we learn about the numerous benefits of humor in the workplace, in college, or even at work trainings, so what I’m writing here might be news to you.

And that’s okay… but now, it’s time to do something.

Now, we’re entering an age where information is readily available at the click of a button, and study after study, poll after poll, and case after case show that positive laughter in the workplace is transformative. Now, we can find companies who have instituted humor programs, see the positive results, and figure out what works for our company. Now, we can finally feel great about letting loose and laughing a little, because even though our bosses don’t seem to value humor at work… well actually… they do:

• A survey of 730 CEOs by Hodge Cronin and Associates found that 98% would rather hire someone with a good sense of humor than someone with a more serious demeanor.
• 91% of executives in a Robert Hath International survey agreed that humor is important for career advancement, while 84% believe that people with a good sense of humor do a better job than their counterparts.

There are far too many positive side effects to continue to list, so I’ll let the following articles, books, and studies do the talking.

https://hbr.org/2018/11/the-benefits-of-laughing-in-the-office

https://hbr.org/2014/05/leading-with-humor

https://wol.iza.org/articles/are-happy-workers-more-productive/long

http://mentalfloss.com/article/564511/laughter-at-work-can-boost-productivity

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/laughing-at-work-can-actually-make-people-take-your-career-more-seriously-2018-11-20

http://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Publication%20Files/Bitterly%20Brooks%20Schweitzer%20JPSP%202016_54efbab5-2561-4408-b008-38d958e0ad50.pdf

http://apps.prsa.org/Intelligence/Tactics/Articles/view/11933/1143/Play_at_Work_Increasing_Communication_and_Producti#.XKG6dutKjOS

Improv:http://time.com/4357241/improv-lessons-success/

TED Talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6iFCm5ZokBI

Ha! The Science of When We Laugh and Why – Scott Weems

The Humor Advantage: Why Some Businesses Are Laughing All the Way To the Bank – Michael Kerr

Work Rules!: Insights From Inside Google That Will Transform How You Live and Lead – Laszlo Bock

What are some ways you can infuse humor into your work?

Work isn’t the time or place to laugh, eh? Knowing what we know now, that’s damn funny.

I Was Going to Post to My Blog, But…

…There’s a cat on my lap, and when there’s a cat on my lap, nothing gets done.

It’s not that like the cat pins me down and forbids me from typing, I just choose not to work when there’s a cat on my lap.

Then I blame it on the cat.

It’s definitely the cat’s fault that I didn’t type my 1,000 words today.

It’s not like I can type over him.

Every time I try to type, he attacks my fingers.

I’ve had to delete and re-type this line seven times for that reason.

There’s nothing I can do about this cat on my lap.

This is all on the cat.

I couldn’t go to the comedy show because of the cat.

I know I said I was going to come, and I know you were counting on me to perform, but when I sat down for seven seconds to check my email on my way out the door, guess what happened?

Cat. Lap.

And you can’t stand when there’s a cat on your lap because he needs to be pet.

Calm down! I know I ruined your show, and I’m sorry

I get that you’re mad. – I’d be mad too – but you didn’t have a cat on your lap.

If you did, that means you’d probably be at my house, which means you wouldn’t have gone to the show either, which means you have no room to talk.

And I couldn’t even answer the emails anyway!

There was a cat on my lap.

The cat found the cursor on my computer screen and I discovered that I’m distracted by cats chasing computer cursors.

I know there was a deadline, but I have a disease where I physically cannot focus on sending emails when there’s a cat on my lap.

It isn’t diagnosed.

I don’t have a doctor’s note.

Because I couldn’t get to the doctor’s office, since there was a cat on my lap, but that proves that it’s a real thing.

And it’s why I’m just now sending a time-sensitive email, three days too late.

Again, not my fault.

Blame Wright Catterson.

That’s not my cat’s name.

Or maybe it is.

I never asked.

I just gave him an arbitrary name without asking him what his actual name is.

I’ve actually been wanting to adopt a cat for forever because I have an overwhelming mice infestation, but I never got around to it.

There was a cat on my lap.

When there’s a cat on your lap, it makes it hard to adopt a cat in the first place.

Especially a cat who would rather chase a computer mouse instead of actual mice.

YOU try to get a cat when there’s a cat on your lap being hilarious.

You can’t, so as a result, you get mice.

This is how the world works when you have a cat on your lap.

Wait a minute…

If I need to get a cat, then how is there even a cat on my lap in the first place?

There is no cat.

…I don’t have a cat.

I’ve never even owned a cat.

I’m not even sure how to pronounce “cat.”

The only reason I know how to spell it is because Microsoft Word didn’t give it the red underline.

The only reason I know that cats even exist is from cat videos on Facebook.

Which means, it was never the cat at all… it was me the whole time.

What a twist!

But wait a minute… that means…

I was the one attacking my own fingers.

I wasn’t petting a cat, I was petting myself…

I was the one spending hours chasing the cursor.

I’m the one named Wright Catterson!

IT WAS ME THE WHOLE TIME!

And I was making excuses instead of doing what I needed to do to get what I want!

Oh man, what a waste of three months.

…And I blamed it all on that stupid cat that I made up…

That means I have reframe this with some new self-talk:

“What do I want?

What does it look like?

What am I telling myself that’s stopping me?

How is it stopping me?

What’s something new I can do?

What’s 1 action I can take to move me closer to what I want?

Now go do it, Wright Catterson!”

Do the same thing when you have a “cat” on your lap.

Because excuses don’t exist.

…And neither does my cat.