360 Focus Sessions: Whole Person

Lead with Levity: Strategic Humor

for Leaders
Karyn Buxman, CSP, CPAE

I know what you’re thinking . . . another “neurohumorist”!
I live at the intersection of humor and the brain. I’m a
pioneer in my field. I began studying applied and thera-
peutic humor back in the late 1980s when few had heard
of the field of psychoneuroimmunology, other than perhaps
Norman Cousins. (In the 1970s, Cousins turned around his
terminal illness by watching reels and reels of a funny show
called Candid Camera. He later wrote a book about it called
Anatomy of an Illness.)
I love studying humor. I love making people laugh. And
I’m fascinated by brains. I’m fascinated by your brain. And I’m
going to show you how you can harness your brain with humor.
We’re now able to measure brain waves in ways that
weren’t possible until just recently. And because of this tech-
nology, we’re able to see that humor is a whole brain activity.
The prefrontal cortex, the thinking part of your brain, lights
up, as well as both hemispheres of the brain. The limbic sys-
tem, or the emotional part of your brain, is also stimulated.
But the most recent news is that gamma waves are evident
across the entire brain.
So what? Well, this is the kind of brain activity we see in
people who practice deep meditation or serious mindfulness.
It’s related to heightened cognitive functioning (being able to
think more clearly). It’s related to increased creativity. It’s asso-
ciated with having an energized focus, being fully involved,
and thoroughly enjoying an activity. Another phrase for this
brain state is being “in flow” or being “in the zone.”
What if you could increase the number of moments where
you were more focused? More creative? More energized?
More engaged? All while having more fun? Do you think
you might improve the quality of your work? Do you think
you could improve the quantity of your work? Do you think
that if the quality and quantity of your work increased, it
would affect your bottom line? Your overall happiness?
Great news! You can access these benefits throughout
your day—over and over again. And you, and those you
lead, will not only be more successful but will enjoy the pro-
cess a whole lot more.
Humor is power!
Everyone knows it. But few take action on it.
It’s been said that “knowledge is power.” But knowledge
is only potential power unless you apply that knowledge.
I was speaking at a large conference in Ohio, and my
driver, John, was making pleasant conversation. He looked
at me in his rearview mirror and said, “So you’re the speaker.
What do you speak about?” I told him that I was going to be
sharing the power of humor for profitability and health. He
beamed and said, in total sincerity, “Do you know how good
humor is for you?” (No . . . really?!) And then he went on for
another 10 minutes telling me about how he loved to laugh
and how laughter was the best medicine.
I’m thinking, Yikes! This guy could probably give my speech!
But then I realized the piece that was missing. He knew
humor was good for him, even good for his business. But
there was nothing he was doing to take advantage of that
knowledge.
If I could show you how to:
• Improve your likability
• Strengthen your relationships
• Diminish your stress

Karyn Buxman, CSP, CPAE

Buxman is an international speaker, author, and neurohumorist. A pioneer in her field, Buxman shows
audiences how to build resilience, enhance communication and boost engagement through humor. She
is one of 175 professionals (and one of only 39 women) in the world to be inducted into the National
Speaker’s Association’s Speaker Hall of Fame. Buxman wows audiences with her high content and high
energy—but is serious about humor.
Levity Works
1465 C St #3318, San Diego, CA 92101 USA
email: Karyn@KarynBuxman.com phone: +1 858.603.3133 website: karynbuxman.com

View this presentation in the Resource Zone at mdrt.org or purchase from mdrtstore.org.

Annual Meeting Proceedings | 2017 ©Million Dollar Round Table


• Build your resilience
• Make your message more memorable
• Get people more engaged
And you could do this:
• Without breaking a sweat
• Without breaking the bank
• Without eating kale!
Would you be interested?
I know. I know. This probably sounds too good to be true
for many of you. I give you my word. Humor is so valuable
that, quite frankly, I’m surprised that Trump hasn’t found a
way to tax it.
You’re all in positions of leadership. Some of you are
leaders in your company. Some of you are leaders in this
organization. Some of you are leaders in your community, or
church, or family . . . unless you’ve got teenagers. You don’t
get to be the boss if you have teenagers!
Can you ever recall a time during your leadership where
tension was high? When you were experiencing an extreme
amount of stress? Or maybe there was a time when commu-
nications got screwed up and chaos resulted? Or maybe you
tried to get people on board, tried to get their buy-in, tried
to get them excited and enthused about your vision, only to
see them with eyes glazed over or glancing at their phone for
a respite? (Look, there’s a Pokéman in the room!)
Benjamin Hooks, former director of the NAACP in the
United States, once said, “If you think you are leading and
turn around to see no one following, then you are just taking
a walk.”
Much of the time, leading others can be a lot like herding
cats.
How would you rate your leadership skills? If you’re like
most folks, you’d rate yourself pretty good or at least average.
In a survey by Gallop, only 3 percent of more than 1,000
people surveyed rated themselves as below average! I’m not a
math major, but that strikes me as funny. But however you
rate your leadership skills, my bet is there’s room for growth.
Global leader Winston Churchill once said, “You cannot
deal with the most serious things in the world unless you
understand the most amusing.”
You have many serious things to deal with:
• A client who is trusting you with his financial future
• A family member who lost a loved one and is in crisis
• A life of your own that is tipping out of balance
But to deal with the most serious things, it will help if you
can embrace the most amusing.
So what’s holding you back?
©Million Dollar Round Table
Lead with Levity: Strategic Humor for Leaders 361
I frequently hear two concerns voiced when it comes to
humor and leadership. One is that they won’t be taken seri-
ously. The other is that others won’t find them funny.
Let’s look at the first objection: “People won’t take me
seriously.” You may be thinking, Humor: It’s cute. It’s enter-
taining. But it’s just not professional.
A study by the Bell Leadership Institute found that of
more than 2,000 businesspeople surveyed, a sense of humor
and a strong work ethic were the two most desirable traits.
Dr. Gerald Bell said, “Those who can combine a strong work
ethic and sense of humor may have the leading edge in their
organizations.”
There’s no question—you guys have the strong work ethic
down pat. You work hard at prospecting. You work hard at
selling. You work hard at creating reports and at analyzing
the industry. You take your work very seriously, maybe a
little too seriously, in fact. An MDRT leader shared, “We’ve
lost the art of laughing at ourselves.”
One of the leaders in this industry whom I interviewed
was Sandro Forte. Everyone loves Sandro, especially his
clients. He shared with me that many an aspiring financial
advisor has asked the secret of his success: “The secret? I’m
very good at developing relationships—at the ability to be
liked. In my world there is nothing more powerful than cre-
ating a relationship. It’s not about being bigger, stronger, or
faster. How does that client choose you over someone else?
They don’t until they see you stand for something funda-
mentally different from everybody else.”
He also said, “Every client wants maximum perfor-
mance, minimum risk, and maximum fluidity. You have
to beat the white noise. Southwest Airlines didn’t become
successful because they learned how to turn the plane
around. They beat the white noise. What we do is the
Southwest Model.”
I remember one of my first Southwest flights. I boarded
the plane, put my bag in the overhead luggage compartment,
sat in my seat, and then shut my eyes to relax just a bit while
the other passengers continued to come on board. Suddenly
I heard someone begin to shout.
“All right everybody—listen up!” My eyes snapped open,
and I scanned the plane to see who was making all the ruckus.
It was the flight attendant. She announced, “There may be 50
ways to leave your lover, but there are only eight ways to leave
this plane.” People began to look up and pay attention. She
continued, “This is a nonsmoking flight—but if you just have
to have a cigarette, you can go out to our smoking section
located on the wing and watch today’s feature, Gone with the
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362 Focus Sessions: Whole Person
Wind.” Now every person who had ignored the safety instruc-
tions on their last 57 flights was riveted to her every word.
By the way, Southwest Airlines has 43 straight years
of profits in an industry plagued with ailing revenues and
bankruptcies. The flight attendants, and the company as a
whole, understand how to differentiate themselves and beat
the white noise.
Your clients aren’t going to care about how much you
know until they know how much you care. And humor,
when used intentionally, is an amazing tool for showing how
much you care. Don’t confuse professionalism and being
taken seriously with solemnness. Humor is power.
OK, what else is holding you back? Some leaders fear that
they’re not funny—that nobody will laugh.
Being funny is a skill. Some people have a knack for it
and have refined it with practice. Take someone like MDRT
Past President Brian Ashe. He’s masterful at joke telling. His
brain is a gold mine of material. He asked me if I’d heard
about the merger between Prudential and State Farm. Its
new slogan will be “Get a piece of your neighbor.”
Or maybe someone like Past President Scotty Brennan,
who is masterful at using gentle self-effacing humor. When
describing his early years in the business, he said that he
“took a vow of poverty” and couldn’t qualify for the Million
Dollar Round Table. He joked, “I don’t think I could have
qualified for an end table!”
I knew I was in good hands when I received my letter
of acceptance for this Annual Meeting and a note from my
Captain, Craig Lilley. He wrote, “I realize that you were
originally assigned to a different Captain, however I really,
really wanted a neurohumourist on my team. So I traded
three first round draft picks and my Babe Ruth rookie card
to have us aligned.”
First-round draft pick?! Holy cow! How cool is that?!
Especially since in grade school I was always the next-to-the-
last one picked for kickball, barely beating out Sarah Smith
who had a nervous habit of eating her crayons.
But seriously, Craig’s funny response set me at ease and
set the tone for an entire series of emails. In my industry, my
planning committee members are my leaders. And I usually
let them set the tone, and take the lead, in determining how
much humor is appropriate to share—at least until we get
to know one another better. Almost immediately, Craig set
the tone and cracked me up, while, at the same time, setting
high expectations.
That is the key to effective humor in leadership: Setting
the tone for humor while at the same time setting high
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expectations. If you only set the tone for humor, but don’t
set expectations, then your followers may mistakenly take
that as the go-ahead for a free-for-all. On the other hand,
if you only set high expectations but no humor, then your
followers may mistakenly hear, “Beatings will continue until
morale improves.”
Those of you who are funny recognize how people are
drawn to you. I think every organization, every business,
every department ought to have a designated funny person.
Funny people offer relief from tension and can often say
things that others cannot—a court jester, so to speak.
But while being funny and having a sense of humor can
overlap, they are not the same thing.
Humor is seen as a desirable trait. Whether it’s a leader of
a country, or a soul mate, humor is one of the top traits we
want in that person.
MDRT Past President Scotty Brennan said, “Not that I
wouldn’t trust a leader without a sense of humor, but I’d
wonder how they got there.”
The good news is you never have to be funny. To be suc-
cessful at humor and leadership, you need only see funny.
Relax! The pressure is off! Many of history’s greatest leaders
in business, politics, and even religion were not humor ini-
tiators but humor appreciators.
Another excuse I hear from leaders is that there’s noth-
ing funny happening where they work, that there’s nothing
funny happening in their lives. If that is your belief, that will
be your experience. Ashleigh Brilliant once said, “I wouldn’t
have seen it if I hadn’t believed it.”
Humor abounds. It’s present throughout your day. But
chances are you’re missing much of it. When you’re not in
the moment, when your mind is on what’s ahead, or remi-
niscing on what’s already transpired, then you will miss that
which is around you. But if you will be mindful, be pres-
ent, raise your awareness, you will begin to see things, hear
things, and experience things that most others do not.
So the first step is not to become an initiator of humor,
but to become an appreciator of humor. See funny. You don’t
have to be funny unless you want to, unless it is authentic to
your style.
If you really want to catapult your leadership and sales
skills, you’re going to need to take action. If all you do is listen
to me talk and don’t take any action, then you’ve missed the
point of this program. This is about learning a new skill set and
implementing a strategy for your leadership and sales success.
So, for starters, I’m challenging you to proactively search
for the humor around you. And then I’m asking you to share
©Million Dollar Round Table

it with others. It could be something you see, it could be
something you hear, it might be something you experience.
As a leader, you want to practice humor “FUNdamentals”:
• Authenticity
• Empowerment
• Intentionality
One quick way to fail at humor is to try to be something
or someone you’re not. I recently had a conversation with
Greg, a CEO of several successful corporations. He laughed
and shook his head while he described how he had stood
before an audience and used some lines from a well-known
speaker, Charlie “Tremendous” Jones. But Charlie’s hey-
day was in the 1960s and 1970s. He had a fantastic sense
of humor and an outrageous style, but it doesn’t necessarily
translate to today’s audiences. Long story short: The audi-
ence didn’t buy it. They actually booed at Greg—in fun. But
he got the message.
Are you familiar with the comedian Jack Dee? He’s now
one of Britain’s most famous comedians. But many don’t
know that he struggled for some time when first joining the
comedy circuit. He tried to find a unique and compelling
persona, but his efforts at getting people to laugh were so
fruitless that one evening he gave up. He got up on stage
just as himself—miserable and straight-faced. And, for the
first time ever, he had the audience in stitches. Being himself
launched his career over-the-top.
Can you picture Scotty Brennan trying to emulate Robin
Williams? Caroline Banks as Lucille Ball? Tony Gordon as
John Cleese? When trying on another’s material, be sure that
it fits your style, that it fits who you are. Be authentic. As
Sandro Forte said, “Be great at being you.”
Another FUNdamental of leadership is empowerment.
Humor can be a tool or a weapon. It can build up or tear
down. It can be used to uplift and empower others. And it
can oppress them. It can be used to establish your author-
ity—or it can take it away.
One famous leader who is remembered decades after his
death is Winston Churchill. His sharp tongue was known
as both a tool and a weapon. One famous verbal duel was
between the prime minister and the first woman of parlia-
ment, Lady Astor. Their dislike for each other was no secret.
She commented to him, “If I were your wife I’d poison your
coffee,” to which Churchill replied, “And if I were your hus-
band, madam, I would drink it.”
Savvy leaders use humor to uplift followers. They prac-
tice humor that makes others feel included. They practice
humor that fosters creativity. They avoid put-down humor
©Million Dollar Round Table
Lead with Levity: Strategic Humor for Leaders 363
that belittles and makes others feel small. When you think
about it, humor can actually be a means of bullying.
Think about your intention. Is it to empower other peo-
ple, to make them feel good about themselves? In that case,
you’d want to go with an affiliative style of humor—we’re
all in the same boat—or a self-effacing style—poking fun at
yourself. If it’s to empower yourself, you’d choose an edgier
humor—either confrontational or aggressive. These are
varying degrees of put-down humor. They can range from
gentle teasing to hostile comments or jokes.
Practice humor intentionally.
Humor in and of itself is entertainment. The real power
of humor is in the intentional application. That’s where the
magic occurs. When you intentionally apply humor to busi-
ness, you create profitability. When you apply it to health,
you create wellness. When you apply it to education, you
create knowledge. When you apply it to another person, you
create intimacy. When you apply it to a group, you create
community.
Humor, when it happens by chance, is entertaining and
sometimes even beneficial. But if you really want to reap the
rewards of humor in your leadership and sales, you create
the opportunities for humor to happen. This is how you
can catapult yourself from your competition. This is a way
to beat the white noise. Remember: Practice humor not by
chance but by choice.
Functions of Humor in Leadership
If you practice the FUNdamentals of humor, you will reap
benefits in three key areas of your leadership. You’ll be able
to do the following:
1. Build resilience
2. Enhance communication
3. Boost engagement
Resilience
Great leaders understand the important role humor can play
in resilience.
The time was one of the darkest in America’s history—
the Civil War. In a meeting with his Cabinet, President
Abraham Lincoln began reading aloud from a book by one
of his favorite authors, humorist Artemus Ward. At the end
of the chapter, he laughed heartily, while his colleagues
looked upon him stone-faced. He looked at them, put his
book down, and said, “Gentlemen, why don’t you laugh?
With the fearful strain that is upon me night and day, if I
did not laugh I should die, and you need this medicine as
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364 Focus Sessions: Whole Person
much as I do.” One of the greatest presidents in our nation’s
history, Lincoln, understood the power of humor to help
build resilience.
Let’s be real. You and I are not dealing with anything
near the magnitude that Lincoln was dealing with. However,
we’re all faced with some degree of stress: cranky custom-
ers, stubborn employees, a sick family member, budgets,
deadlines, phones, paperwork, a bad-hair day—a no-hair
day—for many of us, a straightjacket may be nearer than
we think!
Cumulative of Bad and Good
Stress isn’t just about the negative things that happen in your
life. Dr. Hans Selye defined stress as the body’s non-specific
response to any demand for change. That can mean changes
for the good and the bad. And it’s not about how big the
change is. Stress is a cumulative effect, so numerous small
changes can create as much stress as one big change.
Affects the Whole Person
Stress affects the whole person. Think back to Adler’s phi-
losophy that MDRT embraces. This includes relationships,
health, education, career, service, financial, and spiritual.
Stress can negatively impact any and all of these areas.
Stress insidiously causes all sorts of health problems that
eat away at your checkbooks and steal from your bottom
line. Did you know that Starbucks spends more on employee
health-related issues than it does on coffee? And that GM
spends more on its employee health-related issues than it
does on steel? “Terminal professionalism” seems to be a sign
of the times—but taking yourself too seriously can have
some nasty side effects.
Stress robs you of your energy. It prevents you from
thinking clearly. It creates tension in your relationships. It
makes you sick. It silently steals from your bottom line. And
it will cause you to die a little sooner.
What’s your definition of stress? Too much to do? Saying
yes when you wish you’d said no? When you could’ve del-
egated to another but decided it was just easier to do it
yourself?
Maybe you can relate to the bumper sticker I saw, “Stress
is the confusion caused when the mind overrides the body’s
natural desire to choke the living daylight out of some jerk
who desperately deserves it.”
Once when I was giving a presentation, I asked the
women in the audience to tell me how they would define
stress. One woman stood up and said, “Stress for women
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is saying yes when we really wish we would have said no.”
Then, a man in the audience stood up. He said, “Well, stress
for men is when our wives say no when we really wish they
would have said yes!” The audience roared with laughter. It’s
really a matter of perspective!
Technically, stress is the body’s response to any demand or
pressure. They can be large or small, fleeting or chronic, and
get this: They don’t have to be a negative thing. Vacations,
holidays, weddings, the birth of a child—those are usually
positive events, but they can still be considered stressors. It’s
not even just a result of big events. It has a cumulative effect.
It builds up over time.
A lot of it comes from within us. Sometimes the stress we
experience is caused by the messages we give ourselves, like,
“If I only had more accounts,” “If I only had a bigger staff,”
or “If I only were as handsome as Mark Hanna.”
Much of the time, stress comes from our external envi-
ronment. It might be the technology we’re forced to deal
with—like the computer that crashes when your report is
due the next morning. Or it might be the people around
us—like the woman who cuts you off in the grocery store
express lane—with 27 cans of cat food!
When I travel around the world and ask people what they
love about their jobs, the number one answer is “people.” “I
love the people I serve.” “I love the people I work with.” “I
love the people.”
Cool!
And then I ask these same folks, “So what keeps you
awake at night? What makes you grind your teeth? What
drives you nuts?” What do you think the number one answer
is? People! The bottom line: It’s our perspective!
As Shakespeare once said, nothing is either good or bad—
it’s thinking that makes it so. What may be great fun for one
guy may be misery for another. When I’m in the Midwest and
I say to school kids, “Six inches of snow,” what kind of response
do I get? “Woo hoo! Snow day! Let’s play!” Then, in that same
community, I can address the street workers, police officers,
and firefighters and say, “Six inches of snow,” and what kind
of response will I get? “Oh, man, what a drag. What a mess.
What a hassle.” Remember: This was the same six inches of
snow. Some folks were delighted and others got depressed.
The trick is learning to twist and turn and play with your
pain so that you can move from the white-knuckle grip of
your steering wheel to a shrug and a smile.
MDRT member Mike Morrow is a great role model for
learning to play with pain. In the period of one year, Mike
experienced a series of delayed and canceled flights that
©Million Dollar Round Table

resulted in his being stranded, missing concerts, and los-
ing luggage.
Mike dealt with the frustrations by writing a funny but
informative editorial in which he concluded, “I’m not wor-
ried about Air Canada suing me since they can’t even find
me.” To top it off, he even had funny T-shirts made up that
read, “Air Canada lost my luggage for 9 days so I bought this
t-shirt. [visual]
Scientists now recognize that when we’re stressed, every
single body system is affected. Think back to a time when
you were pushing the envelope. How did your body let you
know that you were overextending yourself? Sometimes we
suppress or ignore these signals our body is trying to give us.
Someone asks how you are, and you respond, “I’m fine. I’m
fine! I’m FINE!”
I’ve coined the phrase “stress accommodation.” Think of
it this way. When you’re first around someone wearing per-
fume, you notice the smell. But quickly you accommodate or
get used to it, and soon you don’t pick up the scent like you
did when you were first exposed to it. (Years ago, when I was
a nurse, this was a blessing, but I digress.)
I once had an assistant, Nancy, whose husband suddenly
got transferred in his job to a location several states away.
He moved immediately, and Nancy stayed behind trying
to get things in order. One Saturday, I drove her the 100
miles to the airport so that she could join her husband in
finding a home to buy. We hadn’t gone but 15 miles when
Nancy said, “Pull over at that next gas station—I need a
bathroom, pronto!”
After a quick stop, we hadn’t been back on the road 15
minutes when she said, “You better pull over at that next
station. I’ve gotta go again!” We pulled over and then got
back on the road.
You guessed it. About 15 minutes later, she said, “We need
to stop again. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. These last
few days my stomach has gone haywire!”
I said to her, “Don’t worry about it. If I were in your situ-
ation and had the stress you have, my belly would be out of
whack too.”
She looked at me quizzically and said, “Stressed? I’m not
stressed.”
I laughed and said, “Your husband just got transferred
halfway across the country!”
“Yeah,” she responded, “but it’s a great job opportunity.
We’re not stressed about that.”
“OK,” I said to her, “but now you have to move too. I
thought you liked working for me!”
©Million Dollar Round Table
Lead with Levity: Strategic Humor for Leaders 365
“You know I do! But you’ll find someone who’ll do a great
job for you. And I’ll find another job. I’m not stressed about
that.”
“Well, I know your two kids aren’t too thrilled about get-
ting pulled out of school. Especially your son—it’s his last
year of high school!”
“Yeah, but kids are resilient. They’ll make friends fast and
they’ll adapt. We’re not worried about them.”
“Fine. But you haven’t sold your place here, and now
you’re flying three states away to buy another place, and
you’re going to have two mortgages!”
She put her hand to her forehead and moaned, “Oh my
gosh . . . I am soooooooo stressed!”
Think about this for a moment: What signs has your
body been giving you?
Maybe you’ve noticed your heart beating fast. Sometimes
it feels like it’s going to come right out of your chest. Perhaps
you’ve experienced high blood pressure. Stress causes blood
vessels to constrict. This is why one of the quickest indicators
of stress is cold hands.
When we get stressed, our breathing becomes fast but shal-
low. Sometimes we even hold our breath. An executive in
one of my seminars told me that she keeps a sign on her
computer that merely says, “Breathe, my dear.”
From one end to the other, your gastrointestinal system is
sure to get your attention. And there’s nothing like numer-
ous emergency trips to the bathroom to keep that cycle of
stress building!
You’ve probably heard of the fight-or-flight response. Our
bodies are still programmed to react in ways that served us
well when we were cave dwellers—not so much, though,
now that we’re cubical dwellers. I’d be shocked if you told
me that you’ve never experienced muscle tension, like tight
shoulders, a tight neck or back, tension headaches, or even
tight jaws.
A quick indicator of muscle tension is simply the position
of your tongue. If it’s relaxed in the bottom of your mouth,
you’re probably in a state of relaxation. If it’s pressed against
the roof of your mouth like there’s a wad of peanut butter up
there, then you’re probably in a state of tension.
As the stress accumulates, so does the response from
your immune system. Your company notifies you of a new
deadline, moving your project up a week, and you notice
a scratchy throat. Then, your teenager shows you the cost
of the out-of-state tuition she wants you to pay next year
when she goes to college, and now you have a little bronchi-
tis. Your spouse tells you that there was a little fender bender
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366 Focus Sessions: Whole Person
and the car insurance will be going up—and now you’ve got
walking pneumonia. And then you get a notice that you’re
being audited—and the next thing you know, you’re in the
hospital on a ventilator!
Maybe you notice mood swings and irritability: At the end
of the day, you’re so frustrated that you want to go home and
kick the dog, and then you realize—you don’t even have a dog.
It could be anxiety: When we become stressed, we become
anxious. And this, in turn, can lead to things like being dis-
tracted and forgetful. Have you ever had a memory problem?
A participant in one of my programs told me that she knew
she was in trouble when she opened her refrigerator and saw
the box of cereal. The next logical question was, “OK . . .
where’s the milk?!?!?”
Let’s not forget crying. Crying is really very good for you.
(There’s not a big demand for speakers who make people
cry.) It’s just that if you’re crying all the time at work, it starts
to upset the folks around you. You probably don’t want to let
it all out while you’re going over your client’s portfolio with
her. Really—it’s about balance. There’s a time to laugh and
a time to cry.
There’s a classic movie that I recommend to my clients
called Steel Magnolias. If you have seen it, you can fast-for-
ward to the graveyard scene. I am like one of Pavlov’s dogs.
Every time I see Sally Fields crying, I begin crying too. I
can’t imagine anything more painful than what she’s going
through. And when she begins beating her chest and yelling,
“I feel so bad, I just want to hit someone and make them feel
as bad as I do,” and then Olympia Dukakis grabs Shirley
MacLaine and yells, “Here! Hit her!,” in a nanosecond, you
go from crying to laughing. Moments later, Truvy says,
“Laughter through tears is my favorite emotion.”
You might notice a change in your eating patterns. When
some folks get stressed, you may hear them say, “I’m so
stressed that I just can’t eat a thing.” I think I experienced
that—once. But like many folks, when I’m stressed, if it’s
not nailed down, and there’s a fork in my hand, it’s mine!
And if you can dip it in sugar or salt (or both!) all the
better. One of the strangest but best little gifts someone
ever left in my hotel room was a bag of chocolate-covered
potato chips. Sounds gross, but I can devour one of those
bags in a heartbeat!
How about changes in sleeping patterns? Some people,
when they’re stressed, just want to sleep all the time. They
get in bed, pull the covers over their head, and sleep for three
months. Then, there are those of us who lie in bed and watch
the clock throughout the night, eventually bargaining with
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God: “Look, if you’ll just give me five hours, that would be
great.” Then soon, “OK, three hours is doable—just give me
three hours.” Then, “Ninety minutes. Pleeeeeeeeez. I’ve got
to get some sleep!” and finally, “Thirty minutes. You’ve got
to give me 30 minutes!” And then it never fails: Ten minutes
before the alarm clock is due to go off—coma! And when the
clock goes off—aaaaaaiiiiiieeeeeeeeeee! Sheer pain!
What have you noticed socially? When we’re stressed out,
we tend to isolate ourselves. We hang “do not disturb” signs
on our office doors, our front doors, and on all the other
doors in our lives, both physical and mental. Folks ask you
to join them for a bite to eat, and you explain that you have
to go comb the lint from your dryer screen. You’ll make up
any excuse to just be by yourself. “Sorry I can’t join you for
a beer tonight. I have to alphabetize the spices in my kitchen
cabinet.”
So now you recognize stress exists in your life. What are
you going to do about it?
One of my all-time favorite quotes comes from Holocaust
survivor Viktor Frankl. He said, “Between stimulus and
response there is a space. In that space lies our freedom
and power to choose our response. In our response lies our
growth and our happiness.”
Stimulus-response, stimulus-response, stimulus-response.
You get to choose what you put in that space. It could be
exercise. It could be meditation. It could be breathing exer-
cises. Or time management. Or it could be humor. Humor
is power.
Some folks balk at the idea of using humor. They’re afraid
of looking silly. No one has ever died from looking silly. But
people do die from the consequences of stress. And humor is
a safe, a gentle, and an easy way to cope with the curves that
life throws our way.
We know some people (not you, of course!) who deal
with stress in ways that are unhealthy, like smoking, drink-
ing, taking drugs, and overeating, just to name a few. But
humor is recognized as a healthy coping mechanism, reliev-
ing tension and anxiety. It serves as an outlet for hostility
and anger, it provides a healthy escape from reality, and it
lightens heaviness related to stressors.
In 1993, I lived in the Midwest, and we experienced what
was called a “500-year flood.” In some places, the Mississippi
River measured over 11 miles across! Communities along
the entire river experienced flooding, destruction of prop-
erty, loss of homes and jobs, and sometimes even death. Yet
humor marked the will of the people to keep their spirits
afloat, not to be oppressed and depressed by the Muddy
©Million Dollar Round Table

Mississippi. They made jokes about the situation and played
with their pain. One person posted a sign when his home
was submerged that read, “For Sale—Waterfront Property!”
Eventually, I moved to California and experienced the
2007 fires in San Diego, where almost half a million people
were temporarily displaced and thousands lost their homes.
Once again, people used humor to deal with their stress,
pain, and frustration. In front of one home, which had been
reduced to ashes, the owner posted a sign that said, “Fire
Sale! Everything Must Go!”
Let’s talk about how humor can keep you healthier when
you’re stressed. While scientists have been able to prove for
decades all the negative effects stress has on our bodies,
they’re finally demonstrating that humor and laughter have
positive effects on almost every body system.
I want you to think back to the last time that you had
a really good laugh. This doesn’t have to be a real laugh,
because, to tell the truth, your body doesn’t know the differ-
ence between a real laugh and a fake laugh.
Let’s look first at your cardiovascular system. Laughing
is great exercise for your heart. When you laugh, your heart
rate and blood pressure go up, but then they come back
down below your normal baseline. And some studies indi-
cate that the longer you laugh, the longer they remain below
baseline. To a point, obviously!
According to my friend and colleague Dr. William Fry,
who was a leading researcher in the field of psychoneuro-
immunology, laughter provides an excellent cardiovascular
workout. He discovered that two minutes of belly laughter
was the equivalent of 10 minutes on a rowing machine.
So did you get up and work out on your rowing machine
this morning? Maybe you ran or went swimming? Or maybe
you’re like many of us who are proud owners of expensive
sweater hangers also known as stationary bicycles, tread-
mills, and elliptical machines.
Some folks are skeptical about two minutes of belly
laughter producing such incredible results. Can you remem-
ber a time that you actually belly laughed for two minutes?
Wasn’t it just the most cathartic experience? If you haven’t
done it in a while, I recommend that you start slowly and
work your way up!
As for your respiratory system, while you’re laughing,
you’re actually increasing your respiratory exchange. Maybe
when you laugh, you even begin to cough a bit. Whether
you’re a smoker, or you have a slight cold or respiratory ail-
ment, or you’re so stressed that you just haven’t had a deep
breath in a really long time, now you’re pulling air deep into
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Lead with Levity: Strategic Humor for Leaders 367
your lungs and forcing it out at what’s been clocked at up to
70 miles an hour!
OK—now your gastrointestinal system: When we laugh,
we contract our abdominal muscles. Norman Cousins, the
guy who wrote Anatomy of an Illness, called this “internal
jogging.” Sluggish intestines can cause problems with
digestion and constipation. Wake those intestines up with
a good laugh!
As for your immune system, scientists are making some
exciting discoveries regarding humor and the immune sys-
tem. For example, studies reveal that there’s an increase in
something called immunoglobulin A. This is something
that fights respiratory infections. Also, there’s an increase in
the number and activity of natural killer cells. These cells
attack viral infected cells and some types of cancer cells and
tumors. There’s also an increase in activated T cells (a type of
white blood cell) as well as an increase in gamma interferon
and an increase in immunoglobulin G and complement C.
What that means is that humor and laughter seem to be
producing some very positive effects on our immune systems.
While they’re not replacements for traditional medicine,
they can be considered a positive complement to traditional
medical treatment.
I’ll let you in on a secret. During cold and flu season, I’ll
go into the garage and hide in my car. Then, I laugh for two
to three minutes. All by myself. I look like a nutcase. But I
haven’t had a serious cold in over 10 years.
And remember a while ago when I mentioned that humor
affects your brain? When we laugh, we get an increase in
something called catecholamines. This results in improved
levels of alertness and memory as well as enhanced learning
and creativity. And in these times when we’re being asked to
do more and more with less and less, who couldn’t benefit
from some increased creativity? (Have you ever worked with
people who wouldn’t recognize a creative idea if it got up
and wiggled in their face?) Humor lends itself to creative
thinking.
I remember a woman who told me a story about her
daughter who was in second grade:
My little girl is so smart—she is gifted. But
we come from a small, rural community that
doesn’t have special programs for gifted kids.
So she gets bored—and gets in trouble—a
lot. She’s always bringing home notes from
the teacher. The other day I happened to
see that her teacher had taken a red pen and
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368 Focus Sessions: Whole Person
circled one of the problems on her math
homework sheet and put a big question
mark next to it. The math problem went like
this: “There are 32 students in the classroom.
17 of them are boys. How many of them are
girls?” Her answer: “The rest of them!”
Too bad her daughter didn’t get extra credit for her cre-
ative response! And it’s too bad that most of us have lost the
creativity we had as kids, but humor is a great way to recap-
ture and enhance our creativity. Note: When dealing with
the IRS (audits?), use creativity with discernment!
OK, last let’s look at our skeletal-muscle system. When we
laugh, our skeletal muscles go into a state of contraction, and
then they go into a state of relaxation. While you’re experi-
encing true mirthful laughter, your muscles relax! Have you
ever seen a little kid rolling back and forth on the floor in a
fit of giggles—too weak to stand up? Or seen a student laugh
so hard that he fell out of his chair? Or maybe someone told
you a joke, and you laughed so hard, you had to lean over
and hang onto your desk because your stomach muscles
went weak with laughter. In truth, this weakness is happen-
ing to some degree all over your body. And if the laughter
(and weakness) become extreme, it can become detrimental.
Have you ever laughed so hard that it became detrimental?
My favorite evaluation in my 20-plus years of speaking
came from a woman in the Pacific Northwest. She wrote,
“You made me laugh so hard, tears ran down my leg!” Wow!
Now that’s relaxed!
Humor affects positively all areas that stress affects nega-
tively. My friend and colleague, Dr. Lee Berk, one of the
leading psychoneuroimmunologists in the world, said, “If
we took what we now know about laughter and bottled it, it
would require FDA approval.”
But to get the benefits of humor, to not just cope with
your stress but to build resilience, you need to practice
humor on a regular basis. You need to create a humor habit.
Think of it this way. If you were going to run a marathon,
you wouldn’t decide the night before that you ought to begin
training and search for a treadmill. It’s the same with humor.
Don’t wait for a crisis to arise. Begin building your band-
width with regular doses of humor every day.
Take an action step. Seek at least 15 minutes of humor
daily. Work your way up to 30 minutes. Whether it’s some-
thing funny on your TV or your computer or your phone,
it doesn’t matter. It could be another person who makes you
laugh. It could be a comedy club. The source doesn’t matter.
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Get creative and find something that will work with your
schedule and your humor style.
Communication
The earliest of human communications is smiling and
laughing.
Do you have little babies? Have you been around some-
one else’s baby? How many of you ever were a baby? If you
look at this photo, you can see that the earliest form of com-
munication is happening. [visual]
We do everything we can, including making idiots of our-
selves, to get babies to smile and laugh. And when they do,
we make even bigger idiots out of ourselves. The baby real-
izes, even preverbal, When I do this [smile/laugh], she does that.
This is stored in the most primitive part of our brain. So
it is the first thing we learn. And it is the last thing we forget.
Smiling, laughter, humor—these are crucial tools in your
communication toolbox. If you intentionally use these, you
can transform relationships. And if you can transform rela-
tionships, how could that affect your business? Your bottom
line? Your life?
I love the quote by Robert McCloskey. He said, “I know
that you believe you understand what you think I said, but
I’m not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I
meant.”
It was a cold winter afternoon in Hannibal, Missouri,
in 1960. My best friend in preschool, Jill, sat quietly in her
small wooden chair while the rest of us pulled on our coats,
mittens, and boots, preparing to go home.
“What’s wrong, Jill?” said Mrs. Sealy, our loving but firm
preschool teacher. “I can’t get these boots on,” said Jill, look-
ing up at the teacher with her big doe eyes.
Mrs. Sealy knelt on the floor and began pushing rub-
ber snow boots over Jill’s shoes. She huffed and puffed and
puffed and huffed, her face getting redder as she struggled to
get the boots to go on.
Reluctantly, the first boot finally went on. Finally, with
one last shove, she got the second boot on and with a sigh
said, “Boy, your boots barely fit you.”
Jill looked up at her and simply said, “These aren’t my
boots.”
Mrs. Sealy’s mouth dropped open and then, rather
brusquely, pulled the boots off her feet. She held the boots in
the air looking at the rest of us. “Whose boots are these?” she
asked, her frustration showing.
Jill looked up at her and simply said, “They’re my
brother’s.”
©Million Dollar Round Table

Mrs. Sealy’s face went from red to white as the realization
struck her as to what had just happened.
Mrs. Sealy plopped back on the floor and with new deter-
mination, pushed and shoved and huffed and puffed, and
then, when the first and finally the second boot acquiesced,
she said triumphantly, “There! Now, young lady—where are
your mittens?”
Jill looked up at her and simply said, “They’re in the
boots.”
George Bernard Shaw once said, “The biggest problem
with communication is the illusion that it has taken place.”
When you use humor purposefully and mindfully in
your communication, you can capture your listener’s atten-
tion. Going back to the brain discussion earlier, humor and
laughter trigger neurochemicals that increase levels of alert-
ness and improve memory.
The primary ways that humor plays a role in leadership
include these:
• Negotiation
• Conveying information
• Persuading/influencing
• Diffusing tension
Let’s take a quick look at each of these.
First, let’s look at negotiation. You are negotiating on
a daily basis. It might be with a client, a colleague, an
employee, a boss, even a family member. Whether you’re
trying to influence a client to make an important invest-
ment, get a vendor to give you a better price, or convince
your 5-year-old that it really is bedtime, you are constantly
negotiating with others to reach a (mutually beneficial)
agreement. Studies have shown that when two parties are
negotiating, the party that injects humor is more likely to get
what he or she is negotiating for.
Humor can put negotiators at ease, it can introduce a
difficult issue, it can foster togetherness and team spirit, it
can help a negotiator save face, and it can be a way of being
cooperative in spite of disagreement.
Once when I was negotiating with a potential client over
the phone, it became obvious that the budget was a delicate
topic. I could feel the tension rising, and when he posed the
question, “How much is this going to cost me?,” I wanted to
reduce the tension.
I paused and said, “Are you sitting down?” He laughed,
and from that point, the conversation about money went
smoothly.
Those four little words, spoken in just the right tone of
voice, have helped me close dozens of deals over the years.
©Million Dollar Round Table
Lead with Levity: Strategic Humor for Leaders 369
How can humor help convey information? Have you ever
had a time when someone didn’t read your email, or your
memo, or listen to your presentation? When you are trying to
share information with people, humor is a great way to get their
attention, hold their attention, and help them to remember.
There are tons of ways to inject humor into your com-
munications to drive people to your content.
You can insert humor into your emails. I keep a docu-
ment of quotes handy and have them tagged for appropriate
occasions. For example, when someone makes a request and
needed it yesterday, I insert the quote from Douglas Adams
that says, “I love deadlines. I love the whooshing sound they
make as they fly by.” I also keep a file of memes in Dropbox
to add to an email. You can find memes on lots of websites,
and you can even create your own.
When I’m working with sales professionals, we explore
ways to take a boring, standard email and create something
that will catch people’s eyes and bring a smile to their lips.
You can insert humor into your memos. Cartoons and
illustrations increase the likelihood that someone will at least
look at your memo. And, if you can, weave in a funny exam-
ple, a Top 10 list, a quote, a joke, song lyrics—you get the
idea. Turn the learning experience into a game. One group
I consulted with created a Quiz Bowl to get its staff to learn
new protocols. The group enjoyed it so much that it became
an annual event. Another group created a game show with
prizes of unspeakable value. When it’s humorous and fun,
people are more likely to read and to retain.
A word of caution: When you use humor in written com-
munications, avoid sarcasm unless the reader knows you very
well. When people can’t hear your tone of voice, humor can
be misconstrued.
You can put humor into your presentations, whether it’s
one-on-one or one to ten thousand. You can do this with
funny stories. Stories are my personal favorite form of com-
municating with humor. As I’ve presented at MDRT in
other countries, I’ve found that stories transcend borders
and languages. What’s most personal is most universal.
Start keeping some kind of file or journal of stories as they
come to you, stories about your childhood, your kids, your
parents, growing up, your first job, your most embarrassing
moments. These stories will strengthen your connection with
others, and stronger relationships will enhance your leader-
ship experience, boost your sales, and build your business.
When sharing your message, you can use images and
visuals. You can use props. You can use facial expressions
and gestures, and even your voice.
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370 Focus Sessions: Whole Person
So often it’s not what you say but how you say it.
For example, “I see you haven’t introduced me to anyone
in a couple of years. What’s going on?” When you read that
statement on paper, it’s not funny. But when you hear Sandro
Forte playfully ask a client for a referral, he’s asking tongue
in cheek, and it’s humorous in the way it comes across.
I want you to think about how you can create a humor
habit. What will transform your leadership and sales is tak-
ing action. So review the various ways that you communicate
with others. How could you intentionally put more humor
into those communications?
Now let’s talk about persuading and influencing with
humor. Humor increases likability, increases trust, and
builds rapport, which makes it a great means of influenc-
ing and persuading. Don’t believe me? Take a look at how
many of the leaders in the United States work diligently to
appear on late night television, such as the Leno, Letterman,
and Jimmy Fallon shows, and Saturday Night Live (Trump,
Clinton, Barack and Michelle Obama, Reagan, Clinton,
Bush, and many more). In a recent discussion on CNN
regarding politicians, Judy Gold, comedian/writer/producer,
said that “The biggest honor is to be made fun of on Saturday
Night Live. You’ve arrived.” Those who appear on the show
are seen to have more political influence that those who don’t.
A leader who uses humor conveys confidence. A leader
who uses humor conveys a sense of trust. A leader who uses
humor creates likability. Your clients and your potential
clients are wondering, Do I associate with this person? Do I
trust this person? Are they like me? Using humor purpose-
fully, mindfully, and strategically can be one of your greatest
means of influencing and persuading others.
I’ll never forget meeting Jennifer Murphy, the CFO and
COO of the National Association of Health Underwriters.
When she handed me her card, I saw that an additional title
was “CHO: Chief Humor Officer”! How cool is that? When
I asked what advice she would give for aspiring humor lead-
ers, she said, “It takes confidence and a willingness to be a
little bit vulnerable. Work on it. Hone it. Be deliberate.”
It’s that little bit of vulnerability you show when you use
humor that evokes trust. People feel safer with a person who
shows some vulnerability (to a point, obviously!), and they’re
more likely to share their own vulnerabilities as well. That’s
part of building trust. All too often, leaders and sales pro-
fessionals believe that they should only project this perfect
image that is unemotional, impersonal. Somewhere along
the line, and I wish I knew where and when, people began
confusing professionalism with solemnness.
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Last, there’s diffusing tension. One of my favorite uses of
humor is to diffuse conflict to deal with difficult people.
When dealing with antagonistic people, you have four
basic choices: You can respond seriously, refuse to respond,
pretend to respond, or diffuse with humor.
The object is not to get people laughing so hard that they
don’t notice your escape. Instead, reframe the situation and
eventually meet the other person’s needs.
Attorney and author Malcolm Kushner identifies some-
thing he calls the “Hostile Question.” It’s when people throw
out an aggressive question, not because they want an answer
but because they want others to know they’re upset.
You’ve all experienced them. Questions like “Who died
and made you boss?” or “Whose budget is this coming out
of?” You can respond in one of the four ways I just men-
tioned. But let’s take a look at how you could diffuse with
humor.
Think about what hostile questions you may have heard.
Here’s your action item: Create a list of potential humorous
answers, at least 10. The first several will be absolutely hys-
terical, but they may get you fired . . . or arrested!
I’m not trying to get you into a power struggle. Keep
pushing yourself to come up with one more until you find
one that will diffuse, not further incite.
Here’s a tip—this works well as a group exercise. You can
have fun and creative by doing this with a small group.
One of the managers at a retreat I facilitated said that
when he would present his requests for supplies and such at
the quarterly meetings, his boss would always chastise him
with “and whose budget do you think this is coming out of?”
He worked on this for a bit and came up with a humorous
response: “Who’s not here?” (This is best pulled off with an
exaggerated glance around the room.)
One time, one of my participants was a police officer who
always got chastised when he wrote someone a ticket. The
hostile question fired at him was “What? You have to fill a
quota today?”
After playing with a list of responses—and he had quite a
list—the audience’s favorite was, “Yep. One more ticket and
I get a box of donuts!”
Don’t underestimate how powerful humor can be in
defusing conflict.
October 1962—The world held its breath as America and
the Soviet Union went to the brink, with nuclear weapons at
the ready. The Soviet Union was installing nuclear missiles
in Cuba, a mere 90 miles from the Florida coast. The 13-day
crisis played out in real time on TV around the world.
©Million Dollar Round Table

As American and Soviet delegates came together to
negotiate, tensions were high, and they soon became dead-
locked. And then, a Russian delegate told a joke: “What
is the difference between capitalism and communism? In
capitalism, man exploits man. In communism, it is the
other way around.”
Delegates on both sides laughed and this created a bond
among all of them. (Hey, ya gotta start somewhere!) With the
tension eased for the moment, talks resumed, and eventually
a deal was struck that avoided blowing up the planet—no
small feat!
Humor is power.
Like any investment, humor carries with it a calculated
risk. However, I have four techniques that I’ve honed over
the years that can truly prevent 99 percent of potential
land mines of humor blowing up in your face. The other 1
percent you can’t control however careful you are, because
some people are just—well—crazy! And no matter how
careful you are or what you say, they’re going to apply
their own filter and find a way to be offended. So here
you go.
Think of them as B.E.S.T. practices. OK, this acronym
works in English. The rest of you may have to develop your
own pneumonic. Whatever you have to do, get these four
techniques engrained in your head:
B is for Bond.
E is for Environment.
S is for Safety.
T is for Time.
Bond
Let’s take a look at bond—also known as relationship and
rapport.
The stronger your relationship and rapport are with the
recipient of your humor, the more successful you’ll be. How
well do you know one another? Is there a mutual percep-
tion of the connection between the two of you? This is the
most common land mine, because the biggest misassump-
tion we make is that others think and believe similarly to
the way we do waaaaaaay more than is the case. And when
we misjudge, we increase the likelihood of offending the
other person.
If someone knows you well, an offensive piece of humor
will most likely be forgiven. But if it’s someone you don’t
know well, don’t take unnecessary risks.
I learned this painful lesson early on in my speaking
career. I attended the company mixer the night before my
©Million Dollar Round Table
Lead with Levity: Strategic Humor for Leaders 371
speech so that I could get to know my audience better. As
I mingled, I asked the attendees for examples of humor in
their office. One gentleman pointed over to one of the VPs
and said, “Dick Branson has a great sense of humor. He’s
always poking fun at himself, especially his big nose. If you
can work that into part of your routine, he’ll love it.”
I never got around to actually chatting with Mr. Branson
that evening (can you see this train wreck coming down
the pike?), but the next morning, I specifically worked in a
piece about clown noses and asked Mr. Branson to come up
and do a little exercise with me. I handed him a red sponge
nose and asked him to put it on. He complied but when
he got back to his seat, his body language was screaming,
“Houston, we have a problem!”
After the program was over, Mr. Branson came up to me
and asked if he could speak to me alone. Trying to do some
damage control, I began by saying, “I sure appreciate what a
great sense of humor you have.”
“I don’t really,” he replied, shaking his head. “Especially
about my nose—that’s a very sensitive subject for me.” He
did let me off the hook just a bit by adding, “I know you’ve
been set up, and I know who set you up. I’ll take care of it.”
And then he walked off leaving me to wallow in my shame
and misery. Oooouuuuch!
How strong is your relationship with that other person?
Don’t assume! When in doubt, leave it out. Or go to self-
effacing humor—poke fun at yourself. As your relationship
grows, your humor can be riskier. But if you try to skip steps
here, you may risk damaging a relationship, or even destroy
it completely.
Environment
Anyone who sees your humor, hears your humor, or par-
ticipates in your humor is part of your humor environment,
regardless of whether or not that was your intention.
So if you share a risqué joke with a close pal at the dinner
table, but a colleague at the next table overhears you—still
your environment. If you send an email that’s off-color to a
good friend and he forwards it to someone else (with your
name still attached), again, still your environment. This
has become problematic for some folks in social media who
haven’t thought this through.
I was visiting with a millennial who had posted a sick
joke on her Facebook page. In fairness, she only had close
friends in her group. However, one of her friends “shared”
it to her own page, and in her group was the first young
woman’s supervisor. When the supervisor saw the humor,
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she called the young woman into the office and let her know
that her actions were not in compliance with the company’s
philosophy. And she was fired.
The humor you share may be just right for the intended
audience, but if it isn’t appropriate for your entire audi-
ence, then move forward only if you’re willing to accept the
consequences.
Safety
When sharing your humor, think about whether or not
someone could be hurt physically or emotionally.
Time
There are two aspects of timing to keep in mind. The first
has to do with the manner in which you tell the humor.
It’s such a drag to listen to someone drone on and on,
jumping back and forth in the story, and then massacre
the punch line. Some people are naturals at joke telling.
For others, it’s an acquired skill. If it doesn’t come eas-
ily to you, practice your joke aloud, at least seven times.
Then, go out and share it at every appropriate opportu-
nity. If jokes aren’t your bag, no problem. We all have an
abundant resource of funny stories that happened to us, a
coworker, a friend, or a family member. Practice telling the
story out loud, and cut out any parts that aren’t crucial. As
Shakespeare so wisely said, “Brevity is the soul of wit.” In
other words—keep it short! There’s a direct ratio between
length of humor and the expected payoff. Short remarks
or one-liners don’t have to be hysterical. The payoff can be
just a smile. But if it’s long, your story better be hysterical
or folks are going to fry you!
The other aspect of timing has to do with the relation-
ship of the humor to an event. When we’re children, our
experience of humor comes from joy and delight. However,
by the time we’re adults, a good amount of our humor comes
from pain and discomfort. It might be ours or it might be
somebody else’s.
Think about it. When was the last time you laughed
about having a perfect client? A hot, new car? A big, fat com-
mission check? (Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!!) We laugh about the
things that drive us crazy—that cause us pain.
Mel Brooks once said, “Tragedy is when I cut my finger.
Comedy is when you walk into an open sewer and die.” And
that’s because time allows us to emotionally detach from our
discomfort. The tricky part is that you have to use discern-
ment. Sometimes, a person can emotionally detach almost
instantly. Sometimes, it may take a few hours. Or days. Or
Annual Meeting Proceedings | 2017
weeks. Or maybe it’s so painful that it takes years—if ever—
to be able to find the humor in the situation.
A certain amount of time needs to elapse, however, before
we see the humor in the situation. (Have you ever said to
yourself, Someday I’m gonna laugh about this?)
It was Saturday afternoon, and I was at the movies with
my young sons to see a comedy film about a cop and his
canine companion. The three of us made our way to seats in
the middle of the packed theater and became engrossed in
the story. As we neared the end of the movie, it looked like
the dog was going to die. People were holding their breath,
gripping their armrests, blinking back tears, and you could
have heard a pin drop on that icky-sticky floor . . . when out
of the dark silence, my five-year-old, Adam, leaped out of his
seat and announced to me and the entire theater, “I’ve got an
M&M stuck up my nose!”
While a few people started to turn their heads, I did
something in the darkness of the theater that only a mother
would do: I attempted to snag the M&M with my pinkie.
Immediately, we both realized that it was lodged so far up
his nose that it was about to fall into his brain. He began to
cry. More people started to turn around. I needed a plan but
didn’t have one.
So, without thinking, I held my hand in front of his
face and demanded, “Blow into Mommy’s hand.” He blew.
Nothing happened.
He began crying harder and wailed, “It’s still stuck!” I
needed a better plan. “Blow harder!” I demanded, now start-
ing to feel panic creep in. Now everyone started to turn
around. No one cared anymore if the dog was going to die—
the real drama was happening live in the theater.
My life began flashing in front of my eyes; I was an ER
nurse, and I was remembering all the parents who would
rush into the emergency room, child in tow, claiming
emphatically, “I only turned my back for a minute. I’m a
good parent. I don’t know how that [take your pick: jelly
bean, Lego block, Barbie doll head] got stuck up her nose!”
And I would smile sympathetically at the parent and then
mouth to my colleague, “Call Family Services.” Now the
tables had turned.
So I turned to Adam and explained, “Mommy’s going
to put her finger on the other side of your nose. And then
I want you to blow really hard.” I pressed my finger against
the opposite nostril, held my hand in front of his face, and
shouted, “Blow!”
Adam took a deep breath, and then at about 317 miles per
hour, a slimy green M&M flew out of his nose and lodged
©Million Dollar Round Table

itself into the palm of my hand! While I sat pondering about
what to do with the toxic waste that was in my possession, I
felt something lightly brush my palm and then heard Adam
say, “Hey—that’s mine!”
Believe it or not, it took quite a while before I could laugh
about that event. A certain amount of time needs to elapse
before we see the humor in the situation. You may see humor
in a situation right away, but the other person might not. It
gets a little tricky sometimes, as the amount of time required
for each person varies. When in doubt, let the other person
signal the all clear.
Engagement
A company that plays together stays together.
For instance, it was time again for the dreaded safety cer-
tification at Cosmoflex, a plastic pipe manufacturer in the
Midwest. A boring and laborious task, right? Wrong! Thanks
to the ingenuity of a couple leaders, employees took part in a
certification process like none before. The creative solution?
Forklift Rodeo—no bull!
Outside the plant, a course involving all the necessary
skills for using a forklift was laid out: Exercises like “Loaded
Figure 8,” “Stack and Back,” and “Ram and Jam.” The safety
committee judged and assigned points to the employees
individually and as teams, based on knowledge, accuracy,
speed, and safety.
The initial goal was simply to complete certification for all
the employees. When I asked if there were any unexpected
benefits, the leadership team agreed: They were surprised by
the amount of enthusiasm, the improved communications,
and the contagious effect of positive attitudes.
The downside? “Just that the employees didn’t want to
return to their posts—they wanted to stay and watch their
coworkers compete.”
When tasks at work are boring or laborious, people are
likely to check out mentally and maybe even physically. How
do you get folks to participate? The two fundamental motiva-
tors behind everything we do are pain and pleasure. So you
could force people to participate in activities by threatening
them. Or you could entice them to take part by making the
task more fun. Now you may be thinking, But you don’t
understand. There’s no way you can make [fill in the blank] more
entertaining. That’s what most people would’ve said about the
safety certification process at a manufacturing plant. But with
some creativity and ingenuity, leaders at Cosmoflex proved
them wrong. They understood that when activities include
laughter and fun, people are more likely to participate.
©Million Dollar Round Table
Lead with Levity: Strategic Humor for Leaders 373
Create a humor habit. Can you think of some activi-
ties or tasks that cause people to drag their feet when you
try to get them involved? These might be tasks involving
committee work, volunteerism, continuing education,
or work competencies. How could you incorporate more
humor, laughter, and fun? When you eventually imple-
ment your idea, I have no doubt that you’re going to
see just how much more engaged and involved people
become.
Best Practices
• Be authentic.
• Be proactive.
• See funny.
• Have your end result in mind.
• Anticipate and prepare.
• Be consistent.
• Avoid land mines.
• Stretch out of your comfort zone.
• Listen beyond the laughter.
• Become a student of humor.
• Lighten up.
Find the humor around you. It’s abundant. I promise.
With just a little bit of investigation, I was able to find mate-
rial just waiting to be discovered. For instance . . .
The work you do for clients is truly amazing. You
advise people how to invest gazillions of dollars! People
trust you. This is serious stuff! It’s no wonder you use
so many sophisticated analytical tools and economic
indicators: stock prices, interest rates, housing starts,
retail sales—the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the
Consumer Price Index. But you already know all that. I’m
here to share some new information and resources with
you. I have three new economic indicators that you prob-
ably don’t know about.
First, are you familiar with the Skirt-Length Index?
Yep, that’s the Skirt-Length-Index. Now, this is not a joke!
According to Business Insider, the Skirt Length Index is a
predictor of the stock market direction. The data reveals a
positive correlation between women’s hemlines and stock
prices: When skirts are short, it means the markets are
going up. And if skirts arelong, it means the markets are
heading down.
The concept, introduced by a University of Pennsylvania
Wharton professor, is that shorter skirts are popular in times
when consumer confidence and excitement are high, mean-
ing the markets are bullish. Longer skirts are popular when
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374 Focus Sessions: Whole Person
consumers are fearful and lacking in confidence, indicating
the markets are bearish.
Folks, there is humor around you that is ripe for the picking!
Are you ready for the next economic indicator? It’s the
Beer Consumption Index.
According to a study by Ernst & Young, this index shows
that declining beer consumption may be contributing to the
European debt crisis. Europeans are saving money by drink-
ing at home rather than in pubs, which is costing jobs in the
hospitality industry and is depressing tax revenue. In addi-
tion, when beer consumption goes down, governments also
collect less sales tax on beer sales.
Now, this all may be true and factual and verifiable. But
it’s also funny—right?! The Beer Consumption Index?!
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OK, just one more—and I promise I’ll keep it short. In
case you haven’t heard, there is a new leading indicator of the
state of the economy based on one highly specific segment of
jobs. It’s called the Hot Waitress Index. Yes, you heard me
correctly—the Hot Waitress Index.
This index recognizes the relationship between the attrac-
tiveness of restaurant waitresses (and waiters) and the state of
the economy. According to New York magazine, the hotter
the waitress, the more poorly the economy is likely to per-
form. I am not making this stuff up.
Unfortunately, I don’t have time right now to explain
exactly how this important economic indicator functions—
but if you really want to know more about the Hot Waitress
Index, I’m here all week. Let’s discuss.
©Million Dollar Round Table