Beyond Busy #86 with Jennifer Aaker and Naomi Bagdonas
Graham Allcott 0:04
This is beyond busy. The show where we talk productivity, work life balance, defining happiness and success. All the big questions for work and life. My name is Graham Allcott. I'm your host for the show. And on this episode, it's too for the price of one because I've got Jennifer Aaker and Naomi Bagdonas. They are the authors of a book called Humour, Seriously, more of which in a moment. 6So before that, just a quick reminder that the tickets for my 6 Weeks to Ninja evening programmes have just gone on sale. So if you go to Eventbrite, you can just type in 6 Weeks to Ninja or go to the GrahamAllcott.com website, and you can see it on there. Basically, it's six weeks evening course UK time, Thursday evenings, and I'm going to be kicking your productivity into shape. Basically, deliberately small group, if you're interested in that, check it out. Eventbrite or grahamallcott.com. We'd love to have you there. I think there's a couple of the early bird tickets are still available. And there's a few of the full price tickets left. So go and check that out. So let's get into this episode. This was a lot of fun to do, I think you're gonna really enjoy this one. So the book is called Humour, Seriously. Why humour is a superpower at work and in life. And yeah, just such an underrated trait to really help you build relationships, build trust. And of course, you know, when you have relationships and trust, a lot of productivity comes from that. So I think it's a really important skill for anyone in business. So just a quick note about our guests. So Jennifer is a behavioural psychologist. She's an author, and she is the General Atlantic Professor at Stanford Graduate School of Business. And Naomi is also a Stanford lecturer, but is also a professionally trained comedian. She does improv and stand up and as well as work as a strategy media consultant, as well. So these are two very funny women, we had a really just a really fun hour on zoom, just chatting about this book, and talking about some of the real benefits to humour and you know, levity in the way that we speak and the way that we act and the way that we build relationships. So there's just loads to take away from this, some really interesting little tips and tricks. So let's get straight into the episode.
Here is my conversation with Jennifer and Naomi.
So I've done a bit of training in improv comedy before, every night,
Naomi Bagdonas 2:45
long form or short form,
Graham Allcott 2:47
both but I did long for musical as well. And a lot of fun. And you know, so I have a friend who is in the thing in the UK called showstoppers. You know, showstoppers?
Naomi Bagdonas 3:00
I heard that.
Graham Allcott 3:01
Yeah, so it's in the west end here. And I think it may have been over to Broadway. But yeah, they just they do improvised entire musicals from scratch, with very high production values as well. That's the impressive thing about it, like huge sets and bring up bring our props and stuff. And it's all just from scratch. And it's like, do you want what musical Do you want this song in the style of, and it'd be like, I want it to be a bit like Hamilton. And they literally know like, every single musical that's in the West End, and like, was this incredible? Yeah. So anyway, one of my friends is in that. And she's also in a thing called the Mae days, which is Brighton and London. Basically, I've done loads of their courses. And they're all kind of people that train with them. They go over to like Second City and IO and get loads of expert tuition and then bring it back to the UK. That's kind of Yeah. So yeah.
Naomi Bagdonas 3:56
Are you personally pretty musical, if you did musical improv?
Graham Allcott 3:59
I saw I used to sing in bands. And I was a singer songwriter for a few years. So I can I can sing and know like, I've got good pitch and things like that. But like, it was still terrifying. For me, it's still kind of so out of my comfort zone, you know, and I've written songs and stuff before, but like writing them on the fly. So yeah, oh, another thing?
Naomi Bagdonas 4:23
Yeah, there's something so I find long form improv to be sort of borderline meditative, where you have a state of flow, nothing can exist outside of this 10 by 10 foot stage and, you know, you, you really have to be present in a way that few other things require.
Graham Allcott 4:41
Yeah, and I find that really tough because I can get in the zone, you know, in that sort of Zen attention thing, but like, I have such a bad memory, then picking up on it. And the thing with the long form is that it's like all those tiny little details and offers and whatever that have gone on Yeah. You have to just have the ball and not forget all the names and all that is that's the thing that really, I'd love to be able to do with pen and paper. But yeah, so I think we'll just jump in, I think were you gonna say something there? Jennifer, before we
Jennifer Aaker 5:13
Yeah, I was gonna ask you, I think this is an appropriate time to ask you to sing. Um, you know, anything Graham, you know, just brush that talent off. And and I think it's, it will probably start this podcast off much, you know, in a strong way. So I wanted to invite you to say,
Graham Allcott 5:34
so welcome to the beyond busy podcast, with Naomi and Jen, if she stopped there.
Naomi Bagdonas 5:45
Wow.
Graham Allcott 5:48
I was just talking about the tune was of that, but I just kind of made up. So let's jump in, shall we? I mean, I'm having fun already. So this is, this is probably a good endorsement for your book. And Jennifer, you just moved to a ridiculous background? Is it just gonna be like, Is it gonna be an hour of surprises for me? Is this gonna be
Jennifer Aaker 6:13
an appropriate reaction to your fantastic? Yes, singing talent. Um, you know, it wasn't exactly the 80s that you were singing but something that came to it.
Graham Allcott 6:24
So, for those of you listening to this on podcast form, Jennifer's got this kind of 80s sci fi Star Wars II. Oh darn it, wait!
Naomi Bagdonas 6:36
wait, pause everything.
Graham Allcott 6:40
And now Naomi's got a kind of geometric, similar styled thing in the background, too. So this is going to be an hour where I'm just constantly surprised and kept on my toes. That's, that's, I think what we've established so far. And so you guys are the co authors of this book, Humour Seriously, which I've been really enjoying. And we're going to talk about humour and levity, and how these things are underrated and very powerful tools in business. Right.
Naomi Bagdonas 7:13
Right. Let's do it.
Graham Allcott 7:15
And the first thing I wanted to talk to you about was your little story of how you guys met. So Jennifer, you asked Naomi to be a guest lecturer. That's right, for a course that you are running at Stanford. And the students were laughing hysterically, while learning about neuro chemical brain systems and factor analysis.
Jennifer Aaker 7:38
Yeah, it was stunning. I gotta tell you, like, imagine yourself at a Stanford Business School classroom, 50 people in the room? The session is supposed to be on how do you leverage story and data together to build empathy in teams to drive growth for companies, she goes into the deep empirical basis, understanding analytics, as well as narrative, and people are on the floor. laughing. It made no sense.
Graham Allcott 8:14
So I have to ask Naomi, then. So how, how deliberate is that? How long does that take to to create that effect? It just seems like such a such a mad scene.
Naomi Bagdonas 8:29
Yeah, once you get really good at interpretive dance, it comes pretty. So I, you know, Jennifer's background, she's a behavioural scientist who's been teaching at Stanford for many years, and studies how meaning and purpose shaped the choices we make and human well being. And I am, you know, come from the corporate strategy world. So corporate strategist, but I've always had a personal passion for for comedy. And so in addition to the the sort of corporate work that I do, I've been doing as you have improv comedy, and some stand up comedy on the side. And to your question about how long does it take, you know, it is our belief that it's a lot easier and more accessible than people think to tap into their sense of humour.
Graham Allcott 9:18
Nice, which we're going to talk a lot more about. That was a lovely segue. So, so you've just give me a little bit of your background there. So you're both at Stanford's? Jennifer, you know, you're also working as a psychologist, and then Naomi doing a lot of work with strategy and media. And so you've come together for this book. And so, so you talk about humour as a superpower. And one of the things that you talk about is that it can help to enhance status and build bonds and defuse tensions. So why do you think it is underleveraged as a tool And and then we'll start to talk about what people can do to really identify their types of humour and make some change. But why do you think? Why do you think it's underleveraged? And why do you think so many people struggle with bringing humour and bringing levity into work as something that can really help them?
Jennifer Aaker 10:18
Well, we find there's a couple of myths that people have about humour. So I'll share one my favourite myth, and maybe we will share another one of the myths that people seem to hold is that if they are doing serious business, and they are serious at what they do, that the role of humour in that work context, not only is not useful, but it actually detracts, actively detracts from your goals at work. And we see this in the data in one of our large scale studies run by Gallup, we show that 1.4 million people when asked the question, did you smile or laugh yesterday? They say yes, around age 18 to 19, 20 to 21, and then around 20 to 23. It plummets. This humour cliff is dramatic. And it doesn't, it doesn't actually shift, it doesn't increase again until they're about 70 or 80. So which is horrifying! That's about 40, you know, way too serious years at mostly at work. And a large part of that is, is driven by this belief that you can't be effective at your job while having levity or humour in it.
Graham Allcott 11:41
And what was this stat that I read? The average four year old laughs 300 times a day. But by the time you're 50, you laugh 300 times every three months? Yeah, that's crazy.
Naomi Bagdonas 11:56
Yeah. So we just, as Jennifer mentioned, people have fallen off the humour, Cliff, and there is this. This devastating lack of laughter in our workplaces, and our workplaces is where humour can be particularly powerful, and especially during times that are harder, and especially during times when we're working remotely. So if you think about when we laugh, our brains released this cocktail of happy hormones, right, we release dopamine, which makes us feel happier, we release endorphins, which makes us slightly euphoric, we release oxytocin, which makes us more trusting, and we lower our cortisol levels, which makes us less stressed. And so what happens when we laugh together, even if we're laughing over screens, is that from hundreds or thousands of miles away, our brains are experiencing this same burst of chemicals. That is that is telling us to connect with one another to trust one another one another more. And it makes these two dimensional interactions, both more intimate, and also more memorable.
Graham Allcott 13:05
Yeah, for sure. And it feels like there's, so you've got a whole chapter where you're, you're sort of busting a whole bunch of myths around why people are struggling with humour or not bringing humour into work. So people are just generally quite serious at certain ages, that that really overlap with the working world. But also people feel like they need to be really funny or that need to be born funny. To to actually bring humour in. So tell us about that. And why is that a myth?
Jennifer Aaker 13:42
Well, actually, I was gonna ask you, Naomi. Um, were you
Naomi Bagdonas 13:47
put you on the spot? Yeah. Yeah.
Crazy.
Jennifer Aaker 13:53
So I've never asked you this question, which is, were you always like in your family known as kind of the funny person? And or were you ever voted, you know, kind of most humorous person in your high school or in any contest whatsoever? It could be a fake contest.
Naomi Bagdonas 14:19
Well, uhm... gosh, Bonnie, I definitely tried to be funny a lot when I was little. And in high school. I was voted class clown, which is basically like homecoming queen. I was essentially voted the homecoming queen.
Jennifer Aaker 14:35
Granted, this is a good time for me to mention that I was voted homecoming queen, because I you know, I don't think there's going to be any other opportunity to like mention that very Old fact in this interview. So go ahead, Naomi.
Graham Allcott 14:51
We've got that on record. Yes.
Naomi Bagdonas 14:54
Yeah, publish that. Just try and publicise that as much as possible. You know, she says on every podcast, she always says I didn't think I would have a way to say this, but
Jennifer Aaker 15:06
it is shocking how easy it is to slip that remarkable.
Naomi Bagdonas 15:10
Um, but I will say, you know your question about growing up, I, I definitely had a proclivity to humour, but I really think that it was my mom's encouragement, I mean, my mother, everything that every little seed of humour that I attempted, she encouraged and said that it was the funniest thing in the world. And, you know, just having this having this constant affirmation of Yes, your sense of humour is a great thing, keep working on that thing. You know, don't let that go away. I think that we, you know, often as kids are growing up and as they're, you know, whether they're getting more serious about schoolwork or getting more serious about the jobs that they're getting we we stop prioritising humour and joy and levity in, you know, in service of efficiency and getting shit done. And the reality is that the two are actually intertwined that when we have more humour and levity and joy, we're more motivated, we're able to accomplish our goals more effectively, we're able to mobilise communities around us. So yes, and it's all because of my mom.
Graham Allcott 16:29
And so you were talking before about the, the neuroscience that, you know, humour produces all these different brain chemicals that are really useful. And then the behavioural science too, is that it includes it like, it really increases people's sense of power, it increases people's bonding with each other creativity, resilience, like huge things that are so useful for building teams. Right, so, so it, there's obviously a real value here. And I so for a good few years, I've been quite an I'm just a geek when it comes to comedy anyway. But for a few years, I've been involved with doing improv comedy myself. And we've ended up getting some of those teachers into our business and actually like working with some of the staff as well, within the business. And I can just totally, you know, backup that behaviour research from just my own experience, just anecdotally, just, in seeing people use humour, even just in the middle of a really silly five minute improv game, just to really bond in different ways to bring different ideas to the table, actually, things that we that kind of started out as little ideas and little improv games have ended up, you know, being really important things in, you know, in the business, and just, you know, just in terms of how people relate to each other, and how people kind of see each other in different ways and stuff. So, it, I've just found it, like, you know, just a particularly huge benefit, like over the years.
Naomi Bagdonas 18:06
Can you give an example? I would love to hear more. Can you think of an example of that?
Graham Allcott 18:11
Yeah, so we've, yeah, I'm trying to think about examples that I can share that don't disclose, like, the personal stuff, basically. But what I will say is that we've had, definitely, we've, we've definitely used it as a way that helps people to establish their personalities within a group. And not just that, but for them to see that the group accepts them for who they are. And, you know, they can sort of play up to that slight characterization of or sort of caricature of, of how they work, and that that's really accepted and valued. And it sort of really helps, I think, to celebrate that, that diversity within the team. And that, you know, a team works well, I think when it's really accepting of difference, rather than trying to recruit five people who are exactly the same to work together.
Naomi Bagdonas 19:12
Absolutely.
Graham Allcott 19:13
Yeah. So this research all points to, you know, obviously human being a really useful, underrated tool that people need to do a bit more of, you talk in the book about there's four different types of comedian, right, four different ways to bring humour into the situation. So do you want to talk about those four different types and like how how they're different some of the examples perhaps of who fits those those different archetypes?
Jennifer Aaker 19:47
Absolutely. So one thing that we find another myth about humour is that no, you're either funny or not, and you were either a funny kid or you weren't or you would find a person in your family or people told you you are That is absolutely untrue. And what's what's interesting is that is that there's there's sort of, it's not that you're funny or not, it's that there's these different humour types. And what's so fascinating is that even when, when people start to understand about these tumour types, they often kind of think of themselves in one way and one way only. But in fact, when we start to talk to our students about these different types, you start to understand the different contexts in which you might mean one direction or not. So Graham, we are going to ask you, which one you think you are predominantly, at least on this podcast, and then what is your shadows style. All right. So here are your four choices. And of course, you're not, you know, monolithic, you're not one all the time. One is the magnet, they're uplifting, they're positive, they have a wholesome sense of humour. They're pretty animated and sometimes even slapstick, and they often smile, and radiate charisma, and they'll laugh often at others humour. The second is sniper. They're the dark, edgy, sarcastic ones, they have an acquired taste. They're dry, often deadpan in their delivery, and they're unafraid to cross the line for a good zinger. And they're discerning with laughter, they don't laugh a lot, you have to earn that laughter. The third is stand up. And they're bold, irreverent and roasting. So they're often thought of as the natural entertainer who enjoys the spotlight, so more extroverted, and they will prank or curse or even ruffle feathers for a laugh, and they tend to have thick skin themselves. And then last is the sweetheart they tend to be earnest and honest, they're more modest, and their sense of humour often or understated, less interested in being in the spotlight, and they may plan their jokes out in advance, and certainly they wouldn't want to use humour that's going to hurt feelings, etc. So A What do you think you are? primarily on the podcast? And two, what is your shadow style?
Graham Allcott 22:12
So the one that I think I am, most generally in life and work is sniper. Mm hmm. Whether I'm a sniper on the podcast, I don't know. I don't know. I think probably. If I use humour in my intros and outros at the end, then it would be generally quite sort of understated deadpan. I like nuance humour, I actually got called out for. I put a joke in my Sunday email list that went out yesterday, and it got slightly misconstrued by someone in my organisation probably can't say too much. That's it, that's a really good example of sniping going wrong, right? Yeah. Where you make these little deadpan, slightly nuanced, subtle jokes. And then sometimes, one of the problems with that is that people can sometimes just take that as serious fact, rather than rather than actually having a joke. So yeah, I definitely think I'm the sniper one. And what was your other question? What's the what? Which one is my opposite?
Jennifer Aaker 23:22
Or your shadow one, like something that you actually value? But not maybe people don't know this about you? So?
Graham Allcott 23:31
Well, I suppose the one that I value in other people the most is probably the magnet thing of just sort of radiating charisma and people who are really upbeat, and, you know, they're just laughing all the time. And I think, because I'm just more introverted than extroverted. I think I just value that as a, as a sort of way of being in the world. And I'm just secretly a bit jealous of it. Like, I definitely find that the people who have taught me improv comedy over the years, for example, tend to a lot of those people are the magnet radiating charisma, they're the people who light up the room. And they they light up the whole sort of hold court and light up the pub in the sort of post lesson drinks that we have, and all that sort of thing. And it's like everybody just wants to kind of be around them all the time. And I sort of feel like that would be a really useful skill set for what I do. But it's probably also the reason that I never do YouTube. Alright,
Naomi Bagdonas 24:39
you bring up such an important point around, you know, the email that you sent earlier, where it can be misconstrued. And especially for snipers and stand ups we find because that sense of humour is a little bit more pointed, but sometimes people can get in trouble for it. And there's also incredible value To be able to flex your style. So since Jennifer interviewed me earlier, I'm going to interview Jennifer. Now we're both interviewing now we're going to read Jennifer, Jennifer, a question for you. Because Jennifer also has some strong sniper tendencies. I'm curious, have you ever over the years, you know, as you were teaching, or in other contexts, have you ever ever found that you needed to flex your style or gotten in trouble for your your sniper style?
Jennifer Aaker 25:34
Yes, I would say definitely. So I like you, Graham, I think my base is sniper. But I do remember every now and then just getting into trouble. And I noticed it what no, like you would you would have a joke, it was often done in an endearing way. But it would have a stink to it. And so especially as I increased in status, you know, moving from assistant professor to associate to full to chair, I noticed that I would alienate 1234 people in the class and, and pretty soon it was at a point where if I did use a sniper joke or a zinger that it would have negative backlash effects. So I pray for, you know, predominantly in public situations and much more, much more of a sort of sweetheart, and or self deprecate in most contexts. So it's definitely changed over time. And Naomi, for sure, that was spurred by just experiencing the negative outcomes. And each of these tumour types have negative outcomes, right? If you think about status, or gender, or you think about reading the room, and understanding the goals you have, when you go into a meeting, or even, you know, having dinner with your kids, and in each of these contexts in your very balanced life, or not balanced life. So depending on how you're doing it all, you're gonna see upside and downside with each of these, and it's going to dynamically change over over your life course as well.
Graham Allcott 27:11
So here's a question then. So if my natural tendency is towards sniper, how do I, how do I work on and develop more, let's say the sweetheart characteristic of being very, you know, all your humour is PG rated, and it's, you know, very, very endearing and doesn't have that bite, and you know, all those things that would actually be really useful to to sort of flex and do differently, what can I do that will help me to broaden out the style of humour that I'm bringing to the table.
Naomi Bagdonas 27:47
One is to recognise that humour exists in the space between you and your audience. So humour does not exist in a vacuum. It's all about the context and the relationship that you have. And so, oftentimes, when people think about using their sense of humour, they think of it as a static thing, this is my sense of humour, no matter where I go, no matter what context I'm in. And the reality is, your sense of humour should shift towards whatever audience you're with, based on how well you know the person what you think their style is. And so when you first start to know someone, having a couple of light hearted comments that are not directed at them, but instead are about a third thing, so you know, gosh, I'm always, I'm always tired on Monday mornings, you know, and making some comment about, about the fact that we're doing this podcast on Monday morning. And well, you know, luckily, I've all feel a lot better after I've had my 12 cups of coffee, right? Totally benign, not very funny, but a little window into levity that lets us interact in a slightly different way. And so I would say Think about it, not necessarily as when do you need to be a sniper when you need to be a magnet? But instead, think about what's the relationship you have with this person? And how do you create these small windows in that feel benign, but allow the two of you to develop a banter together? And then you can show more of yourself have more of your sense of humour?
Graham Allcott 29:20
Yeah, and that comes back to one of the one of the myths that you talked about in the book is, is basically this is kind of what it's named at. But it's something along the lines of people people hang back from, from creating humour in situations because they're really worried about what happens if it backfires, or if it's not funny, and one of the points you make in the book is that as long as the thing that you're attempting to be funny, feels like it's appropriate, then it sort of doesn't matter if it's a bit of a corny joke, or if it's not that funny because it's still creating that much more sort of human interaction. Right.
Naomi Bagdonas 30:00
Yes, exactly. Um, and
Jennifer Aaker 30:03
it's not just because we wrote that, but also we agree for multiple reasons. But you know, it's interesting grant is that for even those who intuitively understand humours power in the workforce, and even even those who know that, you know, the bar is so low, you just have to be not inappropriate. That's all just not inappropriate. And, but few still know how to wield it with intent. And so as a result, humour is still vastly under leveraged in most workplaces. What I think is so fascinating is that, you know, just like the science of story, or, you know, or any science side, the science of humour, and comedy can be broken down in these really, you know, fascinating ways. And what's been fascinating to watch Naomi go through in the last, you know, four or five years since I've known her is her ability, especially to unpack these concrete ways that we can digitally and also, you know, in in, you know, sort of real form, be able to, you know, use that science in very practical ways.
Graham Allcott 31:17
Yeah. And I wondered if you had any wonder if you have like examples off the top of your head for thinking about those four different types of comedians who stand up, snipers sweetheart magnet, can you think of, you know, big, you know, famous American comedians or British comedians that you think would fit those four archetypes really well? Does it work like that even. But I'm just curious to maybe just use that as a way to help people to just get what those differences look like and think about the sort of broad range of comedy in that way.
Naomi Bagdonas 31:53
Yeah, we do. And it's interesting. Some comedians have more public personas versus or have different personas based on what format they're doing. Yeah. You could think of the sniper, for example, actually, I'd be curious who you think, if anyone comes to mind read to those styles?
Graham Allcott 32:11
Well, part of the reason I was asking the question is, I just as you're talking, Jennifer, I was kind of realising how often I think of something really cutting and then I bite my tongue because it's like, no, that's actually just not appropriate. And you know that going over that appropriateness line, but that's because often the comedy that I watch is, you know, Anthony jeselnik or Ricky Gervais' or you know, those kind of very student lead a very sort of caustic, dark, witty comedians, you know, who just with, you know, Sarah Silverman, like there's kind of one line, really dark or four thoughts that you're not really supposed to. So it's like, I think, because I watch a lot of that sort of stuff. It my brain goes there, and then I have to sometimes be really careful to make sure my mouth doesn't go there. So that's why I put down for for sniper but I guess I'm,
Naomi Bagdonas 33:08
you're exactly right. That's what you have as well. Also, Bilborough, Michelle Wolf, Wolf, Daniel Tosh, those kind of people but yeah, you're exactly right on. Okay. What about magnet? I'll give you a couple that we've thought of. Yeah, um, so magnet. We've got Ellen DeGeneres, Jimmy Fallon. Yeah. You know, Conan, a lot of actually a lot of talk show hosts sort of have this natural persona or late night hosts have that natural persona. The sweetheart you could think of taking the Tarot David Sedaris, Dimitri Martin, those types of folks, so more
Graham Allcott 33:45
British runs on? Yeah, I
Naomi Bagdonas 33:47
know, I'm kind of thing. Well, I was thinking that.
I think john oliver is somewhere between Well, what do you think the john oliver is?
Graham Allcott 33:57
That's probably yeah, that's pretty quite a good shot. I wouldn't have thought of john oliver. In that way. He's probably somewhere between sweetheart and sniper, is he?
Naomi Bagdonas 34:05
I would think sniper sniper potentially, maybe stand up as well, you know, because he is pretty expressive. But that's where I would put him British. Yeah. And
Jennifer Aaker 34:17
then you also see like leaders do so for example, Richard Branson, tends to be much more in that kind of realm of stand up, kind of like lights of a room and is not afraid to take centre stage. So you also see, you know, political leaders, you see, you know, corporate leaders and then even just thinking about your own family, you know, your parents, your kids like we've done an analysis because we are a fun family. What are the different styles within our family? One thing that we think is so I think fascinating Graham about your podcast, your book, your work is just this idea of how all So, do you use these different styles? Or use humour more generally? Do you think about obtaining balance in your life or even thinking about what is the role of humour, more generally and time management, and one thing I wanted to share is, you know, Naomi and I've done a little bit of work in this area too. And, and what's fascinating is that, you know, often people feel like time is a scarce resource that they're pressed for time, you know, they're too busy for, you know, sort of superflous or, you know, kind of fun things in life, and you're just trying to get by, and what, in oftentimes, in those phases, humour is one of the first things that goes by the wayside. You don't have time for humour, you don't have time for levity, barely have time to, you know, feed yourself, or shower, etc. And so but what's fascinating is that we show that emotions like laughter, or all have the unique potential for you to change the frame of what you're experiencing the moment and moment be incredibly present. And time expands. So we actually have studies to show that if you show people an incredible picture of you know, you 70, or the London Bridge, you know, something that evokes all that in those moments, your frame shifts, and you kind of altered the way you understand life, because it's so all evoking, and you're very present. And in those moments, literally, people will say that they feel like they have more time on their hands. And when people laugh, too, especially together, it's really kind of a similar thing where you're in the moment you're together. And not only neurologically are users experiencing something shared. But time expands in that moment. There's even one study it was a it was a Norwegian study ran about a decade ago, that shows people that have a sense of humour actually add eight years to their life. Because laughter produces these protective hormones, it regulates blood pressure, it reduces the effects of stress, that can help boost the immune system. And so a sense of humour gives people a 30% better chance of survival when severe disease strikes. So not only in the day to day, but also across your life. humour is really a really remarkable resource to help you think about managing time and living a longer life.
Graham Allcott 37:50
Yeah, there was another stat that I wrote down from the book where it talked about workplace stress being responsible for 120,000 contributing to 120,000 deaths every year. And so obviously, anything that you can do that is going to reduce that work that sense of workplace stress. Yeah, yeah, hugely powerful. And let's think about the real practicalities of some of that, then. So there's a lot there's a, there's a bit in one of the chapters where you talk about two really important principles to, to bring humour, but just for anyone listening to this, who, I mean, I would say to anybody, listen to this, go and go and study and learn comedy. That's a really nice way to experience some of these principles. And you know, doing improv comedy, as I did with the mayor days in London, and Brighton in here in the UK, has been hugely helpful for me. But for people who don't have access to that in their cities, or don't have the time to do that. What are some of the the main principles? What are some of the main tips and tricks that you can give people to really help bring humour into into some of those work situations?
Naomi Bagdonas 39:08
Yeah, well, the two principles you're referring to are truth and misdirection. So this is a common misconception among the executives we work with, and also among our students, is that humour involves sort of inventing something from thin air. And if you think about it that way, it seems really hard. And the reality is that it's more often about simply noticing things that stick out. So mining your life for these oddities and absurdities in the world around you. And first, just looking at truth. So the first tip that I'll give and that we talked about in our book is just observing. So go through your day on the lookout for anything that strikes you as different or surprising, or interesting, and it can be as simple as what I mentioned earlier, right? how everyone's tired on Monday mornings. Super simple observation. There's no humour to it just everyone's tired on Monday mornings. Then once you have those observations throughout your day, you can apply a couple of really simple techniques. So we go through a bunch of them in the book. I'll give three quick examples of exaggeration contrast and rule of three. So let's use that example. Everyone's tired on Monday mornings, earlier, I use exaggeration. I said, Well, everyone's tired on Monday mornings, but it's not so bad after you've had your 12 cup of coffee. Right? Okay, great, a little bit exaggeration, and a tiny bit of humour, you could use contrast. So you could say, I know, everyone's tired on on Monday mornings, but everyone just hang in there. And soon, you'll be extremely tired on Monday afternoon. Again, just a little. And we're using misdirection there too, right? So truth and a little bit of misdirection. Or you could use rule of three, which is simply having a list of two elements. And then the third one is slightly different. So you could say, you know, it's Monday morning, which means that it's time to get your coffee, have a nice breakfast, and scream for a solid minute into your pillow. So that's it, it's really that simple. It's as simple as looking for these observations. And then oftentimes, you don't even need to apply techniques to them. But you can apply a series of these techniques as well.
Graham Allcott 41:18
But that rule of three is so powerful there, because if you just said it's Monday morning, it's time for everybody to scream into the abyss. If someone would just say, what the hell you talking about? Yeah. You know, reach your coffee, and whatever. And that's the third one. Why does the rule of three work? Hmm. Well,
Naomi Bagdonas 41:40
it comes back to Yeah, it comes back to misdirection that we are we're hardwired to create patterns. And the basic principles of comedy, truth and misdirection means that we need to create some degree of, you know, think making people think that you're going to zig and then zagging. So rule of three is a really easy way to create that misdirection inherently right, I'm going to give you a I'm going to give you B, and then I'm going to give you an orange.
Graham Allcott 42:13
Right, yeah. And the truth, part of all of that, I think is, is really interesting, and very, actually very easy to apply. I remember sort of, there was a little while ago, I did a keynote, and I realised that all the biggest laughs that I got were the things where I hadn't actually set up a joke, but I just reacted to the truth of the moment in the room. So all those little things like, so if you're sat there doing a presentation for your colleagues, or you're, you know, on on stage giving a talk, and someone's phone goes off, or someone in the front has to in a really, you know, clumsy way, get out of their seat to go to the toilet or whatever it might be. Just like you like you know that the whole audience are distracted by that thing. And they're focused on that thing. And then, and there's this kind of sense of tension there of like, oh, something's going wrong, because there's things happening. And if you just go, it's going wrong, because of things happening. You don't even have to make a massive joke of it. But just to go to the truth and just put it on the table rather than it being under the table is just such a powerful thing. Once I learned that, yeah, that you don't even need a joke. You just go, oh, someone's phone's going off. And everyone goes, Oh, thanks for that. You know, I can actually, you know, we can breathe again. Because that tension has been diffused.
Naomi Bagdonas 43:33
Yeah, just naming whatever. Yeah, that's exactly right. Yeah. Just simply naming what's going on the other one, that's so so easy, like that is what's called a callback. So you just, if the group has laughed at something earlier, you just make reference to that same thing. And that's it. Right? I would just make reference to the fact that Jennifer's a prom queen, at the end of this call. Yeah, I knew you're gonna go. Yeah, that well. It's her favourite thing that I referenced, I try and make at least five references.
Graham Allcott 44:08
So I guess just playing around with these really simple principles and just adding them in. There's a lovely thing. So Joe, we haven't mentioned so far is that you guys run a course at Stanford in this right. So what I'd love to hear more about that. But there's an exercise that you do on that course where you get people to go through the Sent Items, have their email, and send, send the other person in the little pair that you're working with the last five emails that you can and just look at, and sort of analyse where you might have used humour in those emails where you were, you didn't. So I'd love to hear a bit more about the course but also just about humour with email, and things that people can do that again, real real simple, but just build those relationships
Jennifer Aaker 44:58
I would say on email This has been the most life changing thing for me. When I started working with Naomi about five years ago, there was kind of this rift that she had brought in from Deloitte and her colleague, Brian, about sort of, you know, talking like a human, and not using, you know, basically business jargon bullshit, one of which is best, right? And I would sign off as best all of the time, all of the time. Yeah. And, and, and that small, the small shift away from just anything but best. Anything, it doesn't have to be funny. Just it doesn't know just anything, but best, has enormously shifted the way I react, you know, interact with not just friends, but colleagues. It's been, you know, Grant, like, I don't know, if you noticed, but we sign off all of our emails to you is something, you know, quite intoxicating. Yeah, we are, we literally just signed off something to Matt, who introduced us to you, Graham, was something that was definitely not pG 13. And then had to have like another PS explaining the off colour, sign off. But what we find is if you start or end a message, and it doesn't have to be email, it could be anything. With something with levity, it transforms the nature of the relationship and increases the chance that person will, will actually get back to you in some of our cases with our students, it really changes the chance that they will get a job interview and offer. I'm not joking.
Graham Allcott 46:44
And it's almost like that thing that you often hear when people are talking about best practices for giving talks and public speaking and all that, which is that basically, the only things that get remembered are if you're giving your talk, the first thing you say and the last thing you say. And so that and suddenly sort of the signing off with so some of the ones you had in the book was you know, if you're trying to get something from somebody signing it off with fingers and toes crossed. And then you've got a few other examples here like yours heavily caffeinated, which is a good call back back to our coffee, or sheepishly if you're apologising, just sheepishly chrome or whatever. So having those kind of signups and also using like PS is underneath the message as well. Mm hmm.
Naomi Bagdonas 47:38
Yeah, yeah. P SS are intoxicating. They're often the first thing that people read.
Graham Allcott 47:43
Um, what are your favourite PS is? Do you have some regular ones that you use? Or is it all just in the moment?
Naomi Bagdonas 47:50
No regular ones, Jennifer is the master of P SS. If I if I'm the reason that Jennifer stopped using best Jennifer's The reason that I started using PS, because she is relentless with our P ss, and she will put she has no regard for what she puts in that PS. It could be something it could be a scientific study. That's really interesting. It could be like a totally weird, an unrelated comment. It could be something about, you know, something that her kids did this morning. That's totally unrelated. So it's really we have no I don't know, Jennifer, do you have any go to pieces?
Jennifer Aaker 48:30
No, the only thing that we have as it goes well, first of all, I agree with that, Naomi, I think that life is so fucking boring. And also kind of horrifying right now. Right? And we're living digitally. We are in our homes, particularly in the United States, but you know, elsewhere as well. We are in a state where we just need some humour, some levity, a little bit of love. So I would say the one go to that both Naomi and I. So indoors, and it comes from the regrets of the dying and turns out that the number one regret that people say when they are on their deathbed and I know this because my mom has volunteered for hospice for 40 years of my life. So I grew up hearing these stories about what people ask for on their deathbed. What the number one reason number one thing they wish for is that we should have a chance to say I love you one more time. And one of the things that we find so it's insane that we're not just all saying love or x o or smiley face when we sign off because you never know when you're going to die. So how incredible would it be the last thing out of your mouth or your you know, on email is love. And we also find that humour you know is not far away from love when you make someone laugh. It's actually a sort of a smile. manifestation of love. Because if you think of love, really as this thing of making others feel valued, and connecting to them the opportunity to know others styles, read the room, know what space they're in and make them laugh is nothing is nothing short of a small manifestation of love. So Naomi, I sign off with love. You know, basically all of the time I make my kids sign off with love, or x, or just L, even on text. So, I would say that would be the one common denominator across all communication media.
Graham Allcott 50:42
Nice. And Tell, tell us a little bit more about the course that you've been running and how that how that started. And, and, and the results that you've had through that?
Naomi Bagdonas 50:53
Yeah, so we teach a course at Stanford Graduate School of Business called humour, serious business. We've been running the course for four years now. And to give you a sense, we, our students get the same amount of academic credit for our course as they do for financial accounting. So it's taken very seriously, which is extremely exciting. You know, it started as a pilot, it started four years ago, as you know, Jennifer, and I really believed in this content. And Stanford is incredible about supporting these new areas of research. So we created this pilot course about how humour is really powerful, not just for, you know, to do funny things, but actually, to be more successful in our jobs to be more fulfilled in our lives and make change in the world. And so, so that's what we teach, and it's now blown up, we teach it with over 100 Stanford MBAs every year. And, and really, it's aimed at making a shift in people's mindsets as they go back into the workplace, looking, you know, being on the precipice of a smile, looking for reasons to be delighted, and to bring joy to other people's lives. And our hope is that, by doing that, with our hundred Stanford MBAs, and now, hopefully with many, many more people through this book, is to make a fundamental shift in the world that that more people will look for joy will look for creating joy for other people. And by the way, be more productive at work because
Graham Allcott 52:28
of it. Indeed, yeah. That sounds like a pretty incredible mission to be on. One thing I feel like I have to mention before we finish is the the British version of the office. Because I think the British version of the office, I presume you guys have seen it, right?
Naomi Bagdonas 52:49
Yeah. Love it. Big
Graham Allcott 52:50
fan. So David Brent Mason, talks about himself as I think, what's the thing is it a friend, first a comedian, second and a boss, or something. But there's something in that which, you know, the conceit of the show is that he is being followed around by this camera crew, and he wants to make a name for himself as a as a sort of entertainer outside of, you know, being the the boss of this very average paper merchants in kind of small industrial English town. But I feel like, just the spectre of David Brent hangs over any office humour in the UK, right? It's people not wanting to bring humour into work or make jokes. It's, you know, if you are the leader, if you are the boss figure, because it risks. It's such a fine line between all of the great stuff you just talked about, and being David Brent, right, which nobody wants to be. So do you? And I haven't watched much of the American office. That's my confession. But do you think there's, do you think that's the prevailing reason why people struggle with this stuff is that they they just see it as being? Like two different worlds that shouldn't collide? Honest,
Naomi Bagdonas 54:10
Jennifer, I love what you have talked about, about being more generous with laughter and that that's sort of the most important thing.
Jennifer Aaker 54:18
Yeah, I think it is, I mean, going back to these regrets of the dying, which is part of our book at the end, which does not sound hilarious, but turns out, it helps foreshadow why humans are so important. They're really these these kind of five one is, you know, people wish that they had taken more risks, that they live more boldly. They wish that they were more authentic to who they were. They wish they had kind of savoured more were more in the present. And the fourth is that they basically experience more joy and, and laughs more generously. You know, there's, and then the fifth as we know is I wish I had the chance to say I love you over time. But that, that fourth regret of I wish I just didn't take myself. So seriously, I wish I didn't chase happiness, but rather allowed myself to feel happy allowing myself to feel joy. And that is so often easily remedied by being more generous with laughter. And I think during these moments of, with this global pandemic, with greater sense of uncertainty, and in all of our lives, the opportunity to simply be more generous with laughter, is maybe one of the best, most important things we can do, not just to our friends, family member, and those that we work with, but those who don't understand those people who are different from us, those who we might think, had different opinions from us that opportunity to share laughter. together. And one of our studies that we say is that, that couples who actually have shared sort of laughter together when they were called those moments versus simply happy moments, they're about 28%, happier in their relationship, they say, right after thinking about a shared moment of laughter, that they feel really good about their relationship. And so that simple thing of even just recalling share laughter. And is, is, is fundamental,
Graham Allcott 56:24
nice. And again, it's all down to oxytocin as well, right? So, you know, when you're, when you're laughing together, it's producing those same those same hormones that make people feel together and trusted and bonded.
Naomi Bagdonas 56:38
Yeah. And Graham, to your, to your point about, you know, people worrying about coming off as trying to be funny, or being the boss that no one wants to be. You know, there are two things there. One is, as Jennifer said, it's less about being the funny person and more about showing you how to send a sense of humour signalling that humour is welcome here, especially when you get to those higher status roles. And the second thing is, there's a relationship between status and self deprecation that once you get higher status in an organisation, leaning on self deprecation, and vulnerability is actually the more powerful place to go to. So one example from a couple days ago, we Connor demon, yelman, who's the CO CEO of merit America, which is a large nonprofit in, in the US, he was on a phone call with his entire organisation, or sorry, he was on a zoom call with his entire organisation. And it was a really important moment, you know, it's a hard moment, in many ways. And he was trying to sort of be inspiring in some ways, but also acknowledge the difficulty of the situation. So he was sharing his screen on zoom. And when he passed it over to one of his colleagues, he pretended like he had forgotten that his screen was still being shared. So everyone in the company could see his screen. And he opened up a browser, he went to Google, and he typed in, what are inspiring things that CEOs say during hard times question mark. he typed it into Google, and everyone, you know, everyone cracked up, but it was this incredibly powerful moment of a little bit of levity, but also a lot of vulnerability. You know, I don't know the answers. This is a really hard time, I'm the CEO of this company. And I really want to be there for you, you know, in doing that in a light hearted way, which is not the same as being the centre of attention making these big jokes. So those are the two things that I would I would, you know, that we'd hopefully leave folks with is one, it's really more about generosity, signalling that you that humour is welcome here. And then to, you know, especially for folks in higher status roles, recognising that a little bit of levity goes a long way. And often self deprecation and vulnerability is the more powerful window in amazing.
Graham Allcott 59:03
And I suppose my final question has to be for you, Jennifer, which is, what was it like being the prom queen?
Jennifer Aaker 59:11
Oh, God, thank Graham. Oh, my God. Wow, that was easy. We got that in in the beginning, the middle and the end, which makes this the best podcast we've ever done. He was spectacular. It was everything. We all imagined being a class clown, but it's something
Graham Allcott 59:41
so I probably could have predicted that I was gonna laugh quite a lot on this call. And I have so so you've, you've lived up to the billing. So let's just finish with where people can get hold of the book and anything else that you want to just link people to let's be finished.
Jennifer Aaker 59:58
Wonderful. can get Hold the book everywhere, just google humour seriously and you will find like it will like sprinkled down with like, you know, free books like, you know, somehow magically. And you will also find our website at humour seriously calm.
Naomi Bagdonas 1:00:14
Yeah, humour seriously calm might be your best bet. Or you can go to sprinkle out the Jennifer mentioned.
Graham Allcott 1:00:19
Yeah. Sounds great. Well, thank you both so much for being on the podcast. It's been great fun. And yet, congratulations on the book really enjoyed it. And, you know, everyone's gonna check it out.
Naomi Bagdonas 1:00:31
Thanks. Wonderful talking to you.
Graham Allcott 1:00:40
Really enjoyed that one. I hope you did, too. And thanks also to Matt at Penguin for helping me to set that one up. And thanks as ever to Mark Stedman, my producer for the show, and to Emilie, for all of her hard work in making the Beyond Busy machine work well behind the scenes. We've gone weekly, as you might have noticed a couple of weeks ago, so yeah, we're actually booked up for guests pretty much for Christmas already. But we'd love to hear your thoughts if you have ideas about who should be on the show. So if you would like to drop me a line about that just Graham at thinkproductive.co.uk. Speaking of Think Productive, so Think Productive are our sponsors for the show. That's my business by the way. So if you are interested in productivity workshops, and training and coaching, then go to thinkproductive.com to find out more. And as I mentioned before, I'm doing one myself, which is the 6 Weeks to Ninja evening programme, starting in November, so come hang out with me. Thursday evenings UK time in November and December. And I will talk you through all the best stuff I know about productivity and kick your productivity into shape. So if you're interested in that GrahamAllcott.com find out more. And the other thing I wanted to just say very quickly is just shout out to my Toronto Blue Jays who have made the playoffs for the first time since 2016. Which as I'm recording this happened last night. I'm recording this on a Friday. I am very tired today. I've watched it a bit too much baseball this week and also just doing 5am starts so yeah, like it's been a week of not very much sleep I'm actually really impressed that I have managed to record the intro and outro to Beyond Busy in only three takes today... so far. All good. So yeah, really pleased to I've got a good week of work under my belt, I'm really just loving, having five days in my weak at the moment and being able to do pretty solid work on four of them and then keeping the the fifth day of the week in reserve because as you know, we pretty much work a four day week Think Productive. So today was just a couple of little mop up bits on the Friday and then off to my folks in the Midlands to just go and see them see my family before the I guess anticipated locked down as I were talking about it. Like everyone sort of knows is gonna come right and that's just just, you know, everyone's just doing their doing their thing until that arrives. But yeah, just gonna have a nice weekend off and get ready for another busy week next week. So I hope everything is well in your world. Hope everyone is okay and hope you're surviving this slightly gloomy start to the autumn as it's turning out to be that strap in for a long winter. But thanks for listening to this thanks for being part of this Beyond Busy community. And if you want to find out more I should also just say the show notes were available at getbeyondbusy.com. And my weekly Sunday Rev Up for the Week email is available to sign up for at Grahamallcott.com as well.
That's it will be back next week. I'm so tired, I can hardly talk. I've I'm really pleased that I've managed to get this in three takes so I'll leave that there otherwise it's going to go wrong.
So say take care and see you next week. Bye for now.