Laughing

Did you see Jerry Seinfeld’s commencement speech for Duke’s class of 2024? It made me laugh out loud and was full of helpful advice. My short version: Seinfeld advises graduates to work hard, pay attention, and fall in love with little things. My favorite advice from Seinfeld’s speech is that we all need to have a sense of humor to make it through life. I sure wish my comedy skills were even a hundredth of Seinfeld’s, and I have heard that we can all be funnier than we think.

Listening to Seinfeld’s speech reminded me that I read a book a couple of years ago, Humor Seriously, by Jennifer Aaker and Naomi Bogdonas. They outline the case for using more humor and give tips on how to be funnier. They even did a TED talk and teach a class on humor at Stanford Graduate School of Business. I wish I could go back and take it. For the short version, you can also listen to Aaker and Bogdonas on this episode of one of my favorite podcasts, Think Fast Talk Smart.

One tip that I’ve tried is to make daily observations and then turn those into something funny once per week. I’ve failed pretty miserably at this so far and won’t be starting a new career as a comedian anytime soon. The great news is that I can just laugh about it. Just this past weekend, I almost yelled at my one teenager who still lives at home about clearing his dishes, then I remembered it was a test and chose to just laugh instead and give myself a parenting win. That’s an area that I am wildly successful in – being generous with my laughter with myself and others. That helps too, according to the research. Try it. Do you have tips or stories about laughing or having a sense of humor about life and work? I’d love to hear them. Let’s laugh more in 2024!