October 6, 2025 • 56 mins
What if the key to workplace productivity isn't another productivity app or time management system, but something far more elemental – laughter? Kevin Hubschmann, founder of laugh.events, reveals how strategic comedy breaks are revolutionizing corporate culture and employee well-being.
The concept is beautifully simple yet scientifically sound: 15-minute comedy sessions that function as cognitive reset buttons during the workday. When scheduled during the notorious 2-4 PM energy slump, these "laugh breaks" reduce cortisol levels, boost endorphins, and help employees return to work refreshed and re-engaged. It's what Kevin calls "the new cigarette break" – a deliberate pause that acknowledges our biological need for mental rest.
But the conversation goes deeper than scheduling comedy shows. Kevin explores how improvisational techniques build crucial "power skills" that distinguish humans from AI. As technology increasingly handles routine tasks, our uniquely human abilities – divergent thinking, authentic communication, creative problem-solving – become our most valuable professional assets. Through "laughing and development" workshops, teams learn to flex these creative muscles in safe, playful environments.
The discussion takes fascinating turns through education reform, generational workplace differences, and how our lifelong conditioning toward obedience has created workforces that struggle with independent thinking. Kevin shares practical insights on bringing more authenticity to professional settings, making incremental changes that lead to meaningful growth, and creating environments where creativity can flourish within thoughtful boundaries.
With predictions that 50% of Americans may lack skills for employment by 2030, this conversation offers a refreshingly optimistic counterpoint – a vision where technology handles the monotony while humans focus on connection, creativity and innovation. Ready to rethink how laughter might transform your workplace? This episode offers both the philosophical foundation and practical first steps.
Subscribe to Kevin's newsletter at laughrx.laugh.events or visit laugh.events to explore how strategic comedy might revolutionize your team's culture and productivity.
Visit us at LearningWithoutScars.org for more training solutions for Equipment Dealerships - Construction, Mining, Agriculture, Cranes, Trucks and Trailers.
We provide comprehensive online learning programs for employees starting with an individualized skills assessment to a personalized employee development program designed for their skill level.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00 (00:02):
Aloha, and welcome to another candid conversation.
We're going right off the railstoday.
We've got a man by the name ofKevin Humschmann who basically
is going to give us some humor.
So, in the midst of all of theseries on artificial
intelligence and and how youproceed in the world that we're
(00:23):
living with with technologychange, Kevin is going to give
us a little bit of a light view.
And that's as far as I'm goingto go.
So, Kevin, if you couldintroduce yourself, that'd be
wonderful.
Tell us what you're going to doto us today.
SPEAKER_01 (00:35):
Well, yeah, uh look forward to having a nice
conversation about humor.
I'll do my best to make somejokes and make it laugh, but you
know, anytime I say that outloud, it always ends up bombing.
So uh we're gonna have to keepthings light and hope that you
and I can just make some magic.
SPEAKER_00 (00:53):
We'll do that.
Um I'm in Hawaii.
You're in Brooklyn, right?
Yep.
So we're about what do youthink?
Something in the order of 6,000miles apart.
So I can't reach out and smackyou, neither can you do that to
me.
Don't worry, I'll smack myself.
So what does laugh.events do,which is your company, correct?
SPEAKER_01 (01:18):
Yeah, that's my company.
So we uh we do we have it'scomedy services for corporate
audiences.
So uh that could be virtualcomedy shows, that can be
in-person comedy shows, andsomething that um people are
really gravitating towards nowis uh is something we'd call
laughing and development, whichis applied improv and other
(01:43):
skills that comedians use everyday that uh professionals can
use to kind of unlock theirpotential.
SPEAKER_00 (01:50):
That's you know, there's we're all in my mind,
we're all together too seriousabout everything.
We we don't have enough levity,we don't have enough humor.
Um, we're we're talking aroundeach other or at each other.
There's there's we we don't do alot of things very well anymore
as people.
(02:10):
So I really think you've got asweet spot there for a lot of
companies, even if you just hada a 10-minute comedy blob that
people could, you know, sign onto in the morning or once a week
or something, just to give thema little bit of a lift.
I and I suspect that's some ofthe things you do.
SPEAKER_01 (02:28):
Yeah, that's actually something we offer.
We call it uh 15-minute laughbreaks.
So there's companies that willhire us to do, you know, hey, we
want to everyone to stop whatthey're doing and just have a
laugh, have some fun, uh, forgetabout work for a little bit.
And yeah, like I said, there'stwo sides of our business.
It's like the entertainmentside, where it's like the goal
(02:49):
of this event is only laughterand having the company provide
that levity.
And then the other side is morein team building, professional
development.
But um, both of those uh mainproducts we offer are, you know,
fall into the team buildingside.
But yeah, I mean, these15-minute laugh breaks, um, you
know, I always joke that like II I sometimes I do keynotes and
(03:14):
I'll go and I'll say, Raise yourhand, who here smokes
cigarettes?
And you know, one person raisestheir hand and I go, I bet that
person's the most productiveperson in this room.
Uh and and people are like, Whatis this guy talking about?
But it's the fact that they havethese breaks, you know, they the
addiction that they have tocigarettes is forcing them to go
(03:37):
take a break outside, their bodysaying, We need this break.
Otherwise, people that do nothave that part of their brain
that's like, yo, take a break.
Um, you know, they run rightthrough it and their
productivity goes down the downthe chute.
So, you know, these laughbreaks, I also always end it.
I go, well, everyone reach underyour seats because I have
(03:59):
cigarettes for all of you.
No, but we uh we start talkinglike this laughter, companies
that kind of implement thislaugh break, it kind of can we
wanted to it to act like the newcigarette break because
biologically, when you laugh,you know, your cortisol levels,
that stress hormone is going togo down and your endorphins are
(04:22):
gonna go up.
So you're getting thesefeel-good chemicals, you're
you're getting distracted uhwith just what's in front of
you, and you're not thinkingabout work, and that stress is
kind of coming off yourshoulders, and everyone just
comes away from it being alittle bit lighter, and you
know, they're not watching avideo and watching 16 seconds
and going, they're locked in for15 minutes, resetting their
(04:44):
brains and kind of like etchsketching their brains with
laughter.
SPEAKER_00 (04:49):
I know it's amazing.
The um, as a as an educator, asa teacher, I'm interested in how
people learn and when how whendo they best learn?
And one of the proofs that'sbeen around for decades is that
physical education, 30 minutes,20 minutes of exercise, your
(05:11):
learning capacity over the nexttwo hours is huge.
SPEAKER_02 (05:14):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (05:15):
And yet most schools, school districts and
states have killed during theday physette.
SPEAKER_02 (05:22):
Oh man.
SPEAKER_00 (05:23):
And if it was me, I'd have one, and first thing in
the morning, everybody goesthere.
You know, kind of the Japaneseor Asian approach or Home Depot,
they get together and have acircle of discussion and they do
exercises.
SPEAKER_02 (05:35):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (05:36):
And then right after lunch, and it's been proven,
Kevin, that it it is beneficial.
And so the break you're talkingabout, think about people that
don't smoke, but they're in themiddle of something, they get
stressed out because they gotto-do lists, and I want to
finish this, but theirproductivity goes in the toilet.
SPEAKER_01 (05:57):
Oh, yeah.
I mean, I mean personally, Ihave tried to figure out what
what is slowing me down right atthat uh, you know, three o'clock
time.
I know I know that I can beproductive when I from when I
wake up until about 2 p.m.
And I thought it was like mydiet.
So I tried to change my diet andI tried to really eat stuff that
(06:20):
would not slow my body down.
But then I still sort of crashedand I started looking into it,
and I started researching, likeuh, at least specifically for
men and myself, like ourcircadian rhythms.
Uh we are only really supposedto be even awake for eight hours
until our brain is like, pleasetake a rest, take a take a
(06:44):
break.
And so it I found it was likethe alternatives were one of two
things.
It was it was a nap, and it waseither, you know, just shut your
eyes down for 15 minutes andjust kind of reset, uh, or take
a longer restorative nap that'sa full cycle.
(07:04):
And I'm like, I don't have timeto take an hour and a half nap
in the middle of the day.
Uh, but I did find that, like,you know, what is that for me?
What is that like 15-minutereset?
And so that's like when we talkto companies, when is the best
time to do these comedy events?
It's when people are crashing,when people's bodies are
(07:26):
naturally like, hey, I'msupposed to sleep now.
Our body, like the theory alsois that you know, humans used to
have they they used to sleeptwice.
They used to have two differenttypes of sleep patterns, um, or
times that they two two bedtime.
So our bodies are saying we needa change up.
And so I always say, hey, thebest time to do a comedy event,
(07:49):
these 15-minute laugh breaks,are between 2 and 4 p.m., where
people kind of need to uh toreset if you want them to be
productive in the second half ofthe day.
SPEAKER_00 (07:59):
Yeah, it's amazing.
There was there was a study byNational Geographic about 40 or
50 years ago where they put aguy underground, um, and the
cave that he was in, the lightswould go on when his body awoke.
It would go off when he went tosleep.
(08:20):
And they found that we needabout 11 hours of sleep, and
then we're awake for 22 versusthe workday goes according to
the sun, and then we screwaround it with daylight savings
and all the rest of thisnonsense.
We don't change our clock.
And and what's interesting forme, I'm closer to the equator,
(08:41):
and so my days and nights arepretty much the same length.
I grew up in Montreal, where inthe winter time, where let's go
crazy.
I I was born in Alberta and inEdmonton, when my daughter's
going to school, she'd go toschool in the dark, she'd come
home in the dark, and be likeliving like a mole.
SPEAKER_02 (08:59):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (09:00):
And you know, it's kind of dangerous when you've
got she was in kindergartengrade one, grade two type of
thing.
So my wife would walk to the buspickup uh just to make sure she
got there.
SPEAKER_02 (09:11):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (09:11):
And and you know, I used to look out my window
there, and and we had six hoursof sunshine in the in the winter
time.
It's it's so we're all screwedup in how we do things.
So I'm interested in how I lovethat 15-minute break.
I think that's how do people getin touch with you if you if they
want to do such a thing?
SPEAKER_01 (09:31):
Well, our website's the best thing to do,
laugh.events.
That's the name of the company,and it's also the website.
Try to make it easy foreverybody.
Um, but yeah, that's it.
And and we have companies dothese laugh breaks, and you
know, it's another thing.
A lot of companies come to usand they're like, we want to do
this big celebration.
(09:51):
You know, we just had this crazyquarter, or we just had this
crazy month, you know, wereally, or we just pushed a
product, or we just did thisaccomplishment.
Uh, we want to do like anhour-long event.
And I'm always like, that'sgreat.
You know, I'm happy with doingan hour-long event, whatever you
want to do.
But I always recommend like,let's take that budget and
(10:13):
spread it out into like a bunchof these 15-minute breaks.
And a lot of people think likelonger is better.
Um, and there was a point whereactually I wouldn't let people
do more than 30-minute eventsbecause it's like these are
people's attention spans.
But I also just found that like15 minutes is this perfect,
like, I'm gonna be focused, I'mgonna be enjoying myself.
(10:35):
And a lot of folks wanna say,let's use all of the budget now,
longer is better, let's have acomedian go for a longer period
of time.
And I'm always for, hey, it'sthe same price if you just
spread it out and give people agift, you know, every quarter or
every month, uh, whatever is isbetter.
(10:57):
Uh, it doesn't change how we dobusiness, we just think it's
delivering a way better product.
SPEAKER_00 (11:01):
Yeah, I agree with you.
There's a behavioral scientistwho teaches at Harvard, his name
is Nir Eal.
He's uh an Israeli, and he wrotea book called Indistractable.
Oh, maybe 10 years, I don'tknow, something like 10 years
ago.
And I changed how I work basedon input from that book.
I've been a maniac to-do listguy.
(11:23):
Yeah, and he said, kill that,deal with blocks of time.
With the to-do list, you putstress on yourself, you got to
get this done, you got to get itdone.
And that also degrades yourcapacity.
Um, so it it's been a you know,imagine that 75 years, and and
somebody's teaching me somethingnew on how to conduct myself.
(11:45):
Yeah, and I I think thesethings, I think they're very
valuable.
We're we're in a high stressworld, Kevin, as you know,
technology is changing soquickly that people can't keep
up and they don't know how todeal with it, and they become
victims.
And it's almost an age blockthing.
(12:06):
Like I'm nearly 80.
And people my age, don't, don't,don't give me a computer for
God's sake.
I can't the keyboard.
What do you mean?
I can't type.
I, you know, texting on yourphone, my fingers are too damn
big, you know, all this stuff.
And and it and it's true, butthe young people, my grandkids,
son of a gun, bang, bang, bang,it's it's you know, I can't
believe it.
(12:26):
Oh, yeah.
And they they catch on to thingsmore quickly because I I believe
they're more accepting ortolerant of making mistakes.
We aren't.
We're taught don't makemistakes, damn it.
Yeah, so how do you okay?
Give me a snippet.
Um, I'm I'm a pretty dour guy,but I like to laugh.
(12:50):
So I don't know if I'm a goodtest model for you, but can you
make me laugh?
SPEAKER_01 (12:54):
No, I don't want to try to make you laugh.
I think that's those momentswhere that's actually a funny
thing.
If you ask any comedian, hey,tell a joke, they're like, I
don't think like this is gonnago well.
So I always I always kind of tryto stay away from that, uh, and
more let this dialogue kind ofresult in something maybe funny.
(13:16):
But we should make your seatsbecause I think I left some
cigarettes for you.
SPEAKER_00 (13:19):
Yeah, I think no, but that's that's a perfect
answer because you know I welived in Southern California for
20 plus years, I don't know,maybe 30, and we had a timeshare
in Vegas, and we'd drive up, andwe'd go up on a Monday, come
back on a Friday, so Mondaynight, Tuesday night, Wednesday
night, Thursday night, andthere's a comedy club like a
half a block away from where ourtimeshare was.
(13:42):
And every time we were there,we'd go in there.
And aside from the the language,it's it's amazing, and it's
really good comedy, peopletrying to break in.
Yeah, and and we've seen youknow, Seinfeld and Carlin and
all of these people, and they'regifted as hell and how they can
(14:03):
write.
Yeah.
And Jerry Seinfeld's the onlycomedian that I think that my
wife and I saw that didn't swearonce.
And it was noticeable after awhile.
Yeah.
George Carlin, like half thetheater would disappear when he
started getting going becausehis language is so it was just
(14:24):
part of his stick.
SPEAKER_01 (14:25):
I mean, Carlin's got the whole uh, I think was it
seven dirty words?
I think that's it.
So I mean, that's that's whatyou're that's what you're paying
for.
SPEAKER_00 (14:35):
We we saw him in Vegas, and it was I it was right
next door to us.
Our timeshare was behind theflamingo, and he used to go into
the kitchen and have his dinnertalking with the guys, and then
he'd be dressed up so that you'dnever recognize, and we'd be out
in the street getting material.
SPEAKER_01 (14:56):
Oh my gosh.
SPEAKER_00 (14:57):
It's um he was an amazing man, actually.
He and his wife were married.
I mean, his lifelong marriage.
Um, his life was over when hiswife passed because she was his
producer, yeah.
And um, you know, brilliantstuff, but the language just my
wife, my wife at times was justholy mackerel, do you have to do
that?
SPEAKER_01 (15:18):
But yeah, I mean, it's it's actually, you know,
there's a lot, a lot to unlike alot of things I wanted to jump
off from there, but I'll startwith the the language component.
Like, we work, we do likepre-event surveys to be like,
hey, what is the vibe?
What do you guys want?
And there's some people that arelike, rated R, like roast my
(15:39):
boss.
And I was like, I am going tonot take your advice um because
that's dumb.
Uh, nobody wants to hear that,especially in a corporate
setting.
So, like when you're dealingwith like corporate comedy, um
you don't the goal of corporatecomedy, or I'd rather comedy for
corporate audiences.
(16:00):
I think calling corporate comedymakes it sound pretty dull, but
comedy for corporate audiencesis that it doesn't benefit you
as the comedian to go artisticin that moment and say, my
language, my art, my act.
It's like you're a steward tothe audience in that setting.
The client is paying you toreally make people happy.
(16:23):
And so it's actually a reallycool environment because the
comedians are so dialed intrying to make it as inclusive
of language as possible.
Um, and you know, that is avery, it just makes for the
comedy to be a bit morewholesome, a bit more fun.
Like, don't get me wrong, I lovegoing after work to comedy clubs
(16:46):
and just really hearing it.
And it's there's a time and aplace for it.
Uh, I love it.
Um, but as someone too at thatperforms stand-up comedy, I have
a little like an anecdote.
I went, I did a show in uh a fewmonths ago, and it was my family
was coming.
My aunts were coming, and likefriends and family were coming.
(17:09):
My brothers and sisters werethere, so I was like, they can I
can let them hear it, but like,you know, I don't want this was
near my hometown.
So also I wanted to like respectmy family for coming and my
aunts for coming, and I didn'twant them to be like, you know,
we we helped raise this, youknow.
So I I went through and I combedthrough my set and I eliminated
(17:32):
almost every curse word.
I might have kept like one curseword because I think it was even
Jerry Seinfeld that says, like,he doesn't curse, not because he
thinks he's better thaneverybody, but he thinks it
distracts from the joke itself.
And that if you really, if younever curse, but you curse like
once, that power of being ofthat like adds to the joke,
(17:54):
right?
If you didn't, if you don't hearanyone saying anything bad, but
the moment that they do curse,you kind of stand up a little
bit and you're like, okay, nownow I'm listening.
So I think it's like thatlanguage can be a tool, uh, or
not cursing is a tool, becausethen if you're not dealing with
cursing, you're then not dealingwith certain content.
(18:15):
And again, a lot of people belike, oh, that's annoying.
I want them to go crazy.
But creativity needs boundaries.
And I think that you can reallybe creative and go crazy, but
also that is distracting in away because you have one idea
here that's funny, and anotheridea here that's funny, but they
(18:36):
might not even be on the sametopic or even similar.
But if you give yourself theseguardrails and say, hey, you
can't talk about like X, Y, andZ, you know that you can talk
about A, B, and C.
And so you can say, like, that'swhat we're gonna do, and we're
not gonna curse.
And that is going to really sayit's not putting shackles on
(18:59):
you, it's putting guardrails onyou.
You know, it's like shoot, it'slike uh bowling.
Like, obviously, you don't wantto shoot with bumpers and you
want to show people that you canhit strikes without the bumpers,
but I'm telling you, you putthose bumpers on, like you're
you're shooting easily over 125and not even thinking about it.
Um, and I think that's helpful.
SPEAKER_00 (19:18):
Yeah, what you're talking about is communications,
yeah.
And and you know, I I don't knowthat we are communicating as
well as we could, you know, justthe asking questions um is
important.
I don't mean yes, no type stuff,open-ended questions that forces
the person to talk.
How do we find out what peoplelike, what they don't like, what
(19:41):
they want, what they need,unless we can have a dialogue.
Dialogue's a Greek word, or Ithink it's Greek, flow of
meaning.
Um, a monologue's, you know, I'mI'm not Johnny Carson, that's
for damn sure.
But but as a teacher, you know,one of the things I've been
teaching a long time, and withtechnology today, I can put a
(20:04):
quiz out every seven to twelveminutes.
One question, and I know whetherpeople are with me or not.
SPEAKER_02 (20:11):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (20:12):
And the the real trick as a teacher is to make
sure I transfer that informationto the audience.
I I use what's called Socraticteaching, meaning I don't answer
questions, I ask them.
I help them develop a pattern ora skill set that allows them to
learn without me.
SPEAKER_02 (20:30):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (20:30):
And and that's like you know, teaching the fish they
can eat for the rest of theirlife.
Give them a fish, they got ameal.
Um, but I think everythingyou're talking about makes
wonderful sense.
I love the 15-minute breakbecause such a thing is needed,
and it'll be interesting from myaudience.
We we cover somewhere, dependingon on how we get across on
(20:53):
social media, somewhere between10 and 20,000 people will see
this.
And um it's it's it'sinteresting or have access to
it.
It's interesting.
SPEAKER_01 (21:03):
Um the thing, what real quick that I heard you say,
you know, when you said uh, youknow, Socratic method, it
reminded me of um a quote that Ilove uh from Plato.
And it's you can learn moreabout a person in an hour of
play than you can in a lifetimeof I think conversation.
I'm I'm butchering the quote,but the um that is like a very
(21:27):
big component.
You just mentioned likelistening, or earlier in the
conversation, you also mentionedabout like being scared to fail.
Um, and I think that all ofthose things are really
intertwined.
And that's where outside ofthese laugh breaks that we're
talking about, the other thingthat people love doing with us
and working with us that's waymore educational is these things
(21:48):
called laughing and development.
And it's the ability, it's it'susing applied improv uh games
and exercises to play with oneanother and have fun with one
another.
But to your point, you know,learning how to communicate
effectively, how to activelylisten is like the the whole
goal of good play and goodbanter and going back and forth.
(22:11):
And that unlocks the ability tolearn about people and
open-ended questions and uh andreally being curious.
Um, and then when you do thatand it works, you are a lot less
scared to fail or ask thatquestion or go out on a limb uh
because it's coming from a placeof interest and curiosity, and
(22:32):
it's a muscle that you have.
So even your body is like, thisis very organic and natural to
me.
And I think it's a muscle thatgets gets atrophied over time,
especially with say AI, uh,where everyone's just doing, you
know, very much convergentthinking and really being like,
what is the answer to this?
Yes or no?
(22:52):
And as humans, we are we'redivergent thinkers.
It what's it's what makes us sospecial.
And that's another thing thatwe've seen with our applied
improv workshops in laughing anddevelopment, is divergent
thinking is how you breakthrough and brainstorm and
innovate and come up with coolideas and think outside of
(23:12):
yourself and come up with 10 badideas so that one good idea can
emerge from it all.
Um, and I think that's fromlistening, communication, and
uh, and you know, all the thingsthat you were saying as well.
SPEAKER_00 (23:25):
Yeah, it's it's um communications is the biggest
failure we have in mankind, Ithink.
It's um you know, my wife and Iwere married for 50 years, and
everybody says, Wow, that'samazing, and it's all on her,
not me.
Um she'd tell you the same thingin reverse, but it's about being
(23:47):
more than you.
So I when you do these 15-minutebreaks, do they just see you or
do you see them as well?
SPEAKER_01 (23:54):
Oh, we have to see them.
Uh, there's yeah, when whenfolks are saying, like, great,
no one's gonna be on theircameras or no one's gonna be on
their microphones, and we'relike, then don't hire us because
that's not gonna be fun foranybody.
Uh, because doing comedy ordoing improv to an empty group
of people is like talking to awall, you know, no one's
(24:15):
benefiting from that, uh,especially the the performer.
SPEAKER_00 (24:19):
I used to uh when when I was working for
dealerships in in Montreal, wewere rather remote.
So breaks and lunch, we had acafeteria, and it was always
interesting to me who had lunchtogether and who didn't.
And the reason that I like thefact that you can see the
(24:40):
audience and they can see you isthat it puts them together in a
way that otherwise would not betrue.
It it builds teams in a muchmore productive way because in
the in the course of the15-minute breaks, I'm sure
you're posing questions too, andand maybe soliciting responses
from the group.
And and as time passes, theyprobably become jatterboxes, you
(25:02):
know, silent as hell becausethey don't want to, you know,
it's it's amazing.
You know, as a teacher, thefirst 30 minutes of a class
where nobody knows anybody, theydon't know me, they don't know
each other.
I start with three questionsevery single class.
What's the definition ofignorance?
And of course, nobody wants tostick their neck out because
(25:24):
they don't know what to expectof me and each other, so they're
pretty quiet.
So I give them the answer,ignorance is not knowing what to
do.
And oh, okay, I get you.
You're pretty simple-minded sonof a gun here.
The next question is okay, tellme what give me a definition of
stupidity.
And some of them are starting tocome alive and they get it, and
stupidity is knowing what to doand not doing it.
(25:46):
And then I I put the third oneout and I don't ask the
question, what's the definitionof insanity?
And it's either, you know,Socrates or Einstein or or Mark
Twain, insanity is continuing todo what you've always done,
expecting different results.
And then then I come out and Isay, okay, at the end of this
session, I'm not gonna let yoube ignorant because I'm gonna
(26:07):
tell you what to do.
So I'm giving you a choice ofbeing stupid or insane.
And looking around the room, Idon't see people going to a
padded room very quickly.
So, you know, and and sillythings like that just to break
the ice a little bit.
But um, you know, change.
I I tell people change isdifficult, but if you think it's
(26:27):
difficult to work, go home andtell your wife or your husband
or partner you're gonna changewhich side of the bed you sleep
on and tell me what the couch islike the next day.
Yeah.
Because that that change istough.
Everything else is easy, it'sjust a it's everything's
attitude.
SPEAKER_01 (26:43):
It's attitude, it's also like not biting off more
than you can chew, you know.
And it's like I think a lot ofpeople that want to change, they
say, let me just changeovernight and let me be a whole
different person tomorrow.
And that's another skill that Ilearned in stand-up.
When I'm writing my own stand-upjokes, or really any comedian,
(27:07):
you know, it's it's not throwaway the whole thing.
Find out what is working andthen make minor tweaks.
Uh, and then you're able tomeasure.
I mean, especially when you'relet's let's take a joke, for
example.
You know, you might tell a jokeand that, and it's a setup, a
punchline, and and a few tagsafter, like to keep the laughter
(27:29):
going.
And you might have nailed thesetup, but the punchline's not
there, the tags don't reallywork.
Are you gonna throw the wholejoke away and say, no, I got to
start from scratch?
No, next time you're gonnachange a word in the punchline,
you're gonna add a pause betweenthe tags.
You don't have to completelythrow the joke away.
(27:50):
You can make these really smallchanges.
And I think that is a lot ofpeople are scared, like you had
said earlier, scared to fail andscared to say, hey, let me try
this again.
Because your brain is like, yo,that hey, that didn't work.
That failed.
So if you can train your brainand say, yeah, but if I change
this small thing uh and I see apositive result, then I'm
(28:14):
actually changing how I thinkand being way more open to not
just change, but but being opento the idea that you will fail,
but there's going to be somegood stuff that comes from it.
And I'm just a very big believerin making really small changes
because every time I try to makea big change, say with like my
diet or something, I end uplike, you know, eating 10 Big
(28:37):
Macs as a result of it andcompletely failing.
Um, and so that is like that'show I know and I've trained my
body is like, you know, practicewhat I preach when I'm writing
comedy.
It's like make that small changeand measure it, good, bad, on to
the next one, keep it, throw itout, try again.
SPEAKER_00 (28:56):
I'll give you a little example of that.
Um, making small change.
Um I I came off a horse about 40years ago and had compression
fractures in my lower spine.
And about six months ago, Itried to be 35 years old again,
and and um from L2 to L11, I'mtwo inches shorter.
(29:18):
And I go to physiotherapy, andevery you know, it's required,
and I I've got a build-up coreand all that's cool.
And my doctor here, the medicalin Hawaii is just phenomenal.
But my my doctor, his name isMario Silva.
I call him Super Mario, and whenhe retires, I'm gonna get him
the red hat.
And and um, I said, you know,you're you're retiring in
(29:41):
January.
I need you to find yourreplacement, otherwise, I'll
find where you are and I'll keepbugging you.
So we he found a guy about 30minutes away.
He's in his early 50s, he's gotlong blonde, brown, curly hair
down to his shoulders.
He was a weightlifter at onepoint.
He's about 5'10, maybe 5'9, andthat's I'm about 5'11 now.
(30:02):
And we're chatting.
We have a 15-minute meet andgreet.
And he he stops after about 15minutes.
He says, Ron, you know, they'retreating you like a pussy.
And forgive my language, but Isaid, What?
Because I wasn't sure that adoctor he he repeated it and he
said, Yeah, they're treating youlike a 79-year-old.
I'm gonna treat you like a59-year-old.
(30:23):
The whole the holiday's over.
SPEAKER_02 (30:25):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (30:26):
I said, I'm yours, man.
You know, it's uh so the inkwhat that did was it
reinvigorated my competitivejuices, and I think we all are
competitive to some degree.
But an office, you're typicallyworking by yourself, and you can
(30:48):
talk a little bit back andforth, but a lot of bosses don't
like to hear conversation on thein the workplace, and and that's
a bit of a bear.
I had two ladies, Hilda andHazel, believe it or not.
This is in the late 60s, thatworked for me in the office.
And they sat side by side.
SPEAKER_01 (31:09):
Sounds like a sitcom.
SPEAKER_00 (31:11):
Well, this one is all day long.
They talked with each other andthey didn't get along.
And they lied about their birthdate and that kind of stuff.
They should have been connectingpension plans, but they continue
to work.
And you know, it it if youseparated them, they'd never be
able to work.
I'm not joking.
(31:32):
And you know, it's we we hadanother situation where you know
you're selling parts, you go toa car dealership, you got a
counter, you go up, you can buyparts and that kind of stuff.
My owner loved to have the placelook busy.
SPEAKER_02 (31:47):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (31:47):
So we were on the Trans-Canada Highway on a
service road, and we would havetransportation trucks lined up
for two hours, two miles tryingto get into our place because we
only had two docks.
We rebuilt the building, we madeit 10 docks, and nobody knew
whether we were busy or not.
I'm I'm you know, come on in, wecan handle you.
But one afternoon it was reallyamazing.
(32:08):
I'm supervising the guys on thecounter.
And if you can imagine, I'm in acubicle looking at the front
door, and to the right hand sideof me is the receptionist with a
small area for customers to waitor suppliers or whoever, and to
the left of me is the counter,and there's eight guys there,
and it's all guys because thisis a chauvinistic industry, and
(32:28):
the phones are ringing, andthere's the people there, it's a
wonderful afternoon,everything's cool.
A guy comes in the front door,and you know, as as God is my
witness, he looks over to thecounter, he turns and goes and
sits down at the reception area,picks up the phone, dials a
number that I could see theoperator answer the phone.
(32:51):
She transferred him to the partsdepartment.
I could hear the phone ringingin the parts department at the
counter.
And a guy who's serving acustomer says, Excuse me, I have
to get that phone.
So he left the customer to goanswer the phone.
The guy placed his order and hesaid, Okay, where do you want me
to ship it to?
The guy came around the corner,stuck his hand up in the air.
You don't need to ship it, I'mright here.
(33:14):
And we were training thecustomer that you got better
service if you didn't come inthan if you did.
Yeah.
And I'd kill to get guys cominginto a store because I'm going
to try to sell everything underyou know, everything under the
sun in there.
You know, it's it's so again,communications and identifying
where there's opportunities tomake people more productive.
(33:38):
Absolutely.
People enjoy their day a littlebit more.
We spend more time at work thanwe do with our families.
So why can't it be pleasant?
SPEAKER_01 (33:47):
Yeah, and I think that like uh something that we
preach a lot is uh, you know, wehave our nine to five
personalities, you know, that wehave our the person that we are
at work, and we should be doingeverything that we can to bring
some of our five to ninepersonalities into work.
(34:10):
And what I mainly mean by thatis that guy that you're hanging
out with, having a beer withafter work, for me at least, uh
for the first uh quarter of mycareer, that guy was way
different than the guy that wasyou're having coffee with.
And you know, I really wantedto, you know, change that.
(34:31):
And that's when I started to,you know, practice improv
comedy, applied improv comedy.
Uh, when I started to do morestand-up comedy, that was my
outlet to engage in more levity,uh, but also engage in all of
these soft skills that can bedeteriorating.
But more importantly, it waslike, no, this is going to allow
(34:53):
me to be way better of acoworker and way more pleasant
to be around because you'regetting what you're getting with
me, and you're going to, it'ssomeone that you know, that I
like, and it's someone thatyou're gonna like.
And you know, allowing yourselfto be human and allowing
yourself to be authenticallyyourself uh really is going to
(35:16):
go a long way in creating trustbecause I'm sure uh you said it
was Heather and Hazel.
Hilda and Hazel.
Hilda and Hazel.
I'm sure that they were soauthentically themselves that
even though they hatedthemselves or hated each other
and couldn't stand each other,they loved that part about each
(35:37):
other and it allowed them to belike, you know what, we're
having this is entertaining insome capacity, and we are like
really being ourselves.
That's gonna allow me to be abetter person at work because I
don't need to likecompartmentalize those two parts
of me.
And Hilda's driving me nuts, butthat's exactly she drive me nuts
(35:58):
outside of work, too.
SPEAKER_00 (35:59):
Yeah, you you know, they've they must have been like
this when they were four yearsold.
You know, it'd be it it's almostcomedic, but the work that they
did literally was brain-deadwork, and in those days you had
to have a lot of people that didbrain dead work.
What the hell?
That's why work's a four-letterwork.
Today, those jobs are being doneby artificial intelligence, the
(36:22):
office is being invaded now, andthat scares the hell out of
people.
Yeah, give them a little bit ofopportunity to realize that
artificial intelligence is onlygood if you've got people
intelligence to deal with it.
A skill that we're gonna have tolearn is how to ask questions.
Yeah.
Because if you know, I can ask aquestion, I'll get 200,000
(36:43):
answers.
Oh, wait a second, that's nogood.
So, and I don't think we're verygood at that.
I I have this theory, Kevin,that as a person that we're
we're taught to be obedient ourwhole damn lives.
It starts with our parentstrying to protect us.
Don't you know look both waysbefore you cross the street,
(37:04):
don't touch the stove, and thenwe push back in our teenage
year.
I know, don't tell me, blah,blah.
Then you go to school, and thisis how you do cursive writing,
they don't even teach thatanymore.
This is how we do adding andsubtracting and all the rest.
And it's this is the way you dothat.
And then we finish school and wego to a job.
We we're lucky enough to get ajob, and somebody teaches us how
(37:26):
to do the job.
They show us what to do, thenthey tell us what they showed
us, and then you know, here wego.
And they leave us saying, justpractice that, do more of it
with fewer mistakes, and you'llbe fine.
I'm I'm in Moscow with a client,and a guy in his 50s with three
children with a master's degreeis the boss.
(37:49):
And I go up to him, and it's atypical question: Is there
anything if you had if I gaveyou a magic wand, what would you
change about your job, aboutyour work, that would make your
life easier and the company moremoney?
His answer to me, Kevin, wasdon't ask things like that.
Just tell me what you want todo.
And I'm afraid that most peopleare in that category.
(38:11):
Yeah.
And so here comes artificialintelligence.
One of the people thatcontributes to us, his name is
Ed Gordon, says that by 2030,and I can argue about the date,
50% of the American workforcewill not have the skills to be
employable.
That's 90 million people.
And we've spent hundreds oftrillions of dollars on
(38:33):
technology, but nothing onsociology.
So that's part of what scaresthe hell out of people.
If you're smart, if you're welleducated, if you're disciplined,
if you're ambitious, if you'recurious, you're fine.
And more people are smarter thanwhat they think they are, but
they never give themselves theopportunity.
I think your 15-minute breaksmight be enough levity because
(38:57):
they'll see the whole crowd onthe screen.
And I think that's a benefit aswell.
SPEAKER_01 (39:02):
Yeah, and I think you know, the other side again
to talk about the other side ofour business outside of the
15-minute laugh breaks are theselaughing and development
sessions.
And I hear that all the time ofwhat you're saying with you
know, a lot of folks.
I like one of my first jobs.
Uh, I was working at awell-respected bank, and I had
(39:26):
to make sure that the socialsecurity numbers were accurate.
They were always off by a digit,and I was checking, you know,
that's what I was doing everyday.
And, you know, that jobcertainly is now uh probably
does not exist.
And, you know, it was one ofthese things where, you know, I
understand that, like, oh man,that's a bummer that those jobs
(39:48):
are gone.
But at the same time, I knewthat that wasn't the best use of
my skill set was doing thosethings.
So I think it's actually a veryexciting thing that AI is taking
over jobs like that because itis going to allow people to
start to finally work on thosesoft skills that maybe were lost
(40:11):
even as early as elementaryschool.
You know, whatever the momentwas where people needed to get
even more serious.
Um, and, you know, there is atime where people say, Hey, sit
up straight, stand up, or stand,look, and take the test and you
know, follow these rules andyou'll get this good grade.
And, you know, it's gonna keepgoing.
(40:31):
And I think times are reallychanging where um, you know,
it's also like, okay, how areyou as a person to work with?
What is your creativity like?
What's your ability to innovate?
You know, again, how good areyour communication skills?
Uh, are you a good listener?
Are you willing to take chances?
Are you willing to like thinkoutside of this box?
(40:54):
And, you know, my hope is thatit allows people early enough to
be like, well, the answers arein front of us now.
How do I round myself out as ahuman being?
And that's what's going to makepeople more employable because
they are going to want to hirepeople that can solve problems
that AI cannot.
And I think that that is reallythe key is people starting to
(41:17):
focus on what's called softskills, you know, the all the
things I just listed, and alsoreframing them as not soft
skills, but power skills.
I was talking to someoneearlier, and they that's that's
what they were telling me thatthey called them.
And that's what I love.
Like, that's what's going tomake us powerful employees is
like, what are we doing to honethat in and hone in our
(41:41):
divergent muscles and hone inour ability to connect with
another human being and reallythink outside of the box.
And I think that laughter playsa really big role in that as
well, because you know, when youare less tense and you're adding
levity, even as someone that'steaching, like the what you do
(42:01):
with those um, you know,ignorance, stupidity, um, and
and insanity, what you're doingthere is you are giving
everybody a moment to say, Iwant to listen to this
individual even more becausethey're leading with levity, and
I'm so much more drawn in.
And there's data out there thatthat says if you are teaching
(42:25):
with the side of humor, whenyou're laughing, your brain kind
of uses that as a mile markerand then says, I'm gonna
remember this moment uh becauseI learned from it, and there's a
laughter that's associated withit.
So even as a presenter ofinformation and a receiver of
information, laughter can besuch a valuable tool in you
(42:46):
know, impacting us, you know,really elevating as as
professionals and as humanbeings.
SPEAKER_00 (42:53):
You know, the I didn't mean to cut focus so much
on the 15-minute break, but Ithought that that was brilliant.
It what really you do is openthe door for people to think
about what their capacity is incommunication with other people,
to the point that you can beteaching them how to um do these
(43:18):
things.
You know, one of the one of theinteresting things about life
work, we all have individualbrands, who we are.
And it it happens to most peopleunconsciously.
That's one of our our classesactually, five or six hours,
(43:40):
maybe even as much as eight.
Um the art of the possible isone piece of it, and who we are.
And I don't know that peoplegive themselves enough credit.
Look at the mirror and tell mewhat you see.
And most often, you know, youmeet people socially, you know
(44:05):
who we are.
Yeah, good to meet you.
What do you do?
And most of us can tell eachother what we do.
What this is my job.
Oh, really?
That's interesting.
How do you do that?
And many cases they can shareand communicate what it is, but
they'll struggle with it.
And then the next question thatI always ask is, Why do you do
(44:26):
it?
And the answer everybody givesme, of course, is to make money.
Well, that's not that's a resultof doing it.
Why why do you do it?
And at the end of the day, whenyou scratch and you stay there
and don't let them get away fromyou, because I like people.
And I think we're all socialanimals.
We all like to communicate witheach other, we all like to be
(44:48):
liked.
And the the thing that I try andget across to people, the
conductor of an orchestra is theonly musician that has his back
to the audience.
He's completely dependent on theskills of the people he's
looking at, the strings and thereads and the percussion and
all.
And if they're good, he's greator she's great.
(45:08):
If they ain't, he ain't.
It's pretty simple.
So, you know, one of the thingsthat you could do is put
together a series of lectures onon personnel, personal
development.
And you know, how do we getthere?
So, you know, one of mymetaphors is we in education,
and I'm a teacher since thebeginning of time, but we're all
(45:29):
10 years old, and we go to thefirst day of school.
Today, we all go to grade fouror whatever the grade is.
Some of us should be in adifferent grade up, and some of
us should be in a differentgrade down.
So, what I say to everybody,like what we do, the first thing
that we give you is a diagnostictest.
I want to know what the skillsand knowledge is for you.
(45:52):
I want to know what you know.
And based on that, I'llindividual, I'll create a
customized, individualizedlearning path for you to be able
to get better.
So we're all 10 years old, we goto school.
For the next two hours, two anda half hours, we're gonna write
exams.
And then we go home.
And a week later, we come backand we're assigned a grade from
(46:12):
grade three to grade nine.
Those that aren't up to speedare not gonna be feeling
inadequate, they're not gonnafeel right at the beginning,
they're a loser.
The people that are really aheadare not gonna be bored, they're
gonna be challenged.
It's the way we should do it.
Why don't we do that?
Well, my God, you can't.
We've been teaching this way for200 years.
(46:34):
Grade 4, grade 8, grade 12, weget standardized testing.
40, 50 countries in the world.
America finishes third, 30th.
The results from grade 12 cameout last week.
Less than, well, let's put itthis way more than 70 percent of
the grade 12 students in Americacan't read or do arithmetic at
grade level.
(46:55):
It's disgraceful.
Yeah, but those are the peoplethat are going to pay for your
social security, my friend.
They'd better start gettingbetter at things.
SPEAKER_01 (47:04):
Well, I think it goes back to the thing you said
about insanity at the end,right?
It's like that you're you'redoing the same thing over and
over again, expecting differentresults.
And uh, you know, we've beendoing it for 200 years, let's do
it the same way.
Why not?
And uh, and with decliningresults, you're you're thinking
that it's it's there, but welive in a different world than
(47:27):
we did 200 years ago, and yeah,I I couldn't be more with you
that it's uh it needs to change.
SPEAKER_00 (47:34):
The blacksmith was the first mechanic, yeah.
The farrier, yeah, yeah.
He was the guy that had thebiggest, strongest back and the
strongest body, and he did thehorseshoes and everything else.
Today, the person that's got thestrongest mind is the one we
need.
You know, my daughter's still ateacher, she's got a master's of
education, she is the curriculumdirector for a school district
(47:57):
for a program called AbbottAdvancement via individual
determination.
She's a hell of a teacher, butthis year we're going back to
the old religious deal, andFrank is having to be certified
as a book again.
Imagine so we we end up havingall kinds of stuff, and then at
(48:17):
work, it's the same kind ofthing.
Rarely does the customer doesthe employee that touches the
customer know what the customerneeds and wants, and we don't
ask.
SPEAKER_01 (48:27):
Yeah.
And I think what's what's verykind of you know, there's the
one way I I see what you'resaying is uh it's hard to change
education, right?
It's much harder to changeeducation.
It's so much more red tape andadministration, and you know,
again, like you said, lifetimesof uh and generations of how
(48:49):
things were done.
Like that change is going toreally be hard.
But from a workplaceperspective, the the red tape
should be so minimal.
And the way that we can impactand kind of course correct as
early on as we want and reallymold the professionals as we
have it today, uh, you know, toinvest in the human beings.
(49:14):
And that investment and thatchange can really draw an
employee to their employer in away that is so grateful uh
because they are giving them theskills.
And I think that that is what AIis going to allow us to do is
really like that's theoptimistic view of it is like,
(49:34):
great, we can be done with thestuff that is monotonous and we
can go towards elevatingourselves as human beings and
innovating how we do stuff.
And the people that are stuck inthe you know uh bureaucratic
method of doing things, youknow, they're gonna be stuck in
uh, you know, in time andthey're gonna have the world
(49:55):
passing them by becauseeverybody's changing.
Uh, and that change doesn't haveto just be dire, it can be very
optimistic that you know we canlevel up as human beings, uh,
and you know, the monotony cankind of take a back seat.
SPEAKER_00 (50:10):
Well, and and what you just did and everything
you've been saying, it's anoptimistic view, it's it's an
uplifting view.
No, I'm I I told you mydaughter's got a master's, my
grandmother in 1915 got amaster's degree.
Um my granddaughter's got amaster's degree, she's 24, and
(50:31):
she's a victim of uh some of theDepartment of Education cuts.
She was all set with funding forfive years for her doctorate,
and the funding went away, sothey're scrambling to trying to
find a different place for herto go.
But she's a smart kid.
She got her undergraduate inthree years because COVID came
through, and she said, Well,what am I supposed to do?
(50:52):
Watch television, yeah.
You know, so and and yeah, a lotof people in the country didn't
have access to the internet,yeah.
But some of the lunacy, justthink about this, my daughter's
teaching, they forced her theteachers to go to the schools
because they wanted to see themworking.
Imagine.
So, my grandson, he's probablythe nerd of the family.
(51:16):
He wanted to get nuclearengineering.
He was the head of the ROTC inhis junior year, dropped out for
a senior because they didn'toffer the classes he wanted.
He's he's on the autism scale,he's ADHD, you know, give him a
lot of things, you can't doanything.
You if you let him focus, he'sbrilliant.
So he wanted to go to Purdue andtake nuclear engineering.
(51:38):
He applied, he got in, he's allexcited, and then he finds out
how much it's gonna cost.
So, how much do you think afour-year degree in at Purdue is
gonna cost him?
Take a guess easily a hundredgrand.
$350,000.
(51:59):
He said, I'm not gonna do that.
I said, Well, you don't have to,you're gonna get scholarships.
He's a four-point, he's higherthan that.
He said, Yeah, but even with thescholarships, it's$170,000.
I'm not gonna do that.
And I said, Okay, what are yougonna do?
You know, we've got SAT, we gotACT, the military has one.
So he took the military exam, hescored in the top two percent in
the world.
(52:19):
So every branch came for him.
Yeah, yeah.
My daughter said to him, Look,you're not going to the Marines,
you're not going into the Army,because I didn't give birth to
you, so you could be cannonfather.
You can be in the Coast Guard,the Air Force, and the Navy.
Yeah, we checked him out.
And he went in his senior year,it's oh, I don't know, January.
So he's got another six monthsor so before he graduates.
(52:41):
He goes to the Navy, he says, Iwant to enlist.
They're all excited.
So they start getting the paper.
He said, No, no, no, wait asecond.
I want to join the Navy, butonly if I can get into the Nuke
program, the nuclear program inthe US Navy, supposedly one of
the toughest in the world.
He got in.
He turned 20 the first of Julythis year.
(53:01):
He's got an undergraduate degreein nuclear engineering and an
undergraduate degree inastrophysics right now.
Oh, you know why?
He went to school from eight inthe morning to five at night,
five days a week, and he hadfour hours compulsory homework
on Saturday.
Basically, two and a half yearsof work every year.
SPEAKER_02 (53:21):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (53:22):
Why do we go to school at eight in the morning
and leave at three or nine tillfour or whatever the hell the
time?
Why do we do that?
Again, it's the same thing,Kevin.
Everywhere around, we have tochallenge what we do, we have to
challenge who we are, and peopleneed to give us opportunities,
like you're doing, to considerdifferent things, like teachers
(53:44):
should be doing, opening themup.
We should.
I went to university at 16, notbecause of my brains, but
because of my birthday.
How are we supposed to decidewhat I want to do at 16?
SPEAKER_01 (53:54):
Oh, yeah.
I mean, that's ridiculous.
It's an insane question to ask.
Your brain's not even developedfor at least six more years.
SPEAKER_00 (54:01):
Exactly.
I you know, I tell mygranddaughter, be careful.
You know, if you're gonna datesomebody, don't date anybody
under the age of 40.
Men don't hit intellectualpuberty until they're 40.
You gotta have fun.
SPEAKER_01 (54:14):
I can attest to that.
I'm on my way still.
SPEAKER_00 (54:18):
Kevin, this has been indeed a pleasure, much greater
than I expected.
Thank you so much.
Absolutely.
I had a blast.
Thank you, Ron.
I um I'm I'm gonna put you towork if if you can.
And I I hope the audience hasbeen listening to this and is
thinking about it.
What we try to do with thesepodcasts is get people to think.
(54:40):
And and you've given us a hellof a lot of material to think
about.
And everything aboutcommunications and life,
everything about life iscommunications.
So thank you very much.
I I truly appreciate it.
SPEAKER_01 (54:52):
Yeah, it's my pleasure.
And uh, yeah, I have a I have ablog or a newsletter that
everyone can check out if theywant.
This is all the stuff I talkabout every day.
It's uh laugh rx is the name ofthe newsletter.
And the you can go tolaughrx.laugh.events and uh and
yeah, you can check out morethere.
SPEAKER_00 (55:11):
Well, what um for my audience, I'm gonna convince
Kevin to start writing someblogs for us.
So we'll put links on ourwebsite for his newsletter and
and other things.
And um, Kevin, thank you verymuch.
And to the people out therelistening, thank you.
And I look forward to having youwith another candidate
conversation in the near future.
(55:32):
Mahalo.
Aloha, and welcome to another candid conversation.
We're going right off the railstoday.
We've got a man by the name ofKevin Humschmann who basically
is going to give us some humor.
So, in the midst of all of theseries on artificial
intelligence and and how youproceed in the world that we're
(00:23):
living with with technologychange, Kevin is going to give
us a little bit of a light view.
And that's as far as I'm goingto go.
So, Kevin, if you couldintroduce yourself, that'd be
wonderful.
Tell us what you're going to doto us today.
SPEAKER_01 (00:35):
Well, yeah, uh look forward to having a nice
conversation about humor.
I'll do my best to make somejokes and make it laugh, but you
know, anytime I say that outloud, it always ends up bombing.
So uh we're gonna have to keepthings light and hope that you
and I can just make some magic.
SPEAKER_00 (00:53):
We'll do that.
Um I'm in Hawaii.
You're in Brooklyn, right?
Yep.
So we're about what do youthink?
Something in the order of 6,000miles apart.
So I can't reach out and smackyou, neither can you do that to
me.
Don't worry, I'll smack myself.
So what does laugh.events do,which is your company, correct?
SPEAKER_01 (01:18):
Yeah, that's my company.
So we uh we do we have it'scomedy services for corporate
audiences.
So uh that could be virtualcomedy shows, that can be
in-person comedy shows, andsomething that um people are
really gravitating towards nowis uh is something we'd call
laughing and development, whichis applied improv and other
(01:43):
skills that comedians use everyday that uh professionals can
use to kind of unlock theirpotential.
SPEAKER_00 (01:50):
That's you know, there's we're all in my mind,
we're all together too seriousabout everything.
We we don't have enough levity,we don't have enough humor.
Um, we're we're talking aroundeach other or at each other.
There's there's we we don't do alot of things very well anymore
as people.
(02:10):
So I really think you've got asweet spot there for a lot of
companies, even if you just hada a 10-minute comedy blob that
people could, you know, sign onto in the morning or once a week
or something, just to give thema little bit of a lift.
I and I suspect that's some ofthe things you do.
SPEAKER_01 (02:28):
Yeah, that's actually something we offer.
We call it uh 15-minute laughbreaks.
So there's companies that willhire us to do, you know, hey, we
want to everyone to stop whatthey're doing and just have a
laugh, have some fun, uh, forgetabout work for a little bit.
And yeah, like I said, there'stwo sides of our business.
It's like the entertainmentside, where it's like the goal
(02:49):
of this event is only laughterand having the company provide
that levity.
And then the other side is morein team building, professional
development.
But um, both of those uh mainproducts we offer are, you know,
fall into the team buildingside.
But yeah, I mean, these15-minute laugh breaks, um, you
know, I always joke that like II I sometimes I do keynotes and
(03:14):
I'll go and I'll say, Raise yourhand, who here smokes
cigarettes?
And you know, one person raisestheir hand and I go, I bet that
person's the most productiveperson in this room.
Uh and and people are like, Whatis this guy talking about?
But it's the fact that they havethese breaks, you know, they the
addiction that they have tocigarettes is forcing them to go
(03:37):
take a break outside, their bodysaying, We need this break.
Otherwise, people that do nothave that part of their brain
that's like, yo, take a break.
Um, you know, they run rightthrough it and their
productivity goes down the downthe chute.
So, you know, these laughbreaks, I also always end it.
I go, well, everyone reach underyour seats because I have
(03:59):
cigarettes for all of you.
No, but we uh we start talkinglike this laughter, companies
that kind of implement thislaugh break, it kind of can we
wanted to it to act like the newcigarette break because
biologically, when you laugh,you know, your cortisol levels,
that stress hormone is going togo down and your endorphins are
(04:22):
gonna go up.
So you're getting thesefeel-good chemicals, you're
you're getting distracted uhwith just what's in front of
you, and you're not thinkingabout work, and that stress is
kind of coming off yourshoulders, and everyone just
comes away from it being alittle bit lighter, and you
know, they're not watching avideo and watching 16 seconds
and going, they're locked in for15 minutes, resetting their
(04:44):
brains and kind of like etchsketching their brains with
laughter.
SPEAKER_00 (04:49):
I know it's amazing.
The um, as a as an educator, asa teacher, I'm interested in how
people learn and when how whendo they best learn?
And one of the proofs that'sbeen around for decades is that
physical education, 30 minutes,20 minutes of exercise, your
(05:11):
learning capacity over the nexttwo hours is huge.
SPEAKER_02 (05:14):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (05:15):
And yet most schools, school districts and
states have killed during theday physette.
SPEAKER_02 (05:22):
Oh man.
SPEAKER_00 (05:23):
And if it was me, I'd have one, and first thing in
the morning, everybody goesthere.
You know, kind of the Japaneseor Asian approach or Home Depot,
they get together and have acircle of discussion and they do
exercises.
SPEAKER_02 (05:35):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (05:36):
And then right after lunch, and it's been proven,
Kevin, that it it is beneficial.
And so the break you're talkingabout, think about people that
don't smoke, but they're in themiddle of something, they get
stressed out because they gotto-do lists, and I want to
finish this, but theirproductivity goes in the toilet.
SPEAKER_01 (05:57):
Oh, yeah.
I mean, I mean personally, Ihave tried to figure out what
what is slowing me down right atthat uh, you know, three o'clock
time.
I know I know that I can beproductive when I from when I
wake up until about 2 p.m.
And I thought it was like mydiet.
So I tried to change my diet andI tried to really eat stuff that
(06:20):
would not slow my body down.
But then I still sort of crashedand I started looking into it,
and I started researching, likeuh, at least specifically for
men and myself, like ourcircadian rhythms.
Uh we are only really supposedto be even awake for eight hours
until our brain is like, pleasetake a rest, take a take a
(06:44):
break.
And so it I found it was likethe alternatives were one of two
things.
It was it was a nap, and it waseither, you know, just shut your
eyes down for 15 minutes andjust kind of reset, uh, or take
a longer restorative nap that'sa full cycle.
(07:04):
And I'm like, I don't have timeto take an hour and a half nap
in the middle of the day.
Uh, but I did find that, like,you know, what is that for me?
What is that like 15-minutereset?
And so that's like when we talkto companies, when is the best
time to do these comedy events?
It's when people are crashing,when people's bodies are
(07:26):
naturally like, hey, I'msupposed to sleep now.
Our body, like the theory alsois that you know, humans used to
have they they used to sleeptwice.
They used to have two differenttypes of sleep patterns, um, or
times that they two two bedtime.
So our bodies are saying we needa change up.
And so I always say, hey, thebest time to do a comedy event,
(07:49):
these 15-minute laugh breaks,are between 2 and 4 p.m., where
people kind of need to uh toreset if you want them to be
productive in the second half ofthe day.
SPEAKER_00 (07:59):
Yeah, it's amazing.
There was there was a study byNational Geographic about 40 or
50 years ago where they put aguy underground, um, and the
cave that he was in, the lightswould go on when his body awoke.
It would go off when he went tosleep.
(08:20):
And they found that we needabout 11 hours of sleep, and
then we're awake for 22 versusthe workday goes according to
the sun, and then we screwaround it with daylight savings
and all the rest of thisnonsense.
We don't change our clock.
And and what's interesting forme, I'm closer to the equator,
(08:41):
and so my days and nights arepretty much the same length.
I grew up in Montreal, where inthe winter time, where let's go
crazy.
I I was born in Alberta and inEdmonton, when my daughter's
going to school, she'd go toschool in the dark, she'd come
home in the dark, and be likeliving like a mole.
SPEAKER_02 (08:59):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (09:00):
And you know, it's kind of dangerous when you've
got she was in kindergartengrade one, grade two type of
thing.
So my wife would walk to the buspickup uh just to make sure she
got there.
SPEAKER_02 (09:11):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (09:11):
And and you know, I used to look out my window
there, and and we had six hoursof sunshine in the in the winter
time.
It's it's so we're all screwedup in how we do things.
So I'm interested in how I lovethat 15-minute break.
I think that's how do people getin touch with you if you if they
want to do such a thing?
SPEAKER_01 (09:31):
Well, our website's the best thing to do,
laugh.events.
That's the name of the company,and it's also the website.
Try to make it easy foreverybody.
Um, but yeah, that's it.
And and we have companies dothese laugh breaks, and you
know, it's another thing.
A lot of companies come to usand they're like, we want to do
this big celebration.
(09:51):
You know, we just had this crazyquarter, or we just had this
crazy month, you know, wereally, or we just pushed a
product, or we just did thisaccomplishment.
Uh, we want to do like anhour-long event.
And I'm always like, that'sgreat.
You know, I'm happy with doingan hour-long event, whatever you
want to do.
But I always recommend like,let's take that budget and
(10:13):
spread it out into like a bunchof these 15-minute breaks.
And a lot of people think likelonger is better.
Um, and there was a point whereactually I wouldn't let people
do more than 30-minute eventsbecause it's like these are
people's attention spans.
But I also just found that like15 minutes is this perfect,
like, I'm gonna be focused, I'mgonna be enjoying myself.
(10:35):
And a lot of folks wanna say,let's use all of the budget now,
longer is better, let's have acomedian go for a longer period
of time.
And I'm always for, hey, it'sthe same price if you just
spread it out and give people agift, you know, every quarter or
every month, uh, whatever is isbetter.
(10:57):
Uh, it doesn't change how we dobusiness, we just think it's
delivering a way better product.
SPEAKER_00 (11:01):
Yeah, I agree with you.
There's a behavioral scientistwho teaches at Harvard, his name
is Nir Eal.
He's uh an Israeli, and he wrotea book called Indistractable.
Oh, maybe 10 years, I don'tknow, something like 10 years
ago.
And I changed how I work basedon input from that book.
I've been a maniac to-do listguy.
(11:23):
Yeah, and he said, kill that,deal with blocks of time.
With the to-do list, you putstress on yourself, you got to
get this done, you got to get itdone.
And that also degrades yourcapacity.
Um, so it it's been a you know,imagine that 75 years, and and
somebody's teaching me somethingnew on how to conduct myself.
(11:45):
Yeah, and I I think thesethings, I think they're very
valuable.
We're we're in a high stressworld, Kevin, as you know,
technology is changing soquickly that people can't keep
up and they don't know how todeal with it, and they become
victims.
And it's almost an age blockthing.
(12:06):
Like I'm nearly 80.
And people my age, don't, don't,don't give me a computer for
God's sake.
I can't the keyboard.
What do you mean?
I can't type.
I, you know, texting on yourphone, my fingers are too damn
big, you know, all this stuff.
And and it and it's true, butthe young people, my grandkids,
son of a gun, bang, bang, bang,it's it's you know, I can't
believe it.
(12:26):
Oh, yeah.
And they they catch on to thingsmore quickly because I I believe
they're more accepting ortolerant of making mistakes.
We aren't.
We're taught don't makemistakes, damn it.
Yeah, so how do you okay?
Give me a snippet.
Um, I'm I'm a pretty dour guy,but I like to laugh.
(12:50):
So I don't know if I'm a goodtest model for you, but can you
make me laugh?
SPEAKER_01 (12:54):
No, I don't want to try to make you laugh.
I think that's those momentswhere that's actually a funny
thing.
If you ask any comedian, hey,tell a joke, they're like, I
don't think like this is gonnago well.
So I always I always kind of tryto stay away from that, uh, and
more let this dialogue kind ofresult in something maybe funny.
(13:16):
But we should make your seatsbecause I think I left some
cigarettes for you.
SPEAKER_00 (13:19):
Yeah, I think no, but that's that's a perfect
answer because you know I welived in Southern California for
20 plus years, I don't know,maybe 30, and we had a timeshare
in Vegas, and we'd drive up, andwe'd go up on a Monday, come
back on a Friday, so Mondaynight, Tuesday night, Wednesday
night, Thursday night, andthere's a comedy club like a
half a block away from where ourtimeshare was.
(13:42):
And every time we were there,we'd go in there.
And aside from the the language,it's it's amazing, and it's
really good comedy, peopletrying to break in.
Yeah, and and we've seen youknow, Seinfeld and Carlin and
all of these people, and they'regifted as hell and how they can
(14:03):
write.
Yeah.
And Jerry Seinfeld's the onlycomedian that I think that my
wife and I saw that didn't swearonce.
And it was noticeable after awhile.
Yeah.
George Carlin, like half thetheater would disappear when he
started getting going becausehis language is so it was just
(14:24):
part of his stick.
SPEAKER_01 (14:25):
I mean, Carlin's got the whole uh, I think was it
seven dirty words?
I think that's it.
So I mean, that's that's whatyou're that's what you're paying
for.
SPEAKER_00 (14:35):
We we saw him in Vegas, and it was I it was right
next door to us.
Our timeshare was behind theflamingo, and he used to go into
the kitchen and have his dinnertalking with the guys, and then
he'd be dressed up so that you'dnever recognize, and we'd be out
in the street getting material.
SPEAKER_01 (14:56):
Oh my gosh.
SPEAKER_00 (14:57):
It's um he was an amazing man, actually.
He and his wife were married.
I mean, his lifelong marriage.
Um, his life was over when hiswife passed because she was his
producer, yeah.
And um, you know, brilliantstuff, but the language just my
wife, my wife at times was justholy mackerel, do you have to do
that?
SPEAKER_01 (15:18):
But yeah, I mean, it's it's actually, you know,
there's a lot, a lot to unlike alot of things I wanted to jump
off from there, but I'll startwith the the language component.
Like, we work, we do likepre-event surveys to be like,
hey, what is the vibe?
What do you guys want?
And there's some people that arelike, rated R, like roast my
(15:39):
boss.
And I was like, I am going tonot take your advice um because
that's dumb.
Uh, nobody wants to hear that,especially in a corporate
setting.
So, like when you're dealingwith like corporate comedy, um
you don't the goal of corporatecomedy, or I'd rather comedy for
corporate audiences.
(16:00):
I think calling corporate comedymakes it sound pretty dull, but
comedy for corporate audiencesis that it doesn't benefit you
as the comedian to go artisticin that moment and say, my
language, my art, my act.
It's like you're a steward tothe audience in that setting.
The client is paying you toreally make people happy.
(16:23):
And so it's actually a reallycool environment because the
comedians are so dialed intrying to make it as inclusive
of language as possible.
Um, and you know, that is avery, it just makes for the
comedy to be a bit morewholesome, a bit more fun.
Like, don't get me wrong, I lovegoing after work to comedy clubs
(16:46):
and just really hearing it.
And it's there's a time and aplace for it.
Uh, I love it.
Um, but as someone too at thatperforms stand-up comedy, I have
a little like an anecdote.
I went, I did a show in uh a fewmonths ago, and it was my family
was coming.
My aunts were coming, and likefriends and family were coming.
(17:09):
My brothers and sisters werethere, so I was like, they can I
can let them hear it, but like,you know, I don't want this was
near my hometown.
So also I wanted to like respectmy family for coming and my
aunts for coming, and I didn'twant them to be like, you know,
we we helped raise this, youknow.
So I I went through and I combedthrough my set and I eliminated
(17:32):
almost every curse word.
I might have kept like one curseword because I think it was even
Jerry Seinfeld that says, like,he doesn't curse, not because he
thinks he's better thaneverybody, but he thinks it
distracts from the joke itself.
And that if you really, if younever curse, but you curse like
once, that power of being ofthat like adds to the joke,
(17:54):
right?
If you didn't, if you don't hearanyone saying anything bad, but
the moment that they do curse,you kind of stand up a little
bit and you're like, okay, nownow I'm listening.
So I think it's like thatlanguage can be a tool, uh, or
not cursing is a tool, becausethen if you're not dealing with
cursing, you're then not dealingwith certain content.
(18:15):
And again, a lot of people belike, oh, that's annoying.
I want them to go crazy.
But creativity needs boundaries.
And I think that you can reallybe creative and go crazy, but
also that is distracting in away because you have one idea
here that's funny, and anotheridea here that's funny, but they
(18:36):
might not even be on the sametopic or even similar.
But if you give yourself theseguardrails and say, hey, you
can't talk about like X, Y, andZ, you know that you can talk
about A, B, and C.
And so you can say, like, that'swhat we're gonna do, and we're
not gonna curse.
And that is going to really sayit's not putting shackles on
(18:59):
you, it's putting guardrails onyou.
You know, it's like shoot, it'slike uh bowling.
Like, obviously, you don't wantto shoot with bumpers and you
want to show people that you canhit strikes without the bumpers,
but I'm telling you, you putthose bumpers on, like you're
you're shooting easily over 125and not even thinking about it.
Um, and I think that's helpful.
SPEAKER_00 (19:18):
Yeah, what you're talking about is communications,
yeah.
And and you know, I I don't knowthat we are communicating as
well as we could, you know, justthe asking questions um is
important.
I don't mean yes, no type stuff,open-ended questions that forces
the person to talk.
How do we find out what peoplelike, what they don't like, what
(19:41):
they want, what they need,unless we can have a dialogue.
Dialogue's a Greek word, or Ithink it's Greek, flow of
meaning.
Um, a monologue's, you know, I'mI'm not Johnny Carson, that's
for damn sure.
But but as a teacher, you know,one of the things I've been
teaching a long time, and withtechnology today, I can put a
(20:04):
quiz out every seven to twelveminutes.
One question, and I know whetherpeople are with me or not.
SPEAKER_02 (20:11):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (20:12):
And the the real trick as a teacher is to make
sure I transfer that informationto the audience.
I I use what's called Socraticteaching, meaning I don't answer
questions, I ask them.
I help them develop a pattern ora skill set that allows them to
learn without me.
SPEAKER_02 (20:30):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (20:30):
And and that's like you know, teaching the fish they
can eat for the rest of theirlife.
Give them a fish, they got ameal.
Um, but I think everythingyou're talking about makes
wonderful sense.
I love the 15-minute breakbecause such a thing is needed,
and it'll be interesting from myaudience.
We we cover somewhere, dependingon on how we get across on
(20:53):
social media, somewhere between10 and 20,000 people will see
this.
And um it's it's it'sinteresting or have access to
it.
It's interesting.
SPEAKER_01 (21:03):
Um the thing, what real quick that I heard you say,
you know, when you said uh, youknow, Socratic method, it
reminded me of um a quote that Ilove uh from Plato.
And it's you can learn moreabout a person in an hour of
play than you can in a lifetimeof I think conversation.
I'm I'm butchering the quote,but the um that is like a very
(21:27):
big component.
You just mentioned likelistening, or earlier in the
conversation, you also mentionedabout like being scared to fail.
Um, and I think that all ofthose things are really
intertwined.
And that's where outside ofthese laugh breaks that we're
talking about, the other thingthat people love doing with us
and working with us that's waymore educational is these things
(21:48):
called laughing and development.
And it's the ability, it's it'susing applied improv uh games
and exercises to play with oneanother and have fun with one
another.
But to your point, you know,learning how to communicate
effectively, how to activelylisten is like the the whole
goal of good play and goodbanter and going back and forth.
(22:11):
And that unlocks the ability tolearn about people and
open-ended questions and uh andreally being curious.
Um, and then when you do thatand it works, you are a lot less
scared to fail or ask thatquestion or go out on a limb uh
because it's coming from a placeof interest and curiosity, and
(22:32):
it's a muscle that you have.
So even your body is like, thisis very organic and natural to
me.
And I think it's a muscle thatgets gets atrophied over time,
especially with say AI, uh,where everyone's just doing, you
know, very much convergentthinking and really being like,
what is the answer to this?
Yes or no?
(22:52):
And as humans, we are we'redivergent thinkers.
It what's it's what makes us sospecial.
And that's another thing thatwe've seen with our applied
improv workshops in laughing anddevelopment, is divergent
thinking is how you breakthrough and brainstorm and
innovate and come up with coolideas and think outside of
(23:12):
yourself and come up with 10 badideas so that one good idea can
emerge from it all.
Um, and I think that's fromlistening, communication, and
uh, and you know, all the thingsthat you were saying as well.
SPEAKER_00 (23:25):
Yeah, it's it's um communications is the biggest
failure we have in mankind, Ithink.
It's um you know, my wife and Iwere married for 50 years, and
everybody says, Wow, that'samazing, and it's all on her,
not me.
Um she'd tell you the same thingin reverse, but it's about being
(23:47):
more than you.
So I when you do these 15-minutebreaks, do they just see you or
do you see them as well?
SPEAKER_01 (23:54):
Oh, we have to see them.
Uh, there's yeah, when whenfolks are saying, like, great,
no one's gonna be on theircameras or no one's gonna be on
their microphones, and we'relike, then don't hire us because
that's not gonna be fun foranybody.
Uh, because doing comedy ordoing improv to an empty group
of people is like talking to awall, you know, no one's
(24:15):
benefiting from that, uh,especially the the performer.
SPEAKER_00 (24:19):
I used to uh when when I was working for
dealerships in in Montreal, wewere rather remote.
So breaks and lunch, we had acafeteria, and it was always
interesting to me who had lunchtogether and who didn't.
And the reason that I like thefact that you can see the
(24:40):
audience and they can see you isthat it puts them together in a
way that otherwise would not betrue.
It it builds teams in a muchmore productive way because in
the in the course of the15-minute breaks, I'm sure
you're posing questions too, andand maybe soliciting responses
from the group.
And and as time passes, theyprobably become jatterboxes, you
(25:02):
know, silent as hell becausethey don't want to, you know,
it's it's amazing.
You know, as a teacher, thefirst 30 minutes of a class
where nobody knows anybody, theydon't know me, they don't know
each other.
I start with three questionsevery single class.
What's the definition ofignorance?
And of course, nobody wants tostick their neck out because
(25:24):
they don't know what to expectof me and each other, so they're
pretty quiet.
So I give them the answer,ignorance is not knowing what to
do.
And oh, okay, I get you.
You're pretty simple-minded sonof a gun here.
The next question is okay, tellme what give me a definition of
stupidity.
And some of them are starting tocome alive and they get it, and
stupidity is knowing what to doand not doing it.
(25:46):
And then I I put the third oneout and I don't ask the
question, what's the definitionof insanity?
And it's either, you know,Socrates or Einstein or or Mark
Twain, insanity is continuing todo what you've always done,
expecting different results.
And then then I come out and Isay, okay, at the end of this
session, I'm not gonna let yoube ignorant because I'm gonna
(26:07):
tell you what to do.
So I'm giving you a choice ofbeing stupid or insane.
And looking around the room, Idon't see people going to a
padded room very quickly.
So, you know, and and sillythings like that just to break
the ice a little bit.
But um, you know, change.
I I tell people change isdifficult, but if you think it's
(26:27):
difficult to work, go home andtell your wife or your husband
or partner you're gonna changewhich side of the bed you sleep
on and tell me what the couch islike the next day.
Yeah.
Because that that change istough.
Everything else is easy, it'sjust a it's everything's
attitude.
SPEAKER_01 (26:43):
It's attitude, it's also like not biting off more
than you can chew, you know.
And it's like I think a lot ofpeople that want to change, they
say, let me just changeovernight and let me be a whole
different person tomorrow.
And that's another skill that Ilearned in stand-up.
When I'm writing my own stand-upjokes, or really any comedian,
(27:07):
you know, it's it's not throwaway the whole thing.
Find out what is working andthen make minor tweaks.
Uh, and then you're able tomeasure.
I mean, especially when you'relet's let's take a joke, for
example.
You know, you might tell a jokeand that, and it's a setup, a
punchline, and and a few tagsafter, like to keep the laughter
(27:29):
going.
And you might have nailed thesetup, but the punchline's not
there, the tags don't reallywork.
Are you gonna throw the wholejoke away and say, no, I got to
start from scratch?
No, next time you're gonnachange a word in the punchline,
you're gonna add a pause betweenthe tags.
You don't have to completelythrow the joke away.
(27:50):
You can make these really smallchanges.
And I think that is a lot ofpeople are scared, like you had
said earlier, scared to fail andscared to say, hey, let me try
this again.
Because your brain is like, yo,that hey, that didn't work.
That failed.
So if you can train your brainand say, yeah, but if I change
this small thing uh and I see apositive result, then I'm
(28:14):
actually changing how I thinkand being way more open to not
just change, but but being opento the idea that you will fail,
but there's going to be somegood stuff that comes from it.
And I'm just a very big believerin making really small changes
because every time I try to makea big change, say with like my
diet or something, I end uplike, you know, eating 10 Big
(28:37):
Macs as a result of it andcompletely failing.
Um, and so that is like that'show I know and I've trained my
body is like, you know, practicewhat I preach when I'm writing
comedy.
It's like make that small changeand measure it, good, bad, on to
the next one, keep it, throw itout, try again.
SPEAKER_00 (28:56):
I'll give you a little example of that.
Um, making small change.
Um I I came off a horse about 40years ago and had compression
fractures in my lower spine.
And about six months ago, Itried to be 35 years old again,
and and um from L2 to L11, I'mtwo inches shorter.
(29:18):
And I go to physiotherapy, andevery you know, it's required,
and I I've got a build-up coreand all that's cool.
And my doctor here, the medicalin Hawaii is just phenomenal.
But my my doctor, his name isMario Silva.
I call him Super Mario, and whenhe retires, I'm gonna get him
the red hat.
And and um, I said, you know,you're you're retiring in
(29:41):
January.
I need you to find yourreplacement, otherwise, I'll
find where you are and I'll keepbugging you.
So we he found a guy about 30minutes away.
He's in his early 50s, he's gotlong blonde, brown, curly hair
down to his shoulders.
He was a weightlifter at onepoint.
He's about 5'10, maybe 5'9, andthat's I'm about 5'11 now.
(30:02):
And we're chatting.
We have a 15-minute meet andgreet.
And he he stops after about 15minutes.
He says, Ron, you know, they'retreating you like a pussy.
And forgive my language, but Isaid, What?
Because I wasn't sure that adoctor he he repeated it and he
said, Yeah, they're treating youlike a 79-year-old.
I'm gonna treat you like a59-year-old.
(30:23):
The whole the holiday's over.
SPEAKER_02 (30:25):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (30:26):
I said, I'm yours, man.
You know, it's uh so the inkwhat that did was it
reinvigorated my competitivejuices, and I think we all are
competitive to some degree.
But an office, you're typicallyworking by yourself, and you can
(30:48):
talk a little bit back andforth, but a lot of bosses don't
like to hear conversation on thein the workplace, and and that's
a bit of a bear.
I had two ladies, Hilda andHazel, believe it or not.
This is in the late 60s, thatworked for me in the office.
And they sat side by side.
SPEAKER_01 (31:09):
Sounds like a sitcom.
SPEAKER_00 (31:11):
Well, this one is all day long.
They talked with each other andthey didn't get along.
And they lied about their birthdate and that kind of stuff.
They should have been connectingpension plans, but they continue
to work.
And you know, it it if youseparated them, they'd never be
able to work.
I'm not joking.
(31:32):
And you know, it's we we hadanother situation where you know
you're selling parts, you go toa car dealership, you got a
counter, you go up, you can buyparts and that kind of stuff.
My owner loved to have the placelook busy.
SPEAKER_02 (31:47):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (31:47):
So we were on the Trans-Canada Highway on a
service road, and we would havetransportation trucks lined up
for two hours, two miles tryingto get into our place because we
only had two docks.
We rebuilt the building, we madeit 10 docks, and nobody knew
whether we were busy or not.
I'm I'm you know, come on in, wecan handle you.
But one afternoon it was reallyamazing.
(32:08):
I'm supervising the guys on thecounter.
And if you can imagine, I'm in acubicle looking at the front
door, and to the right hand sideof me is the receptionist with a
small area for customers to waitor suppliers or whoever, and to
the left of me is the counter,and there's eight guys there,
and it's all guys because thisis a chauvinistic industry, and
(32:28):
the phones are ringing, andthere's the people there, it's a
wonderful afternoon,everything's cool.
A guy comes in the front door,and you know, as as God is my
witness, he looks over to thecounter, he turns and goes and
sits down at the reception area,picks up the phone, dials a
number that I could see theoperator answer the phone.
(32:51):
She transferred him to the partsdepartment.
I could hear the phone ringingin the parts department at the
counter.
And a guy who's serving acustomer says, Excuse me, I have
to get that phone.
So he left the customer to goanswer the phone.
The guy placed his order and hesaid, Okay, where do you want me
to ship it to?
The guy came around the corner,stuck his hand up in the air.
You don't need to ship it, I'mright here.
(33:14):
And we were training thecustomer that you got better
service if you didn't come inthan if you did.
Yeah.
And I'd kill to get guys cominginto a store because I'm going
to try to sell everything underyou know, everything under the
sun in there.
You know, it's it's so again,communications and identifying
where there's opportunities tomake people more productive.
(33:38):
Absolutely.
People enjoy their day a littlebit more.
We spend more time at work thanwe do with our families.
So why can't it be pleasant?
SPEAKER_01 (33:47):
Yeah, and I think that like uh something that we
preach a lot is uh, you know, wehave our nine to five
personalities, you know, that wehave our the person that we are
at work, and we should be doingeverything that we can to bring
some of our five to ninepersonalities into work.
(34:10):
And what I mainly mean by thatis that guy that you're hanging
out with, having a beer withafter work, for me at least, uh
for the first uh quarter of mycareer, that guy was way
different than the guy that wasyou're having coffee with.
And you know, I really wantedto, you know, change that.
(34:31):
And that's when I started to,you know, practice improv
comedy, applied improv comedy.
Uh, when I started to do morestand-up comedy, that was my
outlet to engage in more levity,uh, but also engage in all of
these soft skills that can bedeteriorating.
But more importantly, it waslike, no, this is going to allow
(34:53):
me to be way better of acoworker and way more pleasant
to be around because you'regetting what you're getting with
me, and you're going to, it'ssomeone that you know, that I
like, and it's someone thatyou're gonna like.
And you know, allowing yourselfto be human and allowing
yourself to be authenticallyyourself uh really is going to
(35:16):
go a long way in creating trustbecause I'm sure uh you said it
was Heather and Hazel.
Hilda and Hazel.
Hilda and Hazel.
I'm sure that they were soauthentically themselves that
even though they hatedthemselves or hated each other
and couldn't stand each other,they loved that part about each
(35:37):
other and it allowed them to belike, you know what, we're
having this is entertaining insome capacity, and we are like
really being ourselves.
That's gonna allow me to be abetter person at work because I
don't need to likecompartmentalize those two parts
of me.
And Hilda's driving me nuts, butthat's exactly she drive me nuts
(35:58):
outside of work, too.
SPEAKER_00 (35:59):
Yeah, you you know, they've they must have been like
this when they were four yearsold.
You know, it'd be it it's almostcomedic, but the work that they
did literally was brain-deadwork, and in those days you had
to have a lot of people that didbrain dead work.
What the hell?
That's why work's a four-letterwork.
Today, those jobs are being doneby artificial intelligence, the
(36:22):
office is being invaded now, andthat scares the hell out of
people.
Yeah, give them a little bit ofopportunity to realize that
artificial intelligence is onlygood if you've got people
intelligence to deal with it.
A skill that we're gonna have tolearn is how to ask questions.
Yeah.
Because if you know, I can ask aquestion, I'll get 200,000
(36:43):
answers.
Oh, wait a second, that's nogood.
So, and I don't think we're verygood at that.
I I have this theory, Kevin,that as a person that we're
we're taught to be obedient ourwhole damn lives.
It starts with our parentstrying to protect us.
Don't you know look both waysbefore you cross the street,
(37:04):
don't touch the stove, and thenwe push back in our teenage
year.
I know, don't tell me, blah,blah.
Then you go to school, and thisis how you do cursive writing,
they don't even teach thatanymore.
This is how we do adding andsubtracting and all the rest.
And it's this is the way you dothat.
And then we finish school and wego to a job.
We we're lucky enough to get ajob, and somebody teaches us how
(37:26):
to do the job.
They show us what to do, thenthey tell us what they showed
us, and then you know, here wego.
And they leave us saying, justpractice that, do more of it
with fewer mistakes, and you'llbe fine.
I'm I'm in Moscow with a client,and a guy in his 50s with three
children with a master's degreeis the boss.
(37:49):
And I go up to him, and it's atypical question: Is there
anything if you had if I gaveyou a magic wand, what would you
change about your job, aboutyour work, that would make your
life easier and the company moremoney?
His answer to me, Kevin, wasdon't ask things like that.
Just tell me what you want todo.
And I'm afraid that most peopleare in that category.
(38:11):
Yeah.
And so here comes artificialintelligence.
One of the people thatcontributes to us, his name is
Ed Gordon, says that by 2030,and I can argue about the date,
50% of the American workforcewill not have the skills to be
employable.
That's 90 million people.
And we've spent hundreds oftrillions of dollars on
(38:33):
technology, but nothing onsociology.
So that's part of what scaresthe hell out of people.
If you're smart, if you're welleducated, if you're disciplined,
if you're ambitious, if you'recurious, you're fine.
And more people are smarter thanwhat they think they are, but
they never give themselves theopportunity.
I think your 15-minute breaksmight be enough levity because
(38:57):
they'll see the whole crowd onthe screen.
And I think that's a benefit aswell.
SPEAKER_01 (39:02):
Yeah, and I think you know, the other side again
to talk about the other side ofour business outside of the
15-minute laugh breaks are theselaughing and development
sessions.
And I hear that all the time ofwhat you're saying with you
know, a lot of folks.
I like one of my first jobs.
Uh, I was working at awell-respected bank, and I had
(39:26):
to make sure that the socialsecurity numbers were accurate.
They were always off by a digit,and I was checking, you know,
that's what I was doing everyday.
And, you know, that jobcertainly is now uh probably
does not exist.
And, you know, it was one ofthese things where, you know, I
understand that, like, oh man,that's a bummer that those jobs
(39:48):
are gone.
But at the same time, I knewthat that wasn't the best use of
my skill set was doing thosethings.
So I think it's actually a veryexciting thing that AI is taking
over jobs like that because itis going to allow people to
start to finally work on thosesoft skills that maybe were lost
(40:11):
even as early as elementaryschool.
You know, whatever the momentwas where people needed to get
even more serious.
Um, and, you know, there is atime where people say, Hey, sit
up straight, stand up, or stand,look, and take the test and you
know, follow these rules andyou'll get this good grade.
And, you know, it's gonna keepgoing.
(40:31):
And I think times are reallychanging where um, you know,
it's also like, okay, how areyou as a person to work with?
What is your creativity like?
What's your ability to innovate?
You know, again, how good areyour communication skills?
Uh, are you a good listener?
Are you willing to take chances?
Are you willing to like thinkoutside of this box?
(40:54):
And, you know, my hope is thatit allows people early enough to
be like, well, the answers arein front of us now.
How do I round myself out as ahuman being?
And that's what's going to makepeople more employable because
they are going to want to hirepeople that can solve problems
that AI cannot.
And I think that that is reallythe key is people starting to
(41:17):
focus on what's called softskills, you know, the all the
things I just listed, and alsoreframing them as not soft
skills, but power skills.
I was talking to someoneearlier, and they that's that's
what they were telling me thatthey called them.
And that's what I love.
Like, that's what's going tomake us powerful employees is
like, what are we doing to honethat in and hone in our
(41:41):
divergent muscles and hone inour ability to connect with
another human being and reallythink outside of the box.
And I think that laughter playsa really big role in that as
well, because you know, when youare less tense and you're adding
levity, even as someone that'steaching, like the what you do
(42:01):
with those um, you know,ignorance, stupidity, um, and
and insanity, what you're doingthere is you are giving
everybody a moment to say, Iwant to listen to this
individual even more becausethey're leading with levity, and
I'm so much more drawn in.
And there's data out there thatthat says if you are teaching
(42:25):
with the side of humor, whenyou're laughing, your brain kind
of uses that as a mile markerand then says, I'm gonna
remember this moment uh becauseI learned from it, and there's a
laughter that's associated withit.
So even as a presenter ofinformation and a receiver of
information, laughter can besuch a valuable tool in you
(42:46):
know, impacting us, you know,really elevating as as
professionals and as humanbeings.
SPEAKER_00 (42:53):
You know, the I didn't mean to cut focus so much
on the 15-minute break, but Ithought that that was brilliant.
It what really you do is openthe door for people to think
about what their capacity is incommunication with other people,
to the point that you can beteaching them how to um do these
(43:18):
things.
You know, one of the one of theinteresting things about life
work, we all have individualbrands, who we are.
And it it happens to most peopleunconsciously.
That's one of our our classesactually, five or six hours,
(43:40):
maybe even as much as eight.
Um the art of the possible isone piece of it, and who we are.
And I don't know that peoplegive themselves enough credit.
Look at the mirror and tell mewhat you see.
And most often, you know, youmeet people socially, you know
(44:05):
who we are.
Yeah, good to meet you.
What do you do?
And most of us can tell eachother what we do.
What this is my job.
Oh, really?
That's interesting.
How do you do that?
And many cases they can shareand communicate what it is, but
they'll struggle with it.
And then the next question thatI always ask is, Why do you do
(44:26):
it?
And the answer everybody givesme, of course, is to make money.
Well, that's not that's a resultof doing it.
Why why do you do it?
And at the end of the day, whenyou scratch and you stay there
and don't let them get away fromyou, because I like people.
And I think we're all socialanimals.
We all like to communicate witheach other, we all like to be
(44:48):
liked.
And the the thing that I try andget across to people, the
conductor of an orchestra is theonly musician that has his back
to the audience.
He's completely dependent on theskills of the people he's
looking at, the strings and thereads and the percussion and
all.
And if they're good, he's greator she's great.
(45:08):
If they ain't, he ain't.
It's pretty simple.
So, you know, one of the thingsthat you could do is put
together a series of lectures onon personnel, personal
development.
And you know, how do we getthere?
So, you know, one of mymetaphors is we in education,
and I'm a teacher since thebeginning of time, but we're all
(45:29):
10 years old, and we go to thefirst day of school.
Today, we all go to grade fouror whatever the grade is.
Some of us should be in adifferent grade up, and some of
us should be in a differentgrade down.
So, what I say to everybody,like what we do, the first thing
that we give you is a diagnostictest.
I want to know what the skillsand knowledge is for you.
(45:52):
I want to know what you know.
And based on that, I'llindividual, I'll create a
customized, individualizedlearning path for you to be able
to get better.
So we're all 10 years old, we goto school.
For the next two hours, two anda half hours, we're gonna write
exams.
And then we go home.
And a week later, we come backand we're assigned a grade from
(46:12):
grade three to grade nine.
Those that aren't up to speedare not gonna be feeling
inadequate, they're not gonnafeel right at the beginning,
they're a loser.
The people that are really aheadare not gonna be bored, they're
gonna be challenged.
It's the way we should do it.
Why don't we do that?
Well, my God, you can't.
We've been teaching this way for200 years.
(46:34):
Grade 4, grade 8, grade 12, weget standardized testing.
40, 50 countries in the world.
America finishes third, 30th.
The results from grade 12 cameout last week.
Less than, well, let's put itthis way more than 70 percent of
the grade 12 students in Americacan't read or do arithmetic at
grade level.
(46:55):
It's disgraceful.
Yeah, but those are the peoplethat are going to pay for your
social security, my friend.
They'd better start gettingbetter at things.
SPEAKER_01 (47:04):
Well, I think it goes back to the thing you said
about insanity at the end,right?
It's like that you're you'redoing the same thing over and
over again, expecting differentresults.
And uh, you know, we've beendoing it for 200 years, let's do
it the same way.
Why not?
And uh, and with decliningresults, you're you're thinking
that it's it's there, but welive in a different world than
(47:27):
we did 200 years ago, and yeah,I I couldn't be more with you
that it's uh it needs to change.
SPEAKER_00 (47:34):
The blacksmith was the first mechanic, yeah.
The farrier, yeah, yeah.
He was the guy that had thebiggest, strongest back and the
strongest body, and he did thehorseshoes and everything else.
Today, the person that's got thestrongest mind is the one we
need.
You know, my daughter's still ateacher, she's got a master's of
education, she is the curriculumdirector for a school district
(47:57):
for a program called AbbottAdvancement via individual
determination.
She's a hell of a teacher, butthis year we're going back to
the old religious deal, andFrank is having to be certified
as a book again.
Imagine so we we end up havingall kinds of stuff, and then at
(48:17):
work, it's the same kind ofthing.
Rarely does the customer doesthe employee that touches the
customer know what the customerneeds and wants, and we don't
ask.
SPEAKER_01 (48:27):
Yeah.
And I think what's what's verykind of you know, there's the
one way I I see what you'resaying is uh it's hard to change
education, right?
It's much harder to changeeducation.
It's so much more red tape andadministration, and you know,
again, like you said, lifetimesof uh and generations of how
(48:49):
things were done.
Like that change is going toreally be hard.
But from a workplaceperspective, the the red tape
should be so minimal.
And the way that we can impactand kind of course correct as
early on as we want and reallymold the professionals as we
have it today, uh, you know, toinvest in the human beings.
(49:14):
And that investment and thatchange can really draw an
employee to their employer in away that is so grateful uh
because they are giving them theskills.
And I think that that is what AIis going to allow us to do is
really like that's theoptimistic view of it is like,
(49:34):
great, we can be done with thestuff that is monotonous and we
can go towards elevatingourselves as human beings and
innovating how we do stuff.
And the people that are stuck inthe you know uh bureaucratic
method of doing things, youknow, they're gonna be stuck in
uh, you know, in time andthey're gonna have the world
(49:55):
passing them by becauseeverybody's changing.
Uh, and that change doesn't haveto just be dire, it can be very
optimistic that you know we canlevel up as human beings, uh,
and you know, the monotony cankind of take a back seat.
SPEAKER_00 (50:10):
Well, and and what you just did and everything
you've been saying, it's anoptimistic view, it's it's an
uplifting view.
No, I'm I I told you mydaughter's got a master's, my
grandmother in 1915 got amaster's degree.
Um my granddaughter's got amaster's degree, she's 24, and
(50:31):
she's a victim of uh some of theDepartment of Education cuts.
She was all set with funding forfive years for her doctorate,
and the funding went away, sothey're scrambling to trying to
find a different place for herto go.
But she's a smart kid.
She got her undergraduate inthree years because COVID came
through, and she said, Well,what am I supposed to do?
(50:52):
Watch television, yeah.
You know, so and and yeah, a lotof people in the country didn't
have access to the internet,yeah.
But some of the lunacy, justthink about this, my daughter's
teaching, they forced her theteachers to go to the schools
because they wanted to see themworking.
Imagine.
So, my grandson, he's probablythe nerd of the family.
(51:16):
He wanted to get nuclearengineering.
He was the head of the ROTC inhis junior year, dropped out for
a senior because they didn'toffer the classes he wanted.
He's he's on the autism scale,he's ADHD, you know, give him a
lot of things, you can't doanything.
You if you let him focus, he'sbrilliant.
So he wanted to go to Purdue andtake nuclear engineering.
(51:38):
He applied, he got in, he's allexcited, and then he finds out
how much it's gonna cost.
So, how much do you think afour-year degree in at Purdue is
gonna cost him?
Take a guess easily a hundredgrand.
$350,000.
(51:59):
He said, I'm not gonna do that.
I said, Well, you don't have to,you're gonna get scholarships.
He's a four-point, he's higherthan that.
He said, Yeah, but even with thescholarships, it's$170,000.
I'm not gonna do that.
And I said, Okay, what are yougonna do?
You know, we've got SAT, we gotACT, the military has one.
So he took the military exam, hescored in the top two percent in
the world.
(52:19):
So every branch came for him.
Yeah, yeah.
My daughter said to him, Look,you're not going to the Marines,
you're not going into the Army,because I didn't give birth to
you, so you could be cannonfather.
You can be in the Coast Guard,the Air Force, and the Navy.
Yeah, we checked him out.
And he went in his senior year,it's oh, I don't know, January.
So he's got another six monthsor so before he graduates.
(52:41):
He goes to the Navy, he says, Iwant to enlist.
They're all excited.
So they start getting the paper.
He said, No, no, no, wait asecond.
I want to join the Navy, butonly if I can get into the Nuke
program, the nuclear program inthe US Navy, supposedly one of
the toughest in the world.
He got in.
He turned 20 the first of Julythis year.
(53:01):
He's got an undergraduate degreein nuclear engineering and an
undergraduate degree inastrophysics right now.
Oh, you know why?
He went to school from eight inthe morning to five at night,
five days a week, and he hadfour hours compulsory homework
on Saturday.
Basically, two and a half yearsof work every year.
SPEAKER_02 (53:21):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (53:22):
Why do we go to school at eight in the morning
and leave at three or nine tillfour or whatever the hell the
time?
Why do we do that?
Again, it's the same thing,Kevin.
Everywhere around, we have tochallenge what we do, we have to
challenge who we are, and peopleneed to give us opportunities,
like you're doing, to considerdifferent things, like teachers
(53:44):
should be doing, opening themup.
We should.
I went to university at 16, notbecause of my brains, but
because of my birthday.
How are we supposed to decidewhat I want to do at 16?
SPEAKER_01 (53:54):
Oh, yeah.
I mean, that's ridiculous.
It's an insane question to ask.
Your brain's not even developedfor at least six more years.
SPEAKER_00 (54:01):
Exactly.
I you know, I tell mygranddaughter, be careful.
You know, if you're gonna datesomebody, don't date anybody
under the age of 40.
Men don't hit intellectualpuberty until they're 40.
You gotta have fun.
SPEAKER_01 (54:14):
I can attest to that.
I'm on my way still.
SPEAKER_00 (54:18):
Kevin, this has been indeed a pleasure, much greater
than I expected.
Thank you so much.
Absolutely.
I had a blast.
Thank you, Ron.
I um I'm I'm gonna put you towork if if you can.
And I I hope the audience hasbeen listening to this and is
thinking about it.
What we try to do with thesepodcasts is get people to think.
(54:40):
And and you've given us a hellof a lot of material to think
about.
And everything aboutcommunications and life,
everything about life iscommunications.
So thank you very much.
I I truly appreciate it.
SPEAKER_01 (54:52):
Yeah, it's my pleasure.
And uh, yeah, I have a I have ablog or a newsletter that
everyone can check out if theywant.
This is all the stuff I talkabout every day.
It's uh laugh rx is the name ofthe newsletter.
And the you can go tolaughrx.laugh.events and uh and
yeah, you can check out morethere.
SPEAKER_00 (55:11):
Well, what um for my audience, I'm gonna convince
Kevin to start writing someblogs for us.
So we'll put links on ourwebsite for his newsletter and
and other things.
And um, Kevin, thank you verymuch.
And to the people out therelistening, thank you.
And I look forward to having youwith another candidate
conversation in the near future.
(55:32):
Mahalo.
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