Importance of Laughter & Joy with Lori Martin and Susan Kuehl

Jen:

Hello and welcome to Women Conquer Business. I’m your host, Jen McFarland. On this week’s show, we talk about something that may seem a little counterintuitive given the times that we’re living in. We’re going to talk about laughter and how laughter can help you and your business thrive, even in times of uncertainty, or maybe especially in times of uncertainty. I think it’s really fascinating stuff and I think you will too, so stay tuned, all that and more, here on Women Conquer Business.

Jen:

Welcome to Women Conquer Business. My name is Jen McFarland. This podcast is for smart, serious business owners tired of the senseless chatter about growing a business. If you don’t want to hear any more get rich quick, too good to be true nonsense, you’ve come to the right place. You’ll learn why mindset is everything as well as strategies for sustainable business growth and how to implement it, along with the secrets I learned leading large scale business projects that also apply to five and six figure businesses. Are you ready? Let’s go forth and conquer.

Jen:

Today we welcome Lori Martin and Susan Keuhl from Consilio. Consilio is committed to defining success in human terms. They are a training and development consultancy founded in 2008. Although based in Boise, Idaho, Consilio advises companies throughout the United States and trained strength-based curriculum internationally. They’re a diverse team with over 70 years of collective experience in financial institutions, nonprofits, healthcare, startups, family legacy, construction and development, education and professional services. Lori is a communication strategist, executive facilitator and team dynamic coach. Lori believes that if you aren’t happy with your career, your leadership, or your life, you can forge a new way forward and that anyone can choose to live life with passion. She knows that people desire to be part of teams that give them the confidence to excel and to be appreciated. Lori loves working with leaders who ask the hard questions and act on the answers that will empower people around them to live more vibrant, fulfilling lives. Leadership is about passion, passion for what you do, for people, and for the culture you want.

Jen:

Susan is a culture strategist, performance coach and mindset trainer. She sees commonalities and leverages individual strengths to create teams engaged in the big picture of the company. She will ask the tough questions, cut to the source and provide a new way forward. Susan believes that through neuro-based strategies, people can excel in any environment. People will thrive when they are valued for who they are and given the opportunity to grow without boundaries, I want to empower people to cut through the mental clutter. Please welcome Susan and Lori to Women Conquer Business.

Jen:

So, on this week’s show we’re doing something a little bit different. I’ve never had two guests on the show at the same time, so I’m really excited to welcome Susan and Lori to the Women Conquer Business podcast. Welcome.

Lori:

Thank you.

Susan:

Thanks for having us.

Jen:

Thank you so much for being here. So, this week we’re going to talk about the ROI of laughter, which is something that I love because I tend to giggle a lot and I find a lot of joy in the work that I do. So, why don’t you just introduce us to this idea? Because I think for some people it’s completely foreign and I just love it because I feel like now more than ever, just like I think you guys do, we need more laughter.

Lori:

Yeah, Jen, I’ve always believed in having fun at work because if you don’t have fun at work then why be there? And I was a banker for a long time and most people think they’re really serious, but honestly they’re some of the funniest people I’ve ever, ever worked with. And so, even though you can have a serious topic or a serious business, a serious career, it doesn’t mean that you can’t be professional and laugh. And there’s so many benefits of laughter and if we just bottom lined it, it actually increases your bottom line when you have more laughter in your workplace.

Susan:

And we actually use laughter as a metric for success. So, in the org dev space, which is what we’re all in, people sometimes find it hard to measure the efficacy of anything. And we go on laughter, how much laughter are we hearing? How engaged are our clients? And so, when you can realize you can pick your metrics and if that’s one of them, it’s the most organic way for humans to communicate. As they think now we’re the only animals that do so and so we have this beautiful gift to be able to laugh. And when we laugh, we expand our chest and open up our mouth and inhale more oxygen and decrease our stress and all of those things, right now, we need more than ever. And so, our hope is today that you don’t look at laughter as something that’s trivial or trite, but that’s something that is going to be worth seeking out and bringing to you, your family, your teams. We’re business executive coaches, but we really want your whole life to be joyful. So, we’re all about the whole person.

Jen:

Gosh, I think that that’s great. So, how can you really measure like the ROI of laughter or how do you know that you’re getting anything back from that as a metric?

Susan:

Listening. It sounds very basal but you know when people are laughing genuinely, and you can tell, it’s like right now when you look at all those baby videos of just the belly laughs and there’s no way you can watch those and not smile or laugh, because it’s contagious. And we do a lot of training on emotional contagion and being mindful as a leader on what you are infecting other people with. And how great would it be if we said, I just want to infect other people with smile, with humor, with joy, with optimism? So, we do measure it and we can tell how engaged teams are by their level of communication and trust.

Lori:

And Jen, you can actually see, as far as with those metrics, when you have people that are getting along and they’re laughing, it increases collaboration, it increases creativity, it increases innovation, which is all what companies are saying they want these days. And so, there’s some just basic foundational pieces that will get you those things and laughter, encouraging people to connect on that level will get you there.

Susan:

And another thing that we train on a lot and really hammer home is connection. It’s the one glue and foundation that everything is measured on. We’re inside of companies every single day, all different sizes, all different industries and the one thing everyone requests from us is more trust, more communication, more connection. And we find that laughter, if you can bring that in as an organic way to do that, it just makes things feel not forced.

Susan:

And this may be a little bit of a tangent, but the gratitude thing that’s been around for a while, we started noticing that people were making that obligatory and creating a framework around gratitude and appreciation. And then it became kind of forced and you lost the effect of it, and laughter can be the same way. We don’t want people to go back to work and say, “You have to just tell jokes and be funny, and the humorous…” We don’t want that. But we’re saying you can find humor and laughter in different things and oftentimes in stress we’re too afraid to laugh because it feels inappropriate or it feels like we may be offending someone and we just want to say it’s a human language. Laughter is something that, true laughter you can’t fake.

Lori:

And Jen, one of the things that we are really passionate about is the neuroscience behind everything we teach. And so, you focus on grows and so when you are in business, and if we are, especially during this time, if we’re focused on all the negativity or all the things we cannot do, then that’s what’s going to grow. If we focus on what’s positive, if we focus on what we can do, and focus on the more positive sides, then that’s what will grow. And so, it is a choice every day with your brain and your brain will choose what’s the easiest and conserves the most energy. But it may not be the best path and so you get to choose, it’s your choice every single day and are you going to choose laughter or are you going to choose anger, or are you going to choose being mad? Because then that is the intention you’ll have for the rest of the day.

Susan:

And I think a lot of people right now are like, there’s no way it’s funny, none of this is … There’s levity or lightheartedness and our big hat to that is curiosity, so even in times of really intense trauma, whether it’s physical trauma, mental, emotional, or anything that you’re dealing with, if you can make that one positive shift to say, “What can I be curious about?” And it’s not the whole fake, “What can I learn from this tragedy?” It’s if you can just put your head in that space where if I can be curious about it, two things happen. We can’t be fearful and curious at the same time. And that’s beautiful right now because fear manifests itself in anxiety and self doubt and all of those things that we want to avoid. It also allows you to be more open, expansive, creative, innovative, all of those things that we really want in a normal day, laughter puts you in that space.

Susan:

And so, there’s a million ways you can find laughter. When we train on this we did memes, we had all sorts of things because laughter is subjective and we find people, inherently, that makes people nervous. And I’m not bashing HR people, but we have HR, we have the repercussions of telling some kind of joke that you don’t know how it’s going to land. And so, we tend to, as a society, swing to the other end of the spectrum. Well, if we could get hurt for a feedback or humor or anything, let’s just not do any of it, and so we’ve kind of weeded that out.

Jen:

So, this is really interesting, like all of it. So, first of all, very sad to hear that gratitude is becoming obligatory because I really think that genuine gratitude is something that is still needed in the workplace and is not actually exercised enough.

Susan:

100%. Yeah.

Jen:

The genuine kind, not the obligatory, let’s have a party because that’s going to make people feel good, when it’s still a negative work environment. And then, also, the big question I have about this is as somebody who shares a lot of joy and has real joy, genuine joy from my work, so laughter for me comes up as just who I am. And when we start talking about my own expertise for example, and I’m with a client, sometimes people want that authority and they’re not really looking for the joyful part of it. So, how do you address that with people that you can share laughter and joy and still be that expert. These things are not, I guess, mutually exclusive. At least I don’t believe they are. How do you feel about that? How do you work with that?

Susan:

Actually, they’re really integrated. So, the study on laughter says it makes you appear more confident because what happens when you laugh is it says, “I don’t care what people’s opinions are around me.” And so, when you say, “How can you be an authority, how can you be an expert?” That usually comes with a perception of confidence, right? To be that expert, you need to be instilling confidence in other people, laughter does that in spades. Because if you can own the stage, own a meeting, own a phone call, own an email, and people feel that confidence, laughter gives you that because it tells you I’m not taking life so serious, and really people, we can’t take life serious. We can’t. It would be a miserable existence if we eradicated humor and the ability to look at things with lightness and joy. And I love that you said joy because that’s really what laughter represents, is joy.

Jen:

Yeah, I mean, I think so, but I do think that there are people who have these expectations that you’re going to be really serious all the time. And I don’t feel that way, so I’m totally in your camp, but I do think there are still people who want that stayed like leadership.

Lori:

Yes. And also, for me it comes down to communication. I’m big on communication, so I’ve led a lot of teams and I believe have fun, laugh, but you also have to be professional and you have to be watchful. So, if you’re not doing the wrong thing or people can get the wrong idea in front of maybe a client or … Know your situation. But if you are very clear on, hey, I want a team and we are going to have fun, it doesn’t mean that I’m not going to encourage you to develop. It doesn’t mean that there might not be a situation where we have to talk and have a difficult conversation about something, but you can still have fun and do those things. But communicate your expectations, communicate the kind of team you want, communicate the kind of culture you want and you can have both.

Lori:

And what I find is when you have fun and you communicate your expectations, people work really hard for you. If they’re not having fun, they’re looking for another job because no one wants to go and hold all that in all day and then go home and have five glasses of wine just to get up and do it tomorrow.

Jen:

Do it all over again.

Lori:

Yeah. It makes me sad when people won’t show their true selves because they think there’s a certain way to be. So, I have to be professional and I can’t laugh. No. Be you, be authentic. That’s the kind of people that you want to follow, that’s who people want to follow is…

Susan:

And you know who’s responsible for that perception? We are. So, you know how you said, “Those people,” or, “There are people that think you can’t be.” There’s always going to be people that think you can’t be joyful and professional, and truth be told that’s okay. That’s their opinion. But like attracts like and you’ll attract people that tend to expand your circle of joy and if you want to lead and influence through that, those are the kinds of teams that you’ll build. And the other people can build their kind of teams and I say, go forth and conquer, try that and see how well that works for you.

Susan:

We’re social animals, we’re really wired up for connection and joy and that’s what people want. And we spend a majority of our lives at work and we don’t want people to be miserable. Our tagline is love your work and we’re very stoic and passionate about everyone is able to love their work, here’s how. That’s really the baseline of everything that we train because it’s a choice and it’s a choice how you show up and we want to show up and have fun. Like what we do is fun work. We get to collaborate with really cool, brilliant people and make life better.

Lori:

And, Jen, right now because of everything that is going on, the most important thing we can do is increase our immune system, that’s going to protect us better than anything, is to have a really strong immune system. One of the things that boosts your immune system is laughter. The more you laugh, the stronger your immune system will be. And you said that your brother is a nurse, well, people in the medical field, again, they have to be professional around their patients, but they, again, have some of the crudest, funniest humor, because they deal in crazy things and so you can either take it way too seriously or you can laugh about things. And so, that is a great way to boost your immune system. It makes your heart healthier, helps you live longer, and my favorite, I keep telling Susan, I don’t want to run, I’m not a runner, but you can actually burn calories and lose weight when you laugh. So, I think I’m just going to start laughing a lot more.

Susan:

40 calories a day, they say. So, that’s just something we should all be practicing.

Jen:

No, I totally agree. And I do think that, I mean, there’s a time and a place for all different kinds of humor and I actually have appreciated during this whole situation, seeing some of the pictures and things that nurses, for example, have been doing to let out some of their humor and to practice some of the joy. Or when they have these different kind of viral things that go on and you see police officers singing and dancing, and they’re doing it in their off hours. I think one of the most viral videos was actually the Caldwell Police Department, and I can’t remember what they were singing, but it was a really elaborate thing-

Susan:

Well, I haven’t even seen that. I’m going to have to look that up.

Jen:

Clearly they’re not on duty, they spent time in their off hours to do it. I’ll put a link to the video in the show notes if I can find it. But you know how they have like ice bucket challenges and things like that? Well they had something with singing and dancing and the Caldwell Police Department was like making national headlines because they were participating in this. And I think that those expressions of joy really do knit teams together and, and help people more likely to go into the fire. Have you found that with your clients that maybe people who have a team that can kind of share in laughter enjoy, that maybe now they’re still able to be productive and?

Susan:

And we’ve also found, to maybe bring this down a notch, but it actually is one of the best releases for anger, and right now there’s a lot of people that are really angry. They’re angry about the state of the economy, their job, their finances, their relationships. And all anger is, is just energy in the body. That’s it. No judgment on anger, but laughter is one of the best ways to get that out. And if we don’t get that energy out of our body, it comes out in different ways. And what we’ve noticed on teams is anger can present itself as a withdrawn, I’m not going to communicate, or I’m super emotional, or I’m really volatile. Anger comes out in different ways and so if we can get it out by laughter rather than some of the more harmful ways, that’s really helpful on a team as well.

Lori:

I do think the teams that connected and laughed a lot before all this happened, it’s easier to pick that up because they were connected. And so, if you didn’t have a lot of that laughter and you didn’t have that connection and then you’re remote working, it’s a lot harder to figure that out and so I’ve been encouraging teams that have never worked remotely before, send out a funny meme, or a funny video, or the baby laughing, or an animal, or whatever that is, on a regular basis. Or one of the other things that I said is, have everybody take a picture of their feet and see what footwear they’re wearing or not wearing and have people vote on whose feet they are. You can still do some funny things as you’re remote working as well.

Susan:

And I also think, to speak to the differences, right? Because there’s a lot of … We did a training where we were kind of rating the inappropriateness, appropriate for work, not appropriate for work, funny, not funny with different memes and it was super graphic, like the different swings of people. And so, being really mindful whether you’re a leader or just a member of a team to be aware of what people are going through. Because some of the ones that Lori and I thought everyone will think this is funny, and there were some people that were really offended by it because they’d had relatives go through X, Y and Z, or their dad was a police officer and X, Y and Z. And it’s getting underneath, why didn’t they laugh? Instead of saying, well they’re just a stick in the mud or they don’t understand humor. It’s asking that one layer deep question, did that bother you? Did that offend you? And that’s how you get to know people on a really deep level, and that’s required for team unity.

Jen:

So, what about people who don’t think they’re funny?

Susan:

You mean memes, or themselves?

Jen:

Themselves. Or they don’t laugh, just a lot. How do they feel as part of integrating this into the workplace?

Susan:

For me, I think there’s a difference between humor and laughter. So, I think humor is a conditioned response to a story, whether it’s a video or something static, it’s a response. And I feel like laughter is that social skill, it’s a response to it, it’s an involuntary response. So, I think you don’t have to be funny, and I like what you’re saying because I would feel a huge amount of pressure to have to be jokey or tell jokes or all those types of things. So, I think there’s people that think, I can’t do it, it doesn’t mean you can’t be around and learn the skill of laughter. You don’t have to be funny or consider yourself funny.

Lori:

I would also say when you’re building a team, the best thing is to put different kinds of people around you. So, if you have a really serious group of people that aren’t super humorous, maybe you do find someone, look for that in someone that you can add to your team because you do need that. And not everyone is … I mean, I’ve been around super funny people and not so funny people, and so making sure you have that good mix in a team I think is important. And look for that person that can bring that levity, that lightness, find the humor.

Susan:

And I think there’s a huge amount of joy in finding that person, that we had a client in Boston and she’s very disciplined, analytical, and just didn’t come off that funny. And then we did these team trainings and she was hysterical and it just brought out a whole different level of, you wanted to connect with her on such a different level, but she didn’t share that. And when her humor came out and she laughed, the team opened up to her, they treated her differently, everyone responded differently. So, I think you have to be comfortable, you have to have psychological safety and you have to feel okay to laugh around people. And so, I think that’s one of the reasons we use it as a metric because if people are laughing, they feel good, they feel protected, they feel like their leader is allowing them to be them. And so, I think some people that may or may not think they’re humorous or funny, maybe just they haven’t felt the right space to do so.

Jen:

Yeah. It does seem like it’s a big part of trust for a lot of people, and I think you’ve mentioned trust. And I will say for myself, I worked as an analyst and project manager for years and I was in a very ill fitting workplace and my humor and joy for what I was doing didn’t really come out until I started my own business, which mean I had more freedom to just be me, you know? And I think that there are a lot of people who are, like me, who are introverted and the job requires a certain level of seriousness and analysis and reporting back. There are a lot of people who are in that role either as executives or just as a manager or a team player. And so it is a little bit foreign and so part of it could be that it’s not the right team for you. Part of it could be the work that you do all the time really places you in a spot where there may not be a lot of space for laughter. It’s hard, so laughter isn’t always a natural part, I guess, of many environments.

Susan:

But even if you can find joy without laughter, if there’s something that you could say, “When did I last really enjoy my job?” And it’s, again, it’s priming that brain, being intentional about looking for positivity, for hope, for optimism. So, it doesn’t mean you have to be chuckling all the time and that’s just not a reality. And then people will be like, if I’m at a 10, I’m supposed to be at a 10, and I’m at a two then we feel let down. Right? So, it comes back to that what’s authentic and real for you? And also that assuming positive intent, which is one of those things that’s easier said than done. But if you can say, “You know what? I know Jen meant well, but I was super offended by that joke.” I’m going to give you more grace because I’m assuming you meant to lighten the mood. Right?

Susan:

And if we can just extend the assumption of positive intent, because most people really do want to do the best. They want to connect, they want to contribute, they want to just exist at the highest level possible. And giving people that grace, I think, allows for a lot less volatility or judgment around, I mean, politics, religion, all of that. If you can just give someone that space to be who they are, that is enough laughter.

Lori:

I also think one of the biggest health concerns is the loneliness. And, in fact, in Europe they’re writing prescriptions for people to go to cooking class or workout or places where people connect because people are so lonely. And so, we’ve been watching this for a couple of years and in that loneliness, 65% of people are eating at their desk alone. So, for me, that laughter even comes from if people just connect, they go on a walk on their break together or they have lunch together. Or part of that non-laughter in a workplace is just because people aren’t even connecting, once people start to connect, you get laughter, you get energy and you get ideas flowing. So, don’t be that person that thinks people need to be sitting at their desks, focused, and think you’re going to get the most productivity out of them because you’re not.

Susan:

Yeah. And that’s so true because laughter itself is tribal, right? It shows I’m connecting to where you’re coming from, the ideas you’re giving out, you’re relating to the context and the information. So, what happens when we laugh in a group, it cements that, yeah, we’re together. And so, that in itself really builds relationships on a deeper level because you don’t laugh if you’re not part of that tribe because there’s certain things that are funny to nurses or to our group or there’s different levels or humor and so it really where you’re connected and I think on a team, I mean, you can go into like a really funny marketing team and then right next door is sales and they’re not so funny. So, you can tell the internal culture that different teams have built and laughter does that, it shows who’s connected to who.

Jen:

Yeah, no, I totally agree. And there are a lot of leaders who get it wrong. Think that if they just give people more money, then that’s enough. And the reality is, I was making a lot of money before I started my own business. It wasn’t an issue of money at all. It was 100% about the environment that I was in and not being able to share and show my own personality in the workplace. That was what a lot of it was. I was an executive. I had so many things going for me and yet I wasn’t fulfilled because there were a lot more pieces of me that were more important than how much money I got to take home every two weeks.

Susan:

That right there is the ROI. That’s what it is. If all of your employees felt that way, they perform better, they’re more engaged, they’re committed, they’re loyal. That’s what laughter does.

Lori:

When you can’t be yourself, you’re not getting that full beam. When someone can’t be themselves, you don’t get the ideas, you don’t get the drive, the energy that … Susan and I laugh a ton and we can work from like eight in the morning and still be brainstorming at 10 o’clock at night, but it’s because we’ve been laughing all day and we’re connected. Not all those ideas are the best ones, but [inaudible 00:28:28] and they get more done and when you’ve worked eight hours and you’re absolutely exhausted when you go home, that’s not your true self, that’s not who you want to be. But when you’ve had a great day and you feel fulfilled, you feel like that was a great day, then you’re going to go home and you’re going to play with your kids, you’re going to make dinner, you’re going to volunteer in the community.

Lori:

And that’s why we believe so much that you need to love your work. When you love that work that you do, and that includes the people you work with, the job that you do, it’s all encompassing., Then you love your life. And we believe that the people who love you should get the best of you and typically they get the worst of us, and that isn’t what we want for our clients or our community.

Susan:

And laughter’s one of the few things that lights up all areas in the brain, mostly when we do strategic thinking or tactical, there’s a certain portion of our brain that’s lit up, not with laughter, the whole thing has to turn on. And so, to Lori’s point, it does bring more creative ideas and energy and allows you to work longer and harder for a goal that matters. And so, it does amplify every single metric that you want to measure. But imagine being able to turn on all parts of your brain to work at once, it’s free, anyone has access to it, it’s just seeking it out.

Susan:

And I don’t want people to trivialize it in this time thinking, oh well we’ll laugh, when? We’ll laugh in 30 days. We’ll get back to normal then because you know what? Life is short and we don’t know what we’ve been given and be intentional and mindful right now in this 30 day window or maybe it’s 60 days or I don’t know how long it’s going to be. How great would it be to come back as a better team, a more solid, engaged individual, someone that was more caring and empathetic and able to forgive people’s wrongs. That makes a better workplace. And that’s what our hope is.

Jen:

I can’t think of a better way to end than right there. So, why don’t you let people know how they can reach you and some of the services that you provide to people.

Lori:

Absolutely. So, Jen, we are culture consultants and we do everything from leadership development to culture teams. We work with a few people, we work with CEOs and vice presidents. People that want to make a difference in their workplace. They want that workplace to be the things we described today. They want to be innovative, creative but also they want to care about their people and care how they show up outside of work as well. You can find us at thinkconsilio.com. And also, Susan and I have like a two page little handout and on the back of it … On the front of it, it kind of has benefits of laughter and on the back it has some questions for you just to have some self reflection. Where are you with laughter, where are you with your team and what can you commit to? And so we’ll make sure you get one that can be attached to this as well and it will have our information.

Susan:

We’re really big believers in knowledge isn’t power, application is and so everything that we train has a tactile tool to take back to your team or to use just personally for yourself. So, that’s kind of our gift to your audience and your tribe and our thank you for having us on.

Jen:

Thank you so much for being here and I just love the work that you’re doing. I think it’s so valuable and so helpful and please let all of us know if there’s anything that we can do for you. Thank you so much for being on the show.

Susan:

Thanks Jen.

Lori:

Thank you Jen.

Jen:

Thanks again to Lori and Susan for appearing on this week’s Women Conquer Business podcast. We do have that download available to you, so if you want to work on the worksheet about the ROI of laughter, you can find that in the show notes. Also in the show notes, you will find the Caldwell Idaho Police Department’s video from the lipsync challenge a couple of years ago. Definitely worth watching if you want to see how some people have a good time at work, well on their off hours anyway. Next week we’ll be talking about how to remote work most efficiently and some of those tips might not be what you think they are. So, have a great week and we will talk to you again next week.

Jen:

Thank you for listening to the Women Conquer Business podcast. If you’re wondering what’s next? Here are a few suggestions. If you love the show, be sure to subscribe. If you want to follow me on social media, you can find Women Conquer Business on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Pinterest. And finally, if the episode today brought something up for you and you need to talk email me at hello@jenmcfarland.com. The Women Conquer Business podcast is written and produced by Jen McFarland and Foster Growth LLC in beautiful Southeast Portland, Oregon. Thanks again for listening.