How Anyone Can Learn the Skill of Humor (Even Engineers) w/ Andrew Tarvin

So I think there's, there's a lot of reasons why humor is so powerful.

'Cause it's not just about making your own work more fun, but it kind of starts there in some ways, if you think about it.

Like, it, it definitely is something that makes you enjoy your work a little bit more, and research has just found that when you enjoy what you do, you actually do it a little bit better.

And so that's what I appreciate about it as an engineer, is that it, it makes things more fun, but you get better results.

In fact, there's over 30 benefits to using humor in the workplace that we have found, ranging from things like improving communication skills, to getting people to remember things a little bit better, to, uh, reducing tension in the room, or building better relationships, either with people that you know or people that you're meeting for the very first time.

And it also does fun things like increases your level of attractiveness to other people and burns calories.

So I guess if, you know, if you're working out and you can laugh at the same time, you burn double those calories, et cetera.

Or if you're, you know, if you're laughing while eating a Snickers bar, then maybe those two things cancel each other out, I don't know.

Uh, and it ultimately increases happiness as well.

And so, you know, for me, the fact that there are so many benefits is what, as an engineer, excites me, 'cause it's like, "Oh, this can help me solve challenges." That's why I call myself a humor engineer.

'Cause I was a computer science engineer.

I used to solve problems using computer science, programming languages, et cetera, whereas now I help organizations and people solve problems using humor.

So thus the made-up title of humor engineer.

And I love that title because it's not just unique, but indeed it's, uh, it's bringing the science into this such an important human connector that humor is.

And one of the benefits that you mentioned, like when people are remembering things better because they are connecting with, either with the anecdote that, or the joke and so on, or with the person that it's said, it, it's such a underrated way of seeing humor in the workplace.

Exactly.

And I think that, you know, for many people, they believe it's kind of just a personality that you're born with or not, and that there's almost this like, "If you have it, you're lucky," and you may not even realize, like, how hard it is for some people to do.

That's how my brother is.

He's very much someone who, uh, will make people laugh, and then I'll be like, "How did you do that? You were in that room," or you doing that when he's teaching, he's a professor, and it's like, "When you're teaching those students, why did you say it?" He's like, "I don't know.

It just sounded more fun." And I'm like, "Oh, I wish I had that," and then slowly discovered, learned, like, oh no, there is a skill.

And so for the people that don't have that naturally, who have the more engineering mindset or more the introverted personality, it's like, oh no, we can unpack this so that you can gain those same benefits without feeling like it has to be like, you know, something that you, you just aren't able to do.