In this episode, I talk with Andrew Tarvin, a longtime friend and fellow improv enthusiast who has built a fascinating career at the intersection of humor and engineering. Andrew shares his journey from computer science to comedy, what it really means to be a “Humor Engineer,” and how he helps individuals and organizations use humor more intentionally.
We dig into the idea that humor isn’t just for class clowns—it’s a learnable skill. Andrew breaks down the three foundational elements of humor, the seven humor personas, and how leaders can foster fun at work without becoming the office goofball. If you’ve ever wondered how to bring more joy to your life and team without sacrificing professionalism, this conversation will have you smiling—and thinking.
Key Takeaways:
Humor is a skill, not a talent—you can learn and apply it strategically.
The three building blocks of humor: sense of humor, ability to humor, and agency with humor.
The seven humor personas—and why it matters to know yours.
Leaders can create a fun, productive culture through modeling, recognition, and intentionality.
The role of humor in inclusion, team dynamics, and daily engagement.
Relevant Links:
Unedited Transcript
Avish
Hello, Andrew, and welcome to the podcast. How are you, sir?
Andrew
I am doing well, Avish. How are you?
Avish
I am fantastic. Even more excited now that we get a chance to chat. So it's been a while. You and I, we met years ago through the speakers association. I feel like I make that intro many times on this podcast. But it's been a little lost since we connected. So why don't you, you know, bring me up to speed and bring the sort of listeners up to speed as to who you are and what you are up to these days?
Andrew
Sure. So, maybe the the shortest background to lead into what I'm up to now, for those who have no idea who I am and Aviso, if you have somehow forgotten, my nerdy ways, that, no. My my background is I have degree in computer science and engineering from the Ohio State University. Spent a number of years as a project manager at Procter and Gamble, working on IT projects. Started going improv and stand up in university. Realized the improv and stand up was helping me way more than any of the technical stuff that I'd learned as a project manager. So I started exploring that intersection of humor in the workplace, improv and business, happiness and productivity.
Eventually left P and G, and that was, like, thirteen years ago at this point, which is crazy. And I teach people how to use humor to be more effective in their work. And, what I'm up to currently is, we are wrapping up. Many people may not know this is that April is, International Humor Month. We've been trying to get it labeled as intergalactic humor month, but we realized we don't know other planet's calendar system. So we're just gonna stick to international humor month. And so I've been, selected for this year as the director of international humor month for AATH, the Association for Applied Therapeutic Humor.
So we've been doing thirty days of humor. So that's been kind of the my last, you know, basically, the the month of April. It's been something every single day around humor and its values and how we get out there to more people and how it applies across business, health care, education, and and life. And there's been a whole host of things that we've been doing as part of it, but it's been an absolute blast. Tiring, but an absolute blast.
Avish
I was gonna say it sounds like a ton of fun, but exhausting to do something Mhmm. Every single day, including weekends. And this is are you doing this live or you're just posting?
Andrew
We're posting stuff. I'm I'm scheduling. Now in, like, in an ideal world, so I I joke that, you know, I don't I don't procrastinate, but I do believe in just in time productivity. And so I only do things when I have to. And in a perfect world, it'd be like, oh, yeah. I had everything scheduled out as of, you know, January 1, and this was good to get it's like, no. We're we're writing things the day before.
There's some live components to it. There's challenges that we're doing. There's research that we're sharing. So it is it's not live something live every single day, but there's content coming out every single day or a challenge every single day, which is great because I think at the end of the day, you know, the goal for I think for many of us, I would assume that you're probably pretty similar, is that when when we're talking about humor or improv or something else, it's you wanna turn it into a habit. Right? You you wanna make it not a thing that happens every now and then by happenstance, but more about bringing intention into the way that not just how you work, but how you live. And so that's part of the goal also of, hey.
If you do this for thirty days, maybe you instill it in yourself as a habit to to live a little bit happier, a little bit freer, and ultimately, get better results doing it.
Avish
Yeah. I love that.
And, you know, you're talking about, procrastination or just in time. Well, as we're recording this, it's actually very close to the time we're we're releasing it. But if all goes as planned, this is gonna come out right at the April, so at the end of that month. Can people, will start in with a self promotion right away? Is there a location, people can go if they missed out on April? Can is it can they go back and see some of this great content you put out?
Andrew
Absolutely. Yeah. If you go to humormonth.com, we've got, that's where we're kinda putting all of the any new stuff coming out plus any old stuff, and it's become basically this repository. And, I mean, speaking of, you know, this may be perhaps fitting is that, on Sunday, this past Sunday, based on when you're hearing that when this is hitting your ears, Sunday, we are sharing research on, the benefits of improv in life. Right? So every Sunday, we're doing research. We've already shared, you know, how humor impacts personal relationships.
We've talked about therapeutic clowning. Because that's been one of the interesting things is that, like, you know, I've been helping to, like you know, the whole thing with ATH in general is we're spreading all the different types of humor. Improv being a way that you can use humor, storytelling be another way. My background kind of a stand up and engineering is a different way, and therapeutic client climbing, clowning or laughter yoga, etcetera. All these other different aspects of humor is there. So humormonth.com, they can find all those resources connected to ATH, which has a bunch of more resources too.
Avish
Fantastic. So you mentioned that, you know, you're posting things every day for thirty days to hope it'll become a habit, which sort of transitions into your almost, I think, your premise as a a speaker and humor expert and something I believe in as well, but something that not everyone agrees with. So you believe this whole building app you believe humor is something that people can learn, develop, and improve on. It's not just you're either funny or you're not, and that's it.
Andrew
Exactly. Yeah. And I think I mean, it's like any skill. Right? Like, I think there's certain people that are perhaps more inclined to do it better or maybe I I don't know if it's genetically predisposed. Like so it's like, I you know, if I had practiced basketball every single day of my life, I would be a much better basketball player than I am right now. But at five eleven and barely a hundred and forty pounds, I there's zero amount of work that I could have done to make it to the NBA. Right? Like and so ver versus, like, say, LeBron James who, yeah, maybe, was, quote, unquote, born to play, but also put in a tremendous amount of work to get there.
So, you know, I think similar humor is kind of a similar thing where, you know, we believe that anyone can learn to be funny. Right? Like, it's not you're not necessarily gonna become across the board funny where we can turn any individual person and say, hey. In a year, you're gonna have Netflix comedy special. Like, no. That's not what we're talking about here. And that's also not the goal.
Our goal at Humor That Works, so, you know, the company that I started, isn't to teach people how to use humor for entertainment purpose, for them to get on stage or to, you know, become an actor or stand up comedian or whatever. It's to teach them this skill of humor to, one, unlock their kind of true authentic self in the workplace. Right? Because if we're talking about authenticity, then humor has to be part of the equation. And two, to actually get better results. And that I think is what's really fascinating to me about humor and the reason why I'm so passionate about it is not that it's like, oh, yeah. You should work enjoy work more because you're gonna spend ninety thousand hours there in your lifetime.
And that's true. But the reason why I'm excited about it is not only does it make it more fun, it actually makes you more effective at doing it. And so that's kinda where my intersection is is both teaching it as a skill, but specifically as a skill to improve your your work and your
Avish
life. Yeah. And that's so I think the immediate skepticism or pushback that some people have is and I think this is this kinda might tie into one of your personas you talk about. But some people don't they wanna have fun at work, but they don't want, like, the clown or the joker. Like, sometimes it's really annoying to have that person at work. You're trying to work, and they're always making everything a joke or so where's that balance? Because I I'm biased.
I obviously believe in the power of humor, but some people, like, it's a little bit harder sell. Or for me, with improvisation, they're like, well, I don't wanna improvise. It's like, well, you don't Yeah. You don't have to throw away the script, but having those skills. So kinda how do you respond to that?
Andrew
Yeah. Well, I would I mean, I wish I could give you a percentage. Right? I'm an engineer by training. Computer science is my degree. I wish I could tell you, you know, use humor exactly 10.78% of the time 10.78% of the time, and that's, like, the golden sweet. Like, I wish I could give you a number like that, but it doesn't really exist.
I think the the the the trade off or the balance is to recognize to use humor more intentionally to get better results. It's interesting. We did some research with, a a gentleman named Pablo Suarez at the Red Cross, and we're he was working on using humor to improve his presentations. And and some people are surprised by that because they're like, hey. The Red Cross, these are pretty serious presentations that they have to give. Like, one of the things he wanted to add humor to was, presentations on disaster preparedness. And Pablo shared he said, you know, if what you're communicating is important, then boredom has very serious consequences. Right? Which makes sense. Right? If he's teaching people what to do in case there's a flood and he is so dry and so boring when talking about that that people zone out completely or they start scrolling on their phone or they get up and leave the room completely, then if a flood happens, they've missed that information, and that can have very dire circumstances in that in that particular scenario.
And so he wanted to say, okay. Well, how do we use humor to maintain that engagement? Right? Because we wanna say, hey. This is still serious, but we wanna make sure that people are paying attention, and humor is a great way to do that. Anyway, the the reason why I'm telling this story is that we did with one of his sets of presentations, we did a survey of the group afterwards. And the fur one of the questions that we asked was, like, how much humor was used in this presentation?
Was it way more than average? Do you know the average amount or lower than average? And everyone was like, oh, this was way more humor than used on average. The second question we asked was, what was the the appropriate amount of humor? Was you know, do you think more humor should have been added? Was this the right amount of humor or less humor? And pretty much everyone either said this was the right amount of humor or even more humor could have happened.
And these were, like, very serious people, the very serious audience kinda taking it. And so what we take away from that is us using way more humor than we're used to actually resulted in this was the right amount of humor that we should have used. Right? And so my point to you is what what I'm saying is most people yeah. People have this fear where it's like, no. But it it I don't wanna be seen as a clown, or I I wanna be taken seriously. I agree with that, and I can give you some tips on how to make sure that it happens.
But just know that a drastic increase in the amount of humor that you use to begin with for a lot of people just even gets you to a baseline of, like, oh, this this is already feeling good or I could use even a little bit more.
Avish
Yeah. I think that's that's fair.
And what I like to describe to people is I say, I'm just giving you tools in your toolbox. Right? Just because you Exactly. Know how to use humor doesn't mean you have to use it every moment of every day. But if you never have the tool, well, then you can't use it at all. So, Exactly.
Andrew
And that's a wonderful way to to think about it. And the the way that we drive some of that clarity, and this is what, you know, you alluded to the persona. So one of the things kinda going back to this question of, like, can you even learn to be funny?
Avish
Mhmm. Right?
Andrew
Or is it innate or in your DNA, etcetera, is is, like we said, one, we believe anyone can learn to be funnier. And two, we believe that humor is a skill, which means it can be learned, which means the question isn't, are you funny? The question is, what kind of funny are you, or what kind of funny do you wanna be? Right? And so we've discovered seven primary ways people tend to express their humor. One of them is what we call the humor engineer. And the humor engineer, each each kind of persona has a really strong tool that helps them
Avish
Yeah.
Andrew
Exhibit that humor a little bit better. For the humor engineer, we use what we call the map, your medium, your audience, and purpose. So when you're thinking about, do I wanna use humor in this presentation at work or in this email that I have to send to a potential client or on my way home from, you know, a really long day in the office. Right? You think about, okay. What's your medium? How are you gonna execute the humor?
Who's your audience? Who's gonna receive that humor? And then most importantly, what's your purpose for using humor? Because it's not, hey. I just wanna use humor so that people think that I'm funny or just using humor for the sake of humor. It's like saying, oh, no. I wanna use humor in this presentation because I wanna get people to like me and buy wanna buy from me.
It's very different than I wanna use humor in this presentation to get people to understand what I'm talking about so that they can remember it and understand it a little bit better. Right? Those are different reasons and different types of humor that we would use. And so when you have that clarity of the map and you're doing it with intention and for a specific reason, very rarely do you get into that phase where you're now seen as a clown or a gesture that no one takes you seriously because you have a reason for doing it.
Avish
Yeah. I I like that intentionality idea. I don't know if you because you've done stand up and improv. So I don't know if you were like me. There was a point in my life, lot of improv, lot of improv friends. And sometimes it almost got to a point where it was just annoying hanging out with improv comedy people because some of them don't have this intentionality. They don't know how to turn it off.
And so Mhmm. You'd be like at a wedding, and they'd be making jokes to you. Like, no. Shut up. I'm trying to pay attention here.
Andrew
Right.
Avish
And it's I don't know if you experienced that, but some people just don't understand. Even if you're like, your whole thing is I'm not doing this for performance, but even if you are doing it for performance, there's still intentionality. So it's such a a nice and you said that's the engineer persona, but any persona can use that same idea of the medium audience and and purpose.
Andrew
Exactly. Yeah. And and the personas, we're very intentional in calling them personas because we don't want people to think that they're set personality things. And if you're like, oh, if I'm a humor engineer, that means I can't be a curator. Like, no. The the ultimate goal is we wanna teach you how to go in between each of these different personas and kinda do them well. In some ways, they are you know, whether another way that we think about them are just different competencies of the skill of humor. Right? The the the a certain thing that you're able to to do.
But you're exactly right. Because what's interesting is that some of the people a lot of the people that we work with are like me, who are introverted, sometimes socially awkward people, someone who basically has never been, quote, unquote, funny and has been perceived as funny. Right? Like, I had to learn all this stuff. And that's how I know that humor is a skill because I am someone who has to learn it.
Like, I'm not a naturally funny
Avish
Mhmm.
Andrew
Person. Like, when people from my high school found out that I did comedy, they're like, but you're not funny. Right? Like, I'm not the naturally funny person. It's very against, like, what my my personality types were in school and all that kind of other thing. But what's interesting I find interesting is that even when we work with the people who are, quote, unquote, naturally funny, going back to this intention and having some skills for it a lot, it helps a lot of people because they're like, oh, I knew I always knew I could make people laugh, but I didn't understand why. Or I couldn't do it on command.
And so a big part of what we wanna do is we wanna you know, I'm an engineer. I like to take take things apart and put them back together. So I wanna take apart this skill of humor. How does it work? What are the inner workings of it? And then now we can put it back together, and now you can be much more intentional about it. So, you know, when to turn it off or to your point, like, yeah, when not, hey.
I'm at a wedding. Let this person enjoy it, and I don't have to try to be making jokes twenty four seven.
Avish
Yeah. And what I love about the persona is is kinda as you said, like, originally when I went into it because you've got an so the book is great, by the way, if you're listening. And there's an assessment. Right? Your QR code and go takes a website. You can now I didn't take that because just reading the personas, I was immediately like, oh, yeah.
I'm the entertainer, obviously. Mhmm. But then as I read the book, I'm like, oh, wait a second. Like, when I read the stuff about the inventor, I'm like, oh, this is also very much like me. And I like how the end, you do point out, like, it's it's, like, the tools in the toolbox. Right? Like, all seven personas.
It's not this is who you are, and this is what you need to do. It's here's the seven personas, and I think you even go into, like, here are some situations where one is more appropriate than the other and kinda giving people the tools, to use the most. And to your point about the, the competencies, I thought that was one of the most interesting things about it because you could sort of distill each persona down. I mean, obviously, there's there's elements, but to a primary comedy.
How did you figure that out? Because humor is a hard thing to it's for some people.
I don't know. I I know it when I see it. So how did you actually distill that and figure out what those are?
Andrew
It was a really long process. And so, first of all, I wanna say, yeah. You're exactly right. A lot of people, when they take the assessment or if they read the skill of humor playbook or as they start to learn the different personas, the intent is that you'll probably identify yourself in one or two. And you'll be like, oh, I already do that. And it might be different context. Right? I mean, it might be like like, for example, one persona is a curator, and this is someone who would take things that they find funny.
If they're if they see a meme or they see a video that made them laugh or something like that, then they'll send it to their group of friends. Or they're the ones always dropping memes or gifts in the the group chat with their friends, etcetera. Well, that's actually a valuable persona, and you can apply that in the workplace if you want. And so some people might naturally be a curator with their friends. And then, yeah, if they're when they if they're a performer, then, yeah, when they get on stage, they might become an entertainer.
Avish
Mhmm.
Andrew
Right? And so what we say is that we recommend people take the assessment just so they understand what their primary persona is because that's a great place to start. Every single one of them can have different applications, and you can use what you're good at to get better at the other competencies, to get better at the other persona. So, for example, let's say you're a curator. You are someone who being a curator is great because you don't have to be the funny person. It doesn't mean that you're the one telling jokes or you have to memorize a story or have to be very big and kind of use a lot of gestures when you're talking.
It's like, no. I literally found this meme. It made me laugh. I know you like this same type of thing, so I'm gonna send it to you. Right? Mhmm. Well, that process, getting better at it means that you're actually learning to think about other people's senses of humor.
Because if I see a certain meme about, like, Halo the video game, right, a game that I played way too much in college, it was basically my double major. It was computer science and playing Halo the video game. Like, if I see a very funny meme about that, I'm gonna send that to my college buddies. I'm not gonna send it to my mom. Right? Because she's gonna have no context to what it is or what it means or why it's funny. Right? So I'm learning this skill of, like, okay.
What's this person's sense of humor? What's gonna work with them? And over time, I'm learning, oh, if this is really funny content, why is it funny? Right? I can start to analyze it a little bit more. What made it work for this video to be so great? Oh, maybe I can start to adopt some of those traits and techniques myself. Right? So, essentially, it's kind of this idea.
One persona can help you learn each of the others. And where this ultimately came from is after the success of the the TEDx talk, which now is at a little over 15,000,000 views, and I joke only half of which came from my mom. She does hit, you know, refresh on it quite a bit. But after peep after we started talking more and more about that, people were like, okay. I wanna get into I wanna get into a little bit deeper. So I wanted to say, like, I'm the engineer. Like, what are the steps to be funny? Right? What are the individual components?
So we approached it from two directions. One, from analyzing humor. Let's take a look at a bunch of different types of humor and seeing what's working, what's happening, why is this being used, and and what what's kind of the mechanism underneath it. And then from the other side of things where it was like, okay. How do we actually create it? Because I think that's one of the things that's very different about the humor personas over some of the other ones. Some some there's because there's other kind of things that analyze humor, but a lot of it's post analysis of humor.
We wanted to say, what's gonna help us to create new humor? What's gonna help us if we're starting from scratch? Can we pick something that then says, okay. We're gonna create a new moment of humor in the world? And that's where kind of the idea of the competency came from where it's like, okay. Well, this is one way, and this is one way.
And we had, like, I think, 30 ways. And then as you start to analyze it and you get down to it, you're like, oh, these two are basically kind of the same thing. So that can go together and run.
Avish
This is
Andrew
what it and so it was bay it was a very iterative process. And then we started doing workshops and testing it with people and seeing, does this make sense, not make sense, getting feedback on it. And, yeah, I I wish it was fewer, Right? From a purely from a, like, training perspective, I wish I could tell you there were four personas and then because that would help me get through content so much faster.
Avish
Oh, yeah. Plus with more you to make a fantasy matrix like yeah. Oh, there you go.
Andrew
Yeah. Exactly. It would be a four by four. I'd get Dio to do the Eisenhower matrix that, you know, hubby did and all that kinda it's like, nope. It's gotta be it's gotta be a heptagon.
Avish
But seven seven's a nice number, though. Like, seven habits, you know, if you got Yeah. You got a nice number there. Alright. So that's great. And the book, as I said, it's a it's a very cool book because we're just talking before we started recording. It's not, like, just it's not a lot of theory.
It's not a lot I mean, there's theory, but it's not just, like, fluff. It's not padded out with a tons of long stories. Like, it's it's it's a such you call it a playbook, which is like a workbook, but you wanna use the word play, which makes total sense. Yep. So I highly recommend you go through it. We're not gonna go through the whole thing because there's so much it's just, like, all information and content, which is great, but still very easy to read, not like a textbook. So let's just let's take it back then, Haila.
You mentioned your TEDx talk, which has 15,000,000 views. It's awesome, and it's a great talk. And you would mention that that is sort of the the what and the why of the skill of humor. And you you go through three things in there, the the POV, the, explore and heighten, and the commit to performance. Do those kind of fit into the the the overall work you're doing now? Because I know, like, the TEDx talk was a while ago. The book was a little newer.
And so I'd like to talk more about those three things, but, you know, is that still sort of relevant within the framework of the personas and everything?
Andrew
Absolutely. So it's it's it's evolved since kind of the the TEDx talk, and that's where it comes from. So in the TEDx talk, we talk, you know, point of view. We talk about kind of exaggerating and heightening. We talk about delivery. And what I realized is that those sort of map to a couple of fun foundational building blocks of the skill of humor. So way that we refine that now is we talk about, basically, the skill of humor is three main building blocks.
It's your sense of humor, what you find funny, which is essentially your point of view. Right? It's your ability to humor. So it's things like comedic comedy techniques. Yes. And might be a component of that as well if you're talking about improvisation or as a writing tool. Like, if this is true, what else is true?
You might talk about comedy techniques like, you know, the comic triple or set up in Punchline, etcetera. That exaggeration fits within there as does delivery in terms of, like, delivery kinda comes into the ability to humor. Yep. And then what's sort of missing but implied in the skill of humor in the TEDx talk is the third component, which is the agency with humor. This is what do you use that humor for. Right? And this is what I think I'm very passionate about is going that extra step.
This is why I love being a keynote speaker and trainer over just a stand up comedian. Like, I I love still doing stand up, had a dry bar comedy special come out last year, etcetera. Like, I still do that, but my main thing is a training component because it's if I can if I have this, quote, unquote, power or superpower to make people laugh some people laugh. Not everyone thinks I'm funny. But if I'm able to do that, what am I doing with that? How can I take that even further and go beyond just you laughing for a brief moment
Avish
Mhmm?
Andrew
And turn it into something more. Right? And so that's that agency with humor. So those three components so point of view is a sense of humor. Exaggeration plus delivery fits within a ability to humor, and then there's that this added component of the agency with humor.
Avish
So correct me if I'm wrong. Based on those three building blocks, it sounds like the point of view is something that's the authenticity. Right? That's not the thing that the person needs to figure out for themselves. The the second block, how do you describe that? That was the
Andrew
The ability to humor.
Avish
Ability. That's where you kinda get into the more of the personas. Right? Because kinda what your persona is, how you sort of and then the agency is the application. You take your point of view and your thing, and then and that's kinda what you would then go in and work with. If you're working with a team or an organization, that's kinda you would take them through I mean, obviously, the keynote, you just kinda take the high notes, but if you're doing more of a training, you would kinda take them through those three steps and help them identify the persona and figure how they can apply it. Is that correct?
Andrew
Yeah. One and the personas themselves actually sit within each of those building blocks. So the first two personas that we often talk about is, first, the enthusiast, And these are people who have a really strong sense of humor. They are the type of people who, like, can find appreciation and joys big and small. Right? So my we one of the examples, like, my mom is a massive enthusiast. She is someone who, like, you know, when I was first starting out in comedy, would come to every single one of my shows.
And even though she, like, heard the jokes over and over, she would still continually to laugh. Same reason she probably is a reason why, like, I had enough confidence to do stand up comedy once I was pushed into it because she would laugh at my terrible jokes when I was a kid. Right? So someone who is just generally positive generally effusive with their humor, very appreciative of the world, can find the positive in it is an enthusiast. So that's someone with a strong sense of humor, so they kinda sit within that that foundational block. We also say the curator sits there as well. Because if you take that sense of humor, the things that you find funny, and then start to share with other people, now you become this curator.
And that's a persona where still the base kind of the base level is that sense of humor. If you go into the ability to humor, that's where the in inventor and the entertainer fall. Because the inventor is someone who can write funny, who is creative, clever, understands comedic structure, set up and punch line, that kind of thing. Mhmm. And the entertainer is someone who just talks funny, someone who knows how to perform. Improvisers improvisers actually a lot of times fit into both because even though you're making things up off the top of your head in an improv scene, there's still some structure to it.
You might be doing Right. A herald for long form, or you might be following, you know, a short form improv game structure or whatever. So there's still a lot of, like, thinking and you're delivering lines in an interesting way. And then the next two personas are the a bit the, agency with humor. So the engineer is about using humor to solve problems, and the advocate is about putting the spotlight on other people. Right? Advocating for other people, promoting other people in the work that they do, which can be an application of humor to create a stronger workplace culture, you know, more positive connections and teams.
And then the final persona, the one that was an afterthought for a while that kinda trends in or goes across all of them is what we call the skeptic. And And when we're first kinda researching the skeptic, the the first idea behind it was kinda like, well, if you don't think I'm funny and you think this is all dumb, we're just gonna put you all in the skeptic camp. Right? So it's kind of like a bad thing to be.
Avish
Yeah.
Andrew
And then as we started doing more and more research and talking to more and more people, skepticism's really valuable when it comes to using humor for two ways. One, editing and any type of thing. Right? Like, we talk about writing isn't actually writing. It's editing. Like, to know whether you're good or not, it's how how do you edit down? How do you take the you know, what Seinfeld says is kind of the rule of 90 where he says that 90% of what you write is gonna be crap. Yep. Right? And only the top 10% is gonna be good.
Well, how do you actually know what's good versus not? That's a good consideration competency. That's good being that's a skeptic being like, I wrote this, but it's terrible. Like, I should not tell that to anyone because it's not funny at all. Right? So editing down. And then the other aspect of consideration is recognizing that not all jokes are equal.
Not everyone's gonna perceive jokes the same way. And so as we try to create humor that is positive and inclusive for people, we should be in some ways editing ourself or recognizing if someone else uses humor that's inappropriate, that we have the skill set to pull them aside and let them know why it's inappropriate Mhmm. So that you're creating a safe space for everyone to be able to be involved as opposed to creating in and out groups, etcetera. So that persona kinda goes across all of them, but that's how they fit into the building blocks.
Avish
Okay. No. Thanks for clarifying that. That makes a lot of sense, and I like how that works. And it's I also appreciate the idea about keeping it inclusive because I think sometimes with humor, it can be like the class clown, like you sort of mentioned you were not. But it often is, like, the one person who needs the attention, and I like the idea of keeping it more, inclusive. And along those lines, as you were talking and talking about, like, your mom coming to see the show, she's the enthusiast.
And, you know, I don't know if you talk about this, but as you were saying that, it got me thinking that, like, the book is kinda geared towards identifying your persona and understanding how you can but it also seems like it'd be a very useful tool for understanding others. Mhmm. So, like, I present my humor in a certain way, but if you respond differently than I'm expecting you to, it doesn't necessarily mean that, hey, you didn't find me funny, and it doesn't mean that we're not, you know, aligned. It just means that, oh, I you're not the entertainer persona. You're you're the skeptic or you're the you're the, the curator. So you're not necessarily gonna guffaw at everything I say, but, you know, you might share it or something. So Mhmm.
I feel like it's a way of also seeing not just yourself, but kinda how the rest of the world works.
Andrew
Absolutely. And, I mean, one, the fact that you're thinking like that, that is a component of the advocate. Right? You're thinking of other people and how, oh, how does this person use humor, and how can I then change? And that's what that's what we've heard from people in our workshop is kinda like, oh, I completely understand why my brother is constantly sending me memes now. Right? He's a curator.
That's a form of connection. And then then that's what's interesting is, like, there's research that shows when two people laugh at the same thing, they become closer together. Right? And so memes are a way to actually build connection because it's like, hey.
I thought this was funny. I'm sending it to you because I think you'll think that it's funny. And the other person's like, oh, woah. Hey. That's great. This person is thinking of me, and, also, they get me enough because they're right. This is, like, something that I enjoy, or I'm so happy that you sent it. Right? So it's a way of building those connections.
And so yeah. Absolutely. If you think like an advocate and you start to understand, like, oh, well, this is and this is what great leaders do. Right? Where you're like, if I have Avish or someone like Avish on my team, and, like, I know that you're a really strong entertainer, I might be like, hey, Avish. For an next all hands meeting, could you be the emcee? Like, because it's a skill set that you have, and if you enjoy it, then it's kinda like, hey.
There's a little bit of visibility. You could do something kind of fun. Even if our job is nothing related to performance, except, like but it's saying that's that's a skill set. Whereas if I know that I've got, like, someone who's very good at inventor but hates standing up in front of people, then that would maybe be a terrifying thing to ask them. Right? And so you can start to understand what are the skill sets, what are the things people are are good at, what do they enjoy, and either put them into positions to succeed and or use it to better influence them. Right? Like, if you know someone is just an enthusiast, then you can just start sharing things that you find really funny or interesting with them.
Or if you know someone's an entertainer, then make sure that you become that enthusiast persona for them because that's the one that that's the thing that we as entertainers need. Like, that's why enthusiasts are so valuable is just kinda like we want the audience to laugh. Right? And so we want when we do a show, we want an audience of enthusiasts. We don't want skeptics there to be like, hey.
Make me laugh. I'm gonna I'm gonna make you work for it. No. We want the people that are like, oh,
Avish
that was great. In front of those audiences. Everywhere, it's not fun. But, yeah, I love that. And I I like how you alluded to leaders because I think sometimes leaders like, oh, I'm gonna I wanna make a fun workplace, a positive workplace. But then they do that blanket and, like, okay. Everyone's gonna do this fun activity, and it's fun for, like, three of the group and the other seven people like, oh, this is terrible.
So, well, let's talk about that because we're kinda coming towards the end of our time here. And we talk a lot about your book and your TEDx talk, which everyone should go watch the TEDx talk and, go get the book and read it. We're gonna link to that. But let's just say someone's listening. Let's take it from two perspectives. Start with a leader. Yep. What will be the first step?
Obviously, get your book and watch your TEDx talk. But what's kinda to start implementing some of these ideas, what how should a leader kinda just get started with developing humor as a skill or or using humor to improve their team, their culture, their workforce?
Andrew
Yeah. I mean, there's there's three. We work a lot with leaders, and so there's three three ways that leaders, I think, can can encourage more humor in the in the kind of work environment or the the group that they're in. One is they can talk about the benefits of it. Because so we we did a study to understand why people didn't use more humor in the workplace because we're like, if there's so many benefits, there's 30 plus benefits using humor in the workplace backed by research case studies, real world examples ranging from increasing productivity to improving employee engagement, to reducing stress to on and on and on. We're like, oh, these are all these benefits. Why don't people use it more?
And the number one reason why people didn't use more humor in the work in their work was that they didn't think that their boss or coworkers would approve. Right? Which means that if you are on a team, especially if you're the leader of a team and you don't see that your team is constantly laughing with each other, sharing a little bit of humor, a little bit of levity, trying some of these things out there, If they're not having fun, then you are probably the reason why. Right? Like like, not maliciously or intentionally, but there might be something in the way that you're working or the culture of the organization is happening that they don't feel like they can be comfortable using it. So the way you get around that is, one, as a leader, you can talk about the benefits of humor. Hey. I read this interesting book, or I saw this interesting talk, or I was listening to this interesting podcast, whatever it is, and just kinda talk about, like, hey.
Here's this Harvard business research Harvard Harvard Business Review article about the value of humor. Here's these books from some Stanford professors or whatever it is that wherever you wanna get this content from, you can start to say, hey. This is interesting. Let's try it because one, you're giving them permission. So that's that's one way to do it. The second way to do it is to recognize it in other people. Right? To be like, hey.
So and so I really like that you, you know, started that last presentation with the story. It got us kind of engaged. Now I understand where you're coming from. Or a great email that you sent that got people kinda like that meme was, like, ex exactly what I was, like, just calling out good examples of it.
Avish
Yep.
Andrew
And then probably the biggest thing that you can do is start using humor yourself. Right? Because if people see that you're using humor and how you're using humor, they'll start to be like, oh, well, maybe I can do that same thing. Right? Maybe I can one, if you're doing it, then it's probably okay for me to do it, and then I can learn from etcetera. Now, of course, you could hire someone like Avish or myself or whoever and, like, do this more formally, but you can also start with that like, those three things, talking about the benefits of it, calling out good examples of it, and then doing it yourself. That's where I would start.
Now for anyone wanting to start to use humor, I'll give you two different paths that you can take. If if you're like, hey.
This is cool. I kinda like this as an idea. I would encourage you just go to humorthatworks.com and fill out our completely free survey. It takes about two minutes to find out what your primary persona is. And the only reason why I suggest that is because you wanna start small and you wanna start with your natural strengths. Start with the things that are already easiest for you. And then based on your persona, there might be three, four, or five quick things that you can do to get started. Right? So that's one way.
If you like our kind of the way that I frame this, go there, completely free resource. That's an easy next step is just go take the survey, find out your primary persona, get a couple of examples on on how to do that well. If you don't like anything that I'm talking I feel like I love the idea of humor, but I hate your voice. Then what I would encourage the other thing that we encourage people to do is to try to instill this as a habit, and the way that we think about that is what we say to drive one smile per hour. Try to think about what can you do each hour of your day to bring a little bit of levity to that hour in some way. Right? To either bring a smile to your face or the face of someone else.
So if you're you know, if you if you got a forty five minute commute in the morning before you go into work, what's one thing that you can do on that commute that's gonna make you smile? Maybe that's listen to a podcast that you really enjoy or listen to some upbeat music. Right? Or maybe it's just completely avoid the news so it doesn't start your day off in a bad kind of mindset, whatever it is. Right? It's like something to create a smile. If you're getting ready to sit in a meeting, what's one thing that you can do in that meeting as a leader to say, okay.
Let's start with the five minute icebreaker question to get to know each other a little bit better. If you're gonna send it to go if you're processing email, one of the things that I do is, you know, when I'm going through emails, I'll sometimes read emails in a different accent in my head. Where it's like, okay. What would what would it sound like if this person was Arnold Schwarzenegger that sent me this? Or if this was the Incredible Hulk or what right. Just something playful in my own mind. And if you if if you try to think, okay.
Each hour of the day, what's one thing that I can do? You start to naturally develop a humor habit. You start to see the ways that you are kinda more inclined to be like, oh, I like this idea of listening to music. I'm never gonna do accents in my head, so let me just skip that idea.
Avish
Yeah. And I think, it's funny. I was just I'm listening reading or listening to an audiobook. I forgot the exact title. It's like the fun habit or something. It's basically the same sort of idea about the power bringing fun into our lives. Right? You got humor.
He's got fun. I'll put you out joy.
But and the the the what I like about that kinda combining is one of the things he's recommending is, like, just make a list, number one. Like, just, like Mhmm. He does eight to 15 that because I could see for myself if I was like, yes. I'm gonna do one smile an hour, and then tomorrow morning at 10AM, be like, oh, crap. I need to smile.
What should I do? But if I have a list of, like, you know Mhmm. Things to pull from and, the one, you know, to to bring it back to me for a moment. But, Brian, principle you talk about as well is, you know, one of the things about improvisation is be willing to fail. Right? You take a step to see what happens. So when you're starting with this, I would say, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, but, like, do something you think will bring you a smile.
And if it doesn't, like you said, like, that worked. It doesn't. But I I I in my experience, I found a lot of people just don't get started until they like, the perfect plan for how to do one smile a day. So just try it out, see what happens. And if it didn't work, well, try something different.
Andrew
Exactly. Then it just then it's research. Right? That's the nice thing is
Avish
when you think in
Andrew
terms of a research mindset, anytime you're trying something new, it's like, yeah, you're just putting it on a like a hat just to see that hey. Does this hat look good on me? Nope. I hate that hat. Let me try this other one. Like, you know, I'm just gonna try this thing. Like, for example, being the director of of International Humor Month, as I mentioned with ATH, there's a lot of people in ATH that do laughter yoga.
And laughter yoga is basically based on this premise that there are a lot of physiological benefits to laughing. Right? When we laugh just physically, we increase blood flow through our body. We in relax our muscles. We boost our immune system. There's a whole bunch of things that are actually happening. You know, release of endorphins, all that kind of other stuff.
What they found is that the body still does all those things whether the laugh is incredibly genuine because you saw the funniest thing in the world or you simply forced yourself to laugh for, like, one minute. Right? And then by laughing for one minute, a lot of times that leads. So so, basically, there's people who lead, like, entire thirty or sixty minute sessions of laughter you go go where there's not a single joke told. It's just exercises to force yourself to laugh. I understand the research. I know that is incredibly effective.
I know it's incredibly powerful for some people. I have tried it on. I tried that on, and I was like, you know what? I don't look good in that hat. Like, that is not you know, I'd rather watch a comedy video or do some improv or something else. That's not to knock it. It's not to say that it's bad.
It's just to say for me, that one particular thing didn't work.
Avish
Right.
Andrew
Like, that's what every hat
Avish
is for every head. So
Andrew
Right. Exactly. So then you try something else.
You do it. So I love that as a as an example. It's just like, you know, try it on, see what works, see what doesn't. And what's cool is you now give yourself an excuse to try a bunch of things. Right? Rather than thinking, oh, no. Maybe I tried it and it doesn't fail, go in knowing that some things are gonna fail.
Now you get to say, oh, now it's a research. Now it's a puzzle. Now it's an experiment of me seeing what works, what doesn't work, what I like. And here's the cool thing about humor. It's, like, if you find something that you do like, if it at Tuesday, you know, at 10AM, you do, hey. I watched a funny video, and it may put me in a better mood. You can do the exact same thing tomorrow.
It's not like you've gotta come up with a brand new idea now. Like, oh, I did a video yesterday, so I gotta do something. I was like, no. Find a different video. Like, you know, or watch the exact same video.
Avish
Yeah. I mean, I I'm currently rewatching, the TV show Psych, which I've probably seen a couple times, and I find it hilarious. And I'm I've seen it before. Some of them might some of the jokes I know are coming, and I'm I'm still laughing at them. So it's alright. Well, we're gonna thanks so much for all that. We're gonna finish up here.
I got a couple random questions for you, and then I'm gonna give you a chance to promote yourself again, and then, one final question. So the random questions couple of the random questions. One, it's funny when you were telling your story way at the beginning how you got started. I'm like, your story and my story are so similar because I went to college to get an engineering degree, you know, transferred to computer science, started doing improv in college. I did I did performing in high school, but I had no intention of doing it. And then it sort of led to improv, and now I use improv as a tool. So very the other thing that's very similar is the, you know, your nerdiness.
You know, everything you said you're into is, like, you know, fantasy, sci fi, computers, computer games, video games, comic books as well or no? Is that a A
Andrew
little bit. Not as not as much as not not so much that I can hold my weight against real comic book book, quote, unquote, nerds, but I do enjoy them. Yeah.
Avish
Sure. So what is your current kind of nerdy interest or obsession? What are you, like, into right now? Reading, watching, digging deep into?
Andrew
I mean, I'm I'm a sucker for anything MCU. So, of course, I'm, you know, recently just caught up on the new, Daredevil series. The thing that I'm into now, which some people consider it cheating, the the true D and D fans kinda it considered, some considered, cheating a little bit is Baldur's Gate three. Ah. So me and some friends from college get together once a week, and we play the co op, you know, collaborative mode of of, Baldur's Gate three. And we absolutely love it. Like, it's D and D, but the, you know, AI and the the computer gets to be the dungeon master.
We all get to play and, you know, do our builds and stuff like that. I didn't
Avish
even realize it had a I don't have Baldur's Gate three yet. I played one all the way through and two partway through. I didn't even I don't have three. I didn't even know there was a co op mode on that.
Andrew
That's Yeah. It's fantastic.
So we get it's like we're sitting around together back in college and playing d d D and D together, but, again, like, you know, someone else is the the the dungeon master. We don't feel bad. Like no. It's it's truly wonderful. We jump on and, we geek out about the builds, and then we you know, every now and then, it's it's it's our you know, it's a a couple of dudes, and so it's, like, our, like also, we'll be, like, fighting a monster, and then also, like, hey. How's your mom doing as well? Like, you know, it's a nice kind of, like, it's
Avish
a big d and d and role playing gaming. It's all so social. Everyone thinks it's, like, nerdy antisocial. The whole point of it is it's an incredibly social activity. Yeah. So, yeah, do people kinda lose sight of that? It just it's sort of the almost a humor persona thing. Right? Different people connect.
Some people connect watching a football game, and others will connect, like, exercising or and some will connect over games. So it's, it's sort of a similar thing to the persona. So Yep. Cool. Okay. Next random question or second and I think last random question. So you've done improv comedy for a long time as well.
Do you have not an absolute favorite, but, like, what what would you say is one of your favorite improv games to play in front of an audience?
Andrew
I love, I mean, I love the the line games or the, you know, the the pun games. So a hundred and eighty five and world tours and, you know, that kind of thing. And absolute love absolutely love, guessing games. Like, when we were in college, we played Home Shopping Network a lot. And then I was with Comedy Sports for a long time when I was still in New York, and we would do five things off games. Five things. Those gibberish plus, like, those types of games, love those and particularly loved being the guesser, of course, but also the clue giver.
So those those are probably my favorite.
Avish
Yeah. I, you know, as a keynote, and I do a lot of improv within the within the keynote, and I tried to figure out, you know, it was like a challenge, a puzzle.
Like, how do I play these? You know? Because usually, you know, normally improv, you get two, three, 10 experienced supervisors. I'm like, how can I play these solo?
And I figured out a lot of them. Yep. I have not been able to figure out how do you do a guessing game because with just one experienced improviser, but I those are Yeah.
Andrew
Because they both both the being the guesser and the clue giver, you've gotta know
Avish
Yeah. And there's skills involved.
Andrew
Along. Exactly. And to bring some a complete novice to, like, get them to be able to guess what you're talking about. Like Yeah.
Avish
Because when you get a
Andrew
that as a challenge.
Avish
You would think you you would think, like, anyone can guess, but when you get an inexperienced when the person's not guessing right, it just deflates the game.
Andrew
Yeah. It's there's certain names that you can see that you like, you as an improvise, you're strong enough to save no matter like, because that's, you know, like, a ding. Like, when you play ding or whatever, it's like, no matter whether they ding too many times or they never ding at all, you're gonna be skilled enough to, like, know how to manage that. Like you said, it's it's hard to save, a guessing game.
Avish
That's the one I wanted to still wanna have. I figured out. So, awesome. Alright. Well, hey.
Great talk, Andrew. Let people know, how can they learn more about you, work with you if they want to, get your book? Where where should we send people?
Andrew
Yeah. I mean, the easiest place is just go to humorthatworks.com. That's kind of our it's meant to be a a repository for people. So there's a bunch of free resources on there. That's where the free quiz as well, and so that's what I'd recommend people start with. There's a link to, the skill of humor playbook. We also have the humor that works book, which is kind of the what, why, and how the research that's where all the stories are and the research and all that kind of stuff is in that book.
We also have a book called 501 ways to use humor. So if you're like, hey. I like the idea of, you know, one smile per hour, but I don't know what to do. We've put together a list that's, like, 500 different ways across different categories and stuff. So you can kinda check those out and just, you know, pick one from them. But all that's at humorthatworks.com. You can also follow me on social media or connect with me on, like, LinkedIn, etcetera.
All that information's on the the website. This is something that I'm incredibly passionate about because, you know, I was I was kind of gently, but I was pushed into improv and stand up in university, and it kind of changed my life. And so now I'm very passionate about trying to be that gentle push for other people of using humor. And so, you know, if anyone has any questions, thoughts, concerns about them, always very open up to chatting about it or, you know, sharing resources, other things. Because I I know how transformative it can be, and I wanna, you know, help other people see that transformation too.
Avish
Yeah. Well, I can appreciate that fully.
So last question. Let's try to end all of these little podcast interviews. So, you know, I talk about this idea, you know, the improv idea of yes and is sort of what I've pitched my wagon to. And one of the reasons I do that is I honestly believe the world would be a better place if everyone just switched their default and started from a place of yes and instead of yes but. So for you, what is one small thing that you believe that if everyone in the world just did this one small thing, it will make the world a better place?
Andrew
I think that I'll piggyback off of I'll frame it in in piggybacking off of what you're saying. I'll give you an application of yes and that I think can truly impact people's lives. As I mentioned, there's research that shows that the average, at least in The US, the average person will work about ninety thousand hours in their lifetime.
Avish
Mhmm. And
Andrew
my kind of encouragement is is to think yes and in that context of, yes, I'm going to work ninety thousand hours, and I might as well find ways to enjoy it. Because if you do those small things to enjoy it, you're not only gonna do your work better, you're gonna be more present and show up for your work there, but you're also gonna be happier and better at home as well. And it's gonna have an absolutely transformative effect on, you know, not only how you work, but how you live. So I think that have a tremendous impact on on people as being more intentionally using humor in the workplace, and maybe that comes from a yes and mindset of, yes, I'm going to do the work, and I'm gonna have fun while doing it.
Avish
I love it. I agree. That will be awesome. Well, thank you very much. Everyone listening, go check out humorthat humor@work. Sorry.
Andrew
Humorthatworks.com.
Avish
Humor that works Com. Go and check him out. Connect with Andrew Watch's TED TEDx talk. It is awesome. Andrew, thank you so much.
This was fantastic.
Andrew
Absolutely. Thanks for having me.