Dying Hard: Not the Movie, A Bad Habit

The other day I was having a lovely conversation with my family. We were catching each other up, sharing stories from the weekend, and thankfully, laughing.

Then the conversation turned to AI.

I'm not completely in the dark about it, and I'm certainly not in the "AI is going to destroy humanity" camp. But when people start talking about coding, LLMs, and other terms I don't understand well enough to cite here, I get uncomfortable. Maybe nervous. Maybe left out. Whatever it is, it triggers my default comedian response: throw a zinger.

I've finally realized I'm like one of those fish that swims along peacefully until it feels threatened and suddenly stings you.

A Stingray! That's me. Without the gills.

Because apparently, after all these years, I still do this with words.

Ironic because I spend a lot of time talking about affiliative humor. The kind of humor that builds trust, connection, and belonging. The only kind of humor I know consistently strengthens all relationships.

Yet there I was.

Without even pausing, I fired off a mocking zinger into a conversation with people I love most. As reflexively as a knee jerking when the doctor taps the right spot.

A few minutes later, while answering emails, I caught myself.

Some people feel like a fraud when they stand in front of an audience. I can feel it on a Facetime call with my own family.

The good news is that I apologized immediately, which is its own kind of progress. In the past, I might not have noticed I'd done it. And if someone pointed it out, I likely would have been too embarrassed to acknowledge it.

Turns out breaking habits isn't always about stopping the behavior. At least not right away. Sometimes it's about shortening the time between the behavior and the awareness.

What does any of this have to do with my usual message about levity and relationships?

Possibly nothing.

But also…possibly everything.

According to Gene Perret, the Emmy-winning comedy writer and author whose work I relied on while teaching stand-up at UCLA, recognizing our own quirks, flaws, and absurdities, and learning to laugh at them, is "the foundational core of having a genuine sense of humor."

In other words, self-awareness may be one of the most important ingredients in a sense of humor.

And self-awareness has benefits beyond comedy! Research from the Stanford Graduate School of Business found that leaders who use humor effectively are viewed as 27% more motivating, and their teams tend to be 15% more engaged.

To satisfy your itch for studies by elite schools, the folks at Harvard Business Review have also determined that self-awareness:

• Helps manage emotions effectively
• Creates more impactful (truthful!) communication
• Gives us more empathy

All of which brings us back to the point of my self-awareness epiphany with my family and the impact these moments can have.

If we pay attention, they can help us answer the question of how we can communicate more truthfully. More empathetically. How do we take our work, relationships, commitments, and passions seriously, without taking ourselves too seriously?

It starts with noticing.

Noticing habits that no longer serve us. Noticing our triggers. Noticing the gap between who we aspire to be and how we sometimes show up.

And, when possible, finding a little humor in the distance between the two.

That's where growth happens. Which is almost too sincere to write. Oops, there I go!

If you'd like some help working on this with compassionate, funny facilitators, my team at Laughter On Call has workshops, coaching programs, and now even a TEDx talk devoted to sharing the power of laughter, self-awareness, and connection with the people you care about.