Eight Years Later...

If you have kids who are now between the ages of 12-25 chances are you watched your share of Sponge Bob Square Pants. Sometimes to jump cut through time, they have this heavily accented French, male voice over blurt out “Three days later…,” or “Two months later…” 

This morning it is the voice repeating in my mind as Laughter On Call celebrates another anniversary. 

Eight years later….

Instead of listing our accomplishments, which are impressive even for my never-enough brain, I’m going to reflect on our connection-first mission statement. Looking back on where we succeeded and where we…didn’t. And totally on brand, improvised our way back to find laughter where it definitely seemed unlikely.

An early stand-out memory is an original-style LOC Improv show at Silverado Beverly Place where my mother was living. It was during a classic “we’re going on a trip” longform Improv game that we play with residents. We were on a ship passing out drinks to the passengers. “What would you like to drink?” I ask, holding an imaginary tray of mimosas and champagne. 

“I have a mimosa or champagne.” Silverado is exclusively memory care and we’d already been trained that it’s important to give people clear choices rather than asking, “What would you like to drink?”
I don't get a response right away so while my fellow improvisors move down the line of “passengers,” taking drink orders, I cheerfully ask again. I lean in and make eye contact with Anne, 

“Hi, would you like a mimosa or a glass of champagne for our trip?”

“SHUT UP!” she snaps. “SHUT UP!” 

Grateful for the connection I put the tray down and pull up a chair. 

“I will shut up! Why should I shut up? Is there something you want to say?”

“IT’S TOO LOUD,” she says, looking at the ground past her wheelchair. I look around and there is in fact a lot of commotion around the room. And a lot of noise.

“Look at that. You are right! It is too loud!” I shout out to my teammates, “Hey everyone, Anne thinks it’s too loud on the ship. And I think she’s right. Please let’s all bring it down a little!”

The din falls to a murmur. 

“Thank you,” Anne says, and picks her head up making eye contact with me. 

“What are we doing?” she asks. I explained the game to her. She chooses a glass of champagne. 

Admittedly, this exchange did not bring raucous laughter into the room. For my money it was even better. It was a moment where a woman who might have gone overlooked in a group activity and probably just fallen asleep, felt seen and heard. In the rare times I get pushback on how there aren’t enough “jokes” in our work, I remind people that if I could have called the company “Cognitive Engagement On Call,” I would have. But no one is as eager to hire that company. 

Another story I love is one of the early in-person corporate training gigs. It was for a pharmaceutical company on the east coast. I was traveling with the immensely talented Lauren Pritchard. I open the workshop, telling a brief history of LOC and why laughter matters - and then Lauren uses Improv games to help people learn new tools to create it. Standard LOC format back then. 

In a planning meeting I was told this would be a room of lawyers. Very fun for me since I worked as a paralegal at Skadden Arps in the late ‘80’s. I spent a week polishing my opening, peppering it with as many legal references as I could. Following my own “Know Your Audience” tool and excited about it. 

About five minutes in, I see a small piece of paper making its way in the front row from the left side of the room to the right where I stood at the podium. The last person to get the note sneaks over to me and hands me the slip of paper. I open it, 

“We’re not lawyers, we’re pharmacists.” I look at the seventy five faces looking back at me. Moment of truth. Literally. What to do? Lauren would be teaching “Celebrate Imperfection,” very soon. Might as well jump in the deep end. Can’t run into the bathroom and hide. 

“Turns out you’re not lawyers,” I say.. 

Nope. No. No we’re not. Nope. 

“Cool,” I say, not feeling cool at all. “What a great opportunity to fail in real time so you can see what it looks like to persevere under stress. And to find a sense of humor in a mistake. In fact, this whole moment was planned! I wanted to flex my years working in M&A in the ‘80’s so you’d know I get big business. Mergers, acquisitions, cutting edge drugs, I get it.” 

A few nervous titters pop around the room. I decided to fully lean into the mistake. 

“Yeah, that’s not true. But you probably figured that out. What happened was a genuine miscommunication from someone on my end, (always better to take the hit) and now here we are. A great chance to acknowledge a less than perfect moment and throw it out to you - you make a mistake, there’s a snafu, you’re me right now. What do you do?” 

What follows is an unexpected and lively discussion about rebound, resilience, being truthful in the moment while also being cautious about the comedy tool of self-deprecation. This wraps and I pass the torch to Lauren. Since my humanity was so obviously in the room, people felt a lot safer sharing theirs, there was wonderful risk-taking and laughter in the room. The event was a tremendous success. 

The last story is one of the G.O.A.T. LOC tales. The pandemic had stranded all of us in our homes. LOC took our services virtual. We were running interactive comedy sessions for comic relief and connection - an outgrowth of our “Lunchtime Laughter” sessions that started March 16, 2020. By November 2020 we were running “Happier Hours” some days from the wee hours of the morning to include India until 9 pm at night for Silicon Valley. 

The signature aspect of any LOC event is our warm up. We believe in freeing the body and voice whenever possible to energize and prime ourselves for laughing together. If you join late, it can look a little wacky. As it did this one holiday party on ZOOM. 

There were about 50 people on the call and one of our LOC favorites who is now our Head of Senior Programming Nikki Ghisel was working her magic - arms are flailing, bird sounds are being imitated, and gales of laughter. Suddenly, out of nowhere we all hear a young woman’s’ voice, 

“What in the actual F*&K is this?” she shouts, swirling ice in a glass. 

There’s no way to pretend we didn’t hear it. Her colleagues quickly jump in, “You’re not muted, Sarah,” “Sarah! Sarah you’re not muted,” “You’re not muted.” A veritable Greek chorus of “You’re not muted.” Sarah goes silent, I cannot muffle my laughter fast enough. Found art. What a big, fun, funny mistake. I loved it. 

What makes it an even better story is that a few weeks later I was on a call with investors. Two serious men even more so because I was not making them any money. To catch them up on what was going on with LOC in the throes of COVID, and to lighten the mood, I tell them this exact story. They can't help but laugh at Sarah. When the laughter subsides the older of the two speaks up, 

“It’s very hard for us now. We can’t get our younger people into the office.” The other guy adds, “Yes it’s going to really affect mentoring. I don’t know how we are going to do it.” We spend the next twenty minutes brainstorming about the fall out from a global pandemic. Instead of focusing only on my challenges, the shared laughter had leveled the playing field.  It had transformed us into a trio of humans who felt safe enough to tackle bigger challenges together. 

These are only some of the greatest hits from the last eight years of tremendous highs, some palpable lows, and a lot of laughter. None of which is possible without my tenacious, creative, hardworking and gifted team including Nikki and Lauren, Joe Kardon, Stefanie Estes, Olivia Saperstein, Brian Rousso, Cate Smit, Sydney Adeniyi, Alexa Fasheh and our newest member Julie Mazman. Also appreciate the early contributions by Joe MacNamara and Jeneta St. Clair. We are also blessed to be supported by The Rosenthal Foundation and Lauren and Seth Rogen’s Hilarity for Charity. 

Curious, I looked up what the symbols are for eight years of marriage! The traditional ones are bronze and pottery. Couldn’t be more appropriate for this anniversary.

Bronze, an alloy of copper and tin, signifying a resilient bond. 

Pottery represents starting as malleable clay and hardening into a lasting, beautiful shape through shared experiences

Yes, and more to come!