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Charlie Melcher:

Hi, I'm Charlie Melcher, founder and director of the Future of StoryTelling, and I'm delighted to welcome you back to the FoST podcast.

Today, we have two guests. First, Dr. Jennifer Aaker, a psychologist and professor of marketing at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, who first joined us as a speaker at the FoST Summit back in 2013, and has since become a regular. She's the author of The Dragonfly Effect and Power of Story. And her latest book, which releases in early October is entitled, Humor, Seriously, which she coauthored with our other guest today, Naomi Bagdonas. Naomi is a strategy and media consultant and fellow lecturer at Stanford Business School, where the two of them teach a popular course on humor.

Now, if you're asking yourself, “what do two business school professors know about comedy?” Well, frankly, I was wondering the same thing a few weeks ago, but I think you'll find from this conversation, as I did, that Jennifer and Naomi's insights about humor and its effect on the human mind are both fascinating and revelatory. I won't spoil anything here, but rest assured that the learnings we discuss over the course of this episode have the power to make you a better storyteller. I'm tickled to welcome Dr. Jennifer Aaker and Naomi Bagdonas to the Future of StoryTelling podcast.

Jennifer and Naomi, I am so excited to have you ladies on the Future of StoryTelling podcast. Thank you for joining me today.

Dr. Jennifer Aaker:

Thank you for having us. We are so happy to be here. And you sound very manly, Charlie.

Charlie Melcher:

Oh, thank you. Thank you. Jennifer, let's start with you, because you and I go back some years. You came to the Future of StoryTelling back in 2013 and gave an amazing talk about the power of storytelling. Can you tell us a little bit about that? Why was storytelling a focus of yours?

Dr. Jennifer Aaker:

A large part of why I focused on story is because I was trained actually, as PhDs are often, to disregard story. In fact, when you become an academic, you are essentially trained to really appreciate large data sets and the degree to which large data sets support hypotheses and ideas that you have, and then you publish those large datasets. And that becomes an academic article, which 10 people read. If you are really lucky, 15 people will read that article. And so for the large majority of my career, I was trained to disregard story. It was because of a story that I shared with you the first time we met that really had an extraordinary impact on my life and took me down this road of understanding the science of story.

Charlie Melcher:

And I remember you talking about how stories can be much more meaningful, memorable, like you have a whole philosophy about storytelling and the role it plays in people's lives.

Dr. Jennifer Aaker:

Absolutely. So what research shows is that stories, relative to facts and features alone, are more memorable, they are more persuasive, and they are more meaningful. And one of the reasons is because when individuals listen to story versus just facts and figures, they feel more personally connected to you as well as the storyteller. And part of that is because we process story with both hemispheres. So neurologically, we actually process the information encoded in story in very different ways than we process just facts and figures alone. And that's one of the reasons why stories become more meaningful, because the audience is neurologically engaged in that information.

Charlie Melcher:

And kind of a radical idea, in the world of business, that you should be telling more stories instead of presenting more PowerPoint charts. And you ladies together have just co-written a book called Humor, Seriously? I put the question mark in there, there isn't really a question mark there. But let me ask it to you that way, like, humor, seriously? You're two powerhouses of intellectual strength, and professors at Stanford and teach there, why would you take on the topic of humor?

Naomi Bagdonas:

You know, Jennifer and I have a shared belief that humor is actually one of the most powerful tools we have to make teams more bonded and effective, to help leaders be more authentic and trustworthy. And this is especially relevant to this moment in time, to cut through some of the divisiveness that exists in our world and bolster resilience through difficult times.

So as one example, we know that humor impacts people's memory. So when people are laughing, they're paying attention and they're more likely to file what they're experiencing into their longterm memory. This is because humor floods the reward center of our brains with dopamine. So this makes us more engaged in the moment and also makes us remember more of the content after the fact. This is why a Pew research poll found that viewers of more humorous news shows like Late Night with Seth Meyers or The Colbert Report remembered more about current events than people who consumed that same information from newspapers, cable news, or networks. And we see the same effects in the classroom. Students who are taught class material with humor, retain more of the class learnings and score 11% higher on their final exams.

Dr. Jennifer Aaker:

Building off of Naomi's insight, we need to tell stories in order to make structural components of the world matched, you know, the meaning system that we have in our life. And so a lot of stories put meaning in our journey. So you have epic, classic storytelling, like the Hero's Journey, for example. And what humor does is it puts meaning in certain specific areas like contrast, surprise, and revelation. And moment to moment, these things—contrast, surprise, revelation—have intrinsic value, because we're trying to create new things, whether it's paths out of danger or paths to reward. And so humor is this naturally very good component of what makes a good journey. You know, a hero must find these paths and humor helps him or her find those paths. So similar to story, humor is a component of meaning-making and our day to day.

Charlie Melcher:

So tell me a little bit about how it works in your brain. I mean, what's chemically happening when you laugh or hear a good joke?

Naomi Bagdonas:

When we laugh, our brains release a cocktail of hormones that make us feel happier, dopamine, slightly euphoric endorphins, less stressed. So they lower, you know, lowering our cortisol and more trusting. So this is the release of oxytocin. And so this cocktail has a wealth of benefits both on how we show up, how confident we feel, how creative we are, how open we are. And it seeps into sort of the charisma that we exude. And it also impacts how other people perceive us. So we know that when people use humor and these hormones are released in other people's brains as they're listening, they're more likely to be persuaded by the stories that people are telling. They're more likely to trust the people and they're more likely to attribute higher status.

Charlie Melcher:

Again, I find it so interesting that you're bringing the idea of humor to a Stanford Business School curriculum. And they've come to Stanford Business School and what do they get? A class about humor.

Dr. Jennifer Aaker:

And it gets the same credit as financial accounting.

Charlie Melcher:

Well, I know which one I would choose, without question.

Naomi Bagdonas:

Don't tell us.

Charlie Melcher:

So let me ask though, do you get a surprise? I mean, is this a kind of strategy you have for rewiring the next generation of leaders?

Dr. Jennifer Aaker:

It sounds kind of like we're like mad scientists, trying to rewire the neurological underpinnings of these incredibly brilliant people.

Naomi Bagdonas:

The answer is yes.

Dr. Jennifer Aaker:

That is definitely, definitely true.

Naomi Bagdonas:

Yeah, when we plan together in our lair before every quarter, that's exactly what we do.

Dr. Jennifer Aaker:

Actually one of the most enjoyable parts of the class is at the very beginning, because the students walk in incredibly hesitant. And so on the first day, Naomi and I do this humor audit, which is the most fun kind of audit ever, where they essentially go through their lives and become more aware of how humor shows up for them. And one of our students replied to our question, “When was the last time you laughed?” Part of the humor audit, with the answer, “On Tuesday, I did not laugh, not once.” Who knew a class about humor could be so depressing? But by the end, the students report having so much more joy in their lives. They became more generous with their laughter and simply noticing opportunities for humor that would have otherwise passed them by.

Charlie Melcher:

I love the idea of a humor audit. Tell me about this concept of the humor cliff.

Naomi Bagdonas:

So what we find is that people essentially fall off a humor cliff around the time they enter the workforce. And what that means is that they stop smiling and laughing as much, and they stop believing themselves to be funny. You might understand this relatively intuitively, but it is a more serious issue than you might think.

Consider that the average four-year-old laughs 300 times a day, the average 40-year-old laughs that many times over the span of two and a half months. So we have, in many ways, lost our sense of humor. By the way, this is my dad jokes with an audience of four-year-olds really crush. If you say, “I don't trust stairs, they're always up to something.” A four-year-old will die laughing and we will be a lot slower to laugh.

But what we find is that this also stems from a misperception that we have to be serious all the time, we have to have a facade of sterility, of professionalism in our workplaces. And because of that, we go to work and we leave our senses of humor and so much more of ourselves, so much more of our full selves at the door. As Jennifer mentioned, this is actually really detrimental because not only are we missing out on the upside that humor can have, but we're also not insulating ourselves well from the very real stressors of the corporate world that humor can really help buffer us from.

Charlie Melcher:

So telling jokes or being humorous is a way to unlock creativity? Is that right? It lets you sort of be at ease. Do you think that that's one of the great benefits of humor?

Dr. Jennifer Aaker:

Yeah, absolutely. It also increases resilience, which means something right now where the large majority of us are doing remote work and under a very stressful conditions. And in fact, there's one large scale study conducted in Norway, which is renowned for its sense of humor as a cultural imperative. And in that study, it was a longitudinal study and researchers asked individuals not just how much humor and propensity to laugh they had in their life, but also they measured a host of health benefits.

So in this particular study, women that scored high on the use of humor had 48% lower risk of death from all causes. A 73% lower risk of death from heart disease and an 83% lower risk of death from infection. Men showed very similar patterns. It was a little bit lower. So I guess the insight there is A, be a woman, B, move to Norway and C, let's just hope those are robust findings. Yes.

Naomi Bagdonas:

What's incredible here too is these aren't huge shifts. I mean, these are really small shifts that people can be making that are having these profound effects. So there was another study done where researchers developed an eight-week program that taught specific skills related to the use and enjoyment of humor in our everyday lives. These were super simple things, like becoming less serious or cultivating a more playful attitude or my favorite, developing a more hearty and healthy belly laugh. So for eight weeks, they just-

Charlie Melcher:

Ha ha ha ha.

Naomi Bagdonas:

Right, yeah. There you go. So for eight weeks, they did one hour a week where they learned a little bit about this skill and they put it into practice in really small ways. And what they found was that after eight weeks, those who were in the humor skills group reported fewer instances of depression, lower stress, higher proportion of positive to negative emotions, and even significantly increased perceptions of control in their own life. So these are small interventions that have meaningful impact on our psychology. And also as Jennifer, mentioned on our physiology over the long run.

Dr. Jennifer Aaker:

Aren't statistics fun, Charlie?

Naomi Bagdonas:

Oh my gosh, you are so fun.

Dr. Jennifer Aaker:

Do you love studies?

Charlie Melcher:

What's so funny is that actually they're kind of the opposite of you're using the thing that is the opposite of what you're saying to prove the thing you're saying, right? You're using stats to show that funny is good.

Dr. Jennifer Aaker:

We like to think that they are humorous statistics and that you can have both, both data as well as humor.

Charlie Melcher:

Okay, and humor.

Naomi Bagdonas:

Also, did my dad joke go unnoticed earlier? Because that was-

Dr. Jennifer Aaker:

It was a good one. I heard it, it was fantastic. You should go be a dad.

Naomi Bagdonas:

I might. I might after this.

Charlie Melcher:

But so I guess what you're saying really is that humor is the best medicine.

Dr. Jennifer Aaker:

After actual medicine, yes.

Naomi Bagdonas:

Yes, that's right.

Charlie Melcher:

After medicine. Do you think that this work has real relevance for this time that we're living in? I don't just mean because it's stressful, but it also mean because we're socially distanced, right? We're speaking right now through Zoom. I mean, everybody is sort of mediated at this quarantine safe distance. Can comedy transcend the alienation, the loneliness that we're feeling today?

Naomi Bagdonas:

With the shift to remote work, I think many of us have never felt more disconnected from our colleagues, from our loved ones. And this is when we need humor more than ever. And this is in part because it reveals our humanity, it diffuses tension. And in context, when we're working remotely, it can bond us in ways that would otherwise not be possible across these 12-inch screens. And this is in part because when we laugh with someone, be it in person, over screens, or six feet apart in lawn chairs in our driveways, our brains are releasing the same hormone. We're both releasing oxytocin and we're essentially queuing ourselves to form an emotional bond with the other person. And so there are very few things that are helping to break down this facade that exists when we're only connecting over screens, only seeing each other from the waist up and humor is one of those things.

When we have a foundation of laughter with people, when we have a space together where we know that no matter what we're talking about, no matter what we're here to accomplish on this Zoom call or on this podcast, we're going to find ways to create joy together. Then it shifts the dynamic and it makes us trust each other. It makes us have relationships that are stronger that we can fall back on and lean on when times get hard.

Charlie Melcher:

In the introduction to your book by Ed Catmull, the co-founder of Pixar, he said, “A sense of humor is part of what makes us human.” So I guess what you're saying is that through that sense of humor, we can find our common humanity. We can discover the things that bring us together as opposed to the emphasis that we feel so much these days on the things that divide us.

Dr. Jennifer Aaker:

Absolutely. Charlie, I think that what you just said is so profound and also so important when we're looking at a world where digital transformation has changed the way that we work, and even understanding what does it mean to be human. What actually cannot be easily replicated by machines, humor is much more multidimensional than we think. Oftentimes, we think of humor as being simply a stand up, someone who's in the limelight and they land the jokes, et cetera. But we have research to show that there's very different types of humor.

For example, there's a magnet who tends to be very sort of charismatic and brings people to you. There's a sniper who tends to be witty and dry and deadpan, making him or her laugh is very hard to do. And then there's also a sweetheart who understands the risks in all social or political sort of situations and would never sort of take risks in order to land a joke, and yet has a very uplifting sense of humor. And so all of these varied ways of thinking about humor.

Also, humor is interesting because you really do have to read the room. In our book and also in our class, we talk a lot about how do you understand how to read the room, understanding what your goals are, what other's goals are. And all of those kind of assessments demand a pretty high level of emotional intelligence, which machines aren't good at yet.

Charlie Melcher:

I think that's also another real similarity to storytelling, which is just understanding your audience. Some people are just born funny, right? I mean, the comedians just were naturally funny and the rest of us kind of should just give it up, right?

Dr. Jennifer Aaker:

No, we love your softball questions, Charlie. The fact that you read our book. All right. So what we find is that there is these sort of four myths after serving thousands of people around a wide range of industries and roles about what holds you back from using humor at work. One of them is, the born with it myth. That humor is an innate ability that either people have or they don't have. But just like with story, this is a skill that actually A, has a science to it. B, can be learned and C, is much easier than we think. We call these the four deadly humor myths because we heard that if you put deadly in front of it, people will pay attention more to that.

Charlie Melcher:

When you encourage people to bring more humor and levity into their workplace or into their lives, really, what do you suggest? How do you help people let their inner comic out and how do you help them get better at being funny? From two Stanford professors, just by the way.

Dr. Jennifer Aaker:

Yes, indeed, indeed.

Naomi Bagdonas:

We found that the first step and the most important step is a mindset shift. Being easy going with your laughter, looking for opportunities to be more generous with laughter, going through your day on the lookout for humor, try and have the mindset of navigating your life on the precipice of a smile. So practically speaking, one way to do this is to start a levity list. So for 10 days, jot down three funny things that happened each day, or frankly, three observations, anything that's a little bit odd or different or strikes you as interesting. Just jot down these things at the end of each day. At the end of the day, you have a couple of observations. And there's sort of a general observation right now of, wow, we're only seeing each other from the waist up, how we're on a Zoom call. Maybe people may not be wearing pants when they're conferencing at home. So this is an observation.

Three really simple techniques that you can apply to any observation are exaggeration, contrast, and rule of three. Exaggeration, humor often plays with hyperbole and extremes. So you could say, “I really can't remember what things were like before remote work. How did we put on pants?” So you're just sort of exaggerating that observation that actually I don't really remember what it was like back in those times.

You could use contrast. So you could say, “When you're working from home, there are upsides and downsides. You have to spend a lot more time finding a presentable corner of your room and good lighting. But on the other hand, you save a lot of time that you'd normally spend putting on pants.” You're using that same observation, but you're just creating contrast within it.

And then lastly is rule of three. This is the simplest, simplest way to create humor, which is, if you have anything that you think is remotely humorous, you create a list with two normal things and you put your thing, your funny observation at the end. So you could say, “Now that we're working remotely, we don't have some of those subtle things that make office life office life. Like, hallway conversations, supportive eye contact in meetings and pants.”

Charlie Melcher:

I think that pants one is a great example because these days I've been wearing a lot of skirts.

Dr. Jennifer Aaker:

Oh my, Charlie, you're getting funnier as the minutes go on.

Naomi Bagdonas:

Oh my gosh.

Charlie Melcher:

Just trying to learn from you both.

Naomi Bagdonas:

Even before we get to those techniques, we talk about how the two foundational elements of humor are truth and misdirection. You took our brains in one direction and then you shifted it in the other, so that was beautiful. Beautiful. You get an A for this podcast, Charlie.

Charlie Melcher:

It's too bad we don't have political candidates that are funny. It seems like that's really where we desperately need it.

Naomi Bagdonas:

President Obama had a team of, obviously a team of speech writers, but in his team of speech writers, he had professional comedians as well. And so there was one, I remember watching a State of the Union Address. Gosh, I forgot what year it was, but he made this super lame joke about salmon. You can look it up. It's a totally lame joke about smoked salmon and sort of how bureaucratic different areas of government are. I remember watching it and going like, “Okay, he's got a sense of humor. That was funny.” But not thinking much of it.

Barack Obama:

There are 12 different agencies that deal with exports. There are at least five different agencies that deal with housing policy. Then there's my favorite example: the Interior Department is in charge of salmon while they're in fresh water, but the Commerce Department handles them when they're in salt water. I hear it gets even more complicated once they're smoked.

Well, the next day, NPR surveyed their listeners on what's the word or phrase that you remember most from this hour-long State of the Union Address, and the most remembered word was salmon. There's a reason too why our politicians would benefit from having a bit more humor.

Dr. Jennifer Aaker:

And actually Ronald Reagan had a list of jokes that he would use. Like literally he had a compilation of jokes that he would not only sort of use in different environments, but actually he would add to, and so it was ever a fresh. It's really quite remarkable to see how politicians have used humor in different audiences for different reasons, but he's actually best practice.

Ronald Reagan:

You know, there's a 10-year delay in the Soviet Union of delivery of an automobile. And only 1 out of 7 families in the Soviet Union own automobiles. It's a 10-year wait. And you go through quite a process when you're ready to buy, and then you put up the money in advance. And this happened to a fellow, and this is their story that they tell, this joke, that this man, he laid down his money, and then the fellow that was in charge said to him, “Okay, come back in 10 years and get your car.” And he said, “Morning or afternoon?” And the fellow behind the counter said, “Well, 10 years from now, what difference does it make?” And he said, “Well, the plumber's coming in the morning.”

Charlie Melcher:

Anything that we didn't cover that you would like to speak about or that we should be sure to discuss?

Dr. Jennifer Aaker:

Maybe we can riff off two last things. What we find based on a lot of the research around what is meaningful in life and how is meaning and happiness different and when and why do humans get it wrong has been informed a bit by my mom actually. She volunteered for hospice for 40 years. And so we grew up, my two sisters and I, around the dinner table, listening to stories of people dying and what people regret in their last days of life.

One of them is, I wish I was less fearful of change and was bolder. The second is I wish I lived a life that was more authentic to what I wanted, not what others did. Third, I wish I was more present and just savored more. And then I wish I had more joy in my life. I wish I let myself laugh more. And remember, this is on the last days of their life, arguably the most meaningful that they were wishing they had not chased happiness, but allowed for happiness and laughter. And then the last is, I wish I had the chance to say I love you one more time. And we end our book with this afterward with Michael Lewis, that when you have humor in your life, love is not far behind.

Charlie Melcher:

That's so beautiful. So that reminds me of a joke.

Naomi Bagdonas:

Go on.

Dr. Jennifer Aaker:

Yes.

Charlie Melcher:

Okay. So it's one that actually my father taught me. So he would hold up his watch and he'd showed me the watch and he'd say, “You see this watch? This watch, my father, on his death bed, he sold me this watch.” Okay, you didn't laugh.

Naomi Bagdonas:

He sold me.

Charlie Melcher:

He's dying, why is he selling you the watch?

Dr. Jennifer Aaker:

It was really good. We just ...

Charlie Melcher:

Oh, no. I didn't deliver it well.

Dr. Jennifer Aaker:

We liked the accent. The accent was exceptional.

Charlie Melcher:

No, that sounds terrible. Oh, well. Thank you both. This has been a wonderful conversation and fun, but even more importantly, really profound. And so, I so appreciate that. And I send tremendous love to you both, which I think was a nice message, which is, I don't want to be somebody who's forgotten to say it enough. So love you both.

Dr. Jennifer Aaker:

Love you.

Naomi Bagdonas:

Love you, Charlie. Thank you.

Dr. Jennifer Aaker:

Thank you, Charlie.

Charlie Melcher:

I hope you had as much fun listening to this episode as I did recording it. My sincere thanks to Jennifer and Naomi for joining me today and for laughing at my jokes.

If you'd like to learn more about their book Humor, Seriously, you can do so by visiting the link in this episode's description. And if you visit our site at fost.org, you can watch the two wonderful videos that we made with Jennifer when she was a speaker at FoST. Thank you to our talented production partner, Charts & Leisure, and a special thanks to you, our listener.

If you enjoyed this episode, please be sure to subscribe to our podcast, give us a review, and share with a friend. We'll see you in a couple of weeks for another deep dive into the world of storytelling. Until then, stay safe, be strong, and story on.