Learning Without Scars

S5 E26•October 6, 2025•56 min

Finding Joy in the 9-to-5: How Comedy Transforms Corporate Culture

Send us Fan Mail (https://www.buzzsprout.com/1721145/fan_mail/new) What if the key to workplace productivity isn't another productivity app or time management system, but something far more elemental – laughter? Kevin Hubschmann, founder of laugh.events, reveals how strategic comedy breaks are revolutionizing corporate culture and employee well-being. The concept is beautifully simple yet scientifically sound: 15-minute comedy sessions that function as cognitive reset buttons during the workday. When scheduled during the notorious 2-4 PM energy slump, these "laugh breaks" reduce cortisol levels, boost endorphins, and help employees return to work refreshed and re-engaged. It's what Kevin calls "the new cigarette break" – a deliberate pause that acknowledges our biological need for mental rest. But the conversation goes deeper than scheduling comedy shows. Kevin explores how improvisational techniques build crucial "power skills" that distinguish humans from AI. As technology increasingly handles routine tasks, our uniquely human abilities – divergent thinking, authentic communication, creative problem-solving – become our most valuable professional assets. Through "laughing and development" workshops, teams learn to flex these creative muscles in safe, playful environments. The discussion takes fascinating turns through education reform, generational workplace differences, and how our lifelong conditioning toward obedience has created workforces that struggle with independent thinking. Kevin shares practical insights on bringing more authenticity to professional settings, making incremental changes that lead to meaningful growth, and creating environments where creativity can flourish within thoughtful boundaries. With predictions that 50% of Americans may lack skills for employment by 2030, this conversation offers a refreshingly optimistic counterpoint – a vision where technology handles the monotony while humans focus on connection, creativity and innovation. Ready to rethink how laughter might transform your workplace? This episode offers both the philosophical foundation and practical first steps. Subscribe to Kevin's newsletter at laughrx.laugh.events or visit laugh.events to explore how strategic comedy might revolutionize your team's culture and productivity. Visit us at LearningWithoutScars.org (https://www.LearningWithoutScars.org) for more training solutions for Equipment Dealerships - Construction, Mining, Agriculture, Cranes, Trucks and Trailers. We provide comprehensive online learning programs for employees starting with an individualized skills assessment to a personalized employee development program designed for their skill level.

Transcript

0:21

Aloha, and welcome to another Candid Conversation. We're going right off the rails today. We've got a man by the name of Kevin Humpschman, who basically is going to give us some humor. So in the midst of all of the series on artificial intelligence and how you proceed in the world that we're living with, with technology change, Kevin is going to give us a little bit of a light view. And that's as far as I'm going to go. So, Kevin, if you could introduce yourself, that'd be wonderful. Tell us what you're going to do to us today.

0:54

Well, yeah, I look forward to having a nice conversation about humor. I'll do my best to make some jokes and make it laugh. But, you know, anytime I say that out loud, it always ends up bombing. So we're going to have to keep things light and hope that you and I can just make some magic.

1:12

We'll do that. I'm in Hawaii. You're in Brooklyn, right? Yep. So we're about, what do you think? Something in the order of 6,000 miles apart. So I can't reach out and smack you. Neither can you that to me.

1:29

Don't worry. I'll smack myself.

1:31

So what, what does laugh dot events do, which is your company, correct?

1:38

Yeah, that's my company. So we, uh, we do, we have, it's comedy services for corporate audiences. So that could be virtual comedy shows. That can be in-person comedy shows. And something that people are really gravitating towards now is something we'd call laughing and development, which is applied improv and other skills that comedians use every day that professionals can use to kind of unlock their potential.

2:08

You know, in my mind, we're all together too serious about everything. We don't have enough levity. We don't have enough humor. We're talking around each other or at each other. We don't do a lot of things very well anymore as people. So I really think you've got a sweet spot there for a lot of companies, even if you just had a 10-minute comedy blab that people could. you know, sign on to in the morning or once a week or something just to give them a little bit of a lift. And I suspect that's some of the things you do.

2:47

Yeah, that's actually something we offer. We call it a 15 minute laugh break. So there's companies that will hire us to do, you know, hey, we want to everyone to stop what they're doing and just. We'll have a laugh, have some fun, forget about work for a little bit. And yeah, like I said, there's two sides of our business. It's like the entertainment side where it's like the goal of this event is only laughter and having the company provide that levity. And then the other side is more in team building, professional development. But both of those main products we offer, you know, fall into the team building side. But yeah, I mean, these 15 minute laugh breaks. You know, I always joke that like I sometimes I do keynotes and I'll go and I'll say, raise your hand. Who here smokes cigarettes? And, you know, one person raises their hand and I go, I bet that person's the most productive person in this room.

3:45

And and people are like, what is this guy talking about? But it's the fact that they have these breaks. You know, the addiction that they have to cigarettes is forcing them to go take a break outside their body saying we need this break. Otherwise, people that do not have that part of their brain that's like, yo, take a break. You know, they run right through it and their productivity goes down the down the chute. So, you know, these laugh breaks, I also always end it. I go, well, everyone reach under your seats. Because I have cigarettes for all of you. We start talking like this laughter. Companies that kind of implement this laugh break, we wanted it to act like the new cigarette break. Because biologically, when you laugh, your cortisol levels, that stress hormone is going to go down and your endorphins are going to go up. So you're getting these feel good chemicals. You're you're getting distracted with just what's in front of you.

4:48

And you're not thinking about work. And that stress is kind of coming off your shoulders. And everyone just comes away from it being a little bit lighter. And, you know, they're not watching a video and watching 16 seconds and going. They're locked in for 15 minutes, resetting their brains and kind of like etch-a-sketching their brains with laughter.

5:08

You know, it's amazing. As an educator, as a teacher, I'm interested in how people learn and when do they best learn. And one of the proofs that's been around for decades is that physical education,30 minutes,20 minutes of exercise, your learning capacity over the next two hours is huge. And yet most schools, school districts and states have killed during the day phys ed.

5:41

Oh, man.

5:42

And if it was me, I'd have one. And first thing in the morning, everybody goes there, you know, kind of the Japanese or Asian approach or Home Depot. They get together and have a circle of discussion and they do exercises. Yeah. And then right after lunch. And it's been proven, Kevin, that it is beneficial. And so the break you're talking about, think about people that don't smoke, but they're in the middle of something. They get stressed out because they got to do lists and I want to finish this, but their productivity goes in the toilet. Oh

6:17

yeah. I mean, I, me personally, I have tried to figure out what, what is slowing me down right at that, uh, you know, three o 'clock. time. I know that I can be productive from when I wake up until about 2 p. m., and I thought it was like my diet. So I tried to change my diet, and I tried to really eat stuff that would not slow my body down. But then I still sort of crashed, and I started looking into it, and I started researching, like, at least specifically for men and myself, like, are circadian rhythms... We are only really supposed to be even awake for eight hours until our brain is like, please take a rest, take a take a break. And so I found it was like the alternatives were one of two things. It was it was a nap and it was either, you know, just shut your eyes down for 15 minutes and just kind of reset or take a longer restorative nap. That's a full. And I'm like, I don't have time to take an hour and a half in the middle of the day.

7:28

But I did find that like, you know, what is that for me? What is that like 15 minute reset? And so that's like when we talk to companies, when is the best time to do these comedy events? It's when people are crashing, when people's bodies are naturally like, hey, I'm supposed to sleep now. Our body like the theory also is that, you know, Humans used to have, they used to sleep twice. They used to have two different types of sleep patterns or times that they, two bedtimes. So our bodies are saying we need a change up. And so I always say, hey, the best time to do a comedy event, these 15 minute laugh breaks are between two and 4 p. m. where people kind of need to reset if you want them to be productive in the second half of the day.

8:18

Yeah, it's amazing. There was. There was a study by National Geographic about 40 or 50 years ago where they put a guy underground and the cave that he was in, the lights would go on when his body awoke. It would go off when he went to sleep. And they found that we need about 11 hours of sleep and then we're awake for 22 versus the workday goes according to the sun and then we screw around it with... daylight savings and all the rest of this nonsense. We don't change our clock. And what's interesting for me, I'm closer to the equator. And so my days and nights are pretty much the same length. I grew up in Montreal where in the wintertime, where let's go crazy, I was born in Alberta and in Edmonton. When my daughter's going to school, she'd go to school in the dark. She'd come home in the dark and be like living like a mole. Yeah. And, you know, it's kind of dangerous when you've got she was in kindergarten, grade one, grade two type of thing.

9:25

So my wife would walk to the bus pickup just to make sure she got there. Yeah. And, you know, I used to look out my window there and we had six hours of sunshine in the wintertime. It's so we're all screwed up in how we do things. So I'm interested in how I love that 15 minute break. I think that's how do people get in touch with you if they want to do such a thing?

9:50

Well, our website's the best thing to do. Laughed Out Events. That's the name of the company. It's also the website. Try to make it easy for everybody. But yeah, that's it. And we have companies do these laugh breaks. And, you know, it's another thing. A lot of companies come to us and they're like, we want to do this big. celebration, you know, we just had this crazy quarter or we just had this crazy month, you know, we really or we just pushed a product or we just did this accomplishment. We want to do like an hour long event. And I'm always like, that's great. You know, I'm happy with doing an hour long event, whatever you want to do. But I always recommend like, let's take that budget and spread it out into like a bunch of these 15 minute breaks. And a lot of people think like. Longer is better. And there was a point where actually I wouldn't let people do more than 30 minute events because it's like these are people's attention spans.

10:47

But I also just found that like 15 minutes is this perfect like I'm going to be focused. I'm going to be enjoying myself. And a lot of folks want to say, let's use all of the budget now. Longer is better. Let's have a comedian go for a longer period of time. And I'm always for. Hey, it's the same price if you just spread it out and give people a gift, you know, every quarter or every month, whatever is better. It doesn't change how we do business. We just think it's delivering a way better product.

11:20

Yeah, I agree with you. There's a behavioral scientist who teaches at Harvard. His name is Nir Eyal. He's an Israeli and he wrote a book called Indistractable. Oh, maybe maybe 10 years. I don't know, something like 10 years ago. I changed how I work based on input from that book. I've been a maniac to-do list guy. Yeah. And he said, kill that. Deal with blocks of time. With the to-do list, you put stress on yourself. You got to get this done. You got to get it done. And that also degrades your capacity. So it's been a, you know, imagine that 75 years and somebody's teaching me something new on how I conduct myself. Yeah. And I think these things, I think they're very valuable. We're in a high-stress world, Kevin, as you know. Technology is changing so quickly that people can't keep up, and they don't know how to deal with it, and they become victims. And it's almost an age-block thing. I'm nearly 80, and people my age don't.

12:29

Don't give me a computer, for God's sake. I can't. The keyboard, what do you mean? I can't type. You know, texting on your phone, my fingers are too damn big. You know all this stuff. And it's true. But the young people, my grandkids, son of a gun, bang, bang, bang. It's, you know, I can't believe it.

12:45

Oh, yeah.

12:46

And they catch on to things more quickly because I believe they're more accepting or tolerant of making mistakes. We aren't. We're taught don't make mistakes, damn it. Yeah. So how do you, okay, give me a snippet. I'm a pretty dour guy, but I like to laugh. So I don't know if I'm a good test model for you, but can you make me laugh?

13:13

No, I don't want to try to make you laugh. I think that's those moments where that's actually a funny thing. If you ask any comedian, hey, tell a joke. They're like, I don't think. Like this is going to go well. So I always I always kind of try to stay away from that and more let this dialogue result in something maybe funny. But we should get your seats because I think I left some cigarettes for you.

13:38

Yeah, but that's that's a perfect answer because, you know, I we live in Southern California for 20 plus years. I don't know, maybe 30. And we had a timeshare in Vegas and we drive up and. We'd go up on a Monday, come back on a Friday. So Monday night, Tuesday night, Wednesday night, Thursday night. And there's a comedy club like half a block away from where our timeshare was. And every time we were there, we'd go in there. And aside from the language, it's amazing. And it's really good comedy, people trying to break in.

14:12

Yeah.

14:13

And we've seen, you know, Seinfeld and Carlin and all of these people. And they're gifted as hell and how they can write. Yeah. And Jerry Seinfeld is the only comedian that I think that my wife and I saw that didn't swear once. And it was noticeable after a while. Yeah. George Carlin, like half the theater would disappear when he started getting going because his language is so, it was just part of his stick.

14:44

I mean, Carlin's got the whole, uh, I think it was at seven dirty words. I think that's it. So, I mean, that's, That's what you're paying for.

14:53

We saw him in Vegas, and it was right next door to us. Our timeshare was behind the Flamingo. And he used to go into the kitchen and have his dinner, talking with the guys. And then he'd be dressed up so that you'd never recognize, and he'd be out in the street getting material.

15:15

Oh, my gosh.

15:16

It's it was an amazing man, actually. He and his wife were married. I mean, his lifelong marriage. His life was over when his wife passed because she was his producer. Yeah. And, you know, brilliant stuff. But the language just my wife, my wife at times was just holy mackerel. You have to do that.

15:37

Yeah. I mean, it's it's actually, you know, there's a lot. A lot of things I wanted to jump off from there, but I'll start with the language component. We do pre-event surveys to be like, hey, what is the vibe? What do you guys want? And there's some people that are like, rated R, roast my boss. And I was like, I am going to not take your advice because... that's dumb. Nobody wants to hear that, especially in a corporate setting. So like when you're dealing with like corporate comedy, you don't, the goal of corporate comedy, or I'd rather comedy for corporate audiences. I think calling corporate comedy makes it sound pretty dull, but comedy for corporate audiences is that it doesn't benefit you as the comedian to go. artistic in that moment and say, my language, my art, my act. It's like you're a steward to the audience in that setting. The client is paying you to really make people happy.

16:42

And so it's actually a really cool environment because the comedians are so dialed in trying to make it as inclusive of language as possible. And, you know, that is a very. it just makes for the comedy to be a bit more wholesome, a bit more fun. Like, don't get me wrong. I love going after work to comedy clubs and just really hearing it. And it's, there's a time and a place for it. Uh, I love it. Um, but as someone to, at that perform standup comedy, I have a little, like an anecdote. I went, I did a show in a few months ago and it was. my family was coming. My aunts were coming and like friends and family were coming. My brothers and sisters were there. So I was like, they can, I can let them hear it. But like, you know, I don't want, this was near my hometown. So also I wanted to like respect my family for coming and my aunts for coming. And I didn't want them to be like, you know, we, we helped raise this, you know?

17:45

So I, I went through and I combed through my set and I eliminated. almost every curse word. I might have kept like one curse word because I think it was even Jerry Seinfeld that says like he doesn't curse, not because he thinks he's better than everybody, but he thinks it distracts from the joke itself. And that if you really, if you never curse, but you curse like once, that power of being, that like adds to the joke. Right. If you didn't if you don't hear anyone saying anything bad, but the moment that they do curse, you kind of stand up a little bit and you're like, OK, now now I'm listening. So I think it's like that language can be a tool or not cursing is a tool, because then if you're not dealing with cursing, you're then not dealing with certain content. And again, a lot of people will be like, oh, that's annoying. I want them to go crazy. But creativity. needs boundaries.

18:42

And I think that you can really be creative and go crazy, but also that is distracting in a way because you have one idea here that's funny and another idea here that's funny, but they might not even be on the same topic or even similar. But if you give yourself these guardrails and say, hey, you can't talk about like X, Y, and Z. you know that you can talk about A, B, and C. And so you can say, like, that's what we're going to do, and we're not going to curse, and that is going to really say it's not putting shackles on you, it's putting guardrails on you, you know? It's like bowling. Like, obviously you don't want to shoot with bumpers, and you want to show people that you can hit strikes without the bumpers, but I'm telling you, you put those bumpers on, like... You're shooting easily over 125 and not even thinking about it. And I think that's helpful.

19:37

Yeah. What you're talking about is communications. Yeah. And, you know, I don't know that we are communicating as well as we could. You know, just asking questions is important. I don't mean yes, no type stuff. Open-ended questions that forces the person to talk. How do we find out what people like, what they don't like, what they want, what they need, unless we can have a dialogue? Dialogue is a Greek word, or I think it's Greek, flow of meaning. A monologue, you know, I'm not Johnny Carson, that's for damn sure. But as a teacher, you know, one of the things I've been teaching a long time, and with technology today, I can put a quiz out every 7 to 12 minutes. One question. And I know whether people are with me or not. Yeah. And the real trick as a teacher is to make sure I transfer that information to the audience. I use what's called Socratic teaching, meaning I don't answer questions. I ask them.

20:43

I help them develop a pattern or a skill set that allows them to learn without me. Yeah. And that's like, you know, teaching the fish they can eat for the rest of their life. Give them a fish. They got a meal. But I think everything you're talking about makes wonderful sense. I love the 15-minute break because such a thing is needed. And it'll be interesting from my audience. We cover somewhere, depending on how we get across on social media, somewhere between 10,000 and 20,000 people will see this. And it's interesting or have access to it. It's interesting.

21:23

The thing, what real quick that I heard you say, you know, when you said, you know, Socratic method reminded me of a quote that I love from Plato. And it's you can learn more about a person in an hour of play than you can in a lifetime of, I think, conversation. I'm butchering the quote. But the. That is like a very big component. You just mentioned like listening or earlier in the conversation, you also mentioned about like being scared to fail. And I think that all of those things are really intertwined. And that's where. outside of these laugh breaks that we're talking about. The other thing that people love doing with us and working with us that's way more educational is this thing called laughing and development. And it's the ability, it's using applied improv games and exercises to play with one another and have fun with one another.

22:18

But to your point, You know, learning how to communicate effectively, how to actively listen is like the whole goal of good play and good banter and going back and forth. And that unlocks the ability to learn about people and open ended questions and and really being curious. And then when you do that and it works, you are a lot less scared to fail or ask that question or go out on a limb because it's coming from a place of. interest and curiosity and it's a muscle that you have. So even your body is like, this is very organic and natural to me. And I think it's a muscle that gets atrophied over time, especially with, say, AI, where everyone's just doing, you know, very much convergent thinking and really being like, what is the answer to this? Yes or no? And as humans, we're divergent thinkers. It's what makes us so special.

23:16

And that's another thing that we've seen with our applied improv workshops in Laughing and Development is divergent thinking is how you break through and brainstorm and innovate and come up with cool ideas and think outside of yourself and come up with 10 bad ideas so that one good idea can emerge from it all. And I think that's from... listening, communication, and, you know, all the things that you were saying as well.

23:44

Yeah, it's, communications is the biggest failure we have in mankind, I think. It's, you know, my wife and I were married for 50 years, and everybody says, wow, that's amazing. And it's all on her, not me. I should tell you the same thing in reverse, but it's about being more than you. So when you do these 15-minute breaks, do they just see you or do you see them as well?

24:13

Oh, we have to see them. Yeah, when folks are saying, like, great, no one's going to be on their cameras or no one's going to be on their microphones, and we're like, then don't hire us because that's not going to be fun for anybody because doing comedy or doing improv to an empty group of people is like. talking to a wall, you know, no one's benefiting from that, especially the performer.

24:38

I used to, when I was working for dealerships in Montreal, we were rather remote. So breaks and lunch, we had a cafeteria. And it was always interesting to me who had lunch together and who didn't. And the reason that I like the fact that you can see the audience and they can see you is that it puts them together in a way that otherwise would not be true. It builds teams in a much more productive way because in the course of the 15-minute breaks, I'm sure you're posing questions too and maybe soliciting responses from the group. And as time passes, They probably become jatterboxes, you know, silent as hell because they don't want to, you know, it's amazing. You know, as a teacher, the first 30 minutes of a class where nobody knows anybody, they don't know me, they don't know each other. I start with three questions every single class. What's the definition of ignorance?

25:39

And of course, nobody wants to stick their neck out because they don't know what to expect of me and each other. So they're pretty quiet. So I give them the answer. Ignorance is not knowing what to do. And oh, OK, I get you. You're a pretty simple-minded son of a gun here. The next question is, OK, tell me what, give me a definition of stupidity. And some of them are starting to come alive and they get it. And stupidity is knowing what to do and not doing it. And then I put the third one out and I don't ask the question, what's the definition of insanity? And it's either, you know, Socrates or Einstein or Mark Twain. insanity is continuing to do what you've always done, expecting different results. And then I come up and I say, okay, at the end of this session, I'm not going to let you be ignorant because I'm going to tell you what to do. So I'm giving you a choice of being stupid or insane.

26:31

And looking around the room, I don't see people going to a padded room very quickly. So, you know, and silly things like that, just to break the ice a little bit, but, you know, change. I tell people change is difficult, but if you think it's difficult to work, go home and tell your wife or your husband or partner, you're going to change which side of the bed you sleep on and tell me what the couch is like the next day. Yeah. Because that, that change is tough. Everything else is easy. It's just, it's everything's attitude.

27:02

It's attitude. It's also like not biting off more than you can chew, you know? And it's like, I think a lot of people that want to change, they say, let me just change overnight and let me be a whole different person tomorrow. And that's another skill that I learned in standup when I'm writing my own standup jokes or really any comedian, you know, it's, it's not. throw away the whole thing find out what is working and then make minor tweaks uh and then you're able to measure i mean especially when you're let's take a joke for example you know you might tell a joke and that and it's a setup a punch line and and a few tags after like to keep the laughter going and you might have nailed the setup but the punch line's not there the tags don't really work Are you going to throw the whole joke away and say, no, I got to start from scratch? No, next time you're going to change a word in the punchline, you're going to add a pause between the tags.

28:05

You don't have to completely throw the joke away. You can make these really small changes. And I think that is a lot of people are scared. Like you had said earlier, scared to fail and scared to say, hey, let me try this again. Because your brain is like, yo, that. Hey, that didn't work. That failed. So if you can train your brain and say, yeah, but if I change this small thing and I see a positive result, then I'm actually changing how I think and being way more open to not just change, but being open to the idea that you will fail, but there's going to be some good stuff that comes from it. And I'm just a very big believer in making really small changes because every time I try to make a big change, say with like my diet or something, I end up like, you know, eating 10 Big Macs as a result of it and completely failing. And so that is like, that's how I know.

29:02

And I've trained my body is like, you know, practice what I preach when I'm writing comedy. It's like, make that small change and measure it. Good, bad. On to the next one. Keep it, throw it out, try again.

29:15

I'll give you a little example of that. Making small change. I came off a horse about 40 years ago and had compression fractures in my lower spine. And about six months ago, I tried to be 35 years old again. And from L2 to L11, I'm two inches shorter. And I go to physiotherapy and it's required. And I've got to build up. core and all that's cool. And my doctor here, the medical in Hawaii is just phenomenal, but my doctor, his name is Mario Silva. I call him Super Mario. And when he retires, I'm going to get in the red hat. And I said, you know, you're retiring in January. I need you to find your replacement. Otherwise, I'll find where you are and I'll keep bugging you. So he found a guy about 30 minutes away. He's in his early 50s. He's got long, blonde, brown, curly hair down to his shoulders. He was a weightlifter at one point. He's about 5 '10", maybe 5 '9", and I'm about 5 '11 now. And we're chatting. We have a 15-minute meet and greet.

30:24

And he stops after about 15 minutes. He says, Ron, you know, they're treating you like a pussy. And forgive my language, but I said, what? Because I wasn't sure the doctor, he repeated it. And he said, yeah, they're treating you like a 79-year-old. I'm going to treat you like a 59-year-old. The holiday's over. Yeah. I said, I'm yours, man. So what that did was it reinvigorated my competitive juices. And I think we all are competitive to some degree. But an office, you're typically working by yourself. You can talk a little bit back and forth, but a lot of bosses don't like to hear conversation in the workplace. And that's a bit of a bear. I had two ladies, Hilda and Hazel, believe it or not. This is in the late 60s that worked for me in the office. And they sat side by side.

31:28

Sounds like a sitcom.

31:29

Well, this one is. All day long, they talked with each other and they didn't get along. And they lied about their... birth date and that kind of stuff. They should have been connecting pension plans, but they continued to work. And, you know, if you separated them, they'd never be able to work. I'm not joking. And, you know, we had another situation where, you know, you're selling parts, you go to a car dealership, you got a counter, you go up, you can buy parts and that kind of stuff. My owner loved to have the place look busy. Yeah. So we were on the Trans-Canada Highway on a service road, and we would have transportation trucks lined up for two miles trying to get into our place because we only had two docks. We rebuilt the building. We made it 10 docks, and nobody knew whether we were busy or not. You know, come on in. We can handle you. But one afternoon, it was really amazing. I'm supervising the guys on the counter.

32:29

And if you can imagine, I'm in a cubicle looking at the front door, and to the right-hand side of me is the receptionist to the small. area for customers to wait or suppliers or whoever. And to the left of me is the counter. And there's eight guys there. And it's all guys because this is a chauvinistic industry. And the phones are ringing and there's the people there. It's a wonderful afternoon. Everything's cool. A guy comes in the front door. And, you know, as God is my witness, he looks over to the counter. He turns and goes and sits down at the reception area, picks up the phone. dials a number. I could see the operator answer the phone. She transferred him to the parts department. I could hear the phone ringing in the parts department at the counter. And a guy who is serving a customer says, excuse me, I have to get that phone. So he left the customer to go answer the phone.

33:24

The guy placed his order and he said, okay, where do you want me to ship it to? The guy came around the corner, stuck his hand up in the air. You don't need to ship it. I'm right here. And we were training the customer that you got better service if you didn't come in than if you did.

33:39

Yeah.

33:40

And I'd kill to get guys coming into a store because I'm going to try to sell everything under the sun in there. So, again, communications and identifying where there's opportunities to make people more productive.

33:57

Absolutely.

33:58

People enjoy their day a little bit more. We spend more time at work than we do with our families. So why can't it be pleasant?

34:06

Yeah. And I think that like something that we preach a lot is, you know, we have our nine to five personalities, you know, that we have our the person that we are at work and we should be doing everything that we can to bring some of our five to nine personalities into work. And what I mainly mean by that is. That guy that you're hanging out with, having a beer with after work, for me at least, for the first quarter of my career, that guy was way different than the guy that you're having coffee with. And, you know, I really wanted to, you know, change that. And that's when I started to, you know, practice. improv comedy, applied improv comedy. Uh, when I started to do more standup comedy, that was my outlet to engage in more levity, uh, but also engage in all of these soft skills that can be deteriorating.

35:08

But more importantly, it was like, no, this is going to allow me to be way better of a coworker and way more pleasant to be around because you're getting what you're getting with me and you're going to, it's someone that, you know, that I like than in someone that you're going to like. And, you know, allowing yourself to be human and allowing yourself to be authentically yourself really is going to go a long way in creating trust. Because I'm sure you said it was Heather and Hazel.

35:42

Hilda and Hazel. Hilda

35:44

and Hazel. I'm sure that they were so authentically themselves that even though they hated themselves or hated each other and couldn't stand each other, they loved that part about each other. And it allowed them to be like, you know what? We're having this is entertaining in some capacity. And we are like really being ourselves. That's going to allow me to be a better person at work because I don't need to like compartmentalize those two parts of me. Hilda's driving me nuts, but she'd drive me nuts outside of work, too.

36:19

Yeah, you know, they must have been like this when they were four years old. You know, it's almost comedic, but the work that they did literally was brain-dead work. And in those days, you had to have a lot of people that did brain-dead work. What the hell? That's about work's a four-letter word. Today, those jobs are being done by artificial intelligence. The office is being invaded now. And that scares the hell out of people. Give them a little bit of opportunity to realize that artificial intelligence is only good if you've got people intelligence to deal with it. A skill that we're going to have to learn is how to ask questions. Yeah. Because, you know, I can ask a question, I'll get 200,000 answers. Oh, wait a second. That's no good. So, and I don't think we're very good at that. I have this theory, Kevin, that as a person that we're. We're taught to be obedient our whole damn lives. It starts with our parents trying to protect us.

37:21

Don't look both ways before you cross the street. Don't touch the stove. And then we push back in our teenage year. I know. Don't tell me, blah, blah. Then you go to school. And this is how you do cursive writing. They don't even teach that anymore. This is how we do adding and subtracting and all the rest. And this is the way you do that. And then we finish school and we go to a job. We were lucky enough to get a job. teaches us how to do the job. They show us what to do. Then they tell us what they showed us. And then, you know, here we go. And they leave us saying, just practice that, do more of it with fewer mistakes and you'll be fine. I'm in Moscow with a client and a guy in his fifties with three children with a master's degree is the boss. And I go up to him and it's a typical question.

38:10

Is there anything, if I gave you a magic wand, what would you change about your job, about your work that would make your life easier in the company, more money? His answer to me, Kevin, was don't ask things like that. Just tell me what you want to do. And I'm afraid that most people are in that category. Yeah. And so here comes artificial intelligence, one of the people that contributes to us. His name is Ed Gordon, says that by 2030, and I can argue about the date,50% of the American workforce will not have the skills to be employable. That's 90 million people. And we've spent hundreds of trillions of dollars on technology, but nothing on sociology. So that's part of what scares the hell out of people. If you're smart, if you're well-educated, if you're disciplined, if you're ambitious, if you're curious, you're fine. And more people are smarter than what they think they are, but they never give themselves the opportunity.

39:12

I think your 15-minute breaks might be enough levity because they'll see the whole crowd on the screen. And I think that's a benefit as well.

39:21

Yeah, and I think, you know, the other side, again, to talk about the other side of our business outside of the 15-minute laugh breaks are these laughing and development sessions. And I hear that all the time of what you're saying with, you know, A lot of folks, I think one of my first jobs, I was working at a well-respected bank and I had to make sure that the social security numbers were accurate. They were always off by a digit. And I was checking, you know, that's what I was doing every day. And, you know, that job certainly is now probably does not exist. And, you know, it was one of these things where, you know, I understand that like. oh man, that's a bummer that those jobs are gone. But at the same time, I knew that that wasn't the best use of my skillset was doing those things.

40:14

So I think it's actually a very exciting thing that AI is taking over jobs like that because it is going to allow people to start to finally work on those soft skills that maybe were lost. Even as early as elementary school, you know, whatever the moment was where people needed to get even more serious. And, you know, there is a time where people say, hey, sit up straight, stand up or stand, look and take the test and, you know, follow these rules and you'll get this good grade. And, you know, it's going to keep going. And I think times are really changing where, you know, it's also like, OK, how are you? as a person to work with? What is your creativity like? What's your ability to innovate? You know, again, how good are your communication skills? Are you a good listener? Are you willing to take chances? Are you willing to like think outside of this box?

41:13

And, you know, my hope is that it allows people early enough to be like, well, the answers are in front of us now. How do I round myself out as a human being? And that's what's going to make people more employable because. They are going to want to hire people that can solve problems that AI cannot. And I think that that is really the key is people starting to focus on what's called soft skills, you know, all the things I just listed and also reframing them as not soft skills, but power skills. I was talking to someone earlier and that's what they were telling me that they called them. And that's what I love. Like, that's what's going to make us powerful employees is like, what are we doing? to hone that in and hone in our divergent muscles and hone in our ability to connect with another human being and really think outside of the box.

42:08

And I think that laughter plays a really big role in that as well, because, you know, when you are less tense and you're adding levity, even as someone that's teaching, like the what you do with those, you know. ignorance, stupidity, and insanity, what you're doing there is you are giving everybody a moment to say, I want to listen to this individual even more because they're leading with levity and I'm so much more drawn in. And there's data out there that says if you are teaching with a side of humor, when you're laughing, your brain... kind of uses that as a mile marker and then says, I'm going to remember this moment because I learned from it and there's a laughter that's associated with it. So even as a presenter of information and a receiver of information, laughter can be such a valuable tool in, you know, impacting us, you know, really elevating as professionals and as human beings.

43:12

You know, I didn't mean to focus so much on the 15-minute break, but I thought that that was brilliant. What really you do is open the door for people to think about what their capacity is in communication with other people to the point that you can be teaching them how to do these things. You know, one of the interesting things about life, work. We all have individual brands, who we are. And it happens to most people unconsciously. That's one of our classes, actually, five or six hours, maybe even as much as eight. The art of the possible is one piece of it and who we are. And I don't know that people give themselves enough credit. Look at the mirror and tell me what you see. And most often, you know, you meet people socially, you know, who are you? Yeah, good to meet you. What do you do? And most of us can tell each other what we do. This is my job. Oh, really? That's interesting. How do you do that?

44:36

And many cases they can share and communicate what it is, but they'll struggle with it. And then the next question that I always ask is, why do you do it? And the answer everybody gives me, of course, is to make money. Well, that's a result of doing it. Why do you do it? And at the end of the day, when you scratch and you stay there and don't let them get away from you, because I like people. And I think we're all social animals. We all like to communicate with each other. We all like to be liked. And the thing that I try and get across to people, the conductor of an orchestra is the only musician that has his back to the audience. He's completely dependent on the skills of the people he's looking at, the strings and the reeds and the percussion and all. And if they're good, he's great or she's great. If they ain't, he ain't. It's pretty simple.

45:31

So, you know, one of the things that you could do is put together a series of lectures on personnel, personal development. You know, how do we get there? So, you know, one of my metaphors is we. in education, and I'm a teacher since the beginning of time, but we're all 10 years old and we go to the first day of school. Today, we all go to grade four or whatever the grade is. Some of us should be in a different grade up and some of us should be in a different grade down. So what I say to everybody, like what we do, the first thing that we give you is a diagnostic test. I want to know what the skills and knowledge is for you. I want to know what you know. And based on that, I'll create a customized, individualized learning path for you to be able to get better. So we're all 10 years old. We go to school. For the next two hours, two and a half hours, we're going to write exams. And then we go home.

46:28

And a week later, we come back and we're assigned a grade from grade three to grade nine. Those that aren't up to speed are not going to be feeling inadequate. They're not going to feel right at the beginning. They're a loser. The people that are really ahead. are not going to be bored. They're going to be challenged. It's the way we should do it. Why don't we do that? Well, my God, you can't. We've been teaching this way for 200 years. Grade 4, grade 8, grade 12, we get standardized testing. 40,50 countries in the world. America finishes 30th. The results from grade 12 came out last week. Less than, well, let's put it this way. More than 70% of the grade 12 students in America can't read or do arithmetic at grade level. It's disgraceful. Yeah. But those are the people that are going to pay for your social security, my friend. They better start getting better at things.

47:23

Well, I think it goes back to the thing you said about insanity at the end, right? It's like that you're doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results. You know, we've been doing it for 200 years. Let's do it the same way. Why not? And with declining results, you're thinking that it's better, but we live in a different world than we did 200 years ago. And yeah, I couldn't be more with you that it needs to change.

47:53

The blacksmith was the first mechanic.

47:56

Yeah, the farrier.

47:58

Yeah, he was the guy that had the biggest, strongest back and the strongest body, and he did the horseshoes and everything else. Today, the person that's got the strongest mind is the one we need. You know, my daughter's still a teacher. She's got a master's of education. She is the curriculum director for a school district for a program called AVID Advancement via Individual Determination. She's a hell of a teacher. But this year, we're going back to the old religious deal, and Frank is having to be certified as a book again.

48:31

Imagine.

48:33

So we end up having all kinds of stuff. And then at work, it's the same kind of thing. Rarely does the customer, does the employee that touches the customer know what the customer needs and wants. And we don't ask.

48:46

Yeah. And I think what's very kind of, you know, one way I see what you're saying is. It's harder to change education, right? It's much harder to change education. It's so much more red tape and administration. And, you know, again, like you said, lifetimes of and generations of how things were done like that change is going to really be hard. But from a workplace perspective. The red tape should be so minimal in the way that we can impact and kind of course correct as early on as we want and really mold the professionals as we have it today, you know, to invest in. the human beings and that investment and that change can really draw an employee to their employer in a way that is so grateful because they are giving them the skills. And I think that that is what AI is going to allow us to do is really like that's the optimistic view of it is like, great, we can be done with the stuff that is monotonous and we can go towards.

49:58

elevating ourselves as human beings and innovating how we do stuff and the people that are stuck in the you know bureaucratic method of doing things you know they're going to be stuck in uh you know in time and and they're going to have the world passing them by because everybody's changing uh and that change doesn't have to just be dire it can be very optimistic that you know we can level up as human beings uh and you know the monotony can kind of take a back seat well

50:29

and and what you just and everything you've been saying it's an optimistic view it's it's an uplifting view you know i'm i told you my daughter's got a master's my grandmother and 1915, got a master's degree. My granddaughter's got a master's degree. She's 24. And she's a victim of some of the Department of Education cuts. She was all set with funding for five years for her doctorate. And the funding went away. So they're scrambling to trying to find a different place for her to go. But she's a smart kid. She got her undergraduate in three years because COVID came through and she said, well, what am I supposed to do? Watch television? You know, so and a lot of people in the country didn't have access to the Internet. Yeah. But some of the lunacy, just think about this. My daughter's teaching. They forced her, the teachers to go to the schools because they wanted to see them working. Imagine. So my grandson, he's probably the nerd of the family.

51:35

He wanted to get nuclear engineering. He was the head of the ROTC in his junior year, dropped out for a senior because they didn't offer the classes he wanted. He's on the autism scale. He's ADHD. You know, give him a lot of things. You can't do anything. If you let him focus, he's brilliant. So he wanted to go to Purdue and take nuclear engineering. He applied. He got in. He's all excited. And then he finds out how much it's going to cost. So how much do you think a four-year degree in... at Purdue, it's going to cost him. Take a guess.

52:13

Easily 100 grand.

52:15

$350,000. He said, I'm not going to do that. I said, well, you don't have to. You're going to get scholarships. He's a four point. He's higher than that. He said, yeah, but even with the scholarships, it's 170 grand. I'm not going to do that. And I said, OK, what are you going to do? You know, we've got SAT. We got ACT. The military has one. So he took the military exam. He scored in the top 2% in the world. So every branch came for him. Yeah, yeah. My daughter said to him, look, you're not going to the Marines. You're not going into the Army because I didn't give birth to you. So you could be cannon father. You can be in the Coast Guard, the Air Force, and the Navy. Check them out. And he went in his senior year. It's, oh, I don't know, January. So he's got another six months or so before he graduates. He goes to the Navy. He says, I want to enlist. They're all excited. So they start getting the paper. He said, no, no, no. Wait a second.

53:07

I want to join the Navy, but only if I can get into the new program, the nuclear. program in the U.S. Navy, supposedly one of the toughest in the world. He got in. He turned 20 the 1st of July this year. He's got an undergraduate degree in nuclear engineering and an undergraduate degree in astrophysics right now. You know why? He went to school from 8 in the morning to 5 at night,5 days a week, and he had 4 hours compulsory homework on Saturday. That's basically 2 1⁄2 years of work every year. Yeah. Why do we go to school at eight in the morning and leave at three or nine until four, whatever the hell the time? Why do we do that? Again, it's the same thing, Kevin, everywhere around. We have to challenge what we do. We have to challenge who we are. And people need to give us opportunities like you're doing to consider different things like teachers should be doing, opening them up. We should.

54:05

I went to university at 16, not because of my brains, but because of my birthday. How am I supposed to decide what I want to do at 16? Oh, yeah. I mean, that's ridiculous.

54:15

It's an insane question to ask. Your brain's not even developed for at least six more years.

54:20

Exactly. I tell my granddaughter, be careful. You know, if you're going to date somebody, don't date anybody under the age of 40. Men don't hit intellectual puberty until they're 40.

54:31

You got to have fun. I can attest to that. I'm on my way still.

54:37

Kevin, this has been indeed a pleasure, much greater than I expected. Thank you so much.

54:43

Absolutely. I had a blast. Thank you, Ron.

54:47

I'm going to put you to work if you can. And I hope the audience has been listening to this and is thinking about it. What we're trying to do with these podcasts is get people to think. You've given us a hell of a lot of material to think about and everything about communications and everything about life is communications. So thank you very much. I truly appreciate it.

55:12

Yeah, it's my pleasure. And yeah, I have a blog or a newsletter that everyone can check out if they want. This is all the stuff I talk about every day. It's LaughRx is the name of the newsletter. And you can go to LaughRx. laugh. events. And, yeah, you can check out more there.

55:30

Well, for my audience, I'm going to convince Kevin to start writing some blogs for us. So we'll put links on our website for his newsletter and other things. And, Kevin, thank you very much. And to the people out there listening, thank you. And I look forward to having you with another Candid Conversation in the near future. Mahalo. Thank you for listening to our podcast. We appreciate your support. Should you have any thoughts or comments, please don't hesitate to contact us at www. learningwithoutscars. com. The time is now. Mahalo.

Finding Joy in the 9-to-5: How Comedy Transforms Corporate Culture

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