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Humour Works Headlines
Optimism and humour - bedfellows with business productivity
Simple humour has great rewards
Optimists better all round
What made you sing over Christmas?
Stop burnout
Light humour lifts bottom line
Announcing an engagement
Identifying strengths
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Humour Works
Some pursue happiness…others create it
Friday, 01 July 2005
You too can get more smileage from your work, and indeed your life, by using the positive power of humour.
A world renowned psychologist, Dr Martin Seligman, wrote Learned Helplessness more than 20 years ago. More recently he wrote Learned Optimism, which links optimism and resilience and examines how to identify our degree of optimism or pessimism and then learn to be more optimistic.
His research has proven optimists do better at school, win more elections and succeed more at work than pessimists. These people, it seems, lead longer and more healthy lives. They also appear to believe they were much more persuasive and appealing than others thought!
Optimism, like humour, is infectious. An American fun company, PlayFair, helps companies send thousands of ‘Standing Ovations’ to their staff, applauding jobs well done. They also market the idea of a ‘Travelling Bouquet’ of flowers. Each person keeps it for half an hour and then passes it to whoever they consider most deserving.
The notion of humour in business is starting to be heeded. The 7th Australian Conference on the Quality of Life later this year will again address the role of humour in health.
Many humour conferences have been held for the past 15 years in Japan, Sydney and the US. Hungary held its first Humour Conference this year.
I recently addressed a real estate conference. While I am not a comedian I did find a good real estate joke to tell. It goes like this: Marilyn, a real-estate agent, had difficulty getting a listing from a customer whose theory was that "there is no substitute for experience.”
After being asked a third time how many years she’d been in the business, she said: “Sir, there is a little-known historical fact that Moses brought three tablets down from the mountain — two were the Ten Commandments and the other was my real estate licence!” She got the listing.
In being humourous, we make ourselves vulnerable. We open ourselves up to be observed at close quarters which takes courage, especially in working relationships.
However, the benefits are many, not the least of which is improved mental acuity.
I am reminded…“It must have taken great courage to find out frogs’ legs were edible. We sometimes have to leave our comfort zones!”
Definitely not yours in mediocrity, The Joyologist.
