They’re smart people sharing useful ideas, little scripts for hard moments, and frameworks for raising a tiny human who will never not make me laugh by “booping” my belly button.

I watch them. I nod. I think, “Oh, that’s good, I should try that.”

Then I close the app and do exactly none of it.

The ideas are in my head but they’re not in the room.

So now I have a head full of solid parenting frameworks and a daughter who hasn’t benefited from 99% of them.

Don’t get me wrong. The good ideas floating around in my brain are better than the alternative (better than doom-scrolling, better than the outrage clips and half-true takes the algorithm would rather hand me).

But “better than nothing” is a low bar, and my kid doesn’t grade on it.

For many, the same thing happens with humor.

They might watch the clip that breaks down why a joke works or listen to a podcast about a comedian talking about their process. Heck, they may even be reading this post right now (ahem).

As a result, they feel a small glow of productivity, like they made progress. And they did, sort of. It’s better than nothing. It’s just nowhere near as effective as actually doing the thing.

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“You’ve either got it or you don’t” is doing a lot of damage

Most of us believe humor is a fixed trait. You’ve either got it or you don’t. The problem is that the belief sabotages you no matter which side you think you’re on.

1. If you’ve decided you don’t have it, you never practice, because why train for a game you’re sure you can’t win.

2. If you’ve decided you do have it, you also never practice, because why train for a game you’re sure you’ve already won.

Either way, the reps never happen. And humor, like every other skill, only moves when you practice and put it out in the world.

The hard part is that there aren’t obvious places to practice your humor.

If you want to learn golf, you go to a driving range or golf course. Languages have classes or Duolingo. There’s even meetup groups for people who want to get better at growing Dragonfruit (shout out to my friend Denise Richards who recently went to one).

Every one of those has an obvious place to do it (a range, a mirror, an app). Professional humor doesn’t. You could try a stand-up open mic or an improv class, but the goals are a bit different.

There’s no court, no gym, no standing Tuesday slot for being funnier. So even the people who want to improve have nowhere to put the work.

Which is why measuring your humor, or learning your “style,” or reading one more breakdown of why a joke lands, can feel like progress without being it.

None of that makes measuring a waste. Learning your strengths is a real starting line (it’s exactly why our Humor Intelligence Assessment ends with action items, not just a score). A starting line just isn’t the same as moving down the track.

Knowing your humor is a fact about you. It isn’t a change in you. The number doesn’t make you funnier. The reps do.

Your first rep

Here’s the smallest possible place to start (it’s smaller than you think).

Challenge: This week, every time a funny thought or observation crosses your mind, write it down.

Notes app, scrap of paper, whatever’s closest. The joke you thought of three seconds too late, the absurd thing a coworker said, the email subject line that made you smirk. You don’t have to do anything with it yet. Just catch it.

That tiny act is the real first rep, because humor starts with noticing long before it’s about delivery.

If you feel like it, hit reply with your best catch of the week. I read every response.

Leave a comment

Wit regards,
-Andrew

P.S. I did finally try one of those parenting frameworks this week. My daughter was deeply unimpressed with my airplane-made-out-of-a-toilet-paper-roll… but I’m still counting it as a rep.

It’s the skill of noticing how something lands and whether it actually fits the moment, the thing that keeps a well-meant joke from turning into a trip to HR. For about one in five professionals who take the assessment, Consideration is their single strongest competency.

Last week, I had to aim that same competency at my own work. What it showed me was... uncomfortable.

Over 1,000 people have now taken the assessment. That’s enough responses to stop guessing and start looking at what the instrument is actually doing. So I looked.

Under the original scoring, a “Strength” was anything 70 or above. That seems reasonable on paper. After all, there are three tiers and 70 is over two-thirds of the maximum score. Then again, a 70% in school is a C- (in the US), slightly below average, which isn’t a strength at all.

In practice, it meant 57% of people walked away with a Strength label on their overall humor score. On Appreciation, the friendliest competency to score well on, it was 75%. Three out of every four people qualified as a Strength.

But that’s not what a strength is. A Strength that 75% of people earn is a participation trophy with better formatting.

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So I considered my own assessment

Parsing through the 1,000 entries, the honest question became whether the tier labels were representative of what the data was actually showing. The answer was no. The cutoffs needed to change.

The tricky part was not overcorrecting. It would have been easy to set the bar so high almost nobody cleared it. But a Strength doesn’t mean you’ve perfected the skill. It means it’s something you can rely on and build from.

• Challenge used to be 0-39 → now 0-50

• Opportunity used to be 40-69 → now 51-80

• Strength used to be 70-100 → now 81-100

Under the new system, about 25% of people land in Strength on their overall score, roughly the top quartile. That feels closer to what a strength should be.

On Consideration, 30.1% of people now land in the Strength tier, above an 80. High enough to mean something, common enough to be real.

None of this is because v1 was wrong. The v1 cutoffs were our best guess before we had data, made in partnership with the researchers at the University of Northern Colorado who validated the original design. Now there’s data, and a good instrument is supposed to move when the evidence says it should.

If you got bumped a tier

So if you already took the assessment and you’ve gone from “Strength” to “Opportunity,” it doesn’t mean you’ve gotten less funny... though if you’re a Spurs fan (basketball or “football”), I understand if recent events drove away your humor.

It just means you’ve got a little more practice to do before you can readily rely on your humor. And if you haven’t taken the assessment yet, this is a decent moment to. The eight competencies haven’t changed, only the line that separates “reliable” from “still building.”

You’ll get an honest read on where you actually stand, which is the whole reason we created the humory thing.

Take the Assessment

Mostly, though, I’d love to hear your reaction to this. Where would you have drawn the line? If you took it under the old tiers and the change shifts how you think about your result, tell me. Reply to this email, I read every one.

Wit regards,
Andrew

P.S. If you bought the deep-dive report, I’m regenerating it under the new tiers and I’ll email you directly when yours is ready. Same eight competencies, more honest lines in the sand.

He was the opener (musically), I was the opener (keynote-wise). We had about ten minutes before the show started and instead of talking about the event, we spent the whole time workshopping one of his comedy bits.

No, Mat isn’t also a stand-up comedian. He’s just learned, as a musician, adding humor to his live shows is a great way to engage the audience (and there’s something special about getting a room full of people to laugh).

In fact, he told me one of his biggest focus areas for his last tour was working on the bits between songs. Not the music, but the moments in between.

In particular, Mat had this story he’d been telling on stage about one of the first times he heard his own song playing out in public. He was at Home Depot. His song came on over the speakers. So he turned to the guy next to him and said, “Hey, that’s my song playing.”

The guy looked at him for a second and said, “Do you know if this 3/4-inch pipe fits a toilet flange?”

It’s a great bit that already works. But Mat said he always felt like there was more there. So we kicked around a few ideas backstage using a concept I learned from UCB: “If this is true, what else is true.”

What if he follows the guy around the store, helping him shop, but really just trying to get him to acknowledge the song? What if he goes up to other shoppers and they all just want his help finding things? What are other places he’s heard his song and how did people react there?

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What a musician can teach you about humor at work

What I love about this story is the approach Mat took to the craft. He already had a bit that worked and he could have left it alone. Most people would have.

But he treated it the way he’d treat a song. You write the first version, you play it live, you hear what lands, and then you go back and make it better.

That’s what practicing humor actually looks like. It’s not sitting in your office trying to come up with jokes from scratch. It’s noticing the thing that already got a laugh (the comment in the meeting, the line in the email, the observation you made at lunch) and asking yourself, “What if there’s more there?”

If this is true, what else is true?

That question is one of the most useful tools in improv and sketch comedy. And it works just as well in a conference room as it does on a tour bus. You don’t have to invent something from scratch, you’re simply building on what’s already working.

Mat didn’t become funny overnight. He noticed that audiences responded to the moments between songs, and then he started treating those moments like they were worth practicing.

After our impromptu writing session, Mat kicked off the conference with a beautiful song. Then I went on to teach the audience some of the same skills Mat and I were just using backstage.

The skills aren’t different. Whether you’re a musician trying to connect with a crowd between songs or a project manager trying to keep a team engaged during a status update, the process is the same. Notice what gets a reaction. Ask what else might be true. Try it out. Refine.

So here’s what I’m curious about. Hit reply and tell me: what’s something you’ve said at work that got an unexpected laugh? The offhand comment, the accidental joke, the thing you didn’t plan that landed anyway.

I want to hear it. And I bet if we applied “if this is true, what else is true,” there’s an even better version waiting.

Wit regards,

-Andrew

P.S. If you’re not familiar with Mat Kearney’s music, do yourself a favor and check him out. I’d start with “Ships in the Night” or “Nothing Left to Lose.” You’ve probably heard his songs without knowing it, possibly while in a Home Depot.

I don’t mean rhetorically. I mean literally. The version of you that makes your friends snort-laugh at dinner, drops the perfect line into the group chat, and laughs off the tension after accidentally trying to get into the wrong car for 5 minutes (totally not me yesterday...).

Where does that person live between 9 and 5?

Conversationally Funny

I’ve been thinking about that since a conversation I had at a reception a couple of weeks ago.

I’d just finished giving my Humor That Works keynote and was milling around the conference reception with a hot cup of tea I was drinking out of a wine glass because there were no mugs left.

While walking around, I met Brandon. He was easily the funniest person in the room. Quick, dry, perfectly timed. The kind of conversational humor that makes you want to keep talking just to see what he says next.

So at some point I asked him how he uses that humor at work. He said he didn’t.

I was surprised... but also not. He really didn’t bring humor into his job. When I asked why, he gave me an answer that I’ve heard time and time before.

He said during my keynote was the first time he’d ever considered humor as a thing he could, or should, do in the office. Nobody had told him not to so he’d never thought to bring “that side of himself” to work.

That’s the phrase that’s been sticking with me: “that side of himself.”

Like he was leaving an entire part of his personality, of who he is, at home.

There’s a lot of conversation these days about authenticity (especially in the world of AI). If you want to be authentic at work, humor has to be part of the equation. Because humor is part of who we are as humans.

But Brandon isn’t alone in leaving part of himself at home.

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Is humor personal or professional?

I was recently going through the data from the Humor Intelligence Assessment and noticed that the vast majority of people sign up with a personal email address, not a work one.

There are probably some practical reasons. People check personal email more often. Corporate spam filters get suspicious of anything with the word “humor” in the subject line. You might be considering leaving your job soon but want to take some levity with you…

But I also think the email choice points to the same thing Brandon was pointing to. People file humor under “personal life.” It’s how they show up at receptions, with friends, in group chats. Not how they show up at the all-hands.

My journey into using humor at P&G was similar. As I shared in my first TEDx talk years ago, “No one ever told me to use humor at work but no one ever stopped me either. So I just... started.”

Brandon and I had the same blank slate. Same absence of explicit permission but also the same absence of explicit prohibition.

The only difference is I treated the silence as an opening, and he treated it as a closed door.

Most of us aren’t being held back by a rule. We’re being held back by a habit. The habit of deciding, without ever really thinking about it, which parts of ourselves get to come to work.

So this week, the question I’d leave you with is the same one I keep asking myself.

What part of you didn’t make it through the lobby this morning?

And what would change if it had?

Wit regards,

Andrew

P.S. If you want a structured way to see where your humor already shows up at work (and where it doesn’t yet), the Humor Intelligence Assessment is the closest thing I’ve built to a map. Takes about 5 minutes, and the questions tend to surprise people more than the score does.

P.P.S. Brandon, if you’re reading this, you have permission. Go be funny in your next meeting.

After each joke I sat in silence longer than felt natural because there’s a delay on virtual calls. Two, sometimes three seconds between the punchline and the laughter coming back through your speakers.

If you cut yourself off early to fill the silence, you train the audience to stay quiet. If you wait too long, the audience thinks you froze (literally or figuratively).

So you sit there. Smiling. Not flinching. Trusting it’s coming.

The only reason I knew how long to wait was from practice and repetition. Not because of natural talent, a perfect script, or counting 2 seconds after each joke (“one one thousand, two one thousand” or for the Brits, “one Piccadilly, two Piccadilly”).

It was because of reps. Close to two decades of them, on stages big and small, live and remote, some that went great and plenty that went sideways. They all taught me something I couldn’t learn by reading about humor, watching it, or thinking about it. I had to do it. Repeatedly, often poorly, in front of other humans.

Stage time is the ultimate skill-builder

If you want to get funnier, you have to get on “stage.”

The data backs this up. The lowest-scoring question on the Humor Intelligence Assessment is “I regularly take time to work on funny ideas.” About 57% of people score themselves as rarely or never.

The same group scores high on noticing funny moments. So this isn’t about whether you find life funny (you probably do). This is about whether you ever take that noticing and put it through reps.

That’s the primary difference between those who are funny and those who aren’t. It’s not a personality trait, innate talent, or a “vibe.” It’s stage time.

You can’t read your way to funnier. You have to try a line out loud. You have to watch it not land. You have to adjust and try again (and again (and again)).

Side note: this is why I think humor is becoming even more important in a world of AI. Currently AI is pretty terrible at writing humor, but even when it gets better, you’ll still need the skill to know how to deliver it. You get that through reps.

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What stage time actually looks like

Now, most people hear “reps” and assume it means a comedy club, improv class, or turning your daily stand-ups into daily stand-up. Those all count, but they’re not required. As Shakespeare said, “All the world’s a stage.”

If you want to improve your skill of humor, you have to get “stage” time. But that can come in many forms:

The named stages

• Improv class. The single best investment you can make in this skill. Low-stakes, group setting, and you stop thinking in your own head after twenty minutes.

• Toastmasters. Builds the foundation of being comfortable on your feet without notes.

• Open mic. The most uncomfortable, the most effective. Five minutes in front of nine strangers will teach you more about timing than ten books.

• Skill of Humor Live Lab. A combination of all of the above in a safe space where you can try new things and get expert coaching on what works and what doesn’t.

The stages you already have access to

• The next meeting where you choose the funnier opener over the safe one. You don’t have to commit to a bit. You just have to risk one line.

• The Slack message you almost deleted because the joke might not land. Send it and see what happens. (You can recover from a flop. You can’t recover from never trying.)

• The 1:1 where you say the more candid version of what you actually think. That also counts.

The stages you didn’t know were stages

• The networking event where you introduce yourself in different ways to see what gets people to laugh.

• The bedtime story you read with different voices.

• The dad joke at the dinner table, even when it bombs (okay, especially when it bombs).

Life is the stage and you’re already on it. The question is whether you’re practicing or just standing there.

My next stage is virtual

Next Thursday, May 28, I’m doing a stand-up comedy set in VR! That’s right, an avatar with this nasally voice is doing a live comedy show in VRChat.

So come join us. It’s free. You can watch from your laptop or phone (no headset required).

Date: Thursday, May 28
Time: 9pm EDT, 6pm PDT
Link: Find Details and Learn How to Join Here

It’s another rep, whether it goes well or it bytes (Get it? It’s VR so like computer byte… anyway).

Wit regards,

Andrew

P.S. If you want to know which humor competency would benefit most from your next round of reps, the Humor Intelligence Assessment will tell you. Five minutes, eight competencies, surprisingly specific results.

Her name is Emily. She attended my session last month at NSA Carolinas. A few weeks later she wrote me a LinkedIn recommendation, most of it the kind of generous you’d expect when someone wants to be supportive. But one line in particular stood out.

“I learned more from him in two hours than I did in a full semester of grad school. I’m not exaggerating. I wish I were.”

I should clarify the kind of grad school we’re talking about. Emily has both a master’s and a PhD in philosophy. The discipline built on careful argument, clear thinking, and noticing what people actually mean by what they say.

So either Emily had a strange semester... or something about studying humor is doing more than people realize.

How I became a better presenter

About a year into my career at P&G, I had my weekly check-in with my manager when he asked if I’d been taking a presentation skills class.

I said no, a bit surprised at the question.

He asked if I’d joined Toastmasters or hired a coach. Same answer. I asked why.

He told me my presentations had gotten noticeably stronger over the past few months and asked what I was working on.

It took me a moment to realize the only “practice” I had been doing was stand-up.

I’d been hitting up open mics a couple of times per month, working on material that mostly didn’t work. I wasn’t trying to become a better presenter. I was trying to become funnier.

But it turns out that my general presentation skills were improving and my manager spotted the change before I did.

That’s the same shape as Emily’s experience. She didn’t sign up for a humor session to sharpen her thinking. I didn’t take stand-up to become a better speaker. We both got something we weren’t expecting.

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Which is the thing I keep coming back to.

The Skill of Humor isn’t a separate set of capabilities sitting next to your professional skills. It’s a wrapper around them. Pacing is pacing. Observation is observation. Confidence is confidence.

Humor just happens to be the most concrete way to practice them, because every attempt gets immediate feedback. Laughter or silence.

You can fake your way through a status update for years. People will nod politely or stare at your slide deck. You can’t fake your way through an open mic. The awkwardness when it’s not going well is visceral.

Comedian as Observer

I’m not the only one who has noticed this. Diana Kander told a story on LinkedIn that makes the same point harder than I could.

Diana is a working speaker. Sharp on stage, comfortable with audiences. She wanted to add a few jokes to her keynote, so she hired a stand-up comedian to write some.

The comedian sat through her entire performance, taking notes the whole time.

When Diana finished, she asked what the comedian had written.

It turns out the comedian hadn’t written any jokes, only observations like Diana was bad at breathing and had what she called “googly eyes” on stage.

This happens a lot when I’m working one-on-one with speakers. Years of speaking coaches and self-tape reviews might not surface an issue. But someone trained in comedy can see it right away. Why? Because comedians spend their professional lives noticing what other people miss. The same attention that finds the funny finds everything else too.

The same logic applies, even if you don’t speak professionally. Joke writing is intense training for written communication. Improv exercises are repetitions in active listening. Humor notebooks are the starting point for self-awareness.

Two ways to learn the same thing

You could take a presentation skills class. Grind through your filler words under fluorescent lighting, work through a packet of exercises, leave with three things to fix. It’s a worthy effort and it works for some people.

Or you could take an improv class. Laugh your way into the same skills, with people you’ll actually want to see again next Tuesday.

Both can make you stronger, but one of them is significantly more fun.

The point isn’t that humor is the easy path. It’s the path that doesn’t get abandoned, which means it’s the one that actually compounds.

What’s your take? Have you found any transferable skills from what you’ve learned about humor? Hit reply and let me know. I read everything.

Leave a comment

Wit regards,
Andrew

P.S. Emily, if you’re reading this, thank you for the kind words and the puzzle. (And thank you for not actually quitting philosophy. We need clear thinkers in there.)

There were a lot of highlights from the past month (here’s a 15-minute recap if you want the full tour). Humor Heroes recognized, live events run, more puns punned than is probably medically advisable.

But the Humor Awards are always my favorite part, because they’re not about me or anyone on a stage. They’re about the people out there using this skill in their actual lives, every day, where it matters.

This year we had 24 finalists. Every single one of them earned their spot. But there was one nomination in particular that got me right in the feels. It came in from a reader named Nancy Sue, and I’ve been thinking about it ever since.

What Nancy Sue Wrote

For the first time in over six years, I signed up and attended an event via Zoom with Andrew Tarvin after I took the Humor Intelligence test. This is significant because I knew that I was at a point in my grief recovery where I actually felt like I might be able to know HOW I am funny or to notice things that I think are funny and why.

Since my dear husband died six years ago, NOTHING was funny any more. It seemed permanent... until Andrew reminded me of his Pretzel and Pineapple; then about his silly brother who proclaimed with great importance that he farted in class, or Andrew’s statement about “It’s NUN of your business,” and in his little ending statement, “Wit regards.”

I love birds and talk to them regularly, so I am not constantly talking to myself. I Especially love Quails. My favorite is Papa Quailie, with his ever bouncing top knot and superior strut. So the change is gradual, but steady and I am so appreciative.

The Metric That Matters

As a creator, it’s easy to get caught up in the numbers. Views, likes, comments, opens, conversions. The metrics that everyone agrees count as “impact.” I track all of them. They’re useful.

But Nancy Sue isn’t a number. She’s a person who lost her husband, found six years of silence afterward, and is now noticing Papa Quailie’s bouncing top knot and finding it funny again. No dashboard captures that. No quarterly report has a column for it.

I got into this work because of a small nudge. My best friend in college wanted to start an improv group, needed people, and “forced” me to join. I almost said no. I said yes for reasons I don’t fully remember, and that one yes is the reason I have a career, a TEDx talk, a wife I call Pretzel, and a daughter I call Pineapple. The nudge took about ten seconds. The ripple is still going.

I started Humor That Works so I could be that nudge for other people. Most of the time I have no idea if it’s working. The numbers tell me something, but they don’t tell me the thing.

The thing is Papa Quailie.

You never know what small thing turns out to be the big thing. For someone else. Or for you.

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Your Turn

I’d love to know about a nudge in your life. Not a big one. The small kind.

The friend who suggested a class, the colleague who forwarded an article, the stranger who said the right thing at the right time. The kind of moment that probably didn’t seem like much when it happened.

Hit reply and tell me about it. I read every one, and if you’re game, I might share a few next week. Names off, unless you tell me otherwise.

Wit regards,

Andrew

P.S. Nancy Sue’s story started with the Humor Intelligence Assessment, which helped her notice what she actually finds funny. If you’ve been curious about it, it’s right here.

P.P.S. I’ve decided I’m going to start talking to birds too. That way I’m not talking to myself, I’m a Disney princess.

The question is, “I regularly take time to work on funny ideas.”

Compare that to another question, which asks whether you notice something funny in everyday moments. Professionals average 3.93 out of 5 on that one, one of the highest scores anywhere on the assessment.

What that means is that professionals are good at spotting humor in the wild. There’s no shortage of inspiration. The problem is that it just sits there, untouched, until the idea disappears or the moment has passed.

People are building up raw material for funny that they never refine. Then they conclude from the silence that they must not be funny.

Humor is a practice, not a personality

The myth about humor is that funny people are born that way. A quick wit, natural timing, something innate. The data shows the opposite.

Many funny people have a process. They catch a moment, write it down, come back to it later, try a version, cut a word, try again, test it on someone, revise, file it away, pull it back out three months later when it finally fits.

Humor that feels spontaneous is often the output of that loop. The comedian referencing an observation they tinkered with the day before. The keynote speaker who has tested the same line in five different rooms. The friend who has been mentally editing a story since the moment it happened.

Where most professionals are lacking is exactly where the data points. They notice humor in everyday life. They almost never work on it.

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What the practice actually looks like

This is why I’ve found that the fastest way for someone to improve their humor is to keep a humor notebook.

Keep a running list of observations, half-jokes, odd sentences, and weird framings that might be something in a place you can go back to. Most of what you write down may never be anything more than that. But some may end up in your presentations, conversations, or the opening of a Substack email (ahem).

Noticing is where it starts. Working on what you noticed is where the funny actually gets built.

Give it a shot

So use this email as an excuse to try it. Hit reply or leave a comment with a recent observation, moment, or half-formed thought that struck you as funny. Don’t overwork it. Don’t polish it into a joke. Just get it out of your head and onto a screen where it exists.

That’s the entire practice. Notice, capture, return to it later. The returning is where the funny gets built, but it only works if the noticing makes it out of your head first.

I’ll read every reply and help you workshop it if you’d like.

Wit regards,
-Andrew

P.S. If you haven’t taken the Humor Intelligence Assessment yet, you can here. Five minutes, eight competencies, and a profile of where your own humor skills actually sit.

A little while back, I keynoted to 2,000 people. I didn't hear a single laugh.

Not because it wasn't funny (I hope), but because it was a livestream. Cameras off. Chat disabled. No emoji reactions. For 45 minutes it was me, a webcam, and the immediate realization that I couldn't tell if a single thing was landing.

So I took the advice I give to my clients whenever they have a virtual meeting: assume you are crushing it. Because to assume anything else doesn't help when you've got nothing to go on.

A comedian's feedback loop is the laugh. Or the smile. Or the glance sideways at a coworker to see if they caught it too. Take that away and you're left with the professional version of shouting into a well and waiting to see if the well giggles back.
(It did, eventually. The client sent great feedback the next day. Nice messages trickled in from attendees throughout the week. It went well.)

But the feedback arrived after. In the moment, I had no idea. And I know I'm not the only one who knows that feeling.

Many people who use humor well at work use it in exactly the same conditions.

Quarterly reviews. All-hands meetings. Slack threads. Client presentations where everyone has their camera off and their coffee cup up. You make the joke. You drop the one-liner. You reframe the tense moment with something lighter. And then... silence.

Which is why the Humor Awards exist.

This is the sixth annual Humor Awards from Humor That Works, and the whole point is to recognize people who make work more human through humor.

Specifically the people whose work almost never gets recognized for it. Including by themselves.

That’s the part I want you to hear. If you read this newsletter, there’s a decent chance you’re the kind of person who uses humor well at work without thinking of yourself as someone who uses humor well at work.

You make the meeting 7.2% less tense. You send the Slack message that breaks up the Monday fog. You land the callback joke three days later that reminds the team they’re still a team.

These are the people the awards are for.

There are eight categories, each tied to one of the eight competencies of Humor Intelligence.

• Humor Appreciation Award (you notice and reward other people’s humor)

• Humor Consideration Award (you read the room and know what fits)

• Humor Curation Award (you find and share the good stuff)

• Humor Creation Award (you make the jokes, puns, and callbacks)

• Humor Performance Award (you talk in a way that gets people to listen)

• Humor Facilitation Award (you get the room laughing together)

• Humor Application Award (you put humor to work on real problems)

• Humor Empowerment Award (you make it safer for others to be funny)

Pick whichever one feels most like you, or just tell us the humor thing you did and we can decide.

Now, the awkward part. You’re going to have to nominate yourself. I know, I know. You might say you feel awkward for patting yourself on the back, or may not want to toot your own horn. But if you don’t do it, there’s no guaranteeing anyone else will. So get to tootin’.

And if it makes it easier, feel free to make up someone else as your nominator and submit the form in the third person. I’ll never know!

Nominations close Monday.

Nominations close on April 20th at 11:59pm ET (with winners announced on Wednesday April 29th). The process only takes about 2 minutes.

Nominate Today

And if you genuinely can’t bring yourself to do it, forward this email to the coworker who’s seen you in action and let them handle it. Subject line suggestion: “Apparently I’m supposed to toot.”

Wit regards,
-Andrew

P.S. Yes, “get to tootin’” is now something I’ve said to 12,000 people. No regrets.

I’ve been playing tennis since Pretzel (my wife) and I first started dating in New York City. I wasn’t particularly good but we had fun playing together.

When we moved to Panama, we decided to take it more seriously. Individual lessons at first, then a joint setup once Pineapple (my daughter) arrived: I’d do thirty minutes, Pretzel would do thirty, and whoever wasn’t on the court would wrangle the toddler. I’m still not “good” per se (there’s a 50/50 chance my serve ends up in play or outside the court). But I’ve slowly gotten better.

Recently I picked lessons back up after a bit of a break. Early in the session, things were going okay. Not great (at one point the coach felt it necessary to remind me the goal was to get it over the net), but okay. Warming up.

Then the instruction started.

Eyes on the ball. Fine. My contact got a little better.
Now swing through and rotate the wrist. Okay. Marginal improvement.

Off hand out in front. Rotate it as you swing. Bend the knees. Watch the seams on the ball. Pivot the foot on follow-through.

Each new instruction landed right after the last. And with every addition, I got worse. Not plateau-worse. Actively, visibly, confusingly worse than when I had no instruction at all.

I could feel the frustration building. Not at myself, but at him.

He was giving me too much to think about. After yet another ball directly into the net, I told him I needed a water break and was fully intending to pretend like I got a message that I needed to go home just so I could put an end to the stupid class.

But after a sip of water and a few deep breaths, I decided to try again, but with a caveat. In my best broken Spanish, I told him: “Una cosa. Quiero pensar solamente una cosa.”

One thing. I only want to think about one thing.

He paused. “La mano. Y los ojos.” The hand out front, and watch the ball.

That’s two things, but way better than the 87.5 I had in my head before. So that’s what I focused on.

And I got better. Still sending some balls into neighboring zip codes, but consistently, noticeably better. Once that felt natural, I added a third thing and improved. Eventually he tried to give me a fourth. I said, “no gracias.” That’s for next time.

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The Problem With Too Much (Good) Advice

The thing about my tennis coach is that he wasn’t wrong. All of those things he told me to do? Correct. Bend your knees. Watch the seams. Rotate the wrist. If you asked any tennis instructor anywhere, they’d give you the same list.

The problem wasn’t the advice. It was the timing and the volume. There’s a version of “helpful” that becomes decidedly unhelpful.

Many of us run into the same problem any time we’re trying to learn something new, like humor. “Be more intentional.” “Don’t try too hard.” “Read the room.” “Leave a pause for laughter.” “Don’t dwell on it.” All technically accurate.

None of it particularly useful when delivered all at once to someone who just wants to feel a little less wooden in a meeting.

What I’ve found through the research is that humor isn’t one skill. It’s eight distinct competencies. And the reason most advice falls flat is that it treats everyone the same, hands them the full list, and says good luck.

That’s the equivalent of my coach rattling off seven corrections while I’m mid-swing.

What actually works is finding your “una cosa.” The one or two competencies where you already have natural strength, so you can build from there instead of trying to fix everything at once.

And that’s what I want to help you figure out.

Find Your Una Cosa

Next Wednesday, April 15th, I’m hosting a live workshop as part of International Humor Month. It’s called “What Kind of Funny Are You?” and the whole point is exactly what we’ve been talking about.

We’ll walk through all eight Humor Intelligence competencies together, and you’ll leave knowing which ones are already your natural strengths. Not a full list of things to fix. Your una cosa (or two).

If that sounds useful, I’d love to see you there. You can grab a spot here:

What Kind of Funny Are You? >

Wit regards,
-Andrew

P.S. If you have questions before Wednesday, just hit reply. I’ll try not to create too much of a racket, but if I do, it’s not my fault.

For those who don’t know, I’m the Director of International Humor Month (through the Association for Applied and Therapeutic Humor aka AATH). It’s now in its second year under AATH’s leadership, and the idea for the month is simple:

30 days dedicated to celebrating, spotlighting, and building the skill of humor.

In practice, “simple” means coordinating Humor Hero Spotlights, curated events from humor practitioners around the world, skill-building workshops, podcast interviews, and a humor awards show. All in one month.

Fun, but stressful.

But I genuinely love it. Because Humor Month gives people something that’s surprisingly hard to come by... an excuse.

The power of a good excuse

Think about it: New Year’s gives you an “excuse” to set goals. There’s nothing magical about January 1st. You could start a new habit any day of the year, or even any time of day (you could choose to start a new diet literally right now).

And yet we use the thought of a “new year” as the prompt and permission to invest in ourselves.

It’s the same thing with Valentine’s Day. Can you dote on a loved one any day of the year? Yes. Has the day been overly commercialized to the point that “Meathearts” are a thing (that’s the Sweethearts candy with messages like “Luv U” but instead it’s on meat)? Also yes.

Is it still a good excuse to show you care? Also also yes. It’s not necessary but it gives you permission to be sentimental.

April is the same thing but for humor. It’s the excuse you need to give yourself permission to actually invest time in building your skill of humor. Not just enjoy humor passively, but work on it intentionally.

And I’m taking my own advice. This month I’m teaching longform improv to a group of improvisers here in Panama, setting up a comedy writing workshop, writing new stand-up material in Spanish, and performing a show in virtual reality. (Yes, really.)

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So here’s your excuse

If you’ve ever thought “I’d love to improve my humor” and then immediately not done that... April is your month.

There are things happening all month long as part of International Humor Month. Special open house events, interviews with humor experts on the AATH LaughBox podcast, Humor Hero spotlights, and workshops from humor practitioners around the globe. You can check out the full calendar at humormonth.com.

But if you want a place to start, I’m hosting a free virtual workshop on April 15th at 12pm ET called “What Kind of Funny Are You?”

It’s a one-hour live session on Zoom where we’ll dig into the different ways people are “naturally” funny and you’ll discover your natural style. The goal is to help you unlock your specific sense of humor so you can actually use it, at work, at home, wherever.

Register for Event

Whether you use April as an excuse to attend an event, try writing a joke, or just send a pun to a coworker who didn’t ask for one... I hope you use it.

Because the best time to start working on your sense of humor was years ago. The second best time is right now. And the third best time is all of April, because there’s a whole month dedicated to it.

Wit regards,
-Andrew

P.S. Speaking of excuses to celebrate humor... nominations are now open for the 6th Annual Humor Awards. Know someone whose meetings actually keep people awake or a team that believes in the power of puns? Nominate them today.

Take it now →

If you’ve ever taken DISC, the Enneagram, or Myers-Briggs, you know the drill: answer questions, get a type, read your description, nod along, maybe share it with your team, then put it in a drawer.

The core message of every personality test is the same: “Here’s what you are.”
The Humor Intelligence Assessment does something different. It tells you what you can DO.

Traits vs Skills

Personality tests measure traits. Traits are relatively fixed. If you’re an introvert, you’re an introvert. If you’re a D-style on DISC, Dominance is your wiring. Useful to know, but hard to change.

Humor Intelligence measures competencies. Competencies are learnable. If your Creation score is low today, it doesn’t have to be low six months from now. If your Facilitation score is high, you can learn to leverage that strategically instead of just doing it instinctively.

One person who took the assessment said it was

“better than personality tests because it’s a tool for connecting with others, not just categorizing who you are.”

Another said:

“I’m not a good creator, but I have OTHER skills that are equally as valuable, if not more.”

She only realized that because the assessment broke humor into 8 separate competencies instead of giving her a single label.

Which means it’s not a question of whether you’re “funny” or “not funny.” You have a specific profile across 8 skills, and every one of them can be developed.

If you haven’t taken the assessment yet, it’s 5 minutes and you’ll get your full profile immediately:

Take the Humor Intelligence Assessment

If you’ve already taken it, I’d love to hear what surprised you. Hit reply and tell me.

Wit regards,
Andrew

PS. For the record, I’ve taken every personality test listed above. Apparently I’m a Type A blue square, conscientious INTJ with the sign of Aquarius. I have no idea what to DO with any of that, other than take long walks on the beach... by myself.

I was still working at Procter & Gamble at the time. A women’s leadership group had asked me to do a 60-minute session on humor in the workplace, and I did what I thought was the logical thing to do. I spent most of that talking about comedy.

Techniques, structures, ways to craft something clever. I had one slide on the benefits of using humor and mentioned (almost as an afterthought) the value of simply laughing more as a way to relieve stress.

At the end of the session, I asked the group what they were going to take away. One woman raised her hand and said, “I’m just going to try to laugh more.”

And everyone agreed.

She wasn’t interested in writing better jokes. She didn’t need to become the funniest person in her department. She realized she could just start seeking humor out.

I didn’t have language for it then. But what she was describing is something I now call Humor Appreciation, and it turns out it’s one of the most overlooked (and undervalued) humor skills there is.

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You’ve been measuring yourself against the wrong skill

Most people think “using humor” means “being funny.” And not just “funny” but stand-up comedy level funny. It doesn’t.

It turns out that there are 8 different competencies hiding inside that phrase.

Humor Creation and Performance (2 of the 8) are what most people picture. It’s coming up with something clever on the spot and delivering it in a way that has people ROFLing so hard they give you an instant promotion.

Humor Appreciation is the other side. It’s recognizing what’s funny around you, responding to it, seeking it out, and letting yourself actually enjoy it.

Most professionals are stronger in Appreciation than Creation. And they’ve spent years beating themselves up thinking they’re “not funny” when they’re actually quite skilled in a humor competency they didn’t know existed.

When I started testing the Humor Intelligence Assessment earlier this year, the data confirmed this. 56% of people who took it had Creation as their lowest competency. More than half.

One person put it perfectly after getting their results. “I’m not a good creator, but I have other skills that are equally as valuable, if not more.”

The distinction isn’t small. It’s the difference between thinking humor isn’t for you and realizing you’ve had it all along.

The woman at that P&G session didn’t need to become a comedian. She just needed to start seeing funny instead of pressuring herself to be funny.

Discover Your Skill of Humor

If you’re curious where you actually stand, the Humor Intelligence Assessment breaks humor down into 8 competencies (Appreciation and Creation are just two of them) and shows you your profile across all of them. It takes about 5 minutes.

Take the Humor Intelligence Assessment →

If you already took it this week, I’d love to hear what surprised you. Hit reply and tell me.

Wit regards,

-Andrew

P.S. If you caught Wednesday’s email, now you know the insight behind why I built the assessment in the first place. If you missed it, the short version is this. 5 minutes, 8 competencies, a profile of yourself you haven’t seen before.

P.P.S. 56% of people scored lowest in Creation. If that ends up being you too, congratulations. You have 7 other competencies that say you’re funnier than you thought.

But I’ve always had a problem. When someone asks “okay, so how funny am I?” I never had a great answer. Humor isn’t one thing.

Saying someone is “funny” or “not funny” is like saying someone is “athletic” or “not athletic” without specifying whether you mean swimming, basketball, or chasing after your four-year-old who just learned to ride a bike.

So I partnered with the Social Research Lab at the University of Northern Colorado to fix that.

The result is the Humor Intelligence Assessment: a research-backed tool that measures your skill across 8 specific humor competencies.

Not a personality quiz. Not “which Office character are you?” A real professional development tool validated by 10,000+ responses.

It takes about 5 minutes. You’ll get your scores across all 8 competencies immediately.

Take the Humor Intelligence Assessment →

Here’s what makes this different from anything I’ve offered before:

It measures competencies, not personality. Personality tests tell you what you ARE. This tells you what you CAN DO, and what you can learn to do better. Every competency is trainable.

It’s specific. You won’t get “you’re funny” or “you’re not funny.” You’ll get a profile across 8 distinct skills: Appreciation, Consideration, Curation, Creation, Performance, Facilitation, Application, and Empowerment. Most people are strong in some and weaker in others.

It changes how you see yourself. When we tested this with a group of professionals, 93% rated accuracy 8 out of 10 or higher. The most common reaction was some version of “I didn’t realize there was a difference between appreciating humor and creating it, but it explains everything about me.”

The question isn’t “are you funny?” It’s “what kind of funny are you?”

Take the Assessment (5 minutes) →

Your results are just the beginning. But it’s a pretty fascinating beginning.

Wit regards,
-Andrew

PS. Today’s the first day anyone can get their full Humor Intelligence Report, and I wanted to make it a little special. Everyone who grabs their report today gets my guide to 12 Comedic Devices—the perfect companion for putting your humor strengths to work. And the first 5 people to get their report get a 1-on-1 humor coaching call with me to dig into your results together.

PPS. If you already took the assessment a couple of weeks ago, your full report is now available: Get Your Report. And if you took our Persona Quiz years ago, this is the upgraded version: more questions, more accurate, and more science, so retake the assessment.

PPPS. How many “PS’s” is too many PS’s?

PPPPS. I think it’s 4.

And then ten minutes later, someone else says the exact same thing and suddenly everyone’s taking notes.

It’s not your imagination. That sort of thing happens all the time, and in all different scenarios.

I was recently on a customization call with a mutual insurance company I’m doing a series of workshops for later this month (yes, humor works even in financial services). One of the things I always ask organizers is whether there’s specific messaging they want me to reinforce during the session.

And the answer is almost always the same. It’s not “teach them to tell jokes” or “make them laugh.” It’s some version of “we’ve been telling our people [x] for months and they just aren’t hearing it.”

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The Parent (Advice) Trap

I tell the clients that it’s a lot like parenting. Sometimes parents will tell their kid to do something 47 times and they’ll be completely ignored. But then some random YouTuber says it once and suddenly it’s the most important piece of wisdom ever spoken.

It’s the same message but a completely different impact.

Whether you’re a parent or the expert trying to speak up in a meeting, it’s easy to blame the problem on the other person.

Oh, they’re just lazy.
They don’t know what’s good for them.
They don’t respect me because I’m not senior enough, not loud enough, not charismatic enough.

But that’s almost never what’s happening.

Your ideas aren’t landing the way they should because the delivery doesn’t create the moment that makes people pay attention.

That’s why someone can say the same thing in a slightly different way and it’s suddenly brilliant. The idea was good, the thinking was sharp, the delivery sucked.

That’s why I, as an outside speaker, can get a reaction the internal team can’t.

Not because I know more about the org or the people (I almost certainly don’t). But because I wrap the message in a way that gets people to actually hear it. A story. A surprising reframe. A well-timed moment of humor.

It’s not a personality thing

I’m not talking about being the funniest person in the room. I’m talking about understanding that how you say something matters as much as what you say. And that’s not a personality thing. It’s a skill.

I’ve seen engineers, accountants, and data scientists learn to do this. People who would absolutely never describe themselves as “naturally funny.” They didn’t change who they were. They just learned how to make their expertise land.

So the next time you say something and it doesn’t land, don’t assume the idea was bad or the other person hates you. Ask yourself if the delivery gave it a chance.

And if you’ve ever been on the other side of that moment (saying something brilliant that got completely ignored), I want to hear about it. Hit reply or leave a comment and tell me about a time your idea got no reaction... until someone else said it.

Leave a comment

Wit regards,
-Andrew

P.S. The Humor Intelligence Report we’ve been working on can help you figure out exactly where your delivery might be falling short (and what to do about it). More on that next week.

We’re all fine now. I’m back at about 90%, which is plenty enough to write to you with a bit of silver lining:

That extra timing ended up being a gift.

Because while I was parked on the couch watching the 387th consecutive episode of Bluey with Pineapple, I had something I rarely get: a bit of time to sit with everything we learned from the Humor Intelligence First Look session on February 13th.

And we learned a lot.

What 27 People Taught Me About Humor Intelligence

Twenty-seven people showed up to the beta session (thank you to those who did).

Afterward, I sent a follow-up survey. The average recommendation score came back at 9.86 out of 10. Every single respondent said they’d recommend it to a colleague.

That’s a perfect Net Promoter Score. I don’t say that to brag (there’s obviously some bias from people in this community), I say it because it told me the assessment isn’t just interesting. It’s useful. And that’s my primary goal.

But the number that really stopped me was that 25 out of 27 participants (93%) rated the assessment’s accuracy at 8 out of 10 or higher.

And the 2 people who rated it lower said it was because they weren’t sure what context to answer the questions in (work, with friends, etc). That’s something we can fix with better instructions at the beginning of the assessment.

Overall, it’s great confirmation that we’re not measuring whether you can deliver a punchline. We’re measuring eight distinct competencies, things like how you read a room, how you use humor to connect with people, and whether you’re better at appreciating humor or creating it.

That last one turned out to be the big discovery.

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The Aha Moment Nobody Expected

Over and over, people said some version of: “I didn’t expect THAT to be my strongest area.”

But the most common breakthrough was something specific. One beta tester put it perfectly: “It made me realize there was a difference between the appreciation and creation of humor. I never considered that before, but it explains a lot about me.”

She’s not alone. Most of us walk around with a vague sense of whether we’re “funny” or “not funny.” That binary is completely useless (unlike binary code which is very useful for us engineers).

You might be brilliant at appreciating humor (recognizing what’s funny and seeking it out) but freeze when you try to create something funny on the spot.

Those are different skills. Both learnable, both useful, but different. And once you see that distinction, you stop trying to be something you’re not and start building on what you already have.

Several people actually compared the assessment to tools like StrengthsFinder and DISC, but said this felt more actionable, which is amazing. One tester called it “better than personality tests... it’s a tool for connecting with others.”

That’s exactly what we’re going for.

What Comedians Already Know

This process of trial-and-feedback is exactly what comedians do every night on stage.

You write a joke. You test it at an open mic on a Tuesday night in front of twelve people. You watch what happens. You adjust the wording, the timing, the setup. You test it again. You cut what doesn’t work. You keep what does. A joke that kills after six months of refinement barely resembles the version that got polite silence in month one.

And that’s what we’re doing with the Humor Intelligence Assessment.

Beta testers told us some of the questions needed clearer wording. So we’re rewriting those questions. They told us the 40-page report had some repetitive sections. So we’re tightening it. They said the spider chart that visualizes your eight competencies was one of the most valuable parts (one person said it “put structure around a jumble of assumptions and untangled them”). So we’re highlighting it.

That’s what a rigorous, research-backed development process looks like. Create, share, get feedback, improve. And it happens to be the same skill set we want everyone to develop with their own humor.

Not “be funnier.” But notice what lands. Adjust what doesn’t. Try again.

What’s Coming Next

The full Humor Intelligence Report is coming in a couple of weeks.

It’s sharper, clearer, and more useful than what we would have shipped a week ago. The beta made it better. The feedback made it stronger. The forced time on the couch, apparently, also made it wiser.

In the meantime, if you haven't taken the free assessment yet, you can do that right now at insights.humorthatworks.com/assessment.

Take the Assessment

It takes about five minutes and you’ll get some instant insight today and be the first to know when the complete report launches in two weeks.

Now, does anyone know how to get the Bluey theme song out of your head?

Wit regards, Andrew

P.S. I’ll be the Director of International Humor Month for AATH once again. Be on the lookout for more details soon about all the ways you can level up your humor game in April.

Thirty people signed up to test the new Humor Intelligence Assessment. They’ll be the first to take it, get their personalized reports, and tell me everything that’s broken (because something is always broken).

(If you’re reading this and want to jump in at the last minute, there’s technically still time until it kicks off at 12pm ET. You can register here.)

But I’m a tad more nervous than usual because… Pretzel (my wife) is joining as an attendee.

Not just as a supportive spouse watching from the sidelines but as a full participant. Taking the assessment. Getting her results. Reacting to it all in with a mix of loving acceptance and German skepticism.

She’ll also see if some of the later nights I’ve been pulling have been worth it.

What’s actually happening at noon

So what is this Humor Intelligence Assessment that they’ll be testing? This thing I’ve been hinting at, researching, and occasionally losing sleep over?

The assessment measures your Humor Intelligence, how well you score across the 8 humor competencies we define as your skill of humor.

Each person gets a personalized report showing their strengths, growth areas, and specific recommendations. The whole thing is research-backed and is the next iteration of our work that’s been taken by over 10,000 people.

If you’ve been following me for a while, you know humor isn’t something you have or don’t have. It’s a skill you can develop.

But knowing it and having a framework to actually improve? Those are different things.

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Why nerves are probably a good thing

I’ve spent months building this. Reading research papers. Testing questions. Redesigning the report format. Obsessing over whether the competency descriptions actually make sense.

And now thirty people (plus Pretzel) are about to tell me what works and what doesn’t.

Part of me wants everything to be perfect. The other part knows the whole point of a beta launch is because it almost certainly won’t be (perfect). And that’s okay.

But having your wife in the session adds a special layer of accountability. She’s heard me talk about this project at dinner. She’s seen the spreadsheets. She knows how much this matters to me.

She’s also wicked smart. And what happens if the assessment tells her she’s low on Humor Appreciation? Or what if it proves she’s funnier than me?

We’re about to find out…

What happens next

Next Friday, February 20th, I’m launching the full Humor Intelligence Assessment to everyone on this list.

The beta group gets exclusive early access and early adopter pricing. Everyone else gets access next Friday at $27.

I’m not asking you to buy anything today. I’m just bringing you behind the scenes because that’s what this newsletter has always been about... figuring out humor together, including the messy parts.

Today is the messy part. Thirty people testing something that might not work perfectly. Me trying to facilitate a session while my wife watches. All of it recorded so I can cringe at my mistakes later.

But that’s how you build something worth building, right? You test it with real people, you listen to feedback, you make it better.

And then next week, you launch it to the world and hope your wife gives you a good review.

Wish me luck.

Wit regards,

Andrew

P.S. If you want to sneak into today’s beta session, registration is open until 12pm ET. Fair warning: you’ll see the unpolished version, which means you might catch bugs, awkward transitions, and me nervously checking if Pretzel is taking notes.

P.P.S. For everyone else, mark your calendar for next Friday. That’s when the official launch happens and you’ll get your chance to discover your humor intelligence profile. I promise by then we’ll have worked out most of the kinks. Most of them.

“Practicing new material at a funeral open mic, not a good idea...”

I’ve been going back to that response for three days. I have so many questions.

Was it an actual open mic at a funeral? Were they doing crowd work with mourners? Did they open with “So, tough room, huh?”

I respect the commitment to the craft, honestly.

You taught me something important

A couple of weeks ago, I shared how I want to listen more. Since then, hundreds of you took the Annual Humor Survey and I spent last weekend reading through every single response…

There were a few things that stood out:

1. While there were definitely common themes (35% of you most want help finding humor under stress), everyone’s goal for using humor is a bit different.

2. Some of you use humor multiple times a day and nothing stops you. Others never use it at work because the risk feels too high.

3. People’s use of (and success with) humor varies drastically. One person only tells jokes to their dog, Coby. Another got reported for “bullying” after making a sarcastic comment. Someone hit reply-all on a company email and told a bathroom joke... and let’s just say some people were not pleased.

The point is: we all need different things when it comes to humor.

Some of you need help recovering from awkward moments. Others want to strike a balance between professionalism and humor. A few are building humor-based businesses and need to know how to combine humor with serious subjects like healing and transformation.

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Why I built something for all of you

This is exactly why I created the Humor Intelligence Assessment.

Unlike personality tests that box you into categories (you’re a “jokester!” or whatever), this research-backed tool measures your competency across 8 distinct humor skills.

Developed in partnership with the Social Research Lab at the University of Northern Colorado, the assessment has been taken by over 10,000 respondents, including at organizations like NASA, Microsoft, and the UN.

It evaluates the learnable competencies of Appreciation, Consideration, Curation, Creation, Performance, Facilitation, Application, and Empowerment. All confirming what I hope you now know to be true:

Humor isn’t just something you’re born with, it’s a set of skills you can develop.

You might be brilliant at facilitating humor in others but struggle with performance. You might excel at appreciating humor but need help with strategic application. The assessment shows you exactly where your strengths are and where you can grow.

Here’s where you come in

I’m doing a special virtual session next Friday, February 13th at 12pm ET, where you’ll get first access to the Humor Intelligence Assessment before it officially launches.

Here’s what we’ll do together:

• You’ll take the assessment during the session

• You’ll get your 40+ page personalized PDF report with detailed insights (normally $47, free for attendees)

• I’ll walk through the framework and help you understand your results

• You’ll be able to ask questions, voice concerns, share puns

• I’ll ask for me feedback on the tool itself (which I genuinely want)

This is the only time I’m offering this for free before the official launch.

Register for the Workshop

Whether you’re the person practicing material at funerals or the person who only shares jokes with Coby, I want to help you understand your unique humor profile so you can be funnier, happier, and more effective at work (and in life).

So join me, I can’t wait for you to unlock your unique skill of humor.
-Andrew

P.S. If you have questions about the Feb 13th session, just hit reply. I read every response.

Here at HTW (that’s my company, Humor That Works), we’ve been working for the last few months (eh, years) on a brand new Humor Intelligence report that will be launching in the next few weeks.

While doing research for it, and making some adjustments to my keynote to coincide with it, I came across a term I had never heard before:

freudenfreude — finding pleasure in another person’s good fortune

It’s a fantastic concept, to find joy in other people’s joy is a wonderful sentiment and something that we (hopefully) do with our friends.

Seemingly the opposite of schadenfraude (pleasure derived by someone from another person’s misfortune), I was impressed that German had covered both angles of fraude.

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Schadenfreude und Fredenfreude

So, naturally, I asked Pretzel (my German wife) about it. Here’s how that conversation went:

Me: Hey, why didn’t you ever tell me about the word, freudenfreude?
Her: What?
Me: Fredenfreude. Froy-den-froy-duh. Friend-den-fud? I don’t know, I can’t pronounce it.
Her: I have no idea what you’re talking about.
Me: Have you heard of Schadenfreude?
Her: Of course, I have it all the time with you. *smiles*
Me: So you’re just messing with me?
Her: No, I have really never heard that word before. It’s not real.
Me: It was in a NY Times piece a few years ago.
Her: Hold on… (she looks at something on her phone). Nein. I just checked the Der Duden (the authoritative dictionary of the German language) and it’s not there, so it doesn’t exist.
Me: Oh, I thought it was real. It sounds nice.
Her: *laughs*
Me: What?
Her: Sorry, I just had Schadenfreude again.

After a bit of internet searching, I found out she was right (as detailed in this pretty hilarious Slate article). My favorite section:

“First off,” he says, “the doubling makes it sound a little unsophisticated.” This sort of repetition is only common in German when “aimed at or uttered by toddlers,” … “Also,” he says, “Germans are generally not in the habit of showing happiness at another person’s happiness.” Indeed, the phrase schön für dich (“good for you”) is “predominantly used sarcastically.”

But no matter, for I have found an English word for the term, “confelicity,” which also doesn’t seem to exist despite it being written about on BBC…

Despite the fact that neither word “truly” exists (at least in offical dictionaries), the concept seems to have some scientific backing.

So, all of that is to say:

What are you currently excited about?

I want to find pleasure in your good fortunes so we can both be happier for it, even if there’s no real word to describe it. Leave a comment or hit reply and let me know!

Leave a comment

Wit regards,
-Andrew

PS. My Annual Humor Survey to find out what will best help you in 2026 is live. It’s just 8 questions and should take about 3–4 minutes.

If it feels like it’s been a minute since my last email, it has. Between the holidays, travel, and life doing what life does, I took a short pause.

And before jumping back in to the normal flow, I spent some time looking back at this newsletter in 2025.

Spoiler alert: I’m conducting my Annual Humor Survey (you should definitely take it).

A Newsletter Year in Review

Over the course of the year, I published more than 40 posts exploring humor, work, stress, and the occasional dad joke. Altogether, those essays were viewed more than a quarter of a million times (thanks mom!).

As I looked over the data, one thing stood out.

The posts that sparked the most engagement weren’t about being “funnier.” They were about stress, confidence, and using humor intentionally. They were about feeling more human at work.

Which makes sense, as I often say in my Humor That Works keynote:
to humor is to human.

After a year of writing, reading your replies, and seeing what resonated most, I realized something important. Rather than guessing what you need next, I want to listen more directly.

A short annual survey

So I’m running a short survey to better understand what you’re dealing with right now, what’s getting in the way of using humor at work, and where it could make the biggest difference for you in the year ahead.

It’s just 8 questions and should take about 3–4 minutes.

» Take the survey here:

Annual Humor Survey

I’ll share a summary of what I learn with everyone and I’ll use it to inform what we focus on in the coming year (e.g. do you all want more techniques, stories, or ppppuuunnnnnssss!!!).

Plus, a small thank you

As a thank-you for participating, five people will be randomly selected for a free Humor Tune-Up call with me.

On that call, we’ll:

• Talk through your goals for 2026

• Look at what’s currently making work harder than it needs to be

• Explore how humor might help, in a way that actually fits you

No prep required. No selling. Just a thoughtful conversation.

Whether or not you take the survey, I’m grateful you’re here and part of this community. And if your interests have changed and this newsletter is no longer for you, you can step away using the link at the bottom—no hard feelings at all.

Thanks for reading, and thanks in advance for helping shape what comes next.

Wit regards,
-Andrew

P.S. My most liked post last year was How to Use Humor Intentionally for Yourself and Others. Feel free to check it out if you missed it.

PPS. My least liked post was Laughing Together: The Power of Humor in Building Community. Take a look to see why it was terrible (jk, I think it’s solid).

PPPS. Don’t forget about the survey.