How to Use Humor Intentionally for Yourself and Others
The most important part of your skill of humor.
Quick plug before we dive in: The Skill of Humor Live Lab is tomorrow (Saturday 11/8) and there are only 2 spots left. If you want to spend a few hours learning, laughing, and leveling up your humor, grab your seat here.
As an engineer, I love numbers. They make sense. My favorite number? All of them. My favorite, favorite number? 8. It’s a perfect closed loop, an infinity sign standing tall, a zero with a belt on, and it’s part of the greatest kids’ joke of all time:
Why was six afraid of seven? Because seven eight nine.
Or the Yoda version: why was five afraid of seven? Because six, seven eight.
Numbers can be beautiful. 2,479,991,040 is the average life expectancy in minutes. They can be nostalgic. 07734 spells “hello” on an upside-down calculator. And they can be scary…
Like the number 90,000.
That’s how many hours the average person works in their lifetime. Ninety thousand hours.
That is a lot of time to spend doing something that feels like a grind instead of something that gives you energy. Work shouldn’t be about squeezing every ounce of productivity out of whatever motivation you can muster.
It should be meaningful, engaging, and yes, even enjoyable. Otherwise, we’re spending 90,000 hours just “working for the weekend” (shout out Loverboy).
Why Humor Is the Solution
Humor is how we reclaim those hours. It’s not about telling jokes. It’s about using intention and levity to create connection, reduce stress, and turn “have to” moments into “get to” moments.
Humor helps us shift perspective, build resilience, and make the experience of working and living a little lighter.
The research backs it up. People who use humor at work are seen as more competent, confident, and likable. Teams that laugh together trust each other more, solve problems faster, and handle challenges with greater creativity.
Humor isn’t the opposite of seriousness. It’s what helps us do serious work better.
Your Agency of Humor
Once you’ve developed your sense of humor (Appreciation and Consideration) and strengthened your ability to humor (Curation, Creation, Performance, and Facilitation), the next step is leveraging your Agency with Humor.
This is all about how you use humor intentionally, for yourself (Application) and for others (Empowerment).
Humor Competency #7: Application
Application is the ability to strategically use humor to deliver a specific outcome.
It helps you reset when things go wrong, find perspective when stress builds up, and stay human when the pressure is on. It’s basically engineering humor for those 30 benefits of humor we shared above.
Humor is the secret that not only helps you achieve your goals, but also makes the journey more fun.
Humor Competency #8: Empowerment
If Application is about using humor to solve problems for yourself, Empowerment is about helping others do the same.
It’s the skill of creating an environment where people feel safe to be themselves, share ideas, and bring their sense of humor into work.
As the saying goes, “tell a man a joke, he laughs for a moment. Teach a man to joke, he laughs for a lifetime.”
Your Invitation
Tomorrow, I’m hosting the Skill of Humor Live Lab, a 4-hour interactive experience where we’ll put all three building blocks of humor into practice: Sense of Humor, Ability with Humor, and Agency with Humor.
It’s the only session where I’ll be giving direct, personalized feedback, and there are only 2 spots remaining.
If you want your 90,000 hours to feel lighter, more meaningful, and maybe even a little more fun, join us tomorrow.
→ Reserve your spot
Registration closes at midnight tonight.
Wit regards,
-Andrew
PS. If you’re on the fence, I got you. If you attend and don’t feel you got real, practical value, just let me know and I’ll refund the full amount. Enroll for the funny.