The skill with no gym.

Why "be funnier" is the one skill we never actually practice.

I follow a lot of parenting accounts on my personal Instagram. The good ones, not the ones designed to make you feel like you’re failing a child you love.

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.

“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.

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.