How To Make Humor Your Superpower
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Slate Podcasts
4.2 • 2K Ratings
🗓️ 26 March 2024
⏱️ 31 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Did you know that we, as a society, have fallen off a comedy cliff? No joke. Studies have shown that we largely stop laughing when we enter our mid-twenties, which is a shame because delighting in humor has a ton of health benefits. Plus, being perceived as funny can actually make people think you're more intelligent, more competent, and even better looking! So on this episode of How To!, the first in a two-part series, we bring on Naomi Bagdonas, co-author of Humor, Seriously!, and Michael Terry, an amateur comedian who is working in the funniest of places: high finance. Combined, they have decades of experience harnessing the power humor and applying it to the workplace.
If you liked this episode, check out "How To Confront a Crazy Neighbor" with Tig Notaro.
If you want to discover your own humor style, take the test on Naomi and Jennifer's website.
Do you have a question with no easy answers? Send us a note at howto@slate.com or leave us a voicemail at 646-495-4001 and we might have you on the show.
Slate Plus members get bonus segments and ad-free podcast feeds. Sign up now at slate.com/howtoplus.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey how to listeners, we're off this week. So we wanted to bring you a fun one from the archives. |
| 0:05.2 | It's about how to harness the power of humor in the workplace, |
| 0:09.2 | featuring a hedge fund guy who's also an amateur comedian. It's very enlightening and a very |
| 0:15.3 | entertaining episode. So now I'm going to turn it over to former co-host |
| 0:19.2 | Amanda Ripley. Enjoy! |
| 0:22.0 | Oh Michael! Hi! Enjoy. by Michael's headset microphone or should I feel like I'm better than him? |
| 0:34.8 | I would go with the latter. I look much more like the Verizon Help Desk than you do. |
| 0:39.6 | So I think you're definitely winning. |
| 0:45.0 | Welcome to How To, I'm Amanda Ripley. |
| 0:48.0 | Today we're going to talk about the underappreciated power of humor in good times and bad which means we're going to laugh a lot just know that |
| 0:59.6 | but first I want to take you back to 1999. |
| 1:03.7 | It's about a decade after the official end of the Cold War with Russia. |
| 1:08.2 | Relations are beginning to thaw, but old habits die hard, and Moscow has crossed a major line. |
| 1:15.0 | They were caught bugging the US State Department. |
| 1:19.0 | And Secretary of State Madeline Albright had every reason to be furious. |
| 1:24.8 | So Secretary Albright was trying to figure out how do I handle this next meeting with the Russian |
| 1:30.4 | foreign minister. |
| 1:32.4 | This is Naomi Bagnonus, a lecturer at with the Russian foreign minister. |
| 1:32.6 | This is Naomi Bagnonus, a lecturer |
| 1:34.8 | at Stanford's Graduate School of Business. |
| 1:37.6 | So there were a few ways Secretary Albright |
| 1:39.9 | could navigate this interaction, right? |
... |
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