The One You Feed - How Humor Can Transform Our Relationship with Life's Challenges with Chris Duffy

Episode Date: February 20, 2026

In this episode, Chris Duffy, author of Humor Me: How Laughing More Can Make You Present, Creative, Connected, and Happy, discusses how humor can transform our relationship with life’s challenges, connect with others, and shift our perspective on difficult situations. He shares personal stories and practical tips for cultivating humor, emphasizing laughter’s role in resilience and well-being. The conversation covers the social power of humor, taking risks, and learning to laugh at ourselves. Take our quick 2-minute survey and help us improve your listening experience: ⁠⁠⁠⁠oneyoufeed.net/survey⁠⁠⁠⁠ Exciting News!!! Coming in March, 2026, my new book, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠How a Little Becomes a Lot: The Art of Small Changes for a More Meaningful Life is now available for pre-orders!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Key Takeaways: The role of humor in coping with life's challenges. The concept of shifting perspectives through laughter. The parable of the two wolves and its implications for personal growth. Distinctions between comedy, humor, and levity. Humor as a spiritual virtue and its importance in connecting with others. The social function of laughter and its role in building relationships. Practical strategies for cultivating humor in daily life. The therapeutic benefits of humor during difficult times. The idea of taking social risks to foster genuine connections. The transformative power of humor in reframing experiences and enhancing well-being. For full show notes: ⁠click here⁠! If you enjoyed this conversation with Chris Duffy, check out these other episodes: Humor and Healing with Josh Johnson Pete Holmes Paul Gilmartin By purchasing products and/or services from our sponsors, you are helping to support The One You Feed and we greatly appreciate it. Thank you! This episode is sponsored by: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠David Protein ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Try David is offering our listeners a special deal: buy 4 cartons and get the 5th free when you go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠davidprotein.com/FEED⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Hungry Root⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠: For a limited time get 40% off your first box PLUS get a free item in every box for life. Go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.hungryroot.com/feed ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠and use promo code: FEED. IQ Bar: Text FEED to 64000 to get 20% off all IQBAR products, including the ultimate sampler pack, plus FREE shipping. (Message and data rates may apply). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I think that we've all had this experience of you are going through something that is like driving you crazy. And then you talk to someone else who's going through the same thing. And you both end up laughing about how awful it is because it's like, I'm not alone. You get it. And it just makes you feel so much better. Welcome to the one you feed. Throughout time, great thinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you think, ring true. And yet, for many of us, our thoughts don't strengthen or.

or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self-pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't have instead of what we do. We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort to make a life worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction, how they feed their good wolf. I'm someone who's spent a lot of life trying to change circumstances. I have a book all about how we make changes. But there's a realization that comes at a certain point

that sometimes we can't change the circumstance. All we can change is our relationship to it. And my guest today, Chris Duffy, who's the author of Humor Me, How Laughing More Can Make You Present, Creative, Connected and Happy, says this, humor is a way of addressing reality. while shifting our relationship to it. And I really love this idea because when we can't change a circumstance, we can shift our relationship to it. And humor is a really valuable way to do it.

It doesn't erase the pain. It doesn't pretend things are fine. It gives us a way to work with it. And I've often believed that if we were to list out the spiritual virtues, humor or levity would be one of them. He also says you can laugh at the very real facts of how bad things are, and it doesn't change the underlying facts, but it changes the way you perceive them. That's the nuance. It's a perceptual shift. We also talk about this idea, and he says, looking on the bright side has this tinge of toxic positivity. Humor accomplishes a lot of the same stuff without pretending there's nothing bad at all.

And this is really critical. So this episode was really valuable to me, and I loved talking with Chris. He is a genuine, funny guy, also very thoughtful, and this episode was one of my favorites, and I hope you enjoy it. Hi, Chris, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to have you on. We're going to be discussing your book, which is called Humor Me, How Laughing More Can Make You Present, Creative, Connected, and Happy. And it's a very fun book, and I look forward to getting to it, but we'll start like we always do. with the parable. And in the parable, there's a grandparent who's talking with their grandchild. And they say, in life, there's two wolves inside of us that are always at battle. One is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and bravery and love. And the other's a bad wolf, which represents things like

greed and hatred and fear. And the grandchild stops. They think about it for a second. They look up with their grandparent. They say, well, which one wins? And the grandparent says, the one you feed. So I'd like to start off by asking you what that parable means to you in your life and in the work that you do. Well, Eric, I think it's a beautiful parable. And I've listened to so many episodes of your show. And I think that one thing that it's always made me think is that we really should not be feeding wolves. Like, that's just a dangerous piece of advice. A hundred percent.

Yeah, you're right. You're right. You really just don't want the wolves to build an association with you and food. I wonder how many people have been maimed by listening to this podcast. That is right. You have encouraged thousands of people to feed wolves, which is quite a dangerous behavior, both for you and for the wolf. 100%. Yeah, that's my first really, my first takeaway is like, just let's not feed even a good wolf because a good wolf is still a dangerous wild animal.

We have two squirrels inside of us? Can you feed squirrels? I would say a domesticated dog maybe. You know, there's two golden retrievers inside of me. Yes. And I'm going to feed them both because I love those dogs. But yes. So that's my initial reaction.

The second one is, you know, I think that I like. the idea that none of us is all good or all bad. I think that's a really important lesson from that parable. And I think it has informed a lot of my work, right, to just like be curious about people, to be curious about myself. And also to not take myself too seriously, to not get all up on my high horse of like, well, I'm just good. And everything inside me is good. And there's nothing bad inside me that could be cultivated as well. For me, a lot of like comedy and humor comes from acknowledging the bad wolf inside of yourself too. And I will also say, anyone who's seen me physically,

I do think that, all kidding aside, it probably is two golden retrievers inside of me instead of two wolves. Yeah, I mean, I agree. The thing that I love about the parable the most probably, besides the obvious, like, your choices matter, is this acknowledgement. Like, we all have these different sides of us, obviously more than two.

And that, I think, is comforting. because then when I'm like, well, God, I feel really greedy today or I feel very envious today or, you know, I just wanted to kill that person who cut in front of me in traffic today. I'm like, oh, that's just what it means to be a human. Totally. Like, ostensibly, I'm the one being interviewed and you're the one doing the interviewing. But I really would like to ask you a question, which is having done this show for so long and you always start by reading that. I'm curious, like, not just what it means to you right now, but how has the repetitue? of that lesson. How has it changed your understanding of it over the years? I think it's interesting. If I started

today, I mean, I started the show 11 years ago, I don't think I would pick that parable to start today. Wow. Because I am a decidedly non-binary person in like the way I view the world. Like I'm a big middle way kind of guy, you know, and that just divides the world into good and bad and it makes it sound like there's easy categories. And I just think that's nonsense. So in that way, I don't know if I would choose it again, but it feels like a through line that matters to me. And I think the audience is used to it. I think the repetition of it for me has boiled down the simplicity of it. It's easy to get into a lot of abstractions.

And some guests do abstractions about what it is and what it means. But for me, it's just boiled down the two things that resonated about it. me in the beginning, which is our choices really do matter, you know, and we have choice. And then just that second, like, we all have these competing elements inside of us, that normalization of the fact that we have competing forces in my, in the book that I've got coming out, I've got a whole chapter on this idea of motivational complexity. We want and value and desire and need all sorts of things all at the same time. And that's a pretty confusing state of affairs.

And I don't think there's a way to make it go away. I love that. I think we can recognize it and say like, okay, here's what's going on. And I have to prioritize and I have to choose. But the fact that I'm torn, I don't think, at least in my experience, is not something that completely disappears in life. Even if you're clear on your values, like for me, I value this show, I value the work that I do.

I value my friendships. I value my relationships. And sometimes those things are in conflict with each other. I don't think there's a way to eliminate that. And so for me, it's just, okay, recognizing that, how do I work with it? And I think that's the parable for me is it just keeps reminding me of that core truth. That's really great. Oh, that's such an interesting way of thinking about it. And I certainly relate to the idea that you don't always get to a resolution. And there's very rarely like a definitive correct answer. Yes. In life's actual

challenges. I think that's really, really fun. I wish it were that easy. Yeah. Oh, I always am like, I constantly want for someone to walk in and be like, by the way, I'm the grownup in the room that you've been looking for. And let me just tell you how things work. 100%. Well, I'm significantly older than you. I am the grown up in the room. And I have the exact same feeling because life is always shifting. Like, I turned 55 this year. I've never been 55. My body is changing. Like all of a sudden, I'm in and we're just constantly put into new situations throughout life. And so there's no way to be like. arrived because life keeps changing. And so do we, which is fun most of the time. Occasionally, you're like, for God's sake, would something just sit still for a while? Yeah, yeah. It's fun and it's also really uncomfortable. Yeah. Yeah. I'm like, couldn't I just be done? Like, it would be cool if I could do a weekend's worth of laundry, just do all the laundry for the year over the weekend and then I

wouldn't have to do more, but that's actually not how it works. It is 100% not how it works. So I'd like to switch into your book because we're kind of doing part of what your book really is about, which is this idea of incorporating humor into our lives. We're sort of joking a little bit about these difficult things in life. And I want to start with the distinction you make between comedy, humor, and levity. Yeah. This is a distinction that I find really helpful. And I was inspired to have this distinction by Jennifer Aker and, Naomi Bagdonus, two researchers who have studied humor and wrote a really great book about humor as well.

And they basically say that, like, comedy is the performance. Humor is the, like, day-to-day practice, and levity is the mindset. So it's like, how do you see the funny things around you? And then humor is like, how do you share them with other people? And then comedy is like, now you're performing it on stage. And I think I kind of draw a little bit of like a fuzzier distinction. They're academic. So they have like a very clear line.

For me, I think of it more as when, if I tell you to imagine someone with a great sense of humor, most people imagine someone who is like standing up giving a toast at a wedding and making everyone laugh or they're the person at the party who everyone is gathered around listening to a really funny story. And I actually think that that's not necessarily like that performative piece is fun and great when the person does that. But the thing that I really am into is the person who goes through their day with a lot. lot of laughter who sees something funny and laughs who you want to be around because they laugh at your jokes like the person who is really generous with that joy and that spirit of of laughter and levity that's what i'm trying to cultivate and that's what i really think like the world desperately needs more of i have a couple of thoughts on that one is the person who is editing this episode right now is my best friend chris and we started the show together 11 years ago and i think he's the funniest

person i know and he is always looking for the humor in every situation Now, I think with anything, we can take that too far. And Chris, you do sometimes. No, I'm kidding. Oh, certainly. Listen, I have been very guilty of it. No, I was referring to him as Chris. Oh, other Chris.

Yeah. Oh, no, no, no. Yeah. Other Chris is. You're perfect. Other Chris is horrific. A real monster. But you're right.

It's just this always sort of looking for the humor in situations and. Well, knowing that, can I just interrupt for one second to tell you that, knowing that the person editing this has a great sense of humor. I got to tell you one of my favorite all-time editing. which is Bo Burnham in his special has a great joke where he says like, you know the thing about video editors is they're so stupid that and then it just cuts and goes to the next joke. So whenever I hear that an editor is funny, I'm like, please like, you know, feel free to edit me out where I'm like, you know the thing about Chris the editor?

He's a total. Now we've skipped like 10 minutes into the conversation. Perfect. The other is I've often argued that when we list out virtues, we should be adding levity to the list. You know, like it is a spiritual virtue, I think. So there's an incredible book that I love that I read many years ago and I've given to so many people. And it kind of inspired me to want to write my book, which is called Between Heaven and MIRTH. It's written by Father James Martin, who is, I believe, a Jesuit priest.

And he's hilarious. The book is like laugh out loud funny, but it's about the role that laughter and comedy play in religion, specifically Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. But it also touches on others. And I think that people really do often think that, like, laughter and levity mean that you are not serious. And I think that makes a really compelling case that actually these can be ways of accessing, like, profound truths. And to me, the parallel is, like, if you talk to a really genuinely smart person, a true genius, like someone who is making discoveries or doing scientific research that is changing the world, the one thing that always comes across is that they will tell you all the things. that they don't know, right? They are interested in the limits of their understanding and they're, and they're not,

like, they're not attached to the idea that they're a genius. They're like, man, I don't get anything about this. And I've studied it for years and I really want to know more. And I think humor is a way of kind of allowing us all to get into that place of like, I don't have to be perfect. Instead, I can like, acknowledge the imperfections and get to these profound places because of that. Yeah, I think that humor is a fundamental tool in working.

with reality skillfully, like for me. Like, I can't imagine dealing with the world and reality and everything in it without humor. It doesn't make sense to me, I guess, on one level, because you can't imagine not being a way that you are. But I think about laughter and the ability to laugh at yourself is so critically, you know, that's another of your pillars, right? You talk about the ability to laugh at yourself. So say a little bit more about why you find that valuable and why that's useful for us as people. Well, I think the ability to laugh at yourself is so crucial to my understanding what it means to have a good sense of humor because like let's just start with. Think about people who you know who are willing to laugh at themselves. Those are so much more likable people, people who

you want to spend time with. And when you think about a person who has no sense of humor about themselves, who takes themselves so seriously and won't ever laugh or crack a joke, that's a difficult person to be around. That's kind of an insufferable person. Yeah. And I think that like the I is that often people who are unwilling to laugh at themselves do think they have great senses of humor, but they're just like, I'm, all I do is tell jokes about other people or, you better love me. I'm so fantastic. And that's, again, the person that we want to be around is the person who goes like, oh, God, is this is what I'm doing embarrassing. Oh, I'm covered.

I spilled mayonnaise all over my pants and I'm at this party and I just realized it. Like, you much rather be around that person than the person who comes up to you and goes, By the way, I do 500 sit-ups every morning, and I have a six-pack, and I'm 75, and I've never felt better. You're like, wow, that's cool, but I'm not, I can't really relate. Yeah, that's, you know, when they're like, I have a million dollars, I have an incredible investment portfolio, I have a six-pack, my child is going to Harvard. You're like, wow, I don't have anything to say to you, you know? And if someone comes to you and they go, like, I didn't sleep at all last night because my baby was puking and I just wanted to come to this party because I really. really like want to hang out with people, but I'm feeling so awkward and strange.

That's a person where you're like, we got something to talk about. Yeah. And I think it also, it goes a long way towards learning to live with ourselves in a different way. Like I am notoriously forgetful. Hmm. Like, I won't know where my phone is. I mean, I just, I lose things.

I mean, I'm at the point where I'm like, what things matter to me and can I get an air tag on them? Right? Like, can you air tag a hat? Yes, you can. I can tell you. Can you air tag love, Eric? Well, we were just in Lisbon recently, and we were dog sitting. And the first thing we did was air tag that dog. That's incredible. That's really incredible. And I did love that dog. So in one sense. But, you know, I think I was talking to somebody yesterday. She was telling me about how she got this Christmas tree. She wider it all up. She was house or she was cat sitting for someone. And the cat started eating the electrical cord.

Oh, yeah. And shorted out the whole tree. And we were. joking about how that famous holiday vacation scene where the cat electrocutes itself. And we were joking that like the baseline for any sort of animal sitting is don't kill it. Yeah. Don't lose it. Yes. And so we air tagged that dog right away. I electrocuted your cat with a Christmas light is not really an acceptable response when they

come home. Nicole, who works with me, sent me a video this morning of her sister's kid. And it was a video of Santa. and it's got the three kids. One of them's a baby. Santa drops the baby. Oh, no, Santa. Which, again, is like, I don't know what the Santa rules are.

That's got to be one of them. I mean, it's almost one that you just don't even reinforce because it's so obvious. Yeah. Don't drop the baby. That is like sometimes you go into a venue or, you know, a restaurant or something and they'll have a sign on the wall and you'll be like, huh, that's such a specific sign. And you know, it's because someone did that thing. You know, it'll be like, what? Whatever you do, do not dump the full pepper shaker into the toilet.

And you're like, that must have happened because that's not a thing that you put in other restaurants. Perhaps more than once, yes. Yeah. And this one, now that mall has like a, if Santa drops your baby, it is your own liability. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. It's not liable for being holding babies correctly.

Exactly. You can just sort of see the baby start sliding, start sliding. Santa doesn't really have. No. Boom. And then the baby just starts wailing. Oh, at least it was okay. But yeah, that is really bad.

The baby's fine. The baby's fine. You know, I have two young kids, and we took our son to meet, like, a mall Santa for the first time. And he's not really familiar with, like, the concept of Santa yet. And so, like, he was really into the idea of sitting in this chair that was, like, a red, decorated chair. And then as soon as Santa tried to put his armor on the kid for the photo, my kid was like, who are you? Get that arm out of here. And Santa, it was so funny because he made Santa feel awkward, where then Santa was like, I just, you know, I wasn't.

It's just like, okay, I'll put my arm. back over here. It was really an incredible moment. We have a great photo of the Santa being like, I guess, no touching. Hey friends, as you may have heard, I have a book coming out in March called How a Little Becomes a Lot, the Art of Small Changes for a More Meaningful Life. And I am gathering together a book launch team. It's a small circle of people who feel connected to the work and want to help it to find its way to the people who need it. What being on the team is like is going to be pretty simple. It's going to be sharing the book with someone who might come to mind, leaving a

review if it makes sense, sharing on social media, whatever works for you. As we move closer to launch, we'll have behind the scenes, reflections, early access moments, special giveaways, and a few ways for the team to connect along the way. We'll have some fun, we'll get to know each other, and hopefully we'll get the book out there to more people. If you'd like to be part of this special circle, you can go to one you feed.net slash help. That's one you feed.net slash help. Ironically, Chris, the editor of the show and I were discussing what makes a good Santa the other day. Because he said a picture of his son with Santa. And I said, I mean, did you take Zepi to a Christmas party at the methadone clinic?

Like that is a rough-looking Santa. And he was like, but the Santa was great. He was amazing. And so then we were like, well, what makes a good Santa? I mean, you know. All jokes aside, I read like an incredible, beautiful article about people who are Santa's and how it changes them for the better. It was like an incredible, really fun Christmas article about how it, like, has transformed these people's lives to kind of approach the world in the way that we want Santa to approach the world. That's very interesting.

Yeah, that's actually very kind of like a little bit in the realm of this podcast. Like, which do you feed good Santa or bad Santa inside of yourself? Yeah, you feed Santa or do you feed the Grinch? Yeah, exactly. The grandmother turns to the grandchild. Maybe I need to adjust this for the holiday. Yeah, there's a holiday episode. Inside of you is a naked green man who lives in a mountain all alone.

And also a large man who wears red and white and lives in an uninhabited continent making toys all year round. Is likely to suffer a stroke or a heart attack any time in the next three months. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which one of them do you feed? We've sort of touched on this, but this is a beautiful line that I wanted to hit humor as a way of addressing reality while shifting our relationship to it. It reverse engineers despair and to hope. Thank you. I think that this, to me, is why I think humor is so.

powerful, especially in times when things are overwhelming or bad or seem kind of chaotic, is because I think humorous, it accomplishes a lot of the same stuff as like looking on the bright side, but looking on the bright side has this tinge of like toxic positivity. There's nothing bad at all. Yeah. Exactly. And I think the great part about humor is like you can laugh at the very real facts of how bad things are.

And it doesn't change the underlying facts, but it changes the way you perceive them. It shifts your mental experience of it. And so much of what we need to do when things are overwhelming is just shift how we're seeing it. I talked to the comedy writer Simon Rich, who's written all these incredible, famous comedy things from Saturday Night Live to the New Yorker to all places. And he described it to me as comedy and horror you write in the exact same way, that you raise the tension to the maximum point. And the difference is that at the maximum point of tension, comedy relieves the tension. It pops the balloon. and it releases all of that, and horror just raises it until people start dying.

And I think that's true in our regular lives, too. If you get to this point of maximum tension and laughter and humor at this point of breaking, it can release that in a really positive way. I just had a little bit of an insight of a way to think about it. So one of the things I talk a lot about is perspective, how, you know, we never see the world as it is. There is no such thing, right? We always see the world through our own lenses and filters.

it's really helpful to be able to pick up different lenses and look through different lenses, turn the object, different directions. And I'm always thinking about, like, what are ways to shift perspective? Like, you can zoom out in time. You can, but another lens is humor. It's like a whole perspective lens of its own. Yeah. In fact, one of the, um, the alternate like titles when I was originally coming up with the title

for this book was like the lens of humor or the humor mindset because it so is the idea of like how do you shift into this this world? And something I really tried hard to do was to make the book really practical so that it's not just me being like, it would be great if you had a sense of humor. You know, it's like, okay, but how do I do that? When I'm stressed and my boss is asking for something of me that requires me to stay awake till 2 a.m. And also, I have family pressures and also the world outside is overwhelming. How do I actually laugh more?

Because it doesn't feel like a time when I can laugh a lot. I wanted to give people like practical ways to actually do that. And that's because I do think that, like, it is a skill that you can learn. It's a muscle that you can build so that you are able to shift into that more. And, you know, just thinking of a practical way of, like, I think that we've all had this experience of you are going through something that is like driving you crazy. And then you talk to someone else who's going through the same thing. And you both end up laughing about how awful it is because it's like, I'm not alone. You get it.

And it just makes you feel so much better. Even though in some ways, that doesn't make any sense, right? Like if I'm like my car got a flat tire and it's going to ruin my whole week that I'm going to have to take this into the shop. And then someone else goes, oh my God, my car got a flat tire too. That's actually twice as bad. That's not better. But it feels half as bad because now you can relate. It's really interesting.

There's this idea in friendships and how friendships help us cope with things, which we generally think they do. But there's something called a co-rumination trap, which basically means that as friends, you, you, egg each other on in the bad way. Oh, your boss really is a jerk. That's really terrible that you felt that way. Like validation is important, but then you get stuck there. And humor is kind of the opposite. Yeah.

Right? It's the opposite of co-rumination. It's co-levity producing. Yeah. That's so interesting. I've never heard that. It makes total sense that this is a way to be there with each other, but not focus on the negative instead focus on, you know, the absurdity of it.

And so much of life is absurd. Yes, very much of it. So let's shift into practical ways, since you kind of led us there. Like, give me a couple of practical ways that I could incorporate more humor in my life. The most important one, I think, is also the most basic, which is just to notice what makes you laugh naturally, right? Like, when you go about your day or when you go about your week or when you go about your month, what are things that make you laugh without trying, right? Like, if you see a meme online and it makes you laugh, don't just forget about that.

Write that down. Copy the link to it. Download the image. Like, start a little, like, humor folder or a document where you're tracking that. If someone says something to you and it's such a funny little story, write down the, like, one line version of the story, right? Like, Eric told me about his friend Chris and what happened with the Santa. Okay.

Great. Because then the thing is we so often, like, think we'll remember this really funny thing are this thing to be entertained. And it just disappears from our mind. But then when you are stressed and when you do want to access some levity, it's really hard to get into that mindset then to be like, okay, well, I'm feeling overwhelmed. But what if I just giggled a little? It's a lot easier if you then can go to your list and be like, okay, I'm going to watch that sketch that always makes me laugh. I'm going to watch that YouTube video.

I'm going to remember that story that Eric told me. And then often despite yourself, you will start laughing. And that is when you need it the most. So my most basic one is like notice it and then document. meant it. Keep yourself a little humor file. That's a really useful idea because you're right. I will forget this Santa story in two days. It'll be gone. And these sort of things, I feel like they're always happening. Oh. But I just don't, I just don't remember them. Like when you just told me like to keep track of what

makes you laugh, I'm like, well, I maybe could describe it structurally in some way. But there was one in your book, though, that I definitely want to check out. You said there's a Reddit forum that you and your wife visit called Contagious Laughter. Yeah. That does. cracked me up. I mean, almost every time, just even thinking about it, I almost start to laugh because it's hysterical. This is one of the like things that's like, I think that just because laughter isn't always complicated doesn't mean that it's not great. And so one of the ways that laughter is not complicated is that we often will laugh really hard, just watching someone else and listening to someone else laugh really hard. And so there truly is just like this subreddit that is called

contagious laughter. And it's just videos of people laughing at something and they're laughing so hard, they can't contain themselves. And then I watch this with my wife and we just start laughing hysterically at these people laughing. And it's not identifiable most of the time as like a joke. It's just it's so funny to hear people having such a good time. So again, it doesn't have to be like complex to be really like meaningful and worthwhile. It's strange how that works. Like that sort of changes in some way what we think about as laughter in that it's contagious.

Yeah. Like a yawn. I'm sure there's some psychology or biology. behind it, but it's very different than what normally makes us laugh. You know, actually, I'm going to push back on that a little bit. I think that the science of laughter, when I talk to people who really study this, they said that we tend to think that we laugh at things that are funny or jokes. But in reality, like, the vast majority of laughter in your day-to-day life is just kind of

this social lubricant that happens as a pause in conversations or happens not in response to anything that would really like identifiably be regarded as a joke or clever. like laughter serves this purpose evolutionarily of bonding us together. And one of the reasons I think, especially right now where we are as a society, again, why I wrote this book and care about it is because it's so frequent that we are in conversation with a person and they're not actually all the way there. They're half there. They're checking their email or they're thinking about the thing that they're going to do next

or there's something else going on. You don't have their full presence. But when you and another person are laughing hard together, you know you are locked in to that moment with this other person, right? When a group is laughing altogether, you are not half there, half somewhere else. You are all the way there. And evolutionarily, one of the theories of why we developed humor, why laughter is universal in human societies, is because of that social function of bonding people together, but also

because we can really immediately tell when someone is fake laughing, that told us a really important piece of information about whether this person was part of our group or not, whether they actually understood what was going on. Because if they didn't, that might mean that they're a little dangerous and we need to take some precautions around them. I recently went down a little bit of a rabbit hole and is this typical of me, I only remember about 4% of it, but it was whether animals have a sense of humor. And it turns out there seem to be a good number of animals that do laugh and it does seem to be a social lubricant. Obviously, what nobody is. what he can tell is, like, can a panther tell a joke?

I mean, like, seriously, like, are they capable of, like, making a joke? Yeah. And who knows, you know? I think all the time when we learn more about animals, we're like, wow, there's stuff going on there. We just had no idea about. Yeah, and we like to think we're so special, you know? Like, we like to think as individuals were so special and we like to think as a species

were so special. And I think it's always fun when we realize, like, oh, we're not the only ones that can use sticks. Oh, okay. Well, surely we're the only ones who have, you know, words and noises that mean certain things. Oh, we're not the only ones that do that. Oh, well, surely we're the only ones that make each other laugh. Uh-oh. Yeah. And depending on what you think of as a joke, right? Like, right, I think some people would say that the earliest most basic form of a joke, the joke that works on babies, but also that chimpanzees do to each other is tickle. I'm going to get you. So if you think of that as a joke, then like that joke does play across species.

Right. I'm going to get your joke. Yeah. They're intentionally trying, well, I guess it's hard to say what they're doing because we're not, we're not in their head. But it does seem very apparent. They are making an attempt to generate laughter. Yeah. Well, I also love the idea of like an octopus telling a classic set up punchline joke.

You know, an octopus being like, what's got eight arms and is looking for dinner? This guy. That would be incredible. I hope that happens. I hope one day we can communicate with them enough to hear that that's what they're. they're doing down there. Well, they do some wild, wild things. Yeah, one time I talked to an octopus expert who told me that if octopuses, I think it's actually octopuses was one thing she taught me instead of octopi. Octopi, yeah. She told me that if they lived to the same amount of time, like, if they had

the same lifespan as humans, that they would be the dominant species on the planet because they're so smart, but they just only live three years or five years. So that's why they haven't reached human society levels. I would not be surprised. Well, this is not a show about octopuses. Uh-huh. It's hard for me to say that. I want to say octopi. Right. It sounds wrong.

It sounds uncomfortable even if it's correct. So let's just say octopine. But also, if you are out there and you're an octopus expert and what I just said is completely deranged, please write to me. Chris, you must never repeat that octopus fact ever again. Well, I mean. And also, if you're an octopus using a computer, please write to me just because I want to talk to you. I don't know how many suckers they have. They have a lot of them.

They can individually control them. Like, I mean, we can't, what's the old walk and chew gum at the same time kind of thing. they're controlling a thousand suckers independently. And they can change their skin color in an instant. And that's just the beginning of it. It gets far wilder. I mean, this is so delightful to me because truly, if I had predicted, like, we're going to talk about my book about humor.

What's a topic that we'll probably discuss? I would have never thought the number of suckers that an octopus have would come up. And I'm delighted that it did. And let's take that number thousand with a grain of salt. I don't know how many they have. Once again, we're going to have a full fact check episode. that are covered in these. The cephalopod community is going to be up in arms over this.

Yes. Eight arms. One of things you say is the first step to laughing more is noticing more. So we've talked about noticing what makes you laugh. But I don't think that's all you mean by that statement. No. And in fact, if you're a person who feels like, hey, I walk around the world and I don't laugh very often, like, you know, when's the last time I laughed? I don't know.

One thing that I would encourage you to start with is just trying to notice things in your everyday experience that you haven't noticed before. Because I think a lot of us fall into this pattern are just kind of being on autopilot, right? I drive my car or I get in the public transportation and I go to work and it's the same route every day. And I'm kind of just not seeing the things. It's a blur in the background. And the first step towards having something make you F is, to notice things that are odd and unusual or strange, things that strike you as like, why is that? You have a question about them. And I think the best way to do that is to try and see the world

around you with fresh perspective. Like, imagine that when you move to a new house or when you go and visit a place that you've never been before, you notice all the little details. You notice like, huh, what's the smell that they have in this house? How did they set up the cabinets? What is the decoration on the wall. What is the way that they have put the toilet paper on the roll? Does it go over or under? These are like the kind of details that we notice the first time. And then after that, we don't notice them again. And I think if you just try and push yourself into the noticing, consciously try and force yourself to notice, seek out a few of the small details of the weird things. And then just think about them for a second. And it's not like they're all going to be

like immediate laugh out loud belly laughs. But that's the seeds of humor. That's the seeds of comedy is noticing that strange and unusual things and then starting to think about like, well, why would that be? When I think about when I'm most humorless is when I'm locked in my head thinking about something. So we're talking about your book. I've got a book coming out right. When I'm locked in my head thinking about book, book promotion, book promotion, then I'm humorless to a large degree because I'm not noticing anything around me.

I'm not really there. Mm-hmm. You know, I'm not really there. and this ability to notice, I think, is so fundamental to so many aspects of a good life. Totally. Of, can I be present? There's this idea that, like, senses are kind of like the portal to the now, right? Like, you want to be present.

It's through your senses. And that is exactly kind of what you're saying. Totally. Well, I also think just, like, having an awareness of what is actually happening and being able to think about it from, like, a slightly different perspective than your default perspective. So for me, right? Like you and I are in this moment.

And on one level, I am having a conversation with Eric Zimmer and we are talking about these ideas and it's a podcast and it all makes total sense. Okay. But then if I think about where I am and I pay really close attention to where I am, from another perspective, I am sitting alone in a closet talking about wolves to no one. Like I am, someone would just hear me be like, yeah, you got to be careful with wolves. And then they're like, what is Chris doing? He is truly alone in a closet, and there's no one else in there with him.

Like, I'm talking to a small rectangular box, and somehow that is translating across distance to you. But that's kind of hilarious to just think about it from that other perspective. So I think often I can kind of like think about, well, what would my neighbor think if they walked outside my house right now? What would they perceive this to be versus what it actually is in my perspective? You are in a closet? Yes.

This is my little recording closet, which is that's how I record. Closets are great. I was telling you, I just moved into a new studio space, and it's going to take a lot of work to get this thing to do what a simple closet would do. If I had an extra closet. This is the funniest part about the world of podcasting is that whenever people are always surprised that, like, truly the deepest podcast hack is that if you get in like a coat closet, you're going to have great audio. And so a lot of times, if the video isn't needed, people will truly be like in a pile of coats. Me too. We have a closet in our house. We have like one big. closet. But yeah, if I don't need a video, it's the perfect place. Just go in there, set up the laptop. It is, I mean, it is the perfect sound room. Like, you'd work hard to get a room to sound that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, it's also like talking about noticing small things that make you

laugh, right? It's like, you and I both have like an inherent understanding of the desirability of closets as a place to spend time, which I just think is like kind of inherently ridiculous, right? Like, most people don't rate their closets and sort of like, well, I'd spend that. hours in that closet, but this co-closet is not nearly as comfortable. There's a whole also host of interpretations to that's a closet you don't want to be in. Yeah, exactly. Right. I mean, there's a lot. You could go 10 different ways with that one. Uh-huh. That's for sure. All right. So the pillars that you've sort of laid out is notice the world's filled with absurdity. We've talked about laughing at yourself. Now I want to talk about

taking social risks. And you've got to tell us about the LinkedIn CEO thing. Sure. Okay. So, yeah, the story that Erica is referencing here is I am a comedian professionally. Before that, I was a elementary school teacher. And so I never really had any use for business networking, right? Like I never had an actual LinkedIn profile, but I knew that it was something that friends and family had used. And I was kind of curious about it because it just seemed like this whole world that I had never ventured into. So one day I was playing around and just decided to create a LinkedIn profile for myself. But as I was doing it, I was amazed that when you select where you work, that you can just choose any company.

They don't, like, verify that. I would have thought, like, the boss at your company has to say, yes, Chris works at Nike or something. So to test out how far you could go with that, I was like, well, I wonder if it'll let me do this. And I made my job on LinkedIn, CEO of LinkedIn. And I clicked save on my profile. And I was just wondering, like, would it let me to do that?

But not only did it allow me to do that, but it sent an email to everyone in my contact list that said, congratulate Chris on his new. position. He's now CEO of LinkedIn. And that email came from LinkedIn. So that is obviously the greatest joke that I've ever been a part of. I assume there was a mass confusion among your friends. Well, the thing is, anyone who knows me knows that there is no chance that I had ascended to the pinnacle of corporate governance. They were like, this is clearly the buffoon has entered the system here. Yeah. So people just wrote back like, this is the funniest thing I've ever seen. I don't know how you did this. And I also was like, I don't know how this happened. And incredible.

incredibly, LinkedIn did not like recognize that this had happened for more than a year. And at a year, everyone got another email that said, congratulate Chris and his work anniversary as one year of CEO at LinkedIn. And then at that point, it started kind of going viral. And I got a message from a woman named Faith who works at LinkedIn's trust and security team. And she said, hey, your account has been locked due to concerns about its accuracy. And so I sent Faith a photo of my license front and back and said, don't worry, it's accurate. My name is Chris Duffy. And she said, yeah, the problem is not that we don't think your name is Chris Duffy.

The problem is you're saying that you're there. the CEO of LinkedIn. And I said, Faith, you're taking a pretty disrespectful tone for someone who works for me. And then five seconds later, my account was permanently deleted. And to this day, remains deleted. You cannot get on LinkedIn. No, I had to make like a burner account to get back on LinkedIn in a different way. That's so good. That is so good. But, you know, that that story is like, obviously, I think it's my proudest comedic achievement and probably will be till the day I die. But it also is, for me, an example of how humor is at its last. best when you are playfully taking risks, playfully like examining where the boundaries are,

but also when you're doing things that are public, right? It's like it's fun to do stuff all on your own. But humor is so inherently social that to get out there and to let other people be a part of it, to let other people laugh with you. I think that's a really key piece. And I don't want people to miss that. So that's why the third pillar that I talk about, right, is you got to pay attention, pillar one.

You have to laugh at yourself, pillar two. And then you have to take social risks. get out there and make it with other people is pillar three. Because that's such a key piece of what makes laughter and humor magical is that it connects us to other people. You write in that chapter about something. I heard this story years ago. I remember being sort of struck by it. And now you brought up again, which is this idea of like rejection therapy.

Oh, yeah. There's a really incredible guy, Jha Jong, who I interviewed and he started this thing, rejection therapy, which is basically he felt like I am being held back in my life because I'm so afraid of what would happen if someone said no if I got rejected. I'm being held back professionally. I'm being held back personally because I just live in fear. So I don't even try. And he's like, I'm going to do 100 days where every day for 100 days, I just try and get a no. I'm deliberately going for it just to build my tolerance.

And he started with things that were really small, right? Like he knew he would get a no. He walks up to a stranger and says, can I have $100? And the person said no. But it wasn't nearly as bad as what he thought it would be. And in fact, what he discovered is really quickly, people instead of just saying no, they would say like, well, why? They would question him about like, why he needed it. They would try and find ways to help him.

And eventually he came up with all these. He had to get increasingly complex to get people to keep saying no. And so one of them was like he went to Krispy Cream during the Olympics and said, like, can you make an interlocking series of donuts that look like the Olympic rings? And incredibly, the manager was like, we've never done this before, but I am going to make the Olympic rings out of donuts and created this like. donut creation for him. I just think that's so funny and hilarious. And Jha is a really funny and talented person talking about it. But I also think it hits at this really fundamental truth, which is that we so often underestimate

how much people will enjoy interacting with us and helping us. And we overestimate how bad things will go if we put ourselves out there and we try something. I think that the idea, to me, like the magic of being a comedian. and this is the magic that I actually think people who are not professional comedians could also access, is that by saying it's okay, I want people to laugh at me. I don't care if people view me as a buffoon. In fact, I invite you to view me as a buffoon. That would be great. It lets me do all these things that make my life better.

It lets me ask questions when I don't understand. It lets me go to the strange place where maybe I don't totally fit in just because I'm curious. And, you know, I'm really, I want to encourage more people to say, like, you don't need to have the job title comedian to be willing to have people. laugh at you and to see that it actually feels good, not bad. Not to say that there can't be mean laughing at you, but most of it is not that. Most of it is just like, huh, that's so strange and odd. And strange and odd are actually things that add spice and variety to our life. Yeah, I think we underestimate how well things will go in a situation like that. We underestimate how people might respond positively. Totally. And we overestimate the awkwardness. And I think we also

underestimate the value it has for us, right? Yeah. That what interaction feels like. I was having a medical procedure just a couple of days ago. And so I was in the facility and I interacted with, you know, by the time they finally took me back, like four different nurses. And for whatever reason, I just was, it was a colonoscopy. So I had not eaten for 36 hours and was just kind of loopy.

And so I was just kind of having fun. And I just realized, like, we're all having a good time just because I'm just. a little bit more outgoing, a little bit more willing to say something odd than I normally would be. Yeah. Actually, I think a colonoscopy is like the perfect metaphor for what I'm talking about here. Because you were going to try it. Here's the thing. Is it colonoscopy is exactly what I'm talking about, which is the thing you think is the bad part. The colonoscopy, the procedure itself, is not the bad part. It's totally fine.

You are unconscious. It's not a problem. The part that is the bad part is the preparation. You drink the bottle and then you sit on the toilet and you have the most intense experience of your life. You are a rocket ship blasting off into space and you do not want to be on that rocket ship. That is the part that is bad. And this is true in so many parts of our life, right? Like the thing we think is going to be bad, the like going to the party and talking

to a stranger we don't know. That's not bad. The bad part is preparing mentally for it where we're not at the party yet and we're drinking the terrible juice and then we're sitting on the toilet going like, oh no, tomorrow's going to be so bad. And actually, the bad part is the part before when you're worried about it. When you actually do it, it's great. I mean, not that a colonoscopy is like an incredible great experience when you're actually in it.

But it's just, it's not the bad part. You're right. And I went to a thing last night just like some sort of, I hate this word, networking event because that's not what it felt like. It was just sort of like a group of interesting people getting together. And I thought, all right, that's interesting. And I always approach those with a certain degree of trepidation. I am somewhat shy in new setting. I had more uncomfortableness leading up to that event than I did at the event, although I will say there have been events I have gone to where the event itself really was.

Oh, yeah, yeah. The worst part. You know, I'm kind of like looking around on the edges. Like, can I go pretend I'm on the phone? Like, how can I be here? But, God, like, distract me somehow. Yeah, there's certainly an extraggler all the way over there. to go talk to him, which ends up almost always being a bad idea because there's a reason

their way over there by themselves. But, okay, so one, 100% you're right. Sometimes the event is actually the bad part. But I think it's rarer than we would think. And the second part, though, is when you're in these social situations, to give another practical thing that if you're listening, you can actually do. Here's what I mean by taking social risk and bringing humor in. Okay.

Not taking a social risk. You talk to someone new at an event. the not risk version is, hey, so what do you do? Where do you live? How long have you lived there? Do you like it? Pretty boring conversation. Safe, not risky, but like not memorable for you, not fun.

You're probably not going to laugh. The social riskier version is to come in and to offer something to say to them like, I just had the best soup of my entire life. Let them respond to that or to say, what's the best soup you've ever had? I'm really feeling in a mood for soup. You know, like that's kind of an odd question. It's not a dangerous, weird, offensive question, but it's just you take you a small social risk by coming to them with something that is true and genuine to you

and that is like not the typical script. And when you get off that script, you have the possibility of having like a really interesting conversation with someone. I mean, you want to take a really like literal steal from Eric Zimmer example. You could go up to someone and say, I just heard this story about the wolves. What does that mean to you? That may not, that may lead to a profound conversation. It may not need to like laughter.

But it's a risk that is going to take you in a direction that is more interesting. You reference, I had him on the show, so I should be able to pronounce his name, but I cannot. Adam Mastriani. Oh, yeah, Mastriani. Adam Mastriani. Okay, I got it. You got it. And he talks about doorknobs.

And I think this is similar to what you're describing right here, right? Totally. This is exactly what he's talking about when he talks about this idea of he calls them conversational doorknops. Or like, I think the academic term is like affordances, which means that like a way that you allow people to enter, right? So the way that Adam would say it is like, if you give someone a conversational doorknop, it's a topic that they can hold on to that doorknop, turn it, and enter into a new room,

into an interesting space. And he did academic research on why conversations end and whether they end when people want them to or not. And the thing that he found is that what keeps a conversation going in a way that is satisfying to both people is when you let each other build. You let each other go in interesting new directions. And so what that means is not just giving doorknops to say the interesting thing that's not just how long have you been at this party? But is that when someone offers you something to then take it, to go with it? So if you say to me, I had a medical procedure last week to not just let that glide by,

if you seem like you want to talk about it and say like, what was the medical procedure? How are you feeling? You know, and then we talk about that more. Oh, you know, I heard that colonoscopy prep is the bad part. What flavor did you choose? Those are the ways that like you can keep a conversation going by offering and accepting doorknops. That's something that he talks about. And he brings it up specifically in the context of he's both a really talented academic and a really talented improviser, very funny, funny, funny person who performs on stage.

And this is how you keep a comedic scene going, is by offering and accepting bricks of comedy that then build together. So I wanted to talk about a pretty personal part of the book where you describe your wife and challenges that she had and how you guys. used humor to help. Yeah. It's in a chapter about humor as medicine and you, in a way that I love, don't oversell it. So talk to me about both humor as a medicine and then maybe some about this particular aspect of your life. Yeah. Thank you for asking that in such a respectful way. So first, laughter as medicine. You know, people often say that laughter is the best medicine. And my joke, which is also not a joke, is that like laughter is transparently not the best medicine. Like, right? Penicillin is certainly better medicine than laughter. I think that if you were going in for surgery and the doctor was like, we decided we're not going to give you anesthetic. Instead, I got a great knock-knock joke. You'd be like, that's not acceptable, right? Like laughter is not as good a medicine as in analgesic. So I just, first of all, don't think that that is true. But what I do think that laughter is really powerful in. And when I talked to emergency room doctors, when I interviewed a psychologist who used to run the anxiety.

anxiety lab at UCSF when I talked to nursing professors who help train people who work in nursing homes. A thing that kind of they all talked about was how humor doesn't can't necessarily solve a medical problem, but changing your perspective on it, changing your experience of what is happening to you is a significant medical outcome. So if you are really worried, if you are in pain, and then you laugh and it relieves the fear somewhat. It relieves the pain somewhat. It distracts you from how you're feeling. That's a significant clinical outcome. And I think that's where humor can really play an important role. So, for example, the Dr. Jeremy Faust, who's an emergency room doctor in Boston, he told me that one way that he uses humor is often if he's going to give someone stitches or they need to have some sort of procedure in an open wound, he has to inject them with something that's going to numb them. But it really hurts. Before they go numb, it's going to hurt. And that's kind of avoidable. So one thing that he will sometimes say is if they're like a salty old Boston guy, he'll go like, what I'm about to do to you is going to hurt more than what the Yankees did to the Red Sox last night.

And they'll like laugh and think that that's like a funny thing for the doctor to say. And then when he gives them the injection, it hurts less because they are laughing. It's been framed for them in a humorous way. And I experienced that in my own life during this period of time where certainly the worst time in my life. Like my wife had had gotten these injuries. we couldn't quite figure out what was happening and she was in a lot of pain. And she basically had gone from being like able-bodied to being unable to walk for even a moderate amount of time and was in pain all the time. And that had led to then, you know, mental anguish about what her future was going to be like, but also just wanting to be out of pain all the time. So she's in a really dark place. And I was taking care of her and nothing was working.

And it just was the worst period of time in my life for hers still to this day. again, like laughing was not a thing that was happening a lot. And it wasn't like, you know, I was like, hey, you're in the worst pain and I'm really confused and everything is getting worse every day. Time to giggle. Like it just wasn't happening. Right. But then it was really like led by her. She was like, we just need to like have some, like I just have to have some sort of release.

And so we found like a video that made her laugh. And then we tried to just experiment with like, okay, let's try every day to have something. where we laugh together. It can be 45 seconds after, you know, 23 hours of pain and suffering. Let's have 45 seconds where we try to find a way to laugh together. And it did not solve any of the underlying problems. Right. But it dramatically reframed my experience of the day and her experience of the day and our relationship to each other in a way that made the other 23 hours manageable. That made them relieve just a little bit of that pressure and tension and helped us to have this moment of connection where, like, it wasn't all bad. It was a, it was a flag in the time that was a

memorable moment of positivity. And that, for me, is like one of the most incredible parts of humor is that you can actually have a brief release, a brief break from things being so bad, if you can find a way to actually connect and to laugh. Yeah, there's a couple things about that, that I love. Obviously, it's a very difficult story. And I think she's doing better now. Yeah, she's doing much better now. Yeah. So it, it, it feels like it's in the past. But, you know, that's inevitably as humans, like we're going to have periods of pain and suffering again.

Yep. Yep. Yes. But right now we're in a good period for sure. The two things I really like about that is one is you did treat it like a medicine, meaning there's a time that I go take this thing, right? Like, you know, medicine isn't any good when it sits on the shelf, right? It's only good if you take it.

And so you were very consciously like we're going. to give ourselves this medicine. The other thing that my experience is, and maybe that's wrong, but I want to. No, no, I've never thought about it that way. I think that's totally accurate. It's just interesting. I've never heard it. Yeah. I've never heard it put that way. That's fascinating. Yeah, it's true. The second piece, and this is my experience, is that if I sometimes intentionally seek out humor, it reminds me that lots of other things are funny. It has a spreading effect in my life. Like, I do it for that one minute, five minute, ten minute. Yeah. But it then other minutes of the day, I remember, oh yeah, you can make a joke. You can laugh. You can have fun. Yeah. Well, you know,

I have been in therapy and talk therapy and found it really helpful for several years. And if I could probably save at least one listener, thousands of dollars by telling you that almost all of my therapy has boiled down to, that's not the only way to see it. You know? Like, that's true what you're seeing it, but there's other ways of, there's other ways that are equally valid for this exact same experience to be perceived. And humor does that, right? Humor lets us be like, that's so true. I never thought of it that way.

Laughing, having good time, but also realizing like, I'm locked into one way of seeing this. And that's not the only way of seeing this. Right. And that's kind of back to where we were earlier when we talked about the mindset or the lens of humor. Totally. One of the things I love to say to people I'm working with is, is just the question, like, ask yourself, like, what am I making this mean?

Hmm. And what else could it mean? It's not that you have to discard what you think it means, because often you can't. Yeah. But just open up some space to like, but it could also perhaps mean that. And it could also perhaps mean that. That just lets some air into the room. Yeah.

I mean, I often get locked into these ideas of like, if I don't do well in this interview, then my career is over. If I don't crush, like, if Eric doesn't laugh every 10 seconds, then no one will ever hire me again and my book won't sell and I will be a disaster. And it's just like, that's actually quite a lot to put on this one conversation. You know, like you don't need. I'm sorry to inform you that the one you feed is kind of across the board, a career destroyer for everybody. You show up on the one you feed and you are no longer taken seriously anywhere. The one you feed is actually you being fed to the machine.

That's right. That's exactly it. The one you feed and you're feeding the one right now, Chris. All of your future is going into its belly. Yeah, well, that is unfortunate to learn. I do wish I had known that before I was here. I know. We don't get many guests when we share that, though.

I respect you for telling me midway through and I think that that actually is like quite honest and forthright of you. So thank you. But you know, it's just like it's so easy to convince ourselves that the one way that we're seeing something is the only way. is the only possible path that is true. And the reasons I love laughing at myself and I love having friends who are able to make me laugh of myself is because they can point out the ways of which like I think that I am normal and reasonable and in fact I'm ridiculous and illogical. And they can do that with love and with humor and I can go like, you know, you are actually

right. That is an unhinged way to view this. Yeah, Chris and I, the other Chris, you know, joke a lot. Last night he was making a joke. we were talking about something about the book and he said like and you know you're a best selling author I said well okay like I'm an author like let's leave the best selling and then he turned around he said something like what I meant is it's going to be the book that is sold back to the secondhand store the fastest right like you know the best selling as in you know we've joked

about you know the number one book to prop up your table I mean you know just constant jokes about like you know all the ways that this could be like the worst book ever. I do love the idea that you're like, no matter what, I will be a record-setting author. It's just which record will I set? Exactly. I actually, I have a footnote in the book where I talk about how the stand-up comedian Joe Mandy named his special on Netflix. Joe Mandy's award-winning comedy special. And as far as I know, it actually didn't win any awards, but it still is his award-winning comedy special. And I think that is like a perfect, brilliant joke. Oh, I mean, you see it happen everywhere. Like restaurants do this all the time.

like the number one Chinese restaurant. I mean, like, that's the actual name. Yeah, it's just, like, you know, you just claim it. Yeah. Well, that's like that perfect moment in Elf where, you know, Will Ferrell as Elf runs in and goes like, World's Best Coffee, congratulations. You did it. Wow!

That is a great movie. Yeah. We're at the end of our time, but I thought we could wrap up by having you share a little bit about, You start the book with the funniest person you've ever met being a child. You end the book with someone named Maureen Mighty Moe Cornfield. And I was wondering if you could tell us about her. And then I just love to end with her advice that ends your book. Sure.

Yeah. So the funniest person I ever met is a 10-year-old student who I taught who had a column in the school newspaper where he was a food critic who reviewed cafeteria food. Gary, the food critic is the funniest person I've ever encountered in my entire life. And the second funniest person I've ever met is a 100. 100 to four-year-old world champion swimmer named Mighty Mo. I live in Los Angeles, and right when I had moved here, I started to go to the public pools to swim. I was like, okay, I'm in a place where it's warm and sunny, and like, let me take advantage of that. And I met Mo at these pools.

She was swimming and swimming laps, and she was already 99 when I met her. And she quickly became one of my favorite people in the world because she has such a quick, witty sense of humor, but also was just like she would swim up to me. Like one time a guy got in the pool and he had a really thick beard, but he was bald on the top of his head. And she swam over to me and said, looks like they, hey, I got a deal on real estate on the chin. And I was just like, that's hilarious. Like I did not expect this elderly woman swimming to come over and pull out an incredible

one liner like that. And she was just always saying funny things like that. And as I got to know her better and, you know, now has become like a kind of a chosen family member for me. I've just seen how her perspective and her ability to laugh, it draws people to her. And it makes her the center of community, even as she's, you know, gotten to quite an advanced age. Yeah. Yeah.

So I gave her the final words in my book, which I can read to you. Yeah. You've heard more than enough from me. To wrap things up, here's Maureen, Mighty Mo, Cornfeld. It's pretty easy to focus on things that aren't going well, feeling sorry for yourself, which we all do. And I do too much. Humor takes you out of yourself and gives you a different. better perspective. Mo's advice on how to improve your life? Laugh. You can't get in too much

trouble unless you laugh at the wrong time or the wrong person. Then you might get thrown into a ditch or something. So there you have it. Have a sense of humor. Don't forget to laugh. And when you end up face down at a ditch, at least you'll know how you got there. Thank you, Chris. This has been a real fun interview. Oh, thank you so much, Eric. It's been an absolute treat. I'm so honored to have been here. Thank you so much for listening to the show. If you found this conversation and helpful, inspiring, or thought-provoking, I'd love for you to share it with a friend. Sharing from one person to another

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