Jennifer Aaker and Naomi Bagdonas

Guy Kawasaki:
I'm Guy Kawasaki, and this is Remarkable People. This episode's remarkable guests are the dynamic duo of Jennifer Aaker and Naomi Bagdonas. They both teach at Stanford's Graduate School of Business. The subjects that they cover in this bastion of boring business are happiness, meaning, and humor.
Jennifer has a BA degree in psychology from UC Berkeley, and a PhD in marketing from Stanford. She is the recipient of the Distinguished Scientific Achievement Award from the Society for Consumer Psychology, and the Stanford Distinguished Teaching Award. She is co-author of The Dragon Fly Effect: Quick, Effective and Powerful Ways to use Social Media to Drive Social Change, and the co-author of Humor, Seriously: Why Humor is a Secret Weapon in Business and Life.
Naomi has a BA in Economics and Psychology from Claremont McKenna College, and an MBA from Stanford's Graduate School of Business. At Deloitte, she facilitates workshops and off sites for leadership teams from Fortune 500 companies. She also worked for IDEO.
Naomi is the co-author, with Jennifer, of Humor, Seriously. This is from the description of the course that Jennifer and Naomi teach together: "Our goal is to pin you down and not let you leave Stanford without a healthy dose of humanity, humility, an intellectual perspective that only humor can bring. This class is about the power and importance of humor to make and scale positive change in the world, and also, surprise, to achieve business objectives, build more effective and innovative organizations, cultivate stronger bonds, and capture more lasting memories." When is the last time you read a course description like that?
By the way, in most episodes, I spend a lot of time making sure that my laughter doesn't step over whatever the guests are saying, but in this case, there was so much laughter - as you would hope in an episode about humor - that I let the multiple tracks step all over each other.
I'm Guy Kawasaki, and this is Remarkable People, and now, here's Jennifer and Naomi.

Guy Kawasaki:
Why teach at the MBA level? Isn't that a little too late to really form people and give them great insights and education?
Jennifer Aaker:
It is never too late, Guy. We can't give up. No, it's actually a really wonderful time to be teaching.
So Naomi and I teach three classes. One is Rethinking Purpose, which MBAs need. The second is A New Type of Leader, Anchored on Purpose, Fueled by Humor, which MBAs need. And third is Humor, Serious Business, which again, MBAs need.
It's actually a perfect time because you've got all of these students that have just worked so hard to get to where they are, and it's a really wonderful time to reflect on, not just what's really meaningful and purposeful in their lives, but also how do they want to approach leadership moving forward?
Guy Kawasaki:
You feel the same way, Naomi? It's not too late for those MBAs?
Naomi Bagdonas:
It's not too late. We teach at Stanford's Graduate School of Business, and then also programs with inmates of San Francisco's county jail. Our students their range from eighteen to over sixty, and it's amazing how this idea and these concepts are resonant no matter your age and no matter your background.
Guy Kawasaki:
So just a sec, so pre-pandemic, were you actually going to the jail and doing the class there?
Naomi Bagdonas:
Yes.
Guy Kawasaki:
Wow. I once visited San Quentin with a bunch of bloggers. That was the scariest experience I ever had.
You turn the corner and you walk into this prison yard, and it's just like the movies. There's some people lifting weights, some people playing tennis, some people playing basketball, all segregated by race, and there's guards with rifles.
I was there with two bloggers who, let's just say, not exactly in prime physical condition, so I told them, "If they all turn and attack us, I don't have to outrun them I just have to outrun you two fat white boys and I'll be safe." So it was quite an experience.
Including your jail inmate students, it's easy for me, or anyone, to do research and figure out what you are trying to teach your students. But I'd be curious, what have you learned from your students?
Naomi Bagdonas:
Oh, it's such a good question. What we find is, what is really meaningful for students does seem to change pretty often. Over the last twenty years, which I've taught what matters, what's important to them, what really creates meaning and purpose, has really shifted pretty dramatically. So watching that and understanding that, absorbing that, has been a huge area of learning.
Jennifer Aaker:
I would add, my whole life I've been steeped in the world of comedy as well. So I worked as an executive coach and ran these workshops by day, and then I was doing improv comedy by night for ten years before I started doing this. What I found is for people who are really steeped in business and don't have access to those sort of comedy skills, our students are surprised at how accessible it is.
I'm constantly reminded how close breakthroughs can be of recognizing that humor is not that hard, recognizing that having more joy in our lives is not that hard, recognizing that there are just a couple of small behavioral shifts we can make that change everything about our lives. I'm constantly re-energized with that energy that brought me into the comedy world at the start of this by our students who are experiencing this for the first time.
Guy Kawasaki:
What is the meaning of happiness?
Jennifer Aaker:
Oh, it's such a good question. The meaning of happiness, it's very much based on this idea of what brings you pleasure. One set of studies that we recently ran was to ask people, one, "What is happiness for you?" And two, "What brings meaning in your life?"
We asked it in this very simple way. First, we said, on a scale of one to seven, "Are you happy right now?" And then we said, "What is happiness for you?" Then on a one to seven scale, "How meaningful is your life?" Also, "What's meaningful for you?"
The first set of findings that we had from this study is so interesting. First of all, happiness and meaning oftentimes go hand in hand, but they don't always. When you focus just on the people that say, "I have a lot of happiness and not a lot of meaning," and the people that have meaning but not happiness, you find that happiness is defined differently than meaning in a few ways.
One, people that rate themselves as really prioritizing happiness over meaning, they tend to be more self-oriented, they tend to really want to experience a lot of positive feelings and not a lot of negative feelings, and they tend to be focused on just how they're feeling right now. Meaningfulness individuals, they are much more other-oriented. They tend to want to feel good too, or feel pleasure, feel happy, but they also know that life is very much defined by anxiety, or fear, or anger, that there's value in these negative emotions. Finally, they're much more likely to anchor on the past, the present, and the future.
So as you think about happiness in that context, that really is defined as kind of pleasure, what you're feeling for yourself right now. Whereas meaning is much more about what you're creating for others, something that's more lasting, and something that might be associated with feeling both good, as well as bad.
Guy Kawasaki:
How does one's definition of happiness change over the course of life?
Jennifer Aaker:
Such a good question. If you think about yourself, when you are a teen, what brought you happiness, Guy?
Guy Kawasaki:
Cars and girls.
Jennifer Aaker:
Okay, and now ... And by the way, now, what brings you happiness? If you say cars and girls, that's just not going to work. You have to say something else.
Guy Kawasaki:
Cars and my wife.
Jennifer Aaker:
And surfing, and learning, and creating something-
Guy Kawasaki:
True.
Jennifer Aaker:
Quite remarkable so that others can learn.
Guy Kawasaki:
Oh, you mean I'm supposed to have meaning in my life?
Jennifer Aaker:
Exactly, and that's what we find when we ask people, "What is happiness for you?" When we asked this to teenagers, they basically say it's about excitement, cars, and maybe girls. Then when we ask them at their age twenty, they are more likely to say conquering the world. Power, money, or status, or the opportunity to get those things.
When we ask at age thirty, they're much more likely to say, balance, feeling more aligned across work and home and health. Then we ask around forty and fifty, they start saying meaning and impact in the world. How am I serving? Usually around sixty or seventy they start to say savoring. Just being in the moment, being content, feeling lucky, blessed, and grateful.
Guy Kawasaki:
What is the relationship between money and happiness or meaning?
Jennifer Aaker:
One way to think about that is when you are in your ... Let's say twenties. Or certain age times, you do ... There is a higher correlation between money, or the opportunity to have money, and happiness. But that fades over time. So we have research to show that over time people start to understand what actually creates meaning in their life - that's the surfing, the learning, the new podcast, et cetera, that allow you to connect to all these others I have such a remarkable contribution in their lives, that's what actually will drive lasting happiness.
So over time, people start to understand that having over and above a certain amount of money, someone pinpointed it at 75,000 per year in California. That was old research, so it's higher now. Over and above a certain base amount, it doesn't bring as much happiness in your life as you would think.
One set of studies that we really like, Naomi and I have a colleague, Mike Norton, with his colleagues, he asked people, "I'm going to give you five dollars, or I'm going to give you twenty dollars." He either said, "How are we going to spend it?" And later he asked people whether they were happy.
There was one tweak to this experiment, he either forced people to give the money to someone else, or themselves, spend it on themselves. Two things that were really interesting about this, one, the people that were the most happy, what condition do you think it would be? Twenty dollars for yourself, twenty dollars for others, or five dollars for self, five dollars for others? Out of those four, which one do you think created the most happiness?
Guy Kawasaki:
The optimist in me wants to say twenty dollars for others.
Jennifer Aaker:
It was, but also five dollars for others was just as important. What was interesting was that when people actually made the decision, 100% of them said, "I'd like to have twenty dollars more than five dollars, and I'd like to keep the money myself. I can decide to spend it on others if I want." So what was so fascinating is that what people decide to do with their money, have more of it and keep it, is not correlated with what it would actually create happiness, and people start to learn that over time.
Guy Kawasaki:
What is the effect when bad, or unfortunate, things happen on people who are trying to pursue either happiness alone or meaning?
Jennifer Aaker:
When bad things happen, we find that oftentimes in those contexts, the degree to which you can understand, and comprehend, and create meaning from it has a huge impact on not just your ability to adopt a growth mindset but also your ability to actually handle significant challenges in the future. So those individuals were something negative happens, but meaning is extracted from it, those individuals tend to have a higher level of lasting happiness overall.
So I'll give you a specific example. This is actually ... In my life, I got to know you, Guy, when Andy, my husband and I wrote this book called The Dragonfly Effect, around how do you make positive change in the world? The key story for that book was a story about Robert Chaatwani’s best friend, Samir Bhatia, who had leukemia, and didn't find a match in the bone marrow registry. So Robert, who was my student at the time, actually harnessed the power of social media and the power of story to fuel, or to basically drive people to go put themselves into the bone marrow registry. In the course of eleven weeks, right after my class, he actually got ... I think 25,000 people into the bone marrow registry, and in that time found a perfect match for Samir Bhatia.
We were so inspired by the story that Andy and I ended up writing this book called The Dragonfly Effect, launched off of that story. We decided it would be far more inspiring, versus just selling the book, to actually try and get 100,000 people in the bone marrow registry. So that's what we did that year.
We ended up working with seventeen different families who had children or parents that had leukemia and they wanted our help, and we would basically create these campaigns for them to try and get people in the bone marrow registry and find matches for their loved ones.
In that year, we lost sixteen out of the seventeen people we helped. I think I slept for two years. It was soul-crushing. We just weren't as effective as we had hoped to be. After sleeping for two years, I spent a lot of time thinking about what was the meaning of that process of spending a year in that way? And one of the things that came out of it is really understanding the power of humor and levity.
For one, the one person who actually survived has so much humor and levity around him, and his friends, and his network, that actually running drives created all of this momentum, and it was really fascinating and I spent a lot of time thinking about what is it about humor and levity, that allow people to get through hard times, so they can have a meaningful life but also be able to make progress on their goals. Watching him do that was incredibly inspiring, but it also actually led us to this very conversation, why Naomi and I started working on this work together on meaning as well as humor.
Guy Kawasaki:
I missed the nuance in that. So Samir got the right match after a few weeks using social media and crowdsourcing?
Jennifer Aaker:
Yes.
Guy Kawasaki:
But are you saying sixteen of the seventeen did not and failed to find a match and died?
Jennifer Aaker:
No, we actually found a lot of matches for them. But either it was too late and they died, or if we did find a match for them, sometimes people reneged, even if they ... If you found a match, the person wasn't willing necessarily to donate.
So yes, the answer is sixteen out of the seventeen people we worked with for that year died. So it's an example of something very personal to me, that was a very negative event in my life, or experience in my life but, after time, I tried to think about what was my learning from this, what was the meaning that came from it.
That's what we find when bad things happen to us - the degree to which it will actually end up being important in your life is how much meaning and learning can be extracted from that negative event.
Guy Kawasaki:
How does one find meaning in life?
Naomi Bagdonas:
One of the things that I was really grateful for in working with Jennifer through this work is understanding exactly that, how do we create meaning in life? And it's the reason that we've spent the last six years collaborating. Where that started was, as Jennifer's entire career is spent understanding meaning and how do we drive human wellbeing?
As it turns out one really powerful window into understanding meaning and lives, is to look at death. Through a body of research conducted by hospice workers, we have come to understand what it is that people wish for in their final days of life.
So these hospice workers interviewed people asking, "What is the thing that you would wish you had done differently?" Or, "What is the regret that you have?" What they found was five consistent themes, and those themes are boldness, authenticity, presence, joy, and love.
Now, what is powerful about what we have found, and the reason we decided to partner, is that humor actually mitigates all of these regrets that we deeply believe cultivating levity in our mindsets, cultivating joy in our day to day, helps us mitigate these.
So for example boldness, the regret was, "I wish that I had been less fearful of change and that I lived more boldly." Well, we know from the research that humor moves us through negative emotions more quickly. That it diffuses tension, allowing us to take bigger, bolder risks, and also strengthens our social connections. So when we do fail while taking on these big bold risks, we feel like we have a community there to support us.
Authenticity, "I wish I had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life that others had expected of me." We know that humor empowers us to share parts of ourselves that are risky and unconventional. When we're finding joy, we tend to care less about what other people think and we tend to do more of what we believe.
Presence, the wish that, "I wish I had appreciated the moment more. That I had lived less in my past or my future and just been present here today." We know that humor requires us to be fully present. There's something about seeking those moments of truth in every moment of our day that takes us away from our wiring towards the past or towards the present, and reminds us viscerally that every day, every moment as it unfolds, is our life. When we're finding humor, we're in that moment.
Joy is probably the most obvious one, but what's surprising about the regret around joy is the phrasing of, "I wish I had let myself be happier. I wish I hadn't taken things so seriously." What we teach in our course is not about being funny. It's about cultivating an environment where joy comes more easily in our lives. Where we talk about navigate your life on the precipice of a smile. Look for reasons to be delighted, to push you over the edge. When we do that, we have more joy in our lives.
Lastly, the last regret is love. The regret is, "I wish I had the chance to say I love you one more time." We talk about how there are few acts as easy and generous sharing a laugh with someone. We know that laughter can cut through tension and divisiveness and forge connection.
The last line in our book was actually by the author Michael Lewis, we interviewed him and he said, "Where there is humor, love isn't far behind." How I would answer that question of how do we find meaning in our life is really tied to humor, and that's really why Jennifer and I decided to partner on this six years ago, because this isn't just about jokes. It's not just about laughing. It's really about cultivating lives of greater meaning through having levity.
Guy Kawasaki:
Jennifer, you got an answer to that same question?
Jennifer Aaker:
Oh my goodness, I would not have said it any differently. I think that's-
Guy Kawasaki:
Okay.
Jennifer Aaker:
Exactly correct. I think that one thing that's interesting also is if you think about the stories that define your lives, those that are most meaningful. For me it was really these stories that my mom would share, but Naomi, I don't know if you want to share a little bit about your family stories that were most meaningful, and how levity made their way into those stories, which made them incredibly meaningful. That was what definitely bonded us, that exact question.
Guy Kawasaki:
We're going to segue, since you guys already did it, into humor now, okay? My first very basic question is, what makes people laugh?
Jennifer Aaker:
First of all, let me just say, the way that you think about these ideas, if we know that people who are anchored on meaning, versus just what brings them fleeting happiness, they end up having more lasting happiness in their lives. They end up having fewer regrets in their lives, but the question is, how do you, basically, have this thing, a fully meaningful life?
Sometimes it gets heavy, sometimes it gets dark. Certainly the personal story I shared about Robert and Samir, for me was incredibly dark. And so that's what I think illuminates the importance of humor, or not taking yourself so seriously.
In fact, people who say they have a sense of humor, live eight years longer than those who don't, and those are high-quality, funny years too, because you start to get funnier as you age, after seventy or so.
Not only that, but when your laughter really defines your life, you're more resistant to severe disease. There's research showing that individuals who, again, say they have a sense of humor, versus don't, and the bar is very low. So just any sense of humor, they tend to be thirty percent more resistant to severe disease if it strikes, which is incredibly relevant right now.
The way we talk a lot about it is that laughter is this fundamental melody of human conversation. So we laugh as a signal for approval, and warmth, and joy, and delight, but it's also one to defuse tension and discomfort. It's this tune that we all know, and when you hear it, you often can't help but sing along. So there's actually quite a bit of nuance in what makes people laugh. From a strictly comedic lens, we laugh when we experience this alchemy of truth and surprise.
So truth, that's where people think humor is inventing something from thin air but it's actually naming what is true in the moment. We often laugh because we think, "Oh, I felt bad," or, "I've seen people do that," or some sort of recognition, right? Then there's this surprise or misdirection, and laughter really springs from this unexpectedness when we think someone will zig and instead they ham sandwich. So that evolution-
Naomi Bagdonas:
Hey…
Jennifer Aaker:
Tickles our brains.
Guy Kawasaki:
I didn't get the reference to ham sandwich…
Jennifer Aaker:
Oh, well you're supposed to say when you think someone will zig, and then they - ham sandwich.
Naomi Bagdonas:
Totally random. Totally random.
Guy Kawasaki:
Oh, I see. That went right over my head!
Jennifer Aaker:
So the idea is you think that someone is going to say zig versus zag, but then they do something totally random and it creates that surprise. So that's the basis of humor, or that basis of truth and surprise.
Guy Kawasaki:
Should we try my story on Naomi?
Jennifer Aaker:
Do it!
Naomi Bagdonas:
Yes.
Guy Kawasaki:
You haven't prompted her?
Jennifer Aaker:
I didn't tell her.
Naomi Bagdonas:
I know nothing about this, I can't wait.
Guy Kawasaki:
Okay. Going back to the topic of meaning for a second. I'm sixty-six years old now, and if you look at what I'm doing right now, this podcast has really added meaning to my life. I feel like a moral obligation because I can get to people who are as remarkable as you, that I should document their wisdom so that other people can be more remarkable.
If you look at my podcasts, I've had truly remarkable people, NPR, Terry Gross, quality people. So I have Jane Goodall, Margaret Atwood, Arianna Huffington, Kristi Yamaguchi, Stephen Wolfram, Steven Pinker. I've had truly remarkable people in my podcast, and I, humble brag, I'd say my guess is as good as anybody's on NPR, okay?
So the other night I was telling my wife, "In your wildest dreams did you ever think that I could have a podcast with Jane Goodall, Margaret Atwood, Kristi Yamaguchi?" Just go down the line of all these famous people. “Steve Wozniak, et cetera, et cetera,” and my wife said to me, "You know, honey? You're not in my wildest dreams."
Naomi Bagdonas:
Oh, it's both comedic and so sad. Oh my God.
Guy Kawasaki:
That's misdirection.
Jennifer Aaker:
Absolutely.
Naomi Bagdonas:
It is, it's misdirection. It's other deprecation, different than self-deprecation. I wonder if your wife's humor style is a sniper because snipers ... I'm curious. Okay, so there's this style of humor that builds intimacy and love through teasing. So Guy, is teasing a core part of humor in your relationship?
Guy Kawasaki:
The answer to that is yes. To be completely transparent, I think I heard that story from an elder at a church in Menlo Park. He stood up and he said something along those lines, different circumstance and he said, "Yeah, so I told my wife, can you believe that I," whatever, and she said, "Honey, you're not in my wildest dreams." I heard that story, and I thought that was such a great story that I adopted it to my speeches. So now I use it.
When I speak at a particularly prestigious event, like some Gartner Group, all CEOs, entrepreneur's organization, YPO, something like that. Truly, truly, top-notch people. I open up with that story, and it has never failed to get a laugh. So my wife actually did not ever say that.
Naomi Bagdonas:
Okay, I love the story anyways, and you're illustrating these two principles that Jennifer talked about, which is truth and misdirection. We often think that humor is hard. We think of humor as inventing something from thin air, and it's actually just saying something that feels a little bit true.
People hear that and they're, "Yeah, that makes sense. Would my wildest dreams really include my partner? Maybe not. My wildest dreams?” And misdirection, obviously, it's a heartfelt tale, it feels like you're going in a direction of sincerity, and you flip by saying, "You're not in my wildest dreams." So there you go. It's picture perfect. Just so you know, Jennifer and I now in all of our talks are going to start to tell that story.
Guy Kawasaki:
I just want credit after you tell the story because I credit the person that I ripped it off from, and one of the things that I learned from Steve Jobs is you have to know what to steal. Just being a thief is not good enough, you have to have good taste. So Steve Jobs could have gone to Xerox PARC and stolen the idea for three prong outlets, instead he stole the idea for the Macintosh user interface, you got to know what to steal.
Why do you say that humor is a serious business?
Jennifer Aaker:
So one reason is that it just impacts the bottom line. Basically re-orienting toward leading with humor is a fundamentally profitable enterprise that's under-appreciated, not used, and I think misunderstood. One study found that adding a simple, mildly funny line at the end of a sales pitch increased customers' willingness to pay by eighteen percent. Again, the bar is so low that it doesn't even have to be that funny, just mildly funny. Like your wife story, that was good. The bar is low.
Another set of studies found that leaders with a sense of humor at work are seen as twenty percent more motivating and admired, and their employees are fifteen percent more satisfied in their jobs. So part of this is that shared laughter, whether it be in a remote setting, or an actual setting, it accelerates the feeling of closeness and trust.
There's another study where it shows that when pairs of strangers laugh together for five minutes before completing a self-disclosure exercise, their interactions are rated as thirty percent more intimate or closer. So that it cultivates trust at a moment in time where trust is really hard to come by, especially within business settings, given the context we're working in right now. We really think of it as, what is the ROI in investing in humor or levity? And it's an under-invested asset.
Naomi Bagdonas:
I would say humor works with business people because business people are people. Fundamentally, humor changes our brain chemistry. So we are hardwired to react to humor and laughter. Jennifer said it earlier, that laughter is a fundamental melody of human conversation.
We all recognize it. We all get on the same page when we laugh together. And so when we laugh, and let's talk about the brain science for a second, when we laugh, our brains release this cocktail of healthy hormones. We release dopamine, endorphins, oxytocin, we lower our cortisol levels.
These hormones change not just how we feel, more confident, more relaxed, more creative, more able to access higher-order thinking, but also how others perceive us. So others perceive us as higher in status, as more trustworthy, as more likable.
Our research shows this humor cliff. That when we hit age twenty-three, we go to work and we all stop laughing, but we also find that on Monday through Friday, we're not laughing, and on the weekends, we are. So part of what this body of work is trying to do is say, “You already have the secrets to being more joyful and more successful at work with humor, just bring more of what you're doing on the weekends, more of your true, authentic, joyful self into work.” As Jennifer mentioned, the ROI is actually significant.
Guy Kawasaki:
So who should we look at as good examples of humor in business?
Jennifer Aaker:
We are so lucky we are able to bring out these incredible leaders into our class, like Sara Blakely, and Leslie Blodgett, Dick Costolo. It's been a total joy to see how they actually use humor. So I’ll give you a couple of examples.
One, Sara Blakely, she has not only trained in stand up and improv, but she's actually really put it to work in her teams and at the organization, not to mention in her family. One great anecdote about her, when she was trying to launch Spanx, she's the CEO and founder, she was trying to get, basically, stores to adopt her product, which is weird, it sounded weird, it was a weird product. So it was very hard to start.
She shipped a shoe to a buyer at Neiman Marcus, with a handwritten note thing, "Just trying to get my foot in the door." Again, the humor doesn't have to be necessarily great, it just has to be differentiated enough for you to be able to take note, to actually read that note.
A second of our ... Actually who's the CEO Ambassador of our class, Leslie Blodgett, she's a best-selling author and the former CEO and founder of Bare Minerals, a beauty company that she took public in 2006. It was really based on this incredibly strong consumer community, but in 2009 the business slowed, because when the recession hit, everything slowed. She really felt, "I want to help women feel beautiful, even when the economy is ugly."
She just is very authentic. She just decided to take out this full-page ad in The Times. No PR, no branding firm, she wrote it all herself. Literally she wrote it out with grammatical errors and all. She started, "The advertising experts tell us that people don't read lots of copy. I really hope not, because this cost a fortune." Then, in this little ad, she talked about products, and loving the customers, and she ended up saying, "Thanks for reading this long thing. My husband was convinced you wouldn't read this far, and he's not even an ad exec. If you're ever in San Francisco, maybe we can chat over a cup of coffee. I'm not kidding. Call her main office at, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and then, generally, Hilda answers the phone. Lots of love, Leslie, XO."
Jennifer Aaker:
So this ad was unexpected, and vulnerable, and real, and funny. It was not a stunt. So what was interesting is, A, sales skyrocketed, but more importantly, Hilda, who sat at the office where everyone passing by could hear these incredulous calls where she said, "Yes, that number is real, and yes, they could really schedule a coffee date with Leslie."
It just bonded the whole team. It made it so that it was this living and public example of their values. The closeness made everyone within Bare feel stronger.
Leslie also did have a ton of coffee that year, but it's basically, it illuminates that humor can be a superpower but used in an authentic way, that's where you get really, the actual ad. We also spotlight an Apple story in our book as well. So what we found is in cultures where there is an intensity that, especially within creative units, there's even more power in humor to defuse tension, and that unlocks much different behavior.
Naomi Bagdonas:
So this was actually ... This was Hiroki Asahi’s team when he was running creative and marketing for a while, alongside Steve Jobs. He talked about how fear is the greatest killer of creativity, and that humor is one of the most powerful insulators a culture has from fear. He took humor really seriously, especially in his org's all hands meetings. In every all hands meeting, he would plan for months, some spectacular, weird, off the walls moment that would accomplish a really simple thing - getting all 2,000 people to laugh at the same time.
One example is, he found out that one of his junior employees in the group did gospel singing on the weekends, and no one had any idea. This incredible, junior designer who was pretty quiet. So he concocted this plan where the all hands meeting, he said, "And Anne, I want to bring Anne up onto stage real quick just to share something that she's working on." Right? So everyone's looking around going, "Why is this really junior designer going to share what she's working on?"
So she gets up on the stage and she grabs the microphone, and then the curtains come back and all of a sudden there's a flash mob gospel choir that emerges from behind her and comes out from the audience, and they're singing this huge song that's a parody about Apple, and everyone is just burst out laughing and there's this electricity, right? That's going through everyone, and this humor, that is messaging to everyone, not by saying it but by having people feel it, that we are here to do serious things but we're also here to play, and we're here to celebrate each other's unique talents, and each other's sense of fun and levity.
We could tell, I mean there are ten stories of every all hands right from everyone dressing in Blue Man Group attire and doing a performance, to these crazy videos that they created. He chose, very carefully, a moment that would get everyone laughing.
Guy Kawasaki:
I would make the case that his actions were particularly impactful because of the juxtaposition between him and Steve, and you can say many great things about Steve, but I don't think many people would say he was a fun and funny guy.
Naomi Bagdonas:
Right.
Guy Kawasaki:
He had a sense of humor, don't get me wrong, but he would never do something like that, in my humble opinion. So the juxtaposition makes it even stronger, and a pressure relief system. Do you have any ... Either of you have any political leaders that you would hold up as particularly humorous?
Jennifer Aaker:
Definitely. One of our favorite stories in the book is by Secretary Madeleine Albright, and Secretary Albright, she would be negotiating in high-stakes situations. For example, negotiating with Russians. There was one story that she shared with us, and also the class, where after a particularly tense meeting she ended up actually proposing and participating in an actual musical called East West Story.
It was this really kind of remarkable thing about how she would be able to take a moment in time that seemed tense, and literally flip it or convert it. Another thing she would do is she would wear pins on her suit, and people would oftentimes say, "Why are you wearing a pin?" And it was often to defuse tension.
So for example, there's one story where she shared where she had gone into a meeting where someone had called her a “snake” before the meeting. So she had this brooch which was an actual snake. It created this sort of moment to laugh together where the individual she was working with, she could kind of say, "I know what you said about me, I'm not going to take it too seriously, and we're going to laugh about this."
What it did for her is it created a moment where people started interacting with her as a human, not Secretary Madeleine Albright, but actually as a person. A lot of times, these things aren't about, as Naomi said, not about jokes or being funny, they're actually more about coming off as a human and allowing people to relate to you in a very different way.
Guy Kawasaki:
Meanwhile, Europe tells Mike Pompeo to stay home. It's the antithesis of Madeleine Albright.
Jennifer Aaker:
Oh, I have another really favorite one that you guys would like. I don't know if Naomi will remember this, we used to do this a long time ago, but do you remember, Naomi, how Ronald Reagan would have a list of jokes that he would keep with him at all points in time? The reason this is so powerful is that ...
Guy, you refer to this story earlier on where your wife supposedly said something about never thinking about you and her dreams. That works every single time, and Ronald Reagan noticed this as well.
So he just basically wrote down these signature stories that always got a laugh, he would keep the little list of these stories or jokes in ... Literally, just written down in his pocket. He would update it over time when he noticed other people laugh at a new story. He had this evergreen list of laugh lines that he could always whip out.
That very tactical thing that he did, any leader can do. You do it, naturally, but that idea of just writing down what are those stories that do get laughs, and why, and just keeping a running list of that tends to be incredibly useful.
Guy Kawasaki:
As an ad side, as opposed to aside - get it? Can I tell you that the Remarkable People podcast is sponsored by the reMarkable Tablet Company? I think that if Ronald Reagan were alive, he would be using a reMarkable tablet to write down funny stories. It's a single purpose device that will help you focus on taking notes. It has the feel of a pencil, and the battery life of no other device that you have.
Guy Kawasaki:
Naomi, I have to apologize. I've been pronouncing your name Nohemi, Naomi, No Emmy. My daughter's name is Nohemi, N O H E M I, and I'm so used to pronouncing her name that I now cannot pronounce Naomi without thinking, "How do you pronounce that?" People have butchered my daughter's name in so many ways. Noami, Nohami, Nohemi, I mean, you name it. So now when I introduce her to people, I asked them, "Have you heard of Susan Lucci?" And most people say, "Yes, the soap opera star." Then I say, "Yeah, and Susan Lucci has been nominated for the Emmys about eight times, and so she has no Emmys, and that's how you pronounce my daughter's name."
Jennifer Aaker:
Oh my god.
Naomi Bagdonas:
Wow! I need something like that. That's bold, and I love it. The one that I use is ... Because my last name is Bagdonas, that's Lithuanian, thank you, and I always tell people "If you want to make an office really happy bring them, not just a box of doughnuts, but a bag of doughnuts, and that's how you pronounce my last name, Bagdonas." I love “No Emmy.”
Guy Kawasaki:
Yeah. All right, okay. So Nohemi, No Emmy, Naomi, let's say that somebody's listening to this and they buy into this theory of the power of humor in business and they're saying, "Okay, so I buy it. I believe. I've heard you could carry a list of sure fire lines. I hear you can break out into song with a flash mob of opera or whatever, how do I ... Tell me some tactical things. How do I put this into action now that you've convinced me?"
Naomi Bagdonas:
I would say the first place to start is with truth, and this is really ... It is debunking this myth that makes humor seem so scary, which is that I have to be funny. The reality is you have to be truthful and bake in a little bit of surprise. So truth and surprise is the winning code here.
I'll give an example. So Connor Diemand-Yauman is our co-lecturer at Stanford and he also is the CEO of a large nonprofit called Merit America. He's a serial entrepreneur, he's been the CEO of multiple companies, but he was joining Merit America as their Co-CEO a couple of months ago.
As you might imagine, it is a challenging time to be stepping into a leadership role in a new organization, and trying to build that trust and sense of leadership amidst some really challenging times for this nonprofit. So he's on his first Zoom call with the entire organization and he gives his spiel that he's going to give, and he's got his screen shared on Zoom, and then he passes the mic over to his Co-CEO to start talking. Well, when he does that, he leaves his screen share on, and he closes his presentation, everyone in the organization can see his desktop, he opens a Chrome browser. I mean everyone's breath is being held as they're thinking, "What is this poor guy about to do that we all can see?"
So Connor, he goes into his Chrome browser, he types in Google.com, and then he types in, "Things inspirational CEOs say during hard times." Everyone loses it! And his Co-CEO, who's in on, this pretends not to notice. Connor says, "Actually, Rebecca, I have a few more things to say, do you mind if I just-" And she's, "Oh, sure." So he proceeds to read verbatim for what comes up in Google. So everyone's just laughing and laughing, but it's this moment, right, of truth. It's truth and vulnerability. He's signaling, "I really want to be there for you. I want to be inspiring and supportive, and I don't quite know how." And it was also very carefully planned.
It was a moment that he wanted to signal to his organization, and of course there was surprise baked in there. So it's not necessarily a recipe for people, but the technique, the tip that I would say is, don't think about what's funny, think about what's true for you, and think about communicating that in a way that is surprising or with some misdirection.
Jennifer Aaker:
Yeah, I also think using these simple techniques from comedians. So we have this incredible - chapter Three, chapter full of all of these tips. So first is simply, for example, observe.
So as Naomi was talking about humor isn't really about inventing the perfect one liner from thin air, it's just noticing what's true. So one thing we find is just write down five observations from the day. Simple things like how excited your dog is at dinner time, or how you take a walk around the block every afternoon to break up the day, and then, add some simple techniques like contrast, exaggeration, or the rule of three.
So for example, you might say, "The best part of my day is when I take a break from Zoom calls, get dressed to the nines, and take a walk around the block just to feel something." I know, just to feel something. I feel that right now. Then I feel, no, that's not a commentary on you, Guy.
By the way, Guy, you can steal that Connor joke that we just said, if we hear ... If you want to do the Googling of inspirational leaders, just give Connor credit for it, he'll be good.
Naomi Bagdonas:
Yeah, but give us credit in the interim, just how we're going say, "Guy Kawasaki stole this from someone else and we're stealing it from him." We’ll keep these things going.
Guy Kawasaki:
Okay.
Naomi Bagdonas:
Or another example might be, "I miss all those subtle things that make office life, like hallway conversations, supportive eye contact in meetings, pants, wearing pants." So this idea of this rule of three where you take that last item, and you make it a surprise, and you exaggerate it. These very simple techniques are incredibly easy to do.
Guy Kawasaki:
Do you think, based on your scholarly work in humor, that a sense of humor is correlated, and maybe even causative, with intelligence? In other words, can dumb people be funny?
Naomi Bagdonas:
Everyone can be funny, but is positively correlated. Having a sense of humor, both the ability to generate humor and the ability to appreciate it, has been found to correlate with measures of intelligence.
So for example, in one study researchers had participants craft humorous replies to ridiculous questions, "If you could experience what it's like to be a different kind of animal for a day-" And Guy, I have a feeling I know what you would say, "What kind of animal would you not want to be and why?" As well as, "Draw the funniest, most amusing looking depiction of each animal that you can."
A set of anonymous judges in the study then rated these pictures and stories on their humor. People whose submissions were rated as the funniest also score the highest on an earlier, general intelligence test. Now what's hard to kind of unpack, is there any sort of causation between these types of constructs, that's not at all clear, but there is some evidence of correlation.
Guy Kawasaki:
What's the best story you heard about not being a kind of animal?
Jennifer Aaker:
What's the best story we've heard?
Naomi Bagdonas:
We actually reached out to them to get these drawings. We literally reached out to the researchers and they didn't have them anymore. So we didn't get to see any of the pictures!
Jennifer Aaker:
But I think what's really interesting also, Guy, is as you start to think about how do you actually develop a sense of humor, because a sense of humor is really like a muscle. At the end of each day for one week, just write down three funny things. That starts to help.
Write down things that you notice about truth in the day to day. When you do that, studies show that people report fewer instances of depression, and less stress, and more control in their lives. The other thing that really unlocks things for our students is on day one of class, they actually take a humor quiz. So people go into the class thinking, "I'm either funny or not,” but the reality is, is that there's all sorts of types of humor styles.
Naomi and I have run studies for the last six years or so, showing that people tend to fall into these four broad humor styles. One is the stand up, and these are bold, natural entertainers who aren't afraid to cross the line and ruffle a few feathers for a good laugh. They build intimacy through teasing, and we'll often hear stand ups say, "If I'm making fun of you, it's a sign I like you."
Then there's - and we're going ask you what you are, Guy, at the end. Next is the sweethearts, they're more subtle and affiliative, and so their humor often uplifts others. It's not so much teasing or poking fun, they tend to be earnest, and honest, and understated. So you have to listen closely when a sweetheart is in the room.
Then there's snipers, and they're edgy, and sarcastic, and nuanced. They pick their moments carefully and joke more often to make a point than to lift people up or tear them down. So they don't really seek the spotlight, but they also won't hesitate to cross the line for a laugh.
Then there's magnets, and they're affiliative and expressive, that big personality who gets everyone laughing in this kind of positive way together, and they're outgoing, and they keep things warm and uplifting, avoiding controversial humor while radiating charisma. Guy, what would you say are your two primary humor styles?
Guy Kawasaki:
So they were ... Wait, the four were sniper-
Jennifer Aaker:
Uh-huh. The stand up, the sweetheart, the sniper, and the magnet.
Guy Kawasaki:
I am a combination of sniper and sweetheart. I would say the more I like you, the more sniping I am. I have to give you a caveat, I love to snipe at irony or hypocrisy.
So for example, I'll give you a snipe. I listened to Jim Jordan talk about voting against the impeachment. The hypocrisy of him saying, "Now is the time for us to come together as a country," is so hypocritical that I cannot resist sniping that. That's an example of the kind of humor that I love.
Jennifer Aaker:
Humor is this really wildly powerful tool to illuminate incongruity in the world, and snipers are particular artists at taking an incongruity, right? They're sort of ... Their form of humor is more sort of intellectual. They'll look at something they'll say, "Hold on, there's something backwards ... There's misdirection and surprise built in, so all I need to do is surface that thing, and that's humor in itself."
Guy Kawasaki:
That's me.
Jennifer Aaker:
Great!
Guy Kawasaki:
Unless the two of you are going to tell me that I'm something else. Would be good to know.
Jennifer Aaker:
Oh, that's a good thing. I would have also imagined that you score high on magnet because, for example, if you listen to your podcast, ninety percent of the time in your podcast you start with laughter, actually. Ninety percent!
A lot of times we find magnets do that as well, because they tend to be more extroverted, and they use laughter and humor to build these bonds, which you have to do when you're meeting new people, or revealing key insights, but sniper and sweetheart makes sense too. By the way, you can go to HumorSeriously.com to take this quiz if you aren't entirely sure what you are.
Guy Kawasaki:
Okay, that's good to know. I would argue that is more valuable than the Myers-Briggs.
Jennifer Aaker:
We would agree.
Naomi Bagdonas:
I could cry at that sentence! I agree.
Guy Kawasaki:
Okay, we should just end the podcast right here then. I like to bring my guest to tears.
Jennifer Aaker:
Please don't! That was so good.
Guy Kawasaki:
You're not off the hook yet. What happens in business if you try to be funny and bomb?
Jennifer Aaker:
Oh, shoot. Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry. We were supposed to be with Adam at 2:00. Yes, so sorry. We're late again, I'm going to pop on ... But we can do more later, too, if you want.
Guy Kawasaki:
Can we divide and conquer? You go to Adam and I'll stick with Naomi?
Naomi Bagdonas:
“No Emmy.” You can call me No Emmy.
Jennifer Aaker:
That sounds good.
Guy Kawasaki:
Okay. Bye, Jennifer.
Naomi Bagdonas:
Bye, Jennifer. I love No Emmy.
Guy Kawasaki:
Susan Lucci will be proud. So what happens if you try to be funny and bomb?
Naomi Bagdonas:
Well, there are a couple different types of bombing. Your reaction is dependent on what type of bomb you make. So there's the benign - you said something and you just got crickets because it didn't quite land, but it was completely benign.
Guy Kawasaki:
Okay.
Naomi Bagdonas:
In that case, we actually advise from a comedic angle to double down. So you make a joke, it doesn't land, and you say something like, "Well, that one didn't really go well." Or, "Thanks, I'll be here all day." Or something like that, and even the acknowledgement, diffusing that tension of the fact that it didn't work, will often get a laugh.
Now the other kind of failure is more dangerous, of course, and that is if you offend someone, if you ruffle feathers, if you say something that sort of crosses a line. What we talk about here is when you fail in that way, first of all the answer, immediately, is to genuinely apologize, but also to figure out why it was that you crossed the line.
When we fail with humor, there's this tendency to say, "Oh well, they didn't get it." Right? "It's something about them. It's not about my humor. They didn't get the joke,” or “they can't take a joke." The reality is humor is one of the most uniquely context dependent forms of communication and we simply don't know what other people's contexts are.
We talk about instead of thinking that it's their fault, get really curious. Lean in and understand what was it that you said that offended? How did you offend? Could you have said something differently? The reason this is so important for leaders in particular is, as we rise in status, we lose our calibration of what's funny. We lose our calibration because laughter is intrinsically tied to status.
So researchers have run these studies where they have someone tell an objectively lame joke, just a super lame joke, and they have two conditions. In one condition, they tell research participants that this person is a really high-status person - an important person in the organization and they're here to give a presentation. They tell the lame joke; the room erupts in laughter.
They do the exact same experiment but they say this is a person pretty junior in the organization, they're giving a presentation, exact same joke… crickets. So this tells us something really important, which is that as we rise in status we can no longer take laughter to mean that we're funny. In those moments when we fail, when we offend, we got to get really curious about it and really try and understand what is it that we've failed that so that we don't step on landmines later.
There are so many really nuanced aspects of status that are deeply woven into our psyche that we aren't even aware of, and humor, because it is so tied to status, it illuminates some of the discomfort around what's actually going on status-wise in other aspects of our lives. So we talked to a CEO, a very powerful male CEO, who used to have another member of his team join his all hands and have banter with him on stage, and really make fun of him, right? This was totally appropriate. The organization loved it, because it showed that this guy could take a joke, that he could take a punch, and he had a great sense of humor about it.
By the way, the employee that he brought up who he was good friends with, also happened to be a woman. So it was this way of showing there is, unfortunately, there is an inherent power structure there as well.
Now that woman then went to become a senior leader in another organization, and she wanted to use that same tactic. So she took a couple members of her product team and she said, "I want you to come on stage with me and I want you to make fun of me to show that I don't take myself too seriously." Not a single person would do it.
They were all male, and they said, "There's no way I'm going to get on stage, and I'm going to make fun of you publicly." In that juxtaposition lies a really important element of status that's uncomfortable to talk about.
We are okay with women making fun of men because men are the higher status gender. We are not okay with men making fun of women because women are the lower status gender. I'm not talking about what I believe, I'm talking about the way that we have been conditioned for hundreds of thousands of years.
There's this concept in comedy of never punch down. You never want to make the target of your joke someone of lower status than you, and that's exactly what those product designers were feeling. They were, "Wait a minute, something doesn't feel right about this. I don't know if I'm comfortable making fun of my female boss."
If you look at SNL, if you watch SNL episodes ten years ago, twenty years ago, humor is such a mirror to culture, that it reflects the deeply held cultural beliefs, what feels normal during that time. What we also know about humor is it isn't just a reflection of society, but it shapes it.
Guy Kawasaki:
Naomi, Nohemi, No Emmy, whatever your name is, Bag of Doughnuts, thank you. Somebody's going to say, "I was offended by you calling her a bag of doughnuts."
Naomi Bagdonas:
"Women have enough pressure on their image."
Guy Kawasaki:
Thank you very much. Have a great weekend, and I hope when I end the recording-
Naomi Bagdonas:
Thank you so much, Guy.
Guy Kawasaki:
We captured it all.
Naomi Bagdonas:
I hope so too. Thank you so much, Guy, it was a delight.

Guy Kawasaki:
I hope you learn why it's an effective ploy to send Neiman Marcus one shoe. I hope you learned a great story to open any speech, and I hope you learned how to be funny by telling the truth.
Let me tell you a story. About twenty years ago, my family was living in San Francisco on Union Street, just where Union Street dead ends into the Presidio. It's a very nice part of San Francisco. So one day, I'm outside and I'm trimming the bougainvilleas, and an older white woman comes up to me and says, "Do you do lawns also?" And I said to her, "Because I'm Japanese-American, you think I'm the yard man, right? But I own this place." She says, "No, no, not at all. You're just doing such a great job with the bougainvilleas, I wanted to know if you do lawns."
A couple weeks later, my father visits me from Hawaii. He's second-generation Japanese-American, I'm third generation Japanese-American. I fully expect him to just go off on this situation. How dare that woman ask you that question. You went to Stanford. You work for Apple. You've written books. But to my utter surprise, he says to me, "Son, on Union Street, in San Francisco, a Japanese guy trimming a hedge, statistically, mathematically, most likely you were the yard man, so get over it."
I'm Guy Kawasaki, yard man and podcaster. You've been listening to the Remarkable People podcast.
My thanks to Jeff Seih and Peg Fitzpatrick, I would be happy to do their lawns, because they do such a great job of making this podcast remarkable. Please wash your hands, don't go into crowded places, wear a mask, and get vaccinated. Mahalo and aloha.

This is Remarkable People.