A friend told me she was very glum after her husband died. She was burned out, having thrown herself totally into the relationship and had nothing left to give to herself.
“I didn’t know what to do with myself,” she recalled. “I had spoken to my therapist and asked her if that is what I had been doing all my life, and she said yes. I was really in the pits. I felt like giving up, and seriously considered suicide. Then the phone rang. I picked up the receiver, and I suddenly burst out laughing, because I had this vision of myself lying in a coffin, the phone rings, and I say, `Just a minute, I can’t die yet. I have to answer the phone.’
There are embarrassing moments in business that may be tough to live down, especially if you’re a banking rep. A networking associate shared this story about a former colleague: “An associate of mine went out to see a client after taking over the banking relationship for the company, and her first meeting was with the CFO. The CFO was taking her on a tour of the corporate offices and he said to her, ‘Cheryl, I need to show you the president’s office because it’s so elegant, comfortable, and has many amenities.’ She said, ‘Well, maybe we shouldn’t disturb him.’ The CFO replied, ‘It’s no problem. He’s not in yet.’
In our time, the person most responsible for introducing humor’s healing power to the mainstream is Norman Cousins. The former editor of the Saturday Review and a UCLA professor, Cousins was diagnosed with a collagen disease that had never been cured before. The doctors gave him only six months to live. Rather than succumb to a state of gloom and resignation, he resolved to live gleefully in what appeared to be the abbreviated remainder of his life. At his request, people brought to his bedside funny books, tapes, cartoons, gag gifts, and anything that might provoke laughter. After just a few weeks of devouring a steady diet of comedy (with no other dietary or medicinal changes), his disease went into remission! And his sense of humor became a bit skewed.
Richard Cronin, a management consultant, once surveyed 737 company executives regarding the humor factor in good employees. He found that 97% agreed that a sense of humor is a determining factor in hiring personnel, and 60% felt that a sense of humor can be a key element that influences how successful a person is in the business world. In another survey conducted by Burke Marketing Research, 84% of the personnel directors who were interviewed said that employees with a sense of humor do better work.
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