I’m teaching a workshop on Friday called ‘Because Laughing Matters‘ at the Every Woman conference in Whistler, British Columbia.  This is a topic dear to my heart.  And if it’s not dear to your heart it should be because:

• humour is strategic, it primes the brain for learning – when we’re laughing we’re using the most sophisticated part of our brain, the same part of our brain we use for critical analysis, creativity and innovation

• employers need help acknowledging how strategic humour can be – according to Chuck Hamilton of IBM it was only 40 years ago that the Ford company fired an assembly line worker for laughing on the job

• great leaders enable their staff to laugh on average 3 times more than average leaders (from Daniel Pink’s Whole New Mind)

• the ancient Greeks were onto something – they built their hospitals next to their theatres because they realized patients who were convalescing got better faster if they watched comedies

• it’s universal and a universal one at that bridge – we all laugh, in fact it’s one of the first things we do – we learn to laugh before we learn to walk or talk

• suffering is optional – if we feel threatened or unsafe or uncomfortable we get busy downshifting to the most ancient part of the brain, the part we have in common with reptiles.   It’s what Seth Godin calls our lizard brain. Ain’t no learning happening then (unless you call getting ready to fight or flee learning).

Please join me at the conference and we’ll laugh together.  Because laughing matters.

If you can’t join us then I invite you to find a reason or two to laugh that day.

After all, if it’s good enough for Buddha it’s good enough for me.