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Paul Osincup
I remember meeting with a Master of Fine Art students, she was getting her master’s degree. And she was in my office because she had forged a faculty parking permit, and got caught. And she had been using it all year, she got caught, she got sent to my office, and she was so embarrassed and remorseful and couldn’t believe, you know, that she had put herself in this position just to get better parking. And at some point during our meeting, I said, you know, can I be very frank with you very honest with you? And she’s like, yes, yeah. And I said, this is terrible artwork. Because I held up her parking pass, I was like, you know, you’re a Master of Fine Arts dude, you could even forge the thing, right? Like, seeing some of the anxiety and fear just leave her body in that moment, as she let out a little laugh was incredible. So, you know, I started noticing moments like this in my work, and realizing man, there’s a lot of power in humor in what we do and how we communicate. So I began to just geek out about it and get really into it, research it. And I’ve been researching the impact of applied humor for 15 years or so. And that kind of led me to then go speak about it and how people can can harness the power of humor in various parts of their lives.

Keith Edwards
Hello, and welcome to Student Affairs NOW I’m your host Keith Edwards. Today I’m joined by comedian, keynote speaker and recovering student affairs professional and new author of the Humor Habit, Paul Osincup. Paul talks with college students, caregivers of all kinds and corporate and nonprofit leaders about how humor can be a tool to address burnout, increased effectiveness and improve your leadership and well being. I think I’ve known Paul for 20 years. That should be fun, I promise. Student Affairs NOW is the premier podcasts and online learning community for 1000s of us who work in alongside or adjacent to the field of higher education and student affairs. We release new episodes every week. On Wednesdays find details about this episode are browser archives at studentaffairsnow.com. This episode is sponsored by Huron, a global professional services firm that collaborates with clients to put possible into practice. This episode is also sponsored by Routledge, Taylor and Francis view their complete catalogue of educational titles at routledge.com/education. As I mentioned, I’m your host, Keith Edwards, my pronouns are he him his. I’m a speaker, author and coach, helping hired leaders Empower transformation for a better tomorrow, particularly around leadership, learning and equity. Find out more about me, keithedwards.com. And I’m recording this from my home in Minneapolis, Minnesota, at the intersections of the current and ancestral homelands about the Dakota, in the Ojibwe peoples. Paul, I’m so glad you’re here. We’ve known each other since your time at UNC and Colorado State. And our wives have been best friends for like 30 years. And so we bump into each other in all sorts of circles. So I’m so glad you’re here. Why don’t you tell people a little bit about yourself?

Paul Osincup
Yeah, well, you’ve mentioned that Yeah, I kind of grew up in student affairs. And so originally from Colorado, and I just knew I wanted to be a teacher, I went to the University of Northern Colorado, and like many who got into Student Affairs, my it honestly was, I’m going to need to pay for tuition. And I heard being an RA could pay the bills, right? I didn’t know that that was going to ignite something in me being an RA. And from there, you know, growing up in housing and working as an assistant director of residence live or to Area Coordinator, residence director moved up into the field of Student Conduct. And just really loved working with students who were kind of at risk making mistakes, and helping them turn their lives around a little bit. And so that’s a little bit about my my student affairs journey. The other thing that I did a lot of that I really enjoyed was working with conflict resolution and restorative justice practices at Colorado State University. Got to do a lot of that with a great team there and but on the side, I kind of live this double life, like I have this serious job. I’m working with students like adjudicating very serious conduct cases. But I also have always loved comedy and humor. And I was doing stand up and improv on the side of my serious job and, and so I’ve always kind of had this, this penchant for that stuff.

Keith Edwards
Wow. All right. All right. Well,

Paul Osincup
I figured this is a higher ed crowd. I have to I have to sound smarter than I am right now.

Keith Edwards
We got it. We got to turn the intellectual rigor up. Gives you extra bonus points. Fantastic. Well, you tell us a little bit about your student affairs background. And you left that life full time still a student affairs person at heart, but left that and started doing some keynote speaking and some work around bullying. And that led to more things. And now you’ve you’ve written this book, tell us about the journey about from from conduct adjudication to the author of the humor habit?

Paul Osincup
Yeah, well, so working in student affairs, I would notice there were times where humor would impact you know, whether it’s me goofing around with my team, having fun with my team, you know, joking around, I realized, wow, in a leadership position. There’s something about that draws people to me, I could tell that that works for me. Even in in student interactions in situations like I remember one time I was meeting with this one student I had already met with him before for getting in trouble for something and I remember our meeting did not go well. He was really upset. He left storming out and cussing under his breath while he was back and this time he was in more More trouble. And this time he was with his mom and his attorney. And I remember I was prepping for that meeting in my office and I was a little bit nervous for that meeting. And right before going out to the lobby to get him, I spilled like a huge 32 ounce Dr. Pepper on my lap, like just directly front and center on my lap down my pants, and I’m like, Oh, my God. And so I didn’t have a spare pair of pants, and I didn’t have time to thoroughly dry them. So I’m like, you know, what, what are my options? You know, do I walk out there? Like holding something over? Like, hello, okay, you know? Or do I just go have them come into the room where we’re going to meet while I’m already sitting there. That’s awkward. So I just walked out there and called his name and said, Hey, everyone, you know, I hope your day is starting off better than mine. And I kind of looked down at my pants. And the student just quietly looks up and looks up at me and goes, I told you to see a doctor about that. What’s great is there were like, six or eight other people in the lobby, and everyone started laughing. Everyone was laughing except his mom who like slapped him on the knee, like, knowing. But moments like that, that I realized, like, I didn’t even do anything funny that what didn’t require me being funny. It required me as a person in a position of authority, carrying myself lightly and not taking myself too seriously. And, and kind of offering that to him. And in return. He took that moment to offer what was, you know? Like our meeting went way better that that next meeting, and maybe there were some contrition because he knew he was in more trouble. But there was like an olive branch that he offered like, hey, let’s, let’s start over here.

Keith Edwards
Well, you offered that first. Right, you offered the olive branch by writing like, hey, you know, sorry. Yeah, like, I’m an idiot. Yeah, I’m open. And then he sort of returned that. And what I love about that is you made it okay? For him to make a joke at your expense. And by him doing that, it sort of shows like, we’re not adversaries, we’re in it together. Like, right now here is a comedy duo, right? Even though Yeah, you know, a second or less than a second.

Paul Osincup
And it’s amazing what humor can do then to, I’m sure he was very anxious about about that meeting. And even when students and in my experience, particularly male students don’t appear like they’re anxious, they appear maybe cocky, or adversarial or whatever. In those meetings, they’re nervous. That’s that’s the way anxiety and nerves are showing up in that moment. And it’s amazing, when a little bit of humor, I remember meeting with a Master of Fine Art students, she was getting her master’s degree. And she was in my office because she had forged a faculty parking permit, and got caught. And she had been using it all year, she got caught, she got sent to my office, and she was so embarrassed and remorseful and couldn’t believe, you know, that she had put herself in this position just to get better parking. And at some point during our meeting, I said, you know, can I be very frank with you very honest with you? And she’s like, yes, yeah. And I said, this is terrible artwork. Because I held up her parking pass, I was like, you know, you’re a Master of Fine Arts dude, you could even forge the thing, right? Like, seeing some of the anxiety and fear just leave her body in that moment, as she let out a little laugh was incredible. So, you know, I started noticing moments like this in my work, and realizing man, there’s a lot of power in humor in what we do and how we communicate. So I began to just geek out about it and get really into it, research it. And I’ve been researching the impact of applied humor for 15 years or so. And that kind of led me to then go speak about it and how people can can harness the power of humor in various parts of their lives. And so at some point, I realized, gosh, I could do this full time and been out doing that still performing comedy on the side. And that eventually led to me all my learnings over the years and working with people in various industries. compiling it into this book.

Keith Edwards
Yeah, you take humor really seriously. Yeah. So there’s, people can find all sorts of silly videos of you imitating Seth Rogen and Pitbull one of your favorites fun and a good time.

Paul Osincup
I always keep my Pitbull glasses nearby Mr. Worldwide, Mr. 305. Yeah, yeah, always.

Keith Edwards
Shake he’s another one. Right? Yeah, yeah, both the rapper Shaggy. Scooby Doo Shaggy, right, you’re versatile, right? And you really explored in great depth, the neuroscience of humor, the biology of humor, the impact on well being of humor. One of my favorite quotes is from Jon Kabat Zinn who says, This is too serious a matter for us to take too seriously. And I heard him talking about that around social media and its impact on loneliness and comparison, and then heard him in another context talked about in terms of global terrorism, and I just love that, because it points to how humor can open up, as you said, Let the anxiety go be more present, for that student to be more authentic, to have a more real conversation rather than the adversarial sort of masks or wall or armor. Let’s write more human to human and really have the conversation be had tell us about how humor can can help us as individuals with our, our well being as humans, and particularly Student Affairs pros?

Paul Osincup
Yeah, you know, there’s, there are a lot of well being strategies out there that that help us de stress and relax and enhance our well being. Meditation, breath, work yoga, but for some people, those might not be enough or not the right fit, or are required too many essential oils, you know, whatever it is, you know, I, I do I do yoga, at least four times a week. But I also realized that when there’s when there’s a lack of humor in my life, I feel different. And it impacts me when we laugh, or when we find something, we’re even just finding something amusing, our brain gets flooded with a dose of happiness, chemicals. And by dose, you can literally think of it as DOSE, dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin, endorphins, flood your brain when you’re finding something amusing and finding something in life, absurd or comical. And it decreases cortisol in your body, which is what causes us stress. And so, there are a lot of ways to put that into practice. Because, you know, you see a lot of advice out there about it, just don’t take life too serious or just, you know, have a sense of humor about things, but no one really ever tells us how, yeah, it’s like, what am I supposed to just laugh things off, you know, like, when I locked the keys of my rental car in the trunk before I’m hurriedly trying to get it back to the airport, like, oh, life, no, freaking the hell out. And so, for example, we can rewire and train our brain to see the absurdity and humor in life more often giving us the the requisite ability to then put things in perspective in real time. So here’s one example. is treated like any other skill, like learning a foreign language, and do like immersion. Immerse yourself in more humor, whether it’s funnying up your social media feed, know if your social media, you know, let’s say you’re a big shoe fanatic, or that you are, stay very current on the news and your social media, it’s, it could be all shoes and news, you know, you can change that very easily with the algorithm. And so, go in and your favorite late night talk show host or comedians or shows, follow those, watch some of those videos, get that back so that you’re not just experiencing humor, not just by chance, but by choice. Another one, in that same vein, in terms of this kind of first step of immersion, is have a humor homie. So you have a friend that you just agree, you try this for a week or a month, all right, every day, this month, we’re going to each find something funny and send it to the other person. And the key with this is no obligation to respond. Because I think the thing that stresses me out is a friend sends me a video that they think is funny. And now I feel obligated, like, I gotta find the time to watch this and go ha lol So, so you know, feel free to just what you’re doing is you’re collecting and consuming now, a a hoard of humor. But you’re also training yourself to look for it each day and holding yourself accountable to look for it each day and find it and then another one is looking at your screen time you know, whatever your screentime habits are it’s very personal for everybody. But something I call a comedy chaser so at night, whatever the last screen time you have for the day is whenever that is chase it with something funny because a lot of times you know, people now are really into like true crime documentaries and serial killer stuff or watching the news or whatever. Don’t let that be the last thing you absorbed before going to bed or even before going to work. So chase that with a, you know, one of your collection of funny reels or Tik Toks or whatever it is, so that you replace those stress inducing chemicals from your drama. Just stress reducing chemicals and setting the body straight. Just, you know a little palate cleanser. Yeah, well, there’s a few ideas right there.

Keith Edwards
Yeah, I love it. Can you give us the dose again?

Paul Osincup
Dose, dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin, endorphins, flooding your brain. And that even happens like that, that even begins to happen just when you when you start to smile. So for the listeners, we’re gonna do a little experiment. I just want you if you’re listening right now just put the shape of a smile on your face. Okay, you don’t have to mean it. This could be totally fake. You could be thinking, how does this guy even know if I’m doing this? You know? What, if you’re going to the bathroom right now? Like why am I smiling as I’m going to the bathroom? This is weird. I’ve never done that before. But just by putting the shape of a smile on your face, you’re already triggering some of that. That response. Yeah, it’s also a cool little hack for work. Like if you if you do that, put that that fake smile on your face. This will give you some free time someone will come into your office and you go got a second you’ll go. Yeah, what’s going on? Go Okay, you’ll look like a psycho. I’ll give you a few minutes.

Keith Edwards
When the Smiling is contagious, too, right? We the mirror neurons in our brain when we see other people smiling or laughing It’s really hard not to similarly when you see someone in the meeting yawn, and you’re not tired at all. Now you’re yawning. It’s the same? Yes. So let’s, let’s use that dynamic. And I love that you’re pointing out what we pay attention to, we start paying more attention to like, if I’m buy if I’m thinking about buying a blue Subaru, all of a sudden I see blue Subarus everywhere. It’s not because there’s more out there, it’s because that’s what I’m paying attention to. So I’m sort of connecting that. And then the habit, I love the humor habit. It’s rewiring your brain. It’s neuroplasticity. And the more we laugh, the more we say funny things, the better we get at it. And then eventually it just becomes second nature just like riding with your left hand if you want to put that much energy and practice into it. Not that your left hand is any more or less capable. It’s that your brain is wired to be right handed or left handed. And that’s something that can shift if you want to now I’ve never really invested in being able to write with my left hand because that doesn’t seem useful to me. But being more funny and having a better sense of humor and finding more things. Funny seems really useful.

Paul Osincup
Yeah, I can barely write with my dominant hand. I’m so my handwriting so terrible. But you’re exactly right. Another another habit that people could try. You know, this week that really kind of goes to the next step, then of rewiring your brain is, I call it a three funny things intervention. So this week, seven days straight, just write down three things you found funny or amusing, says same science as a gratitude journal, right? But what researchers have found is that people who did this three funny things intervention, you write down three things you found funny or music, maybe they made you laugh out loud, or maybe they just made you think that’s pretty funny. Doesn’t matter. People who did that just for a week, increase their overall happiness and decreased depressive symptoms for up to six months. Just by doing that for a week. And again, like you said, inevitably what will happen, you’re training yourself to start looking for those things in your day. And inevitably, what will happen is something during your day, that would normally annoy you aggravate you, you’ll it’ll happen and you’ll think to yourself, I’ll be writing this down later. Yeah. And that’s when you know, your brain is starting to make the connection that like, even though you’re not laughing yet, don’t freak out, there might be humor in the situation. And I’ll tell you, like, even as somebody who, you know, you said you take humor really seriously, I take myself and my life very seriously. I mean, this is part of the reason that I’ve been so interested in this is because I have this dichotomy of like, I want to be taken seriously. I love praise and being told I do a good job and all this stuff. But I also want to just be myself and be goofy. And I think a lot of us deal with some level of that. But when I get into chronic serious mode, I really go all in and when I first started speaking full time, I had this great opportunity at this at this big conference in Boston. And there were all these fortune 500 companies there and so I went into full like cool guy networking mode, like I had, you know, pockets full of business cards, and everyone I met it was getting a business card like hey, give me a call sometime. Hey, I’d love to do business with you. My name is Paul. And I ran into this one executive and as we got done talking, I go, Oh, wait just a second. I reach in my pocket and I go give me a call sometime and I hand him my hotel room key, huh? And he grabs it goes go, That escalated quickly. And I was like, Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry. Hold on, as I’m, like, you know, now trying to search for a business card. And I was so embarrassed by that. And I was beating myself up my brain was not finding the humor in that situation.

Keith Edwards
Mistake. Totally.

Paul Osincup
Yeah, it was like, you ruined this opportunity. Dude, what is wrong with you, you idiot, you are so awkward. And our brains tend to do that they tend to filter our lives as though our lives are a drama, and that we are the lead actor in this drama. And I didn’t need to he was a nice guy. And you know, he kept our hotel room clean. So. But, but like, that’s an example, though of then, a little time later, I realized, oh, my gosh, why am I beating myself up that that was funny, and especially after I told the story to someone else. And so our lives aren’t just made up of these mistakes. A lot of times, they’re just funny footnotes. Yeah, that we can train ourselves to see it that way more in real time. Yeah,

Keith Edwards
I love starring in your comedy. And although you perceived it as a failure as a mistake, you’ve used that on stage, you’re telling us the story. Now to be helpful to us like it’s a tool is now it’s an asset, right? Not something for you to be embarrassed or ashamed by now. It’s this great story that you can leverage and share. And so many of us have failures, that feel awful and regrettable in the moment that then we use as a teaching tool for years and years and years. But yeah, a little bit about the neuroscience and how this can help us and in you know, we’re talking to so many higher ed leaders who feel overwhelmed and underwater with the news with legislative attacks with an enrollment cliff with budget and FAFSA and student protests and encampments. And so I think this is really helpful with the resilience and the recovery and managing the cortisol and managing the reality. And, but, and you also have some thoughts about how we can use humor, not just for ourselves, but as we lead teams, lead others and work with others. So tell us about how humor can help us lead?

Paul Osincup
Well, you know, if you think about yourself, you probably have had a leader or a manager that you really respect. And you know, when I’ve done workshops with groups and ask them, you know, on on some sticky notes to identify all of the skills your favorite leader has, and then identify, and then also identify, you know, all the other traits, and have them put them up on sticky or on butcher paper, EQ versus IQ, the EQ side of things, that’s what we remember, that’s what we are drawn to in terms of the people that that we lead. And so if you’re in a leadership position, Bell Leadership Institute had some great research that they asked people to name the characteristic traits of your favorite leaders you’ve ever worked for. And the two things that were mentioned twice as much as any other trait or characteristic were. They worked hard, and that they had a great sense of humor. And those were the two things mentioned, more than anything, because I think people want leaders who can keep things in perspective. And so in my book, I have a lafter model, l a f t er. And so it starts with leading by example.

Keith Edwards
And spelling is funny, just for folks who didn’t get that. Yeah, yeah.

Paul Osincup
lft er, and then I learned that laughter was spelled different. And I felt like an idiot. Well, as I was, I was, I was coming up because I was like, every book has to have like, some cool model, you know, that you can recite. But then I realized, as I like, old laughter would be perfect for a book about humor. And then I’m like, what am i u and g? And H? What am I going to? Why is there the word I’ll get in the middle of the word? Stir? This is like, not supposed to be here.

Keith Edwards
So I got of laughter. Nice. Well,

Paul Osincup
I literally took the ugh and said f that and I put an F in its place. Very so. So, yeah, so leading by example, starts with some of the some of the habits earlier on, you know, consuming humor. walking a little bit with a lighter stick carrying yourself lighter, but but also like participating rather than just giving permission. So I worked with some executives at a bank. And this one woman was telling me about how she or her employees a couple of different years said you don’t we should do an employee like calendar, a funny calendar each month and we could put those up in the branches and she said, Yeah, go for it sounds great. And she admittedly suffers from a bit of chronic seriousness herself and but she said, I want my team to do that kind of stuff if they want to. And it just never came to fruition. And I think what people are looking for is not just permission, but some participation from the managers. And you can participate in your own way, you don’t have to be like, the goofy Ms. April Fool’s. And I’ll be in the pictures, but participating by going, You know what, let me see if we can set some funds aside, or let me set you up with our communications department, see if they can help with some of the photography or I’m gonna bring it up at the next you know, all hands meeting, whatever, whatever it is your way that you could participate and, you know, cheer people on, you know, sharing their social media, when they’re doing it, whatever that is. That really gets people feeling more psychologically safe that they can they can take part in this rather than, okay, well, I’m being goofy, but my manager boss isn’t? This doesn’t feel right.

Keith Edwards
Right? Well, and how can we do that as leaders? How do we navigate? We see so many examples? I’ve done it. I see other people do it, where they’re trying to use humor and it offends or lands wrong or does harm? What suggestions do you have for us as leaders to leverage humor? thoughtfully and carefully?

Paul Osincup
Yeah, that I get that question a lot. Because I think people rightfully so like, I want to have fun and joke around, but I don’t want to put my foot in my mouth. I’ll say this. To start with, I do have an answer to your question. But to start with, I call BS on on humor being the culprit most of the time, most of the time. mistreatment, and ignorance and the people who are acting this way, humor or not, are usually the ones who are getting away with it. So it’s usually the culture and what the leaders are saying is okay at work, and not holding people accountable for the humor usually will fall in line with the culture. So if we aren’t holding people accountable for berating others, talking down to others, mistreating people, then the humor is going to follow suit. Most of the time, what happens if somebody says something mean, or does something derogatory? And then what do they say when they get caught? I was just joking. It was just a joke. It was just corporate. Exactly, yeah. So if you have to say it was just a joke, then you haven’t told one. But that being said, there are times when, when that that can’t come up, you can honestly make a mistake. And one of the ways to avoid that I have, and we can have this in the show notes are. But I’ve got this little I’m trying to put in my camera here. But this nice little graph here about how to use humor positively. And it really, if you picture for people just listening and not watching picture, an inverted triangle with the largest part of the triangle as the biggest or as the top, starting with you and your experience. And as you go down to the finer point, you incur more risk, and it takes more skill and practice to get good at. And so it starts with you and your experience, then it goes to shared experiences that you have with others, and then down to humor about others and their experience. And when you start getting down to humor about other people, you’re just going to incur a lot more risk, and you have to be a lot better and more practiced at it to do that without offending people. So the safest way to go is humor about you yourself, your own experiences, what happened on the way to work today, like the example I shared earlier about soaking my pants and Dr. Pepper. And I can give you an example of when I stepped in it. I was working with a student and I was this was at a time when I was extremely stressed out way overworked and and I wasn’t really at my best and and I made humor and kind of this the students expense in a time when he was really hurting. And so he the our first meeting, he I had told him that hey, man, if unfortunately, if you end up back here, unfortunately, we’re gonna be at the level of suspension and you’re gonna be suspended from the university. And sure enough, he was back for a second meeting this time for something way worse. And so I said, Hey, you know, unfortunately today’s the day we talked about, you’re going to be suspended from the institution and he was a very entitled young man probably like 22 years old, 23 years old parents had cleaned up every mess he had ever made. And he had never been held accountable for much. So he was pretty surprised. And I said, you know, I just want to tell you that today’s gonna be a suspension and he looks around and goes, I’m getting suspended. And I was like, Yeah, and I want to walk you through what your options are, is that you’re suspending me as it Yeah, just give me You know, I want to, and he pulls his cell phone out and throws it on the table. And he goes, call my mom, call my mom and tell her what you just did tell her you’re gonna suspend me. And so I look at his phone and I go, does your mom want to talk to my mom? And now, I’ll be honest, you know, like, they felt really good to say that. Because usually, usually you think of those things after the fact. Like what I should have said was Yeah. But do you think that helped the situation? Probably not. And so I was, I mean, if your mom wants to talk to my mom, they can hash this out right now. But it was between me and you. And you know what he needed. In order to come back to the university, what he really needed was a lot of anger management therapy. So you know, he gets up at few FTEs, I don’t know, anger management. And as he gets up and storms out and slams the door, and I’m like, clearly, I was way off. But, but I realized in that moment, that probably that moment didn’t need any humor. And if I were to be able to have humor, there’s an amount of trust that needs to be built up first. And keeping the humor about me, or my own mother, maybe would have been a better bet to calm things down.

Keith Edwards
Yeah, I just think is so helpful for people who maybe are new at this or have a story that they’re not funny, which is often a story. Yeah, that if you’re if you’re worried about the risk, make fun of yourself. Yeah, self deprecating humor is the safest path to go like the dumb thing that I just did. Or, you know, here we are to two white guys with shaved heads. You know, bald is different. Bald is a circumstance shaved head is a choice, right? Like, making fun of ourselves is the safer route to go. And it’s just such a I mean, humor, you watch stand up comedians, it can be so complicated and so complex and, and whether whether they’re walking that dance, where you’re uncomfortable with what they’re going to say, and then they bring it back. And yeah, it’s stunning. But as you’re saying that’s very skilled. And just as simple like, if you’re not sure. Humor at your own expense, that’s, that’s just so useful.

Paul Osincup
Well, and and, you know, there and there are guidelines to have like, you can do too much humor at your own expense, or maybe not in the right. So one advice I give in a professional setting is with humor at your own expense. Don’t kill your skills. So if you are, let’s say you’re giving a speech, or you’re going to use some humor, you know, in a meeting, don’t use self deprecating humor about skills that are necessary to do your job. Right. So if I’m giving up giving a keynote, I shouldn’t go Oh, I’m sorry. I’m just really bad with PowerPoint. Or Look, man, we’re paying you to be good with PowerPoint, bro. You know, it’s okay to make fun of the stain you made on your shirt from your jelly doughnut. If, if you’re, you know, maybe bus driver, but maybe not if you’re a surgeon. Yeah, you know, nobody wants to hear like, I’m sorry, I’m just all Butterfingers today, right before your vasectomy is like not not the way we want to go. So that’d be one, one piece of advice. And then the other thing you said that I think is really important is a lot of people feel like, I don’t know, I’m just not that funny. And humor is not a talent. Humor is a habit. And the and the way to build that habit, there are formulas you can use to even take your own pain and, and difficult points of life and play with them. And I’ll give you an example. So for example, I used to be really self conscious about being short. five foot four soaking wet,

Keith Edwards
you look at your tolerance,

Paul Osincup
right? Yeah, like on Zoom. Five, four identifies six three.

Paul Osincup
But, but

Paul Osincup
But, and I used to always be self conscious that I would never get a girlfriend or a partner. Because you know, what are ladies looking for tall, dark and handsome, right? Not short, pasty and bald, and so and so I used to worry about that. But what I like to give people are formulas to be able to flip that turn things around, play with them a little bit and see if you can mine your struggles for nuggets of humor. So something called the comic triple. It’s just a formula comedians use where you take you just give a list of three things. And the first two might be obvious or more serious. And the third is funny, surprising, different or more exaggerated. So I could say, well, you know what, B, being short, dating a short guy, there are advantages to dating a short guy, short guy, you know, I’ll live longer, take up less room in bed. And I’ll always let you drive because I have to stay in my car seat. That’s a way to kind of take my pain point play with it, see if I can find some some nuggets of humor in that. And that type of humorous reappraisal has been studied by psychologists and actually found that reframing and using humorous reappraisal can actually be more effective in enhancing our well being than regular even positive reappraisal. So, there are a lot of techniques and ways and that’s what it’s kind of why I wrote this book is I want to teach people like actual ways that they can be funny and use humor to play with their struggles.

Keith Edwards
Yeah, just for folks who are if you’re listening to that, three, right. Obvious make sense. And then what? Yeah, watch, watch any stand up comedian now. And you will see that come in all over the place, boom, all the time.

Paul Osincup
Right, I worked with a group of psoriasis patients, and people who were dealing with, you know, a lifetime of, of pretty bad psoriasis and helping them kind of take their pain and play with it. And some of the comic triples they came up with, were so good. You know, some of the hard things when you’re dealing with a chronic illness is describing it to your friends, you know, talking about it. And so people came up with things like, yeah, you know, Psoriasis is a condition that that, you know, makes me itch makes my skin flake and makes me have a lot of unnecessary conversations about lotion, or I’ll break out. I’ll break out in a redness, itching and long sleeves, you know, things like that, that they’re coming up with, I treat my psoriasis with, with ointment, light therapy and a vacuum. These were such great things that they were able to come up with to kind of take their pain and play with it. And also like, I could tell friends about this.

Keith Edwards
Yeah. It’s also kind of a mindfulness strategy. Rather than argue, I wish I wasn’t sure what you can change, or I wish I don’t write this condition. You’re sort of embracing it and owning it and not arguing with your reality, but saying, all right, this is what is. How can I work with it? Yeah, come back to the lafter model. Can you walk us? Oh, go ahead. La ft. Are we got? We got all one.

Paul Osincup
Oh yeah. Yeah. So lead by example, the L. A, is asked for help. So maybe this isn’t your wheelhouse, but it’s important to you. It doesn’t have to be a covert op. You know, tell your team like I want to have, you know, a livelier workplace, I want to have more humor at work, ask for help ask for help from AI for your next presentation. Like, can you find me a joke about engineering, you know what, whatever it is. And then f is Think Fun over funny. Fun and humor aren’t the same thing. But they hang out at the same parties. And usually, when you’re doing new novel things, the funny people say funny stuff, and funny things happen. So, so and I literally give like 100 ideas of fun ways to have a little more fun at work. And even if where you work isn’t fun, and you feel like nobody but you really even wants that. There are ways to be able you can read your emails in your own head as as though funny characters are, are writing them every time your boss emails like, you know, I need that by the end of the day, you can do that as Elmo like oh sock, you know, EOD, Friday, whatever, you know, however you want to do it. Or Seth Rogen, you’re an artist. So we have a meeting. You can think about those that are in your own head. So far over funny T is telling your story. And this is really organizationally or departmentally. If you’re the leader, if humor and fun is important to you. How is that being portrayed in the physical surroundings? Website, job descriptions, things like that. Are there any ways you can have fun and I got to interview the Communications Director for the National Park Service. If you don’t follow the National Park Service on Instagram,

Paul Osincup
So good.

Paul Osincup
They’re so great. I mean, their posts are hilarious. Like when traveling in bear country. You know, if a bear starts to chase, you don’t just push a slower friend down and run away, even if the friendship has run its course. And then from that post, they go on with all these safety tips and bear country. So great. So there are ways even in a serious industry to be able to use a little bit of, of humor, in in your surroundings and kind of telling your story like this is we value this we value a light hearted approach to our work. E is earn it. So if you’re in leadership, and you want to have fun and be funny, and that kind of stuff, you have to earn that privilege by creating psychological safety by just getting your shit done and do and doing a good job, you know, like being good at what you do. And reliable first, and then also some of some of that model I shared before about using humor positively. And then R is rituals. So humor and fun are great. But you know, having that one really fun time at the company, you know, at the at the holiday party, the departmental holiday party, or, you know, the one ice cream social we we do a year doesn’t actually do much for cultivating a dynamic culture. And what really has a bigger impact in culture are rituals that are daily, weekly. or monthly. And so these are anything from there’s one organization that every day in the afternoon, like two o’clock in the afternoon, they have like a three minute break, where they play a song. And each team member gets to choose the song on a different day sign up. And during that three minutes, no working allowed. You can dance you can walk around, you can go outside, whatever, it’s just a break where people just loosen up, shake it out. And then they get back to work. That’s a daily ritual that they do. There are weekly rituals, you know, wacky sock Wednesday, we have, I worked with a hospital that every Wednesday they walk through, and they do a little parade of who’s wearing socks that day, and they vote on the best pair. They know that’s coming every Wednesday, those things start to feel like we work in a cool place we like I like our culture here.

Keith Edwards
And it helps them be better doctors that helps them be more effective of what they’re doing and helps them care for others when maybe absolutely hard and has been difficult and feeling worn down. And so those little breaks. I love the neuroscience. And I love the strategies and approaches you’re offering. We are running out of time. But the podcast is called Student Affairs NOW we always like to end with what’s on your mind now. So if you’d like to share us what you’re thinking, what you’re troubling what you’re pondering. And also if you want to share where folks can connect with you. I’m sure people would love that.

Paul Osincup
So what’s on my mind now? What I’m thinking feeling? You know? It’s something I’ve been thinking a lot lately, doing this work around humor. A lot of people tell me, gosh, we need this now more than ever, with the way the world is right now. And what’s interesting to me is, ever since I started doing talks about humor, 1015 years ago, people have been saying that we need this now more than ever.

Keith Edwards
We’re an upward trajectory, aren’t we?

Paul Osincup
Yeah, I’m like, I’m waiting for the day when people go. You don’t want the world’s pretty good. I think we’re all set on humor are good. But I do agree we, the world is Life is hard and scary. And difficult. But it’s also fun and funny and absurd. And so I think leaning into that at times is helpful. And then where where can we find that? What was the second part where people can find me?

Keith Edwards
Where can people connect with the book with you? Yeah. Speaking engagements, all of that.

Paul Osincup
Yeah. So the easiest way to connect with me, I’m the only Paul Osincup in the world. So at Paul Osincup on any social media platform. And yeah, if you don’t if you’re looking for keynote for your next conference, that’s mainly what I’m doing these days. A lot. A lot of times people like to bookend me with more serious keynotes on say, DEI or, you know, more technical things for your association so, you know, open or closed with eliciting a little lighter. I’m happy to do that. You can find me at my website, paulosincup.com. And the Humor Habit is available wherever you buy books, so you can buy the Humor Habit if you want. If you want since listening to this podcast, if you want to go to the humor habit.com and enter in, you can if you buy the book, you can enter in that you heard it here. And so where it says to enter in your book reference number, just put in a SANow, and you can download the 37 page playbook that goes along with this book for free, just for listening to this podcast.

Keith Edwards
So Oh, thanks, Paul. That’s a really nice gift to offer our audience and our listeners. Yeah, that’s really great. Thank you. Anything else you want to add?

Paul Osincup
Ah, you know what, I miss my student affairs people. So whoever you are out there listening, just thank you for the work you do. It’s very important. Without great student affairs professionals, I don’t know that I would have finished college, let alone gotten a master’s degree and let alone written a freaking book, I’d still blows my mind. So that’s because there were people at my institution that were looking out for me.

Keith Edwards
I mean, it’s it’s a real book with pages and everything. It’s not just pictures. It’s over 200 pages. There’s references and index the whole deal. You did it. You did it. Congrats. Appreciate it, man. Thanks, Paul. Thanks for your sharing with us. Thanks for writing the book. Thanks for your speaking and your engagement and your leadership in the space. I love how you take humor so seriously, I think it’s really really useful and really helpful. Thanks to our sponsors of today’s episode Routledge in Huron. Huron is a professional, Huron is a global professional services firm that collaborates with clients to put possible into practice by creating sound strategies, optimizing operations, accelerating digital transformation, and empowering businesses and their people to own their future. By embracing diverse perspectives encouraging new ideas and challenging the status quo. Huron creates sustainable results for the organizations they serve. And Routledge Taylor and Francis is world’s leading academic publisher in education, publishing a wide variety of books, journals and other resources for practitioners, faculty, administrators and researchers. They have welcomed Stylus publishing to their publishing program and are thrilled to enrich their offerings in higher education, teaching Student Affairs, professional development, assessment and more. Routledge is a proud sponsor of Student Affairs NOW view their complete cloud catalog of education titles at routledge.com/education. And a huge shout out to our producer Natalie Ambrosey Who makes all of us look and sound good. Hope you enjoyed listening to this one Nat! We love the support of these important conversations from our community. You can help us reach even more folks by subscribing to the podcast to YouTube and to our weekly newsletter. While you get the newest and latest episode in your inbox every Wednesday morning. You can also leave us a five star review. It really helps great conversations like this with Paul reach an even larger audience. And Keith Edwards thanks again to our fabulous guest today, Paul Osincup. Today and to everyone who is watching and listening. Make it a great week. Thanks, Paul.

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