I’m just back from Fargo, North Dakota where I spoke to some wonderful educators who needed a lift. I had a huge challenge: My goal was to make them laugh (sure), motivate them (oh, yeah) and get them fired up (good). But in addition to all of those more typical motivational speaker assignments, I was hired to create real change. I was to create actionable items for this particular group about how to improve their sense of humor in workplace.

It was a really great experience. My favorite part? I had two favorite parts. The first was watching the group start from a DEAD stop and eventually move to a loud, excited, wiggly group. When they walked in and were told that they couldn’t sit with their friends, they would be doing some sort of interactivity, and generally listen to a “motivational speaker.” (Groan.) But after we made them laugh, did my motivational speech, and generally started to convince them that “this wasn’t going to suck” like they feared, we were off and running. It was cool to see that evolution.

My second favorite part was making CERTAIN that this day of humor and motivation lasted…that it translated into specific to do steps that would actually happen when they went back to work. I facilitated this part of the session…I did very little talking and let them come up with their ideas, their action plan, and their implementation plan. They elected to create a “how cool is that?!” board for each one of their centers…. a place where people could post compliments, good news, good luck, and other positive thoughts.

After the day I hadn’t even had a full cup of coffee and I felt high.

Check out this cool video of the humor in the workplace session here:

Think you might be interested in bring me in to speak to your group about humor, motivation, and then facilitating actual ACTION? Click here for more info.