Kevin Hubschmann: How “Laughter as a Service” Builds Stronger Teams

What if the shortest path to better leadership is a good laugh? We sit down with Kevin Hubschmann, founder of Laugh Dot, to explore how “laughter as a service” and applied improv transform tense rooms into brave ones. Kevin walks us through how improv games—used not for performance, but for practice—retrain teams to listen, validate, and build on ideas with “yes, and” instead of shutting momentum down with “no, but.” The result is real: lower stress, stronger bonds, and sharper problem-solving where it counts.

Kevin shares the surprising data behind laughter’s impact—endorphins up, cortisol down, serotonin up when we laugh together—and how that chemistry translates to trust and recall in fast-moving organizations. We get specific on formats that work: musical improv to craft team anthems, visual-heavy virtual shows across time zones, and simple in-room exercises that strip hierarchy so a CEO and a new hire can learn side by side. He explains why keeping these sessions in the same spaces where work happens matters for lasting change, and how short “laugh breaks” before standups keep skills from fading.

We also dig into the business journey: reframing improv so teams aren’t intimidated, iterating away from comedy-club habits to a clean, corporate-fit baseline, and using feedback to boost customer satisfaction while preserving spontaneity. Then we zoom out to the AI era. Kevin draws a line between convergent tasks machines do well and the human “power skills” we must strengthen—divergent thinking, storytelling, active listening, and comfort with risk. Along the way, he shares practical leadership advice, energy-management habits, and the simple mindset shift that helped him show up more authentically: stop being so salesman, start being more human.

If you’re looking to raise engagement, spark creativity, and make your culture braver without adding more slides, this conversation delivers tools you can try tomorrow and a new way to see your team. Enjoy it, share it with a manager who needs a nudge, and if it resonates, subscribe and leave a review so others can find it too.

How to contact Kevin: 

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevin-hubschmannn/
• https://laughrx.laugh.events/

 Other resources from the episode: 

• Jess Glynne:  Ain't Got Far To Go - https://youtu.be/GxPcu7F7gWg?si=QsKELiQH8NpLAv3f
• Olivia Deane:  Man I Need - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOKaC-w8XpU
• Nike book - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/520632.Swoosh

Chapters

• 0:03 Laughter As A Service
• 0:43 Purpose, Joy, And Work
• 5:25 Pandemic Pivot To Corporate Comedy
• 9:10 Virtual To Hybrid: Formats That Work
• 13:47 Science Of Laughter With Harvard Insights
• 18:14 How Applied Improv Works At Work
• 24:12 Making It Stick Beyond Workshops
• 28:36 Clean Comedy, Iteration, And Fit
• 36:45 Leveling Hierarchy Through Play
• 43:12 Global Reach And Practical Advice
• 50:07 Reframing The Language Of Improv
• 57:10 Lessons From Failure And Growth
• 1:06:45 AI, Power Skills, And Divergent Thinking
• 1:13:10 Books, Routines, And Energy Management
• 1:20:30 Superpowers, Soundtracks, And Mindset
• 1:30:00 Authenticity Over Performance
• 1:33:00 Closing Gratitude And Links

Transcript

JD: 0:03

Hi, listeners, and welcome back to the JD's Journal Podcast. As always, so appreciative that you're here joining us today. Our guest today has built his business around something that I think we need so much more in our lives right now, particularly in the current world environment that we're in. Laughter. But more specifically, laughter as a service. And I think that's such a phenomenal metaphor. Coming out of the cloud business myself, so infrastructure as a service, software as a service, and so forth. The notion of laughter being a service, it just intrigued me so much. So I'm so excited to talk to Kevin Hubschmann. He's based in New York. He established his business, Laugh Dot, back in 2019, offering comedy not only as entertainment, but as a platform for corporations to build leadership and resilience skills. Specifically, Kevin uses improv workshops to help his team members or help company team members, sorry, gain confidence and build resilience and improve their effectiveness and engagement, anxiety management, and conflict resolution. And through his newsletter, he also shares his craft with a growing audience of online subscribers. So I love this thing. I'm so keen to hear much more about it. Um, Kevin, did I do okay in terms of introducing you? Did I scribe what you do okay? What would you like to add? You nailed it.

Kevin: 1:25

You nailed it, and uh especially the last name. No, most people get caught up when they see all those consonants right in the middle there, and you just powered through that. So I thank you.

JD: 1:35

So maybe my le my years living in Germany helped me along a little bit there.

Kevin: 1:39

So yeah, you know what my last name means in German? It means pretty man.

JD: 1:46

Okay, I I could take that.

Kevin: 1:48

I will take that myself as a compliment to myself, but uh, but yeah, anytime someone says my full name, it is a compliment. So I I thank you.

JD: 1:57

I love it. That's a gift. Well, look, so now we've got a sense of what you do. The question I always start with, my guests, is what's your purpose? You know, what why? Why do you do this? And what's the legacy that Kevin wants to leave in his wake?

Kevin: 2:13

Yeah, my purpose is I've always been focused. Actually, it was a very interesting uh thing happened in college. We took I took a class and the teacher it was called uh uh it was an intro to entrepreneurship class, and the teacher had us fill out a uh a small sheet of paper, laminate it, and put it in our uh wallets, and it was a list of 10 things that you wanted to do. And you know, a lot of them had to do with family connecting with family consistently and friends consistently, um, and you know, personal projects. But the thing that was uh number one was always enjoy what I do, and that was always at the top of what my goals were and my purpose was. I want to enjoy what I do, and so that is what led me to wanting to invest more of my time and energy into helping people laugh more, using comedy and humor as a skill set. Uh, because I really found that a lot of my friends were absolutely hilarious and always made me laugh and were super funny. And every time I invited them to come on a comedy stage and and join me or perform themselves, they said, no, I can't do that. And so I think that's another thing that drove me was there's so many people out there with skill sets for humor, and they are very intimidated by the idea that they are not elite at it. And my goal with Laugh.events was to go through you know the corporate side of things and say this is where things are most rigid, these are where things are most stale, and how can we help people share a laugh? But most importantly, how can we help folks use these skills to show up more authentically as themselves at work? And that's really what we've been doing since 2019.

JD: 4:15

That's so powerful for so many good reasons. It really is. Um, I agree with you. I've I've worked with some people who are hilarious in the in the natural context, they just naturally have that ability to do that. But if you ask them to be funny, they will they will immediately withdraw. I can't do that. Um, and it it's interesting to see you see that, right? This natural gift that exists in people um that they're kind of almost afraid of to use. But the other thing I love about what you said is that laughter has such incredibly powerful um healing qualities to it, the ability for us to become, you know, to heal and and to be stronger in terms of ourselves and our comfort the minute you do that, particularly again, I think in a corporate environment. This is why it's so intriguing to me, um, particularly when things are challenging as well, that ability to not take life as seriously, perhaps as we do, um, and to see things differently because of that. So I I again I'm so keen to hear more about this. I'm I'm really curious, like it sounds like that was a point for you where you started to become clear of it about this, but what was the catalyst for you to have such clarity in terms of what your what your mission, what your purpose was?

Kevin: 5:25

So it started really during the pandemic. I was throwing comedy shows before the pandemic. The uh our our company started in 2019. And first it was just, hey, I want to be on stage more, I want to do more comedy, and we were doing comedy shows in my office, and that was my way to bring comedy into the workplace. I started with the place that I worked at, but it wasn't until the pandemic happened, I had left my former employer, and you know, people were in a dark place during that time, obviously, all across the world. And we just said, hey, we got the time, and we have comedians who are interested and available to do corporate comedy shows, so let's just do them, let me roll them out. And I sent a post-event survey to everybody after the shows to give us their feedback, mainly to just see if the show format was working because Zoom was new and you know, no one really we wanted to work the kinks out, and but the this the reactions we were getting were so valuable to making us feel really great about what we were doing. People were saying, Hey, I really needed this laugh. I haven't been able to laugh with so much going on. You know, this really was a huge bright spot in my day. My team and I have not gotten together in four months. We used to see each other every day, and now we can laugh. Or, you know, ever since we've had to work remotely, nobody knows when to turn it off, and everything is so transactional to be able to stop and share a laugh with our team really brightened up our day. Thank you so much. I mean, the the answers in these surveys were really motivating, and they they were saying helping me say, you've got something here. I want you need to follow what this means and the impact that you're making. Because I was already making a a really great impact doing hilarious in-person after work comedy shows, they were suit, they had such a cool factor. I was working with such elite comics, and my friends were loving the shows, and that was really fantastic. But when we started to see the impact that it was making in the workplace, uh an environment that is inherently stressful, whether that's you carrying a quota or having to meet a deadline mixed with a global pandemic, it's a recipe for tension. And we found that we had this ability to ease that tension just through comedy shows. And then that eventually led us to saying, okay, well, how else can we help people once we get back in person? And that's where our laughing and development, aka applied improv came into play, and we started doing a lot more of that in person.

JD: 8:19

So co COVID was interesting too. I think, you know, um, in in my environment as well, we we started to adopt uh curious ways to engage that we'd never done before. And I know we used to do Friday wine gatherings, which were all virtual, or we played online trivia, which we'd never done before in a corporate environment, and so forth. And so it is interesting. We went through that very, very difficult period uh around the globe, but it does seem like it gave us the gift of thinking differently about ways that we could engage. And I think that's particularly relevant. Uh, in my previous role, I managed employees across 14 countries, and it's just impossible to get employees together in one room on a regular basis. And so we've learned, I think we learnt some skills in terms of how we can work virtually and do things virtually. Um, your um uh your services today, are they predominantly in person or are you still doing virtual events as well?

Kevin: 9:13

Oh, we still do a ton of virtual events. You know, I had one just just an hour ago, um, and it was it was actually we created a company theme song for someone. So we had a musical improviser, and we uh he was doing a lot of crowd work with the the group and learning more about them. Uh, and it was a customer service uh position at a at a huge company, which was also cool, and uh and so they were just telling us kind of all of these things. We made a theme song about the customer service, and it was hilarious and fun. And yeah, we still do these events, we still do a ton of virtual events, whether it's improv or entertainment. But like you said, the the virtual component is very fun because you can work with people in different time zones and you can work with people in different countries, and that's really fantastic. And you know, there's a lot of folks that have focused to coming back into the office, which is fantastic for you know team camaraderie and getting together, but there's still people that are remote. And like you said, COVID gave everyone the opportunity to say, yeah, going in person is incredibly important and it is invaluable, but there are uh people that are going to work remotely, and previously they just were on an island and to do stuff with them, uh, whether that was professional development, team building, or just appreciation, wasn't the market really wasn't there for it. So COVID opened up in a crazy way, and then it got smaller, and that's fine, but it did expand it, and that that was very interesting, and it has allowed us, like I said, to really tweak the formats for virtual. And like we have at first, it was just stand-up comedy, and then it was just like trivia, but then we switched it up and we customized it and made it very visually heavy, or we did musical improv. So we found out through doing so many different shows, all the different components, and ultimately that really did lead us to perfecting this virtual component and changing how people do it. And to this day, I really do believe we have the best offering when it comes to virtual team bonding for teams. But it's also been cool because then that has led us to uh working with people for their off-sites and working with people for their team, I mean, on-sites as well. But things that were people are getting out of the office, stopping working together, uh, and whether that's everyone coming together once per quarter or it's a team that's predominantly in-person and they're just taking a break, that has led us to doing a lot of in-person. So I like to even just look at it more as like a life cycle of things because everyone's um schedules are so different uh around the country. But what is consistent is that people do connect with each other virtually and the room teams are remote and spread out, and then people do come together almost always in some capacity. And so it's been really fun to be able to serve everybody uh from the whole life cycle. And holiday party season is coming up, so we are also really ripping it. And that's that's it's fun to get ready for those uh those events where where the but budgets open up and everyone's like, let's have a good time. We're we're gonna do some entertainment. But then right after that is you know January, February, where sales kickoffs and resets happen, and people want to come together and find out like, what are we gonna take on in this new year? So I love this December, January time period and this flip switching because we get to have a lot of fun with people who are looking to, you know, really close the chapter on the year. And then we also get that moment of like, what is our purpose heading into it? And that's where we're able to help people with whether it's like training, uh, workshops, keynotes, stuff where they're like, hey, we're all getting together so that we can then go out into the public and and really take on our challenges in the upcoming year.

JD: 13:06

So you just won me over again. I gotta say, I'm a I'm a musician, I come out of musical theater as well. And so the idea of incorporating music in into this is fantastic. And I gotta tell you, I've sat through some horrifically dry workshops developing mission statements and vision statements and so forth. I almost want to go back into corporate so I can work on a on a song, you know, on a on a team song on board. That's gotta be so much fun. Um a great way to get the team on board uh in terms of uh in terms of your meaning and so forth. I love that. I love the combination of music in that, and I'm envious that people are getting a chance to play in that space. I've got to ask you, do you, Kevin, did you study the psychology of what you're doing here? Is there is there a lot of thought in terms of you know the approach here that fits in with kind of psychological uh philosophies or or or or known things?

Kevin: 13:58

Yeah, we actually linked up very early on with a uh with a Harvard psychologist, Dr. Natalie DeTillo. And uh if you look online, there's actually a great internet uh or a great article about uh on Harvard, uh Harvard's health website, uh, about you know, I think it's called uh Are You Having a Laugh? And if not, if not, why not? And it goes into the psychological benefits of laughter. And I actually used to do some keynotes with her where we would go and we would talk about that. And that's when I started to dive even deeper because I was like, I'm not, you know, a specialist in this and we're still early on. So I'd love to get a professional's point of view on you know what happens to us when we laugh. And Dr. Datillo gave us some really amazing insights that I've taken with me and shared with people since. And some of those things are hey, what is actually physically happening to us? But one of those things is when you laugh, you get a flush of endorphins, and those are those feel-good chemicals, and you know, really makes you feel great. Simultaneously, your cortisol levels they go down, and so you're getting that those stress horm stress levels are going down, those stress hormones are coming out of your body, so you're kind of having that like simultaneous feeling. And you know, also when you are laughing with others, you have serotonin that's coming out, and so that's that bonding chemical. And so that is those are all of those things that I knew were happening because I had this post-event survey that I was seeing people's reaction and I got to see it in real time. And then when we started to say, okay, we are going to need to dive deeper into this if we really want companies to invest in it, we need to really know the why. And when we dove deeper into the why with Dr. DeTillo, we were able to find out all of this information and it made all the world of sense. And, you know, then after that, that was just on the comedy standpoint. And when we got back into the in-person side of things, that is when we went really hard into laughing and development, the applied improv workshops. And we found that, you know, those really there were so many psychological things that were happening uh when we were doing these improv workshops, whether that was like elevated listening or communication or how people saw themselves in a room, or um, you know, different types of like thinking that improv helps us, whether that's uh convergent thinking or divergent thinking. So my goal from originally working with Dr. DeTillo was there's gotta be a scientific answer to back up all of these things that make laughter so magical, that make improv so magical, that make it really fit like a key in a hole. And so that is what the uh my newsletter, Laugh RX, is all about. It's always trying to tie those comedy skill sets that you can apply at work and then back them up with uh with some scientific backing, but as well as comedians that are like, well, yeah, that's that's how I look at things too.

JD: 17:07

Well, it and it creates a receptiveness that that doesn't always exist in these environments. You know, I again I talked about these kind of stiff workshops that I've been a part of in the past, and you'll always find folks who participate and other folks who don't participate, people who are you know on board, people who are detractors and so forth. But I've got to believe that the use of comedy, the use of laughter, the use of improv kind of breaks down those barriers and gets people to be more courageous in terms of stepping out of their comfort zone and more willing to be taking input from others. Um I'm a huge fan of improv. I always have been uh very early in my theater days, you know, we use theatre sports as a way to build skills and build confidence and overcome fear and those things. Equally, I fell in love with things like Whose Line Is It Anyway? I love watching any of those uh types of things. And then more recently, uh discovered a group down here in Melbourne called the Imprompt Tunes, who basically will solicit themes from an audience and in real time will deliver a musical theatre piece to you completely opposite. It's it's so much fun. They were just over in Glasgow for the uh Fringe Festival there, and I know they had a great time there. But I'm trying to imagine, you know, what does this look like in a corporate environment? Could you kind of walk us through the prep and the and the execution of improv in in that environment?

Kevin: 18:30

Yeah, so what we do to start is that we ask the organizer to complete a pre-event survey and we say, what is it? Like first off, what is your team's dynamic? Do you know each other well? Do you not know each other well? Um, what are you looking to get out of the event? Are you looking for professional development? Or are you just looking to be silly and have fun and connect with people in a unique way? Right. Or all of the above, you know? So we ask all of these different questions. And also another thing I love to ask is do you have any like company themes or company goals that you want us to incorporate? Or is there anything that's happening right now in this moment that is good for us to call back into the uh experience? And the reason that I ask those those last two questions is because when you are laughing, you're it's a signal to your brain to remember the information. So you're much more likely to remember information if you associate it with a laugh. Right. So that's why we also call it laughing and development, because we're replacing that word uh learning with laughing, and because that's really what we believe is happening. You're laughing, and thus you are developing. So that is the goals of those workshops. And you know, a lot of people are like, okay, so what do we need? We got an A V system, and we got you know a perfect conference room, and what else? Like, and do you need lights? Whatever. And we say, no, we don't need anything, we need maybe like four or five chairs max, and we just need an empty room, and we just need people to come being mildly interested. And even if they're not, even if they're scared, like that's what the whole process is for. And so we create these workshops that are going to ease people into it. So you mentioned whose line is it anyways, right? And that's what a lot of people say. They're like, I don't want to do this, I do not want to do this because I've seen Whose Line Is It Anyway, and those people are so funny that I'll never hold a candle to them. And we have to tell people, and I even use it in our marketing, like, that's what we're not. That is not what this experience is about. And that's actually not even what improv is about. You know, that is an entertainment show, it's it has tons of entertainment value, it's absolutely hilarious. But when people are doing improv, the goal is not to be funny, the goal is to sort of follow these set of principles, whether that's having your teams back, effectively communicating with each other, actively listening to one another, creating a supportive environment and allowing people to take risks. So it really is this really harmonious and beautiful act of bringing a team together. And depending on what the goal of the event is, you know, we have workshops that are very specifically tied to like sales skills or marketing and creative skills. And those are like very tailored workshops. But again, going back to like, hey, we just want to get together and be closer and have more fun. You know, that's really where we create a custom curriculum based on every group. So a lot of these exercises and a lot of these curriculums we put together are not the same for everybody because everybody's gonna have different goals and we are going to be incorporating what their company values are or their um business goals are in the moment. So a lot of it's different, but the the whole idea is that people just show up and they show up in an empty room and they have to do no prep and they just have to be, you know, ready to participate and not perform or not be funny, just participate. And we've even had people that are like, I'm sitting out the first couple, and they do. And you know what they do? They're in by the second or third thing that we're doing because they realize it's really not what they thought it was.

JD: 22:14

Well, and I I love the clarification you just provided. Thank you for that. Um I guess you know, if I paraphrase back to you, what I'm hearing you say is that you're creating an environment that allows people to role play in scenarios that are relevant to their business, relevant to their role within the business, but in a safe place where I can role-play that with my peers, uh, knowing that I can screw it up completely. It doesn't matter. I'm gonna learn from that. Um, and maybe I'll laugh because of the way I screwed it up or whatever. That's gonna be part of the of the of the process, but it really is a playground to to to learn and to grow as a professional in whatever field you're in. Is that is that a fair description of what you're doing?

Kevin: 22:55

Well, I wouldn't say that we are, it's not role-playing exact scenarios, it's not say sales and prospect, but we will play a game and say, well, this is why this is relevant to you as a salesperson, right? And this is why this game that we played and the language, like for instance, if we're playing a uh something with a team and they're saying we're having a lot of trouble communicating effectively, you know, we're not gonna say, hey, let's role play what that would be like. We're gonna play a game that allows for people to zoom out and go, oh, I know why we did that. That's gonna help us uh uh effectively communicate. And I'll give like an example. One event, one uh exercise that's very popular, uh, it's using language. And what's the language that you are going to use when you're talking to your team? And so we say, Hey, we're all gonna go on a on a picnic. And John is, John, you're gonna go, you're gonna say what you're gonna bring, and then I'm going to add another thing to the picnic. But we're gonna go around the first time, and everyone's gonna say what they're gonna bring, but they're gonna say no, but so it'll be like, John, you go and you'll say, Hey, I'm gonna bring a blanket, and I'm gonna say no, but I'm gonna bring a speaker. And everyone is going to go around and you're gonna kind of see that like that language really was not effective for like a team. And then we ask them to go around again and we say, okay, now change it and do yes or so John's gonna bring a blanket, yes, or I'm gonna bring a speaker. Again, it's like still very siloed and individual. But when we ask them to say yes and the third time around, that's when people say, John's gonna bring a blanket, yes, and I'm gonna bring a speaker, yes, and I'm gonna bring some like hot dogs, and I'm gonna bring some burgers, and suddenly it's a party, and people are really with each other and having fun, and then you zoom out and you say, Hey, that's no different than we're going around and we're sharing new ideas. And when you are telling someone, especially say, like a manager, like, hey, how are we going to be talking? How are you accepting what your team is saying and saying, yes, and here's what else we can do? And we've seen that be done really effectively for on sales calls for teams. We'd seen it done very well for healthcare workers when they're doing um, you know, talking with patients and they're talking about their symptoms and they're saying, yes, and it could be this. They're not negating what they're saying, and and that's a lot of it what it is. It's validation. Hey, I'm validating that idea, and this is also what I'm gonna add to that idea. And it's not saying yes, or I'm gonna do this, it's saying yes, and let's keep things going because or and but and no, those words can stop the train and they can stop momentum. And whatever the main goal of improv is don't stop the momentum. And you always want to keep going. And so that's really what we do. We try to take exercises so it doesn't feel like work because the less it feels like work, the more people will be themselves, the more people will naturally act, and then you can say, You see what you just did there? That's how you should kind of act all the time, and that's how you should take this into the business setting.

JD: 26:15

Uh, as a coach, that uh that scenario you just described is such a common scenario. The use of butt as an example is one of the one of the most frustrating things for many people. That's basically I'm rejecting your idea and I'm and I'm putting my idea forward, and there's immediately then you create tensions. I love that. Um, and that that's a cultural shift that you're driving there. That's quite significant. If you can make that stick, that will fundamentally change an organization, how an organization interacts with each other. So I love that. Um, I guess the curiosity I've got is does it stick? How do you know it sticks, Kevin?

Kevin: 26:51

It's hard to know if it sticks. Uh well, what I do know is that we we focus on what we can control, and that is in this moment, we are making sure that everybody knows why we're doing it. And I think that is really what we can focus on, how it sticks is that we are not going about it in a sense of here's improv, hope you liked it. We're going about it and saying this is specifically designed so your team can understand why we're doing these things and why they can go back and tie it back to this moment. And and there are a lot of things that teams can take on with them. And they after the event, they can start to do some stuff as a warm-up before an exercise, and and they can start to sort of facilitate not 60-minute long events or two-hour-long workshops. They can just do something for like five, six, seven minutes just to get the juices flowing. So, my hope always is that people take the brunt of why they're doing it. So next time it's introduced, it's not foreign and it's not like that's pointless and that's stupid. It's like, oh yeah, we've done this before. We know why it's done in the first place. And that's effectively what we want to do. And I mean, we have things offered, like, hey, how do we know it sticks? We have teams that do stuff with us called laugh breaks, where we're always working with them and we might just do short 15 or 30-minute sessions uh that they'll kind of incorporate before a weekly team meeting or a monthly team check-in uh to do so. So that's where, like you were saying before, like how we're able to connect with teams virtually and quickly and do this stuff. Like that's where the laughing and development on the virtual side has been so cool because, you know, sure, it's not the exact same as doing in person, but we're still training these soft skills that in the age of AI really need to turn into power skills. That was something someone started to tell me a lot, is is uh uh as I did a previous podcast, and they referenced using soft skills and changing that word to power skills. And I've always loved that since hearing it, and uh, and I've really enjoyed that. And so that's really what we're trying to do is help people realize that this isn't just a game or this isn't just some you know team off site where we were doing something silly. No, this is an applicable skill that you can take with you and you can continue to leverage. And that's why I have also done the continuing stuff of Laugh RX is to continue that conversation with people. And we're also rolling out in certain cities drop-in classes where people can go and take it upon themselves to continue doing this professional growth where we're focusing on different uh professional uh power skills. And, you know, that is really the only thing that we can do is try to keep the party going, keep the conversation going, and and you know, focus on the people that are really interested in leveling themselves up and not focus necessarily on uh if they're doing a good job, but if they're doing it consistently and they're letting that muscle grow a little bit more. Because that's really where eventually you'll surprise yourself with something special.

JD: 30:04

Um, you kind of led into my the question I was about to ask, you answered it perfectly, which is you know, is it a come in, run the workshop, go away thing, or is there some kind of maintenance option there? And what I'm hearing is that you have these kind of 15-minute sessions, which are kind of continuing to foster the culture or the foster the models there as well. I think that's fantastic. That's it's awesome. Um, because that's always what's what scares me with workshops. I've been to so many workshops in my life, and you get all in the room and it's exciting, you spend a day or two days or whatever doing whatever, you hold hands and sing kumbayar, and then you go back to work and it's all gone. It's all forgotten within a week. Yeah.

Kevin: 30:41

Um, and so that's always why I encourage people to think about their budgets as an extension across like in a program you're investing in. And there's so many times a lot of people will be like, yeah, we're doing this one thing and we want to do it for 60 minutes, and that's what we're doing. And that's when we started to roll out laugh breaks, whether it was from a professional development standpoint or from an entertainment standpoint. We're like, but what if you broke this up into like chunks? Then it was a surprise for people, then it was a jolt for people. It was this ability to kind of, you know, give people that extra kick in the butt that they need to get the day going, or you know, rattle their brains in a good way to say, hey, let's look at this problem a little bit differently. Because that's really what improv is great at and comedy is great at. It's like letting yourself go and and being out of the mud. And and how can we do that? And how can our employers help people do that? Because there's only so much we can do because we're we're at work. We we have to be attention to work. So, what can employers do to keep their team engaged, uh, but also let them have a lot of fun.

JD: 31:53

Yeah, no, I love it. Um, so I've got to believe that since you kicked this off in 2019, uh, you didn't go into this fully mature and so forth. It has to have been some events that were interesting, either humorous or or catastrophic or whatever. Is there a story you can share in terms of the early days and the learning process you went through?

Kevin: 32:13

I mean, a lot of so I I'd say the earliest, earliest days um were I was working with a lot of comedians, and again, the earliest days were focused on comedy shows. So that's all we were doing, and the comedians that we were working with, a lot of them were uh comedy club comics, right? So I was putting a square peg and a round hole. I didn't even know at the time that there were corporate comedians, that there were people that specifically did corporate comedy, but there were so many comedians that I really admired and respected and had previously worked on with in-person shows who were out of work at the time, and they were not legally allowed to perform in clubs. So I wanted to work with a lot of those folks, and so that's what I did, and we had to really tweak it. So I had to also have the uh, you know, I'd started doing a lot of events with like friends and family to start to be like, hey, this is how we can massage this to get it fit for the audience. And you know, there were a couple of shows where some things uh snuck out that were a comedy club act that me on the other end of it had to just absolutely like I had like a mild panic attack in that moment, going, okay, it's all over. That was also like I had to like relinquish a lot of control to it too. And I was like, great, this was fun while it lasted. We did it for uh, you know, 18 months, and that is what it is. And something slipped out there, and uh, and I'm gonna go into my room and scream into a pillow, and and that's uh that's how we're gonna do it. And uh, and basically what I started to do was, yeah, we failed, we didn't do that well, and we didn't um prepare properly. So, what I started to do was recruit more comedians that only had clean acts, and I stopped letting you know what the problem really was was that the audience, the person that was uh the organizer would be like, we want to rate it our show, right? Give it to us, go hard, like really rip into my boss. And we were like, Okay, like that's what you want to do, like we'll do it. And then I'm telling the comic to say, hey, that's what they wanted. And then it happens, and then they would be like, Oh gosh, no, that's not what we wanted. It's like that's what you said to do. Um, so that's also when I said, Okay, let's not, let's not even tell the comic that they want that. So I stopped even doing that, and I and I only said, Hey, our our baseline is this type of comedy. And that's really when we started to say, hey, we're gonna use what the audience wants as a guideline, but we're gonna start delivering a very unique or a very unique but uh predictable format so that we have no surprises and I didn't have to relinquish so much control. So again, I'm very grateful for those moments uh that I thought the world was falling down, but really what I had to do was iterate on our process and and tighten up our process. And, you know, it got to a point where our shows were having like, I think on an average, like a 4.2 out of five. Um, and year over year, the goal was like just get 0.1 better. Uh, and so by now, you know, we average like a 4.7 out of five, absolutely kill it. And the only thing that takes down our five out of five is when someone throws us a four out of five. And uh, and that's pretty good in my book, and especially when it comes to comedy, which is uh allegedly subjective. So that was also a really hard challenge, is like, how do we make something that people think is subjective and and turn into something that is very clear and positive and uh fits the environment perfectly, and and we did a great job of figuring that out.

JD: 36:09

So the customer's not always right. No, no, and that that I think that's it's very key, right? You are the subject matter experts in this space, and so I think defining uh uh a standard for yourselves probably makes a lot of sense, but I can I can visualize that learning and I can definitely visualize the scenario. I've been in some rooms with company off sites where things were said that just didn't belong there, so I can definitely picture that situation. Um, I also know that, like in my experience in the corporate world, I've definitely worked with some people who have no sense of humor whatsoever and no willingness at all to step out of their comfort zone. That's got to present a unique challenge for you, particularly if they're senior people in an organization. How do you work with that?

Kevin: 36:51

Yeah, that was always something that was difficult at first, especially when we were only doing virtual and we were only doing entertainment. But the second that we shifted to doing uh the laughing and development and these applied improv workshops, we noticed that because the content is so benign and not about work, and it it forces people to relinquish their seniority and relinquish their control. Because, you know, if you're doing a fake very famous improv thing to start, like it's called zip zap, you know, and you're you're passing sound and you're passing action around to people, you know, nothing makes a CEO look less like a CEO when he's saying zip and zap and zap, you know? So it's kind of like eliminating that seniority and saying, like, okay, we're in this together, nobody is uh elevated above me. And that allows people who are so junior to act really naturally to the senior individuals, and it allows the senior individuals to be like, well, I don't need to present a certain type of you know, person to these people because we're not doing anything that requires me to be a certain type of personality. So they're also getting something out of it, you know, in their minds, their their wheels are churning and they're saying, okay, this is valuable and I could take this back. So I think we also see a lot of people uh in the senior roles taking, you know, their foot off the gas for a second, slowing down and seeing how not only this works in the moment, but how they can use it later on with their teams. And you know, when we worked with a whole group of engineers, I remember, you know, I remember that I remember saying, like, oh, this guy's the CTO, let's see how he acts. I'm gonna watch this whole group because there was like the CTO all the way down to like a junior engineer, and they were just you couldn't tell the difference between the two. And that was a really special thing because it completely took out any sort of seniority or roles, and everybody is on the same page, and everyone goes into these sessions. Um, you know, really they're giving up their controls, you know. I don't know if you've seen the office episode where Michael Scott is doing improv and he they're like, Michael, give me your guns, and he just keeps taking guns out of fake guns out of his pocket. That's kind of how it is. It's like, give me your badge, like give me your title, like put it on the table because you're not bringing that into this class.

JD: 39:25

Well, and for many leaders, that's actually gonna be a relief. It's like, you mean I I don't have to be the guy, right? Or or the gal, I don't have to be the person in charge for a while. Um, and and having been in leadership roles a lot in my career, I know that's it's such a uh a release sometimes just to be able to be one of the group uh and it and it's level set. So I I think I love that. I love that a lot. And so it sounds like you've deliberately developed this to set a level playing field to kind of take away the hierarchy, take away the the status from so from folks so that you're all playing on the same team.

Kevin: 40:01

Totally, and and you really uh you can't be yourself and expect your team to be vulnerable if you yourself are not being vulnerable. So it also is a lesson in that. It's a lesson in lead sometimes. Leadership comes in the form of showing people like, oh, I'm jumping in the pool too, and I'm getting I'm getting wet. And I think that you know, a lot of people come to work with that that nine to five personality, and we always talk about a lot of what we do is helping you bring your five to nine personality into your nine to five. And you know, I think that that is something that people lose sight of, and to give you an hour, two hours, three hours, whatever it might be, where you're able to take take that part of yourself and and push it down and show people like, hey, I might be holding you to a standard to get deadlines in or or hit our company goals, but like I'm just like you. You know, I'm just like one of y'all, and I'm gonna show you how I show up in my most authentic version of myself. And sometimes I think that that's the most important thing leaders can do.

JD: 41:09

Well, and it's hard to find the balance. Again, I've I've watched a lot of people transition from being, you know, an individual contributor in a domain space where they were the the most senior technical or domain specialist there, transition into leadership and they struggle for so long to not be one of the one of the gang, to be the leader, but to not be, you know, uh um the what's the look the thing? The draconian leader. They want to try to find that balance, and it's often difficult. It sounds like what you're doing is you're creating an environment that separates them from the workday where they can kind of relax and and and let go of that, and it probably helps them ultimately find that equilibrium that's so important.

Kevin: 41:51

Totally, and it goes back to like, hey, I'm finding my equilibrium, and so can you. And I think that a lot of leaders, yeah, they should, they it's only natural. That would happen to me sometimes, and and I, you know, my favorite quote that I I was told by my boss that that really encouraged me to want to showcase more of my five to nine personality is when my boss said to me, after I was on a call and he was helping watch it, watch the call and give me notes after, and he knew who I was outside of this call, but I would go to work like very, you know, metaphorically, my tie was all the way tight, and uh, and I was really like this very specific personality, but I was so different uh when I left work, and I and I was really it was this duality of of of man, and not in a good way, and so my boss said to me after the call, I was like, any feedback? And he was like, Yeah, stop being so salesman and start being more hubsman, and that really hit me so hard, and uh, it's something that I constantly remind myself to bring more joy, bring more of my personality into work, because that allows other people to bring their personality. And if you're working with clients, that allows clients and prospects to be more of themselves, and I think that that was a very important thing is what you do and how you show up has a significant impact on the signaling you're giving other people to show up. And if you're stern and you want to be, you know, this certain type of person, that's the energy that you're giving off. But if you're promoting levity and you're promoting, uh, you know, obviously there's a time to be serious, but you're promoting a uh a culture in which people are free to speak freely and free to take risks and share ideas and really be themselves, you're going to benefit tremendously from innovation and from more sales conversions and and better client relationships and retention. And there's just there's endless amounts of um of dividends that can be paid from showing up as your true authentic self.

JD: 44:10

Yeah, I've got to wonder how many epiphanies have happened during your workshops for senior leaders. You know, how many how many moments of clarity happened just because they were in a in a different role, a different persona at the time. It has to happen.

Kevin: 44:24

At work too. That's another thing. They're doing this during work hours. So they are like, I'm supposed to be this person and I'm being this other person in the setting that we're in. And this is like I'm seeing my desk from here, you know. So it's kind of this uh this therapy in a way that that forces people to really show up the way that they're expecting other people to show up. And then they're like, man, why can't we why can't we be like this all the time? And that really is really where it comes to saying, okay, what are we doing after these workshops? Like, is this is this a one and done? Thank you, we're done. Am I going myself to to try to invest more of this? Uh, and invest in in humor and relationship building. And that's what we're trying to offer more to people, and that's why our newsletter is there to kind of remind people of that, that even like the silliest people in the world, they're doing things and and honing their craft with such specificity and such you know, targeted aspects of what they're doing, and they're very calculated, but it's allowing them to be show up with levity and show up with joy. And I think that that's another thing that I learned from being a comedian and going on stage was when I showed up in a bad mood, I wasn't fun. I was like, and but when the audience, when I decided, hey, I'm gonna have fun with the audience, and that's what I'm focused on. I'm not focused on saying the right things, I'm not focused on my jokes being in the right place. That comes from preparation. I'm just gonna focus on trying to connect with the audience. And if they see that I'm having fun, they're now gonna have a lot more fun, and they're going to loosen their shoulders up. And that is really something that I learned live on stage. And then that's so relevant anytime you jump on a call with anybody, and like how can you make them feel comfortable? And that's really similar from stage to offstage.

JD: 46:27

Yeah, mindset's everything, and people I vibe, people sense where you are in terms of your mindset at the time. So that makes perfect sense. I love what you just said too, and I don't want it to be lost. Um, context is everything, and and you certainly see people in the work environment who then go to the hotel or the or the bar afterwards, and they're a completely different person. The next day they're back in the office and they're back to being there, they're in the office persona. What you're doing is because you're taking them into a different place, but in the context of the office, is you're actually uh unlinking, if you like, the persona to the location. And and I think that's that's powerful. You know, I think that's very uh that that's what's gonna sustain the change is the fact that I was in that environment, but I was a different person. So now there's a there's a different connection, a different relationship with the environment. I think that's that's very powerful.

Kevin: 47:20

Totally. And I really every time someone is doing um a workshop and they're saying, Hey, can we go to a comedy club to do it, or can we uh go to a bar and do it? And I'm like, no, I don't think you should. I think you should stay where you are. Um, you know, we're working with a client and they're doing it at a hotel. And I was like, great, we'll come to you. And they're like, no, we want to leave and we want to do it somewhere else. And I'm like, well, I think it should be in the same environment where you're asking people to show up for work because then you're giving them that same advice to say, show up in this way too. And I think a lot of people think, oh no, we like this is the fun part, this is the serious part, this is the fun part. And I think a lot of people are nervous to you know blur those lines, but I do think that we live in a world where those lines should be blurred from the sense of personality, should be blurred, because otherwise you really do uh you do a number on people when you tell them that like you have to, especially if you already have like, say, like a dress code, like you have to dress this way, you have to act this way, you have to be this way, and these are the rules and do not make mistakes. And this is our company culture. And I'm all for you know, some of those aspects, but when you then let people and all those rules are all in the same place, and you're doing, you know, one of these improv exercises or games in this environment, in the in the shirt, in the suit, uh, and in the rules that you're in, it it you makes you look at everything in a in a little bit of a different lens.

JD: 49:02

Yeah, yeah. No, it and to make change happen, you've got to do that. You've got to blow the lines, otherwise, it's some anomaly that happened over here. It's it's not real. Um a large proportion of my audience for this podcast is international, not US-based. Um, and so I guess a two-part question for you is you know, are you doing work for non-US customers today? Are you doing multinationals? What does that look like? And and for folks that can't take advantage of your services, what advice do you have for leaders and and uh you know managers and so forth in terms of what they can learn from you?

Kevin: 49:38

Yeah, so we do a lot of virtual stuff, like we're predominantly based out of the US, but we're always growing uh internationally. So I do encourage anybody that uh is listening that if you want us to do something in person, you know, we do have a very large network and it probably extends to wherever you are, whether that is in um Australia or whether that is in Asia, uh, or if it's you know in Europe, wherever it might be, you know, that's that our network of professional improvisers, you know, really spans. And um, and if not, if you're just interested in doing virtual stuff, that's something that we've perfected. And we had the opportunity during the pandemic for two to three years, where we were like, this is we don't know what the future is. So this is all we're doing. So we're all in. And a lot of people bailed on uh once the what 21 came around and they went like, all right, now we're back in person. We stayed put and we said, Hey, let's perfect this because there is a group of people that we can reach uh by really making this experience fantastic. So that's what I will say is you know, we can probably do it in person, but secondly, our our virtual stuff is outstanding. We already work with a lot of people internationally. It's all about just making the time zones line up, and that's when we can pull in different folks where it where it does make sense. Um and yeah, in terms of uh your second question was around um what what what advice would you have for leaders today from what you've learned? My advice to leaders would be kind of exactly what we just talked about. I think I think a lot of it has to do with like don't be afraid to blur the lines and don't be afraid yourself to show up in that way that's very unique and uh authentic. Because I think that once you let that authenticity shine and you allow people to that you're sharing more about yourself and your personality, it just has a ton of dividends that can be paid in the form of other people showing up truly authentically, which can again lead to whatever business outcome that you really need, because people will feel the need that they can share. And another piece of advice that I'll give is you can't train people to not make mistakes. Right. And I think that's a lot of what leaders kind of think that they have to do. I know early in my career when I was given the task of being a manager, you know, all I was trying to do was like, don't do this and don't make mistakes and don't do, and that was the exact opposite approach to take, you know, it was make mistakes, learn from them those mistakes. And by the way, I've got your back to to teach you what to do a little bit differently next time. And if you're giving, you're creating that environment that's very supportive, you're blurring those lines where people are making uh you're making them feel very comfortable and that they can be themselves and make mistakes and kind of mold themselves into the professional that you ultimately want them to be. You know, it starts with you and it starts with you yourself investing in it and you yourself showing up as that person, and you can't tell them to read a book, you have to embody it and you have to embody what it means to show up at work authentically as yourself, and everyone really will fall in line and they will be excited to come to work, they'll be excited to take chances, and that's gonna come with a new approach to looking at problems, whether that's a sales problem, a product problem, uh, a customer service problem, an engineering problem. You know, it's just going to allow people to to kind of look at the house a little bit differently. It's not just a door and those windows, and that's what we have to do. Maybe there's something around back that we can look at because we're taking a different approach to things, and that's what that's ultimately what uh what I think is valuable as a leader.

JD: 53:46

Um we talk about this so much on this podcast. I'm a firm believer that that we learn our greatest things out of failure. And uh the trick is not not to make the same mistakes twice to make sure that every failure turns into a learning or turns into an improvement. Um, but I love what you just talked about. I talked about this quite a bit in uh a previous episode I did on employee engagement and creating environments um where people are protected, people are supported, and they're they're given the ability to make intelligent risks or take intelligent risks, uh, knowing that it might work, might not work. But if it doesn't work, you are supported and will take the learning and will improve and so forth. So I love that. Uh everything you said there. I think some very powerful feedback there. Yeah, to my mind, um, uh I don't know how familiar with Blue Ocean Strategy are, but you are a perfect example of a Blue Ocean strategy in the sense that you've taken something in a red ocean, which is corporate workshops, and everybody's doing corporate workshops, but you've taken something else that's quite different from a corporate workshop and brought the two together to build a product that's very, very unique. Um, and I've not seen anybody else doing what you're doing. I'm sure that if there aren't today, there will be. That's just the nature of of the business. But I I do, I think what you've you've built here is something incredibly unique, and I I applaud you for it. And I kind of want to go back into corporate so I can do it, but I'm not gonna go back.

Kevin: 55:08

Thank you.

JD: 55:09

Not gonna happen.

Kevin: 55:10

Yeah, I mean, we we we didn't necessarily we didn't invent improv. Not necessarily, we did not invent improv at all. Improv has been around for 30 plus years, but with the approach that I am taking to our business is around emphasizing professional development. And improv is is really used, and people have been approaching it from professional development uh in the past, but I'm trying to take my own experience of having been in the corporate world for seven years or so and been in a in a company that was just 10 people at one point and eventually grew to 200, and being on a team that was one person and eventually growing to 20, having a manager, having a director, having a VP, having sales goals. And I think that's the approach that makes what we do slightly differently is that I have been in the environment of both a really high-intensity uh culture uh and product and and rocket ship, so to speak. And I've also been on the stage around people that have perfected their craft. And what I'm just trying to do is merge those two worlds in a way that allows that one group's message to resonate with the other, and that's what my focus is with laughing and development is to keep that going and really allow people to see that improv is not just for people who are interested in comedy. Improv is not for people interested in theater, improv is a mindset, and applied improv has so many different skills, and and same thing with stand-up comedy. Stand-up comedy is all these different little things that you learn that are right in front of you. You talk about failure, like you have to fail every single minute of your set sometimes, and you come away with it going, I got nothing out of it. And then someone reminds you, but you did get a laugh for one five-second increment, and you go, Okay, I got something out of it. I'll take that away and run with it. So that's the experience that I have had. I've taken my licks in the corporate world and I've taken my licks on the stage, uh, both in improv and stand-up. And my goal is to find, you know, what's in the middle of that Venn diagram that a lot of people can take away, uh, whether you're a leader or an individual contributor. And uh, and I hope it's it's valuable for everybody.

JD: 57:39

What's been the most significant hurdle that you've had to face uh over the last six years in building this business? And how did you overcome it?

Kevin: 57:49

I would say the most significant hurdle I faced was using the same language that everyone before me was using, right? Words like improv, words like comedy, words like stand-up, you know, things that were really, you know, in one bucket and not framed properly. And how I did that was having a ton of different phone calls with a lot of different people and understanding how this should be framed to people and how will people actually invest in it. So, our number one rule from a marketing standpoint is try not to use the word improv when you're describing it. Uh, that's a scary, intimidating word. The other thing is try not to, because also when I tell people this is what happened, I would find out that I would tell people, hey, we're gonna do an improv workshop, and and they're like, Great, that sounds good. I'll I'll put it to a vote with my team. And they see improv and people go, No way, I am too scared to do that. Let's do the booze cruise, like, and I get that, you know. Um, so I was like, no, that's not what it is. So we had to really change how we were framing it to people. And I also feel like it just hasn't been framed well. It's like I said, improv has been around for decades and decades, but it's been used in a certain format. And same thing with comedy. Uh, I think another thing that I stopped saying was like corporate comedy. I think corporate makes it sound like that nine to five personality, and obviously it's going to be clean and it's going to be appropriate, but I wanted to take the stuffiness and the dryness out of what it was, and I wanted to make it our own. And that is what I did. I took a lot of licks and a lot of lost business um as a result of doing it the way everyone else was doing it. But then, just like I would on stage, I tried a new joke, right? I tried a new pitch, I tried a new per perspective of what it would be. And then I got, I got uh, I got to watch people go, ah, or I I love that, or oh, I get that. That makes a lot of sense. And that's when I just started to go way harder in the perspective of like, what is gonna resonate with people? And I need to use my own advice and I need to look at this from a whole different perspective because that's going to allow me to connect with people more and not say this is a product you need. I needed to hear what their problems were. And I wasn't doing that. So when I started to hear, and then I tried to test it, and then I tried to hear again, and I just tried to get very open and vulnerable with failure, it allowed us to compound our wins and really take it and uh and make small changes that ended up with you know uh business growing, people resonating more with it, uh, and you know, having really amazing NPS scores that uh validated what we were doing. And that was a really exciting thing to see.

JD: 1:01:02

I I love that. And and I guess again, you've got lived skills there in terms of engaging with sales teams, for instance, uh in that in the learning that you've gone through. Are they those are not they're not textbook skills, they're they're lived experiences that allow you to speak realistically with somebody who's having that that same journey or on that same journey. I think that's right quite powerful. And I do think what you say is absolutely correct. We we too often try to sell the features and benefits of our product when a customer just wants to know that you can help them fix a problem. I think Simon Seneck and his starts with why very well kind of shapes that in terms of understanding uh what your purpose is. Um, if you could go back to 2019 with everything that you know now, what's the conversation we're having with with Kevin back there on the beginning of that journey? What are you telling yourself?

Kevin: 1:01:51

There's a global pandemic that's happening. Prepare yourself. Um so I would say uh I would go back and really say embrace what you don't know. And I think when I I came into being a business owner, I came in it from the perspective of like, I'm a salesperson, I can sell anything, I'm gonna will myself to victory here. And I honestly did that for for way too long and until my business needed sort of resuscitation. And what I would have done differently if I could go and tell myself is you should try a lot of new things in terms of business development and in terms of looking at this problem a lot of new ways. And instead, I tried to use my my like sports background and my competition background of just being like, just work harder than everybody else. And your hard work is going to speak louder because that's what worked for me for my first six, seven years. But you know the difference? I had a marketing team, I had uh, you know, I had a customer success team, I had, you know, a product, I had a lot of people to help me. And what I didn't realize was now that I am not just a salesperson, but I I am a lot more different things, I need to be way more willing to try different methods of business development, and I need to be willing to fail as well because that was a big scary thing. It was like, hey, you know what you know and just do what you know, and and whatever it is. And I just, you know, that's what it is. It's like experiment, but like be ready to fail because you're gonna fail a lot, it's gonna be a roller coaster. Um, and that is really what I I think I was prepared for and I knew, but and I'm always like, I wish I didn't have to have failed as much, but then I look back on and it's like, man, those reps were invaluable. You know, now I can really feel very confident in my skills, and I know it's very cliche, but you learn so much more from your failures than you do your successes. And when our business was thriving, I didn't know a thing. And it wasn't until our business was going through some troughs that I learned a ton. And and it was a very funny lesson where it was like, oh, I I really need to know more, and I don't know enough, and I need to solve problems. And that was a fascinating thing to learn. Like, oh, you're not gonna learn anything when you're doing really well. You're only gonna learn things when when things are going hard, and it it shows if you're gonna bounce back and uh and be ready to to to power through.

JD: 1:04:37

I think we see that a lot too, Kevin. I think you know the the old S curve or whatever you want to call it, but we see a lot of small businesses who are incredibly successful in the beginning, and I think unfortunately it's their undoing because complacency creeps in or or they're they they they're like, why isn't this not something not working? Everything we did before was working fine. Um I I I like what you said uh in terms of the approach. I think that's quite meaningful for anybody going out setting up their own business, is to not take somebody else's playbook, is to is to experiment and try things because your business is unique. It's your business, it may be different, your customer base might be different, or the environment might be different, or whatever. So it's going to be trial and error discovery and looking for those small signs of success, that one joke that hit the mark, um, and then building on that. I again I think it's a very powerful learning uh for anybody who's embarking on their own business uh and and also the having the finger on the pulse and knowing what's really going on is key. Um, who's had the the most significant influence on you? Like who, you know, who do you look to, who do you model?

Kevin: 1:05:41

Uh you know, I'd say the person that has had the most influence on me is probably my old CEO. His name is Ben Hinman. He really is someone that has taught me so much about you know how to run a business, but more importantly, just like he he he showed me how fun a company could be. Right. And he showed me that you know it doesn't have to be the same as everybody else. People would come into my office when I was stir when I was working at this company, and they would be like, You work here, like this is a place of business. And it was just like it was a very fun environment, and he was always so focused on connecting people and making sure that sure he was very focused on hiring people that were incredibly smart, and that was the number one thing. But then he was really focused on like, are they personally gonna gel with everybody? And do they believe in this mission? And are they someone that's gonna work together? And so much so that like I met my wife at at work and and I'm married as a result of it, and I have some of my best friends as a result, and he's the one that encouraged me to start doing corporate comedy shows uh when the pandemic started, and he's the one that allowed me to do comedy at my office uh when it started. So I would be remiss not to tag him as one of my biggest influences uh because he he really was someone that always encouraged me, but he always encouraged to challenge how it's done, challenge the status quo, and uh, and yeah, not to not to like uh uh do the Apple thing, but yeah, think differently. And he really uh he he made a really strong influence on on me and from that perspective. And uh and yeah, it's just like made a really fun. He made me see that work can be fun, like not everywhere has to be, you know, really boring and and stuffy, and uh, and that was just invaluable to see that in real time and see that like fun can also equal success. You know, he ended up selling Splash for uh for nine-figure exit, you know. So it's like it's it it happen it also has the opportunity to be like you can really lead a lot of people by being totally yourself and authentically yourself, and you can have a wildly successful business as well.

JD: 1:08:08

He's gonna be pretty damn proud of all you've achieved, I gotta say. You know, he's uh he's gotta be grinning in terms of what you've gone on and done. That's fantastic. So I've got a couple of questions that I that I always ask my guests as kind of as we as we wrap this up. The first one is um artificial intelligence. So, how does that play for you today? And and how do you see that playing for you in the future? Are you enthusiastic and excited about it? Are you concerned about it? Where's your head on AI?

Kevin: 1:08:36

Um I think AI is great from this perspective of helping uh you know monotonous things and and projects. I mean, I I remember I had a so many different interns that I used to work with uh when I started this business that now I was able to simplify uh that workflow because of AI. And so I think AI is very good, especially for small business owners, about like really simplifying the overhead that you need to uh you know do smaller tasks that are are don't really, they just need take a lot of brain power and willpower. Now, the thing that I think that is negative about AI is people having it to start thinking for them. And I wrote a blog post or a newsletter post about this on Laugh Rx, but it was basically about there was something that came out that you know, people who were using Chat GPT, uh I think it was to write essays, the people were were dumber from using it. It's some a very popular thing that came around. So I started to look into what that meant, and it was like, you know, it was convergent versus divergent thinking. And and when AI, when it's making us start, AI is built to be a uh a convergent thinker. It's like, hey, A plus B equals C, and that's the answer that you're gonna get. And I think that that's very valuable for us. But when we start to take what's supposed to be our human nature and our our human abilities, which is I I believe divergent thinking, which is like A plus B could equal whatever the hell you think it could be, like it could mean whatever. And so I think when it's when it's allowing people to come up with creative answers and creative approaches and connecting with people, I don't think that AI can do that. And so I think that when people start to use it for ability to connect with an individual or use it to um use it to come up with ideas, I think it's a helpful tool, but the human nature of it all is really valuable. And from our perspective at LaughTot Events, you know, I think that those soft skills are what AI will never have. AI is never going to help you listen better, communicate effectively, uh, take risks, storytelling, you know, these are all different things that people need to, as AI becomes more popular, it's not going away, obviously. So as AI becomes more popular and you start to use it in your workflows, how do you make sure that it's not atrophying your human muscles? Which are those soft skills, AK, those power skills that are going to end up becoming what differentiates human beings from uh other human beings that are reliant solely on AI? And I think that whether it's in a sales role or a customer service role, or even just like a working with other individuals, how do we really make sure that we are effectively honing those skills and making sure that our divergent muscles are not impacted by this convergent tool? And that's my whole thought on AI is like great, it's awesome. It's gonna save us a lot of time, but it doesn't, it's it should give us more time to become more human and it gives us more time to work on stuff that's gonna allow us to connect with people so that we both maybe can use AI to make our lives a little bit easier, get a couple more hours back in our day, and I think that's ultimately what it should be used for.

JD: 1:12:15

Yeah, I couldn't be more aligned with you, Kevin. I I totally agree with you. And you know, it the disturbing patterns that I'm seeing that kind of resonate, I think, with what you've just said, is that we're seeing people turning to AI to coach and provide counseling, and uh, we're seeing AI actors evolving now. I saw that there's a there's an actress right now who's actually listed who's completely AI, AI bands and so forth. And I it just it concerns the crap out of me as well. So I'm watching this space with a lot of interest, which is why I include the question in every podcast, because I'm getting some fascinating perspectives from different walks of life in terms of how it's working. But I think you've had some great perspectives there on that, and and I do share your concerns. Um if you could only read one book or listen to one book, depending on your preference, um, for the rest of your life, what book would it be and why?

Kevin: 1:13:10

You know, there is a book that I really a couple answers to this, but I will say there is one book that I really loved. I'll I'll give you two answers to this. One, um there's a book called Nike and the Men Who Built It. Uh, it's basically the book that came out well before uh Phil Knight's shoe dog, which is the most popular version of that story, but this is everyone else's perspective of that. Um, and so I really enjoyed that, which is like that was like my uh catcher in the rye sort of thing during the pandemic. Like that was the book that I read that inspired me to want to um you know be passionate about something and do something passionate. And it's just it was a very fun story to read. Um, and uh, and I just really enjoyed kind of seeing how passionate people were and and uh working really hard together towards this um this goal. It reminded me of our early days at Splash, and uh, and that was inspiring to going, oh, that's something that I'm really drawn to is building something special and being really passionate about it. Um, and a book that I really love that is on the fiction side is uh The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera. Um and that's more on the uh philosophical side. I think it's just a very good read, and it's uh, you know, ultimately something that kind of uh tickles me intellectually. So um it's something that I I do enjoy reading uh from time to time, picking it back up, starting it over, um, and it's a Czech author, my family's check, um, and it's a it's a very good uh very good book.

JD: 1:14:55

Awesome. Well, I'll include links to both of those in the show notes. Um I'm really curious about the second one particularly. I'm I'm very curious. Uh is there a ritual or a hack or a habit that you've adopted that's had a significant impact on your effectiveness?

Kevin: 1:15:13

I would say knowing when my energy levels are in the day has been effective, knowing that um when my energy starts to fall, and really uh knowing like, okay, I can get some of my strongest work done uh right when I wake up. And so that is kind of what I've started to do is is really figuring out, like, because I am in control of a lot of my schedule, um, you know, how can I plan my day where I am giving my best work and being the most effective uh during a four-hour period instead of trying to stretch that out into like an eight-hour period as if every hour is the same. So I would say that like that's something that I found valuable um instead of being like, okay, part A of the day, part B of the day, uh, and trying to say, like, but what if I was able to absolutely, you know, really own the day for a short period of time where there's no distractions and no calls. And then the other times where I'm a bit more on autopilot and I don't need, I can just kind of be myself and do those activities. How can I find that part of my day that fits best? And and for me, that's in the afternoon. The morning's a lot more for you know, getting stuff done and making decisions. And for a while, I just didn't have that kind of structure. So I think that was allowing me to do that instead of trying to treat every hour like it's the same, just being really honest with myself. I know it's different for everybody, uh, it's different for men and women. And so I think it's just a matter of trial and error and finding it out.

JD: 1:16:52

No, I think it's a great call out. Uh, we talk about it in the context of a golden hour. And and, you know, we all have a golden hour. Some people it's early in the morning. Uh it was uh Robin Sharmer who wrote the 5 a.m. Club, which is which is very much focused on folks who are, you know, who get up at that hour of the day and they that's their maximum output period where they do the things that had the biggest impact. Um, I've talked to some people whose golden hour is 11 p.m. and I've I've known some people whose golden hour was 2 a.m. Typically software developers, in my experience, but um wouldn't work for me. But no, I think that's an important thing. And I also think that the point you make that's so valid is that it is irrational to think that you operate at the same level of effectiveness across the entire day. By the way, it's also uh true of the entire year. We all have periods of productivity that change with us over the year, call it biodhythms, whatever you want, and knowing that about yourself is quite powerful. So uh yeah, great call out. I think that's fantastic. I have a two-part question for you. Um, and and the first half of the question is when you have to do the hard stuff, when you've got a mountain to climb or or a particularly difficult conversation to have or something difficult to deal with, where do you get your superpowers? What do you do to invoke the energy that you need to get through the tough stuff?

Kevin: 1:18:13

I think it's looking at a lot of your failures and knowing that you've been through hard stuff. And I think I think my superpowers come with the idea that I've had success and uh but I've only had success after really having a lot of failure. And I know that's something that we've said a lot about failure, but I don't think it can be said enough. I think a lot of people are really afraid to fail. And so I think what my superpower is knowing it could go badly, but knowing that I got through that and knowing that there is, you know, the outcome is not ever as bad as you think it could be. And then the other side of it is visualizing success. You know, if I'm going to go and speak somewhere, or if I'm going to go on stage and perform, it doesn't help anybody for me to visualize it not going well. So I also visualize that success. And I even have um I have a pump up playlist that I I listen to that is songs that are uh kind of like just like affirmations, and it's called you're it's called, it's a it's uh the playlist, you know, embarrassingly enough, it's called You're the Man. And it's just pumping myself up and being like, hey, you can do this and you've got this. And, you know, I I I also saw that like Jerry Seinfeld would do this before going on stage. He would listen to the Superman soundtrack, uh, like da-da-da-da-da. I think that's it. I think that's it. Um, but he would picture himself on stage with that song playing, and he would, it would allow himself to visualize it having gone well. And so I I took that a little bit from him. I started to frame the my playlist more once I saw that he did it. Before I was just a guy that, you know, liked listening to those songs before doing something hard. But I think visualizing success is is can be a real big superpower, but it would be hard for me to visualize the success if I hadn't already felt the failure and I hadn't already had opportunities for success. So uh it wasn't it, I'm not able to visualize it until I have all of the data. And no, failure's not that bad, and success is not unachievable.

JD: 1:20:33

I love so much about what you just shared there. Um, so uh recent episode with Albert Bramante, who's also from New York, coincidentally, uh, who's a psychologist and a and a talent uh agency, and he talked about a study that that basically said that 85% of the things that that we're afraid of that we're concerned about are going to happen in a study never happen. And and I think that's very true. We tend to talk ourselves up uh to failure. Um, but I think the same thing you know that you've just said as well, in the sense that things have gone wrong, but the catastrophe is almost never as bad as the catastrophe that we imagined. Um, and the other thing that I've talked about in the past is that for many of us, uh, we can talk about tremendous things that have happened in our lives that happened because of um what we thought was a tragedy at the time. Um, and that things that that we thought were going to be an absolute disaster gave us wisdom or gave us learnings or changed our lives in ways that gave us better, better outcomes than we would have had without the failure. So I love all of that. I think everything you just described there makes sense. And I love the notion of using uh music as an empowerment. I think it's so powerful uh to do that. And I'm um I I love the notion of having an empowering soundtrack uh that that you have on demand. I think that for anybody who who has to do public speaking or has to do those things that that they're uncomfortable with, having that having that jolt in the arm from the right piece of music at the right time is is a real game changer. So some great wisdom there, Kevin. Thank you for sharing that.

Kevin: 1:22:10

Um if you know the lyrics to the words, yeah. They are as if they're affirmations because you're saying it back to yourself. So there's like um, you know, there's a song by Jess Glenn that I love called Ain't Ain't Got Far to Go. And it's like, you know, when when I sing those lyrics, you know, it's like I spent forever waiting, but it's no longer a dream. Um, but now I'm I've landed on my feet and I ain't got far to go. And that, like when I'm going through something hard, like I listen to that song and it can make me emotional, especially if I've I've if I've gone through it already and I've I've come out on the other side. And I think that like I know a lot of these lyrics, and when I sing them, I'm walking around and I'm singing them, and it's the same as if I was reading off an affirmation book that was, but it's my affirmation book to a beat, and it's songs that I like and it's songs that I vibe with, and I'm getting my dance on a little bit, and so uh, you know, I really it's my own little little hack as well.

JD: 1:23:18

Uh it's brilliant, and it's brilliant, and it's so it's so wholesome and and uh and positive. I think it's it's great advice. Um, and who doesn't love a good love a good soundtrack anyway? Um let me flip the table on you. Uh what's your kryptonite? So, what is it that will take your energy away and how do you overcome it?

Kevin: 1:23:39

I would say my kryptonite can be I want to solve every problem myself.

JD: 1:23:47

Right.

Kevin: 1:23:48

And I think that I've gotten better at it and relinquishing control of allowing people to do things, uh, and basically just knowing what I'm not good at, uh kind of a couple buckets. Like one, what's something that you're not good at and is like really not something that you want to invest in, and you don't, you're not, it's not gonna value uh increase your value as a professional. Then it's the other bucket, which is like what are things that you are not good at, but like this is something that if you do invest in it, it's gonna save you money in the long run. Uh, it'll elevate you, it'll give you another notch on your um on your um, you know, utility belts. If we're talking Batman references, um, you know, and then you know, those are the two things. So I for a while, you know, wasn't really sure where I was going in my professional career. So I think I spent way too much time in that bucket, which was like, hey, this is um, this is something that I don't know. I'm just gonna throw, you know, I'm not gonna spend a lot, I'm gonna spend too much time in this area. Um, and I think once I started to differentiate that and say, I'm only gonna spend my time in areas in which I think that they are going to grow my skill set professionally, really helped me. But like, yeah, I think anyone's kryptonite is like wasting time on this earth. Uh, and so that can come in the form of like doing laundry. I mean, I'm not a fan of doing my own laundry because I think it sucks my time out of me. I think so. I think like uh kryptonite for me comes in the form of like wasting time. Yeah. And so I think it can come in the form of what I had said earlier, of stuff that like I have no business spending time on, and I can, you know, delegate it off to other people, and uh, and I'm way better spent my time doing things that are going to uh elevate me professionally.

JD: 1:25:52

I I think that's uh that's phenomenal. And and uh, you know, I when I talked about careers, I talked to people about the things that they are good at and the things they're motivated to do, and the things they get personal satisfaction out of. They actually generally correlate, by the way. They're typically the strengths that are required to get something done that just come naturally where you're in flow are the areas where you should be focusing, and there are those things that you just frankly shouldn't do. And you know, for me, it's administration, anything to do with finance and that sort of crap. I just hate it. And that's where I think AI for me is making a difference, is I'm outsourcing a lot of that kind of menial work to AI where it makes sense. Um, and I used to kid myself that I needed to overcome those things, it was my responsibility. Uh, and it was it was a fool's game, frankly. Um, and it sounds like you've gone through the same journey in terms of being learning how to let go of that stuff.

Kevin: 1:26:47

Yeah, I mean, I've also like thrown money at at problems that I didn't think I'd want to spend my time on, only to realize like, wait a second, this is something I should spend time on. Right. And I should become more well-rounded. And I think that's like comes with a lot of journaling and understanding like what are you, what are your ultimate goals? What are you passionate about? What are you reflecting on? What are you trying to become? Um, where do you see yourself um in the future? And I think that the more that I reflect, the more I realize, like, okay, this is a skill set that would be valuable to me, or okay, that is a waste of time. Let me solve that problem with money, or let me solve that problem with AI, or let me solve that problem with an agency, whatever it might be. So I think it's kind of important to constantly be reflecting on how you're spending your time because you know it's it's the it's the most finite resource that we have.

JD: 1:27:41

Yeah, yeah. And the risk is again the procrastination trap where you don't solve it at all. You're not doing it, and somebody else isn't doing it, it just sits there and festa's been there, done that. Um my last question for you, Kevin, is uh do you have a quote that you turn to or a quote that you find is is impactful for you, whether it's somebody famous or somebody you know, or even your own quote?

Kevin: 1:28:07

I had said it before, and so I think I'm gonna go with this answer, but it's uh stop being so salesman and start being more Hubschmann. And that was a quote that I had said earlier when I was reflecting on what my my boss had said to me, and I think that it's it's just very valuable in terms of just resetting my compass of being like, how much joy am I bringing into uh what I do, how I show up for people? Um you know, I I was just watching this video that I can't stop watching. Uh you're you're in music, so you'd like this, but this really talented artist, Olivia Dean, she has this song, uh oh man, I'm blanking on the song. What is it? It's uh Man I Need or something like that. Uh yeah, I think it's Be the Man I Need. But, anyways, you can just kind of see her joy in she's doing a BBC One recording, and I have seen her do recordings of this song before, and then I just saw her doing this song in this BBC one recording, and the joy that is coming off of her as she is recording this comes through in the music in a way that has really like, you know, I've gotten emotional watching it. It's not an emotional song, but I've gotten emotional at like how much fun she is having and how much joy she is bringing.

JD: 1:29:40

Yeah.

Kevin: 1:29:40

And so, like that really was timely for me because I do really think about that quote a lot of stop being so salesman, start being more Hubschmann, because there would be times where I would get, I've already talked about this, but go on stage and you know, kind of not be wanting to connect with my audience and kind of showing like a, you know, a more like like serious front or you know being on a call and you know my tone being a little bit you know uh like just monotone or stale and just like being so conscious of how I show up for people is going to significantly impact how they're taking in my information. And you know this video that I've been watching I watched it probably 50 times in the last couple of days because it is such a reminder of like whoa the way that she just showed up in this recording has completely changed my perspective of her as a performer. It's changed how I hear the song it's changed the whole message of the song uh you know it's just like a really beautiful reminder of like if you are uh bringing joy to what you do it's contagious and you people are behind you and they support you. And I think that that's something that is really invaluable and it's underrated of how you show up for things and something that everyone should remind themselves of like what gets you in that zone? What's going to get you in that zone? What's your pre-work that you're doing before you show up for something and when you show up you it's a performance whatever you're doing it's a performance with other people. So you it's important of how you show up is going to impact how they take the information.

JD: 1:31:19

Well and I you know if I paraphrase a little bit of what you've said you know what I'm taking away from what you just said is that you're the product so let the authentic you shine through that basically what I'm hearing you say is that you know be the authentic you and present that as the offering in its true sense the product will sell itself if you do that. You'll build trust and so forth which again I think is is so right uh as an approach and you can see it when people are selling you know you're being sold to and it's it's kind of icky frankly uh for a lot of us the minute you know you're being sold to it's a horrible feeling um so I will we'll find that video link and I'll include it in the show notes as well I'm super keen to check it out myself it's great look this has been fabulous it feels to me I use this term a lot on the podcast but you've found your icky guy you know you've you've found what you're good at uh you found what you what you can do and what you can make money on and what the world needs and I think this is a this is a beautiful icky guy story uh I've really enjoyed learning more about what you're doing I think it's uh it's phenomenal I'm not kidding when I say I wish I was going back into corporate so I could work with you on this but I'm not going back to corporate um but look it's been a tremendous conversation with you if folks want to reach you I'll include your LinkedIn uh details as well as your websites uh and a link to the newsletter so folks can get access to that I know uh Kevin would love to hear from your listeners if you if you want to reach out uh and talk about the services that um that that they're providing I think they're phenomenal uh with that uh thank you uh Kevin for your time I really appreciate it today um listeners thank you for joining as always uh it's great to have you here always keen to have your feedback uh your questions and and suggestions um and whatever you're doing I hope you're living your best life and most of all please be good to each other out there thanks folks