Laughter and Leadership

Kris Plachy:  Hey, I'm Kris Plachy, host of the Lead Your Team podcast. Running a million dollar business is not easy, and whether you are just getting started with building your team or you've been at this for a while, I'm going to bring you honest, specific and clear practices you can use. Right now today to improve how well you lead your team.

Let's go ahead and get started.

Hey, hey, welcome, welcome, welcome. I'm so happy to have you here today. I'm Chris Clacky. I will be talking with you today about laughing, which I love to do. And, uh, before I do that though, I have some housekeeping things I wanna share with you. So, first of all, if you're listening to this and you are a certified.

Life coach, school coach, and you want to become an advanced leadership coach, you wanna get advanced certification as a life coach for the Life Coach School. We are going to be conducting a 12 week leadership coach certification program and it will be starting very soon. Go to leadership coach certification.com.

And you can learn everything you need to learn about it. And we are currently accepting enrollments, but we're not gonna be accepting a ton of people. So if this has been on your mind, you wanna learn how to coach leaders, you wanna dig into this space more so than maybe you do already. I would love to work with you.

I have been coaching and developing leaders for 26 years, and I actually have already about 30 certified leadership coaches that I have, um, certified through my work. Over the course of the years, so this is incredibly exciting. The work's gonna be really powerful. I'm gonna be teaching you four frameworks that I use to diagnose, assess, triage, and then support my clients through their development as a leader.

I. Using also the tools that I learned through the Life Coach School. So it's a very integrated program and I put together a video series for you to learn about it. But you need to go to leadership coach certification.com to get the details. But we are currently open for registration. So if you haven't been on the wait list and you don't know about it, now you do.

Secondly, the how the C E O program is. Booming and we are making some changes to how we're accepting clients. And so I wanna make sure you know what that is because I know there's a lot of you who think about things before you take the plunge. So unlike in the past where you could really just register if you were on the wait list, we are now requiring that we meet all of our clients.

And in order to do so, you need to come to a Bring It Session and bring it. Sessions are things that I'm gonna be, I'm gonna be offering these a couple times a month, and it's an opportunity for you to receive some real life coaching with me and experience what it's like to work in this program. From there, you will be invited to register.

Uh, this program is, in my mind, pretty exclusive because we do work with some. Frankly, very high profile women and some who aren't high profile yet, but want to be, and we want to be, um, discerning for both of us involved. So for you as a client, and for me as, and for me as a coach, um, about who participates in this program, because I think the level of the, of the student, the level of the client also drives the level of the conversation and the experience for everybody else.

So if you know that you wanna work with us, but you're just. Kind of still checking it out or you aren't sure. Regardless, we do need you to come to a Bring It session. So those will be available if you go to C e o bring it.com. You'll be able to see when the next session is. You can sign up, you have to complete, um, a quick series of questions, and then you'll need to R S V P as well to make sure that you'll be on the call.

Okay, so more details at c e o, bring it.com. So today I wanna talk about laughing. So it was an interesting conversation that my husband and I had over the weekend and we were kind of just talking about, you know, we've all been inside, stuck at our house forever and we miss people. He and I went to dinner for the first time in like a year.

And he said, you know, we were talking about maybe he's trying to get together with some people and, and it was just an interesting conversation. I don't know if you all have this, but some, if you're a couple, like there's always like one person in the couple that you both get along with better than the other.

I don't know. It's like, it's when you can find a, a couple where you all get along. It's so great to all get along. And we were talking about a few different folks that we kind of know that there aren't, these aren't close friends, but I said, you know, one of the challenges. For me about the women anyway, in these marriages is they don't laugh.

They don't laugh. They're s, it's not even that they're serious, they just don't laugh. Like, I like out loud, KA laughing, I wanna laugh. I these people, they're nice people. Nothing wrong with anybody, just no laughing. And so then what ends up happening for me, because I wanna laugh, is guess what I do? I laugh at myself and I turn into a class clown.

And we were talking about sometimes on these groups that I go to that are lots of women that are very serious about business. You know, I'm on these calls being silly because I wanna laugh. I wanna laugh. And so it really got me thinking about work, of course, because everything to me is about leadership.

I, I really think about this and I thought, okay, so this is fascinating. I do laugh a lot. I laugh a lot with my team. I laugh a lot with my girlfriends and I laugh a lot with my clients. I laugh even when my clients are crying, but not at them. We just have to find the humor. Listen to me. There's all sorts of shit going on in the world.

Life's tough. Can we please laugh? Levity is a leadership skill. Can you bring levity to even the most intense moments? Now, I think that you'll find if you know people who know me, I can be quite firm in serious if I need to be. But that is not an edge I use often. Which I think actually is a good thing.

We overuse it, it loses its authority, and B, it makes you very unapproachable. And I know part of what makes, what I do feel so powerful for me is the authenticity. I. Of our connection that I have with my clients and they have with me. You don't get a version of me in this program that I do. You get me, which is maybe not a good thing, depending on your perspective, but I like to laugh and I really wanna invite you.

If you are in a leadership role and you don't laugh, can we work on it? Can you ask yourself why are you afraid to be silly? Funny? Do you think laughing is immature? Do you think it makes you lose credibility? Maybe you do. I don't. I find people who can be find the humor and that moment in anything so endearing, so real.

Laughter is a form of connection. It is a way to be seen and to see others like really in my closest friendships, we laugh. We laugh. I've actually always cried when I laugh, like people make fun of me. My face turns beat red and I literally cry. It's been a problem my whole life cuz my makeup would run down my face and.

My nose would start to run a terrible laugh reflex. I really, it co, it consumes me, but that's just nothing better than laughing so hard. You can't breathe. Right. It's like the feeling on the planet and we know it's contagious. Have you seen those videos of the guy? There's a video of a guy on a butt, on a subway, I think it's in England, and he's pretending to be reading something hysterical and he's just all into this book and he's reading it and he's laughing and he is the best laugh, just laugh.

And the in. By the time he's done, the entire car is laughing. They don't even know what he's laughing at. They're just laughing at the guy's laughter. So your laughter when you're in a leadership role is so contagious. It's spirited, it's human right, smiling. Have you ever paid attention? Like I watch even politicians, there are politicians who don't smile.

Have you ever noticed. I wanna, I want a leader. I want a politician. I want a C E O. I want a boss. I want a person in my life who's got authority in my in influences my outcomes. I want them to be able to smile and laugh and enjoy the themselves and me. So I'm telling you this for a few reasons. First of all.

I think you have to get that if you ever think you're gonna work with me, right? I coached a woman this morning's having a really hard time, but you know what? We got some laughter in. I could, I could hear this smile by the time we were done. I think that leaders who laugh had leaders who have fun. I think that leaders who have fun create better cultures.

I think that leaders who laugh and have fun and create better cultures create connection that's based on authenticity. And truth, and I believe that is one of the most potent forms of engagement you could focus on. Laughter is a release, and in times of difficulty right now, the more you can foster opportunity for people to have releases is great.

Now there's a different, there's a difference between like laughter, because we're telling jokes and we're making fun of people and just genuine, like noticing the obscurity and the randomness of the world. Can you laugh? Will you let yourself laugh? Pay attention? Do you laugh a lot? Maybe. Do I wonder? Why do you not laugh?

I wonder why. What do you make laughing mean? What do you make it mean when you see other people laughing? What do you make it mean? When you hear me laughing? I've heard a lot, a lot of you. I think one of the most common things I hear from people is they say, I love you laughing, and here's what's hysterical.

Look at this. There's nobody else here. If you're watching this video, if you're not and you're just listening, there's nobody else around. And I'm still finding myself incredibly entertaining and laughing. So I just love to work with women who wanna find this space in themselves because this to me is where we're gonna change the world.

That authentic part of who you are, not the one that you've had to put on, not the one that you've been passively without paying much attention, but the one who can see and experience all of it. The pain of the, like this woman I coached this morning is in so much pain, but she's willing. And then I also told a joke and I gotta help.

And then she's also willing to laugh, like, okay, we can't, we have to laugh at that. Come on you guys. That really happened to, one of the things I say to my clients all the time is about like, if they have an employee problem, I'm like, did they know people were watching them?

They know people can, they don't have the invisibility cloak on, right? They know people can see them doing that in the world. We have to laugh. We have to find room for laughter. I believe that LA Laughter is a leadership asset. I believe that giving people glimpses and and to your who you are and letting them see you is an asset.

I do not believe that a version of you, but not all of you, is gonna help you lead authentically and learning how to integrate laughter, the vulnerability of laughter, of chuckling. Of giggling is so critical. So I wrote a whole blog about this because I just feel so strongly about it and I wrote this one line that I wanted to share with you and leave with you because we've heard that laughter really is the best medicine.

And I write that. Truth be told, those of us who know this also make the best healers. So if you are a leader, I believe you're in a position to heal. You're in a position to heal people's perspective of authority, power, dominance, success, potential collaboration, communication. You have so many opportunities to heal.

The wounds of people's past experience with either other leaders in business or other leaders in their lives, and if laughter is one of the best medicines, then as a woman who is leading, you also have this as an asset to heal, to create spaces and places for people to come and be human and be seen and be cared for.

And also be held to the highest possibility and potential of themselves. I wonder what you think about what I'm saying. I always love to know. You can always email us. Hello at Chris Plaquey or DM me at Instagram, Chris Plaquey. Coach, if you don't follow us already, go there. Please. Something to think about.

I'll leave you with a laugh because why not? Right. Let's have a good time. Y'all. Life's too short. If I learned anything in 2020, man, bring on the laughter, bring on the silly, bring on the fun. Life's tough, y'all. We all have our moments. I get it. I never wanna minimize those, but I do not wanna park on them.

I wanna laugh and I wanna be with people who wanna laugh. How about you? I'll talk to you soon. One more thing before you go. In a world of digital courses and online content, I like to work with my clients live because I know that when you have someone you can work with, ask questions of and meet with, you're so much more likely to get the success that you want.

So head on over to how to ceo live.com. To learn more about our very exciting, very exclusive program just for female entrepreneurs. We'll see you there.