William A. Ward — Humor

Are you able to laugh at yourself and the circumstances you find yourself in?  Life has a tendency to throw you off balance and unless you are able to laugh, you will surely cry.  Laughter gives us balance and a way to cope with the challenges we face.  



Many of us take ourselves too seriously. We need to learn to laugh at ourselves. We all make mistakes. We all screw-up. When we learn to laugh at our mistakes, we begin to heal the pain. None of us are perfect, even those of us who try to be. For years perfection has been one of my goals whether I was speaking or writing and I have had to learn a hard lesson that it is okay to make a mistake. I have had to learn to relax and to laugh at myself. In fact, mistakes make us better people, more human.

Have you laughed today? In these crazy times (and when have they not been crazy?), we need to be able to find humor in the absurdity of living or we will quickly lose perspective. We will fail to see the forest. Laughter and humor are essential for maintaining one's sanity in a difficult, confusing and chaotic world.

Some of the best humor is what I call spontaneous humor.  This is humor that is not planned.  This is humor that rises spontaneously out of the situation and it can't be conveyed to others.  This is humor that you have to have been there to grasp it. 



Are you able to find the humor in difficult situations?  I challenge you to keep a humor journal where you record funny things that happen to you.  And on those days when you feeling down, pick up your journal and relive those laughs.

Harley King

Sometimes we as creative leaders are our own worst critics.  We often don't appreciate the talent we have been given or the skill we have mastered.  We have a difficult time accepting praise from others.  Sometimes we don't even want to let others see our work.  We are afraid of what they may say.



We need to learn not to beat ourselves up over every minor mistake or perceived mistake.  Mistakes actually are good things because they often lead to new creative ideas.  Don't let your mistakes knock you down.  Find the opportunity in the mistake.  



The Japanese have a concept called kintsugi which is the art of repairing broken pottery with lacquer mixed with gold, silver or platinum.  The artist treats the breakage and repair as part of the history of the object, not as something to be thrown out or hidden.  The artist embraces the flaws and imperfections. 



As creative leaders, we need to stop trying to be perfect and, instead, embrace our flaws and imperfections.  We need to incorporate our flaws into our work.  We need to find the beauty within the ugly.  We need to enjoy what our flaws have to teach us.