Make it Ha-Ha-Happen

The next time you’re working on a serious project and you’re not sure where to begin in order to make it happen, start out by asking yourself “how can I have the most fun while I’m working on this project?”

I don’t think most people have fun making the big projects happen in their lives (or even the little projects for that matter). In general, most people take things too seriously.

Even the really serious stuff (like sickness and death) can be easier to deal with when you inject a little humor into the situation. When my mother was in hospice care during the last few weeks of her life, she had her hair stylist come in and dye her hair her favorite color. Purple.

During a bedside conversation my mother said she’d always thought about getting a tattoo but could never decide what she wanted and that it was probably too late to do anything about it now. The next day I went to visit her, I showed up with a set of washable Crayola markers, and every few days I would draw a new “tattoo” on her arm using these water-soluble markers. My mother loved showing her new tattoos to the nurses and they thought it was hilarious.

After she passed away, we found a draft she’d written of her own obituary 15 or 20 years earlier. One of the closing lines of the document said that she didn’t want anyone to be sad at her funeral “because you can’t spell funeral without f-u-n…”

If my mother can find a way to literally laugh in the face of death, I’m guessing you can find a way to make a few people chuckle while delivering your company’s quarterly earnings reports.