And Where Were You on Christmas Day?
Lighten Up
You have to admire Elena Kagan during her Senate Supreme Court Justice confirmation hearing last week for her response to Senator Lindsey Graham’s annoying insistence on knowing where she was on Christmas Day...
At first, seemingly confused by the odd question, she began to answer seriously. Graham interrupted and repeated, “No. I just asked you where you were at on Christmas. Switching gears, Kagan replied, “You know, like all Jews, I was probably at a Chinese restaurant” – which caused the Senate Chamber to laugh and give her a round of applause. As the Washington Post noted, her response was “brilliant in its humor, timing, and the self-effacing manner in which it was delivered.”
In all the talk about how to succeed in business today, (appropriate) humor gets very short shrift. We live in tough times, stressful times. People like to—need to—laugh. If nothing else, it gets all those feel good endorphins jumping around inside them. Self-effacing, spontaneous humor is a welcome relief from what seems like deathlike intensity in business today. Moreover, even for just a moment, it endears you to your listeners. Nothing wrong with that. Former President Eisenhower put it well:
A sense of humor is part of the art of leadership, of getting along with people, of getting things done.
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A little short in the humor department? Rev it up at The Humor Project where they “seek to help people get more smileage out of their lives and jobs by applying the practical, positive power of humor and creativity.”
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Book Recommendation: On a different note,if you want quick ways to prep for sales calls, interviews, or other important meetings, you must read “Take the Cold Out of Cold Calling” by Sam Richter. Sam goes way beyond Google, Yahoo! LinkedIn and Facebook and shows you new sites and little known ways to get smart fast about people, companies, competition, and trends. Content is king on the web and knowledge is power with clients. Sam provides a road map to really useful web content to give you incremental knowledge that will help you leapfrog the competition.
Execution is everything: Make What You Say Pay!
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