HeyJaredThe Funny Thing About That
Weekly insights on humor as a professional skill. Research, strategies, and stories from a Humor Engineer with 16M+ TEDx views.
- Indexed issues, last 90 days
- 12
- Latest publication
- Sep 25, 2026
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- Earliest in this view
- Jul 28, 2026
Latest issues
Ready-to-Apply Humor, issue two (opens the original)
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Last month I sent you eight pieces of “ready-to-apply” humor you could use at work and asked if you’d want more. The answer was a (mostly) resounding yes. 46% said every week26% said once a month9% said you’re here for the stories20% said, “Send another one and I’ll tell you.”So this is me sending another one (hi, 20%).For now, Ready-to-Apply Humor goes out on the last Friday of each month, and the other Fridays stay stories and in
I got a judge's name wrong twice (opens the original)
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A quick welcome to everyone joining after recent events in Maine, Tennessee, or Nebraska. You're here because you said yes to the newsletter on the post-event survey. It's one email a week, on Fridays, with a story and something you can use at work. If it's not for you, the unsubscribe link is at the bottom, no hard feelings. Fittingly, this week's is about one of those events.A few hours after last week’s email went out, I stepped on stage to deliver the closing keynote to ~120 people from the
Can we be funny? (opens the original)
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Twenty-five years ago today, I was sitting in a high school class called Theory of Knowledge.It was part of the IB diploma program, and the idea was to step back from all the individual subjects we were taking and ask how we knew any of it in the first place. (The IB still teaches it. Their own description says the course “is composed almost entirely of questions,” which, as a 17-year-old, I found both profound and annoying depending on the day.)<a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" href=
What's wrong with happiness (opens the original)
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Which comes first, success or happiness?It’s a question I ask when I’m delivering my keynote on humor, happiness, and work, and the hands go up the same way in almost every room. Most people vote success. Not because they think happiness doesn’t matter, but because of the order they’ve put things in. Get the promotion, close the deal, survive the launch, and then, with all of that handled, you get to be happy.I voted that way for a long time. After all, that was the formula we were taught. Go to
Ready-to-Apply Humor, issue one (opens the original)
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“I get it. Humor matters. But what do I actually do on Friday when we get back to the office?”That was the question I heard after my event on Wednesday (and a variation of one I get after almost every keynote). Usually in the hallway, usually from someone who took notes, usually with the slightly guilty tone of a person who has just been told to floss more.And fair enough. I can talk about the skill of humor for 60 minutes and still send people back to the office with nothing in their hands.So t
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