Pioneers Podcast by Lyreco
The podcast from Lyreco that explores the Future of Work, from Lyreco's innovation team.
Each episode we talk to a pioneer of the future of work, exploring the themes and trends that will shape the workplaces of tomorrow.
Pioneers Podcast by Lyreco
Unleashing Improv in the Workplace: Pep Rosenfeld's Work Laugh Balance
Meet Pep Rosenfeld, co-founder of Boom Chicago, a comedy club in Amsterdam, and champion for incorporating comedy into the workplace. In this conversation, we explore why humor is a powerful tool for business success, discussing practical ways to harness comedy for better team communication, engagement, and handling of difficult situations.
• Founding Boom Chicago as "the greatest stoner idea ever" in Amsterdam in 1993, now grown into a successful business
• Comedy across cultures – reference points matter more than cultural differences
• How improvisation skills directly translate to business success through better communication and mental agility
• Using humor to address challenging topics in the workplace without crossing inappropriate boundaries
• The impact of remote work on workplace humor and strategies for maintaining human connections in virtual settings
• Research showing teams that laugh together work better together and view their leaders more positively
• Practical applications of improv techniques for building psychological safety and team cohesion
• Using comedy to navigate difficult situations like economic downturns or organizational changes
Check out Pep's book "Work Laugh Balance" for more insights on how to effectively introduce humour into your workplace.
For more information on the Future of Work conference in Brussels - June 5th - visit: https://www.future-of-work.eu
Welcome to the Pioneers podcast by Lyrico. I'm Mark Curtis. Each edition we're talking to pioneers in their own fields. We're talking to business leaders, entrepreneurs, thought leaders, keynote speakers basically anybody who's got something interesting to say about the workplace and is pioneering the way we think about the future of work. Today I'm going to be speaking to Pep Rosenfeld. He's the co-founder of Boom Chicago, a comedy club in Amsterdam, and he has a long-standing career as, in his early days, an SNL that's, saturday Night Live writer in America. He's a stand-up comedian and in recent years he's become a champion for the cause of comedy in work and to that end, he's distilled much of his wisdom into a book called work laugh balance.
Speaker 1:I'm a little bit concerned I'm gonna fanboy a little bit too much in this conversation. He's a good friend of a comedy hero of mine, seth myers, so really looking forward to having this chat don't know where it's going to go. Hopefully it will end up with some good advice for people looking to make the workplace a little bit more fun. Let me just say, pep, thank you so much for taking the time to do this. It's genuinely super exciting for me, actually, because I'm and I've been reflecting on this over the weekend. I realised that when we spoke before I probably came off as being an obnoxious fan boy, because I'm such, I'm such a comedy fan and um, and obviously you're friends with Seth Meyers and actually the only reason I want to do this podcast is so that, ultimately, seth and I can become friends in some way. So that's, that's what I'm hoping for as a, as an output to this. But, but thank you for very much.
Speaker 2:It's a pleasure to be your stepping, so that's that's what I'm hoping for as a as an output to this, but but thank you for very much. It's a pleasure to be your stepping stone. I uh, that's that's honestly. If you read my dream journal, it's connect Mark with people more important than I. That's what it says.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, absolutely. It's yeah, you're, you're, you're like the uh, the Kevin Bacon one degree of separation that I've been looking for for the last 10 years. But thank you very much, um, for that. And I should also say um, as I will have mentioned in the in the intro, I'm reading your book, um, which is work, laugh, balance. I'm about halfway through, so any um, any thoughts or questions on it are going to be entirely based on the first half. So but feel free to to add spoilers at the.
Speaker 2:I have a feeling that if you, when you meet Seth Meyers, you'll have read his whole book. That's my guess.
Speaker 1:I really tried. I'm not a very quick reader, though, but but first of all, do you think you could maybe just say a little bit about yourself and tell me who you are, what's led you to where you are now in a in a piffy and snappy way as possible, and why you find yourself currently an expert in bringing comedy to the workplace?
Speaker 2:Sure, with pleasure, and let me just say thanks for having me.
Speaker 2:I really enjoy talking about myself and things that I do, so anybody who gives me an excuse I really appreciate.
Speaker 2:I'm pep rosenfeld, as uh, as you probably said in your intro, I, um, I grew up just outside of chicago and chicago, as any chicagoan will tell you, is, uh, is, the home of improvisation, comedy and uh, so I was in chicago as a young adult doing doing improv comedy and, uh, you know, I followed a a weird path, which is I went to school in my hometown just outside of Chicago. I was studying economics and psychology, but I did this improv show my senior year and the improv show was great and I was like this is awesome, forget economics and psychology, I'll do this for a while. So for a while I was doing a pretty standard Chicago graduate thing, which was take a bunch of improv classes and wait tables and in the summer of 92, my buddy Andrew and I we went on a sort of a classic American trip to Europe. You know, kind of the two days here, two days there, trip through Europe, we're going to end up in Greece.
Speaker 1:National Lampoon's European vacation store.
Speaker 2:Exactly, except except less, less Chevy Chase and cars, and I think it's really more. What was it called? There was a trip, there was a movie called like Euro Trip or something like that. A friend of mine was in a movie called Euro Trip. He played a mime, I think it's more like that. But I think that you got me off. You got me off. That sounds preposterous. But carry on, please. Yeah, but carry on, please, yeah, so, so.
Speaker 2:But we started our trip in amsterdam, um, because it made sense, you know, geographically, and because that's where they sell hash that we could then bring with us. On the rest of the trip, sure, while in amsterdam, we uh indulged in, in our purchase and had what we called the greatest stoner idea ever, which was you know, we should do, we should do a comedy show in amsterdam next summer they don't have improv like we do because they didn't back then. Uh, they speak great english, there's tourists. Uh, we can come out here, you know, find a space, uh, con four of our friends, they're coming out with us, and and that's exactly what we did, that's all we talked about for the rest of the trip. And, um, and we wrote down our ideas that night on a, on a coaster, a dutch beer coaster, and uh.
Speaker 1:So I guess my message to any kids out there is uh you know, if you're going to do drugs, write your ideas down, always have absolutely, I'm curious, actually just jumping in at that moment, um, I'm curious about, well, first of all, the idea of dutch comedy, um, but also, more widely, what's your experience having? I mean, I mean, how long ago was this? Now we're talking, well, it's 93, was our first summer, so it's 32 years this summer. So so you've, you've, you've, presumably you've, you've now done comedy to a lot of different European cultures, uh, in a lot of different locations. I mean, how, how transferable is that? I mean, I, I remember, I remember Eddie Izzard, for example, doing a show in French. You know, learned his set in French and you know, and famously did quite well with it. But it feels like comedy is going to be quite different if you're talking to the French, or talking to the Dutch, or talking to the Germans, for example.
Speaker 2:I think if you'd think that's the case, and I think it feels that way, because. So let me just say this I do think there's like subtle differences, but I don't think that's the biggest problem in doing comedy in a culture that's not yours. I honestly think the biggest problem is your reference base show in in france. But he did it english and all he did were references to his english hometown and and television shows that were only on in england. Then he wouldn't have gotten, you know, any appreciation from his french audience. And that was our experience coming to amsterdam for the first time.
Speaker 2:Was, you know, we, we, because there's a very uh, a real comedian's instinct is to be specific. I believe it's even one of the seven skills in my book and um, but a lot of that specificity tends to come from our, our reference base. And you know, there was a point when I came up in the nineties when all Americans had the same reference base. Right, we all watched the same TV shows, we all watched the same cartoons, but that was not the case in the Netherlands and it's less and less the case now. Like, uh, you know, you're trying to make a, a joke, a reference to something that everybody's seen. I mean, what do you got? You got the titanic, the lion king and maybe the avengers, I don't know what else you have yeah, and there's nothing funny about the avengers well, you'd be surprised, um, but, but so.
Speaker 2:so this is a kind of a long-winded way of saying I think there's fewer differences than you think, and it's no surprise to me that that Eddie Izzard was able to make it work. I mean, he's a brilliant.
Speaker 1:But he's an absurdist, isn't he? And I guess, I guess, actually, thinking back to the, to the shows that he did back back in the 90s, a lot of them were making, you know, biblical references, or you know historical references, or historical references references, or you know historical references absolutely, which actually speaks to your point, doesn't it that you have to find sort of that common ground before? And I guess the problem now is that the media is so fragmented, right, that people are, you know, spending their time on YouTube. So if you, if you want to make a reference, you've actually got to be really sure about your audience and really understand the culture, I guess.
Speaker 2:That's what I find to be the case as well. I mean, even the stuff that we all watch, we don't always watch it at the same time. Right like, oh, have you watched whatever the sopranos? Oh, no, I never sopranos. What a terrible example. Have you watched succession, much better? Oh, I mean, I've been meaning to do it. I'll watch all you know every, all four seasons next week, but you know that. So can I make a succession joke or not? It's, it's, it's. It's weird.
Speaker 1:My um, my, I have a 20 year old son and a 11 year old, and my 20 year old, we, we, we have this thing that we try and make him watch classic movies from from the golden age I, even, when I was young um, and we, we try and get him to. You know, and we, we, we watched, uh, pulp fiction a couple of weeks ago and and he said, oh yeah, I've, I've, I know so many memes from pulp fiction. I've always wanted to see it so that I can see where the memes come from. And it's almost like, and you know, they're almost, they know that they know these cultural points, not because of the, the source material, but actually because of the remixes, of the remixes, of the remixes, you know.
Speaker 2:So they almost want to find out where this stuff comes from the irony, of course, being that being that Pulp Fiction is so heavily steeped in pop culture reference that there's no way your kid will get, or mine either. My kid was so underwhelmed when I watched Pulp Fiction with him maybe a year ago, and my wife and I were so psyched oh, it's going to be such a classic, you're going to love it. And he was like, yeah, this is all right. Yeah, and and, of course, because you've seen movies that are cut up and not told you know, in a linear way, you've seen this sort of stylish stuff. You've seen the next five movies that Quentin Tarantino made.
Speaker 1:So I've made you digress massively. So you're in, you've written a bunch. Yeah, I'm really sorry. I can only apologize. So you've written everything down on a beer mat. You've got some memories of what you did in Amsterdam and you returned a year later to do that. Is that when you started the club?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean that first summer it was sort of like the back of someone's bar, which is a very Chicago model for doing a comedy show. Right, you go to find a space, great wall behind you, exactly. Yeah, I think we actually we made a set because we found a little bar that had salsa dancing on saturdays, but the other nights of the week there was nothing in the sort of back room. So we said we'll do a show there. But we actually built like this wooden set that we had to take down every saturday night after the show and then put back up in time for the sunday show. Um but uh, but that that was like one summer and then we made enough money to come back to rent out a real space the next summer. And every summer the summer got longer and longer Ironic if you're familiar with Dutch summers and until 98, we started going year round.
Speaker 1:Excellent, and how so? I mean, we're still probably in the 90s at this point. At what point did you start to see I mean, we're, we're a, we're a business, a business podcast, or at least a podcast that pretends to have some kind of um perspective on on on pioneers of business and interesting ways of doing things? At what point, I feel obliged to ask, did you then start to connect what you were doing from a comedy perspective with how that could potentially work for for businesses, and and and and? Why did you, you know, why was that something that you sort of leant into?
Speaker 2:um, right, and I think if we look back at the at the ai generated transcript, we'll see that your original question was not just how did this club start, but how did I get to a point where I feel like I could write a book about business comedy? Yeah, um, early on, we started doing shows for, like, corporate events and in those days it was like, oh, we loved your show, can you do it for our christmas party? Right. And then it became, oh, we loved your show, could you write some scenes about us? And then it became, oh, we loved your show, could you like teach us to do improv as, like a team building thing?
Speaker 2:So, for the I don't know, the first 10 years of boom Chicago was very ad hoc and we didn't quite know what we were doing. Um, but I, I'd say, around the time of the uh great financial uh crisis, uh, around that time we, we started doing shows that were more focused on on where companies were and where they were headed. By then, my business partner, andrew Moskos, and I and we've got a third partner, saskia Moss, as well, but Andrew and I do the performing. The whole cast performs for business shows, but he and I do sort of the more high-stakes, high-business, information-necessary events and we realized that, as business owners, we had ideas and thoughts about what these businesses should be talking about and thinking about. And, as guys who've been flies on the wall at, you know scores of business events and heard strategies, enrolled and leadership, give you know inspiring or not so inspiring messages. And as fellows that have had hosted events where you know thought leaders, you know, come Simon Sinek and Adam Grant and Brene Brown all these people we've heard them speak, we know what they're talking about.
Speaker 2:So we realized we had something more to offer than just let's do our show. So we revamped our offering. We started doing a show that was much more focused on where the company was, where they were going to go and how improv skills can help get them there. And since then we've been pretty laser focused on making sure the stuff we do doesn't feel like oh, come to our theater class and take off your shoes, but no, no, we're going to come to you with actionable takeaways about how better communication, active listening, better storytelling skills, how, and more mental agility, how all those things can get you through hard times. Um, I mean, right now we want to. We want to start a show called tariff proof your company?
Speaker 1:uh, because I there's, I think, a lot of trepidation over the uncertainty caused by someone and yeah, it seems like you, you, you sort of organically created this theory of um, the the use or the need for comedy or humor, at the very least within the business environment, from from we discovered.
Speaker 2:Well, our, our mantra and our motto at boom chicago. There's a whole arm of the company called boom chicago for business right and the. The. The motto of that side of the company is that humor makes business better. And it's something that occurred to me when I was backstage at a? Uh at an event, an event in Helsinki, and I was listening to somebody talking about well, what's your purpose, what's your company's purpose? And I thought two things at that time. One is our purpose is that when we go in and we use humor, we make their business a little bit better.
Speaker 2:And it's true for all aspects of business. It's true for any time there's communication to be done. It's true for meeting, for talking about sensitive topics, where humor can broach tough topics in a way that nothing else can. I really think that humor makes I mean honestly, not just business, but every situation slightly better. Yeah, at that same time I also thought to myself. You know, I've always wondered, like you know, someday if I'm going to face St Peter and you know, forgive me, mark, if I get too religious for you he's going to hit. Well, he look at me and say, hey, what were you doing? You were just making jokes all day. And then my retort I realized would be yeah, yeah, but I go into companies and we help them communicate just a little bit better. We go in there and make jokes about the stuff they're worried about. It makes them just a little bit less worried or scared or unhappy.
Speaker 1:We I I've actually spent, you know, the last 20 years going to companies and then leaving them a little bit better than I found them, and I feel like he'll let me in and that sort of relates to cause. I think you talk a little bit about gallows, humor and how you can take the sting out of situations. It doesn't necessarily it shouldn't be used to deflect, but it can be used to make it a little bit easier to process, right? I have a very strong memory of when my father died at the age of 56, which I'm now only a couple of years away from, so it's quite on my mind.
Speaker 1:But I was in my 20s at the time and my brothers and I sort of came out, even still unwell. The in the hospital plugged into all the machines and, uh, my brother turned to me and said he's more machine than man now. Um, and we just spent the next. I mean, that's a star wars reference, obviously, if I have to explain the joke, it's not very funny, but we spent the next. Um, we spent the next, the next 20 minutes. Just absolutely couldn't stop laughing and it was probably the best thing to come out of that bit. Like you, I think you spoke about a eulogy or talking at a funeral as well, and I think you know you need that Right.
Speaker 2:It feels like if you can't do it, then when can you introduction to the book? I mentioned, just like you said that, uh, that when my dad died, you know similar thing I I went there and and and made jokes. Wasn't the first thing I said. I'm not a monster, but it's definitely the third thing.
Speaker 2:Apparently I am though well, you didn't, you didn't make that, you didn't say the more machine than man in your uh in. There's the first line of your eulogy. You just said it while you're at the hospital yeah, no, I said other things at the eulogy.
Speaker 2:I don't think you're a monster, I think you're a swell guy, mark. Don't let anyone tell you different. Certainly not. Thank you so much, um uh, but, but I wrote it in the book as if it was so unique. But I was just at, uh uh, the funeral of a friend of mine and she died, I mean painfully young. Well, you know, she would have been 50 this fall. It was. It was crushing to me and everyone that knew her. She's one of the kindest and and and most uh, honest and kind people I've ever known.
Speaker 2:But of course, everybody's making jokes at that there, because that's how we deal with stuff. I mean gallows. Humor is, I think, not just you know a a useful uh device, but it's a coping mechanism, you know it. Just, it just helps us. Yeah, it doesn't stop the bad feelings, and if that's all you do and you never face the bad feelings, I think you're making a mistake and need therapy. But, um, but, but how can you not make jokes? Plus, making jokes is celebrating the spirit of the person. Both my dad, I suspect your dad, and my friend, they're all funny people, yeah, and the last thing you want us to do is just stop being funny because they're dead?
Speaker 1:No, 100%. And I think you know, and I think you allude to this in your book and I'm trying not to just give away all your book, by the way, in the conversation, because I do think people agree, but I think these tantalizing tidbits Well, OK, if I overstep, if I start just reading.
Speaker 2:Here's what you should say from now on. You should say oh, you get to this in your book. Actually, everyone listening should buy it, because then you'll get a deeper.
Speaker 1:I was literally about to say that and you stole that from me. But people should buy it. It is a good book, but I think what struck me was that you know, we go through very difficult times at work, both, you know, from a company perspective and, I think, individually as well. I think there is a tendency, potentially one assumes, depending on the kind of people you work for. Can you see how much I'm hedging this, because I'm not talking about my employees, where it's seen as being, you know, not an appropriate place for humour, because you're either talking about very serious things like people's livelihoods or very serious things like profitability of businesses or whatever, and humor in that situation can be perceived as disrespectful by some people. But I think again, you dig into this a little bit in your book, don't you?
Speaker 2:I do, I do talk about that. I talk about a couple of different things that I think. Again, you dig into this a little bit in your book, don't you? I do, I do talk about that. I talk about a couple of different things that I think folks should try and avoid when they're using humor at work. One of them is obviously being a jerk. Right, you don't want to be. You know whichever manager of the office at the office you watched, depending on whether you use Fahrenheit or Celsius, but you don't want to be. I can't even think of Ricky Gervais' character now. It's either Michael Scott or David Brent.
Speaker 1:I've never watched the American Office. I'll be honest with you. I've only seen the centigrade version.
Speaker 2:I've watched them both. I've watched them both. They're both funny shows and just one of them, you know, got in, got out BBC style, and the other one just kept on. But so you don't want to kick people when they're down. You don't want to use comedy to like take away people's status and build up your own. That's what someone weak and mean does. That's what a bully does. You know, I mean, I also think if you're a strong person, you probably shouldn't use your strength to like put people down and build yourself up too much.
Speaker 2:But when you're talking about things like profitability or people's jobs, you know, I always say you make fun of the thing that everyone's scared of. You don't make fun of the people that are scared of it. You don't make fun of the fact that they're scared. Right? Those are, those are to be understood. You can make fun of the fact that we're all feeling scared right now, but you never make fun of the people that are scared. I, it's, it's. It's not as hard a line as I think a lot of people think it is, and I think step one is to not want to cross the line, right? I think step one of not being a jerk with humor is don't be a jerk uh do you think people?
Speaker 1:are being funnier. Uh say that again, people are scared do scared. Do you think people are actually scared of being funny because they worry about appropriateness or I don't know. I don't want to sound like a middle-aged man talking about how everything's so woke today, because I think wokeness is generally a good thing, but you know, there is an atmosphere, isn't there, where people feel maybe they have to not take themselves to work, that they, that they have to present a version of themselves.
Speaker 2:it's kind of like a, a light version, you know, like with some of the uh, some of the depth removed well, I it's not really fair for me to to say what I'm about to say because my workspace is pretty cool, right. Like, like, none of us want to be jerks, you know so. So, so most of us aren't jerks. Um, I do think that, like some, a lot of people that like are like yeah, I can't be my authentic self and use jokes Like well, are all your jokes about the breasts of your colleagues, cause then I'm with them. You know what I mean. Like, I think a lot of people me thinks the asshole doth complain too much, right. Methinks the asshole doth complain too much, right.
Speaker 2:Having said that, I do think there's a real problem.
Speaker 2:I mean not just in comedy, but in the world where and I think this is again, I don't want to be a middle-aged guy talking about wokeness either, but I think there is this thing where you say something and it turns out to be inappropriate and people crash down on you instead of saying oh, actually, I think you know here's, here's why that was a bad thing to say.
Speaker 2:Or now, you know, we always talk about it. I have a friend who and and she's not transgender, she's just a woman with short hair and who's tall and she says like she's been misgendered all the time, you know, growing up, and she never loved it, but like she didn't think it was someone being mean to her or someone who'd made an awful offense. It was, they made a mistake. And then she'd say no, no, no, it's miss. And then they go, oh, sorry, and then they move on with their lives. And I, I don. I worry that oversensitivity makes conversations die, and that's when people are afraid to just say the wrong thing, so they just not along with stuff they don't believe in and extremists take over both sides of the conversation.
Speaker 1:And I guess as well. There's a lot of people being offended on behalf of other people as well, which is, which is always a not necessarily a great place.
Speaker 2:I talk about that. There's a moment in the book where, of the the rare times when I think I did cross the line, well, I don't think I did cross the line, but where I was told I crossed the line was I was doing a show and, long story short, I made a german joke right now there's more, there's more specifics in the book. Um, but I made a german joke. It was a fine german joke. I've made it before and you know who loves it the most germ.
Speaker 2:But I got an email and the email said that my German colleague had tears in her eyes when you made that joke and I just thought, no, she didn't. I don't believe she had tears in her eyes, like, first of all, it wasn't a tear inducing joke, but you know. But second of all, like it was, I've made it 100 times, no one's made tears. Second of like, I don't know. I think those are the two points. There's no, there's no third of all. But so I wrote her, I wrote the, the german lady, an email and I said hey, I understand you were offended. I'm sorry, that wasn't my intent and if you were, you know my apologies do you think?
Speaker 1:do you think there's a german expression for starting off a sentence with three points and realizing that you've only got two?
Speaker 2:I think there's an ocd version of that that you know, mark yeah, fair enough, I'll take that uh, I don't, uh, I, I suppose that probably is I. There should be one in every language, it is. It is a thing that I do is I'll just say there's three reasons for that, and I just assume I'll come up with a third.
Speaker 1:I'm exactly the same and it, and it terrifies me to to to find myself because you've got that like inner voice which is planning half a second ahead, trying to work out what you're going to say next, and you realize that there's nothing you've said. You've already promised three things. Like people are keeping count, I feel like this is for free, mark.
Speaker 2:I feel like, if your third point is and my third point is, it turns out I only had two points I think that's you're going to get a chuckle and you can move on. Fair enough, thank you I will.
Speaker 1:I will be needing that a lot, but so I.
Speaker 2:So I I feel like there are people that are afraid to make jokes because they don't want to offend. I'm not one of those people and I'm pretty good at not offending, and I do think and I get why they're so sensitive. You know, like event organizers or the HR department, that's that's this is organized, some big HR event they don't want you to say the wrong thing. Like I get that sensitivity, I do think, nine times out of 10, when someone says, oh, you can make fun of anything you want, except for this one thing, Cause they're sensitive about it. I suspect that's the thing we should start making fun of. Like I think that's the thing on everyone's mind. Let's deal with it. It's the white elephant in the room. Let's name it and move on. But I get why people are worried about that stuff. I just think they're incorrect.
Speaker 1:That's fair enough, Just shifting slightly. I made a couple of notes and I was quite interested, I think early on in your book, which, by the way, everybody should buy.
Speaker 2:What an impromptu sales pitch.
Speaker 1:Thank you, no, that's quite all right. I've never been in sales, but I feel that it is my natural home. Now you talk about some of the, and I think you even reference things which I didn't click on. I've got the Kindle version of your book, by the way but you talk about how humour aids memory, creativity and so forth. So just bring it back purely to a very transactional view of why we should have more humor at work. Beyond the, it makes us feel better about being at work. Could you tell me a little bit about you know, maybe, some experiences you've had or some anecdotal evidence or just sort of understandings you have about the potential link and the reasons why we should be a little bit more proactive in in in making the workplace a bit more fun or a little bit more humorous?
Speaker 2:Well, I mean I can, I can, I can. I'll try and give you both some research. I you know I won't have the numbers, but some, some research, uh, and some anecdotal. On the research side, I'd say, you know, just study after study shows not just that that laughing is good for our personal, say, you know, just study after study shows not just that laughing is good for our personal well-being, our health, our psychological well-being, our spiritual well-being, which, you know, those are three pretty good things to improve, right, just by laughing a bit. But studies show that when you laugh together, you bond together. You know, laughter was an early sign that we agree on something and, by the way, I think it's still a sign that we agree on something, which is why I think that making a joke is a great way to deal with your enemies.
Speaker 2:I don't know when people will actually listen to this, but, as we record, there's like a bit of a to-do, because comedian Bill Maher had dinner with Donald Trump and a lot of people on the left are saying he shouldn't have done that and you can't, you know, give up, you can't normalize this authoritarian wannabe. And then people on the right are incorrectly saying oh see, trump was won over. Bill Maher was won over and he's full manga now. Neither of those things are true. Bill Maher went there to have a dialogue with someone with whom he passionately disagrees and and walked away thinking away, thinking, oh, he's a different person in person than he is on the job. I wish we saw the same guy on the job. I still disagree with him on you know nine out of ten policy points, but I'm glad we spoke. Uh, man, I forgot where I was that. That tangent just took me off.
Speaker 2:Oh, then you would say, good, so humor? No, no, I know no. So. So humor bonds people. It connects people that disagree. It connects teams better. So, like laughing and humor is good for your personal health and and and psychological wellbeing. It's good for your team's health. It's good for the productivity. Leaders that use health are leaders that use humor in their leadership. If they use it well are seen as a better leaders. Their teams are more engaged in their work. So it's just like study after study shows this is true. On the more anecdotal side, I would just say when's the last time you had a good laugh with people and thought those assholes, I don't want to hang out with them anymore. And on the flip side, when's the last time you sat around with a bunch of people and it was nothing but business dry as hell, no laughs and you thought this, this is my team.
Speaker 2:It just doesn't happen I found my people yeah, now, you know, like on a personal anecdotes, I mean I've had, I mean, there was a time when I think this is in the book where I had to uh, I was gonna gonna host a big event and it was an event for like a, a huge, high stakes merger between two companies a dutch company and their, their sort of belgian counterpart, and they're going to get together and be a big. You know, benelux without the lux, they're going to be a big benna company. Doesn't sound so good, does it? No, I mean, it's funny that the lux is the interesting sounding part of them when luxembourg is the most useless part of that.
Speaker 1:Literally the only reason they've got luxembourg in there is just because they needed a third syllable right, otherwise it just sounded.
Speaker 2:It sounded like somebody stopped in the middle. But now well it's.
Speaker 1:It's a character from a 1970s soap opera called Crossroads and there's a deep cut that you're never going to get. Um, but there was a character in that called Benny. There you go. Yeah, I don't have it at all. I don't have it at all. What was nothing? He was an idiot.
Speaker 2:I had thought his chocolate was better than it really was, because then it fits right in google it.
Speaker 1:Um, sorry, I derailed you again. Go on that's okay.
Speaker 2:So so I was called in for rehearsal and I just thought, oh, that's funny that I have to have a rehearsal because we don't have any text yet. Like I don't know what we're rehearsing, but whatever you know, let's make it work. So I went into this rehearsal and they're like oh, the ceo wants to meet with you. And I was like, so, are we rehearsing? Oh, no, no, it's just about this meeting. And I thought, oh, it's, this is not. There's no rehearsal.
Speaker 2:This is the meeting with the CEO where he decides am I going to screw up his huge event or not?
Speaker 2:And I basically shook his hand, made a couple of light jokes, and one of the jokes was I mean, this is a joke with a small J.
Speaker 2:But when he said you know, I just want to make sure that you know, a comedian is not going to mess up my event he didn't say that in so many words, but I think some of the words were in the sentence he used and I basically said well, my plan is uh, come in, uh, make your event go smoothly, I'll be energetic, I will make some jokes and I will never cross the line, just like I'm doing in this conversation. And he had to admit that in this conversation and he had to admit that in this conversation he had laughed a couple times. I didn't cross the line and I was energetic and made the conversation go better, but I think those like using the jokes successfully with him was a nice moment when humor proved to him well. In this case that humor would be good. So it might be a might be a stacked example, but it was the first one I thought of.
Speaker 1:I'm quite interested as well. Again, you mentioned this in the book which I really urge people to buy so much. You've you've seen that post pandemic and post sort of crashes and so forth, that initially business goes down a little bit, but actually in times of you know hardship both you know societal or from the business perspective that actually you're doing quite well and I was, I was minded at the time to, to, to think that it's a little bit like running, you know, um, I don't know if you're a runner, but one of the things that always picks up in times of economic hardship is running. People go running more, um, and and and it's the, the cod psychology answer to that is that people are trying to escape and their problems or whatever. So is there a similar for the gym anymore and their problems or whatever. So they can't afford the gym anymore.
Speaker 1:Maybe that's it. Yeah, absolutely Okay. Well, yeah, you're probably right. That's probably the reason. Actually I'll stop talking about it, no, but I mean so. Do you think that's a similar kind of mindset that actually in times of hardship we seek out comedy or we seek out humor or we want to bring in levity into the workplace, really at a time when we've got some kind of innate understanding, we seek out comedy or we seek out humor, or we want to bring in levity into the workplace. Really, at a time when you know we've got some kind of innate understanding, that's what we need well, I know that.
Speaker 2:You know, when times are bad, people want to be entertained and distracted. Right and like. Hollywood's golden age was when, you know, economic times were crappy or one of hollywood's golden ages. I don't think that's what we were experiencing after the crash and during the pandemic. I think that after the crash, when we put together that future of your organization show, what we had hit was a nerve where companies were scared. They wanted a mechanism to talk about what they were scared of. They wanted a mechanism by which or with which they could talk to their newly right-sized teams and move forward together. And the show we put together did those things. In a funny way, I think if all we were offering was jokes, we might not have been on the budget, but since we were offering a positive take on, let's talk about some heavy stuff and move forward. I think it's that combination that made it work.
Speaker 2:Similarly, with the pandemic, you know, at first I mean, everything was canceled. Our schedules went from full to empty, just like everyone's. But we quickly were like, what can we offer that others can't right now? And we realized, you know, let's figure out quickly what we can do digitally, what kind of team building stuff we can do digitally. We saw very quickly that you know. Let's figure out quickly what we can do digitally, what kind of team building stuff we can do digitally. We saw very quickly that you know, teams who work from home are going to quickly lose their sense of team. Uh, we saw quickly that you know. Zoom meeting after zoom meeting no offense to this zoom meetings um become tedious and energy draining instead of energizing, and they're going to need what we offer even more.
Speaker 1:So we just again it was a combination of people like to laugh when times are bad combined with we were offering them a way to make their you know, crappy year-end meeting a fun year-end meeting at a time when nothing was fun I I always think that, um, because obviously I, you know, I was fully remote like a lot of people during the pandemic, and it it occurred to me, I mean it works quite well for me because I'm not great with um, with groups of people, and I'm also not great with names. So actually having a, a window in front of me with a name under amen, amen, sir, that makes two of us.
Speaker 2:Yeah so but but I feel, when two people are sharing a window, I just want to slug them. How dare you deny me your?
Speaker 1:name. Absolutely. It's really, really, really annoys me too. I honestly I can't tell you how much that annoys me. Um, so annoying.
Speaker 1:But one thing I did notice, or or at least again I reflected on, was the fact that you, we went from a place where you could have conversations with people um, even Even somebody like me could have a conversation with somebody ad hoc, whereas when it's all done, on Teams or Zoom, every conversation you're having has a purpose. There was no looseness around it. You were there for a specific reason, at a specific time, to discuss a specific thing, whereas you know potentially when specific thing, whereas you know potentially when you're, you know, walking up to the you know somebody's desk or whatever. So I guess what I'm getting to is you know, did and does, because we still conduct a lot of these things. We're doing it now, right now, on zoom, you know, does? Um video conferencing, has it removed the fun from work? Is it? Is it now more of a challenge to get the fun back in or the comedy back in? And comedy and fun aren't necessarily the same thing. I get that as well.
Speaker 2:Well, I think comedy is usually pretty fun.
Speaker 1:Sure, but not all fun is comedy. But not all fun is comedy.
Speaker 2:So let me say this I do think there's a danger of it. I do think to me, the biggest danger is a secret danger. Um, because I think we all get that like. We lose those one-on-one moments in the, in the corridor and, by the way, that's awful too. But for me, the thing that always struck me was the meeting part, because at most meetings, like today, when you and I got together to have this podcast, we didn't, like you know, I didn't enter the zoom and we started recording. You and I had together to have this podcast. We didn't, like you know, I didn't enter the Zoom and we started recording. You and I had a little chat, we chuckled a little bit, we caught up and then we started like it was in person.
Speaker 1:We humaned for a few minutes.
Speaker 2:That's a great way to put it we humaned. To me, the tough thing about Zoom meetings is when you press that button to enter, right at four o'clock precisely, and then, okay, well, that's the meeting, and everybody presses that red button and the meeting is over. And whenever I teach a workshop over Zoom, I always say, hey, this is the part where usually someone would press the red button and exit. I'm not going to do that, so my feelings won't be heard if you leave, because people leave meetings. But if you want to hang out and ask a question or just whatever chat, I'm down for that too. I try to get some of that back in the meeting and I always have small talk before the meeting starts. I think most people do. Right, most of us are human.
Speaker 1:Well, most of us. I mean, it's an interesting fact. It's not a fact, it's an interesting observation. Think that the more people you have on a, on a team or a zoom, the less interaction you get, unless unless you've got two people who you know are the only ones who've turned their video on and they're the ones who are suddenly having a conversation as if there's nobody else in the room, and then it's almost like being in a comedy club, because you've, like I suppose you've probably got 20 or 30 people who are sitting around listening to you banter with somebody on a, on a zoom call, which in itself is quite strange, I suppose.
Speaker 2:I feel like if I'm in a big meeting and I know two people and I have like a thing that I would whisper to them if I was sitting next to them at the meeting, I send it as a chat or as a WhatsApp message, like I wouldn't say it out loud. Yeah, I digitally whisper it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean for myself. I find, especially if I have to present to, you know and I had to do one recently, that was to, I think, about 40 or 50 people, you know to promote this conference that we're putting on in June in Brussels I hope it's about the future of work I find that fascinating and people should really buy your book. But, you know, I found myself almost like shouting into the void, you know, just daring people to heckle or to come back with something or interrupt me, because it was so silent and everybody was. You know, everybody had their mics off, you know, thankfully, most people had their videos on, but nonetheless I was. You know, I thrive from a little bit of feedback in these situations. You know, I like to, I like to get something back from quote um, in order to feel that I'm hitting some kind of spot.
Speaker 2:So, just for the record, my suggestion, when you have a big meeting like that, is to lean into the chat and uh, and ask questions like hey, tell me in the chat if this, even if it doesn't really matter, uh, usually I say, if you're making a presentation, don't ask questions, that the answer doesn't help you. But I think that if you can say to folks like you know I mean this is a stupid example but like, yeah, you know, I want to organize the skiing trip, hey, put the chat, if you like skiing, anticipated, and b you could now go. Hey, mark curtis, what, what, what do you got against skiing? Won't he communist? And uh, and then, and then then they'll. That'll be an hr problem because you know, I'm probably not allowed to ask that. Yeah, but no, I think if you use the chat and use people's names, I think you can, you can, you can, you can use the medium in a way that that that tries to dispel that, because I'm with you. Without the interaction, what's, what's the point of talking?
Speaker 1:when, when you have a zoom or a team call and you've got the very helpful little label in the bottom left hand corner of the screen, do you find yourself using the name of the person you're speaking to more than you would in a normal conversation?
Speaker 2:uh, maybe, but I but maybe not, I don't know.
Speaker 1:I certainly use it yeah, I do as well, I do as well. I've really noticed this about myself. I haven't done it with you because you've got a name that I'm afraid of mispronouncing, so you know. So, yeah, pep, it's really difficult for me. It just sticks no Rosenfeld, because I think in my head I had you down as Rosenfield, and now that's in my head and I'm worried that if I say Rosenfield, then you know, and then it's now, it's a thing.
Speaker 2:But I think it's rare that you'd be in a meeting and use someone's last name, right, Unless you're the boss and you're an asshole. Hey Curtis, what's going on here?
Speaker 1:People often call me by my last name, because, especially other cultures because they think Curtis is a first name, because of Curtis Steiger, I guess.
Speaker 2:I think in the US it definitely is a first name.
Speaker 1:Is Pep short for?
Speaker 2:something, or is Pep your actual name? Neither. It's a nickname that's stuck. It's a nickname that's stuck. Is it because you're peppy? Well, I mean sort of it's really a nickname because I was on an airplane once and thought to myself I've never had a nickname. I'm going to tell the people at the other end of this airplane when I get off that my nickname is peppy, because it's a ridiculous name that I can tell people to call me. And so for the whole summer Beverly called me peppy and I found I enjoyed being peppy, so I was stuck with it, that's.
Speaker 2:Do you know who promised me he would never? Once he found that story, he heard that story, he promised he would never call me Pep again and has not lived up to that promise. Is it Seth Meyers? It's.
Speaker 1:Seth Meyers, my new best friend, by the way.
Speaker 1:That's just for you, mark. That was just for you, mark Curtis, thank you. Well, I'm going to separate out that little bit of audio and just put it on my phone so I can listen to it. I just put it on my phone so I can listen to it. I'm also quite interested in your and I don't know how far this collaboration goes, but it's sort of you know, I was doing a little bit of desk research, and by desk research I mean I Googled you once, but I was quite interested in the interacting charity that. Do you still do work with them or are you? Is that something that happened a while back? I wasn't clear on that. No, um, do you, do you still do work with them or are you? Is that something that? That that happened a while back? I wasn't clear.
Speaker 2:No, no, no, no, it's, it still happens. It's. It's not my baby, um, that is the baby of our third partner, saskia Moss. Um, and you know she and Andrew are married and one of their sons is autistic and they realized from working with him, uh, that uh, improvisation is a great way to help kids with autism deal with life right. Autistic people want to have a script for everything and improvisation forces you to live life off the script. And, uh, I yeah, that's great. I think I think your bait. Most interviewers probably have a script. I don't know that that's.
Speaker 1:Are you saying that all interviews are autistic?
Speaker 2:I didn't. Uh, I think it's like comedy and fun, where one doesn't necessarily mean you're autistic, okay, the transitive, the community property, doesn't necessarily apply to that. So they put together this program and, no, it's getting bigger, like it's spreading. Now it started just in Amsterdam with, you know, 20 kids, and now it's in Hilversum. Uh, there's one in Eindhoven. It's, it's, it's, it's a real passion project for Saskia. Uh, she's writing a book about it now, and and and it's, it's. I mean, it's a great program. Like I come and and see the kids do their shows. Uh, not every time, but you know, I don't know, a few times a year I'll come and see the shows and they just, first of all, sometimes they're making better improv choices than you know our actors do on stage because they're just in it for the yes and they're not in it for the because it's their job it's liberating as well, I guess, to to be told that you can, you can literally just take, go wherever you're, um, you know, wherever, wherever the the, the process that you're in, can take you.
Speaker 1:I was, I was there's a couple of points on that, really that that that I was reflecting on. One of them was so I have a 20 year old son, as I mentioned. He is autistic and he, um, he, he's, he's sort of pretty low need so he can sort of make his way in the world, but but, um, he's, uh, he's a college doing drama, and I've been really surprised recently that he told me that he's trying to work out how he can get into stand-up comedy. And this is, you know, it's came from so left field. I've never, you know, I've never known, you know, we've never enjoyed a, you know, a stand-up comic together, for example.
Speaker 1:But he's, you know, again, there's something that he really really loves about the fact that he can get up on stage and he can be somebody else. You know, and I guess that taps into the skills that many autistic people have, which is they spend most of their time being somebody else. So it's, you know, that's why it jumped out to me, I mean, I guess there's. You know, there's a lot in the autistic experience that we're trying to address as well with the event in Brussels that we're playing. We're trying to think about how workplaces can be adapted, improvisation which can enable autistic people to be less terrified about being in the workplace or deal with people, um, you know, in a way that that doesn't leave them kind of hating the interaction afterwards or or whatever. You know I I don't know whether that's making a lot of sense, but it makes sense.
Speaker 2:I just feel, uh, obligated to say that I'm you know I'm no expert right, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's. The sasuke would have a ton of things to say and they'd all be much, much better based on on facts and experience than what I have to say. All I can say is I know the program works for the kids that are part of it and it has had exactly the effect. You're saying it. Just, it seems to give these kids, uh and you know I'm saying kids, as all middle-aged men refer to anyone who's under 30 um, it seems to give these young, uh people, uh, more confidence in their off-stage interactions as well as their on-stage interactions, which is the goal. Right, the goal is to, to, to demonstrate you don't always need a script. You've got this. You know you can, yeah, have the, have the, not just mental flexibility, but situational flexibility. That that, I understand, is difficult for folks on the spectrum. So I think, yes, I I wish that, um, that your son was was in one of the three cities where we're getting around to.
Speaker 1:I think it'll be really good for him well, yeah, no, absolutely, and I'm going to be talking to him about, um, talking about our conversation, when I see him soon hopefully.
Speaker 2:The other thing I'd say is that I feel like it's worth noting that the skills that make a good improviser are not always the same skills that make a good uh stand-up, and, uh, one of them is a bit more of a team game and one of them a bit more of a of a solo game. Right, you know one's basketball, one's running, you understand running and um, but they both start with the same thing, right, they both start with listening. They both start with responding to what you're listening to. They both start with being observant and taking note on what you see. Uh, they both start with knowing a little about a lot in the world, and I, I, I, yeah, I I'd like to come see your son do a set yeah, no, I'd me too.
Speaker 1:I'd love to see that actually genuinely. Um. I'm also curious just on the on the improv thing. Um, and obviously you talk about a lot about improv in the book I'm curious as to whether, either when you first started doing improvisation or or actually as a kind of an you know, I'll just say older gentleman there, what the hell am I talking about as an older man?
Speaker 1:As an older man, as a man of a certain age I'm sorry, let me turn up my headphones so I can fully understand what you're saying I'm curious as to whether or not, over time, or either at the beginning, whether improvisation skills have just, whether you you, whether they've just become the way that you sometimes communicate with people, because it feels like if you have this set of skills you know to, to keep conversations going, to interact with people, to get the best out of the person you're speaking to, whether or not conversation just becomes an improvisation um, well, I mean first I would say a hundred percent agree.
Speaker 2:I think the most uh, helpful life class that one can take is an improv class. If you could be a better listener, if you can be a better builder on someone else's ideas, if you can be open to taking a risk, if you can put your trust in a team, I mean, it makes you a better friend, it makes you a better date, it makes you a better flirt at a. It makes you a better friend, it makes you a better date, it makes you a better flirt at a party, it makes you a better you know work colleague. It makes you a better everything. So so, in short, I would say yes, yes, yes.
Speaker 1:Okay, um, I'm aware of the fact that we're coming to the end of the time that I said that I would take from your life, um, so I've got two questions One, which I'll end on, which is something I always like to ask people at the end of these podcasts, and I'll give you a couple of seconds to think about it which is who, in your kind of ecosphere of expertise, is your hero, who are you inspired by, who has kind of informed maybe, some of the decision choices you've made, or the person you most want to emulate, and I'll and I'll put a pin in that for a second. The question I want you to answer before that is has anybody actually sent you a free pair of air jordans?
Speaker 2:I'll answer the second question first. Uh, nobody sent me the free air jordans yet, but someone did. And you won't be here in the book yet, but someone did send my buddy, andrew, an email about something that happened when he was directing a show, and in the book I encourage people to send him an email. He had his first email and it just warmed my heart so much.
Speaker 1:But just for those people who haven't read the book, or even the first half of the book, as I have, you basically want somebody to send you some free Air Jordans, so I advise anybody to to read the book. Um and maybe um, go on amazon or ebay. Do they even still sell these things? It's, it feels like something from the 90s air jordans. I've never been a sneakerhead so I don't actually know. Oh, they're still air jordans and they're great shoes.
Speaker 2:For the record, I was really talking specifically about people from nike. Now, okay, wherever you were, you can send me something from your workplace, so like for everybody listening now, I assume that'll be pens, and staples.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we do some really good pens, by the way I have no doubt it's probably top four pens in the world.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Montblanc, lyriko, pilot. Those are probably the three big brands you need to know. Yeah, we probably should do it. Big are one of our big suppliers as well. So yeah, top four pens, big Pilot.
Speaker 2:Lyriko.
Speaker 1:Montblanc.
Speaker 2:Big in the house. For the first one, my answer used to be Chris Rock, because he's just so funny and he's just so good at communicating his message and he always has a point. And I, I feel like and, and and this is just me being like pretentious, I get that, but I always want, I, I always like comedy when it has a point and and when the, when someone's using their humor to make uh, yeah, yeah, to make that point to folks. Um, and I find it kind of crummy if, if I, I hear them make a point and I go, yeah, but we both know you've stretched like that doesn't hold water, you're at the point you just made. But Chris rock, I just he, he's, he's, he's political and he's social and he's and it's and it's relationships, but's always. I just think he tells a great story and makes a mean point. I felt that way about. I feel that way about Louis CK now, but I'm probably not allowed to say that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think I said to you before and believe it or not, this is one of the things that I was, you know, when I was dissecting the first conversation that we had. I thought why was one of the first things I said to pep that I don't like american comedians? Because that just sounds like a a weird and slightly offensive. You know, it's like yeah, I, I love comedy, but but you're americans I don't like. Actually, there are loads of american comedians that I like. Louis ck is one.
Speaker 2:I don't know his work, though, so it's, it's, it's good and the thing about louis ck is that he was always willing to put himself out there and like, take risks and potentially embarrass himself with his comedy. It just turns out that he unfortunately takes risks, uh, takes big swings and is willing to embarrass himself on his private life in a way that is unacceptable. Um I I don't think you said you don't like american comics. I think you said that american comics weren't like self, uh, advocating enough for you, right? And I just thought that's not the American comics I'm familiar with.
Speaker 1:No, I realized I was probably just trying to sound like I knew about comedy and managed to do exactly the opposite. I was sort of obsessed with Chesil Nick as well. At the moment, there's a lot of Netflix specials and things with that guy and I've yeah, there's, there's some amazing comics out there. Um, this is going to degenerate in me just listing things I like now, which is not fun for anybody listening to this podcast. Um, I feel we should probably wrap it up.
Speaker 1:Um, genuinely, genuinely fascinated to hear your thoughts on on comedy in the workplace. I feel like it's the sort of thing that actually you could just talk about, you know, all evening and and, and probably still not get to the heart of you know why, why you know how we should do it, why we should do it, you know, even, even though it's fairly obvious that you know you're you're a true believer in that respect and I and I think it's really hard to argue against anyway I mean, why would anybody want to work in a place? Well, because work is so serious. Yeah, and I have to say I mean I was talking at the beginning, before we started recording, about how much I like working for Lyft. I'm saying this now.
Speaker 1:Obviously, I want to keep my job, but you know, one of the things that I've always liked about it is that my boss, and now ceo, um. One of the things that he always asks is are we having fun? Are you having fun, um? Now, that doesn't necessarily mean you are, it doesn't necessarily means you what he wants you to, um, but but the fact that the question is there and it seems to be important to to the people who who run lyrical, I think, is is, you know, one of the reasons why I continue to work for them. I think.
Speaker 2:I would also say I think it implies that he wants you to write. Nobody says they're having fun yet so he can go.
Speaker 1:Well, then, stop what you're doing, absolutely yeah. Yeah. What are you doing right now? Just chilling. It's like right, well, you're clearly not busy and I'll go, and right actually is the fact that you should. You know that life isn't necessarily all about work, but but sometimes you know, if you have to do work all the time, then your life should be in there as well and you should be enjoying it.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean the thing that I would, I would say yes and to that mark is I feel like more and more managers and and and you know, management teams are realizing that things like positivity in your culture and psychological safety at work are important things, and I just believe that, when used right, humor is a great tool to help achieve both of those things. And if only there was a book out there that helped people understand why humor is important at work and how to do it even better than you're already doing it, and ways to avoid using it in a negative way. Oh wait.
Speaker 1:And if such a book exists? Well, I was going to say if such a book existed, what would you call that book and where would it be available and in what languages?
Speaker 2:A great name would be work, laugh, balance, and that's what I called mine. Right now, it's only available via Dutch distributors. Right, it's the publisher's Dutch and they've got partners elsewhere, and I think. But if you're not in the Netherlands, well, if you're in the Netherlands, then it's easy Go to amazonnl or bullcom. If you're not in the Netherlands, I think your best bet right now is either send an email to someone who is and have them get it for you, or get it on Kindle, like you did, because Kindle is universal, absolutely.
Speaker 1:Well, look, pep Rosenfeld, really, thank you very much. I've really enjoyed chatting to you genuinely and I really appreciate you taking the time for this. I'd love to pick up the conversation again and I feel like there's definitely some future collaborations, hopefully with Lyrico in the future. Can you say future collaborations in the future? Probably not. That's self-reflection that I'm going to cut out. Thank you so much for taking the time. Damn you, editors are going to make you sound perfect, mark. Oh, you think that somebody else is editing this. No, thank you so much for taking the time. I genuinely appreciate it and, yeah, I'm really looking forward to maybe having another conversation in the future, maybe when you, me and Seth meet up for that beer the next time that he comes around. That'd be great and we can chat some more about it. But for now, pep, thank you so much for taking the time.
Speaker 2:Well, it's no problem, mark. It's, as perhaps you can tell, I really do enjoy talking about this stuff, so it's always a pleasure to be invited to do so. So thank you Brilliant. Thanks a lot.
Speaker 1:That was Pep Rosenfeld, and I'm really grateful to him for spending a little bit longer than I normally spend talking to our podcast guests, but I enjoyed it so much and I think he did too, so hopefully you enjoyed listening to us babble on about the importance of comedy and humor in the workplace. If you're interested in finding more about the conference that we're putting on in June in Brussels June the 5th the Future of Work conference, the link to that event is in the notes of this podcast. You'll also find on the same stream that you're listening to interviews with some of the keynote speakers who will be appearing at the event. I genuinely think that they will be very much worth a listen to. Otherwise, please stay tuned. We'll be releasing more podcasts over the coming weeks. Hope to see you soon. Bye.
