Transcriber: Denise RQ Reviewer: Elisabeth Buffard
We are all given this gift that we have in laughter and in humour,
but what happens to all of us as adults is sometimes we repress that
and we forget to play.
Why humour? Because it works.
It is the most essential human tool that we have
in that little invisible toolbox that we carry with us each and every day.
It sparks creativity,
it brings joy in anything that we do.
It engages us as human beings
no matter where we are from right
no matter what we do,
our nationalities, our age...
The super glue that holds us altogether,
I would argue, is humour.
And humour has nothing to do with jokes.
By a show of hands, how many of you remember
and tell jokes well 100% of the time?
Raise your hands. 2 % of the population!
(Laughter)
Most of us forget the punch line,
we laugh before it's over...
(Laughter)
But if I asked you all, sitting in here today,
how many of you believe you have a good sense of humour,
you would raise your hand.
It's not about jokes.
It's about an enthusiastic way of looking at life.
Each and every morning that we wake up,
we choose what glasses we want to wear.
There are many human beings that wear the dark ones,
where everything they look at is dismal and grey
and negative and down.
And then there are those who wear the rose-tinted ones.
And no matter what they look at.
It's just a little bit brighter, a little bit better.
It's humour that connects us all as human beings.
It provides the depth to the relationship
that no one understands
until you begin to laugh with another human being.
And that memory is there forever.
When you see that person a year later,
you bring back that humorous situation that occurred.
Humour could equal love.
Because love is a connection, and so is laughter.
What we begin to love
is taller than we stand and louder than we can speak.
Because sometimes we have a hard time with that word, don't we?
Some of us want to say it, but we don't know how.
Some of us say it, but we don't mean it.
We all know that love is truly what connects us all together.
So the gift that we have in laughter
is that depth of relationship.
Now in connecting with another human being,
we all know that what's funny to one is not funny to another, yes?
Absolutely!
Because each one of us, as I say, become different
I love this book
because it reminds me sometimes of how we all begin.
Just a blank colouring book with no pictures.
The wonderful thing about all of us
is as we grow and we begin to experience life,
we put these wonderful lines
that make that picture ours.
What truly gets us to the level where we want to get to
is the simple gestures in life.
A smile. An act of kindness.
Comfort from another human being.
And what it does, is that it colours in
each and every one of those pictures
for each and every one of us.
If this is entertaining you,
you probably need to get out more often.
(Laughter)
Some of you are like ...
(Laughter)
This is what it's about!
We all bring humour to the table differently.
And in humour,
what's funny to one is not funny to another.
In all humour that I've studied over the years,
we know that there is forbiddens in humour.
Each one of us in this room
has what we call "forbiddens";
and comedians use this at times
and sometimes we may be at a work place
where there's an use of humour
that is kind of off-colour, if you will.
Well, people that use too many forbiddens in their humour
are people that we call dirty, gross, immoral people.
People that don't have any forbiddens in their humour
are people we call cold, uptight,
humour-constipated, if you will. (Laughter)
You know they want to let go but they can't!
(Laughter)
but sometimes we have to test those forbiddens, do we not?
Absolutely.
I've worked with workplaces over the last 10 years,
in communicating and how we work together.
And it would be my belief and I would state to you today
that great workplaces create the conditions
that make them wonderful.
That's true, it's a fact.
Look, can you imagine?
(Laughter)
Just for a moment!
(Laughter)
As he drives around the streets,
imagine the feeling that he has of joy!
And tell me you won't buy that guy's plumbing!
That's a condition, is it not?
Absolutely. Now you go to a dentist's office.
You're afraid of the dentist and you're a little child.
And you see these two wonderful dental hygienist
who have a sense of humour,
which equals love, compassion and joy.
That's where we can get to.
Look, in the early 1980s,
I went to my first Ringling Brothers & Bailey circus.
The attraction during that, it was not the elephants,
not the high-wire act, it was clowns!
I studied and I was passionate about the fact that
if I could dress as a clown,
I could become a character of laughter,
a giver of love.
And In the 80s, it was okay to be a clown.
(Laughter)
It was a joy for me.
It was a pleasure, it was an honour
to be someone who could provide laughter.
I worked in hospitals with cancer patients.
I worked in nursing homes.
I worked in hospice.
I saw the joy that we could bring
with props, magic, humour and laughter and jokes.
It was powerful.
In 1986, my world changed.
My first son was born.
Michael was born with a lot of issues.
At three months, we thought
we were going to have a miscarriage.
At 6 months, we were told
that the baby was not growing as it should.
At nine months, during a caesarean section,
we were told to be prepared
because we weren't sure if his lungs would be developed.
At 09:02 on December first, 1986,
we heard a scream.
And at that moment, I had joy and happiness.
At 6 weeks, we were told he wasn't going to be normal,
that he had a very rare growth disorder
called Russell Silver Syndrome
and that he would never be taller than 5 feet.
And he would never weigh more than 100 pounds.
He would be different.
And I lost my sense of humour.
I lost my joy.
5 years later, at a park, I found that joy again.
I took Michael to the park, he was on a swing.
Some little boys came up to him and said: "Do you want to play?"
You see, during that time, I understood
what the tears of the clown meant.
Those little kids said, "do you want to play with us?"
I said "No honey, I'm just sitting here."
They said "No, you ought to play."
and they brought me out,
they gave me a stick, they said, "It's a magic wand.
If you go up the tree, that's the castle,
that dog is a fire-breathing dragon."
Then I went on that twirly thing until I got sick.
(Laughter)
I began to sob, at that moment, because
I understood what brings you back from that stress.
The biggest destroyer of happiness in life is stress.
And kids can bring it back.
It's kids. It's the opportunity
to experience their imagination, their creativity.
And kids became my superheroes.
My superheroes. They truly did.
Because kids take risks, don't they?
(Laughter)
Kids know how to have fun.
(Laughter)
Kids understand laughter and kids understand play.
But most importantly, ladies and gentlemen,
kids understand love.
They understand the deepness of love.
I would ask you all today,
to connect with each other through love.
Deeper than you can imagine.
Don't wait.
Do you think any of these people
that were on that plane that day
wait one second to get up in the morning
to say "I love you" to someone?
I have this picture, it's in my office.
I look at it every single day.
And I think about that day.
And I wonder how many of those 3,000+ people
may not have said "I love you"
before they left for work that day.
Don't wait!
When you leave here today, get on your phone
and call someone that you haven't called before
and tell them that you love them.
Don't wait. Because there's no guarantees in life.
Marriage. Any guarantees?
Buckle your seat belt up in your car?
Any guarantees? Life's a crapshoot, man!
Could someone walk in here, tell you have a very important phone call
and that phone call change your life forever? Right now!
So say "I love you" to someone today.
I'm going to call my dad when I'm done here
and say, "Dad, I love you."
He'll say, "Have you been drinking?"
(Laughter)
We will have connected at that moment.
Say "I love you" to somebody.
I leave you with this:
in all of my time in looking for the greatest prop that there was around,
the greatest prop that could be,
I found it in something simple:
I used magic tricks, I used juggling clubs,
I used every type of object I could think of
to make people laugh, but there was only one that was universal.
No matter where I go in the United States,
no matter where you go in the world,
it is a universal way to connect with another human being.
So I would pass this on to you, a gift.
A gift of laughter.
You see, I bring this box with me wherever I go.
It is only in this gift that we can truly be one.
(Laughter)
And know that when you are wearing it,
you have love.
Thank you very much.
(Applause)