How to Get Your Sense of Humor Back

Hello everybody, and thank you so much for joining me once again for the Lighten Up Project. This is Malcolm Grissom, the Stand Up CEO and founder of World Laughter Organization, and I have a very fascinating guest for you. She's entrepreneur, one of one of my longest, one of the longest one of the longest entrepreneurs. Like, she's long to be. no, I've known her for a long time. She's an entrepreneur. She's a multi, multi award winning, multi my, my brain just my words. Marco, Marco, Marco, where are you? Words, come back here, please, please words. Oh, she.. it'll come to me right after I finish this venture, but she is multi. she's an author, international bestselling author. Many times use the word many verbal. She's also a speaker. She is, she is the creator of the g mastermind, she is none other than Ly Smith. Thanks for joining us, Ly.

Thank you so much for having me, Malcolm. It's really great to be here with you once again, because yes, we have been friends for a number of years, thankfully, and, and not just virtually, we have had spent some wonderful time in person, which is wonderful, and I, I'm excited to be here today, and to share with you, to share with the audience.

Yes, yes, um, let us get right into one of the newest things that we're doing here. It's called Two Truths and a Lie. So we are going to present Two Truths and a Lie, and then you audience are going to go ahead and throughout the interview piece together some of the things that are talked about, see if you can find out which one of these is the lie, and we'll reveal that to you at the end. Okay, so here are some very fascinating statistics about my wonderful friend Lee, so she was in. She was a contestant in the 1995 Miss USA contest. She was in college, she was studying to be an aerospace engineer, and the one thing that tripped her up was statistics, and she has also been a six time member of her, the Chris Christmas parade, so she was in that six times, never did the same thing twice, and I forgot the rest of the hour of what she just told me, so just remember that six time member of the Christmas parade aerospace engineer who couldn't do statistics, and 1995 Miss USA contestant. All right, Lee, would you mind joining me in 20 seconds of spontaneous laughter?

Absolutely, let's do it

All right, I love that. All right, and let's go laugh.

Oh. It get those cheeks a workout. Yes, yes, yes.

Everybody, you saw how, how much weight I've gained because of my cheeks.

Yeah,

I love it, but it's fun. Yeah, yes, fun. Ali, what is your relationship with laughter?

My relationship with laughter. Yeah. Oh, hi, Talia. Laughter has a really, really great time with me, Malcolm, and I have so many stories that that I could share, like there's laughter around when I found out that I was pregnant with my daughter, there was laughter around the day that it was like 24 hours before she was coming into the world, and laughter played a part in that too, and laughter brought me out of my depression. I was in a two two to three year depression, and it was laughter that took me out of it, like I, when I really self-reflected, I'm like, oh, I down spiraled into that depression, and it was laughter that up spiraled me, me out of that, and then laughter saved my marriage, and so I would love to share, in particular, that the story of how laughter helped my depression.

You know what, let's, let's table that, because, yeah, okay, going to talk about that. I'm also very curious to hear about how laughter saved your marriage. Those things definitely, definitely, but the one thing, the very first thing that you said sparked my.. I want to hear this magical story about laughter and the birth of your child.

Oh, yes. Oh, my gosh, it was hilarious. Because I, I struggled to get pregnant, first of all and I didn't have to go too deep into that rabbit hole journey, per se, to get pregnant, it just took a lot longer than than I was anticipating. It's been so, because of that, I reached a point of I'm at peace if it's not my calling to be a mom. And right when I, right when I made that decision, my husband and I had a conversation, and we talked about, like, well, so what are we going to do with our lives now, and I said, I don't know. He said, well, what do you want to do today? I said, let's go test drive some cars. So we went to, we went to the local dealership, and just for fun, we, we thought we'd go drive some vehicles, and we were at this one particular dealership, and we were quite interested in a vehicle, and the general manager said, "Well, why don't you take it home for your test drive? And we thought, "What? Who are we being pranked right now? What is.. what is happening? But this is the general manager. Even our sales guy looked a little bewildered by that, like, "What's happening right now, and he said, "Oh, well. He said, "We're just going to run your credit report. That looks good. Go ahead, take the vehicle home, bring it back tomorrow by noon, and let us know what you think. I said, "Are you for real? He said, "Yeah. I went, "Okay. So we took it home, and it just so happened I had a friend from out of town visiting, and we and his friend were I love to go out dancing with him, so we went out to the local club dancing. We had taken the, you know, the new vehicle we were test driving out, so that was fun. We go out dancing, and at that time I had some, you know, liquid influence to, you know, keep me loose on the floor and everything, so I'm throwing back a drink, and I go out dancing, throw back another drink, go out dancing. Well, that pattern repeated for about seven times, and then I had a moment of like, oh, I've had a lot of

drinks, I need to go to the bathroom, and so as I'm going to the bathroom, this little voice inside my head says, you might want to stop drinking, and I'm like, wait, what? What? What are you talking about? I'm like, what do you mean? I need to stop drinking. Yeah, you might want to stop drinking. I'm thinking, like, why? And the voice says, because you might be pregnant. And I'm like, what? I'm like, no. And then I.. and it's like, yeah, you might be pregnant. And I stopped for a second, I thought, wait, because women know their cycles, right, and I knew my cycle, I'm like, okay, oh, I guess it is that time, I'm like, huh, but now I'm probably just running a few days late, I'm like, no, and I, I go to the bathroom, and I'm like, I'm going to stop drinking, because it is really. Late, and I'm just going to switch to water, not because of that little voice inside my head, and I go back on the dance floor, and I'm having water, and we get home very, very late at night, and I wake up in the morning, and I'm going to the bathroom again, because that's part of the morning routine, right, and that little voice comes back, and it says, you might want to take a pregnancy test, and I said I don't want to take a pregnancy test, because when I do, it comes back negative, and then I have this little bell of depression. I'm not going through that, and the voice says, yeah, I might want to take that pregnancy test, and I'm like, no, pregnancy, there, you know what, they cost money, and I don't have money to be tossing out towards pregnancy test, especially if it's going to show up negative. The voice said again, you might want to take the pregnancy test. I was like, or is like, I know you have one under the sink right now, and I thought, okay, fine, if it will make you shut up, right?

And I peed on the stick, and usually I pee on the stick, take my shower, come back out, see the results, right. Did not even have time to jump into the shower, Malcolm. It was positive right then and there. And I walk out of the bathroom, and I've got the test in my hand, and my husband wakes up, and he says, Are you pregnant? And I said, That's what this says. I said we really need to take that vehicle back to the dealership, because that's not going to have it. Was it was that laughing laughter in my, in my head, right? That, that did that. And sure enough, nine months later, and I found out two weeks in that I was pregnant, so it was very early on, for sure, that I was pregnant into my pregnancy. And start up nine months later, I'm working in a doctor's office, and I long time ago I was in a car accident. In part of the car accident, I messed my teeth up, so I have a partial that I wear, and this was December, and so December, working in doctor's offices, they, they give chocolates all over the place, and so we have this massive box of chocolates in the lounge, and I go to take a bite, and my partial breaks, and I was like, oh, oh, I know what this means, and I come back to my desk, and I just kind of hear this little laughter in the back of my head again, and I'm like, oh, what are you doing to me now, and I take the partial out because it's broken and it won't stay in my mouth, and I thought, oh no, and I called a coworker over, she's like, what's going on, I said, look. She said, are you okay? I said, yeah, I'm fine. But I said, but you know what that means. She gives me a weird, like, what do you mean? I know what that means. I said, that means this baby is coming tomorrow. She said, you don't know that. I said, yes, I do, because that means that when this baby comes tomorrow, my very first pictures with the baby are going to be because I'm not gonna smile with my missing teeth, and she said, "She said, 'You are a first-time mom, you don't

know when the baby comes, and it was due, you know, technically due a week later, and I said, "Oh no, she's well. I didn't know if she was a she yet. I was waiting to find out if I was having a boy or girl. Did not do the reveal party back then, and so she leaves. For she leaves at the end of the day, she said, "I'll see you tomorrow, and I said, "Oh no, you won't. I said, I'll be in the hospital delivering this baby. She said, nope, I'll see you at your desk, Malcolm. I tell you what, stroke of midnight that night, my water broke 13 hours later, right? 13 hours of labor, so it's 13 hours later. So now it's 1300 on Friday the 13th, my little girl came into the world. So, for those of you who think Friday the 13th is a bad day, I'm sorry, it was one of the best days of my life, but it was certainly laughter, right there, you know, hours before, saying, uh, huh, yep, and sure enough, my first baby pictures are me holding my baby, going, I can't smile this big smile

That is so the opposite of my birth story. Have I told you my birth story?

No, I haven't heard that one.

So, um I was, I was three weeks overdue. Yes, I was overdue. My, I just wasn't coming out at all. Period. Nothing to do with it, nothing.

Yeah.

And until one day my mom had my mom was in labor, right.

Yeah,

So they're, you know, it's time to go to the hospital. She's telling my dad it's time to go to the hospital. They call a friend who drove a little sports car, a Triumph. I don't. Yes,

I remember the Triumph. Yes

Really, really small sports car came picked them up right in. In that, we lived in a little house. I should, or should I say they lived in this little apartment? It was in like an alleyway in this, this was in San Francisco, and I

Right

in a little alleyway in the Haight Ashbury district, very

Okay

district.

Yes,

And so my friend, or their friend, I'm sorry, not my friend, their friend drove the Triumph parks, the Triumph in the middle of street, they go back to help my mom out of that of the literal apartment building. My mom's screaming, he's coming, he's coming the entire neighborhood. Then they hear that, and so everybody's picking up, picking out. Right, this was a Sunday afternoon, so everybody was at home. They're peeking out, they're looking. What's going on? You know what's going on.

Mom's, he's coming, he's coming. They get her across the street, get her into the car, and as soon as she gets in the car outright, like goodness. Time. Welcome to the world, Malcolm, my time. So,

Wow, so it was a true triumph. It was a triumph.

I never thought of it that way. Yes, it was. It was definitely.. wow,

Fantastic.

So, where in your life? Because you, you do, you do a lot of, a lot of playing, you do a lot of playing, you have a lot of playing coming up, and so, where in your life do you give yourself permission to play, and where do you still hold back?

Oh, wow, that's a fantastic question, Malcolm. I, I give my myself permission to play at any, any moment that, that it comes, because too, too many times I would say I saw myself just taking myself too seriously, and and I thought just because I'm an adult by definition doesn't mean I have to stop playing, and I came across a book called The Power of Fun, and it was all this research on play, and you know, why do we stop at children? Stop being childish, stop being childish, and it's like there's childlike and there's childish, and I love to be child alike, so when I, when I wake up in the morning, play is play is part of my, if you call playing it a game, like I play a game of dominoes, so that's a form of play for me, just to get my problem-solving juices going, and and then when I come into my office, like my work is play for me. I love putting my presentations together. Sometimes there is a play on words or a play on a concept I use. I use Scrabble letters as part of my, my presentation, and I, so that's that's play for me when I accomplish something, like when I get through a task, especially one where my brain is not wrapping around this. Why is it taking me long, so long to get it done? And then when I actually make progress, I'm like forward progress. I will literally give myself a high five over my head, and because my office is upstairs and I have to go downstairs to. Get water as I'm going down the stairs, I'm doing something silly. I'm either doing a dance down the stairs or

I'm blowing my lips and, and doing something. It's a shaking it off in, in some way, or something, something silly along like that. And then when it comes to when my husband gets home, the task is what can I do tonight to make him laugh. What's it going to be, and so it's never, it's never anything scripted, right? It's just where is that opportunity going to happen, and so it either comes out from flirting with him, because even though April this year will be 25 years of marriage to him, you know, it's like I want to, as I want to find a way to still flirt with my man and keep that spark going, and again, sometimes it'll be I tend to have a very dry humor, so he might say something and my brain just plays with that, and I'll say it, but I'll just drop it. Oh, did you see that? I'll say it like that, and I'll just wait a moment, and then he'll say, "Wait, what? And then we both bust up laughing, because when he catches up to what my sense of humor was, and we, we laugh together, so those are, you know, I'm always open to receiving that opportunity for play, and where am I holding back? I think I think play opens up creativity, so I think when I get into the rabbit holes in my work, that if I just took a moment, because I was at a virtual summit earlier this week, and the speaker before me, she was talking about joy and those moments that could be considered moments of play of just being a little silly, I think. If I would give myself just that little bit of pause, and all it needs, it can be as short as a heartbeat, or two to five minutes of if I'm getting so frustrated with progress not happening the way that I want it to. We'll just take a step back and do something silly, and give the brain that that disruption, right? And just play for that moment. Okay. All right. Okay. Oh, all right. Now, what was I doing again? And then, and then just that moment might be just enough for the brain to go, oh, this is what we want to do, or this is how we want to see it,

or this is who I need to contact to maybe help me along, or this is the tutorial I need to look up, and then that resolution, or the creativity comes. Sometimes that is happening when I'm working on a presentation, because I customize my messages to the audience, and so I'm like, oh, I want to get this message across to this audience, and I might get so caught up in my words that, again, I need to just shake it off for a moment, do something disruptive, and you know, is it, is it twiddling my thumbs for the moment, and like, okay, or like what we, you and I just had together, the 20 seconds of laughter, just do that, and then come back, and then watch the words flow, so I think I think when I catch myself getting buried in my work, whatever it has to be, I think that's where I need to step back for a moment and just pause to play. I like that. Thank you for that question.

Yes, most definitely. See, and and that actually leads to laughter, because there are so many people in our society who still equate, you know, they hear the words humor, or they think laughter. Well, humor, they think comedy. First of all, that's the first thing that comes to mind. They don't think about the other, the vast definition of humor. They hear laughter, and they think of it as a response. So, there has to be some stimulus to make us laugh, right? Yeah, and what you're describing, like just the play that leads to a lot of times leads to authentic, genuine laughter, whether it's hilarious, you know, uproaring laughter, or whether it's just a few giggles or something, that what that does is not only does it give the brain like a reset, like you said, but it also, laughter, you know, it has these great dopamine effects. It, it lowers, lowers the cortisol, right, lowers the stress level, and all that. So, makes us feel good. It has all these physiological effects when we laugh, and that too helps. It stimulates the prefrontal cortex, and that's where all the creativity and everything comes from, so laughter kind of gets, gets this running again, you know, yeah, a different way, so right, I love how you pointed that out, I love how you pointed that out, so could you finish this sentence for us. Healing doesn't have to be heavy, because

It can be light as helium in a balloon.

All right, and I think that is a wonderful transition, because I want to hear this story, you want to tell it, our audience wants to hear these stories of how laughter has really helped you in those depressive moments,

Yeah. Thank you. Yeah, I.. this story is.. it's.. it's such a crux in my journey, and it helps to plant a seed of hope for anyone who gets to listen to it. So, I'm definitely grateful for the opportunity to share, and it begins it almost 10 years ago. It just blows my mind that it's been that long now. 10 years ago, when I took a holiday with my, my family, and we were blessed with this incredible trip to Hawaii. We got to visit all four islands because we spent 23 days there, and that meant we had 22 amazing sunsets, and there was a particular sunset where I was, I was looking out along the lava beach, where we were standing, and my husband, who's whose passion for photography was in play, and he had the camera out, and the lens he's trying to crank it. It looks like the nose of Pinocchio from his face, and he's, he's trying to get the light just right. And my young teenage daughter was at the time, was was in my arms, and we're looking over, and off to the side was my son, who was grown and out of the house at the time, but he was there with us with his girlfriend, and they were having a sweet moment, and looking out at this, what I call the golden orb, this glorious golden orb setting on the jewel sapphire horizon, and the breeze is just gently caressing our faces, and I'm standing there thinking, wow, I can't believe this is the kind of vacation I'm getting right now. I can't believe we've got these four islands, and and I'm here with my family, and I'm thinking this is so beautiful. I'm thinking this is such a paradise. I'm thinking I'm so immensely blessed, and and I'm thinking, and I'm thinking, and then there was this moment, Malcolm, when I realized I'm only thinking as I'm observing everything, and I'm realizing I am not feeling there was no emotion happening, there wasn't a, oh, I'm so happy there, there wasn't a, I feel so loved. There wasn't a this is such a joyful moment, or peaceful, or any of the none of the emotions

were there. I thought, what is happening right now? And then my very next saw was, this is not who I am, and this is not how I want to be right now, this, this needs to stop here. So I drew a line in the proverbial sand, and I said, "Oh, okay, we're at the end of the year, there's a new year coming around the corner, and so when most people are setting up their resolutions, well, I'm going to set up for myself a quest to remember who is Lee, because it in that moment I, when I, I said, Who am I right now, or what makes me happy? If I'm not even feeling happiness right now in this incredible moment, why am I not feeling that? What does make me happy, and nothing came up. My mind was totally blank, and I was not okay with that. So we came back home stateside, and this is.. oh no, before I left the beach that day, I also thought, well, if I have this new word and I'm going on. Us or this new year and I'm going on this quest. I want a word to anchor me. I want to anchor this journey because I had heard of friends picking a word for the year and how that helped them, and I thought, well, I want to try that and see what happens. So I asked myself, what word do I want to choose, and the word that came to mind was laugh, and I thought, well, that's appropriate, because I can't remember when was the last time I laughed, and so I came home with that new year and the word laugh, and I thought, well, I don't want laugh to just be a thought. I, how do I live the laughter? And admittedly, in that self-reflection, I realized I was in a massive depression when I thought even deeper about, oh my gosh, I've been here for two or three years, but because I like to be happy, I have masked it, even from myself.

It was so deep internally, but because I have that word, word, laugh, laughter got me out of bed and moved me to the corner of the couch, where I sat and watched reruns of Friends. I was a stay-at-home mom at that time, and so I watched reruns of Friends, and even though I've seen it 100 times over, know practically every line, all the scenes, what's coming up, it would still make me laugh, and I thought, okay, okay, there's a little bit there, and then when I got a little bit more energy from that, there was a local comedy troupe who would put on improv shows every weekend, and they were doing it for only the first three months of the year. Well, that was perfect timing for me. So, almost every weekend I was down front and center getting my laughter on, and then I was doing some networking for the work I was doing, and I knew the people who had an amazing sense of humor, and I thought, if I can just get in their space a little bit, maybe some of that humor and that positive energy would rub off on me, and so it was that word laughter or laugh anchoring me, being the base of my actions. I'm seeking out how do I laugh, and after three or so months of that I was able to reclaim my joy, and I felt it in my heart, and it whispered to me, What do you want to deal with me? And that became the base of my, my work now. So, laugh, laugh is my hero. I wouldn't be where I am today if it wasn't for laughter.

Thank you for sharing that. That's I love that story. There's so many gems in that story. What is one thing that you would say to someone out there who's listening who has lost their sense of joy, lost their sense of humor.

Yeah, I, if, if you've lost it, it probably means you have had it before. So, what is it that you can remember about laughter, like even if it takes you back to your childhood, in and when we, a lot of us kids, first sense of humor is learning silly knock knock jokes, right? Or we just say knock knock, who's there? And then we make up whatever, and then the adults laugh right because they're just they're going to support you hopefully and so maybe it's something like that, so maybe it's something from your childhood or if it's if it's like me or friends was my favorite sitcom, I know there's many many sitcoms out there and they have different types of sense of humor, so is there something like that that you could do, what I did, where, like I said, I started in the corner of the couch watching 10 seasons of Friends. Now, I, I didn't spend all three months doing that, but you know what I mean. And so, maybe there is a television show that you can go back to, or, or is there a comic that, who, who you like. Oh, I love their sense of humor. Or maybe it's a comic, you know, movies, whether it's romantic comedy or straight up comedy. Again, there's a whole genre of comedy, there things like that. What is it that you can recall, you know, or think about a favorite memory of when you laughed, and maybe journal on that, and or sit with that, where just take a timeout for yourself, and close your eyes, and take a few deep breaths, and put. Yourself back in that place where that laughter happened, and because if it's, if it's a feel-good moment, you know, remember that, and then embody that, and then maybe ask yourself, How can that laughter show up for me today, and see what opens up, that's that's that's what I would, I think I would do if somebody feels so lost, because I remember what that felt like, and I know what I did, but maybe you know what I did isn't going to work for you, but if I think if you can think about, you know, well, do I

know when was the last time I laughed, or I was in laughter, you know. Where was that? What was that moment? And get back, get back to that place. Let that be a starting point for you. And then ask, how can that show up again, even if it means in a different way. And I hope that helps.

Yeah, yeah. One of the, one of the gems that you just said, and again, you brought up so many gems just now, but one of them that I really attached to is if you've, if you laughed at one time, or if you had that humor, if you've lost it, then that means you had it somewhere to begin with.

Yes

and that always, always brings me back to these people. There are certain people that would say, and I don't, don't mean these people. I'm, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to say that, that was a little sounded a little offensive, but what I meant is people that say I have no sense of humor, I can't tell jokes, I'm not funny, you know, and they, that's the responses I've had, no, I have no sense of humor. Well, briefly, if you go back to episode two of season one of this show, I talk about I define humor and the vastness of humor, and and play is part of humor, and everyone, everyone played at one point in their lives, even Monk, and that TV show. If y'all don't know the Monk, yeah, okay, Adrian Monk, Tony Shalu played that, and their family portraits were always like this. Even Monk had some sense of play as a kid, some sense, right, of, you know, telling the knock knock jokes, that was a perfect example of knock knock jokes, and just making something up that was fun, right? That's fun, that's a sense of play, that is a sense of humor, and so everyone did that, they have a sense, and so I loved what you said. Is that fine that you know you had that at one point in your life, right? So you've lost, you've lost that, but it's there, just dig for it, dig for it, because it's there. I love that so much.

Thank you.

Gosh, this is such a great conversation. I really want to hear the story about how laughter saved your marriage.

Yes, yes. Oh gosh, so part, part of that depression happened because there was a strain in my marriage at that time, and even when I found my joy again, and remembered who I really am, and that my inner child loves public speaking. So this is what I get to take out into the world now. My marriage was still dying initially, and it was, it was definitely very, very heartbreaking, because when I met my husband, we did not have romantic eyes for each other. We hit it off as friends, immediately formed a very deep friendship, and loved each other on that level, but had no. Romantic eyes, it wasn't until a full year later, then something started triggering, and all of a sudden we were seeing each other in a different way, and we fell in love, and we got married, and we started off with a blended family, because he had been married and had a son from his marriage before, and then together we eventually had our daughter, and so this family in where I was stay-at-home mom, stepmom, this marriage dynamic to try to put it all together. Well, in this moment I had lost respect for him. I lost the friendship that we had all those years. I didn't like him. I didn't love him, and I, I reached this point of it wasn't the numbness like I experienced on that shore of Hawaii, but there was there was an emptiness where I just felt like there's nothing there, so what do I do, and I think there was a part of me, well, certainly there was, because that's how things are still together now, that didn't want to end it, I, not a, oh, it's not. It's no longer working out, so yeah, I'm gonna head straight for divorce. That's it. Divorce was not a desire, it was just a.. I don't know what to do with this, and I.. so I was lost in that sense. I had found myself, but when it came to my marriage, I felt lost in that, and so when things were really just not working out between my husband and me, we, we opted in for couples therapy, and that really didn't go so well either. And then

there reached this point in the year where we had a 10 day cruise booked, it was already on the books, already paid for, so there wasn't any canceling of it, and I thought, okay, let's, let's just go on this cruise, and then when we get back from the cruise, maybe it is where I pull the plug, and so we travel over to New York, and we get on the ship, and Malcolm, usually when I get on a ship, because this wasn't our first cruise, many times get on the ship, I, we, you got an international audience, if you will, to play with, and I love meeting new people, and in like ethnicities and cultures, and where are you from, and who are you, and what do you do, and and I make friends with people when I go on a cruise, but this time I was dialed in on just Robert and me, and we were in our room getting ready to sail away, and I, whatever stuff I had, I threw it on the bed, and I said, Robert, these next 10 days, it is just you and me. We have no family, no responsibilities, and I know this is going to sound completely backwards to you, but I am not here to make friends. We these next 10 days, it is just you and me. We are either going to make it or break it. And he just looked at me like, okay, okay. And I wasn't quite sure what I was going to do with myself. I'm glad, okay. What, what am I going to do the next 10 days, and in the first moment that I had to myself in, in the bathroom, I was, I was leaning on the vanity, and I was staring at myself in the mirror, having a conversation with myself.

All right, Lee, you know, you've come this, come this far, here you are, and no, you're not looking for the easy way out, but if you're, if, but if you really are going to throw in the towel, as they say, you got to be 100% honest right now, and you, you need to be absolutely sure that with every single cell of your body, by the way, you know there's a trillion cells in your body, right? Every single cell in your body that you, you leave, you gave this 100% and it didn't work. And oh gosh, Malcolm, I got that honest with myself. Look at myself eye to eye, I hadn't, and I had to own that. And then it was okay. All right, what am I going to do? What am I going to do? And it was the third day in before I finally said anything now. We had small talk, you know. It wasn't like we were there in silence, you know. We had small talk, but it wasn't until the third day that I was like, "Okay, I'm going to give him a piece of me, and it.. and all I could blurt out was one sentence. So I gave him the one sentence, and he just said, "Okay. Couldn't tell you what that sentence was. I just know that was the experience, but he just said okay, which meant he just received it. He didn't refuse it, he, he didn't discount it, he didn't probe for more, he and he certainly didn't rebuke or start up, you know, a fight over it. And she's like, okay, and we got past that moment, continue with small talk. The next day I gave a little bit more, maybe two sentences, and so each day forward I would give a little more, a little more, a little more. So by the 10th day we were having some conversation, some communication was cracking open, and it was enough that I was able to say to myself, all right, let's take this home in the home environment. Let's see what happens. Does it continue or does it not? And happy to share, of course, that it did continue, and it got better. And a few months later, he approached me, and I thought, "Oh no, oh no, here comes the fight, but he,

he shared something with me, and we had a really good heart to heart, and a few months later we had an amazing moment, and I was crying over the phone because I spent four days in this intense experience, and I just said to him, I said, I think I'm starting to have feelings for you, and right now it's appreciation, and that's all I could say. He was like, okay, he's like, okay, great. And the next month was our anniversary, and I said, okay, I'm, you know, I'm actually happy to celebrate our anniversary. And then we get to the end of the year, and I thought, oh my gosh, no, we've been going through this healing journey, and it's been wonderful, and I remember sitting and reflecting, like, wow, I'm so happy and grateful that we are where we are, and there's just this one thing, oh gosh, that because what, by this time we were at 18 years, no, 17 years, 17 years of marriage, and I, and I thought, okay, we, we've been here 17 years, and, in like, yeah, we've been through the ups, downs, loop de loops, what have you, we've gotten through this, and we're in this good place again, but something I've wanted since day one, Malcolm was, I want laughter in my marriage, that romantic of, you know, the boy makes the girl laugh. I'm like, I want that. I've, I've like art, like his parents, you know. I watch them, and they, they're always laughing. I'm like, look at them. And then other couples that, that we would hang out with, I would see them laughing, and the immense wonderful sense of humor. I'm like, why don't my husband and I have that? Like, I want that on that silly little voice that you've heard in the other stories, right? It says to me, well, Lee, if you want the laughter in your marriage, you bring it, and I'm like, no, no, I'm the girl, he's the boy, he should be making me laugh.

And that little voice, it's almost like it waved in its finger at me. If I could see it right, if you want the laughter, you bring it. And I've said what many people have said to you, Malcolm, but I don't have a sense of humor. I never saw myself as a funny person, but I was willing to rise to the challenge, right. So, with, with, with 2019 coming around, you know, starting there, I was like, all right, I don't, I'm not a resolution person, but I'm going to just make it a challenge for myself that once a day, every day this year, some way, somehow I'm going to figure out how to make him laugh, and I did, in, in, you know, it was rarely the same thing twice, in, in, you know, sometimes it might, then I booped him on the nose, and he would laugh at that, or he would say something, and I'd drop my dry wit humor, and he would laugh at that, or or I will hurt a joke, so I would retell the joke, you know, and whatever it happened to be, and so every day now I never told him that that was my project, I just did it, and six months into the year, so now we're into June 2019 so six months of doing that. Malcolm, oh my gosh, like I told you before, out of the depression, the laughter made the joy come out of my heart. Well, it after that, dropping the laughter bits every day for six months like that, I was falling in love again and. And it, you know, just, just amazing, and I, and I still, I still make it a daily effort, you know. How can I make him laugh today? And I maybe have not been making it as a consistent habit as I was committed to in 2019 but when I, when I get to do it, it's, it's so fantastic, and now it's to the point where he finds it a challenge to make me laugh. I am a tough audience, I will say, but when he makes me laugh, he just feels like, oh my gosh, this is amazing. I made you laugh, I made you laugh. So laughter, yes, saved my marriage and allowed us to fall in love with each other again. And now that we're empty nesters, we're like teenagers,

we are like silly, silly teenagers, just happy in love with one another, and laughter is such a huge part of it. And so, anybody out there in a relationship, married or not, you know, if you're in a relationship with someone that you really care about, challenge yourself, like how can I drop some humor today, and you'll surprise yourself as to what comes. It's amazing, and it's so worth

You would have full story banner. I want to pee piggyback on that, because I am single, and not, not necessarily by choice. I am single. I'm not in a relationship, but I take what you just said, and I challenge myself to find the humor, find the funny in the day, whether that funny is is challenging some challenging strangers. Can I make this stranger laugh? You know, right? Can I do that right? That is using your using the same concept,

Right?

That is finding the relationship with me, right, and the relationship with others around me and all of that, so that's how I use what you just said.

Yes, yes, that's that's awesome. And if we have time, can I share another quick story? And it's, it's based on laughing at yourself,

Please, please do

Because I think it's so important, and when, and when I came across this, oh my gosh, okay, this was what, literally two weeks ago, and I, I was at the boot camp with, with Jenny, right? We were in the boot camp together, and when..

Let me just clarify, because confusion, as, as, as a comic, I know that when people are confused, they're, they're stuck on that, and then they don't enjoy it the rest of the story or the gym, so let me just clarify, so what Lee is talking about right now, we, we are both, we're entrepreneurs, and we are in a, in a community of other entrepreneurs, and Jenny Trask, who is who is has been a guest on the show as well, she is a mentor and put together this boot camp this training day for people in the community, so that's that's what Lee is talking about right now. Go ahead.

Thank you. And so, so during that moment, there, there was a little break, and I happened to be in my emails unintentionally, but I was in the, in my inbox, and I came across one particular email that grabbed my attention, I thought, "Oh, I need to see what this says, and I go and open it up, and I'm reading it, and it's starting off in a similar language to a college admission letter, and so as I'm reading it, my brain is immediately going to worst case scenario without any facts. It is jumping to worst case scenario, and I'm prepared to read the letters. Thank you for your proposal. We took it into consideration, however, I was ready to read those words. Yep. Yeah, and yet when I read the actual words, it was an acceptance letter for a proposal I had submitted a couple of months ago to do a workshop series for a hospital corporate team. So the point of the story is one, I set myself up to receive the negative, but because I didn't, I had to laugh at myself, laugh at myself, and be willing to do that, like, look, look at me being silly, Miss, Miss Queen of self-talk, here, positive self-talk, mind you, and yet in that moment I was being negative on myself, and I was like, oh, I've caught you being human, and so having you know where in your life can you observe an opportunity to laugh at yourself, because I could have shamed myself. Shame on you, Lee, for putting yourself down like that.

How does that make my life better? It doesn't, when you can laugh at yourself, like, look at me being human. Oh, that was so silly of me. It's, it's owning that, like, I felt what I felt, I thought what I thought, but it's okay. It's okay. And if I can laugh at that and make light of that, then it makes my day better, and it makes for a great story to share right here, right now. Know

What it makes everybody who you come in contact with that day, it makes their day better, because it's, it's a domino effect,

Right?

Makes your day better, you do something nice for somebody, and makes the, their day better, and so on, so forth,

Absolutely

So forth. So, Lee, yes, this has been a wonderful interview. Thank you. Chunk full of gems, my goodness. But before we get to the two truths and a lie. I want to go back to our introduction. You talk, I introduced you as someone who, who runs the through the g3 g3 minds. Yeah,

Yeah.

Would you tell us a little bit about that. What is that?

yes. Thank you for this opportunity. So, the g3 Mastermind is because I believe that you have three Gs, and that's genius, gifts, and greatness. And, as a mindset and self-talk strategist, I help high-achieving women to move from reactor to bold creator in life by rewriting their self talk, and I do that inside of my g3 mastermind, which is an online community on the school platform, that's S K O O L, and there we, we get to come together in connection and collaboration, and I use my life coaching skills, my personal development skills, and my NLP practitioner skills to shift them from that being stuck in their self-talk that maybe is imprisoning them in imposter syndrome, or procrastination, or fear, or doubt, hesitation, and so they're wondering why am I not where I think I should be, and I get to help them take a look at themselves, and I do invite them to laugh at themselves too, because if I can laugh at myself, I believe anybody can laugh at themselves too, and have that honest look, and then question what is the self-talk that's happening there, and if it is focused on the negative, let's reframe that so that we are hushing that inner critic and we're empowering that positive voice, because many more times throughout my day, Malcolm. I'm hearing myself cheer myself on. You've got this. You can figure this out. It may take you a little bit longer than you want, but you will still get there. You're going to accomplish those goals, and and then I celebrate. Look at me waking up in and showing up and serving the people that I want to serve. So, the g3 Mastermind is that online community again for for those women, not necessarily meaning to exclude men, because I have come across some men who maybe need it too, but right now my community is focused on on the women, where we can really move them from that reactor to creator in life, so they can own their power, they own their genius, their gifts, and their greatness that are unique to them, and

this is what they get to take out in the world and do and shine

Great, great, great, and just so everybody knows, I have all this information, the school and. And how you can contact Lee, all of that, that's in our show notes. So just wanted to throw that out there, so people didn't just ignore our show notes or say what was that school, what I didn't quite.. it's all in the show notes, Ly. So we've got, we've got three things about you. One is 1995 contestant in the Miss USA contest, six time member in the Christmas parade, same same parade, never repeated a role, though. Six time member, and then college studying to be aerospace engineer, couldn't get past statistics. Those are the three things. Please tell us, which is the lie.

I'm curious to know, which one do you think

Oh, well, let's see. I'm going to go with she is.. well, she's. she's got this heady, this heady, this heady vibe about her, so I can see the aerospace engineer, and yes, you get stuck with something and give it up, so I could see that, especially doing what you do now with the 3g method and the mastermind, definitely see that. So I'm going to go with that as a truth. You are, you are, I could see you doing something like be a contestant on a TV show, smile, you're on Candid Camera, shows you my age, but I'm gonna go with the lie being 1995 Miss USA, that's my guess.

Oh, well, Malcolm, you would be incorrect. The lie, the lie is the aerospace engineering.

Oh, wow. Okay, all right.

Yes, yes.

This has been just such a fascinating time. Thank you very much. And please, please, I would love to have you come back.

Absolutely,

Future. episode, and discuss much more stories. You're a wonderful storyteller, and our audience can pick up on so much, so many more gems that you have to offer.

I would love to be a repeat offender. Happy to do it, Malcolm. Thank you,

Thank you, audience. Thank you for tuning in to the Lighten Up Project. Thank you so much, Ly, for for being part of this month, May, May is as, as I've been talking about all month, we've had people that experts come in and talk about mental health, May is Mental Health Month. So, thank you so much for being part of this month. It's a very important month, and our next guest, we are going to have next week Shiraz Babu talks, he's another person that does very similar to what Lee does. Lee talks about reframing your self-talk. Shiraz talks about that as well, and he does wonderful work. He's going to be here to round out our mental health month, and tell, so please tune in next month, next week to hear his interview, but until then, remember that. That every smile can open a door, every laugh can open a heart, and every step can be a victory. Until next week. Thank you so much for tuning in to the Lighten Up Project. Thank bye y'all.