WorkHappy - Greg Kettner

 
 

Podcast Summary 

This is episode 70 with Greg Kettner. Greg is the founder of WorkHappy, and he speaks, trains and writes about humor and mental health in the workplace to grow engagement, productivity, and loyalty. In this episode, you are going to learn how to talk authentically about mental health with your teams, with your peers, and the benefits of doing so. 

You're also gonna learn how to bring more humor into your personal life and your professional life. I know I need this one, and number three, you are gonna learn a very simple, happy hack to add to your morning routine, which I think you're gonna find very useful prior to running WorkHappy, Greg has an incredible sales career with organizations such as, The Seattle Thunderbirds Hockey Club, the Canuck’s the Vancouver Whitecaps as well as BuildDirect Technologies. 

He is a TEDx speaker, does incredible philanthropic work in his community, and is just an all-around awesome guy. I can't wait for you to hear this episode. Enjoy! 

 

Contact Information for Greg Kettner: 

 

Podcast Summary 

Tia Graham: Hi, Greg.  

Greg Kettner: Hey Tia. How are you?  

Tia Graham: I'm good. I am so excited to have you on this show, and I think we could probably do several episodes together based on what we both do. 

Greg Kettner: Yeah, no for sure, and thanks for having me on. It's great to be on, not only on your podcast, but like you're my speaker, my mentor, the person I gotta keep up to Tia, so it's, it's great to be on. I feel like I'm in the club now.  

Tia Graham: Well, you also have coached and helped me, especially with my TEDx talk, so yeah, the feeling is mutual. So, your company is WorkHappy, and you have such a fantastic background. You are really passionate about happiness, about mental health, and about humor, and I know all of those are interconnected. Can you tell me and tell the listeners how you became so interested and passionate about, let's start with humor and also mental health.  

Greg Kettner: Yeah, absolutely. Uh, well, I guess it started back, you know, when, when I was growing. My dad got Bill Cosby’s "Fat Albert” on a record and we practically wore it out. My brother and I had the whole thing memorized and there was a lot of laughter around our house. My dad, has the dry sense of humor, and my brother is starting to have a sense of humor. But you know, ever since I was a kid it was always laughter around the house and this and that and I just always enjoyed making other people laugh, whether it was, you know, a joke in grade three or farting in choir in grade seven, and getting in trouble for that. And so I just had always done that.  

And then when I was working for the Vancouver Canucks, about 15, oh almost 20 years ago, I'm myself, but, we'd won a game and I was doing sales and afterwards and we went out and had a couple wobbly pops and we were walking past this open mic and the guy's like, “hey, you should go in there and tell jokes. You're funny, you can make people laugh.”  

And I've always wanted, I always thought about being a standup comic, but I'm like, yeah, I couldn't do it, or I couldn't make money. Um, but for whatever reason I said, well, sure, I'll go. And so we're in there and I got up and I told some story, I don't even remember what it was. 

But just that rush of having people, you know, there's probably 15, 20 people in the pub laugh at me and laugh at what I was doing. And so afterwards, I went up to the guy who ran the thing and I said “Hey, I'd love to come back.” And he's like, “Just keep on working on a five-minute set. And then once you have a five-minute set, then you, you have two of those and it's a 10 minute, and then once you have 20 you can middle and then...” you know, on and on. 

And so I just started doing that and just fell in love with standup comedy. And, from there I started working at Yuk Yuk’s, which is a Canadian comedy club chain, and I met some really cool mentors. What actually, one, one of my first mentors in the company was Daryl Lennox, and he actually passed away a couple of days ago from a heart attack. 

Which, which is weird. Someone that I knew and looked up to and he took me under his wing and, and whatnot. But so, I worked my way up the ladder and then I got to the point where I was starting to headline clubs. I got the opportunity to work with Robin Williams, Jim Gaffigan, all these guys, right? 

Obviously they were the opener, the headliner, I was just there to warm up the crowd. But I fell in love with it. I did it for six years, and then I met my wife Becky. We'd gone to college together, but I was on the road in Eugene, Oregon doing a show, and afterwards we ended up talking and started dating. 

And then when you get married, you can't tell jokes for a living anymore. Apparently, that was in the fine print I didn't read it.  

Tia Graham: Oh my gosh. And you incorporate humor and laughter into your work when you're speaking, when you're working with clients and I know, of course the world needs more likeness and laughter and teams and companies. 

I mean, it is so, so valuable and. It's something you can learn, it's something you could get better at, right? Some people probably are genetically predisposed to be funnier than others and or they didn't maybe grow up with dads like yours, right around all of it. But it is something that you can learn, and I love that you are bringing it just into business and into work. 

Cuz work can be really serious, right? Everyone's focused on driving results and you need that lightness to balance it out. Okay? Now, tell me about how you became really passionate about mental health and helping people and serving people around this super important topic.  

Greg Kettner: Yeah, no, absolutely. I think the, the passion for serving others and, and making a difference in the world came from my parents. My dad was a missionary doctor. So I, I was actually born in Hong Kong. I know my accent doesn't relay that when you listen to the podcast, but so I, I mean, first six years of my life was of service. 

He was, he was in a hospital there helping people. My mom was a nurse and so I kind of always had that in me and, and then I got into sales and just really loved connecting with people and making work a joyful place. And, you know this as well as I do Tia, but when, when we laugh, that releases the endorphins that allows us to be happy. 

And when people are happy, they're more creative. They're, they're more productive. There's less sick days, all those kinds of things, right? And so I've just always had this optimistic, outgoing, happy personality. And then, after I got married, I became a stepdad. And if you saw a picture of Rachel, you can definitely tell that I'm the stepdad. 

But, a year into our marriage, unfortunately her dad passed by suicide and at the time it, you know, I thought, well, this was something that they, you know, a person that they knew, right? It was, it was Becky's ex. It was Rachel's dad, and I thought, okay, well I just need to be here for the girls, right? To support them.  

But then I found that what they were going through was obviously affecting me. We're now a family and the dynamic...  

Tia Graham: And emotions are contagious. And energy is contagious.  

Greg Kettner: Absolutely. Yes. Right. And to a 13 year old who just lost her dad and she's saying thinking, well, is Greg just gonna kind of come and take over? 

Or, so there's all these dynamics and I remember it was a Monday morning... 

Tia Graham: And so traumatic for her, especially at that age.  

Greg Kettner: Well, yeah. And in, any death or grieving situation, there's all the different stages, but you know, suicide is a whole. Whole different game because we don't see it coming or you don't understand it or all these kinds of things. 

And so I really dived into learning more about mental health and about suicide. I joined a group here in Walla Walla, which is called Reach Out Walla Walla. The gal who ran it was Peggy Needham. But, I remember that morning, it was uh, 2:08 in the morning and Becky woke me up and said, we need to talk. 

And I was like, oh boy, what did I do? That was my first, and then she told me in the news, and I was, I was in shock. She was in shock. And I'm like, you've gotta be kidding me. Like this not happening to us. It was sh*tty.  

You know, we sat on the couch for four hours until Rachel woke up basically Googling, how do you, how do you tell somebody? 

How do you let someone know? Then five o'clock came and I called my brother. And he is like, what's going on? And I said, well, here's the situation. So, he's a psychologist, so he is like, well, here's some things you need to look out for, and she's gonna be in shock when you tell her, and she might not cry right away and, you know, you want to make sure that she's at home and or with people. It was an eyeopener and I've, learned a lot from it and, from doing that and the healing and Rachel's been very resilient. Our family's been very resilient, but through the process, you know, we've all gone to counseling for it. 

Both individually and as a group. And a lot of people were like, well, why would a middle-aged white guy go to counseling? Well, cause were’ not perfect. 

Tia Graham: Everyone can benefit from it, right?  

Greg Kettner: You have a business coach. I have a business coach. It's how we get better. Right? But I think there's still that stigma, like, oh, crying, especially for guys, especially for men. You know, I'll walk it off or, you know, don't cry. Um, and so through the whole process, I learned the different stages of grief. I learned more about mental health, more about suicide and even like the vernacular, right when I was growing up, and even up until five years ago, it was like the person committed suicide, which isn't right. 

We commit crimes, we don't commit to mental health, right? And I thought that, you know, it was mental health. It's maybe something that they did because they drank too much or they partied too much or what not. So, I really learned that mental health, you know, is, is part of everybody's lives, especially now, you know, that we've gone through Covid and everybody's affected from, you know, mild anxiety too bipolar, to whatever people are struggling with. And if we talk about it, if we reach out to our friends, our family, counselors, doctors, there is help, there's hope and there's healing. You know, for anybody who goes on the journey and once we have gotten, you know, our family had gotten through it and covid hit, you know, when I had to pivot. I'm like, well, I like making people happy. I love sales, and this is a passion of mine. I want to have more people talk about mental health because we can avoid the disasters of suicide or deep depression or whatever it is. 

And so, I just got on and researched and, and, and met people like you who talk about happiness. Met another good friend Eric Cusk, who's a leader in the mental health space. And, it's just been a blessing and a journey to have these conversations. Every time, you know, sometimes it's after a coaching session or after I'm done talking at a conference, I'll have people come up to me and say, thank you for sharing that. 

I've never heard a guy talk about mental health, admit that he's gotten into counseling or cry in front of a thousand people. You know, and I got off stage once in Winnipeg. And I walked over to the trade show floor and a guy walked up to me, his name was Jason. He is like, “Hey, good talk man.” I was like, “Thanks buddy.” 

And I said, “What was your biggest takeaway?” And he is like, “well, the biggest takeaway is that I don't know who you are, but I'm gonna tell you that I've had a crippling anxiety for 25 years and nobody knows other than my doctor, my therapist, and my wife.” And I was like, well, that's worth going to Winnipeg for, right? 

You know that one conversation, and we still keep in touch.  

Tia Graham: Yes, the ripple effect of helping. Oh my gosh. I have, I feel like millions of thoughts going through my head based on everything you said. Um, and you know, I don't know if I shared this with you before, but recently, last summer, I read the book, the Body Keeps the Score. 

Have you ever heard or read this book? Write it down, and anyone else, I'm a lot of it is going into my next book, and I've been on this massive healing journey, the childhood healing and our older daughter is on the autism spectrum. And so, Learning so much from her and just about humans, about nervous, everything. 

And, yeah, it's been a really, really, really challenging year and learning about different ways that we can heal and become resilient. And, you know, what the research shows in the book is that many, many people who have mental health challenges, like whether it is severe depression or bipolar, or schizophrenia or crippling anxiety, like all of these things, many, many, many, if not like, the full majority of the people have a lot of childhood trauma, unresolved childhood trauma, you know, and so the more that we can talk about mental health and, and talk about what's really happening, like you said, whether it be suicide or like, the more that we can talk about it, the more the world can heal together. And if workplaces can be a place where these open, honest, Brene Brown vulnerable conversations can happen and leaders can create those psychologically safe places. 

Oh my gosh, so many people will be able to be helped. So I'm just, just grateful that, that you're doing the work and it's such a cool combination that you, you bring in humor cuz mental health can feel very heavy and serious, you know?  

Greg Kettner: Absolutely. And, and thanks for sharing that. You know, I mean, we're friends, but we haven't had this conversation before and it's great. 

Tia Graham: Hey, let's do it on the podcast, right?  

Greg Kettner: Why not? We're here anyway. We're talking about it. But then you're vulnerable and willing to share, right? Because we never know who's gonna hear something and going, well, if Tia is, you know, going through something, maybe me going through something is, okay? You know?  

Tia Graham: Yeah. Maybe we're all going through something. Yes.  

Greg Kettner: Go read a book, talk to somebody, reach out, whatever it is. You never know. And one of my favorite quotes is by Robin Williams is every, everyone you meet is, is struggling with something you have no idea about.  

Tia Graham: And I really appreciate you. Everyone needs to follow Greg on social media because like, just Yes, absolutely. And, and the need for more kindness, more compassion. Empathy, humanness, you know, it's so desperately needed. In addition, like you said, all the covid, but also social media and news, and now we got AI and like, it's a lot for everybody, right? 

To just, you know, help that too. So, a lot of the listeners work in organizations, they lead other people. What advice do you have for someone who's listening, going I would love to be funnier; I would love to make my team laugh or make my customers laugh, but that is not me. I am not, and I will say, my amazing husband, Jim would say this exact thing. 

He's the CEO, and he's like, I'm not funny. And I'm like, no, you're not funny at all. Like he's amazing in many ways. Not a funny guy at all. Uh, I mean, he tries to be funny sometimes and I'm like, no, uh, no. That just bombed. But he tries sometimes  

Greg Kettner: swing and a miss. 

Tia Graham: I know. I know. So, for people that want to have more humor at work and, and in their family life too. What advice do you have? Because there is such a connection between laughter and resilience, laughter and physical health. Humor and happiness. I mean, it's, you know, like you said, the creativity, productivity, all of it, it's so beneficial. So, for someone that just wants to bring in more humor, what advice do you have? 

Greg Kettner: Uh, pay me a lot of money and I'll write jokes for you. No, no. Uh, and, and that's a great question, one that I haven't been asked before, but I, I think there's a couple things. I think everybody has a sense of humor. When Covid started at the beginning, I needed a creative way to, and I didn't know if I'd be sitting in this room for three weeks or three months. 

 It turned out to be 3 years. And so, I needed to continue to make people laugh cause I was still doing standup comedy and I'm very outgoing. And so, I thought one night and there may have, may not have been some Walla Walla wine involved, but I started a, a group on Facebook called The Humor Lab. 

Um, and it's PG 13, no politics. Love it, but I wanted it to be a group think of everybody, you know, from dad jokes to puns, to everybody's sense of humor to show what makes them laugh. And so, I just set it up on Facebook and sent it up to about 20 friends and said, “Hey, I'm starting this group. Can you add jokes, blah, blah, blah, and share it?” 

And I woke up the next morning, there was 152 people in the group. Last time I checked, which was a couple weeks ago, there's 38,000 - 39,000 people around the world.  

Tia Graham: 39,000?! Oh my gosh! So that's Everyone can join?  

Greg Kettner: Yeah. And everybody just adds their sense of humor. So, do something like that and then when you laugh, it's obviously contagious, right? 

Yes. I've never wanted to hang out with somebody that I can't laugh with. And so, when we do that, you can bring that, too, you know, to the office, whether it is a funny cartoon, or a meme, whatever it is. But when we do that, when we laugh together and people who have a sense of humor, leaders who have a sense of humor can tell a funny dad joke, or what not. Or thought of that much more like people want to follow someone who has a sense humor. 

Tia Graham: Yes, of course. It's because it's so wonderful to be around their energy. Yeah.  

Greg Kettner: Yeah. I know it's 2023, but it doesn't, you can find a lot of stuff you can watch. I mean, people like Nate Bargatze or...  

Tia Graham: Oh my gosh, I love Nate. And Sebastian, the Italian, I always pick... 

 

Greg Kettner: Oh yeah, no, just great. Right? And it, you know, like you said earlier, I combine the sense of humor with mental health, and I remember vividly, two days before Rachel lost her dad. I had gotten the girls' tickets to go see Brian Regan and I worked at the hockey rink that he was playing at. 

And so, through my comedy connections, I got a meet and greet, which Rachel didn't know about cuz she's a big fan of Brian Regan knows it's funny, right? Kids can remember a punchline, but they can't remember that the dog’s hungry, twice a day, right? So, we got there, and I said, hey, I wanna show you where I work. 

And so, we went down in the bells, and you've been in a hockey rink, it doesn't smell that great. And she's like, oh, this is great. And so, I said, well, there's my office door, just go and knock. And she's like, okay. So, she does and Brian Regan opens the door. He is like, “Rachel, thanks for coming to my show. This is awesome.” 

And I've never heard her say nothing. She was just like, oh my God. So, we had Cool, we had 10 minutes with Brian Regan. He was great and just a good human and, and I have met him a couple of times. And so, I went to get, after that, I, we said, thank you. We got a picture, and I went to get our tickets up at will call, and he had switched our tickets, so we had better seats in row one. So, he, I didn't ask for that, right? So, we're dead centered. And so, we watched this whole show and then we're driving home. Um, and, you know, she's repeating the jokes and then, you know, two days later this tragedy happens. 

Um, and a couple weeks after we were having dinner and Rachel started crying and Becky started crying and then I started crying, of course. I was like, hold on, time out. Let's put dinner on hold. We went out and sat on the couch and turned on Brian Regan, and within 10 minutes we were all laughing again. 

So, it didn't take the pain away, but it got us through us or through it. And that's what laughter can do, right? It's a healer. It's a connector. And when we do that, it forms bonds, it forms trust, just so many good things. And it can be clean and funny. I mean, here’s a joke... 

Tia Graham: Yes! Like Seinfeld, that's why I love Seinfeld. 

It's always clean. So, what I'm hearing is you don't need to come up with your own material, like whether it is jokes, memes, videos, cartoons, et cetera, but just spreading that lightness. Yeah, and something that you taught me when I was preparing for my TEDx talk. 

Was also just self-deprecating. Like when I was like, I'm a horrible cook. I can't park straight, and I was telling you all the things about myself and you just like turned it into little jokes because you were laughing as I was just talking about all the quirks about, you know, myself, that we all have. 

So that's another one I think of just not you know, not sharing how you don't take yourself seriously. That's another way.  

Greg Kettner: You know, like I’ll walk out on stage, and I'll tell people, you probably won't believe this, but I used to weigh eight pounds ounces. Right? It's a stupid joke. 

But it's self-deprecating and it's you know, and that's a great way, you know, just talking about stuff that makes you laugh and sharing that with others, and the other thing that I've learned over the years is, talking about things and putting, uh, like a boxer where, you know, its jab, jab, left hook where people don't see the left hook coming. 

Tia Graham: Right, right. It’s the unexpected.   

Greg Kettner: or an exaggeration or a comparison. 

Tia Graham: jab, jab. For everyone listening. Say it again.  

Greg Kettner: Oh, jab, jab, hook. And I, I think that’s Gary Vaynerchuk’s kind of like jab, jab, jab, jab, punch. Right. Where he's like talking social media. Social media, social media. And then really hit them with something. 

Yeah. But when we hit the punchline, it's people like, Ooh, didn't see that coming.  

Tia Graham: Right, right, right, right. So, my last, let me see. Oh yeah, we still have five more minutes. Okay, good. So, you also share and write and talk a lot about happiness, and I know that humor is connected to it. Mental health, you know, is part of it, but what does happiness mean to you personally? 

What does it mean to you and why are you so passionate about talking about it? 

Greg Kettner: Wow. Now the table's turned, what does happiness mean to me? Happiness for me is getting up in the morning and, my first thought is, who am I gonna make happy today? Is it gonna be a prospect? Is it gonna be a client? 

Is it gonna mean my wife? Is it gonna be my kid? Typically, not my dog, cuz he's old and fading, but there's just so much good and happiness and, when we are, when we have that happiness mindset, there's fulfillment, joy, contentment, and you know, you, you were in the corporate world as well too. 

And you probably had amazing jobs where you loved going to work. And you probably had people that micromanaged you and weren’t happy.  

Tia Graham: Yeah. Very toxic. Negative. That's a big inspiration. Yes.  

Greg Kettner: Right? That's what we're doing and why we're doing that now. Exactly. Cause we get to have conversations every day and help people. 

There's just so many benefits. I mean, people are 18% more productive when we're happy. We're more creative. There's five times less sick days. And you know, reduced turnover, all these kinds of things. And I think the old school thinking is, we need to be serious. We need to get the hours in. We need to get the numbers in, we need to get the job done. 

But if we take time and be a little bit selfish every day and take time for ourself, take time for Greg and I do this every morning. I breathe, meditate, and I watch standup comedy for five minutes every morning.  

Tia Graham: Oh, my goodness, you watch standup comedy every morning?  I love it! I have never interviewed, I mean, it shouldn't surprise me that you do this, but that is really, really cool of you and what do you just like, watch it on your phone? 

Greg Kettner: On my phone, on my, my laptop or, you know, Netflix. And it's, it's, you know, it's so subjective, right? I mean, which I love about humor. There's dark humor. There's. Weird humor that it is, there's funny, there's clean, you know, there's people who do standup comedy in churches. Right. So it can be that clean.   

Tia Graham: Right. That's a good point. It doesn't have to be, but…  

Greg Kettner: it's a mindset. It, and it's a choice. 

Tia Graham: And it gets you in that humor mindset and that happy mindset, it sounds like. In addition to the, to the presence with mindfulness. So, I just wanna repeat what you said. For everyone who's driving or walking or on a treadmill, wake up in the morning and think who am I going to make happy today? Which embodies the spirit of the Dalai Lama. Don't focus on yourself. Right? Turn your attention and focus to other people. And so cool. I'm gonna try the five minutes of standup before my day. And I think for other people that want more lightness and levity. That's a great one, too. 

Greg, where can people go to learn more about you? Obviously, everyone needs to join the Humor Lab on Facebook, and spread that to everyone. Um, but where is your website? Where can people find you and follow you in awesome podcast and everything?  

Greg Kettner: Awesome, thank you. Yeah, probably the best is just my website, gregkettner.com and there's a page on there, the Friday Funnies, if you sign up every Friday, I send out an HR approved lesson or meme or video or whatever. So, you can do that, and I'm always on LinkedIn. That's probably the best way that people can find me or YouTube or you know, any of those social media channels. But typically, either my website or LinkedIn.  

Tia Graham: And watch your TEDx talk your TEDx talks as well. 

Greg Kettner: Yeah, no, that, that was fun. And thanks for bringing me in too. You know, I was very honored because, you know, I met you and I look up to you and you're my mentor, and then you turn around like, “Hey Greg, I need some more funny”, it was fun the phone calls that we had and reading, reading your outlines and going over and stuff. 

And, and, and then I got on and watched it here in Walla Wall and I was just cheering you on the whole time.  

Tia Graham: Aw, thank you. Thank you all. I couldn't have had a better, uh, funny coach. So, for people that are really serious, you actually can work directly with Greg, for Funny and Humor too. 

Well, thank you for coming on the Arrive at Happy Show. Thank you for all the super important work that you do, and hopefully we'll be together in person soon.  

Greg Kettner: Absolutely. Thank you so much, Tia, you're inspiring. I love the work that you're doing and it's so great that when we surround ourselves with people that are like-minded and serve others, it's absolutely amazing. 

And I've never had a better job. 

Tia Graham: I agree. I agree.  

 
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