If you’re an entrepreneur without a sense of humour, not only will you be unhappy, but your business will fail.
Entrepreneurs can:
- Laugh at themselves
The moment you take yourself too seriously you set yourself up for failure. The secret to success is to always have humility. That way you have an open mind and can absorb feedback. As an entrepreneur you will regularly seem foolish. If you can’t laugh at yourself, you can be sure others will.
- Laugh at setbacks
Entrepreneurs are always taking risks. Sometimes they don’t pay off. If you can’t laugh off your mistakes you’ll soon stop taking risks. If you stop taking risks, you’ll stop moving forward. If you stop moving forward you may as well work in a corporate.
- Laugh at fear
Fear is a major factor in the life of an entrepreneur. Fear of failure. Fear of losing money. Fear of embarrassment. You must overcome your fears if you’re going to move forward. The easiest way to overcome your fears is to laugh at them. The worst that can happen is that you die. But then you’re dead so it doesn’t matter.
- Make other people laugh
As an entrepreneur you will regularly be confronted by an audience that doesn’t want to know the truth. You can either bulldoze your story into their brains, or you can tell a joke that subtly plants the seed. Oscar Wilde recommends the latter:
“If you want to tell people the truth, make them laugh, otherwise they’ll kill you.”