Before I was speaking at conferences, analysing world leaders and advising CEOs, I had what can only be described as a glittering early career.
I was a paperboy. I hated getting up early.
I worked in a baker’s shop on Saturdays. Flour up the nose made me sneeze, which is not ideal when hovering over iced buns.
Then I discovered a far better way of earning more money and having considerably more fun.
The only drawback was this. I knew, with absolute certainty, that my friends and family would take the mickey.
You may have wondered who those tragic souls were in the old Photo Love magazines. The melodramatic black and white photo stories. The doomed romances. The overwrought captions.
Well.
It was me.
When I first started doing them, I kept it quiet. I assumed my friends were far too cool to buy such periodicals. Then came a day trip to Brighton and a newsagent’s rack stacked with copies of Photo Love featuring my mug on the front.
One Friday evening I walked into the pub to find ten of my mates already there, each one holding something behind their back, grinning like hyenas.
In unison, they revealed their prize.
There I was. Full page. Staring tragically into the middle distance. And at the end of the love story I did not merely lose the girl. I died. My final speech bubble read:
“Lisa… Lisa… Arrrgh!”
Much hilarity at my expense ensued.
Here is the important bit.
I laughed.
Because if you are going to put yourself out there, you have to be able to take it.
This is not just pub philosophy. Psychology supports it. Research on humour styles, including the work of Professor Rod Martin, shows that healthy self-deprecating humour is linked to greater psychological wellbeing and stronger social relationships. Used well, it signals security rather than fragility.
There is also evidence from social psychology that when competent people use gentle self-deprecating humour, they are often perceived as warmer and more approachable without losing status.
If you are secure in your abilities, you can afford to poke fun at yourself. It reads as confidence, not collapse.
Comedians understand this instinctively.
For years I worked alongside the wonderful Jo Brand, later a brilliant guest on The Humourology Podcast.
She often opened a set by walking slowly to the microphone, calmly removing it from the stand, then deliberately moving the stand aside and making a deadpan remark about shifting it so the audience could see her properly. It was classic Jo. She acknowledged the obvious before anyone else could. The room would erupt, not because she had attacked herself, but because she had shown she was completely at ease.
The audience relaxed. The tension dissolved. Trust formed.
Self-deprecating humour, when confident and controlled, is social intelligence in action. It demonstrates self-awareness. It shows you are not clinging desperately to status. It proves you can survive a joke.
The best business leaders do the same. They do not take themselves too seriously. They can admit a mistake. They can tell a story where they were not the hero. They can occasionally be the butt of the joke.
That does not mean diminishing yourself or constantly putting yourself down. That is not charm. That is insecurity dressed up as comedy.
The difference is important.
. 
Emma @ Humourology HQ here, I’m sorry, but we just love going through these photo stories. I can remember definitely not being too cool to buy My Guy every week! (do let us know if you did too!) back in the 80’s and had no idea I would actually meet one of the floppy haired, box jacketed dreamboats that appeared in the mag.
“Paul… Paul…Argggh!”
Healthy self-deprecation recognises your frailties without surrendering your competence. It says, “Yes, I am human,” not, “I am hopeless.”
If you want to be liked, if you want strong relationships, if you want influence, you will at some point need to absorb a ribbing without flinching. If your ego cannot survive mild teasing, it certainly will not survive leadership.
Back in that pub, I had a choice. Be mortified. Attempt to defend my artistic integrity in a magazine where I had just theatrically shuffled off this mortal coil. Or laugh.
By laughing, I removed their power to embarrass me. I owned the joke. And interestingly, it did not damage my credibility. If anything, it strengthened it. I was the one who could handle it.
Humourology has always been about this balance. The ability to see the absurdity in yourself without losing respect for yourself. To understand that vulnerability, handled well, is magnetic.
So yes, once upon a time, hidden tragedy lay in wait for Lisa.
But the real lesson was far less dramatic.
If you are brave enough to put yourself in the frame, be brave enough to laugh when someone points at it.
That is not weakness.
That is confidence.
See you next Tuesday
Warmest,
Paul x
If you can drag yourself away from Mr Dreamboat above, there’s a fantastic episode of our podcast waiting for you here which we know you’re going to love…
