COMMUNICATION Communication and Football 1 Said differently, communication is exactly like football . The sender is the quarterback, the receiver is the wide receiver, and the message is, of course, the football. Sometimes the football is dropped, sometimes it’s bobbled, and sometimes it takes 3 or 4 tries to catch it. The important thing is to keep trying until the football is properly received (a touchdown of ideas!). To extend the football analogy further, using humor in communication is like a trick play. You can’t use it all the time, but when you do, and it’s executed correctly, it may be the reason you win the game (or the presentation, or sale, or conversation). For those of you not familiar with football (or who just have no idea what I’m talking about), the point is this: humor adds spice, style, and pizazz to conversation. Most importantly, it gets people to pay attention. As Herbert Gardner said, “Once you get people laughing, they are listening 2 and you can tell them almost anything.” 1 If football was only about the quarterback and wide receiver. And points weren’t involved. And the goal was just a saying a sentence. And if bystanders cheered for conversations. And... 2 I assume good ol’ Herb said almost because I don’t know if any amount of humor will make it easier to tell people they are a bad driver—no one ever wants to believe it. 13