09: Humour in coaching

In this podcast episode, host Dr. Natalie Lancer is joined by Angie Belcher, Harriet Beveridge and Stuart Goldsmith to explore the intersection of humour and coaching. Angie, a comedian and comedy educator, shares her experience using stand-up as a therapeutic tool for diverse groups, including men at risk of suicide and army veterans. Harriet, a corporate coach, key-note speaker and stand-up comedian, discusses humour's role in offering new perspectives and building rapport. Stuart, a corporate speaker on the Climate Crisis and Resilience gives us insights on using humour to facilitate personal growth and cultural change. We discuss:

• How can you use humour in coaching?
• Where is the intersection between comedy and coaching?
• How can comedy be used to build rapport?
• In what ways can comedy be used as a therapeutic or coaching tool?
• What’s the link between comedy and trauma?
• How do you coach people to learn comedy? 
• What is the purpose of humour and making people laugh?
• How are psychological models used in comedy?
• How can we use comedy to help people take a different perspective? 
• What can we learn from comedians about vulnerability, resilience and authenticity?

There are many transferable skills we can take from comedy to enhance our coaching practice such as relationship building and creating psychological safety. Furthermore, working with comedy can help clients reframe risk and failure and cultivate their ability to get into a peak performance state. We also explore the role of comedy in a variety of settings including building new mothers’ confidence and working with NHS patients, army veterans and men at risk of suicide. Our guests today are:

Harriet Beveridge is an executive coach providing support challenge to senior individuals and teams, stand-up comic and keynote speaker, helping individuals, teams and organisations in the corporate world to ‘stand up and thrive’. She blends business coaching, comedy and neuroscience. Harriet has appeared on BBC Radio 4 and TEDx talking about the power of humour to raise wellbeing and performance. She has taken four solo stand-up comedy shows to the Edinburgh Fringe. Her latest show focussed on ‘neuroscience with lashings of laughs’. She is co-author of the bestselling business book, ‘Will It Make The Boat Go Faster?’ and has over 20 years’ coaching experience. Harriet is also a mental health first aider and is currently studying for an MSc in the Psychology and Neuroscience of Mental Health at King’s College, London. 

Angie Belcher is a coach, comedian, award-winning workshop trainer, comedy educator and keynote speaker, specialising in the link between comedy, mental health and personal development. Her Comedy On Referral programme uses stand-up comedy workshops to help people in recovery from trauma for the NHS, and she was also commissioned by the NHS to provide stand-up comedy projects for men at risk of suicide through the charity Rethink. She teaches comedy to CEOs and staff at major organisations and has a daytime comedy club AFTERMIRTH and ELDERMIRTH providing entertainment to new parents and people in care homes respectively. She holds a post-graduate diploma in Humanistic Psychology for Leadership, Facilitation and Coaching. In 2022 Bristol Live named Angie Bristol’s 2nd most influential woman for her pioneering work in comedy and health. The Hague awarded her ‘World Comedian of Emancipation 2022’.

Stuart Goldsmith is an internationally award-winning comedian, corporate speaker and writer. Stuart is also the host of the internationally renowned podcast: The Comedian’s Comedian. He has interviewed many of the comedy world’s household names, including Jimmy Carr, Bo Burnham, Sarah Millican and James Acaster. He is the creator of the popular Resilience Presentation, a 45-minute business-focussed session which offers a fresh take on cultivating resilience. Stuart’s stand-up career has seen him win several awards and he has taken seven solo stand-up shows to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. He has performed at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, the New Zealand International Comedy Festival and made multiple appearances at the prestigious, invitation-only Just For Laughs Festival in Montreal. In 2019, he performed stand-up on the TBS chat show Conan, in the US.

Your host, Dr Natalie Lancer, is a Chartered Coaching Psychologist, and British Psychological Society (BPS) Registered Supervisor. She is the Chair of the BPS’s Division of Coaching Psychology and an accredited member of the Association for Coaching. She is the host of this podcast series and invites you to email any comments to [email protected]

https://www.bps.org.uk/member-networks/division-coaching-psychology

© British Psychological Society 2024