Sitting in the small-town theatre in 1983, with the odour of popcorn and shoes glued to the floor, I became mesmerized beside my best friend. On the screen was the “Meaning of Life” by Monty Python. That was the moment I became a fan.

Like the nearly nine hundred and eighty-two other fans in the beautiful Winter Garden Theatre in downtown Toronto, we were there to hear 86-year-old John Cleese on his “Not Dead Yet” tour and watch The Holy Grail (again) on its 50th anniversary. I was with my people; the number of times we’d quoted a line in our combined lifetimes is inconceivable. The number of times we’d all watched the movies approximates the number of attendees multiplied by the fastest speed of an African swallow. Obviously we were all here to listen to John.

John came out to a standing ovation before the movie and said, “When we made the movie, we had no idea what we were doing. Sure, we knew how to write a skit, but a movie? We had no clue. The only thing that we kept from the first draft was the coconuts.”

Watching the movie through this new lens, it became immediately clear that it was a series of skits with a loose storyline. And an ending that leaves you thinking, “What? That’s it.”

After the movie, John came back on stage for a Q&A session. During it, he said some things that collided with me differently and forced me to tilt my worldview. The first was, “I find communication problems funny.”, not frustrating – funny like the rude hotel manager in France who inspired Basil Fawlty in Fawlty Towers. Or the auto mechanic that inspired the famous Parrot shop skit. Further demonstrated by his favorite scene/skit in the movie where the king tries to instruct the guards to stay in the room.

 

When you dig deeper into the script, the words said in the skit, you uncover that they very cleverly changed just one verb (i.e. leave vs. enter) in many cases to make the scene so funny. Side note: I’ve decided this will be part of my talk on the four levels of delegation going forward to demonstrate the breakdowns that happen in communication.

But what a beautiful way to go through life: seeing our communication challenges as funny. Which you can see in the song “Always look on the bright side of life. (whistle) Always look on the light side of life.”

 

So when the next communication challenge comes up with your spouse or your employee, pause and turn that frown upside down and whistle, because John would find the whole thing funny. And now… so will I.

🎶 whistling 🎶

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