From the Front Lines to the Punch Lines How Robin Phoenix Johnson Heals Through Humor

Hello, good people, welcome back to CancerandComedy.com. This is the podcast where we look to offer healing with hope and humor the people who are facing adversity in their life, and today, we're really privileged to have a person who has just a great deal to share. I was able to spend some time with her at a conference a couple of months ago. She has a tagline going from the front lines to the punch lines. What it is that she is a combat veteran in the United States Army, and she was a lieutenant colonel in the army, and she went through that experience, and has some incredible stories to tell about that. And so knows, she knows humor is not just a relief, it's a resource, and that she now leverages that into a career in as a stand up comedian, as a noted keynote speaker and as a person who offers business leaders and healthcare teams sit as being an advocate for wellness, as she helps people lead stronger, better lives And laugh more through life's toughest moments. Her name is Robin Phoenix Johnson. You can find her@hilarious.org Robin. Welcome to our conversation.

Thanks, Brad. I am so feeling serendipitous about this podcast, because, as you and I talked at the at AAT H conference association for Applied Therapeutic Humor. For those listening that don't know my kind of segue into comedy, in the healing aspect of comedy was because I was caregiving and living with my mother-in-law, who was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. So it feels full circle to come on the podcast today. Thank you for having me.

Well, that's that is awesome. You know, I find that everybody has a story about cancer in some form or another, how it's impacted them, either personally or a loved one or somebody they work with. And then, if you kind of broaden out the metaphor, cancer is basically something that kind of eats you alive. It can be the physical disease of cancer, but it can be mental health issues. It can be all kinds of things that happen adversely to happen, and you've had your your share of things happening in your life and but one of the things that I bet it's gonna tell you, Robin, I got basketball in the brain today, my team, Indiana Pacers and in the NBA Finals tonight, so I'm excited about that. But I was thinking I heard a quote from a great basketball coach. I wanted to run it by you. Kind of as our starting place for our conversation is a great basketball coach who died some years ago from cancer, and he's named Jim Valvano. And not shortly before he died, he gave a a talk, and he said, he said, basically this, that three things you need to do every day to have a full life. And one is to laugh. You should laugh every day. And number two is to think. You should spend some time thinking every day. And number three is you should have your emotions moved to tears, either joy or sorrow, laugh, think, cry. I just wonder, is anything in your life last day or a few days or so that's moved you in any of those three ways that you might want to just share for a moment?

Oh, I laugh every day, but I feel like my job is to be on the hunt for the funny, like find the funny. I think there's a book or something other called hunt the good stuff. And I like hunt the funny stuff. So I love to find just the absurdity in day to day life. One of the things that I do believe, like that is relevant to that quote, is comedy and tragedy belong together. If you lose the mask, they're always juxtapositioned with each other, and you have to because I believe that in order for you to see the good, you have to understand the bad. In order to understand what light is, you have to know what Dark is, and so without knowing the contrast with the complete opposite, you can't really fully experience that. And so, yeah, I think you got to know what pain and suffering feels like in order to feel laughter and joy and happiness.

Yeah. Well, I think that is so true. In fact, when the symbols we use on cancer and comedy podcast is that mask, you know, with the cancer, with the comedy and the tragedy, different sides of the same personality. And so let's I want to hear about your story a little bit. You've had a few you've already shared for a moment about how cancer has impacted your life, and then you also spent some time in the military, in the army, and you were in combat. And so I got a feeling somewhere along the line that there was some challenging circumstances that happened to you that were maybe pivotal to some mindset shifts for you that may lead you to where you're at now, so tell me about that. Was there some kind of moment in time where you experience something kind of dark that you had to gain some perspective on to lead you where you're at now,

I don't think it was one specific moment, but I think that in the military, we use humor as a coping mechanism. It disadvantage. You could watch mash or Band of Brothers or any number of TV shows films that are about the military culture, and you'll see there's a lot of just joking with each other laughing in this because I. What else are you going to do when you're getting mortar? You have to run a route, and there's IEDs on the route. I mean, this is it's just one of the things that we do. So it's so integral to our culture. So I feel like as I grew in my rank in service, the challenge was, was that when I was more junior, it was fine to laugh and be funny, but as I got more senior, I felt it wasn't really welcome or accepted, so I started to not react or respond to something I thought was funny. I started to lose my sense of humor, if you will. My my funny bone was atrophying. So when I decided to retire after 26 years, I thought, Man, I really miss that. I really want that back. That's part of who I am. And for some reason, I thought that I wouldn't be taken seriously, or that the gravity of the situation, it wasn't appropriate, which is such alone.

You know, well, did you find some pressure in that, that you as you, as your role in leadership. Change that you felt some sense of, okay, now I have to change it. My sense of humor has to be diminished. Or what were some of the leadership lessons that you took here that you're now applying to what you do now?

Yeah, you don't have to be serious all the time when you're leading people, they want you to be authentic, and you truly are authentic and vulnerable when you're being funny, when you're joking, when you allow fun or play into the workplace, that's really a big lesson for me. And then, you know, creating a safe place to laugh is really important, and then not taking myself too seriously. Being able to laugh at myself is also a really good way to to do like a humility check, to make sure that you haven't gotten too big for your britches. And there's probably a time where I would say I did get too big for my britches, and I needed a little a little little adjust, attitude adjustment.

Okay, well, tell me about that. Was there some situation where somebody who's under you, or some situation where somebody kind of said, Okay, Robin, you know, let's, you know, just kind of kind of zinged you, or something like that, where it kind of brought you down a notch or two.

Yeah, I had said something that I thought was quite funny to a subordinate. And I say subordinate, but you know, someone who I was supervising and and they didn't appreciate it, and so they reported it that they were offended. It went all the way up the chain. I basically got my hand slapped for it, and then I was pretty defensive and upset about it, and didn't handle that very well at all. But after some mentoring, some time to process it, I realized, okay, I can see how that could have been taken out of context. I need to be humble and apologize and just move forward. I can't just wallow in my frustration so that that's probably the one that was the most memorable for me. It was also a turning point for me where I realized that the things that I say have a lot of power. Okay, I need to use my talents for good, not just to get the laugh or to be funny, but to actually help people. If what I'm saying is funny isn't really relevant, if it's not helping people feel better about their situation. And in this case, I wasn't helping someone feel better. It was just, it was just a snarky, kind of sarcastic remark, which is in as you know, it's, that's a really lazy form of comedy. Yeah, it really isn't great.

Well, it sounds like you've, you know, whether this was the case in this place or not, but when humor is demeaning or degrading or things like that, that's often not helpful and and can be destructive to relationships. And I ideological, just ask you, were you able, through the course of of the were able to restore the relationship with this person? Or was, or was this kind of be gone? Or was that restored at all? It was a goner. Okay?

Yeah. And I haven't, you know, honestly, I haven't really thought about too much since, but just kind of now, just being in a moment like reflecting, I'm like, Oh, maybe I could have handled that better. But again, these are lessons you learn. You know you're, you know, we're always growing as leaders, and we make mistakes and we have some regrets, and then we do, I think the best thing is just to learn from them and not repeat the mistakes.

Well, you mentioned here something about the humor can be used in all kinds of ways. It can be used as a weapon. It can be used in a demeaning way, or it could be used enhancing and to educate and to just to lighten the mood in some cases. And it seems to me that's a little bit of what we talk about. We talk about therapeutic humor, humor that's applied instead of it can be entertaining, but it's not just for entertainment purposes only. It has a purpose here. So So tell me how you started to get kind of a little bit more deeper, because I know you're pretty deep into the world of therapeutic humor and what that's all about. How did this begin to transition from you, from, you know, just having banter back and forth with the others, with the other soldiers. Or other situations you were in, it just relieved attention. How did you kind of move from that towards eventually, just some, you know, deep dive into therapeutic humor?

Well, when I first started, I was just a comedian, and I wasn't thinking about it much at all. But then when my mother in law got sick, and actually my my dad got sick as well, I started to joke around with them. And then the doctors, the caregivers, other patients that were around them, and I found that I had this gift of making people who were in pain feel better just for a moment. And I like to joke around that my my mother in law, she had fallen and she broke her femur, fractured her femur, so I called the paramedics. They came and they were like, hey, it's really gonna hurt when we move her off the floor to the stretcher, so can you comfort her? Said, Absolutely, that's what I do best. Grabbed her hand. I said, Kathy, thank you for trusting me. Everything's gonna be okay. I squeezed her hand. I said, but if I would have known how handsome these paramedics were, I could have pushed you down the steps. A long time ago, she laughed, and in that moment, like I'd like to believe she was not thinking as much about her pain. And so at that moment, I had this like, epiphany. I said, you know, if I can help people who are struggling with illness, I can help veterans in the same way with their invisible wounds, with their with what they're going through mentally, like, what can I do to help them? And that's when I went to a th and said, Can I do my second year Capstone or project? I want to do a pilot at the VA Medical Center, and I want to veterans, and I want to help them with their using cognitive behavior therapy or theory and reframing their way they think. So. You know, I had a veteran named Melvin, and he's legally blind, and he comes in and he's having a bad day, he's in a bad mood, and we write a joke to kind of help him see what's stressing him out through a different light. And the joke that Melvin and I wrote was, my name is Melvin. I've been legally blind for six years, but this morning, my wife asked me if I'd seen her keys. Then she asked me, have I seen her glasses? Then she asked me, Do I look fat in this dress? Yep.

Oh my gosh.

Well, that is just that little joke. Writing exercise dissolves so much tension between he and his wife.

It also sounds like that was kind of an exercise, as you said, you said joke writing, which means it sounds like you and Melvin really sat down and kind of workshopped it. Worked it out, you know, what were the what were the setups, and what were the punch lines and so on. And that's that probably helped him to kind of process some some stuff there as well remind before we get too far away. But if you ever you're probably familiar with the comedian, take Navarro. She's got a pretty funny story, similar to what you told me. You heard it where she the firefighters coming in, had to carry her out, and she was talking about how, you know, good looking, they were, and everything. And that's just a that came to my mind. But I'm interested in what you're working on here, Robin, is that you this study of and this getting involved here with therapeutic humor, and especially in the in the veteran world, but has also led you to some pretty deep dive studies. You're involved with Stanford and West Point, some other Think Tank type of organizations. And so what's been surprising about that, about getting involved with some people, you know, really involved. We're kind of academic studies of this, this type of thing that maybe, maybe, that other people, other particular healthcare professionals, may not be in tune with.

You know, I'm not a clinician, and so that held me back for a while, even though I went through the three year process to become a certified humor professional through the Association for applied and therapeutic humor, which there's not very many of us three years is no joke. I thought, well, goodness, I could have gotten another masters or a doctorate. It was a very valuable and I would recommend it if you're truly passionate about therapeutic humor, but it's always been in the back of my mind, hey, I'm not a clinician, and so that held me back. The other was that some people see this as fluffy. Feel good, like, okay, yeah, laughter is the best medicine that we all know real medicine is the best medicine. But sure, so just trying to really for people to take it seriously, I think. But you know, when I became a fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford, I had the privilege to teach in their medicine and Humanities department, and Dr Lin complimented one of my sessions, which was hilarious humor for improving empathy and patient care. And he said, that was great. You should be doing this for all medical universities all over, like, future doctors need this training in this education. I said, Yeah, but don't you think I should get a PhD, or maybe I need an MD? And he's like, Heavens, no. He's like, You know what? He goes, this is Stanford. I could throw a stick and hit a doctor anywhere. Is a 20. Year Army veteran with combat experience, who's funny, he said, lean into what makes you unique, and you are a subject matter expert. You know more than any buddy I know about this subject, and I've read every 507 studies that have been done like I could see like you in the background. You have all these books. I have books over here. I just My nose is always in the books, doing the research, reading research and studies, and so all of a sudden I just had this epiphany, like, you know what I do? Know a lot, a lot love this. And so not for nothing. Maybe I don't have the diploma on my wall that says that I'm a, you know, a psychologist or a doctor, but I certainly can compliment those traditional therapies they offer and be an added resource for those who because, at the end of the day, a lot of people who need mental health care are not going to go get it, but they'll go to a comedy. Yeah, right, absolutely, yeah. It's less intimidating. They're getting the tools they need without it. It's like, when I give my kid their vegetable wrapped in cheese, it's like, or, you know, I shoved the broccoli inside the mashed potatoes, and they don't know they're eating chocolate. It's, it's a little bit sneaky in some ways, but guess what, we're helping.

Hey, it's, it's real though, it's real though. And I agree, as one of those guys who went and got a doctoral degree, you know, I got the I got the thing, I got the piece of paper on the wall, but it really doesn't have a lot to do with application you need. In my world, my doctor is in ministry. You know, it's good to have the the academic studies, but if you don't apply it, you've really not done anything. All you've done is just kind of ivory tower. It is what we used to call it, and you just that. You don't nothing really happens inside the ivory tower. You got to get out and be where the people are at, and that sometimes it's kind of messy and kind of crazy, a little bit ugly sometimes, but that's where all the fun is at, and that's where real therapy take takes place. So let's learn a little bit more, though, what you have now, and I think you've done a brilliant job of kind of taking some of this study that you've done the think tank studies and applied it to a real process that I think can been be really a practical, tangible application in people's lives. And you call that hilarious, your hilarious process, humor for health and so on. And spelled H, a, a, l, a, r, i, u, s and your it's hilarious.org but tell us a little bit about hilarious. How'd you come up with that term for one thing, and then tell us a bit about the hilarious process that you have?

Yeah, you know, sadly, it actually came after the loss of another one of my comrades, a Army veteran, very good friend, that took his life by suicide, and I was so frustrated because I didn't, of course, no one saw it coming, or we would have intervened. And I guess what I was like, thinking about it, I must have choked on something, and that triggered this thought process that, if I'm choking on something, Brad, you're gonna, you're gonna know, I'm gonna start to cut off right? My body's gonna say, get that object out of the airway. It's gonna respond, and then if I can't clear it, I'm gonna give the international sign for choking, and someone's gonna give me the Heimlich, or I'm gonna administer the Heimlich to myself over a chair. I know, I know the protocol and the procedure, yeah, but if I was suffering from PTSD, you don't know, and we know that the number one cause of suicide is untreated depression. So you don't know that I'm choking. You don't know that I've just got these negative thought patterns that are metaphorically choking me and my cognitive processes and so and there's no international sign for choking where I can indicate to you that I might tell you that I'm struggling, but, you know, it's a little bit different than everyone in the world knows, like I'm joking, right? And then there's not a Heimlich maneuver. It's not as easy as you just going, Okay, a couple compressions and objects, you know, flies across the room. It's not like that with mental health. And so I had this hypothesis that that laughter could be a Heimlich maneuver for the brain. Metaphorically, if we could disrupt those negative thought patterns, we could get enough air into the mental airways to allow someone to see hope to then pretend not take self harm or actions that were negative on themselves. And so that's what I've been studying at the Hoover Institution at Stanford, working with some folks at the Medical University, working with other experts that are kind of interested in the neuroscience and the neuroplasticity of our brain. And so, yeah, I'm hoping to publish a book on it so Harrison the next year, release the results of those studies and findings and share with the world how we can use humor as a superpower for our mental fitness and resilience.

Yeah, I think it's awesome how you have put put a name on that for one thing and given us some process. And I. You've kind of decided in such a way, and I find this kind of really cool and kind of fascinating that you, you've kind of tracked at least three different categories that I'm aware of, mental health, physical health, and then kind of a business track. Can you? Can you just just touch on each of those here, briefly? Here, let's talk about the mental health one for a second. How do you see the hilarious framework? You know, you mentioned some of that, I believe, already, but go there just slightly deeper. What you feel like the mental health track, the hilarious framework can be helpful to there.

Well, it's essentially cognitive behavioral therapy. And again, I'm not giving therapy, I'm not a clinician. I'm not treating patients, but I'm help. I'm under the supervision of clinicians and leading facilitating groups, under their leadership, and because I'm funny and I can work with them to deliver this really compelling, fun engagement, but basically training people how to see their problems and stressors differently, and to challenge assumptions about those to see the absurdity, but see it in a way that you can chuckle at it. If I'm driving down the interstate and a Prius cuts me off, I can be mad, or I can go, Oh, look at that. There's a smart car, and they're probably drinking their smart water and on their smartphone, and they're still driving like they're stupid, right? You know, I'm making a I'm making a choice, a deliberate choice to see the funny in it. So that's the mental fitness side for the health side that was more designed for healthcare professionals, okay, to allow them to find a better way to connect with patients and to bring more empathy into their care. Think of like Patch Adams, yeah, more of those types of skills.

Yes, and this, and there was actual studies and whatnot about the actual physiological impacts of laughter and things upon your cortisol and all that type of thing as well. And I think, but it seems like you've, you've developed a protocol or kind of a methodology or framework as it will, to help put some language to that and help apply that to people who may not have understood that before, and that's good. And then you I was interested. You do the business thing. And you see, is this, how help me out here, Robin, how can something humor therapy help businesses? You know, whose focus is, you know, profit, the bottom line, or productivity, whatever it is, is, is this real thing, or is this, I don't know, just something, some fad or something.

Yeah, I would say the number one reason to consider training your team in comedy, whether it's improv, stand up or just storytelling at large, is because it requires you to tap into a creative center that we often shove to the side and don't use. And this our world not going to get political here, but it's very complex and volatile, uncertain, ambiguous. We need leaders who are adaptive and who are smart, and if we're going to compete on a geo just look at geopolitically what's happening. Yeah, we're going to continue to be a first world nation that's thriving. We need the generation of leaders that are coming up now to have the ability to think and solve complex problems, I mean, really big things that we probably like we've never seen before. In order to do that, they can't continue to think the way they're thinking now, right? They can't continue to define problems and solve problems, and with their old models, they have to think outside of the box. They have to flip the problem on its head and find innovative solutions. And in order to do that, if they use the same things, if that comedians do to write jokes, what makes a joke funny? If you reverse engineer jokes that some of your favorite comedians have written, and you take that process and you apply it that framework to a problem set for your business, you'll come up with some pretty creative solutions that maybe would have never even been brought brought to light. Yeah, well, I'm sorry. Go ahead.

I just say a word come my mind here, in terms of all three of these tracks around, but particularly the business one, perhaps, is comedians. In my observation, I've tried my hand at a few times. You're professional at it, and just impressive. I've heard you speak. And just impressive stuff there. But the is the word comes to my mind here, Robin. See what you think is nimble. You got to be reaction nimble. You know, a comedian has to, kind of to think fast and think clearly and react. And you cannot be overly impacted or intimidated or put it back on your heels too much by something. You got to take it and turn around and humorous. Oftentimes, can take it and turn around in a humorous way that still has a message. Does that resonate with you at all about how that can apply to these, these, uh, applications we've been talking about.

Yeah, mental agility is extremely important. I learned that a lot in the military, because we are in changing environments. You know, especially in combat, the situation could change in. A moment's notice, and so you have to be able to respond and refocus and shift priorities very quickly, and at a very young age. Mind you, I mean, I was leading soldiers in combat in my mid 20s, wow, and that's not before I even had my own children. So I was pretty young leader. Let's see, I was commanding a company of 250 people. And that was my I had soldiers in Afghanistan in 2002 so I'm trying to remember think about how old I was by me, early 20 like I was 2425 years old, leading soldiers in combat. So very young. And so, yeah, we have to be able to do that. It helps us to get uns too. You know, if you're stuck in a certain line of thinking or you have some conscious or unconscious bias, it helps. And reading the room is really important, yeah, and this is really big now, and where, when I do my consulting or speaking, especially smaller groups, when I'm working with them, it is so hard for the generations coming up to be present, physically present. They are so used to connecting on their phone, on devices, not personal, in person, contact and improv and reading the room requires to be very present in the moment, and that means listening and response responding. So that's an art or skill that's so missing right now in the business world.

Yeah, and I think another goes kind of alignment with it. See, what you think is focus. You know, you shift, and then you got to focus, and you got to shift your direction and focus and get something done. And I think there's such we live in such a distraction, distracted and distracting world right now that is a challenge for for people to do. And so sounds like you gained some great insights in this, this unique set of experiences that you've had. You talked about your mom, your experiences with your mom or your dad, and you've talked about your combat experiences. And indeed, it seems to me that if you got whatever's happening in combat, whether it's bombs or bullets or helicopters or whatever, that would not only get your attention right away, but you got to, you know, if there are literally life and death stakes on the line if you mess up, you know, and so that would get your focus as well. And you're applying these to people's lives. So what are some sort of maybe, or some misconception, or some, some unseen thing that people who now you, when you go to an audience, or whatever that they may not get about this whole thing about therapeutic humor? What are some misconceptions you think people may have about it?

Well, that reminds me that one of the reasons I started doing comedy was because of the narrative of the veteran. There's a lot of misconceptions that we were all broken and and troubled and suicidal. And I thought, That's not the story. That's not my story. I mean, I've had my share of of challenges mental health and otherwise, but my story is largely positive, and I feel like the 2% of experiences that I had in the military that were negative or sad or depressing should not be the story. What about the other 98% of really funny stories about my service? Right? I mean, those are the ones I want to talk about, but that, but when you see about humor, misconceptions are that it's just light and fluffy, that there's, it's not evidence based, which is hardly from the truth. It's very evidence based, and it's effective. I think the biggest thing I would love to see is, you know, obviously covered by insurance as part of a, okay, as part of a recognized compliment. You know, treatment. I mean, we they do. There's yoga, there's mindfulness training, meditation, there's all types of other other treatments, and they're welcome. I mean, use the canine and Equine Assisted Therapy, recreational therapy, all these things, but yet humor still kind of being left out of the cool kids group. And I really find that discouraging when it's so effective and there's so many studies and research behind it, and people want it now more than ever, they will go and they will participate our group at the medical center. We're the most well attended group of all of the therapeutic that they offer, because the vets love it. They're like, Oh my gosh, I feel like I'm learning how to write for SNL. I'm having fun. I'm learning the art of learning joke structure. Now, mind you, we're not training them to become comedians. There's great organizations like armed services, art partnership that teaches us.

This is part of the therapy for them personally. Is that right? What's going on here?

It's it's more joke writing, and again, it's like reframing your mind through your base. I'm basically asking the participants think like a comedian, yeah, if your comedian writing a bit about what you what's going on in your life that's upsetting you, what would you write about it? I mean, and some of its dark humor. I mean, I have a veteran who indeed kill himself, and he shot him. From the chin, the bullet ricocheted. Office didn't work, exited out his cheek, and he survived, and he asked me to come to the hospital. He said, Don't feel sorry for me. You know, I don't want any sympathy, but I do want you to make me laugh. And so I went in there, and he had said he was a Marine. I was like, Hey, I'm gonna need to see your paperwork, because you said you're a Marine. You were a Marine, but you missed so he thought that was funny, yeah, but that's only the gallows dark humor that we can do, like veteran to veteran, you know. But it works.

I love that. I love that. One things I've heard you say is that, in many ways, humor is a superpower, and this is going to change the change in the narrative humor as a superpower, especially for things like empathy, making personal connection, you know, kind of this. We're in the same club here with the veterans and so on, and care so Taya, maybe even things about dealing with compassion, fatigue that some people have, burnout, things like that. Say a word about that, about humor as a superpower. How have you seen that manifested?

I came up with that I don't remember what I was doing when I thought about that. I was trying to figure out a way to share with people that it's really a tool in your kit bag. Okay, read all these books about leadership traits and this and that and like no if you have a great sense of humor, you just become more resilient, more authentic, more connected to those around you, more likely to actually see opportunities versus focusing on the setbacks and the negative aspects of your day or your work. So yeah, I just, I think if people just let themselves use it, but there's a fear right now of cancel culture offending someone, yeah, and so some people are like, Oh, I'm not gonna be taken seriously if I'm funny or I might offend somebody. So I don't want to say anything, because I'm not going to end up at HR, yeah. So I do some education on that as well on how to navigate.

You know, we live in touchy times, and and, and yet, I think there is a place for respecting boundaries, you know, for, you know, there are certain lines that probably shouldn't be crossed for certain folks. And yet, we need the sensitivity level needs to as you've mentioned earlier, about there are some people who take who take themselves so seriously, but really don't see the ramifications of their actions, you know, as seriously. And then other people who, I believe often do not take themselves too seriously, but do take their actions seriously in terms of the implications of, you know what they do, whether it's policy or culture or things like that. And I think what you're doing here is sharing some great things that help people to take wherever they're at and kind of rise up from it. And that that leads me to one of the last things I really want to know about you, Robin is your your your name is Robin Phoenix Johnson. And I think I get a little bit that Robin Johnson is probably a pretty common name. My name is actually Michael, by Brad. My name is Robert Miller, which is extremely common, but I don't he's is fee. Is Phoenix your given name? Or is that a nickname? If so, tell me the story of Phoenix.

Yeah, Phoenix is a nickname. It's a it was a stage name when I first started comedy. I didn't I somehow had this misconception that I could protect my privacy by having a stage name, which is not true people, it's very hard to stay private. So I just thought the Phoenix was rising from the ashes. I was ending a chapter of my military career, and I felt that I was a phoenix rising from the ashes of that experience. Not that it was a terrible experience, but just, I just felt very strong and confident, and I didn't feel like a butterfly. I felt like a phoenix, you know.

So as a butterfly might be slowly emerging from the cocoon, Phoenix is bursting forth from the ashes. I love that image, and it's a powerful imagery, of course, and so let's just take in, kind of bring us around to this here, and that is, tell me about a person that you know has that you part of what you did had some impact on it. Maybe it was a comedy show or maybe it's a particular joke, maybe one of the workshops that you do, but a person either came up to you or you knew the story where something that was involved with, something you were involved with, made an impact and was life changing for them. Tell me a story, all right.

Well, I kind of already shared about Melvin and then, yeah, friend that was in the hospital that shot himself, and my mother in law as well. I think maybe some of the medical providers that were caregivers for my mother in law, you think you're just making the patient laugh, but you don't realize that they're also listening, right? And there was a nurse that was. Going through a divorce, and she's had a lot going on, but she's pretty quiet, but she would listen to me do my jokes and stuff, and she pulled me to the side and said, You know, I love when you come in here, like it makes my day, because I just need to laugh. So I've made me feel very Patch Adams esque. There's so many times it's actually really good feeling. You know this because you you are ministry, and it's just such a good feeling. Sometimes you don't know that it happened. And then you forward. I went to an event. I was speaking in Boston on Tuesday, and there was a woman there who had saw me speak at another event, and she drove an hour and a half to come see me in Boston, because she said, You made me feel so much joy and happiness when I saw you the first time, like I just and she brought her husband this time, she said I had to bring my husband to see you. And I was like, Oh my gosh, so great. I wish my kids felt like that.

Oh, well, that that's a whole that's a whole different story. Your worst audience is always your kids. So you know, I'm, yeah, my family. I'm kind of known as the dad joke guy, and the only people who don't get it is my kids, of course. But there you go. Well, what a joy. Well, any final words of encouragement to anyone out there and maybe needing a little hilariousness in their life, any word final words of encouragement, or any words of to share with our our folks here in our cancer comedy audience before we say goodbye.

Yeah, I like this quote from Desmond Tutu, who was a Nobel Peace laureate, and he said, We have to stop just pulling people out of the river. We need to go upstream and figure out why they're falling in. And I like sharing that, because I think that a lot of what we do in an effort to help people is reactive. It's, you know, people fall in the river, and you say, Oh, don't feel embarrassed. You fell in the river. A lot of people fall in the river. It's okay, or don't worry, I've got a floaty, let me throw it to you. I feel like what this does, what humor is doing, is it's preventing you from falling in the first place. It's keeping you away from the edge of the riverbank. It's giving you some emotional distance from that's the sadness and the depression and the anger, not that those emotions are terrible, like we're supposed to have those emotions, right, but they shouldn't be causing us to want to take self-harming action. So that's what I would just say, is it's preventative, it's a tool, a resource. It's, again, like a muscle that needs to be worked out so it doesn't atrophy, and if you let it go too long, and you lose your sense of humor, well, you're very close then to probably losing your footing on the edge of the riverbank.

Absolutely. What a great way for us to end our conversation. In fact, just locally, just I happen to work with an organization called upstream of prevention, which has new mental health issues based on it, and the quote, this quote, is kind of their founding part of that. Yeah, upstream prevention is what it's called. But it's certainly a delight to have you with us and to tell us, Robin, if people want to learn more about you, about your career as a stand-up comedian, or anything else you're involved with, tell us how people can find out more about you.

Yes, well, I have a Robin phoenixjohnson.com website. That's the easiest way. And then if they want more about heal areas, that's like you said, H, E, A, l, a, r, i, o, u, s.org, so those two websites are the best, and I'm a big LinkedIn fan, so if they want to find me on LinkedIn under Robin Phoenix Johnson, they'll find me there.

Awesome. Well, our guest today, Robin Phoenix Johnson, from heal areas.org, and a few other things as well. I encourage you to find out more about her. We'll put all the links that she mentioned in our show notes at cancerandcomedy.com. Robin, thanks for being our guest today on cancer and comedy.

Thank you. I am going to do one short plug for people to join us at Humor Camp at the Comedy National Comedy Center in Jamestown, New York, October 9 through 11th. Little shameless plug there. It's going to be awesome. I'm one of the camp leaders, so if you want to explore humor a little bit more, join us in Jamestown, New York. It's kind of in the middle of nowhere, but I promise you, we'll have a good time.

Awesome. We'll put notes about that in our show notes as well. Thank you, Robin.