Jim Bob Williams on Empowering Humor and Coping with Cancer (Encore Episode)

On this episode of Cancer and comedy, we meet the first therapeutic humorist on Jeopardy.

We also learn how to cope with prostate cancer like an engineer and a stand up comedian at the same time.

And the importance of balancing laughter with candid vulnerability.

Our guest today is all of those things wrapped up to one person whose name is Jim Bob Williams, who comes to us from the association of applied and therapeutic humor.

AATH.org the Laugh Box podcast.

Cancer got you down.

Pretty grim, huh?

How about a show that turns the grim into a grin?

Way to go.

You made it here to the cancer and comedy podcast, the show to lift you up with hope and humor that heals.

Hey there lifter uppers.

I'm Deb Krew, the co host of cancer and comedy where our mission is to heal cancer impacted people through hope and humor, something we like to call turning the grim into a grin.

Well, today on cancer Comedy, we're going to be talking with Jim Bob Williams.

Yep, that's his name.

Who used punchlines to cope with the problem that a cancer diagnosis gives.

And he calls it employing strategic humor.

Now here to lead us in this discussion is the host of cancer and comedy, Dr.

Brad Miller.

Hey, hey, hey.

Thank you, Deb.

Always a pleasure to be with you.

And our lifter uppers, our cancer and comedy good friends and our audience who join us as we really look to cope with matters that are kind of difficult to deal with adversities like a cancer diagnosis.

We'd like to call it cope with hope and humor and to see that we are all about the people who have decided that cancer and other adversities are not going to get the best of us.

We are going to take charge of our lives and we're going to live our life to the fullest, to the very end and take whatever adversity and turn that around, turn your frown upside down.

Sometimes people call it to make it a smile and we like to call it turn the grim to a grin.

And one of the ways we like to do that is have people just to connect up with our community and to be a part of what we are all about.

And you can just simply do that by following the podcast.

You go tocancer and comedy.com follow the Get Connected.

So Deb it.

So we are recording this a week or so before Christmas.

So I thought I would just, just.

I gave you a couple Christmas jokes.

Are you ready for a couple Christmas?

Christmas here.

Here we go.

What do reindeer have that no other animals have?

I don't know.

Baby reindeer.

Cute.

You know, you, you know the movie Frozen.

You have you seen that?

You know or.

I know the movie.

Yeah, no, of it.

How do you spell, how do you spell Frozen with only three letters?

I don't know.

I, C, E.

Oh, cute, Cute.

I love it.

Well, folks, as you know, we will have another one of Dr.

Brad's bad jokes of the day after our discussion.

But then of course we turn serious for our Face it or Break it segment.

Well, we would love for you to be a part of Cancer and Comedy where together we crush cancer with a message of how to cope with hope and humor.

As we said.

Please follow Cancer and comedy@cancercomedy.com follow well.

Deb, today we were just pleased to have as our guest here on Cancer Comedy a fellow who was able to, I was able to be on his podcast a while back called Laugh Box.

He and his co host kdb, they obviously had a lot of fun with them.

And Laugh Box is a production of the aath, which the American is the associate of Applied and Therapeutic Humor.org and their organization that has a process to help train people up to be therapeutic humorist and to be helpful.

And they have a really involved process.

And Jim Bob goes into that a little bit.

But Jim Bob, he was going through this.

He was, comes from a background as a engineer in a chemical, the some sort of chemical manufacturing facility in West Virginia, loves comedy, is a stand up comedian, humor professional, CHP they are called.

And in that process though, he suddenly got during COVID got identified with prostate cancer.

And of course that's what I deal with as well.

But he took a kind of an interesting approach to it is he decided to take kind of a strategic approach to it.

And he wrote a joke about prostate cancer every day for 30 days and posted it.

That became part of what he does now, part of his standup program.

But it was what he calls, you know, take facing a problem with a punchline.

So I had a fascinating conversation with him.

We talked a lot about kind of the role of humor and it was the place of humor.

Well, you know, I loved that he did do the joke a day for prostate cancer, you know, because that's, that's a rather touchy subject as far as gentlemen are concerned.

And he mentioned that part of the reason he did that was to, to forge a common bond with other people who were in that situation, you know, and I just really love that.

I thought that was very interesting.

You know, he's an improv type of performer.

And so he talked about, you know, in improv training you were Taught that you go, yes, and so you agree with whatever the wonkadoodle thing is.

But then the next thing is.

And.

And he used his.

And to research to say, why do I have this?

What are my options?

And so he never denied it.

And I think that's, you know, sometimes what happens is sometimes we're like, no, no, we don't want to deal with this.

But he dealt with it by saying, yes, and what's next?

And I really love that concept.

Yeah, I think it's a way of reframing the situation at hand in order to cope with it.

And so he shared these daily jokes and eventually worked up a comedy routine.

And this led him to other connections in the.

In the humor world, the van pro world, the world of therapeutic humor, and the world of.

Of prostate cancer.

He.

He is now contributing writer to print to prostate cancer.net which is one of the key websites that deals with prostate cancer.

And so he.

He just has a.

He's an advocate about the whole thing, that humor helps.

It's not the whole story, but it helps.

But it doesn't necessarily, you know, he is an advocate.

He calls it an advocate.

Humor helps, but humor doesn't cure.

It gets part of the whole process.

And so he's done some creative stuff with this.

And I think the idea here is having a strategic approach to humor in dealing with cancer.

So.

Strategic approach.

What do you think?

Do you think this is something we.

In other words, it's been thought through and applied.

So what do you think?

Well, I think we definitely have to do a strategic approach.

We can't just accept what they tell us to do.

He mentions the fact that, you know, he.

He researched it and he said, you know what?

I want to wait.

Let's see what happens if I wait.

Now, obviously, that can't always be an option, but, you know, it's.

It worked for him.

And I think that's very important is that we have to do what works for us and to really make sure that it is something that, you know, we've.

We have research, we know what's going on.

We haven't.

And let's be honest, folks, let's not rely on Dr.

Google, you know, find appropriate venues.

He mentioned the one specifically for prostate cancer.

And so find the right information and then develop that plan, you know, and.

And I think that's very important.

I think a part of the whole process is he chose very strategically to kind of focus on prostate cancer.

I.

I resonate with that.

I'm a prostate cancer patient.

My.

Myself and, but he resonated with that one, with that area, not because it impacted him, but because he realized that basically it is sort of an under.

Underserved, if you will.

That's not quite the right word I'm looking for.

But for instance, with breast cancer awareness, you're a breast cancer survivor.

There's a lot of information, there's a lot of Coleman, Coleman for the Cure.

Almost every community has a fundraising event that, yeah, it's very prevalent as you know, much better than I do.

And with prostate cancer, you know, you deal with incontinence and impotence and some things that guys don't like to deal with.

And, and they certainly don't want to talk about.

And so the awareness level there is not quite there, as is with some other forms of cancer.

And he decided to focus in on that.

And I think, I think that's important.

Do you not, do you think likewise.

You know, and, and I think, you know, it's definitely one of those things.

Women are much more likely to talk about what's going on.

You know, that's just, that's just the way we are.

And men, especially when it's a very sensitive subject, are not going to say anything about it, even to their friends.

And I think part of what he, he is talking about is just making this a topic that it's okay to talk about and yeah, it's even okay to give a joke or two about it.

Yeah.

And that I think it breaks down the barriers a little bit there.

It helps to open the discussion.

It's not that he didn't take cancer seriously.

We've talked about this many times here on our show.

You still take it seriously, but you also take yourself a little less serious in the sense of you want to break down some barriers of communication.

So we had a great converse.

I.

It was privileged to have a conversation with, with Jim Bob and Jim Bob Williams and I think he's going to great guest.

So what do you say we get into our conversation with him?

Let's listen up.

It's going to be great.

Well, here he is everybody.

You could find him at a couple places.

The aath.org is where his Laughbox podcast is that.

And then you can also find him as a contributing writer, prostratecancer.net his name is Jim Bob Williams and appreciate this conversation we had together.

Hello good people and welcome to Cancer and comedy with Dr.

Brad Miller.

This is where we like to offer a dose of hope and humor to people impacted cancer.

And today we got somebody who Claims to be talented, handsome and accomplished.

And whether he is or he isn't, we're going to find out here in a little bit here.

But he is a great.

He's a person, has a background in working with workplace people.

He has, does a lot of things with the association of applied and therapeutic humor.

It's called aath.org, where he is co host the Laugh Box podcast.

He's also a contributor to prostate cancer.net and I've known to be a pretty good guy.

He had me on his podcast.

His name is Jim Bob Williams.

Jim Bob, welcome to our conversation here here today.

Good morning, Dr.

Brand.

How you been?

Oh, man, awesome.

It's great to be alive and great to be functioning and to be here in the presence.

I'm at the presence, my lifter, uppers, my friends here on the cancer comedy podcast of a person who is an actual certified humor professional.

Oh my goodness.

I'm stunned and amazed, my friend.

What is a certified humor professional?

And tell me about it, man.

Okay.

A certified humor professional is someone who's been through the program of aath.

It's a three year study.

The first year you concentrate on learning the basics of humor, the scientific basis, the philosophical basis, and some.

And you explore some topics.

The second year you start preparing a project.

You look at my project was developing an improv program for elementary school.

And I learned a lot.

I learned a lot.

I learned how much I didn't know in trying this and falsely assumed I could take some of my improv schools with adults and apply them directly to kids.

And then the third year you discussed humor and leadership and.

And then you get certified, huh?

That's right.

That's awesome.

That's awesome.

That's gonna be a part of what we're gonna be talking about here today.

But we're talking to you because you are involved with the.

You and I have something in common which we probably wouldn't want to have in common.

We both are have battle prostate cancer.

And so tell us a little bit about your story about how you came a little bit about your background in the business world and then how then all of a sudden this new diagnosis, this new thing came along, prostate cancer, which kind of changed the course of your life.

That's right.

Let's see.

It was September of 2020.

And of course folks out there will know that September is prostate cancer awareness month.

And I knew I had some results of a biopsy were coming and I checked online and I saw positive test for cancer.

And I refreshed My browser about three times, and it still came up with the same answer.

Most disappointing pointing Internet search ever.

So I knew I had been diagnosed before I saw my doctor.

And so I saw my doctor two days later.

And I thought they at least could have waived the co Pay for this meeting.

Okay.

Oh, boy.

Maybe give me a box of chocolates, a gift certificate or something.

But no.

So I had to pay 45 bucks to find out what I already knew.

He did a little bit more than that.

He directed me towards a local cancer center and said, here are your choices.

We can either remove the prostate or we can blast it with radiation and hope they're not too much collateral damage.

Sure.

And I thought, okay, that's interesting.

So I got my diagnosis and this is where some of my humor training came in.

It's actually at the time, it was the third year of my studies in aath.

I got to apply some of it right off.

And the first of it was to try to frame it, to frame the problem in a way I can manage now.

I'm also a stand up comic and an improviser, so I tend to see things through a humorous lens.

And my first thought was getting cancer in 2020.

What could be 2020?

Or as if a pandemic wasn't enough to spoiler day.

Sure.

And then I start back and say, all right.

Also, I'm a Presbyterian elder and I know that all things work to the good, to those that are called.

And I said, all right, There's a purpose in this.

That may not be the road I wanted to take, but it's the road I'm on.

And I started by simply just writing a joke a day.

Okay.

And put it, posting it on Facebook and Twitter and just sing how it goes.

See, it resonated.

And it was interesting because it freed up other people to say in the comments, hey, hey, I've been diagnosed too.

And hey, did you know that?

So.

And so had.

And so it was like, okay, so we start building this network of people that we'd had this common bond that we didn't know before.

Okay.

Now, of course, my background, mechanical engineer.

I was involved in environmental research for part of my professional career.

So I dove in to find out what the facts were, did the literature search, came across a number of interesting things, and said, there's more options out there than I knew of.

After I started looking, I did take my doctor's advice and I went to talk to the folks at the local cancer center and they explained what was involved in radiation therapy that they Offered what was involved in the surgery that they offered.

And that's when I said I'm not sure if I have everything I need to know to make a decision here.

And I felt that they were pushing me to make a decision very quickly.

Hey, don't you want.

Hey, don't you want to get rid of that cancer that's in your loins there?

You got to get rid of it now.

And I said, okay, what else can we find out about this?

And thanking my urologist, give him credit for this.

He also sent out my sample for something called a prolaris test, which in the means of evaluating the cancer to see if it has the potency to be fast growing or whatnot.

And it came back with a very low percentage chance of being an aggressive cancer.

And I said, all right, then I can wait a few little while.

And so that started my journey in what is today called active surveillance.

Used to be called watchful waiting terms bandied about, but basically this.

You monitor the cancer and you monitor your symptoms and plan your intervention accordingly.

Okay.

And curious about this is.

And I'll there's an organization, ASPA for the active surveillance.

Great.

Aspi.

I should have forgot the acronym earlier, but aspi, they've looked at active surveillance.

If you were to be diagnosed with prostate cancer in Sweden, for example, about 90% of the men in Sweden, the first step is active surveillance.

They don't rush in in the United States right Now it's around 50%.

It's getting higher.

Active surveillance, you mean?

Or.

Yeah, 50% active percent on active surveillance.

Most people say if I get rid of it, I know I never have to deal with it.

For some folks opt for the radical prostatectomy and some radiation in various forms now.

But I didn't know at the time.

Now this is what I went.

So I went for a second opinion and the urologist said, at your age, if you were a little bit younger, I think I'd recommend the radiation.

And if you're a little bit older, I think I'd recommend the radical prostectomy.

But you're right in the middle.

I don't know what to recommend for you.

Okay.

And I said, how about recommending nothing?

He said, and I said, yeah, you know, in life sometimes there are no answers.

There are only trade offs.

Okay.

And sometimes the trade off for any type of treatment, it can be erectile dysfunction for, you know, is fairly common among those of radiation.

You've been had a lot of nerves damage.

Sure.

And there's also incontinence Another fun thing for us to talk about, right?

Sure.

All right.

Always good for it.

Always good.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Okay, so here my true.

Yeah.

Incontinence and impotence are always fun things to bring up with any guy or any people, really.

But they're always fun things.

Right.

Door number one is incontinence.

Door number two is impotence, and door number three is having cells growing out of control.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

There.

There's that death thing that goes hang is over you.

Yeah, yeah.

So here's where my humor training and my improv training came in.

Okay.

It's the first step in improv is yes, and you.

By yes.

And you don't deny what's in front of you.

If you're improv, you're on stage and your partner says, hey, here's a blue elephant and a tutu, you go along with it.

You act as if there's a blue elephant with a tutu on stage.

It doesn't mean blindly accepting everything.

Now, that's where the and comes in.

Yes.

And it's acknowledging that it's there and acknowledging the reality situation, and then finding something you can do to improve the situation.

And I found this to be an invaluable tool even in diagnosing wastewater treatment plant upsets.

Okay.

Too often people get a problem from, and the first thing they do is they deny that it's even there.

Yeah.

I won't go kuda the rush on you, but you know what I'm talking about.

Yeah, Denial.

Sure.

Yeah.

You start denial.

But in improv, it's no.

Yes, I have it, therefore.

And my yes ad was it's there for a reason.

And I've been given certain skills over time to allow me to investigate and make a decision.

So let's use this and see where it goes forward.

So you're using your skills.

You devised some improv skills.

You're already doing some standard comedy.

You'd applied some of your thinking, at least your humoristic thinking.

Even in the workplace settings, you have this yes and approach.

And you seem to say here that I've taken here a view that I'm going to take that humor helps whatever the situation is.

And so unpack that for me a little bit.

I know that some of the things I've read about you, you say something effective humor helps, but humor doesn't.

Rather than humor cures.

But tell me a little bit about your cancer journey and this whole journey that you've gone on here, where that particular sensibility helped you to navigate either your Particular cancer situation or maybe be helpful to somebody else.

All right, here's where it's helped, okay?

And it helped.

The thing that's helped in applying improv and humor helps is that the second step of improv is to listen.

Okay?

So I started listening to my, you know, listening to my urologist, then listening to my urinary oncologist, then listening to other people in the field, trying not to do the cognitive bias and look for the answer that I.

I wanted to have, which I'd say, where.

Where are the facts?

I can do?

So after I'd done a lot of listening, I said, all right, if I'm innocent, if I've got a situation where it's a low risk cancer and other countries are approaching this differently than the United States, again, has a bias towards action, a bias towards treatment.

And I said, I can wait a year.

And my urinary oncologist was, yeah, I guess you could.

And so we monitored my PSA for a while, and I made some changes in the diet.

I found out, had a couple of scares there.

The PSA had jumped up a little bit and said, okay, is this the sign of cancer?

And he said, it can be, but it can also be a sign of an urinary infection.

It can be something else.

So, yeah, I took some antibiotics and the PSA went down.

Okay.

All right, all right.

So I said, oh, that's.

And the engineers here would laugh because I put up a control chart and follow the track and try to see how many.

You did a thing, didn't you?

You did that?

Yeah, my engineer thing there.

Yeah.

Okay.

But while I'm doing this, I'm thinking, okay, how can I help others with this?

And I said, I'll go to.

I found prostatecancer.net, and I think one thing that's important for cancer patients is find a support group.

Find a group of people going through it with you that you can share information on, that you can feel Trust there.

And prostatecancer.net is a useful online form.

You get to read articles about people going through it.

So I wrote a little article called Interview with a Tumor, where I imagine myself interviewing this tumor.

Okay?

And I think I'm going to turn it into a one minute a play here maybe.

All right.

One day I was like, all right, let's have a talk with it.

What would it say to me?

I said, because I said, for example, why me?

Why me?

I'm the perfect demographic for this.

I'm an older guy who leads a sedentary lifestyle.

With a crummy diet.

Maybe I should be surprised it didn't come a little bit earlier.

But yeah, yeah, it sounds like you've used this here to really help you to navigate this situation and you're helpful to others because there is a lot of guys out there basically like you and me, older guys with basically relatively sedentary lifestyle and that kind of thing.

And we do know, research tells us, and you know a lot more about this than I do, that prostate cancer and prostate problems are extremely prevalent among men as they get older.

And I feel and see what you think, Jim Bob.

I feel like it's an under.

Even though it's prevalent, it's an under addressed issue in sense and especially regarding the mental, emotional and spiritual and relational aspects with marriages and things like that.

I think it's an under underserved area.

What do you think?

Definitely what I've, you know what I found?

If a celebrity gets it, you know, like I think it was Joe Tory, manager of the Yankees, got it.

He went away for treatment, came back, there was no discussion in it, what treatment did he got or even what the condition is.

Okay.

Then later on you find out.

And a pro tip.

If you see an older celebrity and they're male and they're taking a break from something, they're probably getting treatment for prostate cancer also maybe 70% of the time there.

Hey, my friend, I just wanted to share with you that here on Cancer on Comedy we have a special gift for you that's going to help you if you're impacted by cancer in your life and you want to do something about it.

It's, it's our free course.

We call it the HHH or Triple H course, which stands for Healing through hope and Humor.

It helps you to develop your cancer coping credo, a statement that's going to help you get, get through that.

It's a free course, just takes you.

It's a five short sessions.

It's all audio.

You can get that free course@cancerandcomedy.

It would not be surprising at least especially there's.

And if they're not making it public, there's some level of embarrassment or whatever you want to say about it.

They just don't want it known in that regard because it goes to.

You're talking about your prostrate.

It goes to some areas that we touched on earlier.

It goes to incontinence, which is losing control of your.

It's.

And it's being uncomfortable, it's being wet and that kind of things, which is not fun.

And it goes to impotence, which your is.

Which is your sexuality.

And that has to go with power and things like that.

And it just.

Those are two things that are inherent about being a guy that you don't want to have problems with.

And the other thing I'm gonna say, the.

You know.

You know, I.

I give credit to the Susan B.

Komen foundation because they've opened up the discussion on breast cancer.

Sure.

And players in the NFL, they're wearing pink shoes or whatnot in support.

And it's really raised it to a very high level.

But you.

You don't see that for prostate cancer.

Sure.

I.

I myself was the poster child for prostate cancer last year, actually.

What I did is I stood on the porch and I yelled at the make make a wish kids to get off our lawn.

We tried a.

The old man with.

The old man with.

We tried a 5k run, but we had to put a porta potty every 200ft along the route.

Oh, my God.

What's funny about cancer?

Nothing.

What's funny about the situations cancer puts us in?

More than you can expect.

I'm sorry.

Go ahead, finish your thoughts.

I wanted to.

One person I wanted to mention was Jerry Parisio.

He was a writer for the Tonight show in the Jay Leno era.

When a friend of mine from high school who's a doctor heard I had the condition, he said, you really should talk to Jerry.

All right.

Turns out Jerry had written a book called I Barf, Therefore I Am.

Okay.

A sensitive comedy writer's relationship with cancer.

This was an immense help to me.

Okay.

Because he had been down the road.

He had undergone the chemotherapy and radical prostatectomy as.

And he helped us take that.

You can have a humorous perspective on a terrible situation.

A humorous perspective on a terrible situation is so important.

I believe.

And you believe, because we are coming at this from the approach of.

That humor does help.

And yet there's serious stuff that happens here.

That.

And some people would say, how you taking this serious stuff and why you take it lightly.

And I know that you've had other bad things happen in your life.

Profound loss.

You lost a son.

You've had other bad things happen to you.

In my own case, I've had cancer myself, and we've had other.

I've had family members with cancer and bad things in life.

So given that these are profound loss and profound grief that people go through, how's your sensibility about humor?

Helps.

How do you navigate some of that?

When there is profound loss in life?

Challenges how do you do it yourself and how do you.

I know part of what you teach is about this as well.

Yeah.

And I'll give you the universal answer.

And this is a universal answer to any question of engineering philosophy, religion, mathematics or psychology.

And it's two words.

It depends.

Sure.

Absolutely.

Right.

Yeah.

There's not, you know, if something works for you, it doesn't necessarily work for somebody else because of the situation they're in.

And you have to be sensitive to this.

So, you know, if I'm talking to someone who's recently been diagnosed, first you have to read the room.

And this is where listening skills come in and find out where the source of the pain is.

And being sensitive to that, also realizing that where somebody is at a certain state in time, that's not it.

The ball game is not over for them.

They're still.

They may be down, deeply depressed, deeply discouraged at that moment in time.

But I think here's where the idea of hope and the idea of understanding that there are things you can do, there's not.

As Garrison Keillor used to say, there may be only so much you can do, but you've got to do that much.

And any small thing you can do to help someone with it, to cheer them up if they are down, get them laughing, you might do something like go to a movie with them, sit down with them, watch a TV show.

I think this is where we can take a lesson from Job and Job's comforter.

Okay.

When Job was.

Yeah.

His family had been wiped out, when his health had been ruined, when his wife had given the encouraging words to curse God and die, his friends came and they just sat with him.

They didn't say a thing.

Yeah.

Okay.

And thing.

And that was a beautiful thing to do because they opened their mouths.

It was terrible.

Sure was.

The minister of the Ministry of Presence.

I'm from a pastoral background, and that's.

Presence is so important.

And it sounds like you.

You decided to be a little bit.

Love what you just said a moment ago about do what you can do and just do it consistently about Garrison Keillor's quote, quote there and then how you did that.

And one of the ways that you did that is by.

You mentioned that during Prostate Cancer Awareness Month, you did a joke a day.

And I know.

I know that you do substantive comedy with kind of prostate cancer as the focus of it.

Tell me about.

Let's just talk about comedy for a second in that light, because that's a little bit unusual, as you and I know, to deal with such heavy people.

A lot of comedians deal with heavy duty subjects, but not this particular one.

Tell me about some of the jokes that you did.

Which ones bombed, which ones struck a nerve, which ones tick people off?

And when you do live sets, tell me about how that's working out.

Because this is an area that literally touches a nerve for some people.

That's right.

Yeah, that's right.

I gave you some examples of the ones that worked earlier.

Okay.

The make a wish joke always kills.

Commit the other thing.

Hey, let's.

Let's do the make a wish one again just so we hear it again.

Yeah, dude.

Okay.

And I like to tell people that I was the poster child for make a wish.

Ah, sorry.

I was the poster child for prostate cancer awareness.

My job consisted of standing on the porch and yelling at the make a wish kids to get off our lawn.

There you go.

There you go.

Okay.

Yeah.

Okay.

Why does that work?

Because it's the cognitive dissonance.

People say because we have this expectation of the first of all, the poster child being a child.

So you put that incongruity in their mind of a 68 year old guy being opposing job.

And then usually make a wish kids, you got a lot of sympathy for them.

How could anybody yell at a make a wish kid?

Let's.

Let's make the comic scenario where the make a wish kids are on my lawn and I'm yelling at them because they're just doing what kids do and I'm doing an old guy does.

Yeah.

And it just seems to the.

I will.

Let me say, Let me take a little bit of a digression here.

Sure.

Go ahead on two steps.

One is when you find other people that are suffering other fives cancer.

When they find out, you become their cancer buddy.

And a friend of mine, she had diagnosed with breast cancer and she had.

She's undergoing treatment.

She had lost her hair, but she was also a stand up comic.

And so I said, why don't we have a fundraiser?

And she perked up.

And she said, that's exactly what I wanted to hear.

I said, you can still make a joke.

You can still deliver the lines.

And what we did, we put together on short notice.

Comedy versus cancer.

We did a fundraiser in a local coffee shop.

I got some of my stand up buddies together and a musician and we just told jokes for an hour and a half or so and we ended up collecting about $432.

Engineering's got to be right to three significant figures.

And we donated it to the boutique at the local Cancer center.

These are the people that help women get adjusted to learn to put on makeup differently because of the.

I got you.

Yeah, sure.

And it was just a small thing, but it gave.

It gave us all the feeling, hey, here's something we can do about it.

We can't.

We're not doctors.

We're not.

We can't cure it, but we can raise money to help people that are helping others and do that with comedy.

Awesome.

So that's.

Oh, that's right.

So that's serving with that.

That's what I like to talk about, helping with hope and humor.

And so you bring those things together.

And that's awesome.

Yeah.

So go on.

You're getting ready to say something else there.

Yeah.

I think if you've talked about trying to find your way, take soundings, try to read the room to see whether someone is ready to laugh yet.

Okay.

Step one is give them time to mourn again, because it is a.

But you'll notice that there will come a time when they'll be ready for something.

And maybe it's just as simple as putting on a red nose.

There you go.

There you go.

The red nose is amazing.

It's like a circuit breaker.

When people are wrapped up in a problem, they don't expect to see somebody in a red nose.

And it's just so.

I have used that several times in high pressure, high stress situations, not only in helping people with cancer or other medical conditions.

Sure.

It just, it says as.

It interrupts the circuit and says, okay, so they interrupt.

Interrupt the circuit thing.

I think is important here that you come in and interject a bit.

Humor, the red nose or on people, on our audio audience, you put.

Actually put on the literal red nose here.

And I know that there are some groups that use this.

I know it's a regular thing.

One of the.

One of the local children's hospitals around here does that where I'm looking at it as.

Make it a regular part of the red nose project that they call it.

And so that's a part of what we do here.

And it sounds like you're looking to interrupt people's grief or interrupt people's.

The cancer can be such a thing that just consumes us.

It can just.

That becomes the focus and one sets rightfully.

But we need to interrupt that with some things that can give us some hope and humor can be one of those things.

And so when have you seen this kind of.

Tell me a time, Jim Bob, when you've seen this influence that you've had with your Humor, really.

And dealing with cancer, prostate cancer in particular, which has a real change, Some impact on somebody.

Has somebody ever come up to you or written you or something like that and said, thanks, Jim Bob, or here's how what you said or did helped to change perspective for me.

Or tell me a transformational story about.

This again, probably when I first threw some prostate jokes out there on Facebook, I didn't.

I wasn't sure how it was going to be received, but when people read it, they.

Okay, I get it.

Another thing, sometimes when people have it, I'll send them a link to the article I wrote on the interview with the tumor.

Okay.

And they will think I never looked at it like that, that I have a relationship.

This, of course, has tumors.

It's an alien growth inside your body.

But you can, if you can, say a personifier whatnot and treat it as, okay, I know you're inside me.

I know what you're up to, but I'm going to find out what you're up to, and you're going down.

Okay.

I'm getting to you.

Yeah.

In a manner of my own choosing.

All right.

That's right.

I don't know if it'll be radiation.

I don't know if it'll be cancer.

You're not the boss of me.

We're gonna do.

We're gonna take care of this.

And for those viewers that have.

Or listeners should say listeners who don't have access to me, another thing you can bring is a rubber chicken.

I gotta show you something here, my friend.

I got you there, Mike.

Oh, yeah.

I love that.

Oh, man, You've even got a sweater on.

Oh, it's.

It just squeeze me for emotional support.

We both, for those of you that's listening, both Jim, by both have rubber chickens in our hand.

And we're now squeezing them off.

So there you go.

Yeah.

So we're just having some fun here today.

That's.

That's great.

My granddaughters gave me this rubber chicken and it just.

Just be.

Be fun, a fun thing to do because I know I like dumb stuff like that, and that's awesome.

But one of the things I appreciated learning about you, Jim Bob, is you also.

You're not.

I don't hear you at least going deep into the denial about cancer and that kind of thing.

You're not using humor to replace it is helping you to cope with it.

And I know that somewhere when I read about you, you talked about.

You mentioned how the word mental and the word lament have the same letters.

And you Got to have the whole range of emotions.

So tell.

Go with there with me for a little bit about this, how this whole range of emotions that we need both.

We need to laugh and to cry.

We need to emote in all these kinds of ways.

Tell me about that a little bit.

Go.

Go with that for a minute.

Okay, Absolutely.

You have to.

Again, we were created to experience a whole realm of emotions, and we often try to.

And I think this is why prostate cancer doesn't get enough.

To tell somebody that you've got a cancer is to admit vulnerability, to admit mortality to every problem.

And, you know, it also means you have to mention a sensitive part of the anatomy.

Right.

We are taught to be, you know, depending upon which.

Which set of advisors you may have, some people say, have a stiff upper lip, gut it out, let a smile be your umbrella.

That's one thing.

And we get into the realm of toxic positivity.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

You know, positivity is absolutely 100% necessary.

You have to go in with the situation saying that, okay, hey, I've got skills to do something.

I can do this.

We're going to make this happen.

There's a lot of things that I can do.

And, yep, you got to do that.

But when you try to deny that you have a problem, when you try to deny reality to me, that's where the positivity becomes toxic.

Just say, oh, I can get through this only through thinking happy thoughts.

And no, I hate to say it, but if you look at the psalms, almost quite a bit of them are psalms of lament.

Yes.

A lot of people don't pick up on that.

Yeah, yeah.

And you got to have both.

You got to have the lament and the songs, the Song of Solomon, which is a soaring kind of type of thing.

The psalms have their combination of laments and the adoration.

So, yeah.

So if you let people say, hey, it's okay to be sad, it's okay to cry, it's okay.

It's okay to be mad.

It's okay to be mad with God.

God's big enough to take it.

All right?

Because you know that again, that emotion, that's a fixed point in time.

That's not a.

That's a.

If I was doing an analysis here, say, okay, that's the state of this.

This person, state of this condition at this moment in time.

That doesn't mean that they're always going to stay in that.

No, the odds.

Time heals.

And I think Carol Burnett was the one said that comedy equals tragedy plus time.

Oh, wow, that's awesome.

That's awesome.

That's awesome.

Later on, you see.

Okay.

Hey, look, I lost my hair.

How about that?

I've got some great shots.

There you go.

I would be remiss if I didn't ask you about something else here.

Jim, before we go, My wife is an absolute Jeopardy.

Show nut.

And you, one of the your claims to fame is a.

The first therapeutic humorist on Jeopardy.

So we gotta go there for just a minute.

How did it come about?

You end up on Jeopardy.

As a therapeutic humorous.

So tell me about that experience a little bit.

Okay.

I tried for years to get on Jeopardy.

I love the show and I would do the online test every year.

One year I got invited to auditions to Washington D.C.

i did it and I thought I did pretty good, but they didn't pick me.

Okay.

And I thought, ah, maybe I just wasn't just photogenic enough or whatever.

So I resigned myself.

I said I wasn't going to do it.

That was 2014.

Then I started getting involved in community theater and exploring comedy.

And I said, all right, let's do that.

It's time to re enter Jeopardy.

And so instead of being retired engineer from St.

Albans, West Virginia, I was therapeutic humorist from St.

Alfred's West Virginia.

And I think that caught the attention of the other showrunners when I went to my second set of auditions in 2018.

This is in Cleveland, all right?

And of course, Cleveland is just the best city for humor ever.

And so did that.

And I was a little lighter in fruit.

All right?

I think that registered with the showrunners and the staff there.

So I got invited.

I get invited.

And they told me, hey, you're on.

I said, great.

And certainly the same week they told me I'd been accepted to therapy, my son died of an overdose.

Oh, man.

Wow.

So I wrote back to them and said, look, I am in no condition to be.

And they said, you know what?

Tell us when you're ready and we'll do there.

And actually, they didn't even wait for me to tell me.

They're burning about it.

So five months later they said, hey, we've got an opening.

Do you want to go?

I said, sure.

Okay.

And away you went, huh?

The way I went.

And we walk in, we walk into the green room there with a bunch of other contestants and there's this young man sitting in a chair looking rather comfortable and.

Oh, who's this?

This is James Holtauer.

Oh, he's won.

He's won 28 consecutive games over a million dollars.

I'm familiar with him.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I turned to another contestant that I'm with and says, I guess the pressure's off us now.

So the way it works, the show is.

Is taped about six weeks in advance.

Yeah.

And his entire run was as hidden from us.

We didn't know that he had.

Didn't know that he'd arrived, didn't know that he was taking names and kicking butt all the way through.

But we enjoyed it.

When we get on there and say it was such a rush to be there.

Tell me about.

I'm sorry, but go ahead.

Tell me about.

Is there a memorable question that you had that you got right or one you got wrong?

I don't know.

Other questions you had to deal with?

I pulled one out of my rear end.

The answer was, what is Manchester, New Hampshire?

And that actually put me briefly in the lead.

Okay.

I had a lead over James holzhauer for about 10 seconds, and we held them to less than $60,000.

I am, like, really proud of that performance.

Wow.

There you go.

The most embarrassing thing was they put up this little structure, picture of a structure, and they asked for a definition of it.

And I scratched my head, and James was scratching his head, and the one that was on my.

Look, she scratches her head.

And Alex Trebek goes, what is a pergola?

A pergola.

It's like, okay, so I don't.

All right, who cares?

All right, okay.

You can't win them all.

Then I go to my son's house.

My son lives in Torrance, California, and we're sitting in his backyard afterwards.

And my son looked at me.

Hey, dad, did you notice what I got?

I said, what?

He points up in his backyard.

He put up a turtle.

Oh, hey, you.

That's an experience you can always tell people about.

And that's.

Hey, not everybody gets to do that.

And you got to have some fun with that.

And you took what it could be for a lot of people, an intimidating thing or kind of scary, whatever it would be, and you just turned it on its ear, and you may had some fun with it.

And now you got a great story to tell.

So let's close our conversation here today, Jim Bob, with a great story.

And what I mean by that is, what's the story that you could tell to that person?

You.

A few years ago, you got that meeting with a doctor where you've got prostate cancer.

I had it happen two years ago.

Almost exactly December.

Two years ago is when I got the word.

In my case, it was right after Christmas, actually a couple years ago that I had prostate cancer and I had to do some of the things as you talked about to decide between surgery or radiation or the wait and see.

I end up having surgery because I had an aggressive form of cancer.

And that was a decision that we, we made.

But everybody's got to make those decisions.

Everybody's got to make who gets whatever kind of cancer situation they deal with.

So what kind of just story would you tell to that?

Let's just call in a guy about our age, we're Both in our 60s, who gets that word about prostate cancer.

And they're having this swirling thing.

They're mad about it, they're thinking about all the other stuff that goes with it, the incontinence, the impotence, the death, the.

All the bad stuff that goes with it that goes through your mind.

They go to denial, they go to depression, they go to any number of places where your mind can go.

So what would be your word, what would be the story that you would tell to that person who's getting that diagnosis now?

I would say to, you know, I would say to them, one, there's hope.

You're.

Be thankful you're in a time where the rate of successful prostate cancer treatments is, is over 90%.

Okay.

So if you, you know, there's.

This isn't a death sentence.

This is a time of choice.

And you have.

I can't tell you what treatment to take, but I can tell you that there's a lot more treatments out there than you would expect.

So many things in life, there are no answers.

There are only trade offs like it.

Yeah, but I'm pretty sure you're going to tr.

You're going to choose life over anything.

And that people have learned to manage to.

Yeah, people can learn to adjust there, that some of the side effects are temporary or they can also be managed with sometimes with medication, other concerns.

And so I said, you've got to.

I don't have one thing to say to them.

Sure.

Maybe the first thing I should say to them is welcome to the club.

Okay.

Anywhere between it's estimated between 1 and 81 and 6American.

American men will have prostate cancer at some times in their life.

If you're on a hockey team, one of you's got it.

Okay.

If you're on baseball team, somebody's going to get it in there and there's so much you can do.

You don't have to hide it.

If you talk about it and be open about it, you're going to find help coming from unexpected places.

And there's, I'm not saying it's something to look forward to, but it's something to embrace.

It's not a failure.

There's nothing.

It doesn't mean you're a.

But it is not a failure.

It's again, an opportunity.

And like I said, it's not funny.

But you're going to get in places that you're going to find humor in, places you never you thought you'd find humor before.

And there shape things in a different way.

And there is hope.

There is hope.

Been a pleasure to have you with us.

I want you to tell us about where people can find you.

We do know that you are a talented humorist.

You do stand up.

You do improv.

You are involved with ath.org and prostate cancer.net but tell us how people, they want to find out more about Jim Bob Williams.

How can they find out more about you and where you write and where you perform, what you're all about here?

How can people find out more about you?

Okay, the best way to get in contact with me is just send me an email.

Jimbobchb certified humor professional mail.com I have a website in progress.

I it's not that I'm back.

I've recently reassessed my business model.

I'm making some changes there.

So stay tuned for further developments on Facebook and Twitter.

I'm at Sledgemeister and tip of the hat to my Tip of that to my wastewater days and give me a call.

304-610-7970.

Let's talk about humor.

Let's talk about what the humor can do for you.

And we'll put all these connections to Jim Bob Williams.

And he also has a pretty cool podcast you need to listen to called Laughbox, which is on the aath.org website that he does with KDB.

And so you can check that out as well.

What I should make this plug.

If you're going to be in Charlotte May 1st through 4th, 2025, come to the AATH conference and we'll be there there.

And you can see some of the amazing people there.

People from neuroscientists, doctors, nurses, teachers, educators, motivational speakers, business folks and clowns, mimes and improv people that are all applying humor to make things better.

Yeah, because humor helps, right?

Humor helps.

Exactly.

Humor helps.

You fit it.

And we thank you up for being our guest guest here today on cancer and comedy.

Our guest today on cancer and comedy, Jim Bob Williams.

Thank you, Jim.

We want to thank you again, Jim Bob Williams, for being our guest here today on the cancer and comedy podcast.

We had a great conversation with him.

We really touched on some, some areas of where raising the awareness of prostate cancer.

We talked about some of the situations he's gone through, tragedy in his own life, he lost his son, he's had some other bad things happened to him.

But how humor is kind of helped when it's applied strategically to help to, you know, break down some barriers and open up some lines of communication and thereby open up some lines of hope.

So give me your reaction to our conversation there with him and see what you think about how this may open up lines of communication here, Deb.

Well, you know, we've, we've talked about it before.

A lot of times.

One of the easiest ways to start those lines of communication is with a joke, with humor.

But he was very careful to point out, you gotta read the room, you know, and, and sometimes it is not appropriate to joke about it.

And especially, you know, if someone has a very new diagnosis.

I had some, a friend of mine contact me last week to say that he was newly diagnosed, but I knew he was already at the stage where we could joke about it and, you know, and, and so we went ahead and kind of did that a little bit.

But then, you know, he also knew that I was there for the serious support also, you know, so, you know, and I loved one of the things that Jim Bob talked about and that was you give someone what they need and sometimes that's just sitting with them and being there.

Sure.

Well, and then I think what I appreciate is he has got this analytical approach A little bit here is that engineer.

It's that engineer thing.

It's the strategic humor thing.

So therefore he got the training.

I didn't realize till I talked to him.

I got involved a little bit more with AATH myself.

I joined it here recently.

The association of Applied and Therapeutic Humor takes the therapeutic word of that very seriously and that they have this accreditation process which is a three year deal.

And so they teach people, you know, really how to approach humor as a part of the overall healing, therapeutic approach.

When you have cancer or something else bad in your life and how there is kind of stages of this and communication that takes place and ways to do it and ways to not do it and way to a way that humor can help you get into some of the difficult conversations and kind of demystify some of the bad stuff that that's out there and build connections.

And I, I love that.

Right, right.

You know, and he pointed out that one of the most important things that he does is he listens.

You know, whether it's in his improv routine or listening to, you know, somebody who he's talking to about cancer, he listens to them and then he follows their lead.

Yeah, I think that's awesome.

And that leads us to, I believe, which is one of the key components, what we really try to do here at Cancer comedy.

And that's offer hope.

That's offer hope with the, you know, kind of in the couched in humor and, and where our ultimate goal is healing.

Be that.

And that humor help.

It's not going to be the.

It's just a part of the whole package of therapy that we can give to people and that, you know, why not enjoy your life and take, Take some time to reflect on what is good going on and to understand that, you know, there, when you have humor in your life, it can promote a little sense of balance.

It can give you a little sense of optimism when you need, when you need that.

So we need a lot.

We need some fun.

Every once in a while we just need to laugh, don't we?

We do.

You know, I remember years ago when I worked for the American Cancer Society.

I was interviewing people for a newsletter and I was interviewing this gentleman and we were in a restaurant, so public place, lots of people around us, and he had prostate cancer.

And he very loudly proclaimed, because he was quite proud of it, he was not impotent.

And I laughed.

Everybody around us got kind of these very nervous chuckles.

Right.

Yeah.

You know, it was.

He was just proud of that.

And, and, you know, and, and I just thought that was so funny because I'm sure everybody else wondered, what the heck are they discussing?

But, yeah, I mean, it was just, it was like, oh, alrighty then.

Well, I think it's what Jib Bob helps to do.

Take a little bit, A little.

Take the embarrassment and the, the, the, the stigma.

That's a great.

Thank you for sharing that word.

The stigma of impotence and the stigma of incontinence and the lack of control and the lack of power and all that stuff that goes along with this.

All the kind of.

The emotional and even marital things and the things that are involved, involved here and things involved with, you know, with the, with the human body, you know, both sexually and elimination wise, or the things that we don't always like to talk about too much.

But he's saying, let's talk about it, but let's do it with a little humor.

They can be funny.

You know what?

They can be funny.

Hey, hey, let's face it.

What are some of the main topics of humor?

There's, there's bathroom humor and there's sex humor.

Right?

That's those.

Some of the main, main topics of humor and that's what we deal with here.

So we like to have fun here, don't we, Deb?

And try to help people have, have some fun.

We do for some serious stuff too.

We certainly like to do it in the context of, you know, helping people to heal with hope and humor.

Correct, Correct.

Well, you know what, in the spirit of the season, I'm hoping you have another holiday related bad joke of the day.

A kindergarten Sunday school teacher had her class draw the Nativity scene and one young boy had done a very fine job of drawing the characters around the Nativity with Mary and Joseph and all the animals and Jesus, of course, and all the scene around there.

But the teacher noticed that this little boy, little Jimmy, had included a character that wasn't normally found in the Nativity scene.

She had a rather fat man with a white beard right next to the manger.

Oh boy, she thought.

She said, Jimmy.

That isn't Santa, is it?

Jimmy answered rather indignantly.

Of course not.

That's round John, Virgin lifter, uppers.

We love to laugh, we love to have humor, but it is of course very important to have our faith it or break it segment.

As we record this just before Christmas, I'm reminded about babies.

Three babies, particularly one of them, in fact, a couple of them you know about.

One of them is the baby Jesus.

Of course.

The baby Jesus is who we really focus in on Christmas time.

Those of us who are believers in Jesus Christ and we know that Jesus was born at Christmas and that's what changed everything for believers.

But he's born into very desperate circumstances.

Born in a stable which is where the animals were kept and laid in a manger.

That's where the animals ate out of.

It wasn't the best of circumstances, was it?

I can't help but think about another biblical character at Christmas time.

That's Moses.

Moses was also as a babe in a very vulnerable position.

He was under threat.

He was born to Jewish parents and he was under threat from the, from the pharaoh of Egypt.

In order to save his life, his mother put him in a reed, a basket into the river and there she just set him adrift.

That's not the best of circumstances, is it?

To be in a reed basket out in the river and she.

But there he was found and Rescued by.

By the Pharaoh's daughter and lived a very blessed life in so many ways.

And then there is also my own.

The third baby I can't help but think about is my own daughter, Whitney, who was born a premature baby by six weeks and was only three and a half pounds at one point, in bad shape and spent a lot of time in an incubator.

Six weeks, as a matter of fact, before she was able to come home.

Here's what I want you to know.

Those three babies started off life in very vulnerable positions.

Jesus in the manger, out in the cold, you know, animals around, what have you in a stable.

That wasn't the best, was it?

Moses set adrift, you know, because he.

And.

And set adrift in order just to save his life.

And a reed, a basket in a river.

Come on.

And then my own daughter in incubator and.

But they all needed people to be with them in their vulnerable state.

Moses had his mother and others who, in order to save his life, sent him adrift.

And then certainly Jesus had not only Mary and Joseph, but the shepherds and the wise men and others who gathered around and others who helped out.

My own daughter had the doctors, nurses, her mom and dad and other family members praying and so on for her.

They.

People face all kinds of dire circumstances and need help.

And you, whatever circumstances you find yourself in, whether you are impacted by cancer or some other adversity in life, you can be in a pretty dire situation, pretty vulnerable as a baby, as a matter of fact, as the three characters of our story today are, and you can be pretty vulnerable with disease or any other things.

And you need people in your life.

You need people to speak into your life and to give you a blessing.

But because you're vulnerable and in a state where you're weakened or a situation where you need others doesn't mean you don't have a destiny, a destiny of where you can be a blessing to others or you can bring joy to other people.

Hey, that's exactly what happened to Moses.

Moses went on from that situation he was in to lead the children of Israel out of slavery to the promised land.

And of course, Jesus, hey, Jesus is the savior of the world.

And Easter is all about when Jesus died for our sins to give us life and new life.

That's what believers in Jesus are all about.

That's pretty cool, isn't it?

And my own daughter went on from her dire situation in an incubator to go on as an.

As a young.

As an adult.

Now, as a young adult, She's a mom of her own with two daughters, my granddaughters and she is teaches speech speech therapy and brings joy to many other people, including myself.

Christmas is a lot of times we use a word around Christmas time called Emmanuel, which means God with us.

I just want to encourage you, whatever circumstance you find yourself in, to know that if you allow it to be, even though you may be vulnerable and a babe in your own right, a vulnerable position, that God is with you and can work through you allow others to be a blessing into your life and then speak and be a blessing into the lives of others.

Whatever your circumstances are, you can get through this.

A part of what we like to teach here is how you could overcome with hope to have hope and humor in your life.

So I just want you to understand you are blessed to be a blessing and part of the Christmas story is indeed to know that God is with us.

So I wish you a blessed Christmas and just a wonderful holiday season.

Whatever faith tradition or no faith tradition you may come from, just celebrate life, celebrate life.

Celebrate the joy if you want.

Invest in you and invest in others and bring others and remember that a cheerful heart is good medicine.

Well lifter uppers, this does bring us to the close of this episode of the Cancer and Comedy podcast with Dr.

Brad Miller.

Cancer and Comedy is all about telling uplifting stories to people like you who are kicking cancer's butt with healing through hope and humor.

You can join those of us who are turning the grim into a grin by telling us your uplifting story.

Just go to cancermedy.com voice message and let us know your story.

Well, that's all for now.

Please join us next time on Cancer and Comedy.

And if you like what you hear, please pass this podcast on to someone in your life who needs to turn their grim into a grin.

For Dr.

Brad Miller, I'm Deb Career reminding you that a cheerful heart is good medicine.

Hey, thanks for joining us on the Cancer and Comedy podcast with Dr.

Brad Miller.

Make sure you visit our website cancerandcomedy.com where you can follow the show and get our newsletter.

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Until next time, keep turning the grim into a grin.