The “LOL” Sessions: A Love Letter to Enough
Arielle & Me - Smiling through the laughs and the gum in my mouth. LOL
Arielle & Me by Dr. Danny G., The Leadership Alchemist™
Part I – The LOL CD
Before there were podcasts, before YouTube, before laughter could be streamed, downloaded, or remixed — there was us.
Two teens in a persuasive-communications class, assigned to invent something we could sell. A product. A pitch. Something that would make people want to buy.
We could’ve gone with something “normal” or “safe” — like bookmarks, bracelets, maybe baked goods.
But no. Arielle and I decided what the world really needed was less noise and more laughter.
So we made a CD.
Of us.
Laughing.
We didn’t plan it, script it, or even try to make sense of it. We just hit record and let it rip — two kids, laughing until we snorted, snorted until we cried, and cried until we couldn’t breathe.
It was the kind of laugh that leaves you helpless. The kind you only have with someone who knows you so well they can set you off with a glance. The kind that makes you realize — even then — that joy is a kind of truth.
We called it the LOL CD.
And yes, it stood for “Laugh Out Loud” — years before anyone was typing it.
This was the mid- to late-’90s, when laughter was still analog, and our version of viral meant it spread down the hallway between classes.
We were early adopters without knowing it, trendsetters without followers — entrepreneurs of joy before the internet learned how.
When we presented it to the class, we sold it like a platinum record. We even had a price — $9.99 for unlimited happiness. No refunds. No guarantees. Just laughter.
I can’t remember what grade we got. But I remember the sound of her laugh — the way it cracked open something in both of us.
It wasn’t perfect. It was honestly messy, nasally, snorty, wild, contagious, holy.
And it became, in some strange way, the sound of enough.
Because in that classroom, there were no filters. No analytics. No claps, likes, or hearts.
Just two kids, a tape recorder, and the sacred permission to be ridiculous.
We didn’t know it then, but we were practicing something that would matter for the rest of our lives — unpolished joy.We were learning that laughter isn’t a performance; it’s a pulse.
Years later, long after that CD vanished and the world got noisier, I still hear her laugh. It rises at the edges of memory like a song I can’t fully remember but somehow still know the words to.
Arielle’s gone now. But her laugh — our laugh — lives on.
Not as an echo, but as an imprint.
Every time I laugh the kind of laugh that hurts a little, the kind you feel in your ribs, I think of her. I think of that day we made laugh the rightful music that it is. I think of what it meant to sell joy like it was a limited edition and then give it away freely anyway.
That’s the thing about laughter — it stays.
It threads through time.
It teaches you how to breathe again, even after loss takes the air away.
So if you ever hear me laugh — really laugh — know this:
Somewhere in that sound is a teenage kid from persuasive comms class,
her snort colliding with my cackle,
our friendship recorded in the frequency of pure unadulterated joy.
That’s the real LOL.
That’s the CD I’ll keep forever.
That’s more than enough. It’s everything.
Part II – The Solo Album
Same class, new assignment.
If you were on the edge between an A and a B, you could give one last persuasive speech to earn the higher grade.
So I did what any teenage showman would do: I went for it. Of course, I did.
I stood up there — solo — with a stuffed bird in my hand, timing my grand finale perfectly.
My closing line? “And if you don’t give me that A…”
Then the reveal: the literal bird. 🐦
Cheesy? Absolutely.
But I owned it. The room laughed, I think? (Keep me honest here.)
And I got the A, that I do remember, so mission … accomplished.
That class holds so many memories — not just of earning grades, but of earning myself.
Of taking a risk on laughter.
Of leaning into extra, even when it meant not landing perfectly every time.
That day — and the LOL CD before it — taught me something I didn’t yet have words for:
that trying too hard is sometimes still trying hard enough.
I’ve spent my life on that edge — between too much and not enough, between laughter and ache, between showing up and burning out.
But the lesson that stuck wasn’t about perfection. It was about permission.
To hit record even if it’s messy. We hit it—hard.
To perform even if it might flop. I didn’t—completely.
To laugh anyway.
So, when I think of Arielle — of that day, that laughter, that joy we somehow recorded into eternity — I realize I’m still learning what we already knew back then:
That laughter isn’t the absence of pain.
It’s the rebellion against it.
So yeah — this might be the solo album, but it still plays in harmony with her.
Every snort, every cackle, every moment I forget to perform and just breathe — that’s her laugh running backup vocals on mine.
Here’s to not forgetting how to laugh, together.
Because that’s more than enough. It’s everything.
Coda – Author’s Note
This story isn’t just about laughter — it’s about the pulse of enough.
Arielle’s laugh still echoes through my work, my writing, and every room I try to fill with something real. She reminded me — long before I had the words for it — that joy is data too. That laughter is proof of belonging. That connection doesn’t need polish; it needs presence.
The LOL CD was never just a school project. It was the first time I learned what it means to make something human and share it. The first time I saw that resonance — that spark between people — could become its own kind of technology.
HeartWired™ was born from that same lesson.
Wired for Belonging™ still hums with that same frequency.
So if you’re reading this and smiling, even just a little — thank you. You’re part of the echo.
That’s the whole point of laughter, after all: it doesn’t end. It loops back through us, connecting the living to the remembered, the joyful to the healing.
For Arielle.
For all of us who ever hit record without knowing why — and for the ones still learning how to press play again or show ‘em the bird. You’re enough.
🩵 — Dr. Danny G., The Leadership Alchemist™
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P.S. The first time I tried to finish writing this, the screen froze, and all I saw was “Network connection lost.” Maybe that’s how the universe keeps us humble — reminding us that even our stories buffer sometimes. What matters is that we reconnect.