“People want a thrill, people want a spectacle, and people love to be entertained.”
–Paul Stanley
Modern-day speakers and presenters face competition like never before. Distractions, ringtones, and vibrations are the hallmark of our cultural attention deficit. Presenters are expected to be entertainers. Those who are do much better. Those who grab attention are more likely to hold it. Top speakers are already using one of the most powerful tools available to mankind to do this—laughter. Nothing will put you more at ease when speaking publicly than knowing you can make an audience laugh at a point of your choosing—better still, when doing just that will make you a standout.
Too many speakers present information in a boring manner. Choose not to. Never do what everyone else is doing. Find the few most successful people and do what they are doing differently. My argument in this book is that the most successful speakers are using humor, storytelling, and improv techniques, even if many are unaware of it. This awareness could save you precious time when focusing on 20 percent of the inputs that generate 80 percent of the results.
James Altucher says that 90 percent of success is showing up, so take the first step and get started.41 Have fun, play, and be creative. If you’re having fun, others will, too.
Born on a comedy stage, laugh lines are equally at home on a TED stage. I hope you get to share yours, however big or small your goals. If, like me, you’re afraid of public speaking, don’t worry—the process will become manageable. With increased stage time comes higher levels of comfort. Make it a habit and you’ll make Shakin’ Stevens disappear.
The whole audience won’t always like what you say. Wise words from Gabrielle Reece, former professional volleyball player, Sports Illustrated model, and wife of Surf God Laird Hamilton, ring very true here. When asked how she deals with the pressures of her career, she said, “In life, you will always have 30 percent of people who love you, 30 percent who hate you, and 30 percent who couldn’t care less.”42 Who knows what happened to the other 10 percent, but the point is still very true. Don’t worry about trying to please everyone. You don’t need all of the audience on your side to be a good speaker; 30 percent is plenty. Laughter is contagious. You might find it starts to spread quickly if you give it time. Ten percent of life is what happens to you, while 90 percent is what you make happen. Make a point of adding humor.
The Comedy for a Spinal Cause fundraiser for Arash that got me into all this in the first place went so well that it’s now an ongoing quarterly event bringing together top comedians and local communities with the goal of raising funds and awareness to assist incredible individuals on their road to recovering from spinal cord injury.43 Arash is pretty close to permanently getting back on his feet despite being told he would never walk again. At the time of writing, we have helped raise more than $34,000 for people with spinal cord injuries—just a drop in the ocean of what is needed, but enough to make a difference. And I host it a lot less reluctantly now. Why was I not my usual bag of nerves when it comes to hosting the event? Because I had prepared, practiced, and put in the stage time. I put together a tried-and-tested collection of stories I knew would make people laugh by using the techniques I have outlined in this book. You will, too. And you will be able to do it quickly.
Along the way, I met a host of businesspeople struggling to create good content, whether it was verbal, written, or in marketing materials. There is no magic bullet for viral content, but it was obvious the world of business also had strayed from the building blocks of spreadable engaging content, story, and humor.
Born to solve this problem and bridge the gap between business and comedy, I founded FunnyBizz Conferences (http://funnybizz.co/funnybizz-conference). All our speakers come from the world of business, TED, and comedy and are always funny. They often have a sneaky background in stand-up, improv, storytelling, or a deep love of humor. Talks are limited to short periods, and we have no keynote speakers. Just like a stand-up set, we seek to start strong and finish even stronger. There is always a clock on stage and speakers never run it (well, for the most part; old habits die hard). The conferences are pretty cool and like none I have ever been to before. I guess that was the point: see what everyone else is doing and don’t do it. Unsolicited testimonials like this one make me think others agree, and I feel privileged to be involved:
“Most conferences are like swimming in a nice comfy bowl of familiar oatmeal. This one was more like putting on a cape and diving off a building. FunnyBizz delivered more than take-aways and actionable ideas. FunnyBizz delivered a mode-changing experience right into my brain. If you can only go to one conference a year, it should be this one.”
Just like with the charity fundraiser, I am now fully confident in my ability to host a great conference without the crippling fear of failure that once turned me into a puddle of jelly, even when things go wrong and the shit nearly—and very literally—hit the fan.
At a recent event in New York City, we temporarily ran out of toilet paper. This is not uncommon at big events where the venue provides the janitorial support stuff. They can only do so much, so quickly. Well, on this occasion they needed to go más rápido because we had just fed the crowd a delicious Mexican buffet for lunch and were just about to give them a bunch of free alcohol. Not exactly a winning combination.
What did we do? Just like comedians do, just like the best speakers do, and just like Biz Stone did at Twitter, we called attention to the obvious and acknowledged the likely feelings of the audience to defuse the situation: “Guys, sincere apologies. We are a conference on humor and maybe we went too far. Feeding you Mexican food, giving you free alcohol, and hiding the toilet paper. Not funny, guys. Not funny at all.” (Note the Rule of 3 here as well as the joke structure: setup—punch line—tagline.) The incident was addressed in a positive way, in the moment, and with a humorous nature that meant it was the last we heard of it.
As I write this, I am at the Kansas City Irish Fest alongside many of Ireland’s top musicians and 90,000 attendees over the long Labor Day weekend. I just spoke to a sold-out crowd of 300 at the Kansas City Library, performed stand-up comedy to a packed-to-the-rafters theater beside one of Ireland’s top comedians, did an interview for National Public Radio, was a panelist on a TV show’s pilot recording, sat in hallway musical jam sessions until the wee hours of the morning, and overall got a short glimpse into the rock star lifestyle—the highlight of which was watching a sweat-laden singer in midday heat use the emergency phone from the fancy rooftop hotel pool to inform the concerned operator that he needed a beer delivered poolside immediately, because he was dying . . . of thirst.
How all this came to be I am not certain—but I do know it was a sequence of events I began with the aim of overcoming a fear. I may or may not keep doing comedy and storytelling nights. Like most people, I find the demands of business all too often get in the way of fun, but now, like you, I have a way of often combining the two. Funny enough, speaking with the crowd assembled at the Kansas City Library felt much better than performing stand-up comedy in the theater. Why? Because I was not just making them laugh but giving them actionable learning points, wrapped in a story that I felt had the potential to make a long-lasting difference in not only their lives but also those of many others.
Modern-day public speaking forces you to become a performer, and as such your happiness will often be determined by the happiness of those for whom you perform. Make sure it’s a mutual exchange of happiness and learning—and of course, where you can, rock it.
“Modern-day public speaking forces you to become a performer, and as such your happiness will often be determined by the happiness of those for whom you perform.”
Just like my home in California at the time of writing, we are in the midst of a drought. It is, however, a different kind of drought I refer to: a laughter drought. Babies laugh, on average, 300 times a day; people over thirty-five years old, only fifteen! Safe to say anyone who can bring back some of these lost laughter moments can quickly affirm themselves as a hero. Your newfound elevated status may be limited to your time on stage. However, when combined with some real information and concrete learning points, and crafted amid a memorable and humorous story, you may find your star burns brighter for longer. I truly hope it does. Let us rid the world of boring content one presentation at a time! The world is waiting for your funny stories. Only you are qualified to tell them, and you never know what may happen when you do.
Where you can, add comedy. We all need more of it.