Ethan James - How to Be Funny: The Ultimate Guide to Making Funny Speeches

HOW TO BE FUNNY

The Ultimate Guide to Making Funny Speeches

ISBN: 9781617927546

Ethan James

Dedication

This eBook is dedicated to all of those creative people who wish to make fascinating and entertaining speeches, but who are not quite sure how to go about doing so.

Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1: How to Be Funny

Chapter 2: Can I BE Funny?

Chapter 3: What Is Humor?

Chapter 4: Tension

Chapter 5: Get Animated

Chapter 6: How to Make an Audience Laugh

Chapter 7: The Event

Chapter 8: The Audience

Chapter 9: Decide on Your Persona

Chapter 10: Your Opening Joke

Chapter 11: Listen

Chapter 12: Keep It Short

Chapter 13: How to Write a Joke

Chapter 14: The Setup

Chapter 15: The Punch Line

Chapter 16: How to Write Funny Speeches

Chapter 17: Component 1 The Topic

Chapter 18: Component 2 The Outline

Chapter 19: Component 3 Developing Your Angle

Chapter 20: Component 4 Writing the Speech

Chapter 21: Component 5 Punch It Up

Chapter 22: Component 6: Rehearsing Your Speech

Chapter 23: Component 7 Giving Your Speech

Chapter 24: Body Language and Dramatic Pauses

Chapter 25: Actually Speaking to the Audience

Chapter 26: How to Win Your Audience Back

Chapter 27: A Sample Speech on Car Sales

Sample Speeches on Various Topics

101 Story Ideas

One-liners

Using Quotes

About the Author

INTRODUCTION

My idea for this eBook was conceived while watching the CFO of a Fortune 500 company give a speech at a stockholders meeting. Where is it written that finances have to be so boring a topic that yawning becomes the facial expression for most of the audience?

There could not have been enough oxygen in that hall to fully revive those unfortunate listeners. Since the companys finances were in rather good shape, why was it necessary to ponderously go through endless minutes discussing dozens of complicated ratios without a break?

What could have saved the mind-numbing day for the shareholders present was a bit of humor occasionally disbursed among all that dry verbiage.

In order to enhance future speech making for anyone charged with this daunting task, I have spent years studying humor and how to make it work best for presenters. Much of the time was consumed absorbing the techniques of stand-up comedians, renowned motivational speakers and doing a mammoth amount of reading. Then, I made numerous presentations and took to heart as well as analyzed what worked, what didnt and why.

After all that preparation, I am now very optimistic that you will benefit from what I have learned and will share with you in this eBook. Lets begin!

Chapter 1

HOW TO BE FUNNY

If two rabbis, a priest, and a monkey walk into a bar owned by a horse, but no one is there to see it, could you call this event humorous?

Since the days of Vaudeville, the answer would be, No. In fact, even if you were there to see it with your very own eyes, it probably wouldn't serve as humorous. Blame the political climate. Now, you see rabbis and priests together all the time, when it used to be that they never really hung out together. Furthermore, if you saw a monkey with them, you'd likely assume one of the men was somewhat disabled and that monkey was only there for assistance.

Honestly, if you saw a bar owned by a horse, would you be all that surprised? He probably got a deal as a minority owner; hence, his financing was lower, his regulations more lax, and his business would be a niche market in which investors could thrive. Who wouldn't want to dump a little money into the only cantina in town owned by a horse? The marketing campaign writes itself!

The point is that whatever makes us laugh has changed and not just recently, but over the course of human history. It has evolved along with human beings and the goings-on we have faced since we separated ourselves from the Neanderthals. Humor was there when mammoths walked the earth and women started poking fun at their men for being even hairier than the beasts.

It was alongside us when we were developing weapons, as the guys who had the bows and arrows kept teasing the guys who only had spears for getting trampled.

It was also there on the beach, when we were fourteen, and the bully was kicking sand in our face in front of the girl we loved.

Even though the topics that make us laugh have changed, the significance of laughter has not. It has always been - and will always be - a very deep, primal form of communication that alleviates anxiety and stress, shows acceptance of an individual by another individual, and an indicator of emotional investment into what a person is saying. Studies have shown that as a reliever of stress and a coping mechanism in times of duress, laughter is good for the mind, body, and soul. Even the most hardened and jaded human beings alive need a good laugh every once in a while.

In fact, the only thing people need more than laughter itself is the people who can make them laugh.

Mother Nature and everyday circumstances give us loads of funny fuel (how dogs meet and how swim suits one size too big are pulled off when someone jumps into a swimming pool come to mind), but the person every society needs is the person who can make its citizenry laugh. Thanks to all the economic uncertainty, wars, and famines across the globe, the individuals who possess the ability to make others smile will forever be in high demand. Why? It's simple: because people need to break free from their troubles, and laughter can do that.

Actually, laughter and music are great releases, but this isn't about how to play a guitar. It's about how to be funny.

Chapter 2

CAN I BE FUNNY?

Can you be funny? Now, thats a loaded question.

Interestingly enough, there is a pretty heated debate regarding whether a person is born funny or becomes funny. Some people believe that being funny is genetic, carried on a gene through generations much like skin or eye color. This school of thought believes that if your great-great-great-grandfather could spin a humorous yarn about conquering a poorly-equipped army, chances are you stand a better chance of getting people to laugh about your trip to the hair salon than the lady who lives down the hall.

Others think that being perceived as funny is a matter of conditioning, of one's upbringing conflicting with real events in his or her life of ideology colliding with actuality. An example would be a child growing up hearing that there's no such thing as The Boogeyman; but, then, one day, he sees The Boogeyman on his way to work, carrying a briefcase and sporting a tie (he looks very stylish, by the way). Now, people on this side of the Funny Fence believe that it is his interpretation of that moment that will determine whether or not he is indeed funny.

Who is right? You decide.

First off, let us take a look at behavior in general. For those of you for whom behavior may be too broad a term, for the sake of this argument, behavior means the guiding force which dictates the actions other people see us take.' From temper tantrums to whether or not we give back a dollar we find lying on the street, behavior is our thought process that determines what we do next.

Innate behaviors - those with which we are born - are unlearned, meaning that we can do them without being taught. A good example would be hunger forcing us to seek food or quickly pulling away from a heated object before we get burned. Searching for food when hungry would be classified as an instinct, as it includes more complex processes involving the whole body that help determine survival. Yanking one's hand away from a hot kettle would be considered an automatic, reflexive action where no thought is involved, and it includes only a part of the body. The stimulus (heat) sends a nerve impulse along the finger, through the hand and arm, and into the spinal column, where the nervous system screams, "Yowzer!"