As a comedian and high-performance humour coach, I often get asked the question
“How can I be funnier?”
So in this article, I’m going to share with you one quick tip on how to do precisely that.
FUNNY IN = FUNNY OUT
I have a saying that “Funny In = Funny Out”. If you are consuming fun things, then you can dial them up in conversations or whenever you need to lighten a mood.
But if you don’t have any funny inside you – then none can come out!
FILL UP ON FUNNY
So if you want to be funnier, what you need to do is fill up on funny.
You see, I believe that what comes out of you is only a tiny bit of what’s inside you. Like if you hear someone getting very cranky – that’s the crap that’s coming out – imagine how much crap is staying in?
On the flip side, if someone is very funny – that’s the funny coming out – imagine how much funny is staying in? Therefore, it’s really important to fill yourself up with funny so that some can spill out of you – and it might be in conversation, during a presentation or in your content marketing and emails etc. But the key is – to have some funny in there in the first place so that it can come out.
So if you are not filling up on funny, how do you expect that any funny will ever come out of you?
HOW TO FILL UP ON FUNNY
When I talk about filling up on funny, I’m talking about consuming heaps and heaps and heaps of humour so that it can then start to spill out later on in your conversations and your interactions with people.
And there are a couple of ways to fill up on funny:
Go to Live Comedy Shows
First of all, you can go to live comedy shows. Most capital cities have stand up comedy shows, so make sure you go to as many of them as you can. We certainly need to support our artists, especially after the crazy ride they had during COVID.
Watch Comedy On Netflix
Second of all, there’s a comedy section on Netflix, and you can watch a whole heap of Stand Up Comedy there.
Not sure what to choose? Just start with the top 10 trending shows as decided by Netflix. If they are good enough for everyone else, they are most likely good enough for you.
HOT TIP: I can highly recommend Michael McIntyre if you have not heard of him. He is particularly good and uses a lot of Stealth Humour and plants loads of Humour Seeds.
Use the Internet
And thirdly, you can also consume heaps of humour on the internet, like funny YouTube clips and tick-tock videos and all those sorts of things.
A WORD OF WARNING
I will mention that if you are filling up on funny, you want to be filling up on the right type of humour – the stuff that is appropriate to use in the workplace and a leadership context.
THAT’LL TAKE FOREVER, WON’T IT?
If you are anything like me, once you start going down a rabbit hole on the internet or Netflix, it’s very easy to get completely distracted, and 13 hours later, you come out of your internet “research phase” and realise you need food!
So if you don’t have time to go and search all over the internet, Netflix or the city – please join me in my Facebook group High-Performance Humour.
In this free Facebook Group, we share a whole heap of humour that is workplace appropriate and leadership appropriate. We also have a section on Fridays called “Fill Up On Funny” to do precisely what we’ve been talking about in this article!
Have Fun!
Cheers Kate
