People want to be funny for all sorts of reasons when they give business presentations. You may want to use humour to engage your audience more. You may have a boring topic that switches people off, so you want to include humour to liven up the discussion. You may simply want to shift the mood or energy and change it up a little bit so you can have more laughs and fun.
Transitioning into a funny part or incorporating something that will get the right amount of laughs can be hard, though. As a humour coach, I often get asked, “if I want to be funnier, what’s one quick thing that I can do to make sure things go in the right direction?”
My answer: fill up on funny.
You can’t get something from nothing. If you want funny to come out, you need funny to go in. So, fill up on a lot of funny things to have a lot of it coming out of your head when you need it.
Look at it this way; if you create a big catalogue of funny stuff, you can dial it up like a Rolodex in your mind and pick one out at the perfect opportunity. Everyone will think you’re brilliant. None of them needs to know that you pulled out something you’ve prepared earlier.
Your next question may be: how do I start filling up on funny?
Well, the internet is always a good place to start. It’s packed full of material. There are tons of videos on Youtube and memes on Facebook and Instagram. With just a few clicks, you will have hours of video footage and an extensive collection of photos and ideas to add to your catalogue.
This will take a lot of time, but at least you’ll be enjoying yourself as you do your research.
A quick reminder, though. Make sure that the humour you pick is suitable for a business setting. Avoid swear words, racist slurs, or other inappropriate content. Always remember that the material has to be appropriate and relevant to your market. You wouldn’t want your joke to fall flat because your audience doesn’t understand it or finds it insensitive.
Fill Up Regularly
Commit to consuming funny content on a regular basis. Improving your humour muscles is a bit like improving all your other muscles. You can’t just do it once and think you’re done! It’s much better to fill up a little bit regularly, than a one-off binge.
Create a Fill Up On Funny Folder
When you come across an absolute nugget of gold on the internet, it’s a great idea to keep track of all the funny that you come across and save it in one place. You may like to create a “Swipe File” folder on your laptop, or an album on your phone to screenshot memes you come across, or you could even make use of the “Saved Items” function on Facebook.
Alternatively, if you are pressed for time and want someone to do all the hard work for you, be sure to join my free High-Performance Humour community on Facebook. We’ve got an ongoing #filluponfunny and #filluponfunnyFridays, where people share funny content that is useful and appropriate for a business setting. Too easy!
