Make Them Laugh

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In the delightful Broadway musical “Singing in the Rain“, there is a song called “Make em Laugh” which is based on this idea that the best way for any stage performer to build a bond with an audience is to use humor to bring a smile, or a laugh, to that audience. Well, that idea is not just valid for stage performers. It’s just as true when you begin to develop your style as a public speaker.





But what if you don’t know how to use humor? Of course you can always just tell a joke. But canned jokes are just that, attempts to use someone else’s humor. They do work, (if it’s a good joke) but if the humor is not relevant to what you are talking about or to you as a speaker, it often is not as effective as it should be. The best humor is actually self-deprecating remarks as you speak. These are easy to come up with by simply using yourself as the subject of an illustration. For example, if this topic was part of your speech, you might say,

You know it’s easy to get tongue tied and bumble around up here trying to use humor. But you folks won’t make a mess of it like I am doing.”

That isn’t even a very good joke. But because it is highly relevant, it is self deprecating and it’s a light moment in the presentation, it will probably get a chuckle. A chuckle is really all you are looking for. You are not trying to become a stand up comic up there. Humor that is too wild and designed to bring hearty laughter actually is distracting. You just want little asides that are of a humorous nature to bring your audience back to listening to you.


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