Finding the Funny: the power of humor in public speaking | Al Wiseman | TEDxDecatur

Being able to use humor is a valuable skill for public speakers. In this TEDxDecatur talk, Al Wiseman shows how to add humor to your speeches and presentations by developing a "Finding the Funny" mindset and learning how to see the humor in everyday life.

Al Wiseman is a humorist, trainer, and speech coach in his company, A Wiseman Speaks. He has been a Toastmaster for over 25 years and has earned three Distinguished Toastmaster awards - Toastmasters highest level of achievement. He was crowned the state champion in the Humorous Speech Contest, and he has presented his Finding the Funny workshops at the local, state, and international levels. For several years, he wrote a humor column entitled "Laugh Lines" for a local community newspaper, and he is the author of "Finding the Funny," published in 2010, and the soon-to-be-released, "Finding the Funny Too." With his trademark style of humor, he delivers workshops, seminars, and one-on-one coaching that help professionals add humor to their presentations. Al Wiseman is a certified John Maxwell Trainer and Coach. He is also a loving husband and father, who enjoys reading, hiking, and yardwork.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx

When I first moved to Atlanta,

I was driving a 15-year-old, aqua-green,
Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme

with over 300,000 miles on it.

Now, where I come from,
they call this kind of car a "hoopy."

So for all of you
who are not from the hood,

let me explain.

A hoopy is an old car,
it's a junker, it's a beater.

It's one of them cars you're determined
to drive until the wheels fall off.

Well, my car's name was Miss Bessie.

Now you know if you ever had a hoopy,
you've got to give it a name.

(Laughter)

I wrote a speech about my car.

That speech was called
"Miss Bessie, the Hoopy."

In that speech, I talked about how,
every time I drove this car,

tow trucks would be circling
around me like vultures.

(Laughter)

This car burned more oil
than a deep fryer at Church's Chicken.

(Laughter)

I no longer had a car note,
but repairs were running me $450 a month.

(Laughter)

I entered that Miss Bessie the Hoopy
speech into a speech contest,

and that year,

I won first place in the Toastmasters
humorous speech contest

for the state of Georgia.

Now, I tell you that story
because it's the perfect example

of what I've come
to call "Finding the Funny."

I do a lot of public speaking.

Over the past 25 years or so,

between giving sales presentations,

doing training sessions,
speaking in Toastmasters,

I've probably spoken
over a thousand times in public.

Out of all the things that I love to do
when it comes to public speaking,

I love to tell humorous stories
and to give humorous speeches.

In 2010, I wrote a book
called "Finding the Funny."

That book was a compilation

of a lot of humorous speeches
that I had done up until that point.

So, after winning the contest
and writing the book,

people have asked me to come out
in their workshops and seminars,

teaching people how to develop
humor in public speaking.

I call this philosophy or the body
of knowledge "Finding the Funny."

So what is Finding the Funny,

and how can you use it
to help you as a public speaker?

Finding the Funny,
first of all, is a mindset.

Finding the Funny is looking at the world
through humor-colored glasses.

It's about taking all the things
that happen to you

on a daily basis,

and trying to find the humor in it.

Let's face it, if you
have to speak in public,

if you have to go out
and give presentations for work,

you need to have a little humor
in your presentation.

When you learn to develop
a Finding the Funny mindset,

you're able to take those things
that happen to you on a daily basis,

and you're able to develop
humorous stories and vignettes

that you can incorporate
into your speeches,

so that you could be
a more entertaining speaker.

Speakers love to tell jokes,

and audiences love to tell jokes

and hear speakers be funny.

When you can add humor
to your presentation,

it lets the audiences loosen up,

and it helps you become
more entertaining or likable as a speaker.

So, what can you do to Find the Funny?

First of all, I'm going
to give you a few examples

of how I was able to Find the Funny.

So I'm having Sunday morning with my wife,

we're sitting there at the table,

we're looking out our back window,
having Sunday breakfast,

and my wife says to me,
"You know, we should get a bird feeder."

I said, "No problem."

Like a good husband,
I march off to the hardware store,

I get a bird feeder, I bring it back,
I hang it up on the deck.

No problem, right?

Wrong!

That's when I discovered

that, in addition to attracting birds,
bird feeders attract squirrels.

I had just purchased a squirrel magnet.

That one suggestion that my wife
gave me of purchasing a bird feeder

started a whole series of events.

It was a battle royale.

Oh, it was on!

It was between Al versus the squirrels,

and I was determined

not to let a rodent with a brain the size
of a peanut outsmart me.

I was determined to find
a squirrel-proof bird feeder.

I got online.

I started googling high-tech bird feeders.

I'm looking up bird feeders
with names like:

Super Stop a Squirrel,

(Laughter)

Stump a Squirrel,

(Laughter)

Squirrel Be Gone.

(Laughter)

It got so bad

my wife walked in the house one day

and found me laying on the floor
with a BB gun aimed out the window.

She said, "What in the world
are you doing?"

I said, "I've got to keep those squirrels
away from the bird feeder."

Totally obsessed, right?

So I wrote a speech called
"Squirrels at the Bird Feeder,"

and this became one
of the leading chapters of our book.

Let me give you another example
of how I could Find the Funny.

So I'm sitting on my sofa one day,
I'm channel-surfing, I'm watching TV,

and all of a sudden,
I can't get the remote to work.

So my first thought in my mind was,

"Ah, heck, I have to get up
and walk all the way over there

and change the channel."

That's when it dawned on me:

are we so spoiled by our technology

that it's actually making us lazy?

I wrote a speech called
"Is Technology Making us Lazy?"

Well, I made a direct comparison

of all of the gizmos and gadgets

and high-tech things
that we have in our life,

and how we're getting
a little soft around the middle.

I even developed a name
for this phenomenon.

I call it techno-lazy.

Just think about it.

We don't have to wash dishes anymore,

we don't have to open doors,

we don't have to walk up stairs.

I just used the restroom at the break.

I didn't have to turn the water on,

I didn't have to flush the toilet.

(Laughter)

All of these gizmos and gadgets are making
our lives so much easier for us.

Techno-lazy.

Another way to Find the Funny
is to make fun of yourself.

Audiences love it

when you can use
a little self-deprecating humor

and make yourself the butt of the joke.

So what you want to do is you want to find

all of the weird and crazy
little wacky things that you do,

and you want to learn -

I know you all got them, right?

Everybody's got all
of our little weird perks in that.

Take a look at those things,
make a list of those things,

and be willing to talk about
those things in your speeches.

For example, you could talk
about where you're from.

Now, I happen to be
from Detroit, Michigan,

born and raised.

I grew up with kids named
Rocky, Bonky, and Oogie,

and these were the girls.

(Laughter)

I wrote a speech called

"My Pet Peeves,
Idiosyncrasies, and Quirks,"

where I talked about
all of our little quirks.

I talked about how I'm a neat freak,
how I'm organized, how I'm a germaphobe,

and how I'm faithful
and loyal, just like a dog.

Ah, my wife threw that last one in.

(Laughter)

So,

once you start developing
this Finding the Funny mindset,

you develop the ability
to see your life almost like a sitcom,

and you walk around

and you start Finding the Funny
in everything that happens to you,

Let me give you a little formula

on how you can use Finding the Funny

to develop it into speeches and humor
when you have to give presentations.

I call this formula "OCDD."

It's observe, capture,
develop, and deliver.

First of all, you've got to observe.

Humor is around us everywhere.

You've just got to learn to see it.

So always be on the lookout
for humor in your life.

Everywhere you go, things happen to you,

but you just don't notice the humor in it.

Once you start developing
a Finding the Funny mindset,

you'll learn to see the humor
in everything; so always observe.

The second is you've got
to start capturing these events.

Now, because I'm a humorist

and because I have
a Finding the Funny mindset,

I have a notebook that I carry
with me all the time.

Even when we go on roadtrips,

I give my wife the book,
she's writing, and I say,

"Honey, write this down."

I'm thinking about ideas.

Over the years I've accumulated
this shoe box full of notebooks

just with all of these little ideas
that I capture on it.

Some of you are saying,
"Notebooks? That's old-school,"

If notebooks are too old-school,
there's probably an app for that, right?

So you have to capture all of these ideas.

So once you capture these ideas -

What I've started doing recently
is I've even started taking pictures

of funny things that I see.

I was sitting at a light the other day,

and I looked, and this guy next to me
had a landscaping truck.

The name of his landscaping business,

emblazoned in a big logo
on the side of his truck,

was "The Weed Man."

(Laughter)

How many times a day does this guy
get stopped by the police?

(Laughter)

I envisioned there were
two guys sitting in the truck.

They looked just like
Cheech and Chong, right?

They roll the window down,
and smoke comes on out of there.

So, you guys, start capturing these ideas.

Capture them, write them down,
put them on the voice-controlling app.

And then next, you have to start
developing your ideas.

Once you start building up
all these ideas and that,

then you can sit down.

Sit down with the ideas.

Work with them, embellish them.

If nothing occurs to you
that's funny about it at the time,

google the idea with the word "humor"

just to get some ideas flowing.

You've got to play with the ideas.

All it takes is
a little creative imagination

and a healthy dose of embellishment.

So always create.

And then, next is delivery:
work on your delivery.

What you want to do is to find
a good Toastmasters club

or a good public speaking venue

where you can stand up,
and you can practice these ideas,

so that you can get some humor,
and you can get some feedback.

So that's how you develop
the Finding the Funny mindset.

I witnessed something recently

that I think is a perfect example

of using the power of humor
in public speaking.

Two weeks ago,

I watched the Toastmasters International

2019 World Championship
of Public Speaking.

This was broadcast live

from the annual convention
in Denver, Colorado.

Now this is, by any stretch
of the imagination,

the largest speech contest in the world,

with over 30,000 participants

from over 140 countries.

At this stage, there were six finalists
who had made it to the world stage.

Now these six finalists

had to give a significantly original
five- to seven-minute speech.

And keep in mind,
this contest is international,

so these speeches had to be
universal enough

to appeal to the international audience.

Six finalists had made it
to the world stage.

As they began to speak,
I started to count the laughs

that each number of speakers received.

I found it very interesting
that the first-place winner

also had the most laughs at 26.

The second-place winner had
the second highest laugh count at 25.

The third-place winner had the third
highest laugh count at 20 laughs.

That, ladies and gentlemen,
is a powerful example

of using humor in public speaking.

What I hope I've shared with you today

is developing a Finding the Funny mindset.

Here's the most important thing
of what I'm saying with you today.

If you develop
a Finding the Funny mindset,

it not only helps you as a speaker,
when you're giving presentations,

but it will also help you
in your personal life.

I could count the times on one hand
that I have a bad day every year

because I've learned
to see the humor in life.

When you develop
a Finding the Funny mindset,

you bypass all the negativity
and all the divisiveness

because you will always find
something to smile about.

Finding the Funny is
an "Idea Worth Spreading."

Just one simple change in mindset

has the ability to change
your entire outlook on life,

and not only will it
make you a better speaker.

I hope that every single one of you
will develop a Finding the Funny mindset,

so that you can wake up every day,

and you can put on
those humor-colored glasses

and Find the Funny in your life.

Thank you.

(Applause)