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When I first moved to Atlanta,

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

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with over 300,000 miles on it.

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

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

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let me explain.

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

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

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Well, my car's name was Miss Bessie.

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

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(Laughter)

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I wrote a speech about my car.

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

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

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tow trucks would be circling
around me like vultures.

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(Laughter)

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

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(Laughter)

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

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(Laughter)

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

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and that year,

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I won first place in the Toastmasters
humorous speech contest

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for the state of Georgia.

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

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

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I do a lot of public speaking.

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Over the past 25 years or so,

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between giving sales presentations,

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doing training sessions,
speaking in Toastmasters,

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

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

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

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

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That book was a compilation

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

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So, after winning the contest
and writing the book,

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

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teaching people how to develop
humor in public speaking.

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

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So what is Finding the Funny,

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

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

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

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

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on a daily basis,

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and trying to find the humor in it.

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

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

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you need to have a little humor
in your presentation.

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When you learn to develop
a Finding the Funny mindset,

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

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and you're able to develop
humorous stories and vignettes

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that you can incorporate
into your speeches,

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so that you could be
a more entertaining speaker.

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Speakers love to tell jokes,

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and audiences love to tell jokes

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and hear speakers be funny.

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When you can add humor
to your presentation,

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it lets the audiences loosen up,

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

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So, what can you do to Find the Funny?

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

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of how I was able to Find the Funny.

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So I'm having Sunday morning with my wife,

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we're sitting there at the table,

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

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

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I said, "No problem."

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

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

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No problem, right?

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Wrong!

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That's when I discovered

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

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I had just purchased a squirrel magnet.

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

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started a whole series of events.

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It was a battle royale.

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Oh, it was on!

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It was between Al versus the squirrels,

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and I was determined

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

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

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I got online.

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I started googling high-tech bird feeders.

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I'm looking up bird feeders
with names like:

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Super Stop a Squirrel,

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(Laughter)

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Stump a Squirrel,

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(Laughter)

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Squirrel Be Gone.

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(Laughter)

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It got so bad

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my wife walked in the house one day

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

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

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

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Totally obsessed, right?

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

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

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

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

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

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So my first thought in my mind was,

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

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and change the channel."

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That's when it dawned on me:

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are we so spoiled by our technology

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that it's actually making us lazy?

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

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Well, I made a direct comparison

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of all of the gizmos and gadgets

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

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

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I even developed a name
for this phenomenon.

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I call it techno-lazy.

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Just think about it.

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We don't have to wash dishes anymore,

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we don't have to open doors,

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we don't have to walk up stairs.

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I just used the restroom at the break.

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I didn't have to turn the water on,

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I didn't have to flush the toilet.

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(Laughter)

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

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Techno-lazy.

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

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Audiences love it

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when you can use
a little self-deprecating humor

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and make yourself the butt of the joke.

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So what you want to do is you want to find

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

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and you want to learn -

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I know you all got them, right?

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

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

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

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

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Now, I happen to be
from Detroit, Michigan,

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born and raised.

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

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and these were the girls.

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(Laughter)

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I wrote a speech called

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"My Pet Peeves,
Idiosyncrasies, and Quirks,"

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where I talked about
all of our little quirks.

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

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

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Ah, my wife threw that last one in.

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(Laughter)

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So,

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once you start developing
this Finding the Funny mindset,

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

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and you walk around

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

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Let me give you a little formula

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on how you can use Finding the Funny

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

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I call this formula "OCDD."

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

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First of all, you've got to observe.

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Humor is around us everywhere.

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You've just got to learn to see it.

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

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Everywhere you go, things happen to you,

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

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Once you start developing
a Finding the Funny mindset,

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

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

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Now, because I'm a humorist

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and because I have
a Finding the Funny mindset,

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

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Even when we go on roadtrips,

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

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"Honey, write this down."

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I'm thinking about ideas.

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

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

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

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

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So you have to capture all of these ideas.

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So once you capture these ideas -

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

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of funny things that I see.

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I was sitting at a light the other day,

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

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The name of his landscaping business,

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

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was "The Weed Man."

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(Laughter)

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

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(Laughter)

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I envisioned there were
two guys sitting in the truck.

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They looked just like
Cheech and Chong, right?

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

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So, you guys, start capturing these ideas.

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

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

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Once you start building up
all these ideas and that,

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then you can sit down.

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Sit down with the ideas.

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Work with them, embellish them.

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

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google the idea with the word "humor"

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just to get some ideas flowing.

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You've got to play with the ideas.

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All it takes is
a little creative imagination

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and a healthy dose of embellishment.

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So always create.

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

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

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or a good public speaking venue

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

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

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

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I witnessed something recently

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that I think is a perfect example

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of using the power of humor
in public speaking.

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Two weeks ago,

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I watched the Toastmasters International

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2019 World Championship
of Public Speaking.

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This was broadcast live

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00:11:06,986 --> 00:11:09,904
from the annual convention
in Denver, Colorado.

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Now this is, by any stretch
of the imagination,

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the largest speech contest in the world,

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with over 30,000 participants

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from over 140 countries.

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

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Now these six finalists

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

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And keep in mind,
this contest is international,

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so these speeches had to be
universal enough

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to appeal to the international audience.

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Six finalists had made it
to the world stage.

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

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that each number of speakers received.

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I found it very interesting
that the first-place winner

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also had the most laughs at 26.

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

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00:12:10,886 --> 00:12:16,235
The third-place winner had the third
highest laugh count at 20 laughs.

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That, ladies and gentlemen,
is a powerful example

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of using humor in public speaking.

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What I hope I've shared with you today

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is developing a Finding the Funny mindset.

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

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If you develop
a Finding the Funny mindset,

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

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but it will also help you
in your personal life.

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

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

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When you develop
a Finding the Funny mindset,

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you bypass all the negativity
and all the divisiveness

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because you will always find
something to smile about.

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Finding the Funny is
an "Idea Worth Spreading."

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Just one simple change in mindset

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has the ability to change
your entire outlook on life,

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and not only will it
make you a better speaker.

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

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so that you can wake up every day,

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and you can put on
those humor-colored glasses

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and Find the Funny in your life.

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Thank you.

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(Applause)