WEBVTT 00:00:00.730 --> 00:00:04.554 Hello, everyone. My name is Joanne Lockwood and I'm your host for the Inclusion 00:00:04.602 --> 00:00:08.126 Bites podcast. In this series, I have interviewed a number of amazing 00:00:08.228 --> 00:00:11.754 people and simply had a conversation around the subject of inclusion, 00:00:11.882 --> 00:00:15.674 belonging and generally making the world a better place for everyone to thrive. 00:00:15.722 --> 00:00:17.838 If you'd like to join me in the future, then please do drop me a 00:00:17.844 --> 00:00:18.574 line to 00:00:18.612 --> 00:00:22.202 jo.Lockwood@seechangehappen.co.uk. 00:00:22.266 --> 00:00:26.006 That's S-E-E Change Happen dot Co dot Uk. You can 00:00:26.028 --> 00:00:29.766 catch up with all of the previous shows on iTunes, Spotify and the usual 00:00:29.788 --> 00:00:33.494 places. So plug in your headphones, grab a decaf and let's 00:00:33.532 --> 00:00:37.158 get going. Today is episode 99 00:00:37.244 --> 00:00:40.954 with the title laughter as a lens, and I have the 00:00:40.992 --> 00:00:44.634 absolute honour and privilege to welcome Beth Sherman. Now, Beth is a 00:00:44.672 --> 00:00:48.486 multi Emmy award winning comedy writer and speaker 00:00:48.598 --> 00:00:52.406 on the power of humour for human connection. When I asked Beth 00:00:52.438 --> 00:00:56.174 to describe her superpower, she said, she can make you funny even 00:00:56.212 --> 00:00:59.774 if you don't think you are. Hello, Beth. Welcome to the show. Hi, 00:00:59.812 --> 00:01:03.230 Jo. Thanks for having me. I should actually say, welcome back to the show. 00:01:03.380 --> 00:01:07.182 You have the honour of being my first repeat guest 00:01:07.246 --> 00:01:10.946 because we had such terrible Internet troubles last time that 00:01:10.968 --> 00:01:14.686 we had to basically write the entire soundtrack off. It just wasn't 00:01:14.718 --> 00:01:18.498 usable, was it? No. And it was all the fault of my Internet. 00:01:18.674 --> 00:01:22.482 We disconnected from Zoom. My spotty Internet 00:01:22.546 --> 00:01:25.926 disconnected from Zoom seven times. I had just moved and the 00:01:25.948 --> 00:01:29.786 Internet was not properly set up. So BT had given me sort 00:01:29.808 --> 00:01:32.940 of an interim device that did not work 00:01:33.310 --> 00:01:37.034 as so. But you know what, in show business, they say, 00:01:37.072 --> 00:01:40.826 bad dress rehearsal, great show, great show. It was 00:01:40.848 --> 00:01:44.586 a terrible dress rehearsal. But in the 00:01:44.608 --> 00:01:48.266 spirit of this conversation, laugh was a lens. 00:01:48.378 --> 00:01:52.174 We did have quite a laugh, despite the problems. And it was like 00:01:52.212 --> 00:01:55.746 a real outtakes blooper reel, wasn't it? At times, it really is, 00:01:55.768 --> 00:01:59.522 but that's what humour does. It is quick 00:01:59.576 --> 00:02:03.314 connection and being able to laugh at yourself, being able to laugh at the 00:02:03.352 --> 00:02:06.806 situation. Yeah, I guess we both could have just gotten angrier and 00:02:06.828 --> 00:02:10.374 angrier. I mean, there was part of it, 00:02:10.412 --> 00:02:14.246 but at a certain point you just have to look at each 00:02:14.268 --> 00:02:17.894 other and roll your eyes and laugh. I mean, it was 00:02:17.932 --> 00:02:21.574 absurd. The first time it was uncomfortable. The second time, it was awkward. 00:02:21.622 --> 00:02:23.850 The third time it's just silly. 00:02:25.470 --> 00:02:29.270 But that is connection. I mean, are you going to forget that taping? 00:02:29.350 --> 00:02:31.100 I know I'm not. I'll try. 00:02:33.150 --> 00:02:36.798 Maybe we will publish a bloopers reel at some point, but it was a 00:02:36.804 --> 00:02:40.446 cross between going through a tunnel on a mobile phone 00:02:40.628 --> 00:02:43.834 and an episode of Doctor who with the Daleks trying to exterminate 00:02:43.882 --> 00:02:47.614 somebody. It was a really broken up conversation. Every 00:02:47.652 --> 00:02:50.066 so often you'd freeze. And I was thinking, are you going to come back or 00:02:50.088 --> 00:02:53.794 aren't you going to come back? And it's comedy genius. Well, 00:02:53.912 --> 00:02:57.682 and it became a talking point for us. It became 00:02:57.826 --> 00:03:01.366 a way to. Well, it's become a 00:03:01.388 --> 00:03:04.966 reference for us. I mean, I'm sure when we run into each 00:03:04.988 --> 00:03:08.726 other again, it will come up. It becomes a shared 00:03:08.758 --> 00:03:12.454 experience, so why not turn a negative 00:03:12.502 --> 00:03:15.878 into a positive? Yeah. So you're an Emmy 00:03:15.974 --> 00:03:19.462 award winning writer. Tell us a bit about your background 00:03:19.526 --> 00:03:23.214 and how you got here today to. The 00:03:23.252 --> 00:03:26.954 second bedroom where we're recording this. Where I'm recording this. We're not in a bedroom 00:03:27.002 --> 00:03:30.430 together. Well, 00:03:30.580 --> 00:03:34.314 I am a comedy writer by trade. I fell 00:03:34.362 --> 00:03:37.794 in love with the idea of writing comedy for 00:03:37.832 --> 00:03:41.314 television from the time I realised it was a job. 00:03:41.432 --> 00:03:45.220 And I can actually remember that because I was about 15, I watched a 00:03:45.990 --> 00:03:49.446 behind the scenes news programme on a 00:03:49.468 --> 00:03:53.254 sitcom that I loved, and they weren't focusing on the 00:03:53.292 --> 00:03:56.834 cast behind the scenes. They showed us a magical place called the writers 00:03:56.882 --> 00:04:00.466 room. And it was just ten guys sitting around a 00:04:00.508 --> 00:04:04.218 conference table being funny. And they got paid for it and it 00:04:04.224 --> 00:04:08.026 was a job and it was guys, mostly guys at 00:04:08.048 --> 00:04:11.420 the time. But as soon as I realised that was a job, 00:04:11.790 --> 00:04:15.454 it's the only thing I ever wanted to do. And I'd been obsessed with stand 00:04:15.492 --> 00:04:18.862 up, so I just always had an ear for comedy. I went to 00:04:18.916 --> 00:04:22.110 university, I moved to Los Angeles. 00:04:22.610 --> 00:04:26.322 I'm born and raised in Philadelphia, nowhere near show business, nowhere anything like that. 00:04:26.376 --> 00:04:30.018 I moved to Los Angeles after college to go follow 00:04:30.104 --> 00:04:33.854 my dreams. I didn't know anyone except a woman that I'd 00:04:33.902 --> 00:04:37.670 gone to college with. And I started at the bottom, getting 00:04:37.740 --> 00:04:41.526 coffee, making copies. I started as a production assistant, worked my way 00:04:41.548 --> 00:04:45.030 up to writer's assistant, and then eventually started getting 00:04:45.100 --> 00:04:48.934 paid writing jobs on tv shows. 00:04:49.052 --> 00:04:52.726 And I found my tribe. It was my place and I absolutely loved 00:04:52.758 --> 00:04:56.566 it. I did that for. Well, I'm still doing that. That's 00:04:56.598 --> 00:05:00.266 27 years. And along the way, I didn't have the 00:05:00.288 --> 00:05:02.938 courage to do stand up myself, even though I was in love with it. I 00:05:02.944 --> 00:05:06.094 didn't really find the courage to do that until I'd had a few 00:05:06.292 --> 00:05:09.994 professional comedy writing jobs under my belt. And I also found myself writing 00:05:10.042 --> 00:05:13.754 for a lot of comedians who pushed me to try stand up myself. So within 00:05:13.812 --> 00:05:17.442 that career, I also did 15 years of stand up and about 00:05:17.496 --> 00:05:21.022 six or seven years ago, because the nature of tv 00:05:21.086 --> 00:05:24.894 work is it's freelance. So sometimes the jobs 00:05:24.942 --> 00:05:28.118 last three years or five years and sometimes they're ten weeks and quite a bit 00:05:28.124 --> 00:05:31.654 of them were ten weeks. And to fill some of that 00:05:31.692 --> 00:05:35.330 period in between, I started writing for doing speech writing 00:05:35.410 --> 00:05:39.174 for non entertainment professionals. So helping people 00:05:39.212 --> 00:05:42.762 who were doing TED talks or delivering sea level 00:05:42.816 --> 00:05:46.266 executives, delivering speeches, helping them make their speeches funnier and more 00:05:46.288 --> 00:05:49.846 engaging. A lot of very smart people delivering Ted talks, 00:05:49.878 --> 00:05:53.678 helping them not sound like a robot, but 00:05:53.764 --> 00:05:57.358 finding a way to be authentically funny, because there's nothing 00:05:57.444 --> 00:06:01.022 worse than listening to someone shoehorn in a joke that 00:06:01.076 --> 00:06:04.078 clearly has nothing to do with them or their personality. 00:06:04.254 --> 00:06:07.922 So I also fell in love with that 00:06:07.976 --> 00:06:11.394 side of it. I just love bringing humour into the world 00:06:11.512 --> 00:06:15.294 and working one to one with a lot of these speech 00:06:15.342 --> 00:06:19.014 writing clients made me realise that a lot of the things 00:06:19.052 --> 00:06:22.726 I do instinctively and my friends and colleagues do instinctively does 00:06:22.748 --> 00:06:25.800 not come instinctively to other people. 00:06:26.410 --> 00:06:30.246 I've been working as a professional comedy writer since I'm in that world since 00:06:30.268 --> 00:06:33.914 I was 20 years old. So I just assume everyone thinks that 00:06:33.952 --> 00:06:37.626 way, but they don't. And as I was explaining over and over 00:06:37.648 --> 00:06:41.386 again to one to one clients, or pointing out these comedic opportunities in the 00:06:41.408 --> 00:06:44.846 material they'd written, and again, not trying to make them into stand up 00:06:44.868 --> 00:06:48.590 comedians, just trying to make that quarterly report or the TED talk, 00:06:48.660 --> 00:06:52.014 just give it a little bit of humour, a little bit of balance to some 00:06:52.052 --> 00:06:55.714 serious subjects. I realised that I had something to teach and to share. 00:06:55.832 --> 00:06:59.662 And so I've now started speaking on the subject 00:06:59.726 --> 00:07:02.850 and talking about humour as a tool for quick connection. 00:07:03.990 --> 00:07:07.606 There's a massive fear of public speaking, let 00:07:07.628 --> 00:07:10.402 alone professional speaking. It's even got its own term, 00:07:10.466 --> 00:07:14.102 glossophobia, fear of public speaking. And it's one of the 00:07:14.156 --> 00:07:17.958 biggest kind of anxieties that most human beings can face in 00:07:17.964 --> 00:07:21.626 their life, actually having to stand up on stage or stand up in public, or 00:07:21.648 --> 00:07:25.100 even stand in front of a room of your team and speak. 00:07:25.630 --> 00:07:29.450 It must be doubly difficult, if you have that anxiety about speaking 00:07:29.520 --> 00:07:33.166 anyway, to add some of yourself, some of your 00:07:33.188 --> 00:07:36.830 humour in there, because you're so focusing on the content 00:07:36.900 --> 00:07:40.686 or what you've got to try and say, or being professional or creating a 00:07:40.708 --> 00:07:44.326 great impression that you can't relax 00:07:44.378 --> 00:07:48.002 into it. So how do you help people overcome that fear of public 00:07:48.056 --> 00:07:51.614 speaking and therefore embrace their comedic 00:07:51.662 --> 00:07:55.506 self or humorous self? Well, there's that great Seinfeld joke about the fear of 00:07:55.528 --> 00:07:59.026 public speaking, where that it's one of the biggest 00:07:59.058 --> 00:08:02.854 fears, which means that at a funeral, most people would 00:08:02.892 --> 00:08:06.550 rather be the person in the coffin rather than the one delivering the eulogy. 00:08:08.830 --> 00:08:12.458 But to me, what 00:08:12.624 --> 00:08:16.442 takes away some of that fear of public speaking, one, 00:08:16.496 --> 00:08:20.038 like the fear of doing anything, is preparation. So 00:08:20.144 --> 00:08:23.546 knowing that you have good material to deliver helps. 00:08:23.738 --> 00:08:27.326 And when I work one to one with people who. 00:08:27.428 --> 00:08:31.214 Well, and also, again, adding humour to 00:08:31.252 --> 00:08:34.654 something isn't just about trying to make someone a stand up 00:08:34.692 --> 00:08:37.858 comedian. So if someone is getting up to give a best man speech or a 00:08:37.864 --> 00:08:41.634 father of the bride speech, I work with a lot of clients doing those. A 00:08:41.672 --> 00:08:45.042 great way to add humour is just to be 00:08:45.096 --> 00:08:48.934 yourself and add authenticity. So if I've got someone 00:08:48.972 --> 00:08:52.694 who's terrified and they're giving a speech where it's going 00:08:52.732 --> 00:08:56.546 to be so distracting to them and to the audience, where their nerves 00:08:56.578 --> 00:08:59.594 will be a massive distraction, not just to them, but to the audience, people will 00:08:59.632 --> 00:09:03.354 really see them and see how nervous they are, you have to 00:09:03.392 --> 00:09:07.162 acknowledge it. So give them a joke. I mean, 00:09:07.216 --> 00:09:10.986 give them something that sounds like. I have 00:09:11.008 --> 00:09:14.606 to be honest, I'm not comfortable speaking in public. It's not my 00:09:14.628 --> 00:09:18.362 favourite thing to do. So if I pass out from nerves, 00:09:18.506 --> 00:09:21.886 just drag me back to my seat when I come to tell me I was 00:09:21.908 --> 00:09:25.394 great. And it's the kind of thing, it's just 00:09:25.432 --> 00:09:29.166 acknowledge. It's a dialogue. 00:09:29.198 --> 00:09:31.678 When you're up on a stage in front of people, whatever it is that you're 00:09:31.694 --> 00:09:35.202 doing, it's a dialogue. So let the other 00:09:35.256 --> 00:09:38.466 half of. Let the other party in the conversation 00:09:38.658 --> 00:09:42.338 know how you're feeling. And if you're nervous, you don't 00:09:42.354 --> 00:09:45.974 always have to acknowledge it. Sometimes it's just kind of that little 00:09:46.012 --> 00:09:49.834 adrenaline rush. But if it's the elephant in the room and it's something that's going 00:09:49.872 --> 00:09:53.706 to be a distraction to yourself so that you can't get the 00:09:53.728 --> 00:09:57.558 words out or to your audience, you don't 00:09:57.574 --> 00:10:01.246 want them sitting there thinking, oh, that poor guy. 00:10:01.348 --> 00:10:05.054 Oh, this is awkward. Oh, this is uncomfortable. If they 00:10:05.092 --> 00:10:08.906 know the stakes, if they know how you feel and they know the stakes, 00:10:08.938 --> 00:10:12.558 or if your opportunity 00:10:12.644 --> 00:10:16.002 to speak, if you 00:10:16.056 --> 00:10:19.774 acknowledge, I couldn't turn down this opportunity and they know you're nervous, 00:10:19.822 --> 00:10:23.486 they're going to root for you, they want you to succeed. 00:10:23.598 --> 00:10:27.346 If they know what you're up against, if they know you have a paralysing fear 00:10:27.378 --> 00:10:30.934 of public speaking and you're up there and you're doing it anyway, let them know 00:10:30.972 --> 00:10:34.726 that, because now, well, one, you've made 00:10:34.748 --> 00:10:38.422 yourself a little bit vulnerable, but you've connected with them, 00:10:38.476 --> 00:10:41.622 and if you can do that, with a little bit of a sense of humour, 00:10:41.766 --> 00:10:44.954 more the better. But now you've got people that are on your 00:10:44.992 --> 00:10:48.550 side. I remember delivering the speech 00:10:48.630 --> 00:10:52.282 at our daughter's wedding a couple of years ago and it was like 00:10:52.336 --> 00:10:56.046 I was given 15 minutes and it was the toughest audience I think 00:10:56.068 --> 00:10:59.898 I've ever had because I wasn't speaking around what a professional speaker 00:10:59.914 --> 00:11:03.754 myself. So I wasn't speaking about my day job, I wasn't thinking about my comfort 00:11:03.802 --> 00:11:07.460 zone, the things that I speak about all the time. I was trying to be 00:11:07.910 --> 00:11:11.634 entertaining for a guest list. I only 00:11:11.672 --> 00:11:15.506 knew probably a third of them. I was under strict instructions. My 00:11:15.528 --> 00:11:19.190 daughter's husband actually took me to one side and said, you must not 00:11:19.260 --> 00:11:22.582 make it. These embarrassing statements. You must not show my 00:11:22.636 --> 00:11:26.438 husband. I was giving this kind of like, up talk to me and 00:11:26.444 --> 00:11:30.006 saying, give me a brief on how I had to behave. And I thought. And 00:11:30.028 --> 00:11:33.594 it was trying to put some humour in there because you can't make that stuff. 00:11:33.632 --> 00:11:37.180 It's got to be light hearted. So I told some anecdotes around. My daughter's life 00:11:37.630 --> 00:11:41.238 just sailed close to the wind where I knew the red line was I didn't 00:11:41.254 --> 00:11:45.066 cross it. I just took people there and I led them down the path 00:11:45.098 --> 00:11:48.542 without telling them the punchline. And you can guess what happened next. And 00:11:48.596 --> 00:11:51.982 so she then had to explain it to all her friends what happened 00:11:52.036 --> 00:11:55.818 next. So I let her do the telling. But I remember telling 00:11:55.834 --> 00:11:59.186 this gag at the end and I won't tell it now, but I tell this 00:11:59.208 --> 00:12:02.894 gag at the end that even now, people who are at the wedding 00:12:02.942 --> 00:12:06.230 still remember that gag because it was so relevant. 00:12:06.650 --> 00:12:10.454 It was a play on their name and their surname and, yeah, 00:12:10.492 --> 00:12:13.560 they still remember it now. And everyone's going, wow, that's fantastic. And 00:12:15.370 --> 00:12:18.646 even the mother of the 00:12:18.668 --> 00:12:22.394 bridegroom, my daughter's mother in law, even 00:12:22.432 --> 00:12:25.178 finds it funny, even though it's her name. I was taking the mickey out of 00:12:25.184 --> 00:12:28.774 sort of thing. So you can build it in, provided 00:12:28.822 --> 00:12:32.374 you understand the boundaries of where humour 00:12:32.422 --> 00:12:35.898 stops and embarrassment starts or discrimination 00:12:35.994 --> 00:12:39.358 or bullying or whatever that may be. That's the fine line in comedy, isn't it? 00:12:39.364 --> 00:12:43.118 It's knowing when to punch up, not punch down. Well, of course. 00:12:43.204 --> 00:12:47.006 I mean, humour is a tool, and like any tool, you can use it to 00:12:47.028 --> 00:12:50.066 build something. You can use a hammer to build something, or you could use it 00:12:50.088 --> 00:12:53.666 for much worse purposes. Good for you for giving a speech, by the way, just 00:12:53.688 --> 00:12:57.250 as a public service announcement, if you're getting married, don't give anyone 00:12:57.320 --> 00:13:01.106 15 minutes. It's a lot of time. I mean, you are a professional 00:13:01.138 --> 00:13:04.886 speaker, so they were in good hands. But 15 minutes is 00:13:04.908 --> 00:13:08.440 a long time. If you've got just the best man, 00:13:09.630 --> 00:13:13.434 that's an invitation you might live to regret. 5 minutes. 5 00:13:13.472 --> 00:13:16.970 minutes is a general, good rule. Yeah, but the difference 00:13:17.120 --> 00:13:20.330 between knowing where the line is, I mean, in a personal 00:13:20.400 --> 00:13:23.870 speech, what I find works very well is if you have anything 00:13:24.020 --> 00:13:27.326 that you know because you love this person 00:13:27.428 --> 00:13:31.230 isn't crossing a line, but the person, you think the person might 00:13:31.300 --> 00:13:35.106 see it as a little bit embarrassing, but you feel in good 00:13:35.128 --> 00:13:38.514 conscience that it's not awful. You know, your 00:13:38.552 --> 00:13:42.338 daughter, sometimes you can get away with something like that by sort of sandwiching it 00:13:42.424 --> 00:13:46.162 within a bunch of. Within compliments. She's this 00:13:46.216 --> 00:13:49.874 and she's that. She's this wonderful. Has this wonderful quality. That wonderful 00:13:49.922 --> 00:13:53.382 quality. But sometimes she blank. She does 00:13:53.436 --> 00:13:57.122 this. So you put it out there in a way where it's 00:13:57.266 --> 00:14:00.486 clearly affectionate, clearly balanced, and the 00:14:00.588 --> 00:14:04.330 admiration and the respect that you have for her is abundantly clear. 00:14:04.400 --> 00:14:07.338 Sometimes that's a way to navigate it. I have a lot of clients where it 00:14:07.344 --> 00:14:11.146 just sounds like a roast and it becomes un. Would you like to say 00:14:11.168 --> 00:14:14.926 something nice about this person who is your best friend? Even though we 00:14:14.948 --> 00:14:18.106 all know that they feel that way in professional 00:14:18.138 --> 00:14:21.786 speeches, I always recommend playing it safe. If you're 00:14:21.818 --> 00:14:25.442 not sure, don't say it. There's a leeway that you have with a personal 00:14:25.496 --> 00:14:28.820 speech that you don't have in a professional situation. But 00:14:31.270 --> 00:14:35.006 I think when people go wrong, often now, they're trying to be 00:14:35.048 --> 00:14:38.886 provocative. They are intentionally trying to get a 00:14:38.908 --> 00:14:42.726 reaction. So I think sometimes that's something to 00:14:42.748 --> 00:14:46.070 measure it against, personally. I mean, if you're asking about 00:14:46.140 --> 00:14:49.866 comedians who sometimes cross the line, as 00:14:49.888 --> 00:14:53.674 a comedian myself, I support the 00:14:53.712 --> 00:14:57.382 right to do it. To me personally, unless everyone in the room is laughing, 00:14:57.446 --> 00:15:00.906 it's not funny. To me personally, that raises the 00:15:00.928 --> 00:15:04.554 bar. And if you have a joke that's on a controversial 00:15:04.602 --> 00:15:08.094 subject or could possibly be interpreted in a way or 00:15:08.132 --> 00:15:11.920 misinterpreted, rather in a way that seems as if it's punching down, 00:15:12.930 --> 00:15:16.734 I think then you need to really show your skill as 00:15:16.772 --> 00:15:20.546 a writer and a performer to make it clear what your intention is 00:15:20.568 --> 00:15:24.386 behind the joke. Because there's a world of difference. A friend of mine put 00:15:24.408 --> 00:15:26.614 it in a way that it was just beautiful. I mean, because there's a world 00:15:26.652 --> 00:15:30.326 of difference between the subject of the joke and the target of the 00:15:30.348 --> 00:15:33.320 joke. So the subject of the joke in itself 00:15:34.730 --> 00:15:38.466 might be controversial, but the target of the joke isn't 00:15:38.498 --> 00:15:41.994 necessarily it would be possible to have a joke about 00:15:42.192 --> 00:15:45.910 trans or abortion or something like that, where the target of the joke 00:15:46.070 --> 00:15:49.706 is. It's a joke that everyone, including the community 00:15:49.808 --> 00:15:53.310 that is mentioned, could laugh, I would hope. 00:15:53.460 --> 00:15:56.906 Yeah, I've got my own five to ten minute comedy 00:15:56.938 --> 00:15:59.934 routine and it's around trans 00:16:00.132 --> 00:16:03.858 comedy, and I tell jokes and people tell me 00:16:03.864 --> 00:16:07.678 it's funny from all perspectives. So, yeah, it's 00:16:07.694 --> 00:16:11.410 kind of visual comedy. So I'm painting pitch to people's minds with actions and 00:16:11.480 --> 00:16:15.154 taking to that journey. You're right, you 00:16:15.192 --> 00:16:18.578 can use tricky subjects if you have 00:16:18.584 --> 00:16:22.358 some authenticity in that area, so you're not trying to use it against something you 00:16:22.364 --> 00:16:25.718 have no experience of, I think. So you can use yourself as an example of 00:16:25.724 --> 00:16:28.774 the joke. What are you trying to say with the joke? I think it comes 00:16:28.812 --> 00:16:32.518 down. We've certainly seen a lot of people. What they're 00:16:32.534 --> 00:16:36.330 trying to say with the joke is, these people are bad, this person is stupid. 00:16:37.070 --> 00:16:40.510 It's not always a great message, but I think it's definitely possible, 00:16:40.580 --> 00:16:43.760 because it's definitely possible to write a joke where 00:16:44.930 --> 00:16:48.526 everyone's laughing. And to me, that's the only reason to do a 00:16:48.548 --> 00:16:51.680 joke. If everyone's laughing, not just for 00:16:52.370 --> 00:16:55.618 a moral. As. As a moral reason, 00:16:55.704 --> 00:16:59.300 but if I'm speaking to a room of 200 people, 00:16:59.990 --> 00:17:03.394 200 people laughing sounds better than 100 people laughing, or 00:17:03.432 --> 00:17:06.782 75 people laughing, or four people laughing. If your 00:17:06.856 --> 00:17:10.674 objective is to make a point or inspire action, 00:17:10.722 --> 00:17:14.230 or simply just make the room laugh, more people laughing sounds better, 00:17:14.300 --> 00:17:17.786 feels better to everyone. I suppose we've also got to be 00:17:17.808 --> 00:17:21.610 mindful that humour doesn't always travel borders 00:17:22.270 --> 00:17:25.526 or cultures. So what is funny 00:17:25.718 --> 00:17:29.206 to a UK based english speaking person who's 00:17:29.238 --> 00:17:33.006 been maybe lived here in this country all of their 00:17:33.028 --> 00:17:36.686 lives is different to someone who's come to this country 00:17:36.868 --> 00:17:39.230 in their mid 20s, speaks English, 00:17:40.690 --> 00:17:44.330 you originate from America, so there's some british humour 00:17:44.410 --> 00:17:48.034 that you probably don't understand. You have to be sort of socialised from 00:17:48.072 --> 00:17:51.810 birth, almost, with the humour and the culture. And if you're not careful, 00:17:52.550 --> 00:17:55.634 you can crack a funny or think you're cracking a funny, and the whole room 00:17:55.672 --> 00:17:59.234 just stares back at you. And there's also generational. If I talk about Monty 00:17:59.282 --> 00:18:03.106 Python or some of the things that resonated with me when I was growing 00:18:03.138 --> 00:18:06.306 up in the modern 00:18:06.418 --> 00:18:10.246 person, probably wasn't even alive when friends hit the 00:18:10.268 --> 00:18:13.562 tv screen in the late 90s. Yeah, it's a matter 00:18:13.616 --> 00:18:17.386 of. And in those cases, if using something like that is 00:18:17.408 --> 00:18:21.034 an example, sometimes all you have to do is just add a little bit of 00:18:21.072 --> 00:18:24.846 explanation. If you feel like Monty Python is the 00:18:24.868 --> 00:18:28.410 best example of whatever it is you're trying to illustrate, 00:18:28.570 --> 00:18:31.978 just make sure that you say Monty Python. It's a group. They did a bunch 00:18:31.994 --> 00:18:35.326 of ridiculous stuff. They had movies like this and this. You may know, even if 00:18:35.348 --> 00:18:39.010 you don't know who they are, you may have heard of this. Just give it 00:18:39.080 --> 00:18:42.834 an extra little bit of explanation so that everyone in the room can follow 00:18:42.872 --> 00:18:46.578 you. Make sure everyone has context. I see that happen a lot. 00:18:46.664 --> 00:18:50.486 Especially for me. Yeah, I didn't grow up here. So there are 00:18:50.508 --> 00:18:54.166 references, there are words, there are phrases. Even though my partner is 00:18:54.188 --> 00:18:57.834 English, I've known for 20 years and kind of had 1ft in this culture, very 00:18:57.872 --> 00:19:01.434 often I have no idea what's being 00:19:01.472 --> 00:19:04.906 referenced. But again, if you are 00:19:05.088 --> 00:19:08.838 delivering humour on stage or you're just trying to make a connection 00:19:08.854 --> 00:19:12.266 with someone, just take an extra 3 seconds and add a little bit of an 00:19:12.288 --> 00:19:16.094 explanation. And you don't have to start from the very beginning, just 00:19:16.132 --> 00:19:19.806 enough so that the people who may or may, I know I'm 00:19:19.828 --> 00:19:23.182 speaking to an international crowd here, I mean, even something like that, give the reason 00:19:23.236 --> 00:19:26.066 why you're going to give the little bit of explanation and then just give that 00:19:26.088 --> 00:19:29.890 tiny bit of explanation. And you can use that as an opportunity for humour. 00:19:30.790 --> 00:19:34.626 You can sort of have an awareness of your age. Oh, Monty Python. I 00:19:34.648 --> 00:19:38.214 know I'm a thousand years old. So maybe everyone here 00:19:38.252 --> 00:19:41.480 isn't old enough to remember Monty Python. I mean, 00:19:42.250 --> 00:19:46.070 you can give it context and you can use. Well, again, turn that 00:19:46.140 --> 00:19:49.946 potential negative that people might not understand. Use it as a positive, use 00:19:49.968 --> 00:19:53.066 it as a way to, well, inform and 00:19:53.088 --> 00:19:55.420 educate. And also 00:19:56.350 --> 00:19:59.622 add the humour of self awareness. Not self deprecating 00:19:59.686 --> 00:20:03.402 necessarily, but just the awareness. People will appreciate 00:20:03.466 --> 00:20:07.166 the awareness that you're not just because that 00:20:07.188 --> 00:20:10.830 you're not just continuing on and not caring if they understand it or not. 00:20:10.900 --> 00:20:14.478 Because also, if you're speaking and someone doesn't get something 00:20:14.644 --> 00:20:17.778 or it's not funny, it's not just that they stare back at you and you 00:20:17.784 --> 00:20:20.450 don't get the laugh in the moment their minds wander, 00:20:21.990 --> 00:20:25.806 you start to lose them. And then you're sort of digging yourself into 00:20:25.848 --> 00:20:29.638 this hole where they're not going 00:20:29.644 --> 00:20:33.222 to be paying as close attention because it's not really for 00:20:33.276 --> 00:20:36.406 them or they feel as if you haven't taken them into 00:20:36.428 --> 00:20:40.006 consideration or just their phone pings, so they take a look at 00:20:40.028 --> 00:20:43.466 it. And now you've dug yourself into a hole. Now you have to really 00:20:43.568 --> 00:20:47.254 work even harder to get that attention back, and it's easily 00:20:47.302 --> 00:20:51.082 avoidable. So the obvious time where humour can work really 00:20:51.136 --> 00:20:54.826 well is when someone's trying to heckle you or join 00:20:54.858 --> 00:20:58.654 in the conversation from the floor. As a speaker on stage, you can 00:20:58.772 --> 00:21:02.526 use comedy or humour as a put down as well, can't you? If you're 00:21:02.548 --> 00:21:06.286 careful, you can. That's always a 00:21:06.308 --> 00:21:08.578 line that you have to be careful if you're going to cross it, because you 00:21:08.584 --> 00:21:12.274 can't uncross it. There are times the best advice I 00:21:12.312 --> 00:21:15.518 got on that a guy who was a legendary 00:21:15.614 --> 00:21:19.126 comedian saw something happen to me and then said, 00:21:19.228 --> 00:21:23.046 here's what you do. First you have to vet the heckle, and 00:21:23.068 --> 00:21:26.854 that means you have to. Again, well, 00:21:26.892 --> 00:21:30.398 in a comedy club, you don't always have to acknowledge every single heckle. 00:21:30.514 --> 00:21:34.154 You don't have to acknowledge everything because sometimes it might distract you, but 00:21:34.192 --> 00:21:37.770 maybe it hasn't distracted the whole room. If someone says something, 00:21:37.920 --> 00:21:41.738 you have to repeat it back because you've heard it. But maybe the 00:21:41.744 --> 00:21:45.214 people in the back of the room haven't heard it. And I'm now gesturing towards 00:21:45.252 --> 00:21:47.950 the back of the room, which is perfect for a podcast, 00:21:49.810 --> 00:21:52.638 but maybe the people in the back of the room didn't hear it. So all 00:21:52.644 --> 00:21:56.058 of a sudden you just go off on someone and their friends stop what you're 00:21:56.074 --> 00:21:59.714 doing and go off on someone, and they're very puzzled, the people who 00:21:59.752 --> 00:22:03.234 didn't hear it. So you have to repeat it back, because also 00:22:03.352 --> 00:22:06.366 what has happened? And he told me a great story, I can't remember the phrase, 00:22:06.398 --> 00:22:09.910 but he told me a great story where he thought someone had heckled him, someone 00:22:09.980 --> 00:22:13.474 shouted out something, and he repeated back what he'd 00:22:13.522 --> 00:22:17.062 heard again, for that purpose of making sure everyone in the room heard it before 00:22:17.116 --> 00:22:20.962 he took that next step. Because if the heckle 00:22:21.026 --> 00:22:24.058 serves as a set up, then whatever he says to it would serve as the 00:22:24.064 --> 00:22:27.546 punchline. And you want everyone to have the context. But it turned out that's not 00:22:27.568 --> 00:22:31.046 what the person had said. The person was talking to the waitress about the chicken 00:22:31.078 --> 00:22:34.926 fingers, or whatever the order was. It wasn't give him the 00:22:34.948 --> 00:22:38.382 finger. Are those our fingers? Something that was just 00:22:38.436 --> 00:22:42.254 totally had nothing to do with him. It was distracting. But 00:22:42.292 --> 00:22:45.970 had he just jumped down her throat, it would have been 00:22:46.120 --> 00:22:49.490 inappropriate and unearned, which is a really 00:22:49.640 --> 00:22:53.406 tough thing. To get away from as you're 00:22:53.438 --> 00:22:56.630 talking. I think about humour as a sort of spectrum. 00:22:57.450 --> 00:23:01.174 There's the big gag that you're setting up and really 00:23:01.212 --> 00:23:04.962 sort of signposting and then trying to get this major laugh. Then there's 00:23:05.106 --> 00:23:08.818 humour, which is kind of an anecdote you're weaving into 00:23:08.844 --> 00:23:12.682 a story and the result is trying to make people 00:23:12.736 --> 00:23:15.980 feel and experience a different emotion inside them. 00:23:16.750 --> 00:23:20.042 So should you use jokes or should you use 00:23:20.096 --> 00:23:23.678 anecdotes that are humorous situation I appreciate, but 00:23:23.764 --> 00:23:27.278 in a professional talk, in a public speaking 00:23:27.444 --> 00:23:31.166 at work, you probably want to aim down the humour route rather than the 00:23:31.188 --> 00:23:34.640 gag route, wouldn't you? Is that what I'm thinking? Well, 00:23:35.010 --> 00:23:38.434 it depends. I'm not quite sure what you mean by 00:23:38.472 --> 00:23:42.098 gag. I mean, to me, whatever it is just has to be authentic to you. 00:23:42.184 --> 00:23:46.006 And if you're not a gag person, everyone has a different sense of 00:23:46.028 --> 00:23:48.150 humour. I'm quite dry. 00:23:52.490 --> 00:23:56.214 I might comment on something or allude to something, but 00:23:56.252 --> 00:23:59.834 I don't always try to hit it over the head because that's just not my 00:23:59.872 --> 00:24:03.446 style. But when I talk about humour in a professional 00:24:03.478 --> 00:24:07.034 situation, for speakers, I 00:24:07.072 --> 00:24:10.746 describe it as a seasoning. Sometimes. You 00:24:10.768 --> 00:24:13.886 don't always need a lot. If you think of it like salt, if you've got 00:24:13.908 --> 00:24:17.566 a very heavy talk, then just a little bit 00:24:17.748 --> 00:24:21.406 is going to be plenty. It's just enough to sort of 00:24:21.428 --> 00:24:24.914 relieve the tension, relieve a little bit of the pressure, give it some 00:24:24.952 --> 00:24:28.222 balance so that it's not just unrelentingly 00:24:28.286 --> 00:24:32.066 sad, but if it's a best man speech, there's an 00:24:32.088 --> 00:24:35.634