Comedy – How to be Funny

Have Fun

I am not funny. Any amusement I provide others is purely by accident. I can’t tell a joke, relate an amusing event or embellish a speech or presentation with any levity. If you can do any of these things, please move on to some other post because you don’t need my assistance. For all others, I share some resources and a tip or two that may help.

Stand up Comedy

It never crossed my mind to become a stand-up comic – until this week. It isn’t that I somehow decided that I want to make a living from stand up comedy. What I did decide is that just because I can’t do stand up comedy now is no reason why I can’t learn to do stand up comedy.

I continue to forget that human beings have this wonderful ability to learn. I tell myself repeatedly that I am just not good at x or y or z. This lets me off the hook. I don’t have to be responsible for that limitation – because it is not my nature. I let myself be limited. I don’t have to accept that limitation. I can learn to do new things. So that is why I was thinking about becoming a stand up comic. Where would I go to learn how to do stand up comedy?

Well, one place is this website providing training and encouragement for stand-up comics and stand-up comic wannabes. It is hard work to become good as a stand-up comic. But the comments show that there are lessons to learn and that by serious effort and discipline you can improve. I may not want to be a stand-up comic but I can clearly learn some good communication tools from comics and maybe even how to make people laugh.

Telling a Joke

You won’t be surprised to learn that until this week, I never lifted a finger to improve my joke-telling ability either. I was happy to tell people that I lack the ability to tell a joke and smile while they suffer through my heavy and dull presentations. Joke-telling is another of those skills that I dismissed as innate and therefore beyond my ability to learn. It also saved me the effort of learning how to tell a joke and practicing to improve my skill. There are a few principles to guide you in learning how to tell a joke and a number of places easily available on the web to provide them. Check them out here and here.

Funny writing

Nobody ever asked me to write something funny, certainly not at work. Maybe I was asked at school but if so, I don’t remember. So if I were going to write a humorous essay or story, it would be for my own pleasure. “Who teaches students to write humor?” I wondered. Then I found Connie Weiss who teaches humorous writing.

My point here is really not about comedy or humor. It’s about our willingness to self-limit our potential rather than accepting the opportunity to learn and grow. I will no longer excuse myself by saying that I can’t tell a joke.  I will accept that joke telling is something that has not been important enough for me to learn.  And then tell myself that it is about time for me to change.