Laugh Tactics: Master Conversational Humor and Be Funny On Command - Think Quickly On Your Feet

Introduction

One of my favorite pastimes has always been watching standup comedy.

Originally, it wasn’t even for the laughs and entertainment. I was interested because I had been trying to improve my public speaking skills and I wanted to study the presentation of the comedians. What were they doing to captivate audiences like they were, and in a way that business presenters and professors certainly weren’t?

I started by intending to study their posture, body language, gestures, and manner of pacing, but I only lasted about five minutes before I was completely distracted and engrossed by what was happening on stage.

And that’s when it struck me – being funny on command and making people laugh for an hour straight is one of the most difficult tasks in the world. What you’re really doing is evoking an emotion whenever you want, at will. Movies and television shows spend millions trying to do that, and most of them still fail or can only do so in lukewarm ways.

People cry at movies sometimes, but not nearly as frequently as the producers and directors would want. And if the movie goes overboard, then suddenly it becomes cheesy and saccharine. Jokes in movies often fall flat, and even horror movies tend to rely on jump scares (a sudden noise or flash) rather than actual terror.

But comedians get on stage and make people laugh and guffaw for an hour straight, which is arguably one of the strongest emotions of all.

Impressive, right?

At first I thought it was purely talent-based and some people are just funnier than others. If there’s a bell curve, there are obviously outliers. Some of us can run a mile in under seven minutes with no sweat, and others need an inhaler to walk up a short flight of stairs. We all have different predispositions.

But it wasn’t until I investigated a little further and started reading about the comedy and joke writing process that I found that there were certain puns, premises, jokes, setups, and methods of delivery that were essentially formulaic.

Basically, there were patterns, steps, and even rules that even the most famous of comedians tended to follow – they had simply mastered them and could play with every type of variation instinctively.

Let’s take a quick example - you may have noticed that comedians tend to talk about airports, sex, gender differences, and race.

That’s because one of the rules that comedians follow is that their jokes have to be easily relatable and understandable – otherwise only about 10% of any given audience will be laughing. Therefore, they have to try to speak on universal themes and struggles.

There’s no world in which I can claim to be a professional comedian, but by studying and breaking down exactly what the best in the world do to make people cry with laughter, I’ve found that there ways to be reliably, consistently, and constantly funny in conversation.

When you find the patterns and basic principles of what tends to make people laugh, you’ll start to see jokes form before they even happen in front of your eyes. That’s the best part – many of us feel like we struggle with normal conversation in general because it’s so unpredictable. When something is unpredictable, it feels like we constantly have to adapt and think on our feet, and that’s a scary proposition because it feels like it’s only a matter of time before you slip up.

Laugh Tactics allows you to completely circumvent this feeling. When all you need to see is a pattern, a phrase, or a setup to have a joke immediately start to form in your head, you can say goodbye to the scariness of unpredictability.

Being a funnier conversationalist on a daily basis is equally about your mindset and approach, and just seeing life through a lens of play and humor versus a literal interpretation.

When someone asks you about their day, you can choose to answer literally, or you can make an observation about their jacket reminding you about Michael Jackson’s jacket from the Thriller music video.

The goal for any type of change is to internalize it until it becomes a habit. I’m giving you step-by-step breakdowns to achieve this and become the charming and witty speaker you’ve always wanted to become.

Think fast!

P.S. I’m going to be talking a lot about delivery, tactics, and how to be funny… but you’ll be reading it on a page devoid of most of those things that make it funny… and broken down in a clinical manner. Keep that in mind, and when you read them to yourself, try to inject the delivery and tone of voice to bring them to life. After all, visualization is the first step to action!

Chapter 1. The Real Power of Being Funny

Visualize one of the worst days you’ve had at work in the past year.

What happened?

Maybe you broke the printer, you missed a crucial email, or you just came to work in a bad mood and alienated the entire office. On top of that, you just got a call from your landlord, and a water pipe burst in your home, flooding your bedroom. As a finale, there’s a huge traffic jam, and you won’t be able to get home for another three hours.

It’s a bad day. It happens.

You decide to take a walk outside to clear your head, and you happen to see a dog refusing to walk, being literally dragged through the grass on a lease by his annoyed owner.

You can’t help but laugh at the absurdity of it, which gives you a mental reprieve from your day and puts things into perspective. Your mood is instantly elevated and you take a picture to share with your friends.

That’s the real power of humor. It allows us to get through our daily lives in the worst of times, and at the best of times, it allows us to be our best selves in front of other people.

Humor is an important part of our lives, and one of the primary emotions that drive us on a daily basis. It enhances many aspects of our lives, while also serving as an important coping mechanism to make other parts bearable.

It can immediately transform a bad day into a better day with some bad parts, as you can see from the example above.

Humor is great in getting through the tough times of life. Life is a series of valleys and peaks – if your life is a flat line, it’s arguably worse and more tedious. No one worries when you’re peaking, but when you’re in a valley, such as if you lose your job, you have to find a way to cope and roll with the punches.

If that isn’t bad enough, there is also the issue of our fears, our failures, and our hang-ups. A sense of humor, or the ability to create laughter, can diffuse the negative effect of the challenges we face and give us some perspective. It allows us to relax.

It can take interpersonal situations from tense and raw and make them tolerable. Humor enables us to diffuse these tensions, see the inherent silver lining and take things into perspective.

There are so many opportunities for tension and conflict in our lives. Even with people you know, there will be a situation where you rub them the wrong way, or they do the same to you. There’s always the possibility that people mistake what you say or take your actions the wrong way.

Humor makes social interaction much easier. It lets people drop their guard and allow themselves to be comfortable with each other. Even if tension builds to a potentially explosive stage, a little bit of humor can diffuse what would have otherwise been a negative situation.

There’s a reason that many successful standup comedians were late bloomers, or were picked on when they younger. They developed their sense of humor as defense mechanisms against those who laughed at them at their expense. They were able to being the butt of a joke into deflecting it to a collaborative joke. Humor lets people live their lives.

Aside from dealing with life’s adversities, humor allows you to showcase the best sides of your personality – your cleverness, intellect, and wit.

We get to showcase what is so special about