Although this is a good formula for humor it also is risky. As a public speaker you need to be very careful about offending members of your audience.

Self Effacing Humor - It's a Safe Way to Get a Laugh

Although this is a good formula for humor it also is risky. As a public speaker you need to be very careful about offending members of your audience. 

Here is one method that I stumbled upon when I started speaking in public. I had heard references to it (Self effacing humor) and it worked for me – but I didn’t know all of the science behind it.

Like many people I have had a variety of experiences. It is those experiences that help shape who we are. In many cases they help make us interesting to other people.

 All of that sounds pretty boring (trust me, the physics behind the electron beams could put you to sleep fast). It’s the little stories around those jobs that allowed me to turn them into interesting speeches. For instance, I’m probably one of the few people who operated a Cobalt-60 at the age of 16. Not particularly funny – but interesting. Most people’s first question is, “How did you get such a job?” The answer makes for an interesting speech.

When I wanted to add humor I started adding the events that occurred that might be viewed as negative. With the right spin, I ended up making them funny – so funny in fact that I won a number of humorous speech contests.

For instance, working on a dairy farm taught me a lot of things. It taught me the importance of hard work, dedication, self reliance and achieving goals. All of these thoughts went into a significant speech about life lessons – but without humor in the speech fifty percent of my audience wouldn’t have remembered a word of it the next day.

The truth is, I experienced all sorts of mishaps on the farm. For instance, I was kicked by cows. No, I mean really kicked by them. I was kicked in the nose, the stomach, the groin, and the ribs. Unfortunate at the time? Yes. However, isn’t this a recipe for the humor we talked about. The audience loves to laugh at people who are in a situation that they don’t want to be in. With the right spin and imagery these unfortunate events made for a very funny speech. It was a speech that communicated the attributes of dedication, etc while entertaining the audience. That is a speech that will be remembered.

Remember, if you’re going to make fun of someone while speaking, one of the safest people to do it to is yourself. Your audience will love it and you are unlikely to be offensive. Are there situations that you can use to entertain your audience? Start thinking about how you might use them in your next speech.

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Copyright © 2007 David Mudie All Rights Reserved

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