Page 94 - Kindness - No Forward

We Must Use Humor and Personal Stories

World-class presentations involve the use of humor and personal
stories. PORPOISES and KOALAS demand this.

However, most speakers tend to stay on their information. I call this
their safety zone. It is a tendency to discuss the information we are
most comfortable with, being a little hesitant to venture off into humor
and stories of a personal nature.

This is a big mistake. Your audience wants to hear about you. This is
the only way they can grow to relate to you. Only by knowing a little
about your beliefs, background, and feelings can the come to relate to
you. And this relating is what effective presentations are all about.

I don’t mean that we need to go into a lot of detail about our personal
lives. What I do mean is we need to make brief, occasional references
to what it is that makes us tick so our audiences can learn a little about
us.
“As I was taking my son to college for the first time…” “When I picked
up my basset hound from the vet…” “As a tried and true Cardinals
fan….”

All of these types of statements woven into our speeches or
presentations tell a little about us and create relaxing opportunities to
relate to our audience.

Humor works that same way. However, ineffective humor can kill a
presentation or speech. There are two times to use humor and only
two.

We can use humor when we KNOW we are going to get be funny.
Nothing is better than getting a big laugh from our group. Nothing is
worse, however, than trying to be funny and failing. If you are sure that
your humor will work, use it.

Absent that, we can use humor when we are sure that we can recover if
we’re not funny!

There is a simple way to accomplish this.

Remember, we are not trying to be comedians; we are trying to get our
message across. By making sure that our personal stories and humor
support the main message, we can recover from not being funny with a
quick transition by saying, “The reason that I tell that story is….”