Transcripts
1. Introduction: I normally hear the quote, a picture is worth
a thousand words. You know what, I
don't hear enough. How important a laugh is. It doesn't matter what
you say after a laugh. Once you get somewhat
chuckling, afterwards, whatever you say, they
are paying attention to. Now, if you're someone
that's overly logical, you may use numbers and
facts little too much, and you may undermine
the importance of humor. In this beginner's
class on comedy, you're going to
understand, number one, what is the value of humor? What is it? It's something that's
very difficult to grasp. But once you internalize
it, once you feel it, that's when it's
much easier to get this feeling and transmitted
into other people. You're going to understand
how to start being funny. You're going to understand
how humor is subjective, along with plenty
of other topics. If you're ready to level
up your humor game, I look forward to
seeing you inside.
2. What is Humor?: Humor is the ability
to make someone laugh. That's it. We don't want
it to be too complex. Because whenever we make
something too complex, the chances are we reduce our
likelihood of being funny. Think about it. What do you find funny? Around 2005 to 2006, I recall there was
this thing called YouTube that was
becoming very popular. And one of the videos
that I saw captivated me. It was a little baby that
was with his father. And the baby would burst out laughing whenever it would
tear a piece of paper. Soon as the dad saw this, I he would keep feeding
his baby a more paper. You just give them
another piece of paper. The baby would grasp it, Rip it, start
chuckling some more. The more debt baby laughed. The more the father laughed, the more both of them laughed, the more that I laughed. Soon I was getting
addicted to this video, are starting to introduce
it to a different people. Let's say I introduced
the video to ten people. At least five to six of them, shared my interests
in this video. While the other people
there were like, Why are you showing me
this for this is trash. On that particular day, I understood that humor is the ability to
make someone laugh, but the ability to make
someone laugh is subjective. This is a topic that we're gonna be covering more shortly.
3. Setting the Intent: In the initial stages, if you're someone that
finds yourself stiff, overly logical, you
don't find yourself enjoying yourself in
social situations. Then the most important thing in regards to humor is intent. Which means that you need to enter the interaction,
the story, with the intent of saying, I need to make them
laugh, at least once. Simply setting that
intent will change the entire theme of whatever story that you're
telling immediately. There's this looseness to you. In the beginning stages, you have to set the intent. If you do not feel good, if you're overly stiff, you're not just going to
magically feel less stiff. You need to set the intent. And the more that
you keep sending the intent for each interaction
that you're entering, each video that
you are recording. And each time that
you're with yourself, the more that you
start to change your perception and start to
invite humor into your life.
4. Autopilot Humor: You've been sending the
intent for some time. Eventually what's going
to happen is that humor is simply going to be a
part of your reality. Did you ever notice those people that are naturally funny? Sure. There are certain people
that are naturally funny. But a lot of people
who we nowadays consider funny in the
beginning stages, they were not funny. A comedians are a
lot like fighters. If you trace back the
life of a fighter, a plenty of them will tell you that in the beginning
of their journey, they were shy, they were weak, and they would
always get beat up. And since they would
get beat up so much, eventually, they had
that fire in the belly. The purpose to train. The more that they trained, the more they would recall the rock bottom moment
of getting beat up, the more powerful they
eventually became. Likewise with a lot of
comedians hear their story. You'll also see a
stunning parallel. A lot of them started off geeky. They were all lead. They were made fun of. So they set the intent in
their original stage and they continued to practice humor either by themselves
or with people. And soon what began to happen was it became
autopilot for them. It's a lot like driving. In the beginning stages, you're putting in a lot
of conscious effort. But later on, humor becomes ingrained in
your personality. And it is simply who you are.
5. Telling a Joke: A joke is simply a pattern
interrupt. That's it. So you're going a certain mode, suddenly the pattern
is interrupted. And this change
in the pattern is what creates energy and the other person and
makes them laugh. Allow me to give you an example. A few years back, there was a period when I was going from Tampa to West Palm Beach
and I was taking the train. On this particular day. The train was late. It wasn't just 20 minutes late, 30 minutes late,
45 minutes late. It was over two hours delayed. Here was the issue, and no one was
giving us updates. So every second that passes by where the passengers
weren't being given an update. We were getting angrier
and angrier. And angrier. Eventually, a guy
with a train uniform. You could tell that he works
in this train station. I came by and he was
trying to break the ice. He's like, Why does everyone
here it looks all sad for that's when the passengers
started to rip into him. They were like,
What do you mean? Why were so upset for
this place is a junk. Because think about it.
We've been here for so long and not a single one of you guys are giving
us an update on when the train is going to
be here. Shame on you. This poor guy. He's over
here trying to tell a joke or be lighthearted. He's overhear getting yelled at. So this was the pattern that was set a very
hostile environment. Suddenly this worker
breaks the pattern. He's like, why did the
bird go to the hospital? Passengers are ******. They were like, What
was this guy saying? Once again, this guy was like, why did the bird go
to the hospital? Since no one was
saying anything. I was like, Why? That's when this guy was
like to get a treatment. And once that happened, this entire passengers
that were ****** off before burst out
laughing, me included. Now, I'm not going to lie. That joke was pretty corny. But if you think about it, he executed the joke to perfection. There was a certain pattern of aggression and not feeling
good or very dark emotions. As suddenly he
inserted himself in the situation and made it
a light-hearted moment. Throughout your life, you'll see plenty of moments like that. And if you have no
clue where to look, look at embarrassing
moments in your life. I look at dark
moments in your life and try to extract
one lesson from it. As you are talking
about this dark story, I keep making it darker
and darker and darker. And you're creating
this very dark theme for the person that's
listening to you. Then suddenly a put in
the lesson, the insight. And you will change
up the pattern. And by changing up the pattern at this
other person is going to feel shocked whether they're consciously aware of it or not. They're nervous system is going
to feel a flux of energy. And that is what's going
to make them laugh. Now you may be thinking,
Okay, I get it. I mean, you're setting
a certain pattern, then you interrupt it. I get it. That's what a joke is. But what if they don't laugh? That's something that
we're going to be addressing in the next video.
6. When No One Laughs: So what if they don't laugh? This is something that
all comedians go through. This person from the story that I was telling you
in the prior video. The worker, he tried
telling that joke of the treatment to his wife
and she didn't laugh. But Hem inserting
that same exact joke with the passengers,
they laughed. This goes on to show that
humor is highly subjective. And this is something a
lot of comedians know. I'd normally, what
we're seeing is there a big comedy special. But what we don't see is
that a lot of comedians, they're going to
different comedy clubs. They're practicing
their material. They're seeing what hits
and what doesn't hit. And over time, they're
building insights. And a lot of these comedians, they'll say that, look, I mean, this joke that I put in my
comedy special for a lot of these clubs that
I was operating in, they weren't laughing. They were actually
booing me when I said that joke that God loves
and the comedy special. What does that mean for you? What that means is that you need to put
yourself out there, a unit to try to be funny. And a lot of the times
in the initial stages, others will not find you funny. And you still need to maintain that enthusiasm and keep
pushing forward anyways. Now here's another humorous
thing about all of this. A lot of the times you're not
going to try to be funny, but still you're going to get
a chuckle out of someone. I recall one of
the times that it happened to me was when I was sending out a email on
my daily e-mail list. One day, a girl
response back to me. And she's like, hey, your last e-mail was
so freaking funny. I was laughing nonstop. And I thought about it. The last email I sent was
a pretty serious e-mail. What do you mean
you found it funny? Are you seeing them
some type of joke? And I responded back to her. I was like, what did you
find funny about that? And she responds back
with this big paragraph. And apparently in that email, I use this particular
word called Toastmasters. And it activated a memory in her mind of toast
and choose sharing a story about how
her grandpa used to always burn the toast whenever they were
going camping. A shoe is sharing that story. How funny it was. She tied in that humor of the
burnt toast to my e-mail, which made her think
that I was funny. I wasn't trying to
make her laugh yet. She found me to be humorous. So at times, you're
going to try to make people laugh and they
are not going to laugh. Other times. You're not going to try to
make people laugh, yet. They're still going to laugh. And if you ask me,
That's pretty funny.
7. Watch Comedians: Step number one is
to watch comedians. These comedians that you see, they didn't just get
there like that. They spent years and years
were finding their craft, working on their timing, seeing what jokes hit. With jokes fall flat. They gathered the data and
then they performed the data. If you think about it,
they're cooky scientists. So the more that you
watch comedians, the more that you will
expose yourself to humor. And the more that you
become the sponge, sir, to see their mannerisms, their body language,
their micro-expressions, how they build up a story, how they deliver that homemaker. Along with plenty of other nuances that will
speed up your journey. Why some comedians and
level up your humor?
8. Smile: Another bonus tip is to smile while you're
saying something. There was a period when I was in this public speaking
club and out compete against this one other
speaker who always went. And I didn't like this because this other speaker didn't
use that many words. What he would do a lot was
that he had this smiling face. Anytime he will say something, he had this default smile as
he was delivering the words. Even when he wasn't
delivering the words, he was still over
here smiling away. This caused a lot of the
audience members to laugh. And soon as you make the
audience members laugh, normally, you're going
to win the competition. And each time he would beat me. Eventually one day,
a curiosity got the best of me and I went
up to him and I'm like, You take a lot of positives. You use your body a lot. Why? That's when he gave me
a brilliant insight. He was like, So before coming to this
public speaking club, I was an actor. Unfortunately, I'm
a failed actor. I never lived out my dreams
and being in movies. But they taught me something and they taught me something that
changed my life forever. You don't just communicate
to someone's ears. You also have to communicate
to someone's eyes. And that's when I just
had this massive insight because this entire time in
this public speaking club, I'm over here using
all these words, trying to communicate
what someone's ears. Here he is giving me his secret. You need to talk to
the eyes as well. So a lot of the
times people don't laugh because they have no clue that you're
telling a joke. But if you smile, not only do you feel good, you make them feel good as well. And you make them ripe to give
them a comedic experience.
9. Final Project: For the final project,
it's time for you to be a comedian yourself. Your goal is to create a joke and deliberate in your
medium of choice. It could be through
a YouTube video. It could be in a conversation, it could be through a text. Your main goal is to set the intent to make
someone laugh. That's it. That's
all you have to do. Once your interaction is done, I want you to create a final report that answers
the following question. How was it like setting the
intent to make someone laugh? I didn't feel
comfortable at did you deliver your message in a different way than
you're accustomed to? The other person laugh. How did it feel making
another person laugh? Get as detailed as you would
like in this final report. The more adept that you
bring into the report, the more a perspective that
you will gain towards humor, and the easier it will be to break patterns in
the near future. If you enjoyed this
beginner's class into comedy, and you would like to learn more about the
Armani talks brand. Be sure to check out
our money talks.com, which has a lot of my blogs, YouTube videos, podcasts, jokes, and much more. Armani talks.com. Go on and check it out.
Arman Chowdhury, Confidence thru Communication
