Here is a very interesting article by Dave Firzgerald, who was Darren LaCroix’s comedy mentor. Darren won the World Champion of Public Speaking in 2001. You can contact Darren on his website. He has loads of great books, tapes and CD’s available there.
Thanks to Darren for reprint permission!
Anyone Can Learn to Be Funnier!By Dave Fitzgerald (Darren’s comedy mentor)
Most people watching a good professional comedian on stage are truly impressed and usually a little bit envious… and rightfully so! Who doesn’t want to be funnier, if not all the time, at least some of the time?
What makes the comedian so funny? Some of it is “natural talent” to be sure, a certain twisted outlook or a peculiar way of speaking that just grips us from the first minute. But if you ask any real pro how he manages to look so smooth and confident “up there,” the honest answer will be “STAGE TIME.” It is “STAGE TIME” that helps the comic develop his on stage persona and, equally as important, (maybe more so) his material!
By the time you see a “comedy routine ” performed on national television, it has been done in front of live audiences several hundreds, if not thousands of times. This is a daunting task and few people are willing and able to do what it takes to get to that level of success in Stand Up Comedy. The point is nobody is getting up there and just spewing out incredibly funny ideas – one right after the other! It takes hard work which means practice-practice- practice! Jay Leno still goes to comedy clubs to work out his material for the upcoming week’s monologues! When I made my first national television appearance on “EVENING AT THE IMPROV,” I had been doing the bulk of the material for at least two years and had worked on that exact 7 minute set every night for two weeks!
But what about the professional business person who doesn’t need to be funny all the time, but knows that humor is an incredibly powerful and attractive asset? Whether you use humor in a presentation to a large audience or at a one-on-one lunch date…people remember who made them laugh… and why wouldn’t they! Nothing else in life feels so good that is free, legal and can be done anywhere with your clothes on!…. and what about with clothes off?… For most of us that’s an even bigger laugh!!
The main point here is that anyone can learn to be funnier! It is NOT one of those things that “you either have it or you don’t.” Just how funny can you become? Everyone is different and some people will have to work harder than others but everyone can be funnier than they are right now!
Hope you enjoyed it!-Darren