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It’s true. Telling jokes can help you become a better and more interesting speaker.

Really.

This is how it all began for me…

I’ve never been a natural at telling a joke; I was always one of those people who would unintentionally, yet ruthlessly, massacre it. I’d start off strong and by the third sentence I had already left out the critical part so I’d stop, back up, go again, mix up my words, stop, backtrack and by the time I arrived at the punch line, the joke had already died several times over, never to be resurrected.

It didn’t occur to me to work on my jokes – by “work on” I mean rehearse. It sounded stupid. Jokes are supposed to be spontaneous and uncontrived. Who practices their jokes??

Then I heard about stand up comics who would rehearse their routines. I didn’t realize they did that because their act would always appear so natural. Of course, it was natural because the comedian practiced. I finally made the connection that if I rehearsed my jokes then maybe I’d have more success in the telling and relieve everyone from their suffering as I verbally bumbled my way through.

So I chose one of my favourite jokes and practiced it…for three days.

Yep, you read it right – ONE joke, THREE days. Crazy, but true. That gives you an indication how inept I was.

I went over and over it until I could recite the joke from beginning to end without stumbling or backtracking and until it flowed. Once I had the joke content in my head, I was able to have some fun with it – I acted out the characters either vocally, physically, or both. Nothing dramatic or anything, but enough to bring it alive. I tried to tell it like a story, portraying the characters by making my voice either louder or softer, lower or higher, whatever gave the narrative some dimension. I also used facial expressions, body language and gestures for emphasis and depth.

I kept rehearsing and by the third day, I was ready. I joined my friends for after work drinks, told my joke in the correct sequence with my rehearsed vocal and physical expressions and, get this, they laughed! wooooo hoooooo! I couldn’t believe it! For the first time in my life, I actually told a joke that made people laugh. It was a small victory but, at the time, it felt big.

This positive reinforcement encouraged me to learn and practice a few more jokes. Over time and without realizing it, my newly developed skill of joke telling melded with my style of conversing. I began recounting daily scenarios in a way I’d tell a joke and they became stories. While most often there was no punch line, they were more interesting when I incorporated the “techniques” I was using when telling jokes.

While practicing jokes doesn’t seem like much, they gave me the skills to speak in a way that was more entertaining and interesting. I noticed that people listened better as I became more animated and dynamic. By the way, this doesn’t apply just to stories that were funny or happy either; it applies to sad or difficult stories too. These skills improved my overall ability to communicate.

I’d recommend giving this a try if you’d like to improve your speaking skills; it worked really well for me. Fortunately, I no longer have to practice jokes for three days but that initial effort had an unintentional yet significant positive impact on my “regular” speaking. It was a double win: not only did I finally learn how to tell a good joke, but also I learned how to keep people’s attention when I speak.

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PS. If you have a few minutes this Saturday, please stop by again - I’m posting a very short video that I think is pretty amusing…I just have to find it again…I hope you’ll enjoy it too.

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