- How do you become successful and charismatic
like Jay Leno, Seinfeld and George Carlin?
Booked by over 500 companies worldwide,
Karyn is one of the few people in the world
to be inducted into the National Speakers Association
Hall Of Fame.
Today Dan Lok interviews Karyn on the secret
to enhancing your humor skills to become a better leader
with personal stories and cutting edge tips,
even if you don't have any stories,
speaking experience or confidence.
- When I started speaking when I was just
20 somewhat years old, right.
With me, I know with my accent,
with my background,
'cause you don't see a lot of speakers that are like,
especially like Chinese, right,
on a main stage so instead of hiding that,
in the beginning of my speech I would talk
a little bit about my story;
oh by the way, I would say something like
by the way some of my friends say I still speak
like Jackie Chan.
(laughing)
And then they all laugh right?
- Right, right? - There you go, right.
And then I always say how many of you think
I'm a little bit better than Jackie Chan?
(laughing)
And then they all laugh and, boom, it works.
- It does.
- So instead of hiding it,
now it's memorable, right?
- Yes. - They understand
and instead of oh yeah,
you speak with an accent,
no, no, you're better than that,
we can understand you, boom, right?
- Right. - It works.
- It totally works, it totally works.
It endears you to the audience.
You're addressing, basically it's almost like sales,
it's like you're addressing an objection.
They're like oh, wait a minute.
- I don't know, yeah.
- And it's like you've got it up there,
you're poking fun at it and here's what that does,
this is what people don't consciously think about,
but what you've done now is you've empowered yourself
because your ability to laugh at a situation
shows that you have a sense of confidence
and when you can portray that confidence in humor
now your audience is like whoa,
here's somebody who, he's confident enough
that he can make fun of himself.
- And also it's almost like
I don't take myself too seriously.
It's like I'm having a good time,
we talk about things and I'm here to share what I know
and you're gonna have a good time.
It's kinda that kind of feeling.
- It's humanizing and people wanna do business
with another human being.
- Yes, 100%.
- Not with something or someone that they feel is
unreachable or untrackable.
- And I think a lot of speakers,
because the minute you step on stage
you are already, you have a higher status.
You're seen as authority so I think,
if anything, any speaker who is communicating,
who is on stage, you should tone it down
and insert humor versus,
a lot of them, I think, because of insecurities
they try to build that up.
The minute they go on stage I see speakers to this, right.
They just start rambling their resume, right.
How good I am, what about this,
my background, I've done all these things.
It actually turns the audience off,
versus hey, let me tell you a funny story.
- Yes.
- On the way here this happened or that happened.
You look at even back then, Jay Leno.
- [Kathryn] Yes, I love Jay Leno.
- It's a perfect example, right?
It's always something, little things that happen
in his life and he would just talk about it.
Those are the dialogue that he has, I love that.
- And that's something that, again, a high performer,
and my definition of high performance humor
is when somebody uses humor intentionally,
for a desired outcome, and consistently
and so maybe your desired outcome,
like you said at that point,
is to strengthen your relationship and rapport
with the audience.
- Yes, to break the ice.
- And so we want to, how can we do that?
We can intentionally put in a little bit of humor.
If you want to establish rapport with your team
or something like that,
it's the little things that you're talking about
that go on the workplace, or happen in the business,
a lot of the inside humor that we can use
that other people are going what are they talking about?
But it really kind of just cements the relationship
for those on the inside who can laugh at themselves
in that bonding humor.
- Yes, and I think you think about, in our world,
where you have the educators
and then you have the entertainers.
- Yes.
- Some of the highest paid people in the world
are entertainers, right?
- Yes.
- It could be through humor, right?
And it's very interesting.
I look at even comedians, example,
you could look at the likes of Jim Carey,
you look at Jerry Seinfeld.
You might think they do silly things
but if you've even watched Jim Carey's speech,
he's actually incredibly intelligent.
- Yes.
- They are like super smart.
- Yes.
- And it's almost like they have a very deep understanding
of human beings, psychology, even life, right?
And they do silly things that make you laugh
and you went oh, he's that silly guy
but actually, in person, they are not like that at all.
- One of my most admired comedians of all time
was George Carlin.
Incredibly intelligent man who started out
in his early career as the hippie dippy weather man
but later went on to take on very important social issues
and really used humor as his method
of conveying his message and so a lot of the comics
and comedians that are admired and well known today,
a lot of them carry these social messages
because they recognize the power they've been given.
- That's how you get to the people.
- Yeah, but kind of a reverse of that is
that some of the highest paid teachers, speakers, experts
are ones who have learned to weave humor into their message
and a lot of times people have said
have you ever done stand up?
And I said yes, but I prefer to speak to
sober, non-smoking audiences,
and it pays a whole lot better.
I can make a smaller amount doing stand up
or I can get paid to deliver a serious message
really funny to a corporate audience.
And so to learn how to weave a little bit of those stories,
like you're talking about,
the everyday experiences that people have,
it doesn't have to be rocket science,
you don't have to try to come up with these
amazing jokes and insights.
- Sometimes it's just the short stories
with a punch line.
- Yes, yes.
- Share with us a couple of funny stories.
A couple of funny stories that are in your life, or?
- Oh my gosh, you know a lot of the stories
that people relate to, for me,
are ones where my children were growing up,
'cause a lot of people can relate.
Maybe they've either had a child,
they've been around someone else's child,
or they've been a child, you know?
And so one of my stories involved my youngest son
and I realized one morning it was time
for him to catch the bus and he hadn't even been down
for breakfast yet and so I'm calling up
to my first grader, there's no answer,
I call up again, no answer,
and so I go up the stairs and as I put my hand
on the doorknob I hear this strange noise
coming from his room and I slowly push the door open
and there's my first grader jumping up and down
on his bed in his underwear and he's swinging
his school clothes over his head
and he's kicking and singing and dancing
and I lost it, I looked at him and I said
what do you think you're doing?
And he stopped jumping up and down
and he looked at me and he said
mom, don't ya think getting up in the morning
oughta be more fun?
And I thought no!
And then I'd share that with my audience
and I'd say how would that be if we could get up
in the morning and have more fun?
- Maybe not in the underwear.
- Maybe you don't have to be jumping up and down
on your bed, or swinging your underwear over your head
but maybe if we could just,
what if going to work could be more fun?
What if just getting up in the morning
could be more fun?
And that it is a choice that we have.
Everything we do is a choice,
even not to choose is a choice.
- That's true, that's true.
- And so choosing to have fun,
choosing to have humor.
We all had that childlike perspective when we were little
but it was socialized out of us by our teachers
and by our parents and by our bosses
and we think oh my gosh, we have to button up
and we have to be serious.
But we can still do serious work,
and as you mentioned, take ourselves lightly.
- I think it's so true that you mentioned that
because I notice even, let's say at conferences, right.
Let's say you go to a conference,
it could be a trade show and people are like,
very serious, the whole day, right?
And the topics are very dry,
you listen to the speaker and you take notes,
but then after the conference,
maybe in the evening, they go have dinner,
have a drink, go to the bar.
- Right, then they're having fun.
- And then you can hear the laughter, right?
It's the same group of people in the pub,
in the bar, in the restaurant,
now they're having fun, they're drinking a little bit,
they're a bit more relaxed.
That, to me, is how the conference should be.