(upbeat music)
- [Narrator] Karyn Buxman is an international speaker
and successful author of eight books.
Booked by more than 500 companies worldwide
Karyn is one of the few people in the world to be inducted
into the National Speaker Associations, 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 tip.
- So when I'm teaching,
same thing, I try to weave humor in stories.
You gotta make it interesting for people, right?
And even when I, I'll give you a perfect example.
When I decided on to share some of my personal hobbies,
just like, hey, I'll collect like superheroes
and stuff like that, the toys and all that,
I talked to a couple of consultants.
Oh no, you don't wanna do that,
like the image consultant, right?
You know, you've got your brand,
you've got your thing and you shouldn't,
no, people don't take you seriously.
I'm like,
(grinning)
it just feels right.
- Yes.
- Right, it feels is right thing to do, right?
And so I thought, you know what, I'm gonna just gonna do it.
So I did it and people love it.
And not only that builds a new audience, but it's who I am.
I think it's another dimension
to what I do versus always,
always business is always serious that we can,
oh no, we can have fun too.
When my wife, Jenny and I, we did the new series
on my channel called Alpha Men Smart Woman.
- Oh, great, right?
- So basically, it's just our relationship and we talk
about like how we met, it's just a funny things, right?
- Yes, yes.
- And Jenny would go,
like they say shopping and we do the unboxing and I'll be,
Oh my God what did you buy this time, right?
Right, it's like this kind of a humor?
And people love that.
People will love that.
- Well you're bringing up an interesting point.
And that is that whether people are looking for a leader,
- Yes.
- Or whether they're looking for a lover.
One of the top three traits they're looking for,
is sense of humor.
- That's true.
If we were to serve here a hungrier woman, right?
- Exactly.
I'm very fortunate to have both in my life.
My husband, Greg Godek is actually the author
of 1,001 Ways to Be Romantic.
(laughing)
But one of the things that brought us together was the fact
that he's very funny and he's very romantic,
but the creativity, the humor and the romance,
those all go together.
And when you can bring humor into your relationship,
kind of a funnier side, when men and women are looking
for someone with a sense of humor,
women want someone who will make them laugh.
- Yes.
- Men On the other hand are looking
for someone who will laugh at their jokes.
- It's true, it's true, It's true.
- We're looking for slightly different things.
- It's true, it's true.
- But, you know, people desire humor and so they want
it in their leaders, they want it in their lovers,
they would want it in people they do business with.
And so to intentionally look for ways to put this in,
how do I do this?
And just those wonderful human connections
that this is something you and I have in common.
Comicon, I walked to Comicon,
and it's just down the street from us,
the superheroes, the marvel characters.
And when I am posting the pictures of Iron Man
and all this other people either Walking Dead
on my Instagram, you know, people are going nuts,
they're blowing it up because it's that fun human connection
and they're like, oh yeah, you like Iron Man,
I like Iron Man too.
Yeah, and we just, we love those fun connections.
It doesn't have to be all about how smart I am
and how successful I am.
- It's true, it's true.
- It's the human part.
- And I think it is those,
it not only makes you more human more relatable,
- Yes.
- Right, as a expert, as a speaker or as a business person.
- Yes.
- Right, all of that.
And I think most of them, they're so afraid
to share their part, right?
And I think growing up, I think most of us at least,
I think we're still like a child,
we are all childish, just in like adult form.
- Yes. Yes.
- And I think in, this is going deep in terms
of communication and persuasion.
This is what I believe in.
That if we have the adult talking to the adult,
there's always a wall.
Cause it's adult talk to adult, right?
- It's interesting, yeah.
- Right?
I'm like I'm this CEO I'm this like, you know,
this kind of person, or I'm this expert, right?
But when you have a child talking to a child,
suddenly you just bond.
Cause you look at kids,
how they could think about, like think about your kids.
You go to the playground and you take them too,
they can meet other kids and within seconds they just bond.
- Right.
- Like they don't know each other
and then they're running around doing slides
and it's like they just,
but adults don't, the parents are like.
Yeah, (mumbling)
- Right, you know, the kids aren't looking
at what kind of clothing you have--
- Yeah, no judgment, no it isn't.
- You know, what color of their hair is
or anything like that.
- Yeah, they just boom, they just bond, right?
It's the adult, Oh Hi, how are you Yeah,
it's good, your way goes, like this kind of stuff.
But kids they're just running around having fun.
I think it's the same thing in communication.
Where if I can do like communicate child to child,
- Yes.
- Then it's instant bonding.
- Yes.
- It's so powerful.
So Karyn, how could someone train themselves
to be more like funnier or more humorous?
Like how could they do that?
- You know, in my book, Funny Means Money, I have--
- I love the title by the way.
- Thank you.
- Funny Means Money.
- Strategic humor for influence and world domination.
Cause I mean really this is what connects the world.
And part of my mission is to make the world
a better place through humor.
You know, one laugh at a time, one smile at a time.
But I think the very first thing
that's most important is just the attitude.
Because so many, you know, and I say,
look for the humor around you every day, what's funny?
Ask Yourself, what am I missing?
And some people push back and they say,
Oh, you don't understand.
There's nothing funny happening in my life.
- Yes.
- And if that's your belief, that's your reality.
- That's your life.
- Because you see what, you know, seeing is believing.
And believing is seeing.
And so if you believe there's no humor,
that's what the world is gonna give you.
But if you ask the world,
what's funny?
What am I missing?
You start hearing things.
You start seeing things.
I was in Miami, I'm behind somebody at the hotel desk
and the person is asking the hotel clerk,
can you tell me which beach is closest to the water?
I'm going, wait a minute.
Which beach is closest to the water?
You know, and it was like,
you don't have to make this stuff up.
Somebody was telling me in Denver that somebody asked
their hotel personnel,
what time of year do your deer turn into elk?
It's like the crazy things that people say,
the crazy signs that you see.
And--
- Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, It's true.
- If you, and I encourage people to write these down
because so often you think, oh, that's so funny.
I'm gonna remember this.
I don't know about you, but I can't tell
you what I had for breakfast yesterday.
You know, and I can remember,
oh, there was something funny, what was it?
But I journal and I also now, the little more technology
I ever know, you know, on my phone.
Boom, boom, boom, boom, and--
- Or take a photo of it, it is funny.
- Photo, absolutely.
And posting those on Instagram.
Here's something that's very humbling for me
because I've been researching this field for 30 years.
I know I'm an expert, I'm a neurohumorist.
I know more about this than anybody.
And I post these posts and thoughts
that I think are so profound.
The posts that I posted that has gotten the most hits
of anything I've ever posted,
was when I was in someone's home and in their bathroom,
I noticed that they had
the toilet paper roll facing differently
than how I would have put it.
And so I took a picture of the toilet paper roll,
I put it on Instagram and Facebook and I said,
all I said was up or down, and
(puffing)
I mean, the dialogue, the argument,
no, the toilet paper roll goes paper over the top.
No, it goes under.
And all these, and it was just hysterical.
But it was like, everybody it's like, you know,
it is a little humbling when those are the things
that people engage in more than
our profound thoughts and insights.
- Let the court that we spend so much time writing, no.
Toilet paper Boom!
- Toilet paper, Puuh!
Yeah.
- It's so funny, its awesome.
- Blows up, blows up.