One of the things I do for my speech coaching clients is to help them add humor to their presentations. Sometimes I do this with them face-to-face, sometime they send me the notes of their speech and I email them the changes. Recently I did a comedy “punch up” to an already wonderful story written by an Endodontist (they do root canals) in Florida. He was preparing to share the story of the reroofing of his office, and the huge list of problems the roof repair caused. His audience for the story was the general dentists that refer patients to him. This Endodontist is a warm, gregarious person, but the story he wrote sounded too much like a rant of complaints and his wonderful sense of humor needed to come through.

I want to share with you, a few of the changes I made to his piece so you can see how you can tweak your next speech to make it funny or funnier.

Change One:

The original opening was dry and not worded to bring the listener in. “I want to share with you my horrendous week in July.” Few people want to hear about someone’s bad day, much less a bad week. Audiences need to open up to you to laugh with you.

So try to draw the listener in by resonating with their lives. I made a change that was not in itself funny, but was designed to get the audience nodding their heads as they identified with the speaker.

My Change:

“Have you ever had one of those bad weeks in your practice where everything seems to go wrong? You know a week when you were ready to send up a white flag and yell “I surrender!” Recently I had one of those weeks.”

To make this bit funny I suggested the doctor raise his hand in the air as if he was raising a white flag and wave it as he yelled, “I surrender!” You can often make an action or object you describe with words in your speech funnier by gesturing and using facial expressions.

Change Two:

He had a simple description of what happened with the AC’s were removed as part of the roof replacement.

My Change:

“On Monday the roofers took the three ACs, which I had just purchased off my roof to redo some electrical work. The resultant holes leave the roof looking like a giant piece of Swiss cheese. It’s summer…which means Florida rain…You guessed it. Swiss cheese is great on a sandwich but I do not recommend it as roofing material.”

Change Three:

He listed the damages to the office.

My Change:

“Monday we come in to the office and we are greeted by a downpour of rain INSIDE the office. We had been thinking of putting a small fountain in the lobby. A tsunami, not so much.”

Change Four:

A description of the wet carpet is tweaked, by adding in descriptive details so the audience can image walking on the carpet themselves. Then some of some of those surprising exaggerated details were added.

My Change:

“The carpets wet enough to pass for creek beds. We pull up the pant legs of our scrubs and wade in. By the afternoon were expecting minnows, bull frogs and large mouth bass.” “I consider adding fishing rods to the patient chairs.” “Hummm I could start another business. “Cruise into our office and get a root canal and fish dinner!”

The creek bed is the first detail and that in itself is a surprise. That could make an audience smile, but adding the fish and bullfrogs goes beyond description to a bigger surprise that will hopefully get a laugh, then once the audience is up you can surprise them again with another detail, in this case the fish dinner. To write this kind of humor list all the things associated with the premise. The premise here was water so I brainstormed a list of water items. To make the delivery funnier I suggested he actually mime walking in and hiking up his pants and pretending to fish.

Change Five:

The fans and humidifiers from Chem Dry, used to dry out the office, are wonderfully described in the original piece by the doctor-as sounding like jets taking off. In this change I take his idea of jets and juxtapose it with the reality of treating patients. Think about what happens when we sit in a dental chair. Now think about what happens when we sit in an airplane and put those two things together.

My Change:

“As we seat the patients, we consider asking them to fasten their seat belts, put the dental trays in the full upright position and give them peanuts and ginger ale after take off.”

In the doctor’s original speech he shares how he has to project his voice over the loud jet noise. I exaggerate that to say.

“I develop a deep airport announcer voice that projects over the noise to both my assistants and patients. By Tuesday, I am announcing regular take offs and landings.”

Change Six:

The doctor describes coming in later in the week to another flood. He makes a wonderful humorous reference to Noah’s ark. I take that a little further.

My Change:

“I then walk out into my hallway to be greeted by yet another flood; I check the parking lot for the ark with animals being loaded two by two.“

To make the delivery of this piece funnier I suggest he walk over to the side of the stage and put his hand out above his head as if he is gazing out the window to see the animals coming out of the ark.

The doctor relates other calamities, fire alarms going off, computer breakdowns, a pest control problem and a loss of internet connections. The last mishap makes he and his wife miss their dinner plans at the club and end up eating at Checkers hamburger joint. I think that is already funny. But you can make comparisons funnier by adding in the details. Let’s just imagine the differences between those two dinners.

“Our wonderful dinner plans at the club change slightly; instead of the beef Wellington at the field club with a view of the water, we eat beef on a bun at Checkers with a view of the parking lot.” “I love how the sun sets on the asphalt.”

I have added throughout the speech a running gag. With each calamity, I give him a new job, with the jet sound he becomes an airport announcer, with the fire alarm he becomes a fireman, with the second flood he becomes Noah, with the creek bed carpet fishing he is a fishing cruise director, the pest problem he becomes a pest control guy. His audience knows he is thinking of retiring so he can stop working so much, so they see the inside joke of having even more jobs.

Change Seven:

At the end of the speech he originally said he was looking forward to another “relaxing” day of work tomorrow.

My Change:

“I am now finally home, dry and looking forward to tomorrow’s new adventure at work. I have already been an airport announcer, fireman, Noah, fishing cruise director, and pest control guy–what adventurous job awaits me next? Who could ever want to retire and miss all this fun???”

Change Eight:

The last change is to the end of the speech. The original ending is good. The doctor talks about his great staff. But the purpose of the speech for the doctor is to connect to the physicians that refer patients to him, so he wants to say something that makes them feel confident in him and his staff.

My change:

“I love what I do and I am blessed with the wonderful patients that I so appreciate you sending me. I am truly looking forward to going to work tomorrow. If you love what you do and have a great team behind you, any environment can be bearable…for a limited time that is! Let’s say less than 40 days and 40 nights. And as you enjoy your labor day, a celebration of occupations, remember to enjoy as I do all the jobs that life brings your way.”

Having said that you need to be careful of who is in your audience when your share your story.

Recently I have been sharing a story about the effect of the dog food recall on my wonder dog Bo. A few weeks ago I checked the attendee roster of my public speaking seminar and found two attendees were from a company that makes several products including dog food. I went out in the audience and asked them their experience and discovered they were grateful not to be on the list. I asked permission to share their story along with mine with the group and we ended up in this great discussion. What if they had been on the list and I had brashly shared my story?

Because Bo’s special sensitive stomach dog food has been recalled for “reformulating” (I assume that means they are taking the poison out from now on) I took the vet’s advice and I have been feeding him Gerber’s baby food. Yep, you guessed it. What is on the recall list today?, Gerber’s baby food! Guess I will have another story for my next speech.

As all these things were happening I realized that I had so many ways I could responded to them. I could break down, grieve and cry, I could sit on my couch and eat chocolate ice cream and watch old movies, I could call friends and I could take action and move through them. I chose all the above, but most importantly I did not stay in victim mode.

When you take action you gain control and momentum to move through the bad and out the other side. There is the wonderful Chinese saying you made have read, “Change is opportunity riding on dangerous winds.”

The dangerous winds have been blowing through my life, I could let them toss me willy nilly, instead I think I will open my wings and fly to something better.

Were your dangerous winds taking you? Are your wings open?

My first regular speaking client was the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. I did a three day workshop that had gone extremely well; I got back my critiques and discovered that most everyone had rated me as excellent but two officers rated me poorly. My mentor at the time Edi Walker, was the head of training for the FDLE and she told me that those mixed critiques told her I was an excellent presenter, because I had affected two officers so much that they didn’t like me. That I had made them question the way they had been presenting. Wow! What a radical concept. Sometimes when and audience member is offended it is because you made them think. But here is more insight:  Sometimes when you hear something that upsets you, it is because the information is making you think.

Since that incident their have been many times I have heard information in speeches and even in my more interpersonal conversations that have made me emotional, and when I do, I pause and reflect. If I feel really angry or offended or threatened or insulted about what I am hearing I ask myself is it because that information may be holding a mirror up to my life so that I can see myself and some insecurity or fear I have.

I have a friend who is extremely smart, an officer in the military, 42 single and never married. She is truly a phenomenal woman. She shared with me that a man she met on the internet she liked then he emailed her that there must be something wrong with her if she had never been married. She said, “I was so mad I couldn’t respond to him for day.” I thought about how I would have felt hearing that message and all the issues that would have brought up for me as  a single woman. His comment was offensive, but it made me think.

Recall right now about the last time you were mad or upset…and ask yourself was there something they said that would rock your world, your beliefs about your self and how you live your life? It is so easy to make someone bad or wrong or stupid it is harder to ask yourself if that person is sharing something that will make your life better.

I am addicted to the home improvement shows like Clean House, Mission Organization were they go in and clean up peoples houses. Sometimes the organizers share harsh truths and the home owners get really mad and upset. But the end result is always a clean beautiful house. Sometimes we need to listen to the truth, clean out the clutter, and get a new a more wonderful life.

Here is a truth: When you speak about anything,  you have the potential for disagreement from your audience. And when you share information that goes against the status quo, when you make recommendations that that requires a paradigm shift in thinking, you really are putting yourself out there.

But don’t make the mistake of hesitating to speak with conviction on a controversial issue or make strong recommendations about things that matter.

I recall reading about the high ranking officials and experts that knew about the real risk of imminent flooding in New Orleans before Katrina, but when you read the transcripts of their speeches to the power that be about their research finding and recommendation they tip toed around making a strong stand. They let fear keep them for speaking the truth.

As a speaker you have a responsibility to speak the truth. On a personal level I know there is times a professional speaker on body language and interpersonal communication that I say things that make my audience members uncomfortable, because they know that if they believe what I am saying they have to change.

It’s wonderful to make audiences laugh; it is an even greater gift to help audiences think in ways that can produce positive concrete changes in their lives.

• Handout the proverbs below.
• Ask everyone to come up with a remainder of the proverb that is in no way like the real ending. Tell them to be wild and outrageously you can even read them a few of the ending the kids gave to inspire them. You will notice that the kids took the first part of the sentence literally and then finished the sentence. You may want to create a few answers yourself to share, perhaps even ones that are associated with your team, business or meeting.
• Break them into teams and have them choose a leader and a scribe.
• If you have an introverted group give them the sheet to work on first before they break into teams.

• Give everyone sheets a copy of the proverbs.
• Tell them to go outside the room for five to fifteen minutes and find a place to meet.
• Each the team leader shouts out first part of the proverb.
• The scribe records the answers.
• They tweak and edit the answers.
• Choose three of funniest answers
• Have them come back in a share their top three with the group.
• Laugh hysterically.

1. Don’t change horses… .
2. Strike while the…
3. Its always darkest before…
4. Never underestimate the power of…
5. You can lead a horse to water but…
6. Don’t bite the hand that…
7. No news is…
8. A miss is as good as a…
9. You can’t teach an old dog new…
10. If you lie down with dogs, you’ll….
11. Love all, trust
12. The pen is mightier than the.
13. An idle mind is…
14. Where there’s smoke there’s…
15. Happy is the bride who…
16. A penny saved is…
17. Two’s company, three’s…
18. Don’t put off till tomorrow what…
19. Laugh and the whole world laughs with you, cry and…
20. There are none so blind as…
21. Children should be seen and not
22. If at first you don’t succeed…
23. You get out of something only what you…
24. When the blind lead the blind…

1. Don’t change horses… until they stop running.
2. Strike while the…bug is close.
3. It’s always darkest before…Daylight Saving Time.
4. Never underestimate the power of…termites.
5. You can lead a horse to water but…how?
6. Don’t bite the hand that…looks dirty.
7. No news is…impossible.
8. A miss is as good as a…Mr.
9. You can’t teach an old dog new…math.
10. If you lie down with dogs, you’ll…stink in the morning.
11. Love all, trust…me.
12. The pen is mightier than the…pigs.
13. An idle mind is…the best way to relax.
14. Where there’s smoke there’s…pollution.
15. Happy is the bride who…gets all the presents.
16. A penny saved is…not much.
17. Two’s company, three’s…the Musketeers.
18. Don’t put off till tomorrow what…you put on to go to bed.
19. Laugh and the whole world laughs with you, cry and…you have to blow your nose.
20. There are none so blind as…Stevie Wonder.
21. Children should be seen and not…spanked or grounded.
22. If at first you don’t succeed…get new batteries.
23. You get out of something only what you…see in the picture on the box.
24. When the blind lead the blind…get out of the way.

I am a reader who finds a great author and reads everything she or he has written and devours it. One of those easy to read good authors is by Adriana Trigiani; her first and best book is Big Stone Gap. Other titles from her include Big Cherry Holler, Milk Glass Moon, Lucia Lucia, and The Queen of the Big Time: a Novel.

I coach women in my public speaking workshops and my women and leadership programs to hone their voices on certain factors that will affect their persuasiveness and credibility. Recently I read research that indicates there is another reason that men perceive female voices as emotional.

Dr. Michael Hunter, of Professor Peter Woodruff´s group in the Department of Psychiatry and Division of Genomic Medicine at the University of Sheffield studied the differences in the way men’s brains interpret voices and found that, “The female voice is actually more complex than the male voice, due to differences in the size and shape of the vocal cords and larynx between women and men, and also due to women having greater natural `melody´ in their voices.. This causes a more complex range of sound frequencies than in a male voice.” What is interesting is that when a man hears a female voice, the auditory section of his brain, that is in his emotional right hemisphere, is activated so he hears the voice as being more emotional rather than rational and when he hears a male voice the part of the brain, sometimes called the mind’s eye, that compares current experiences to one’s self is activated. Female voices sound more emotional to men than their own based purely on where they are processed in his head!!

I will be blogging about other factors like breathiness, up endings, vocal qualifiers, and pitch that effects our perception of voices. I would love to hear how you think Hilary Clinton’s vocal characteristics effect her credibility. In the meantime, listen to some of the voices of the women speaking here ( This site is a great source for both written transcripts of speeches and well as audio recordings) and tell me what you think.