Image: IMG_4887 courtesy of jeaneeem

If you’re new to this series, you may want to go to this article to learn how this all started. In this fourth article of a 6-part series, I will describe in detail why having a sense of humour - and using it! - is an important part of being a super start that people love; and will use a couple of examples from Michael Bublé’s concert on the 31 May, 2008 to illustrate it.

The difference between humour and sarcasm

How many times have you been around with the gang around the water cooler, and listened to someone criticising another friend with impunity, just because he did this by disguising his attack as humour? We all know that is not humour. When you have a sense of humour and use it, you make others laugh and feel better; you lighten up their days. When you are sarcastic, you make at least one other person feel embarrassed, hurt or upset, and you will find that it makes others around you feel uncomfortable.

The sad reality is that many of us never developed a sense of humour when we were young; and as life went by, learned instead to use sarcasm as the next-best-replacement. Big Mistake. Not only do we hurt others with our misguided attempt at being funny; we end up hurting ourselves.

Warning: Misuse of sarcasm can be harmful to your personal brand

How can that be? Psychologists have proven that human beings will avoid situations and people that make them feel uncomfortable (unless you’re a masochist!). Every time you use sarcasm, some of your audience will feel uncomfortable or hurt, and will avoid your company in the future. This may all happen at a subconscious level, so no one may be aware of what is happening; but it is a law of human behaviour: you can be certain it will happen.

But that’s their loss, not mine, I hear you say. Wrong again. For you to perform well, you almost always will need (and want!) an audience. And having an audience that likes you is the first step in having a network that recommends you and endorses your work. Whether you are a musician, a politician, a business analyst or a hairdresser, your livelihood and success depends greatly on your own personal brand. And every time that you use sarcasm and turn someone else off, you are slowly eroding the value of your personal brand.

How to have a Good Sense of Humour and use it

We typically have not developed the skills to be funny; rely on its poor cousin (sarcasm) in an attempt to be liked; and instead cause great harm to our audience and ourselves. Do we really have any hope? The answer is a resounding Yes. You too can develop a good sense of humour and become a Super Star that people truly love by consciously and consistently applying the following principles:

1. Keep it balanced. The easiest way to instantaneously go from being someone with a good sense of humour to the class-clown is to joke all the time. Have you noticed just how many class-clowns become Super Stars? It happens, but not that often. Keep it in balance, and use your sense of humour sparingly. There is, after all, such a thing as ‘too much of a good thing’.
2. Focus on yourself. When you make fun of others, the joke really is on you: No one likes to be laughed at, and your attempt to make others smile will likely cause the opposite reaction. Start to develop your sense of humour by making fun of yourself; not only will you learn which jokes actually feel good to the person that is being made fun of, it will also make others around you feel that you too are human.
3. Learn to laugh yourself. Do you have an infectious laugh that is genuine and warm? If you don’t, it will be difficult for others to laugh with you. Don’t despair if you don’t; Remember: Practice makes Perfect. All you need to do is search your local newspaper for comedy festivals and stand-up comedy acts, and buy tickets to at least one show every week over the next month. By the end of it, you will have loosened up your funny muscles and be able to laugh in a more natural way (or at the very least, you will have had a great time!)

The art of putting on a good show: Bublé’s stand up musical comedy

So let’s take a look at how Michael Bublé used humour in an effective way to put his audience at ease. During the performance, Michael…

• …was happy to play the clown by allowing a fan to grab his ass after he offered a hug like a good gentleman
• … set up a small comic routine with one of his trombone players, where he stormed out of the stage; and his band member decided that since Michael was not going to sing any more, he would (hint: take a close look at the photograph at the top of this post; the person singing is not Bublé!)
• … finished this staged-impromptu act by pretending to play the trombone better than his band member (only to be ‘discovered’ when he took the trombone off his lips, and the sound continued - with a quick beam of light being directed to another trombone player who had been playing all along)
• … invited his audience to get “close and personal” and made fun of it by saying the security crew will love you for that!

In short, Michael Bublé played the clown a few times during his concert, sometimes whilst engaging the audience; other times whilst acknowledging his crew. Have you noticed how fluid Michael was in his execution of these techniques? He moved from one to the other; mixed them all up; and made it all look very natural. Yet I am sure there was a lot of thought and preparation behind it all. The good news is that you too can learn to do all this, and pretend to be a natural (who knows, with enough practice you may in fact become a natural at it!).

Stay tuned for the next article in the series, and you will learn the last technique that you can apply to transform your next performance from Good to Great: Thanking your audience.

Links to articles in the Michael Bublé series

• Introduction

1. Engage your audience
2. Appreciate your crew
3. Show you are human
4. Have a sense of humour (this article)
5. Thank your fans