The art of making people laugh!

I have been assigned an assignment, as part of my Toastmasters club , to simply put smiles on the members and the guests faces. (click here for more information about Toastmasters)

Normally, we as Toastmasters, get the assignment before a week or so, so we can have plenty of time for planning it (If you fail to plan, you plan to fail!). However, it is quite expected that people sometimes, due to many situations, cancel their assignments. Thus, other active members need to be ready to take their roles, accordingly. This is exactly, happened to me last Saturday, when one member, supposedly doing the "Joke Master" assignment, passed it to me for taking it over. I have been called at 5:00 PM to be ready for the 7:30 PM meeting!. Well, it is not only you have to let people laugh, but you have to be very picky in what sort of materials you are going to provide them. SEX, POLITICS & RELIGION (SPR'S) jokes are not allowed in Toastmasters, and unfortunately, 99% of my jokes are some where revolving around these things.

So, after some struggles, I have managed to pick up few "clean" jokes and present it to the club.

I have always thought that making people laugh is the easiest job. But, I guess I was not right. I found that it takes a lot of efforts, thinking, perfect body language and good-timing, to let others genuinely smile, not even reaching the laughing stage! It is really an art, that many people think that can be made in a blink of an eye.

My experience, proved to me that you need to control your voice patters, your facial expressions, body movements, and when to stress some words and when to not. The content is of course important, but I think all the other things are a must-to-have, so a joke turns out to be a funny one. That's why we find many times that if someone tells a joke, we laugh hilariously, while if another person tells the exact joke, we might even not notice when he is done!.

The "Charisma" is the secret...

So, show them how much alive you are!