L.A.U.G.H. – The FIVE Secrets to Adding Humor to your Presentation
Speech Humor Tip 28: Discover the power of the LAUGH acronym with Conor Cunneen as he shares practical tips for adding humor to your presentations. Learn why listening and capturing everyday moments is key to developing natural humor, and understand how anecdotes – not jokes – create the most memorable connections with your audience. With research showing adults laugh 15 times daily, Conor demonstrates how to harness these natural moments of joy to enhance your speaking skills and engage your listeners effectively.
Key Takeaways
- LAUGH as a Framework: Use the LAUGH acronym as a structured approach to adding humor to your presentations, starting with “Listen” as the first key element.
- Natural vs Scripted Humor: People laugh more at anecdotes and quips than at formal jokes – focus on real stories rather than trying to be a comedian.
- Frequency of Laughter: The average adult laughs or smiles about 15 times per day, accumulating to roughly 100 times per week – showing how natural humor is in daily life.
- Turn Discomfort into Humor: The most effective anecdotes often come from uncomfortable situations that can be laughed about later, making them relatable and memorable.
Want to Add Humor to your presentation? Get 53 Humorous Quotes & Flubs for any Speech
About IrishmanSpeaks
Conor Cunneen is an Irishman, happily exiled in Chicago where he says “the Guinness is good, the people are friendly and he has been force fed more corned beef and green beer than he ever had in Ireland!”
As an Irish immigrant, he is a very proud recipient of the President’s Gold Medal for Volunteer Service for the work he does with job seekers.
He is proud dad to John and Amy and a loving irritant to his long suffering wife, Pat, whom his sister-in-law states will be canonized the moment she leaves this planet!
He is also an in-demand keynote speaker, facilitator, author, consultant, award winning humorist and master of ceremonies to associations, corporations and healthcare. Hee he presents Adding Speech Humor Tip 28 which will help you connect better with your audience
PHONE CONOR at 630 661 1220 to ensure a successful next event and an inspirational client-focused speaker you can rely on.
Conor Cunneen – IrishmanSpeaks.
Conor’s mission is to Improve People, Performance & Productivity – with a Smile. This Chicago based motivational business speaker, cancer survivorship speaker and business humorist promised to leave your audience with a Smile on the face, a Spring in the step and memorable, actionable takeaways to ensure your meeting objectives are met.
More Tips for Adding Humor to your Presentation
Adding Humor to your Speech – Tip 24
Adding Humor Tip #25: Five Secrets to L.A.U.G.H.
Video Transcript: Adding Speech Humor Tip 28 – L.A.U.G.H. – The FIVE Secrets to Adding Humor to your Presentation
I’m now looking for a five letter word – a five letter word we would go through and use it as an acronym in a few minutes time to add humor to your presentation. The question for you is: if I say something funny, what is it that I hope that you will do?
Very good – L-A-F-F… L-A-U-G-H! All right, So we’ll go with LAUGH as an acronym that will help you to remember how to add humor to your presentation. The first letter in the LAUGH acronym – I’ll go through them quickly and then we’ll do them in more detail – is “listen.”
The next element in the laugh acronym is – we got listen, then you tell stories so we’ve got “antidote” and you tell the antidote… What? Oh, it’s not antidote, it’s anecdote! Oh, apologize. Okay all right – but the antidote though to a weak speech is a good anecdote. And I find it surprising how many people mix up the word antidote and anecdote. There was one person who I thought was – I was really surprised I mixed them up and I said this is crazy, so I kind of just dropped that in as a deliberate error in my presentations.
The next element of the LAUGH acronym – we’ll ask you a couple more questions here. Researchers will tell you that adults laugh about 15 times a day or they smile about 15 times a day – laugh and smile. So over the last week, let’s say you’ve laughed and/or smiled – the average audience would have been laughing or smiling about 100 times over the last week. Now as you’re an above average audience, I know you’ve laughed and smiled more than 100 times over the last week.
But the question for you is: when you consider what do you think may have made you laugh or smile over the last few weeks – was it anecdotes or was it jokes? What did you laugh most at over the last week, do you think? No one ever says jokes, which is right – it is anecdotes and quips that people laugh at. And the anecdotes that people laugh most at are ones where there might be an uncomfortable situation at some stage, but you’re now recalling the uncomfortable situation and you are able to laugh at it, your friends are able to laugh at it as well.
End Transcript for video Adding Speech Humor Tip 28