like Jay Leno, Seinfeld and George Carlin?

Booked by over 500 companies worldwide,

Karyn is one of the few people in the world

to be inducted into the National Speakers Association

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 tips,

even if you don't have any stories,

speaking experience or confidence.

- When I started speaking when I was just

20 somewhat years old, right.

With me, I know with my accent,

with my background,

'cause you don't see a lot of speakers that are like,

especially like Chinese, right,

on a main stage so instead of hiding that,

in the beginning of my speech I would talk

a little bit about my story;

oh by the way, I would say something like

by the way some of my friends say I still speak

like Jackie Chan.

(laughing)

And then they all laugh right?

- Right, right? - There you go, right.

And then I always say how many of you think

I'm a little bit better than Jackie Chan?

(laughing)

And then they all laugh and, boom, it works.

- It does.

- So instead of hiding it,

now it's memorable, right?

- Yes. - They understand

and instead of oh yeah,

you speak with an accent,

no, no, you're better than that,

we can understand you, boom, right?

- Right. - It works.

- It totally works, it totally works.

It endears you to the audience.

You're addressing, basically it's almost like sales,

it's like you're addressing an objection.

They're like oh, wait a minute.

- I don't know, yeah.

- And it's like you've got it up there,

you're poking fun at it and here's what that does,

this is what people don't consciously think about,

but what you've done now is you've empowered yourself

because your ability to laugh at a situation

shows that you have a sense of confidence

and when you can portray that confidence in humor

now your audience is like whoa,

here's somebody who, he's confident enough

that he can make fun of himself.

- And also it's almost like

I don't take myself too seriously.

It's like I'm having a good time,

we talk about things and I'm here to share what I know

and you're gonna have a good time.

It's kinda that kind of feeling.

- It's humanizing and people wanna do business

with another human being.

- Yes, 100%.

- Not with something or someone that they feel is

unreachable or untrackable.

- And I think a lot of speakers,

because the minute you step on stage

you are already, you have a higher status.

You're seen as authority so I think,

if anything, any speaker who is communicating,

who is on stage, you should tone it down

and insert humor versus,

a lot of them, I think, because of insecurities

they try to build that up.

The minute they go on stage I see speakers to this, right.

They just start rambling their resume, right.

How good I am, what about this,

my background, I've done all these things.

It actually turns the audience off,

versus hey, let me tell you a funny story.

- Yes.

- On the way here this happened or that happened.

You look at even back then, Jay Leno.

- [Kathryn] Yes, I love Jay Leno.

- It's a perfect example, right?

It's always something, little things that happen

in his life and he would just talk about it.

Those are the dialogue that he has, I love that.

- And that's something that, again, a high performer,

and my definition of high performance humor

is when somebody uses humor intentionally,

for a desired outcome, and consistently

and so maybe your desired outcome,

like you said at that point,

is to strengthen your relationship and rapport

with the audience.

- Yes, to break the ice.

- And so we want to, how can we do that?

We can intentionally put in a little bit of humor.

If you want to establish rapport with your team

or something like that,

it's the little things that you're talking about

that go on the workplace, or happen in the business,

a lot of the inside humor that we can use

that other people are going what are they talking about?

But it really kind of just cements the relationship

for those on the inside who can laugh at themselves

in that bonding humor.

- Yes, and I think you think about, in our world,

where you have the educators

and then you have the entertainers.

- Yes.

- Some of the highest paid people in the world

are entertainers, right?

- Yes.

- It could be through humor, right?

And it's very interesting.

I look at even comedians, example,

you could look at the likes of Jim Carey,

you look at Jerry Seinfeld.

You might think they do silly things

but if you've even watched Jim Carey's speech,

he's actually incredibly intelligent.

- Yes.

- They are like super smart.

- Yes.

- And it's almost like they have a very deep understanding

of human beings, psychology, even life, right?

And they do silly things that make you laugh

and you went oh, he's that silly guy

but actually, in person, they are not like that at all.

- One of my most admired comedians of all time

was George Carlin.

Incredibly intelligent man who started out

in his early career as the hippie dippy weather man

but later went on to take on very important social issues

and really used humor as his method

of conveying his message and so a lot of the comics

and comedians that are admired and well known today,

a lot of them carry these social messages

because they recognize the power they've been given.

- That's how you get to the people.

- Yeah, but kind of a reverse of that is

that some of the highest paid teachers, speakers, experts

are ones who have learned to weave humor into their message

and a lot of times people have said

have you ever done stand up?

And I said yes, but I prefer to speak to

sober, non-smoking audiences,

and it pays a whole lot better.

I can make a smaller amount doing stand up

or I can get paid to deliver a serious message

really funny to a corporate audience.

And so to learn how to weave a little bit of those stories,

like you're talking about,

the everyday experiences that people have,

it doesn't have to be rocket science,

you don't have to try to come up with these

amazing jokes and insights.

- Sometimes it's just the short stories

with a punch line.

- Yes, yes.

- Share with us a couple of funny stories.

A couple of funny stories that are in your life, or?

- Oh my gosh, you know a lot of the stories

that people relate to, for me,

are ones where my children were growing up,

'cause a lot of people can relate.

Maybe they've either had a child,

they've been around someone else's child,

or they've been a child, you know?

And so one of my stories involved my youngest son

and I realized one morning it was time

for him to catch the bus and he hadn't even been down

for breakfast yet and so I'm calling up

to my first grader, there's no answer,

I call up again, no answer,

and so I go up the stairs and as I put my hand

on the doorknob I hear this strange noise

coming from his room and I slowly push the door open

and there's my first grader jumping up and down

on his bed in his underwear and he's swinging

his school clothes over his head

and he's kicking and singing and dancing

and I lost it, I looked at him and I said

what do you think you're doing?

And he stopped jumping up and down

and he looked at me and he said

mom, don't ya think getting up in the morning

oughta be more fun?

And I thought no!

And then I'd share that with my audience

and I'd say how would that be if we could get up

in the morning and have more fun?

- Maybe not in the underwear.

- Maybe you don't have to be jumping up and down

on your bed, or swinging your underwear over your head

but maybe if we could just,

what if going to work could be more fun?

What if just getting up in the morning

could be more fun?

And that it is a choice that we have.

Everything we do is a choice,

even not to choose is a choice.

- That's true, that's true.

- And so choosing to have fun,

choosing to have humor.

We all had that childlike perspective when we were little

but it was socialized out of us by our teachers

and by our parents and by our bosses

and we think oh my gosh, we have to button up

and we have to be serious.

But we can still do serious work,

and as you mentioned, take ourselves lightly.

- I think it's so true that you mentioned that

because I notice even, let's say at conferences, right.

Let's say you go to a conference,

it could be a trade show and people are like,

very serious, the whole day, right?

And the topics are very dry,

you listen to the speaker and you take notes,

but then after the conference,

maybe in the evening, they go have dinner,

have a drink, go to the bar.

- Right, then they're having fun.

- And then you can hear the laughter, right?

It's the same group of people in the pub,

in the bar, in the restaurant,

now they're having fun, they're drinking a little bit,

they're a bit more relaxed.

That, to me, is how the conference should be.