Tips for Using Humor in Motivational Speeches

Humor is a great icebreaker in speeches. It will connect you to your audience like nothing else - just so long as it is relevant to the topic in hand. But before you use any humor, be sure it really is funny. Firstly it should make you laugh, and then it should make your friends laugh. Only then can you use it in your motivational speech.

Relevance means it should have something to do with your subject matter. It must be used to enhance your topic in some way. If it can also be personal, springing from your own experience in the subject, then so much the better. Things that you once thought embarrassing can be spoken about with light-hearted humor once they have been relegated to the past.

It is poking fun at yourself that makes a connection with the audience. They laugh, but at the same time they sympathize because they know just how you felt at the time. Chances are they experienced the same thing, and so you are helping them to cope with it in their own lives when you can laugh at it in yours.

Be sure your humor is appropriate to your audience. Some people may be offended rather than amused by jokes that are racist or otherwise in bad taste. Choosing clean humor will ensure that it is not offensive to a mixed audience.

Humor and jokes should be kept short and to the point. While you know the back-story, it should not come out in your joke. If you waffle on, your audience will fall asleep and you won't be asked to speak again. For instance the story may take place in a train. There's no need to explain where the train was going or why you were on it. Just tell what happened when you were in that situation.

Jokes and humor can be incorporated into visual aids such as the leaflets you hand out or the overheads you use. It can be a comic strip or video, but whatever it is, using the right amount of humor will certainly enhance your speech and make sure your audience remains interested.

Humor can also help you to feel at ease with the rest of your speech. If you can appear human - even when you bomb out - and poke a little fun at yourself, you can often save the situation. Don't use jokes that are so old that everyone knows them. To create something new can be as simple as a wry observation about the building. If it's really hot you could say something like, "It's so cold in here, can someone turn up the heaters?"


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