George Gilbert’s Motivational Humor

Everyone gets a little nervous before they speak. It’s normal. When you are about to go on stage you adrenaline starts pumping, you start feeling butterflies in your stomach, sweaty palms, dry throat, etc. In order to be funny you can’t let those feelings take over your body. So, how do you control that fear of getting on stage?

First – Preparation

The more you prepare your presentation the more relaxed you will be. When you have done your homework and know your material thoroughly it makes it easier to concentrate when the pressure is on. Think about those times in school when you didn’t study for an exam and made it much harder to concentrate. Speaking and doing humor is not much different.

Second – Stage Time

Nothing beats the jitters as much as getting up in front of an audience whenever you can. The more you subject yourself to an audience the easier it becomes. Think about something you tried it the easier it got. Speaking is the same. First time nerves tend to go away with experience. That’s why adrenaline junkies have to keep trying new and dangerous challenges. They are continually searching for that nervous rush (I guess some people enjoy that feeling.)

Third – Know Your Audience

I talked earlier about the importance of knowing your audience when preparing your humor. The more you know your audience, then the more your humor ill connect with them, and the easier it will be to get up in front of them.

Fourth – Relaxation Techniques

As you get up in front of an audience more you will start to develop your own techniques for relaxing. For some, taking deep breathes calms them. For others, alternating clenching and releasing their muscles does the trick. I tend to pace to get rid of nervous energy. Although, as an after dinner speaker, that can be difficult sometimes. Quite often I am sitting up at the head table and can’t excuse myself to go and pace. The good news is as long as I am prepared and have done my homework I don’t have the need to pace as much. And even though I tend to get nervous before I go on, once I am in front of the audience I start to relax.

When doing humor it is important to show a certain amount of confidence. In comedy clubs the audience can sense when a new comic is nervous and they react negatively. As a speaker you most likely won’t be heckled because you are nervous but an obvious lack of confidence makes it tougher to win the audience over and get them to laugh at your jokes.