WHY SHOULD YOU BE FUNNY? ADD-VANTAGES ☢⚜😀(❁´◡`❁)^_^(⌐■_■)

1 Humour is Essential
Charlie Chaplin said,

A day without humour is a day wasted.

Of course it was a day wasted for him, because a well-paid comedian who is not making people laugh iss not earning money.

How does that help you?
If you have no other talents, you can be a comedian. In fact if you are a disaster at everything, you have stories for comedy. If your life is a total tragedy, to others it can be a comedy. It makes their troubles seem smaller.

The way to learn to be a comedian is
a) to watch comedy,
b) watch it a second time
c) copy it by writing it out
d) or acting it out,
e) analayse it,
f) make small tweaks,
g) create totally new.

Learn From Brad Ashton
Am I just making this up? No. I was told it by Brad Ashton. Who's he?

Most people don't know the secret script writers used by comedians. Brad has written for many famous names. His book on comedy writing is used by at least one American university course.

I read his book which I bought at Writers' Holiday in Wales. I thought, wouldn't it be great to meet the writer. I have been attending Writers' Holiday for years. The following year Brad Ashton turned up and ran a course on writing comedy. He ran two courses at Writer's Holiday. He told us that when he first started writing comedy, he watched old comedy movies for hours.

He kept a notebook and wrote down all the funny lines and plots.  He filled an entire notebook and then started another. After a while he started to see patterns. He copied the patterns, and wrote similar jokes with tiny changes. Eventually, he was writing his own long stories and short jokes.

You can learn two separate skills. One is how to write comedy. The other is how to perform comedy. Life is easier if you can do both. But if you can do either successfully, you can make a living or enhance your work and social life.

2 Humour is Healthy
This task is not expensive and not miserable. It's enjoyable. Yes, listening to humour is fun, but better still, creating humour, is not simply enjoyable, it can be good for your health. Who says so? Two people wrote books claiming it cured their cancer. They watched comedies all day.



Laughter Yoga

3 Humour Is Businesses
People have set up Laughter Yoga clubs. They gather in a group to make people laugh. Like so many businesses, it starts as free. Then when it is popular, or over-subscribed, or taking up all the working day time of the organizer, it becomes a business.

I was going to write a profitable business. Most businesses fail in their first three years. On the other hand most millionaires failed in one of two businesses, learned from their failure and went on to make a million.

There are not-for profit businesses. And then the sort I run. They are started with the intention of making a profit but end up not making a profit.

On the other hand they make me a prophet. I can prophesy how many new businesses will make a profit. that could be profitable. If I were betting.  On the other hand, I could make more money predicting the sex of an unborn child. You can predict the birth of a child and give money back to the half you get wrong and keep the other half of the money.

Seriously, let's be serious about humour. Comedians earn a lot of money.

3 Humour holds attention.
Even if you have a serious message, you can capture the audiences attention with humour, and keep them listening waiting for the next anticipated or unexpected gem.

Let us end with  joke, or at least a quote about humour.

Tips On Humour
I shall leave you with two tips. No, three. I am feeling generous.
1 Go on the internet and look up quotations on humour. If you can't be funny, quote a humorous quotation. If you can't remember long anecdotes, or can't tell them well, go for one liners.

2 Buy my book Quick Quotations. At very least, have a look at it on lulu.com and at my other books on Amazon.com

3 Hey, I've got four tips! No five. Number three is look up Americanisms. I have several blogs on embarrassing differences and misunderstandings, which are in my future blog posts on this blog.

4 I had another tip! Sell yourself or something else.
a) You can sell comedy as pure comedy, as a stand-up comedian.
b) Or you can use comedy to sell something else, as in a humorous advertisement for food or drink. Such as a parody of a well known song.
c) If you are shy, write jokes for others.
d) Or draw a caricature of a famous person. (If you can'd draw accurately, so much the better, just exaggerate.)

4 Repetition
If you are short of ideas, or quotations, but started with a good one, repeat that at the end. You can ask a live audience to repeat the punchline with you. People like what is familiar.

Some jokes are not funny the second time. But a quotation which has been repeated endlessly for decades or even centuries is a winner. So I shall end where I came in. Learn to appreciate, remember, copy, and use humour.

As Charlie Chaplin said,

A day without humour is a day wasted.

But perhaps the most useful advice came from Marilyn Monroe. She said
If you can make a girl laugh, you can make her do anything. 

Useful Websites
https://www.a-speakers.com/speakers/brad-ashton-keynote-speaker/
 Brad Ashton's books on comedy: 
“How to Write Comedy”, 
“The funny Thing about Writing Comedy”, 
“The Job of a Laughtime”, and 
“Stand up and Be Laughed at”.

About the Author
Angela Lansbury is a travel writer and photographer, author of 20 books, and a speaker and speech trainer.
Her books include:
Wedding Speeches & Toasts
Quick Quotations
Writing Poetry For Fun
Angela's Alarming Animal Poems