Comedy for a Cause: Learn How Humor Can Make You Rich and Help People in Need with Matt Kazam

Welcome to Make More Marbles. My name is Brad Hart, and we're here to interview the game changers, the future makers, the co collaborators and creators who are here to collaborate with one another towards a better future for all of us. Enjoy the show. We've got a great guest coming up for you right now.

Facebook.

Don't forget to hit record. All right, we're live on Facebook. What's happening, everybody? Oh, my God. It's gonna be so much fun. Today we are doing something we've never done before on the Make More Marvel show. We're going live on Facebook with Mr. Matt Kazam.

Welcome to the show. Ma. Hello there.

And we are raising money. We're having a comedy charity fundraiser for the Greatness foundation, which is a foundation run by my dear friend Mike Shcherbakoff, and they do mission trips all over the world. I've done three of them with them so far. We did the Syrian refugee camps out by Athens. We went and helped in the camps. And then we've done two house builds already. So we built three houses for families that were literally sleeping in dirt. And you go. And there's like a. If you've never been on a house bill before, basically it's like they pour the foundation and there's a big pile of wood, and then there's some really experienced people that know what to do and a bunch of tools, and they tell you how to do it and you go do it, and it's wild. You actually can really, truly affect and impact somebody's lives. These people aren't sleeping in dirt anymore. They're not dying from respiratory illnesses anymore. We donate food as well. It's just. It's an incredible thing. So if you guys want to get involved, there's a link just below this video thegreatnessfoundation.com build and you can go ahead and join us in Mannedera. We're going in March. March 9th to 11th is the next.

So that's.

That's kind of the preamble. But, Matt, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do in the world and why you're so awesome.

Well, the awesomeness will let the people decide that. But actually, this is my first time ever going live on Facebook, so I knew that eventually it was gonna happen, and I didn't know who would be with. And so glad to be, you know, my first experience with you, Brad, who, by the way, I am as fascinated about you as you probably are about me, because we met probably six months ago. And then I see all these things you're doing and, and then I hear your name coming up from different places and, and you could basically tell me anything like that you are in reality Batman in the evenings. And in between masterminding, you're also out there solving the world's problems. I mean, I, I can't really get a handle on, on what it is you do, but it's always something impactful and always something great. So super excited to be here. Me, you know, up until about three years ago, I would have told you if anybody asked me what I was and what I did, it would be comedian. I mean, that's, that's what I, since I'm three years old, kind of came out of the womb being able to make people laugh and was able to build my life and my career. And, you know, basically, you know, I've been a comedian pretty much my whole life. Then three years ago we had a baby. And so now my job, when anybody asks me, is I'm tulips father. You know, it's the most important job I have. I treat it that way, change my perspective on everything, you know. And so, you know, that's the first thing I like to tell people is, you know, that's, that's what I take pride in. At the end of the day, I don't take any value in, oh, today was a great day for me as a comedian or as a coach or as a consultant. It's, today was a great day if I was a great father. So that's first off. But comedian since I'm three years old, I mean, I knew I wanted to be a comedian at 6 years old. I'm actually telling jokes in kind of mafia social clubs in New York City, making a little bit of money here, $5 here, a buck there, performing at parties. Knew my whole life I wanted to be a comedian. Started wr out of college, knew I wanted to have a show in Las Vegas through four years ago, I got my own show in Las Vegas. And now they, now, you know, I'm moving on to the next chapter my life, which is working with entrepreneurs and businesses and teaching people really how to take advantage of the power of humor. You know, everyone's looking for a competitive advantage, a way to stand out, a way to kind of break through to people who are now in a trance. And you know what? Humor unlocks that trance in a way that unlike anything. Everyone's looking for ways to be more genuine or more authentic and seem more trustworthy or, you know, how to tell their Story. And turns out that, you know, as I was looking for something to do next with my life, I met this incredible group of entrepreneurs, some who are Batman in the evening as well. I'm still not ruling out my theory there, but I'm helping people become better now, you know, helping them words become more impactful, you know, more memorable with people. I mean, none of what I'm doing, even though I'm kind of creating new ground here for people, is anything that goes out of their value system or thought system. Think about the Sioux Bowls commercials, the ones we remember, the funniest ones. I mean, basically, I'm just using the power and science that used to be kind of reserved for Madison Avenue and now attaching it to your brand.

So just to kind of sum up and just make sure everybody's on the same page. So, Matt, essentially, you know, you have a gift of comedy, you have the gift of gab. You understand how to make people laugh, but you understand that there's actually science behind this. And really it's a science of influence and persuasion. Right. At the end of the day, if you want to be more influential, if you want to be more persuasive, you want to reach people where they're at, which is what leadership starts as. Right. You got to get where people are at in order to bring them where you want them to go. You're enabling that. You're enabling people to have the tools to do that. And the way we met was at, like you said, the mavericks. And I'm, you know, I know Yannick well and I know a lot of these guys really well, and it's been a real fun thing for me. Like, I had Garrett on the show not too long ago, and Garrett's like one of the most brilliant financial minds I've ever met in my life, and he's incredibly passionate about that. And he believes that the average people need the tools of the wealthy in order to survive in this modern age. And I'm. I share that value, right?

Yep.

And I also see him in his. In his off time. He's going and getting on stages.

Yeah, yeah.

And he's making people laugh too. And it's really fun to see. You know, he's got this balance. I. I really feel like more people, especially in my circle, are going to be bringing in tools from other areas in order to cross pollinate and help people in ways that they never thought possible. And that's really what we're doing.

Absolutely what it is. You know, so kind of how I got here too you know, I did start a stand up. My father said you have to get a degree. You know, I'm the child of an immigrant and anyone who's a child of an immigrant understands that, you know, your parents will rub it. Your career decisions are made in the womb, you know, I mean, and, and you're basically, if you don't come out and you're on that path within three months, you know, you're letting them down. But you know, he was always, I did not come to this country for you to tell joke, you know, but if you are gonna do it, attack it from the science background, you know, and when I talk about tapping into the science of it, I'm not necessarily talking about my sense of humor. I mean, I'm able to make people laugh and my hit rates when I make a choice to make a group laugh are as solid. And as you know, I might have an 80% hit rate, 20% of the people you're not gonna be able to get to. But if I put the audience first. So you're a business, you're trying to create your brand, but you're not necessarily thinking about your sense of humor. You're understanding what is the sense of humor and connections in your audience, what choices. Because it really comes down to math. That's where the science works out. What are the demographics of the audience? What are the variables? How can I now make choices? And now also specific word choices that I know they're hardwired to connect with and use those to my advantage. So here's a perfect example. I have a woman, I'm working now. She's. And this great thing with entrepreneurs is they all have a story. There's something that got them here. And that's great because, you know, it comes from my background of teaching people how to create a stand up routine, which basically you have to draw from your truth. You know, I say a pound of lie, an ounce of truth is worth more than a pound of lie. So if anybody's gonna listen to you now in this day and age, it's gonna have to be authentic, it's gonna have to be real. So if the great thing is entrepreneurs have amazing stories so we can tap into these stories. So there's one person I'm working with who's an Amazon genius. Imagine that in the entre community. But you know, it's one of these people that's, you know, cracked the code on Amazon, made tons of money and taught other people how to do all this kind of stuff. But now what makes her different than someone else. So in digging deeper and getting to know her, found out she was an engineer, actually has a nautical engineering degree from this pretty prestigious maritime college. And something that resonated where I also say, now I'm a father. So if I would have heard this statistic maybe five years ago, would have made as much sense. But now only 6% of women graduate with STEM degrees, science or engineering degrees, which is pretty amazing when you think. When you actually meet one, it's like meeting Bigfoot, you know, someone who actually a female who has an engineering or science degree. And then I start to think, how can I now illustrate this point and find words so she could connect her story and what it took to get her there and her competitive advantage, you know, going forward. And then it hit me. The Navy Seals only have a 70% washout rate. She beats something that has a washout rate higher than Navy seals. So in telling her story now, that makes it tangible to people, something that's already hardwired in there, and then that's a way we can bring out her story and really illustrate what a big deal this woman is. And I would say, in case of a tie, the funnier person is always going to win. In case of a tie, the more interesting person is going to win. These are things that you're going to have to do just to kind of maintain a level playing field. So I learned how to teach this a while ago, and then a lot of people were taking my classes, weren't. Didn't want to be comedians. You know, again, most of them would be taking an incredible pay cut if they decided to be comedians. And it also takes 10 years to become a good comedian. You need the flight hours. You, you know, you need the experience. You need to sleep in your car in Texas, all those kind of things. But what if one guy took the class because he wanted to run for mayor? He did run for mayor of D.C. now he was a white guy, so he lost. I didn't like his chances to start with, but he did think the skill set was that important. Didn't want to take on the task of running for mayor without learning what I knew. And then it became so many entrepreneurs in there, doctors, a lot of attorneys take it. So this idea that now, you know, you've got to expand your skill set and find ways to, you know, stand out, but also to be memorable, I could throw data at, you know, because now the science is accepted. Humor is a viable commodity in business. It wasn't even seven years ago, but where we are now is where we are now. And so people only remember 10 to 20% of the things that they hear. You embed that message in humor, it's 50 or 60%. So if you're not doing it, you're totally gonna miss the boat and you're gonna get. You're gonna fall away into all the noise. I work with a lot of trade show people. People going to do face to face marketing, and then getting to teach them how to use humor to stand out in this place. That is nothing, you know, and also get people to remember you as they kind of navigate through this experience. Little kids laugh 400 times a day. Adults laugh three to 15 times a day. Think about the number of interactions and how rare humor is in adult life. So it's now really taking all that stuff and helping businesses, and they're all launching something. That's the great thing is that if you're launching, it's the perfect place to use this because you now are dictating the narrative of how you're going to communicate. Using humor in the customer experience, using humor to diffuse negative situations. I'm working with an airline now. Finally, flight attendants are gonna get humor training. Finally. It's not just Bubba. I mean, and it came from so many times being on flights where I'm like, if you would have just said this, I'm sitting there flying the wall comedian with this, you know, knowledge and experience in the back. And I'm like, you could have. You. All you did was escalate that situation. There's no one even taught you how to talk to people, you know, or, you know, And I close all my seminars kind of where I teach people how I've gotten out of 12, over a dozen speeding tickets. Because that is just a public speaking situation. And there are a bunch of variables. And if you control those variables, you can dictate the outcome. No different than in, you know, defining your brand or teaching you how to be a better speaker or a better podcast host or whatever it is. It turns out that kind of got into this business just because I met a bunch of cool people and then I found out it's actually a business, too. And what I love about this world is everybody wants to help and make change and then, you know, have an impact on the planet and not just write a check. So it's kind of like when you're working with somebody, it's business, but it's also, how can I help somebody over here? And you don't have to kind of wear these different hats. You cannot Just wear one hat, entrepreneur. And it opens you up to all the things that you want to do with your life, you know?

Yeah, it sounds like a skill that can be mastered. If you understand all the variables, as you said, then you can eventually master them. And you've seen enough situations over time. But you can help people shortcut that process, because now Here are the 12 things you need to know about getting pulled over on the speeding ticket, how.

To defeat that situation, and then that same thing is the same reasons why your customers might be. And by the way, thanks for the advice on this. I always wanted to know what I would look like as a gamer. Not a great look, but now we have the acoustic integrity once limited to only teenagers. You and me now are experiencing this. But.

How can you tell somebody that their mother is a horrible thing over the Internet without the right pair of headphones?

You want to. To be able to be crystal clear when you. When you're snapping on somebody's mother. Sure. So, yeah, I mean, like I said, it gets people to think about. Because I think people thought humor was limited to the funny sales guy or, you know, the charming front desk lady who could always make people laugh and smile. And all those people knew was how to read an audience. You know, the guys was the trick was letting people think that it was a skill that they had and was defined to them, but all they did. I realized it early on in life. I mean, by six years old, I'm using humor to get what I want in life. I mean, I'm using it, you know, to. When I get in trouble at school, I go to the principal, I'll make him laugh, I'll get out of trouble. You know, I want, you know, more playing time on the baseball team. I make the coach laugh, he puts me in first. You know, it was never based on my skill set. So I knew the power really early on. And that's what happens. A lot of us kind of learn that early on that that's. And it's a skill we just developed. How not, not not can I be funny, but how can I specifically make my audience laugh? And that's a much different choice than I'm gonna say what I think is funny. Because if you don't understand the math and science behind it, that's a guess you're hoping it is. But we've seen that more than once in real life go the other way. You thought something was funny and then. But if you always think about your audience, you'll never get into trouble. And I teach the Science of why people laugh. People only laugh for two reasons. They laugh at a superiority, or they laugh at a commonality. That's it. That's how we're hardwired as people. That's where the laughter comes from. So understanding that is what, you know. If there's a victim in the joke and the victims, not you, don't tell that joke or don't, you know, send that message out there. But commonality is really where the power is. What do we all have in common? What's going to make all of our synapses click at the same time? I talk about crowdfusing in my seminars, which is basically, you have a group of people, 300 people. That's a tough group to talk in front of because it's, you know, all their minds are going in different directions. They all came from different experiences. They're all hardwired a little bit differently. But if you can get all their minds going in the same direction on something, maybe that's happening in front of them now. So if you're all at a conference and it's a crypto conference, opening up with something about, you know, crypto this or that, you know, whereas you may want to get to a story that's about you, and it may make sense, but the broader. You can. You can get it out there because once you get all their minds going in one direction, you can kind of reinforce that with body language and eye contact and elevate the words with pacing and cadence. It's almost like it's Pavlov's dog, where you can kind of give them the treat when you inflect your voice at a certain time because it's now triggered. You've built that response in them that this is the thing I want you to remember. And I do break it out. We'll get. Kind of get into that, and I'll break out how. How I write a joke and how people should, too, because everybody's worried about now story. I want to try to get my story out there. Save your stories for your friends. They give, okay. They know the backstory. They know everything else your customers don't. The words are powerful for your customer. You want to get down. I always remember you're a little too young, maybe. There was a game show called Name that Tune. And people would go, I can name that tune in eight notes. And that's how you have to kind of be thinking when you talk about your messaging and just get down to what's funny and figure out if there's one Word that's more impactful. You know, blue might be funny, but magenta is funnier, you know, and that's the thing they're going to remember the long term. So it really is just kind of getting people to look at it a different way instead of looking at it before where they were like, it's something Jim has and I don't. And it's not that. And it can be taught. Now, whether or not it could be taught in 30 minutes is, you know, but we can certainly give you people.

We start with the basics. So let's maybe like, my first question would be, what are some of the key elements that you wish everybody knew about comedy? Like, or humor in general? Like, what are the things that could get, like, the cheat sheet, if you will?

Comedy is about exaggeration. I mean, the first thing is it never really happened the way it happened, you know, whereas people are used to telling the story, and they're like, well, none of my stories are funny. Nobody's stories are funny. You have to make them funny. With exaggeration and colorful language, you have to punch up those stories. So as you're going through, you want to look for something called wasted motions. And wasted motion is something that doesn't need to be in there at all. So, like, when you're telling your story to your friends, you know, time is not of the essence. So, you know, maybe the joke or the impact statement is about how expensive food is at Whole Foods. And you start off the story by, you know what? Today was my day off. So I slept in for a little while, and then I woke up, and I didn't know what I was going to do, so I just got in the shower, and then I went to make breakfast. And I noticed that we were out on a few things. So after I finished breakfast, I got in the car and I drove up Route 15, and then I got off, and then I went to Whole Foods. You could have started the story right at Whole Foods. You know, you didn't need all that kind of stuff. So. And that's a kind of. Kind of a broad example. But if you look for wasted motions, because now if you only have them for X amount of time, and a lot of people, you have to get them in the first minutes, 30 seconds, 60 seconds. You can't have a wasted motion. A lot of times I'm watching people's keynotes or I'm watching their webinar or one of the things that these guys are doing, and they're like, well, how do you think it's going so far. I'm like, do you think people are still watching by now in your reality? Do you think that a stranger, not a soft audience, but a stranger, is somehow still tuned into this? I'll tell you exactly where you lost them. So you really got to kind of think about those things. And everybody's always worried about the thing. Okay, I've got to just get the webinar out. I got to figure out and memorize it and be good at it and all that kind of stuff. Whereas you always got to be thinking about your audience first. So when you think about wasted motions and getting those out of there and then, you know, you apply the formula, the stand up comedy of formula. See, I'm so excited about this too. I got, I just came from the gym too, so I'm a little bit. It's still pretty hot over here. So there is a formula, so there's a setup. Describe the situation. Punchline, tagline. And I'm going to give people a perfect example. This. When people ask me, like when we first started talking, you asked me, well, how did you get here? Ever since I was three years old, I knew I wanted to be a comedian. It's all I've ever wanted to do. When I was 10 years old, my parents took me to Las Vegas. I saw my first comedy show ever at the Riviera. Joan Rivers and Shecky Green knew right then that that was my life's work. All I wanted to do with my life was become a Las Vegas comedian and have my own show. 35 years later, I get my own show in the same room that I saw the show at when I was 10 years old. Two years later, they blow up the casino. But that's the part of the story you got to block out, you know, Otherwise, it's a beautiful tale about a boy in his dream, you know, and, and I've been fired a lot in my life. This is the first time they ever blew it up. It's almost like they made it personal. But in that story, I could tell that story a lot of ways. But if I go through and I first try to eliminate the wasted motions and just get down to what's funny. And don't write in the paragraph form, break out each section. So the setup is, ever since I'm three years old, all I've ever do is wanted to be a comedian. Describe the situation. At 10 years old, my parents take me to Las Vegas. I see my first comedy show, Joan Rivers and Shecky Green, at the Riviera, and Part of this you have to understand that I got. My show was at the Riviera, my Las Vegas show. That's Riviera. So, you know, set up to describe the situation. And then the Punchline, you know, 35 years later, I get my own show in the same room I did when I saw the show when I was 10 years old. Two years later, they blow it up. And nothing in there that doesn't need to be in there, it tells the story. And then this is. But, but why I tell this story is kind of when I'm establishing my narrative, which is, how did I figure out I could teach these people? Why didn't I just go get another comedy show? Well, the truth is, they blew up the Riviera not to build another attraction in Las Vegas or another casino. They blew it up to build more convention space. Las Vegas had now changed. And out of the rubble, I realized I don't want to be in the ticket selling business anymore. People are coming here for work. People are coming here for reasons for, you know, conferences and things that I can use my skill set to attack them differently than just, hey, come to my comedy show. One of 14 other comedy shows that are here in Las Vegas. And you're here for work anyway, so you're probably not going to come, you know, so. But I tell that story, I get a laugh. It tells who I am. I mean, in just those few words, you know, so much about me. And if people start kind of thinking about it that way, then applying the formula, not just writing in a paragraph form, because even when you want those words to come to life as you're telling them, there needs to be separation. You need to see what that's like. If I could share the screen, Can I Share screen?

Yeah, go for it.

Is that cool? Okay.

If you hover over my face, you'll be able to see a share screen button.

Okay. Share screen. You give me two seconds here. Okay.

Just close all the porn tabs.

Yeah. No, no, no. Hey, listen, I'm. I. I got a phone for that. I'm kidding. Let me see. Here we go. Get all the way down here. You know, I have. So my show in Las Vegas was called 40 is not the new 20. And it was kind of about how much the world has changed in the last 40 years. And, you know, when I grew up, I didn't have Google yet. Go ask your father. You know, good thing about Google, you can hit refresh and that information's gone. I'm still trying to get stuff out of my head. My father put in there in 1976. But, you know, this is. This comes. Comes from my program here. But I want to get down here to where I broke down one of my jokes. So I talk about the toys kids get to play with. They've got good toys now, virtual reality, dvd, CD rom, computer games. And all they ever do say they're bored. You know, they don't know what board is. You spend all day in room with an Etch A Sketch that's bored. You know, you spend a rainy day with a light bright that's bored. You know, you're like, what a piece of junk this is. Why doesn't somebody kill me? I'd rather be in school. So that's the formula, you know, I mean, when you see it here, basically it's a setup. Describe the situation. Punchline. Tagline is basically another impact statement, if you would, that doesn't have to be set up again and really down here in the subtleness of, of the taglines and throwaway lines. Because, you know, when people come to my show, why I know humor so powerful, and if you're not thinking about it, you're really the only one you're gonna get left behind is because people come to my show with the expectation, make me laugh, and for 90 minutes I can still beat the hell out of them and have them walk out of there going, that was the best show I've ever seen. When they expected it. In your things, your webinars, your keynotes, you know, your training sessions, they're not expecting humor. That's humor's real powers when they don't see it coming. So I think it's even more valuable for you guys because, you know, and where you put it, it's only strategically throughout the whole sequence sense of thing, it aids to the learning process. People will listen more attentively because they think another joke is coming. But when you do write, use this formula. Set up, describe situation, punchline. So and when I do write it out, initially, I do break it out in these colors now I think in these colors. But in the beginning, I would do it this way, because if you write it in a paragraph form, all you're doing is memorizing and by the way, memorization techniques. If we're going to give anybody anything valuable here when we walk out, big problem. People are not successful in delivering their message is they don't. They can't remember it. You know, I mean, if your story is not really from a script or a narrative, every time you tell it, it could be Different. And that's not. That's not what we're looking for here. We're looking to recreate this. That's the science is in that. I can tell this joke every single time, and it will work every single time. When somebody asked me, how'd you get into this business? And I tell them my story, I'm going to tell it the same way every single time. And then. And not be like, oh, I hate when people ask me this question, or I'm gonna sell it. Like, I just. Like, that's the most exciting question anybody's ever asked me today. You know, I tell people, Celine Dion, she. She's still singing Titanic song, you know, but she don't seem like she's pissed about it. You know, she seems. Every time I see a singing that song, she's thrilled about it, you know, so that's the way when you're told. You're telling your story out there, but she break it out here. Have you seen the toys kids get to play with now? They have good toys now. And you kind of noticed that maybe my voice kind of changed there, where I was using something called cadence, which is eventually these things, not only should they be broken out, and you can now see the pauses and the words can actually come to life. You can now make sure that you could tell each color with a different inflection. And then that becomes like jazz. Your words become, you know, just really powerful on levels that you've never even thought about before. But this is the start to that. So have you ever seen the toys kids get to play with now? They have good toys now set up. Describe the situation. Virtual reality, dvd, computer games, and all they have to do is say they're bored. They don't know what bored is. You spend all day in a room with an Etch A Sketch, that's bored punchline. You spend a rainy day with a light bright. That's bored tagline. What a piece of junk this is. Why does somebody kill me? I'd rather be in school. Throwaway line. But I guarantee you, as you're mining for material and we'll kind of talk about, you know, it should be stories, things that happen to you. It should have a basis in truth. And then. Then I go, you want to exaggerate. And people go, you want me to lie? I go, no, I want you to be a good storyteller. But, yes, it's about exaggeration. But as long as the basis is in truth, and we all see it in movies all the time, it'll Say, based on a true story. And it is very loosely based on a true story. And look, with the comedic, you know, the license that they take with it, you really have to kind of look at your stories that same way.

So, Matt, I love this framework, and this is really just a simple way to get into joke writing immediately, right? Take any story, you got any experience, and you can find the humor in it. If you can come up with really, like, three creative things. It seems right. If I'm just breaking it down from a layman's perspective, right? You got punchline. You got your. Like, Dave Chappelle did a great skit on this. He's like, I'm gonna tell you the punchline right now. I got a fishbowl full of punch lines. You're not even gonna see it coming, but at some point I'm gonna nail you with it.

And it just came out the other.

Day, so maybe you haven't seen it yet, but he basically just said, you know, this. This really esoteric, random, you know, non sequitur statement. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, the story. And you forgot all about that statement at the very end. When he. Minds work like great stories. The monomyth, if you read Joseph Campbell, this is the same type of thing, but it's even more compact and more available to you.

And. And you could really reverse engineer the joke, too. Like, once you have the statement and you know here that you want them to leave, you know, only knowing this one thing, you could. You could. You could backload it and work back from there and go, okay, now what few words am I going to need? And there's, There's. You know, you learn a lot of different rules here, but the longer the setup, the bigger the impact statement or the punchline has to be. But you're also taking a chance too, when you give them all this stuff, because it basically is a riddle that the brain kind of pops out. So you put all these things in there, and then it decides if it's going to be funny or how it's going to make you feel. But, yeah, absolutely, you could. You could only have the punchline. And then later on figure out how the hell I'm going to get to that. Because that. It's, it's. It's when you break it out like this, you go, okay, so, you know, and that happens to me sometimes, too. I'll get a punchline and I do long form. Stand up now. Which is why I think I had to make the transition from regular joke telling. So I don't really watch other comedians now because where they stop, I start because I had a one man show, 90 minutes and I had. And you have to prove something at the end of that, people have to walk away going, he did prove that 40 wasn't the new 20. And, and here's why. It wasn't just a theme for the show. So, you know, I had a joke where I'm like, you know, kids are allergic to everything nowadays. You know, when I'm, when I was a kid, I ate paste. I wasn't allergic to anything. But now a sunflower seed will take baby Zachary down, which is a fine joke, you know, and it says something, da, da, da. But now I can dive in there and go, okay, now what am I really trying to say? I. What is my point of view, which is very important in business here, that when people are looking at brands and businesses, they want to know what you're all about. So they really want to know what your point of view is. So establishing that becomes really, really important. And you kind of take these premises for a ride. So I go, when you're looking for material, you always want to look to the stories in your life, the most embarrassing things, because remember, these are the things that will connect with your audience because you're looking for commonality, things that we could, you know, so if it's something your kids did, it's probably something that kids did. You know, if it's the hassles of every day, you know, I go through here. So in, in joke writing, editing is everything. In joke telling, timing is everything. But if you use the formula to your point, these other two things are possible. You know, if you just go, I'm gonna write a paragraph here and I'm. And never use this. When you're really writing things that matter, like things like your story and how you're gonna use it in business, take the time to hand write this down because that's how we hardwired things in our brain, you know, that, that, that lets your brain know this is more important than, than this or something else. And, and, and then I think that does matter later on, you know, I mean, how this, eventually you create the story in your mind is important. So you want to get down to editing and timing. So now give you some things where you can be dangerous. You know, we, that's what we're gonna do. We're gonna set, set loose. The people watch this podcast and there's just enough to give you dangerous. So a couple of the different techniques you can use. Derailment so that's where you get their mind going one direction quickly change. The first joke I ever wrote, derailment joke. You're a very nice audience. You know, last night, the audience wasn't so nice. You know, as soon as I got on stage, there was a woman in the front row. She was like, boo, Boo. You suck. Boo. Boo. Get off the stage. Boo. And I was like, ma, can you just be quiet? So, you know, again, it could be a priest, it could be a nun, it could be anyone, the Dalai Lama, it could be anybody who wouldn't tell you, you that you suck at a thing. But, you know, but very simple physicality, you can make the jokes come to life, you know, and I always want people to know that, you know, you got to sell it. I mean, you know, this is what really helps comedians, you know, I mean, it's called the act out, but I'm able to act out the joke. So, you know, keep that in mind that just because you're not a comedian doesn't mean that you can't use physicality to enhance the joke. But don't use it as a crutch so much because eventually they just may laugh because you know you're doing something silly. Social taboos. This is something that a lot of, in the entrepreneur community, at least, you see it a lot, where guys now are cursing in their speeches because we found out that people who curse are usually more intelligent. I don't, you know, they know more words. They know how to use impact, which.

Is, you know, one predicator of intelligence too. You know, humorous people are more attractive. It tends to. To attract people to you. And, you know, if you can make somebody laugh, that's. That's the game over situation. Right. No matter what you're doing.

Yeah. At the end of the day, we're just wordsmiths. So, you know, it, you know, being able to use the right words and figuring out the right words and getting down to his few words as possible, which can be nonverbal too. You know, I mean, that's why I say with the physicality, sometimes a look can get a bigger laugh than a punchline. So, you know, just kind of be cognizant of that. Why people laugh, though, when you curse or you talk about drinking or, you know, whatever is. These are social taboos. People are not used to people saying these kind of things in public, so it's more nervous kind of stuff. So, you know, and I see guys cursing way too much out there. So, you know, the joke of the statement has to be impactful or funny without the fuck. Otherwise, they're just gonna be laughing because you said fuck. And here's the reason, here's the science kind of behind that irony. These are two big ones, irony and analogies. So years ago, the best example I had for this was, you know, before Trump came along with the wall, they were gonna build a fence to protect us from illegal aliens. You know, which to me always seemed ironic. That offense, offense can't even keep the kids out of the community pool in the summertime. Who are you keeping out with it with a fence? You know, it's not like people are gonna walk 2,000 miles across Mexico. You go down there, pass banditos over rivers through, and finally get to the bottom and go, oh, no, they made a fence. Turn around. It's a Shane link, you know, and just to me, I always thought it was so ironic then. Now he's talking about a wall which probably will never get built. And the reason you wouldn't want to use this, I use this example just because it's one of my favorite jokes. And it seems, but also to illustrate this point, that the reason you wouldn't do this joke now is the second you mentioned the wall, so much other hard wiring has been done there that's going to come bleed through and muddy the waters here. So in general, I would say don't worry about the joke. But you really, when you think about your audience, also think about not just how is that joke going to make them feel, but what else is it going to make them think about, which is pretty, pretty, pretty important. You know, I posted something last week about a guy who was a coin expert and been a little boring coin expert for pretty much most of his life and came to Vegas and started telling people he was a coin expert. And the people lit up with excitement, you know, and were fascinated in a way that they had never been fascinated before. Because over the past three weeks, the narrative of coin expert has been changed by bitcoin and cryptocurrency. So, first coin minted in 700 AD. In three weeks, it unwrote. And the way we view the word coinex, so even something as subtle as that, you know, when you're talking to your audience, go, just because this is what they associated with that word last week, that doesn't mean they're associating that with this, the word this week. Things that are analogies, things that you can connect like, and this is why I love doing podcasts and we're not doing radio, because I could tell the Joke the way the jokes supposed to be told. So I used to joke, and actually Yannick had to remind me of this joke. And I left it in because it's probably the perfect example of taking something that should never be connected. But when you connect them together, you now change the narrative of how people look at both of those words. So I would say, you know, you know, I like Denny's, you know, and we come after some drinking joke or something. I'd be like, you know, the restaurant chain Denny's, It's. It's like a hooker. You know, you could drive past Denny's sober during the day. You're like, oh, Denny's, that's gross. That's disgusting. I don't want any of that. But you drive past Denny's drunk, three in the morning, like, Denny, I'm gonna get me some of that. And the thing is, now that people will never forget it. They will never forget that joke. They come up to me years, years later. I haven't told that joke in over eight years. People will come up to me, love that joke. Remember that joke. And the difference is, when you do something, I joke that is irony based, it may take them a second to laugh. When it's analogies, they see the joke coming and still laugh as you run them over with it. So, you know, these are two areas you want to look. But if you can connect stuff, though, like I said, they. I'm working with a woman now who is selling things on qvc, and we're really strategically trying to combine jokes with her products that are non traditional. Like combined a handbag with a story about the gym. So now when women go into the gym, they think about the handbag, you know, and so now, you know, you've changed. And then when they look at a handbag now, they're thinking about the gym and. And specifically about her and her brand and just finding the power of that. So I'm gonna go back to you because, you know, I can keep talking, but I know we're limited.

No, I want to make sure we get a good thing and kind of wrap it up for people. So. All right, so we've talked about kind of the setup of a joke. We've talked about the punchline, the throwaway line, the tagline, maybe I got the order wrong. But essentially the three creative statements that allow you to tell a great joke and to have it stick with people. You talked about humor. You talked about irony. You talked about how even if you're an entrepreneur, even if you are an investor, or a philanthropist. And you want to persuade or influence people. This is one of the best tools that you can have in your toolkit. This is a learnable skill. It's not just something you're born with. Finally, I kind of want to wrap it all together for people. If people want to understand how to get better at comedy and they don't necessarily want to be comedians.

Yeah.

What are some of the ways that they can do this? I know you offer programs and workshops and whatnot.

Yeah.

How can we help you, Matt? Because, you know, this is the Make More Marvels podcast. We want to help connect you to the resources, the opportunities that people. Sure.

There's a lot of different ways. You know, it's funny you mentioned Garrett and is that, you know, part of the people that come to me, that they're in the middle of a launch and they, or they're releasing a webinar or course or they want to be better at their keynote and, and that's all fine, but then there's a bunch of CEOs and entrepreneurs that just run businesses and they just want the experience. So there are people that I take on a six week class where the end result is them getting up and doing five minutes of stand up at an open mic. And, you know, I have half the group now, so I'm looking for four other entrepreneurs who maybe don't have, you know, a natural tie into where they can apply the teaching that, you know of my program, but I can teach you how to be a stand up. And at the end of this, I guarantee you'll be better off for the experience and you'll be going through it with, you know, seven other entrepreneurs that are pretty much just like you. And it's a hell of a lot of fun. And it kind of goes back to my classes where I, where I was just taught stand up, but the application was going to be in, however they're going to apply it, whether it's, you know, getting up in front of the, their employees or whatever. But everybody wants to be a keynote. So everybody has the story they want to tell in their back pocket. So this kind of is the basis if you think you may want to do a keynote later on, you know, putting together a five minute stand up comedy routine will kind of give you a lot of the skills you're going to need for that. So there's that. If you're launching a business, I think, you know, part of what I do is make you better. And for a lot of entrepreneurs, this is the first time with A business. It's you. It really is you. You're the one. You're the brand now. You're the one out there selling your genius, if that is what you're doing. We need to have a conversation right away, and not even in a pushy way, because there's one of me and there's a ton of you guys. So if we're not the right fit, I ain't going down that. You know, I'm not gonna go down that road. But I can also get. I thought about your audience in ways that you haven't, because I've thought about it in such a pure way, which is humor. What of kind. You know, there's so many quotes out there. But if you can understand why people laugh, why a person laughs, you know more about that customer than anyone else out there, because they're never. They're not even looking for what motivates people to laugh and what is being done to them. That this is now the current climate of humor, you know, and so we can help you think about your audience in that way. But. But as far as this goes, practicing this. And I want to give people a few more little tips here, but understand this can be replicated, you know, you want to.

I wanted to share my own experience with.

Once you have confidence in it. Yeah, go ahead, please.

Because I had a mentor early on before, so I used to be the hedge fund guy. I was very straight and narrow. You know, we're going to invest your money. And yeah, there's not a lot of room for humor when people's money's, like, on the line. But when I transitioned into entrepreneurship and especially online marketing, I had a mentor named John Romanello who's very, very funny, and he's a great copywriter, and he's sardonic and witty and he's got great look on the world. And people follow him. He's a fitness guy. And people follow him not just because he's great at what he does, which he is. You know, he's written great books and he's. He's partnered up with people and worked with Arnold Schwarzenegger, all these great people, but they follow him because he freaking funny. And I think they would follow him whether they cared about fitness or not. And that, you know, it's just showing his success. I mean, hundreds of thousands of people have subscribed to his list and bought his products, and he's turned millions and millions of dollars over. Over the years. And yeah, he was in early. That's part of it. You Know, before the email marketing saturated. But it's also because he's so freaking funny that I think I would follow me even if I wasn't interested in fitness. And they still do to this day stuff.

And I still chuckle.

He's a very gifted writer. And part of this training will allow you to now tap into people's psyches, like you said, in a new way that regardless of what you're selling, will be useful.

Oh yeah. I mean, this slide, I was just, I wasn't going to show this one. But this speaks to the point too. I mean, it just helps people relax, you know, I mean, when you're there, I mean, you know, people have a fear of being sold. They have so many fears that they bring to the equation. And that's one of my teachings. You know, I, I break everything kind of down to what I call the three rings of stand up comedy. And that's really. I've done over 6,000 shows and bombed three times. Okay, one time was in West Virginia. I put that on West Virginia. That wasn't on me. I was in the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong audience. And even if I had thought about them, it was very early on in my career, but even if I had thought about them in a way, I didn't have any material that was going to connect with these farmers in Bluefield, West Virginia. It was a bad booking. Another one was a woman's prison in Baltimore. Once again, I put that on the woman's prison in Baltimore and another one, the power went out. And you know, but short of that, I can pretty much deal with everything because I broke out the nuances into such a step by step, part of each part of the process. And there's a public speaking ring, the performing ring and the material ring. And they're all pretty different and all. And you need to have a strong foundation in all of them because every speaking situation. That's why I say when the cop walks up to your car, that's just a public speaking situation and you want to put him at ease. You know, a lot of people don't realize and I might as well tell your people how to get out of that ticket right now. That is the cops number one fear is that he's never worries that he's gonna get shot in a bank robbery or high speed chase. I mean, maybe there's some of that, but their number one fear and the number one situation that they're most vulnerable is a traffic stop when they're walking up to that car. Because they have no idea. And we, as humans, do everything we possibly can to make it worse. We start reaching for the glove department. You know, he doesn't know that you're a nice person. He has no idea that you're a nice person. You're not reaching for this. You know, you haven't taken off your sunglasses. You're trying to put your seatbelt on. You're getting rid of the joint, you know, whatever.

Super high. Yeah, I have a similar story.

I haven't been pulled.

I've been pulled over a lot in my life. I've never gotten a ticket. And I think a lot of it's just because I know how to act. It's like, all right, absolutely.

Hands on the wheel. Windows are down.

Yes, sir. No, sir. Yes, officer. Thank you, officer.

Yeah. And don't try to lie to him. See, a lot of what my teachings are is to. Is to start off in a positive place so only positive things can happen. And if you start lying to him, first of all, he's. This is his job, to pull people over. He is lied to more than anyone else you know, out there. By the time you get to the judge, you've learned that maybe I should start telling the truth. Truth here. But the cop is always lied to. But if you lead with the truth and honesty, because the policeman can't let you off, but Jim can, and you want to connect with him as a human being. And that's the science of everything that I'm doing. And if you can work on a police officer, it can work on your customers. It can work, you know. You know, and it. So. But when we get in here, we had more time.

I can run over a little bit, by the way, if you can. It's up to you. Oh, I got another.

You know, because. Because it is a public speaking. Okay, perfect. It is just a public speaking situation. You know, I mean, when you. When you think about it. So what I do before, during, and after my performance. So you're saying, what can people do? I'll give you some quick little things here. Understand the science, okay? Everyone's worried about when they're gonna. What am I gonna say? What am I gonna say? Hey, let's step back a little bit here. Understand that when people first meet you, 55% of what they're going to learn from you or how they're going to feel about you comes from your body language. Pretty important here, right? 38% comes from the tone of your voice, which is why cadence and rhythm and things like that are important. Only 7% is about the words. So don't necessarily think about the words you have to say. Think about the things you have to do to be successful. And that's why I break down here, the three phases of performing a public speaking. So you want to use visualization techniques. You know, I've been on stage over 6,000 times. It is safe to say there is nothing I don't know about what it takes to get up in front of people and speak. One of the biggest advantages I have is visualization techniques. I start the show in my mind hours before the show or the speaking situation. I always say when I'm ironing my pants, you know, to get ready for the show. That's when I get my mind in there and I see myself being successful on stage. I see myself walking out there and with confidence, and I see my body language playing out in front of these people. I see myself getting the stage ready, all this kind of stuff. You want to assess the dynamics of the room ahead of time. So when people introduce you, you actually know how to get on the stage and on, off the stage here. But I'm seeing that in my head. I'm thinking about all these things even before I even get there. Most people think the speaking engagement and this is great for your business because if you can get out there and now in front of, like, thousands of people and be able to share what you do. Whereas a week ago you thought this wasn't even possible. You thought, I'm not funny enough or I'm not charismatic enough. But I'm telling you, we can actually get everybody there. These are now the things that you have to do. Understand your audience, watch the other speakers that go there, look for a way to fuse them. Is there a joke I could tell that I know all of these people are going to laugh at? And like I said, it could have something to do with the location of the event, the type of event. The other speaker that went on before you, he may have said something that you can tag on. These are real powerful things because they don't even have to recall the memory. It's happening out right in front of them. I talked about, you know, writing things down. As far as memorization techniques go, Handwriting is a very strong memory track of the brain. Record yourself saying your presentation and then listen to it while you're sleeping. There's studies that say that we can learn in our sleep, and this is a valuable time in our brains. The last thing that we learn is the first thing we remember in the morning. And there's power there. Listen to it when you're out going for walks. 25%. The body releases the endorphins that help you memorize things. So these are all those kind of things. But even before you go on stage, the reason comedians, the way we can remember things is we use Segways. So I don't necessarily know what's on either side of the joke, but I know what goes in the middle, and that helps me remember on each side of them. And then relax. Now you're up there. Don't rush into it. Thank the audience. Smile at them. Split the room into three sections, a third of the way out. Make eye contact. And then the more at ease you look, the more at ease they're gonna feel, you know, so you kind of want to do all that, and then you want to record every single one of them. Because you can learn. I mean, when you get off stage, you're only gonna think about the things you did bad. When you videotape it, and you go out there, you're gonna find the things that you did. Well, I don't know if this is ever a problem, but it isn't stand up. A lot of times if I'm making, you know, doing some improv with the audience, it's we. More often than not, the comedian isn't thinking about remembering the person's name. So I kind of thought about that in the same way what I do because I have to remember their name if the joke is gonna work. I, at the very least, if I'm gonna have credibility with them, the very least they're gonna expect me is to remember their name. It's a huge thing. Actually caring about remembering people's names will help you remember people's names. It's an easy thing. We think it's a hard thing, but we just don't give a shit. Starting to give a shit will matter and connecting it right away with somebody else, you know. You know, oh, Brad. I know. Brad from make more mark in your mind, you know, and then use it. Say it to them. Say it back to them. Well, it's great to meet you, Brad. And then if you're on the phone, write it down. These are the ones I want to get to real quick about actually memorizing. Because once you write these jokes and you write this story and all this stuff, you want to be able to retell it. So you want to burn it in there. So it's always in there. So the handwriting thing, they did studies. One group took notes on their computer one took notes with handwriting. They remembered 80% more. You want to dramatize it, see yourself, you know, acting it out because you know, you're a performer when it comes to this stuff. And then go, then this will be the last one, and then we'll let you ask whatever question you want. But these are the things. When I talk about the public speaking part of it, this is what you're going to need to be dangerous to be able to just tell your story like, and make sure it's impactful and to practice it. When you said, what can they do? The number 10 is the one I want to get to. And we'll finish on that. But if they like you, they like what you have to say. Always remember that when in doubt, be humble. You know, as you're learning this skill, it's so much. If you try to come up to lie or whatever, same thing with the cop. Just go, you know what? This stuff's not easy. You know, this is my first time on stage, which I wouldn't do if you. If you didn't have to. You never tell them something that's gonna scare them. But, you know, when in doubt, be humble. The audience never expects you to be perfect. I've messed up 30 times on this podcast, and I've done it. And I've spoken in front of people over 6,000 times. I never. If you don't put that pressure on yourself, the audience, don't overload them with too much information. This goes back to wasted motions. When you're writing a joke that you don't have confidence in, it's our natural instinct. Don't ask me why. To make the joke longer, which is the worst possible thing. You now just took a shitty joke and made it longer. But, you know, always be cognizant of that. So don't worry, we'll eventually make that joke funny. You can't make anybody, everybody happy. When you try to use humor, you're gonna miss with some people, but nothing would have made them laugh. They're just miserable people. You know, the average person, when it comes to humor gives you an A for effort, no matter what, you know, because you at least tried to do this thing. Don't be a public speaker. Be yourself. Public speaking is dynamic, you know, use. That's why I say, look for these opportunities. You know, when everyone else is just thinking about the next thing, they're going to say, if you're in a group and then something happens and Jimmy said something, you know, and everyone else is again thinking about what they're going to say, you're now going to say something about what Jimmy just said, because you're tapped into whatever that might be, or if somebody drops a plate of drinks over here, you can find a way to use that into this conversation. So always, you know, understand that some the variables are out there. It's just a matter of how quickly can you process them and make a choice and then get it out there and what will happen. When it comes to humor, it doesn't happen in real time. It's the time inside your head. You're controlling the moments. The moments aren't controlling you. So it happens a lot quicker than you think. But don't draw attention to something unless you have to. This happens in speaking all the time. If the mic is bad, don't tell the audience it's bad, because now the sounds gonna be 10 times worse if it's hot in there. You know, as I'm sweating during this thing, because I just went to the gym because I was like, this is. It's New Year's, I'm back in the gym, and I don't realize that I heated my body up to about 1200 degrees Kelvin. And now I'm trying to do this podcast. But so in this case, if I didn't tell you that I went to the gym and you see me sweating, you're gonna call an ambulance because you're like this guy about to die. So that's. That's why I say, don't draw attention to something. You have to. But the biggest thing is when you go, now I've given you these skills. Go apply them in your real life. Go to where people are. Try to use humor at the line, at the grocery store. If you're not usually the funny guy at the lunch meeting at work, take what I've taught you. Write a script, memorize that joke, and deliver it with, you know, the confidence that, you know that. That they don't. They're not expecting it to be funny. And it's going to be funny because the expectation isn't there. So the bar is much lowered. And if you started off with your story and your truth, there's no way that this is gonna end bad.

So I love it. I love it. And I'm loving that it's starting to bleed into more places because I think more than anything, the world needs more humor. People need to stop taking themselves so seriously all the time and situations so seriously all the time. It's the same thing as the news. Like, they focus on the 1% or less of things that are going down at any given time when 99% of the world's just fine and, you know, keep calm and carry on. What I really want to talk about, since we have a little bit extra time, is I really love improv. I took two levels of improv out in Westside Comedy in Los Angeles and I lived in Santa Monica. And I love the. I've always considered myself very quick and I just loved these kind of non sequitur and one liners. I don't know, always bring that out when I'm talking, you know, about entrepreneurship and investing. I think I'm going to more as a result of this conversation.

So thank you.

But I've noticed that you're not the only one. Certainly like Kyle Cease is a great example. I think a lot of people know I've known Kyle a while. I got to be friends with him before he really, really took off. And I don't get to talk to him as much as I'd like to. But, you know, he's a great guy and I love his work and I've been to a lot of his stuff and he's kind of on that line between personal development, comedy. Right. I hope I screw this up. And it's super fun. Can you give some people some. Can you give people some tips about improv or just kind of be more in your. In your flow or in your heart with regard to what you're talking about here? Because this is more about scripting. But I think a lot of people would benefit from just understanding. It can be fun and playful too, and.

And actually understanding again. Improv is another one. You know, on. When I was in LA for a long time working on different shows, there was a great show at that Thursday nights at the Improv or Melrose where Drew Carey would come in with Wayne Brady and the whole cast of whose lines did anyway, and I would watch them rehearse because a lot of people think improv is. Oh, I just thought of it. And a lot of times it is. I just thought of it. But the way you do it in the framework of the games is that you can recreate it and sell it to an audience like it happened in the moment. And that happens in Stand up a lot too. So I think it's more powerful. One thing, yes, you can be playful in this, that. But there's some rules to using it. One is it's all in how you sell it. Okay. Improv is what I call something you weren't prepared to do in that speech. But circumstances developed so that this thing now, this opportunity, and really using improv as an opportunity, whether it's an opportunity to show more of your playful side or if it's an opportunity to get more impact. But you know what? You didn't know this was going to happen, and it just popped up. Now when you do something over 6,000 times, the same things kind of happen again. But one thing I noticed is as long as I sold it, like I just thought of it and didn't just go, well, this is great. There were two rabbis at the show last night. You know, I just sold this to rabbis here, even though I had the material there. So one thing I want people to understand about improv is that as you do it more, as you make more attempts at humor, the responses, the audience, your audience, even if it's an audience of one, they, if, you know, because sometimes they don't get it. There are some comedians that bomb better than they do. Like, it's funny to watch them bomb than it is to watch them do well, because they have so many jokes about a joke bombing. Andy Kindler is one of these great guys. So he would have all these things, but how the audience groans. He may have six different jokes based on the level of groan he got, but he sells it like that audience created that material. And I think that that's just something to think about here. The science of it is very important too, because you have your scripted material, but you decide you want to improv something. And I would never walk up on stage. I've worked with some of the best people, music people, some of the best speakers, actors, and they're like, oh, I have to go give a speech. I'm just gonna wing it. And I'm like, please don't, please don't. It has to have, because, you know, five minutes. And these things are usually much longer than that. But when it's going well, it's five short minutes. When it's not going well, it's 300 long ass seconds. And you feel every single one of them. And you know, you, you want to at least have your framework. But I say, okay, fine, you want to use improv, it's fine if something comes up. But never leave your presentation or your speech or act without a way to get back. Because now it's almost like the, it's, it's more fun over here and you have your scripted stuff, but you're tethering further away from the rocket ship. And you know what? You're gonna have to go Back and get into your presentation, because that's why you're there. So, you know, and the only way you. And if you do leave your act and you go out there and you make some great points and you get some laughs and it's fun, you compromised all of that. If you have to go to the audience, go, now, where was I? You know what's gangsters? When you go right back seamlessly. So never leave your act without pressing the pause button and mentally marking down where you were. Don't be afraid to take chances. There's no reason to leave the scripted material unless there was a big payoff. And that payoff could be in a bunch of different things. We could, like you said, they could remember that you were the ones who had the balls to kind of step out of your act before you improv a bit. Make sure you get all the information we can, which, you know from. From taking the classes, you. You first want to know the settings, the occupation, the problem they're having, you know, that kind of thing. But remembering that within the framework of those games, the audience usually yells out, starbucks. I tell you, nine times out of 10, I was gonna say starbucks.

Everybody says Starbucks.

Everybody says Starbucks. But this sells my point. This sells my point that if you understand the audience and that they're probably all gonna kind of say the same things based on different things, you can, you know, be prepared for that. And then you just sell it like you just thought of it. But the good thing is, while they're giving you the, you know, the narrative for the story, you're also thinking. And remember, all of this is about controlling the moments. It's. It's not happening in real time. Sometimes. That's the funniest thing I've ever thought of. Happened faster than that. And it's already out to the audience. So I. You know, athletes talk about this. You know, he's in a football stadium full of 90,000 people, and the quarterback throws the ball, and everybody's focused on the moment of that ball spinning and the wide receiver running back. They talk about how everything slows down. I mean, literally, they can feel each step, each pulse of their heart, because everyone is focused on that moment. When you're in front of people and you're using humor, especially when you. When the idea is, okay, this person is funny, and I'm listening more attentively, you are now really focused in. And the person using the humor or speaking is in more control of that person's mind. So time is not as important. So while people are Talking, you're thinking, know when to say when. Remember, improv is not scripted stuff. It's more conversational. Now you have your scripted stuff here. So if you do too much improv, they may not be able to go back and listen to the stuff that you wrote down. Use old bits and new situations. You know, you may not. You got this great story about your Aunt Elma's pumpkin pie and you know, and how the family loved it and. And you know what? You don't always tell it in that thing, but you know what somebody's relate. You know, something came up in that situation where that story is perfect for it. And you want to always kind of be looking for those opportunities all the time. Use improv to enhance it, but not as it. Like I said, if it. The reason you want to go out there and wing it is what if it doesn't work? You nothing, nothing to go back to, fall back on and you're literally screwed. And I've never once seen anybody just wing it because you're going to forget to thank somebody. Whatever you were there for, it's harder than it looks. So do that. And then always remember you want to have fun up there. The more fun you're having, the more leeway they're going to give you. But always remember that things like timing and editing, but you're just doing it in real time, but those things still matter. And the great thing you can do, which is it's. You don't have to if you. If you use improv. But at the end, which is what the genius of all the great improv masters are, I can take that hour and tie it all together in a bow and walk off the stage and. And that as far as getting them to remember something about you, if you can find a way to tie it all together, things that happened in that moment, you know, it's really, really, really powerful stuff. But I think in concert with the scripted stuff where you have a plan to always.

I love that. And that's awesome.

So when you.

When you talk about somebody like Kyle, just to go with that example.

Yeah.

A lot of his stuff he'll even admit is totally just, you know, I hope I screw this up. I hope that it goes wrong with no net. But he's been doing it for so long and he had an entire comedy career before he went into personal development.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But even that is the plan. But think about it. It's not. That is the plan. You know, I love it. You know, makes it seem like it's not as a big concern to him. But the plan is that things aren't gonna go well and that not having a plan is his plan. You know, and when it comes on stage, when you crew, when you're doing stand up, I've walked out on stage and go, the hell with it. Tonight. I'm not gonna do one joke that from my act. I'm just gonna mess with them the whole time. That's a hell of a lot different than, than a corporate event, you know, I mean, like the application in everything. My teaching is not to, is to make things easier and again, start them off in a positive place so positive things can happen. But if you decide you want to go do stand up, that's why I think the experience of going and doing stand up is so, you know, life changing. Because first of all, it takes guts. Okay? I want the. If you want the experience of climbing, you know, Mount Kilimanjaro or Everest or one of these things, but you don't have time to schlep your ass up there and all that other kind of stuff, the feeling is similar because the fear is so, is so ingrained in us that this thing that you're gonna try to do, get up and make people laugh and in a room of strangers is as hard as climbing Mount Everest. So I go, if you don't have time to climb Mount Everest, go try to do five minutes of stand up and prepare for it the same way, you know, I mean, you know that you're preparing like, like he said in Rocky 2, you know, to prepare for a 60 minute fight, you got to train for 60,000 minutes. And to do, you know, six minutes of stand up, we're gonna have to train for a minimum of six weeks. But what you will be at the end of that is, and it's skills and a new approach that you haven't thought about before. There may be people that teach you how to be better public speakers, but a lot of my teaching is to understand that the audience also comes to the equation with the set of fears. And that is almost, you know, unheard of in this space because most people only are thinking about themselves. But if you want, if you think about the audience, like I say here, you know, this is why, you know, when somebody's given a speech or a presentation, whatever, they only focus on this, their fears. One is, I'm not going to remember my speech. But we've, we've broken out. We've got all the things here that are going to help them, but you have to Think about the audience. I see audiences. Because now when they have the phone, especially with millennials, this is another thing about, you know, millennials. You tell them Dale Carnegie's coming tomorrow, they're gonna say, who are they? You know, and they, you know, they're not. But you tell them a comedian's coming in tomorrow. Now they're engaged, you know, but they come in there with some secondary form of entertainment, whether it's a book, an iPad, or whatever. If you're not reading the signs that people, people would call the comedy club and go, who's there tonight? And then you'd be like, oh, you know, Jim's whatever. And they'd be like, oh, is he funny? It's a professional comedy club. Like, you wouldn't call the opera and go, who's there tonight? Can he sing? Is he. But, you know, when it comes to other people speaking, you know, it's, it's. The audience isn't gonna roll over for you. They don't roll over at a comedy show. What makes you think they're gonna roll over at a team building event or, you know, you know, something like that? So they also have a fear of being singled out, things like that, which is why nobody ever sits in the front row, but really start to think about the audience. And I think what makes me different, if I was just teaching people how to be better public speakers or, you know, that would all be fine. But like I said, I've thought about the audience because I've never had the luxury, not once, of not doing well because I have a show in Las Vegas. I mean, I could have a thousand reviews that say I'm great. One review that says I'm bad, People are gonna believe the bad one. They won't believe the thousand good ones. They'll be there fake. So I couldn't even have one bad review. So I, I really. Once I started thinking about them and putting them first, not a hacky way or pedestrian way material, but in a way that how can I best deliver? Most people go, they're just gonna. I'm gonna show them how smart I am. I'm just gonna give them the information. You know, there's a lot of ways to give them the information. Let's find the best way.

I just remember being in college and taking an acting class, and we were on, like, my partner and I, I was probably 19 at the time. Just every single rehearsal, we had done it, we had a cold and I forgot my lines. When time came, I forgot my lines and my partner was crying. And she was so upset. And I'm like. But I kind of worked it through, right?

We got it through.

It's fine. And nobody knew any different because they.

Didn'T know the lines.

You know.

They never know what you. That's why I talk about quicksand, you know, and how to avoid quicksand and quicksand. But if I freaked out. Yeah, yeah, but if you freaked out, you'd be dead.

Yeah, I'd be dead on stage. Right. And that actually worked out better. So I guess that was the first moment when I realized, like, okay, it can be bad. Yeah, I still got an A in the course. Somehow, I don't know.

You know, you're intuitive. You know, you were going there. That's what I always tell people. I go there. Your only reason to go back to INF fix something, it's so much easier to move forward is if it's a factual break in continuity. Because, you know, if you meant to say 8%, you said 80%. Now the audience is only thinking, he said 80s. That seems high. It's. Last I heard, it was 8, you know, and now that what they're not doing is listening to you. So it's. We see it in movies all the time. You know, it's really what the script supervisors job is, though. Flubs get into movies all the time where, you know, the guy's like, you know, it's. Today's a really exciting Saturday. And he's like, we all know in the movie that today's Thursday. You know, it's like they did, you know, the guys at work, you know, and. But somehow they get through. But when they do get through, all it does is scare the audience. And they're like, when's he gonna mess up again? Now they're just listening to see if you mess up. And they're not listening to. Still. I'm working with a lot of people on face to face marketing, especially in the entrepreneurial world. They've all cracked the code digitally. But you know what? It's a totally different animal when you're trying to relate to your customers in a face to face basis, whether it's at a trade show or speaking in front of them or whatever. So there is some vulnerability there that has to be learned. And something that's really difficult to teach. You know, captains of industry, you know, guys who are used to slaying the dragons and going, you know what this, there's another way to look at this thing. And you just gonna have to trust me because I'm doing It since I'm three, you know, and. And they have. And they have. So if people have just specific questions, then go to my website. They laugh, you win, calm. A big thing I want to do. If you felt like you got any value out of this, I really, Brad, I. Since I met you and since that people speak of you so well, you know, I mean, it's always. You're doing something for somebody out of your way where it's not even just to help people, you know, and the stuff you're doing down in Mexico really impacting these people's lives. That's why I wanted to do this, you know, and I hope people got value out of it. But if you didn't and you. There's more things you want to ask, just drop me an email. I'm not trying to sell you, but if you can donate something to this project, that was the goal of this.

I just want to. I just want to show you. And the reason Matt decided to come on today is because, you know, he could teach us for thousands of dollars, right? And you guys have got thousands of dollars worth of education right Here in this 65 or so minutes that we've been on. But the reason we're doing it today is because Matt and I both share a commitment to helping people other than ourselves for which we receive no benefit. Right. So the Greatness foundation is a 513c nonprofit organization where you can donate money and it goes directly to people that it's going to help. And I know that to be true because I've been on many of their trips myself and I've seen the impact that they can have and the additional money outside the what's donated that they also put into these projects. So I just want you guys to know that I vetted this personally. It's something I believe in. I do a lot of my charitable giving through it. If you're called to do that, put some money in. If you're called to come with us or both, come on down, do that. We had one guy recently who felt moved to one of the bills, is sold out so fast he decides to donate all the money himself. I'm not saying that every. Everybody's in that situation be able to do that, but you know, that kind of stuff does happen. So I'm encouraging you guys if you feel that you've gotten value from this. If you want to see more like this, I'd love to do more charitable component to what we're doing and not just deliver value, but also with somebody less fortunate in mind as well because a lot of people are going to go to sleep tonight and not have food in their stomachs and have a roof over their head. And I think we can change, at least for them. And if more people did that, the whole world would change. The reason I love entrepreneurs, Matt, and you might have heard this before, is because entrepreneurs are people that create more than they consume and they create before they consume. And if everybody just did that, the whole world would change overnight. So thank you and I appreciate you guys being here and hopefully learn something really awesome that you can take to whatever you're doing in the world.

Absolutely. We have to do this again and just chit chat because I want to. I still don't know if you're Batman or not. I still don't know. And that's, you know, I've got. And I got to figure out where your fetish from marbles came. So we need to know. Learn those two things next time.

You'll never ever. I'll never tell if I'm. But I do. I do have a Brad signal and I do love black and white animals, so maybe that's part of it. I appreciate it, brother. Thank you so much for being here. And everybody, if you guys want to check out Matt and what he's got going on, he's an amazing man. He's doing some incredible work in the world. You can go to theylaffuwin.com Matt, thank you so much for being on the show.

Take care, guys. Happy New Year.

Thanks so much for listening to the Make More Marbles podcast for more tips, hacks and strategies to create an amazing, abundant life in your health, wealth and relationships, whatever that means to you. Head on over to makemoremarbles.com check out our cool explainer video about what we're about and join our community of entrepreneurial game changers. We want to help you level up your life in every possible way. And don't forget to subscribe to us on itunes, Stitcher or Google Play wherever you're listening your podcast. And please do leave a review. Thank you so much and we'll see you on the next podcast.