My Path to Humor

As I have been practicing and working each weekend I have seen the way I interact change and develop to a much more jovial vibe. I tend to fall into entertaining a lot when I wing for clients. I also enjoy being a goof and can hold the attention of a group for quite a while. I actually became funny. How the hell did that happen? I’ve never been funny and now I have people telling me I am funny. While I still spend a lot of time relating and rewarding, I enjoy joking, teasing and having a fun vibe.

I realized that my path to being more fun in an interaction was through disqualification. I started doing a lot of it. Most of you probably realized just how much Wayne and Johnny disqualify in the recent Channel 4 audio podcast. The more I interact the more powerful I realize disqualification is as a multi use tool. Disqualification using our standard structure of agreeing and or thanking them then putting yourself outside of their expectations, tends to be at least mildly funny most of the time. Someone says I am really funny I say something like “Thanks, but seriously I couldn’t even make the anyone laugh yesterday, I mean every joke I told, silence, and the sound of crickets. Even they weren’t laughing!” With an animated delivery and confidence, disqualifications can be very funny. Last night a client I was talking to was practicing DQ and said, “You’re right, I am so short I stand eye to eye with an Asian middle school girl. I let guys know they can use my head as an armrest at the bar.” Seriously I had to stop the consult for five minutes while I laughed uncontrollably.

Making fun of yourself is a great disqualification as long as you do it in a confident way. The difference in self-deprecation and disqualification is the tone of confidence in your weaknesses. If you have a problem with this just exaggerate your weaknesses to ridiculous proportions. The ironic part is that when you just put out all your weaknesses and feel confident enough to joke about it, people feel more comfortable around you and like you because you are comfortable with yourself.

I spent the weekend with Wayne and he consistently made jokes about himself and showed a lot of humility and confidence by doing so. People think the opposite of what image you put up for them. If you spend time DHV’ing and trying to impress someone, they will believe the opposite of whatever you want them to believe. If you are making fun of yourself and exaggerating your weaknesses, then they believe you actually are a really confident, secure guy who is definitely not as bad as the exaggerations you are putting up as who you are.

The side effect I found with doing a lot of disqualification, that I didn’t expect to happen, is it developed a sense of humor for me. Most women want a guy who can make them laugh. I always just wrote that part of myself off since I wasn’t a funny guy and was hoping I could find a woman who would like a not so funny guy. Wow, low and behold I started practicing disqualification and I found without trying or learning any comedic techniques, I was becoming funny. By just simply making fun of myself, or exaggerating my weaknesses, people were laughing and having a good time around me. As long as I did it in a confident tone in an unapologetic way, it also increased their attraction for me.
If you haven’t added in disqualification as a major tool in your toolbox, you are missing out. It creates such a fun warm vibe while showing people who you are in a genuine way. Whether you do genuine DQ’s or you just exaggerate your weaknesses, using disqualification can help you keep the interaction fun and jovial. Yet it still connects you to her because it also shows your humanity. In the end, it really is quite ironic that when I tell a woman I am horrible in bed, have a small penis, am cheap, and how bad I am with getting any woman on the planet, the more she wants to sleep with me. As long as I do it in a confident unapologetic tone, she probably isn’t going to believe me anyway. I know odd, but hey if the game weren’t a bit counterintuitive it would be easy. Wait a second, it actually is pretty easy! Just add some disqualification in.