Humor is a powerful tool for storytellers. It can make your audience laugh, relax, and connect with you. But it can also help you show vulnerability in your stories, which is essential for creating empathy, trust, and resonance. In this article, you'll learn how to use humor to show vulnerability in your stories, without losing your credibility, confidence, or authenticity.
Vulnerability is the willingness to expose your emotions, flaws, and struggles to others. It's not about being weak, needy, or oversharing. It's about being honest, human, and relatable. Vulnerability is what makes your stories compelling, engaging, and memorable. It's what makes your audience care about you and your message. It's what makes you stand out from the crowd.
Vulnerability in storytelling is an emotional striptease. You get to decide how much of yourself you want to reveal. It could be slow, and it could be in layers. There could be things you choose to keep to yourself. Or you could see it like a drawbridge, you get to decide when to lower it and when to bring it up again.
Vulnerability, quite simply put, is being real. It is letting go of the mask of perfection, which we are trained to hold on dearly. Vulnerability is not only being comfortable with imperfections, failures, shortcomings but owning them, learning from them and sharing our learnings with others in a candid manner. While some may say that being vulnerable is being weak. On the contrary, it is the most remarkable sign of strength and courage.
In my experience it’s really important to engage the audience. When someone can co-relate what we are saying half the battle done! Once we have audience hooked up we have established empathy and unseen channel to communicate our message with effectiveness. How we do it is by being authentic and showing our vulnerability.
Humor can help you show vulnerability in your stories in several ways. First, humor can break the ice and lower the defenses of your audience. It can make them more receptive and open to your story. Second, humor can lighten the mood and reduce the tension or discomfort that might arise from sharing sensitive or personal information. It can make your story more enjoyable and less intimidating. Third, humor can convey your personality and perspective. It can show your audience who you are, how you think, and what you value.
Humour does a great job of balancing out the tension that comes with being vulnerable. It helps, both the narrator and the audience, feel a bit more connected to the moment by making it easy to hold two opposing emotions together - one of heaviness and the other of lightness.
I was recently introduced to a gentleman who would be able to help me out in putting me in touch with lots of other local businesses. When we shook hands he apologised for being somewhat in disarray because he’d cycled to the office. Without thinking, I replied ‘I can see that, your hairs a mess!’ He was completely bald. We both laughed. Phew ????
Humor is not a catch-all solution and should be used sparingly and strategically. You should only use humor when it serves your story and purpose, and it should be authentic and appropriate. Avoid humor that is offensive, insensitive, or irrelevant, as well as any that puts yourself or others down. Instead, opt for humor that reflects your voice, values, and message while being respectful, relevant, and relatable. Use humor positively and constructively to uplift yourself and others with an optimistic, hopeful, and supportive attitude.
My best advice is to steer clear of highly emotive topics and political agendas. Stick to the topic of conversation and focus on the issues that matter to your audience. Using real examples of past experiences are always authentic. Pick those that are relevant to the conversation in hand.
Most stories come in ways that can trigger your audience negatively, humor is usually the balance. It makes the storyteller relatable and receivable. At a certain point in communication, vulnerability can be extreme, the effect of humor makes easy for the easy swallow of hard pills. The pragmatic approach and interpretation of the character in a story is important in all senses.
Learning how to use humor and vulnerability in your stories can be achieved through practice. Start by observing and analyzing other storytellers who use these elements effectively. Pay attention to their balance, the jokes they choose, and the delivery of their stories. Experiment and test different types of humor and vulnerability in your stories, get feedback from others, and measure the impact of your stories. Finally, enjoy and embrace the process of using humor and vulnerability in your stories. Don't be afraid to be yourself or too serious with your humor.
I agree & I have observed when one of my mentors used to share some light humour at the beginning of any meeting & how greatly he used to influence. I do try it sometimes.
My personal favourite is observational humour. Where you have seen something happening that gets you thinking about it differently. When was the last time you sat in your busy office environment and listened to what’s going on around you? Are you hearing a lot of pointless noise? Or is it productive and energised?
The use of humor and vulnerability in your stories can be highly beneficial, as it will help you build rapport and trust with your audience, create empathy and resonance, and inspire and influence them. Your audience will see you as genuine, likable, and trustworthy, while feeling your emotions and relating to your experiences. Furthermore, they will remember your stories, value your insights, and take action on your ideas. Humor and vulnerability are powerful tools for storytellers, so use them wisely and skillfully to show your audience who you are, what you care about, and why they should care too.
In my opinion both vulnerability and humor are value drivers. They define the significance of information and makes it really easy for story listeners to comprehend the objectives of the story. The art of benefiting from those two depends on the resolution of a given story and makes it really relatable to comprehend. The benefits are in those two.
Humour can take the heat out of a situation or break tension. it needs to be snappy and appropriate though. The idea is to change the direction of thought or the narrative. It's a very popular tool in the emergency services when dealing with charged situations.
Humor and vulnerability open the door for people to let their guard down, connect with you and build trust. They can be used to tap into empathy in others and inspire self-reflection or motivation. Both can also be used to segue into hard truths or to help build momentum for your ideas. Listeners trust where you are guiding them with the right share of humor and vulnerability. Storytelling is a powerful tool for both personal branding and global movements.
These are my preferred tactics Use Playful Language: Employ playful and non-offensive language to broach sensitive subjects. This can make the conversation feel less intimidating and more approachable. Metaphorical Humor: Use metaphors or analogies to explain complex or vulnerable topics in a humorous way. This simplifies the message while making it more engaging
Stories! They're everywhere. They’re inside us, outside us, around us, behind us. There's a story for every occasion, a tale for every situation. There are stories with morals, stories without morals, stories about this and that, stories about you and me. We live storied lives and our stories weave into each other’s stories. We recognise our stories in someone else's story.