TSSL - Episode 7 - Being Funny And Your Personal Boundary

This week we talk about being more funny. If you want to be more social then being more funny is only going to help you, so we talk about ways that you can work on your humorous side. We also talk about the psychological concept of the 'Personal Boundary'. Very important to being a well rounded, mature person. Something that will communicate that you have your life together and can be counted on.

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Thank you!! - Nathan.  : D

Be sure to check out these two links for some funny ideas that we talk about on the podcast:

Good Talk Podcast with Anthony Jeselnik
Asssscat Improv with the Upright Citizens Brigade

Transcript

Unknown: 0:47

Hey, what's up everybody? Welcome back to another episode of the social skills lab. I'm your host, Nathan Ament. And last week we talked a little bit about being non judgmental. And we talked about what it means to be cool. I was listening to the radio this week. And they were talking about giving advice to people like I listen to a lot of NPR, a lot of podcasts. There's some really good ones, though, for just helping in general and some really good social skills ones. There's a podcast I like called hidden brain to psychology, podcast. Anything related to psychology is really good when it comes to social skills. And then also, there's life kit, and PR life kit, there's actually one about friendship. Haven't seen it on there, I might have to be on their website before you can find it. The one I was listening to was talking about giving advice. And it said to be non judgmental, if you're that just said be non judgmental is really helpful when it comes to people opening up to you. And that's kind of what we talked about last week. So it's cool to hear it again. The other podcast I like his TED Talks, t d, Ted Talks. There's a lot of good stuff in there too, about social skills and anything like that, there's podcasts or just I guess, are pretty cool to find stuff that good topics for self improvement. There's also a lot of funny ones in there. All, I'll tell you about those two, because we're going to talk about comedy today to talk about being funny. We also talked about being cool last week. That's very subjective. So some people let's say, if you're into Dungeons and Dragons, and you go to like a d&d convention, and you meet the West Coast, National d&d champion, you might think he's super cool. But let's say someone who serves doesn't necessarily think it's very cool to play d&d. So it's just very subjective. It's like, whatever you think is cool is cool. My opinion is anything, anybody who's kick back and just doesn't take themselves too seriously, which I always recommend not taking yourself so seriously. And then also very mature, and just likes to have fun. And it's fun to be around. That's my opinion, that's a good definition. It's good to it's good to try to be a better person in general, because let's say, I know, in my past, I've had friends that were kind of negative, and got me into a lot of trouble. I probably got them in trouble too. But I also was not very mature. So if you want to have better friends, friends that you actually like to hang around with that are very positive and fun to be with, then you should strive to also have those characteristics because like, seems to attract like, if you are a douchebag, you're going to end up having either no one around you or friends that are also douchebags. So it would be good to just work on yourself and be a better person, as you also work on your social skills. That way you can attract people that are actually fun to hang out with. And I think that's pretty much the goal. Having people that are fun to hang out with so you can have fun, right? One thing too, that I, you know, I was listing off some things that were not very cool. Like being a whiner, or being impatient. One thing I've mentioned too, is someone who can't handle their booze. Like I've definitely been around people that just drink too much. I also have been in those situations. It's pretty rare, but it does happen. But I would say people that make that make it a habit of just can't really handle their shit. I would say that that's not very cool. It's just not fun to have to be around someone like that who is out of control that you have to like babysit or just make sure that they're, you know, not causing too much damage, like who wants to be in that situation? Like if you're an adult, act like an adult, and, you know, try to be more moderate. So this week, we're going to be talking about being funny, and also a concept of the personal boundary. I know that when I was in junior high, I was like, painfully shy. I don't know why. I just was, I think it's because I moved a lot. And I would be in class, and I had a friend. And I would like, tell him jokes in class. And then he would repeat them out loud, and he get all the laughs like, I was basically like his little joke writer. I don't know, I was just too too shy to say it out loud. I think I maybe I've done it was telling jokes. And they were so bad people just like gave me weird looks. And I just made the decision to never tell a joke in class again, I really don't remember. But that's kind of that's ringing a bell for me. So I just would never, never really developed being very funny. I think, you know, with my close friends, I always had like one or two friends. But I would be funny around them. But just in public, I wouldn't be funny around other people. As I got older, I had a couple of roommates that were super funny, and we became friends. If there's any way you can hang out with someone a lot, who's really funny, that could be definitely very helpful. I know that having some pretty funny roommates was was really helpful. To me being more funny. Like I definitely tried to push my funniness more when I was around them. I think that happens anytime. When you're around someone, a friend. That's funny. You're constantly telling each other jokes and playing pranks or whatever. One thing I noticed, though, after a while was I had this roommate who would tell jokes, like all day long, he was joking around, like all the time, and I noticed that most of his jokes just were not funny at all. Like, I'd say, out of like 10 jokes. One would be like, really funny. And like two were like, that's kind of funny. And then most of them just like weren't funny at all. And that made me think I'm like, wow, I actually, if I was describe them to somebody, I would say that he's a funny guy. Like, I would say, like, Oh, yeah, he's really funny. But in reality, most of his jokes weren't funny. And I was thinking like, hmm, you know, I kind of do the same thing, I would tell him jokes, and maybe half of them weren't funny at all. But it's like, if you can at least tell one or two jokes at a 10 that are funny, you will actually be considered funny. So you kind of have to just throw a bunch of crap against the wall to see what sticks. So I think that's just important to remember, you're not going to be funny 100% of the time. But you, you're definitely gonna have to throw a lot of stuff out there. I think that sometimes people think that you can't learn to be funny. Like, I remember asking someone, someone there. So I asked him, do you think somebody can learn to be funny? And they actually said, No, I think you're just funny or you're not. I don't think that's true, though, I think you can definitely learn to be more funny. It's really, I think it's really important to be more funny, because that's just one of the best parts of having a conversation with someone, some conversations you'll have with people or like serious conversations or interesting conversations. Most of the time, you can pepper it with some funny stuff. But sometimes some conversations are just strictly funny. just telling jokes and stuff like that. And those are really fun, interesting conversations to be in. So if you can develop your comic ability, you know, I'm not saying you have to be the funniest person in the world. But if you could just, you know, be 10% 20% more funny. It really makes a huge difference when you communicate with people. So something I would recommend is, if you don't know where to start, maybe just start watching more stand up comedy. You can see a bunch of them on Netflix or even on YouTube. There's some really good ones on there. I just wrote down a list of some of my favorite stand up comics. Dave Chappelle, obviously. Luis Louie ck, Daniel Tosh, David Spade, Jim gaffigan. Anthony jeselnik Sarah Silverman, Hannibal buress Maria Bamford, and Dimitri Martin, et CIE, just look at those guys on YouTube and watch, watch, you know, one a day for six months. There's no way you could not be more funny or understand what is actually a suit. Funny, after watching so much stand up comedy. I've definitely watched a lot. I'll even listen to some stand up comedy. podcasts. Anthony jeselnik does a really good one. I can't remember the name of it, though. I'll put it. I'll find it. I'll put in the description for you. Something else I did was I started taking some improv classes, because I heard that could be really good for improving your social skills. So I did it. And yeah, it was really good. There's a comedy club in Sacramento, there's actually a couple now that do it. They'll teach classes on improv. And I thought it was a really good experience. It was, there was some really good teachers there and and you would just do these like exercises to get warmed up. And these like fun games. And then you would try to do scenes. And I'll put a link in the description as well for the one of the improv, like one of the best improv sets I've ever seen. It's from ask cat from the stand up. Oh, Upright Citizens Brigade. It's hilarious. definitely wasn't that good. But I know, I could tell right away that it was a lot funnier with around my friends after doing it. So I took a class. And then like a year later, I was living with my roommate. And I told him about it. And he's like, oh, let's do it. So I took another class with him. And then he was like, yeah, this isn't really what I thought it was gonna be. And I asked him, I was like, Well, what would what would you want to do? He's like, well, let's, they said, there's a stand up comedy class. So you want to do that? And I was like, Oh, yeah, for sure. Let's do that, too. So we ended up doing a stand up comedy class. And yeah, so I got up on stage a couple times and did that. And then a couple years later, another friend was telling him about it. And he's like, Oh, I want to do that, too. So we took another stand up comedy class. And been doing that with him for a little bit. I've probably been on up on stage about, I don't know, 810 times or something like that. At different comedy clubs, open mic nights, open mic nights. And hard to say that open mic nights. And it was a lot of fun. I got to be on ever since the pandemic, though. So pretty much all the standup clubs are closed. So I haven't had a chance to do it. I thought of another good idea that might help you too, is if you go online, you can just look up jokes. There's like probably a billion jokes online, but I go on Reddit, under jokes. And I found a funny joke. I'm just gonna say it just so you can? Oh, here it is. Because it would be good. I used to do this, I would like go on there. And I'd find a funny joke, and I'd memorize it. And then, you know, I'd most the time, I would forget it. But every once a while when I remember it, I would just tell it to a friend. And it's good. Just good practice. If you don't know. If you don't know how to write your own jokes, just use some online. They're really good. Like, okay, so this one says, What's the difference between an oral thermometer and a rectal thermometer? The taste? Yeah, that's kind of funny. So yeah, you can just find short ones. To get to the point, that kind of funny. And then, oh, here's another one, a doctor sees, oh, a nurse sees that a doctor has a rectal thermometer behind his ear, and she asks him about it. He takes it out of his ear, and he looks at it and goes, You know what this means? What doctor says a nurse, some asshole has my pencil. That's not bad. So you can just find these online, and then save a couple, put them in your phone or something like that. And then tell them to people just randomly, just be careful. If it's a little racy to who you tell it to. Don't want to get you in trouble at work or anything like that. Okay, so what else did I do here? Oh, another thing about the scene I'm class is you'll definitely get more confidence. I mean, the last thing I ever wanted as a naturally introverted person, the last thing I want to do is get up on a stage. You know, for one, it was good to help me be more funny, but also it really helped me with my confidence because as soon as you're done doing it, you're like, wow, that went really bad, or that was actually pretty good. Either way, you're gonna get more confidence just by doing it. There's also some books on there and how to write jokes and stuff. You can Google and there's a lot of really good ones. There's like stand up comedy, books and stuff like that. I don't know if any of them really good. I started reading one of them but anything that can help you in that in that area will help you with yours. social skills. Okay, so let's move on to the next topic, the personal boundary. I heard about this first from this guy named Dr. Paul dobransky. He's like a writer, and a psychologist. So when I first heard this, I thought it was really interesting. So the concept of the personal boundaries, it's very similar. Your personal boundary is like a psychological concept in your head, and strong, healthy, personal boundary. That's like a mature thing to develop, if you're immature, you're going to have a weak personal boundary. So a personal boundary encompasses, like all your positive emotional resources. And it kind of works like the borders of a country. So like North Korea, very sheltered, doesn't let a lot of things in, doesn't let a lot of things out, it's like probably to secure too much. And then like a weak personal boundary is basically someone that gets trampled all over, like people take advantage of them all the time. So what's the difference? The difference is, you know, your personal boundary, a mature personal boundary should have doors, that you open, that you let the good in, you keep the bad out. So you do let things in. But you basically have to make a lot of decisions. And the kind of decisions that are, help you develop this, or there's like Win, win decisions and win lose decisions, a win win decision as I win, and you win. A win loses, like someone, someone else wins, and you lose. And this really, there's a lot of different facets to this. But let's say like spending money, like how are you with saving money? Do you just like let all your money go, you just spend all your check on like frivolous things, you're not saving, you know, you don't have a 401k stuff like that, your decisions are gonna keep your resources, your positive emotional energy. The other thing that he was that he talked about this is he described, this is like, what is in your personal boundary is 100% under your control, the things that are 0% in your control are things that are outside, like the weather or the job, other people or like the economy, stuff like that. Things that you do not control. And if you are constantly worried about those things, that is about things that are not in your control, then you're suffering. So keep that in mind. I had this friend who this was a while back, like he when I first met him, we were just like at his house, having some people over there. A lot of people were drinking, we're just partying all night. And then I went over there a couple more times. And I noticed that every time I went over there, it was just like a big party. Like it was basically a party house. And one time we were talking outside, I asked him, I was like, I told him I'm like, yeah, you know, no matter when I come over here, you always have a bunch of people over here. Are you actually cool with that? He said, and he told me he's like, he's like, yeah, you know, a lot of fun when at first, but then now it's just kind of like, I don't know, I have a hard time telling people that, you know, I just want to kick it or whatever. And I told them, because I just learned about this concept of the personal boundary. I said, you know, you have to, you have to? Well, before I say that, let me say that there's this other thing about the personal boundary that helps you cultivate a strong, mature personal boundary. And that's, and that is the the ability to say no, and the ability to hear now. so in this situation, he wasn't able to say no. So is, you know, people were making win lose deals like they won because they had a place to party. And he lost because he didn't have his, you know, his own personal quiet time that he probably wanted to have after a while. And if you notice there, there's people who don't really have that the ability to say no, and the ability to hear no, like when someone asked me something and I had to say no. And they start whining about it and complaining or asking over and over again. That's a pretty good indicator that you don't have a strong personal boundary. So having a really mature well developed personal boundary, where you you know, you can say no, and you're totally okay with hearing No, making Win Win deals only or decisions only, as opposed to win lose deals. I mean, you're definitely going to make mistakes and make some win lose deals where, you know, I win and you lose. But you know, that combination of how many times you make these types of deals Will you know basically affect your personal boundaries so and that and having this mature personal boundary is going to help you with your community. skills because people are gonna know that when they talk to you that you have, you're like a stand up guy. And that you, you say, when you say something, you actually mean it, you just have a lot more credibility. It's weird how your body language will communicate that for you, and how you talk to people will communicate that for you. But a lot of this ties into a well developed personal boundary. So keep that in mind. And you know, just really focus on developing that skill, especially the ability to hear no, and say, No, I think that's one of the most important things about it. Like if I'm supposed to, like, let's say, I'm going to go to a movie, and I get a flat tire, and I'm going to miss the movie. Basically, the world has told me no, you're not going to see the movie. And I have to be able to hear that, like, Oh, that's fine. You know, fix my tire, maybe catch a later movie, or just go home, maybe watch a movie another time. Like, if I don't make a big deal about it, if I don't let it affect me, you know, things outside of my control. If I don't let those things affect me, then that then that means I have a mature boundary. And I'm keeping my positive emotional energy well contained. And using it when I when I want to use that. I'm not wasting it, burning it on things that I cannot control. So I think that's some good stuff to learn. So yeah, let's just keep those things in mind when we moving forward. And then next week we're going to be talking about, we're going to be talking about like what is a friend, actually, it might be a couple ideas in there that we can really talk about. So that a you can find a good friend and be you can actually be a better friend. And then we'll also talk about growing your social circle. Some definitely some good things to talk about. And then we'll give you we'll talk about some other things too. Maybe review a couple things that we missed before that, you know, I tend to do when I speak real fast. And then I guess that'll be it for this week. I hope you have a great week. And make sure you try to talk to a few more people or push some conversations a little further. And always, as always, try not to take yourself so seriously and just have some fun later