Leveraging Leadership

How an Irish Comedian Uses Humor to Enhance Business Communication

• Emily Sander • Season 1 • Episode 157

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Emily Sander interviews Conor Cunneen, a former VP of Marketing turned keynote speaker and business humorist. Conor discusses the power of humor in business, using the "LAUGH" acronym to add humor to presentations. He shares examples like a neurosurgeon's humorous slide and suggests building a collection of anecdotes to make work environments more engaging.

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Who Am I?

If we haven’t yet before - Hi👋 I’m Emily, Chief of Staff turned Executive Leadership Coach. After a thrilling ride up the corporate ladder, I’m focusing on what I love - working with people to realize their professional and personal goals. Through my videos here on this channel, books, podcast guest spots, and newsletter, I share new ideas and practical and tactical tools to help you be more productive and build the career and life you want. 

 

Time Stamps:

00:48 The Power of Humor in Business
03:16 The LAUGH Acronym: Listen
08:39 The LAUGH Acronym: Anecdote
10:05 The LAUGH Acronym: Uncomfortable
11:06 The LAUGH Acronym: Googler
13:28 The LAUGH Acronym: Hee Hee Hee to Ho Ho Ho
18:48 Building a Humorous Team Culture
24:06 Balancing Humor and Professionalism

emily-sander_1_08-22-2024_080430:

Our guest today is Connor Caneen, and he is a former VP of marketing turned keynote speaker and business humorist. Connor, welcome to the show.

squadcaster-2479_1_08-22-2024_100429:

Hey, delighted to be here, Emily. Thanks for inviting me on.

emily-sander_1_08-22-2024_080430:

Beautiful. So What, what had you realized the power of humor or the effectiveness of humor in the business world?

squadcaster-2479_1_08-22-2024_100429:

Well, I think the basic premise that I've got to Emily is that we like to do business with people that we like people do business with people that they know, like, and trust.

emily-sander_1_08-22-2024_080430:

Yes.

squadcaster-2479_1_08-22-2024_100429:

of the simple ways to get people to appreciate you a little bit more, like you a little bit more is if you can put a smile on their face, I'll make them feel better. And no, I'm not talking about comedy or anything like that. But if when. left the room someone says hey, I like that person They got good concepts, but they also they put a smile on my face So they made me feel better if you get that kind of reaction And then if the next time you try to make an appointment with that person their reaction is oh, yeah I'd like to chat with you again what I'm talking about. Just humor is a vehicle to help you to connect better with people. And as I say, I am not talking comedy. I'm just talking about putting a smile on people's face, make them chuckle once or twice in a sales pitch or in a business presentation, and it will help you to. Connect better and get your message across.

emily-sander_1_08-22-2024_080430:

Okay. So we're not saying you need to be a standup comedian to do this. We're just saying, you know, add some lighthearted moments or stories perhaps in a, in a presentation. Given that, can you talk us through, you know, what makes a good presentation? Have you, have you seen a example where, Oh, a joke or a little story has turned that presentation around, has turned the tone around and gotten it to a different outcome?

squadcaster-2479_1_08-22-2024_100429:

Yeah, I mean, uh, it's what I try to do all of the time, but I'll give you a couple of specific examples. I do a program on adding humor to your presentation, I talk about a concept. Well, I'll ask you the question and we'll if we can get the right answer. I'm looking for one word answer, Emily. the question is, if I say something funny, What is it that I expect that you will do?

emily-sander_1_08-22-2024_080430:

Laugh, smile.

squadcaster-2479_1_08-22-2024_100429:

Yay. All right, uh, that was not pre prompted. Listeners of yours, Laugh. Laugh is a five letter acronym and it provides five concepts that will help people to add humor to their presentation. And the first element of that laugh concept is listen. Uh, to the humor that is around you and listen to the humor that you might have said that made someone else laugh, record it, capture it, and it will help to make a difference sometimes somewhere in one of your presentations. An example of this that I thought was really interesting was I speak a fair amount to care groups. Oncology groups. There were two boats of cancer over the, the years. So that, or the silver lining was that it opened doors to healthcare and uh, continuing ed courses for healthcare professionals, et cetera. And God love healthcare professionals who have to go to continuing ed programs. Mother of Divine, they are just incredibly boring most of the time. remember I was at one, I think it was somewhere down in. Arkansas, the mid, um, uh, part of the country anyway. And the nurses who are well used to these continuing ed sessions, they came in, they were at the back of the room with their knitting. Okay. Um, but one of the speakers was a neurosurgeon, some kind of a brain surgeon. I have no recollection what his topic was, but this guy was so boring. No, you, we just prayed for a lobotomy. Uh, but there was another doctor who came on though, who I think had been at some Toastmasters meetings and he said, I was told that if I want to connect with my audience, I should add a little bit of humor and show a humorous slide. So this doctor puts up a humorous slide. I, a slide of the humorous born

emily-sander_1_08-22-2024_080430:

Oh boy.

squadcaster-2479_1_08-22-2024_100429:

and the audience just kind of really smile and chuckled at it. And he had them from then on kind of thing. So it was just a stupid little slide in one sense, but it was very relevant to what he was trying to do. It was relevant to the profession. I was a play on words and he obviously just got the idea that, Hey, if I can connect with them early, I'm going to be able to hold them better. So that was just one simple little example I saw other people. Do what I encourage people to do is to find some simple little examples that puts a smile on your face. And if it puts a smile on your face, quite likely it'll put a smile on your audience's face or on your customer's face or on the client that you're dealing with. Not that you want to have them cracked up laughing like Kevin Hart or Seinfeld or anything like that, but it's a little reinforcement of your key message via humor.

emily-sander_1_08-22-2024_080430:

And I love what you said there, because I've heard that if you're giving a presentation, adds add a joke or something lighthearted in the first third, because it'll signal to the audience, Hey, we're going to have some fun. And then if you get them to smile or laugh, there's, I forget what it's called, but there's like this endorphin or pheromone thing that happens where you're connected in a different way.

squadcaster-2479_1_08-22-2024_100429:

Yeah.

emily-sander_1_08-22-2024_080430:

Example because it wasn't, Oh, I'm trying to sing and dance and get you to laugh up here like a standup comedian. It's literally a slide that you get kind of the, okay, okay. Like the humorous boat. I get it. It's not a, you know, like laugh out loud, but it is still my last. And that's all you need. That's all you need to get them to just, okay, that's, that's a corny joke or it's a dad joke or whatever, but it's, it does its job. So if someone is listening to this and they're like, Look, I'm not funny. And I know that you've said you don't have to be funny to be funny. If someone's just naturally not inclined that way, what are some good ways they can do that without, um, you know, going outside of their character or making it feel forced?

squadcaster-2479_1_08-22-2024_100429:

Yeah. All right. I was on a previous podcast and she repeated the line. You don't have to be funny to be funny, which she said, in fact, that's a funny line kind of thing. What I'm basically saying is that with this laugh acronym, what you do is you capture the humor all around you. Researchers would suggest that the adult laughs about 15 times a day or smiles 15 times a day. Now, I would suggest that. You probably did that laugh, although you're above average. So you would have laughed 25 times yesterday, Emily. Okay. But I would suggest you probably don't remember almost any of those times that you smiled or laughed. I'm saying is that just capture that humor. So the first element of the laugh acronym is listen to what made you laugh. Write it down, capture it. Listen to what you said that put a smile in someone else's face. Write it down and capture it. You don't have to know when you're going to use it, but what you're doing is you're building up a bank of humorous material that sometime, somewhere, you'll be able to take it. And the basic idea here is that, you're right, you don't think you're funny, but almost certainly you put a smile on someone's face in the last few days. Just pay attention to those. that's the first element of the, the laugh acronym that will help you to add relevant humor to reinforce your message. Second element of the laugh acronym is a, and it's about, well, I'll ask you a question, Emily, again. So let's assume that over the last couple of days, you've laughed 15 times a day by seven days in the week, roughly 100 times in the week. do you think? You laughed most at, was it the jokes that you laughed at or was it stories or comments or quips that you got from other people?

emily-sander_1_08-22-2024_080430:

The latter.

squadcaster-2479_1_08-22-2024_100429:

The latter. Yeah. Uh, I mean, we think you got to bring jokes to your presentation, but what makes people laugh. is stories. And what I say to my audience is that if you can bring in, um, uh, a story or an antidote to your presentation, but it's not an antidote. What's anecdote. Oh, sorry. Okay. It's anecdote. Right. Okay. But what I do say here is seriously, is that the antidote To a weak presentation is often a good anecdote.

emily-sander_1_08-22-2024_080430:

Ah.

squadcaster-2479_1_08-22-2024_100429:

So what I'm doing there is I'm just a little bit play with words, maybe an antidote and anecdotes sometimes can be funny. But what I'm saying is that the things that made you laugh around the water cooler that made your friends laugh at a party or don't Starbucks or something like that was probably an anecdote. And if we take the third element of the laugh acronym, so we're going to listen to the anecdote. The anecdote that is the funniest one is where something was uncomfortable. You, uncomfortable at some stage. We don't laugh at stories where everything went perfectly. We laugh at stories where something went wrong and now you can tell that story and basically What I suggest to people is that the story that you told that has your friends laughing Gloriously at the coffee morning or whatever it is at the bar or the pub That's a story that probably has got some legs that you can use to illustrate A point that you're making in your sales presentation, in your business presentation, or in your keynote speech, you might have to adapt a little bit, change the surroundings, but you've got the there that you likely can use that will help you to add relevant content. Humor to your presentation.

emily-sander_1_08-22-2024_080430:

Okay, so we've got Listen, Anecdote, Uncomfortable. We've got

squadcaster-2479_1_08-22-2024_100429:

is g and g is as I say is for the googler. Okay, right Okay. Now here's the thing. I'm talking about google here and I actually talk about googling the bing. Good lord Okay. All right Now, two things about that. Um, well, I'll explain. So the basic idea is that you Google and the Bing for some humorous material. But before I go into how you do that, Um, I, uh, at some presentation was talking about using Google. I refer to it as the Googler. And the audience laughed. And I'm thinking, Huh? Is that funny? It is, they laughed. So no, I don't talk about using Google. I talk about the Googler. Okay. I listened and I laughed. Last, a few months back, I was back in Ireland, saw Springsteen and Cork. Yay!

emily-sander_1_08-22-2024_080430:

wow.

squadcaster-2479_1_08-22-2024_100429:

Um, I was with my brother in law and I just made some reference at some stage about Googling the Bing. And he kind of laughed and he said, Hey, that's funny. I said, uh, Finbar is my brother in law. I said, Finbar, I heard you use that phrase about seven years ago. And I

emily-sander_1_08-22-2024_080430:

Okay. Okay. So

squadcaster-2479_1_08-22-2024_100429:

no recollection of it. I was able to play it back to him. He laughed at it. But what I do now say when I'm talking about the G in the laugh acronym, I talk with the Googler and I talk about silly, stupidly kind of. Googling on the Bing or Google on the AI. But again, it's just material little that I didn't create, but that I captured. And they're examples of you get into that kind of a habit of capturing the humor. You don't have to be funny to be funny. Just capture the humor around you. So, yeah, in terms of Googling on the Bing, then what I basically say, so if you're talking about leadership, Emily, for things like funny quotes about leadership. What did Mark Twain say about teamwork or leadership or management? What did Groucho Marx that famous philosopher Groucho Marx say about xyz? So you make your point your serious point and then you could say maybe pop up a slide A quote from and as this famous philosopher Groucho Marx said but it's a slide that is humorous But has some reinforcing element to what you have been saying

emily-sander_1_08-22-2024_080430:

that's the Googler. And then bring us home with the H.

squadcaster-2479_1_08-22-2024_100429:

bring us home with the H. H is for he, he, he to ho, ho, ho. And this goes back in a sense to the first element that we spoke about of the laugh acronym, listen. So, likely when you're doing some of your workshops or material consulting, Emily, you're going to make a comment, a quip, an ad lib, that'll put a smile on people's face. to that and say alright, I got a hee hee hee from that. What can I do with that phrase or that comment that statement that will take it from a hee hee hee to a ho ho ho. And there's simple little things that you can do. To make that happen. The example I quoted earlier was I speak a lot to Organizations to improve people performance and productivity with a smile and I try to give relatable examples and sometimes I might reference the story where You're talking to your teenager And you ask your teenager to do something, and you come home six hours later, and the teenager ain't done it. And there's a blank look in the teenager's face, and you know where the brain should be, there's an empty space. And it's populated by two agitated chipmunks saying what were we supposed to do? were we supposed to do? So i'll pause there my audience a lot of the audience can absolutely relate to that. Okay When I was telling that story initially, there was a there was a moral to the whole story We don't need to go into it right now when I was telling that story initially. I just said, um You come home, the teenager has that look on his face that says there's a, an empty space in the brain. And then another time I dropped in, um, an empty space that's populated by two chipmunks running around the place. That got a little bit of

emily-sander_1_08-22-2024_080430:

Yeah.

squadcaster-2479_1_08-22-2024_100429:

laughter. The one that really helps the pop is putting the word agitated. In front of chipmunks as you say the chipmunks is apparently funnier than chipmunks But it's just one little

emily-sander_1_08-22-2024_080430:

It is.

squadcaster-2479_1_08-22-2024_100429:

where yeah. Yeah, so it's one little example I use sometimes use hamsters as well hamsters are deemed to be make people laugh. Um, it's an example of where just one word helps the whole thing to go from he he he to ho ho ho So the laugh acronym is something that anyone can do listen uncomfortable he he he to ho ho ho that anyone can do if you're not funny You can take that material and drop it in sometime someplace once or twice in your presentation and you will connect with your audience people like to do business with people they like and that will help you in that mission I believe

emily-sander_1_08-22-2024_080430:

Okay. So I'm, I'm hearing all that. And a takeaway for a listener would be start building that bank of little things that make people chuckle that you just come across in daily life. And then when you have a presentation or you're at a team meeting or what, what have you pick one that's relevant and just add it in, or maybe pick two that are relevant and add them in and, and see how they do and then get some feedback and refine from there. Is that the general process?

squadcaster-2479_1_08-22-2024_100429:

basically it and everyone has got their iphone or their androids or apple notes I'll pop something in nearly every day I would say that is somewhere relevant half of the time when I go back and look at it I've got better now at this but some of the earlier stuff I was doing I was saying What did I write that down for? I've no

emily-sander_1_08-22-2024_080430:

And

squadcaster-2479_1_08-22-2024_100429:

of what I wrote that down for, so I now try to put the context into the little note that I write down as well, but that's basically what you should be doing if you want to add humour to your presentation.

emily-sander_1_08-22-2024_080430:

then one more last question on the presentation piece is, so I'm thinking, you know, what the presentation is about, you know, what your segment is trying to convey and then to go, okay, what, what out of my bank can help supplement or help reinforce, or just talk about that in a different way or a funny angle. Do you just kind of, what am I trying to say here? Oh yeah. I have these three. Let me try this one. Is that process?

squadcaster-2479_1_08-22-2024_100429:

That basically is the process. And the other places where you get the banks of information. People still use email. But, I mean, you don't get, I don't get emails, or jokes, or funny stories emails to me anymore. But they come on WhatsApp, or they come on text, etc. I save those as well. I don't know when or if or ever I will use them, but with some of the little anecdotes you get about our own or with the workplace, et cetera, uh, some of those you can just adapt a little bit and maybe the joke, I try to keep away from jokes, but maybe the anecdote needs a little bit of massaging. Maybe Um, when someone is talking about something goes wrong in a company what you do is, uh, Let's say you're making your company presentation in house you actually, uh, When you talk about the company where something went wrong you talk about your competitor for instance Just drop the competitor's name in so if i'm in coca cola making a presentation of coca cola, I might rip Pepsi, for instance.

emily-sander_1_08-22-2024_080430:

Yeah.

squadcaster-2479_1_08-22-2024_100429:

a little bit of customization can also help to Make it pop a little bit more

emily-sander_1_08-22-2024_080430:

Okay. And so let's move to. Team culture and just interactions. So we've done the presentations with, which I think a lot of people listening to this have to make presentations, or they're at least ending up at team meetings and doing certain segments. So I think what we've said, or what you've said will be very, very helpful with the laugh acronym. But for just everyday interactions, how do we build. Um, a light hearted, humorous environment because we know that it goes to employee retention and retaining top talent, and we know it goes to attracting people to come into an organization. So how do we build that in the day to day interactions with people?

squadcaster-2479_1_08-22-2024_100429:

right now. This one is significantly more challenging because so much of the the culture and the atmosphere in an organization is Set by the leader of that the organization or that department or of that team So you've got to make sure that I think that the team leader appreciates that if we can add a little bit of Humor In our workplace. going to have more production, more productivity and a better atmosphere. And this, uh, I fully accept is more of a challenge than just talking about adding humor, uh, to your presentation. But what I do suggest a simple little one in some of the workshops I've done is that if you are And this is regular now, of course, uh, we've got our weekly sales meeting here. We've got our weekly supply chain meeting and we go through the same agenda time after time after time. And almost always we're talking about problems and challenges and things that went wrong and blaming the other department, et cetera. Um, as I said, I was in marketing. Um, so when we were used to, um, things like sales forecasting, et cetera, our forecasting was always a perfect, it was the supply chain was the problem. Okay, but so everyone blames every other department kind of thing or blames people within their department. What I suggest is that if you're doing a weekly meeting, one of the first things that should go on the agenda, I'll give you two things that should go on the agenda. Um, one, the first thing that should go on the agenda is a bad joke, right? The idea is that That uh, it's kind of just creating a little bit of levity in the situation And what I would I encourage people to do now i've done this for a number of organizations And I know a few of them have done this and i'm getting good good feedback from it Others haven't bought into it But I do believe that if you're doing weekly meetings with the same people sitting in the same seats With their butts implanted on those chairs that have they've been on for the last four weeks Dean years or whatever it is. One of the ways to just change the vibe is to ask each team member on it. Uh, iterative basis. I want you to tell me a really bad joke to stop the meeting next week. So when you get onto the Googler and you tell something, the joke that would get the best reaction is, Oh my God, that's so terrible. Not offensive, obviously, but it gets groans. Um, I. Do believe you should start meetings with that regular meetings. The other question that I believe you should start a meeting with, and this is not the humorous side of it, is the question is What did we do well in the past week? What did we do well in the past week? So what we're starting off with is positives, because most of the meeting is going to be about negatives, challenges, where we're running behind schedule, etc. But if I can start a meeting, we're asking the question, What did we do well? And Emily, you told me that's something that you had achieved in the last week. I'm giving you kudos. I'm giving you compliments. You're feeling better. It's changing the vibe in the room. Someone else then once they realize, Hey, she's getting complimented for saying something positive about what she did or our team did, then all the other people are going to pop in as well. It's a really powerful question for weekly meetings. monthly meetings or if you're in the food service area or manufacturing where we've got a daily huddle and get together where no one listens to what they're being told because we've heard it again and again and again. However, if you ask the question, what did we do well yesterday? Someone's going to say, Oh, we food service. We looked after table 14 when Marie ran into some trouble kind of thing. Kudos to you. It's a powerful question. can really make a difference to organizations and it's going to create good teamwork and good vibe because people are being Appreciated.

emily-sander_1_08-22-2024_080430:

I think that's a really good one because we often get inundated with the negative, right? So it's like, we're here to talk about the issues. Let's resolve the issues and work together for these, fix these problems. And there are issues of course, that need to be addressed and resolved, but there's also plenty of good things that happen that just don't get airtime. And so to give a balanced kind of a fair approach about how things are going, you have to add that. But. I think we're so used to gravitating toward the negative. You have to intentionally put the positive in there. So I love your idea of. Starting with that. And then with the bad joke and the positive kudos, I think that just kind of lightens the room and sets the tone for, okay, let's have, let's have an open conversation here. So love that suggestion. If someone's listening and is really funny and it's like, look, I don't have a problem with, with not being funny enough, I have a problem. Almost the other way. How do I. How do I balance being really funny and out there and also being professional? And if I'm in a high stakes meeting or I'm giving a presentation to senior, senior executives or the board, how do you kind of mix and match being funny and professional at the same time?

squadcaster-2479_1_08-22-2024_100429:

well, I think your first job is to be professional And part of the way of being professional is you've got good content. You've your research done You're well prepped and you appreciate that One of the ways I can get my message across well is by just using humor once or twice To reinforce a key comment that I was making. Uh, the danger is that if you try to be Alright, they're going to laugh, but they're not going to take you seriously. The solid message you're trying to get across gets lost in their perception of you. So, point one, be professional, be prepared. But being professional and being prepared allows you at times to add a little bit of humor to the presentation. And that's when you will then get the results that you want. I would suggest.

emily-sander_1_08-22-2024_080430:

And you've been in front of a number of crowds and different groups of sizes and backgrounds, et cetera. I'm, I'm assuming that part of it is reading the room where it's like, Oh my gosh, if this is a lively group and okay, they're going after everything I'm throwing out at them. Then that might be one instance. If it's like, look, I'm up against a stone wall here, so I have to adjust my approach or it might be, you know, they're not smiling right now, but I can kind of sense that they want to laugh and they want to smile. They might keep going. How, how do you read the room in that sense?

squadcaster-2479_1_08-22-2024_100429:

Well, I think it on what the audience is. My, my favorite audience to speak to is, uh, nurses, uh, particularly in the oncology area. boats of cancer over the years, and I just love speaking to nurses are in a high stress environment, and they've got a wonderful sense of humor. So what I try to do there is I'll do my core keynote for a lot of organizations around the gift of GAB, G A B, which is goals, Attitude and behavior, and I talked to nurses about creating a great, uh, healthcare environment or patient environments with the gift of GAP goals, attitude, behavior. I know in that presentation where they're at a conference to, to learn, but to be motivated as well, or being brought in to motivate them for the day. I can throw a lot of humorous quips and anecdotes into that. So the balance of good content. It is really there, but it's reinforced by a lot of humor. No, I go to, into, let's say, uh, an engineering association conference on a Monday morning, uh, where quite likely some of them have been on the tear or drinking until four o'clock and the first day

emily-sander_1_08-22-2024_080430:

They're recovering.

squadcaster-2479_1_08-22-2024_100429:

of thing. Yeah. Um, I mean, the worst day to do a sales conference or opening keynote or keynote is the first day. Because they've all been on the trash, as we would say in our in the previous night, so they're kind of the engineers are kind of going there. Um, and they're, they're playing to the stereotype of the engineer. But the fact is that, um, when they're in the bar or when they're over their friends, they're just. Same as you and me, but there's kind of a little stereotype. So what I do with these organizations, uh, is that I work initially on, uh, maybe just a very small little bit of levity, but then really solid content initially, and then as we're going on there, realize, Hey, this guy's making some kind of sense, then you bring in a little bit of humor, um, more good sense and then more humor, et cetera. So I can start with the. A lot of the humor when I'm speaking to the nurses who are there to be motivated and have a fun time when I'm speaking to the serious business group. I'll start with content and then start using the humor as the axle grease to help the presentation move along.

emily-sander_1_08-22-2024_080430:

Timing is everything and sequencing is everything. One. So one question I have is you've talked about building that bank of anecdotes. Would you suggest, um, practicing some of those? Like, okay, I have that one, but like, here's how I would say it in this, in this scenario, or would you, how do I ask this? Would you suggest knowing the framework of an anecdote or the framework of how to put something together, then you just slot things into that, if that makes sense.

squadcaster-2479_1_08-22-2024_100429:

Yeah, I think the more you can practice and get, I mean, Teddy Roosevelt says the credit goes to the person who goes into the arena, etc. And.

emily-sander_1_08-22-2024_080430:

yeah.

squadcaster-2479_1_08-22-2024_100429:

Uh, you've got to get into the arena to see how it actually does work if you take a stand up comics for instance Even the guys like Kevin Hart Seinfeld, etc They'll go to nightclubs at two o'clock in the morning in New York and they'll do a 15 minute piece and see how it goes And then they'll probably go back to another week the following week and they'll do the same 15 minute piece except two minutes of that have been changed a little bit or adapted and the more you experience you get almost in everything the better you're going to get at it. What I do encourage people to do is to go back to the laugh acronym to listen to the reaction that you got ask yourself are the which is the first element of the laugh acronym the H is the he he he is a somewhere can adapt it or improve it to make it funnier. One of the ways to improve it is to try and customize. The, the presentation. I'll give an example of this. Um, well, what I normally do is, uh, from doing an event, let's say in San Diego or in Seattle, I'll get onto, uh, the Googler and I'll Google San Diego, uh, stroke Irish history or Seattle Irish history and see whether or not there's anything relevant about Ireland or Irish settlers over there. I might be able to adapt something, but I was doing something up in, um, this was a pre COVID. I was doing something in Hartford, Connecticut, a good, um, uh, Patriots, uh, country, New England Patriots country. So I'll tell a story about being stopped by a cop. This is one of my signature stories. It's about choosing your attitude. Okay. So I'm telling the story about the, the cop. I, um, I see what I refer to as a mobile discotheque behind me. Okay, half car flashing lights. I see the cop get out of his car and walk up towards me. And I said to the audience in Hartford, Connecticut, I said, this cop was really ugly. He reminded me of Tom Brady.

emily-sander_1_08-22-2024_080430:

Oh no. Hey now.

squadcaster-2479_1_08-22-2024_100429:

So I get booed by the audience. Good naturedly kind of thing, but I could use that line in Connecticut, New England area, because it was

emily-sander_1_08-22-2024_080430:

Yeah.

squadcaster-2479_1_08-22-2024_100429:

their audience, but it was just a simple little thing. And that's what I tried to do is there's so little way I can take a famous character from the city or a famous politician or sports person and have a little bit of fun. them when I'm, talking to them.

emily-sander_1_08-22-2024_080430:

Yes. And so just curious, you're obviously Irish. Are certain styles of Irish humor, do they play well in America and certain parts that don't or how do you use that?

squadcaster-2479_1_08-22-2024_100429:

Yeah, well, I, the Irish are very good and the English are like this as well. There's a lot of kind of, um, banter, deprecating banter that we can get away with in Ireland or with family that you wouldn't do here. So I gotta be careful on, on that. One of the things I do quite regularly is when I'm starting my presentations to an audience where. So I was doing, I was in Seattle about two weeks ago speaking to a cancer survivorship group. And I said, uh, we're here and I promise you we'd have some great crack and the silence kind of in the room. And I said, Oh, explain crack to them. Oh, okay. All right. Okay. So I said, let me explain here in Ireland, the word for fun. Is crack. right. So if you're meeting, I quite honestly, uh, when I was in Ireland, a few weeks ago, I mean, I kept track of like quite a number of people says, Hey Connor, how's the crack or where's the crack. Okay. And as I say to my audiences in Ireland, you're quite likely to be, to hear sister Mary say, Oh, sister Mary, you wouldn't believe the amount of crack we had done at the parish priest house last night. Okay. But that's an example of taking an Irish ward. And it has a different context and using it and that's where kind of some ethnic Humor can come in but the ethnic humor has to be related to your own Ethnicity, I can't tell jewish jokes. Um, I won't tell italian jokes and make fun of that one of them I can have a bit of fun about my Irish heritage. All right. But each of the time I do it, I try to make sure that it reinforces or relates to a comment that I've previously made.

emily-sander_1_08-22-2024_080430:

Love it. Well, you've kind of given us a really good sample set of what one of your keynotes or workshops would be like, but can you talk about the keynote signature talks that you do or perhaps the workshops and the different organizations that you go to? All

squadcaster-2479_1_08-22-2024_100429:

I basically do, as I say, my mission is to improve people, performance, and productivity with a smile. My promise is that I will leave the audience, no matter who they are, with a smile on the face, with a spring in the step, and actionable takeaways based on the reason why I was brought in. So a smile in the face, a spring in the step, and the actionable takeaways, which is critical. So basically my core message, I do quite a few different keynotes, but my core keynote is based around Emily, the The gift of gap, which is goals, attitude, behavior, goals, attitude, behavior. And what I say to organizations is that if you can bring this concept of a macro and micro goals into your organization, I'll explain that in a second. Um, choosing your attitude when things are difficult and yet that your behavior creates your brand. Those are the areas I try to speak to. So when I'm speaking to organizations about goals, attitudes, and behavior, I talk about the importance of having a, uh, a macro goal. the question I put to the audience, Emily, is the question is, what do You want to be famous for, let's say, what do you want to be famous for? What is it you want your team members to say about you when you're not in the room? is it you want your leadership to say about you when they're considering you? for a promotion or a transfer to a different department, et cetera. And if you know what you want them to say about you, you have some chance of actually working on a procedure on a program to make sure you get to that kind of a result. It's the same way I'm talking to people who are in a, I speak a lot to people in, in job search. It's not an income stream. It's just a real passion of mine. I say to job seekers before you go into the interview know what you want The recruiter to say about you after you have left the room because they're going to be selling you up to the next level You need to be clear on what it is. You want them to say about you? So that's the macro goal We spend a little bit of time talking about that and then I say I can give you five micro goals That will help you to achieve your macro goal. And I don't need to know what your macro goal is, but I can provide you with five micro goals that will help you to achieve your, your goal.

emily-sander_1_08-22-2024_080430:

right. Love it. And I love the, your behavior is your brand. That's so, so true. So Connor, you've, you've laid out a whole bunch for people. And if folks are listening and they're like, Oh my gosh, we want Connor to come in for, for our, you know, first of the year kickoff or our brainstorming or whatever type of meeting onsite, offsite, whatever it is, where can people reach out to contact you?

squadcaster-2479_1_08-22-2024_100429:

Uh, best way is to just to hit my website, irishmanspeaks. com. Irishman Speaks is the, the brand surprise, surprise. Uh, we just stumbled on as well. I mean, I do talk about branding and having a clear, a brand, et cetera. I wasn't Irishman Speaks initially, but it kind of. Developed over a period of time. So I'm an Irishman speaks all one word on. It's also on LinkedIn, uh, Twitter, uh, TikTok, which I'm finding actually quite helpful getting good response on TikTok, um, Instagram as well. All one word Irishman speaks. Connor is spelled with one N Emily. My parents could not afford two N's back in Ireland. So we went with one N. Okay. Connor, uh, Colleen, but Irishman speaks. Um, I'd love to. Talk to someone about how I can leave their people with a smile in the face, in the step and actionable takeaways to achieve your goals.

emily-sander_1_08-22-2024_080430:

Beautiful. And we'll have all of that information in the show notes, but Connor, thank you once again, appreciate it.

squadcaster-2479_1_08-22-2024_100429:

It's been a pleasure, Emily. Thanks a lot. Stay well and best with your business.