Do You Talk Funny? ─ 7 Comedy Habits to Become a Better (And Funnier) Public Speaker

Public speaking can be terrifying. For David Nihill, the idea of standing in front of an audience was scarier than cliff jumping into a thorny pit of spiders and mothers-in-law. Without a parachute or advanced weaponry. Something had to change.

In one year, Nihill went from being deathly afraid of public speaking to regularly performing stand-up comedy and winning storytelling competitions in front of packed houses. And he did it by learning from some of the best storytellers in the world: standup comics.

Do You Talk Funny? shows how the key principles of standup comedy can be applied to your speaking engagements and presentations to make you funnier, more interesting, and better looking. (Or at least two of the three.) Nihill takes the 80/20 principle and Tim Ferriss’ meta learning, and applies it to the art of public speaking. He breaks down the practices of standup comedians in order to offer readers step-by-step instructions on how to be more memorable, engaging, and effective.

You’ll learn how to:
Craft a story that your audience will want to listen to
Find the funniest parts of your material and how to get to them faster
Deal with stage fright
Master the two most important parts of your performance: timing and delivery

Whether you are preparing for a business presentation, giving a wedding toast, defending your thesis, raising money from investors, or simply want to take on something you're afraid of, this book will take you from sweaty to stage-ready.

Ten percent of the author's proceeds from this book will go to Arash Bayatmakou viaHelp Hope Live until he is fully back on his feet. Thereafter, 10 percent of the proceeds will go to one of the many facing the same challenges after suffering a severe spinal cord injury.

David Nihill was born in Dublin, Ireland. After graduating with a Master's Degree in Business in 2003, he moved to San Francisco where he worked for the Irish government helping startups expand rapidly. He has been involved with startup companies ever since. David is the Founder of FunnyBizz Conferences, a community conference series helping content creators tap into the power of storytelling, comedy and improv to create better content. He has performed standup comedy at California's leading clubs including Cobbs, the Comedy Store, the Improv and the Punchline even though he strongly denies being a comedian and is well aware most people don't understand his accent. His learning, taken from one year's intensive experiments in comedy, performed on someone from the business community with a huge initial fear of public speaking (i.e. him!) have been featured in Inc. and Forbes amongst others. He loves sharks, still dislikes public speaking, and calls San Francisco home when immigration officials permit.