Most of us would agree that having humor in our lives increases rapport, strengthens our relationships and overcomes communication barriers. People who work in a positive, often playful environment are more likely to stay. Productivity and creativity increase while stress is reduced. We just feel better after a good laugh. Think funny!

1. Open with a humorous story.. I remember the time the lights when out and I fell off the stage. I wasn’t hurt and quickly said, Now I will take questions from the floor. I’m at my best when taking questions in the dark. Before you can be funny, you must learn to see funny. Find the humor around you, in your life every day. The lady who takes an aisle seat rather tan sit next to the window… doesn’t want to mess up her hair. Practice telling the story out loud, and cut out any parts that aren’t crucial. As Shakespeare so wisely said, “Brevity is the soul of wit.”

2. Use props (candy bars, hats, funny faces, etc.) Props can be used as a metaphor or an analogy for a point you are introducing. They get your creative juices working while providing an anchor for your audience to focus on.

3. Cartoons use your own or others a picture saves a 1000 words. Put cartoons on an overhead or use as part of a PowerPoint presentation.

4. Humor – should be relevant to your topic. Tom Peters said, I deeply believe in humor; not in jokes. Humor is spectacular. Humor relieves anxiety and tension, serves as outlet for hostility and anger, and provides a healthy escape from reality. It lightens heaviness related to critical illness, trauma, disfigurement, and death. It comes as no surprise that many people are utilizing humor to deal with the trying times. But is the humor timely? Is it appropriate?

Do not use ethnic, racist, political or religious jokes. Include a joke that helps bring back the attention of the audience or as a way to lighten up your remarks. We all can use a good laugh from a well timed, funny joke.

5. Self effacing humor- it is better to admit you made a mistake than to admit that you are one. One of my lines as a mother of five is: For someone who isn’t Catholic, I sure did my share for the pope! Phyllis Diller is in the Guinness Book of World Records as having the most laughs per minute. A laugh is measured by:

5 points if everyone is laughing and applauding
-4 points if everyone is laughing and there’s a smattering of applause
-3 points if everyone laughs but there’s no applause
-2 points if some people are laughing
-1 point for a titter or giggle

6. Mime- Marcel Marceau makes us laugh and moves us. Charlie Chaplin was an all time great without using the spoken word.

7. Move Your Body -Try lifting your nose, look off to the side, jut out the bottom of your jaw, and notice how you become arrogant or aloof, Take a wide stance, shift your hips forward, and now you’ve just gained 50 pounds. The use of body movements will help to visually enhance your remarks.

8. Repetitive oral recitation- (repeat after me, Remember, if you can see funny, you can be funny. Repeat a particular sentence throughout your presentation to encourage audience retention.

9. Use taped music for a stretch break. Get the audience to sing a funny song. Pass out words to a song. Lighten up your attendees have some fun and your audience retention will increase. Don’t be afraid to be theatrical or silly. It’s why we pay actors the big bucks; and your audiences won’t forget you. Be outrageous. It’s the only place that isn’t crowded.

10. Group exercise a fun way to conclude your presentation is to use a group exercise. Use the football huddle to get the group to repeat a cheer or an affirmation to take some action.

One of the quickest ways out of stress is to learn how to fully experience the present moment – that’s the one that is happening right now!

Most stress that people feel in their body is generated from a thought about something that has either already happened and is now over, or something that they anticipate will happen in the future, and may also never happen! There is every possibility that when you notice anxious feeling in your body you’ll also be able to recognise that the thing you are having a stressful thought about is not actually happening in that very moment.

The key to dissolving stress is to realise that nothing and no one can make you experience those uncomfortable anxious feelings until you take the information inside and attach a stressful meaning to what is going on in your environment. Your nervous system does not respond to things or events, it responds to the thoughts you have about those things or event. There are many techniques to help you reframe your stressful thoughts into more positive ones, but getting into the practice of letting your thoughts go all together is one of the most mentally liberating experiences you can have.

Here’s an example of what I mean. You get up in the morning and you take a shower. However, mentally you’re not in the shower, you are already at work thinking about that important meeting or pressing deadline. Or maybe you’re replaying that argument you had yesterday. One thing is for sure, you’re not in the shower!

Bringing your attention back to the here and now means you are free to experience the peacefulness of this very moment. Stress does not exist in the ‘now’.

If you’re in the shower, BE in the shower. Become absorbed in the sensation of the warm water raining over your body. Watch the steam billowing around you. Notice the relaxing feeling of the water’s pressure massaging your skin, and that sound of the splashing against the walls and floor. Just be with it, be curious about it, and enjoy it.

To be fully present with your experience of the current moment is to let go of your thoughts and to just be. Doing this requires your thinking mind to become still and take on the role of a silent observer.

This is an important skill to practice. If you can master being totally tuned into the ‘now’ without your usual thoughts or stories about what ‘now’ means, you can begin to experience a more stress free life, even in those situations that used to bother you.

As with any skill I encourage you to start small. Being present in an already peaceful environment, such as being out in nature or listening to music, is a great training ground. As you get more and more used to being completely aware of a moment you’ll notice that it becomes easier to return to the ‘now’ in more normal situations such as being at work, driving, having a conversation, and later, to things that used to be stressful.

A question you may have is, “How can I let go of my thoughts and experience the peacefulness of the present moment while I’m having a conversation, or doing something that requires my attention?”

You can still be present while you are talking with someone else by getting to know that part of you that is always just observing what is going on. For instance, when you say something to somebody, or even to yourself, there is another part of your consciousness just noticing that you are having a conversation. It is entirely possible for you to hold a normal conversation while that part of you just observes the stream of words and sentences that are being unconsciously spoken, without any assistance from your thinking mind. As I am typing this I don’t need to think about what the next word is going to be, it just appears. You can easily talk to another person while at the same time being aware of the sensation of the words leaving your mouth. You can hear, and understand, what is being said to you whilst also distinguishing between the words and tonal qualities of the voice says them.

That’s being present. Fully noticing the experience of having a conversation, while you are having it, actually means you are more engaged with the other person. How often do you find yourself not really listening to what someone else is saying because you are already thinking about what YOU are going to say next? Surely that’s more stressful than just letting the conversation naturally flow.

Who would you be in this very moment without your thinking mind? Just a person standing, sitting or lying, and enjoying the peace of the ‘now’.

Here is a guide to help you practice being present. Read though the steps first before trying it out on your own.

STEP ONE – Take a few slow deep breaths and get your body into a nice relaxed state.

STEP TWO – Look straight a head of you and take in as much of the vision as you can. Let yourself even begin to notice the small details about your environment that you do not normally pay attention to. What can you see in your peripheral vision? Stretch your focus so that you can still see what is to the side of you, above and below, while you also see what’s in front.

STEP THREE – Keeping your attention on what you see, also begin to notice what you hear. Besides the main, obvious noises, what else can you hear that you were not aware of before? See what you see and hear what you hear in fine detail. Be curious about it.

STEP FOUR – Now add into the mix the physical sensations you are experiencing. If you are standing notice your body weight that’s being supported by your feet. If you are sitting, feel the sensation of your body resting in the chair. Notice the touch of your clothes against you; your feeling of your feet inside your shoes; the temperature of the air against your skin; the natural rise and fall of your chest as you breathe. Continue to acknowledge each new sensation as it presents itself to your awareness.

STEP FIVE – Let any internal dialogue drift away as you just exist in this moment. Let the silence of your mind become a part of that overall experience. Just see what you see, hear what you hear and feel the physical sensations. Nothing has a label; it is what it is, just be with it.

Negotiators give hidden clues per what’s really on their minds by the words and gestures they use to convey their thoughts. To win more negotiations, unlock your awareness of hidden clues, and increase your level of awareness per what’s said, how it’s said, and the body language accompanying thoughts introduced during the negotiation.

Those hidden clues will give you the sense of direction to adopt for the negotiation, along with peeks of insights into the opposing negotiator’s strategy. Consider the following:

Speech Delivery:

Pace: Be aware of the pace at which the other negotiator speaks. In particular, be mindful of when he accelerates and deaccelerates his speech. Therein will lie clues to the deliberateness he applied to the offers and counteroffers he makes, which will also give you clues to his initial strategy per how he planned to engage in the negotiation.

Word Choice: Be mindful of the words used by the other negotiator and the meaning of those words per how he’s using them. Since the same word can have a different meaning to people, you must understand the intent being implied based on the words used by the other negotiator. You should also be mindful per how he’s measuring his words (e.g. pain can be implied by saying, “I’m experiencing discomfort with your offer”, or “that doesn’t agree with me” while touching his stomach (i.e. expressing his thoughts through kinesthetic).

Word Absence: Be very aware of what’s not said. The omission of words can conceal thoughts that have a huge impact on the negotiation. If you sense the absence of a word(s)/thoughts, you might consider posing the word/thought yourself to the other negotiator. Then, observe the response per delivery (i.e. slow could imply contemplation, fast might imply no great concern and/or something that he doesn’t want to deal with), word choices used to respond (e.g. I never thought of that (while being reflective)), and demeanor (i.e. sad, happy, disturbed, etc.) Such insights could expose conjectures. Be prepared to take advantage of them.

Nonverbal Body Language:

Nervous Gestures: To detect nervousness, observe fidgeting, shifting in chair, perspiration occurring at specific times in the negotiation, and excessive rubbing of hands/eyes/arms/legs. The latter are comfort gestures indicating that the opposing negotiator is attempting to calm himself.

Confident Gestures: Steepled hands (e.g. Church steeple), normal and consistent breathing, along with non-jerky movements all indicate/projects self-assuredness. When observing these gestures note the time they last and at what point in the negotiation that they occur.

Intuition per Awareness: When experiencing intuition, our brain is signaling that it senses something that may require more attention. Since we’re bombarded by millions of minute nuances of information on a daily basis, our brain takes shortcuts to weed out information it deems unnecessary of our full attention. As such, we may not be 100% focused on auxiliary occurrences that happen around us. That’s because such sensations occur on a subliminal/subconscious level.

When we have such sensations, even though we’re not fully aware of what we’re sensing, such signals should be given more credence because they contain insights per what we’re experiencing.

As with any negotiation, the more you’re aware per what’s occurring in your environment, the more opportunities you’ll see. To increase your negotiation win rate, raise your level of awareness per the insights cited above… and everything will be right with the world.

Remember, you’re always negotiating!