Comedy As A Meta State Part 3 (Final)
Author
Damon Cart
Date
Feb 13, 2017
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Just to recap the previous two emails in this series in Part 1 I identified comedy and humor as a resource state and also as a meta state. Comedy takes stepping back, observing yourself and a situation and reframing it with humor. It's much easier to solve problems when you can lighten things up with humor. In Part 2 I looked to where I go to for comic relief. I go to Youtube and I enjoy prank videos. One of my favorite pranksters is Vincent Valentine, also known as Limitless EXP. As one of his pranks he approaches women with the corniest, cheesiest pick-up lines and he even has a phone app for these lines. Along with my friend Logan Christopher's challenges I decided to download the app and challenge myself to approach women with these pick-up lines in an attempt to not take myself serious and also to make her laugh and to hopefully make myself laugh. This would also be an exercise in modeling Vincent Valentine; using his words and physically copying his behavior. What did I learn? Either women in Santa Cruz are really lacking in a sense of humor or I'm really bad at delivering funny pick-up lines. Not a single woman laughed when I cold approached them and said things like "I bet you $100 you're going to turn me down" or "I never thought we would meet this way." The only few laughs I got was when I approached women and the first thing I said was "Will you marry me." I'm willing to admit that because I often look and sound serious that these woman actually thought I was serious and perhaps they didn't laugh because they thought they might offend me. Or they're just really lacking in a sense of humor because I certainly couldn't take myself serious when saying these things. That's the other thing that I learned. The experiment worked as far as letting go of taking myself serious. It was the only way I could do this and in doing this it actually made me feel empowered. If I can walk up to random strangers and look ridiculous it creates a sense of freedom like I overcame a limitation or self-imposed boundary. The interesting thing about this is that even though I couldn't take myself serious, rejection still stung. Not surprisingly most of the women said no to betting me $100, no to marriage, and no to my suggestion that we meet for coffee later. Rejection is rejection I suppose. While it hurt it was quite temporary and only lasted a few minutes. I actually did get two phone numbers and went out on one date. The woman I didn't go out with probably came to the conclusion, after giving me her number, that I was a complete turd for using a pick-up line even though I wasn't serious about it. What did I learn as a NLP modeling experiment? Limitless EXP (a.k.a. Vincent Valentine) is a well practiced professional in saying crazy things to random strangers and getting a laugh. After all he has been doing this for years and has more than a million subscribers on his Youtube channel. That doesn't happen by accident. Just like I could recite routines by comedian Louie CK and perhaps get some laughs, I still wouldn't be able to deliver his jokes the way he does and get the response he gets without practicing the routines a lot. I do feel like I tapped into some of Vincent's charisma and courage. Being courageous, humorous, and not taking yourself to serious is a wonderful combination and when all three are expressed at the same time it appears as pure charisma. Once again, it's something that needs to be practiced, but I don't think I'll become a Youtube prankster any time soon. I'll stick to self-help and personal development. If this video gets 100 Likes by March 1st I'll repeat the experiment and video it live you can see this happening in real time.
Damon Cart
Author
Damon Cart is considered to be a natural talent by some of the best NLP trainers in the world. His approach to guiding and teaching students brings to their awareness that they've been doing NLP all of their lives without realizing it and he empowers them with skills and resources to thrive and reach their full potential. With the understanding of how Neuro Linguistic Programs create oneβs experience a person can then take charge of those programs and create the experience and the life they want. By taking this approach into his own rigorous, daily NLP practice Damon has been able to rapidly accelerate his progress in learning, coaching clients and teaching workshops.
