People Remember What Surprises Them, Not What You Told Them | Jenny Locklin | Episode 21

Jenny Locklin walks onstage as somebody else. A breathing expert, a college official, a brand-new hire. Then she drops the act, and the audience that came in braced for another serious session leaves laughing, connected, and ready to work. She calls it The Undercover Speaker. She's a two-time Toastmasters humorous speech contest winner and the speaking partner of her father, Hall of Fame speaker Joel Weldon. On this episode of the Memoirs to Millions Podcast, Asher and Jenny dig into humor as a medium for a message. They talk about why self-deprecating humor keeps people from feeling attacked, how to train your brain to spot the funny in ordinary life, and why fictional targets let an audience laugh together without a real target getting hurt. Jenny also tells the story of a hospital week that went from talk of amputation to two words from a fourth doctor, and the laugh that carried her family through it. Welcome Jenny Locklin to the Memoirs to Millions Podcast. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ CHAPTERS 00:00 Cold open 00:48 Meet Jenny Locklin, The Undercover Speaker 02:57 The rock: how an ordinary life becomes a story worth telling 03:57 Talk without being offensive, listen without being defensive 04:30 Laugh at yourself first, and five subway sandwiches tall 07:37 What laughter does for your body, and why it bonds strangers 11:48 Training your brain to spot humor: the red Honda Civic effect 14:25 Saturday Night Live at four years old, and the class clown years 15:50 Why Asher is funnier than he gives himself credit for 16:43 How to get funnier, and why you skip announcing a funny story 18:40 The F.A.R.T. slide, and why fictional targets keep humor safe 21:30 Maxim: chase the laugh. Dr. Lisa Brower and the animal breathing hoax 27:39 A niche problem, not a niche market: the boring conference 29:48 Maxim: story beats fact. The Mo Creme hospital story 36:27 Maxim: truth said badly, and the topics she keeps off stage 39:16 Maxim: the disguise, and how The Undercover Speaker began 41:42 The 37-minute Mistake Break 46:00 Growing up in Scottsdale, and a good childhood as an obligation 49:20 The birthday party that happened yesterday 54:57 The kindest act: if you see something, say something 56:40 Rapid fire: The Office, three books, and Toastmasters 1:01:13 Mount Rushmore: the woman who showed her what not to become 1:04:47 Biggest takeaway: ask better questions ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ IDEAS & REFERENCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE The Universe Has Your Back by Gabrielle Bernstein: https://amzn.to/4s4FoIH I Can't Make This Up: Life Lessons by Kevin Hart: https://amzn.to/4hLHCZZ The Let Them Theory by Mel Robbins: https://amzn.to/3TFijzD Dry Bar Comedy: clean stand-up, the channel Jenny recommends for training your ear Toastmasters International: https://www.toastmasters.org ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ CONNECT WITH JENNY LOCKLIN Website: https://jennylocklin.com LinkedIn:   / jennylocklin   Instagram:   / jennylocklinspeaker   Facebook:   / chatwithjennyweldonlocklin   YouTube:    / @jennylocklin   Speaker coaching with Jenny and Joel Weldon: https://www.ultimatespeaker.com Programs: The Undercover Speaker keynotes and Wellness with a Wink™ virtual wellness sessions, booked through jennylocklin.com ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ CONNECT WITH ASHER WRIGHT Memoirs to Millions: https://memoirstomillions.com Life Changing Wisdom Marketplace: https://lifechangingwisdom.com Weekly Intel Newsletter: https://m2mweeklyintel.com 100 Books That Changed How I Think: https://asheralbertwright.com/1000boo... LinkedIn:   / asherawwright   Facebook:   / lcwforu   ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ABOUT MEMOIRS TO MILLIONS Asher Wright is a 22-year US Army veteran, Jamaican immigrant, and 7x published author. He helps veterans, immigrants, and entrepreneurs turn their life stories into published books that build authority and income. #MemoirsToMillions #JennyLocklin #TheUndercoverSpeaker #HumorAtWork #LaughterIsMedicine