HOW TO BE FUNNY: HUMOR FOR SALES PROS / 119 after inundating myself with these comedy-training tools, I could see exactly how Barry creates humor in his work. Colbert's I Am America is simply a written work of art (visually and ver- bally funny) that reveals plenty of great material from one of the top TV humorists and his comedy-writing team. Jon Stewart of The Daily Show has produced similar content in his books. And one of my favorite books with punch line after punch line is The Best of the Show: A Classic Collection of Wit and Wisdom by Bill Scheft. Scheft was a writer for David Letterman. This book might be a bit hard to find, but worth poring over to discover lots of humor tricks. There are hundreds of pages of jokes inspired by news items from the world of sports. Because the news items are circa the early 2000s, the content is somewhat dated, but still very, very funny and a great tutorial for our purposes. Watch the late-night TV hosts when you can. Classic Saturday Night Live DVDs, available at your local library, can inspire you to laugh and absorb strategies as well. Watch them on your TV or laptop. Good stand- up comedians (even those, like Carlin, who have potty mouths) are worth your viewing time. Here's an important thought: If you spend tons of time in front of that expensive flat-screen HDTV, why not use it to increase a skill set that can make you laugh, make you funnier, and eventually make you more money? Last, another way to absorb funny is to download plenty of material at iTunes or Amazon. So listen in your car, on the plane, during downtime. Find sources that you enjoy, that reflect your personality and growing sense of humor, and you'll increase your laugh potential. It gets easier from here, because my "tricks to writing funny" are much simpler than you could ever imagine. Write Funny Everyone is communicating by e-mail these days. Each time you "touch" a prospect this way, you have a chance to become memorable or lost in the in-box. Which will you choose? Okay, it's a dumb question, but not as dumb as answering "I want memorable!" then doing nothing. The pur- pose of this book is to change your behavior. Writing funny is one of the American Management Association / www.amanet.org