Follow Shakespeare's Lead - Although Not Always Funny, He Was Fun

You're familiar with the phrase, "there's the rub," meaning "there lies the difficulty"? It's usually used to describe a stumbling block in your path or the central dilemma. But while it's associated with Hamlet, did you know that this phrase was not coined by Shakespeare? I'll finish this thought in a moment...

Things that are funny are almost always fun. But things that are fun are not always funny. There's the rub. Most of us, I've found, confuse fun and funny...to our unfortunate detriment.

It's easy, and dangerous, to forget the distinction between fun and funny; when we focus on funny instead of fun we can quickly get discouraged because trying to be funny puts a lot of pressure on us. Especially when some of us are not naturally funny. Even if we are naturally funny, placing funny before fun is still a mistake because it causes us to prematurely focus on the outcome rather than the process of humor.

You see, funny is a result while fun is a process. Funny is an action, while fun is an attitude. Fun is virtually unrestricted and can be had almost anywhere at anytime, while funny has some very definite limitations. Since you can take an attitude of fun into any situation or circumstance, while being funny is sometimes inappropriate and unwelcome, is there any wonder that I am advocating fun over funny?

Here are three steps you can take right now to forget about being funny and start having fun:

1. Remember Your Fun. What games did you enjoy when you were 5 to 10 years old, when you were having fun naturally. Think of 10 specific examples of games you enjoyed and then ask yourself, "How many of them involved active imagination and physical movement?" I'll bet most of the games on your list involved both.



2. Plan Your Fun. Take the list you made in Step One and update each game to a version you might be able to play currently. Can you think of an adult version of hide and seek, tag, or playing with dolls? How about trying to avoid direct eye contact with your boss when she's looking for someone to work overtime this weekend, playing "phone tag," or trying on clothes at the mall? But those are my ideas -- see what you come up with.



3. Have Your Fun. Give yourself permission to have more fun and back it up with a commitment to have 15 minutes of fun each day. Why do you need a commitment to have fun? Because you are bucking years of incorrect indoctrination that fun should be reserved for recreation. You want the excellence which, research shows, fun creates so well.

The lesson is simple: you want the full benefit of humor's powerful natural medicine, so don't confuse fun with funny. They are definitely not the same thing. While it might be funny to give an elephant an enema, for example, I'm sure it's not fun! And now you know exactly how to lose your focus on being funny and get started having fun.

Shakespeare, by the way, didn't originate the phrase "there's the rub," he only made it famous. In Hamlet, Hamlet considers death as a way to end life's struggles and finally rest easily. But then he also realizes there would be a catch.

"To sleep, perchance to dream. Ay, there's the rub;

For in that sleep what dreams may come,

When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,

Must give us pause."

Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 1


Don't fall for the trap of trying to be funny instead of having fun. You'll put less pressure on yourself and you'll also feel the full measure of humor's incredibly powerful natural medicine.

Cliff Kuhn, M.D.
The Laugh Doctor

The Natural Medicine of Humor
"Discover a unique, FREE, and incredibly powerful prescription created out of desperation by a (formerly) stressed-out Kentucky psychiatrist"

The Blog Directory

Make Fear A Nine Day Wonder - Motivate Yourself With Fun

Have you heard something referred to as a "nine day wonder"? The phrase refers to something that causes a sensation for a brief period of time and then fades into obscurity. The origin of this phrase is usually tied to the nine-day reign of Lady Jane Grey (1537-1554) as Queen of England. This reluctant queen met an untimely fate. More on that later...

I added a new Fun Commandment recently to address a very pesky and persistent nine day wonder we all face - fear as a motivator. Fear is a great motivator...but only for a very brief period! Then it does worse than fade into obscurity; fear adds to our load of stress and pressure. So I'm calling for an end to this nine day wonder's reign with my Fun Commandment: Motivate Yourself with Fun Rather than Fear.

Motivating yourself with fun rather than fear pays big dividends in myriad ways. Making this choice accelerates your ability to communicate, rests your brain, lowers your stress, increases your tolerance for pain, among other things. In this article, however, I am focusing on one incredibly important and impactful side effect of this Commandment - using fun to motivate yourself increases your creativity.

Creativity is an ability highly sought by businesses and employees alike. Creativity is trumpeted in every mission statement and praised by every CEO for good reason - we know that creativity brings breakthroughs! Since the ability to create breakthroughs is both a highly sought after and also a highly marketable skill, creativity gets a lot of deserved attention.

Yet there are still many myths to dispel about creativity. One of the biggest myths is that creativity is fueled by time pressure. Time pressure is an example of fear-based motivation because it involves trying to escape a negative consequence rather than moving toward a positive outcome. Deadlines are a reality, but using fear to fuel our creative juices has the opposite effect.

The alternative is to use fun as our motivator. Theresa Amabile, head of the Entrepreneurial Management Unit at Harvard Business School, has been studying creativity for 30 years. For the past 8 years she has collected nearly 12,000 daily journal entries from 238 people working on creative projects in seven large corporations. She and her team scoured journals for moments when people struggled with a problem or came up with a new idea. The following rules for using fun to motivate creativity are inspired directly from Amabile's research.

1. Deadlines are fear-based; if you want to be creative you must give yourself an "incubation period." Deadlines create distractions that rob your attention. Even with a deadline looming, to get creative you should focus on your work in an environment protected from distractions.



2. Competition is fear-based; collaboration is fun-based. If you want to amplify your creativity, foster the confidence to share your ideas with others. Be open to debate with collaborators and create a noncompetitive environment. You'll hit new heights of creativity!



3. You are more likely to have a creative breakthrough if you were happy the day before. When you're happy, which usually happens as a byproduct of fun-based motivation, the research clearly indicates a great chance of your happiness "incubating" overnight to show up as a creative idea the following day.

How about that? I couldn't have asked for more compelling evidence that fun is a better personal and professional motivator than fear. Amabile's 8-year study clearly shows that today's happiness predicts tomorrow's creativity! So start getting happy today by motivating yourself with fun and then re-create your world tomorrow!

By the way, Lady Jane Grey was reluctant to take the throne of England because she was only 15 years old and she held unpopular Protestant beliefs. Her reluctance was well-founded; the young Queen relinquished the crown after just 9 days, plead guilty to treason, and was eventually beheaded.

Let's give fear, as our motivator, the same fate. Fear becomes a nine day wonder when we replace it with fun today!


Cliff Kuhn, M.D.
The Laugh Doctor

The Natural Medicine of Humor
"Discover a unique, FREE, and incredibly powerful prescription created out of desperation by a (formerly) stressed-out Kentucky psychiatrist"

The Blog Directory

Quit Smoking With The Natural Medicine Of Humor

Have you ever heard the phrase "skeleton at the feast"? It refers to a somber element in an otherwise festive atmosphere and was popularized by the Greek historian Plutarch (46-120). Plutarch wrote of an unusual practice among the ancient Egyptians - during festive celebrations and feasts, the Egyptians would place a mummy at the table with the other guests. The skeleton at the feast was supposed to remind the guests of their own mortality.

I’ve noticed that many of my patients who smoke, deep down, consider themselves skeletons at the feast; by all indications, 7 out of every 10 smokers want to quit smoking - but can't. Actually trying to quit smoking may not be the real problem. As the old saying goes, it's easy to quit smoking - I've done it a hundred times! Does anyone doubt that nicotine is one of the most dangerously addictive drugs in the world ? We all know people addicted to smoking, people who are trapped on a deadly merry-go-round of promises that they'll quit "tomorrow."

There are hundreds of remedies for smoking addiction on the market, which should tell you right away that none offers universal success. The odds are stacked heavily against quitting successfully, and we know it. If you’re a smoker, it’s almost enough to make you give up before you start. But what if there existed a formula, based upon the strongest natural medicine known, that would help you quit smoking , stay quit, and not cost you a dime? Sounds too good to be true, right? Except this formula exists - I've taught it to my patients and I've used it myself.

This solution is so powerful and so cost effective because it's based upon a natural medicine you've carried around in your personal chemistry since birth. You once used this natural medicine, the medicine of humor, to summon incredible energy, astounding creativity, and supreme resilience - and you will soon use it this way again! I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that maximizing the amazing, free natural medicine of humor will not only free you from your smoking habit, but empower you to solve an array of other medical and personal problems as well.

No other doctor in the world has the credentials I have to teach you about this particular application of the free natural medicine of humor. Having discovered its power twenty-five years ago while working with a terminally ill cancer patient, I have spent more than two decades researching, fine-tuning, and prescribing humor in an amazingly diverse array of personal and medical applications. You will soon discover that you can use the free natural medicine of humor to skyrocket your success in your relationships, your career, your stress management, your weight loss, your mental health, your fitness program, your parenting, your sexual health and more, because humor is powerful, abundant, free, and always accessible to you.

Over two decades ago, I began creating the Fun Commandments from my work with terminally and chronically ill patients. These patients taught and inspired me to use the incredibly powerful natural medicine of humor both in their treatment and also in my own life. As my patients' lives blossomed under this treatment plan, I realized that I actually needed humor's medicine as much, or more, than they did.

I had a great family, a wonderful home, lots of expensive "toys," and a bright career as a psychiatrist. But by the late 1970's I realized that I wasn't doing well at all. I had learned to be funny, but I didn't know how to have fun. I was experiencing pleasure, but I wasn't celebrating life. I was doing good things, but I wasn't free to enjoy my accomplishments.

Does this sound even remotely familiar to you? In contrast, I realized that many of my patients were doing fine compared to me. They were able to have fun even in the midst of the pain, uncertainty, and fear that accompanied their diagnoses. So, as they urged me to use the natural medicine of humor to change my own life, my patients also convinced me to write down my findings so they could be shared widely. The results of those initial writings were christened the Fun Commandments and served as the foundation for my Fun Factor prescription, a groundbreaking treatment approach which teaches you, step by step, how to employ the amazing power of humor to supercharge every area of your life.

After decades of research, I can teach you how to turn on humor's amazing power as easily as flicking on a light switch. From working as a performing comedian on the national Comedy Caravan tour to developing intimate, working relationships with great humor/practitioners like famous comedian Jerry Lewis, I have learned how you can infuse your personal and professional life with such an amazing level of resilience and energy that you will feel reborn - no matter how successful you are already!


Quit Smoking Using Dr. Kuhn's Fun Commandments

Step One: Go the Extra Smile

This Fun Commandment utilizes an amazing resource that is always available to you, is completely under your control, and is hardly ever inappropriate or unwelcome. Going the extra smile is my number one Commandment for having more fun, but it also provides your best escape from physical and psychological pain. Going the extra smile gives you a steady infusion of energy and vitality - which will be a vital aid in your efforts to quit smoking!

Let's face it, by giving up smoking, you're kicking both a physical addiction and a psychological one. You need a physical and a psychological advantage to make this work and, fortunately, you have a built-in method for infusing yourself with all the energy and resilience you need. To continually energize yourself with strength and encouragement all you have to do is remember to smile - and then do it!

Does this sound too simple? Let others scoff at the notion of a simple smile while you unleash your secret wealth of power upon your resolution to quit smoking. We have measured it - your mood is elevated, your pain lessens, your creativity is sparked, and your communication is enhanced even from a "fake" smile!

Force a smile on your face, and you literally, change your psychology and your physiology. Will you still encounter difficulties on your journey to quit smoking even if you're smiling? Of course - and don't believe anyone who tells you they can be completely avoided! But your difficulties will be minimized by a genuine, sustainable, and renewable source completely under your control because you will draw power from your smile.

To read the rest of this article, please visit my website!

Cliff Kuhn, M.D.
The Laugh Doctor

The Natural Medicine of Humor
"Discover a unique, FREE, and incredibly powerful prescription created out of desperation by a (formerly) stressed-out Kentucky psychiatrist"

The Blog Directory