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"

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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"

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The Natural Medicine Of Humor Will Help You Stop Running The Gauntlet

We know that by being too hard on ourselves, we run ourselves through the gauntlet every day. But did you know that the phrase "running the gauntlet" is actually a corruption of the Swedish word "gatlopp," which means "lane"? The Swedish army used the gatlopp to punish soldiers; the guilty soldier was forced to run naked between two rows of soldiers who beat him with whips and clubs. More about this in a moment...

Let's discuss my Fun Commandment that is the perfect antidote for putting yourself through your gauntlet of mental punishment: Laugh with Yourself. The trick to this Commandment is to make sure you're laughing with yourself and not at yourself. Laughing with yourself rather than at yourself is, after all, the difference between endorsing yourself versus attacking yourself.

Of course, endorsing yourself is what you're after with this Fun Commandment. When we laugh with ourselves we are saying, loudly and clearly, that we are okay; we are supposed to make mistakes and be incongruent because we are perfectly imperfect. We take the pressure off our harsh self-expectations and judgments. No one is as hard on you as yourself if you're not careful to laugh with yourself!

Another reason this Commandment is so vital is connected to what I've found through three decades of medical practice - you cannot think yourself into a new way of living, you must live yourself into a new way of thinking. It's all well and good to talk about going easier on ourselves, but until we actually start to let up, those thoughts will simply remain unrealized "good intentions." When we laugh with ourselves we put our goal of easing up on ourselves into action and that has the wonderful benefit of actually changing who we are and how we think of ourselves!

Here are three keys to ensure you are laughing with, rather than at, yourself:

1. Your humor should give you confidence, not take confidence away from you. If you find yourself buoyed and bolstered by your humor, you are definitely laughing with yourself!




2. Your humor should give you energy and not discourage you. Laughing with yourself is a gift you give yourself and should serve to renew and recharge you.



3. Your humor should be self-effacing rather than self-deprecating. Self-deprecating means "exposing a weakness," which is the opposite of what laughing with yourself is intended to do. Self-effacing means "dropping the pretense" and, if you are dropping your pretense with your humor, you are achieving the maximum gain from laughing with yourself!

By the way, British soldiers who observed the gatlopp during the Thirty Years War brought the expression home with them. But they changed the word to the similar sounding English word "gauntlet." Please don't run yourself through your personal gauntlet of mental abuse; laugh with yourself this week as you make your inevitable mistakes!

And...I'll see you at 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"

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