Great are the rewards a speaker experiences and so are the stresses. L.I.F.E. and my new book Practice Safe Stress are all about improving our lives by minimizing the stress that interferes with our day-to-day living. The L.I.F.E. Approach reminds us, as Lilly Tomlin points out that, “LAUGHTER improves the shelf life of our sanity.” Indeed it does! The essence and philosophy behind L.I.F .E. is in How we generate

LAUGHTER and tap into our sense of humor.

“I” stands for INTROSPECTION. It is vital for each of us to look inside and examine the situations that typically cause us stress. While we are “in there” we can draw upon other experiences to help us find some humor to dissipate the stress.

The FIVE MINUTE FUN FLING is perhaps the most important of the stress-lessening exercises I prescribe. The Five Minute Fun Fling is a brief shot of humor we give ourselves each day to correct our attitude and perception of stress, to generate the creativity we need to resolve most any stressful situation.

“E” is the ENERGY, ENTHUSIASM AND ENJOYMENT that will evolve by adopting the L.I.F.E. Approach to improve your life.

Practice Safe Stress explores meaningful anecdotes and simple, fun techniques to find and use your inner sense of humor to minimize day-to-day stress. Excerpts from the book are available at www.PracticeSafeStress.com.

First of all believe that you are innovative! Let me assure you that whether you believe that you are or, that you are not, you’re probably right. To help establish a real belief in your ability, think back on some of the innovative things you have done, said or created during your career.

Next, understand that when our thinking takes on a definite form and structure it becomes more effective. While I am suggesting that all readers follow the same step-by-step format, you’ll find that because of your own uniqueness, tastes and life experiences you will each develop your own innovative solutions, even when the questions are the same.

Step one: State the question, problem or dilemma clearly at the top of your worksheet.

Step two: List many, varied and unusual possible answers to your question or solutions to your problem. Do not pre-judge or edit your ideas. List everything (everything!).

Step three: Review your list and group your ideas/answers into categories. For example: hats, t-shirts and socks are all different but all are wearable. Apples, mugs, bagels and forks are different, yet all relate to food or eating. Any ideas/answers that do not fit into a category with anything else on your list, are the most unique.

Step four: Take the best or most unique ideas/answers and elaborate on them to make them truly extraordinary. You can do this by combining two ideas, consider using or doing your idea in a totally new and different way, look at it upside down or backwards, and be outrageous! Add to them, diminish them, change the color or shape, turn it inside out (get the idea?).

Before you begin, it is essential to shift to “right brain” thinking. The right side of our brain is where we do our imaginative, emotional and visual thinking. You can make the shift by bringing humor to your mind (read the funnies or listen to your favorite comic), try some brain teasers (create your own: list all things you can think of that are different shades of green or what other uses are there for a wristwatch, other than a time instrument?), listen to music, play with your kids or play like a kid.

Don’t be afraid to take risks! New answers are what lead to excellence and that is what Innovative Thinking is all about. Don’t be afraid of failure either. Failure is a sign that someone is doing something! By learning from our failures we get them out of the way and move towards success.

Remember that by simply approaching a problem, question or dilemma in a new way, we will usually come up with answers or solutions that are new as well. Giving ourselves the opportunity to see a vast array of possible solutions or answers and then categorizing them to find the most unique, enables us to develop the innovations we seek.

Good Luck & Have Fun!

Keeping your mind and body productive right through the stress.

Ah, to be stress free and self assured. We need to be as close to that as we can so that we can think and perform at our best in any situation. The negative consequences of stress on our emotional state can influence how others perceive us. When we are faced with a stressful situation, most of us become somewhat less in control of the tasks we need to accomplish. The stress can cause us anxiety, fear, frustration and lack of emotional self-control, all of which diminish our level of productivity and feelings of self worth. The amount of stress we encounter each day, and how we deal with that stress can directly affect our productivity, self-esteem and general health. One sure fire method for enhancing self image comes from a sense of self-accomplishment; enhanced by minimizing day-to-day stress. People, who laugh and smile easily, are generally among the most likable and admirable people we know. It is this perception we have of them that often makes them among the most successful and healthiest people we know.

When we laugh or smile, our brain triggers the release of endorphins into our bodies. This chemical provides us with quite a few wonderful side effects which relieve pain, relax our muscles, suppress our appetites and bring about a tremendous feeling of euphoria. This euphoric blanket that covers us when we have an endorphin rush tends to give us a feeling of warmth and calm and control so vital for overcoming a stressful moment which can enhance our self esteem, by making us more creative and productive. While things like exercise, sunshine and certain fragrances can also release endorphins, our own sense of humor is, for many, the easiest (and certainly the most fun) way to benefit. Even a fake smile can circumvent the thought patterns in our mind and trick our brain into sending endorphins into our system. Try breaking into a fake smile (hold it for 30-40 seconds) the next time you’re stressed out about a delayed flight!

By learning to use our own sense of humor, a tool we all have, we can quickly, easily, productively and creatively conquer the stresses that we each face, every day. When we are able to view a situation through our sense of humor rather than a sense of stress, we see things from a new, lighter vantage point; one that will enable us to maintain our sense of self confidence and self control.

How many times have we all said things like, “You know, it seems funny now, but when that happened I could have screamed!”? What we need to do is to be able to make it funny now, so that stress, anxiety anger and frustration play an insignificant role in our lives.

Since stress usually strikes during a serious moment (i.e., an emergency has come up and we cannot reach the client, you have four “situations” happening at the same time, when stuck in traffic), I must point out that that it is OK for us to bring humor into any situation as long as we remember two very important rules:

1. No one may ever be hurt, in any way, by our humor

2. The goal must be to productively resolve the issue at hand.

In line with all of this I recommend that we allow ourselves five minutes of pure fun every day, at any time we wish; a Five Minute Fun Fling that will serve to add humor to our daily lives. The Five Minute Fun Fling will help us to overcome any earlier stresses, better deal with any stresses that may come later, and, in time, will help us to more clearly see the humor in most any real life situation. Try one of these Five Minute Fun Flings every day (by all means, add your own to the list) and you will see amazing results within a few weeks.

•Add a funny caption to a picture in a magazine or newspaper
•Imagine how your favorite TV comedy character (“Kramer”, for example) might deal with one of your stressors.
•Recall some humorous incident that happened to you or someone you know and write it down.

Keep a Humor Journal, filled with all of the funny things you see, hear, read, etc. First, this gives us an opportunity to relive and share all of the fun, it is there for us when we need a quick pick-me-up and it’s very useful if we need some quick humor to add to any presentation or speech we may need to give. Simply getting into the habit of finding things for your Humor Journal will go a long way toward making each day more cheerful, too.

The Mayo Clinic urges us to experience moment of joy, every day, without feeling guilty. Ideas like the Five Minute Fun Fling and keeping a Humor Journal will help us to do just that. With regular practice we can all develop the habits that will allow us to use our inner sense of humor to improve our lives. Go Practice Safe Stress!

Barry Roberts is a humorist, helping businesses achieve maximum profitability & productivity by reducing stress & developing innovative thinking skills. If you’d like to receive an expanded Five Minute Fun Fling list and additional helpful information, go to www.BarryRoberts.com, click on the link to Barry’s e-mail and make your request for information. Barry’s book “Practice Safe Stress” is available now!

Once I had decided to keep this humor journal, I was on the lookout for all things funny and soon realized that this hunt for humor had become a major factor in brightening my average day. In fact, on those rare (for me) days when I might be feeling a bit down, I’d go to my humor journal and find enough things, that were funny to me, to cheer me up! Hey, this little book I had created has become a rather valuable tool for my personal life. I told my friends about it and some of them liked the idea enough to try it. After a few months, most of them reported back to me that they found great value in it as well.

Here comes the big payoff! When I am preparing for a speaking engagement and want to add some original humor, appropriate to my subject or audience, I’ll always find something to use from the countless entries of personal, funny anecdotes in my humor journal! Fantastic! If you are ever running any sort of meeting, large, small, formal or informal, and wish to add some original humor, your humor journal is perfect. Review it for some humor, appropriate to either your audience or your topic, insert that into your talk and there you have it!

I put everything in there…jokes I hear (those are more for me than to use in my presentations or keynotes), funny people watching moments (airports are great for that), advertisements that make me laugh (there’s the ad on the plumbers truck that states, “Remember, a flush beats a full house!”), funny road signs (oh, they’re out there. I recall one that says “LODGING NEXT RIGHT”, beneath that is another sign, “STATE PRISON”), newspaper clippings, I even take photos of things I see that you just wouldn’t believe. I have a picture of my car, my tag says HAHA1, parked totally at random, next to a car with a tag that reads, VRY FUNY.

In my keynotes on minimizing day-to-day stress, I share all of this with my audience and the feedback has been wonderful. People just love the concept and find real benefit in keeping a humor journal. I believe you will, too. Get yourself a notebook, think for a moment or go out exploring and begin making your entries. If you have a moment, I’d love to hear from you on this.

Barry Roberts is a humorist, helping businesses achieve maximum profitability and productivity by reducing stress and developing innovative thinking skills. He is the author of Practice Safe Stress and The Sales Coach II, Barry can be reached at www.BarryRoberts.com.

In the speaking industry we communicate valuable information and we make a difference. If we do our jobs properly, we provide food for thought, philosophies and viewpoints intended to make a positive difference on the lives of those we touch. This helps individuals to improve their lives and to thrive in their businesses and so, in turn provides food, clothing and shelter for their families, their employees and colleagues. This interesting chain reaction I believe to be very real. With that in mind, consider the urgency in striving to be excellent at what we do in business.

When I was a young man (some time around two thirds of the way through the last century!) I accepted a position as soloist in a choir with performances scheduled for the holidays. Shortly after rehearsals began, I came to realize that I couldn’t stand the choir leader. Rehearsals were tortuous to me. I had to quit. That evening I discussed this with my father, who, after listening to everything I had to say, offered the following, “You gave your word to this man that you’d sing in his choir. Your word should be precious; it’s all you can give. If others cannot rely on your word than you’ve got nothing. You don’t have to agree to sing again next season, but you gave your word for this season.” He didn’t tell me what to do next, he just left me to ponder that advice. I stuck it out for that season and did my very best (which was another promise I made when I accepted the job).

That one piece of advice from my Dad has shaped most of the decisions I’ve made in my life and continually pushes me towards excellence.

When I assure a client or prospect that we will provide an outstanding, customized presentation, I’ve given my word and I do not take that lightly. Do you? What steps do you take to make sure that you can consistently make that customer happy in all aspects of dealing with you and your company? When you tell a customer or prospect how very creative and valuable you will be, are you prepared to put in the time, do the research and make every effort to be extraordinary in your creative productivity or do you simply add a few industry buzz words to your stock program? When a problem arises do you call the client and advise him or her and then wait to see what happens and hope for the best (after all maybe the problem is not your fault)? Or, do you push everything else aside for the moment to dig in and scratch and claw to make sure the problem is resolved without even advising the client, avoiding the conflict and anxiety that might ensue, focusing only on the results you promised?

If offering outstanding customer service means hiring additional staff or putting in extra hours, are you willing to do that after you’ve given your word to do so? When clients or prospects put their faith and trust in you to be especially outstanding for that next session, do you keep in mind the potential for their successes, as well as the impact and importance of the program you create for those clients?

You see, had I quit the choir at that time, the choirmaster might not have been able to find another suitable soloist. The choirmaster, other choir members and the audience would have been negatively impacted.

When we give our word and others accept that, be they clients, family or friends, those people are counting on us and if we cannot be counted on to keep our word, what are we?

As I write this article, it is just several months since my father died. He knew the impact this lesson has had on my life and he’d be glad to know that I’ve shared it with all of you. Take it to heart, use it wisely and it will propel you towards excellence.

Barry Roberts, a humorist, helps businesses achieve maximum profitability by reducing stress and developing innovative thinking skills. His keynotes and educational seminars are sought out throughout the USA and Canada. For more information and a sampling of his book, Practice Safe Stress, visit www.BarryRoberts.com.

Feel confident in your ability to minimize your day-to-day stress and reap the rewards. A desire to achieve the end result of adding positive humor to your life is an important first step. Believe in the power of your inner sense of humor and experience the outcome. This belief is often all it takes to motivate yourself to develop the habits of humor to improve your life! In this way, you can see that attitude is very important. Many will read this article and think “ OK, this sounds good, but it won’t really make a big difference for me. If it was that easy, why. . . . . . .?” You’ve all had those thoughts from time to time about various new ideas and approaches you’ve explored. However, those with the right attitude, those who are willing to give this a try, especially in cases where there’s nothing to lose and, at the very least, a few laughs to gain, those are the ones who will truly benefit long term. Develop a positive attitude about humor and make it work for you. Remembering how wonderful you feel when you’re having fun should show you that some properly placed and strategically timed fun can change everything for the better. You can make it happen if you begin with the right outlook and an open mind. Take even a small step in the right direction and you’ll see these things begin – especially those of you who need a little more convincing.

“ Input equals output.” “You are what you eat.” “Whether you can or cannot, you’re probably right.” All are wise sayings and all relate to who we are or who we think we are. We generally tend to believe those things about our behavior and ourselves that are repeatedly told to us. Our minds then react according to the thoughts and comments fed to us time and time again. Input equals output. How often have we, as children, heard things like “ Stop all that childish laughter.” or “Quit that laughing and grow up?” Maybe we’ve heard that often enough as children so that we actually believe, as adults, that too much fun and laughter is a sign of immaturity or childishness. This belief, very simply, is not true. Fun and laughter surely can serve us in many positive ways as long as we remember two very special rules. Rule #1: No one may get hurt in any way while we’re having our fun. Rule #2: As adults, we must remain productive and responsible even while we’re having our fun. As long as we remember and obey these guidelines, then we can surely have all of the fun we want, whenever we want.

When did we forget to have fun and instead, solemnly pursue our careers? Why can’t fun and career development go together? They can! Please do not convey the previously mentioned ill-conceived, negative message of laughter to any children you know and, as we further explore the value of humor in our adult lives, please put those old thoughts out of your mind. Consider that your mind is like a parachute, in that it works best when it is open. Open-mindedly explore the benefits of humor and laughter, and you’ll find that your mind really reacts to the thoughts fed into it. Cheerfulness and a more positive outlook are generally the two most immediate side effects of learning to use your sense of humor. In addition, we tend to deal better with other people and often find that we’re suddenly more in demand. Our new outlook on things that generally cause stress and frustration makes a remarkable, noticeable difference to us and to those with whom we come in contact at work and in our personal lives. We enjoy the fun (who doesn’t ?) and begin to have more fun doing so many of the things that used to seem mundane and boring, even frustrating. You see, we begin to approach these activities with a new outlook and attitude, making us more efficient, more productive and more successful – not to mention the health benefits that come along with minimizing our day-to-day stress.

Good luck and REMEMBER TO HAVE FUN!

Barry Roberts, a humorist, helps businesses achieve maximum profitability and productivity by reducing stress and developing innovative thinking skills. His keynotes and educational seminars are sought out throughout the USA and Canada. For more information and a sampling of his book, Practice Safe Stress, visit www.BarryRoberts.com.

As a humorist and professional speaker, friends and acquaintances are often asking me how to bring humor into the workplace. Not simply the telling of jokes or for goofing around but, the kind of humor that can help to ease a tense situation or just bring about some personal relief after a particularly trying day. Now, when I am not on the stage speaking to groups about humor and stress, I just happen to have my business to run, so I don’t have much first hand experience with tension, or “particularly trying days”, so what do I know about stress? “From what I’ve heard, it sounds as though things can go askew once in a while and actually cause one to feel some emotional discomfort”, (he said, with his tongue firmly in his cheek.) Just in case any of this ever happens to you, there are a few simple (and fun) things you might try.

Let me assure you that when you try using any of your “Humor Props” in the way I’m about to describe you will feel absolutely ridiculous , but I promise you that in the end you will have accomplished what you set out to do; break the tension, feel better, move ahead and remain productive!

If you find yourself on the phone and in a conversation that is becoming stressful, for whatever reason, put on your clown nose or Groucho glasses! The key is to do this in the spur of the moment (that’s why you need to have them out in the open, around your desk, so you can see the props, grab one and use it to your advantage), without skipping a beat. Once the prop is properly in place, just keep the conversation going and realize how nutty you look (it would be great if you had a mirror handy). Once you start to feel real silly and you allow your sense of humor to kick in you’ll find that you can better deal with the party (what a word to describe someone who’s causing you stress) on the other end of your phone. You’ll find also that once you allow your mood to lighten, you’ll be more in control, more confident and more creative with the solutions you suggest to resolve the issue. Don’t be afraid to try this even in a one-on-one, in person situation as a quick way to break the tension.

For those of you who may be in management positions and are about to have a meeting with one or more of your personnel, a meeting that will probably be unpleasant, get out your silly hats! Once everyone is seated and ready to begin, when you can feel the tension in the room, put your silly hat on and ask the others in attendance to wear one also. After the initial shock, you’ll find that everyone’s mood will lighten up almost instantly and that you’ll be able to get on with the meeting without that bogged down, up-tight feeling that can only be a detriment to progress. Put everyone’s anxiety aside and you’ll have an easier time clearing the air and ending the conflict.

Please remember that if attitude is everything, an attitude of respect for others is absolutely essential! When you’re on the phone, feel free to have all the fun you want in order to help yourself (after all, who’ll know besides you?), but when others are involved you must make it clear that you are not mocking or being flippant about the situation, but rather you believe that by helping to generate some humor you can all feel better, quicker and thereby speedily and effectively resolve the problem at hand.

I actually have had some stress and tension in my day and have personally tried all of these ideas(and more) more than once. Others to whom I’ve made these suggestions have felt just a little uncomfortable about trying them, but once they did, they’ve found that that THEY WORK! I’m confident that you’ll find successful results , too! Please let me know, won’t you? Thanks and HAVE FUN.

PS: I’d appreciate it if you’d also let me know about any other creative/productive ideas you come up with for your “Humor Props”. Thanks, again!

Barry Roberts is an author and humorist, helping businesses to achieve maximum profitability and productivity. He conducts seminars & presents keynotes on humor, stress, leadership and innovative thinking for a broad spectrum of corporations and associations across the USA and Canada. For more information about Barry, his programs and his books, visit www.BarryRoberts.com