Catching up with Karyn

One of the biggest challenges leaders face is inspiring their team to turn in a top-notch performance all of the time. Motivating people to be creative problem solvers who keep a steady focus on delivering superior customer service is hard work.

If you're really lucky, you'll have some people who are intrinsically motivated to continually come up with original, useful ideas. If you're not so lucky, your role is to create a workplace culture that serves as an external motivation conducive to top performance.

That's where laughter comes in. The use of humor by leadership accomplishes several things in the workplace:

Lowers Barriers Between Team Members:

This makes free and easy communication - essential for creative collaboration, plan development and implementation.

Acts As a Form of Permission:

Sometimes it's the funny, offbeat, or ridiculous idea that can be the real game changer for your business. In an environment where laughter is an acceptable response, it's easier to...

Happy Nurses Week!

This week of celebration and recognition is for everyone who's ever been puked on, cursed out and proposed to - all by the same patient!

This week of celebration and recognition is for everyone who's ever had to reassure a heavily-tattooed, multiply pierced individual that they really wouldn't die from the pain of getting a tetanus shot!

This week of celebration and recognition is for everyone who knows that the proper answer to 'When will the doctor be here?' is not "Your guess is as good as mine!"

This week of celebration and recognition is for everyone who responds to the next shift being 20 minutes late by giving report in Pig Latin!

This week of celebration and recognition is for everyone who has physically restrained a colleague from saying the Q word!

What we do as nurses is amazing and amusing. This week, make a point of laughing - with your colleagues or by yourself - as often as you can. You'll be happier, you'll be healthier, and you'll be a better...

April is National Humor Month - great news if you're interested in finding health & wealth through laughter! Here are five fun ways to celebrate National Humor Month:

1. Movie Night: Host a Comedy Film Festival in your home, devoted to the movies that make you laugh the most. Here's a list of the American Film Institute's 100 Funniest Films for some classic laugh.

2. Phone a (Funny!) Friend: Remember the college roommate who could always crack you up? What about the co-worker you loved to laugh with before they moved onto a new job? Keeping your funny friendships alive has serious long term mental and emotional health benefits. A touch base call or email is a simple way to put a smile on both of your faces!

3. Learn Laughter Yoga: Laughter is more than fun - it's exercise! Laughter yoga combines enjoying humor with basic moves to boost your circulation and energy while lowering your blood pressure and stress levels. Here's a simple exercise to get you started.

4. Scavenger Hunt!...

Mickey Rooney was a short man - 5' 2" at his tallest - but he was truly one of the giants of comedy. It is very sad that he's left us - although from what I hear, his next booking is on one of the best stages EVER - and I'd like to take this moment to talk about the laughter lessons he taught us all.

Mickey Rooney taught us it was okay to laugh at ourselves. He was a very lovable guy - so lovable that 8 different women married him. 7 of those women later divorced him, and Mickey provided the world with a great example of processing pain through laughter.  His jokes about his many marriages included:

“Always get married in the morning. That way if it doesn't work out, you haven't wasted the whole day.”

“When I say "I do", the Justice of the Peace replies, "I know, I know". I'm the only man in the world whose marriage license reads, "To Whom it May Concern".

It's important to note that there's a difference between laughing at your own behavior and laughing at...

Looking for a fun way to boost morale in your health care facility? Caption contests are a great idea. Simply print out one (or more!) of the cartoons below and have your team members come up with their own funny captions. You'll be astonished what the talented (or twisted!) minds of your nursing staff can come up with.

As an incentive, you can offer Prizes of Incredible Value: I've found baked goods and Starbucks work very well indeed. Don't forget to share the best ones on social media: you can tweet them to me @funnynurse!

One of the most amazing things about laughter is how profoundly and immediately it alters our mood. Laughter is not only the best medicine, it's incredibly fast-acting medicine.

That's why I recommend that people create a Fun List of activities, media, and people that are guaranteed to put a smile on your face. When you're feeling down for whatever reason, drag out the Fun List and choose one of the options on it. Laughter doesn't solve our problems, but it does make it easier for us to handle those problems.

After speaking at LaughFest (an absolutely awesome event you'll want to add to your calendar every year!) my new friend Dawn asked me to share what's on my own personal Fun List. Here you go - these are the 15 fun things that never fail to put a smile on my face:

1. Big Bang Theory (sitcom)
2. David Sedaris Live at Carnegie Hall (CD/MP3)
3. Reading Sunday comics
4. Watching funny movies (Top picks: "In & Out" with Kevin Kline, "When Harry Met Sally" and "Steel Magnolias")
5. Youtube:...

Okay, if you're from a community that has no financial worries, or you're in charge of economic development in a town that's already booming, you can skip this post. Everybody else, keep reading! I want to tell you something amazing about the power of humor and how laughter can mean some serious money for your town.

I've just come back from speaking at LaughFest, a great event that began as an offshoot of Gilda's Club (humor for cancer patients) that today promotes the message of humor as a vital part of emotional health for all. This event is really designed with something for everyone. Top tier comedians like Lily Tomlin and Jay Leno were there to entertain the crowds, and there were many, many free or low cost events so everyone could participate and have a good time.

An absolutely amazing legion of volunteers makes this event happen, ensuring that performers made it to and from many venues throughout the city. Performances weren't limited to pricey convention centers. The...

Steven looked down at his plate. There was some kale there, and a few colorful things his wife assured him were delicious peppers, and a piece of chicken only slightly larger than his business card.

"This," he asked, "is dinner?"

"Yes," his wife Stacey replied. "It's from the heart healthy cookbook your doctor recommended." For years, Stacey had been cooking up Steven's favorites: fried fish, fried potatoes, lots of cheeseburgers, fried cheese sticks. But she wanted to keep her hubby around a lot longer, and his heart attack had really scared her. So she was willing to change.

Steven, on the other hand, wasn't as eager. He looked at his plate and shook his head. "I'm not sure it's worth it."

Sound familiar? Making lifestyle changes can be a big part of your heart health routine. Altering what we eat, how much we eat, our levels of physical activity, giving up tobacco - these are all challenging things. Best of all, we're asked to make these changes at the same time we're supposed to...

Heart health is a top priority for me. It's also a big worry for the millions of women out there just like me who know that heart disease is our #1 killer. More than cancer, more than diabetes, more than having your brain explode inside your skull when someone says, "Don't worry about it, Little Lady - it's a Man thing!", heart disease is killing us.

This is not a good thing. But there is good news. We're not powerless against heart disease. There are things we can do - choices we can make and actions we can perform - to reduce our risk of heart disease. And if we're at a point where we have heart disease - or we're precariously on the brink - making the right choices and changes can help us slow the disease's progression.

Dr. Suzanne Steinbaum presents a comprehensive overview of the positive changes we could be making to improve our health in her new Heart Book: Every Woman's Guide to a Heart-Healthy Life. I was particularly happy to see her emphasis on the value of humor for...

At age 25, Zora was diagnosed with Breast Cancer. The news wasn't exactly shocking - a strong family history had been a part of the reason Zora'd been so diligent about being screened, key to her early diagnosis. What did shock Zora was how completely Breast Cancer took over her life.

"All of a sudden, everything in my life -every decision, every aspect of my day - was centered around dealing with this cancer.  That's all anyone wanted to talk about," Zora said. "My co-workers, my husband, my family, my friends: it was totally overwhelming."

When a well-meaning colleague asked Zora what she could do to help, Zora said it was the last straw. "I just snapped, and said, 'Why don't we go do something fun and not even talk about my cancer at all!'" Much to her surprise, her colleague instantly agreed, and they went to the movies. "We saw We're The Millers and I laughed until I cried."

Coming out of the movies, Zora said, "I felt so good. It was probably the best I'd felt since...