LEADERSHIP SERIES PART II Leadership for Turbulent Times by Tom McKee II. Essential Two: Leaders can laugh (vs. 1) \"A person's wisdom brightens their face and changes its hard appearance.\" There is a danger to leading in turbulent times. Leaders, who are passionate about their cause, often forget to laugh. We become so serious about our causes and our mission that we forget to have fun. Tom Peters says, "The number one premise of business is that it need not be boring or dull. It ought to be fun. If it's not fun, you're wasting your life." I have to admit, that this is one of the areas of leadership that I struggle with the most. I often became so involved in the daily running of a business, meeting payroll, paying bills, meeting customer's expectations, and managing employees that I would not lighten up. Eighty percent of all illness is due to stress. Oh, people get pneumonia, bronchitis, and the flu, but the primary reason the majority of people get sick is because stress shuts off the immune system. And people are stressed! But laughter is a great stress buster. In 1964, Norman Cousins had returned from a trip to Russia as editor of the Saturday Review. He was having difficulty moving his limbs and was hospitalized. Doctors said he was suffering from a collagen disease -- a weakening of the connective tissue. He was informed that much of his body would soon be paralyzed. Furthermore, he was told that his chances of recovery were one in five hundred. Norman Cousins discovered that his condition was due to stress. Lying in bed, he began to think creatively and asked himself what the opposite of stress was. He concluded that laughter was the natural opposite of stress, and wondered if laughter could reverse the weakening process of his connective tissue and thereby reduce the pain. He brainstormed a hypothesis and set out to prove it. He decided to check out of the hospital, and into a motel -- a much quieter and cheaper alternative. He then contacted Alan Funt, the producer of Candid Camera, and requested that he send over films of some of the funniest of the classic television episodes. He discovered that, given ten minutes of hilarious laughter stimulation, he was able sleep for at least two hours without pain. Most doctors regarded Cousins' self-healing ideas with laughter themselves -everyone except his own doctor. They began working together, performed research, and discovered that laughter is indeed good medicine. Not only does it reduce stress, it also reverses and counteracts the process of weakening connective tissues. At the age of 62, Cousins was asked to join the UCLA School of Medicine as a professor-despite the lack of a medical degree. His theory of the healing power of laughter and optimism was finally accepted and backed by the medical community. John F. Kennedy said, "There are three things which are real: God, human folly and laughter. The first two are beyond our comprehension. So we must do what we can with the third." Don't Take Yourself So Seriously! Read more about Tom McKee on his web page: http://www.volunteerpower.com