“I should practice more.”

“I should be able to memorize this faster.”

“I should be able to play this better by now.”

“I should eat more fresh veggies.”

Sound familiar?

The word “should” is a common fixture in our daily vocabulary. But it’s a word that does more harm than good. And one that I think should (oops!) be eliminated from our vocabulary.

What’s the big deal?

On one hand “should” is just a word, and as my first grade teacher always said, “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.”

Except that the whole sticks and stones premise is a bunch of baloney if you ask me. Words can absolutely hurt, and often cut deeper than any stick or stone ever could.

Um…so how is it that the word “should” is holding us back?

The problem with shoulds

Problem #1: Our inner child

Do you remember how it felt when your parents sat you down for a lecture and told you all the things they thought you should be doing differently? Mmm…good times, right?

Does it feel any different when you lecture yourself?

When you say “I really should practice more scales,” does this make you feel more enthusiastic about playing scales? More determined to follow through?

Or does your inner child start dragging its feet?

“Shoulds” feel like a bit of a guilt trip, and when we feel our guilt buttons being pushed, we get resentful, willful, or discouraged. These are not emotional states conducive to continuing down the path of mastery.

Problem #2: Problems vs. solutions

The other problem is that when we dwell on our shortcomings and failings, we’re less likely to look for and identify solutions and next steps.

Focus on how you should be practicing scales more diligently, and the dialogue spirals downhill pretty quickly. “I should be practicing more scales” leads to “Man, I lack discipline” which leads to “What’s wrong with me?” which leads to “Maybe I don’t have what it takes…why do I even bother…I should just quit now…” and pretty soon we’re sitting on the couch watching reruns of The Office, and eating a 6-pack of Skinny Cow ice cream sandwiches (which are by no means good for you, but still awesome, I say).

Take action

Replace your shoulds with a word or phrase that is more future-solution-focused. Personally, I like the phrase: “Next time, I will…”

For instance, “Next time, I will…try doing 5 minutes of scales before I do anything else” or “This afternoon I will spend 20 minutes googling for ideas that might make scales more interesting and challenging in a motivating way.”

You may very well find this to be a helpful tactic in non-music areas of life too. From parenting happier kids, to working out more consistently, to perfecting your top-secret banana-chocolate-chip waffle recipe, the phrase “next time, I will…” can help keep us relentlessly solution-focused.

Question: What are your most frequently recurring shoulds? And how could you reword them, transmogrifying these shoulds into solution-focused next actions instead of mini guilt trips? Leave a comment below…I’m curious.

Photo credit: Jose Juan Castellano

One summer, I had the good fortune to attend a 3-week chamber music program in Israel with my piano trio. The faculty was a dream team of musical legends and performers (Isaac Stern, David Finckel, Leon Fleisher, Natalia Gutman, Joseph Kalichstein, Henry Meyer, Steven Tenenbom, and others) who coached us every day.

It was the most memorable and impactful few weeks of my musical life – but easily the most stressful, intense, and eye-opening few weeks as well.

I still find myself thinking about what I learned there on a weekly (if not daily) basis, but there is one thing that stands out as the most enduring lesson I learned from Isaac Stern that summer…

What are you trying to say?

I used to “proof-read” papers for a friend of mine back in college (she used to “proof-read” my theory assignments, so ethics aside, it was a pretty good arrangement). Anyhow, her papers were always truly mystifying, because even though the words were spelled correctly, and the grammar was fine, I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what she was trying to say.

It was like reading this paragraph (courtesy of the awesome Corporate Gibberish Generator):

Bulletproof Musician has permanently altered the idea of power shifts. Think open-source. What does the jargon-based industry jargon “revolutionary” really mean? If you scale mega-iteravely, you may have to harness transparently. Do you have a cross-media strategy for coping with emerging e-tailers? We will extend our capability to leverage without diminishing our power to syndicate. If you synthesize strategically, you may have to incentivize nano-macro-extensibly. If you architect interactively, you may have to actualize globally. The TQM factor can be summed up in one word: clicks-and-mortar.

So while we do need some degree of command over language and grammar in order to make a convincing point, my friend’s papers were proof that it is also possible to construct a perfectly written sentence that says nothing.

What does this have to do with music, and Isaac Stern?

Worrying about the wrong things

In the weeks leading up to the workshop, my colleagues and I spent most of our time focused on ensemble, intonation, beautiful tone, and making everything sound as polished as possible. As you can imagine, we wanted to impress these great artists with our awesomeness.

Turns out we needn’t have worried. Not once did we talk about ensemble. Not once were we criticized for intonation, sound, or wrong notes.

Instead, Mr. Stern abruptly walked out on us, grumbling “I don’t have time for this” loudly enough for us to hear.

Why?

We didn’t have anything to say.

Mr. Stern and his colleagues bombarded us with question after question about the music, the score, and our intentions. What character are we trying to portray? Why are there dashes in the score instead of dots? What does it mean that there is a crescendo written in one place, but not in another similar place? Why did we choose the tempo we did? Is that really the best bowing/fingering to bring out the character, or just the most convenient?

We responded with uncomfortable silence and the vaguest of responses. It was obvious we hadn’t thought deeply enough about any of this.

It was mortifying, and in those moments where I fought valiantly to hold back tears, I learned what it means to be an artist.

Art and fear

Specifically, that if we want to be taken seriously as an artist, we must look at the score with our own eyes and our own ears and take a stand. Rather than copying others’ ideas or waiting for others to endorse or support our ideas, we must make our own conclusions about what we see in the music and bring our ideas to life boldly, courageously, and without question or apology.

That even if we don’t know what is “right” or “wrong”, we simply must make some decision and commit to it until we come up with a better idea. That abstaining from making a decision is not an option. Nor is delaying our inquiry into the bigger questions while we obsess about intonation and hide behind technique.

What do we think are the most important features of the phrase? Why is it written like it is, and not some other way? What do we think is cool or beautiful? What do we want people to feel, and how can we make that happen?

Will we always get it right? Nope. Will people always agree or like our take on the score? Of course not.

Is it scary? Heck, yeah.

But you know what’s worse? Putting out bland/cautious/tentative/safe ideas (or none at all), and feeling the derision, apathy, frustration, or disappointment of a genuine artist who took the time to form an opinion, and had the courage to put themselves out on a ledge they believed in.

Take action

I suspect some of this is a habit. Our early training is naturally so focused on the mechanics of playing our instrument that the big picture and self-expression often get pushed to the back burner. But I think many would argue that this needn’t become so ingrained a habit.

How can we change things so that young musicians don’t have to wait until their 20′s to learn this lesson?

Sport psychology doesn’t really have the best answers to this question, but I think Dr. Robert Duke‘s approach is pretty compelling. Check out his Habits of Musicianship and his Center for Music Learning, and see what you think.

The one-sentence summary

“An artist is not paid for his labor but for his vision.” ~James Whistler

photo credit: Cushing Memorial Library and Archives, Texas A&M via photopin cc

I watched a student perform the other day, and noticed that she kept sneaking glances at the audience…presumably to gauge their reaction.

For a moment, I was tempted to make funny faces or assume a look of horror to see what would happen. But that seemed like a mean thing to do, and besides, I don’t have that large a facial vocabulary.

Don’t get me wrong – it’s not a problem to look out into the audience per se, but we have this unfortunate tendency to scan the audience for the wrong things.

Under pressure, we are prone to focusing on threats, so we tend to notice the bored, disinterested-looking folks, and quickly go from “Hmm…is that person falling asleep or just listening with his eyes closed?” to “This doesn’t seem to be going well…I don’t know what I’m doing…I sound like crap…I don’t deserve to be on stage…I should never ever perform again…”

How can we avoid this negative spiral of doom when we look out into the audience and are greeted by a sea of sour-looking faces?

The rule of thirds

When I was in grad school and began doing more speaking in public, my mentor gave me a simple bit of advice that I still remind myself of to this day.

He told me about the rule of thirds.

The rule of thirds states that in any given class or group of people, a third are going to love what you have to say – even before you say a word.

Another third will be on the fence, and make up their minds as you progress through your presentation.

The last third, you might as well forget about, because they aren’t going to be interested in anything you say or do, no matter how important or compelling you think your message is.

The trap

Think back to a time when you’ve been in a situation like this.

Which third of the audience got the majority of your attention? The third that loves you? Or the third that wishes it were somewhere else?

If you’re like most, you worry about and dwell on the disinterested folks.

My mentor explained that this is a trap. When we focus on the third that can’t wait to leave, we start questioning ourselves, we get flustered, rush things, try too hard, and end up shooting ourselves in the foot.

He said what we ought to do is engage the most enthusiastic third. The third that is nodding along enthusiastically, smiling, and totally “getting” what we have to say.

Because when we focus on the most engaged folks in the audience, we speak louder, clearer, and more confidently, our belief in ourself is bolstered, and we end up giving a more compelling performance.

Not only does the engaged third thus get the best we have to offer, but the middle third (the fence-sitters) see us at our best, and are more likely to be swayed to our side.

Take action

At the end of the day, this is about remembering to focus relentlessly on those things that help you perform your best. That allow you to play (or speak) freely, and to express or say the things you really truly believe in.

So when you walk out on stage, you have to make a deliberate choice. Will you focus on the audience member who is sleeping, talking, or fiddling with his iPhone? Or seek out the one with a warm smile?

When you walk out on stage to conduct the first rehearsal with an orchestra you’ve never worked with before, will you focus on the bored, cranky looking musicians? Or the enthusiastic ones with the bright shiny eyes, who are sitting up in their chairs?

Remember, you’re not psychic

One last bonus tip.

Keep in mind that while we can often identify the folks who are enthused, we can’t reliably pick out those who are on the fence, or totally disengaged.

I say this, because I’m always surprised by the people who come and talk to me after a workshop or presentation. Invariably, there will be at least a couple people who tell me how much they enjoyed the talk, even though I swear they looked ticked off or bored out of their minds during the entire presentation.

I can also say this because I’ve been told that I am totally that annoying person in the audience who looks bored and disinterested, no matter how good a time I might be having on the inside…

Don’t waste your time and attentional resources trying to read the audience’s minds. Focus on the most engaged people, and play to them instead.

You’ll enjoy yourself more, and in all likelihood, so will they.

photo credit: left-hand via photopin cc

I was in Bloomington, Indiana in March to buy some of the best donuts in the world do some workshops for the School of Music’s Project Jumpstart initiative (when you have a moment check out their workshop archive with videos and handouts of past workshops, including yours truly).

While I was there, I had the opportunity to meet Jeff Nelsen – a Canadian pig-farmer-raised amateur magician french horn player, whose name has often come up in conversations with students and professional musicians alike.

We met over chinese food and talked about music, psychology, the falling prices of computer hard drives, and the various forces that conspire to keep us from becoming the musicians and artists we have the potential to be.

In this post, Jeff shares a few of the strategies he and his students have utilized to propel themselves from good to great. Take it away, Jeff!

Enter Jeff

I watch very capable musicians obsess about the wrong things. Okay, maybe not the wrong things, but good things that, for them, are less important. Think for a moment about what your dream job might be. Now think about what you have to do to get that job.

Can you think of 5 things you could do right now, and consistently for the next 40 days, which would drastically improve your chances of being the person that others are tripping over themselves to hire? If you can’t think of 5 things, keep thinking! If you want employment in the arts, you must be creative. We all want another lesson or another great book to read about our pursuit of excellence. (Yes, blogs are different! Keep reading blogs!! Especially Noa’s.) But I am positive that you know 5 things right now that you could be doing better and more consistently that would create massive positive results toward your goals.

So much of what we need to do to reach our dreams is about discipline rather than information. We are drowning in information, most of which is great stuff. We can’t do it all, but we can do more than we’re doing now. I think most musicians in university and beyond know what to do…or, at least, have heard about what they should be doing!

This is where the great separate from the good. It is not about hearing the good idea; it’s about acting consistently on those ideas. Most people are good at what they do. Good is what gets you into university. Recently I coached a student on some excerpts, and he didn’t have marks on his part. I am someone who aggressively urges people to mark their parts. I use a red pen. If you are not collecting what you’ve learned in the practice room, you are being Einstein-Insane!

“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.” -Albert Einstein

I told this student that when I see someone playing excerpts for an audition off of a clean part, I thank him for training so lamely. I think, “Thank you for getting out of my way and letting me get the gig!” This student went, “ohhhhh, ouch! Okay, I get it now!” Fast-forward to the next lesson…no markings on his parts, again. After teaching at IU full-time for the past 7 years, I am still shocked when I see this but sadly no longer surprised.

If your next big success won’t come from the next lesson from your hero, what is it? It’s all you. You can do this. You can do this right now, with what you know right now.

We learn in two ways. First, we learn new things…higher, louder, faster! And second, we learn how to be better at doing what we already know how to do…consistency! Imagine if your next audience saw you only nail everything you already know how to do. You still miss the high notes, but you succeed at doing everything you know how to do. (Please make sure “telling a compelling version of this piece” is always one of your performance goals!  You already know how to do this!) If you perform this way, your performance should be received very well.

It’s All You

This is often the hardest thing to do. To be disciplined in our pursuit of excellence is THE thing that separates the good from the great. It’s because:

“Good enough is the enemy of great.”

I had a student a few years ago named Mike Lombardi. He came into his lesson and played the first movement of the Gliere horn concerto. It was good. Just good….like last week, and the week before. I asked him, “Mike, how are we going to get you to do the work you reeeeeally need to be doing? I know you’re working hard, but you need to work well too!” He gave me an eager, “I’ll-do-it-next-week-I-promise” look. Then he asked me if we could write it out clearly for him so he could really do it this week.  I showed him a chart I gave him a few weeks earlier. We laughed about how another new system might not be the magic solution…that the way to “great” for him might not be another magic solution, no matter how good I was at magic!

I then told him this story from my childhood. I was working at home on the pig farm. I was about 14 years old. The pipes that carried drinking water to the 1,000 hogs in the barn had broken down. I was trying to loosen a connector with a pipe wrench, but I couldn’t do it. My six-foot-six-inch tall dad walked up to me while I was working on it. I was straining away as he watched. Finally, I looked up at him and admitted, “I can’t get it.” He looked down at me and calmly replied, “Okay, good try. Let’s go eat!”

I responded, “But what about the pigs?” He smiled and replied, “They’ll die. C’mon, let’s go. I’m hungry.” I immediately grabbed the pipe wrench, pulled and groaned away as hard as I could and triumphantly forced the pipe loose. I proudly looked up at my dad, who just looked down and said in a totally unimpressed manner, “uh huh…” and walked away.

Mike left his lesson, and another week passed. After arriving for his lesson the next week, he began to play his Gliere. It truly was HIS Gliere Concerto! He completely blew my mind both musically and technically. Things magically clicked for him. I could barely sit still. When he stopped, I gave him a standing ovation. I asked, “What happened, Mike!!? What changed this week!!?” He signaled for me to come look at his music.

I walked over to him and looked at his part. In huge capital letters at the top of his part, he had written, “SAVE THE PIGS!!”

I guess there was one more magic solution that would work for him…and for you.

It’s all you.

About Jeff Nelsen

One of the many pig-farm-raised, Canadian, magician horn players in the world, Jeff Nelsen has thrilled audiences and inspired students for over twenty years. So far he’s enjoyed touring with Canadian Brass (8 years), teaching and mentoring at Indiana University (7 years so far…), giving a TEDx Talk about Fearless Performance, playing on Broadway (2 full show runs), soloing on 5 continents, and performing with dozens of orchestras including the New York Philharmonic, Chicago, and Boston Symphonies, and the Cleveland and Philadelphia Orchestras. Jeff is also proud to be a magician member of “The Academy of the Magical Arts” at the Magic Castle in Los Angeles, California.

Want more Jeff?

Jeff in your inbox? Sign up for Jeff’s free newsletter all about “Fearless Performance”!

Jeff live in person? Attend his “Fearless Performance for Musicians” seminar May 29 – June 2 at Indiana University in Bloomington!

I found a tub of cream cheese in my freezer this week.

I didn’t put it there. My wife says she didn’t either. But what probably happened, is that in the morning rush to get the kids changed, fed, and out the door, we cleared the table and put everything away without really thinking about what we were doing.

Like putting milk in the pantry or our keys in the fridge, usually we catch ourselves and chuckle at our absent-mindedness. But a similar thing can happen under pressure, when it’s not quite so funny…

The importance of programming the right scripts

37signals co-founder Jason Fried recently used a story from his self defense class to illustrate the importance of developing the right habits.

The class was working on some gun defense techniques, and when each student’s turn was over, the instructor told them to drop the gun on the ground and let their partner pick it up themselves instead of simply handing it over.

Why do such a thing?

The instructor explained that if you get used to handing the weapon back to the attacker after disarming them, you might accidentally do this in a real situation too.

Sounds ridiculous, right?

But then the instructor showed a surveillance video in which the victim does exactly that.

In critical high-pressure situations, when we’re either preoccupied with whatever is happening in the moment, or our mind has simply gone blank, our actions tend to be guided mostly by the habits or default “scripts” that we’ve cultivated over time.

Forgetting to bow

My mom likes to tell the story of one of my early performances when I was 3 or 4 years old. As the story goes, I walked out on stage, turned to look at the pianist, played the whole piece with my back to the audience, and walked right off stage without a bow. The audience might have thought it was cute, but my mom thought it might not be so great when I was 13 and still playing with my back to the audience.

So, my mom started making me practice my walk on stage, my smile to the audience, my bow, announcing my piece to the audience, and starting the piece over and over in the days leading up to every performance. No detail was too small, from how I walked, to how long I would stay down on my bow, to making sure I was still smiling when I straightened back up (because it’s a little disconcerting when someone smiles, bows, then straightens up with a very serious look on their face).

I thought this was all very silly, so I rolled my eyes and dragged my feet through the whole rigamarole. But I never again forgot to bow or tune or anything silly like that.

As I grew older, I got better at weaseling my way out of such drills. And then one day when I was 17, I performed a concerto with orchestra…and walked off stage without a bow. I turned to shake hands with the conductor, turned a bit more to shake hands with the concertmaster, and then turned and walked through the orchestra until I was off stage.

How could I forget to bow, at age 17?

It wasn’t the first time I’d performed with an orchestra, but in the moment, I just wasn’t thinking! And since I hadn’t spent much time programming the right scripts into my autopilot to guide me, I did whatever came naturally. To be honest, I didn’t even remember forgetting to bow, and had to see the video to believe it.

It’s the little things

Often, we forget the silliest things, because they seem so trivial that we don’t bother to work them into our autopilot scripts.

What do you do to cultivate the right habits and program the right scripts, so that the little things aren’t forgotten when you walk out on stage and get caught up in the moment?

photo credit: Dalboz17 via photopin cc

I’ve always had a habit of cramming for tests. Staying up all night and feverishly force-feeding as much information into my brain as possible – right up until the moment the exam began – was a pretty familiar ritual through college.

It worked out ok on occasion, but no matter how I did on the test, I would forget most of what I crammed into my brain by the next class.

When I got to grad school and realized I could no longer in good conscience continue to get by on this strategy, I found a new strategy that worked better.

Test-enhanced learning!

Test-enhanced learning

As it happens, tests are not just tools teachers use to measure what you have learned.

Tests themselves can enhance our learning, as the act of taking tests has long been known to have a significant impact on learning and long-term recall.

Case in point, a 2006 study in which researchers at Washington University in St. Louis, evaluated students’ recall in three different study conditions.

• Group 1: One group of students studied a selection of text four times.
• Group 2: Another group of students studied the text three times, and took one recall test.
• Group 3: The third group of students studied the text just once, but took three recall tests.

When tested 5 minutes later, Group 1 (studied 4x) scored highest, Group 2 (studied 3x, tested 1x) scored next best, and Group 3 (studied 1x, tested 3x) did the worst.

However, when tested one week later, the results were reversed. Group 1 (studied 4x) recalled the least, Group 2 (studied 3x, tested 1x) scored in the middle of the pack, and Group 3 (studied 1x, tested 3x) had the highest score, demonstrating 42% greater recall than the group which studied the most.

When you think about it, this actually makes sense. After all, Group 1 practiced studying, or putting information into their heads. Meanwhile, Group 3 practiced test-taking, or scanning their memory for the correct information and outputting this information – exactly what is required in a real test-taking situation.

Conceptually, I believe this applies to what we do as musicians as well. It can be tempting to spend all our time “studying” (i.e. practicing) and inputting data into our minds and muscles, but it’s just as important to practice “test-taking” (i.e. performing) where we must output everything we have learned.

Galamian and the division of practice

Indeed, famed violin pedagogue Ivan Galamian encouraged students to think of practice as consisting of three components.

1. Time spent figuring out what you want the music to sound like.
2. Time spent figuring out how to make your body and instrument produce what you hear in your head.
3. Time spent performing the music, and actually practicing all that will be required of us on stage when it really counts.

There is a natural tendency to neglect – or at least put off too long – the third component, only to get on stage and be faced with a number of variables we suddenly realize we haven’t prepared ourself to handle.

One of the other problems with waiting too long is that we can find ourselves spending an inordinate amount of time trying to solve what one of my students calls “imaginary problems” – or those problems that exist when we play at controlled speeds in sterile conditions, but disappear (only to be replaced by different ones) when we play up to tempo with full musical intent and intensity.

Take action

Get out a recording device and do a run-through of your piece or excerpt, as if it were a real performance, with a bow to the audience and everything.

What feels uncomfortable? What are you less certain about? What fails in a run-through, that didn’t seem to be a problem when you were just working through shorter sections?

These are the same problems that are likely to come out of nowhere and surprise you in a high-pressure performance. Of course, now you know what they are, and can proactively prepare an optimal response well in advance of the real thing!

There’s an interesting trend in the fitness industry nowadays.

It’s called functional strength training, and is a reaction to the observation that raw strength in the gym doesn’t always necessarily translate into strength in the real world.

Meaning, being able to bench press 300 lbs. is a pretty impressive display of force, but this kind of strength may or may not transfer to real-world tasks like lifting heavy, awkwardly-shaped boulders out of the ground and loading them onto a truck bed, or fending off linebackers and defensive backs as you strain to get into the end zone.

Thus, functional strength training emphasizes whole movements, not just isolated muscles or joints. Where there is a greater emphasis on compound movements like squats, deadlifts, and overhead presses, which recruit more muscle groups, enhance neuromuscular coordination, and can contribute to the kind of strength gains which help us perform daily activities with greater ease, from getting up off a really deep couch, to lifting heavy moving boxes off the ground, to hoisting heavy objects onto the top shelf of a bookcase.

So what does this have to do with music?

I participated in a chamber music workshop one summer where Leon Fleisher was asked how important it was to focus on developing a stronger technique. Fleisher’s response was that you only need as much technique as is necessary to say what you’re trying to say.

Reflecting back on that statement now, I believe he was saying that functional technique trumps raw technique.

Indeed, as impressive as it is to see someone play a very technical piece of music flawlessly, it pales in comparison to seeing them play the same work with character, nuance, exquisite timing, phrasing, spontaneity, and all those elements that help to create an emotional reaction in the listener.

There is certainly a time and place for working on raw technique, where we isolate very specific mechanical elements of our playing and are able to tweak and improve our skills in a controlled setting. But if we neglect to work on developing our functional technique, we may discover that our technique is somewhat limited, and doesn’t hold up so well when we try to turn the notes into music.

So how do we develop greater functional technique?

Technique as a means to an end

I observed Itzhak Perlman give a master class several years ago in which he had one of his students do an interesting exercise. The student played a selection of music, and then Perlman asked her to play it again – but with the intention to communicate specific emotions requested by the audience. For instance, to play Kreisler’s Liebesleid, but with a touch of sarcasm, or bitterness, or joy (the audience was a fun group, and took the opportunity to request emotions that were not necessarily compatible with the intended mood of the piece).

Take action

Take out some repertoire (or even etudes) you know well, and try playing them where you turn all of your musical intentions up to 11. Add more suspense, more humor, more sadness, more mischief, and so on.

You may find that while you can play a generic or vanilla version of the piece flawlessly, playing uber-musically will stretch your technique in a different way that etudes aren’t necessarily designed to do. That pushing yourself to the edge of musical good taste (or even way beyond) will enhance your ability to leverage technique in service of more compelling performances. Performances that engender a stronger emotional reaction in the listener and leave them more satisfied with the experience of the performance.

Plus, it’s kind of fun! And you may even find that you’re so busy making music, that the basic technical challenges automagically recede into the background and become less of an issue…

photo credit: ROSS HONG KONG via photopin cc

For all the emphasis that has historically been placed on IQ scores, success and happiness in one’s life and career may be as dependent (if not more), on emotional intelligence – or EQ (wait…what is emotional intelligence, exactly?).

And as you may have noticed, I’ve been on a bit of an emotional intelligence kick as of late.

From cultivating our optimistic side…

to listening to recordings of ourselves without wanting to curl up into the fetal position…

to taking ourselves less seriously at times so we can shift to a more productive state of mind…

to laughing as a means of relieving stress and managing our emotional state…

emotional intelligence is a skill, and hopefully you’ve had a chance to flex your EQ muscles a bit in recent weeks.

Don’t get me wrong, there is far more to emotional intelligence than simply cultivating the ability to laugh or remaining positive. At times, I believe we may even need to experience negative emotions in order to get to where we want to go. Nevertheless, humor can be a powerful asset in our emotional intelligence toolbox.

To that end, we ran a laughing contest last week to see if we could make each other smile by posting favorite video clips, blog posts, and comic strips that elicited a positive emotional response.

I promised to give away five copies of the iOS tuner app Cleartune to the five funniest submissions, so based on your votes and my own favorites, here are the five winners:

1. Julia with Infomercial People

2: Mel with Ode to Sleep Deprived Parents

3: James with Jessica’s Daily Affirmations

4: Kate with Sneaky Hate Spirals

5: Debbie with Simon’s Cat

(Julia, Mel, James, Kate, and Debbie – I’ll be in touch shortly!)

Take action

If you’d like to learn more about emotional intelligence and its role in our lives, the seminal book in this area is Daniel Goleman’s Emotional Intelligence.

Being alive can be pretty stressful at times. Whether we are five or fifty-five, there’s always something clamoring for our attention, and pushing us to the edge of our breaking point.

Mean kids at school…unexpected bills…repertoire that needs to be learned for a big audition in two weeks, but meanwhile our best friend is going through a big breakup and needs support, even though we ourselves are having a conflict with the new music director at work, dealing with a house full of kids with the flu, and are beyond fed up with the next door neighbor’s dog which keeps leaving little gifts on the front lawn.

It’s been estimated that stress costs us $300 billion in missed days of work, accidents, health-related issues and insurance claims (and that’s just in the United States). And while there are a whole range of effective ways to manage our stress, there is one strategy which seems to be frequently overlooked and underutilized.

What’s that?

Ha, ha!

It’s been said that laughter is the best medicine, and some folks are taking this old adage to heart by striving to make mirthfulness, humor, and joy a more integral part of our daily lives.

One of the pioneers in this area is physician Dr. Madan Kataria (the “Guru of Giggling”) and his global Laughter Yoga movement.

There is also psychologist Dr. Steve Wilson (the “Cheerman of the Bored”) and his World Laughter Tour organization, which provides laughter facilitation training for folks who want to be able to use laughter in more therapeutic ways.

Even the military is taking laughter seriously, where Colonel James Scott is helping military families use laughter to cope with the deployment of loved ones.

Indeed, some reports suggest that humor can be a valuable coping mechanism (and for some, the difference between life and death) in even the most unimaginably difficult situations.

How does humor help?

Of course, there is much about laughter that we don’t yet understand (humor becomes a pretty complex subject if you start to look at it more seriously), and it’s true that laughing won’t necessarily make our problems go away. But have you ever had one of those days where everything was going downhill, until something completely unexpected caused you to burst out laughing, lifting your spirits and changing the trajectory of the rest of your day?

From reducing stress, to decreasing negative emotions and increasing positive ones, to enhancing creativity and memory, laughter can help us rise up to each day’s challenges and be more resilient in the face of adversity.

Heck, even just thinking about laughing seems to reduce stress.

The laughter contest

So, this week I thought we’d do a group experiment to see if we can make each other laugh so hard that soda goes up our noses and our abs hurt the next day.

Post your favorite laugh-inducing video clip, blog post, twitter feed, comic strip, etc. in the comments below (one per comment, but submit as many as you’d like). Over the next week, vote for your favorites by replying to each of your faves down below and leaving a +1.

On Saturday, I’ll tally up the votes, and announce a top five. The five readers who submitted the top vote-getters will each receive a free copy of the popular tuner app Cleartune (a big thank you to the folks at Bitcount!).

Oh, and one last thing. I’d like this to remain a relatively family-friendly blog, so please abstain from posting material (funny though it may be) that goes against your better judgment!

A few to start with

To get things started, here are some things that made me laugh recently.

Funniest blog for parents

photo credit: basheertome via photopin cc

You know how airlines always provide a short “safety” demonstration before take-off? Where they show us what we ought to do in the event of an emergency?

When was the last time you actually paid attention to this presentation?

I recently flew on Delta, and was ignoring the obligatory safety briefing as usual, until something caught my attention, and I ended up watching the video all the way through.

In fact, when I landed and had some time between flights, I youtubed it so I could watch the whole thing again.

How did Delta get me to actually pay attention for once?

Take a moment to watch the following video and see for yourself.

Playfulness and behavior change

Volkswagen created an initiative some years ago called The Fun Theory. The idea was to see if they could use fun and play to alter people’s behaviors in positive ways. Would people be more likely to climb stairs if it were fun? Would more people drive within the speed limit if doing so were fun? Would more people recycle if it were fun?

The answer was yes. Watch how they motivated people to take the stairs instead of the escalator in the video below (you can see more examples at thefuntheory.com).

Playfulness and connection

When I began seeing real clients for the very first time on my first psychology internship, I was all business. I mean, depression, suicidal ideation, and panic attacks are nothing to make light of, so I assumed that my job was to come across as a serious, trustworthy professional, rather than some young, inexperienced, grad student trainee. However, my supervisors made the observation that while my clients may not have questioned my grasp of psychology, they didn’t seem to like me very much, certainly didn’t connect with me, and often stopped coming back after a session or two.

They encouraged me to be more personable, smile from time to time like a normal person, allow my sense of humor to show a bit, and have the courage to be myself. After all, how could I expect to forge a genuine, trusting, connection with another human being without being more human-like myself? This might sound like common sense, but in practice, this was quite challenging for me to do.

Playfulness everywhere?

So, whether we’re:

…educating a savvy audience about wine,

…inviting an audience to an upcoming performance,

…or motivating a class of middle schoolers to practice (a band teacher once set up a system in which students had to earn practice time, which led to students competing with each other for the right to practice more), how can we tap into our naturally playful side to enhance learning, engagement, connection, influence, problem solving, creativity, innovation, and more?

How can we embrace our playful side and make practicing more effective?

Score study more impactful?

Performing the same thing night after night after night after night after night more enjoyable?

Folding laundry more interesting?

Finding our misplaced car keys more fun?

Doing taxes more engaging?

Making the audience’s experience more of an adventure?

What are your favorite stories and examples of how fun and play have been used to foster positive behavior change?

photo credit: gumuz via photopin cc