{"id":1726,"date":"2009-09-03T12:41:23","date_gmt":"2009-09-03T17:41:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/37d57f8fa2.nxcli.io\/blog\/?p=1726"},"modified":"2009-09-02T10:38:49","modified_gmt":"2009-09-02T15:38:49","slug":"get-silly-to-make-more","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.marketingforsuccess.com\/blog\/small-business-management\/innovation\/get-silly-to-make-more\/","title":{"rendered":"What A Few Laughs Can Do For Your Business"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A young man, hired by a supermarket, reported for his first day of work. The manager greeted him with a warm handshake and a smile, gave him a broom and said, &#8220;Your first job will be to sweep out the store.&#8221; &#8220;But I&#8217;m a college graduate.&#8221; the young man replied indignantly. &#8220;Oh, I&#8217;m sorry. I didn&#8217;t know that,&#8221; said the manager. &#8220;Here, give me the broom, I&#8217;ll show you how.&#8221; <!--more--><\/p>\n<p>How many times have you laughed today?<\/p>\n<p>If research is anything to go by, the answer will be, not as much as you should have done.<\/p>\n<p>We&#8217;re told that people are so overwhelmed by the gloom they read and hear on the TV and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.marketingforsuccess.com\/blog\/marketing-tools\/what-is-the-best-way-to-reduce-advertising-costs\/\">newspapers<\/a> that we&#8217;re forgetting to laugh.<\/p>\n<p>I say &#8220;forgetting&#8221; because, as kids, we were masters at laughing. Research, again, suggests that, while adults laugh on average 15 times a day, small children manage up to 400 laughs a day.<\/p>\n<p>But, if you need a reason to laugh, research also suggests that there are very positive workplace benefits, chief among them being that it can lead to greater <a href=\"https:\/\/www.marketingforsuccess.com\/blog\/small-business-marketing\/6-things-to-do-in-2006-to-grow-your-small-business-and-improve-your-marketing\/\">creativity<\/a> at work.<\/p>\n<p>Goran Ekvall, professor of organisational psychology at Lund University in Sweden, says that laughter is an essential ingredient for workplace innovation. When comparing the creativity of various departments of a Swedish newspaper, Ekvall found that the most creative teams were those that had a high level of laughter and humour.<\/p>\n<p>This is why Tom Peters says that you can measure an organisation&#8217;s creativity from its laughometer.<\/p>\n<p>There are many other reasons why laughter is good for you.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; laughter releases serotonin, the &#8220;feel-good&#8221; hormone, into your brain<br \/>\n&#8211; laughter helps you connect to others. It&#8217;s one of the best rapport-building tools around.<br \/>\n&#8211; laughter massages your inner organs<br \/>\n&#8211; laughter can help you lose weight by burning off fat<br \/>\n&#8211; laughter helps your immune system work better.<\/p>\n<p>Madhuri Kataria, who created the idea of World Laughter Day, says, &#8220;There is an epidemic of seriousness that is raging all over the world. People seem to think that being grim-faced and serious is the only way to show commitment at work.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>It reminds me of that Red Indian proverb, &#8220;When you get to heaven, most people ask themselves, &#8220;Why was I so serious?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; <em>Eric<\/em><\/p>\n<table border=\"0\" cellspacing=\"8\" cellpadding=\"8\" width=\"450\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td width=\"450\" height=\"0\" valign=\"top\" bgcolor=\"#ececec\"><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.marketingforsuccess.com\/blog\/eric-garner\/\">About Eric Garner<\/a><\/strong> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mfsstore.com\"><strong><br \/>\nRelated Resources<\/strong><\/a><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.marketingforsuccess.com\/blog\/author\/egarner\/\"><br \/>\nMore Posts by Eric Garner<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>To discover the easy and inexpensive ways <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">anyone can attract more clients and maximize their profits<\/span>, sign up for your<strong> <\/strong><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.marketingforsuccess.com\/free8-s.html\">FREE <\/a><\/strong><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.marketingforsuccess.com\/free8-s.html\">Profit Now <\/a><\/strong><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.marketingforsuccess.com\/free8-s.html\">Report<\/a>. <\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<div class=\"zemanta-pixie\" style=\"margin-top: 10px; height: 15px;\"><a class=\"zemanta-pixie-a\" title=\"Reblog this post [with Zemanta]\" href=\"http:\/\/reblog.zemanta.com\/zemified\/6b7d8a49-a68f-4140-8ce1-416d7f11cbd9\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"zemanta-pixie-img\" style=\"border: medium none; float: right;\" src=\"http:\/\/img.zemanta.com\/reblog_e.png?x-id=6b7d8a49-a68f-4140-8ce1-416d7f11cbd9\" alt=\"Reblog this post [with Zemanta]\" \/><\/a><span class=\"zem-script more-related more-info pretty-attribution paragraph-reblog\"><script src=\"http:\/\/static.zemanta.com\/readside\/loader.js\" type=\"text\/javascript\"><\/script><\/span><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A young man, hired by a supermarket, reported for his first day of work. The manager greeted him with a warm handshake and a smile, gave him a broom and said, &#8220;Your first job will be to sweep out the store.&#8221; &#8220;But I&#8217;m a college graduate.&#8221; the young man replied indignantly. &#8220;Oh, I&#8217;m sorry. I [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[255],"tags":[256,209,407,395],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marketingforsuccess.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1726"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marketingforsuccess.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marketingforsuccess.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marketingforsuccess.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marketingforsuccess.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1726"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.marketingforsuccess.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1726\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marketingforsuccess.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1726"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marketingforsuccess.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1726"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marketingforsuccess.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1726"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}