Now, more than ever, we need to renew ourselves and move from "grim and bear it" to "grin and share it." In this fun-fueled, highly interactive workshop, Margie will provide positive, powerful, predictive, proven, practical prescriptions to help you to take charge of stress in your life and work. You will have a chance to focus on: 8 key traits that research shows will improve your immune system functioning, the upside and downside of increasing your optimism, strategies to create balance in your life, and ways of seeing/creating humor in otherwise serious situations (turning stress into laughing matters). You will leave with a personal plan that you can immediately put into action every day to strengthen your R.Q. (Resiliency Quotient).

Margie Ingram, Co-Director of The HUMOR Project, is one of the pioneers in the fields of stress management and the humor-resilience connection. Margie is a popular speaker and workshop leader throughout the U.S. and abroad.

She is also a very successful life coach helping individuals and small groups to create fulfilling lives, move gracefully through life transitions, identify and build on personal and professional strengths, and overcome obstacles by optimizing optimism with a touch of humor.

Margie has been an educator for the past 42 years. A public school teacher from 1968-1975, she went on to supervise student teachers and teach grad courses at many colleges on effective teaching methods and developing effective classroom environments. Margie's speaking career, which began 35 years ago, grew out of her love of teaching. Her programs are lively, engaging, and practical as she creates opportunities for participants to apply the content to their immediate lives and jobs.

Margie has also served as coordinator of The HUMOR Project's international conference on "The Positive Power of Humor, Hope and Healing" and international workshop on "HUMOResilience: Tickling Stress Before It Tackles You," which have attracted 21,000+ people from all 50 states, 6 continents, and the Moon (Moonwalking astronaut Dr. Edgar Mitchell).

Margie was honored with the Distinguished Service Award from the Reed Foundation and the Prevention Council as well as the Hometown Hero Award. In her spare time, Margie loves kayaking, walking, completing challenging puzzles, and spending time with family and good friends. She practices what she teaches about creating intentional balance in life.

Do you think funny? Have you ever wished that you could capture all those funny thoughts that pop into your head and get them down on paper? Ever watch stand-up or a comedy sketch and think to yourself that you would like to be able to create that? Then Comedy Writing 101 is for you! This workshop will teach the who, what, when, where, and how of comedy writing. You'll learn the joke writing process, how to establish and maintain your comic voice, comic timing, available comedy markets, along with tips for writing sketches, parodies, humorous articles and books. With a blend of both instruction and fun, hands-on writing exercises, you will get a taste of what it's like to be on a comedy writing staff. You'll have a lot of creative fun in the process as you move from AHA (creativity) to HAHA (humor).

Martha Bolton is an Emmy- and Dove-nominated writer who was a staff writer for Bob Hope for more than fifteen years. The recipient of four Angel awards for excellence in media, she writes several magazine and internet columns and has written for other entertainers such as Phyllis Diller, Ann Jillian, Wayne Newton, Jim Stafford, and John Davidson. Her 50+ published humor books (with several co-authored New York Times best-sellers), include such titles as: Didn't My Skin Used to Fit?, Cooking with Hot Flashes, Living It Down By Laughing It Up, It's Always Darkest Before the Fridge Door Opens, Race You to the Fountain of Youth, and Maybe Life's Just Not That Into You. Martha is currently writing a screenplay and is co-authoring a book with The HUMOR Project's own Joel Goodman and Margie Ingram.

This is a great session filled with inside secrets for speakers, teachers, trainers, leaders, people who are public-speaking phobic, and anyone who has to stand-and-deliver in front of a group. You'll discover: presentation power principles, tips from the comedy coach (when and how to use humor to create memorable talks), how to grab (and keep) an audience's attention, tricks for audiovisual magic (how to make it work for you rather than against you), and fun ways to add pizzazz to punch up your presentations. Steve will also address how to start putting a program together, the mechanics of speech writing, and ways to have "dry" material come alive in your classroom, group or meeting. In short, this session will help you "live to talk about it" and live to laugh about it, too!

Steve Kissell has presented more than 1500 keynotes and workshops throughout North and Central America. He was awarded the Certified Speaking Professional designation from the National Speakers Association in 1998 for his professionalism, program content, and ability to present important information in a fun and memorable manner. Prior to becoming a professional speaker, Steve served his country in the Navy and as a Navy Reservist for 21 years. As an elementary school educator, Steve was honored with the School Bell Award for Teaching and Excellence (Steve wore a tuxedo to his first formal evaluation- he definitely practices what he teaches about bringing humor to the workplace). Steve's many books include Surviving Life with Laughter, Just Plane Funny, Humor By the Dozen, and Never Take Comedy from a Stranger.

This inspiring and interactive program explores the use of fun, humor, and playful behavior in business today. Rick will lead you through the 10 key business benefits of humor along with a collection of "fun factor" tools, stories, and exercises that serve as a blueprint for business success. Improve your organization by understanding inclusionary humor, why boring doesn't sell, the "fun sucker" effect, and other productivity practices that will become part of your life. You will learn how to: strategically use humor to build stronger customer, client, and employee relationships; differentiate yourself from the competition in any industry; negotiate with humor; add the humor punch to business communications; create an upbeat corporate culture to make your business a fun place to work. Through this workshop, you'll see that the funny line and bottom line do intersect!

Rick Segel holds the CSP (Certified Speaking Professional) designation from the National Speakers Association, an elite rank held by only 7% of professional speakers. He has been a featured speaker over 1900 times in 49 states and 4 continents. A seasoned retailer of 25 years, Rick currently serves on the Board of Directors for five corporations and associations. He is the author of nine books, two training videos, and an audio program- including Laugh & Get Rich: How to Profit from Humor in Any Business, Retail Business Kit for Dummies, and The Essential Online Solution: The Five Step Formula for Small Business Success. Rick's down-to-earth, streets-smart approach to business makes him a crowd-pleaser wherever he goes.

Difficult people (who shall remain nameless) are everywhere! They affect our productivity at work and our happiness at home. Here's your chance to learn conflict resolution skills to overcome others' difficult behaviors. Johnny's dynamic and information-rich presentation coupled with a variety of interactive exercises will put the spotlight on how to: deal with the 6 most common difficult behaviors; resolve internal conflicts; stop back-stabbers and put a gag on gossip. You will also come away with: 6 steps to overcoming negativity and resistance to your ideas; a 4-step approach to reducing anger when facing volatile situations; and insights on boosting communication and cooperation acumen. You will leave energized and equipped with tools you can use immediately as an antidote to the Whine Flu and other difficult behaviors.

Johnny Campbell (a.k.a. "The Transition Man") holds the honor of being an Accredited Speaker, a designation given by Toastmasters International for excellence in public speaking (only 58 professional speakers in the world have this). He is the youngest person in the world to ever achieve this mark of respect and the only American in the past three years to earn it. Johnny also received the DTM (Distinguished Toastmaster) Award, was inducted into the Speaker Hall of Fame, and also accepted the Entrepreneurial Excellence Award for outstanding service in business. In addition to his widespread speaking, Johnny is the author of five books- including his recently-released Becoming the Agent of Change: Strategies for Getting People to Embrace Change Without Losing Your Mind or Bank Account.

Open to participants in all 5 Pre-Conference Workshop sessions.