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OCTOBER 2014
FUNERAL HOME & CEMETERY NEWS
S ec t i on A
By Christopher Kuhnen
There’s More
To It...
Advance
Funeral
Planning
How to Overcome Fear
Are you a pre-need sales representative who is afraid to pick
up the telephone to make appointment setting calls? Do you
fear drop-by home visits to people who mail back in a sales
lead reply card from a direct mailing? Are you afraid you
just will never be as good a pre-need salesperson as someone
else you admire and look up to? All of these fears, and many
more, are what are holding you back from achieving the suc-
cess you desire and deserve to attain.
Fear is a very natural emotion. It’s not something that we
should loathe or try to eliminate from our personality. Fear
can be a positive thing if we learn not how to eliminate it, but
how to effectively control and use it to our betterment.
Fear is one of the things that causes a lot of the accom-
plishments we, as a society, obtain. For example: a fear of dis-
ease has caused us to build hospitals and train doctors and
research scientists. Fear of ignorance helped build schools,
colleges and universities. Through a fear of meaninglessness
we built churches and became part of a community of faith.
Fear is something that must be a part of our lives, if we’re to
accomplish anything of lasting value.
Fear that is irrationally dealt with can turn our lives upside
down and keep us from being and accomplishing all we are
meant to. Fear can turn into chronic anxiety. Fear can break
our peace. Fear can crumble our personality. Fear robs op-
portunity. Fear causes hesitation and hesitation causes your
greatest fears to come true. Fear causes us to lose the power
of possibility thinking, thus stifling our growth and wellbeing
robbing us of our future success, happiness and joy.
Fear literally smells. A study by Denise Chen of the Monell
Chemical Senses center in Philadelphia and Jeannette Havi-
land-Jones of Rutgers University found that frightened peo-
ple emit a sharp, unpleasant odor. This indicates that, like
some animals, people signal emotions through scent.
Fear is a great servant, but it is also a ruinous master at the
coming into a world filled with uncertainty, pollution, ha-
tred, violence, famine and war was a scary first step to take.
However, you also saw the love, beauty, warmth, caring and
opportunity that awaited you and after weighing all your
options you were born.
Think about all your job searches. For whatever reason,
you were dissatisfied with your employment state and de-
cided to make a change. You started an awkward and un-
comfortable search to find meaningful, satisfying, gainful
employment. You really weren’t sure what was out there,
were you? Weren’t you a little fearful through all the search-
ing and job interviewing process praying that you’d find
and then accept, “the right job”?
However, you set aside your fear and forged ahead. Look
where you are today. Look how far you’ve come. Look what
unimaginable hurdles you overcame. Was your fear really
worth it? Imagine what is still waiting for you.
Remember, only two fears are natural to all human be-
ings. All others are learned. Take the time to really examine
your fears. How many can you overcome, with a little plan-
ning, effort and factual analysis of the fear?
We are all meant to be the best we can be. Are you living
up to your full potential or allowing fear to hold you back?
Christopher Kuhnen of Edgewood, Kentucky is a 26 year veteran of
funeral service. He is perhaps best known as a charismatic, progressive
and highly innovative funeral industry specialist. As an insider into ex-
cellence, Chris is a trusted advisor to many in the death care industry.
Mr. Kuhnen is the Founder, Chief Executive Officer and President
of Funeral Profit Protectors, LLC. Funeral Profit Protectors is a fu-
neral business profit counseling business serving independently
owned and operated funeral homes. The company specializes in
teaching, providing and engaging our clients in successful strate-
gies, products and services to secure and/or increase their business
profits. Chris has considerable first-hand experience in this area,
as well as funeral home marketing and public relations; Individual
funeral home employee training, coaching and mentoring; pre-
need sales training, lead generation and marketing support; con-
sumer and business to business direct sales and management.
Over the course of his distinguished career, Chris has provided
comprehensive consultation, education and positive, meaningful
support to funeral directors nationwide to help them coordinate,
develop and implement their distinctive business strategies.
Christopher is a Kentucky Licensed Funeral Director, Life
Insurance Agent, Certified Preplanning Consultant (CPC),
Insight Institute Certified Celebrant and Certified Marketing
Specialist. He can be reached most anytime at (859) 307-7223
or fun
pany web-
site an
same time. How do we effectively deal with our fears?
Most fears are learned. According to psychologists, human
beings only have two natural fears. Fear of falling and fear of
loud noises. Most of what we fear has nothing to do with our
personal safety, but is merely a conditioned response to some-
thing that either no longer applies, or was originally misinter-
preted. Fear therefore is really nothing more than false evidenc-
es that appear real.
Fear is often irrational. Fear is often something we use our
imagination to produce, based on unfounded facts, thus blind-
ing us to the facts, as they really exist. Fear can manifest itself
as
False Evidences That Appear Real
. If left unchecked, fear can
cause us to dessert our post and fall into deep anxiety and de-
spair for no good logical reason.
In order to learn to control and use fear to our advantage
we first need to identify and truthfully confront what we fear.
What do you fear?
The majority of us in any type of a sales capacity have a fear
of rejection; fear of failure; fear of ridicule; fear of what others
may think of us.
Fear is oftentimes generated by our own “ego”. We’re afraid
to fail; afraid of embarrassment; afraid of consequences of our
actions; afraid of being laughed at or in some instances we’re
afraid to succeed. Afraid of what our success will mean in the
way of added expectations or responsibilities.
We don’t want people to think we have somehow let the
world or our co-workers down by our inadequacy. We don’t
want to try new things because we’re afraid that somehow it’s
going to reflect badly on us. It’s so easy for us to become so
sensitive to what other people think about us that we don’t try
new things and therefore become paralyzed. It is through this
paralysis that we become stuck and don’t move forward.
Once you have truly identified and faced the things that you
fear the most, ask yourself these simple questions. What’s the
worst that could happen to me if I face and tackle this fear head
on? Can I live with the consequences of the ultimate outcome?
Will my world end as a result of taking this action?
Also ask yourself. What’s the best thing that could happen?
Will my world be enhanced? What do I stand to gain? How
can it benefit my family and me?
Have confidence in yourself and your abilities. Forge ahead!
Don’t be afraid of failure. Unless you try to do something be-
yond what you have already mastered, you will never grow. All
growth in life comes through experience, learning from fail-
ure, being willing to face and challenge our fears and taking
action. Change your thinking and habits into more produc-
tive thoughts, patterns and actions. Study, learn and accept the
truth. Trust what you’ve learned. Triumph over your fear.
You can control and use fear to your advantage. You have
already done it. You first overcame your fear by being born.
Leaving the comfort and security of your Mother’s womb and
A
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Dr. Alan Wolfelt Announces Autumn
Speaking Schedule
Hairston Funeral Home’s New
Armbruster-Stageway Hearse & Limo
MARTINSVILLE,VA—
Pictured are
Kerry
Smith
and
Carol Blades
of
Hairston Fu-
neral Home
taking delivery of their firm’s
new 2014 Armbruster-Stageway Crown
Landaulet Hearse and Two Armbruster-
Stageway Raised Roof XTS-L6 Limousines.
Delivery was made by
Bill McKeithan
rep-
resenting
Crain Sales
of Albemarle, NC.
FORT COLLINS,CO—
The
Center for Loss and Life
Transition
has announced
the locations of
Dr. Alan
Wolfelt’s
educational work-
shops that explore various
topics related to grief, mourn-
ing, and the importance of
meaningful funeral ceremo-
nies. Sponsors include hos-
pices, hospitals, universities,
funeral homes, and a variety
of community agencies.
The locations are as follows:
Troy, MI, October 7-8; Kan-
sas City, MO, October 9;
Orlando, FL, October 14-
15; Mobile, AL, October 15-
16; Baton Rouge, LA, Octo-
ber 16-17; St. Charles, MO,
October 21-22; Birming-
ham, AL, October 23; Palm
Harbor, FL, October 29-30;
Lexington, KY, November
10-11; Louisville, KY, No-
vember 11-12; Las Vegas,
NV, November 13; Lake-
land, FL, December 9; Or-
mond Beach, FL, December
10. Canadian locations in-
clude Qualicum Beach, BC,
September 23-24; Penticton,
BC, September 25; Sudbury,
ON, November 18-19; and
Woodstock, ON, November
20-21.
Dr. Wolfelt is a noted au-
thor, educator, and grief
counselor. A past recipient
of the Association for Death
Education and Counseling’s
Death Educator Award, he
serves as the director of the
Center for Loss and Life
Transition in Fort Collins,
CO. Dr. Wolfelt is the au-
thor of numerous books on
grief and loss and also serves
on the faculty at the
Uni-
versity of Colorado Medical
School
in the Department of
Family Medicine.
For further information
about these workshops or
to explore sponsoring a pro-
gram in your community,
contact
DrWolfelt@Cen-
terforloss.com, call 970-