Getting Depression to Move Out and You Move On

Part 4 in a 4 part series on Depression

View others in this series:
Part 1: "Are Comedians More Depressed?"
Part 2: "When Depression Visits and Stays"
Part 3: "Do We Have Any Control Over Depression?"

Mr. D. was firmly planted in my being, but I was determined to unseat him.

Since I started writing about depression I’ve been inundated with well-wishers giving me solutions, including: meditation, MDMA, exercise, various TED talks, and moving to join a cult. I do appreciate the intent behind all my readers, and since exercise didn’t involve packing for a trip to be in a cult, I put on my Target tights, gathered my dogs and went out for a jog, moving slowly enough so that someone on crutches could whiz past me. I kept going, waiting for a runner’s high. It never came. But, something else happened that changed everything.

I ran past a man walking his dog and my dog’s leash got tangled around his leg. He bellowed at me, “God damn it!”

The force of his anger shocked me. It was excessive. All that was going on was two leashes getting involved. I quickly untangled mine, apologizing, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” over and over again.
Glaring at me with hateful eyes, he kept yelling, “God damn you!”

I hadn’t run more than half a block before I ducked into an alley and collapsed in a puddle of tears. We all have our limits. Both the external world and my inner world were conspiring and yelling at me. But, this time, I recognized those angry eyes. I also noted the voice was familiar. It belonged to my father, drunk and screaming at 6-year-old me for spilling milk at the dinner table, “God damn it! You are worthless, worthless.” In that moment, I found out who Mr. D was.

Sobbing, I continued to sit in the alley. This was no movie star cry. It was ugly and heaving. I thought about my father, about all the angry old people, and that horrible angry man. As a child, I wasn’t allowed to cry. Now I could let it all out. I comforted myself by wrapping my arms around my torso. My dogs caught on and licked my face. Somehow I felt lighter when I got up. I was feeling again.
I continued my jog around the golf course. In the distance, I saw the angry man walking towards me. My inclination was to go another way, but an inner voice challenged that, asking, “Why change where you are going?” It was a voice I hadn’t heard in a long time. Kind. Strong. Reasonable. It was the voice I heard when doing standup comedy, the one I used to make sure that the hecklers in the audience didn’t have the final say. It was the voice that had my back, the one I could count on now to deal with the angry man.

With my head held high, I looked directly at him and said, “Have a good day.” Saying this simple positive phrase was a triumph. I didn’t let him turn me angry. I realized that his anger had nothing to do with me, and my sadness had nothing to do with him. And in that moment, the course of my personal emotional history shifted. People do and can trigger the past, but it has nothing to do with who I truly am in the present. And today, in this this expression of positivity, another angry person didn’t get to have the final word.

That night, I woke up while it was still dark, stunned to discover the voice that had been telling me I didn’t deserve to live was gone. Mr. D had left the building, replaced by the voice of quiet. I could hear and enjoy the quiet snoring of my beloved dogs. The birds welcoming the dawn. And I was pleased to again feel a sense of peace, something that had been eluding me for a long time.

It’s now my 3-month anniversary of celebrating life. My energy has returned. Mr. D has come back, but it’s temporary lodging and he no longer hangs around for long. I uploaded an app that tracks moods that helps keep Mr D at bay. I’ve stopped being ashamed of depression because I understand how much it has given me. Depression has escalated my power of empathy. It’s magnified my inner strength. It’s made me accept that life is not a series happy events, but rather it’s a series of disappointments where we learn how to transform messes to successes. Happiness is not delivered free of charge, but realized.

Regardless of which voice is in my head at any moment, I’m grateful that I am again able to feel something. Anything – sadness, anger, fatigue and joy. Mostly, I appreciate feeling love: the love coming from my friends, family, my dogs, and you, the readers who write me with your own stories.

Depression: When Depression Visits and Stays

This is Part 2 in a 3 part series on Depression

Read part 1 here: Are Comedians more Depressed?

If you’re like me, you may have met someone on vacation and said, “If you are ever in my town, you must stay with me.” Then, this person shows up on your doorstep and you regret it. You’re stuck with them. At breakfast. At dinner. Hanging out in your space. You have an intruder sucking your energy, occupying your time, and making you listen to their unending disapproval.

That was how I experienced depression. Mr. D entered my life and, like an unwelcomed guest, wouldn’t leave. I lived with him in misery for three months until the day his sorry ass left. My energy returned and I’m no longer exhausting my resources dealing with an alien who’d taken over my life.

I became aware that he had left when I woke up in the middle of the night, and the voice that would tell me various ways of killing myself was silenced. I didn’t have to hear about whether hanging or jumping was a better way to go. It was quiet. The change was profound. It was as if the angriest family member had just packed up and taken off.

With depression gone, I was able to feel. Whether sad, angry or happy, I’m grateful to be feeling again. I can read in the newspaper about people being murdered and feel sad, but that’s different from depressed. I feel happy about the small stuff, even just finding my keys. I have extreme joy hearing birds sing, walking the Venice Canals with my dogs, and I don’t fall apart if I say “Hi” to someone and get no response. That doesn’t go into the column of “Reasons not to Live.” My thrust is to live and to make a difference. Mr. D had been heckling me for three months and I’m glad he’s gone.

When depressed, it was exhausting to try to appear normal. I had to outshout the voice telling me that everything I was doing was wrong. Adding to the mess was my sense that everyone I encountered knew I was depressed and was judging me. The maid I passed in a hotel hallway knew. Audience members listing to my jokes knew. The DMV clerk knew.

When I forced myself to go out with friends, like a battered woman not wanting others to see my internal bruises, I was acting. I pretended that I wasn’t suffering from Mr. D, my own abusive man. I would try to follow their jokes and laugh when it was appropriate even though it was a chore. Laughing and smiling had become strenuous, aerobic exercises. Faking joy – when I didn’t have a molecule of it - was grueling.

One of the hard aspects of being depressed is having people ask, “What happened?” I caught on that it was better not to admit it, but before that I’d make up a fake reason.

“Well, you know I got divorced… last year.” That satisfied them. But the answer could also have been, “It’s March, it’s sunny, it’s rainy.” Depression sometimes just arrives without a reason.

In addition to being exhausting, Mr. D provoked guilt. I believed I was responsible for inviting him in. And I felt shame that I was not strong enough to evict him.

One month into rooming with Mr. D, my therapist suggested sending me to a psychiatrist to put me on meds. I know they help a lot of people, but they felt wrong for me. I don’t like meds. I worried how they might affect the one gift God has given me - creativity – and I didn’t want to take any chances. So, I asked my therapist for time for me to try to get Mr. D. to leave, promising to try harder to make it happen.

Reading that exercise and music help, I jogged while listening to upbeat music. Jogging when depressed is like running as the TinMan, with lead as feet carrying a boulder on your back. I ran 5Ks, got home and waited for that so-called runner’s high with an inner voice congratulating me, “You did it!” But, no Nike ad ending. Mr. D was still in my head, saying that I hadn’t run far enough.

Next step was my idea to hang with people who were more depressed than I was. This was a different take on the assumption that hanging out with people who were fatter than I was would make me look thinner. I’m here to tell you that none of these works.

Things got worse before they got better.

Final Part of this series next week.

Judy Decodes Exactly What it Takes to be a Toastmaster World Champion of Speaking

Judy Carter autographing The Message of You 
and The Comedy Bible for Glenda Dickonson

When Mohammed Qahtani of Dharan, Saudi Arabia, District 79, became the 2015 World Champion of Public Speaking, I was in the audience at Caesar's Palace and heard his speech, "The Power of Words." I knew within 30 seconds that he would win.

We ALL can learn from what I heard, especially Toastmaster women. What a shocker that not one of the finalists was a woman. There were no Toastmistresses. And this was Vegas!

Study these 6 Essential Speech Elements of Mohammed’s speech and let’s turn you into a winner.

(Watch highlights from Mohammed’s Speech here.)

1.    Got message and stories? Mohammed’s “The Power of Words” was very clear. Each story supported what he was trying to convey. He talked about a friend who'd killed himself because of his father’s words, so painful and distancing. It became clear that his message was something he was living. It was authentic. What is your essential message that you are living now?

2.     Get Global.  Every personal message has widespread impact. Mohammed worked “global warming” into his speech. Smart thinking! He used a personal experience to connect to larger ideas. Women can learn from this. We find it so easy to talk about our bodies, our relationships, our experiences, emotions and opinions. These are great for starting; personalizing is connective tissue. But, to be a world champion, we must take a helicopter view of our lives and see what we have to say to the larger world. Thinking of your life in terms of where you fit into current issues will expand your message and increase its influence. 

For example, I brought Kimberly onstage during my speech at the conference, (no it wasn’t planned) and asked for a difficult moment in her childhood. She mentioned an encounter with her teacher in 4^th grade. I sensed there was a bigger story. Finding out she lived in South Carolina, I asked her, “What was it like to live as an African American surrounded by Confederate Flags?” That opened up thoughts and feelings that she'd kept buried for years and led to her proclaiming a powerful message, “No one should ever be made to feel less than.”

What part of history has affected who you are and, therefore, can be your message?

3.    Have “act-outs.” Let’s face it, speeches are not dramatic. They have none of the glitz of a Vegas show. There are no costume changes, no incredible scenery, and no big cast singing and dancing. It’s one person in a suit, usually pants, not a skirt. To strengthen the entertainment value of your speech, “act-out” the people you mention. Infuse them with life and character. In Mohammed’s speech, he said something along the lines of, “Data and graphs aren’t as powerful as words. We will never change global warming by having a scientist show us data and graphics.” He then acted out a boring scientist talking about the data of global warming and the audience fell apart. This is what it means to “Be your story” rather than to “Tell your story.” Show, don't tell. Stand like the characters, move the way they do. Bring them to life. 

4.    Be Funny. A newbie at National Speaker’s Association asked a pro, “Do I have to be funny to be a speaker?”

And the answer, “No, only if you want to get paid.”

Mohammed got a laugh on his first word – “What?”

Doesn’t look funny does he, but add facial expression, attitude, and audience interaction and he got a huge laugh on the very first WORD.

But most important, he wasn’t going for the joke, but rather for his message.

As a comedy writer, I never go for the jokes when I'm doing my first draft. I start with the message – stories and ideas and find the logic. When that's in place, I punch up the material. To get laughs, start by looking for people you can “act-out.” Get a copy of The Comedy Bible to put together a standup act, or use the Comedy Formulas for Speakers in The Message of You.

5.    Gain confidence by performance time. There is only one way to do this: prepare. Practice and get comfortable with your material. As soon as Mohammed opened his mouth, I felt his confidence. I knew I was watching a pro. One of the most important lessons I’ve learned from my years as a standup comic and coaching both comics and speakers is that it’s not always about how great you are or even how perfect your material is, but what you learn every time you get on stage.As a standup, there were countless painful gigs, such as performing for drunks who heckle, working small audiences, having to perform on a revolving stage so when I got to my punch line I had a new audience. As painful as those gigs were, I was gaining the brain and muscle memory I needed to handle any type of crowd. “Oh, this is how you do a small crowd, a tired crowd, a disinterested crowd and so on.” Get up as much as you can in front of your Toastmasters group or in front of any audience. Whether you bomb or do well, you are always learning.  That has a cumulative effect and the audience will relax when they feel you're a pro.

6.    Be selfish. Get help. Focus on what YOU have to do to win. When the finalists came out and it was clear they were all men, I overheard a 30-something female Toastmaster comment to the guy sitting next to her, “No women? We need to change that. We have to work together to help women become finalists.”

And the man sitting next to her said, “With that attitude, you'll never win. You’re thinking of helping someone and every Toastmaster man is thinking, “How can I become the champion?”

He does have a point. Women tend to be caretakers, always out to support someone else. That's something we should do for ourselves too. We have to consider what's our message and work on telling it the best way possible. It requires focus and looking inward.

I’m launching The Message of You University in the near future. This is where we focus on YOU. We find your message, your stories, your humor, and help you be your very best.

Meanwhile – please share this blog with people who need it!

With love – Judy

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The Comedy Bible  •  The Message of You Judy Carter coaching & speech writing programs available here. Contact: judy@judycarter.com  •  Follow on Twitter  judycarter.com

Turning Life’s Messes Into Successes

Yesterday, I went boogie boarding with a friend, my credit cards and all our money tucked into a new, waterproof fanny pack. That’s right a one-piece suit, SPF 30 slathered body and fanny pack – hot!  After catching a fantastic wave and riding it to shore, I discovered the fanny pack hadn’t made it. It was dinner time and I had no money. A few miles from home, we were hungry, sandy, and broke. No Uber for us.

Source: cc-by-2.0

At first I panicked, but as we began our journey home, we stumbled a walkway with gorgeous gardens. Though I’ve lived in Venice Beach for 20 years, I had never known about this incredible street. Some people we ran into told us about their cats, their families, and their lives. Normally, I’m in a rush and this would annoy me. But tonight, I made new friends in the neighborhood that I can borrow stuff from. Then it got even better -- the fancy hot dog stand gave us free samples!  We got thirsty and since it was on 7/11 – 7/11 was giving out free Slushies! Free! What had been a mess turned into a wonderful life affirming adventure. Plus there was extra exercise. In addition to losing money, I lost weight!

As I wrote in my book, “The Message of You,(link is external)” you can’t spell MESSAGE without a MESS. Yet again, I was reminded that when life doesn’t go the way I want it to, there’s often a gift.

A few years ago, while recording my book for Audible, I stumbled over a word and flashed back to the embarrassment of having a speech impediment as a child. I was almost in tears as the director took me aside and told me, “Last week there was somebody very famous here recording his book. The three days it should have taken took him two weeks. Why?  Because he had such a severe speech impediment we had to do it over and over and over and over. That man's name is James Earl Jones.”

I asked, "What?  Darth Vader!  The voice of CNN?  A man who makes a living by his voice can't speak?" 

"Yes, he didn't speak until he was eight. Because of his speaking problem, we kept redoing it until it was perfect.”

I couldn’t believe it.

Then, he said something very wise, "Judy, we're not successful in spite of the messes in our life.  It's because of them.  If you didn't have a problem speaking, you wouldn’t have put so much effort into it and become a professional speaker. You wouldn't have to work so hard." 

He’s right. Think about it. Some of our most successful people overcame difficult beginnings. The reason he created the happiest place on earth was probably because Walt Disney grew up in an alcoholic, abusive home.  Steve Jobs was adopted, disconnected from his family, and created gadgets that connect us all. Anybody notice that Dr. Phil, who wrote the bestselling book on weight loss, looks a little chubby?” I’m guessing his next book will be "Hair Care Tips for Men.” Or am I thinking of Donald Trump?  

OK… a little humor, but the point is if we refuse to let the messes define us, we can use them to our advantage. Your MESSage is in that story of your journey from mess to success.  When you tell THAT story, it’s The Message of You and lets everyone in on the meaning of your life.

How To Connect To Your Audience (Even After You’re Dead)

No matter how powerful, smart, inspiring, or hilarious your Message is— it’s ineffective if no one is listening. As a performer and business owner, your relationship to your audience is everything. It doesn’t matter whether that audience consists of clients, customers, web surfers, or even someone looking at your grave – if no one pays attention, do you really exist?

Just last week, at my NYC “Message of You” Workshop, I asked the participants to share the Message they would want on their gravestones. Your “Message” is your life’s logline— a combo of who you are and who’s on the receiving end (mourners, grave diggers, clergy, lovers who don’t want to spring for a room). At first, my students hesitated, awkwardly trying to figure out what they might say. Some chose the “keep on laughing” route, though no one said, “Dying is easy, comedy is hard.” A popular Message was “Care about others!” These are fine, if you want your Message to sound like a Hallmark card. 

So how do we come up with a global Message that inspires others while keeping our individuality? Walk through a Jewish cemetery and you might think the Message is already carved into the stone; they’re all the same. While trying to find my mother’s grave, I stopped seven times as I read, “Beloved wife, mother, daughter.”  Jewish cemeteries are notorious for having a pretty uniform layout and it’s not like you can say ‘turn right at the mausoleum and a left at the 6 foot statue of Jesus’. As I walked around and read what was on the gravestones, I wondered how everyone was beloved when we know what really happens at Seders. Missing was the humor, the last dig at your spouse, the sharp retort to the Buddinsky sister-in-law. Your stone is your closing number, summing it all up, an eternal Facebook page. Your life is your Message. If ever there was a place to put “The Message of You,” it’s on your gravestone!

How do you find that inspiring Message? The pithy wrap up? Your Martin Luther King Jr. moment?…  Writing a great tombstone is just like preparing a terrific speech. You should shape your personal Message while empathizing with your audience. It’s safe to assume those in a graveyard might be in a down mood, not dissimilar from a corporate audience. So, write your Message keeping in mind the audience. 

Given this, “It’s about them” philosophy, my students started formulating powerfully transforming Messages, creating gravestones that will be wake-up calls long after they are dead. 

Some of my favorites:

“I’m laying down but you’re standing up. Make something of yourself.”

“I told you I wasn’t feeling well. Don’t ignore that pain!” 

Mine was: “What are you looking at? You’re gonna be here one day. Get out of this graveyard and live!” 

Getting to take off with something like that makes dying -- to die for.  

You don’t have to put it in stone, but what would your stone say?

Entrepreneurs: 8 Tips for Telling Your Hero Story

If you are an entrepreneur, a salesperson, a comic, or a speaker, there is a story that you need to know and tell.  It's the story that will engage your audience, make them laugh, and motivate them to buy your products and services. What is this amazing story? It is the story of why what you do isn't just a job... but a calling. It is your HERO STORY. Read more on Psychology Today... 

3 Speaking Tips From Oscar Winners: Legendary speeches at Oscars 2015

Were the Oscars taken over by motivational speakers this year?  Is John Legend the next Tony Robbins? Judging by the results, it certainly seems so.

Rather than giving mindless thank yous, this year’s winners shared MESSAGES. You can change the world in less than one minute, and speakers can definitely learn a thing or two from this.

TIP ONE: Have a call-to-action – A call-to-action is an instruction to the audience to do something. At the end of J.K. Simmons’ emotional acceptance speech, he told the 1 billion plus people watching, “Go call your parents… If you’re lucky enough to have a parent or two alive, call them! Don’t text. Don’t email. Call them! Listen to them for as long as they want to talk to you."  Now that’s a powerful call-to-action!

TIP TWO:  Have a point of view – Several winners used their time at the podium to share their feelings on different issues.  Patricia Arquette spoke out for feminism when she declared: “It's our time to have wage equality” as she accepted her Oscar for Boyhood.

Reese Witherspoon echoed my blog “Don’t Waste your Red Carpet Time” (link is external)when she called out Hollywood for ignoring real issues in favor of chat about dresses as part of the #askhermore campaign.

John Legend, who won for Best Song, made a strong statement. “Selma is now because the struggle for justice is right now… We live in the most incarcerated country in the world. There are more black men under correctional control today then were under slavery in 1850.” Wow! I had tears in my eyes.

Best Actor Eddie Redmayne (The Theory of Everything) spoke about ALS while Best Actress Julianne Moore (Still Alice) used her time to talk about Alzheimer's.Birdman director Alejandro Gonzalez Iñárritu called for respect for Mexican immigrants during his acceptance speech. “We are with you, we see you, we love you, and march on.”

TIP THREE: Reveal your own journey from mess to success.  Perhaps no one gave a more powerful speech than Graham Moore, who won the Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar for The Imitation Game. He used his time at the podium to give a highly personal speech about suicide awareness and depression. "I tried to commit suicide at 16, and now I'm standing here," he said. "I would like for this moment to be for that kid out there who feels like she doesn’t fit in anywhere. You do. Stay weird. Stay different, and then when it's your turn and you are standing on this stage, please pass the same message along."

Wow! It’s been a long time since the Oscars speeches were as substantial and motivational as this.  Hooray for Hollywood!

Download "How to Get Booked on Talk Shows" TeleSeminar for tools and tips with Gina Rubinstein and Judy Carter.

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A Simple Formula for Getting Noticed & Getting Laughs

Whether you're a speaker, a comedian, a psychologist, or the counter person at a McDonald's -- there's one thing you can do to take all your interactions to the next level, get laughs and get noticed. Read on to find out what that is...Read More

How to Use Storytelling to Promote Your Business

It’s been shown that people respond to stories – not data. 

When information is put into a story that elicits an emotional response, it has more impact. That’s why companies go beyond product placement, preferring to have their products be part of the story on successful TV shows. On “Modern Family” an entire episode revolved around TV dad, Phil, wanting to get an iPad for his birthday. The show aired two days prior to the release of the iPad. We all related to Phil’s pursuit of the uber-cool iPad, surely a factor in it becoming the “I’ve-got-to-have-it” product of the year. It cost the company nothing and Apple got a formidable amount of bites.

Note to Apple: Send Judy Carter an iPad and she’ll work you into her life story.

Stories are a powerful tool for marketing your products. And you need not be Apple to use them.  As a motivational speaker, my Back of the Room (BOR) sales exploded when, rather than simply announcing that I would be SELLING my book, I told a STORY about my book.

Marketing Through Storytelling

Basic Story Structure is this -- a hero starts with a MESS and ends in SUCCESS. It may not be the success he or she had in mind, but in all effective stories, our hero learns something and benefits.

The story of my first book, Stand-Up Comedy: The Book starts with how I lost my way after my mom died. I quit working comedy clubs and wrote a book on how to do stand-up. It was widely read – by 59 book agents, all of whom rejected it. The story got more miserable as I made one last attempt to get a role on a sitcom and found out at the airport that the flight I’d booked to get to the audition had been cancelled. Watching a long line of angry people mouthing off at the United Airlines agent, I made a choice to express compassion and appreciation. As I say in my speech on “Laughing Your Way out of Stress:”

“No one can MAKE you angry. Someone can MAKE you a Daiquiri. Someone can MAKE you pregnant… in that order. But, no one can MAKE you angry. You can MAKE a humor choice.”

Because I connected with the gate attendant and gave him the only laugh he probably had that day, he put me in First Class. As I was unfolding my linen napkin, I found out I was sitting next to a literary agent, one of the few who HADN’T rejected me. She offered to read my book. Random House liked it. So did Oprah. The rest is history. The sitcom I never auditioned for was “Go Bananas.” It didn’t go anywhere, but my career did. I became a best-selling author with a speaking career.

That’s when I hold up my book, and now it’s no longer just a book, but a success story that they want to be a part of.

What is the STORY of your book, your song, your last job? Get a handle on your story and make yourself memorable! Sorry, you can’t use the Apple logo; you’ll have to get your own.

Are Women in Business Reluctant to Brand Themselves as Experts?

This Friday I’m speaking in LA at a women in business event put on by the California State Board of Equalization – the 2014 Connecting Women to Power Business Conference.

Do women have a hard time connecting to their power? Are women more reluctant than men to brand themselves as an expert?

I was doing a “Message of You” Workshop for women, and as we talked about our mess-to-success journeys in life, I noticed there was something we all had in common: each woman felt compelled to APOLOGIZE for her SUCCESS.  Hillary wasn’t there that day.

One woman told us about growing up in a poor family.  She was determined to go to a good college and sad that there wasn’t enough money for her to take one of those courses that all but guarantees you a better SAT score. Determined, she figured out how to improve her test taking ability on her own, got the score she needed to be accepted and then, still only in her 20’s, wrote a book on how she’d done it.

This was VERY impressive. If Hillary had been at the workshop, she certainly would have agreed. But this woman MINIMIZED her accomplishments, tossing them into the trash and saying, “And what did I do with that terrific education? Nothing.  I’m JUST a stay-at-home mom to 4 kids. So it was all for NOTHING.”

She wasn’t the only one characterizing herself as a LOSER. All the women were reluctant to OWN THEIR SUCCESSES, even though they’d run businesses while raising a family, fixed their plumbing, saved lives by getting traffic lights installed at what had been a dangerous intersection, all sorts of things that would have looked good on their permanent record…if they weren’t so quick to write them off. They felt more comfortable diminishing their accomplishments. The word I was hearing way too much was “JUST.”  “I’m JUST running a small business…I’m JUST working for someone… I JUST work with kids.”

At a previous workshop, a man was eager to launch a corporate speaking career based on his LACK of accomplishments -- he’d lost his parents, lost his marriage, and lost a million dollars. I then assumed that he was now happily married and enjoying a fat bank account, but NO! He’d been unemployed for two years, single and living in his car.  And it wasn’t a Mercedes. Yet, he saw himself as someone capable of giving advice. What were we to learn from him? “I’m a loser and follow me into the pit.” Really???

Is copping to one’s strengths and successes a GENDER issue?

DR. PHIL wrote a BEST SELLING BOOK on WEIGHT LOSS. Anyone but me notice this man is chubby? What's his next book going to be? Hair Care Tips for Men?

I’m not suggesting we take testosterone, but we would do well to access the alpha male component and give ourselves the credit we deserve. Let’s not believe because we still get paid less that we are worth less. Each day is full of us climbing out of a mess to a success -- climbing stairs or climbing out of a depression. We battle entropy, acquire new coping skills and get closer to having better relationships, whiter teeth, flatter stomachs and bigger bank accounts.  Okay, maybe not flatter stomachs.

Stop. Write the success of yesterday. Own it. It’s yours.

5 Tips to Writing Your Life Story: Start with Yesterday

Have you ever seen a comic, a Toastmaster winner, a one-person show and thought: “I have great stories! Better stories! I should write them down and DO SOMETHING with them.” But that intention usually gets lost…between the demands of your job (okay, of trying to find a job), your family, and getting loaded.

We all have stories, but HOW do we tell them so they inspire audiences and make them laugh, applaud and think, “I’m so glad I heard this.” (Don't worry, I'm getting to the "Ducts.")

Here’s the thing – you don’t need to have lived a dramatic life to come up with interesting stories. What matters is HOW YOU TELL THEM. Matter of fact, your incredible story that can impact an audience might have happened YESTERDAY. When looked at with the right perspective, the best stories can come from the SMALL incidents of the day. I find that EVERY DAY HAS A STORY. Sadly, we all have relatives who buy into that and believe that every story is worth telling, even if the way they tell them is, how do I say this…boring. (Feel free to forward this blog to them.)

So you don’t become that boring relative, I’m sharing my formula, which is to shape the story using traditional story structure.

Approach your journal entry (BTW – I LOVE The “Day One” Journal App) by answering these questions about YESTERDAY:

1. What did you DESIRE yesterday?
2. What were the OBSTACLES that got in the way of you achieving your goal?
3. What is the BACK STORY?
4. What was the RESOLUTION and MESSAGE – where you got what you wanted or failed to, but you learned something

1. DESIRE
If you have ever taken a screenwriting course, you learned that a story requires a character having a DESIRE – something he or she wants.

So, let’s look at my yesterday, another mundane day except my DESIRE was to get my FURNACE DUCTS CLEANED.

This happened because last week when I asked my friend, Laura, what chores she most hated, she said, “Changing the filters on the central air furnace.”

“Filters?!! They have filters?” My mother never told me that. She didn’t tell me about sex either. Luckily, my friends did. But NOBODY said anything about filters.

The look on my friend’s face said it all. She now saw me as someone seriously flawed, unaware of why we had been put on earth. OMG!!! You HAVEN’T CHANGED YOUR FURNACE FILTERS… EVER?”

She couldn’t have been more horrified if she’d found out I’d never changed my underwear. According to her, with all the DIRTY AIR my furnace has been spitting out, I’m lucky to be alive. And this explains why I have allergies, asthma, depression, and overeat. And maybe why the Queen of England never swings by my place.

2. OBSTACLES
What are the OBSTACLES that prevented you from getting what you wanted?

I needed a furnace expert. My first regret was not having signed up for Angie’s list, where I could trust the recommendations were real. I had only the reviews on Yelp and was hoping all the people who raved about Brandon weren’t his relatives or paid reviewers. My ignorance was certainly my biggest obstacle -

Not only was I unsure about the reliability of Yelp, but, the questions duct cleaners ask were mind-boggling: How many vents? How many ducts? How many furnaces? “Look, I know where the stove is, but this was way over my head.”

3. What is the back-story?
What in my life was relevant? Could there be any connection between my failing to clean out my heating ducts and the fact that I’d had an emergency hysterectomy when I was 32? Did I think once I got rid of my Fallopian tubes, nothing else would ever need to be serviced or removed? Were ducts anything like Fallopian tubes…or just in my mind? I have no idea how furnaces work and was trying to use what little I know about how my body works to get a handle on how ducts get clogged. I don’t want my furnace to end up in a hospital, the way I did. Especially now, when the health care system is so messed up. I’m a worrier and was wondering if a clogged furnace is a pre-existing condition.

4. Escalating Obstacles
Brandon, the duct cleaning guy, came over and he left his tools on the sidewalk. I’d neglected to tell him about my whack job neighbor, who thinks my driveway is a recycling center. She assumes anything sitting there for more than thirty seconds is in the public domain. I had to go to her house and persuade her to give back the tools.

Next, the duct guy left the garage door open, letting Boo, my cat out. My cat is very important to me. She has a GPS tracking device on her, but I don’t stay on top of things and I didn’t pay attention when the battery died. That’s why we had to mount a neighborhood search. And I had trouble getting support because the whack job neighbor bad mouthed me, saying I’d accused her of stealing tools, didn’t take proper care of my cat and organized a sizable resistance group.

That’s not everything. Brandon had to go to Home Depot to buy filters, there was traffic, my dogs tried to kill him when he returned, and of course, my whack job neighbor watched it all with binoculars from her roof. (You think I’m kidding… no!)

5. Resolution and Message
Where you got what you wanted… or you didn’t, but you learned something.

In the end, my ducts got cleaned out and Brandon showed me how to change the filters. I should have been relieved, but, as I said, I’m a worrier. There’s always something else. My something else was: what else don’t I know I should be doing that might kill me and those I love?

The lesson I learned is we can’t know what we don’t know. I’m refraining from making any jokes about our past president, forcing myself to stick to the message – that we are always learning to care better for the things we love. “Entropy” is it’s the nature of things to fall apart, and in order to make things last, we need to care for them. This is not just true of furnaces. When I was 17, I learned that cars use not only gas, but oil, that calories count even if you’re eating directly out of the ice cream container, and sex needs interesting outfits.

What is the story of your day? One other thing, can I get in on your Angie’s List subscription?

How to Never Be Boring

Last night I had a EUREKA MOMENT.

As I prepare for my Story and Speaking workshop in NYC, I have been trying to figure out why some stories are so captivating -- and others have the same effect as Ambien.  I woke up at 4am with the answer.  Let me know if this makes sense to you.

We’ve all heard boring speakers drone on about the events in their life, sucking the life out of a room like an energy vampire.  Their story usually ends with a "Well, I guess you had to be there” moment.

But then you hear stories that make us lean in, put down our phones, and stop tweeting, because we don’t want to miss a word.  These are the stories that make us laugh, give us hope, and are more interesting than our friend’s latest FB status update.

What is the difference?  OK, before I tell you, let me tell you how I got this.

One of my clients was expressing their fear of forgetting their material.  I launched into a story about how I forgot a huge chunk of my speech at a very important gig.  I went into detail about what happened and my panic.  But, then I took a breath, made a joke about it, and everyone laughed.  My memory came back and from that point on, I had the audience in the palm of my hand.  Moral – sometimes when the worst happens, and we acknowledge it, we become more authentic, and a better speaker.

Are you seeing what a good story is?  You’re telling them every day.  A story is only good and relevant if it is told in REACTION to your AUDIENCE'S PROBLEM.  For instance, if a dear friend of yours is talking about how she lost her job, lost her lover, and is worried about her health -- most of us would tell a story along the lines of "I understand.  I was there where you are.  And I struggled.  And in the end, I found my true career, I found the love of my life, and I recovered my health."

These stories are never boring to the listener because the story is generated to GIVE hope, recovery, and inspiration.  The story is geared toward the listener's problem.  When the speaker’s story is motivated by empathy for the audience, it  naturally truncates the story because it makes the speaker focus on the MESSAGE rather than details motivated by narcissism.  When the motivation for telling the story of your life is because YOU think it’s interesting – you’re only telling it because of your own need for attention, approval, and laughs. You become a TAKER.  When the goal of your story is is to provide the troubled listener with a message of hope, you become a GIVER.

You can’t have a successful story without understanding the needs and problems of your listener.

Back in my blog, Get People to Love You in One Minute, I explain the exercise of actually interviewing audience members before you perform.

Stories can be a powerful form of communication in speaking, in business, and in your personal life -- if your approach is based on GIVING -- rather than TAKING.

Learning from Oscar

We speakers can learn a lot from the acceptance speeches at the 2014 Academy Awards. Some of you might have read my blog last year where I railed about “The Waste of Red Carpet.”

This year, I didn't watch the red carpet -- but was horrified by most of the acceptance speeches. Many winners rambled through incomprehensible lists of names, wasted time complaining about how little time they had, and then ended by “winging it” A.D.D. style until an increasingly loud orchestra played them off the stage.

The result? Lots of uninspiring, boring, and meaningless speeches, where people wasted what for many was a once in a lifetime moment -- in front of millions of viewers.

But, there were some standouts. The most memorable speeches had a story -- and a message. (And yes, you can do all of that in just 90 seconds.)

Oscar winning actors Jared Leto and Lupita Nyong'o both gave brilliant speeches. Leto quickly thanked people, told a “mess-to-success” story, and ended with a powerful message. For those of you speakers who think you need a lot of time to tell an emotional story - check out what he had to say:

“In 1971, Bossier City, Louisiana, there was a teenage girl who was pregnant with her second child. She was a high school dropout and a single mom, but somehow she managed to make a better life for herself and her children. She encouraged her kids to be creative, to work hard and to do something special. That girl is my mother -- and she’s here tonight. And I just want to say, I love you, Mom. Thank you for teaching me to dream.”

He ended with a global message to the millions watching worldwide:

"This is for the 36 million people who have lost their battle to AIDS. And to those of you out there who have felt injustice for who you are, for who you love: tonight I stand in front of the world with you, and for you."

90 seconds of beautiful motivation.

My second favorite speech was Lupita Nyong'o, as she eloquently reminded us how success is often paired with adversity:

“It doesn’t escape me for one moment that so much joy in my life is thanks to so much pain in someone else’s. When I look down at this golden statue, may it remind me and every little child that no matter where you're from, your dreams are valid.”

In trying to find the message of your life, some of you reading this might have gotten the “mess” part of your life story, but are still wondering when - or if -- the “success” part will ever come.

But, you don't have to win an Oscar to be successful. The greatest successes often exist in how you’ve transformed another person's life, in even a small way - and in having the wisdom to see what’s really important: the impact we have on the lives of those around us.

The first exercise I do in my book, “The Message of You,” is to have you write your own eulogy -- because that's where people will tell the story of how you’ve changed their lives for the better.

If you try that exercise, and find yourself coming up short - here’s something you can change right now:

Choose an organization that you feel makes a direct contribution to helping others. Then, set aside some time to volunteer. (Mailing a check does NOT count as volunteering; it’s more likely you’re just looking for a tax deduction than really making a personal change.)

Chances are you’ll find that you whatever you choose, you’ll not only be helping others, but healing yourself - because your choice will likely reflect where you may have needed help in the past, and found a way to solve some troubling problems of your own.

The understanding you gain in realizing the solutions you already hold --- and how to share those with others -- is often the key to transform your own mess into a success.

But don’t take too long to get started. You have more than the 90 seconds that an Oscar winner has to share their message... but you don’t have forever. If you don’t have it already, start with my book here.