Storytelling with Impact

Why some of us don’t have one true calling – Emilie Wapnick at TEDxBend 2015

August 9, 2025/in Career, Entrepreneurs, Life Lessons, TEDx/by Mark Lovett

What do you want to be when you grow up?

This seemingly innocent question, posed to us from childhood — typically by the age of five — often evolves into a source of nagging anxiety for many adults. For those of you who have ever felt as though your diverse set of interests make you act scattered, indecisive, or even “wrong,” then Emilie Wapnick’s TEDxBend Talk offers a refreshing and empowering perspective.

Her personal journey, which may be similar to yours, was a cycle of diving deep into a new passion, excelling, and then, inevitably, getting bored and moving on. This pattern led to feelings of inadequacy and a fear of never finding her “thing.”

But what if having many interests isn’t a flaw, but a superpower? Wapnick uses the term “multipotentialite” for someone who has many interests and creative pursuits. It isn’t about being afraid of commitment; it’s about being wired for breadth, not just depth, and seeking variety, instead of consistency.

Let’s take a look at how Emilie structure her talk for impact:

The Hook (Relatable Problem): Emilie identifies a shared experience — the “what do you want to be” question and the anxiety it often causes. A great personal story often begins by establishing common ground, making the audience feel seen and understood. In this case, it’s by asking a question. Alternatively, this effect can be achieved by making a direct statement.
The Journey (Personal Narrative): She then delves into her own struggle, detailing the cyclical nature of her interests. Her vulnerability and honesty builds connection with the audience. For your story, it could mean sharing your own patterns, or questions that arose from your unique experiences.
The Turning Point (Reframing the Narrative): Mentioning “multipotentialite” becomes an “aha!” moment, changing a perceived weakness into a strength. In your personal narrative, this is where you pivot from problem to potential. What new insight or understanding transformed your perspective based on the diversity of your experiences?
The Superpowers (Illustrating Your Unique Strengths): Emilie outlines 3 important “superpowers” of multipotentialites, using people who embody them as examples:
- Idea Synthesis: The ability to combine seemingly disparate fields to create something new. For your story, think about how your varied interests intersect. How has your experience in one area uniquely informed your approach in another? This synthesis creates original perspectives that captivate.
- Rapid Learning: The knack for grasping new subjects. This translates to your storytelling ability to quickly learn new skills or adapt to different narrative styles. It means you’re rarely starting from scratch because your past learnings are always transferable.
- Adaptability: The capacity to morph into whatever is needed in a given situation. Your story isn’t static; it evolves and adapts. This superpower allows you to navigate challenges in your life and in your storytelling, ensuring your narrative remains relevant and dynamic.
The Call to Action (Empowering Conclusion): Emilie concludes her talk with a suggestion to embrace your inner wiring. Your multitude of passions isn’t a deficit; it’s precisely what the world needs.

Transcript

Raise your hand if you’ve ever been asked the question, “What do you want to be when you grow up?”

Now, if you had to guess, how old would you say you were when you were first asked this question? You can just hold up fingers.

Okay.

Now, raise your hand if the question, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” has ever caused you any anxiety.

Any anxiety at all?

I’m someone who’s never been able to answer the question, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” See, the problem wasn’t that I didn’t have any interests, it’s that I had too many. In high school, I liked English, and math, and art, and I built websites, and I played guitar in a punk band called Frustrated Telephone Operator. Maybe, maybe you’ve heard of us.

This continued after high school, and at a certain point, I began to notice this pattern in myself, where I would become interested in an area, and I would dive in and become all consumed, and I’d get to be pretty good at whatever it was. And then I would hit this point where I’d start to get bored.

And usually I would try and persist anyway, because I’d already devoted so much time and energy and sometimes money into this field. But eventually, this sense of boredom, this feeling of like, “Like, yeah, I got this. This isn’t challenging anymore.” It would get to be too much, and I would have to let it go.

But then I would become interested in something else, something totally unrelated, and I would dive into that and become all consumed, and I’d feel like, “Yes, I’ve found my thing!” And then I would hit this point again where I’d start to get bored. And eventually, I would let it go. But then I would discover something new and totally different, and I would dive into that.

This pattern caused me a lot of anxiety for two reasons. The first was that I wasn’t sure how I was going to turn any of this into a career. I thought that I would eventually have to pick one thing, deny all of my other passions, and just resign myself to being bored.

The other reason it caused me so much anxiety was a little bit more personal. I worried that there was something wrong with this, and something wrong with me for being unable to stick with anything. I worried that I was afraid of commitment, or that I was scattered, or that I was self-sabotaging, afraid of my own success.

If you can relate to my story and to these feelings, I’d like you to ask yourself a question that I wish I’d asked myself back then. Ask yourself where you learned to assign the meaning of wrong or abnormal to doing many things.

I’ll tell you where you learned it. You learned it from the culture.

We are first asked the question, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” when we’re about five years old. And the truth is that no one really cares what you say when you’re that age.

It’s considered an innocuous question, posed to little kids to elicit cute replies like, “I want to be an astronaut,” or “I want to be a ballerina,” or “I want to be a pirate.” Insert Halloween costume here.

But this question gets asked of us again and again as we get older, in various forms. For instance, high school students might get asked what major they’re going to pick in college. And at some point, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” goes from being the cute exercise it once was to the thing that keeps us up at night. Why?

See, while this question inspires kids to dream about what they could be, it does not inspire them to dream about all that they could be. In fact, it does just the opposite. Because when someone asks you what you want to be, you can’t reply with 20 different things. Though well-meaning adults will likely chuckle and be like, “Oh, how cute!” But, “You can’t be a violin maker and a psychologist, you have to choose.” This is Dr. Bob Child.

And he’s a luthier and a psychotherapist.

And this is Amy Ung, a magazine editor turned illustrator, entrepreneur, teacher, and creative director. But most kids don’t hear about people like this. All they hear is that they’re going to have to choose.

But it’s more than that. The notion of the narrowly focused life is highly romanticized in our culture. It’s this idea of destiny, or the one true calling, the idea that we each have one great thing we are meant to do during our time on this Earth, and you need to figure out what that thing is and devote your life to it.

But what if you’re someone who isn’t wired this way? What if there are a lot of different subjects that you’re curious about and many different things you want to do? Well, there is no room for someone like you in this framework. And so you might feel alone, you might feel like you don’t have a purpose, you might feel like there’s something wrong with you.

There’s nothing wrong with you. What you are is a multipotentialite.

A multipotentialite is someone with many interests and creative pursuits. It’s a mouthful to say. It might help if you break it up into three parts: multi, potential, and ite. You can also use one of the other terms that connote the same idea, such as the polymath, the Renaissance person.

Actually, during the Renaissance period, it was considered the ideal to be well-versed in multiple disciplines. Barbara Sher refers to us as scanners. Use whichever term you like or invent your own. I have to say I find it sort of fitting that as a community, we cannot agree on a single identity.

It’s easy to see our multipotentiality as a limitation, or an affliction that you need to overcome. But what I’ve learned through speaking with people and writing about these ideas on my website is that there are some tremendous strengths to being wired this way. Here are three multipotentialite superpowers.

One: Idea synthesis.

That is combining two or more fields and creating something new at the intersection. That’s where the new ideas come from.

Shaw Wong and Rachel Binks drew from their shared interests in cartography, data visualization, travel, mathematics, and design when they founded Mesh you.

Mesh you is a company that creates custom, geographically inspired jewelry. Shaw and Rachel came up with this unique idea not despite, but because of their eclectic mix of skills and experiences.

Innovation happens at the intersections. That’s where the new ideas come from. And multipotentialites, with all of their backgrounds, are able to access a lot of these points of intersection.

The second multipotentialite superpower is rapid learning.

When multipotentialites become interested in something, we go hard. We absorb everything we can get our hands on. We’re also so used to being beginners because we’ve been beginners so many times in the past.

And this means that we’re less afraid of trying new things and stepping out of our comfort zones. What’s more, many skills are transferable across disciplines, and we bring everything we’ve learned to every new area we pursue, so we’re rarely starting from scratch.

Nora Dunn is a full-time traveler and freelance writer. As a child concert pianist, she honed an incredible ability to develop muscle memory. Now, she’s the fastest typist she knows.

Before becoming a writer, Nora was a financial planner. She had to learn the finer mechanics of sales when she was starting her practice, and this skill now helps her write compelling pitches to editors. It is rarely a waste of time to pursue something you’re drawn to, even if you end up quitting. You might apply that knowledge in a different field entirely in a way that you couldn’t have anticipated.

The third multipotentialite superpower is adaptability.

That is the ability to morph into whatever you need to be in a given situation.

Abe Cahudo is sometimes a video director, sometimes a web designer, sometimes a Kickstarter consultant, sometimes a teacher, and sometimes, apparently, James Bond.

He’s valuable because he does good work. He’s even more valuable because he can take on various roles depending on his clients’ needs. Fast Company magazine identified adaptability as the single most important skill to develop in order to thrive in the 21st century. The economic world is changing so quickly and unpredictably that it is the individuals and organizations that can pivot in order to meet the needs of the market that are really going to thrive.

Idea synthesis, rapid learning, and adaptability. Three skills that multipotentialites are very adept at, and three skills that they might lose if pressured to narrow their focus.

As a society, we have a vested interest in encouraging multipotentialites to be themselves. We have a lot of complex, multi-dimensional problems in the world right now, and we need creative, out-of-the-box thinkers to tackle them.

Now, let’s say that you are, in your heart, a specialist. You came out of the womb knowing you wanted to be a pediatric neurosurgeon. Don’t worry, there’s nothing wrong with you either. In fact, some of the best teams are comprised of a specialist and multipotentialite paired together. The specialist can dive in deep and implement ideas, while the multipotentialite brings their breadth of knowledge to the project. It’s a beautiful partnership.

But we should all be designing lives and careers that are aligned with how we’re wired. And sadly, multipotentialites are largely being encouraged simply to be more like their specialist peers.

So, with that said, if there is one thing you take away from this talk, I hope that it is this: Embrace your inner wiring, whatever that may be. If you’re a specialist at heart, then by all means specialize. That is where you’ll do your best work. But to the multipotentialites in the room, including those of you who may have just realized in the last 12 minutes that you are one,

To you I say: Embrace your many passions. Follow your curiosity down those rabbit holes. Explore your intersections. Embracing our inner wiring leads to a happier, more authentic life. And perhaps more importantly, multipotentialites, the world needs us.

Back to you…

Do you have a similar story to tell? One that’s based upon valuable insights on a subject the audience can relate to? Note that you don’t have to be a scientist, or world renowned expert on the topic, but you do have to explain your idea with clarity, and support it with strong examples that illustrate your idea.

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Muneesh Jain Storytelling at The Moth in Traverse City

May 19, 2025/in Career, Emotions, Family, Identity, Relationships, The Moth/by Mark Lovett

You may remember Peter Aguero’s Moth story of how the simple suggestion of taking a pottery class altered his outlook on life. Different circumstances in this case, but Muneesh Jain’s Moth story told in Traverse City also happens to hinge on a moment in time that revised the trajectory his life was on.

But there’s always a backstory to such moments, and Muneesh talks about his parent’s expectations that he could never meet, no matter how hard he tried.

My parents are from India. So, in our house, that meant we had a high bar set for academic achievement, and a specific type of professional success: doctor, lawyer, engineer.

And he did try, to the point that his heath was at risk. But walking away from success resulted in his disconnecting from his family, as well as society itself. Rather than a short brief, Muneesh was out of sorts for five full years.

The delivery guy would just leave the food outside my apartment because I couldn’t even make eye contact with him. I was a failure.

And then… Something unexpected happens. Something that reignites is passion, and a lifelong dream. The journey he embarks upon connects him to new people in ways he couldn’t predict, and the process seems to resurrect him. (no spoilers here — you’ll have to hear his story to learn the details of his journey)

As these articles are fueled by java, you can always…

And I realized we weren’t really even talking about baseball anymore. We were talking about family connection.

While staying with friends in Seattle, a scene unfolds we can’t possibly expect.

The next day, I hear a knock at the door. Nobody’s home, so I walk upstairs and through the glass door, I see the silhouette of a 4 foot 10, 90 pound little woman. I open the door and just say, “What are you doing here, Mother?”

As the saying goes, “It’s never too late.” For Muneesh, the subtext is that it wasn’t too late to reconnect to his mother, and in doing so, come to understand her in a way that wasn’t possible while growing up.

Transcript

My parents are from India. So, in our house, that meant we had a high bar set for academic achievement, and a specific type of professional success: doctor, lawyer, engineer. By the time my sister was 12, she knew she was going to be a doctor, just like my dad.

When I was nine, I called a family meeting to let everyone know I was never going to be a doctor, or a lawyer, or an engineer. I was going to be a gymnast. My parents, they tolerated it, but told me that one day I was going to have to grow out of it. But I went to the gym six days a week, five hours a night. And by the time I was a teenager, I was training for the Olympics. Then multiple injuries ended my career. My folks, they said, “Alright, you got that out of your system. Now it’s time to focus on your education.”

I needed them to be impressed with me, the way they were my sister. I just, I couldn’t wrap my head around doing it their way. So I came up with a bigger idea. When I was 19, I got a job with ESPN. I was producing live segments for Sportscenter, ESPN news, hanging out with my sports idols. My folks, they kept reminding me, “Don’t let this get in the way of your schoolwork.”

Alright, fine. If that wasn’t good enough, I came up with a bigger idea. I left the network and moved to Detroit, Michigan, a city that I love, and I started a sports magazine. I sold ads, I found distributors, I built a staff with grown-ass people who had kids older than me. And we were killing it. We were up to 50,000 subscribers. People were recognizing me on the street. Hell, Muhammad Ali said he liked my magazine.

But every time I’d see my parents, they’d just ask me, “When are you going back to college? Get that degree.”

This time, there was no bigger idea. I had to make this work. I doubled down, worked twice as hard, which also meant that I pretty much stopped sleeping entirely and started drinking and drugging the nights away to manage my stress levels. And when I was 24, my doctor told me that I was six months away from a heart attack.

I either had to get rid of the magazine or die. So I gave up. And something broke inside of me. And I couldn’t face my parents. I took the money I’d saved from ESPN and the magazine, and I ran away. I moved to New York into a tiny 160-square-foot studio apartment where the windows didn’t even open, and it was there that my self-imposed exile began. Slowly losing contact with every human I’d ever met.

The delivery guy would just leave the food outside my apartment because I couldn’t even make eye contact with him. I was a failure.

My parents would call and I never knew what to say. My dad would lecture me that I wasn’t even a part of the family anymore. My mom would yell at me that I needed to get my life together. And every conversation just ended in tears. So I stopped answering their calls. Then they started sending me money to keep me alive, and I took it, and that made me hate myself so much more. And so I just stopped leaving my apartment entirely.

The TV would be on 24 hours a day. I wasn’t watching at all. I just needed flashing images and noise to block out the constant stream of shame, regret, self-loathing that was clanging around the inside of my skull.

And that became my life. Every day, all day, living in near isolation for five years.

One day, a baseball game just happened to be on. Now, I hadn’t watched a sporting event of any kind since the death of my magazine. It was always just too hard. But on this day, I was so broken, I just stared motionlessly at the screen in front of me. And within a couple of innings, something strange was happening. I felt myself sitting up in my bed, engaging with something outside of my own head. I was smiling. I mean, actually smiling, for the first time in five years.

By the time the game ended, I’d already ordered the MLB TV package and just started mainlining baseball. I was watching every game, reading every article, going back over the last five years to see everything that I’d missed. And in the middle of it all, I remembered a dream I had when I was six.

You know, “One day, I’m gonna see a baseball game at all 30 MLB stadiums.” It’s one of those silly things that a lot of baseball fans want to do, but few actually get a chance to do it. And the ones who do it, do it over the course of a lifetime, like a normal human person.

But in this moment, nobody even knew that I existed. I could disappear off the planet and no one would notice. So I said, “Screw it. I’m going to do it. And I’m gonna do it in one season.” I’m going to drive 17,000 miles in 95 days and go to a baseball game at all 30 ballparks. I started obsessively poring over maps and schedules, planning out my route.

Every time I’d go down to the bodega to buy another pack of cigarettes, instead, I would take that money out of the ATM, go back up to my apartment, shove it underneath my mattress. By the time the next baseball season came around, I’d saved $6,000 and quit smoking.

I was ready to go. I called my parents to let them know what I was doing, and they really didn’t know what to say. They were just happy that I was alive. And I hit the road. Every 48 hours I was in a new city. But I didn’t want to just sit in the ballpark alone. I needed a way to reintegrate myself into society. The problem was, I had completely forgotten how to even have a conversation with somebody else.

So I invented a podcast. I couldn’t have cared less if anybody actually listened to this thing. I just needed an excuse to go talk to strangers. And it was working. People were talking to me about the stats of their favorite ball players, the histories of their ballparks. One kid at Citi Field at a Mets game spent 20 minutes meticulously breaking down why it was that the Yankees sucked.

And I bounced from ballpark to ballpark. I noticed that my conversations, they were evolving. I talked to a father and son in Baltimore, where after our official interview, the father pulled me aside to quietly confide in me that he didn’t really have a relationship with his eldest son, but his youngest, his youngest loved baseball, so he knew that at least they’d be able to talk about that.

I talked to a mother and daughter in San Francisco who had been going to games together for 20 years. Three generations of women in Texas. The grandmother proudly shoving Little Laney, her nine-year-old granddaughter, in front of my microphone, saying, “Little Laney, tell the nice man what you do all your school reports on.” And Little Laney excitedly screams out, “The Texas Rangers!”

And I realized we weren’t really even talking about baseball anymore. We were talking about family connection.

By the time I got to LA, I’d already driven 8,000 miles on my own. I was halfway done with my tour. But this was my hell week, because the Angels and the Dodgers rarely play at home at the same time. I had to catch a game in Anaheim, drive 17 hours up to Seattle, turn back around, drive 17 hours back to LA, then 30 hours to Minnesota. That’s 4,000 miles in 10 days. But I was a man possessed, nothing was going to stop me.

After my Angels game, I hopped in the car and headed up north. But about halfway into the drive, my vision starts to get blurry and my body starts to uncontrollably shake. I pull over just in time to open the door and projectile vomit all over the side of the highway. I didn’t know what to do, so I called my dad. He just sighed into the phone and said, “You have food poisoning.” What am I supposed to do from here? “Gatorade and Pepto Bismol.”

My mom gets on the phone and starts screaming at me. This is ridiculous. You need to take better care of yourself and I hung up. I wasn’t in the mood for another lecture. I made it to Seattle in time for my game by double fisting Gatorade and Pepto Bismol. I was staying with some family friends so I knew they’d be able to take care of me.

The next day, I hear a knock at the door. Nobody’s home, so I walk upstairs and through the glass door, I see the silhouette of a 4 foot 10, 90 pound little woman. I open the door and just say, “What are you doing here, Mother?”

And she says, “I’m here to help you drive.” Now, she must have seen the panic on my face, because she followed that up with, “And I’ve been listening to your podcast. I know you don’t take bathroom or food breaks when you’re on the road, so I’m not going to take any breaks either. We’re going to stay on your schedule.” I didn’t know she was listening to the podcast.

And then she said one more thing. “I’m driving the whole way, so you’ve got two options. You sit next to me and you can sleep or we can talk.” Now, I honestly can’t remember the last time my mom and I had been in the same room together without it devolving into tears. So I said, “Okay, Mama.” I got in the car and I immediately went to sleep.

I slept the entire way to LA and when we got there, she said, “I’m not going to go to the baseball game with you.” I said, “Why not?” She said, “Because you’ve got work to do. And if people see you there with your mother, they’re not going to want to talk to you.” I said, “You’re being ridiculous, of course you’re going to come,” and I got her a ticket.

We’re at Dodger Stadium and I start interviewing the gentleman sitting next to me as I’d done at every ballpark before. My mom, she moves to the seat behind us to give us some space to chat. And after the interview is over, I can hear her talking to her new seatmate. And her new seatmate’s asking, “Wow, you must be a huge baseball fan to do this type of road trip.” And my mom just answers, “No. I really don’t like baseball. I like watching my son watch baseball.” I pretended like I didn’t hear that.

After the game was over, we’re walking back to the car and she stops me. She wants to show me a picture she had taken during the game. And I looked down on her phone and it’s actually, it’s a picture of me and the guy that I had been interviewing. And she just says, “Look. You’re smiling.”

I said, “When are you going home, Mama?” And she said, “No, no, no, no. I’m going to drive with you to Minnesota too.” This time, there was no panic on my face. I said, “Okay, we’re going to split the drive and let’s talk.”

As we made our way out east, I started talking to my mom the way that I had been talking to these strangers at the ballpark these last couple of months, asking her stories about her life. You know, this woman, she survived three wars between India and Pakistan. I didn’t know that.

She told me the story of how her and my dad’s arranged marriage came to be. I knew they were arranged, I just never knew how or why it happened. I don’t know why I never bothered to ask her that.

Right before we got to Minnesota, we made a quick pit stop in South Dakota at Mount Rushmore. And as we’re walking up to the monument, my mom peeled off to call my dad and I was eavesdropping and I could hear her say, “As immigrants to this country, we’d always wanted to see Mount Rushmore. We just never found a reason to make the trip. This is all so exciting. I can’t wait for you to be able to see… our son… is just so happy.”

Thank you.

Back to you…

As unique as the details of Muneesh’s story are, the themes are all too common. Expectations. Failure. Shame. And also being open to those times when a simple circumstance serves as inspiration to reclaim the life that’s been waiting for you. Yes, the first few steps require initiative, but success manifests when others are influential elements in your narrative.

If you have a story to tell of getting lost, then finding yourself, don’t forget the cast of characters that accompanied you on the road to recovery. With them, you would still be lost.

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David Litt on The Moth Mainstage at Royce Hall

February 28, 2021/in Career, Humor, Politics, The Moth/by Mark Lovett

The Moth has been hosting storytelling events for 20+ years, and the thousands of storytellers who have graced their stages are proof that every story is unique, and that the best stories come from our personal experiences.

In this story, as told by David Litt, we hear a humorous tale about what it’s like to work in the White House, and to finally meet the President of the United States.

The details of the experience, both the settings and the conversations, give us a sense of what it must have felt like to work in the White House. But in a normal context that we can all relate to, it is also about wanting to excel in your career, while also dealing with imposter syndrome. We’ve all made blunders in our life, and looking back they can be much funnier than they were in the moment. You may have a story about an event that didn’t work as planned, but in hindsight, makes you laugh.

Transcript

In 2008 I was one of those young people who became obsessed with Barack Obama. I was a senior in college at the time, and after I graduated I drove out to Ohio, and I worked on his campaign, and after the campaign I drove to Washington because – hope and change.

And two years later, the White House actually hired me. They hired me to write speeches. And people would hear about my new job and they would say, ‘wow, you must be really good’, and I’d say, ‘I don’t know, I hope so’. And they thought I was pretending to be humble but I was entirely sincere.

It’s not that I didn’t think I had any talent whatsoever, it’s just that I knew there are 300 million people in America, and some of them are babies, but a lot of them are adults, and it just seemed unlikely that I was the best ‘we the people’ could do. So everyday I walked through the gates of the White House absolutely sure somebody had made a mistake.

And while this was going on my friends and family were equally sure they now had direct access to the President of the United States. Like I’m sitting in my White House office, and I get a text from my sister Rebecca, and it says ‘how come the Department of Homeland Security doesn’t have a mailing address?’

Now even in the best of circumstances this is a disturbing question to get from a family member, but if you work in the White House you want to know the answer to this kind of stuff, and I have no idea, and it’s like this with everything.

I mean suddenly everyone has a law that only I can get through Congress. Everybody has something wrong with Obamacare that I need to know about. Mostly, everybody has the same question. They all want to know – have you met him yet, have you met Obama yet – and I say no, I haven’t met him yet, and I get this look, and it’s a look I soon learn means, you may be 24 years old and working at the White House, but you’re still a disappointment to your family and friends. And I have to say I totally get it.

I mean everybody thinks that the White House is either like the TV show The West Wing where everyone’s hanging out with the President, or it’s like the TV show Scandal, where everyone’s having sex with the President. But if you’re looking for a Hollywood analogy, the White House is like the Death Star. What I mean by that is just that there’s thousands of people, they run around the hallways, they’re all just trying to make sure their little bit of their job works well.

And just because Darth Vader is the public face of the organization it doesn’t mean that every stormtrooper gets personal one-on-one time. So I try to explain this whole Death Star thing, and it doesn’t work, I still get that disappointed look. And frankly, nobody’s more disappointed than I am. I mean, nobody wants me to meet the president more than me. And there’s two reasons for this.

The first is kind of corny, but it’s true. I moved to Washington because I thought, I don’t know what it is, but there must be something I can do for my country. I want to be the kind of person where the President of the United States is just a little bit better at his job because I’m in the room.

And the second reason is I would really like Barack Obama and I to become best friends. And now I’m not saying that every White House staffer imagined that they would become buddies with the president. I’m just saying that none of us ruled it out. Like you would hear these stories you know somebody got a fist bump in the hallway, or someone else got invited up to play cards on Air Force One. And the moral was always the same. Any moment could be the moment that changes your life forever.

Now my first chance at a life-changing moment came in November 2011 when I was asked to write the Thanksgiving video address. I will say up front, if state of the union is all the way on one end of the presidential speechwriting spectrum, happy Thanksgiving America is kinda on the other side.

But as far as I was concerned, this was the most important set of words Barack Obama would ever say, and so I threw myself into this. I mean, I wrote, and I rewrote, and I made edits, and then I made edits to the edits, and finally the day of the taping came.

And I went to the diplomatic room which is one of the most beautiful rooms in the White House. It has this wraparound mural of 19th century American life. And the advice I always got was, you have to act like you’ve been there before. So I’m standing there, trying to act like I’ve been there before, and the woman behind the camera takes one look at me and goes, ‘this is your first time here isn’t it’, and I crack immediately. I’m just like, ‘yes I have never been here before, please help me.’

And she says, ‘don’t worry.’ She explains her name is Hope Hall, she films the president all the time, she’s gonna take care of everything. All I have to do is wait. So I wait, and I wait, and I wait, and I wait. And just when I’m wondering is this whole thing a nightmare, is it a practical joke, somebody gets an email on their blackberry, and they say, ‘okay he’s moving’, and then there’s kind of a crackling in the air, and a minute later President Obama enters the room.

And he’s standing up, so we all stand up. And he sits down, so we all sit down. And he looks at the camera to start taping when Hope stops him, and she says, ‘actually, Mr. President this is David. This is the first video he’s ever written for you’, and President Obama looks at me, and he says, ‘Oh, how’s it going David?’

I had exactly one thought in that moment. I did not realize we were going to have to answer questions. And I have literally no idea what I said after that. I mean, I actually blacked out. Like I went home for Thanksgiving and my family was like, ‘so have you met him yet?’

And I was like, ‘yeah.’

And they were like, ‘what did he say.’

I was like ‘how’s it going?’

And they were like, ‘what did you say.’

And I was like, ‘I don’t know, I blacked out.’

And I get that disappointed look. And I can’t blame anybody, because if I’m gonna be the kind of person who makes the president a little bit better at his job when I’m in the room, I am going to have to deal with questions more complicated than how’s it going.

And at the moment there’s no indication that I can do it. But I make a promise to myself. I say, if I ever get another shot at a life-changing moment I am not gonna let myself down. And I didn’t know if it would ever happen for me, but in fact, it happened just a couple weeks later.

I was sitting in my office. I got a phone call from the chief speechwriter at the time, a guy named Jon Favreau, and he called me up, and he said ‘Betty White is turning 90 years old, and NBC is doing this special where different famous people wish her a happy birthday in these 30-second skits, and you’re pretty funny, and no one else wants to do it. Want to give it a shot?’

And I said, ‘absolutely.’ And again, I understand the State of the Union is over here, and happy birthday Betty White is over there, but this was my Gettysburg Address. And so we had one week to make it perfect.

We started off. John and I came up with a joke for the president. We were gonna have him fill out a birthday card, and then while he was filling it out you would hear his voice on a voiceover say, ‘Dear Betty ,you’re so young and full of life I can’t believe you’re turning 90. In fact, I don’t believe it. Please send a copy of your long-form birth certificate to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, DC.’

So we feel good about the joke ,but we still need a birthday card. So one day that week I go to CVS near the White House. It’s a half block away. I grab a birthday card that I think it’s gonna be pretty good. And then right when I’m about to leave, I realize we don’t actually need one birthday card, we need two identical birthday cards, because we have two different camera angles.

We don’t want anyone to know that the president has already written his birthday greeting. And I think, yes, this is how White House staffers are supposed to feel. I mean, I’ve saved the day. And so I walk back to that to that Hallmark rack and I get an identical card. And I ring it up, and I go back to my office, and I’m feeling really good.

And then the last thing we need, we need some way to end the video. And so what I come up with is, we’re gonna have the President put in headphones, and then he’ll listen to the theme song from the Golden Girls, which is Betty White’s most popular show.

So I find the perfect pair of headphones that go over the ear, they look great on camera, and I listen to the Golden Girls theme song on repeat just to get in the mood. And then finally, on Friday I get the call. Come on over. No here’s what they don’t tell you about having a meeting in the Oval Office.

When you have a meeting in the Oval Office, you do not just walk into the Oval Office. The first thing you do, you wait in this kind of windowless chamber. It’s a little like a doctor’s office, except instead of last year’s Marie Claire magazine, they have priceless pieces of American art.

And instead of a receptionist they have a man with a gun who in a worst case scenario is legally obligated to kill you. It turns out this little room is the perfect place to second-guess every life choice you have ever made. And so I’m sitting there with Hope Hall, the videographer, and I’m just thinking, do I remember how to explain the joke, are both of the birthday cards in there.

I check my pants pocket. Are the headphones still there. Are the headphones still there. Are the headphones still there. I’m on the verge of a nervous breakdown when finally one of the president’s aides pokes her head out and says, ‘okay he’s ready for you go on in.’ To my credit, the first time I entered the Oval Office, I do not black out.

I can remember this very clearly. Right in front of me, I can see a painting of the Statue of Liberty that was done by Norman Rockwell that someone has told me is valued at 12 million dollars. And behind me, out of the corner of my eye, I could see the Emancipation Proclamation. Not a photocopy of the Emancipation Proclamation. The Emancipation Proclamation.

And I can feel the message that this document is sending through the room. And that message is, ‘I’m here ’cause I freed the slaves, what are you doing here?’ And I look across the desk at the President, and I realize he may also be wondering what I’m doing here. But I feel great. I mean, I’ve spent an entire week just practicing how to explain this one joke to the President.

So I step up. I look at him. And I open my mouth. And what comes out is like I’m trying to ask for directions but in Spanish. Like the nouns and the verbs are there but there’s nothing in between them. I just say, ‘Betty White, video, NBC very funny, everybody laughs, está bien.’

And the President gives me kind of a confused look, and Hope, the videographer, jumps in and explains everything and rescues me, but I’m a little concerned, because I am here to show the President how professional I am, and in my professional opinion, we are not off to a great start.

Still, I’m not that worried, because I have that second birthday card in my pocket. And so I’m gonna get a chance to show President Obama how I saved the day. And as soon as Hope is finished filming, even I am surprised by how confident I sound when I walk up to the desk and I put my hand down and I say, Mr. President, I’m gonna need to take that birthday card and replace it with this identical birthday card because we don’t want anyone to know you’ve already written your birthday greeting.

And President Obama looks up at me and he says, ‘we’re filming this from all the way across the room?’

And I say, ‘yes, that’s right.’

And he says, ‘so no one’s gonna see the inside of the card.’

And I say, ‘yes, that’s right.’

And he says, ‘so I can just pretend to write in the card? We don’t actually need another one?’

And I say, ‘yes, that’s right.’

And I put the card back in my pocket, and it’s strike two. But I’m not giving up yet, because I made that promise to myself, and besides, I really do feel good about the the ending with the headphones. And so the moment Hope is done filming her second camera angle I walk back up to the President, and I reach into my pocket, and I pull out what looks like a hairball made out of wires.

I don’t really know what happened. I guess somewhere in that waiting room I have just worried this thing into a hopeless tangle. And now I don’t know what to do, so I just hand the entire thing to the President the United States. Now, if you work in the White House, you will hear the phrase, there is no commodity on earth more valuable than a President’s time. Which I always thought was a cliche, until, I watched Barack Obama, untangle headphones, for 30 seconds, while looking directly at me.

And he untangles and untangles, and when he finishes he looks at Hope and just goes, ‘shoddy advanced work.’ And he does it in this way that lets you know that A. he’s only joking, and B. he is not even a tiny bit joking. And I’ll tell you, my heart just sinks. I mean, this was my third chance to make a second first impression on the President, and I let myself down. And all I want to do is get out of there.

And President Obama says something like, well would it be funnier if I bob my head in time to the music. And I say, ‘yeah that would be funnier’, but my heart isn’t in it. I mean, I know I don’t belong there, and the president looks into the camera to tape this final scene, and then suddenly he stops, and he says, ‘well wait a second, if I’m going to bob my head in time to the music, I need to know how the music goes.’

Does anyone here know the Golden Girls theme song? And President Obama looks at Hope. And Hope doesn’t say anything. So I look at Hope, and Hope doesn’t say anything. So President Obama looks at me. And suddenly I know exactly what I can do for my country.

And so I’m standing there in the Oval Office, with the Emancipation Proclamation right behind them, and I look our commander-in-chief in the eye, and I say, ‘bump bump bump bump thank you for being a friend, bump bump bump bump travel down the road and back again, something, something, you’re a pal and a confidant bump bump bump.’ But he looks kind of amused, so I keep going. So I’m like, ‘if you threw a party invited everyone you knew’, and that’s when he gives me a look that’s like okay, President’s time.

But it works.’ President Obama bobs his head in time to the music and Betty White gets her card, and NBC gets their special, and I leave the Oval Office that day with my head held high knowing that the President of the United States was just a tiny bit better at his job because I was in the room.

And people still ask me after that, they still say, have you met him yet, have you met Obama yet?’ And I can finally say, ‘yeah actually I have’, and then just to myself I think, not to brag or anything, but technically, I’m thankful he’s a friend.

Thank you very much.

[Note: all comments are my opinions, not those of the speaker, or The Moth or anyone else on the planet. In my view, every story is unique, as is every interpretation of that story. The sole purpose of these posts is to inspire storytellers to become better storylisteners and to think about how their stories can become more impactful.]

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Phyllis Bowdwin on The Moth Portland Mainstage

February 7, 2021/in Career, Emotions, Humor, The Moth/by Mark Lovett

In this story, as told by Phyllis Bowdwin, we hear about a time she encountered an abusive mime, and her decision to then cut this person – so to speak – down to size. In one sense, it’s a strange story, but the underlying theme of someone not being respected, and then discovering a new side of themselves during the experience, is a common one for personal storytelling.

Note the passion in her voice and the vivid descriptions that she offers. You feel as though you were there in the crowd watching the event unfold. Now, think of your own life. Was there a situation or event in which you discovered something different about yourself? Maybe a newfound strength that you could rely upon going forward. Such stories inspire others to ask that question about their life.

Transcript

It’s 1979, and summer in New York City. That was 38 years ago, when I was being interviewed for a promotion from secretary to coordinator of daytime casting at ABC.

I wore my new silk blouse, matching slim skirt, and two-inch yellow sling back heels. I thought I was ready. Although there was some who thought I wasn’t tough enough to hold onto a job like that.

And somewhere in a tiny corner of my mind, there was a part of me that suspected there, that they might be right. I even had a secretary come up to me and say, “Phyllis, you’re too nice.” To which I responded, “Thank you.”

In any case, I was meeting a friend for lunch across the street before my two o’clock interview. And when I got there, I found hordes of people spanning the length and the width of the sidewalk in front of the building, three people deep.

But I found a gap, cut through it, and when I got into the center of this human oval, something came up behind me, grabbed me, prevented me from moving, pinning my arms to my sides. And I looked over both shoulders to see if I could find out what it was, but I didn’t see anything, so I started to struggle.

And the more I struggled, the tighter the grip became. And then I looked to the sea of faces for some clue, some information that would help me to understand what was holding me, what was going on, but they were just placidly chewing and eating their lunch and staring at me.

Suddenly, the pressure was released and a set of rough hands groped me in every part of my body and then pushed me in my lower back. I stumbled forward almost falling, but I regained my balance and I turned around to find a six foot mime leering at me.

He was in full dress with the beret, the face paint, the polar shirt, the suspenders, the black pants, and the very comfortable sneakers. He was beckoning to me and slapping his behind, inviting me to hit him, and I took the bait.

I wrapped the strap of my purse around my hand, and I went after him and I swung, and just as my purse was about to connect, he bounced to another side of the oval and leered at me again, and beckoned me a second time, and padded his behind and wagged it at me as an invitation to come and try again, and I did.

And this time, I swung so hard that when he darted out of the way for the second time, the momentum pulled me forward, and I almost stumbled and fell. And then the people started to laugh,
and I was feeling like a real fool.

So when he beckoned me for the third time, common sense prevailed. Slim skirt, heels, sneakers, I’m outmatched. “You got it,” I said, and I turned and walked away and tried to go up those stairs to get into the building when he rushed up behind me and grabbed my behind and squeezed it, and then darted to safety down further in the oval, and people started to laugh.

And I just stood there as waves of humiliation and rage ran through my body. And I’ve finally got myself together, got up the stairs, got into the building, got to the cafeteria where they was serving my favorite, turkey tetrazzini.

And I went through the motions, paid for my food and sat at the table, but I couldn’t eat or speak, I had just been blindsided, bullied and blatantly violated by a strange man in the street with the approval of hoards of other strangers.

And I was very sure that they had rewarded him handsomely for what he had just done to me. And the thought that I had no way to protect or defend myself, made me feel so powerless that I wanted to cry, so I just sat there.

Then I remembered something that I might have at the bottom of my purse that I bought from a 99 cent store 4 months prior as a joke. And I started digging down into my purse, and the minute my fingers touched that cold, hard canister, I realized that I might have some options after all.

I picked it up, I wrapped my napkin around and then I said, “Got to go,” and turned and got back outside to see if he was still there, and of course he was. And I worked my way to the front of the crowd, because it had swollen to five people deep, to see what he was up to.

And just as I looked up, a beautiful blonde in a pretty, red dress cut through the crap, just as I had, and just as she was about to mount this terrace, he snuck up behind her, and as she raised one foot, he insinuated his way between her legs and stood up, essentially mounting her on his lower back like a rider on a horse.

He reached under her dress, grabbed her legs and proceeded to gallop around the oval with this woman’s hair flying, arms flailing,
holding onto her purse while trying to keep from falling backwards. When he let her down, he promptly lifted her dress up over her head and held it there to the hoots and the whistles of the men.

And when he finally let her go, she staggered into the building and quickly disappeared. And I said to myself, “Is this 1979 in New York City, or have I been dropped into “The Twilight Zone”?

How could this be happening? Where are the police?”

And as I said that, this elderly gentlemen, tall, handsome, distinguished man, stepped into the oval with an old woman in tow, she was holding onto the back of his jacket, and he strolled over to the mime and she peered out at the mime, cringed, and darted back.

And I said to myself, “Now, what did he do to this old woman that would have her cringing at the sight of him?” And sure enough, the old man started shaking his finger in the mime’s face, and the mine feigned innocence. The hands and shoulders went up in the air like he was the victim. And he put on this terrible, sad face and mimed crying and someone in the crowd yelled, “Boo boo, leave the mime alone.”

And the crowd picked up the chant, “Boo boo, leave the mime alone.” And the old man looked up startled into the hostile, menacing eyes of the wolf pack, consisting of executives, clerks, messengers, a UPS driver, a postal employee, even a hot dog vendor selling his food, was enjoying the spectacle.

And the old man shook his head sadly. Gently took the old woman by the hand and led her out of the crowd. And that’s when I got it. This was nothing but a big show. This was theater in the round, and every unsuspecting woman who cut through the crowd became a player, whether she wanted to or not.

She became the catch of the day on the mime’s lunchtime menu,
subject to any form of abuse he chose to cook up to feed vicariously the appetite of his patrons. And so when he started looking around for a new player, I stepped back into the human arena and waited.

He spotted me, he came towards me, and as he got closer, his eyes narrowed, and I couldn’t tell whether it was because of his recognizing me from before, from what he had done to me, or whether he was strategizing how he was going to launch this frontal attack because his MO was to play dirty pool, and sneak up behind the woman and catch her off guard.

But when he got two feet away, I lifted my can of pepper spray and I sprayed him in his face. Yes, yes, and his eyes got wild and he reached for my throat, and I took two steps back, and I sprayed him again and again. I sprayed him like a roach.

And then he began to cough and wheeze and sneeze, and he started staggering towards the street, and his loyal patrons pardon and let him go. He wound up on the hood of a parked car and I stood there and enjoyed watching him wheeze and sneeze.
And I was doing that, something karate-chopped my right hand. It’s another mime.

And this one is twice the size of the other one. And this hulking Goliath of a man is glaring at me like he wants to kill me. And we both hear my canister rolling slowly, but noisily down the sidewalk and he lumbered towards it. And I whirled around, and I went after it. And the two of us scrambled to get to that canister,
and I got there first.

And he moved towards me, and I took a wide stance and I got all the way down and I started rocking and I said, “You want this, motherfucker?” “Come and get it.”

He stopped cold in his tracks and we looked at each other, both knowing that if he ever got his hands on me, he could break me in two. But that day I had had enough and seen enough pushing and grabbing and groping. That day I was prepared to die. And I wasn’t leaving the planet alone, I was taking him with me.

He must have seen it in the rockin’ already in my eyes because they was saying, “Kill the mime.” Because he backed up, turned around, and disappeared back into that crowd. And by now, the spray is starting to spread to his patrons and they are coughing and wheezing and sneezing and quickly disperse without leaving a dime in his beret.

So I dropped my canister back in my purse, and I stood up, only to realize that I had bent the heel on my shoe. And I had split my seam on my skirt all the way up to my behind, and I had an interview at two o’clock. So I hobbled back across the street, and I got on that elevator and got to my office and grabbed my scotch tape and my stapler. I rushed into the ladies’ room, locked the door, took off my skirt, turned it inside out and pinched that seam back together.

I pinched and stapled and pinched and stapled until I got that whole thing closed.Then I taped down one side with the scotch tape, and the other side, and then one going straight down the center in the hopes that no one would ever know what had just happened across the street.

I went to my desk and I reached in my bottom drawer for a pair of flats that I always keep there, and put them on, and waited for that call from personnel. And when they called me, I went upstairs, marched into that office and aced that interview and got the job.

Oh yes.

And that was the day that I got in touch with my other side. Now, she doesn’t make many appearances, but she’s available on an as need basis. And I call her my quiet fire.

And we both thank you.

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Finding Your Creative Voice via Ira Glass

February 14, 2020/in Career, Entrepreneurs, Ira Glass, Passion, Radio/by Mark Lovett

The beauty of becoming a creative professional goes hand in hand with the struggle to find yourself in the process, to make something that speaks to others while revealing the true essence of your own story. This dichotomy can at times cloud your vision, but there is a way through the fog, a path that will ultimately serve your purpose and find an audience.

Fujifilm’s Create Forever project shares impactful stories of individuals who have been, and continue to be, on their creative journey. As a long time fan of Ira Glass and his storytelling sorcery, this was an interview I was eager to see. The video, produced by Muse Storytelling, adds a second layer of meaning with a visual framework that add relevance to Ira’s story.

I think it’s a good target, to invent the thing that’s gonna be exactly right for you. – Ira Glass

Having listened to every episode of This American Life over the past quarter century, there was a surprising moment in the interview that resonated with me. It’s when Ira expressed his original desire to document the stories of everyday people, people who aren’t in the news, as opposed to chasing after famous people like paparazzi, which is too often the strategy.

It’s the reason that I decided to organize TEDx events, to bring voices out into the open that the public was not aware of, and it’s also the reason I’m now coaching speakers to craft their personal narratives. The importance of everyday stories cannot be understated.

But the main focus of this interview was to highlight the challenge of finding your creative voice, to figure out what you love most, and how to express it through your career. But it doesn’t stop with vision or direction, it takes a level of commitment, of diligence to mastering the craft in order to achieve your goals and reach an audience.

If you’re a creative of any discipline, but especially if you’re a storyteller, take a moment to watch Ira’s interview, then examine the path – professional or passionate – that you’re in the process of forging. Think about your deepest desires and consider how you can invent the one thing that is exactly right for you.

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