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I needed to get some business cards made up and I had a little extra room left on my business card beside “comedian” so I added “motivational speaker". I’m a motivational speaker now! Not the kind of motivational speaker like my Aunt Ethel who is motivating all right - so irritating, that after five minutes, you’re motivated to take a stick to the eye just to get out of the conversation. I’m a professional motivational speaker. I’m not exactly sure what I motivate people to do, but, hey, it doesn’t matter - most of them don’t have a clue either!

Anybody can do it, you can be a motivational speaker too! I’m trying to talk my cousin Charlie into being one ‘cause he can’t hear out of his left ear and has been caught on fire twice, and everybody knows the worse off you are, the more successful a motivational speaker you’ll be. He says if he can lose another toe at his landscaping job it would look better on is resumé. My cousin, Pearl, was just crowned Queen of Crowder's Creek and it's common knowledge that winning a pageant will take you straight to the top of the motivational speaker game.

Did you ever know anyone who wanted to be a motivational speaker as a kid? When was the last time a kid showed for Halloween as a motivational speaker? - you don't take motivational classes in college where you get in a circle and practice cheering each other up. More often than not, it's the job you turn to when you fail at everything else. That makes it perfect career for me. It’s all those failures that make for good touching stories. Or, if you’re like me, you just have some room left on that business card.

Right away, I had to start spending time with motivational speakers - to learn how to talk shop - speak their lingo - use words like “realize your potential”- “pole vault emotional baggage” - learning how to walk over hot coals and to quote great leaders and artic explorers. But let me tell you, hanging around them isn’t easy. They’re so annoyingly positive all the time. Try to complain and they start cheering at you and giving you an acronym that will improve your life and can be repeated in the shower. I can only take that for so long before I have to curl up with a box of chocolates. Nothing like a little self destructive, high calorie snacks to lift your spirits.

Motivational speaking is like mass psycological therapy. I could never be a therapist - sitting there, listening to some poor woman whining about her husband dumping her for the waitress over at the Waffle Palace, her cat kealing over from a hairball, and how her mother never cared about her love for classical Elvis tunes, and I can’t be supportive. I’m like, “What a drag it is to be you. I don't know why you keep going!”

That’s the hard thing. You've got to speak to groups full of people with "real life experiences" and tritely tell them how everything is going to be super! Actually, I got a call from this lady who said she was with the Society for Limbless Deaf Mutes with Crones Disease. Said she wanted me to come in and make them forget about their woes. And I’ve got to come in and give them a heart-wrenching story about the time we had to fire our gardener and didn’t have a clear view of the pool for a week until we got a new gardener.

And if you’re having a tough day - forget it - the show must go on. Believe me, no one will give you a lick of sympathy when you sob about your beer swilling, couch potatoe boyfriend blowing the rent money on pokemon cards?

And you wouldn't believe the competition. I recently lost a job to a blind dwarf with aspergers who sings all of the winners of the World Series for the last 100 years. It’s just not fair.

Yeah, I give up. I don’t think I want to be a motivational speaker anymore. It’s too miserable. I’m taking it off my card. I think I’ll be a beauty consultant instead. I heard anyone can do it.

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