When I was 19 years-old, I spent an evening as the stripper for a bachelorette party in the crew room at a McDonald’s restaurant in Milford, MA.
I know. It’s ridiculous. The saddest part of this sad story is that I was excited about the opportunity until the moment arrived to actually remove my clothes.
It’s a story that I never thought I would tell anyone in the world save my wife, Elysha. It was, at the time, the most humiliating thing I had ever done.
This is really saying something. There is almost nothing that I have said or done that I’m unwilling to tell. A friend once said that I “live out loud,” and I thought that was an apt description. I happily share my failures and flaws with friends, family, and audiences all the time.
Almost nothing is off limits.
But for some reason, this story of my brief foray into stripping was.
Then Elysha persuaded me to tell the story on a Speak Up stage. I refused at first, but eventually, she somehow convinced me that it was a good idea.
I was certain that she was wrong.
Turns out she was right.
A moment that had been humiliating to me for years immediately lost all of its power over me after telling the story to the 150 people in the audience that night. It was remarkable. As I told the story, and as the audience roared with laughter, I realized how silly I had been to be afraid to tell this story.
I went on to tell the same story at a Moth GrandSLAM championship in New York City, and I’ve since told it many times in many different venues around the country.
Thousands of people have now heard my story. I’m describing it in great detail in my next book. It’s become one of my more popular and most requested stories.
It’s good reminder that people love to hear the stories of our failures – small or spectacular – and in telling them, people appreciate us more. Feel more connected to us. Maybe even love us.
Think of it this way:
Would you rather hear the story of how I became a bestselling author or West Hartford’s Teacher of the Year or the inventor of the tuna fish and peanut butter sandwich, or would you prefer to hear the story about the time I robbed a children’s shoe store in the saddest, most ridiculous robbery of all time?
Save your success stories for your parents and your spouse. Maybe not even your spouse.
I told the story of my stripping at my virtual solo show back in April, In honor of the moment, I dug out the thong I wore on the night of my performance. Not wanting to see me completely naked, the woman in charge of the bachelorette party – a fellow McDonald’s manager – provided me with the thong that night, which I kept, of course.
That thong and I had been through too much together to leave it behind.
After I finished telling the story to my online audience, I showed them my thong. I despise the use of props in storytelling, but being trapped in a virtual environment, I was trying to find ways to make the show a little more interesting.
I also showed it to the audience after the story was complete.
As much as Elysha loves the story and is responsible for my crafting and telling of it, the sight of the thong was a lot less inspiring to her.
She didn’t seem to like it at all.
I can’t imagine why.
