By the time I was 8, I had my life completely figured out.
I was going to be a motivational speaker
and author, and I was going to live in Maine
and be a lobster woman.
The problem was, I lived in North Minneapolis in the inner city,
in this completely crazy, dysfunctional family;
I had never even seen the ocean.
And there were a lot of bad stuff that happened in my house.
And unlike you, I was never a cool kid.
Maybe you can relate.
I was that weird geeky kid that quite never fit in.
But we had something that my neighbors didn’t have,
and my guess is maybe you don’t have in your home;
we had motivational tapes.
(Laughter)
Cassette tapes.
(Laughter)
My dad was a motivational junkie.
Literally everywhere you looked in our home
were motivational quotes, little signs hanging,
there were tapes playing, there were books everywhere.
And my sister and I, while we didn’t say we liked it,
one of our favorite parts of the day is when my dad would tuck us in at night.
He would turn on the cassette tape
and we would listen to Zig Ziglar as we fell asleep.
I can still remember him saying,
“I’ll see you at the top”.
Now, it’s been a lot of years, lot of years since I first heard Zig,
and I’ve heard a lot of motivational speakers since then,
and a lot of amazing TED Talks.
But when I think back to those talks,
I don’t remember, and you probably won’t either as you leave here today,
the content.
You won’t remember the simple steps or the formula for change, or, you know,
how to jump start your life.
What you will remember when you leave here is the stories.
Because stories connect us to the heart.
They connect us to who we are, to our dreams, to our passions,
they inspire us to be or do different.
And that was what happened for me as a little kid.
I heard Zig and I can remember very clearly waking up one morning
after I’d listened to this tape at night,
the message that I got out of the story was:
“You better get busy and start living your life now”.
So, at 8, I did the only thing on my list that I though I could do.
I set out to become an author.
And maybe many of you have dreamed of someday writing a book.
So, I got busy and for about two and a half weeks I wrote a bunch of books.
And that’s about the longest attention span at 8 in about two and a half weeks.
But I had 43… books. (Laughter)
They had a cover I cut of my mum’s scrapbooks,
they had a bio in the back, you know,
“Michelle Neujahr lives in North Minneapolis,
has a dog, Sunny, and a cat, Purity.”
And then I did the most important thing that an author would do,
I practiced my autograph, until it was perfect.
And then I took my little wagon and I set off to the street corner
in the hood of North Minneapolis, and set up a book table: Books 5 cents.
Nobody bought.
And as I walked home with my little wagon,
I began to see a vision of someday having a book signing with real money
and being able to sign my autograph.
I got into high school and I forgot all about those dreams,
I forgot about that little girl who had this passion and desire
to do things differently,
to live a different life than what I had grown up in.
But there were other tapes that were playing in my head.
And those tapes were things that said, “You’re no good.
You’re a loser. You’ll never amount to anything.”
And those tapes were powerful.
They were more powerful than the other stories that I had heard
and I began to believe those stories.
So much so that when I got to high school,
by the time I was 15, I was asked to leave high school.
Not a good thing to come home to.
My parents weren’t happy and I wasn’t proud.
I was sent to St. Cloud’s first alternative school.
The school otherwise known as the school for the burnouts
and the pregnant girls.
And I can remember getting ready that first day of school thinking,
“I gotta suit up and show up”, I’m embarrassed but
I put on my black leather jacket, my Metallica T-shirt,
lots of eyeliner and I made my hair about this big because it was the 80s.
(Laughter)
And I showed up at school and I sat outside
with my friends smoking butts and we were laughing
and joking and judging the other kids.
But while we might be burnouts, at least we weren’t the pregnant girls.
The next year I returned to school… pregnant,
and I was not laughing.
It meant that I had to go downstairs
to be with the pregnant girls and the teen moms,
instead of upstairs with my friends.
And while I wouldn’t admit it at the time,
there was something so powerful that happened in that basement.
These girls had stories.
Stories of overcoming huge odd, stories of being 14, 15, 16 years old
and waking up one day and say,
“You know? My life is a mess but I’m gonna do something different.”
Their stories encouraged me that maybe, just maybe, I could
go after those dreams that I once had.
They’re never too far gone.
Later that year, the alternative school came to me and said, “We chose you”,
and I’m like, “For what?”.
They’re like, “We are gonna give you a scholarship to attend
a local community college in the fall”.
I was like, “Me? Do you not see I’m a burnout, I’m a 16-year-old,
pregnant, young woman? I don’t know that college is in my future”.
But I said yes.
And sometimes all it takes it’s just to say yes.
And so, I said yes and then I kind of freaked out
but I quickly forgot about going to college because
I was having a baby.
And for those of you who’ve not had that experience,
especially the ladies in the audience,
it hurts.
(Laughter)
They tried to warn me that it would hurt, but I was 16 or 17
by that time and it hurt and I was not a very nice young person
to the poor nurses.
I screamed and yelled and swore and told them “I don’t wanna do this anymore”.
The problem with labor is, the only way out is through.
You don’t get to decide halfway through not to do this.
And I have found that that’s true in life as well.
The only way out of a situation that I don’t want to be in,
or the way to the dreams that I do want,
the only way out is through.
There are no shortcuts.
And that night, in all of my 17-year-old toughness,
I sat in my room and held this little bundle of joy,
and something started to happen within me again.
That fire that had started in my belly as an 8-year-old little girl,
and that had been recandled as I went to the alternative school,
began to really get on fire.
And I looked down at Brandon and I said,
“Brandon, I have no idea how I’m going to do this,
I’m probably going to suck at being a mom,
but I promise you that no matter what it takes that I will do life differently,
that I won’t be a loser”.
And in that moment I knew that I was going to start now,
and do whatever it took.
And I could hear Zig saying, “Take action, start now”.
And so that fall Brandon and I went off to community college.
I got up that morning and did what I always do, I suited up.
Different black leather jacket, same Metallica T-shirt,
big hair and lots of make-up.
And then I was driving to college thinking, “I bet I’m not going to fit in”.
And maybe you’ve had that experience,
and as I was driving, my heart was pounding
and I began to have those negative tapes start playing again.
“Who do you think you are? You’re nothing but a loser”.
“You’re not going to fit in”.
“You’re not going to make it through college”.
“You’re a single mother”.
I weighed 250 pounds at that moment and I had huge hair and lots of make-up.
And I lived in low-income housing on 437 dollars a month welfare check.
When I got to school I opened the door and I peeked through the door
and I saw all the beautiful cool kids,
and I knew I didn’t fit in.
And I wanted to run but the professor came in and so I quickly sat down
and opened up my grandma notebook, open it up and set it on the desk
and I almost screamed out loud.
When I looked down in the metal spiral of my notebook there were two dead bugs.
The exterminator at my apartment was losing the battle.
I was horrified. Now not only did I have big hair, I had big bugs.
I threw the thing, my notebook in the bag
and I ran out the door and
I got in my car and I cried and I’m not a crier.
And I went home and I put my pajamas on and I crawled up in a ball
and I said, “I will never do this again, I will not go to college”.
And I believed as I laid there that night that I was a loser.
But somewhere in that night as I wrestled with my dreams
I began to think about, “Did I want to be a motivational speaker?”
“Did I want to be an author?”
“Did I want to live in Maine and be a lobster woman?”
Was it it, didn’t even matter.
And somewhere in that night I heard that voice, of Zig.
And I heard the voice of those young women, saying,
“Get up. Take action. Start now”.
And so that next morning I got up and I went back,
and I not only graduated from the community college,
I went on to get a 4-year degree.
And as I thought about what I wanted to say to you today,
I thought a lot about what it felt like to be your age.
And my guess is your story is different that mine.
But one thing that I do know
is that we all have hurt and we all have dissappointment.
We all have times where we don’t feel like we fit in.
And we all have big dreams.
Things we’re passionate about, things that make us stick,
things that make our heart beat,
things that make us want to jump out of bed in the morning.
And so, my encouragement to you is that you would start now.
A wise, wise, counselor once said to me when I was probably 15,
she sat me down and she said,
“Michelle, you would be justified in being angry about the life you’ve had,
you weren’t dealt a great hand,
you weren’t encouraged, you weren’t supported.
You could be angry and bitter.
You could blame your teachers, your friends, your parents.
Or you could choose to take responsibility
for your life and your dreams”.
She looked at me and she said, “You have a choice”.
At 15, at 16, at 17, I had a choice.
And I am so glad that I continue to choose over, and over again,
to start and restart.
You are never too young, don’t let anyone tell you it’s too young,
or don’t let anyone encourage you to wait.
Because now is the time,
to figure out and go after, like your life depended on it,
your own dreams.
So as the words of Zig rang through my head and preparing for this,
I’m excited to see each and everyone of you at the top.
Thank you.
(Applause)
”
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