Comedy saved my life. And I don’t mean that in a metaphorical sense. I mean that in I was going to kill myself less than 24 hours before I tried my first open mic. This was 2012. I was in my hometown of Norfolk, Virginia and life wasn’t right. Most of my friends were away in college while I had just dropped out of ITT Tech. I was most of my friends, my other friends were either in and out of jail, in and out of court, alcoholics or drug addicts. I myself had just picked up a drunken public and a marijuana charge for which I was on probation at the time. I was working a dead-end job at our city’s dying mall. And I was also going through a really bad breakup with a woman who had stole a considerable amount of money from me. And so life seemed really bleak and I was looking for a way out. So while my roommate was gone and out of town one night, I fished through his drawers and I found his gun. And I sat on my couch all night until the sun came up, contemplating and weighing my options. And as the sun came up, it literally dawned on me. I should probably try this open mic down the street before I kill myself. I had spent the better part of that year writing jokes, writing thoughts in a notebook about the things that made me happy and the things that made me sad and the things that made me angry with the full intent to one day turn these into jokes. So I called my friend up that morning and I said, no matter what you do, tonight you have to come pick me up and take me down the street to this open mic. And I went and I read straight out of my notebook and surprised people laughed. So I said, okay, I can come back next week, make these jokes better and bring some new ones. And that’s how I lived for a very long time, week to week, just to go back to the open mic and to try more jokes. We fast forward to today and I am living in New York City. I have been on NPR’s This American Life. I have been on the New York Comedy Festival. I have traveled the country telling jokes. Comedy completely changed my life and it gave me an opportunity to see the possibilities that I could be. And I didn’t realize the lessons, the life lessons that comedy was teaching me until I had the opportunity to teach teen girls stand up comedy through gold comedy school for girls. This radically changed my life and I learned some really cool lessons that I am able to pass on to the girls that I want to tell you guys about today. First lesson, comedy just like life will involve a lot of failure. I tell my girls that your joke has to get a 75% success rate for it to be a successful joke. And the only way you know that is if you try your joke at least ten times. And guess what? That joke might not work out any of those times. But does that mean that your ideas and your thoughts are garbage? No, that just means you might need to go back to the drawing board, rewrite that joke and try it ten more times. I think back to when I first started doing comedy, I was going to an amateur comedy competition. And the first two times, I didn’t even place. The third time though, I got first place. And every single time thereafter, until they had to tell me to stop competing. But I think about how I wanted to quit after that second time. Obviously this isn’t for me. I was stupid. Lesson number two, we don’t just embrace our flaws, we’re going to flaunt our flaws. We have a saying at gold comedy. What makes you different is what makes you funny. There is no look to a comedian. There is no style for a comedian. So I tell my girls, whatever you think is weird about you, probably is your funniest material. This girl here, she has a bit about her big Jewish nose. And her joke is that her nose is big because there is a rabbi that lives inside. And the rabbi who lives inside helps her sniff out bad dates. down on that thing. The other lesson that I learned is that give yourself the freedom to be silly. I think this is really important, especially for our young girls. Because body image issues, self image issues start in young girls as early as five. It’s kind of devastating. So be silly. I want everyone to picture your middle school or high school class clown. And almost everyone is probably thinking of a little boy. Why is that? Were there no funny girls in your high school? Probably not. But even as things continue to change and our society continues to move forward, we still teach little girls to sit down, be quieter, focus on studies, focus on school. While our boys are allowed to be crash, brash, loud, and opinionated. And that’s seen as a strength. I want my girls to have those same things. Sensing humor is in the top three things that are attractive to both men and women. But it means two separate things. Men, well women want someone who is funny and makes them laugh. Men are looking for a woman who laughs at their jokes. I want to give my girls the opportunity to be silly. Go outside yourself. Take that risk. Make a funny face. Sing that silly song you just made up. Make a funny noise. Make a funny noise. See how good that feels? I gave my girls the opportunity. What we do at Gold Comedy School is not only do we teach girls, but we give them opportunities. And we pay them money for performing. It’s not much because we don’t get paid much. We give them the opportunity. This picture here is the Cinderblock Comedy Festival. I co-produced this festival as a festival for women, POC, gender non-conforming folks, and disabled in comics over 65. And everybody got to pay 77 cents on the dollar for their submission. I got picked up by Brett Barks, too. Which made the festival even more successful. So I want to end this on giving everybody permission to be as silly as possible and to foster that in the girls and the women around you. Comedy is better when there are more diverse voices. Removing away from the straight white male as the default. And thank you. I think this is great for up-and-coming comedians, and this is also great for audiences. We need to see other people like us talking about things that only impact us to a room of people who may not understand. So with that said, I want everybody, as we leave here, to take up space on a mic and take up space in your life. Thank you.