I am a motivational speaker of the series The Words He Cannot Say who uses drawings as a visual aid. How this works is that I create the drawings ahead of time, and when I speak, I point to the drawings with a laser pointer when I refer to them when I talk. People who have watched me perform say that I pause when I talk. I have classified as clean, which is PG to PG – 13 content with no swearing.
Although I currently perform with comedians, and my stories are humorous, I consider myself more of an activist than a comedian. I write stories to support a cause, not because I am a fan of any specific actor or book, so my stories are more of an act of life becoming art, rather that art imitating life. For example, if someone told me I was patient, I would list traits that make someone patient, and times that I was patient. Or I will write an answer to a question that I am curious about, like “What made you choose this profession?” I also write to analyze how a situation could have handled differently.
Some topics I have covered include:
- Fitting In
- Bullying
- Careers/Hobbies
- Character
- Autism (because I have autism)
My graphic memoir The Words He Cannot Say is losing the autism theme because I am learning that my challenges are more common amongst neurotypicals (people who do not have autism) than I thought they were before I shared The Words He Cannot Say.
Facts and statistics that motivate me to write and draw include:
- More than half of high schoolers are unprepared for college
- A third of Americans are lonely
- Half of Americans are shy
- 85 % of people with autism are unemployed
- People with autism can feel the need to mask (suppress their traits related to autism)
I have been writing stories since 2013, performing at open mics since 2018, and have been drawing since early 2019 but made a drastic change in artistic style in December 2019 after taking an art class at the Des Moines Art Center and reading Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. When I was in high school, I sung in rock bands and sung Stronger by Kanye West to my friends. In college, I sung Love Shack by the B-52’s to my friends and at a talent show. I believe these singing experiences transferred over to motivational speaking.
I live by myself with only a calico cat named Carly, who I wrote about in my picture book Uncle Leo’s Cat Carly. I also exercise by rock climbing and lifting weights.
This is my cat Carly.
The Words He Cannot Say 