Open up or Shut Up!: How to Talk Your Way into or out of Anything!

By Barbara Deutsch

OPEN UP or SHUT UP! is an essential handbook for life's most important conversations. Using tips and tools developed over a lifetime of observing people Barbara Deutsch has created a light hearted walk through real life situations, conversations and interactions, tackling the very serious topic of communication with humor, compassion, and straight talk.

Whether you are at the top of your game, struggling to be discovered or somewhere in between, in OPEN UP or SHUT UP! Barbara Deutsch will help you stop listening to the distractions around you, undo the mess that you've gotten yourself into and remind you how amazing you are.

With this book, Barbara will help you get what you want and never sell yourself out. She will introduce you to yourself and show you that you don't have to carry the past around like a ball and chain. She will help you peel away the veils of everyone else's opinions so you can discover your own potential and be thrilled. She will help you be an influence rather than be influenced.

Along the way she will share her tried and true methods as well as some of her own personal war stories - some because they illustrate a point and some because they're just good stories.

After reading this book, you can throw away the self-help books (except this one!) and start planning your own life adventure. That's what this book is really about.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Jun 29, 2011
• ISBN: 9781463427610

Barbara Deutsch

Barbara Deutsch is the creator of the Barbara Deutsch Approach, a unique coaching concept for actors and anyone stuck at a career crossroads. She works with people in front of the camera and behind the scenes acting as a Personal Champion for everyone she works with. Barbara provides a life strategy for people who want straight talk and quick results, delivered with humor and compassion. The way she works has the feel of a jazz riff. She thinks like music - whatever note someone needs, she can sing. Barbara's clients include well known actors, directors, writers and talk show hosts. She leads workshops in the U.S. and abroad. For more information visit www.bdapproach.com.

Book preview

Contents

Introduction

Why Me? Why Coach?

What Does OPEN UP Mean?

What Does SHUT UP Mean?

The Tools and How My Clients Use Them

PILOT LIGHT

THE ALIEN

HOW YOU OCCUR

FINDING YOUR COMPETITIVE EDGE

CALLING…DO YOU HEAR IT?

INTERESTED VS. INTERESTING

POSITIVE PAIN

CONNECTING AUTHENTICALLY VS. NETWORKING

PARALLEL THOUGHT

CURRENT COMMUNICATION VS. CONFRONT

Personal Stories

MY PILOT LIGHT

THE CORPORATE DISASTER STORY

Simple Scenarios, The tools in action.

SECRETARY AND GOLIATH

BRIDE VS. MOM-ZILLA

THE UPS AND DOWNS OF LOVE

MEET THE MOOCHERSONS

EMOTIONAL CLEANUP ON AISLE 11

LAW AND DISORDER

READY FOR MY CLOSEUP…OR NOT

SON, YOU’RE OLD ENOUGH TO HEAR THIS NOW

TUNE IN TO YOUR TUNE UP

THE DYE JOB THAT WOULDN’T DIE

WHAT AM I, A FRIEND OR A TAXI SERVICE?

THE ACCOUNTANT WHO COUNTED TOO MUCH

FREQUENT FLIER FLIES OFF THE HANDLE

THE HARD SELL MEANS NO SELL

DIAL-A-DATE

THE CURFEW AND THE KID

ACTORS, AUDITIONS AND AGENTS, OH MY!

HEY, DOC! WHATEVER HAPPENED TO BEDSIDE MANNER?

SHARK ATTACK IN THE BOARDROOM

A LESSON FOR THE TEACHER

GOSSIP

One More Personal Story

THE FAMOUS ANDY GARCIA STORY

Quick Fixes From A to W

(No XYZ)

Now Go Live It…

Acknowledgements

For Sam and Natalie

The joy and light of my life.

Introduction

My name is Barbara Deutsch, and I’m a self-help junkie. I am mesmerized by leaders and coaches and teachers. I’ve re-birthed, sat in seminar rooms for hours without peeing, held tomato juice cans attached to an e-meter so my energy could make a needle shake, and helped build someone else’s transformational company just because I like talking to people. I’m exhausted from my enthusiasm.

I’ve found and cradled my inner child, discovered what planet men are really on, and stood on a mountain with Native American Indians at the Harmonic Convergence. Full disclosure: I left early because I didn’t want to put my mouth on the peace pipe. I’ve studied Sun Tzu’s The Art ofWar, found my calling after reading the book Callings, and traveled on multiple planes without even getting on a plane thanks to Shirley MacLaine. I’ve meditated with Lazarus and listened to Seth speak. I’ve thrown the I Ching, had a Guru blow on my head for $100 a session, and had countless conversations with God. I’ve put myself through seven steps of this and twelve steps of that, followed my bliss and drank quarts upon quarts of chicken soup.

And guess what? I still couldn’t ask my boss for a raise. I couldn’t complain when I waited too long at the doctor’s office. I couldn’t break up with my boyfriend, sell my treadmill on-line or raise my hourly fee for years without feeling guilt, stress and fear of overstepping.

I’m writing this as a handbook—a hand book to have handy when you need to have a certain conversation and don’t want to or when you are having too many conversations and no difference is being made.

What do you want to accomplish? That is the key question in any interaction. Don’t be afraid of what you want. Plan on having courage. It’s an act of courage when you say what you are afraid to say. When it comes to honest communication, people may not know what is appropriate and what’s inappropriate. You need to know if you’re crossing someone’s boundaries or if you’re constantly letting yours be crossed. Find out with this book if you just like to be right and will fight to the finish no matter what, or if you’re more the type to roll over without a fight.

Conversations are essential. We have them every day, all day long. One crappy conversation can ruin your whole day or longer. I want to show you how to be more thoughtful in your communication so your days are better. That’s the point, isn’t it? To have better days and produce good work and enjoy our relationships and raise families and be happy.

What if the way you speak to others and to yourself dictates the course of your life?

Imagine thinking before you react to someone. Imagine reacting and speaking up instead of being silent. You need to have a conversation with someone that makes you uncomfortable. What do you do? You wait. You put it off. Tomorrow is a good idea. Over the weekend is even better. Uh-oh, can’t do it Monday morning, it might ruin their day. By the time you decide to have the conversation, it becomes this huge confrontation. The uncomfortable feeling becomes terror and you speak in a language you’ve never heard come from your mouth. Or you become mute and give up. What if you had tools to help you speak in the moment so that your uncomfortable conversations don’t become ugly confrontations?

With this book, I’ve tried to create a light-hearted walk through real life situations, conversations and interactions, handling the very serious topic of communication with humor, compassion and straight talk. I have created scenarios with dialogues that show how magnificent peo- ple—the people you and I think the world of—can sometimes sell themselves out on. Based on a lifetime of observing people and all I have read, I can still get in trouble, burn bridges, and create havoc because of how I react. There’s always more to learn.

Along the way, I’ll share some of my tried and true tools as well as my own personal war stories, some because they illustrate a point and some because they’re just good stories.

My mission in writing this book is simply to help you achieve whatever it is you want, personally and professionally. There will be no high-fives! There will be no retreats where we get in groups in the woods and share. Nothing naked happens and there’s no weird food tasting. No PowerPoint presentations. No bullying. No singing Kumbaya, although with my Broadway background, I do burst into song on occasion. My clients humor me.

I want you to get what you want and never sell yourself out. I want to introduce you to yourself and show that you don’t have to carry the past around like a ball and chain. I want to peel away the veils of everyone else’s opinions and judgments so you can discover your own potential and be thrilled. I want you to be an influence rather than be influenced.

After a certain point, people forget what they believe in and what they intended to do. They become hindered by society and the way things should be done. Once your fear and anxiety are removed, you will intuitively remember your dream. Under coats of protective behavior and years of concern lies a simple path, but it takes courage to take the first step.

Think of me as your own Personal Champion; a trainer for new muscles and someone to help revive the ones that haven’t been used in a while. I’ll be your number #1 fan, but not in a Kathy Bates Misery kind of way.

I want you to remember how amazing you are and stop listening to the distractions around you. Let’s undo the mess that you got yourself into and fix it. You can stop reading self-help books (except this one) and start planning your own life adventure. That’s what this book is really about.

Within these pages are tools and examples of my clients’ path to success. My personal stories prove I’m silly, imperfect and very good at making lemonade out of lemons. Enjoy.

Why Me? Why Coach?

People always ask me when was it that I knew I was meant to be a coach. They expect a story where the sky lights up with skywriting that reads, Your calling is to help people in their careers, and then I say that I felt woozy and complete. This is not what happened.

Until I really jumped into this world that I’m in, I didn’t even know what a calling was and neither did anyone I had ever met. We never talked about calling. We just did it, on the phone, a lot. We did life as it came along. When I pose the question What’s your calling? to my clients they often look at me like I have two heads. This amuses me because I understand. We tend to only think about goal setting and making plans for the future, not what’s deep inside us that’s really driving our actions. Actually, I also had to learn to set goals and make plans. It didn’t come naturally because my family’s vision only went as far as the next weekend.

I did think that I was meant to perform a bit and make a little money but that’s only because that’s what I was doing at the time.

The skywriting happened like this:

I want you to be my partner in my business, he said from behind his Sharper Image glass-top desk. "Eventually." He was wearing mono- grammed socks: J.C. Who wears monogrammed socks? And he wants me to be his partner? What does that mean? Why me? I’m just an actress trying to get some work out of Hollywood. So I asked him, Why me? People meet you and love you and trust you, he said simply. They will do anything you say. I want that, and you, in my business. He looked so calm and, well, cheerful. Convincing. I shifted in the soft leather chair. Look, I said, I can’t even do a bank deposit.

I’ll do my own bank deposits, he said. I’m talking about a salary here, for you.

Oh, Iget it, I thought. Is this like a ‘get people coffee job’ because that’s not me anymore. He just laughed. His brilliant blue eyes twinkled as he rose, walked around and leaned on the edge of the desk. I don’t drink coffee, he said firmly. Listen, you nut. You and I can build this business. I know we can. I squinted up at him and said, "Is there something wrong with it now?"

No, he replied. As a matter of fact, it’s doing really well.

I made one last attempt to get some clarity. Are you on drugs? I asked.

*****

Flashback to two weeks before: I was sitting alone in my car outside of an audition, waiting for my girlfriend, Mimi, who was also auditioning. I had already gone in and bombed. It was hot. My blouse was sticking to my skin. My hair was plastered to my neck. This was the fourth commercial audition that week that I had blown. It was for fat-free cream cheese. All I had to do was bite a bagel and say, This cream cheese is delicious! and I couldn’t shake off my depression long enough to be happy about a bagel.

My girlfriend Mimi, who was in the room when I bombed, got in the car, handed me my drug of choice, a Diet Coke, and a slip of paper with a phone number on it. You’re out of your mind, she said. Call this guy and take his workshop. No way, I said. Not now. By this point, I had been everywhere and tried everything; therapy, classes, meditation, you name it. Nothing helped me get over my single-parent, recently-divorced, I’m-a-loser state of mind. All my therapist was interested in was what I ate. It was her favorite topic so I would make things up to entertain her like fruit sandwich.

Mimi grabbed my phone, called the number and put in an S.O.S. to her guy. He agreed to see me a half hour later. I couldn’t escape. We drove there together because Mimi didn’t trust me to go alone and I didn’t blame her. I didn’t trust me, either. We rode in silence the whole way there, which was unusual because there’s never been a silent moment between us. We arrived at the address, a condominium complex in Venice, and she said she’d wait in the car for me.

I rode up to the third floor in the all-glass elevator, catching a glimpse of myself in the reflection. The button on my army green jumper dress was hanging by a thread so I yanked it off, ripping a hole in the dress in the process, which meant I had to keep my pocketbook strap on my shoulder to cover the hole. My green blouse had long sleeves, which was good, but it didn’t match my blue socks. You could barely see them, though, because my jumper dress was ankle length and the clogs matched the dress, so I guess I was okay.

I got off the elevator and walked down the hall. I could see the beach from the bay window and I could literally smell the ocean. When I reached the door, it swung open before I could even knock and there he was: J.C.

He motioned for me to come in. Entering that condo was like walking into heaven or what I think heaven might be like. Everything was white, including him. He had whitish-blonde spiky hair, gigantic white Tony Robbins teeth, and a white button down shirt with his initials on the pocket. The shirt had two buttons open, not creepy open, just casual open. He wore no jewelry, just jeans and loafers with no socks. Every part of him that I could see was tan. He practically shined.

The living room had white shag carpet and the white couch looked comfortable but not cozy. I imagined myself spilling something even though I had nothing to spill. I held onto my pocketbook for dear life as he walked me over to his desk. Mimi thinks you are the greatest thing since cream cheese, he said, smiling. Oh God, not a cream cheese reference. I’ve had enough cream cheese for one day. In fact, I’ve heard wonderful things about you from quite a few people, he added.

He must be hearing impaired, I thought. Really? I managed to say in the voice of a 10-year-old. I don’t even know why I’m here, frankly. Is this a cult thing because I’m from New Jersey and we don’t do this stuff at all. It’s not on my radar.

He grinned slyly. It’s a good cult, he said, the kind that searches for the best parts of you and turns it into passion, money, love, stuff like that. And it happens fast. While he talked, I tried to pretend that my heart wasn’t beating a million miles a minute.

He finished his pitch and said, So Barbara, what do you think? Would you like to jump into this career workshop?

Who could think? I didn’t have the money to pay for it and