Called to Leadership

Some of us are called to leadership, some of us are called to be comedians...some are called to be both.

Barbara Sehr was called upon by her doctors to lose 20 pounds or face medical challenges.  Instead, she lost 130 pounds and began to face the TV cameras in Vancouver, BC for an "Out for Laughs" special in Canada.

Humor is in her basic being, whether she is writing about technology for Microsoft or serving as a volunteer leader or technical advisor for non-profit organizations.

Dignity and respect go along with the kind of humor she presents on comedy stages and in her personal causes.  She has traveled to Washington, DC to speak on behalf of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act before Congress. She has also spoken on her life story before national conferences in Chicago, Atlanta, and her home base in Seattle.

Barbara began her public speaking career after accumulating multiples victories in Toastmasters International public speaking contests. At the turn of the century she launched her first Toastmaster victory with a hysterical look at her battle with weight loss entitled "I'm a Loser." Five years later, she began to bring her personal message to comedy clubs throughout the Seattle metropolitan area.

Since then, she has been heard on National Lampoon's Comedy Countdown with Kent Emmons. She has been seen on comedy stages all over the Pacific Northwest, as well as in Chicago, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, Palm Springs, Hollywood, and Atlanta.  In the Spring of 2006 she travelled on a Chautauqua benefit tour of the Katrina-devastated Gulf Coast, including New Orleans and Bay St. Louis, Mississippi. In October 2009, she made her national TV debut on "Out for Laughs" broadcast throughout Canada.

She has shared the stage with headliners like Rick Overton,  Cathy Sorbo,  Amy Alpine, Duane Goad, Jen Kober, Auggie Smith, and Rick Overton.. She has studied with the likes of Judy Carter, Eddie Brill, Jeff Springer, and  Overton. Her comic rise has been told in newspapers and magazines, including a Time Magazine story.

Here are some samples of her original humor:

"If you’re like most people, however, you probably don’t want to know how I
LOST those 100 pounds... you want to know how I GAINED them in the first place!
Brothers and sisters I admit that I have been held hostage by a CARNIVOROUS
CONFECTION!
Yes, I’m being eaten alive by a MARSHMALLOW!"

Toastmasters District 2, Humorous Speech Competition 2000

"Armed with my 'joie-de-vivre,' a couple of Prozacs, and a Greyhound bus ticket, I set out to find my own personal Nirvana... The first thing I learned was Greyhound doesn't stop in Nirvana."

Toastmasters District 2, Humorous Speech Competition 2004

It’s tough being a woman in this world. As many of you know the President of Harvard University recently said women are just not biologically equipped for math.
In a poll afterward, 30 percent of women say Mr. Summers is all wrong.
The other 80 percent of us….
are happy that Mr. Summers lives in Massachusetts and can marry a man.

Ha Ha Sisterhood, 2005

"

The pomp and circumstances surrounding the state funeral of former President Ronald Reagan drowned out the death of two important American concepts this week. Investigators said they followed an unbearable stench to a White House closet where the bodies of Honor and Integrity were found in a state of rigor mortis. A medical examiner's report pinned the deaths on extensive bleeding in the Constitution caused by a severe stroke of White House signatures on a document authorizing torture by US military forces."

Obituary: Honor and Integrity, The American Street, June 12, 2004

"There are even people running around the White House with their hair on fire saying I should dump Cheney from the ticket for Giuliani. Hell, I could dump Laura easier than I could dump Dickie Boy. Ever since that time in Florida when I was reading “My Pet Goat,” Dickie made it clear to me that I should always be seen reading in front of children, and that he and his team would take of everything else."

Letter from Camp Kennebunkport, Liftingthefog.com July 18, 2004

Starr was convinced that the “leader of the free world,” was a dishonorable
man. If not, he was determined to “Make it So.” It was a strange, unhappy land this
Washington, DC. A lot of sound and fury that would never make the Federation’s
history books. This tempest of tantrums would expel any notion historians would ever have of traces of “intelligent life,” on this planet."

Starr-Drekk, the Wrath of Khan-gress, Political Humor from About.com Feb 9, 1998

"As Gore and Gates personally approached bin Laden in a non-descript cave made more compact by the CNN satellite truck parked inside, the keepers of the Internet unveiled to bin Laden how his natural public relations skills could generate billions in revenue and publicity for his cause. "All that firepower doesn't really impress anybody in America, Osama, except maybe Charlton Heston and a couple of guys on the San Diego Freeway," Gore reportedly told the terrorist leader. "If you really want to frighten Americans, let them think that you and your henchmen have cornered the money markets!"

Bin Laden.com Sweet Fancy Moses, October 26, 2001