This blog post is part of a series called, "Celebrity Substance." I will be using celebrity careers from a variety of professions as examples, discussing what can be learned from their successes and failures.
Comedian, actor, writer, producer and Tina Fey’s partner in crime, Amy Poehler, is a leading boss lady of comedy. Raised in Burlington, Massachusetts, she is the daughter of two schoolteachers, whose love of learning took her to Boston College where she joined a comedy troupe.
After college she moved to Chicago, where she joined the legendary Second City and ImprovOlympics comedy theaters. She went on to Saturday Night Live, and it made her star.
Poehler makes a concerted effort to give advice to people, especially young women. She penned her memoir, “Yes Please,” in 2014 not for herself, as she makes clear in the book, but to empower young people, especially young people who feel like they do not fit in.
She also founded Amy Poehler’s Smart Girls, with producer Meredith Walker. It is an organization, “dedicated to providing a healthy alternative to so much that is being marketed to young people on the internet” they write on the website. It is a source of videos, comedy and advice, especially from Poehler.
For all of her success, she gives much of her time and energy to making young people feel like what they’re experiencing is normal, and that they are not alone.
Here is some of her best advice:
Don’t Wait Until You’re Ready
On her Smart Girls YouTube Channel, Poehler takes questions kids submit. One of the questions submitted to Poehler was how to gather the courage to take risks and “just go for it.”
This is a portion of Poehler’s response, “Great people do things before they’re ready. They do things before they know they can do it. Doing what you’re afraid of, getting out of your comfort zone. Taking risks like that- that is what life is. You might be really good. You might find out something about yourself that’s really special and if you’re not good, who cares? You tried something. Now you know something about yourself.”
Be Open
Young people are very certain of what they think they know, and often speak in bold terms. Poehler addressed this as she spoke to Harvard graduates in 2011.
In the speech she said, “Try to keep your mind open to possibilities and your mouth closed on matters that you don’t know about. Limit your ‘always’ and your ‘nevers.’”
Don’t Be Indifferent
In an interview with The Huffington Post, Poehler was asked what she feels the most harmful stereotypes young girls face these days. Poehler acknowledged that the same stereotypes she faced growing up are still present, but was more concerned with a new trend.“Girls have to fight against a lot of the same stuff we did growing up…peer pressure, exploitation, etc. But what worries me the most is this trend that caring about something isn’t cool. That it’s better to comment on something than to commit to it. That it’s so much cooler to be unmotivated and indifferent,” she said.
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