A recent Gallup poll found Americans
are more stressed than they have been in over a decade.
I'd like to think the new "Chicken Soup" book
I've co-authored might help.
I was the anchor on the Today Show,
and then I wasn't the anchor on the Today Show.
And personally I went (air whooshing).
After I lost what I though was my dream job
critics told me my career was over.
And so to be back on a show like Inside Edition,
writing wonderful books like "Chicken Soup for the Soul,"
I've learned a little bit about
puttin' yourself back together
and moving forward with your life.
We'll talk about this.
Talk about, this actually, is is the 5th "Chicken Soup?"
First one I've got the help on.
The first one that you've been a part of.
Yeah. (audience clapping)
And of course, we all know the concept of "Chicken Soup."
They're all positive thinking books,
but you curate, you curate a lot of these stories, right?
So this book is 101 stories, but we started with,
there must've been over a thousand that were submitted.
Wow. They initially get called
down to about 600, and Amy Newmark, my co-author and I,
and she's really the goddess of "Chicken Soup."
We go through those 600 stories and come up with 101
that we think will fit the different categories
that we've got,
and some of 'em were just not appropriate
for "Chicken Soup," some of 'em are,
"Hey, but you know what?
Let's save that for a book on this particular topic."
On whatever, right? Yeah,
and so everyone of these stories are different,
everyone of these stories will lift you up
in some certain way.
Well give us a couple of examples.
So like I just talked about "the Soup"
and being doused in it, there's one in here.
It's called "Dinner Party Disasters," and the mom,
it's a busy mom like all the rest of us,
she's running her errands,
their friends coming over for dinner,
hubby is no where to be found to help,
she's a little bit stressed, okay, she's really stressed,
and on the way home the kids remind her
we need crickets for the lizard.
So they go to the pet place.
They get the box of crickets.
You know what's gonna happen.
The crickets escaped right before the dinner's to be served.
She almost went down that path
that any of us would understand,
and then she's, "You know what?"
"I'm gonna choose to laugh about this."
And she started laughing and she's,
"Guys, we got three minutes to find all the crickets."
And she made it a game,
and she took what was a dinner disaster
and turned it into a positive, and she heard a few,
"Chirp, chirp, chirp," during the dinner,
and she just laughed about it.
That's all you can do.
You just gotta sometimes change your frame of mind.
There's another one where the lady had lost her job,
and she's in the grocery store
the day she got her pink slip.
She's got six kids. Oh my God.
Can you imagine?
And she's thinking this is the last time I can buy groceries
the way I'm buying groceries today.
And she's in the meat department
and there was stuck behind a thing of hamburger whatever,
a yellow envelope.
She's, "Well, that's weird."
And she pulls it out and she opens the envelope
and in the envelope is note that says,
"You're okay, today's gonna be great,"
"you're gonna get through this, I believe in you."
Anonymous, but it was the note she needed to receive
and she just,
I get chills just telling the story.
That's amazing.
She went to the stationary department
in the grocery store, and she said,
"I gotta write a note to somebody else."
And then she posted it on social media.
And it started this movement of sharing notes
with a stranger.
And I thought, "Wow, what a really beautiful thing."
What a thing.
Honestly, the research shows when you extend yourself
on behalf of someone else
you're pretty sure they're getting a benefit, right?
Don't we all love to get gifts.
But it makes you feel better.
Much more whole as a person.
If you just write a letter to somebody.
For sure.
(audience clapping)
You kind of did that for them, didn't you?
I did.
She kind of might of done something like this
for every single person in the room.
Explain, Deborah.
Yeah, so that's me, scribbling away,
and I'm writing a different little note
into every one of the "Chicken Soup" books,
"Think Positive, Live Happy."
And if you look under your chair...
You all have her note to you.
(audience clapping) There's a book for you.
Now also if you look inside those books
if you have a gold star inside
you're gonna get another gift, $100 gift certificate
to Benjamin Steakhouse
right here in the city.
Everybody got a gold star!
(audience cheering)