Humphreys offers laughs, advice for a positive attitude

By Janet Jacobs

Motivational speaker, author and former TV and radio personality Suzie Humphreys had hundreds of Navarro County women laughing Thursday night at the second annual Healthy Woman annual dinner at the Cook Center.

In between telling the stories of her life and career, Humphreys offered advice about how to carry on, persevere and succeed at life.

Work for Humphreys began as a secretary when she lied to get a secretarial job in Hereford as a newlywed.

“He said, ‘Why do you want this job?’” Humphries said. “I said ‘food.’”

Throughout her career, she would leap into different career paths with intrepid confidence, simply telling people she could do something, whether it was typing, operating a dictation machine, running a beauty pageant, designing a neon sign, acting on television, or working on the radio.

Following her divorce, she moved to San Antonio, and then two years later to Dallas.

“I’ve never picked a job for what it paid,” she told the audience. If it was fun, she knew she’d be good at it and the money would come, she said.

While working as a bank secretary, she took a part-time job as a singer, which led to a touring show as a performer, then television commercials. When channel 8 was looking for a morning host, she applied and got that job, which allowed her to interview the famous and wealthy for five years.

Then, she said, she got fired, and discovered her philosophy about depression.

“If you’re depressed, give into it,” she said.

To a laughing audience, Humphreys advised wallowing in depressing to the extent of getting into a stained bathrobe, not washing your hair, going to bed, crying “from your toenails” and playing “what if,” she said.

“I guarantee this, two hours later you’ll say ‘God, I’m sick of this,’ and then you’ll get up and get some Mexican food,” she said.

Depression, Humphreys said, is anger turned inwards.

“We all get stuck it the past, hanging onto the hurt, it becomes almost a comfort to us,” she said.

That anger makes people sick, and the best doctors in the world don’t stand a chance, Humphreys said.

After six months of living with a generous, dear friend, Humphreys was hired to fill in for the traffic reporter with KVIL Radio. Her first morning was a disaster, but it was funny, she said.

“People who heard it swore it was the worst thing they ever heard on the radio,” she said.

For example, after 45 minutes of no traffic reports at all, she finally broke into a song to say she’d found a “wreck,” but then couldn’t tell listeners where it was located.

She worked for the radio for nearly 20 years before finally leaving, she said.

Humphreys credited her spunky, funny, independent mother with raising her without any doubts or fears in her upbringing.

In closing, she told the women in the audience that it’s not what others do to us that causes us pain, but our feelings about them.

“Regret and fear of yesterday are the things that rob us of today,” she said.

Her final words of advice for the audience were to eat more ice cream, and say “yes,” to others, to new opportunities and to themselves.

“Yes leads to everything,” she said.

Healthy Woman is a free informational program from Navarro Regional Hospital. In addition to the annual banquets, Healthy Woman offers monthly programs on topics of interest to women. Last year, programs were presented on menopause, cancer, and healthy eating. The next program will take place in January, said Vicki Arnett, 2009 chairwoman of the Healthy Woman Advisory Council.

In its first year, the group’s membership grew to 700 people, and most of the events hosted 50 to 100 women, Arnett said.

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