Hey, motivational speakers think about going viral just like the rest of us.  And since I don’t have a cat that has done anything endearingly adorable, or kids that I can force to do something stupid in their car seats, I decided to go with the printed word.  Read it. Enjoy it. Send it on to your friends. (Or friend, if you are in serious need of self-help.)

Included as a bonus below is an encore look at my self-help themed text messaging abbreviations that I hope you will soon employ on your smartphones and Twitter.  TTFN!

Want to stay hip to the current nomenclature but don’t want to lose your self-improvement edge? Well, what if cyberspace had to step aside for your kick ass acronyms?  Now it does, thanks to these new, empow-WOW-ering definitions for popular shortened phrases already in use!

Reclaim your power! Text some motivational messages to the people in your life who need them most! (Okay, so maybe the people in your life who need them most are whiny, depressing twerps on whom you are tired of expending any helpful energy, but still.)

 TOP TEN SELF-HELP TEXTING ACRONYMS

1. LOL – Laughing Out Loud – Loving Other Losers. This lets someone know that when you are feeling down, you are reaching out to other pitiful douches just like yourself.
2. LMAO – Laughing My Ass Off – Living More Authentically Ow. To tell everyone that you are on your own personal journey of truthfulness, but that it hurts.
3. OMG – Oh My God – Oprah Made God. A gentle reminder that without Oprah, self-help would have been relegated to the scrap heap of history after the Carter administration, and therefore she might well be a higher deity than the man (or woman) upstairs.
4. FTW – For the Win – Freaking Totally Wizard. A way to say that things are awesome, plus it makes you sound a little British, which is always good if you are trying to hook up.
5. IRL – In Real Life – It’s Really Liberating. Use this to communicate that you are stepping outside your comfort zone and growing as a person. Works even better if you are naked while typing it.
6. JK – Just Kidding – Joyful Knowing. I have no idea what this means but it sounded just perfectly New Age douchey so I included it.
7. WTF – What the F*ck – Watching Television Fund-Drive. Lets everyone know you are not to be disturbed because Wayne Dyer is on, helping PBS raise money by offering up his books and CDs at eight times what you could get them for on Amazon.
8. SMH – Shaking My Head – Stop Manipulating Him (also: Stop Manipulating Her). To be used when you get a message about how someone you know is giving someone else you know a hard time and so you send a message back to the first someone telling him or her to stop being a passive aggressive suckbag.
9. IDK – I Don’t Know – I’m Delusional Kiddo. Pretty self-explanatory.
10. WDYMBT – What Do You Mean By That? – Why Did You Marry Bob Talbot? – Sorry, that’s just one I always send my ex.

There’s always more Paul Maul lunacy to be found. Try some here.

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Here is a life-changing motto that you can use to inspire and empow-WOW-er you on the job, giving you just the perspective you need to face the work day anew and deal with the toxic nutbags you call your co-workers!  Go HERE to Vote Funny! And thank you!

There’s always more Paul Maul lunacy to be found. Try some here. Or on Funny or Die!

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As a fake self-help professional, I am always concerned with making sure every citizen comes to a sense of his or her own empow-WOW-erment. And it is no secret that the Democrats, frequently criticized for not playing hardball when Republicans lash out at them, have been lacking in the empow-WOW-erment department. Of course, self-worth cannot be achieved overnight. It must arrive over time and in stages. With that in mind, I have a good first step for Democrats to take. Those interested in getting Barack Obama re-elected need to step up and sink to the level of their detractors. And a good way to begin doing that is to start saying Mitt Romney is not an American citizen.

After all, what do we really know about this man Mitt Romney except for the raft of so-called “facts” accessible on the so-called “Internet” and the so-called “public record?” Have you ever noticed that there is nothing out there about the fact that Mitt Romney was probably actually born out of wedlock, the illegitimate son of a defrocked nun who fled a convent in Paraguay after her torrid affair with a local sheep’s bladder canteen salesman scandalized the community? This is pretty much what I heard might be the case, and I believe it because I really want you disempowered Democrats to have a good foundation on which to claim that Mitt Romney was not born here.

And, so, anyway, what happened was Romney’s dad, who, by the way was born in Mexico (red flag or what, people?) and was this big automobile manufacturing tycoon in Michigan, was visiting Paraguay to try to set up an assembly plant there and he bought a sheep’s bladder canteen from a local vendor who told him the horrible, sordid story of how he could not afford to support the little baby he had with a disgraced nun and if George Romney would just take the baby off his hands he would throw the kid in no charge with the sheep’s bladder canteen.

Well, George brought that poor little baby—born as he was in mortal sin and the filth of illicit relations and do we really want a man like that holding the highest office in the land, I ask you—home to Michigan and raised him as his own.

And this is the story no one is telling. But you, Democrats who need to step up the fight, could tell it! Play hardball. Get on the Romney birther bandwagon! Demand to see his birth certificate! Put it in people’s minds that Mitt is a foreigner who has no right to be our Commander in Chief!  It shouldn’t take more than a few little dropped hints on Meet the Press, or getting Nancy Pelosi to post something about it on Twitter or something. After that, the rest of us ordinary citizens will run with untruths and hammer them home until they seem real.  This technique has worked for your competition for years now, and you would be foolish not to claim it for your own.

Oh, and one more thing. All the so-called “legitimate” sources list Mitt Romney as a “Mormon.” Well, it turns out this is a long-standing typographical error, and that Mitt Romney is actually a “woman.”  Get on it, liberal media.

There’s always more Paul Maul lunacy to be found. Try some here. Or on Funny or Die!

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The world of Paul Maul just got a little bigger, a little more challenging and a lot more awkward.  Watch as our terminally upbeat motivational speaker works to find the right thing to say about the tenth circle of relationship hell. And in so doing, he gives YOU an empow-WOW-ering motto that you can use in your own life!

Go HERE TO VOTE FUNNY and see if you don’t get big rewards back from the universe. And if you don’t, then you will see that you didn’t. But you will still have advanced the cause of voting for people on various Internet sites, which, let’s face it, never gets old.

Catch more Paul Maul videos on Funny or Die!

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All the number crunching and financial stress associated with filing your taxes can be offset with just the right meditative haikus. Think of it as the IRS providing you with a nice, calming Form 575!

MR. PAUL MAUL’S TAX DEADLINE HAIKUS

1.

Saving my receipts

Each one an old memory

That was quite a meal

2.

My accountant sees

How I manage money, yet

Does not call me douche

3.

Consider the birds

Not only free of taxes

Free to crap on cars

4.

Dependent children

A blessing as deductions

Curse all rest of year

5.

Will write off coffee

As legitimate expense

Can’t work without it

There’s always more Paul Maul lunacy to be found. Try some here.

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We made it past April Fools’ Day! And for the folks in many cities, that also means opening day of the baseball season! Here’s a Paul Maul home run to commemorate the occasion!

“In the spring, a young man’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love.”  So said Alfred Lord Tennyson, the Poet Laureate of Britain during the reign of Queen Victoria and thus someone who probably would have been beaten up in the bleachers at Fenway Park for being a man who knows how to arrange words into a rhythm pleasing to the ear.

Yes, springtime also means baseball and as the great Red Sox player Ted Williams himself said, “Baseball is the only field of endeavor where a man can succeed three times out of ten and be considered a good performer.”

Put the two together and you get the fact that men (and women, let’s face it) get horny after the first day of spring, and that most of the time they fail miserably at creating real and lasting relationships after the first frantic coupling of the season.  Granted, this is probably because they were so excited to be able to get into it without having to peel off two layers of thermal underwear, a sweatshirt, a wool sweater and a Michelin-man parka that they perhaps acted in haste and didn’t think about what the next twenty-five years with someone so freaking desperate for sex could mean. (The unusually warm east coast winter notwithstanding.)

In that spirit, then, your personal self-helpster Mr. Paul Maul offers tips for relationship growth culled from the other diamond ring—the baseball field.

TEN BASEBALL TERMS THAT WILL SAVE YOUR RELATIONSHIP

1. ERA (Earned Romance Average) –Just because you’ve been together so long that neither of you care about farting in front of each other doesn’t mean you can stop taking the kind of chances that bring in a run in your relationship.  Go for an unannounced hug, make an impulsive left turn into a miniature golf course or incorporate a melon into your foreplay.  Earn that romance!
2. Checked Swing – Give each other some breathing room.  Allow for the pitches that one of you does not want to swing at right now.  Maybe that idea to go to couples counseling is not something you feel you can hit out of the park at this point.  Maybe the upkeep on a pet ferret is something you should discuss first.
3. The Mendoza Line – Yes, relationships are built upon ongoing patience and tolerance, but at some point we have to come to an agreement that with the kind of crap you’re pulling, you do not belong in the major leagues.  In baseball, it’s when your batting average dips below .200.  In a relationship, let’s just say if it’s been 18 months since you did the dishes, or you’ve, for the sake of argument, slept with a best friend, you’re outta here.
4. Full Count – You have let three of your mate’s vitriolic insults to your character go past you without sinking to his or her level, yet you have also taken the bait on two of them and swung back with your own mental tearing down of his or her entire being.  What happens next could determine your future.  Let it go, or lash out with a zinger?  You decide.   Just don’t tip back too many fouls during the process or you might just lose from sheer boredom.
5. Dugout – The place where all baggage not designated in play at the time of a conflict is left behind.  This assures that during the healthy working out of all problems in a relationship, no further pain will be inflicted by trace memories of the times when Mom and Dad told you were worthless or the times when Mom and Dad told you that you’d never amount to anything or the times when Mom and Dad told you no one would ever love you.  Yes, Mom and Dad were right, but that has nothing to do with the situation at hand.
6. Ground Rule Double – Okay, so it wasn’t a home run and maybe it only looked good for a while before it bounced out of play, but we’ll give it to you.  Saying you’re sorry, agreeing to spend Thanksgiving with one set of parents and Christmas with another, trying a veggie burger, these are all examples of relationship ground rule doubles.
7. The Infield Fly Rule – In which one half of the couple agrees to the other’s (the umpire’s) judgment on whether or not you are called out during a force play.  What this means in practical terms is that you suck it up and admit that you lost the argument, even though the fact that you believe you didn’t will probably come up on your deathbed.
8. Baltimore Chop – Intentionally hitting it sharply downward.  You both know that this means, and it is one of the reasons you have stayed together as long as you have.  Rrowrr.
9. Designated Hitter – Viagra.
10. Charging the Mound – No comment.

So what are you waiting for?  Use the Great American Pastime to improve your love life.  Someone has to throw out the first pitch.

****************

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PAUL MAUL HAS CHANGED THESE LIVES, AND HE CAN IRREPARABLY ALTER YOURS, TOO!

.

Here is a special treat! For those of you who may never have seen this amazing video filled with enthusiastic testimonials from friends of the guy who plays Paul Maul people who have just witnessed the incomparable power of Mr. Paul Maul live on stage! If you don’t feel like changing your life after you see this, then you may need to get a life to change! Don’t forget Mr. Maul’s empow-WOW-ering advice to “Shove it Upwards!”

Catch more Paul Maul videos on Funny or Die!

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

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In any case, here’s the latest video in Mr. Maul’s Funny or Die oeuvre. And this time, he’s got a motto that’s really going to help you as you drive to and from work, or drive to and from anywhere for that matter!

Go here to VOTE FUNNY. And in the meantime, take advantage of this pure, unadulterated empow-WOW-erment in liquid form. Wait, did I say liquid? I meant video.

There’s always more Paul Maul lunacy to be found. Try some here.

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At any rate, once you’re up and about, you need motivating wisdomy mottos more than ever! And here is one you can keep with you for your entire life, knowing it will always be there to inspire you to at least be mediocre.

GO HERE TO VOTE FUNNY and in the meantime, alter your outlook with this outlook-altering outlook!

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VOTE FUNNY HERE and watch good things happen to me. I meant you. Although I can’t guarantee that, so I figured why not just tell the truth?

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