By Judy Carmack Bross
Isabel Bolt, author of The Secret to Happiness is Low Expectations quotes Seinfeld. “Sometimes life is like running a blender without the top.”
Author Isabel Bolt who recently visited Chicago.
Isabel Bolt’s storytelling style has been described as this generation’s Erma Bombeck. She suggests the right balance of living with a funny bone, wishbone and a backbone, might be the remedy to keeping the lid in place.
Karen Zupko, one of Chicago’s most effective and effervescent leaders, welcomed author Bolt to our City recently and we are still laughing—and learning from Bolt’s The Secret to Happiness is Low Expectations. Bolt, whose parents met at the Aragon Ballroom in the mid-1950’s, grew up in a “bungalow and a half” in Jefferson Park and attended Loyola University. Zupko, the owner of a leading medical practice management firm hired Bolt as a freelance writer in 2001 where she subsequently joined her consulting staff in the mid-2000s. They became close friends over the years. One birthday Karen gave Isabel a gold-plated wishbone. The card said “Remember, every woman needs a wishbone, a funny bone and a backbone.” In her book Bolt frequently evokes the image of that wishbone as representative of dreams, humor and courage to help get us through the chaos of life.
Isabel Bolt with Karen Zupko, her mentor of whom she has said: “Working with Karen is like strapping yourself to a rocket. She has been a powerful influence and advocate for so many women.”
We recently asked Bolt to tell us more about her book:
“After six decades, there’s enough mileage in my rearview mirror for me to come to come conclusions about expectations. Despite my desperation to control every outcome, I can now see the true pearls were mostly unexpected, sometimes entertaining, often hilarious, occasionally profound and all a part of a patchwork quilt not yet sewn together,” Bolt told us recently from her Dallas home.
The Secret to Happiness grew out of scrapbooks Bolt filled with words and stories she wrote on the back of matchbooks, envelopes and Post-Its. “It became an ad hoc journal of funny and interesting situations and dialogues—at home, at work, and with friends” she said.
She began writing “real life” Christmas letters, to counter all the “perfect” ones sent at the holidays. The steady stream of calamities culled from her scrapbook were shared with friends of friends who then asked to be on her mailing list.
“The letters stopped post-divorce and after selling our beloved Lake House–a virtual treasure trove of episodes with family and friends, but the scrapbook continued. My corporate sales job had me covering six states and before I could start my formal presentations, my clients often insisted that I start our meetings with my stories. Among colleagues and friends, there was always talk about me “someday” writing a book. In a meeting that was pure happenstance I met a woman who ran a publishing company specializing in first time authors. That was my sign. The stories in the scrapbook I had spent 40 years collecting are now living in this book, that incidentally was written in four months.”
Like with other authors who mix humor and compassion, reading Bolt is like sitting down with a good friend, laughing frequently during the visit. She often autographs her book with the message: “Humor is the sixth love language.”
“Erma Bombeck made everyday life entertaining, and her writing had wide appeal because it was genuine and relatable. If we pay attention, it is clear that so much of the laughter and magic comes in finding the extraordinary in both the ordinary and the unexpected.”
“I was born with high expectations. I expected to get where I was going. I was convinced I was in control. The journey was something to be endured. In writing the book, what I learned is what’s real is always worth it, regardless of what we were expecting. And keeping a sense of humor through it all is mandatory.”
A tiny wishbone notes the end of each chapter, a wish for each of her readers to ride along and maybe find themselves in some of her stories.
