Everybody Has a Story. Everybody Has Worth.
Episode 24 of Wellness Me Up — Wellness Me Up Diary Entry
with Speaker, Author & Growth Coach David Chamotzky
Written and hosted by Amanda Reece, founder of Wellness Me Up.
Speaker. Author. Growth coach. Suicide survivor. Mullet enthusiast. David Chamotzky has been through it and came out the other side with 30 years of corporate wisdom, a Lucille bat, and the firm belief that everybody has a story and everybody has worth. This one goes everywhere.
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Who Is David Chamotzky?
David Chamotzky is a speaker, author, media host, growth coach, mentor, and philanthropist based in New York who has spent 30 years in corporate America — including time at Pfizer and one of the top 50 law firms in the world. He is also a suicide survivor, a TEDx speaker, a ghostwriter who helps people get their stories out of their heads and into books, and a man who owns multiple bats including a Lucille with barbed wire.
His podcast is called Peace, Love, and Bring a Bat. He has pictures of himself kissing a bat. He also apparently has pictures kissing a frog statue which I am completely here for.
He is weird and wild and he knows exactly who he is. And that is the whole point.
When the Window's Open, Work Can Happen
This was the first thing David said that made my brain light up.
He described it simply. In a closed window no air comes through. When the window's open — even just a crack — that's when opportunity exists. That's when change becomes possible. And he doesn't need someone to fling the window open. A crack is enough. That's all he's asking for.
That image of a little breeze coming through is exactly what meeting someone where they're at actually looks like. Not pushing. Not forcing. Just noticing the opening and working with what's there.
The Problem You Think It Is Is Never Really the Problem
This is something David comes back to over and over in his work and it landed hard for me.
Whether he's working with executives navigating team conflict or individuals in the depths of a mental health crisis — what someone tells him the problem is rarely what the problem actually is. The presenting issue is almost never the real issue.
He used suicide as the most powerful example of this. He said people who reach that point often don't want their lives to end. They want the pain to end. Those are very different things. And the work is figuring out what someone is actually communicating — what's underneath the thing they're saying — and following that thread.
He listens. He sees patterns. He asks the right questions. And sometimes he asks the wrong ones too — walks into a landmine, steps in the dog poo — and that's okay. Because nobody knows exactly where the conversation is going to go. That's not a flaw. That's just honesty.
Everybody Has a Story. And Everybody Has Worth.
This is what David teaches when he helps people speak on stage and what drives his ghostwriting work. And I want every person reading this to actually hear it.
Everybody has a story. Even the people who say they have nothing to say — especially those people. The work is finding the right questions to help them see what's already there.
He shared the story of a 75 year old woman he was ghostwriting with. She started telling him about her great-grandmother, then her grandmother, then her mother coming over from Greece, and then how she was trying to help her granddaughter through something difficult. And David stopped her and said — do you see what I just saw?
She was healing generationally. Her great-grandmother to her granddaughter. One unbroken thread of love and survival across generations. And she had no idea. She thought it was just her life story.
That's what happens when someone finally helps you see your own story from the outside. You realize it was never just your life. It was always bigger than that.
He Survived a Suicide Attempt. And Then He Became All of This.
I want to make sure this doesn't get buried in the middle of a blog post because it matters.
David is a suicide survivor. Everything in his introduction — the books, the TEDx talk, the podcast, the coaching, the philanthropy — all of it happened after his attempt. He was told during the experience that it wasn't his time and that he needed to go back and talk to people about it.
And that's exactly what he's been doing ever since.
He also supports the Joseph P. Faber Memorial which works to keep the legacies of those lost to suicide alive. Because one of the most painful things about suicide loss is that families often don't talk about it. The legacy gets buried. And David believes every legacy deserves to live.
He wants his great-great-great-great grandchildren to read his stories someday and think — man, that guy was weird and wild. But he lived fully.
That's the goal. Live fully. Tell your story. Leave something behind.
98% Blocked and Still Standing
Okay I have to talk about this because it's so David.
Three months before we recorded this episode David found out he had two arteries that were 98% blocked. His heart was fine. But those arteries were not.
The doctors told him to change his diet. He looked at them and said done. And then he actually did it. Lost 18 pounds in under three months. Cholesterol levels back where they needed to be. Blood pressure crazy good. Working out. Getting cut.
He said he owned his level of stupid about the Big Macs and the ice cream. Took full accountability. Made the mental shift. And then did the work.
That's it. That's the whole formula. Awareness. Accountability. Action.
He also told me that people used to say to him you're all heart David. And he is. Most of it is very strong now. Two arteries are still catching up. But he's working on it.
The Havening Technique — Touching Yourself in a Special Way
David warned me this could go a lot of different ways. He wasn't wrong.
Havening is a psychosensory touch modality — a therapeutic technique that uses gentle touch on the face, arms, and hands to help process trauma and shift emotional states. David learned it through therapy and was completely skeptical at first. His therapist told him to rub his hands and he thought... what the hell are you doing.
And then it started working.
He now uses it with clients and watches for the moment a voice shifts — when a word lands differently, when something clicks, when the body and the nervous system start to respond. That's when he knows they've got it.
His therapist told him after 30 years of practice he could count on one hand the number of people like David — people who not only did the work in session but kept doing it at home. David's response? Yeah. It's called living.
The WTF Wheel Question: What's Something You Used to Judge People For That You Totally Get Now?
David was refreshingly honest about this one.
He used to judge because he thought he knew all the answers. He had opinions about everything — what people wore, how they lived, what choices they made. And underneath all of it was fear and defensiveness dressed up as certainty.
He told the story of meeting Mike Faber — one of his now closest friends — and judging him immediately on appearance. Looked like a hillbilly. David avoided him for almost a year. And then finally started talking to him and realized this was one of the best humans he'd ever met.
He also shared that after his suicide attempt a woman called him white trash and a mental case. And his response to that was not to crumble. It was to hold his vision. TEDx speaker. Author. Top 1% podcast. Whatever you wanna call me — those aren't labels I accept for myself.
That's the work. Knowing who you are so clearly that other people's judgments simply don't stick.
What Wellness Me Up Means to David
Freedom.
The freedom to make choices. To know the consequences. To handle whatever life throws at you because you've done the mental work. To close your eyes at night knowing you showed up fully — and to open them in the morning because you actually want to.
He said mental wellness is the most important piece for him. Not because everything is perfect. But because when you've overcome what he's overcome and you've done the work — you know what you're capable of. And nobody is chasing him down to teach him about mindset. He's been there. He's lived it. He knows.
Wellness is hitting your sweet spot. Doing the best you can do for the greater good. Living your most authentic life. And not hurting anybody while you do it.
Peace, love, and bring a bat.
Want to work with David?
David Chamotzky is a speaker, author, growth coach, ghostwriter, and philanthropist with 30 years of corporate experience and a whole lot of lived wisdom. He offers a free one hour consultation online — just show up and meet him. You'll know within the first five minutes if you're in the right place.
👉 davidchamotzky.com
📱 Find him on social media — search David Chamotzky. There's only one. He made sure of that.
🎧 Peace, Love, and Bring a Bat — his podcast, on all platforms
If this one made you want to pick up a bat and hit your sweet spot... you're in the right place. And subscribe to Wellness Me Up wherever you listen.
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