Hotness by the numbers

I remember in high school, I complained to a friend that if gelled up my hair, wore different clothes, and acted differently, that I wouldn't be myself, and I wanted a girl who liked me for me. He told me bluntly that if I wanted someone to like me for me, don't expect her to be hot. Time has proven him right.

But the pool was too small. Remember this was just high school. There were about 100 people in my grade, and I could barely consider dating a girl outside my grade, let alone another school. So I had a pool of about 100 people, do the math, we've got about 50 girls, of which let's say the top half I longed for, and the other half I more or less ignored. That makes for about two dozen hot girls. And of course I had no idea what I was doing.

But take a few years out, you've experienced college, maybe some work, maybe you've discovered your strengths in meeting people, be it on the internet, going to nightclubs, or just saying hello to people on the street. You've also got about five years age difference either direction, so that translates to ten years, even more if you're the adventurous type. And you've got a car or know how to use public transportation. Let's say you put a limit of about a half hour drive on how far you'll go to meet someone, and maybe 45 minutes to an hour if the girl really has something special to offer. So now you've got a huge pool to go after.

The next step is to change your standards. I didn't say lower them, I said change them. There's a reason most high school students fit into neat categories like “nerd,” “jock” “mean girl” and “goth loner.” Sure, you may say to yourself, you're more than (fill in stereotype here), but the fact is, you're not. You're in high school. You have the same petty concerns as every other teenager. You have no life experience. All you know is safely insulated behind the walled garden that is high school. I saw beyond high school, I knew it was all bullshit, and I was labeled, not to my disapproval, “The Enigma.” I'm sure every other high school had an enigma, too. So, you don't have much character to judge girls by. Only their looks. You're young, you're horny, girls seem like they're from another planet with a different way of talking, thinking, and oh God do you want them. Because that's all you see is what's right in front of you.

But now you're older. You're independent. Once you establish a certain threshold of attractiveness, you have the luxury of not being so shallow. You can judge a girl not by how she looks, but how she looks at you. Whether she makes you feel loved, appreciated, and special, or if she's just another bitch that gives you a hard time. I have some news for you: if every girlfriend you have is a hot girl, but she treats you like shit, maybe it's about time you changed you stopped looking at girls who look good on your arm and start focusing girls that warm your heart. They're out there. Even for a shithead like you. You might have to actually learn to accommodate, to compromise, to have a little ambition instead of playing X-Box all day. But you don't have to gel your hair.

I always tell girls, “I'm good, but I'm not nice.” It pretty much sums up what I have to offer. I've come to the conclusion there are no nice guys. There are the guys who are nice because they want something from the girl, and there are the guys who stand in the corner, jealously watching, and never understanding how girls keep going out with guys who treat them like shit. Well, maybe they make the girl feel good by having a little fun flirting with her; maybe she likes bad boys, because that sense of danger turns her on a little bit. Or maybe that guy had the balls to go up to the girl and say “hey nice shoes, they'd look great pointed toward my ceiling,” and you just stood there wishing, so you tell yourself you're a nice guy, but what you really are is too shit scared to make a move.

So stop being so shallow. Stop being so “nice.” Stop making excuses. If you like rock climbing, find a girl who likes climbing rocks. If you like playing World of Warcraft, yeah, there are nerdettes are out there, but no one's going to bust down your door and offer themselves to you. At least start with an online profile. But.. you know, you gotta leave the house sooner or later.

Whether you realize it right away or not, you do have tools at your disposal, but you have to learn how to use them, and how best to play to your strengths. And I haven't even started on the way you act, stand, talk, make eye contact. Strap yourself in, you're gonna fail, and you're gonna fail hard, but keep at it until you get it right. But you can't even do that until you take the first step. Which is to get some hair gel.  

If it Quacks Like A Pyramid Scheme.....

Entry level marketing. Sounds innocuous enough. It's bullshit. They prey on the fact that you don't have the experience to know any better. They go by different names: “MLM,” “Management Training,” (…) . Some of them provide a legitimate product, like kitchen or home tools; some of them just panhandle. They're always hiring because that's how they work. You can pretty much sniff them out just by their language. They tease you with promises of “unlimited potential,” or maybe when you reach a certain level you'll get a free car or a vacation to some island paradise. You can expect at least one of those motivational posters with a picture of a mountain cliff, or maybe hands clasped together showing the importance of teamwork. They make it sound easy. They'll definitely want you to go on a “Day of O” or “Day of Observation.” This is basically a day of unpaid training where most people wash out because they realize what it is. Some people have a knack for bullshit, and they become successful. I haven't met anyone who has yet, but they must be out there. It's a proven business model: let someone else do the work.

One thing to keep in mind about the recruiters is: they are great salesmen. It's what they do. But, unlike, say, a car salesman, what they are selling is the job itself. And the are good. They wouldn't have the job if they weren't. Whether they're chopping vegetables, talking about how much money they save families on their mortgage, or making it sound like you're just collecting money for some organization that gets cute kittens out of trees, they make it sound fun, worthwhile, maybe even easy. They make you think “I want to do that! I really could use that knife, or at least my mom could,” or “I definitely want to keep kittens out of trees, I want to be part of this!” Well, they're just preying on you naïveté. (And the fact that you have nothing else on your resümé.)

One thing I've noticed about sales: It's just words. It takes invisible skills like tone of voice and reading body language. A cold reader magician will make it look like something that only he can do because he's psychic (he's not), and a good salesman can make it look so easy even you can do it (you can't, at least not without a lot of hard work.) That's the trick of it: they're just using the same words, body language, and tone that people do in every day life. You see a professional athlete, you can just look at their body, how monstrous their muscles are, or how tall they are, and say “wow, I can't do that.” You see a magician, he's got his wand, his suit, and yeah, you might have seen that special on TV on how they do it, but I'm not talking about kids' parties. When you see Criss Angel walk on water on a swimming pool, with people swimming under him, and cameras and people from a dozen angles, you know you can't do it. But sales people? Well they walk and talk just like you and me.

There are basically two types of these scams. The first is your basic, run of the mill, either go door-to-door in a rich neighborhood, or stand in a crowded area, like Times Square, holding a clipboard, and shake people down. It's all about the hustle in those situations. You're not actually selling anything of value, you're just a panhandler with a boss and a clipboard. You're one step below a squeegee guy, and you just don't know it.

The second is the inverted pyramid, best summed up with the “V” in “Vector Marketing.” I also like calling it “The Spore Method.” Basically it involves whoring out your close relatives, your friends, or their parents, and whoever they can suggest you market to as the last part of the sales pitch. Sometimes you set up house parties, like Tupperware, or the Pampered Chef, or some of those ladies-only sex toy parties. You can expect to get about two or three levels deep before you get past sympathy money and you have to do actual sales work. Some people can do it, most people can't. But the people at the top? They've already got their money. Hell, for me, I had to pony up over $100 for a set of sample knives my first day at Cutco. Supposedly, the money was completely refundable, should you decide to mail the knives back upstate, but here's what happened: At the end of my orientation – remember I hadn't done one minute of actual work, this guy who was introduced as the regional manager who had worked for the company for two weeks, (I never figured out if that was a joke), the guy was one year younger than me and dressed like Kurt Cobain, when I was wearing a suit and tie. As I was walking out the door, he was supposed to give me some shoe leather and rope, basically stuff to cut. He wouldn't give me the stuff unless I threw out the shipping box. I made the logical argument that the box was a perfect way to keep from losing any of the knives, and to boot, the garbage was halfway across the parking lot, while my car was completely across the parking lot. Logic didn't seem to penetrate for this guy, so, long story short, a shouting match ensued, and I was fired later that same day. In the few hours before I got the phone call that I was officially fired, I found out it was a lot tougher to call your family to set up an appointment than they make it sound. I did get the last laugh, though. I bought hundreds of dollars worth of knives at a steep discount, and I didn't have a box to return them in. They've worked great for me ever since.

Object Permanence

When my niece and nephew were babies, they would, as babies often do, throw things on the floor. The older members of my family would leave the plastics forks or whatever on the floor. Not only that, if we were at a restaurant, and a waiter came by to helpfully pick up a wayward fork, their parents would ask that the waiter leave the object on the floor. The reason they did this was so that the children could learn the concept of “object permanence,” the idea that if you leave something somewhere, it will stay there. This is a concept that, as adults, we learn and take for granted.

Or do we?

Other than my own babyhood learnings, my first lesson in object permanence came in college. My first year. After some squabbles with my roommate, I ended up with a room all to myself. I came back from a weekend at home to find....my room was messy.

This a bigger adjustment than you might think. When I was growing up, my mother made sure we always neatened up the house before we left on any long trip. Not only that, we had a housekeeper who came by twice a week to clean the house. So, when I came back from anything, I got used to the idea that my room would be clean and my bed would be made. Well, it didn't take more than one trip for that concept of object permanence to sink in, and I got in the habit of cleaning my dorm room before I left for home.

When you live on your own, object permanence can take a depressing turn. When you leave something somewhere, it stays there. Now that fact is well-established, but there is something depressing about how you can keep meaning to put that vacuum cleaner back in the closet, but not get to it, for no reason, other than laziness; leave a magazine on the floor of the bathroom, and there it stays. And the bathroom itself? Yeah, that's only going to get dirtier and dirtier until you clean it. But, the good news, is, once you clean it, it looks so much nicer. It doesn't clean itself, but at least you can know that the fifteen minutes you spent cleaning it was well worth it. Right now, my garage is full of things I tried to sell at a garage sale, but didn't. Now, I can either sell them on eBay or...who knows? The same could be said for some sweatshirts, I never wear.

You need to get in the habit of thinking about turnover. Merlin Mann, in his productivity speeches, talks about the concept of “inbox zero,” and having fewer distractions, fewer things you “need to get around to doing” filling up your head. I think the same thing could be said for real life. Get in the habit of cleaning up after yourself. Spend a few minutes every day or so just neatening up. Balance your checkbook. Think of your physical and mental space like a computer. A modern computer with the Internet, a trash, and a large, but not infinite hard drive capacity. It's easy to let those emails, podcasts, and web pages slowly creep up space in your hard drive. You've got enough space, you don't need to deal with it, right? Well, in the computer world, the more stuff you have on your hard drive, the slower your computer runs, and you really notice it once you fill about 90% of your hard drive. Now, there's no such exact figure in life, but let's just say that you have things you need to do, and you'll have more things that you have to do every day. So do them. Then cross them off your list. That's the quivalent of clearing your chache or your trash. And every once in a while, do a deep clean. For your computer, and your life, set aside some time to just do everything to catch up. You may have to put off some personal time, maybe some TV time, or whatever, but when it's all done, you'll be glad you did.

In terms of turnover, I think it helps to have a regular schedule. In the same way that I have a sticker on my car telling me to change my oil every 3,000 miles, I got in the habit of paying all my bills on the first of every month. I don't think about interest rates, late fees, whatever. I get a bill, I put it in the pile. The first of the month comes around, and I sit down, move my money around, and pay those bills. Maybe I'll pay them on a time-delay if I don't have the money yet, but I expect to. I check a few days later to make sure I have as much as I think I have. It's easy to think you've done something you actually forgot, or pushed the wrong button by accident and not realized it. But that's just a safeguard. The real key is the habit.

It isn't a bad idea to have “maintenance reminder” for your own life. Make sure on the first of every month, or the first weekend, or whenever is good for you as long as you do it, clean out the junk. Make a list: laundry, vacuum, clean bathroom, pay bills, etc. Your mind will work better when you stop telling yourself “I gotta get around to doing that” and you actually do it.

Any Job Worth Doing is Going to Kick Your Ass

You already know that you have to work hard to get ahead. That's a given. What I'm talking about is being successful at your craft. And your craft can be a non-traditional route like a pro athlete or some kind of artist, owning your own restaurant, or just plain working in an office. To be good at it, to get ahead, to get a real paycheck, you gotta do way more than phone it in. I don't mean just “work hard;” I mean work so hard it looks scary. I mean work that will kick your ass. Sure, you can work at Home Depot, or CVS, but if you want to be the guy in charge, well, you gotta do more than just show up on time. You gotta get used to some long hours, tired nights where you collapse as soon as you get home, and then start all over again the next day. Days where you're gonna miss something fun with your friends, or something important with your family. Maybe your girlfriend or wife will have some emotional breakdown, and you know what you're going to do about it? You're going to stay at work and do your job.

This is the difference between merely getting by and getting ahead. If you're a musician, you can play in that local cover band every Tuesday night and who knows, maybe you'll even make enough to support yourself without a day job. But if you want to be the next big thing, you gotta practice your ass off by yourself and with your bandmates, and that's only half of it. You gotta network, you gotta gig your ass off, and you'll drive so long to places you'll lose money, you're gonna have your bass player completely flake on you when you're about to play a gig opening for a major label act with a talent scout in the crowd. It's gonna happen, and you're gonna take it. You just are.

Maybe sales is your thing. Millions of people do it, it's a typical enough job. But who makes it and who doesn't? The guy who shows up for work is gonna wonder how the hell the guy at the next desk makes three times what he makes. Well here's his secret: he kicks ass. He does the follow-up and the follow-through. He takes rejection after rejection after rejection and he just takes it. He learns who's going to waste his time and who is going to make him money, and you can't teach that. You can get a few tips, but sizing up a lead in a second? Well, all it takes is 10,000 hours to learn. Better get started.

If you want to be great, like Tiger Woods, Michael Jordan, Hulk Hogan, Lady Gaga great, well you gotta put it all out there. Family time? Yeah, look at how good Tiger Woods is with women. This is a guy who has to make his own bed in hotel rooms, because it's gotta be perfect. It's gotta be his way. Hulk Hogan was the greatest pro wrestling phenomenon of the 80's, and he had to abandon his family to do it. UFC fighters of today, they train 40 hours a week when they don't even have a fight. When they sign up to do a fight, they gotta go crazy, go away from their family, maybe go to a higher altitude to train, make weight, which can mean losing 20 pounds in a week or two. And when you're training 50 hours a week, how much more weight do you think you can lose? Oh yeah, after they do all that...then they get punched in the face.

So if you interview for a job, and what they tell you you have to do just sounds so scary you don't think you can do it, chances are you really can. You just don't to, because it sounds like work. Not just hard work, but scary hard work. Work that is going to kick your ass, and you know what? It isn't going to end. Because then you learn how to do that stuff that was originally so hard, and it becomes a breeze, and then you gotta move up. And that's gonna kick your ass, too.

When you achieve greatness, you understand greatness. Alice Cooper was the scariest heavy metal act of his day, with a huge stage show that climaxed with him getting his head chopped off with a magician's guillotine. Now he's a great golfer, almost at the pro level, and he's done some decent acting too. Justin Timberlake because one of the greatest singers and dancers in the world. Now he's an actor, and a legitimate one. And he plays golf, too. Rob Zombie went from being a rock star to a top name in horror films. He's no golfer, as far as I know, but he has written comic books.

Speaking of comic books, Kevin Smith went from visionary filmmaker, to spoken word artist, to buying a small theater, to eventually becoming a category all his own in iTunes podcasts. Any of that sound easy? And don't get me started on Henry Rollins. That man has done more in his life than ten regular Joes. And he's not even fucking slowing down.

So, just to wrap up, sometimes you gotta just pay the bills. Sometimes you don't have much in the way of options. But to be a success story, whether you're working at an office, driving a garbage truck, or trying to become a famous artist or athlete, just remember it's called a short cut because you're cutting something short. You gotta be ready to get your ass kicked. And to succeed, you gotta kick ass right back.

Accept yourself, improve yourself

It's no surprise that people become depressed, sometimes even kill themselves when they, say, get dumped, lose a job, or lose a lot of money. You build up an identity, and it's wrapped up in responsibility, in money, in material things, in the people you interact with and the things you do. All these overlapping, tightly woven strings, and when one is cut, it's easy to think everything will come loose. But keep yourself together, because it won't. Your family will love you, you'll learn to make due with less money, and so on. You are your experience. Dust yourself off, take what you've learned, and move on. People go to jail for decades, and they find redemption somehow. The people who have learned to define themselves by their future and their present, not their past, these are the heroes. Even religious people call it being “born again.” The top movie, according to IMDB, is “The Shawshank Redemption.”

It's easy to think the past mistakes have held you back. But the truth is, what holds you back is making the same mistakes over and over again. Anyone can do it, because chances are no one gives you the feedback you need. Maybe you'll have to seek out a professional, be it a therapist or a job coach, maybe even a marriage counselor, if that's what you need. Maybe you can just do it on your own, but I wouldn't count on it. Anything you have can be taken away: your house can catch on fire; someone you love can leave you. Hell, you can be arrested and lose the most valuable commodity you have: Time. But if there's one thing that time does, it is go on. Life won't wait. Whenever you have a setback, no matter how large, take a moment (metaphorically, that is - that moment could go on for months), then, accept yourself, improve yourself.

It sounds heartless, I know, but the sad part is, the universe doesn't know your name. There's no big conspiracy against you, any more than “thinking” success will bring it about. It's just life. Everyone goes through it, and no one makes it out alive. Every experience is a learning experience. If it's a mistake on your part, look at it extra hard not just to learn the obvious lessons, but the deep lessons that caused the real mistake. If it's just something that happens to you, well, that's why they call it luck. But you can still take something positive away from it if you choose. No one can take away your passions, your loves, your observations, the private things that make you chuckle at yourself. No one can take away the moon. Just look up, and there it is. It reflects as brightly on you as every one else in the world, whether they look up at it and appreciate it or not. The sun is even worse. It shines just as brightly on desolate desert sand as it does lush jungles, and just as brightly on farmers as it does air-conditioned buildings. But you, on the other hand, can choose who you shine on; you can even choose who you want to reflect back on you. So choose wisely.

You are what you do. You are not what you have done. Your past made you, but it cannot define you. You may have to face what you've done, but you're better off if you can look to the future. The future is right in front of you. You better start moving, the past is creeping up on you...right...now.