Do you know the difference between tracing a picture and drawing it? Every kid in elementary school does.

And, if you’re ever “caught” tracing a picture in front of one of those kids, they’ll be sure to let you know the difference in no uncertain terms.

To their young minds—and their surprisingly black and white, unforgiving way of thinking—tracing is “cheating” because it’s not really drawing the picture yourself. You’re just “copying” it. To really “draw” a picture is to illustrate something 100% from memory or imagination.

Pretty tough standard, huh? I don’t know many artists who can do that. Certainly not Leonardo da Vinci or Michelangelo. Even van Gogh and Picasso used models. (Okay, Jackson Pollock.)

The tyranny of originality is a curse. And a farce. No one—and I mean no one—is original. Should we despair? No, we should rejoice! So much great art, philosophy, science, etc., has been created by individuals we grew up thinking were completely original (because that’s what our K - 12 teachers taught us), but who were actually borrowing from a very long line of many previous artists, philosophers, scientists, and experts from every other imaginable field of study. None of this takes away from the greatness of all those masters and geniuses who dared to take a relatively obscure art form, philosophy, etc., and get so good at it that they catapulted it into the mainstream for public admiration. They certainly can take a lot of credit for that. But, original? No. Nothing is original. Hurray and hallelujah!

That means we don’t have to be original to succeed, either! In fact, we couldn’t if we tried. The problem for me, for over 30 years, was I was trying to do just that: come up with something 100% original to write about in a 100% original way. But, thank goodness I finally realized it’s not only fine to be unoriginal, that’s exactly how every great artist, thinker, etc., began their life’s work. But, unoriginal doesn’t have to mean uninspired. Everything old is new again if the messenger brings the same gifts wrapped in vivid, compelling, and, thus, always fresh new packages.

How many times has the story of Romeo and Juliet been told? At least this many:

1. Romeo and Juliet (1936)

2. Romeo and Juliet (1954)

3. West Side Story (1961)

4. Romeo and Juliet (1965)

5. Romeo and Juliet (1966) (Royal Ballet—though there are many others)

6. Romeo & Juliet (1968)

7. Romeo and Juliet (1976)

8. Romeo and Juliet (1983)

9. Delius: A Village Romeo and Juliet (1992)

10. Romeo & Juliet (1993)

11. Romeo + Juliet (1996)

12. Shakespeare in Love (1998)

13. Romeo and Juliet (2002)

14. Romeo and Juliet: Sealed With a Kiss (2006)

15. Romeo Et Juliette (2006)

And, I’ll bet they’ll keep making plenty more versions of it till the end of human history. But, did you know that Shakespeare himself was retelling this much beloved story that actually dates back to ancient times? Shakespeare based his famous plot on a poem by Italian poet Matteo Bandello, which the English poet Arthur Brooke translated into English and called The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet.

So much for originality! So great for us who don’t have to be original to succeed!

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Trying to succeed with people, work, and money in life is not easy. At times, it can be downright brutal!

Mercilessly unrelenting! It all depends on how hard you drive yourself.
How diligently you follow all the self-help out there. Or, if you’re just reading all this to fool yourself into thinking you’re doing something to improve your life, but actually you’re not. Because reading is not doing.

Only doing is doing. Are you doing?

I always ask myself this question. It’s a tough one. It feels like I’m doing.

But, am I doing enough? I think I am. It feels like I’m doing all the right things. Then, I’m browsing through my library of old self help books and I come across this from Donald Trump’s How to Get Rich:

Ask Yourself Two Questions

1. Is there anyone else who can do this better than I can?

That’s just another way of saying: Know yourself, and know your competition. If your competition is better than you are, you need to offer some quality they lack.

2. What am I pretending not to see?

We can all get swept up in the euphoria of a creative moment, or what former president Richard Nixon’s speechwriters used to call “the lift of a dream.” Before the dream lifts you into the clouds, make sure you’ve looked hard at the facts on the ground.

MY ANSWER TO QUESTION NO. 1

I came to a screeching halt when I read that. Of course there are plenty of people who can do this better than I can! “Know myself and know my competition?” I know myself, but who’s my competition? Every other self-help blogger? Every other wannabe screenwriter and novelist? All the successful screenwriters and novelists?

“If they are better at it than I am, I need to offer something they lack?” What can I offer that they lack? Writing is intensely personal to begin with, but blogging about self-help using my own life stories, of course, no one else could do that better than I can! I do it, and I enjoy it. To me, that’s success. What about my screenplays and novels? That’s where I do have to compete because that’s where I expect to earn my bread and butter, or, as I much prefer, rice and kimchee.

So, what can I offer in my screenplays and novels that my competition lacks? Good question. That’s something that all writers—wannabe and successful, alike—are trying to figure out. I’m working on it, though. I think people want to read and see fantasies come true, success stories, or stories that teaches us how great life can be and how we can change our own lives to be more happy, even if it’s just our attitude or outlook on life. But, that’s really the key, isn’t it? I truly think so. From The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly to Ratatouille, the common theme I draw from all my favorite movies is persistence and a pure heart always leads to success.

I’m working very hard to develop my own style or brand. This blog is part of that process but not all of it. I study the books and movies I love to learn what it is about them that inspires me so; and, I copy them with much admiration and appreciation for showing me the way, till out of all that imitation finally emerges my own unique voice. That’s exactly how I became very good at legal writing. I have every reason to believe this method will work equally well with creative writing.

MY ANSWER TO QUESTION NO. 2

“What am I pretending not to see?” Good lord! How much time do you have? Here’s a list of all the scary stuff I know about writing for a living but don’t gaze at much:

• Only a minuscule percentage of all writers ever get a single book published.

• Of that tiny number, an even tinier number gets a second book published.

• All of that goes double for aspiring screenwriters.

• If you do make it in Hollywood as a screenwriter, then the real stress happens!

• The pressure to keep coming up with hits drives many to drugs and suicide.

I already know that money and fame aren’t all they’re cracked up to be. That it’s lonely at the top. That you can hardly trust anybody once you get there. That millions will be jealous of you as much as love you. That those who say they love you, don’t really know you, and only love their image of you. And, the stalkers!

How can any celebrity truly enjoy their fame with all the unbalanced “fans” running around trying to get their attention? Paula Abdul’s self-proclaimed No. 1 fan killed herself right outside Paula’s home. Winona Ryder learned about a little girl from her own hometown of Petaluma, CA, who had been abducted and was still missing. This little girl idolized Winona and wanted to grow up to be an actress just like her. Winona got emotionally involved in that case, begging the kidnapper on TV to please let her go, before the poor girl’s body was found dead. Larry Flynt was shot and paralyzed from the waist down by an ex-fan of Hustler in protest against an inter-racial couple shown in the magazine. Salmon Rushdie had to go into hiding for 10 years because of death threats against him for writing The Satanic Verses. Bookstores around the world that carried it were firebombed. Even translators and publishers of the book were attacked, seriously injured, and killed. I see all this, but sometimes I pretend not to see it. As Trump advises, though, I never forget it.

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How many do you need? How many do you want? How many can you handle even if you have an unlimited number? Not all of us want to spend all our free time with our friends. At least not since we left high school.

So, how many is enough for you?

I’ll be completely frank with you. One is enough for me. But, I can probably handle up to three comfortably. Why so few? Because I prefer very close, trusted friendships where I can really be myself around them and let them really be themselves around me. That takes a lot of energy on both sides.

I’m intense. I know that. When I get together with old friends, we can talk for hours about just about anything and we usually do. That’s draining, but well worth it. Still, I can’t have a bunch of friendships like that. And, truth be told, I don’t have any need or desire for any more superficial friendships in my life. I know it’s supposed to be great for networking, but I’ve learned the hard way not to mix business and pleasure.

Every time I switched law firms, I was glad to get to know everybody there. We had fun. We helped each other. Then when one of us left, we always promised to stay in touch. Sometimes, we even did for a while. But, eventually, the communications dried up. Especially after I got out of law and most of them stayed in it. Suddenly, we had nothing in common. It was awkward. That’s how shallow work-based friendships are. I’m not saying they’re all like that. Maybe you have the real thing with your coworkers, and that’s great! But, most work friendships are not real friendships, meaning they pretty much end when you switch jobs. That’s not a bad thing. It’s just good to know, that’s all; so you don’t get totally blindsided.

On this issue, I completely agree with Bernie Brillstein’s It’s All Lies and That’s the Truth — and 49 More Rules from 50 Years of Trying to Make a Living in Hollywood:

Don’t Confuse Business Friends with Real Friends

Imagine a guy has a long-standing customer. His biggest customer. He’s had this guy locked in for years. Then another guy comes along who has a better product, maybe a better price. Suddenly guy number one is on the outs. Now he has to face his boss, in trouble, and wave his sales projections and bonus good-bye. It’s really sad. Everything he counted on when he woke up this morning is no longer there.

After all the explicatives are spoken, one question often remains: “How could he do this to me? We were friends. Good friends.”

Not really. Business friendship is exactly what the name implies. You see each other at a party, you say hi. If you call, they’ll pick up the phone. Sometimes you go to ball games together, or have barbecues. Maybe you even vacation with your business friends. That seems a lot more intimate than coffee-break gabbing in the lunchroom, but too often these out-of-the-office communal experiences happen because people are afraid to leave their work environment, therefore they take their business with them wherever they go. They’re teeing off at the ocean hole of some beautiful Maui golf course while talking about pork belly futures. They can’t appreciate a South Pacific sunset and a pina colada without gossiping about who’s in and who’s about to be canned. You serve a purpose for each other and call it friendship.

But most business-related friendships won’t last through a change in position by one party over the other. If you’re a buyer and you can’t buy anymore, everyone who sent you nice gifts and who took you to lunch will disappear very quickly and go to the next buyer. Which, by the way, I think they should. You know the old saying: “It’s not personal. It’s business.”

You shouldn’t be hurt. No one fooled anyone, unless you fooled yourself. The jobs are permanent, the people aren’t. I’ve always said that as long as everyone paid me the money they owed me, all bets are off. I don’t remember a time when I called someone I was no longer in business with to have dinner again. Sounds terrible, but when it’s over it’s over.

If a “friend” you made at work leaves the firm, you may hear from him once or twice the first few weeks, then once a month, then he’ll disappear. All that camaraderie is over—until he needs a favor or vice versa. Then you see how much equity exists.

A classic example of business friends is what happens when a movie is shot on location. The work throws together a group of people for months. You become totally involved in each others’ lives. You count on each other every day. You may even sleep around. You see your driver at least twice a day, and as with your barber, you tell him everything. But when you’ve moved on to the next show, how often do you write to each other?

Of course, the problem is that most of the people we know, we know from work. If we make a good connection, we want it to last forever. Who wouldn’t want that? But you have to remember it’s business, otherwise you’ll overestimate your comfort level, break the first rule of business relationships, and spill your troubles. In a business context, it’s usually taken as a sign of weakness. Expose yourself to family and real friends; otherwise keep on your happy salesman’s face.

A real friend is someone who will outlast the business that either of you are in.

Better, they won’t be part of your business life at all.

I broke that first rule of business relationships many times. You live and you learn!

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It’s been a while since I last did a long list of quotes. These are highly labor intensive, so I wasn’t sure I’d do anymore. But, then, I got the itch again. This time, I turn my attention to the fascinating topic of “fame!”

To be perfectly honest, fame scares me. With fame comes stalkers, hate mail, death threats, and all kinds of crazy stuff. I mean John Lennon was shot by a once adoring fan because he thought his hero had sold out just because he was living in a “fancy” New York apartment. A Jodie Foster stalker shot at and permanently injured President Ronald Reagan and several other men in a mentally deranged attempt to impress the object of his obsession. There are too many examples to list, but you get the idea.

That’s why I never wanted to be an actress or a singer. Too much publicity and loss of blessed anonymity. So far, I haven’t heard too many stories about writers being stalked by their crazed fans. But, Stephen King has a stalker who was driving round and round his house, letters notes in his mailbox and talking to his wife. Finally, he went out to talk to him briefly and when the man wouldn’t go away even after King threatened to call the police, King was so frightened he went back into his house and loaded his gun. The stalker is an illegal immigrant from the Czech Republic and is being processed for deportation.

J. K. Rowling has had a couple of stalkers over the years. (I’m actually surprised it’s only a couple!) One was an American female in her 40s who was finally deported back to the U.S. when it was discovered that she was living in Scotland illegally. The other was a man who swore he had met her on a train 16 years before and kept harassing her with phone calls and letters to try to get her to meet wit him. One of his last letters hinted at killing her and then killing himself. He was fined $600 and banned from ever contacting her again.

All in all, compared to other types of celebrities, authors are relatively safe. Good!

100 QUOTES ABOUT FAME

1. It’s not the money. It’s not the fame. It’s the influence.
- Clay Aiken

2. Living in L.A., everyone likes to mold you and change you. I don’t care about fame, I don’t care about being a celebrity. I know that’s part of the job, but I don’t feed into anyone’s idea of who I should be.
- Jessica Alba

3. It’s too bad I’m not as wonderful a person as people say I am, because the world could use a few people like that.
- Alan Alda

4. Worldly fame is but a breath of wind that blows now this way, and now that, and changes name as it changes direction.
- Dante Alighieri

5. A celebrity is a person who works hard all his life to become well known, then wears dark glasses to avoid being recognized.
- Fred Allen

6. All is ephemeral—fame and the famous as well.
- Marcus Aurelius

7. Life is a warfare and a stranger’s sojourn; and, after fame, is oblivion.
- Marcus Aurelius

8. Fame is like a river, that beareth up things light and swollen, and drowns things weighty and solid.
- Francis Bacon

9. Fame is rot; daughters are the thing.
- J. M. Barrie

10. Fame always brings loneliness. Success is as ice cold and lonely as the North Pole.
- Vicki Baum

11. OBLIVION, n. The state or condition in which the wicked cease from struggling and the dreary are at rest. Fame’s eternal dumping ground. Cold storage for high hopes. A place where ambitious authors meet their works without pride and their betters without envy. A dormitory without an alarm clock.
- Ambrose Bierce

12. Don’t confuse fame with success. Madonna is one; Helen Keller is the other.
- Erma Bombeck

13. Glory is fleeting, but obscurity is forever.
- Napoleon Bonaparte

14. Fame is the thirst of youth.
- Lord Byron

15. What is fame? The advantage of being known by people of whom you yourself know nothing, and for whom you care as little.
- Lord Byron

16. Fame is only good for one thing—they will cash your check in a small town.
- Truman Capote

17. If critics have problems with my personal life, it’s their problem. Anybody with half a brain would realize that it’s the charts that count.
- Mariah Carey

18. It’s all fleeting. As fame is fleeting, so are all the trappings of fame fleeting. The money, the clothes, the furniture.
- Johnny Cash

19. In the very books in which philosophers bid us scorn fame, they inscribe their names.
- Cicero

20. Fame is like a shaved pig with a greased tail; and, it is only after it has slipped through the hands of some thousands, that some fellow, by mere chance, holds on to it!
- Davy Crockett

21. Everyone has his day; and, some days last longer than others.
- Winston Churchill

22. There is not in the world so toilsome a trade as the pursuit of fame; life concludes before you have so much as sketched your work.
- Jean de la Bruyere

23. The glory of great men should always be measured by the means they have used to acquire it.
- Francois de la Rochefoucauld

24. Fame and tranquility can never be bedfellows.
- Michel de Montaigne

25. I’m shy, paranoid, whatever word you want to use. I hate fame. I’ve done everything I can to avoid it.
- Johnny Depp

26. My career should adapt to me. Fame is like a VIP pass wherever you want to go.
- Leonardo DiCaprio

27. Fame is a bee.
It has a song—
It has a sting—
Ah, too, it has a wing.
- Emily Dickinson

28. Fame is a fickle food
Upon a shifting plate
Whose table once a
Guest but not
The second time is set.

29. Whose crumbs the crows inspect
And with ironic caw
Flap past it to the
Farmer’s Corn—
Men eat of it and die.
- Emily Dickinson

30. I do not like the man who squanders life for fame; give me the man who living makes a name.
- Emily Dickinson

31. I am not a myth.
- Marlene Dietrich

32. The woman who can create her own job is the woman who will win fame and fortune.
- Amelia Earhart

33. Let me tell you a story. The day after Columbine, I was interviewed for the Tom Brokaw news program. The reporter had been assigned a theory and was seeking sound bites to support it. “Wouldn’t you say,” she asked, “that killings like this are influenced by violent movies?” No, I said, I wouldn’t say that. “But what about ‘Basketball Diaries?’” She asked. “Doesn’t that have a scene of a boy walking into a school with a machine gun?” “The obscure 1995 Leonardo DiCaprio movie did indeed have a brief fantasy scene of that nature,” I said, “but the movie failed at the box office, and it’s unlikely the Columbine killers saw it.” The reporter looked disappointed, so I offered her my theory. “Events like this,” I said, “if they are influenced by anything, are influenced by news programs like your own. When an unbalanced kid walks into a school and starts shooting, it becomes a major media event. Cable news drops ordinary programming and goes around the clock with it. The story is assigned a logo and a theme song; these two kids were packaged as the Trench Coat Mafia. The message is clear to other disturbed kids around the country: If I shoot up my school, I can be famous. The TV will talk about nothing else but me. Experts will try to figure out what I was thinking. The kids and teachers at school will see they shouldn’t have messed with me. I’ll go out in a blaze of glory.”
- Roger Ebert

34. In the construction of Immortal Fame you need first of all a cosmic shamelessness.
- Umberto Eco

35. It is strange to be known so universally and yet to be so lonely.
- Albert Einstein

36. Hitch your wagon to a star.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

37. Fame is a vapor, popularity an accident, and riches take wings. Only one thing endures and that is character.
- Horace Greeley

38. I’m a bit of an abstract figure that people can project their fantasies on; it’s pretty much what we all are, otherwise we wouldn’t be stars, and people wouldn’t be interested. But people project things on you that have nothing to do with what you really are, or they see a little something and then exaggerate it. And you can’t really control that.
- Salma Hayek

39. The great difficulty is first to win a reputation; the next to keep it while you live; and the next to preserve it after you die, when affection and interest are over, and nothing but sterling excellence can preserve your name. Never suffer youth to be an excuse for inadequacy, nor age and fame to be an excuse for indolence.
- Benjamin Haydon

40. Fame is the inheritance not of the dead, but of the living. It is we who look back with lofty pride to the great names of antiquity.
- William Hazlitt

41. Fame usually comes to those who are thinking about something else.
- Oliver Wendell Holmes

42. A few can touch the magic string, and noisy fame is proud to win them:
Alas for those that never sing, but die with all their music in them!
- Oliver Wendell Holmes

43. Popularity? It is glory’s small change.
- Victor Hugo

44. I’m afraid of losing my obscurity. Genuineness only thrives in the dark. Like celery.
- Aldous Huxley

45. Fame means millions of people have the wrong idea of who you are.
- Erica Jong

46. Verse, Fame and Beauty are intense indeed,
But Death intenser—Death is Life’s high meed
- John Keats

47. Some people obtain fame, others deserve it.
- Doris Lessing

48. The talent of success is nothing more than doing what you can do well, and doing well whatever you do without thought of fame. If it comes at all it will come because it is deserved, not because it is sought after.
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

49. Lives of great men all remind us
we can make our lives sublime.
And, departing, leave behind us
footprints on the sands of time.
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

50. I won’t be happy till I’m as famous as God.
- Madonna

51. I always thought I should be treated like a star.
- Madonna

52. All people in our society (with a few pathological exceptions) have a need or desire for a stable, firmly based, usually high evaluation of themselves, for self-respect or self-esteem, and for the esteem of others. These needs may therefore be classified into two subsidiary sets. These are, first, the desire for strength, achievement, adequacy, mastery and competence, confidence in the face of the world, and independence and freedom. Second, we have what we may call the desire for reputation or prestige (defining it as respect or esteem from other people), status, fame and glory, dominance, recognition, attention, importance, dignity, or appreciation.
- Abraham Maslow

53. A celebrity is one who is known to many persons he is glad he doesn’t know.
- Henri Louis Mencken

54. My candle burns at both its ends;
It will not last the night;
But oh, my foes, and oh, my friends—
It gives a lovely light.
- Edna St. Vincent Millay

55. With fame, you know, you can read about yourself, somebody else’s ideas about you; but, what’s important is how you feel about yourself—for survival and living day to day with what comes up.
- Marilyn Monroe

56. Fame is fickle and I know it. It has its compensations, but it also has its drawbacks; and, I’ve experienced them both.
- Marilyn Monroe

57. It stirs up envy, fame does. People feel fame gives them some kind of privilege to walk up to you and say anything to you—and it won’t hurt your feelings—like it’s happening to your clothing.
- Marilyn Monroe

58. [Hollywood is … ] [a] place where they’ll pay you a thousand dollars for a kiss, and fifty cents for your soul.
- Marilyn Monroe

59. Fame is morally neutral.
- Edward R. Murrow

60. My garden will never make me famous,
I’m a horticultural ignoramus.
- Ogden Nash

61. What you want is fame?
Then note the price: All claim
To honor you must sacrifice.
- Friedrich Nietzsche

62. I think the promise of fame and what it holds to you as a child and dreaming of it is not what it is. What it is, I’m not complaining about, but it’s just different than the reality you dreamed. … It’s going to come true like you knew it, but it’s not going to feel like you think.
- Rosie O’Donnell

63. I’m never going to be famous. My name will never be writ large on the roster of Those Who Do Things. I don’t do any thing. Not one single thing. I used to bite my nails, but I don’t even do that any more.
- Dorothy Parker

64. Even those who write against fame wish for the fame of having written well, and those who read their works desire the fame of having read them.
- Blaise Pascal

65. The charm of fame is so great that we like every object to which it is attached, even death.
- Blaise Pascal

66. Who builds a church to God, and not to fame, will never mark the marble with his name.
- Alexander Pope

67. Complexity and profundity have been equated by the academic culture just as fame and significance have been conflated by the popular culture. Fame and significance have nothing to do with one another; and complexity and profundity have nothing to do with one another.
- Dennis Prager

68. The image is one thing and the human being is another … It’s very hard to live up to an image, put it that way.
- Elvis Presley

69. I don’t think I realized that the cost of fame is that it’s open season on every moment of your life.
- Julia Roberts

70. Renown? I’ve already got more of it than those I respect, and will never have as much as those for whom I feel contempt …
- Jean Rostand

71. The highest form of vanity is love of fame.
- George Santayana

72. If I became a philosopher, if I have so keenly sought this fame for which I’m still waiting, it’s all been to seduce women basically.
- Jean-Paul Sartre

73. The longer a man’s fame is likely to last, the longer it will be in coming.
- Arthur Schopenhauer

74. Fame is something that must be won. Honor is something that must not be lost.
- Arthur Schopenhauer

75. Wealth is like sea-water; the more we drink, the thirstier we become; and the same is true of fame.
- Arthur Schopenhauer

76. He lives in fame that died in virtue’s cause.
- William Shakespeare

77. I would give all my fame for a pot of ale and safety.
- William Shakespeare

78. Glory is like a circle in the water,
Which never ceaseth to enlarge itself,
Till by broad spreading it disperses to naught.
- William Shakespeare

79. I met a traveler from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read,
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed,
And on the pedestal these words appear:
“My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look upon my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
- Percy Bysshe Shelley

80. I think I understand what military fame is; to be killed on the field of battle and have your name misspelled in the newspapers.
- William Tecumseh Sherman

81. Looking at the proliferation of personal web pages on the net, it looks like very soon everyone on earth will have 15 Megabytes of fame.
- M. G. Siriam

82. To be occasionally quoted is the only fame I care for.
- Alexander Smith

83. Fame is the perfume of heroic deeds.
- Socrates

84. Are you not ashamed of caring so much for the making of money and for fame and prestige, when you neither think nor care about wisdom and truth and the improvement of your soul?
- Socrates

85. Fame has also this great drawback, that if we pursue it, we must direct our lives so as to please the fancy of men.
- Baruch Spinoza

86. My biggest nightmare is I’m driving home and get sick and go to hospital. I say: “Please help me.” And the people say: “Hey, you look like …” And I’m dying while they’re wondering whether I’m Barbra Streisand.
- Barbra Streisand

87. Don’t call me an icon, Honey. An icon is something you hang in a Russian church. Call me Dame Elizabeth or call me an aging movie star.
- Elizabeth Taylor

88. I stopped believing in Santa Claus when my mother took me to see him in a department store, and he asked for my autograph.
- Shirley Temple

89. Fame lost its appeal for me when I went into a public restroom and an autograph seeker handed me a pen and paper under the stall door.
- Marlo Thomas

90. Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.
- Henry David Thoreau

91. Fame is not just. She never finely or discriminatingly praises, but coarsely hurrahs.
- Henry David Thoreau

92. But those rare souls whose spirit gets magically into the hearts of men, leave behind them something more real and warmly personal than bodily presence, an ineffable and eternal thing. It is everlasting life touching us as something more than a vague, recondite concept. The sound of a great name dies like an echo; the splendor of fame fades into nothing; but the grace of a fine spirit pervades the places through which it has passed, like the haunting loveliness of mignonette.
- James Thurber

93. To arrive at a just estimate of a renowned man’s character one must judge it by the standards of his time, not ours.
- Mark Twain

94. I’m not going to be somebody who wants to hold on to my fame for the rest of my life.
- Shania Twain

95. The general who advances without coveting fame and retreats without fearing disgrace, whose only thought is to protect his country and do good service for his sovereign, is the jewel of the kingdom.
- Sun Tzu

96. The fame you earn has a different taste from the fame that is forced upon you.
- Gloria Vanderbilt

97. I love Los Angeles. I love Hollywood. They’re beautiful. Everybody’s plastic, but I love plastic. I want to be plastic.
- Andy Warhol

98. If you come to fame not understanding who you are, it will define who you are.
- Oprah Winfrey

99. You have reached the pinnacle of success as soon as you become uninterested in money, compliments, or publicity.
- Thomas Wolfe

100. Talent is God-given. Be humble. Fame is man-given. Be grateful. Conceit is self-given. Be careful.
- John Wooden

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When you learn how to solve one type of problem, your brain remembers the “trick” that solved that problem and stores it for future use with new similar problems.

So, the more different types of existing problems and solutions you are willing to let your mind play with, the more solutions to future problems you will have at your mental fingertips in your own portable personal computer that is your incredible brain.

Which is also why playing with IQ tests and brain teasers actually makes you smarter. To be smart means knowing: (1) a lot of useful stuff, especially how to solve problems; or (2) how to learn new things quickly and apply them to new situations in useful ways. Notice all the emphasis on “useful?” (Trivial Pursuit doesn’t count.)

So, these games are actually quite practical. For example, if you learn how to solve about a dozen basic patterns of them, that’ll help you a great deal on standardized exams that test your analytical reasoning skills, such as the Law School Admission Test (”LSAT”). But, more to the point, the reason why the LSAT and other standardized exams even test such skills is because your ability to answer these IQ test-type questions does translate to solving serious problems in the real world.

MY ORIGINAL FEAR AND LOATHING OF IQ TESTS

Growing up, one of my sisters was very jealous of my looks and I was very jealous of her IQ. She told me she had gotten tested in the second grade and apparently had a very high one, though she never did tell me what it was. Anyway, after that, whenever she wanted to really hurt my feelings, she insulted my intelligence. One example: “You’re not only a bitch, you’re a stupid bitch!” Those were harsh words at the time because she was the first one in our family to start using that word.

She also took every chance to mock me and embarrass me in front of my friends. I was terrified of playing any games with her for a long time (though I did my best not to show it and acted like I was merely disinterested—yeah, we were pretty dysfunctional), especially the ones that were supposed to show off (or expose our lack of) intelligence, such as Scrabble, Poker, Chess, Taboo, or Trivial Pursuit.

Of course, I avoided all IQ test-type questions, too. She loved them and seemed to be naturally very good at them. I assumed it was a gift that she got and I didn’t.

Whenever such puzzles popped up in class or in discussions among friends, my mind quickly wandered off. “This was not my area of expertise or interest, so why waste my time with it?” I thought. If a teacher or friend pressed me, I tried my best … for a little while. Then, I quickly gave up. “What’s the answer?” I asked impatiently. If they insisted I try harder, I grew even more frustrated. My mind shut up even tighter. I thought I was still trying to solve the puzzle, but my mind was too focused on my anger and shame at always being so bad at these “useless” puzzles!

AN OLD LADY KILLED ME AT SCRABBLE—A LOT!

When I was an undergraduate at UCLA, I lived for a short time with an elderly couple rent-free in exchange for doing light chores around their home and house-sitting while they traveled the world. They were in their 80s but they were still quite active. The wife apparently loved to play Scrabble; and, one time, she asked me if I wanted to play a game. I explained that I wasn’t very good at it. She didn’t mind, so we played. She slaughtered me. I think she dumped her rack three times. (If you’ve never played, that’s using all 7 tiles in one move for a bonus 50 points on top of whatever else you scored on the board from the multiple new words you just created with those 7 tiles. And, she did that 3 times in one game!)

It was a quick game. She looked at me in shock and dismay, shaking her head in disbelief. Here she thought I was a smart young kid about to go to law school and what kind of game playing was that? She told me she thought I could do better and asked me if I wanted to try again. Sure, I said, not wanting to let my hostess down … let alone an elderly one … let alone one who was starting to talk smack. She was right, though. I hadn’t given it my best shot; but, now, it was on! And, guess what? She killed me again! She just laughed and clucked pitifully. I asked if she wanted to play another. She gave me a wry grin and said, “You’re hooked.” Then, she stood up and said, “Okay, set it up while I get some coffee. You want a cup?”

“No thanks,” I said. I did not want a cup. I wanted to keep playing, watching and learning from the master exactly how to whip my sister’s butt at her own game. My sister had always made fun of me whenever I made any 3-letter words in Scrabble, but this dear old lady was killing me with 3- and 2- and even 1-letter words! Words I’d never even heard of (so I challenged them often); but, they were in fact bona fide words (so I lost my turn often), as she was more than happy to confirm for me in her ginormous Oxford English Dictionary, laying always open on an equally massive podium prominently displayed between the dining room and the living room.

In time, I learned most of her tricks and she was only able to dump her rack once every other game or so with me. But, I could absolutely kill everyone else I played. I was also more than happy to teach anyone and everyone who wanted to learn all that I knew about play that game to win it. So, their skills all improved rapidly, too. Yes, I did beat my sister many, many times before I taught her all my tricks. I’m no angel. I enjoyed it while I could, sort of assuming she’d eventually pick up on my tricks just by watching me, like I did with the old lady. But, I realized my sister was too angry at herself for losing to me that she couldn’t open her mind to the lessons available there. So, I went ahead and shared all my secrets. Then, we had some real fun! All night long Scrabble tournaments between just the two of us with the majestic sights and sounds of Lawrence of Arabia swelling in the background!

Right about then, it dawned on me: If I could learn how to play Scrabble so well just by really trying to instead of being angry about being bad at it, then maybe I could learn how to be good at IQ tests, too, starting with changing my attitude.

It worked! So much so that I was surprised to scored higher on my LSAT on the Logic Games portion of it (involving more numbers and space relations), than on the rest of the exam (involving more word relations and argument comprehension).

TWO MORE IQ-TESTS TO GROW YOUR SMARTS

If IQ-tests frighten you, please don’t let them. They’re not a measure of your innate intelligence like so many people incorrectly believe. They are merely learning tools to help you develop ever newer and better ways of problem-solving. Use them to make yourself as smart as you need or want to be. You don’t have to tell anybody how you learned the answers, or how long it took you to truly understand them. All they will see is a smart person. The truth is, that’s how most of us do it!

1. Doorway to Heaven or Hell

You stand in a room with only two doors and one man in front of each door. One door leads to Heaven and the other to Hell, but you don’t know which leads where. One of the men always tells the truth and the other always lies. What single question, if asked to both of them, will correctly yield the information you need?

2. Make 4 Gallons Out of 5 & 3

You have a 5-gallon jug and a 3-gallon jug, but you need exactly 4 gallons of water to save your life. Can you use the two jugs you do have to get exactly 4 gallons?

This time for the answers, you will have to do some internet research or ask around. The ability to find answers for yourself, which always begins with the all-important burning desire to know the answer, is a necessary step to success.

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Here are the answers to the IQ tests and brain teasers from the last post.

ANSWERS TO IQ TESTS

a. The Hats in the Box

Remember that there were only 5 hats in the box to pick from: 2 white and 3 black. Each of the 3 men picked out one and put it on his own head without seeing the color of it.

The man at the back saw the two hats in front of him. Yet, when he was asked if he knew what color his own hat was, he said, “No.”

That means the two hats he saw in front of him did not help him figure out what color his own hat was. If he had seen 2 white hats in front of him, he would have known his own hat was black because there were no more white hats. Which, in turn, tells us that he saw either: (1) two black hats in front of him; or, (2) one black hat and one white hat. But he doesn’t tell us anything more than that.

The next step is what the man in the middle must have heard, seen, and concluded before he also said he doesn’t know the color of his own hat. He heard what the man behind him said, so he knows if he was looking at a white hat in front of him, his own hat must be black. But, he must be staring at a black hat because he still doesn’t know if his own hat is white or black. And, that’s how the man in front, who heard all of this, but saw nothing at all, figured out that his own hat must be black!

b. The Boat by the River

There are several different ways to solve this problem. They all involve the man taking a few extra trips with one of his items to avoid leaving the wrong combination of animals and grain on either side to get eaten. Here’s one possibility:

The man takes the chicken first and leaves it alone at Point B. Then, he comes back to Point A for the grain, leaving the fox all alone there. When he gets to Point B with the grain, he leaves the grain there, but grabs the chicken and brings it back to Point A. Next, he exchanges the chicken for the fox and takes the fox to Point B to sit with the grain. Finally, he comes back to Point A, alone in the boat this time, to pick up the chicken. The chicken got to ride a total of 3 times in this scenario!

c. Pierce the Nine Dots

The key to this one is to literally think “outside the box.” Here is how you do it:

ANSWERS TO BRAIN TEASERS

a. A Dead Man in the Woods

The man was a pilot of a small airplane who was trapped in the cabin of his plane when it ran out of fuel and came crashing down into the woods. Many people assume that a “cabin” is a log cabin just because it’s described as “in the woods.”

b. A Dead Man in the Desert

The man bailed out of his plane but his chute didn’t open and he died upon impact.

c. A Man Jumps Off a Building

The man believed he was the last person on earth. Driven to suicide out of loneliness, he jumps off the building. But, when the telephone rings on his way down, he realizes someone else is alive. So, he regrets his imminent suicide.

d. A Woman Dies in a Car

The woman was pregnant and went into labor. While her husband sought help, she had her baby and died immediately afterwards of complications related to the birth.

e. “Eureka! Adam and Eve!”

The archaeologist saw that the nude male and female bodies did not have navels.

NOW IT’S YOUR TURN

Do you have any favorite IQ tests or brain teasers you’d like to share with me? : )

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Thinking outside the box is nothing more—and nothing less!—than the ability to see a problem from more than one angle and, thus, discover newer and better ways to solve it.

But, why would you want a better solution to a problem if you already have a solution that works? Because: (1) we humans are naturally curious to learn more all the time; (2) we are lazy about physically demanding or mundane tasks and would love to find ways to minimize them as much as possible; and, (3) we also get bored easily and want ever more exciting forms of entertainment and leisure.

Hence, the inventions of some of our most treasured modern luxuries: indoor plumbing; central heating and air conditioning; automobiles; airplanes; electric trains; power boats; washing machines and dryers; dishwashers; sewing machines; lawn mowers; satellite TV and radio; cell phones; personal computers; and, all the marvels of modern medicine, including organ transplants, mechanical hearts, and unprecedented longevity.

I’m not saying developing this skill will make you a great inventor. (Even though it might; in any event, it certainly couldn’t hurt!) But, the habit of looking at things in different lights and following those inferences to their logical conclusions is a skill that is helpful to everyone, regardless of your chosen occupation or life situation.

IQ TESTS ARE GREAT PRACTICE

Want to know how to get started developing the skill of thinking outside the box? IQ tests are one great way to do it. See if you can solve these two. If not, don’t feel bad because most college graduates tested couldn’t figure them out either!

But, the way to learn from them is to try to solve them all by yourself first. Think read hard about it. Try to look at the problems from all angles. Then, if you can’t solve it, come back in a few days and read the next post for the answers.

At that point, it’s what you do with the answers that makes all the difference. If you adopt them into your “bag of mental tricks” as new tools to solve similar problems, then you’re well on your way to becoming a great outside-the-box thinker. But, if you just shrug your shoulders and say, “Oh, well, that was amusing but not really useful to me or worth committing to long term memory,” then you’ve missed a great chance to flex and grow your mental muscles. It’s all up to you.

a. The Hats in the Box

Three men are in a room. They stand in a straight line, all facing one direction. So, the man in back sees the backs of the two men in front of him, the man in the middle sees the back of the man in front of him, and man in front sees nobody.

While blindfolded, the men each pulled out a hat from a big cardboard box and place it on their heads. The box was removed, then the men took off their blindfolds. They could not see the top of their own heads. They were told that the box had a total of 3 black hats and 2 white hats before they began pulling any hats out of it. The man at the back of the line was asked if he knew the color of his own hat. He said, “No.” Then the man in the middle was asked if he knew the color of his own hat. He said, “No.” Finally, the man at the front was asked if he knew the color of his own hat. He said, “Yes.” What color was his hat, and how did he know that?

b. The Boat by the River

A man is standing by a river. He has 3 things with him: a fox, a chicken, and a sack of grain. There is a small rowboat that can hold only himself and one of his items at a time. However, if he leaves the chicken alone with the grain, the chicken will eat the grain. And, if he leaves the fox alone with the chicken, the fox will eat the chicken. How can he get all three across the river safely using only the rowboat?

c. Pierce the Nine Dots

In the diagram below, you see a total of 9 dots in the shape of a square, including a dot in the middle of each “side” as well as a dot in the center of the box. Draw only four straight lines—without lifting your pen!—through all nine of the dots.

BRAIN TEASERS ALSO TEACH IT

I don’t know why these brain teasers involve dead people. Maybe it makes the story more dramatic. Anyhow, try to figure out what happened in these scenarios.

a. A Dead Man in the Woods

A man is found dead sitting in a cabin in the woods. There is no evidence of foul play. No one else, human or animal, has been in or around his cabin for weeks. No natural disasters. He was in perfect health. He didn’t slip and fall. How did he die?

b. A Dead Man in the Desert

A man is found, lying dead, in the middle of the desert. There are no footprints at all for miles, not even his own! He did not die of dehydration, starvation, or natural disasters. He was in perfect health before he died. What happened to him?

c. A Man Jumps Off a Building

A man jumps off a tall building. On the way down, he hears a telephone ringing from one of the empty offices as he passes. He yells, “*$&%!” What just happened?

d. A Woman Dies in a Car

A man leaves his wife in a locked car by the side of the road in order to try to get some help. When he comes back, the doors are still locked, the windows still up, but she is dead inside and someone else is in the car. What has happened?

e. “Eureka! Adam and Eve!”

An archaeologist has spent his life searching for Adam and Eve. His research takes him all the way to Antarctica, where he finds two perfectly preserved naked bodies of a man and a woman, and yells, “Eureka! I’ve found them!” How did he know?

Remember, the answers will be provided in a few days! Hope you check back. ; )

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Honestly, I don’t really know what men in general want in a woman. I know what a lot of different men I’ve personally known said they wanted in a woman. But, hey, I’m a woman, so maybe they were telling me the truth, maybe not. Maybe they tell their guy friends something totally different.

Besides, I have a sneaking suspicion that a lot of guys just tell a woman whatever they think she wants to hear. None of them told me, for example, that the girl of his dreams has a hot body and is terrific in bed, though I’m sure those things are near the top of any guy’s ideal woman list.

Here are a few theories from various experts who claim to know what men want in a woman and their explanations why.

THE MADONNA-WHORE COMPLEX

Sigmund Freud coined the phrase “madonna-whore complex” and used it to describe men who married women who reminded them of their cold, unloving mothers and then couldn’t enjoy sex with them but derived guilty pleasures from “dirty” women.

This basic idea can be heard in the popular saying that every man wants a virgin for a bride who turns into a whore in the bedroom. This whole “good girl” vs. “bad girl” dichotomy was the fine line we females had to learn to walk while growing up, and it was a helluva lot trickier than mastering stiletto pumps! Sexy is good, but slutty is bad. Friendly is good, but flirting is bad. Or, flirting is good, but teasing is bad. Confident, yes! Conceited, no! “If you’ve got it, flaunt it!” “Leave something to the imagination!” “Less is more.” “More is more.” “Shake it; don’t break it!”

We all tried on a lot of different styles of dressing, posing, and acting, based on all the fashion magazines, our favorite movies, and our own peers’ latest experiments. In the end, we finally found what worked best for us, wiser but deeper in debt.

We women have been accused of wanting it all. But, then, so have you men. You can’t have a virgin and a whore, at least not in the same woman. (That’s a lot like wanting to have your cake and eat it, too!) Which, of course, explains mistresses.

THE (CALVIN) COOLIDGE EFFECT

The old story goes that President Calvin Coolidge’s wife was visiting a chicken farm and saw a rooster vigorously mounting chicken after chicken. She was impressed and asked her tour guide if the rooster did that all day long. The guide said indeed it did. She smiled and asked that this information kindly be passed on to Mr. Coolidge. When he heard the news, he asked whether the rooster mounted the same hen each time. He was told, “No, it mates with many different hens.” To which, the President smiled and replied, “Kindly pass that on to Mrs. Coolidge.”

Biologists have observed this Coolidge Effect in all species. The males, even after being exhausted by sexual performance with old sexual partners all seemed to be freshly aroused, ready and willing to perform as vigorously as though he’d never had sex, as soon as a new female sex partner is in the vicinity. Interesting, isn’t it?

Hence the institutions—not to mention laws—of marriage and family, the rights and obligations associated with these, in all our world’s cultures to keep the peace.

THE KNIGHTS, PRINCES, AND KINGS

Just one more theory about what men want in women. But, this one’s a bit more complicated than merely a man’s desire for the impossibly innocent-yet-experienced wife and biological urge for as many different sex partners as possible.

This one is about one man wanting three different types of women as he himself matures over the years. If he is lucky enough to find a woman who also matures in complimentary ways, right along with him, that’s a love match for life!

I first heard about this in a free seminar called “Understanding Men 101″ taught by Alison Armstrong. Here’s what I recall of her fascinating theory in a nutshell.

a. The Knight (A Man in His 20s)

When a young man is free from his parents for the first time, perhaps away at college or starting his first job and living with friends or roommates, settling down and starting a family is the farthest thing from his mind. He wants fun and adventure. He want to go out and explore the world. And, if he wants a significant other at all, she will have to let him go off on his quests and waits dutifully for his return. Or, he might want someone to ride by his side, as long as she is unafraid and as excited as he is about finding new adventures together. If he loves to hike and ski, then he wants an outdoorsy, sporty type. But, if he prefers to drink, smoke, and dance, then a clubbing partygirl is more likely what he’s looking for.

b. The Prince (A Man in His 30s - 40s)

It’s not so clear exactly when the next stage in a man’s life is happens. For some it starts in their 30s, for others in their 40s. For a few, sadly, it never happens.

When a man has had his fun and seen enough of the world to want to start doing something unique with his own life, whether it’s to start his own family or to start his own business or something else, his wish list for a significant other naturally changes, too. No longer does he want the party girl or the mountain mama. A lot of long-term relationships break up right about now. Remember Legally Blonde? Just like in that movie, John F. Kennedy, Jr. dumped Daryl Hannah for what he deemed better “marriage material” in Carolyn Bessette. And, Steve Jobs dumped his hippie girlfriend, pregnant with their unborn daughter, after he became hugely successful with Apple Computers. John Lennon left his wife, son, and band, to follow his new life as an ambassador of peace and love, which Yoko Ono shared completely.

This stage is called “The Prince Stage” because the man has become a wannabe king. He has staked a claim in his future, in which he hopes to build his “kingdom” of enough wealth, power, and security for his future family to live comfortably. So, for this new, all important goal, he now begins his search for—not for the quiet, unassuming lady or the fun-loving partygirl, but the serious-minded, well-organized, intelligent, and reliable life partner. Someone who can balance the checkbook and run a smooth household. And, counsel and coach the whole family to be the best they can possibly be, all while looking beautiful, confident, and happy doing it.

Donald Trump found this in Ivana Zelnickova, his first wife. Not only did she play a major role in his Trump Organization, creating his signature elaborate gold and marble interior design look, she hosted many society parties for him and attended many social events with him, catapulting the couple into the upper echelons of New York’s social elite in the 1980s. She took care of their two kids, all of their social engagements, and a small chunk of his business, so he was free to focus on work.

c. The King (A Man in His 50s - 60s)

Assuming a man has built his kingdom, however big or small, he will next advance to The King Phase. Here, the old mid-life crisis occurs because the king now wants a woman who will graciously accept and appreciate all he has worked to present at her feet. What he doesn’t want anymore is the hard-working, super-competent princess who helped him build his kingdom in the first place. Well, this theory certainly explains Donald Trump’s loss of infatuation with Ivana. But, Marla Maples, too? No idea what went wrong there, except they were married while he was temporarily down and out. Anyway, he’s married to Melania Knauss now and, based on what I’ve seen of her on The Apprentice, she clearly makes no demands on him whatsoever and is extremely adoring of him and appreciative of all he has given her.

All interesting theories. So, what do you think? Do you agree with any of them? : )

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• What Do Women Want in a Man?

What women want in a man changes over our lifetimes. These are just my observations. No research data here.

Merely my observations from decades of people-watching and thousands of conversations with friends and sisters, and friends of sisters, about what we all wanted in a man throughout all those years. I also spent thousands of hours reading books and magazines on this topic. Finally, I did do 15 hours of field research observing and interviewing men and women in a restaurant/bar/ nightclub called Bobby McGee’s in Burbank, CA, for a sociology and law course at UCLA School of Law.

My paper was called “The Mating and Dating Habits of Women After the Women’s Rights Movement” or something like that. It was one of my strongest “A’s!”

CHILDHOOD CRUSHES

Yes, we had crushes going all the way back to elementary school. Sometimes, those crushes started because a little boy was nice to us. Maybe he smiled at us while his friends told us he liked us. Or maybe the teacher made us partners for the end-of-the-school-year dance. Or, you might have developed a crush on him even if he ended up being your Secret Santa and thrust a beautifully wrapped present at you with a gruffly embarrassed disclaimer, “I didn’t pick this out; my sister did!” because it ended up being the most delicate set of peach-scented toiletries you ever saw and you just knew you were going to treasure it in your memory forever.

PUPPY LOVE IN OUR TEENS

We started to see our own peers walking around holding hands and kissing in the school halls. Before that, all we saw were adults or much older kids doing it, and anything we saw on TV was so far removed from our daily lives it was like make believe. But, now, it was right in front of our eyes, so close we could reach out and touch the couples making out if we wanted to. In class, they passed love notes to each other. During lunch and recess, the girls always sat in their boyfriends’ laps. It looked like fun. They got a lot of attention. Just having a boyfriend made you an instant celebrity in school. We all secretly—or not so secretly—wanted one. The only difference is who we daydreamed about doing all those romantic things with.

We usually limited those fantasies to actually boys we knew from our schools, churches, or someplace like that. Some girls I knew were positively boy crazy. They could have serious crushes on 10 - 20 guys at a time. But, most of us had just one.

That’s when I started to see the variety of tastes we girls had in boys. Some of us liked the shy ones, others the bold ones. But, there were things we all agreed on.

a. Turn-Ons

1. Cute (good looking to the beholder)
2. Cute smile or laugh
3. Good posture
4. Funny
5. Friendly
6. Cool hair
7. Trendy clothes
8. Good at sports
9. Good at dancing
10. Nice butt (muscular, not flat)

b. Turn-Offs

1. Too fat or short
2. Too tall or thin
3. Too much acne
4. Sloppy or dirty clothes
5. Eyeglasses
6. Greasy hair or dandruff
7. Crooked or missing teeth
8. Bad breath or B.O.
9. Rude or mean to people (farting and burping included)
10. Too shy or wimpy

ULTIMATE WISH LIST AT 20

As long as we were in high school, our choices for boyfriends were pretty much limited to the same dwindling circle of guys our age or older. We never considered boys younger than us. (Maybe they do now. I don’t know if the so-called cougar phenomenon has spread to high schools yet. If so, more power to ‘em! The guys had always considered the girls in each subsequent Freshman class “fresh meat.”)

We started to broaden our possibilities to include potentially anyone we met, including strangers at amusement parks, beaches, mountains, parties, and anyplace at all where young adults gathered to have fun and maybe, just maybe, find that special someone to finally start that much-longed for romantic relationship with.

This is when the talks got heavy amongst us young women (who were still getting used to calling ourselves that). “What do you want in a guy?” (We still couldn’t call them “men” without giggling.) “What kind of guy are you looking for?” “Who is your ideal boyfriend?” These are the types of questions that always came up whenever at least two of us got together for more than a couple of hours—which nearly every day! This is what most of us wanted in our “dream guy” throughout our 20s:

1. Madly in love with us (meaning unquestioningly faithful)
2. Great face and body (to us; I liked mine dark-haired and thin)
3. Great personality (to us; I wanted Heathcliff—brooding and deep)
4. Romantic (little gifts and cards; calls just to say they love us)
5. Great kisser, lover, and cuddler
6. Stronger than us (mentally, emotionally, or physically)
7. Smarter than us (and willing to teach us)
8. Protective of us and wanting to take care of us
9. Rich or at least not poor and definitely not a cheapskate
10. A man with a plan for his future and respects ours, too!

WHAT WE SETTLE FOR AT 30

If we haven’t found our perfect man by 30, we start to get desperate. Parents are putting the pressure on us to hurry up and find someone to marry so we can start giving them some grandchildren while they’re still young enough to enjoy them. Many of our friends have already gotten married and started giving their parents some grandchildren. For some of us, our biological clocks starts ticking loudly. (Although, personally, that never happened to me.) And, in some careers, to be a single woman at 30 and never married, your colleagues and bosses start to wonder if you’re too picky to find a man good enough for you, too high-maintenance for any man to put up with you for long, or simply a very carefully closeted lesbian.

The selection also shrinks noticeably at this point of eligible men who have never been married and have no kids. So, if your dream was to have a white wedding to launch into the brand new adventure of married life with someone who hadn’t been around that block before, you get the feeling you had better act quickly. Or, you’ve tried the whole career thing, hated it, and want to find a man to take care of you while you have kids and stay at home. Hence, most women in their 30s lower—or change—their standards quite a bit and end up willing to accept the following:

1. Never married & no kids (no alimony, child support, or drama from ex-family)
2. Nice house, job, etc. (signs of being able to support you and your kids)
3. Physical attraction is less important
4. Romance and sex are less important
5. Personality is less important (exciting or funny takes a back seat to reliable)
6. Shared goals in terms of children, religion, career, and education
6. Getting along with each other’s family
7. Getting along with each other’s friends
8. Enjoying at least a few pastimes together
9. Agreement on division of labor and responsibilities
10. Either supports you or at least doesn’t try to stop you in your goals

WHAT WE START TO WANT AT 40

If we’re still single by 40, our parents have given up on us and moved on to the next sibling in line to pester about getting married and having kids. Our friends either feel sorry for us or envy us. And, our coworkers and bosses are pretty much convinced that we’re too picky, too tough to handle, or secretly into women.

With all that external noise finally fading into the background, we finally start to hear our own heart’s desires once again. Not since we were little girls have we paid so much attention to what we naturally like or dislike—instead of what our friends, parents, colleagues, and the media—all tell us we’re supposed to want in a man. And, not surprisingly, the new wish list is not too different from 20 years earlier.

1. A man who is nice to us.
2. A man who’s so shy his friends have to tell us he likes us.
3. A man who gives us a wonderful gift (even if his sister picked it out).
4. A man who dances with us (even if someone else paired us up).
5. A good man. A kind man. A compatible man.
6. A man we enjoy listening to as much as talking to.
7. A man who genuinely likes many of the things we like.
8. A man who makes us feel as if we can do anything we want.
9. A man who will give as much as he takes, without keeping score.
10. A man we look forward to grow old with because he’s your best friend.

And, if you wait and don’t settle, you will find exactly what your heart desires! : )

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When you’re hot, you’re hot. When you’re not, you’re not. But, can you ever get hot again? Yes! If you can do it two or three times, you’re not just considered hot, you’re good!

You don’t have to be a billionaire like Donald Trump to experiences the highs and lows of a volatile career. (For his great advice on how to stay on top once you make it, click here.)

And, for those of us who don’t aspire to quite such dizzying heights of success, here are some important words of wisdom that apply to all careers, but especially the creative fields, from Bernie Brillstein’s It’s All Lies and That’s the Truth — and 49 More Rules from 50 Years of Trying to Make a Living in Hollywood (2005):

Know the Difference Between Hot and Good

One hit is hot. A career is good.

Hot can be the beginning of good, but in the end it’s what you do with what you have. Longevity means staying in the game. How? Playing by the right rules. Manners. A little smarts. A lot of knowledge about what you do. A desire simply to do good work.

If you think you wrote the book on anything, you’re wrong.

Unfortunately, the game these days is built on hot. Hot jocks. Hot actors. Hot agents. Hot trends. Hot shows. The cover of Vanity Fair is incestuously hot. That’s great; heat sells. But six months later, who cares? Look at a top-ten list of the most powerful people in Hollywood from ten years ago. Make it five years ago. How many are around today? Quick, who was last year’s hot supermodel?

There’s nothing wrong with being hot as long as you have some perspective. Every day—hot or not—I wake up asking myself, “How can I stay myself?” Meaning, how can i not buy into my own heat, or at least not worry about whether or not I’m hot. How can I just do what I do, what I’ve always done, ignore the noise, and stay humble? Okay, not humble; how about not too full of myself?

That’s part of the job description whether you’re a star, a chef, a fireman, or a hooker.

Someone can be hot for many reasons, most of them having nothing to do with that person. She might be with a hot company. The whole industry may be hot. She might have landed in a hot film. Her team may be hot. One has to look at the big picture.

Take the writers on a hit sitcom. Seinfeld is a great example. The show couldn’t have been hotter and the networks naturally wanted more of the same. So in their finite wisdom the powers that be at NBC, CBS, ABC, and FOX said, “Get some of those writers from Seinfeld.”

When the season wound down they’d hired away a writer or writing team (who, if they’d been with the show a few seasons how had producer titles), and say, “Look who we got!” They’d sign these writers for three years at two million dollars a year. And for what? The hope that they’d come up with some good ideas and create big hits.

Are the writers hot? It only seems that way. There were many writers on that show, but the bottom line is that Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld really came up with most everything and the writers collaborated on the rest.

Three years later many of the hot writers with the big deals still haven’t sold a script or had a pilot picked up, and when their contracts expired they couldn’t get a job. With all that money, they can play a lot of golf.

Circumstances made them hot.

Look at the actors on Seinfeld. All are good actors who do quite well—and continue to. But the networks thought the Seinfeld magic would continue if each actor had his own show. What happened? Failed show. Failed show. Failed show. Meanwhile, only Larry David, who writes a show for himself on HBO, has a hit. I’m not knocking any of these people, but they were just on the right show, with the right chemistry, written by two geniuses, at the right time. Too bad they didn’t have geniuses writing their next shows. I’d take the money and keep working, too. It’s the networks expectations that were way off, and their overhyped belief that the public would automatically buy it. When big expectations crash, the sound of failure is louder. When will they learn?

Probably not soon enough.

The irony is that the more you worry about staying hot, the more likely you are to get cold. The trick is to keep doing exactly what you did before success arrived instead of trying to protect your accomplishments. Or copy them.

There’s a big market for hot because, beyond the heat, the hope is that hot will become good. It happens, mostly to people with talent and a good attitude. How do you tell? Ask these questions: Do they think they’re hot? Are they full of themselves? If so, chances are they’re not paying attention to the work and they’ll never get good.

My desires have always been straightforward: Do good work and try not to get killed. I just want to continually expand my horizons and ignore the distractions.

But sometimes you need a little wake-up call. Mine was a classic.

Years ago, for a time, I couldn’t have been hotter. I was so hot that maybe I had a little heat stroke. My wife and I got invited to the Golden Globes because someone I represented was nominated. We pulled up in the limo. Outside were hundreds of reporters and photographers. We got out of the car and stepped onto the red carpet. I straightened my tuxedo and looked up. Instead of flashbulbs popping and the press yelling my name, all I heard was one voice say, “Ah … it’s no one.”

I’m still around, though. I represent people who are good, not just hot. Longevity is the difference between the two, and learning how to tell the difference ensures it.

So, the good news is you don’t have to be hot to be good. And, if you’re hot, you can still be good after you stop being hot. That’s pretty good news if you ask me!

Talent Only Sleeps, It Never Dies

This is very important and I don’t have to be long-winded about it: Very talented people sometimes make horrible choices or have terrible luck. But if you believe in someone, if your instinct says the person is not only hot but good, then a failure or an idea poorly executed is not the end of the world.

Take my client Rob Lowe. He’d had a few rocky years and had played Price Charming in a skit at the Academy Awards—and it fell flat. He was still the exact same talented actor, the same good-looking guy, but despite good notices in movies, he was off Hollywood’s radar.

He came to be me through Lorne Michaels, who needed to hire a celebrity who didn’t cost an outrageous amount of money, for a part in Wayne’s World 2. We had a meeting and I suggested Rob. I didn’t represent him at the time; I was just a fan. And I believed in him.

Lorne loved the idea, Rob worked out, the movie scored. One day, Rob and his wife were at my house with Lorne. We were playing tennis, and Rob asked if I’d represent him. I said sure.

Our first discussion was about how to overcome any perception of problems he’d acquired. By the way, this was no surprise to Rob; he knew it and was ready. The plan was to keep working whenever possible, little by little. Wayne’s World 2 gave us a boost, and Rob moved into independent films, a TV movie, theater. He worked again with Mike Myers on Austin Powers, and all of a sudden the perception of Rob changed. And then, due to his hard work, along came the part of Sam Seaborn on West Wing. Who knew it would be such a big hit or bring such respect and attention to Rob, but that’s what we’d been waiting for. Six months later he was hot again and became a big, big television name.

Another example: Travolta and Bruce Willis in Pulp Fiction. Both careers, particularly Travolta’s, benefited. And they could pull it off because the rule holds: Talent doesn’t disappear; sometimes it just naps for a while.

By the way, I take my own advice. I just spent a couple years working on a bunch of TV shows. At the outset, I was ecstatic at selling three in one season. Now they’ve all gone south. Sure I’m disappointed, but like playing golf, you can’t think about the shot you just missed; you have to think about the next one. Now I’m telling myself, “I’ve got to do it again.” I have to because the people who can go back and do it again are the ones who make it. Eventually, I’ll get lucky.

Say you’re in a situation around the office. You were once a hotshot but things have been cool for a while. What do you do? Easy: Stick with yourself. The right opportunity will come again and if you’re truly talented you’ll grab it and shine. All you have to do is to keep working. It’s like we say in show business: No one will ever (re)discover you if you just sit in your apartment waiting by the phone.

Another way of saying never give up! I never get tired of that message, either! : )

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