All About You — Day 30: The Journey Is the Destination
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[For “Day 29: Always Go Back to the Drawing Board,” click here.]
Today is the last day of the “All About You!” series. But, the end of this little journey we have shared together—through 30 days of questions and answers all about you, your past, and your future—is the beginning of the exciting, much longer journey called the rest of your life!
There were 3 important questions we set out to answer during this series:
1. Who are you?
2. What do you want?
3. How will you get it?
We began by learning how to answer the first question of “Who are you?” by:
a. Making your own Top 10 Lists;
b. Finding out your core personality traits from the Big 5 Personality Test;
c. Focusing on your childhood happiness, traumas, and triumphs;
d. Focusing on issues specifically related to your siblings and peers;
e. Seeking to understand the role of class, culture, and income on our lives;
f. Seeking to understand how the role of heroes and mentors in our lives; and,
g. Using stream-of-consciousness to brainstorm answers to: “Who am I?”
We learned how to answer the second question of “What do you want?” by using similar brainstorming to answer/complete the following questions/statements:
a. “I want [to] [be] …”
b. “I am good at … “
c. “I love [to] … “
d. “I wish I could …”
e. “If I could start my life over again, I would …”
f. “If I only had one year to live, I’d …”
g. “My purpose in life is to …”
h. “My soul mate [is] …”
i. “My dream job/career [is] …”
j. “My gift to the world is my …”
We learned how to answer the third and final question of “How will you get it?” by:
a. Firing all your devil’s advocates;
b. Becoming your own guardian angel;
c. Making mistakes your greatest teachers;
d. Getting started on your plan ASAP;
e. Failing faster to succeed faster;
f. Learning everything you need to learn along the way;
g. Understanding why entrepreneurs need to work both smarter AND harder;
h. Never giving up on your burning desire and why it’s never a waste of time; and,
i. Always going back to the drawing board to test new ways to get it done.
Today’s final addition to this series is a wrap up or conclusion to the entire series.
THE JOURNEY IS THE DESTINATION
Now that you’ve completed this 30-day journey, you’ve arrived at yet one more important destination in your life. Congratulations! You are now on your way to getting what you really want out of life based on your true self, deep down inside!
How many times have you succeeded in other important goals you set for yourself? Completing your education as far as you wanted to take it? Getting the girlfriend/boyfriend/spouse, job/career, home, or car of your dreams? Try to remember all the dreaming, planning, and execution of your plans you dedicated to reaching those destinations. Didn’t all of that wishing and working toward those goals make them all the more worthwhile once you got them? Didn’t you learn a whole lot about yourself along the way that you probably never could have if you didn’t push yourself in the ways that you did to make those dreams come true?
Every time we arrive at a long-cherished destination, sure, we enjoy it for a while! But, soon afterwards, we are just itching to dream, plan, and begin executing a new plan to reach an even greater destination. That’s just part of human nature. Our huge brains constantly yearn for more and more challenging goals! And, when you really think about it, it’s the dreaming, planning, and executing part—the part that most people consider “work”—that always provides us with the memorable, remarkable, and priceless experiences of our lives! Why do people want to run marathons? Because the discipline required to do it is what they admire and want to call their own; the ability to complete it is merely proof of it. If they could take a magic pill and be able to run it in average time, without ever having had to train a day, would they bother? Where is the sense of accomplishment and joy in that?
“SUCCESS BEGINS WITH BEING YOURSELF”
I’d like to end this series with some sage advice from recently deceased Bernie Brillstein, a Hollywood legend, who got his start in the mailroom at the William Morris Agency in New York City. He worked his way up to the talent agent and manager who “discovered” Jim Henson and The Muppets and The Blues Brothers, among others, and, eventually, helped create Saturday Night Live and was the executive producer for Ghostbusters. He also formed the production company Brillstein-Grey Entertainment with a partner, which company produced the HBO hit The Sopranos.
In Brillstein’s only self-help book It’s All Lies and That’s the Truth: and 49 More Rules from 50 Years of Trying to Make a Living in Hollywood
Whether you’re new on the job or a veteran, the pressure to conform to the culture of the workplace is enormous. Every business has its own psyche, and they hire people whom they believe will fit that mind-set. IBM people dress one way. Apple Computer people another. George Steinbrenner buys baseball players he believes fit into the Yankee mold—dignified, above it all, carrying themselves as if they were champions. (Steinbrenner is not anything like that himself; he just hired guys who personify the image of what he’d like to be.) You can line up employees from every talent agency in Hollywood and tell just by the way they look for whom they work.
Everyone wants to fit in, catch the boss’s eye, maybe take the fast track to a vice presidency.
Okay. If you want to be a Babbitt, be a Babbitt. (Note: Read Sinclair Lewis.) Act like everyone else, be afraid like everyone else, keep your ideas to yourself like everyone else, do your job and try to stay under the radar like everyone else.
It’s a guaranteed path directly to the middle of the pack.
Some people want that, and God bless them; but the real successes don’t conform.
I’m not saying break the dress code and show butt-crack; but find some way to stand out. Any way. The best method is to work with who you are. Don’t go looking for a style, find it in yourself. If all talent agents wear fashionable Armani and you wear Armani, you’re not in style. You’re in what other people think is style.
Style, of course, is not only the way you dress, but the way you act. You owe it to yourself to be yourself and see if other people can stand it. I’m not saying be arrogant; moderation is fine. But if you have a sense of humor, please show it. If you have a great brain, show it. If you have a great beauty, show it.
I certainly have my own style. I’m a loud laugher, an out-size player; people know when I walk into the room. I’m never going to be suave. I have a Falstaffian manner. People say I”m larger than life. Fine with me.
But at William Morris in the fifties and sixties, I wore an alpaca sweater instead of the required suit. I wasn’t trying to break the rules; I was big. I felt better in a sweater than in a jacket. My work improved. If someone didn’t understand it, that was their problem. You couldn’t fault my output.
If you don’t have an extra fifty pounds to work with, try showcasing what you’re best at. Do you know more about baseball than anyone else? Have you read every Shakespeare play? Are you a hit with the ladies or gentlemen?
Do whatever works (appropriately) to get people to talk about you because, if they do, that means you’re different—and that’s good news, not bad news. Forget the conventional wisdom that if you stick out you’ll attract trouble. If that happens, you can leave and start your own company. In fact, if you’re different enough, you’ll probably want to.
Honestly, this works, on any level. Let yourself hang out. If you go to a restaurant regularly, isn’t there always a waiter whose area you’d rather sit in? He never says anything personal to you except maybe, “Good evening, Mr. Smith,” but there’s something about his demeanor that makes you happier; therefore his tips will be bigger and he’ll have more regular customers. Soom he’ll open his own restaurant.
Find a job where you can express yourself.
Every year I talk to the mailroom kids and interns at my company. One year this kid raised his hand and asked a question that took a lot of nerve—even if he’d been around five years. It may not mean a lot outside show business but he wanted to know if there was a conflict of interest between our management company managing actors, and our production company producing their TV shows. There isn’t, for reasons too complicated to go into now. All I can say is that we can’t force any client to let us produce their shows, and we can’t force any client to act in shows that we produce. Anyway, the question was bold and could have been taken as impertinent—or wrong. But I understood that he was not only thinking ahead of the pack, but had the guts to voice an opinion. I never forgot that kid, and he’s since become a success in the business. He let himself hang out. He took a chance, a calculated risk, that I wouldn’t say, “Go to hell, it’s none of your business.” He made a difference. You always take note. As a boss I’d rather deal with someone real than with a cookie-cutter personality.
There is a flip side, of course. You have to know when to conform. Certain situations demand a suit. Other times you just have to shut up. There is a game we all have to play, but we can still play it creatively. Those who try to be creative usually get away with more because people expect it of creative people and tolerate it.
One of my favorite sayings is: “They haven’t caught me yet.”
CONCLUSION
This has been an adventurous journey into our past, present, and future lives. I’m sure none of us were 100% prepared for what we found out about ourselves along the way. I hope you enjoyed the ride! Thanks to all of you brave souls shared your answers, insights, and revelations in the comments or in personal emails to me!
Now that you’re done, you can collect your answers and keep them in a safe place. I recommend a diary. It makes a precious gift to someone you love, especially you!
[For “Day 29: Always Go Back to the Drawing Board,” click here.]
[For entire “All About You!” series, click here.]
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[For “How to Set and Achieve Goals in 5 Simple Steps,” click here.]
[For “What Would You Do If You Couldn’t Fail?,” click here.]
[For “50 Negative v. Positive Thoughts,” click here.]
[For “10 Harmful Thoughts,” click here.]
[For “10 Reasons to Keep a Diary,” click here.]
[For “20 Questions for Your Diary,” click here.]
[For “Requests for Cuckoo in Your Nest!,” click here.]
[For “How to Be an Extrovert,” click here.]
[For “My 10 Commandments,” click here.]
[For “Fan Your Inner Flame Till It Burns Bright,” click here.]
[For “Think and Grow Rich,” click here.]
[For “How to Win Friends and Influence People,” click here.]
September 26th, 2008 at 8:12 am
Nice to see this …
Couple of typos:
“Honestly, this works, on any level. Let yourself hang you. If you go to a restaurant … “(that should be HANG OUT, not hang you)
“As a boss I’d rather death with someone real than with a cookie-cutter personality.” (That should be DEAL, not death)
Also, Mr Brillstein never executive produced SNL, though he did manage the exec producer Lorne Michaels, as well as Belushi, Aykroyd, Radner, etc. He was present at and facilitated the shows’s creation.
Again, thanks for reading and taking it all to heart.
DR
September 26th, 2008 at 8:32 am
Hi David! Thank you for honoring my blog with your comment! Also, thanks for all the corrections! I’ve already made the changes. Those typos were, no doubt, Freudian slips showing how shocked I was to learn (from Wikipedia while writing this post) that Mr. Brillstein had passed away. I loved the book
and couldn’t imagine all that fantastic energy gone from this world. Thank you for sharing his wisdom with the rest of us, who have benefited so much from your great work with Mr. Brillstein!
September 26th, 2008 at 11:31 am
Hi Shanel,
Nothing to add to your post, except to say, congrats for completing a monumental series! I think you should create a page dedicated to this series, with a link to all of the entries and maybe a summary. I’ll refer people to it.
ari
September 26th, 2008 at 12:05 pm
Hi Ari! Thanks for your comment, positive feedback, and cool suggestion! Meanwhile, it would be great if you could go ahead and refer folks to this series! : )
September 28th, 2008 at 7:07 am
Hello Shanel,
Congrates !!!!!!! This was really a adventurous journey. I (infact all readers) have learnt too many things about ourselves anf our life.
A great thank to you.
Gaurav Bhatnagar
September 28th, 2008 at 7:26 am
This was a great journey! Thanks for sharing this with us, at least the last post was the most impressive one, it inspires. I love the road runner videos
I watched them as a child, too!
Good luck on YOUR way!