Many younger Debbie Downers, who think their dewy age gives them the right to act like zombies (because their parents divorced and no one had the time to make them great tuna fish sandwiches growing up), pooh-pooh chances presented right in front of them and waste time with excuses, most likely out of fear. Sadly, they spend way too many hours stuck in pause mode, glued to reality TV, violent video games, and celebrity banter—or, dare I say, addicted to their smartphones. (There I go again about electronics. More to come. ) To many, it’s easy to “click out and tune in” to someone else’s life (like the Kardashians, like the “Real Housewives,” like the judges on “Shark Tank,” and like all the great athletes and superstars), because while you vicariously spend their money, or pretend you’re living in their success-ilicious private compounds, you don’t have time to focus on your own shit.
Nowadays, instead of taking a walk on the beach, needlepointing, playing football, reading a book or newspaper, or playing Frisbee, a lot of us spend our “anytime” on the white noises of electronics and their constant nagging updates—anything to avoid facing the fact that, perhaps, time is ticking by without the sun shining in our direction. Some of us are climbing up a mountain called “Extraordinary,” and some are going down a twisted road called “Time Waster.” That doesn’t mean you can’t binge on trashy TV or run to watch the latest pop star’s live performance on the Grammy Awards. C’mon—we do need life balance; however, balance means that when the show is over, it’s time for you to turn it off, look the fuck up from the dating app, and get the blood flowing again, people...with those who don’t lie about their age and actually look like their thumbnail pics.
#The new boob tube is the smartphone.
#At times, social media should be called anti-social media.
#Social media is really just another thousand channels
on a TV remote.
#If you’d rather watch a traditional sitcom
on your iPad and get “text neck,” so be it.
After hours and hours of electronic and anti-social overload, what do YOU want to be known for at the end of the day?
#He was a creep shoplifting Prada bags at Macy’s.
or
#She was a hero who saved an old lady from an attacker.
Making a 180-degree life turn is not that hard; all you need to do is have the ability to keep it moving in a positive direction and open up to the possibility that you deserve a better experience.
Like the person who goes from shoplifter to caregiver, you can absolutely, unequivocally transition from a negative past to a positive, uber-successful future. Reinvention is amazing. You really don’t need anyone other than yourself to approve the change you want to redefine your life—good, bad or indifferent. Through the anecdotes in this book, I truly hope you will gain the strength to be honest and intimate with yourself, so that when it’s time for the artisans to start etching an epitaph onto your mausoleum, you and your friends will have so many great things to say about you that even your enemies will even applaud!
#Roll up your sleeves and get scrappy about your life.
#Talking honestly about yourself can be inspirational.
Lemme get this party going, and let me start to tell you my story—you’ll find it ain’t hard for me.
Way back in the late 70s and 80s, I was a bit of an ultra-creative ball of fire...a self-involved, overly sensitive twentysomething. But after going through many humbling experiences—including losing my biological parents, losing an inheritance, losing four recording contracts (as a pop singer), going through two cancer health scares and losing friends to tragic illnesses—now, at my age, I live, without apology, in a luscious color of everything. I crave to always be challenged. One side of me wants to kick off my shoes and eat some bonbons, but the other side says, light the fiyah and keep it moving, grandpa!
#Breathe like a dragon who is
going to be honored for Chinese New Year.
People often tell me I have a quirky outlook on life and an inspiring backstory, which I hope is a solid platform for handing out some heartfelt advice in this book. In my career in public relations and now with PR and social media, I have represented hundreds of fascinating people—I’ve had the luck and good fortune to work with some of the greats: superstar athletes like Michael Jordan; recording legends like Peter, Paul and Mary, Carly Simon, Judy Collins, Neil Sedaka and Kenny Loggins; actors like Olympia Dukakis, Blair Underwood, and Marlo Thomas; movie producers like Linda Obst; models like Cindy Crawford; reality stars like Snooki; iconic sex kittens like Pamela Anderson; political prisoners like Ingrid Betancourt; senior prime ministers like Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore; newscasters like Dan Rather; attorneys like Gloria Allred and Raoul Felder; brands like The Elf on the Shelf and Halo Purely for Pets; Latina powerhouses like Celia Cruz; extraordinary wellness warriors like Kris Carr; heartfelt doctors like Andrew Weil and Neal Barnard; moral philosophers like Peter Singer; and literary stars like Paolo Coelho, Leon Uris, Diane McKinney-Whetstone, and Mitch Albom, just to name a few. I have had the honor of stepping into each one’s unique definition of “normal.” Normal or not, seeing some of these people reveal their “deck of cards” has given me the perspective to understand parts of my life that either work or don’t.
#Share your deck of cards in order to
help others find their purpose.
I want to expose you to the fire that burns inside my clients’ bellies, giving them the impetus to persevere. I am humbly grateful for the opportunity to work with such inspirational people—whether for a few months or for several years—and I want to thank them for helping me find one of my personal missions in life. When people sign up for public relations and social media services, they are typically at a quasi-mystical level that drives them to only want to bring their “A” game and to be sitting in the front row when the curtain goes up and the stage explodes. After repping famous people, I now know, and you will too, that:
#Everyone can afford a ticket to their own
award-winning performance of a lifetime.
The public relations and social media “show” that my staff and I proudly perform each day requires a talent for becoming a client’s messenger to his or her own message—holding up a mirror and asking, “Just who are you? What do you bring to the table? Why should anyone care? I want to help you press the accelerate button on the story of your life. From this page forward, it’s just you and me, navigating our plusses and minuses together. (I’ll show you mine if you show me yours!) When it’s time for people to consider you for work, friendship, or play, this handbook and (at least some of) my philosophies will help you, I promise. As I hinted above, one of the biggest secrets to living a full life is that you don’t always need to follow the rules—or struggle to fit into anyone else’s standards to be successful.
#It takes a lotta guts to dream big and take bold steps.
# # #
Back to my life: I didn’t start out as bold as I am today. As a kid, I was so shy and quirky—like a flower that needed to be watered in order not to shrivel up.
#If you’re a hot mess, take ownership of it—
and either fix it or wallow in paranoid.
When people would call my house, I sounded like a squeaky little girl and
