The 16th Minute of Fame by Darrell Miller

Author:Darrell Miller [Miller, Darrell]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781939447760
Publisher: Dunham Books
Published: 2014-04-22T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 5

MAXIMIZING YOUR FIFTEEN MINUTES OF FAME

After I won the Oscar, my salary doubled, my friends tripled, my children became more popular at school, my butcher made a pass at me, and my maid hit me up for a raise.

—Shirley Jones

It’s essential that you first thoroughly exploit your fifteen minutes of fame before they are over or you may not have a minute beyond that. In fact, missteps that people make when they go from “rags-to-riches–to-rags” might have been avoided had they been more focused and prepared to take full advantage of their opportunities while in the spotlight.

Many of the fallen have suffered at the hands of bad associations and bad advice. When it comes to getting the most out of your fifteen minutes and making the best of your opportunities, it’s often your family, friends, and business associates who will determine how well you perform in those fifteen minutes and whether or not you will be able to transition successfully to the sixteenth minute and beyond. There’s an old adage that we are judged by the company we keep: Show me your friends and associates and I will show you who you truly are. The same philosophy could be applied to our business relationships. The team of advisors you assemble says a lot about who you are, where you want to be, and where you’re going.

Most successful artists, athletes, executives, and leaders of business and politics surround themselves with very competent and trusted advisors from the very start of their success.

When you examine the downfall of many achievers, it’s not uncommon for their paths to be littered with ill-advised personal choices and crowded with the wrong friends and associates. In many cases, these associations date back to childhood or young adult life. One can attribute this practice to basic human behavior—it’s only natural that most of us want to grow up, become successful, and have our friends and family from the old neighborhood recognize our accomplishments and cheer us on.

But success can be quite daunting for a lot of people. This is particularly true with first generation success when there’s a lot of new money, new faces, and new opportunities coming all at once. Flush with fame and fortune, many choose to surround themselves with familiar people as a form of comfort. Athletes and artists, in particular, often choose to anchor themselves with the people they knew long before they hit it big if for no other reason than to maintain some sense of identity and concept of grounded reality.

It’s hard to argue that maintaining some sense of self through family members and old friends does not have its merits, but there can be pluses and minuses to these kinds of relationships. Choosing such close alliances without exercising sound reason and judgment can backfire in a most painful way. Bringing bad people or dead weight along for the ride as you advance in your career can create enormous problems for you in the long run. Remember the financial ruin of hip-hop artist M.

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