How does one get close enough to a Unicorn to give them the false impression that they are a normal person and you are unfazed by the magical powers that come from their Unicorn status?
If you live in a major city and have done your homework, you will eventually succeed in social climbing your way, via a Big Fish, to a charity gala and/or a Whale party where the invite will indicate a Unicorn will be the guest of honor. Do not be intimidated. Remember that none of the above-mentioned game changers started out life as a Unicorn.
Rupert Murdoch, at the age of twenty-one, was an Australian Turtle. Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis was just another Swan until she hooked JFK.
Remind yourself, Unicorns are just like you in that they have to put their trousers on one leg at a time, even if they do have someone on staff to tie their shoelaces.
As always, planning is the key to making a success of your first encounter with a Unicorn. Say, for the purpose of this exercise, you have wangled a Big Fish into inviting you to a World Wildlife Fund charity event at which Bill Clinton and Angelina Jolie are being honored. Naturally, as a social climber, you would love to get to know Bill and/or Angelina. Fat chance of that happening, unless you think out of the box when it comes to your conversation starter.
Just as a professional soccer player might feign a limp to put an opponent off guard, you need to make a move that will shift the game in your favor. For example, before you put on your tux or dress, apply a large bandage to your calf if you’re a man and to your thigh if you’re a woman. Now dab a bit of ketchup on the bandage as if you have a leaking wound. Make no mention of your imaginary injury to anyone you are sitting with at the party.
When you see Bill and/or Angelina or whatever Unicorn you’re stalking being bored by less cunning social climbers than yourself, approach the feeding frenzy with a limp—but do not make eye contact with the Unicorn. When you are within three feet of the Unicorn, stop short and wince in seemingly excruciating pain. Now, still ignoring the Unicorn, raise the pant leg of your tuxedo or the hem of your dress and expose the bandage.
Unicorns like to show off the fact that along with having more talent, influence, and celebrity than mere mortals, they also possess a superior sense of empathy when it comes to the suffering of non-Unicorns. Nine times out of ten, the sight of your wound and your obvious discomfiture will prompt curiosity and concern, especially if they are bored with the conversation they are having and looking for a way out.
Now, if you are a woman displaying a bandaged thigh to a Unicorn like Bill Clinton, chances are you will have to do little else to get his immediate and undivided attention. But even as skittish a Unicorn as Angelina Jolie will not be able to resist an opportunity to show her superior empathy by taking the time to ask you some version of the following: “What happened to your leg?”
At which point, you will stop wincing and answer casually, “I got bit by a baby cheetah I was rescuing from a poacher’s trap on the Serengeti.”
No matter what they think of your legs, the odds are that neither Angelina nor Bill will have encountered anyone suffering so noble a wound, at least not in the last twenty-four hours. Hence, the Unicorn is going to be impressed, sympathetic, and interested enough to ask you who you are. Resist the temptation to give the Unicorn your last name. Only give your first name.
This will make them charmed and curious, and most important, put you on equal footing. They will then introduce themselves. Which is something Unicorns haven’t had to do in so long, they will get a kick out of saying their own name. When they ask what you were doing in the Serengeti rescuing the baby cheetah, simply say, “I’m an accountant/yoga instructor/insurance salesperson who likes animals.”
They will think you are being modest and then invite you over to their table so you can tell Brad Pitt/Hillary Clinton about saving the cheetah. Important: Keep the cheetah story to a minimum. Talk about the boring details of your own life. How the bloodstains from your nonexistent baby cheetah bite have ruined three pairs of pants/dresses and the dry-cleaning bill is cleaning you out, i.e., discuss things they used to talk about before they became Unicorns. If you remind them of the person they used to be before they became magical, they will like you. Why? Not because you saved a cheetah, but because you make them feel normal.
Now, before they get bored with you, excuse yourself from the conversation. But before you leave, write your name down on a matchbook and as you hand it to them say, “Give me a call next time you’re in town. We’ll hang.”
Guaranteed, you will be the first person who has given Angela or Bill a matchbook with a name and number and invited them to “hang” in over twenty years. Obviously, the chances of their responding to this simple and unpretentious invitation and calling you are slim to none. But because by now you are a great social climber, odds are you’ll run into them again at another big party where they will undoubtedly be surrounded by even more obvious climbers. Which means there is a better than fifty-fifty chance that they will use you and your story of your imaginary cheetah bite to escape yet another boring conversation, i.e., the Unicorn will actually say hello to you. You have now begun to flip the power dynamic.
If you’re lucky, a photographer will take your picture with the Unicorn, and when that appears in a magazine or on a blog, you will now be officially friends with a Unicorn. Female readers who were discreet enough not to have mentioned to the press that, when they first showed their wounded thigh to Bill Clinton, he offered to change their bandage in the back of his limousine will now also be officially trustworthy to both Bill and Hillary, giving them yet another reason to call you when they are in town.
Of course, if you pull off the above, you will either have to wear pants whenever you next see Bill/Angelina or self-mutilate a wound worthy of a baby cheetah. But there is no arguing that is a small price to pay for the entrée to be gained by being new best friends with a Unicorn.
Note: We are not being facetious about the cheetah bite ploy. In our research we came across an ex-supermodel who charmed the New York social set with tales of a tropical childhood that she would illustrate by revealing a jagged scar just above her bikini line, which she would heroically explain was the result of a childhood shark bite. Men felt particularly sorry for her when she detailed the number of lingerie jobs she lost to the unsightly wound, and in a few short years, her scar helped her hobnob her way to a marriage with an Italian industrialist with a textile empire. It was only later, when we tried to locate the account of the shark bite in her hometown newspaper, that we discovered the scar was in fact the result of an infected boil.
But to fully understand the benefits of tricking a Unicorn into thinking you’ve been bitten by a wild animal, let’s backtrack for a moment to the World Wildlife Fund charity event at which you first encountered the Unicorn. When you return to the table of the Big Fish who invited you, he or she will have observed you talking to Bill or Angelina. Because of this, he or she will not be annoyed you’ve stayed away from the table for an unacceptable length of time. Instead, he or she will be overjoyed and inquire, “Why didn’t you tell me you were friends with Bill/Angelina?”
To which you will answer, “You never asked me.”
When your Big Fish host wants to know the details of your conversation, do not push your luck with the cheetah bite story, simply say, “Just gabbing with old friends.” Which in the alternate universe the social climber lives in, they are.
As a “friend” of Bill Clinton or Angelina Jolie, your value to the Big Fish who invited you to the charity gala has been exponentially raised to the tenth power. In short, the game has been changed.
Because of your newfound status, you will be invited to twice as many galas and parties as before, thus increasing the likelihood that you’ll bump into your Unicorns again into an inevitability. They won’t remember your name or your face, but they will recall your wound. If you have been doing your homework and, say, discovered from reading the tabloids while waiting in line at the supermarket
that your Unicorn has a ten-year-old daughter, ask them how she’s doing in math. Because Unicorns talk to too many people to remember what they say to anyone, they will assume that in a previous encounter, they must have confided in you. Because most people whom they encounter at galas are either embarrassingly flattering or trying to get them to attend yet another fund-raiser party, they will be relieved to have run into someone real enough to talk about what is real to them, i.e., their daughter’s inability to master long division.
A Whale, seeing you talking earnestly with a Unicorn about their daughter, will assume that someone so comfortable with one Unicorn must know many Unicorns, and will invite you to the next dinner they are throwing for Prince William or George Soros, and most game-changing of all for you, when you meet Prince William or George Soros, you’ll be introduced as the old friend of Bill Clinton or Angelina Jolie.
No Unicorn wants to be the first Unicorn friend of a non-Unicorn. But now that you’re Angelina’s or Bill’s pal, it will be safe for them to become your new best friend.
The rules of Unicorn friendship are as follows:
1. If a Unicorn asks you to do anything with them, you must always say yes even if you have a surgical procedure scheduled for that day.
2. When a Unicorn calls you on the phone, you must be willing to talk as long as they want to talk about anything, most especially about themselves and the unfair burdens of fame.
3. Never, never, never talk to the press, unless instructed by the Unicorn to disseminate their side of a story, i.e., be prepared to lie on spec.
4. The Unicorn is always right, especially when they contradict themselves.
5. If they contradict themselves in public, merely point out that their statement reflects the paradoxical nature of the universe, as opposed to confirming their rumored alcohol or drug dependency.
6. Though it is easier to become new best friends with Unicorns who do drugs and/or drink to excess, they will inevitably blame you for their addiction. Better to use alcohol/drugs to cement the relationship, and then suggest that you both take a few weeks off and go to a rehab facility with five-star spa service together.
Unicorns are hard work; being friends with one is a full-time job. Though they will buy you costly presents, pick up the checks for obscenely expensive meals, send their limos to collect you, and treat you to lavish holidays in Unicorn watering holes, it’s important you periodically say no to the freebies their other social climbing friends are accepting. Never say no to spending time with them or to a freebie Unicorn holiday, but occasionally say no when the limo is offered, and insist on paying for your own taxi. Once a year, pass on the ride in the private jet and fly on your own dime. Doing this accomplishes two things: a) It separates you from their other freeloading friends, and b) since normal people pay their own way, by doing so on occasion, you maintain the illusion that you are normal, which then gives Unicorns the illusion that they are normal because they are friends with a normal person as opposed to a total freeloader. Remember, no matter how generous Unicorns may seem, they are always paranoid that they are being used by social climbers.
Never try to repay the generosity of a celebrity with Unicorn status by inviting them to your home. Though famous people will be amused to hear anecdotes about the little headaches of your normal life—your toilet that requires a plunger to flush fully or the family of mice that lives in your oven—they will not be amused by firsthand encounters with your faulty toilet or rodent problem.
EMPOWERING THOUGHT #40
The key to maintaining a long-term friendship with a Unicorn is to identify a specific need that the Unicorn keeps hidden from the rest of the world, the most common being the Unicorn’s desire for unconditional love.
If your Unicorn asks you if you think so-and-so is taking advantage of their generosity, i.e., using them, do not answer directly. A definitive yes or no will risk making an enemy of a rival social climber. Better to respond with a question that will expose the nature of their closeted neediness, such as, “Do you feel used?” which will open the door for them to inadvertently reveal how much they spend a year buying friends. This is an important figure for you to remember—ask yourself, are you being appropriately compensated for all the hours you’ve spent listening to them complain about how hard it is to be famous? Then volunteer, “I just think someone in your position has to be very careful to avoid becoming friends with takers, as opposed to givers.” You have now subliminally identified yourself as a giver.
To deepen your budding friendship with your Unicorns, you must separate them from as many of their old friends as possible. If, for example, your Unicorn is a movie star, and his or her friends suggest that he or she is too thin, and you hear them encouraging the Unicorn to put on a few pounds, in private suggest that those seemingly concerned about the Unicorn being underweight have selfish reasons for wanting the Unicorn to get fat.
Unicorns need to hear what they want to hear. It is your job to cater to that need before they ask one of their other new best friends if they think you are taking advantage of them. In short, think of the Unicorn as Stalin and yourself as the head of the secret police, Beria.
Set yourself apart as a new best friend above suspicion. If you and the rest of your Unicorn’s entourage have been invited to a five-star event—say, Graydon Carter’s Oscar party—pull your Unicorn aside just before you get out of the limo and surprise them by suggesting that you both do something more meaningful than hitting yet another red carpet and invite them to do something really special: bowling. Unicorns trust bowlers; nothing is more normal than bowling. Being a Unicorn, they won’t ditch the party, but because it has been so long since they have been bowling and because no one but you would exchange an opportunity to be seen at the Oscar party to bowl, you will have set yourself apart as the kind of normal person the Unicorn’s shrink has urged them to establish friendships with and you still get to go to the party.
Like Unicorns, certain types of Whales can change your life overnight. By our definition, a Whale is a Big Fish with over $100 million. Note: Whales in this category like to be referred to as centimillionaires rather than simply multimillionaires. However, billionaires, even if they have multiple billions, are confident enough to be comfortable with simply being referred to as billionaires. Some Unicorns—Paul McCartney, Oprah, Ivanka Trump, et al.—are also Whales, but not all Whales are Unicorns, i.e., a Unicorn cannot walk down the street without being recognized, while many Whales can, unless they have hired a good publicist. On the other hand, there are Whales, such as Shorty Guzmán (according to Forbes, the forty-first most-powerful person in the world and the reputed head of the Sinaloa drug cartel), who pay people to keep them from being recognized on the street. (Mr. Guzmán’s recent arrest only proves that if a Whale has accumulated enough money to become a Unicorn, he will be recognized whether he likes it or not.) Such is the voodoo of money.
For the truly ambitious Mountaineer, the magical power of a Unicorn to transport the climber to the top of the mountain is exceeded only by that of the most endangered species of game changer, the Whale family.
Whale families are pods of multigenerational wealth, by-products of a family fortune usually founded by a Whale more than a hundred years ago, whose descendants, due to luck, temperance, strategic marriages, shrewd investments, Prohibition, manipulation of tax loopholes, and an uncanny ability to make money off both sides in any and every war, have grown richer with each subsequent generation. Often, but not always, Whale families have a last name that appears on a product used by millions of people every day.
In general, wealth counselors agree that the financial rule of thumb as regards most American family fortunes is bootstraps to bootstraps in three generations. But Whale families are the exception. Individually, the members of the pod may only be worth $100 million each, but families in which there are thirty-five centimillionaire cousins, two billionaire parents, and four multibillionaire grandparents are a force to be reckoned with. It isn’t si
mply the collective net worth in dollars that makes Whale families so popular with social climbers. It is the collective clout of the social and political power, connections, influence, etc., they have accumulated over the last hundred years, coupled with their billions, that makes them irresistible to the ambitious Mountaineer.
In our opinion, anyone who has had a billion-plus for more than six months qualifies as old money.
The flash appeal of such fortunes will be covered in our Advanced Mountaineering chapter. However, in terms of game changers, it is worth noting at this point that hanging out with a single Russian billionaire, such as Roman Abramovich, or Señor Guzmán, or hedge fund billionaire Steve Cohen might have its charms, but it does not have the same panache as hobnobbing with the Rockefellers, the Kennedys, the Rothschilds, the DuPonts, or the Fords who make the car.
These pods of family wealth and social cachet have always had a special allure to Mountaineers. But before attempting to ascend the cliff face of such a clan, you should know that they are as difficult and frosty a climb as Everest. Why? Because they’ve had more than a hundred years’ experience dealing with social climbers, and they are families, and all families are complicated.
The perks that make friendship with a Whale family so enticing are obvious—the family compounds, vast estates, private beaches, guesthouses that go empty for months at a time, private planes, yachts, personal chefs waiting to make you a tuna melt in the middle of the night. The Whale family’s appeal isn’t simply that they belong to the best clubs or throw the most lavish parties, it’s that they have spent the last century accumulating juice in every walk of life. They haven’t just elected presidents and built gymnasiums, hospitals, and libraries at all the right schools, they have made all the right friends and have banked a century’s worth of favors.
The Social Climber's Bible: A Book of Manners, Practical Tips, and Spiritual Advice forthe Upwardly Mobile Page 18