by Adam Carolla
But I know that, like many of my other pieces of advice, you may not heed this one, and either by luck or out of spite become successful. So, kids (and readers), if you want to measure it out and see if you’ve truly made it or not, go through the checklist below and see where you fall.
You Have an Enormous Aquarium: The high-end aquarium is a total rich guy move. The guys who have massive aquariums custom-built into their walls and stuff them full of reef sharks and manta rays they’ve had flown in from Barbados don’t love tropical fish; they love people knowing that they have too much money.
You Don’t Use the Phrase “Right Now” When Describing Your Job: One way you can tell you’re a loser is if when someone asks you what you do for a living you start the sentence with the words “Right now . . .” No true success story ever qualifies it like that. No one has ever said, “Right now I’m an astronaut.” It’s always, “Right now I’m working at a batting cage, but . . .”
You Pick the Phone Up on the Second or Third Ring: If you answer your phone too quickly, it means you’re desperate for human contact. You’re a sad sack hoping for someone to reach out with good news. If you avoid the phone altogether, you’re ducking pissed off relatives, exes and bill collectors. Picking up on the second or third ring means your house is big enough that it takes you a minute to get to the horn, and that you’re checking the caller ID to see if it’s something you have time to deal with in your busy life.
What do people do when your name pops up on their caller ID? Knowing this is the only insight you need as to where you are in life. We all know that feeling when the phone rings and you see that name and think, “Oh, crap. What does he want? I’ll call him back. I’m not up for it right now.” Well, are you that person to other people? That should be your first thought every day. Are you the one whose calls get screened? If you are, then you are doing something wrong. No one screens Bill Gates’s calls. If everyone thought of that every day, and made the necessary changes to get off everyone’s Do Not Call list, we’d have a perfect world.
You Have No Sunday Night Dread: If you go to bed every Sunday night with a sinking feeling hoping that your alarm will not only fail to go off, but will grow arms and smother you with a pillow in your sleep, then you’ve got a shitty life. When you are in a position where heading back to work after a weekend is something you’re okay with or maybe even look forward to, you’re on the path to success.
You Have No Exposed Wiring: In general, how visible the wiring is in your house shows where you are in life. The more wires you see, the worse off you are. Exposed wiring is the worst, like when the coaxial cable is stapled to the wall or just dangling free from the dropped ceiling or, worse yet, climbing through the crack of an opened window because it’s being tapped off the unsuspecting neighbor’s cable box. Just slightly above that is the square surface wall-mount conduit, the plastic doghouse that covers the wire but still screams loser. Wire buried in the wall is okay, but when you’ve got some money, you can get an audio/visual guy in there to get you going full wireless; that’s the best. The lowest is if you are using a power strip connected to another power strip. That’s the Human Centipede of electronics.
You Don’t Care What Market Price Is: Sadly, this little quirk is something I’ve not been able to work out of my downtrodden DNA. I’m too much of a Carolla to ever order anything that is listed as “Market Price” on a menu. I always assume the market they’re speaking of in this context is in a penthouse in Dubai. You know you’ve arrived when you have a hankering for king crab and just order it, not even curious what the market price is. Slightly related to this is the ultimate power move that my buddy Daniel, a guy who knows how to live the high life, has perfected. This involves the entrée special, one of the things your waiter lists before you order. Daniel will chime in with, “We’ll take that, but as an appetizer.” No Carolla, even yours truly, has ever uttered those words.
You Don’t Have Grocery Store Club Cards on Your Keychain: If you decide you need the grocery store savings club card on your keychain at all times so you won’t forget to save that eight cents on the store-brand Chex, you’re probably not on the Forbes list. There’s actually an equation with these things: the more of those cards you have on your keychain, the worse you’re doing. I’m not saying that you shouldn’t try to save a buck when you can. But please, just stick with the card that goes in your wallet. It’s the difference between having a herpes sore on your lip for all to see and the genital herpes hidden safely in your underpants. Nothing will dry up a lady’s vagina on a first date like seeing the CVS club card dangling from the keychain when you pick her up.
You Have a Magnet-Free Kitchen: It’s a good sign if you have no place to stick the kids’ drawings and coupons with magnets. That means everything in your kitchen is stainless steel and cost a couple of shekels.
It’s gotta be lean years for the magnet manufacturers of America, my second favorite MMA. Back in the day, everything was metal and would grip a magnet. There used to be magnets on every fridge in this country, and I once saw one reading “clean” on one side and “dirty” on the other that you would stick to the dishwasher. Even car dashboards back in the day were metal and could handle a magnetized notepad or compass. But I’m sitting in my kitchen as I write this, and there’s not a magnet for miles. Everything in my house is stainless steel or some sort of polymer.
I’m sorry, Sonny, I know this is a bummer. Once when you were around five-and-a-half, you explained to me that you were going to be rich like Daddy and were going to have a big house, too. When I asked you what you were going to do to get rich, you said you were going to sell “super cool magnets.” So I hope as you read this that I’m wrong and you are, in fact, a magnet magnate.
You’ve Never Taken a Travel Voucher: We’ve all heard the announcement before a flight takes off saying it’s overbooked, and anyone who is willing to give up their seat and fly the next day will get a voucher good toward their next flight. This happened to me recently when I was taking a trip to San Antonio. And three people got up and sprinted to the counter. I always want to talk to these losers. I don’t know if they’re doing this because they’re super poor or super laid back. What’s the thought process behind this move? “Well, Mom’s in San Antonio on life support, but I can get a fifty-dollar voucher towards my next flight if I just take a twenty-two-hour nap here at the Cinnabon . . . I’m in.”
When they do this on Southwest Airlines, it’s even worse because waiting for that flight is a collection of some of the cheapest fucks on the planet as it is. Throw in a voucher, and there’s a Black Friday–eqsue stampede to get to that counter. It’s a freebie feeding frenzy. It’s not like you’re going to get a BJ from a Victoria’s Secret model, Southwest flyers, you’re getting a voucher for Fuddruckers. Settle down.
On this particular day, this was the only flight to San Antonio. So this person giving up their seat would not be able to get there for at least twenty-four hours. I have never had travel plans that flexible. There’s a part of me that’s jealous, to be honest. I wish I could say, “Eh, I’ll go tomorrow. I’ll just head home and watch some Price is Right.” That’s how you know these people are losers: They have nowhere to be, and no one waiting for them.
You Have Places to Sit in Your Bedroom: Most bedrooms have a bed, a nightstand or two and a dresser. But when you’ve got furniture in your bedroom dedicated to just sitting, you’re in great shape. If there is a reading area with two high-back chairs and a crushed-velvet ottoman, you’re doing nicely. If there is a table in the mix, too, that means you’re having a lot of food brought to you by the help. You’re having breakfast and coffee while reading the Wall Street Journal. You’ve reached an enviable level of success. Having a place to sit in your bedroom means you’re doing well, whether it’s sipping some tea and reading or watching your wife get banged while filming cuckold porn.
You’ve Never Heard More Than One “Good for You” in a Row: Stick with me on this one. When someone says �
�good for you” to you more than once, it’s a bad sign. One “good for you” is real. The other person is genuinely happy for you. You’ve achieved some success. The second “good for you” really means “I don’t know if I would have done what you did.” So that means either that you did something heroic, or you did something stupid and the other person does not want to tell you. But three “good for yous” means you’re a pathetic piece of shit. That’s the stranger on the bus bench that doesn’t want to talk to you anymore and is just trying to get you to shut up. If that person throws in a bonus “there you go” before the “good for you,” it says even more. It means that you have turned into the guy rambling to a stranger about your job at the sewage plant. “Good for you. Good for you. There you go. Good for you” means the person you’re talking to wishes you’d walk away from them. “There you go” really means “You, go there!”
You Don’t Take Sick Days or Have Back Pain: The second I started doing what I wanted to do in life, my back pain went away. It wasn’t even about the work I used to do, though it was backbreaking. It was more that my old life was soul-breaking. When you’re proud of yourself and feeling good, you’ll walk tall and won’t have back pain.
And when you’re truly successful, you won’t take any sick days, either. There are a few reasons for this. First, truly successful people are irreplaceable. That’s why they get paid well. There’s only one Michael Jordan, so he gets paid a shitload, but there are a million people ready to step up and take that job at the rendering plant, so the guy working there gets paid shit. So take away the freedom to be sick, and give yourself a schedule and job where you can’t afford to be sick and, magically, you won’t. Your body and mind will stay healthy because you’re happy.
You Don’t Eat Personal Pizzas: I’ve seen a commercial, nay, multiple commercials for the personal pizza. These things have been around for a while, but it just occurred to me recently that the personal pizza is the saddest thing I’ve ever heard of. Eating pizza should be a communal experience. The guys are coming over to watch the game, you order up a couple of pepperonis and everyone digs in. That’s the point of pizza. This is not a food meant to be eaten alone while binge watching Dr. Who.
Plus, you can’t get a personal pizza right. The ratio is off. Once you get below eight inches there’s no way to achieve optimal cheese-to-crust balance. All pizzas should fall between nine inches and fourteen inches. The cheap losers that go for those places where they serve trays of pizza the size of a Winnebago for five bucks know what I’m talking about. That pizza sucks, too.
I’ve got a plan to beat the personal pizza problem, too. If you’re saying to yourself, “I’m hungry for pizza, but I’m alone” I’ve created an app that hooks you up with other lonely fat people in your area to eat pizza together. Think Christian Mingle or Tinder, but for pizza. This way you meet other like-minded individuals and you’re not crying into your personal pizza. You can post your pictures and interests, people can list their preferred toppings and you get matched up with the right loser to share your pie with. You’ll hit reply to the post and say, “Yeah, I’ll come by your place . . . well, your folks’ place.”
Your Job Doesn’t Require a Vest or Apron: Is there anything sadder than the old guy in the vest who greets you at the Home Depot or Wal-Mart? That seventy-eight-year-old guy who’s making minimum wage to hand you the flyer of what’s on sale that week?
I want you, Sonny and Natalia, to go meet this guy. I’ll grab a couple of milk crates, sit you down in front of him and I’ll fire away. “What happened? What went wrong in your life to get you here? Pill addiction? Dropped out of high school? Go ahead, Walt, tell them what happened.” This is what I call Scared Straight—White Edition.
The close cousin to this guy, except stationed at the exit instead of the entrance, is the receipt checker/security guy. I’ll head over to the Home Depot and buy 129 finish washers, thirty-seven joist hangers, fifty-one TICO clips. Inevitably, the receipt will be twenty feet long, and the guy with the GED and the lazy eye will give it a glance and a cursory marking up with a highlighter, then send me on my way. His job is to make you pause for a moment and if you don’t start sweating or make a run for it, he’ll let you pass. These guys aren’t security. They’re always overweight, wearing ill-fitting clothes, and missed three out of five of their belt loops. The only weapon they’re carrying are way too many keys. This is just the corporation saying to the insurance company, “But we had security posted at the door” when something does go wrong. This guy is the human equivalent of the plastic owl on top of the seafood restaurant. And as intelligent.
All right, kiddies, tally up your score: How did you do? If you fall on the successful side of things, well good for you. Just prepare to get sued.
So, Dad, How Many Jobs Should We Have?
As a guy who has had multiple jobs and multiple careers, please let me pass down a little fatherly advice in this arena. Having multiple gigs is a good thing. There is a certain kind of math that goes into this approach. One job is what most people have and that can either be all you need or not nearly enough. Having three jobs usually means they all pay shit. But when you cross over to a place where you have four jobs, chances are you are a rich person. No one can put in the time to work four minimum-wage jobs to make ends meet. But they might be able to pull off three. So four or more jobs means you’re the entrepreneur/businessman/real-estate mogul/celebrity. You’re serving on the boards of several companies.
As far as the multiple gigs, to me it’s about even numbers. One job, even if it does pay well, can be mind numbing. This is the kind of job where you work at a postal sorting facility from age twenty-one to forty-three and then kill yourself and/or several coworkers. Three is just too much for too little return. Go with two so you have variety and aren’t bored, or go with four so that you have so many plates spinning that you’ve got money trickling in from every direction and you have a cushion of cash in case one of the plates crashes to the floor. That way, you can start another business and start spinning that fourth plate again right away. Now, if you do start a business, make sure it’s one that has legs. Create something that people want to buy over and over again. When I was getting my liquor brand, Mangria, off the ground it occurred to me that liquor is a product that people consume and thus need to replenish, often, especially if they are drunks like me. I make much more on booze than I ever will writing books. The person reading this will pass it on to their friends once they’re done, or maybe even put it back on the shelf at the Barnes & Noble after flipping through a few pages. The guy who bought Mangria will be pissing it out in a few hours and then buying another bottle. I can sum up my business philosophy with the following phrase: “Don’t make toilet seats, make toilet paper.”
But take heed: Real entrepreneurs don’t call themselves entrepreneurs. I’ve met several super rich guys, the true one-percenters, at some of my vintage race events and when you ask them what they do they all say “a little of this, a little of that” or “I had a company and I sold it.” Those vague answers mean the little of this and little of that is done from a helipad on their yacht. It sounds a little defensive to constantly call yourself an “entrepreneur.” That’s a little like “right now.” It means you haven’t had a salary in years. Every time you say “entrepreneur,” you lop twenty thousand off your pull for the year. I’ve met several self-proclaimed entrepreneurs who want advice from me on starting a business, since I’ve started several. But once I start digging into their schemes, I come to realize they’re selling candles or e-cigarettes on Craigslist from their parents’ basement.
So I’m not going to tell you to “follow your bliss.” Yes, it worked out for Daddy, career-wise. I knew I was funny and have made a living from that. But many people, like everyone who tries out for American Idol, for example, are delusional about their skills and talents but got fed so much “You can do anything” and “Don’t let anyone hold you back” bullshit by their schools and parents that they will go
through life being perpetually disappointed.
When choosing your career path, it’s important that you figure out who you are and what you’re good at and go in that direction. Try different things. Don’t pick one career idea when you’re thirteen and devote your life to it. If you put your eggs in that one basket, you’ll likely be a failure (unless that career is putting eggs in baskets, in which case, go nuts). Your career will find you, not the other way around. It will be based on the inherent strengths you have. If you’re Lebron James, the NBA is a great choice; if you’re Danny DeVito, it’s not. Maybe it was Danny’s “bliss” to play basketball, but guess what? There was no way that was happening.
Factor in all the aspects before you pull the career trigger. Natalia, you once told me that you wanted to be a schoolteacher. I then had to explain to you that teaching is indeed a noble profession, just not one that pays. I remember having a sit-down to say, “You may want to be a schoolteacher when you grow up, but you won’t be in a house in the hills like Daddy and driving a loaded Audi like Mama if you do. You’ll have a condo in Sherman Oaks and be driving a Jetta.”
I’m not poo-pooing an average middle-class job and income. I just think we need to have a little more realism about that life. During career day when the fireman, policeman and nurse are talking about their jobs, we should take the class out to the parking lot to show the kids what those guys drove to the school that day. That way they’ll know how little we actually pay those people we routinely refer to as “heroes.” If we really walked the walk, they’d be able to roll up to the school in a Jag.