How to Be Totally Awesome

[Note: I'm not trying to start a cult or anything so just sit back and enjoy the read.]

Seems every time I turn around somebody's asking me how to be awesome. If I told you it was easy, I'd be a liar. If I told you that some of it -- such as having superhuman charisma, a turbo-charged brain, and movie star good looks -- wasn't just dumb luck, I'd be a liar and probably a Rush Limbaugh devotee.

Sure, you probably don't have the magic or moxie to don a disguise and make huge rooms full of people lose their minds. Sure, you probably can't string words or musical notes together in ways that inspire laughter and tears, sometimes simultaneously. But those shortcomings of yours most certainly do not place total awesomeness beyond your reach. You're not that kind of Jedi, and that's OK. You have your own way of being totally awesome, and that's really what this is all about: you, being awesome, totally awesome.

Some people are surprised when I tell them that I have not always been the powerful, marvelous, and maniacally happy man that I am today. Once upon a time, I was a 98-pound-weakling just like you might be now. There is hope for you yet. That's all I'm saying.

For me the turning point came when I stopped giving a fuck. That is to say, I stopped being afraid to be the ass-kicking hustler that the Good Lord made and started being that guy. Oh yes: Awesomeness is definitely a conscious choice. Make no mistake about that. If you do not decide to be what you want to be (which is what you really are and which rocks so tremendously that it can only be called "awesome"), you will never be that. That's step one: Decide to be awesome. Not good. Not rich. Not "well liked" as WIllie Loman might have said. None of that will do. You must be totally fucking awesome, as in, lightning bolts shoot out of your fingertips when you summon them.

Some people say, "Fake it 'til you make it." I say, "Suck it or fuck it or stop wasting my time." No fake ever went anywhere. That "fake it" attitude accounts for the fact that 300,000 bartenders in LA have screenplays that nobody -- including their mothers -- will ever read. As Yoda might have said, "Do or do not. There is no try."

If you're not a brilliant screenwriter, go ahead and be a totally awesome bartender. A totally awesome bartender kicks the living shit out of a phony screenwriter. No phony screenwriter ever helped anybody put on a nice buzz. There is no shame in ditch digging if you kick ass at it. So that's the second step: Kick ass at whatever you do. 99 percent of people in the world half-step, and half-steppers are decidedly non-awesome. This is the step that requires discipline and is therefore the one that trips most people up.

The third step is to keep the competition from nipping at your heels. If you do not continue improving upon your skill, if you fail to keep your passion stoked, you will soon find yourself back among the ranks of the non-awesome. Nothing sucks more than falling from grace. Once you've had a taste of your higher self, your lower self will do nothing but disappoint you. No matter how awesome you may become, you can always be more awesome because greatness knows no bounds.

That's it, and remember -- no naked pictures! No, there is no compound to which you should report, no silly robes or haircuts, no numbered bank account to which you should transfer all your worldly wealth. Your awesomeness has nothing to do with me.

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Do you have the guts to be awesome in the true sense of the word?