Do you want to be famous?
Today I’m going to show you how.
It’s not as hard as you think. I attracted thousands of fans this year by just talking about pizza. I’ll tell you how you can gain celebrity status just as easily.
Pretty soon, you’ll get thousands of likes for every one of your posts. Your followers will explode. Parents will offer up their children for marriage. You can brag to your friends, and buy them all pizza to celebrate your glory.
But I’ll also show you why the wrong kind of fame is worthless.
In fact, today is just a prelude to a bigger, longer message. Today I will show you how to be famous. But over the next few weeks I’m going to show you what you should be doing instead.
By the end of the month you’re going to know all about the most important asset you can have, whether you’re an artist or a business owner. When you hear what happened to me, you’ll understand.
How I became a celebrity by writing about pizza
My road to fame started when someone on Quora asked , “What will happen to me if I only eat pizza?”
I shouldn’t have been wasting my lunchtime on Quora, but I couldn’t resist. (If you lived in Italy for three years, ate pizza every day and had nothing to show for it but a half-written book, what would you do?)
I gave my answer here. I thought I was done.
But within three weeks I had thousands of upvotes and hundreds of new followers. A few people even blamed me for the spread of diabetes, obesity and arthritis.
As I write this, I have over nine thousand upvotes and 1.1 million views, with more than 10,300 views this month alone.
You’re asking, “How does he do it? How does a guy with a laptop in El Sereno command the attention of a million Quora users just by writing about the pizza he ate twelve years ago?”
Today I’m going to tell you two ways to get famous.
This is how superstars in every field separate themselves from mere mortals
Italians talk affectionately about all things American being esagerato. The size of our cars, the number of those cars that crash or blow up in our movies, the ridiculous posturing of our politicians, and especially our appetites. The first secret to fame is exaggeration.
When I answered the Quora question, I might have exaggerated a little bit.
During my Italy years, it was normal to grab a slice of pizza at some point in the day. On Quora I might have said that I made a meal out of it every single day. I might have also implied that the only other things I consumed were espresso, wine, and gelato.
I wasn’t exaggerating the truth all that much, but it was enough to make me extremely popular.
Listen, I’m not saying you should sacrifice your honesty and integrity for fame. In particular, don’t ever lie about your products, their features, and what they or you can do. Don’t lie to your clients. Don’t lie to your spouse/partner/significant other.
But outside of business and personal relationships, you should be stretching the truth into fantastic shapes and positions like you’re taking it to a session of advanced Bikram yoga.
Watch any stand-up comedian and see what they do. They take ordinary, everyday stories and blow them up until you can’t help laughing. They exaggerate.
We can even take this a step further. Look at the most successful athletes, celebrities, and artists you can think of. They’re larger than life! At least in one facet of their life, they do something that makes other people whisper and point, shake their heads, chuckle, cringe, and secretly admire them.
[Tweet theme=”basic-white”]If you want to stand out, you have to do something that stands out.[/Tweet]
Most of my one million viewers don’t officially approve of merrily traipsing around the Italian countryside, devouring stacks of pizza Margherita washed down with enormous jugs of aglianico wine, and finishing off with an affogato di cafe while watching the sunset. But it stands out.
Find something you can overdo, something you can exaggerate, and you’ll stand out too.
What does everybody want?
Another way to become famous is to tell people something which is both unexpected and something they want to hear.
All I did was make the case that pizza is good for you.
Of course it depends on what you put on the pizza, but nobody wants to cloud the good news with such trivia! Better just to add pizza to the list of comforts and vices we used to think were bad but it turns out they’re good for us:
Wine
Chocolate
Coffee
Beer
Sleep
Red meat
Marijuana
Sunlight
And now… Pizza!
As a one-time high school health teacher, I need to remind you that everything listed above is still bad for your health if you’re exposed to the wrong kind, the wrong quality, or too much.
And let’s face it, if your favorite vice is on that list, you’re probably abusing it. Don’t let my plug for exaggeration become your excuse.
But you’re not here to read disclaimers. You want to know all about fame. So look for ways you can give counterintuitive advice that will be good news for your prospects.
- If you’re a financial planner, tell them why they should take longer vacations and eat out more
- If you’re a fitness coach, discuss the importance and benefits of rest
- If you’re a real estate agent, explain the benefits of paying off a mortgage as slowly as possible
- If you’re a lawyer, describe an interesting loophole that can save your clients a lot of expense and grief
Now, let’s sum up what we know so far:
1)To become famous, exaggerate something. Put a visible aspect of your life into overdrive.
2)Tell the masses something that’s both hard to believe and something they will be happy to hear. (Dr. Oz had me at “Coffee is good for you”)
Now go on out there and do something to earn your fame! I want to watch you commit atrocities on YouTube. I want health freaks to name a new diet after you. I look forward to hearing anxious whispers about you coming from dark, smoke-filled rooms.
Most of all, I’m eager to see the masses stampede to do business with you, driven by your fame. They don’t even remember that you have competition. How could anyone compete with you?
What are you going to do about all those fans?
I told you I was also going to explain why fame is a waste of your time, so here we go.
I’ve got hundreds of thousands of Quora views, and thousands of upvotes and followers. But how many of my Quora fans need a copywriter? How many of them want to buy a book about biking across southern Italy and becoming the architect of your own fate?
Let’s address the elephant in the room. You can be famous if you want to be, but how many of those adoring folks are really viable prospects? And how will you even find them?
I’ve got an answer to that, too. Do this one thing (if you’re not doing it already) and you could multiply your profits and your effectiveness tenfold, according to some very reliable sources.
Next week, I’ll tell you what to do about that elephant in the room. I’ll show you how to harness and magnify the power of your new-found fame.
I’m going to give you the most important asset you can have, whether you’re an artist or a business owner.
If you want fame, and more importantly if you want customers and clients, you need to get this next thing right. If you subscribe in the space below, I’ll make sure you don’t miss it.