Let Me Tell You Something Page 18

  I don’t seek adventure. I was perfectly happy as an anonymous wife and mother.

  I was hesitant to do the show. I’m not a big TV person. But I figured I would audition for kicks, a summer diversion, a laugh, and nothing would come of it. I never thought I’d get cast. But when I got the job, I took a leap and said yes. I wanted to see where the adventure would take me. I wanted to set an example for my kids, and one day my grandkids—you should always jump at any opportunity presented to you. Once we were done filming the first season, there was a gap of time until what we shot hit the air. As the premiere date got closer and closer, I started to get really nervous. Albert swooped in to save the day and took me on a vacation when that first half-hour teaser aired. We went down to Florida and spent the week on a friend’s boat. I watched that first episode on a boat in the middle of the ocean all alone with my husband, and to this day, when I get the DVD of an upcoming episode, I wait until I can watch it with Al.

  Even now, five years later, this show puts me outside my comfort zone. It has caused me tremendous heartbreak, and I’ve had powerful moments of regret over the show. But there have been amazing highs too—and that makes me so glad I took the leap of faith. You only live once.

  I get asked all the time what’s the best thing that came out of the show. And I always think of the same two things. The first was sharing with viewers Albie’s learning disability. It was his decision to share that. While we were filming, he received the letter notifying him that he failed law school—he missed his grade by 87/100th of a point. He came so close to realizing his life’s dream, without any help, all while dealing with the challenges of a learning disorder. Albie agreed to let the cameras follow that journey. Even now, when I revisit those episodes, I nearly die. But through it, Albie became a role model for others who were struggling just like he had.

  The second best thing the show has given me is a far cry from the first. Now don’t laugh, but my husband never asks for anything, so when the show enabled us to visit the Playboy Mansion and he had a chance to meet Hef, I’ve never seen him more excited. When we visited, Hef was initially not receiving any guests. But I knew how badly Albert wanted to meet him, so I went and started asking around. After about a half hour of my persistence, we were invited inside, and lo and behold, Hef came downstairs and greeted us. The smile on Al’s face was something I’ll treasure forever, and it was a direct result of me taking the chance to do this TV show.

  BEHIND THE SCENES

  People always ask me why I’m acting weird in the scene where Albie tells me he failed law school. The whole crew was sitting to my left, on a staircase, filming the scene. As Albie started to tell me, his cheeks began to turn red. Ever since he was little, this flush meant he was about to cry. So as he kept talking, I was glaring at the crew, begging them with my eyes to stop the cameras. I didn’t want them to film him crying. But I’m glad they kept the cameras running, this is probably my favorite scene ever in the show.

  While it’s still hard for me to wrap my head around how the show has made me into somewhat of a public figure, I am very thankful that it allows me to do some good too. I’ve visited people in the hospital, complete strangers who’ve written to me. When I talk to them and they say my words help them find a way out of their depression, I feel proud and honored. Young kids tell me that because of me they’ve been able to come out to their parents. Women tell me that because of me they’ve had the strength to leave their husbands. Somehow, my life on TV has helped guide some people, and that is beyond my wildest dreams. If I can help a stranger, even a little bit, then it makes my decision to do the show one of the best I’ve ever made.

  It’s impossible to know if every opportunity is worth your time. But you know what? You’ll never know if you don’t try, so if something feels right, do it. And if it works, great. If not, pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and start over again. That’s life.

  Ask Caroline

  Dear Caroline: I work from home on my own business, but people tend to underestimate me. How do I let them know that my work is serious business without being obnoxious?

  Why do you feel the need to prove yourself to anyone? If you are happy and secure in what you do then that’s all that matters.

  Very simply put, if the work is getting done and you are maintaining a schedule that is proactive where the phones are getting answered and clients are being serviced, who’s better than you? You have flexibility with your time and money, and that sounds like a win/win to me.

  Lay out the pros and cons: you have no travel expense, you have no overhead such as office rent and utilities, you have peace of mind and can focus rather than get caught up in water-cooler gossip, you don’t have to worry about anyone borrowing your stapler and never returning it, your hours are your own, you can write off your work space on your taxes, you can save money on office attire, and people don’t understand why you do it? Pshhht—you sound like a winner to me.

  Albie: in his own words

  I was eleven or twelve when I was told that I had a learning disorder. I didn’t even suspect that I had one, but I guess my teachers suspected something. They put me through a battery of tests, from math to puzzles to reading, and when the results came through, I was classified as having a disability. From that moment on, everything changed. I felt different, and being moved to remedial classes only made it worse. Even though I was mainly struggling with reading comprehension, I was given an assistant teacher to help with all my classes, and I hated it. All the kids gave me flak for the extra help I was receiving.

  I didn’t think I was different from anyone else. Sure it took me two or three times longer to understand something that I read, but that was it. The only reason I knew I was different was that somebody told me.

  As an adult, I’ve learned to deal with my disorder. I don’t like to use e-mails or texts for communication; I prefer to talk either in person or over the phone. When I am reading, I have to concentrate so hard that I can be completely oblivious to what’s going on around me. If you come into a room and talk to me while I’m reading, I won’t remember a word you say. I have a visual processing disorder, and now that I’ve learned how to work with it, it’s really not that big of a deal. I’m not trying to downplay it at all, but compared to other afflictions people in this world have, it’s not that bad.

  My experiences at college were wonderful. Fordham was so accommodating to me. I was determined that the stigma that had ruined high school would not transfer to college. On my first day at Fordham, I handed over an envelope outlining my disorder to a professor, and from then everything was taken care of. Nobody knew I had a learning disability. When time came for exams, I was quietly taken out of class to a separate room to take the test. They had assistants that I could use, but they were on a side of the campus that was hard to get to. It was easy to manage my learning disability without anyone knowing that I had one.

  For the first year of college, I was reluctant to take advantage of this assistance. I wanted to do it by myself, but as I started to hit speed bumps, I started to use the learning aides they offered.

  I remember that as soon as I got my book list for the first year of college, my mom said that she was going to go and buy herself the same books, and she would do my homework with me every week. We’d read the assignment and then we’d work on the homework. It was really an amazing thing that she did, and it was a time that we became really close as adults. That was a huge help, and it gave me a lot of confidence. Eventually I stopped relying on Mom and also on the other assistance that Fordham offered, and I was proud to complete college on my own.

  I always wanted to be a lawyer. I interned at an amazing law firm in New York City, starting my junior year in college. I was the youngest guy there, and I loved it. I realized I wanted to become a lawyer, so I started practicing for the LSAT (the entrance exam you need to take to get into law school), and again, the reading part kicked my ass. You only have thirty-five minutes to read the reading section. I kn
ew I was going to get into trouble with it. I spent a lot of energy, time, and money prepping to pass the LSAT, and when I did it was a huge accomplishment. Law school was insanely tough. There was nobody there to back me up, but what was I going to do? It was a chance I had to take, even though I knew the odds were stacked against me.

  When I failed out, I was .087 below the curve. It was a scary time for me. I could tell I was starting to fall behind. The writing was on the wall for me to fail out.

  I’m a private person, but I’m not ashamed of anything I do. You can’t be choosy about what makes it on air and what doesn’t. When I got that letter, telling me I failed out of school, I knew it was going to be tough, but I also knew I had to show it on air. I knew the letter was coming, but actually receiving it, holding it in my hands, made it all real. In the back of my mind, I was thinking, “One day, I’ll want to watch this clip, I’ll want to show my kids what I went through.”

  The hard part about doing this show is you have to go through everything twice. You go through things as they happen, and you relive them when they air a year later. It can be draining to get past a difficult experience, and then you have to rehash it in public months later. Even now, writing this, I’m reliving that time.

  I felt like I failed out for a second time when the episode finally aired. The media did not understand it. They framed it like I failed my GED, instead of failing out of one of the top law schools in the country. They talked about me like I was an idiot. To this day, if you Google me, the top news story that comes up is titled “Albie Manzo May Be Slow But He’s Determined.” It hurts and makes me angry, but you have to let these things go. I still have the letter informing me that I failed out. Soon after receiving it I signed it and I wrote, “Thanks for everything, Albie Manzo” and one day when I’m on the cover of Forbes, I’ll send it back to that school and show them that I made it anyway.

  I love what I’m doing now with our beverage company BLK. My mom has always told us that life takes you in a million directions at a million miles an hour, and it’s tough for anybody to make plans for the future. Your life can change in a phone call. I think that BLK is what I was supposed to be doing. Working with my brother and my uncle and cousins is exactly where I was supposed to end up.

  We now own one of the fastest growing beverage companies in the country, and it’s going to be very successful. By the time I’m done, I’ll be saying that getting kicked out of law school was the best thing that ever happened to me. And you will have seen that whole journey on TV, and any viewers with a learning disability will see that you can do anything, no matter who tells you that you can’t!

  I gauge my problems with

  one question: Will this

  affect my life one year from

  now? If the answer is yes,

  I solve it. If the answer is

  no, I don’t obsess over it.

  I’ve lived with this motto for as long as I can remember. It is the best way to dig your way out of the small problems that crop up daily in our lives, and it can be even more powerful advice when you’ve got some major drama on your table.

  In April of last year, Lauren was opening Cafface, and I was her backer. I invested all my money into launching the store with her. I called it the college fund she never used. And just before the store opened, when we didn’t know if it was going to work, I had to live with the fact that I’d just sunk a quarter million dollars, all of my personal savings, into a start-up business.

  I knew I was taking a big risk. So I asked myself what would the problem be in a year, and I got my answer. In a year, if the business tanked, I’d lose a ton of money, but much worse, my daughter’s heart would be broken. This answer helped me assess the situation and deal with it in the present, redirecting my energy to what was really important. I realized that if I lost the money, I could always make it back. I could do another season of the show. I could start another business venture. But what was more important was protecting Lauren; it would be harder for her to come back from such a disappointment.

  So I threw everything I had at Cafface—I made sure I went in there every day and devoted my life to it. Suddenly I was fighting to save my daughter from a broken heart. I had a goal, and my worries about the money and all the stuff attached to it all just eased up. That business was a game changer for Lauren, it was make-or-break. And we made it.

  Ask Caroline

  Dear Mrs. Manzo, My fourteen-year-old daughter is becoming very difficult to talk to. She’s barely passing at school, she’s talking back to her teachers, and she has developed an awful attitude problem. This is causing our two younger daughters to copy her, and it’s making my husband and I argue a lot. What can I do? I feel like I’ve tried everything.

  Wow, it sounds like you do have your hands full. First, identify if there is a specific incident that caused your daughter to act this way. Seek counseling either through her school or your own physician. Once you figure out the root of her problem, you’ll be able to start dealing with her in a way that will help her.

  Please never argue with your husband in front of the kids. If you disagree with each other, talk it out behind closed doors. If you’re just frustrated and snappy, try to keep it under control. If you are still angry ten minutes later, take him aside and talk in private.

  Your husband and you need to take back control of the house. Set rules and curfews, and enforce them. If you ground them for two days, make sure that’s how long they stay grounded.

  No one ever said parenting was easy. Dig in, hold tight, and keep your eyes on the goal. Don’t be ashamed to ask for help, and don’t blame yourself. Stay united with your husband, and help your daughter back into a positive state of mind. Keep the faith, and good luck.

  Your daughter breaks up with her boyfriend and she’s sixteen? He cheated on her and she can’t go to the prom? That’s not a big deal. Take her out for pizza, let her cry. I didn’t go to the prom either and I’m still alive.

  But if your daughter is cutting herself, drop everything in your life and deal with it. For the record, Lauren never cut herself, but that’s a perfect example of something that in a year will only worsen. Don’t panic, don’t freak out, just be there for that kid and make sure she’s getting every bit of help she needs and that she has your total support to get her through it.

  A lot of parents I know are lenient on their kids when it comes to drugs. I’m not because I consider drugs a problem with consequences that could hang around for a year and even longer. Your husband forgets an anniversary? Are you going to still care in a year? No. Give him a hard time for five minutes and then make him take you someplace nice and try to save the night.

  But what if you find out that he’s cheating on you? It’s a problem right now, and how you handle it will affect your life a year from now. I know it’s every woman’s worst nightmare, and I’m lucky beyond words that I’ve never had to face it. But if I did, I’ll tell you one thing: I wouldn’t lose my mind and scream and call him names and kick him out. I’d sit my husband down and ask him, “What’s broken?”

  I’m not talking about a long-term affair or finding out your husband is a serial cheater. I’m talking about your normally good husband who slipped up once. You need to find out what’s broken and how to fix it now, because if you married a good man who made just one mistake, you’ll probably get through it, and a year from now you’ll be back on track.

  Women who talk obsessively about their weight drive me crazy. You’ve gained twenty pounds over the winter? So what. Lose ten and make yourself look the best you can. Don’t make yourself miserable and drag down everyone around you, a few extra pounds is not going to change your life. Do what’s in your power and make yourself as pretty as you can at whatever weight you can get to. Your weight isn’t going to impact your life in a major way a year from now. It’s a yo-yo, and it’s a fact of modern life. Deal with it quietly.

  Each moment in your life has cause and effect. What’s the cause and what’s the ef
fect of taking action or doing nothing? Ask yourself that, and you’ll know whether you need to worry or not. It’ll help you keep the gray hairs at bay, and you’ll sleep a lot easier, trust me.

  Reading will set you free.

  No matter how crazy my life has ever gotten, I have always made time to read, to retreat into a book, every day. I love to read, it’s my meditation, my salvation, and my recreation. I find great peace in reading.

  Some of my earliest happy memories are of my mother taking my siblings and me to the library. My mother never drove, and when I was born (her sixth child), she was twenty-four. We lived in Maspeth, New York, at the time, and there was a library about six blocks from the house. Every Tuesday morning she’d round up whoever was home from school, she’d hold our hands like ducks in a row, and she’d walk us all to the library where she’d read to us.

  The first books I fell in love with were the Beatrix Potter books. I read about those little rabbits and animals and just marveled at their adventures. Every week, Mom would let us all borrow two books, and the next Tuesday, we’d all march back and return them.

  I still read as often as I can. I could read a five-hundred-page book in a night. I’ll read history, comedy, or biographies. I love to learn things, and there’s nothing more thrilling to me than a good historical novel.

  My favorite book of all time is Gone with the Wind. Even though it’s pure fiction, I still love going into Scarlett O’Hara’s world and being amazed at how she views life. There’s something so exciting about sharing someone’s journey in a book. I get so lost in that new world, I can see and hear and feel it around me. It’s intoxicating.

  I wish Albert, Lauren, and Albie liked reading books, but they don’t. They’ll read magazines or blogs, but that’s just not the same to me. I don’t like magazines; I prefer a good book I can sink my teeth into.