It doesn’t take a genius to figure out what is cool and what’s not, although I’ve met a ton of people who just don’t get it and I’m perplexed as to why. Understanding the cool factor, regardless of whether you are young or old, good looking or fugly, fat or thin, make very little money, have no friends, were born in a lean-to in the woods and raised by wolves shouldn’t matter… when it comes to understanding “cool”. It should be innate. But it’s not.
People made/still make fun of Michael Jackson’s nose and appearance. They say he looked like a woman, had carved up his nose to be too small and that it would fall off, joked about his girly hair, pale skin, and his penchant to wear military sequined jackets and such. But when he danced, everybody knows to shut the eff up. End of discussion. There isn’t a soul on this earth who had the “rights” to cool, like MJ did when he sang and danced. If you don’t agree then I’m sorry - you are one of these clueless people I speak of who don’t get “cool.”
Perhaps you want to know why we think Michael was so cool to watch? How did he figure out that his hand gestures, head nods, hip jiving, foot sliding, finger snapping, together with the glove was going to make people stop and stare and admire his talents? The answer is; Michael thought it looked cool and that’s all that mattered. Honestly, most of the time it’s that simple. If you believe you look cool – you will feel cool – and thus you are cool. Bottom line, no big secrets to reveal here folks; If you feel cool you will project that confidence and it doesn’t matter if you are wearing a bright orange life jacket to the Emmy’s, if you think it’s “the bomb” and it makes you feel good, enough people will be influenced and agree with you, as if you slipped them some kind of drug induced crowd think pill. The next thing you know everybody’s wearing orange life jackets. So, the moral of this example is: feel it – be it.
For those who didn’t buy the Michael Jackson example, lets’ take “Larry the Cable Guy”. Larry will tell you he’s not cool, he’s just a redneck, hillbilly of sorts. Truth is he’s very cool! Why? Because Larry first off is way smarter than he pretends. Larry also refuses to follow proper decorum, and in the process makes no apologies. That’s cool. Larry is also a smart man posing to be dumb for the sake of humor. Thus, lots of people who would have otherwise thought Larry to be a big stupid bubba, now think he’s way cool. They will stop channel surfing to hear him talk, regardless of the subject. Larry figured out a way to make “Hillbilly” cool. My guess is Larry feels he looks good in a torn up flannel shirt, otherwise he couldn’t stand in front of thousands of people and deliver jokes. So Larry’s confidence in wearing flannel - made flannel cool. Yup, it’s that easy.
There are however some things in this world that no matter who does them, where or how they do them, there is no way it will ever look cool. For example, there is no cool way to puke. I don’t care if you are Cameron Diaz just out of hair and make up looking like a sex goddess, once she leans over a toilet and foul smelling vomit shoots out her mouth, all bets are off.
I pretty much believe that just about anybody can be made to look cool, but getting them to act cool takes more than you think. Hair and clothes are a beautiful thing, but acting cool is a whole other deal. Unmistakable cool people have inner wisdom and unexplainable skills. Some might say you either have it or you don’t. I think you can be taught how to act cool, eventually, but you have to really listen, take notes, practice for hours, test and retest, and most importantly be willing to change. The last part being the hardest part, of course.
Despite how much people want to be cool, change is beyond their mental perimeter. Just the other side of reachable. Like a dog on a short chain and a juicy steak laying a few feet away. All the “want’n” in the world won’t bring it to you. So, you can either start chewing the metal chain and see where that gets you, or bark your head off and wait to be shot, thus putting you out of you misery. Being cool and understanding cool, don’t always meet.
Let’s start with the playground. Do you remember what it was like to be among a screaming bunch of five year olds in kindergarten? Think back to your first year of school when you were allowed outside for thirty minutes to run off some energy before your teacher tried to sit everyone back down to teach Dick and Jane. Perhaps, like my friend “Bob” you by accidently wet your pants in all the excitement of swinging, climbing and playing tag. Bob was very cool though and he quickly assessed that a couple of times down the hot metal slide - no one would know he wet his pants. On the other hand, if you were my friend “Betty”, unfortunately, you saw no way to cover it up, and just stood their and cried, which made everyone look at you and try to determine why you were crying, at which juncture they pointed and laughed, humiliating you beyond repair. Not fun I’m sure, and yet so easily avoided -so knows Bob the cool kid. Had Betty been cool and had Bob’s inner knowledge, in a quick second she’d have figured the fastest way out of her potentially devastating, life altering mishap was hot metal, and would have turned out to be a high powered attorney instead of a one legged waitress at iHop.
Nuf said.
