Instead of worrying about what your man is going to do for your social life or what he’s going to buy you, look for someone who is going to be a good man, who you can build a solid friendship with, and who wants the same things in life that you do. You will be much happier in the long run if you’re with someone for those reasons instead of for the number of zeros in his bank account. And if you’re out there being true to who you are and making genuine connections, you never know who you’ll attract.
CHAPTER NINE
Training Camp:
The 60 Day Challenge
Training camp: A place where people live temporarily and learn or develop their skills in a sport.
I follow the rapper Game on Instagram (which is my way of staying up with some of my friends when I’m too busy to call). He posted photos of this 60 Day Challenge he was doing and I watched him transform his body. Other people started doing it with him and they were seeing great changes not just in their bodies but in their lives as well. I got inspired by some of the testimonies.
I was in New York and was scheduled to be in Los Angeles in a couple of weeks, so I reached out to Game and told him I wanted to do the challenge. When I landed, I texted him and he told me to meet him at a local café.
“When?” I asked.
“Now,” he said.
Dice and I showed up, and he ordered us egg whites and some vegetables and said, “You start today!”
What? There was no warming-up period, no couple of days to get used to the idea. I hadn’t even had my chocolate fix that day! This was going to be Day One of my 60 Day Challenge? Damn! No fried foods, no alcohol, only fresh fruits and veggies, protein drinks, and skinless, boneless chicken or fish for the next sixty days.
I went through the sixty days, and by the end I was in the best shape of my life. I learned a lot about myself mentally as well as physically. You can go online and check it out for yourself. But what I also learned is that the principles I applied to getting into mental and physical shape in my life could also be applied to my relationship, which I actually did.
Sixty-Day Relationship Challenge
(For Those Already in a Relationship)
Is your relationship perfect? Neither is mine. So after my 60 Day Challenge for my body, I decided to do a relationship challenge. My thing is complaining. So I decided not to complain for sixty days. I couldn’t believe how hard it was to stop doing it. But I also realized how much time I actually spent in my relationship nitpicking about petty things that really didn’t matter. Not doing it made a huge difference in our relationship. We both were happier in the end.
If you’re not a nagger or complainer, then I’m sure there’s something you do that he wishes you would stop doing. You should also add a few things that he would love for you to do that you don’t do frequently enough in his opinion. It could certainly be sexual, but it doesn’t have to be.
You can also start doing some nice things for him over the next sixty days. Leave him handwritten notes telling him how proud you are of him and how much you love him every single day for the next sixty days. Fix him a special meal. Or do something spontaneous and unexpected, like give him a bubble bath once a week for the next sixty days.
And don’t tell him about the sixty-day challenge. Just do it. And watch how he reacts. Sometimes in a relationship it’s easy to take each other for granted. Or we want him to always make the first move and do things for us. Make up your mind that for the next sixty days it doesn’t matter what he does or doesn’t do; you’re going to be the one to either stop doing things that get on his nerves (like nagging) or come up with new ideas and ways to make him happy.
The best things come when you’re not looking.
And when the sixty days are over, reevaluate. What worked and what didn’t? You may want to go back to nagging and complaining because that’s what he responds to, or maybe you won’t have to when the sixty days are done.
Sixty-Day Relationship Challenge
(For Singles)
If you aren’t in a relationship, the sixty-day challenge is even better. This is a time to focus on you. Pamper yourself. Improve yourself. Get real with yourself. If you’re alone and you don’t want to be alone, take a break from trying to find Mr. Right. It’s probably exactly what you need.
So spend the next sixty days NOT looking, thinking, or trying to get a man.
I’ve heard a million times from friends and others, “It wasn’t until I was happy with myself that all of these great things began to happen to me.” That seems to be the formula. It used to sound so corny to me, but it is very true. The best things come when you’re not looking.
“If I’m not looking, how am I going to find him?” I’ve been asked.
He’ll find you. Trust me. When you’re looking, most of the time what you’ll attract is the wrong kind of man. If you’re thirsty or desperate, it comes across. So what you’ll get is a man who will prey on a desperate woman, not a man who will be the man of your dreams. You tend to attract what you are.
So spend the next sixty days being the woman you want to be. Maybe you need to lose weight. I can tell you for a fact, the 60 Day Challenge will help you to do that. Maybe you just want to get healthier. Or maybe you want to get into shape and start a workout regimen.
Maybe your goals are mental. Find two or three good books and finish them within the sixty days. And make sure they are books that will improve your mind or your spirit. Don’t go for the cheesy romance novel. That’s not really going to improve your life, is it? Or make it a goal to read the newspaper every day. Like I learned from my stepdad, it can help you in so many ways to be up to speed on current events and build that mental capacity.
At the beginning of this challenge, set some reasonable goals for yourself and then work every day to achieve them. Keep a journal so that you have a reminder of what you were able to do during this period, the places where you struggled, and how you overcame and pushed through.
And start today.
When you’re doing this challenge, remember to have fun. Get out there and do some things you’ve never done before. How is your potential Mr. Right going to see you if you’re locked away in the house? Mix it up. My mom used to say, “Prince Charming isn’t going to ride up to your door and knock.” You have to be out there, just not out there being thirsty and looking desperate. He’ll see you when you are looking and feeling your best and being happy.
In order to be in a healthy relationship, you have to be a whole and healthy person yourself. If you spend time working on yourself, you’ll be surprised at how much people will start to notice you and what you’re doing. And that guy who is out there waiting for you is now getting a complete person.
Keys to Success
One of the things that got me through my sixty days was having a support system. I could go online and see what other people were doing, but I also had physical encouragement.
Every day we’d do a hike, jog, or run up Runyon Canyon, which is this hilly trail in the park in Los Angeles. We had this motto: Nobody gets left behind. No matter what. And I appreciated it on those first days when I could barely finish the trail. I was last a couple of those days, but someone was there with me, pushing me, making sure I finished when I wanted to quit.
By the end of the sixty days, I was one of the people going back to make sure that people finished and didn’t quit. Folks would be crying and breaking down, but nobody got left behind.
That should also be applied to your relationships. Sometimes you can find yourself way ahead of your partner or mate and you may just want to run ahead and not look back. But this is a partnership. You can’t just leave him behind. If he fails, you fail. So go back and get him, push him, drag him if you have to. Encourage him and be there for him, if he’s truly the man you want to be with.
What I also learned is that when you’re going through something tough, it’s best not to
go it alone. You need people to lean on, people to talk to, people to talk you off the ledge when you’re thinking about jumping.
That was what the challenge was for me. I had these people there making sure I got through it. And these people became my friends. We shared things no one else could understand because we were all going through the same exact experience together.
In Los Angeles we had a big, tight-knit group. When we were done, Game rented out a hookah bar and we had a blast together, celebrating our shared accomplishments.
Having a challenge or a goal like the 60 Day Challenge allows you to hit the reset button on your life. It’s a chance for a new start.
I also learned that it’s okay to fall. During the challenge, I had a day where I binged on KitKat bars (chocolate is my weakness). I can’t tell you how many of those things I ate. But I felt really bad about myself. I shared this with a few of my 60 Day buddies and they encouraged me to start fresh the next day. Forgive myself. Put it behind me. Move forward.
Sometimes we fall off and we just keep falling. In life we may hit a bad patch and we allow it to overtake our whole life. That bad patch becomes a bad month, a bad year, and then a bad life. Stop at the patch. Hit the reset button and move on.
The other thing we have to watch out for is self-sabotage. We have a tendency as women to do that. When I finished my sixty days, as I said, I was in the best shape of my life. I was feeling really good. But after about a month, I completely spiraled out of control. I started binge eating and stopped working out. What was crazy was that I had a movie to do. Here I had gotten into the best shape of my life, I completely undid all that work, and I now had to be in front of a camera.
I was working on the sequel to Steve Harvey’s Think Like a Man. And when I see myself in that movie, all I’m thinking is how I messed up. I love the movie, but I hate how I look. I did all that work to prepare for that film and then I did this to myself: craft services, chocolate chip cookies every day while I waited to shoot the next scene, sitting around, not working out.
I did it knowingly. It’s crazy. I have an all-or-nothing personality. While I was doing the challenge, I was all in, determined to finish, determined to succeed. And I did. When it was over, I guess I was like, “I did it, it’s done, now back to my normal behavior.”
But what I also learned is that you need balance. It can’t be all or nothing, because few things are. And in relationships you can’t go all out and when things don’t go the way you want, pull all back and give nothing.
I’ve learned that even on that sixty-day challenge, you should mix it up. You don’t have to work out every single day. Take a day off here and there. Have a cheat day, where you eat whatever you want (okay, maybe not in a relationship!). They say slow and steady wins the race, right? I’m learning that it’s okay not to be so extreme. I have to make a conscious effort to create this balance in my life. And that, too, has helped my relationship, because I’m not so intense. And again, when you’re feeling off your game, reach out and get help.
But just as important as it is to have support, make sure you eliminate the negativity and the people who will discourage you from completing your goals. In fact, don’t even tell them what you’re doing.
I was nervous about doing the 60 Day Challenge because I was very public about it. I was posting stuff on Twitter and Instagram. That could have gone either way for me. I felt pressure to make sure I completed it because everyone was watching, but I also had the possibility of the haters saying things to discourage me.
That’s why it’s so important that your inner circle, the folks who are close to you, are there to support you and have your back to keep you on track.
There’s nothing like good friends.
CHAPTER TEN
My Starting Lineup:
Keep Your Friends Close . . .
Starting lineup: An official list of the players who will actively participate in the event when the game begins. The players in the starting lineup are commonly referred to as starters. The starters are commonly the best players on the team at their respective positions.
I believe a key component of being in a healthy relationship is making sure you have a solid team around you. My team, my starting lineup, is made up of my close friends.
This friendship thing can be tricky. Sometimes you can have too many friends, which gives you too many voices in your head and too many opinions. Sometimes you can have the wrong kinds of friends or think you have friends when what you really have is frenemies—people posing as friends who are really there to pull you down. Either scenario can ruin a potentially good relationship.
That’s why it’s important to pick a solid starting lineup in your life. Who will be there in the trenches with you and who deserves to be there? You should examine your life and the people you have chosen to be in it and ask yourself, “Are they there because they truly care about me and my happiness?” If your answer is no, then they have to go. They’re not worthy to be in your starting lineup. Those friends who aren’t there for you will always show you in some way.
I was hanging out with a few of my friends and acquaintances at a restaurant/lounge in Los Angeles. One of them had just gotten engaged. She held out her hand, and I said, “Oh, that’s a beautiful ring!”
Ladies, we can praise and support one another without it always being a competition.
And another one said, “But it’s not as big as yours.”
So what? I hate that shit. Ladies, we can praise and support one another without it always being a competition. It’s okay to be genuinely happy for someone else’s happiness, and there are women who may have a nice life and can still appreciate that you are having a nice life too, and be happy for you.
Women especially need to start acting like sisters and knock off the petty jealousy.
“I wish I had your life!”
I hear this all the time. But if a “friend” says this to me, I’m giving them the side eye. Because your friends—your real friends—don’t want to be you, and they aren’t even really paying attention to the superficial material things you may have. Because they’re riding with you.
I have been very fortunate to have some really great friends. Or maybe I’ve learned not to tolerate fake-ass jealous women in my life. I think of my friends as you would a starting lineup on a team. These are the people you go to when you’re in trouble. They’re there with you through good times and bad times. With great friends, you can’t help but win. In my life, every friend plays a particular role. There are also some friends I may not speak to for years, but they’re right there when I need them, and vice versa. There are some I talk to every day. But I can’t imagine my life without my good girlfriends.
Friendship is very important to me. My best friend in the whole world is Dice. She is my first cousin, but she’s also my better half. She’s actually more than my best friend. She’s more like my sister. She’s known me my entire life. So when I go to her for advice, she can take me way back to all the bad decisions and mistakes I’ve made in my life and remind me never to make those mistakes again. She also keeps me grounded. She often tells me, “Look how far we’ve come. Look how blessed we are.” She is my connection to my roots and my humble beginnings. It’s good to experience new and exciting things with her because she’ll say, “Can you believe your life?” and it makes me appreciate it more and not take a thing for granted.
Then there’s Po. It seems like Po has been in my life forever. She was a friend of a roommate I had in New York. When I moved back to New York from Los Angeles, MTV put me up in corporate housing for thirty days in Manhattan. A friend of mine from Atlanta moved to New York, and we ended up getting a place in Edgewater, New Jersey. It was a super-cool place to live and it was nice to split the rent and save some money. Some people from the industry, like Fabolous, lived in my building. I saw him all the time. That was the building for the up-and-comers. If
you had arrived, you lived in an apartment on the water or in Alpine, NJ, where Eddie Murphy and folks like that lived.
Just about every morning on my way out, I’d see Po sleeping on our couch. At first I was kind of pissed. I was like, “Who is this chick on the couch I paid for?”
After a few months, I got used to her. Then my friend decided to move back to Atlanta. Things weren’t working out in New York career-wise for her. And Po just stuck around. On my couch. I didn’t have the heart to kick her out. Her family was in Houston. She didn’t really have a place to go. Her family was very religious and they didn’t approve of her lifestyle.
She was so bold and out there. And I was the exact opposite. She and my cousin became fast friends and she helped Dice really become more comfortable with who she is.
It was Po who introduced the “No judgment” mantra into our circle She would share some of the most outrageous stories with us and would end them with “No judgment!” It opened the door for all of us to feel free to express our deepest thoughts and secrets and know that none of us would face any scrutiny, side eyes, or judgment.
It’s important to have a safe place where you can discuss things and not feel like someone is going to judge you. Po set the tone for that in my life.
It’s important to have a safe place where you can discuss things and not feel like someone is going to judge you.
Po and Dice have been on my reality show from the beginning and I love watching them grow and find their way. For me, being successful means seeing my friends successful and happy too. Po is working on a music career, and she and Dice are hosting club dates and standing on their own two feet. What’s the point in being successful if you can’t lend a hand to your friends? I’m not talking about giving people stuff. I see that a lot with entertainers and athletes. They give their friends from their old neighborhood “jobs,” and really all they’re doing is buying them stuff and they’re not adding to the game at all. The biggest public example of that was probably MC Hammer, who made so much money but had so many people in his entourage who were just leeching him. And when the money was gone, so were they. They weren’t friends. And neither was he, really. A good friend teaches a friend how to fish so they can make their own way.
The Love Playbook: Rules for Love, Sex, and Happiness Page 9
