I've Seen a Lot of Famous People Naked, and They've Got Nothing on You!

AMACOM BOOKS

Chapter One

I DON'T KNOW how she tracked down my telephone number because I never got around to having it listed. But this was one message I couldn't ignore.

"Jake, I heard about what you've been doing for other actresses around town and I want to talk to you about your services-for me and for a very close friend of mine too!"

You gotta love Hollywood. There I was back in the early 1980s, a regular guy from Baldwin, Long Island, who had stumbled into this incredible sideline that had me sweatin' with stars like Priscilla Presley, Harrison Ford, and Bette Midler.

My client list was growing every day with calls from the most beautiful and talented people in the entertainment industry, not to mention many of the most powerful producers and directors.

It was heady stuff. I had no idea where it was going in those early days, but I was enjoying the ride. It was crazy because every day was such a wild adventure. I'd retired from Cortland State in cold, cold upstate New York after freezing my kneecaps off on the lacrosse field. I'd headed for Los Angeles as a teenage bodybuilder with dreams of becoming Mr. America. But I'd dropped out of that too after seeing what you had to take to compete. Steroidsweren't illegal then, but I wanted nothing to do with them. I never saw how they fit in with the whole concept of building a healthy body. I preferred to do my bodybuilding the natural way, but that meant I'd never be able to compete for the big titles back then.

As it turned out, staying natural and going with my gut took me in a whole new world. Without even realizing what I was getting into, I created an entire industry when I became the first personal fitness trainer to the stars. Before I knew it, I was in business.

Me? In business? You better believe it.

It started with a young actress who lived in my apartment complex in Studio City. She needed to tighten up for a bit part in a commercial that called for her to wear a bikini. Word got around that I'd whipped her into shape and suddenly I was getting all sorts of interesting calls.

Like that message on my machine.

"Jake," she cooed, "I really want to give you to my friend as a birthday present!"

She gave me an address in Coldwater Canyon. It was a neighborhood of hot properties. The bold and the beautiful. The young and the restless. All on their way to becoming the rich and the famous.

Needless to say, I showed up at the appointed hour ready to rock.

It was a swank place with swell views, like something out of a Hollywood movie. And I felt like the star of the movie.

I rang the bell as the music from the movie score played out in my head.

A gorgeous woman answered the door. Perfect!

"I'm Cathy," she said. "My friend is excited and waiting to unwrap my present!"

She led me through the big, open house. It smelled like California tanning oil. Soft jazz was playing on a stereo.

We entered a room at the end of a long, dark hallway, so when we turned the corner it took a few seconds for my eyes to adjust to the light streaming in from the big glass windows overlooking the pool and the valley below. Then, what to my wondering eyes should appear but ...

The naked Spielberg!

"Hi, Jake," he said. "I'm Steven."

Gotcha!

Come on now! You can't still be thinking that ol' Jake is going to write about seeing famous people naked.

Well, once again, let me set the record straight. I did see a lot of famous people naked but not in the buff, unclothed, nekkid, naked. Instead, I saw them stripped of the trappings of fame and fortune. No entourages. No public relations flaks. No makeup. No Gucci. No Armani. No bull.

That particular day, I met Steven Spielberg in the raw. I saw him as he really is: A regular guy. Just like all those other celebrities you read about and watch on the big screen. They are all regular people with extraordinary beauty, brains, talent, and drive, as well as the usual insecurities, neuroses, warts, pimples, and hangnails that we all have. In other words, like the title says: They got nothin' on you!

At our first meeting, there was nothing flashy about Steven Spielberg. He seemed to be a real regular guy: skinny, with glasses, wearing a T-shirt, gym shorts, black socks, and tennis shoes. He was friendly but very nervous, because, as he said, "I haven't exercised since the eighth grade."

E.T. had bigger biceps.

"Please don't hurt me," he said.

He was joking, but it took a while to get him to relax and understand that I was there to help him get healthier, not browbeat him like a drill sergeant. He was feeling vulnerable and a little intimidated, so we just worked with my low-key gear-a towel, a broomstick, and a chair-to do some basic stuff. He got through it all and actually did very well. I could tell that he was not a guy who quit easily even though physical exercise was not his natural thing.

I thought it had gone great for our first session, though he was sweating like a Miami roofer at the end of it. I told him to drink some water and walk around a while. I had to get going to my next scheduled appointment with Bette Midler, who lived a few miles away. Bette was still getting ready for the workout when I got to her house, so I called my apartment to check my answering machine. There were five calls-all of them from Spielberg.

"Jake, I can't move my arms."

"Jake, now my legs are numb ... is this normal?"

"Jake, I'm really getting worried. I can't move my neck; I think I'm partially paralyzed. Does this happen to everyone? Call me!"

I got him on the phone before he called 911 for a Med-Evac chopper.

"I thought I was supposed to feel better after your visit," Spielberg said.

"Spiels [I'd already given him his first official Body By Jake nickname], take it easy," I told him. "Drink some water, do some stretches, and we'll work out the kinks in tomorrow's session."

Cathy, his girlfriend, called me that night. When I heard her voice, I was afraid she was going to tell me that he had decided to call off the one-week trial. Or that he'd checked into workout rehab.

"He loves it!" she said instead. "He wants you to come to his beach house and keep it going next week too."

We talked constantly during his workouts. Jaws had been his first huge commercial success and he was still shocked and thrilled to be in a position where he no longer had to worry about paying the bills. I was still very much in the bill-paying position, so I wanted to know how it felt. Listening to him made success seem much more accessible to me. He wasn't cocky about it. He didn't lord it over me. He was trying to get a handle on the fact that people not only understood and enjoyed his movies; they were throwing huge sums of money at him to get him to make more of them.

Spiels still saw himself as the smart kid from Cincinnati who had trouble fitting in when his family moved to Arizona and then California. It had only been a few years since he'd been turned down by both the UCLA and USC film schools. Even if no one else remembered his struggles, he never forgot that he had to sneak onto the lots of the studios in Hollywood where he begged and bothered executives until they let him make movies.

In some ways, I think he still felt like a guy who'd snuck into the grown-ups' party, or at least like a kid who'd been caught up on a fantasy ride based on his wildest dreams. I wasn't riding as high but I often had the same feeling in those days. That's another reason we hit it off: We felt like a couple of regular guys who'd hitched a ride on the Hollywood express.

The next thing I knew, I was flying on the Warner Brothers jet with him to meetings, or jumping on the Concorde to check out locations across the world. I traveled abroad for the first time with him. My nickname for him eventually became "Wiels" because the wheels in his brain were always churning up new things, just little ideas like Jaws and Indiana Jones. He also introduced me to caviar, five-star hotels, and to success and achievement at levels that neither one of us "regular guys" could have dreamed in our younger days.

I watched and learned as my friend reinvented himself and his life. He didn't just help me think big, he helped me see that life offers limitless possibilities and opportunities. Hanging out with him, I lived it too. I experienced the tastes, smells, sound and feel of the good life. It was like sampling the world's healthiest addictive drug: success.

I was hooked and Wiels was my source, my supplier. I'd seen him stripped down to gym shorts and a t-shirt so I knew that he was a regular guy. Sure he's brilliant and talented, but like the rest of us, he struggled until he found his niche and his genius was recognized. And, as I discovered, he's not alone in that. Wiels showed me a much bigger world than I'd ever imagined I'd see, and I discovered it was populated by a whole lot of regular people living extraordinary lives. My association with him helped bring me even more famous clients, including Harrison Ford, Steve Ross, Priscilla Presley, George Lucas, and many others. I saw them all naked of any pretense too, and I came to understand that they had nothing on me. Or on you either!

You may or may not have a college degree but I'll bet you have a dream.

They may be a little farther along on the success ladder and a little higher up the tax bracket, but from what I saw while sweating with the stars-and since-there is less separating you from fame and fortune than you probably think.

This book is going to get you pumped up to take care of business. You may or may not have a college degree but I'll bet you have a dream. I was the same way. I like to think that I had street smarts even if I didn't have a diploma on the wall. The truth is, I probably was more lucky than smart in those early days, but I got smarter as I went along. I listened to some wise people and I listened to my gut too.

In the pages that follow, I'm going to pass along to you what I've learned so that you too can become a street-smart success as an entrepreneur. Your star may not hang over Hollywood, but believe me, there are plenty of other businesses besides show business. Whatever it is that you want to do with your life, I'm here to tell you that if you believe it, you can achieve it.

Maybe you've been working for someone else and you're ready to reap the full benefits of your hard work and talent by creating your own business. Maybe you've been laid off, downsized, or otherwise put out of work. Don't waste another minute worrying or being angry. Instead of getting mad, get started on your very own business. Use that energy to build your life around doing something you love!

No matter where you are now, or where you've been, you can start over and build the life that you want for yourself. That's the naked truth. I've seen hundreds and even thousands of examples of regular people overcoming incredible challenges to build great lives for themselves and their families.

If you've been laid off or otherwise put out of work, don't get angry. Get started on your own business.

Let me just give you the Cliff Notes version of my own background so you understand where I come from, which is probably a lot like where you come from and maybe even where you are right now.

Nobody stamped "future millionaire" on my birth certificate. I was so average that Gallup could have saved millions by polling just me. I was the sort of kid that parents charitably described as "stocky," and I had a terrible stutter. Still, I was an outgoing kid with a lot of pals, but back then I never would have dreamed that one day I'd be able to appear on television talking to millions of people. Just standing in front of the class and reading was a nightmare for me. I could read to myself just fine, but when I tried to say the words I couldn't get them out. It was embarrassing and frustrating and it turned me off school. My stutter was a curse and I don't say that lightly. For years, I didn't say anything lightly. Still, I didn't feel bad about myself. I'm just naturally an upbeat sort of guy.

I felt like I was never going to be the smart kid because I couldn't express myself, so instead, I filled the funny-fat-kid role. I wasn't obese, but I knew my way around the Twinkie rack. Even so, I was a fairly athletic and active kid. I played sports and I had friends who appreciated my sense of humor. I was thirteen years old and weighed 180 pounds-five-feet-five, squared-when my Mom took me to Syms clothing store on Long Island to get a suit for my bar mitzvah. I didn't get it when the salesman sized me up as a "Husky."

He led me and my Mom into an area where the suits were more like shower curtains with pockets and buttons. Then he handed me a blue suit that could have done double duty as a car cover. It had a "Husky" label sewn on a sleeve.

"What does that mean?" I asked my Mom.

"It means you are a young man now," she said kindly.

Cool! I thought. I'm man-sized!

On the morning of my bar mitzvah, my Mom had to promise me a month's worth of allowance money in advance to get me to take off the Husky label on the sleeve. I was happy with who I was because, at that point, I didn't know better.

Extreme Jakeover

Like most kids back then, all I knew about bodybuilding was what I read in the back pages of the comic books: those old Charles Atlas advertisements where the scrawny guy pumps up to kick tail after the bully kicks sand in his face at the beach. My dad tried to get me interested in weight lifting my freshman year in high school. He was a Navy veteran and a pretty tough guy with a soft heart. I'm sure he thought that if I built myself up a bit it would help me get my weight and my stutter under control. He set up a weight bench in the backyard and invited me out to learn how to do some basic training with free weights. I wasn't really interested. I still didn't get it at that point.

My father knew this was something I would have to decide to do for myself. He didn't get on my case. He just left the weight bench and free weights out in the yard in case I changed my mind. They sat out there most of the summer, killing the grass. Finally, in the fall, my Dad told me to move the weights and bench to the basement of our split-level house. I put them in a laundry room area just off my bedroom in the basement. Again, they just sat there like dead weight. I probably stepped over them or around them ten times every day.

Sometimes, in life and in business, all the tools we need to succeed are just sitting there waiting for us to discover them. It may be something that exists around us, or something that exists within us. Until we reach out and put those tools to work, we just exist in this world. But once we make that effort, we become part of the dynamic that drives the world!

Honestly, I think I finally went over and picked up the easy-curl bar because I was bored with social studies one night at the beginning of eighth grade at Baldwin Junior High School. I can still see myself putting the book down, getting out of bed and wandering around the basement in a tank top with my belly lapping over my pajama pants. I'd been listening to my headphones while I studied, and it may have been Frank Sinatra who got me motivated to get up. He was singing "My Way" when I picked up the two barbells and stood in front of a full length mirror.

Sometimes all the tools we need to succeed are just sitting there waiting for us to discover them.

The kicker, though, was the very end of the song, after Ol' Blue Eyes stops singing. It was a "recorded live" album so there is this long and loud ovation, wild cheering and foot stomping that goes on and on. As I did my first set of biceps curls, I fantasized that those cheers and applause were for me. I started doing biceps curls with the barbells as 50,000 fans cheered "Jake! ... Jake! ... Jake!" in Madison Square Garden. That was a big moment, because my focus changed from thinking about how tough it was to do weight training to thinking about the rewards it might bring.

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from I've Seen a Lot of Famous People Naked, and They've Got Nothing on You! by Jake Steinfeld Copyright © 2006 by Body by Jake Global LLC. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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