Grin and Bear It: How to Be Happy No Matter What Reality Throws Your Way Read online

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  To anyone who has ever failed …

  All the adversity I’ve had in my life,

  All my troubles and obstacles have strengthened me,

  You may not realize it when it happens, but a kick in the teeth may be the best thing in the world for you.

  —WALT DISNEY

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Notice

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Introduction

  1. Confessions of a Recovering Me-Aholic

  Photo: Jenni Pulos as a young girl

  Photo: Jenni Pulos and her grandmother

  Photo: Jenni Pulos and her father

  Photo: Jenni Pulos, her mother, and her sister

  Photo: High school photo of Jenni Pulos

  Photo: High school graduate portrait of Jenni Pulos and family

  2. The Wannabes

  Photo: Jenni Pulos with date at UCLA

  Photo: Jenni Pulos in her twenties

  Photo: Jenni Pulos and Chris Elwood

  Photo: Marquee for show “All About Me”

  Photo: Jenni Pulos and Chris O’Donnell

  Photo: Jenni Pulos as Gordy

  Photo: Rehearsing for Showtime at the Apollo

  3. Bloom Where You Are Planted

  Photo: Jenni Pulos as Captain Coconut

  4. Nanny-Cam Diaries

  5. Go Toward the Hit

  6. Over and Beginning Are the Same Word

  7. Navigating Around Negativity

  8. Work, Don’t Worry!

  9. Top 10 Surefire Ways to Fail

  10. Man Up: A Little Deb in All of Us

  Photo: Jenni Pulos as Deb Crux

  11. Failing Forward and Lessons Learned

  Photo: Backstage at the Knitting Factory

  12. Finding Guidance, Wisdom, Family, and a Home

  Photo: Jenni Pulos and Jonathan Nassos

  Photo: Jenni’s dogs

  13. OPA! It’s Chic to Marry a Greek

  Photo: Jenni Pulos wedding portrait

  Photo: Jenni Pulos and Jeff Lewis

  14. And Baby Makes Three

  Photo: Jenni Pulos, husband, and baby

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Copyright

  Introduction

  There are four words my very conservative Greek-American mother thought would never come out of my mouth: “I’m dating a doctor.”

  You see, my always perfect pretty sister is married to a doctor—but enough about her, let’s get back to me.

  The doctor I was dating, Jonathan, was from Chicago and I was living in L.A. On a break from my work on the television show, Flipping Out, we decided to meet for a weekend in the Arizona desert. To be fair, Scottsdale isn’t really in the middle of Los Angeles and Chicago but it has the nicest weather, so that’s the spot we chose for our brief getaway. Our relationship was fairly new but quickly getting serious and he wanted me to meet his brothers for the first time. I was determined to make the all-important, “new girlfriend” good impression. On our first night there, we all went dancing at a club to have some quality “getting to know one another” time.

  It was all about the music, until a smokin’ hot girl approached me and said, “Oh my Gawd, Jenni-girl, I love you on Flipping Out!”

  Even before Flipping Out hit the Bravo airwaves in 2007, I was frequently recognized when I went out, although usually people thought I was Julia Louis-Dreyfus. The look of disappointment on their faces is always the same when I tell them I’m not her. Once Flipping Out aired, people began asking me if I was that girl who works for that guy on that real estate show … And I’d say “Yes, I combine mints in a tin by flavor, custom order one hundred and forty degree, no foam, nonfat, three plain sugar lattes, and make sure there are ten to twelve red salsas when we have a Mexican lunch. Hi, I’m that girl!” … that girl who is now in the position of unlicensed, unqualified therapist to Miss Smokin’ Hot in the nightclub:

  Girlfriend, let me tell you, I work for a real jerk. I can’t tell you his name because he is a super-famous athlete and I don’t want to get in trouble for saying too much, but trust me he’s a real tool. Do you want to know what he makes me do? He makes me send flowers to his wife, his girlfriend, and his other girlfriend all on the same day! I swear, I am so fired if I mix up those cards. Uh-huh. That’s right. So fired. Geez, I can’t take it anymore, girl. I really hate my job. I don’t know how you do it, working for that guy I see you on TV with every week.

  She went on and on about her boss as people so often do when they meet me. I guess they think my relationship with my boss, Jeff Lewis, somehow makes us kindred spirits. So I did what I always do in these situations—I listened. I figured it was better to show her some compassion than to politely explain I was trying to have a romantic night out with my man.

  So, anyway, one night I got a huge bottle of Grey Goose and I was on my bed drinking the whole bottle of Goose. I hated my life so much and just wanted to end it all. But then, I turned on the TV and realized that your life is way worse than mine.… Do you mind if I get a picture?

  I was relieved she didn’t kill herself over her professional situation.

  “Let’s take a picture.”

  * * *

  Ironically, the initial idea for this book actually stemmed from a conversation I had with Jeff Lewis. One afternoon, after we had one of our normal everyday visits to dysfunction, he suggested I write a book about coping. At first I thought he was simply being Jeff—the big tease. But then I realized he was right, because I have dealt with demanding bosses, unusual jobs, and sticky situations my entire life where I’ve had to overcome unimaginable challenges and have lived to tell the tales. None of it killed me. In fact, it’s made me stronger! When I did things wrong the first hundred times, I learned from it. Now I hope telling my story can be helpful to those in similar siutations.

  How would I write a how-to book? I wasn’t sure. I really didn’t have one specific answer to how I’ve survived it all. I’d spent a lifetime working for people who have high expectations and who can be difficult. I learned what NOT to do in many of these situations, so this is how I am going to write this book.

  THIS IS A HOW NOT TO BOOK

  1. How not to look for the “right things” in the wrong places.

  2. How not to blame your difficult boss when the problem you need to fix is you.

  3. How not to see failure as something to be afraid of.

  By the time I was hired to be Jeff’s assistant, I was so used to difficult people—they flock to Los Angeles—I didn’t think all that much about Jeff’s unpredictable temperament. For me, his sometimes confusing behavior felt normal. It didn’t seem like it was anything out of the ordinary, at least not at first. Jeff can be a button pusher and believe me, he must have some type of internal radar that knows exactly which buttons to push to get the biggest reaction. It’s also who he is and I know it. I can’t expect anything different and frankly, never have.

  Whenever I meet people, the first thing they ask is how I manage to keep things so cool between Jeff and me. They say things like, “You are very patient”; “I couldn’t do it”; “I would go off on him”; “You have t
he hardest job in America”; “I would have quit by now.” A woman even came up to me in a supermarket and said, “When I come home from a hard day’s work, I love to watch Jeff beat you up!” If I remember correctly, I believe she said she worked for the Red Cross. Mostly, people want to know what has kept me in this unusual relationship and why I haven’t broken from the pressure.

  Don’t get me wrong, there have been plenty of times over the years I’ve thought about quitting my job.

  Who could blame me?

  But I have never been the kind of person to give up on something (or someone) if I truly believe in it.

  This is a “don’t give up”/“hang in there”/“you can learn to be happy”/“keep going”/“own your own flaws”/“succeed anyway” book. One step in the right direction is to tell the truth about yourself and that’s where I’ll start!

  1

  Confessions of a Recovering Me-Aholic

  * * *

  I’m about to ruin the image and the style that you’re used to.

  —SHOCK G/HUMPTY HUMP, “THE HUMPTY DANCE”

  * * *

  TAKE ONE

  Hello, my name is Jenni Pulos—that girl who is the fun-loving bubbly executive assistant, the patient, caring sidekick to Jeff Lewis that you may have seen on television. That girl who has got it together and is always worried about everyone else being okay.

  SPOILER ALERT

  TAKE TWO

  Hello, my name is Jenni Pulos and I am a one-day-at-a-time recovering me-aholic. I have spent most of my life focused on heartache, betrayal, challenges, struggles, and failure. Walking through the world as a self-absorbed, insecure, perpetual victim who never took responsibility for anything that went wrong around me, I spent years feeling sorry for myself. I used to wind myself up about situations and issues that weren’t even real.

  My MO was to take any situation and spin it into some commotion that was (but more often wasn’t) happening to me, without ever taking responsibility. I wasn’t the “sympathetic” friend who would lend you her shoulder to cry on so much as that annoying girl you could tell a heart-wrenching story to, and rather than show empathy, my usual response was something like, “If you think that’s bad, let me tell you what just happened to me!” Sadly, I would often hurt other people with my insensitivity or be flaky and not come through before they could do any of that to me.

  This is my journey of how I went from self-absorbed wannabe to someone who understands how to be happy, and how I went from victim to victor. It was a loooooong process, but one I hope you can appreciate and learn from.

  First things first. My self-involvement was off the charts. That was a choice I made and a negative language I readily accepted. There was actually a day when I stood up in my therapist’s office and said, “I do not need all of the attention” before walking out the door because she wasn’t focused enough on me. You’d think there would have been a red flag when I called my one-woman show, “All About Me.”

  Couple that with my constant role-playing as the victim. I played the victim for so long that it became an addiction. Some people drink, others smoke—I felt as if I got something out of that “poor me” perspective. As hard as it is to admit, I liked the feeling of feeling bad, feeling sorry for myself, and wallowing in self-pity. Oddly, I enjoyed it, like having a couple of martinis after work. I became a professional pity-party planner and I was my best and, well, only client.

  You could easily say that I had grown so accustomed to being a victim that I could spin any situation on its ear and make it about me. I accepted all of the negativity because it gave me an excuse for why my life and career were stalled. No motion, no movement, just stuck in the same gear! I remember my grandmother would sometimes look sadly out the window of our beautiful home in Arizona wishing she were back in Greece; she missed her small home and her three hundred sheep. She would make an audible sigh that bordered on a moan, “Oh, the sheep.” I’d like to think my negativity has its roots in the Old World but I was looking out every window of my life missing three hundred sheep I’d never owned. Instead of moving forward, proactively pursuing the things I wanted and trusting that success would come, I spent all of my time and energy feeling bad about why good things weren’t happening for me.

  Let’s get this straight: It’s all about me!

  I know.

  “Oh, the sheep.” Me and my Yia-Yia.

  Pathetic, right?

  Like any long-suffering professional victim, of course, I think it all started on the day I was born.

  Really.

  I was born in Portland, Oregon, on January 3, 1973, to parents who had been trying to have a second baby for more than ten years. My sister, Krisann, twelve years my senior, had made it very clear she did not want to be an only child, and my Yia-Yia (grandmother in Greek) was sure I was an answer to prayers she’d said daily with Krisann. On the day I was born my father entertained the hospital staff telling dirty jokes in the delivery room—or so I’ve been told. Yes, I was there, but I can’t say I remember hearing any of his anecdotes or punch lines. However, it must have had an immediate influence on me because I grew up using humor in the same way. (By the way, my mother has always thought it important that I am aware I was conceived in a Las Vegas hotel with mirrors on the ceiling.)

  When I was two, we left the safety of our big, Greek family in Portland and moved to Scottsdale, Arizona. My father wanted to be his own boss, and he was one of the original owners of the Old Spaghetti Factory restaurant chain. He has a larger-than-life personality, and as a kid I remember him playing crazy characters in TV commercials for the restaurants, often dressed as a dancing clam: “I’m Scheky the clam, that’s who I am. I am getting ready for my spaghetti.” Dad was a hit, and our restaurant was always packed.

  Likable and funny as my father was, he was a drinker. When my parents first married Dad’s drinking wasn’t an issue, but gradually it progressed to become a serious problem. It never reached the point where he drank all day, but by the time five o’clock rolled around he’d pour himself a drink, usually gin or champagne, and then keep his glass full until he got sloppy, slurry, and eventually went to bed or just passed out. Mom referred to my dad as a “Mickey Mantle” drunk because he could drink and still function at a high level.

  Champagne, Dad, and I.

  As a kid, I didn’t really understand that my father’s mood swings were the result of his drinking. I can recall being out for dinner at Benihana celebrating my birthday one year, and Dad suddenly left because he didn’t want to “mingle” with the strangers at the hibachi table. What I didn’t realize at the time was that he’d had too much to drink. To make up for his abrupt departure, my mom took me to Farrell’s for a piggy sundae. (Yeah! The beginnings of a lifetime of expecting disappointment served with a side of chocolate sauce and a birthday song sung by a quartet wearing striped vests and straw boater hats!)

  When he was sober, Dad was kind, and we had a lot in common, like our mutual love for tennis, a good joke, and socializing. But if he’d been drinking, he could quickly become quite belligerent. He rarely got physical, but he could be verbally abusive. His rage was something no one talked about, even when it occasionally became dangerous. When I was four or five years old, I recall him screaming and hurling a chair across our living room. I hid under the dining room table until the situation calmed. My mom had lived with these episodes for years while family and friends ignored his outbursts because he was very successful and well liked in our community.

  At only five feet, mom was a dynamo and we bonded early, thanks in part to Looney Tunes. When I was a toddler, she would put on one of Mel Blanc’s records and the voices would come alive in my living room. An accomplished mimic with a great sense of humor (she later told me she had dreamt of being a comedienne), my mom became Bugs Bunny, Elmer Fudd, and the Tasmanian Devil. Often using these whacky Warner Brothers voices, she taught me to work hard for everything I wanted, to treat all people with respect, to be honest, and to—above
all—put my faith in God.…

  (From left) The future juvenile delinquent (me), Mom, and my beautiful sister Krisann.

  She also thought fear and negativity were parenting skills. When it comes to my mom, worry rules the roost. Worry would develop into one of my main addictions, one I still struggle with. It wasn’t until much later in life that I discovered worry was easier than work. It certainly was more familiar.

  My mom told me that as a kid I was an absolute angel who loved to read and throughout my adolescence wanted to be a doctor—that is, until I turned thirteen. Then, according to her, I became a “teenage terror.” I wouldn’t listen, I lied all the time, and pretty much became a “juvenile delinquent,” as my mom likes to say. Most parents fear the dreaded teenage years, especially if they have a precocious daughter. By the time I hit puberty, I don’t think my mom really had the patience for a rebellious teenager. Once I got a taste of what it meant to be social, all I wanted to do was be with my friends. But to Mom there was such a thing as having too many friends. In her eyes there are close friends, regular everyday friends, and then there are people who say they are friends but turn out to be anything but and break your heart.

  “Jennifer, why do you have to be so popular? What are all these friends for?”

  “Mom, I can’t help that I’m social.”

  “Oh, yes, you can. You need to pray for less friends. Who needs all the hassle?”

  “Mom!”

  “And you buy them all gifts on my credit card because you love buying people presents, and that’ll put me in the poorhouse. I’ll be supporting you for the rest of my life and I’ll be dead soon. Then what?”

  “Mom you are so out of control…”

  “I’m serious. I will light a candle and pray that some of these friends go away.”