You're this big star all the sudden. Teenagers mimick your style, fans hand you carefully crafted portraits of yourself to autograph, groupies scream at you from behind a velvet rope as you attend a friend's movie premier... Katie Couric says So, what do you think is the key to your success?"
Well, for some of you readers, I know that is actually pretty close to the way things already are. But for the rest of us, that's a loaded question.

I'm going to tell you a story I hardly ever tell. When I was about 16 or 17 I got "discovered". Sort of. Back then, I was really skinny. I know, but really, I was a stick. And I had been hearing this same line for about six years "You should go into modeling." I wanted to try it, but it takes a very secure person to demand that someone pay her for looking a certain way. And it took me six years to get the guts to do it.

I went to a John Casablanca's Model Search and they asked me to come back for an interview. My mother and I trotted up there one evening and met with the director of the agency. As we talked, she got more and more excited, pumping me up about what a wonderful career I'd have. I'll never forget this one statement she made: "I think we have found the next Cindy Crawford!" I think my mother thought she was as crazy as I did, but this woman seemed so sure of herself that I wondered if she may be on to something.

So, I took modeling classes. I went into the studio once or twice a week and I listened to lectures, applied make up just so, walked around in heels and let strangers scrutinize every inch of my body. It was horrible. The make-up was harlot-esque. I didn't like the other girls and I didn't like the photographers. The only thing about it that interested me was the equipment and analyzing the mentality of the people who happily participated.

After eleven weeks, I quit. The girl who supposedly had a supermodel career waiting for her, called her incredulous agent and said she didn't want it.
I will never forget that feeling of hanging up the phone knowing I had either just saved myself from a hideous life or I had ruined my greatest opportunity. I have visited that feeling several times since then. For example: Dropping out of college, when I moved to Romania and left Nashville, leaving Caffe Milano and artist management, turning down an opportunity to move to Coventry, England and leaving a great job offer and friendly arts community in OKC in 2000.

See, how do we know which opportunity is the one that will lead us to our personal fame and fortune? Some of my decisions in that area have been perfect. And some... you know. I have walked away from some things in my life that others would have found heavenly. I shake my head and say to myself "I must be crazy."

So, when I am daydreaming of what it might be like to be on the other side of the interviewing table, I discover what I believe my success will be made of: Perseverance, Faith in a God given vision and the willingness to take chances. A friend of mine reminded me of this quote the other day. As I go through my last week of this part of my journey, I pass it on to you... _______________________________________________________

I learned this, at least, by my experiment; that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. ~Henry David Thoreau

Penny René