Ah…The eternal question!

The other night, I was surfing the net and read an article about how Jack Benny not only never put a fence around his home, but that he’d even, occasionally, answer the door when his fans would come up the walk and ring the bell. Seems unheard of in this day and age, with stalkers and obsessed fans out there. But it does pose an interesting question. Two, actually:

1)      What’s the difference (to you) between a “fan” and any other (non-fan) person you would meet?

2)      How close do you let ANYBODY get to you? (Or: What’s your inner circle criteria?)

Fans pose an interesting challenge—which is why defining what one is to you is so imperative. Is a fan anyone who “loves your work,” “Seen all your movies,” or “Wants to have all of your children and get your face tattooed on their chest?”

Discovering where you draw the line between “perfectly nice person who has the good taste to love your work and tell you about it” and the “fanatic” who may never be able to see you as a real person is where the answer to that question lies.

The next question is equally as important: What’s your criteria for allowing ANYBODY into your life? Whether it’s allowing someone into your email box, in your front door, or down to your table for dinner.

If you’ve never given this any thought, it’s time to, because, more than ever before, there are people coming toward you, wanting to be a close part of your life. Even if they are all exciting, fabulous, wonderful people who’d make great friends, you don’t want to indiscriminately let everyone in (you couldn’t manage the relationships well anyway, if you did!).

So, what’s your criteria? What are the top 3 characteristics one MUST display for you to invite them into your inbox, your house, your life? And (possibly more importantly) what characteristics MUST they display in order to STAY there?

The traits and behaviors you come up with will be extrememly helpful in narrowing and refining the folks who you’ll let in. Your intuition will be your biggest asset in determining this as well. Ask yourself how you feel when you’re with this person? Is your inner circle criteria met when you’re with them? (For example, would you feel good letting them babysit for your dog or your kids for the weekend while you went away?).

Your time, space, and energy is precious and is absolutely at a premium now. And fans or not, you get to choose who you let into your life, in what context, and for how long. Taking some time to figure out what your criteria for that is will help you focus and think clearly so that you can do all you can to make sure your inner circle ROCKS!

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 3rd, 2008 at 8:22 am and is filed under Entertainment Industry, Fans, Hollywood, Privacy, Relationships. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.