... Why, for myself, of course. – Colette
One night, I was out to dinner with some friends, and I glanced over to a nearby table where an elderly lady in a wheelchair seemed to be choking.
By the time I got over to her she had stopped breathing and was turning blue, so I identified myself as a doctor, and my friends and I got her out of
the wheelchair and did the Heimlich Maneuver. She quickly revived, and her daughter, with whom she'd been eating, thanked me profusely.
"What kind of doctor are you?" she asked. "I'm a plastic surgeon," I replied. "Oh really?" she asked, looking at me aghast. "With that nose?"
That was her thank-you for me having saved her mother's life, but it got me to thinking. I like my nose the way it is, and I like the wrinkles on my
forehead, too. Quite frankly, I'm happy with the way I look now. But the people who come to my plastic surgery practice clearly are not.
When I was much younger and newly minted as an MD, and before I met my wife, I often went on dates with lovely young women. I'd be thinking nothing
but romantic thoughts, then suddenly would hear, "What's wrong? You're thinking of what you would do. I know you're thinking of what you would do.
What? What is it? My chin? My ears? My nose?"
Over the course of my career I began to develop what I called the BQ, or the Beauty Quotient: what makes one face—that might not be considered classically
"beautiful"—work so well, while others with perfect features seemed somehow lacking. When I went to the movies, I'd study the faces blown up on the screen,
and decide what characteristics, coupled with a certain vibrancy, made some women more appealing than others. Then I'd go through a checklist of what I thought
might be worth changing or enhancing, whether a slightly weak chin, a pinched nostril, droopy eyelids, or nothing at all. This tactic became so instinctive
that I used it to assess new patients, to tell them what procedures would work best for them—and which ones wouldn't.
What are those positives? What is beauty? What are my patients seeking? Is there some way to quantify beauty? After all, beauty is truly an indefinable
characteristic, one that's always going to remain in the eye of the beholder.
This is especially important to acknowledge, as studies with babies have shown that they respond for a longer amount of time to an attractive face. The
implication is that human beings are hard-wired to respond to beauty, and in a mere fraction of a second--150 milliseconds to be precise—snap judgments about
appearance are made. Judgments that are almost impossible to erase from your mind.
Anthropologist Desmond Morris has famously stated that flawless skin is the most universally desired human feature. Psychologist Michael Cunningham waded
through numerous studies to find that the components of a beautiful female face often included wide cheekbones, a broad smile with full lips, large eyes relative
to the size of the face, high eyebrows, and a small chin. Recently, researchers in Australia have created computer software using an equation based on fourteen
facial measurements, thirteen related ratios, and images of supermodels, actors and more than 200 other women, so that when a photograph of a woman's face is
fed into the program, it instantly returns a beauty rating of between one and ten.
Can you imagine? If beauty were just a matter of a computer measuring the angles of a woman's face and her BMI (Body Mass Index), we'd all be in trouble.
What about the rest of the immutable factors that somehow, in the right combination, define what is truly beautiful in each individual?
So I've done something simpler, yet more effective. I created The BQ Formula.
How many times have you seen someone strikingly beautiful or handsome enter a room, but after five minutes of conversation, you suddenly realize that this
person just isn't as attractive anymore? Something about their personality, an offhand comment, how they behave, the scent of their perfume…well, any of these
factors that make up a person's BQ can be instantly raised or lowered according to your perception of them.
It works the other way, too. I met news anchor Connie Chung years ago when I was called to a New York City emergency room to treat her husband, Maury Povich,
who had sustained a facial laceration while working out, and we spoke briefly on several occasions. I remember thinking how exquisite she was--so much prettier
in person than on TV—and then I realized that her unforced charm, wit, and lively personality (as well as her beauty untouched by a scalpel) gave her a very high
BQ score. She was vibrant, living proof that so much can be done to raise your BQ without the need for plastic surgery.
Yet many of the women sitting in my office haven't discovered that there is much more to their BQ than mere good looks. Often, this is because they're too busy
wishing they had someone else's nose or lips or flat belly.
In Chapter 3, you'll take the BQ Quiz, which is unique to you alone. Once you figure out your score, you'll be directed to different sections of the book, where
you can immediately capitalize on your positive attributes as well as begin to tackle your liabilities. Armed with that knowledge, you will be able to quickly maximize
your own Beauty Quotient. You'll see how much of your BQ score is directly under your control—so you won't need the expensive trips to the dermatologist or plastic
surgeon that you thought you did.
As your BQ scores grows larger, the more streamlined your life will become. You won't have to think about what you're wearing because everything in your closet
will make you look good. You won't have to fuss with your skincare or makeup because you'll have a super-easy daily routine. You'll know exactly how to always look
your best, even if you only have ten minutes to get ready for work and fly out the door!
If it helps, think of your BQ as the physical equivalent to your credit score. If three companies look at your credit history, each will weigh these figures
differently to come up with their own score. As a result, you'd have three different scores based on the same information, yet no matter how quickly you pay your
bills, you'll never get a perfect score! Which is not exactly helpful when you're trying to get a mortgage, but it certainly helps you understand how even facts
and figures are at the mercy of subjective interpretation.
Because the BQ is so subjective, there will never be a perfect score. But as soon as you start to reassess your strengths as well as your flaws, you'll be able
to raise your BQ higher than you dreamed possible.