Patricia Ryan Madson was Head of Stanford University’s Undergraduate Acting Program and has taught a generation of students in all disciplines how they can bring the lessons of Improv Theatre into their lives. She has written a fantastic book that summarizes this philosophy: Improv Wisdom: Don't Prepare, Just Show Up.

In her 20s, when she missed out on tenure in her first University job – in spite of doing “all the right things” – she decided to focus instead on what she loved. Her explorations of Eastern Philosophy and spiritual practices informed her work in theatre and led to her success at Stanford, including being awarded the University’s highest teaching prize, the Lloyd W. Dinkelspiel Award for outstanding contribution to undergraduate education.

In this second of a two-part interview, Patricia talks about losing her first academic job, finding her path to an even better position and the life lessons that gave birth to her book Improv WISDOM.

“What I began doing at that point was trying to please ‘The Man’.”

Read on to find Patricia’s thoughts on:

1. What if you do everything by the book…and fail?

2. What would happen if I just acted like me?

3. Is the purpose of life just to be happy?

Read the full interview:

Avocationist: To get back to your career path, you were at St. Catherine’s School teaching and still taking classes: what happened next?

Patricia: I realized that I loved teaching and something in me said, “I think you might enjoy teaching at a higher level.” I was managing kids, but I know by nature that I am not a kid kind of person. I don’t have any children myself and I feel awkward with babies, toddlers, really any child under 15, but give me a high school or college-aged kid, and I am very good. Something said to me, “I think you want to keep teaching. You have found your niche here, but it could be great if you do it at the college level.”

“It was funny because I got to earn my way through graduate school by acting in their rep company.”

So, after 2 years at St. Catherine’s I went back to graduate school to get a degree, because if I wanted to teach at the college level, I needed a Master’s Degree. I went to Wayne State University where I was part of their Hillberry Classic Repertory Company. It was funny because I got to earn my way through graduate school by acting in their rep company.

Avocationist: Do you remember some of the roles you had?

Patricia: I was Helena in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”, I was Calpernia in “Julius Caesar”, and I was Lysistrata in “Lysistrata”; they were classic Shakespearian roles. I was there three years and probably did about a dozen roles. I was a classic comedian. I was the loud, funny woman in the Shakespearian comedies. That was my prototype. I had a great time there.

“What I began doing at that point was trying to please ‘The Man’.”

After I completed my Master’s Degree it led right into a fabulous job as an assistant professor at Denison University in Granville, OH. That is where my book starts and that is where I tell the story of being a college teacher where I am just happy as a clam. I had rented a lovely little house in a kind of “Gidget Goes to College” town in Ohio. I was happy and completely ready to settle in for the duration. What I began doing at that point was trying to please “The Man”. I was trying to do everything that I could to get tenure including sitting on all of the right committees and trying to figure out the political angles in the University. Basically what would look good on my resume? I really became obsessed with getting tenure because that would then mean, in my thinking, that I could just settle in and keep teaching without ever having to make a change. I liked it and I wanted to make it permanent.

“It is not good for you to try to live your life by somebody else’s standards.”

But I wasn’t really following any kind of sense of my dream or my wonder or my talent; I was just trying to figure out how to please the university establishment. I would advise anyone not to do that because it might work, and if it does work, it is not a good idea. It is not good for you to try to live your life by somebody else’s standards. It is not that the things that I did weren’t worthwhile, but what happened, of course, is that I did do everything right. I even got a university teaching award so I was sure I was set for life. Then the letter stating, “I am sorry we are not going to give you tenure,” and I think the wording was, “Your work lacks intellectual distinctiveness.” I thought, “Whoa! Hold on!” And then I paused and thought, “Wait a minute. Actually they are right.” I had not been following the kind of training that actually meant something to me. I had been doing things politically, or trying to please everyone and had not once spent a summer doing something that I thought was marvelous.

“I thought at one point that my career was probably over in academic life.”

So I didn’t get tenure and I got booted out of Denison. I thought at one point that my career was probably over in academic life. I didn’t know what I was going to do. But if you interview people that have ever been fired that it is often a seminal moment in their life and it turns out to be was the greatest thing that could have happened. It was certainly true in my case and I am very grateful that Denison did not keep me on because I don’t know… I would have probably died an alcoholic in a small apartment in Ohio or something from having stayed there.

“They kicked me out and lo and behold I was out in the world looking for work.”

They kicked me out and lo and behold I was out in the world looking for work. I started looking for either a theater job or a faculty job. In no time at all I got a really, REALLY good job as an assistant professorship at Penn State; a bigger school with a more interesting department.

“Learn this lesson well. You can go back into academia but you are never going to just try to follow the rules.”

So I took the job and as I went I said to myself, “Learn this lesson well. You can go back into academia but you are never going to just try to follow the rules. You are going to do what you believe you need to do and want to do and what follows your heart. That way if you don’t get tenure this time, you can’t look back and be sorry. To thine own self be true. Be true to your own heart - whatever that is- and if you get to stay at Penn State great, and if not, oh well. You can still feel good about yourself even if you don’t manage to hang on there.

“It’s interesting because when you start stepping to your own drum, the world respects you more.”

It’s interesting because when you start stepping to your own drum, the world respects you more. Penn State would have kept me forever, I think. It turned out that I was in a very agreeable situation. I was about to get tenure at Penn State when Stanford invited me to come and head their undergraduate acting program. All of a sudden when I started doing the things that I really love to do, the rest of the world respected it. So I got what I wanted, which was the respect of the academy, but not by trying to please them. I got it by following my own talents and heart.

Avocationist: The one thing I wanted to ask you that is related to that; in your book you talked about how you took up Tai Chi and you spent your summers traveling. What did that do for you in terms of your work, or did it?

Patricia: The thing was, instead of writing academic papers about theater or something, I just started trying these things. When I got to California I was really drawn into Eastern Philosophy, Religion, and Tai Chi. I went to Asia to study traditional Japanese art and the world of Eastern thought and practices. These included spiritual disciplines as well as Tai Chi and Yoga. All of these things were so interesting to me. I was like a kid in a candy shop in California taking workshops on crystal healing, studying Chakra this and Hindu that. I had so much fun looking at the world around me for experiences that could enrich my life. I have always been a philosophical thinker so I was thrilled when I got to California and there were more than just 5 Christian religions and a Jewish religion around. There was Taoism and 10 kinds of Buddhism and Hinduism and I became a Sufi for a while. I had a fabulous first 10 years in California trying things out and following my wonder.

Avocationist: How did that affect your acting and your teaching?

Patricia: It opened it up in a lot of ways. Often the best way to enhance the knowledge of your own subject is to look at it from another vantage point. So I began to see theater and acting from a much broader prospective and a more enhanced human dimension. Growing up in the rural south in Virginia, I didn’t know anything about things that were Asian and certainly didn’t know anything about Japan or Japanese people. I delved into a system called, “Constructive Living,” which is an American psychologist named David Reynolds’s take on two Japanese psychotherapies. I found his books as part of my search for trying new things. I have always been interested in psychology and I found a book called Constructive Living. I thought, “Wow! He is saying things that I believe completely and it is a really practical concept.” So as one of my adventures, I went off and studied with this teacher, David Reynolds. I became certified to be a Constructive Living™ instructor which added a dimension to my life that was not about teaching drama, but it was about psychology. The principles that are fundamental to my book really came from the juxtaposition of studying improvisational theater on the one hand and psychology on the other. These two things came together in me so my work with my book Improv WISDOMis an amalgamation of an Eastern philosophy/psychology and some Western ideas about creativity, theater, and improv.

“It would seem odd on the one hand to be studying with a Japanese psychologist and then on the other hand studying improv.”

It would seem odd on the one hand to be studying with a Japanese psychologist and then on the other hand studying improv. Low and behold, all of this was necessary to create the world view which I have now and allows me to see life as an improvisation which can be utilized by moving constructively forward; trying new things and not getting pushed around by your feelings.

Avocationist: This probably explains the broad appeal of your book because people can relate to it from different places.

Patricia: Yes. It was more like I timed the retirement when I knew that the book was going to be published. It took me a very long time to get a publisher. For all of 10 years I was sending drafts of a version of the book to various publishers and getting it sent back saying, “There are some interesting things here and you seem to have two books: you seem to have a manual on how to improvise, which is a drama book, and then you seem to have a self-help book here. Make up your mind on one or the other. Nobody is going to publish this kind of hybrid thing.” So it kept morphing.

At one point I thought, “I cannot seem to find a legitimate publisher so I will just publish it myself.” I have a friend in Canada who is a psychologist who had just published her own book on grieving and said, “I know this wonderful editor named Susan Mazie in British Columbia. You could probably hire her,” which I did. She was a private editor for me. We worked together and the goal of this was to help me self-publish it.

“You really will be able to find a publisher for this.”

We wrote for 4 months and I ended up spending a couple of thousand dollars; maybe $500/month for 4 months to have a personal editor who gave me feedback and good help with the book. When we got into a finished product, she said to me, “This is too good to self-publish. You really will be able to find a publisher for this. I am sure. Now that you have this, let’s see if we can’t put it into the pipeline again in a new way.”

“It was a dream and it was fabulous.”

What I found out at that point was that with a new version of the book the key thing was to write a book proposal. I did this when I got a New York agent. That was critical. This wonderful agent helped me draft the pitch for the book, which made it seem like people would want to publish it. When the proposal was done it went out to 35 major publishers in and around New York and 13 of them came back and expressed interest in wanting to buy the book. It was an amazing thing. I was ready to self-publish and all of a sudden we were having a bidding war. It was a dream and it was fabulous. That was in 2003. Fortunately, some of the publishers dropped out and two or three stayed until the end. The one that finally won the contract was the perfect publisher because the editor is a woman who publishes spiritual books and understood what this book was. She helped me with the writing and the conception of the book, so I had really, really brilliant help getting it to life. That was all happening and I knew I had a publication for spring of 2005.

“I am in this wonderfully agreeable situation where I am sitting back waiting for reality to bring me things to do..”

I had been winding down my teaching at Stanford and teaching only two quarters out of three so when it looked like the book was going to actually happen, I realized I was ready to officially enter retirement status at Stanford. I am so happy that I did. It has been perfect. I was extremely busy the first couple of years running around doing book appearances. I was the all university Honor’s Speaker at Southern Illinois University in 2007. I have had really nice gigs. I am not seeking them. I am at home and I have my website and the book is out there moving around. Every month or so I will get a call or get an email that says, “The book meant a lot to me and I want to do an interview” or “I would like to invite you to do something…” so I am in this wonderfully agreeable situation where I am sitting back waiting for reality to bring me things to do.

Avocationist: When you started writing your book, did you intend for it to be what it turned out to be for you, or did you have a different purpose in life?

Patricia: It was my deepest hope and dream that it would have a broad and wide readership, but I would never have believed in the outset that I would be able to accomplish it this way. I don’t have high ambitions. I really have had low hurdles for myself. I have never dreamed big. But there was a wish in my heart that before I die I could write a small, very slim book on philosophy that was based on what I do, that would also be helpful to people. To me the book is this funny wineskin of being an improv wisdom manual, but it says what I want to say. I have been trying to work on another book, but it is hard for me. I have said exactly all that I know is useful and I said it in the way that I planned; simple and clear. So why do I need to write another book? But on the other hand, people who have a message will often write another book teaching the same message, but in different way. I am hoping that I will be able to write some more and perhaps include more of my stories.

“I have had a really interesting life.”

I have had a really interesting life. I have been able to travel all over the globe and had some fascinating experiences. I think some of the crazy things that I have done and lessons I have learned in my life provide grist for another book.

Avocationist: Can you think of any stories in particular or experiences in particular that stand out for you?

Patricia: The lay-away story that I am working on doesn’t sound very exotic, but it has the lesson of that we need - the importance of working for something and building on it and paying for it in advance. There are other things. I did a trip around the world in 1982 where I was on my own for about 19 months; India, Nepal, Thailand, Indonesia and Japan. Traveling alone teaches you some amazing things about yourself. I spent time at a Tibetan Buddhist Monastery. I ran away from a meditation retreat in Japan; I literally jumped the fence and hitchhiked back to reality because it felt like I was in a cult. I have some interesting stories about trying things and then learning the lessons from the crazy things you do.

Avocationist: Where there any people particularly helpful to you in your career?

Patricia: I would have to say that David Reynolds is one of the two main influences that have been seminal in my adult life. He helped me form a clear understanding of how humans work and given me excellent knowledge about how to live a purposeful life. One of the principles in constructive living is to know your purpose, accept reality and accept your feelings. Then do what you need to do and always maintain an awareness of what you are receiving from others. Those four things are the core of my life philosophy. Know or consider your purpose, accept reality as it is; you don’t have to like it but accept it. Then what you need to do is notice how much you are receiving from others.

“I like doing rather than lecturing.”

Another major influence on the improv side is Keith Johnstone who is a Canadian. He is an educator/teacher/philosopher whose book Impro has been important in my understanding. I have always been an active person. I like doing rather than lecturing. I am not good at all as a keynote speaker, but I am really good in the classroom where I am hopping around and we are active together seeing what works.

Avocationist: Based on what you have learned and experienced, what advice would you give to people who are trying to figure out what to do next?

Patricia: I would say, if you’ve got an inkling of something that you love
or something that is calling to you I would not say, “Just follow your passion.” That is kind of a cliché. I would say keep your eyes open because there may be offers all around you that you are not interpreting as offers yet. So an improviser is looking for anything that might be a possibility. Be aware and try things. Take a step in some direction. That might mean volunteering or giving yourself away or going out of your comfort zone. It might be something as simple as, “Well I am not really good at hiking – I don’t like it and I am not an outdoors kind of person - so I don’t think I will go on that Sierra Club walk.” But you might do it for another person to accompany them and please them. Try new things and see where they lead. Don’t miss the chance to join the dance of living in the now.

Avocationist: Do you have any regrets?

Patricia: I don’t think so. Not with anything I have done or not done.
Avocationist: You know of the people I talk to (and I look for people who have found a way to live their calling), I rarely have anybody say they have any regrets.
How would you like to be remembered?

Patricia: I would love to be remembered as a teacher and the other thing I would love to be remembered for is that my book would live on. Since I don’t have children and I don’t have the legacy of a blood family from my personal loins, I think of Improv WISDOMas my child out in the world. I hope it lives on and it is in the 5th printing now. There have never been huge numbers of the book, but I would love for it to keep circulating in the world and about 100 years from now somebody will have that book in a backpack; an old book, a classic from the 20th century, their little of manual of good advice that could help someone in the future. That would be a great legacy because I am proud of that book and would want it to live on. The best favor you can do is to tell people about it or recommend it.

Avocationist: I think you have really boiled down a lot of things that, in my own experience, that a lot of these things are fundamental to human happiness; they are almost counter-cultural, in the sense that they are not what our current society thinks of and so forth, so people need to understand the power of these simple ideas, and how fun it is; it is so fun.

Patricia: Finally the message is, enjoy the ride! Try to find joy in whatever you are doing. It is seeing that the pleasure in the ordinary is in our daily life. I think if you have ever hurt your leg and couldn’t walk for awhile and then you finally get back the ability to walk normally, you think about what a blessing normalcy is and it is a pleasure in being able to walk. If you can walk again, you really know how fabulous it is. I think most of us are walking through our lives right now with a lot of ordinary capabilities that we can walk and breathe and eat and have a roof over our heads. We can feed ourselves and we have the capacity to get information and read books. We are, as Reynolds says in his book, “Thirsty, swimming in the lake,” that we are in the midst of paradise right now, no matter what our circumstance. We are in paradise right now need to wake up and see that, appreciate our lives now and spend time not only in following our wonder, but also turning our attention to being helpful to others. That is finally where satisfaction comes, not just being an artist, because that might be it, but in some ways being useful to others.

Avocationist: That is the purpose part. What do you think you will do next?

Patricia: That is a really good question and I ask myself that a lot and I get ideas from time to time. One of the things that I might do is really seriously blogging. I have a blog that I have been a dilettante with; the blog is http://www.mymprovwisdom.blogspot. com and it has probably 20-30 posts the last couple of years, just book reviews and stuff I did. I think the world of blogging can be really helpful to a lot of folks and I might get myself into a weekly blog, so that is one possibility. The other thing is to probably put some serious effort into this book of stories of my life and get another book into the world. In the meantime I am getting ready to show up teaching a class for Continuing Studies. I am always happy to show up as a teacher from time to time.

Avocationist: Is there anything you wanted to talk about that we didn’t get to?

Patricia: I don’t think so. You have asked wonderful questions and I am grateful for your comprehension of my book and my ideas, so you have made it easy.

Avocationist: My pleasure. When I work on my book I will share it with you because I think there is a big overlap. I am just looking at it through a different lens, but I think we are touching on some similar topics and your book has been really helpful as well.

Patricia: Let me know and I will be one of the first ones to buy a copy.

David Chilton is the author of “The Wealthy Barber” – the multi-million-selling financial planning guide. At the peak of his success, he literally walked away to spend 3 years home-schooling his kids. In his entrepreneurial career, he has also been a broker, financial planner, and cookbook publisher.

Avocationist spoke to him in March 2008. The second of a three-part interview.

“In my whole career, the common denominator is communication.”

Take-Aways

Read the full interview:

Avocationist: Were any of the career transitions you made particularly difficult?

Dave: I think the only one was when the book first boomed. You hear a lot about people saying that handling success is challenging; I think that is true. In 1991 when “The Wealthy Barber” went from doing fairly well to all of the sudden going ballistic, selling almost 100,000 copies a month, it brought a whole new set of challenges and I had to learn to say no, which I did extremely ineffectively. I was doing too much. I was traveling almost all the time, which from a fathering perspective is not very prudent, and I was overtired. It is interesting that when I look back at from 1991 to 1993, I have very few memories of those three years because I think I was suffering from sleep deprivation constantly.

“The PBS show on 'The Wealthy Barber' is an interesting example of how you never know what will happen in life.”

The PBS show on “The Wealthy Barber” is an interesting example of how you never know what will happen in life. We thought they were going to be modest shows, but they went nationwide and were huge hits. They were on for years and years. That wasn’t really the original intention. They were not supposed to be that big. But that led to a lot of opportunities and it also led to a lot of touring with PBS to help them to raise money. Again, I didn’t strike a very good balance in those days. It hit me out of nowhere and I think I made some bad judgment calls and it took me away too much from my home. I did straighten it out quite quickly, but handling that kind of super-charged, all-of-the-sudden, holy-smokers success is tough. I wasn’t expecting it and I certainly had never been through it before, and again, I was tired. I remember being constantly tired, and I was a young man then.

Avocationist: It is really interesting to hear you say that because I think from the outside, people think, “That is what I want and why I am working so hard; if I could just be like him.”

Dave: I think you are right. People only see the glamorous part, and you have heard this a thousand times, but there is nothing that looks more glamorous that’s less glamorous than traveling. You are switching cities every single day and nowadays with the security and having to be there as early as you do and the delayed flights and the hub system; especially stateside, traveling has become worse and worse. So if somebody calls me now and says, “Do you want to come out and give a speech in San Diego and then fly to one in Boca Raton?” I say, “Honestly, not really.” At my age I would rather spend my time doing other things, because you are going to leave for five days and be on stage for a total of about 4.5 hours. I don’t see that as the most productive use of my time anymore. Would I love the 4.5 hours? Absolutely. But the other 100 hours, that is not really a fun trip. Back when I was younger, I was taking a tremendous amount of red-eye flights, and that is another judgment call which was quite flawed. If I had to do it over again I would have done way less of that, because those red-eyes are killers.

Avocationist: Of all of the jobs that you have done so far, which has been your favorite?

Dave: I think I still like speaking the best -- there is nothing I enjoy more than getting in front of the audience and using humor. The downside of speaking is getting there, as I just mentioned. I think at some points in my life, that has been fine. But when you have kids, that is a challenge; that is a compromise I am not too keen on, which is one of the reasons I scaled back on my speaking. But I do still love giving the speeches, and I’ve had a really great career. The only thing I ended up not liking was the interviews, and that is only because I did too many. For 10 years I did interviews literally every day about “The Wealthy Barber,” and after a while, answering so many questions about 401(k)s and paying off mortgages, it just got over the top.

Avocationist: You just tired of saying the same thing again and again?

Dave: Yes, I really did. Certainly you give some different answers, but for the most part, you are saying a lot of the same thing, and most authors go through that when they tour. But they don’t tour for 10 years and that was the difference, and I really think I hit a point back in the late ‘90s where I said, “Holy smokes, I just can’t do this anymore.” Now, funnily enough, if I wrote again, and I may on finance, I would be fine again. I have taken a long respite from the interviews, and I think at that point, taking a break is very healthy. I think it is hard to walk away from something right at its peak. But interestingly enough, it didn’t bother me too much.

Avocationist: Was there one defining moment, or had things built up over time that made you decide to do that?

Dave: It had been weighing on me in the back of my mind, but there was definitely a trigger event in that I went on a very extended tour. I gave about 30 or 40 speeches in a 30 to 40 day period. As I was flying back in I literally made the decision on the flight. I remember my secretary saying, “You are kidding, right?” I said, “I’m finished. I am not going to speak anymore. I am going to take several years off and do other things.” She thought I was kidding, but I stuck to it. I think I came out and did two or three paid speeches in a number of years and I stopped when I retired. I did a few charity speeches, but for the most part, I didn’t do any.

Avocationist: How did your kids handle it when you were around all the time? Did they enjoy it?

Dave: I think they liked it better. My daughter didn’t love homeschooling because she missed the social aspect of conventional school. My son was able to gain access to that socializing through sports, so he loved it, and I really enjoyed it. I think it was very positively impactful on both of them, but especially on him. I am really glad we did it because it brings you closer together. It is challenging because you have to have a lot of patience and that is something that I am not normally very good at, but you are forced to grow that way, and you are forced to mature a little bit. But I liked the challenge and I like the puzzle of figuring out the most effective way to communicate and how we all learn differently. In fact, we all learn different things differently. Sometimes Scott would learn best through oral presentations and other times it would be through drill work and other times it would be through combining a lot of different things.

Avocationist: Have you found a thread to your life, like your interest in helping people learn in different ways? That seems to be the theme.

Dave: Absolutely. In my whole career, the common denominator in everything is communication. From speaking to writing the book and the unusual format of the cookbooks, to homeschooling; in everything I have done, that has been the common thread. It has all been around trying to communicate more effectively with different styles of communication. In a lot of cases it is involved using a tremendous number of stories, often wrapped in humor. That is the case with the cookbook, as well as with the homeschooling. I was using all kinds of different communication techniques to get through to people.

“Our entire system, unfortunately, is set up where mistakes are frowned upon, but the way you learn is to make a lot of mistakes.”

It is interesting when you are trying to deal with a young man and teach him better math and writing skills; a lot of it is helping them get out of their own way. Kids get in their own way through nervousness or a lack of confidence or through pattern thinking. You have to get them out of the box and creatively going and trusting themselves and not being afraid to make a mistake. Our entire system, unfortunately, is set up where mistakes are frowned upon, but the way you learn is to make a lot of mistakes. So not doing well on a test is a great way to learn and you learn best in life by asking questions, but our entire education system is based on answering them. I think when you get into the homeschooling situation, you are able to try a lot of different things that conventional educational approaches don’t embrace, partially because they can’t in that environment. I think it is amazing how much kids can grow. I was just blown away just by how much Scott improved in certain areas, especially math.

Avocationist: Yes; my brother is a high school math teacher and has gotten really excited in the last year about using new methods of teaching. He is really reenergized with that as well.

Dave: It is a naïve thought that we are going to have one teaching system work best for every child in the classroom. When you do the conventional lecture style with rows of seating, it will work well for lots of kids, but it is naïve to think it is best for all. That being said, from a cost and organizational perspective, tailoring a different approach to every child is not going to be effective or realistic, but can we strike a middle ground where we try a number of different things? Yes, and it sounds like people like your brother are.

Avocationist: Definitely. Have there been particular people in your career who have been helpful to you, like mentors or people came along at the right time?

Dave: I can’t think of any conventional mentors I followed, but there have been a couple of incidents in my life that have been very helpful. Certainly Andrew Tobias, a well-known American writer; his first major book was “The Only Other Investment Guide You Will Ever Need.” His breaking down the subject with humor really helped me. After reading it, I thought most people would prefer that. So that was a big influence for me.

“I still to this day remember where he was when he said that to me.”

I caught a really interesting break once when I was just starting out. I had not written “The Wealthy Barber” yet, but I just got involved in speaking and a local financial company brought in John Simpson, the President of Fidelity Canada. I was going to basically be his warm-up act. I was going to speak for a half an hour on basic personal finance using the humor and then he was going to talk about current market conditions. I gave my speech, and as I walked off stage, John came up to me and said, “I’ll tell you right now, if you never change that speaking style, if you stay with it exactly as is, you are going to be very famous someday.” I still to this day remember where he was when he said that to me at the Waterloo Motor Inn. I thought, “You know what? To hear that from somebody that high up - the President of Fidelity” It gave me a lot of confidence that I was on the right track. I also think my parents have been very positively influential. They have been very supportive and they did a great job of raising us where we had a lot of confidence and were not afraid to make mistakes and take chances.

David Chilton is the author of “The Wealthy Barber” – the multi-million-selling financial planning guide. At the peak of his success, he literally walked away to spend 3 years home-schooling his kids. In his entrepreneurial career, he has also been a broker, financial planner, and cookbook publisher.

Avocationist spoke to him in March 2008. The first of a three-part interview.

“One thing that helped me is that I am always open-minded.”

Take-Aways

Read the full interview:

Avocationist: Dave, I know you from your book “The Wealthy Barber” and I saw you on PBS a long time ago, but could you tell me what you are doing today? How do you make your living now?

Dave: Well, I am truly an entrepreneur and I am involved in a lot of different things. I still give a lot of speeches; that is a big part of my career and a big part of my income, but I also publish cookbooks and I do some different things on the side. I just hired two young men, university graduates who are very sharp, curious, charismatic and have high energy and I thought, “You know what? Let’s start something new.” So I brought them aboard and the three of us are looking at all kinds of different ideas with really no firm game plan right now. It is an unusual business model, but I think it is a good idea and I am having a lot of fun and it has reenergized me, so it is all positive.

“Experience has its up side, but the downside is that you tend to think in patterns once you have experienced different things.”

Avocationist: What a great opportunity for them.

Dave: I think I am benefitting more than they are in that I am completely reenergized by their youth, but the fact is that sometimes having very limited experience is a positive. You tend to think out of the box more naturally. Experience has its up side, but the downside is that you tend to think in patterns once you have experienced different things. These guys are not at that point yet, and I find a lot of the angles they take to be very refreshing. It has been a positive experience and I have been very lucky.

“I didn’t love it because I liked dealing with regular folks.”

My career has been an extremely unusual one in that I was a conventional stockbroker, dealing with the upper echelon when I was quite young. I didn’t love it because I liked dealing with regular folks -- people who were struggling to pay off their mortgage or couldn’t decide what to do with their 401(k) contribution. But of course that is not where the money is, so I knew that it wasn’t for me long-term. I caught a very lucky break, and sometimes luck does play a pivotal role in a career. I gave a speech one night to teachers on financial planning and I used a lot of humor, and I could see that the humor was cutting through the intimidation and dryness, and I used anecdotes instead of the conventional charts and graphs. I thought I was onto something. I am amazed I did this at this age, but I quit; I just walked away from being a broker.

Avocationist: How old were you then?

Dave: I was 25. I walked away and I set up a company teaching financial planning to teachers, and I settled for a much lower income. It was a very modest enterprise but I didn’t really care. Maybe six months to a year later I got the idea to work on a book, and that led to “The Wealthy Barber,” which told a story about a barber who would become wealthy. He had done the common sense things right in his financial planning approach and he was now educating younger people in their 20’s while he cut their hair.

Avocationist: How did you come up with the idea for “The Wealthy Barber”?

Dave: I actually came up with one book idea before I stumbled onto “The Wealthy Barber” called “The Ultimate Guide to Losing Money,” and it wasn’t story-based, but it was very humorous. I think it was close, but it didn’t bring the reader in to the same extent “The Wealthy Barber” did. Then I shifted over to “The Wealthy Barber” and almost immediately it took off. I think a lot of it is just from watching people and that old thing about “Where is their pain? What aren’t they getting?” I think in financial planning a lot of the pain revolves around a lack of understanding of the common sense basics. So those are not that tough to teach if you can get past the intimidation and past the skepticism, past peoples’ lack of confidence. That is what the story format allowed me to do. I had a lead character who shared all of those fears and I think the reader could relate to him. “If this guy can learn, maybe I can learn with him,” and I think that is why the book did well.

Avocationist: So when you wrote your first book on “How To Lose Money” and it didn’t work out…

Dave: I didn’t launch it. I got about three months into writing it and -- people think I am kidding when I say this -- I watched the TV show “Cheers” one night and that is what got me onto “The Wealthy Barber.” The original title was “The Wealthy Bartender.” I thought I’d use a fictional setting and use the give and take of dialogue -- I thought that would be a more effective way to teach it. I actually got about four chapters into “The Wealthy Bartender;” the problem was the alcohol, and all of the subplots revolved around misbehaviors in bars and I wasn’t 100 percent comfortable with that, so I moved it to the barber shop. I thought it was a good idea and was very confident I was on the right track.

Avocationist: How did you develop your characters?

Dave: I didn’t have a background in writing; I think I am a good speaker, but writing was not something I focused my energies on. My father is extremely literate and my sister is a professional editor, so I was able to harness their strengths. I got them involved early; they didn’t come in late as a conventional editor does. They helped me on an ongoing basis with character development and dialogue, and I think that is why the book turned out fairly well. Drawing down from characters and settings I was familiar with made the whole writing process easier. It took a year and a half to write that book, working full-time, all the time and my father and my sister worked almost every night on it as well. We would re-craft pages and redo them over and over and over again. I put everything I had into that book.

Avocationist: Did you enjoy the success the book received?

Dave: I self-published the book and my goal was to sell 10,000, and I think it is up to about 2.7 or 2.8 million now. It took on a life of its own, and I enjoyed that career immensely. At the peak of the popularity of “The Wealthy Barber,” the PBS show was airing where I gave my speech on the concepts in the book, and the speaking requests were coming fast and furious. And then I decided to go in a totally different direction. I really enjoyed it but I hit a point where that much time on the road was overwhelming. I had young children and I thought I wouldn’t mind trying something new, so I literally quit. I walked away and I retired completely from speaking and I went into publishing cookbooks and I started homeschooling my kids for three years. It was probably the best decision I ever made. I enjoyed the whole thing immensely and I don’t have any regrets whatsoever.

Avocationist: How old were you when you made that decision to step back?

Dave: I think my son was in grade 5, so I was about 36 or 37. It was probably about 10 years ago now, so it was well into “The Wealthy Barber” success. Financially, “The Wealthy Barber” had been very rewarding and gave me some flexibility and freedom that others don’t have. Being financially stable, unlike I was when I first quit my broker job, did give me some courage. I was still enjoying my career, but I was not enjoying it as much. I didn’t want to get to the point where I wasn’t enjoying it at all, so I wanted to try something new. Getting involved in the publishing of cookbooks was ideal because I could take what I learned publishing “The Wealthy Barber” and I could apply it to the model, but I didn’t have to do the traveling and hit the road; the authors did. It gave me the flexibility to homeschool my children, and really, it has been a great experience.

Avocationist: How did you get into publishing cookbooks?

Dave: Two women, sisters from Ottawa, Canada called me up one day and pitched me on a cookbook. This was in 1996 and I wasn’t interested -- I didn’t know anything about cooking and didn’t want to be a publisher. I wanted to be a finance expert. They kept badgering me over a period of months and sending me e-mails, phoning me, coming to see me speak and showing me sample pages of their book. Eventually they wore me down. My mother actually cooked some recipes and said, “This food is phenomenal!” You can do all the focus groups and formal research you want, but as I often tell MBA classes, “When your mother tells you to publish a book, publish it!”

I decided to take the plunge and it has been a phenomenal experience. They have written three cookbooks and have sold almost 2 million copies total. It has been a very lucrative business because we have kept it all in-house. We controlled the entire process including distribution, so the margins have been quite good. More importantly, it has been very satisfactory in terms of the impact it has had on people.

“I have been very lucky in my career to be involved in a couple of projects that have been positively influential on others.”

I think I have been very lucky in my career to be involved in a couple of projects that have been positively influential on others. People have used “The Wealthy Barber” to get their finances in order. They have used the cookbooks to eat much more healthfully. There is great satisfaction that comes from that and it is extremely motivating.

“Make sure you love the products you are associated with.”

One of the things I have tried to teach my own kids is to make sure you love the products you are associated with and that you don’t want to sell commodity-oriented products. You want to sell things that you really believe are difference makers; things that you are proud to have your name associated with and things that can help people. When you do that, you tend to get more creative and more passionate.

Avocationist: When you started working with the cookbook sisters, were there other things going on in your life that made you think, “Hey, I could apply my business model differently than I have before?”

Dave: I would love to say yes, that I was looking for an idea and this happened to fit and I was that clever, but I really wasn’t. I was looking to do something different, and I admit that it was not in publishing. I don’t deserve much credit for the cookbook because I actually said no for a long time and didn’t recognize the potential of the books. If it weren’t for my mother, I would not have taken it on. I was a little lucky there, and I think a lot of people out there say it is not about luck, it is all about persistence and stick-to-it-iveness and skills, and I think those are key, but luck does play a role in life.

“One thing that helped me is that I am always open-minded.”

I have had the greatest parents you can have and that is lucky. I didn’t do anything to deserve that. I have had phenomenal health in my life. I think the combination of those two things alone makes me a pretty lucky guy. And then little breaks like my mother looking at the cookbook and saying, “Wait a second; I think this book is different and any one I have seen.” That really swayed me. So no, I didn’t have a master plan. It was all quite a lot of luck. But one thing that helped me is that I am always open-minded. I don’t close my mind off to something.

Avocationist: Are you selling it through a website? You said you controlled the distribution.

Dave: Yes. We have the website Eatshrinkandbemerry.com and control the distribution there, and in Canada we sell through conventional bookstore channels. In the States we sell it through the website and through QVC. It has been a great model and the sisters have been a delight to work with. I talked earlier about how the great satisfaction in life comes form helping other people, and these two are completely motivated by helping others to eat more healthfully. I think one of the reasons they made so much money is because money is not their focus.

Next: Dave talks about leaving his speaking career to teach his kids.

“Having the corner office. Having the salary. Then saying, ‘Oh God, is this really all that there is?’”

This is the third of our five-part interview. Find out more about Angelina and Vocationing at www.themobiuscompany.com

Read the interview:

Avocationist: Tell me about your other job transitions.

Angelina: The second transition was from computer programming to accounting. Really that transition happened because when I was the computer programmer for the organization I worked with, I got very involved in the accounting function. That happened very naturally because I was already there.

Avocationist: Were there other difficult changes?

Angelina: The second hardest career transition was probably when I left corporate America and went to work for the small company before I went in to business for myself.

Avocationist: Tell me about that.

Angelina: I took a job really as a director of business development as a salesperson. That was very strange. It was like, “Oh my God, I’m not going to get a regular pay check. I’m going to have to earn my own money”.

Avocationist: How did you deal with that?

Angelina: I thought, “Okay. I’ve made all these other career transitions. Why not try this one”. As I said, I am not terribly risk averse when it comes to career transitions. Much of my life I’m risk averse. With careers I’ve always felt like, “Well, I could always do something else”.

Avocationist: How did you decide to leave corporate America?

Angelina: As I remember, I left corporate America after I had a position of Senior Vice President and Director of Infrastructure. I had all of the corporate functions reporting to me either dotted-line or direct. It was a case having been recruited to Charlotte and having the window corner office, having the salary. Then saying, “Oh God, is this really all that there is?” I hate to say it because it sounds like a terrible cliché.

Avocationist: How old were you then?

Angelina: I was in my mid-40’s and did the equivalent of, “Dear God, there has to be more than this”.

I felt really just being very confused about there really has to be more than this. That’s when I said, “Okay, let me go out and try to figure out what more there could be”. That’s when I did some of the self-assessment tools. It really was, I would say, my values catching up with me to say, “Okay, so now I’ve made a lot of money. Okay, so now I have this important title. Okay”. And then saying, “Wait a minute. Is that who I am?” Thinking, that’s not who I am, there’s got to be something different.

Avocationist: Did you go to the Highlands Program? Is that how you hooked up with those guys at that point?

Angelina: Yes. I actually went. I took the Highlands Program.

Avocationist: How did that help you?

Angelina: Their abilities battery said that one of the things that I would excel in was selling. I had never had a sales job in my life. I basically said to them "either you believe your test or you don’t".

Avocationist: That’s a good one.

Angelina: I said, if you believe your test, then you hire me as your Director of Business Development. If you don’t believe your test, you say to me, “well you don’t have any sales experience Angelina”. By the time I left Highlands the franchise that I worked for was one of the highest revenue generators in the country. That test was right, I’m very good at sales.

Avocationist: Yes. They should have known that by how you asked for that job.

Angelina: Yeah, I basically showed them my test scores and said, “Look it says the top five things I do best is sell”.

Another point about me is that I have a tendency to leave careers before I hate them. It's almost like a fear. If I do this a little bit longer, I’m not going to like it anymore.

Avocationist: That's interesting because I don't think most people do that.

Angelina: I leave it just a little sooner, rather than later. I work with a lot of people in the coaching work who are in career transition.

I think people’s biggest complaint is they waited too long. They knew they should get out, a year ago, and they hate it now. It’s interesting, because I’ve always erred on the other way. I usually get out a year too soon because I’m afraid I’m going to hate it. And I don't want to hate it.

Avocationist: How did you pick computer programming?

Angelina: Well, again, it was intellectually - it looked very challenging to me. It was in the mid-70’s. Most of my life, I’ve been very left-brain. I’ve been very logical and very analytical. It was in the 70’s, and the whole computer industry was really starting to explode. I just took an introductory class in it and really just loved it. It very much appealed to that very logical, analytical side. I have an undergraduate minor in mathematics and it just really appealed to the logical stuff in me. I said, “Oh, this could be interesting”, because it’s this up and coming field. I have a tendency like nascent industries. I like to show up in an industry when it’s first starting and so there aren’t a whole lot of rules. There’s a whole lot of opportunities. It’s the area of my life that I am very much a risk taker. I think that’s the other really interesting thing about career transition. I think people are afraid that if they find a job and they don’t like it, “Oh my God, it’s the end of the world”. It’s like, “Well, no. If you take a job and you don’t like it, go find another one”. It may not happen easily, and in today’s economy it’s especially hard. But, you can go about finding the other one.

Avocationist: How did your transition to computer programming happen?

Angelina: That career transition I made by going back to school. I’ve made other career transitions where I have not gone back to school, but I’ve actually done pro bono work for organizations. Most people will say, “How do you get from one career to the next?”

Avocationist: Yes - that's a big challenge for many people.

Angelina: If you want to radically change, number one I’ve gone back to school. The other way I’ve done it is to provide pro bono services in the industry where I’m interested in going. Or in a field where I’m interested in going. When I wanted to get into school reform, I had been working on Wall Street. I found an organization that needed some consulting services and I offered them pro bono consulting services, but they were in the school reform business.

They were in school reform. They wanted some computer consulting services. And, I was willing to give them computer consulting services, free, because it gave me an opportunity to network in this area of school reform. I wound up giving pro bono services to three different organizations and wound up with three job offers to make the career transition. The pro bono work gave me the opportunity to meeting with people in the industry and learn the language of the industry.

The other thing I have found very useful in making career transitions is attending a whole bunch of seminars and conferences. It wasn’t really school. I didn’t get a new degree. I found, and this is when I got in to coaching, I went to the International Coach Federation Conference. Then I took a couple of classes. I did a couple of networking events. Again, I’m usually somebody who goes and does something as a way to make a career transition.

Avocationist: Yeah. You said you’ve mostly gotten in to these new fields. How do you find out about them? Is it something that you go look for? Or do you usually find it just occurring to you, or do you run across it?

Angelina: I’m somebody who pays attention to trends. One of the careers I think I should have someday is to figure out how to get paid money for the fact that I can spot trends. I don’t know if anybody would pay me for that.

When I first got in to coaching and I went to the International Coaching Federation Conference. I think there were maybe 200 people at the conference. Now everybody and his brother has a coach.

Avocationist: Yeah. Exactly.

Angelina: Its like, when I first started doing it, people would say to me, “What’s a coach? How did you find out about that?” It’s like, “Okay, this sounds like brand new”.

In the next segment, Angelina talks about how even the "stuff that felt lousy" had a purpose.

“That was probably the hardest transition because I had to let go of the idea that I was not doing something the rest of my life.”

This is the second of our five-part interview. Find out more about Angelina and Vocationing at www.themobiuscompany.com

Read the interview:

Avocationist: Of all these transitions, were any of them particularly difficult for you or were there other things going on in your life with any of them that helped to push some of them?

Angelina: I think the single most difficult was when I left teaching.

Avocationist: How was it difficult?

Angelina: It was the most difficult because I had gotten in to teaching after having as a young person, as a teenager. Most teenagers babysat. I didn’t. I tutored. As a teenager, I knew that what I wanted to be when I grew up was a teacher.

When I got in to teaching, I thought I was going to die being a teacher. I worked for the New York City school system. I had a retirement fund. I was ready to teach the rest of my life. That was probably the hardest transition, because it was, “Oh my God. I have this job. I have this stable job. I thought I was always going to be a teacher. How could I possibly think I’m going to go do something else?”

Avocationist: When you were a teacher and you decided to change, what was it that made you leave teaching?

Angelina: I think I wound up leaving teaching because, to some extent, I got frustrated with the system.

I mean, if it was me and the kids and teaching, I might have been able to teach longer. The whole infrastructure of teaching, especially teaching in New York City which was one of the largest school districts in the country, just became overwhelming. With paperwork and details and it just wasn’t fun anymore.

I knew I was about a year away from hating it. I said, “Before I hate it, I’ve got to leave”.

Angelina: In some ways, it wasn’t as hard as it could have been because I did have a job while I was exploring the next career. I mean, I’ve had at least two or three career transitions where I left the old before I had the new. I had down time for a couple of months. But in that first change, I was a teacher while I was making the transition. I went back to school while I was teaching. I got a certificate in computer programming. Then I interviewed for a bunch of jobs.

Now, there are those who will point out that its almost 40 years later, and one of the way that I describe myself is as a teacher. I do training. Maybe all roads do lead to Rome.

I’ve found that at my core I’m probably a teacher more than I am anything else no matter what else I do. Whether it’s a facilitator, a storyteller, whatever it is. There is that teacher in me.

Angelina: That was probably the hardest transition because I had to let go of the idea that I was not doing something the rest of my life.

Avocationist: Are there people who have been especially helpful to you in your careers or along the way?

Angelina: I had two aunts pass away in the past year. For a variety of reasons, both of them were people who had no children and who went to work in the business world and they did so at a time when women basically didn’t do that.

Avocationist: So they were very different than what you saw around you.

Angelina: Women either were nurses or teachers and got married and stayed home with children. Both of these aunts did not do that. They went in to the business world. I thought about it when they both passed in the past year, that they had a tremendous influence on me in terms of thinking that as a woman, I could do anything I wanted to do.

Avocationist: That's a great message.

Angelina: I could do anything that I wanted to do. It never occurred to me that I couldn’t do certain things. For much of my career, I had been in male dominated industries, again, because I was very logical. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve moved much more in to right-brain areas. I have embraced the feminine. My aunts weren’t really mentors, but they were role models.

They were role models in some very profound ways.

Avocationist: That is so interesting. How much do you think, just the time that you grew up in - your generation, influenced what you ultimately did?

Angelina: I think my generation influenced me tremendously. I try to say this with some level of humility, I was someone who was very bright. In high school I excelled in the math and sciences. Despite the fact that I was maybe one of three or four handful of women in math classes. My generation nudged me into teaching. I was inclined because I liked teaching anyway, but there was nothing that was going to convince me in my generation not to be the teacher or a nurse. Even when I excelled in mathematics I was pushed more in that direction.

I was very influenced by that, initially. The second thing that my generation, I know that I was personally very, very influenced by the women’s movement.

Avocationist: How so?

Angelina: I had these role models in these two aunts. In the 1950’s and 60’s, and one of them even in the 40’s, they went out in to the working world. Then the women’s movement, and paying very much attention and being very influenced by that, made me pay a lot of attention to career transition and really just, “Okay, there’s nothing I can’t do. I can just go do this. Now I can go do this. Now I can go do this”.

Avocationist: Yeah.

Angelina: I know my career was very, very much shaped by that. Being that I used to be more of a “type-A” personality (I’m not anymore). With the type-A personality, I would just take on one challenge after the next, just, “Okay, next career, what’s the next career. How do we more of it. How do we do it better”.

Avocationist: How did that impact your view of work?

Angelina: Really as women, you were was driven in some ways to pay attention to those you are, what your job is. Instead of saying, “I’m Mrs. Jones”, which is what our mothers would say. They would take pride in their husbands and their children. Instead, my generation substituted the job for the husband and children and the job became your relationship.

Avocationist: Right. Like the traditional male model at that time too.

Angelina: Yeah.

Avocationist: Do you remember anything that you wanted to be when you were a little child?

Angelina: Oh, absolutely. I wanted to be an actress.

Avocationist: Awesome.

Angelina: Wanted to be an actress. I had the good fortune, several years ago of bringing a production of “The Vagina Monologues” to Charlotte. I got to be at Spirit Square, center stage, and I was an actress. I can die now. I mean, I’ve done it all.

Avocationist: An actress. Did you want to be anything else when you were a kid?

Angelina: A lawyer.

Avocationist: Okay. You haven’t done that yet.

Angelina: I haven’t done that yet. I don’t think I’m ever going to be a lawyer. The actress piece, it’s just because I love the draw of the crowd and the smell of the greasepaint. That is just wonderful. I could be addicted to that kind of stuff. I used to be. Not anymore, but I used to be addicted to that.

Avocationist: How about the law?

Angelina: I was interested in being a lawyer, because I love the nuances of seeing two sides to of an argument, or just the position of opinions. I just love the duality of that stuff. I love seeing how it’s not really the opposites and you think they’re the opposites, but they’re not the opposites.

That’s the aspect of law I really like. But I don’t think I’m going to do that. Those are the two things I wanted to be, an actress and a lawyer.

In the next segment, Angelina talks about her success in the Corporate World and discovering a the need for more change: Angelina's "Is this all there is?" moment.