It's Not the Money, Honey

Thinking About Tomorrow: Reinventing Yourself at Midlife
by Susan Crandell

(Page 5 of 11)

When we're young, salary figures high among our work-world concerns, often trumping our title or even our job description. We need money to launch ourselves in life - to buy a car, purchase a house, and pay for a growing family. How much we earn influences how good we feel about ourselves. By midlife, the picture has changed. Money has paled as a motivator among the men and women I interviewed; we no longer define our worth by our tax bracket, and we've had plenty of years of hard labor to prove that an enviable salary won't buy you happiness at work. Not a single person I talked to mentioned financial success as a reason to remake his or her career. These second choices came from the heart. Job 2.0 had to satisfy at a much deeper level than the number of digits on a W-4. Some people are working longer hours in their reinvented job, but it doesn't matter, because they love their work. Others have finally found the confidence to lay down the terms of their new employment. Some, like Ellen and Michael Albertson, made significant financial sacrifices to bankroll a transition to more rewarding work. This Boston-based duo quit a lucrative gig writing books and making media appearances together as The Cooking Couple, and are living on Ellen's income as a personal trainer while Michael launches a stand-up comedy career. Every one of the career changers I talked to felt the timing of their sea change was no accident. It wasn't until midlife that they had all the psychological tools and attitude to succeed at the new venture - and the confidence to make a big change. Helen Hand, a psychotherapist who took over as president of the university her brother had founded, told me that when she was younger, "I didn't see myself as a leader."

At midlife, we have context, perspective, and a longer view. When we bump up against an obstacle, we know that there's smoother road ahead - if we take the proper turnoff. And if we make a false step, we're better at not only recognizing the mistake, but also correcting it.

Perhaps the best payoff of all for remaking our work life is the message it sends to our kids. When we refuse to settle for a humdrum job or trade dollars for satisfaction, we're showing the next generation what it means to have fulfilling work. George Oldenburg's son has watched his father put in long hours at the Zoo of Acadiana, coming home at night dirty, exhausted - and happier than he's ever been. One day, his son hopes to run the zoo himself.

The Life Entrepreneurs

Animal Farm

At forty-five, Louisiana native George Oldenburg quit a banking career to buy a small-town zoo.

George's Lesson: Owning a business can mean longer hours than you'd ever imagined working, but suddenly that's more than okay. There's a new calculus when you're doing something you love.

GEORGE OLDENBURG ALWAYS said that the best job he ever had was working at a pet shop while he was in high school. Little did he know that three decades later, his career would come full circle when he purchased a pet shop extraordinaire - a small-town zoo near Lafayette, Louisiana. At forty-five, he became the proud father of Willie the lion, Henrietta the pygmy hippopotamus, and Humphrey the camel, just a few of the star attractions among the more than three hundred animals at the forty-two-acre Zoo of Acadiana.

Today, with three years of zoo ownership behind him, George's voice is still colored with the enthusiasm of a new venture as he describes his plans to develop the thirteen-year-old zoo into a don't-miss for tourists and a gathering place for Louisiana locals.

Nothing in George's life suggested such an unconventional career step. Growing up in Lafayette in a family of five kids, his pets were plentiful but pedestrian: dogs and cats, hamsters and gerbils, a turtle and an aquarium full of fish. After earning a degree in horticulture at the University of Louisiana, he got a job working for the USDA, making loans to farmers. A few years later when he had a chance to move into banking, he grabbed it. "I had just gotten married, and felt it would be a more secure position," George remembers. He was good at the new job and enjoyed the work. His family thrived, and so did his career. He moved up through the ranks, supervising the bank's various branches, overseeing consumer loans and credit card business. It was a full life, including a board presidency at the school his boys attended and rewarding work on a chamber of commerce project to revive downtown Lafayette. But after twenty years, it wasn't enough. "I put a lot of people into business who were very successful and happy," George says. "Whenever I'd make a loan, I'd think, Boy, it'd be nice to work for myself."

When the zoo was put up for sale five years ago, George considered making an offer, but felt that with a young family, the time wasn't right. Two years later, when the opportunity came again, he didn't hesitate. "I called my wife and told her I wanted to buy the zoo." She was enthusiastic, and their three boys - then ten, twelve, and fourteen - were so excited they could hardly keep the secret until the deal had closed. George's parents were a harder sell. "We took my mom and dad out for a dinner of boiled crawfish to make the big announcement," he recalls. "They thought I was insane."

Copyright © 2007 by Susan Crandell

About the Author

I got my first job after college not because I was the smartest applicant - I wasn't - but because I was the only one with a pilot's license. I'll be grateful forever to Bob Parke for hiring me at Flying magazine because that's where I met the love of my life, Stephan Wilkinson (the author of two wonderful books, The Gold-Plated Porsche and Man and Machine). Thirty years later, Steve and I are still working together, both freelance writers with offices in our little Hudson Valley farmhouse. Our daughter Brook, who's an editor at Conde Nast Traveler, is the only one with a real job.