Is there anything so exhilarating as a fresh start?
A new year carries infinite possibilities. The mere turn of the calendar’s page makes us vow to weigh less and exercise more, to gain more autonomy or plug a hole in the soul. And yet, as much as we thrill to every story of a banker-turned-bookseller or a police officer who hit it big in Hollywood, most of us are still here, tethered to our keyboards and cubicles.
We want to address that canyon-size gap between our expectations and our reality, but something holds us back. Maybe that explains why fatigue and depression are two of the most common health complaints for Americans.
So, on this first day of the new year, how can we tackle this epidemic of malaise?
“Start by doing something different, even if it’s as simple as changing your route to work,” advises Diane Grimard Wilson, a Chicago job consultant, author and firm believer that small steps can lead to big changes. “Just the declaration of `I’m going to change something’ can bring out your intuitive intelligence … triggering an awareness of those gut feelings we all have but often ignore.”
And once that door is open, who knows where you will go? Here are four Chicago-area residents who resolved to reinvent themselves–to find more meaning, seek more adventure and have more fun.
Name: Ron and Michelle Tenny
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Age: 50
Goal: More adventure
At first glance, Ron and Michelle Tenny seem unlikely risk-takers. High school sweethearts comfortably ensconced in midlife, they lived for 40 years within a 5-mile radius in the south suburbs.
So in 2000, when the Flossmoor couple vacationed in Alaska and began toying with the idea of opening a bed-and-breakfast there, they encountered a bit of eye-rolling.
Beyond being rooted to their hometown, Ron Tenny was a workaholic, logging 60-hour weeks running a family-owned water treatment chemical company–hardly a guy who could be happy so far from the action.
What skeptics didn’t know is that the Tennys’ passion for the outdoors, and skiing in particular, kept propelling them forward, trumping the obstacles.
“This place pulled us in like nowhere we’ve ever been,” Michelle Tenny said. “It’s just so energizing having all that nature right outside your door.”
So, on a subsequent trip, when the couple looked at a piece of breathtaking property, he said, “OK, this can always be a dream, or we can go for this.”
Last week the Tennys packed up for Girdwood, Alaska, 45 minutes south of Anchorage, where their Hidden Creek B&B is poised to open next month.
Of course, many steps, personal and professional, had paved the way. Their two children, now 20 and 23, left for college. The family sold the business.
Ron Tenny spent the following summers overseeing construction of the B&B, while Michelle Tenny–an at-home mom and volunteer–entered the culinary program at Kendall College.
Even after they wrote the initial check, “it was still easy to tell ourselves that the property was an investment … that we had a way out,” he said.
But Ron Tenny recalls that in 2005, as they watched the excavator break ground, they suddenly looked at one another and said, “What the hell have we done?”
Nonetheless, watching the 4,800-square-foot upscale lodging take shape has been a shot of pure adrenaline.
The best part: collecting rocks for the giant stone fireplace. The worst: when Ron Tenny told his wife’s parents, who live five minutes from the couple’s front door, that he was taking their daughter 3,600 miles away.
Now, Ron Tenny isn’t bragging about landing a new client but about getting a new vacuum cleaner. Michelle Tenny will oversee the dining room, featuring locally grown produce. Even the prospect of opening in the dead of winter has not dampened their enthusiasm.
“In Alaska, there’s no such thing as bad weather,” she said.
“Just bad clothing.”
Name: Michael Miller
Age: 69
Goal: More meaning
Michael Miller wrapped up a prestigious 45-year career as an anti-trust lawyer in late 2005, walking out the door with a pair of remarkable realizations.
Decades of advising wealthy corporations and individuals had given him the wherewithal to pursue what interested him.
And for all that success, he was missing something quite basic.
“It’s hard to say I did anything in my legal career that made life better for any individual,” he said with disarming frankness.
So he plunged into a second career as a social worker, one that now has him balancing graduate studies with rounds at a Woodstock psychiatric hospital, where he helps patients prepare for their own new lives once they are discharged.
The inspiration was right in front of him. He had served on the board of Metropolitan Family Services, which bills itself as the oldest and largest non-sectarian family service agency in the Chicago area. He had seen how the right therapeutic interventions could strengthen and support people in tough times.
“I longed to do more than just write a check and attend meetings,” he said. “I had made all the money I needed … now I wanted to give something back.”
But starting over takes self-assurance along with a bankroll.
In September, when he enrolled in the master’s degree program at Loyola University Chicago, he found he was one of the oldest students in his class. His decision also raised eyebrows among friends and colleagues.
But his family–which includes five children and stepchildren, ages 22 to 43–was enormously supportive.
“My wife likes to say we have two in college,” he said, counting his son Matthew, a senior at the University of Wisconsin.
Twice a week he drives 40 miles from his Highland Park home to the adult behavioral health unit at Centegra Memorial Medical Center.
With his distinguished demeanor, it would be easy to mistake Miller as the medical director instead of a student intern.
But as new as it sometimes feels, Miller finds that he hasn’t completely walked away from the experiences of 45 years.
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“In many ways, interacting with patients is not that different than with witnesses,” he says.
“You learn the facts, you gain a measure of trust and you make sure you ask the right questions.”
Name: Valerie Beck
Age: 37
Goal: More fun
For a woman who describes herself as a “5-foot-2-inch giggle,” Valerie Beck found little to smile about at her job.
The Harvard-trained corporate finance attorney worked grueling 80-hour weeks at the Loop offices of Winston & Strawn, rising before dawn and returning home just in time for “Law & Order”–on a good day.
She was frequently sick, underweight and so sleep-deprived that she once fell asleep on a date. Ouch.
“I realized that if I didn’t make a change, nothing would ever change,” Beck said.
So in 1999 she started moonlighting as a Mary Kay cosmetics representative. Soon she left the $130,000-a-year law job and became so successful in sales that she twice earned bonuses that Mary Kay awards to top-performing sales directors.
“I wasn’t really looking at it as a future,” said Beck, who now coaches a team of 50 women.
“It was just to have some balance in my crazy law life. Something feminine and fun.”
In 2005 the Gold Coast resident had another idea: What could be more fun than romance and chocolate?
That year she self-published a book, “Romance Around the Corner: 8 Steps Toward Attracting the Man of Your Dreams and Having Fun in the Process!” and began giving monthly seminars on how to go from “dateless wonder” to “dating diva.”
On a shoestring budget, the self-confessed chocoholic launched Chicago Chocolate Tours, a guided walking and tasting tour of the city’s most popular chocolate stores.
Beck offers the 90-minute tour three times a week to groups ranging from bachelorettes to conventioneers. The tour’s motto? “Uplift through chocolate.”
“I wanted to do something where people on their way to meet me are really excited and, when they leave me, feel better about themselves and the world,” said Beck, who envisions expanding the tours to New York, London and Paris.
Beck concedes that stepping away from the status of being a high-powered attorney to a hawker of cosmetics, romance and chocolate was a bit intimidating.
But relatives, especially her mother, were supportive because they saw how miserable her life had become.
“People always ask me, `Isn’t it scary giving up that job security?'” said Beck, whose ventures brought in $500,000 last year.
“I feel more secure now than I did then because my job was dependent on all kinds of forces that were not under my control. Now it’s up to me.”
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