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Second Acts that Change Lives

Making a Difference in the World

by Mary Beth Sammons (more about this book and author)

Chapter 5: Dream
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Dreaming of what can be is the catalyst for us to use our gifts the best we can, strive for what we thought we never could do, and learn the power of letting go.

 When people make changes in their lives in a certain area, they may start by changing the way they talk about that subject; how they act about it, their attitude toward it, or an underlying decision concerning it.

— Jean Illsley Clark

The rush of fear gripped me as I climbed the ladder, step by step. My toes were perched over the edge of the steel platform. My heart was pounding. I was petrified. Terrified. Of heights. Of recent transition. My trembling was making the platform swoon.

Below, tiny specks of people flailed their arms, cheering me on. I felt like I was going to throw up or die. I focused my eyes on a willow tree across the horizon. I was level with i
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ts cradle cap. I sought it out to invoke peacefulness, serenity, and calm. But I was shaking. Worst part: An audience was watching the debut of a public display of my private fears.

I was about to trapeze. I wanted off. Now!

I was putting my nerve to the test for one reason: my daughter, Emily. We had come this day to try something new. A group of trapeze artists from the circus was teaching Chicago-area kids the art of reaching out and letting go.

Emily was squinting up at me from the ground below; she’d asked me to be the first to take the plunge. Her only hope was that I could. That I could let go of our past and make that leap of faith into our new future. And make our lives fly again.

“Hep.”

I jumped. I grabbed the bar . . . and suddenly I was floating. I was swinging through the air in a lovely dance of freedom. It was truly transforming. Fun. Exhilarating. Floating. Flying. I was flying. I did it. I let go. I wanted to scream from the top of the willow tree. “I did it.”

On the car ride home, Emily turned to me and said, “Mommy, I knew you were afraid. But I knew that if you just let go, you could fly.”

I use this experience as metaphor to show how sometimes we focus on where we are instead of what wonderful things lie ahead of us if we just let go and open ourselves up to the possibilities of our futures.

In this chapter, a man and a woman who have chased their dreams and let go of what was share their searching, longing, and actions that brought to life their second acts.
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Running for His Life

A recently divorced father of two takes on an inspirational journey of perseverance and personal triumph.

Pain is temporary. It may last a minute, or an hour, or a day, or a year, but eventually it will subside and something else will take its place. If I quit, however, it lasts forever.

— Lance Armstrong

Picking up the pieces from the loss of his father, his young son, and a crumbled marriage  —  a period in which he got out of shape and cranked up his smoking  —  Bob Daboub found himself at an all-time low. Suddenly a single father to his son, Alex, and daughter, Marie, both in grade school at the time, Bob was determined to jump-start a path to health and happiness.

Like many midlifers who find themselves in the midst of failed dreams and pondering what is next, Bob needed to get one step closer to starting over, but he didn’t have a clue what direction to turn in. He started on the path to health and happiness by setting a goal: to compete in the famed Chicago Marathon. After starting slowly  —  running around his block,
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hen completing two seasons of 5K races  —  Bob went on to dramatically improve his fitness, which led to him taking on the ultimate challenge and finding his groove both on and off the race course.

In crossing the finish line, Bob also discovered that beyond the race, which is measured by sweat, blisters, and perseverance as well as physical and mental endurance, he inspired others along the way to just get out there. If you want something and are passionate about pursuing it, there are no limitations.

Robert “Bob” Daboub, 50, Palatine, Illinois

Act I: Married, father of two, and couch potato smoker.

Act II: Marathon man.

Life before the Leap

In 1995, Bob was thirty-seven. Newly divorced, he was feeling empty and out of shape. At the same time, he was determined to kick the negative energy and his smoking to the curb.

Bob was looking for a dose of positivity and a way to lift his mood and release stress and tension. He set a goal: to run the Chicago Marathon. “Actually the initial dream was to run a mile without walking or coughing,” laughs Bob. “I had been a smoker since sixteen, and needed to stop smoking and get in shape. I wanted to get healthy for myself and my kids  —  to start over.”
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Standing on the Edge

Setting a goal is easy. Making it happen isn’t  —  at least not always.

Bob paced his ambition and his training. Determined to realize his goal in the Chicago race, a marathon known throughout the world for its flat and fast course and in which runners frequently attempt to qualify for the Boston Marathon, he started running around the block and then on the indoor track at the local YMCA.

It took him four years to enter his first race: a 5K. “When I crossed the finish line I was so excited, and couldn’t wait for my next race.” He rose to the challenge, entering three more of the 3.1-mile competitions that were held in Chicago that summer. The next summer he did the same. “My limit was 3.1 miles,” Bob says.

The Epiphany of Change

But in the spring of 2001, six years after he set his initial goal, Bob found his running groove, quite by accident, he recalls.

“I was just finishing a 3-mile lap at the forest preserve and I ran into an old friend who was just starting a loop,” says Bob. “I told him I would run as far as I could with him. He told me his story of falling in love and marrying his wife while we ran. Becoming so absorbed by his story, I didn’t realize I had run 9 miles (three loops of the forest).”

Inspired, Bob started running with the Alpine Runners, a local running club.
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“After running with the group a couple of times, they encouraged me to sign up for the CARA [Chicago Area Runner’s Association] marathon training program for the upcoming Chicago Marathon in October,” says Bob. “It was required that participants already be training consistently at least 20 miles per week. I had not even run a 10K [6.2 miles] at that time; I was running 9 or 10 miles a week and naively proceeded anyway. I pushed myself hard to try to keep up with the group.”

The Liftoff

“My family and friends tried to discourage me from doing this. My boss and coworkers just laughed and told me I was nuts.”

But Bob was driven to prove them wrong. He pushed hard.

Midway into his training, in June, he developed terrible shin pain and went to his doctor. “My doctor said it was shin splints; however, he wanted to take an X-ray,” Bob remembers. “The next day, my doctor called me and told me that I had a stress fracture and to use crutches until I was seen by a specialist. I was on crutches for four days until I could see an orthopedic doctor. He disagreed with the radiologist reading and told me I could start running again. I tried to catch up with the group; however, I was in a lot of pain. I slowly worked up to 10 miles by the end of the month. Lots of Advil and ice.”
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Too good to be true. In July, the excruciating pain in his legs had returned. Bob was back to the specialist and was ordered to stop running until the results of a bone scan came back. The test results were inconclusive, so the doctor ordered an MRI. Again, inconclusive. Bob was freed from the bench and told to tread lightly.

“By this point it was the end of July, just three months from the race,” recalls Bob. “My group had escalated their miles without me. I felt as though my marathon dream was over. I was very depressed for days.”

Bob had taken on a major challenge, and he wasn’t about to back out now. So throughout August, he practiced every day. But he started with shorter, three-mile runs before building back up to the longer distances.

Very discouraged, he admits, “I felt like I had gotten screwed somehow. Why did this happen to me? After all my work. Now I had to start all over again from a stinking 3 miles. My group was running four days a week with long runs, getting in the high teens in mileage.”

Come September, now one month away, Bob was not going to make any more excuses. “I ran 14 miles on September 1; 15 miles on the ninth; and barely finished the 20-miler with my group on September 16,” says Bob. “But I was inspired by the group and vice versa. It was great to run with them and start the taper-down miles to race day.”

To mentally and emotionally prepare himself for the challenge, Bob scoped out the 26.2-mile race map that showed the marathon course so he could get a clear idea of what the
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race day would be like. He learned that all challenges, no matter how big, will give you the same result. If you dare. Now he was daring to run a marathon and reinvent his life as he knew it. His biggest obstacle no longer was the nay-saying of friends and family. Now, he was tripping on his own doubts and fears.

“As I was looking at the map, I realized how naive I had been and became fearful that I could not run from Grant Park to Wrigley Field, then back downtown, then west to Greek Town, China Town, and Little Mexico, then to Comiskey Park, then to the lake and back up to Grant Park,” says Bob. “I realized it would take hours to drive that distance in a car, a half-day by bike, and I was thinking about running it. How is that even possible? The fear kept me awake at night, and my doctor prescribed sleeping pills because I needed the sleep. I kept thinking that I could not do it, I heard about people dying at marathons, and I heard of a guy who ran with a stress fracture and his leg bone broke in half at the end. I was embarrassed to tell my kids, family, and friends that I was very afraid.”

Best Moment

October 7, 2001. Race day.

“The excitement was heightened by the fact that it was less than a month after the 9/11 tragedy,” remembers Bob. “Many people who registered did not show up for fear of another terrorist attack. I started the race slowly. It was very exciting seeing the number of runners and crowd.”
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Somewhere around the 11-mile marker, Bob heard the news that the winner had crossed the finish line in 2:08.

“I was like, ‘Okay, we can all go home,’” Bob remembers thinking. “I was exhausted at the half, and the thought of running another 13.1 miles seemed impossible. I needed to keep the voice in my head from making me quit. I just tried to keep up with people in front of me; however, it seemed everyone was passing me and I kept getting slower. They had warned us in the marathon training that the hardest part of getting through a marathon was the internal conversations you would have and how your mind would try to convince you to quit. I guess that’s a form of self- preservation. At an aid station just beyond mile 16, I stopped to tie my shoe. When I leaned over, I got dizzy and light-headed and fell over. I needed help to get up and thought I was done. I pressed on one foot at a time. At mile 18 I got a gel with caffeine.”

Calling on Divine Intervention

“At mile 19, I went by an old church,” Bob says. “I looked up and prayed to God, to my dad who had passed away in 1999 and to my son Brian who had passed away in 1989 for help. I felt a shudder go down my spine, took a deep breath, and made what I thought would be my final push. There were more than 7 miles left to the finish. I started to pick up speed and pass people. The faster I ran the less pain I felt in my shin and knees. As I passed people, I heard jokes about them wanting whatever I had taken.”
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The crowd was shouting encouragement.

“The crowds seemed to get larger and louder,” says Bob. “Coming through under McCormick Place, everyone got really quiet, in into their own heads. I slowed down to talk with a girl who was crying as she ran. She told me she was crying because she missed her grandmother who had just died; she was running in her memory and she did not think she could make it. I encouraged her and told her we only had one more mile. She started to pick up speed.”

Crossing the Finish Line

Bob ultimately experienced the marathon in a way never previously imagined.

“When we came out of the tunnel, we were greeted by intense sun and huge crowds cheering and screaming. We could see the finish line. As I crossed the finish line, I was very dizzy and nauseous; however, I was elated. I felt like the race and the training had all been a dream. I kept looking around for assurances that it was real. I finished in 4:28:50.”

The View from the Other Side

The next day, Bob could hardly bend his knees and his shin throbbed. He went to a chiropractor who said he had a large calcified lump on his tibia, indicating a stress fracture.

But nothing could stop him now. He had given himself a chance to pursue a challenge and he got out there, discovering how much joy is waiting  —  in racing and in life.
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In 2002, fully recovered, Bob set a goal to run a marathon in less than 3:45. He ran the Chicago Marathon that year in 3:55. He was happy . . . to say the least.

Words to Inspire

“The race wasn’t about running as much as it was about me proving to myself that there was something new waiting for me in life  —  if I didn’t give up.”

What Bob discovered, and what many of us who take on the challenge of racing also know, is that this tremendously passionate experience involves months and months of preparation, obstacles, setbacks, determination, perseverance, and finally triumph. But ultimately, it is about pursuing your passions in life.

By getting in the race, people like Bob prove to women and men that they owe it to themselves to figure out what is holding them back from doing the things they want in life. By crossing the finish line, they show us that there are no more excuses.

Often the second act includes watching and cheering on those who have been inspired by our actions to push beyond their limitations. Since Bob ran his three marathons, his participation has empowered others to seek the same sense of accomplishment.

“My doctor was inspired and started running to lose some weight,” says Bob. “He called me in 2006 to tell me he ran and finished the marathon.”
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Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around.

— Leo Buscaglia

Head of the Class

Mary Graft left a high-paying marketing career to go back to school  —  literally. Today, she reports to classrooms full of high school students.

If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.

— Henry David Thoreau

Mary Graft woke up one day and realized she was living everyone else’s dream for her life  —  except her own. She always dreamed of being a teacher, but instead found herself climbing the corporate ladder, collecting titles as fast as she could climb.

But she’d never yearned for a view from this high up. What she wanted was to help others scale their
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dreams. She wanted to inspire young people. Instead of having children, as had once been her dream, she wanted to pour her energies into the lives of high school students.

Mary Elizabeth Graft, 45, Palatine, Illinois

Act I: Corporate marketing executive at Sears, Grainger, and the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation; U. S. Peace Corps volunteer, Honduras, Central America.

Act II: High school business and cooperative education teacher.

Life before the Leap

“When I graduated from college in 1984, I was certified in secondary education (social studies), but I went directly into the business world, then got my M.B.A. I longed for children in my life, and fulfilled that by teaching catechism at church and becoming close to my nieces and nephews (all twelve of them). I thought for many years that I would eventually be a mom myself, but I was not blessed with marriage and children, so when I hit forty a few years ago, I started really thinking about teaching.”

The Epiphany of Change

Officially hitting midlife, Mary said she realized the advice of sages: “Money does not bring happiness.” Her longing to have children in her life was growing stronger and stronger, and after painfully letting go of the idea that she would have her own children, she found that it happened in another way:
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she was increasingly drawn to the idea of bringing her maternal skills and her business acumen to the classroom.

“As a hiring manager for so many years, it was clear to me that in some way our public school system was failing us as a society, as we struggled in various markets to find high school graduates who were ready to enter the workforce as contributing individuals,” says Mary. “It all worked together to call me to teach business in the classroom, and a job as a cooperative education teacher was the perfect fit.”

Standing at the Edge

Cautiously, but with her eye on the prize, Mary inched her way toward her dream. She sent her credentials to the State of Illinois to see what certification she would need. “I was expecting to hear relatively quickly which courses I would need to bring my credentials current.” But, nine months later, she was still waiting for her answer.

Not to be defeated, Mary started doing her homework. Instead of waiting, she found a graduate program in education and started taking classes that interested her. She found that she loved being surrounded by other soon-to-be educators, talking about teaching and learning how best to prepare students for their future.

“I networked with whoever I could find in the field of education    —    spouses of people I knew in the corporate world, my professor and other leaders at my university, friends, neighbors    —    and listened attentively to their ideas and feedback,” says Mary. “When I finally got word back from the state that I only needed one class in special education, I was already on
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my way to a second master’s, and it was easy to sign up for the necessary course at the next semester.” She also started checking out how the job market    —    something she knew a lot about in the corporate world    —    worked in school districts.

She began her transition strategy.

Good news arrived in the mail. She passed a series of certification exams (so she could be officially qualified across two big subject areas, social studies and business) with flying colors and got her teaching license from the state. The teaching field in Illinois is competitive, but the always overachieving Mary landed the first job she interviewed for  —  teaching high school cooperative education and marketing at Huntley High School, an hour northwest of Chicago in a rapidly growing suburban community.

Now, came the scariest part. A position as a first-year teacher would cut the salary she received in the corporate world by 70 percent. “In the beginning, my biggest fear was the financial risk: going from making a lot of money to very little. As a single person, I only have me to take care of, so the risk was something I could take on, but it was still scary.”

The Liftoff

Providence gave Mary a nudge to quit the business world and start teaching. Suddenly, changes were underway at her company, and her gut and corporate history warned her that at minimum, her position would be restructured. Worse case: layoffs.

“I hedged my bets, and sure enough, my boss came to me with a new organization chart and invited me to join a
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different team. The company insisted that they wanted to keep me, and then suggested a move to a different department, and I finally suggested we consider parting ways. I was fortunate that the parting of ways included a generous severance package and I already was on my way to a full-time job search as a high school teacher. That very day I received my new State of Illinois teacher’s license in the mail. The coincidence felt like fate, or even better, a blessing from God. I was ready to teach.”

The View from the Other Side

Today, Mary teaches a marketing class and runs the co-op program at the high school, where seniors leave school early to work at jobs in the community and earn school credit for on-the-job training. With her corporate background, Mary leads the students in engaged “real-life” conversations focused on stories from the front lines of their working experiences and her own experiences in the high-stress world of corporate marketing at industry giants.

She has no regrets. “My days are full and go by quickly,” she says. “I knew that I could bring business experience right into the classroom and try to help them. They’re really starting to think about the rest of their lives. I’m super-passionate about that.”

Mary’s students work no less than 15 and no more than 29 hours a week. The students may leave campus early to go to work, and they meet in Mary’s classroom every morning at 7:30 to discuss everything from their career goals to how to handle problems on the job.
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And, Mary has fallen in love  —  with her students.

“I have always connected well with kids, and have always enjoyed working with them and being around them,” says Mary. “What I wasn’t prepared for is how much I would truly just fall in love with so many of the kids. I was shocked during the first parent-teacher night when there was a line out my door the entire night, and parent after parent stopped by to thank me for coming to teach their kids. . . . They told me that I inspired their kids to do well in school or to set good goals for their future, and that kind of feedback was the ultimate in fulfillment.”

Words to Inspire

“I spent twenty years at corporations working my way up,” says Mary. “I was on a great career path and making good money, but I wasn’t thrilled about continuing on that road. I realized it was just going to be more of the same. I decided that teaching would be my way to give back. I knew it was time to move on and find my life’s work.”

Finding Meaning in Helping Students

When one spends twenty years in corporate America, there is time to think. Lots and lots and lots of time on conference calls, Web casts, workshops, sitting in airports, and meetings, and meetings and meetings.

So, that’s what Mary did. She daydreamed about the what lies beneath  —  the spiritual and psychological underpinnings of carving out a career during her second act that
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would reflect her feeling that she was lucky to be living and eager to give back to others.

“I think the fact that I have so much ‘real-world’ experience and can bring that to the classroom has made a big difference for the kids,” says Mary. “Most first-year teachers are right out of college, but I come from a long career in corporate America, so I have stories and experience and wisdom to share.

“It’s incredibly powerful to relate a dramatic story to a classroom full of students who hang on every word and are interested in what I have to say, so when that happens it’s an awesome feeling and reinforces that I did the right thing.

“Also, when I know I’ve made a connection with a student in some way, it’s like God reaching out to me to remind me that I’m in the right place. On Christmas Day I heard from six different students who just called to say, ‘Merry Christmas, Miss Graft!’ That was incredible. . . . They think of me on their winter break? Yes, and that always seems to impress me because it is evidence that I am making a difference in their lives.”

Making a Difference Every Day

Knowing what is missing in our lives and how to find it is a bit of a challenging puzzle, to say the least. Many agree that the power to transform our lives is much more attainable than we can even imagine. But let’s face it  —  there are a zillion voices in our head that discourage us. “I’m too old.”
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“I’ve got three kids in college and can’t afford to go back to school.” “What makes me think I could run a marathon, or launch a foundation to help others who are experiencing the cancer that I have survived?”

“We have a place of fear inside of us, but we have other places as well  —  places with names like trust and hope and faith,” says Parker Palmer. “We can choose to lead from those places, to stand on ground that is not riddled with the fault lines of fear, to move toward others from a promise instead of anxiety.”

Here are five ways to hold to and go after the newness of promise:

1. Follow your heart. There’s a famous line in the movie Field of Dreams: “If you build it, they will come.” This was a message from the baseball gods to Ray Kinsella (Kevin Costner) telling him to build a field in the middle of the Iowa cornfields. Even though everyone else told him he was a crazy dreamer, sure enough, Kinsella’s baseball field became a spectacle, attracting paying crowds from far and wide. All of us need to tap into the Ray Kinsella inside ourselves.

2. Set a timeline  —  now. We sabotage our own dreams with “someday” timelines and waiting for circumstances to kick into gear. There is no finish line or finished state. There is only now. Tomorrow is now.

3. Take a risk. Don’t wait or pray for things to happen, believe in yourself, tap into your own confidence (even if you have to pretend for now you have it), and take action.
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4. Remember pain is temporary. In this chapter, Lance Armstrong reminds us that pain only lasts for a while. But if we quit, it will last forever.

5. Call on divine intervention. Sometimes, when we feel we just can’t make it one more step, we need a power higher than us to turn to and ask for that final push. A friend of mine, Sandy, puts the names of people who have made a difference in her life and whom she wants to honor, on twenty-six separate scraps of paper when she is running marathons. She pulls out a name for each mile, calling on that special person in her life to help guide her and to muster the courage and strength to make it to the next mile marker. What you are dreaming for lies just around the corner. Don’t give up.

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