Cashing Out : Some Workers Are Reviewing Their Priorities and Making Career Shifts to More Fulfilling Life Styles

In Escondido, best-selling author Ken Blanchard of “One Minute Manager” fame is sitting in his office, drifting into ecstasy as he glances at his pocket calendar for the month of July. Every single square is totally blank and at the top of the page he has written the word perfect.

Blanchard--who for several years has lectured relentlessly throughout the country and currently makes three or four speeches a week at about $20,000 a shot--also likes the way August looks. All the squares are empty except a couple. He’s making one trip that month (to John Denver’s Windstar Foundation in Aspen, Colo.). So August bears the words almost perfect.

In September, the author whose books have sold more than 7 million copies and inspired such spoofs as “The 59-Second Employee” will also make but one business trip. He’s going to Orlando, Fla., which squeaked through because that’s where his mother-in-law lives and he likes to see her. That month is almost perfect, too.

Blanchard is cashing out. He’s saying no thanks to the very opportunities he has spent much of his adult life striving to create. He claims to have cleared his calendar and chucked his high-flying/high-paying/high-stress speaking gigs for the next eight months, maybe longer.

Partially as a result of collaborating with Norman Vincent Peale on a recently published book, “The Power of Ethical Management,” Blanchard explains, he has decided to examine his life more closely. He wants to re-think his priorities and re-create a work style and life style that are far more fulfilling.

“I saw the kind of inner peace he had and the seeming balance in his life,” Blanchard says of Peale, adding that at age 89 Peale hasn’t slowed down in the slightest.

As Blanchard has begun to think about seriously revising his own life, he’s noticed that’s he’s hardly alone in this pursuit. “I see some real basic changes in the country, “ he reports.

While Blanchard has noticed the phenomenon of reviewing one’s priorities and making corresponding career shifts has affected people in all age and income brackets, he sees it strongest among three groups:

--Baby boomers who are at or approaching age 40 (“When you turn 40, you start to ask questions of being instead of having”).

--Younger people (“who are asking these questions earlier” and, he feels, frequently starting their work lives with far greater concern for life-style considerations than their parents or grandparents did).

--Entrepreneurial types (who designed their own businesses in the first place and have the power to change them at will).

As Blanchard prepares to gear down come July, he says he has almost no idea of what he’ll be doing at the end of his eight-month speaking sabbatical. But already, he’s rhapsodizing about the simple routines he wants to establish, among them “entering my day more slowly.”

Though he’s known for helping managers develop time-saving habits they can practice on a lightning-fast, moment-by-moment basis, Blanchard suspects a morning slow-down will help him accomplish more in the end. Instead of blasting full speed into the day, the 48-year-old author wants to adjust to each new morning in a more relaxed, thoughtful fashion, a process he says consumes about two hours.

But don’t label Blanchard a dropout. As he declares with a grin of absolute delight, “I want to slow down so I can go faster.”

And by designing his work so that it’s more aligned with his purpose in life, Blanchard says he expects to be able to accomplish more with less effort, to make work feel more like fun.

Then, with another smile, he asks, “How many people on their deathbed have you heard say, ‘I wish I would have worked harder.’?”

Management consultants say they’ve been seeing an increasing amount of this cashing out lately. The cases aren’t always as dramatic as Blanchard’s. But many advisers say they’re witnessing growing numbers of workers who are are choosing to reconsider their priorities and to make job changes (typically with pay cuts) to make their lives happier and more satisfying.

Such re-evaluations have traditionally come when people retire or get fired. But consultants say they’re seeing more voluntary job changes among workers who are not of retirement age, who are not being asked to leave their companies and who are not particularly burnt out.

Palo Alto-based management consultant Charles Garfield, the author of “Peak Performers, the New Heroes of American Business,” thinks that the recent ethics scandals may be largely responsible.

“The country has been hit hard by examples of shabby values,” he says. “Where are our heroes? You look to business and you get the insider trading scandals. You look to government and you get Irangate. You look to religion and you get Jim and Tammy and Jimmy Swaggart. You look to sports and you get many examples of drug problems. I think many people are realizing that we need to turn to ourselves and to each other.

“That means asking the basic questions: Why am I working as hard as I am? What is the meaning of a life that works? What is the contribution I’m making? Those questions mean a re-evaluation of values.”

Garfield sees the common denominator in these queries as a search for balance. He notes that “many people are having second thoughts on having it all (financially)”--particularly if that means having less than it all personally.

Some consultants see such soul-searching occurring even among workers who are not changing jobs. “I see people not taking certain promotions or not lobbying for certain promotions they might have lobbied for in the past,” says Tom Drucker, a Los Angeles management consultant who lectures nationally.

“I see values shaping people’s career choices more so than in the past,” he adds. In Drucker’s experience, such choices to turn down promotions or change jobs may be the result of an employee choosing to spend more time with a spouse and/or children. Or, in the case of men, agreeing that their wives may “make the next career change or move.”

Still others see a return to more spiritual values as a major reason for the growth in personal reassessment and cashing out.

“More and more executives seem to be having a thirst for the higher values in life, like their own spiritual development,” observes former Los Angeles Police Department commander John Konstanturos, who now presides at workshops and counsels executives through an organization called The Executive Committee (TEC, pronounced tech).

“That (cashing out) is a big issue with quite a few TEC members down here (Orange County),” he says. “I encourage my members to look at life in terms of the whole executive, the holistic approach. That includes emphasis on development of the mind, body, emotions and spirit. It’s not uncommon for people who take that challenge seriously to want to have that balance result in a freeing up of their time.

“Some people sell their companies. Others enter into an arrangement where they get some cash out of it but still own part of the company. What’s happening is that more and more people are opting for freedom.”

Los Angeles-based management consultant Doug Kruschke, who works with what he calls “CEOs who are interested in something beyond ordinary success,” also has seen many more cases of clients re-examining personal values and working arrangements.

Broaden Expression

“In the last decade, people have . . . internalized a sense that there is continuing adult development, that it’s natural to turn inward and broaden your expression in the world, not confining it to the track you were on where you were, maybe, 20 or 30,” Kruschke contends.

One management consultant, Carl Samuels of Laguna Beach, has even found that there are enough high rollers engaged in cashing out--or attempting to cash out--that he has specialized in helping them through these transitions.

Samuels says he will work this year with about two dozen CEOs with businesses doing between $10 million and $200 million in annual sales. At first the consultant figured the vast majority of his clients would be in their 50s and 60s, close to retirement age. Instead, he recalls, his first clients were in their 40s, and while many of his CEOs have indeed been older, young execs keep seeking him out.

How does the process of cashing out operate at more familiar levels? How do people--who may not be famous authors, CEOs, or have access to transition experts--make the leap from unfulfilling work to satisfaction and still manage to pay the bills?

Thirty-eight-year-old Bill Misenhimer, once a classic, up-and-coming, fast-track corporate executive, has repeatedly cashed out since he left the Xerox Corp. in early 1984. While Misenhimer was at Xerox as manager of business planning, a few of his friends died of AIDS. He says he felt compelled to do what he could about what he saw as a rapidly expanding social problem.

Misenhimer recalls applying for one of Xerox’s “nine-month social service leaves” and winding up on the staff of the then-fledgling AIDS Project L.A. He began working as the organization’s director of finance and administration but shortly after he arrived, the executive director left and Misenhimer was asked to take the job.

At the end of his leave from Xerox, Misenhimer elected to stay on at APLA--a move, he says, that entailed cutting his salary almost in half and losing a condominium he’d purchased.

By all accounts, Misenhimer thrived in the job, getting the organization well established during the time it was revealed that Rock Hudson had AIDS and the disease became a serious national concern.

But, ironically, the work exacted a toll; Misenhimer’s found himself overinvested in work.

As he puts it, “It was a 24-hour-a-day job. My life, every waking moment was AIDS. It’s not healthy for anybody to be that involved with any job.”

So, when Misenhimer was offered a position as the founding executive director of the American Foundation for AIDS Research, an L.A.-based organization, he took it. He says he figured it would allow him to stay involved with the AIDS issue, but not as intensely as he was in his APLA post. His salary improved, but still came nowhere close to the money he had made in the corporate world.

Shortly after he took the new job, however, Misenhimer’s best friend of 20 years was diagnosed with AIDS and died within a year.

“I took some time off to get my head together,” he recalls.

And to avoid burnout, Misenhimer says, he has repeatedly re-evaluated and changed his work at the foundation. As a result, he resigned as executive director and became AMFAR’s director of finance and administration, again cutting his pay.

No Regrets

At one point he worked as a consultant to the group. At present, he’s back on staff, assigned to special projects. Though Misenhimer is hardly thrilled that he’s still not making anywhere near the money he once earned (“I would like to make more money,” he acknowledges flatly), he insists he has no real regrets.

“Our culture sets us up to think success means a certain thing. In America, it means earning money,” he reasons. “To me, success is self-acceptance and peace of mind. I could never have found this contentment in another job in the corporate world. . . . That’s obviously worth something--a lot more than money.”

But a few who cash out have been able to do so without sacrificing much in the way of creature comforts.

Take Will and Linda Blackstock. Both had high-paying, high-stress jobs in Southern California’s advertising world and truly loved it here. Except, as Linda Blackstock points out, “We were constantly fatigued. My husband commuted 100 miles a day to and from Orange County and sometimes didn’t get home until 10 o’clock at night. Here we were, living in this beautiful place (Pacific Palisades), and we never had any time to enjoy it. The people who enjoy the Palisades are the gardeners and the housekeepers. The people who own the homes are elsewhere, tying to earn enough money to pay their mortgages.”

A year and a half ago, 43-year-old Linda Blackstock quit her job as a sales manager and started working from home, writing a self-published book that she marketed in the advertising industry. Then, late last year, she says, her husband made a business trip to Portland and noticed that many of the environmental qualities he appreciated in the Palisades were available at far lower prices.

The couple sold their home and bought one in Lake Oswego, just outside of Portland. Remarkably, 50-year-old Will Blackstock hasn’t had to quit his job as vice president of an advertising firm or take a pay cut, though he expects that a salary reduction will eventually follow.

“I basically reorganized my job and brought it with me. I haven’t changed my title yet, but the responsibilities have changed and I expect the pay will, too, as part of my exit strategy. I’ll stay with it so long as I can have it my way, as long as I can do research and not do meetings all day and play yuppie,” he says.

Should he not get his way, Blackstock figures, he can always do research for Portland firms on a free-lance basis. Or, as he is a former professor at UCLA, he says he might teach at a local university--”but in a course I design and teach when I want to teach it.”

Other Brave Souls

While the Blackstocks were able to cash out without much damage to the life style they’d come to enjoy, there are some brave souls willing to make the leap without such guarantees.

Consider Jack Armstrong, director of the Los Angeles Children’s Museum since 1982,, who has announced he will be resigning his post as of June.

Armstrong says he loves his job, is content spending about 50 hours a week doing it, but just can’t live with the thought of increasing those hours to about 90 a week, as the museum begins a major fund-raising/expansion effort expected to last about three years.

Rather than spend any more time away from his wife and children than he does now (and spend much of that time, having breakfast, lunch and dinner meetings with prospective donors), 43-year-old Armstrong announced his resignation in December.

“Here I am in what’s considered the best job in Los Angeles and I’m making my decision to walk away because of my own kids,” he says, referring to his children, ages 6 and 8.

Armstrong has no new job lined up as yet, but hopes to remain working in nonprofit organization administration (he has previously served as executive director of the National Center for a Barrier Free Environment and as executive director of the Florida Assn. of Community Colleges).

“It was a gut-wrencing decision,” he admits, “but I have no second thoughts. My job really has been a dream job, a job other people would kill for. I love it still and yet I’m walking away knowing this is the right thing to do.”