She Analyzed the Angles Before She Made a Plan
In Whatever Works, we feature an interesting person discussing some aspect of his or her career or special project. Today’s guest is Dr. Joyce Brothers, 70, who lives in New York.
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Most big businesses have 10-year plans. They look ahead, form “think tank” committees and draw up projections of where the company should be in 10 years. When I was beginning my career, I felt that women, including me, could profit from the same kind of advance planning. Even if you depart from the route you map out, just the act of having a plan provides a sound base for informed decisions as you go along. It enables you to ask yourself, “Do I really prefer this new direction to the one I chose previously? What are the advantages of making this change? The disadvantages?”
At the very beginning of my career, I faced a crucial decision. Did I want the purely academic life of teaching and research that I had been preparing myself for during four years at Cornell and the six years of graduate school and teaching at Columbia University? Or did I want to take a chance on an unconventional career as a teacher of psychology on television? If I chose the first fork, I would be teaching, working on laboratory experiments and publishing my research findings in professional journals for my colleagues. If I took this new fork, I would have to give up the research, the teaching and the scholarly reports, but I could study the work of others and explain the most significant new discoveries to the public as a kind of psychological journalist.
It would be a form of teaching, although not on the college or university level. I decided I would prefer to be out in the world involved with people rather than tucked away in some laboratory trying to discover the frustration level of a white rat or whether gentlemen really did prefer blonds.
I have never regretted the decision.
Because such a role on TV did not exist, I invented it. I was the first one to answer questions about psychological problems in newspapers, the first on radio and the first on television. I convinced the NBC affiliate in New York to put me on the air (I was so convincing that they originally gave me only a four-week contract). The program lasted many years, became two programs a day, was syndicated around the country, and I have been on the air in one form or another almost every day since 1958.
Strangely enough, the path that I chose spawned academic accolades and invitations to lecture at almost every prestigious university in the land, allowing me the benefits of my original career plan.
I’ve enjoyed the pleasures of working since I was 12 and earned all my own spending money since I was 14.
My mother and father were both attorneys who practiced together all their professional lives. My mother showed me that a woman could have a profession and a family without either being shortchanged, and I have apparently passed this attitude on to my daughter, who, like her husband, is an ophthalmological surgeon. She manages to go me one better, though, since she does this while bringing up four children.
When I was a child, even though both of my parents worked, our family always had dinner together--meals full of spirited conversation about politics and what was happening in the world. We all participated, but my father made those times special.
Once, when I was about 8, we discussed President Roosevelt’s attempt to overrule the “nine old men” of the Supreme Court who had declared one of his New Deal agencies unconstitutional. The president sought to pack the court with justices of his own choosing.
My parents wanted to see Roosevelt’s programs succeed, despite the questionable legality of his court actions. But I argued that if Roosevelt was successful, he would totally control the Supreme Court. My father listened to every word, nodding his head seriously.
A few weeks later, Roosevelt’s plan failed. At dinner that night my father opened a bottle of apple juice and passed out champagne glasses.
“Here’s to Joycie,” he said. “You stuck to your guns, and you were right.”
I felt like a million dollars.
And the fact that I remember this incident years later illustrates the power of an encouraging word. My dad gave me a sense of self-confidence that has never left me.
That confidence carried me through when I was 12 and became a counselor at a camp for problem children. I had no working papers, but they were so desperate for an extra pair of hands that they hired me. I took care of a dozen boys who were in trouble with the law for serious infractions like mugging, rape and arson. They were all two years older than I and much bigger, but somehow I felt not fear but understanding. I passed their “test” of my resolve and found that I really was able to reach them and change their lives. I have over the years received a postcard or two from some of them telling me how they are doing. It was this feeling that I really could help others that pointed me toward my very fulfilling career as a psychologist.
I started making all my own money very early in life, even though there was no economic necessity for it. I had been given ballet lessons from the age of 5 and loved it, and at 14 decided that it was time I started a ballet school of my own. I went to a number of private schools on Long Island in New York, where I lived, and made appointments with the administrators. I offered to teach the students in their school (both boys and girls) for free for six months. If, at the end of the six months, the students demanded to continue, they would pay me per lesson per student. Since they had nothing to lose, and six months of lessons to offer the parents, the administrators agreed.
I made up stories for the students, like Scheherazade, and would tell them for 10 minutes. Then I stopped at a cliffhanger and required 10 minutes of concentrated ballet work. After awhile, even the reluctant boys were hooked. At the end of the six months, I stopped a story at the most exciting place I could invent. The youngsters clamored to continue, and from that point on I had a thriving ballet school until it was time to start college.
In my work as a psychologist, I have tried to pass on the tremendous amount of information about people that psychologists have amassed to help enrich the lives of people who are healthy and vibrant, to make their lives even more joyful. I have found in work that you only get back what you put into it, but it does come back gift-wrapped.
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Dr. Joyce Brothers’ advice column runs in The Times on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
