It Ain't Over (36 page)

Diane decided she wanted to turn the writing she loved so much into a paying career. She got a loan to go back to school to study communications, then in 2005 launched a new career as a publicist and writer, even starting a new radio show that focused on life transitions, interviewing guests about how to overcome adversity. Her grit was put to the test four years later, when the economy tanked.

“I lost savings, I lost equity, I lost clients, I almost lost my house. But I still had my life,” she says. “And I still had the river.” It took her two years, but she finally dug herself out.

Now that Diane is in her sixties, people sometimes ask if she is
still
wakeboarding. It makes her wonder:
Am I supposed to stop this at some point?
She got her answer recently: While flipping through a magazine, she saw a photo of an 82-year-old woman, face weathered, waterskiing. By Diane’s calculations, that gives her 20 more years to rock a bikini.

“Wakeboarding is a metaphor for my identity,” she says. “It reminds me that I have the strength, the wisdom, and the power to know I can overcome anything.”

Ofelia de La Valette, 56

Atlanta, Georgia

W
hat is given to us can be lost. But what we create is forever ours.

It was a lesson that had been imprinted on Ofelia de La Valette as a little girl, a lesson unwittingly taught to her by her father.

The grandson of a wealthy tobacco farmer in Cuba, Ofelia’s dad spent his youth living the good life—no worries, no responsibilities. Though he became captain of Cuba’s international equestrian team, he never finished college or got a job. There was no reason to—he had all the money he needed. So he married and started a family.

But in 1960, with Fidel Castro rising to power, he fled the country with his wife, three-year-old Ofelia, and her older brother. They arrived in New York City with only a few suitcases and no access to the family money back home. Within a year, at age 33, he was broke.

“Our lifestyle plummeted from the lap of luxury to abject poverty,” Ofelia recalls. “It was a very hard fall, and although I was only a child, I felt it. The
memory has never left me.” Her father had never learned how to hold a job, and after being fired from several office positions, he relied on the only thing he knew: teaching horseback riding, moving the family around New York and New Jersey to be near stables.

Thirty years later, as a young woman and single mom, Ofelia took a job selling insurance for its flexible hours, doing so well that she opened her own Atlanta insurance company, de La Valette & Associates, in 1990. The firm took off and by age 34, Ofelia had a successful business, a beautiful house, and a flexible schedule that most days allowed her to be home to spend time with her family.

Then her world did a little spin on its axis.

One day, about a year after her second child was born, Ofelia was on the treadmill at the gym, determined to lose 25 pounds of stubborn pregnancy weight. As she was grinding her way through the workout, some funky music called to her like the Pied Piper. She followed the pounding bass to the next room, where she stood in the doorway watching a gaggle of sweaty men and women swinging their hips and pumping their arms to the beat. At the front, a guy wearing black-and-white-striped leggings, a skintight turtleneck, and jazz shoes was calling out the moves. Everyone looked like they were having a blast.

What am I doing on a machine?
Ofelia thought.
Why am I not in here?

Dancing was something she had loved as a child. “When Latin families and friends get together for happy occasions, there’s always music and dancing,” she says. “Anchored in me is that connection between joy and dance.”

Ofelia had fantasized about becoming a professional dancer someday, but her parents couldn’t afford classes so she taught herself. In high school she joined various dance troupes, and later put herself through flamenco school.

Then she married, had kids, and started her company; there was no longer time for a little girl’s silly dreams.

Still, this cardio-funk class at the gym looked like too much fun to pass up. But walking in, she froze: In front of her was a wall of mirrors that reflected her frumpy figure and a sea of incredibly fit people around her. Ofelia wanted to sink through the floor.

At first, she tried hiding out in the back of the room. But as the playlist of oldies and modern music—remixed with dance club beats—heated up, Ofelia let go and really started moving. Breathing hard, she struggled to keep up, but she was also smiling and laughing. “I felt invigorated,” she says. “I felt happy. It made me feel like I was a kid again.”

After class, Ofelia went up to thank the instructor. “I want you to know, I’m going to be your best student,” she told him.

Soon she’d found a dance studio and signed up for nearly every dance class it had to offer, taking as many as twelve a week. But they were far above her level, geared toward professionals, not beginners like her. “I couldn’t touch my toes or complete a turn properly or remember choreography, but I was determined to learn to dance despite my embarrassment.”

With hard work, her great rhythm and natural talent kicked in. One of her instructors pulled her aside after class one day. “You missed your calling,” he told her. “Had you started training younger, you would have become a successful dancer.” His words inspired her to keep going.

“Something magical would happen to me when I danced,” she says. “Something therapeutic and healing. And the better I got at it, the stronger those feelings became. My self-image soared. My body changed, becoming flexible and lean and graceful. I felt beautiful when I danced. And I wanted to feel this way for the rest of my life.”

So she kept at it, taking modern dance, jazz, hip-hop, and ballet. “I rearranged my office schedule so nothing could interfere with those classes,” she says.

In 2002, at age 44, after eight years of intensive training, she started teaching adult beginner dance classes part-time at Emory University. After one class, five students told her how much they loved her teaching style and urged her to start a studio that specialized in beginning dance classes for adults, which didn’t exist in Atlanta at the time.

It was tempting but scary. Ofelia didn’t know the first thing about running a dance studio and she’d have to close the insurance agency to create a business model, run the studio, and teach full-time. She’d be risking everything she’d worked for her entire career. “My family was mortified,” she says. “My life was stable and secure. Why would I throw all of that away to start over, especially in a field I knew nothing about—at 46 years old?”

But once the idea was planted in her mind, it germinated. “I understood how therapeutic dance could be and wanted to share it with the world. I wanted to make my life count by contributing to others’.”

In 2004, Ofelia opened Dance 101, a studio just for adults. The curriculum was modeled after her own journey: She offered “discover” classes for newbies and higher-level classes for those who wanted bigger challenges.

She had only 35 students at first and little support from the local dance community. She couldn’t even find teachers willing to work for her and
was logging 14-hour days. “I affectionately refer to that period of my life as ‘two Advil and a Redbull,’ because that is how I got through it,” Ofelia recalls. “But I was determined.” And through word of mouth, new clients started streaming through the doors. Within a year, she had to relocate to a 10,000-square-foot space.

Today Ofelia has more than 20,000 registered students and 40 instructors (that first cardio-funk teacher now works for her) teaching more than 100 different classes, from ballet and jazz to salsa, samba, tap, musical theater, and belly dancing. Her students are all different body shapes, ages, ethnicities, and cultures. You might see a high-powered attorney dancing alongside a neurosurgeon dancing alongside a seamstress. “Dance is like the great equalizer,” Ofelia says. “Everyone shares a passion to move their bodies.”

In her office, Ofelia keeps a box full of cards and letters from her students who, like her, have been transformed by dancing. “I hear stories of people who’ve recovered from illness, grief, breakups, and divorces because they were able to spend a few hours a week in one of our dance classes. In my own small way, I’m going to leave this world a little bit better than I found it. The studio has given my life renewed meaning.”

It has also taught her a new lesson. “When I embarked on this journey, I was intimidated and filled with fear and self-doubt. But I have learned to embrace these emotions as necessary components of success. When you truly believe in yourself and in your dream, every obstacle you face is simply another stepping-stone on your journey—not a reason to quit.”

“We were naive when it came to big business—we learned the hard way.”

Mary Waldner, 62

Gridley, California

M
ary Waldner woke up on a January 1 morning resolved to make a change in her life—and her New Year’s resolution was a doozy. She wanted to scrap her successful 26-year career in clinical psychology and, at age 48, start selling crackers. Seriously.

And all because of a decades-long tummy ache. For most of her life, Mary had severe digestive pain, depression, and fatigue. “Ever since I was a child, I had been to so many doctors,” she says. “But no one could ever figure out what was wrong.”

Finally, at age 43, Mary got the diagnosis that would change her life: She had celiac disease, an immune reaction to eating gluten, a substance found in grains like wheat, barley, and rye. Such gluten sensitivities are common knowledge today, but when Mary was diagnosed, celiac disease was virtually unknown. “I had never even heard of gluten,” Mary says. “Nobody had.”

Immediately, Mary cut gluten-rich foods like bread, pasta, and cereal
from her diet (“I joked that I could cut out bread but I couldn’t live without my aunt Enid’s brownies”) and she finally felt healthy—really healthy—for the first time in her life.

But what to eat instead? It was almost impossible to find gluten-free foods in supermarkets or even health food stores. “Anytime I
could
find anything that was gluten-free, it tasted terrible.”

So Mary decided to concoct her own gluten-free recipes. Ever since her childhood, when she’d go to her grandmother’s house to make cakes and cookies, Mary had loved to bake. Now, using gluten-free flour, she put those baking skills to work creating muffins, bagels, and desserts.

“I think of myself as a jazz musician in the kitchen,” Mary says. “I’m always improvising.” One of her improvisations was a thin but dense cracker made from brown rice, quinoa, flax, and sesame seeds. They were delicious.

“Whenever there was any kind of gathering, I would bake a few things and bring them with me so I’d have something to eat. My friends liked most everything I made, but the crackers were the big hit. Not like, ‘These are good,’ but, ‘Oh my God, these are fabulous! Where’d you get them?’ ”

So she made bigger and bigger batches—and wondered,
Could I actually turn these crackers into a business?

To find out, Mary brought a bag of the crackers to a local health food store, where the owner put out samples for customers to nibble on. “As I was going up and down the aisles, I overheard all of this fabulous reaction,” Mary recalls. “Then the owner came up to me and said, ‘I think you’re going to have to bring me more.’ ” Mary had found her first distribution outlet. “I’d bring in ten bags of crackers and they’d quickly sell out, so then I’d have to make another batch.”

She began taking her treats to other health food locations, and the response was always the same. “Everyone went crackers for my crackers,” she says. “And I knew I had to get them out there for other people with a gluten
intolerance.” When she asked friends for suggestions for a business name, one jokingly proposed Mary’s Cracking Up. Close. Another friend quickly came up with Mary’s Gone Crackers.

With local demand rising, Mary was spending all of her spare hours in her kitchen, while still maintaining her full-time psychology practice. “I was doing two things with my life: working as a therapist and making crackers. Don’t think everyone didn’t make a joke about that.”

Mary bought a new, larger oven to keep up with the demand, but she was still making the crackers by hand, and couldn’t churn out more than 240 at a time. Not only was the hot, sticky dough difficult to work with, but she had to hand scoop and form each individual cracker on a tray. It took her five hours to make each batch.

Then came her New Year’s epiphany: If this side project was going to grow into a sustainable, efficient business, the process needed to be automated. And if she was going to shift from cracker baker to cracker manufacturer, she needed to scale back her psychology practice.

“I had thought that somehow I would always be a therapist,” she says, “but it became clear that unless there were two or three of me, that wasn’t going to happen.”