Ten Years Later (30 page)

“Very rarely are you gonna have a home run right out of the box. You’re gonna go through
a lot of trial and error, you’re going to make a lot of mistakes, and you’re gonna
have a lot of things that don’t sell. And the major thing is not to be discouraged,”
she advises, “because you learn so much more from your mistakes than you do from your
successes, and as long as you’re making mistakes you’re probably on the road to success.
You’re learning what doesn’t work, and you’re refining your vision.”

Now sixty-two years old, Roxanne is still as busy as a bee. She
spends as much time as she can with family. Her mother has passed away, but her father,
who’s almost ninety, lives in Florida with his girlfriend. Roxanne says he’s had three
failed marriages, one that lasted just six months.

“Now he’s decided that he’s had such little success with marriage that he’ll just
have a girlfriend instead,” she says with a laugh, “so he lives with his girlfriend
who’s ninety-one.”

Lucas and Hannah are now thirty-three. Both have hiked the Appalachian Trail and paddled
the Northern Forest Canoe Trail. Lucas lives in Seattle with his wife and fourteen-month-old
daughter
Gabriella. He works full-time with the Quimby Family Foundation and part-time as a
fly-fishing guide. He’s a graduate of Le Cordon Bleu cooking school in London and
worked in the food and wine industry for more than a decade. I ask Lucas if he ever
buys Burt’s Bees products.

“Yeah,” he says with a laugh, “I got a tube of lip balm in my pocket.”

Hannah lives in San Francisco and works part-time with the foundation. She has a degree
in human development and photography, as well as a master’s degree in integrative
health. She’s now pursuing certifications in holistic nutrition and personal fitness.
She’d like one day to share her love of the outdoors by running a nonprofit organization
that would make health and wellness more accessible to adults and children. Hannah,
too, still uses the products that decades ago she and her brother watched bubble on
the kitchen stove.

“Even when I went to college it really wasn’t even known then; just by people who
shopped in health food stores or who bought natural products,” she says. “But now
I’m in class and I’ll see someone pull it out and use it and I’ll think,
That is so crazy
. It’s all around me now, and I have a clear memory of wax melting on the woodstove
and what it used to be, and to think it’s become what it has still surprises me sometimes.”

The twins have maintained a close relationship and see each other every few months.

“I just want them to be happy and fulfilled and do right,” Roxanne says of the twins,
“and to live according to the values I hope I instilled in them. And to be honest
with themselves and others. That’s what I want for them.”

Perhaps surprisingly, knowing all Roxanne has accomplished, she considers her most
stunning achievement a 2010 summit of Mount Katahdin, Maine’s highest mountain.

“You can’t have anybody do it for you,” she says. “You can’t hire a really great engineer
to do it for you. You gotta do it yourself, and it’s tough. For me, it was really
challenging. I’m not the best hiker in the world and it was always very intimidating
for me. I felt like,
Aw, I can’t do it. It’s too high and I’m not strong enough. It’s too scary. It’s too
steep
. So when I got to the top I felt like,
Wow! I did it!
It was just a really great feeling. I had to do it on my own. That’s why I felt it
was such a great achievement for me.”

It’s that can-do spirit that Roxanne talks about passionately when I inquire about
the message of her journey so far. Those same buzzwords hum behind her answer: “freedom,”
“restlessness,” “independence.”

“This country is still great enough that you can make it no matter what. I was not
trained to be a Wall Street wizard. I didn’t know anything about business. I didn’t
have any financial leverage or advantages. I was a woman, and yet, even with those
obstacles, I was allowed to be successful in this country. For me, this country gives
us enough freedom and enough opportunity that a person can still make it,” she says.
“My mother was born in a different country, and my grandfather was born in Russia,
and his father and sister were murdered one night because they were Jewish. He ran
away from Russia and he went to China and got married and they had to leave China
during the Communist revolution, and they left with nothing. So in our family, there
was always this story about America, and how no one would be persecuted for their
religion, and that this was the land of opportunity, and I really believe in that.
I know we’re not perfect and I know there are problems in our society, but I still
feel like there’s a lot of opportunity in this country to succeed and to dream and
to aspire.”

I’ll never again see a Burt’s Bees display without thinking of Roxanne. And Burt,
happily cooped up. Every Walgreens, Target, and
Walmart carries Burt’s Bees, and the product line continues to grow. I ask Roxanne
her gut reaction when she walks by the brand during her daily doings.

“I sort of feel like it’s overexposed right now. When something gets overexposed it
doesn’t seem quite as special, quite as unique,” she says. “I controlled the marketing
of it a little more strictly, but obviously, the people who own it now want to sell
it to every single company they can, so they do. I don’t know, once in a while I have
a little glimmer of,
Oh, yeah. I did that.
I remember one day I was taking a hike somewhere, and I saw this little yellow piece
of litter in the mud. It was a used-up Burt’s Beeswax Lip Balm, and I had a little
moment there, thinking that this product was so ubiquitous that it was now litter.”
She laughs. “It was like a Coke can on the side of the road, and I thought,
Wow! I’ve really made it in America
.”

Boy, have you ever, Roxy.

How’s Burt doing? The mystique continues. Burt declined an invitation to be interviewed
for the story. A little bee told me he was headed to Taiwan soon for a company appearance.
He’s apparently a rock star in East Asia. All the best to you, Burt, and your bees.

In 1988, Stan Sandroni hired me after twenty-seven other television news directors
turned me down for my first job out of college. I never dreamed I would be rejected
so many times; I never thought I’d live and work in Greenville, Mississippi. But that
chance meeting with Stan gave me the start I needed to develop a solid career. In
1998, ten years after Stan gave me my first reporting job, NBC called and offered
me a position as a correspondent for
Dateline NBC.
I’ve been working for the network in New York ever since. That fateful day when I
met Stan taught me that one person can change your life. If just one person believes
in you, the army of people who don’t are inconsequential. All you need is someone
to take a leap of faith, and your world can change. That road trip also proved to
me that persistence pays off. When you’re worn out and feel like you have nothing
left in the tank, you most likely do. I say stick fatigue, rejection, and doubt in
the trunk and hit the gas one more time. Your Stan could be right around the corner.

My game changer isn’t nearly as dramatic as the ones described in the stories you’ve
just read. The game changers for Amy, Lindsay, Patrick, Diane, Ron, and Roxanne all
required guts and the determination to not only survive, but to also accept the scars
and welcome the lessons that followed. Does that mean they are different people ten
years later? After all, chaos and adversity are often catalysts for
great change. Ron knows something about that. Then again, one brave step followed
by a second can also blaze a trail to change, if we’re patient enough to go the distance.
Just ask Amy. Sometimes we seek out change, other times it finds us and demands our
attention. Can people really change? And if so, does the change stick around for good?

Here’s what they think:

Amy Barnes
—
survived domestic abuse and lost 340 pounds

“You
can
change but you have to want it badly enough. I tell my clients every day, ‘I will
give you every tool I have in my brain and in my heart that I used to lose weight,
that I used to survive my relationship and become a survivor, and that I use in life
in general. I will give you absolutely every tool, but I can’t want it badly enough
for you. You have to want it yourself.’ If you really want to change who you are for
the better, it definitely takes time. It doesn’t happen overnight.”

Lindsay Beck
—
fought for her life and her dream to have a family

“Cancer absolutely changed me. I used to joke that it sparked my ‘quarter-life crisis.’
Seniors often say they wish they knew then what they know now. In a lot of ways, I
think cancer gave me that gift at a very young age, and I’ve had the privilege to
live my life with that perspective. There are daily habit changes, like eliminating
as many toxins as possible from my environment by using natural cleaning products
and eating organic. There are also deep changes, like the drive to live an extraordinary
life. I do wonder, though: Did cancer do this to me or would I have come to it anyway?
I don’t have answers, but I know that who I am today is very different from who I
was before cancer.”

Patrick Weiland
—
lost a sister to domestic violence and overcame drug addiction

“If I hadn’t changed I’d be dead. There’s no question. So, can people change? Yes.
Can you wake up one day and change? No. It’s a very incremental process and I think
it’s one that’s so mystifying. Even with the murder of my sister, it took me a year
and three months until I was able to stop using. So, there are moments that are wake-up
calls for us, but it’s our decision whether we listen, our willingness to change our
thinking. I do think it’s a myth that we can change ourselves alone, as an island,
by ourselves. We need the people who are close to us, the people in our lives who
love us and the people we love, in order to change. They’re the ones. It’s with their
help.”

Diane Van Deren
—
elite ultra runner who underwent brain surgery following a decade of seizures

“Did it change who I am and how I think about life? No. But it made me stronger, it
made me more stubborn, it elevated my perseverance. That’s what it did. Now I can
encourage change. I can have an impact. What I’ve been through has given me an opportunity
to make change by having a voice and sharing what I’ve learned.”

Ron Clifford
—
survived the 9/11 attacks but lost his sister, niece, and family friend

“I didn’t die there. I wasn’t killed there. I made it out alive, so my life
had
to change there. The change is I’m loving life a lot more. I’m treasuring life a
lot more. I love the small things. I love the big things. I love life. Before, I was
more concerned with work and putting the bacon on the table and paying the mortgage.
Now I just take a deep breath and think,
Oh my gosh, look at that seagull. Look at that magnificent landscape over there
. I appreciate life a lot more.”

Roxanne Quimby
—
from organic rags to riches

“I see our life on earth and all of creation as evolving toward enlightenment and
perfection. In order to realize progress on the path, we have to let go and keep moving
forward. Evolution is managed change rather than random change. I think both kinds
are fun and keep life interesting!”

My hope is that this book offers you a sense of peace about the future and the power
we all have to shape ours. Each of the six people you’ve met never imagined what a
decade would mean to their journeys; they focused instead on soldiering through each
day. Now, looking back, they are grateful and empowered, and most importantly, passionate
about living their next ten years to the fullest. May you be inspired to embrace the
what-ifs in your life, to trade your fears for faith. Take a chance, push through
indecision, celebrate the unknown, and always believe in a bright future. It’s possible,
no matter how impossible it may seem at any given moment.

My thanks and a huge hug:

To Jon Karp, who walks around all day with a lightbulb over his head that blinks bright
ideas. They never stop and they always give you goosebumps.

To my editor, Marysue Rucci, for her wise eyes and enduring spirit. How did you help
me give birth to my book at the same time you were on bed rest, nurturing the little
girl inside of you? Rock star. And to Marysue’s right (and left) hand, Emily Graff.
Super star.

To the movers in publicity: Tracey Guest, Jessica Zimmerman, and Rebecca Marsh. And
the shakers in marketing: Andrea DeWerd and Richard Rhorer.