The Art of Living: Marilyn Nichols' Path from Corporate to Creative Freedom

Jeff Kikel: [00:00:00] Hey everybody, welcome to the Freedom Nation podcast for another episode of one of our freedom stories. And this one is going to be a fun one today. Because I get to interview one of my favorite people on the planet, Marilyn Nichols. Marilyn and I have known each other for probably about 10 years.

We networked together, we helped build each other's businesses up. I helped her with some of her planning when it came to her exit from her business and she is off and doing wonderful things in her life. And I wanted to share this story so that you know what it's like when you get beyond Freedom Day.

Marilyn, welcome to the show, my friend. Hi there, Jeff. Good to be here. So glad to have you on. I've told your story for years, not telling people the name, but I've told your story for years. Because I think you've played life absolutely perfect when it comes to Freedom Day.

And and I really, this is our opportunity to finally [00:01:00] tell your story in public. Let's start off. Why don't you tell us how, life started for you and then we'll just take that from there.

Marilyn Nichols: Oh, okay. You want my history? You want my business history?

Jeff Kikel: Go go back to the beginning.

Marilyn Nichols: Oh, I was born in Belle Plaine, Iowa 72 years ago yesterday.

Jeff Kikel: Congratulations, and happy birthday, by the way.

Marilyn Nichols: Thank you. And we moved from rural Arkansas to Topeka, Kansas, where I grew up. When I was about eight, we moved there. And it was a big shift for this country girl. It was a big city to us.

Jeff Kikel: Yeah. Look at it in life today, not so much.

Marilyn Nichols: All 129, 000 people. By the way, they still have 129, 000 people there. Yeah. And I grew up there and went to through regular school and went to college for a couple of years and dropped out. And then I had the lost years where I went out and [00:02:00] did other things.

And when I got myself back on track, I went back to college and I was living up in Minnesota by then. So I graduated from a university up there with a degree in, which I can remember my dad asked me

I don't know what you think you're going to be able to do with a degree in art. I expect if I can get some honors, if I beat a cap key on there and my grade point average is high enough, they won't care.

And they never did. And I moved from Minnesota back to Texas. I had been in Texas during the. [(inuadible)]

And married a man named David and we had divorced and one day he called me up in Minnesota

and sparks flew and I moved back to Texas to be with him. And guess what, folks, it did not work.

So we broke up on friendly terms that I went on to marry a very nice man. Who Roger and moved into with [00:03:00] his house with his two children who were teenagers

and they were the nicest children teenagers you've ever met, but I was a step mom with 17 year old teenagers. Oh my Lord. And they had never ever been required to do any kind of chores.

And I came in and I said, I don't think so. I am not your mate. I'll cook, but you're going to clean up. And so that's how it went. Unfortunately, their father, my husband didn't live very long when he had cancer and he passed away. And I had a wonder another wonderful relationship with a man named Dave.

And He also passed away of ALS. So then I got back together with my first husband and that, that went reasonably well for 13 years. And then he also passed away. So I've been through that. And I had started a business while I was with David. I had worked at Schwab a few years before that and I've been in the corporate world [00:04:00] and a couple other businesses.

And I loved working for Schwab. If the downturn in the economy hadn't happened I'd say, cause it worked my brain

the other side of my brain from art really hard, it's stuff to learn. And I was very proud of myself that I learned it and I was excelling, but a downturn to downturn.

And eventually I got caught the last wave of layoffs and ended up bouncing around a little bit. And then I decided. I'm going to try and do what I really love. I'm going to open business. And I have always had a knack for training dogs. I'm going to be a dog trainer. And my goodness, my stepmother, who is still alive, my father had passed away.

She goes, You're going to have to go out there and sell an awful lot of insurance to be able to afford to be a dog. And I opened the business the day after she died. Cause I just didn't want to fight with her, is it hard to open a business? Not as hard as people think. I don't think it's as hard as they think.

There are hard stretches.[00:05:00] I had to tell David at one point, I don't care how unhappy you are with your job, you cannot quit. I am making zero. I have been making zero. There's another downturn. And in a downturn economy, people don't spend they don't have money to spend on dog training. And it is the last thing on their minds.

They don't care if little Fido bites mailman so long as they can eat. I don't care either. So I had to make it through some really lean times, but I had a great advice for my business coach, Stan. Can I say his last name? Sure. Stan Dantyler, he helped me through the whole thing. He held my hand in a gruff way all the way through the I ain't making no money period.

And he goes, I'm really tired of you saying that. Why don't we figure out how to make, let's make some money. I said, Oh, okay. And I started boarding dogs as well as training. I didn't think I would love boarding dogs, but I did. And I was very busy, [00:06:00] had a genuinely Loyal clientele. Lovely people.

Jeff Kikel: Let's just stop for a second. This wasn't boarding dogs. This was basically dogs getting to live with Maryland for a week on. Yeah, they weren't shoved into cages or anything like that. They were just basically living with Marilyn for a week, which they were little spoiled dogs

to begin with, and they were more spoiled by the time they left.

Marilyn Nichols: Happy puppy, tiny dog, Morty. They were in crates at night to keep them all safe and separate. But during the daytime, they lived on my couch and my chairs and the whole house was fenced to keep them, where they needed to be. And of course, I had a great fence backed yard and everybody. Now, it got really busy at a certain point.

I remember I had 21 dogs in my house. And not everybody chose to get along. So there would be the group of the first group would go out would be the teeny weeny ones

who couldn't hold a platter very long and [00:07:00] they'd all come in. And then the medium sized dogs that are still little would come in.

And then I had a few dogs that grandfathered in because they were my clients from training

that were bigger dogs, some of them quite large and they would go out. So it's three and then of course my dogs, because I also had seven dogs at that time, so hello! It was, and two cats, it was chaos, but it was organized chaos and I loved my job.

I loved what I did, I loved promoting it for those of you who want to know how to promote a business

at that time networking lunches were everything and they worked extraordinarily well for me

most people in there trying to sell you on some kind of product or service that you may, or is very not particularly necessary maybe. It sounds good, but I don't have to do that but when your dog is being on your floor and somebody

stands up in a networking meeting and says I can fix that, you hire him. And [00:08:00] I had the best response to my, I love, okay, one, I am not afraid of public speaking, as you can probably tell, and I love it.

And I didn't mind at all getting up and doing my little promo speech, which is supposed to be about 30 seconds. And I at one time did it in several different languages and the gist of it, I was saying in whatever language your dog doesn't speak. Spanish or French or Farsi or Klingon. Your dog speaks dog.

However, I can translate it. And I'd say that part in English. So it was a lot of fun. And you don't sell to the room. You're selling to their friends. And of course I got a lot of referrals. But my direct sales to the room were very high. And so it was a perfect environment for me. And quite frankly, I made a very good living.

Jeff Kikel: Yeah and I think probably the biggest advice that I can give to somebody

because Marilyn and I were growing our businesses at the [00:09:00] very same time. I think the best advice that I ever got was just be consistent. You might not want to go to that network meeting that day, but that's your job.

Yeah. Your job is to be out there promoting and growing your business. And then that allows you to do the fun stuff that you really do enjoy doing, but you got to do that. And you can't be hidden in a room.

Marilyn Nichols: No. And you gotta be out meeting people. It really helps. If you decide at the door, I like people, even if you're not feeling like you like people

and go in there with a really positive attitude and the same rules that apply to anything.

Be polite, be nice, be friendly, smile, don't have your resting bitch face on, just don't. And it just worked really well. Follow up on all your leads. And your phone is always on. That's one thing I really enjoy in retirement is [00:10:00] I don't have to answer my phone. If I don't recognize the number, I'm not going to do it.

You might as well leave a message. Then I'll decide whether I want to listen to your message.

Jeff Kikel: Going back to those lean times, a lot of businesses and having a having a coworking space, I see a lot of businesses come through and. A lot of them fall apart, what made it different for you?

What kept you going? When things were lean and things were tough and you didn't want to do it anymore. What were those things that just kept you going?

Marilyn Nichols: When the first one happened, I had just opened in 2006 by the way, you and I have known each other longer than 10 years.

Jeff Kikel: Probably about 11 or 12. Yeah.

Marilyn Nichols: Maybe 15.

When did you start going to networking groups?

Jeff Kikel: So I came down from Dallas in 2011. So we've known each other since then. Yeah. Yeah. Cause I pretty much after about a year after that, I was launching my business. So yeah. So it's probably 2012 or ish.

Marilyn Nichols: Yeah. Yeah. So I opened up a [00:11:00] business October 1st, 2006, the day after my, Stepmother's funeral up in Minnesota.

And there's no real coincident with that. I was planning open the business and the process of picking the name of your business is so important. It has to actually say what you do. And I've run into many people in networking meetings that have names that mean nothing. Like this one person who had this interesting business and it was called the eye of the dime.

Nobody knew what that meant. I told her, why don't you tell him that you help people somehow in the name of your business. Tell them that you help them through innovative ways to get in stuff in touch with their inner self. Figure it out. Yeah. And that happened over and over. So I worked on my name.

I had gone to, Oh, I needed to back up. I went to networking businesses for businesses that I worked for before I opened my own. So I learned a lot from that process.[00:12:00] I was thinking about what the name, a dog business. First, I had to decide whether it was going to be mobile or if I was going to buy a facility or have a facility at my house.

And I said, I don't want to do that. It was going to be mobile. So I bought a very efficient car. The first one I had my business was a Hyundai Elantra got really pretty good mileage

not as good as my Toyota Prius, which gets great mileage, but which I b ought up. And I thought about the business and it was like, okay, I want all dogs to be happy.

Happy dogs. Good dog. All those, and finally said, I want them all to be happy puppies. And then I thought let's say Happy Puppy Academy. No, that says I have a business building. So I want it to Happy Puppy Tutoring is what came out. I went, that's the one. Yeah. I feel like I named my business.

It's very appropriate.

Jeff Kikel: And knowing your process it wasn't just, you could have said happy puppy dog [00:13:00] training. Not all you didn't really necessarily train the dogs as much as you train the owners.

I trained owners. So you're tutoring the owners in a lot of cases.

Marilyn Nichols: And that's what I meant is I can translate dog for you and you to the dog.

I can help you communicate with your dog. Yes. That's probably all that's wrong. I said you're not communicating effectively. And I remember when I first started out, I didn't like pit bulls. I didn't like them all and I got one little, one little gorgeous little Papillon

was my first client in 2006 and then I got a Pitbull and I'm like, okay, if I turn down this job, I need this job.

I need the money. Yeah. Okay. I'll go train a Pitbull and I trained a Pitbull and I started learning about Pitbulls, but then I sat down and thought if I turn down Pitbulls. I could go out of business. Yeah. And I said, I know how to deal with aggressive dogs. I know how to fix it. I'm going to train [00:14:00] whatever comes.

And for nine months, I didn't get anything other than pit bulls and pit bull mixes that were mostly aggressive. Dangerous. And I was younger and I helped a whole lot of pit bulls, stay in their homes because they're lovely dogs. If raised right and trained right, they are caring and loving and they'll babysit your children.

They don't have the nickname, the nanny dog for nothing. And anybody going to steal your dog when you're pit bulls and your kid or your pit bulls sitting next to him, I got to love them. And I actually made my bones in my business training, aggressive dogs. I was one of the ones that would be recommended to train you mainly without any pain.

I don't get animals, right? Train the dogs with you to be better dogs and be very successful. So that's what I did. And then we further on in my business. I remember when the lean time came, the first lean time came just a few months after I opened

because the downturn happened in the [00:15:00] spring of 2007 and it continued until 2008.

And it was lean. There was, yeah, it was difficult. But the way I stayed in business was, I believed. That I knew I could do the job. And I was learning that I could really sell it too. To find out that's one of your forte is standing up in front of people and interesting them in what you do is really helpful.

It will be difficult for someone who can't project who can't communicate. Yeah. Good communication skills. I often said that working in corporate America and having to deal with people every day, which is not what most dog trainers do or artists. They don't deal with people. Most dog trainers that I've met, excuse my language, piss poor communication skills with other people.

They know what they know and they'll show you what they know, but they're off [00:16:00] putting and like within themselves

and they don't reach out to you and for any other dog trainer, I would say, remember. That dog's gonna like you because you love dogs, and dogs know it, but that's not your job.

Yeah. Your job.

Jeff Kikel: They don't write the check.

Marilyn Nichols: They do not pay you. Your job is that person. Sure. And you've got to help the person. So I got through that time and it started to pick up. And it just went really well. And then there was another lull that almost took me out of business. I remember from end of March until August, I made no money.

And so right when school hits and also dog training is cyclical. Yeah. They in at the beginning of the school year, you got no business. And over holidays, you have almost no business on dog training. However, that's when people want to board their

dogs.

Jeff Kikel: So [00:17:00] yeah, that adaptation of your business to say, Hey, I'm gonna, I'm also going to board dogs.

When they're, when you don't have dogs. Dog boarding business, you end up with dog training business in most cases.

Marilyn Nichols: Yeah, it balanced out so beautifully. Your listeners, your watchers, viewers can do the math. 21 dogs boarding in my house at $45 a night, each. Except for a couple that I gave a little break because they had two or three dogs.

But other than that's how much I was making a day. Yeah. It's not bad money anywhere. That's not even bad money in corporate America.

Jeff Kikel: Yeah. To work from home and get to play with dogs all day. Yeah.

Marilyn Nichols: And in love on them. And I have so many wonderful memories. These dogs were part of my life.

And when I hear that one of them's passed away, I honestly cry. I do. It's just, it's hard, but it, that's what happens in life. Yeah. So I went on and I trained I had my business open. Oh, I forgot to add in my [00:18:00] childhood, I trained a St. Bernard puppy. He was our dog. And that's when I learned I had already shown our colleague and one, which was great.

And I had to train her a little bit and she was already grown and mature, much more difficult to train them. An adult dog. It's not impossible. It's with the right treats and the right attitude. Believe me, they want to learn whatever it is that gets that piece of food. So when I trained Herman. I know I had to, we got this St.

Bernard because my dad wanted one and then he gave him way and broke my heart when he figured out he was too big

but I trained him every single day and I took what turns out to be one of the dumbest breeds on the planet and taught him tricks

like you wouldn't believe and Grand culmination of that is I showed him and when they want, when you go up by the judge

you'll see on videos, you'll see people, it's called stacking your dog

you place their feet front and back and then you lift up their head and their [00:19:00] tail.

So they look really proud. I had seen that I knew that they did that. I work really hard on something and then I showed it off for the first time in the ring. I ran around, came in front of the judge and I told my dog Herman, I said, stand

and he planted his back feet, took a half step forward, which would give him that proud chest up

lifted his tail, lifted his head and looked right at the judge.

And the judge went. What? Oh my God. And he goes, how'd you do that? And I said I was scared. I was 16. He goes, do it again. Maybe run the ring again. Come in front of me. And the whole time I'm saying, Herman, you better do it again. By God, you really better. And we get up there and I tell him, Oh, and also I had no treats on me.

I was not treating my dog. And so I get up there and I say, Herman. Stand. And he did exactly the same thing, planted the back feet

took a half step forward, threw up his chest, [00:20:00] up comes the tail and he looks right at the judge. And we won reserve winner of breed when my dog was not even filled out yet.

I learned from that. I had a knack for dog training and then I started training around my neighborhood. I trained dogs when I was a teenager. I also house sat for pets, including little Freddy, the black poodle who would never come out

from under the bed when I was there and wanted to bite me. I trained him.

I worked with him too. By the way, he never thought me, but I knew from my history that I hadn't.

Jeff Kikel: You had the skillset and not anybody. You didn't really have training to do this. It's just, you were not really.

Marilyn Nichols: I'm self taught. And then Cesar Malone came on the scene and I watched him and I thought he trains just like I do.

I do that. I do that. And I didn't make as much money as he did, but I did fine. And didn't have a TV show. Although one of my good friends and associates from [00:21:00] networking wanted me to be on TV so bad. And we just never did it. I was self conscious or whatever, but I could and I couldn't now, I think.

Anyway, so that's what got me through the bad parts is knowing I loved it, knowing I was good at it knowing it would come around. And then if not, I would figure out some way to bump it up and Dan was with me the whole way. And then three years before I retired, I started talking to Stan about when.

When do I think I'll retire because I was over the social security age. I was 66, 67 years old.

Jeff Kikel: You and I worked out the money part of it that we knew, okay, you're going to be fine there. And it was really, I remember it from my perspective, really 3 years prior to you deciding that was it.

We already knew you were there. And then it was just when is it gonna be, when was that time for you?

Marilyn Nichols: What I wanted to do was spend some time working through the emotional process of retiring. Yeah. I think this is something that a lot of [00:22:00] people miss. However, my dad was a very well Ren renowned psychiatrist and his specialty was the he ran.

He was the director of one of the five divisions at the Minard Foundation and his was applied industrial psychiatry

how people work, how they work well, and why they fail. And one, he wrote many articles on what happens to men, especially when they retire. They're a major taproot of their life, but fed them all their life was their job.

Yep. Now look at me. What fed me was my job. What am I going to do to feed myself when I cut off that root? So I was trying to make sure I was ready, that I wouldn't regret it, that I wouldn't miss it too badly and that I had something I was going to go. Now, COVID hit and that I probably I might have worked for three or four more years if COVID

had not hit because [00:23:00] I became very uncomfortable going in anyone's home.

I'm an older woman. I have heart disease. I don't want to die. And so I was training them a couple of lessons outside at their house and then the others on zoom, which worked. Okay. But it wasn't that rewarding for me. Yeah. And then I got together with my f riend Mike and he lived in Kansas and we started visiting and then he moved out here and

while COVID was in full spate, we didn't go hardly anywhere and the traffic didn't bother us

but he had been in several near fatal car accidents and he has.

PTSD for traffic, just like a combat veteran would have and it really breaks him out. And I've seen him do meltdowns and it was hard. So we started looking at first, just idly for a place to live that wasn't Austin. And we looked all over and then Mike pulled this one house up as a joke because it had several things

that he didn't want and that I had said I didn't want, which is an upstairs [00:24:00] and things like that.

I took one look and fell in love. I was like, Oh, I want this house. It would have been completely remodeled on the inside. It was fresh and new. It's actually adult 1996. And of course, there's always problems that you find in your house, but my house is filled with light and it's pretty. And we bought, I bought it.

Yeah. And we moved three years ago on the 18th here, right before Snowmageddon. Yep. Which was interesting to find out your heaters don't work well enough. That was a lot of fun.

Jeff Kikel: Surprise!

Marilyn Nichols: Yeah, you spend a lot of time with all the covers on you when it's only 51 degrees in your warmest part of your house.

Yes. We moved in here and I ordered a outbuilding. And it was finally delivered. We spent a lot of time trying to figure out exactly what I needed. And it's my studio now. And in there I paint and I sculpt. And I have two friends who come out and work with me. One's kind of a student and he's learning a lot about sculpture.

I had [00:25:00] started writing books, working on my first novel in 2019. So when I retired. At midnight on 2021, 21, 20, I I was already deeply involved in writing novels. At that time, it was novel and yeah. And so when we moved out here, I just continued my habits of writing in the morning

which is when I had the energy for it, sculpting a couple of days a week in the morning, and then running around and doing whatever you want.

I have taking singing lessons, vocal coaching lessons from someone I met in networking for now. seven years, six, seven years. And I can sing now and I like it very much. I love the sound of my, it's very a melodious voice. I have fun. I will say that after I got out here in retirement, my production of books speeded up.

I finished three, got the, we went through the whole editing process. I have three more in various [00:26:00] stages of editing, but the first three books in my series illuminated path. We're put to be published. We're on Kindle and Amazon as of tomorrow, my 72nd birthday. And I personally think that is very grandma Moses of me.

I'm just like, yes, ma'am. I love it. And they'll go live within the next 48 hours. And then I hope everybody will look for Marilyn Clemmy Nichols. And the Illuminated Path. The first book is about a woman who's given the opportunity to live her life over from childhood on with all her memories intact. The second book is about their continued path as they figure out what it is God wants them to do.

And it's not a religious book at all. She's just given this opportunity. She goes to heaven a couple of times. And all kinds of things happen. She blackmails a priest and she's not supposed to endanger an immortal soul, but she had to do that. And she [00:27:00] tries to save Kennedy, and she meets her first love again and they actually get together

and stay together because she's an old soul in a young body and she knows.

And they eventually find out that their mission which they wouldn't tell her the heavenly angels

wouldn't tell her because that would infer with her free will she finally figures out it is to try to defeat satan

who comes back to the earth due to a prophecy that involves her family and they do win.

I won't give it away too much, but the winning comes in a most unexpected way.

And it was just a treat to write and I write because I love telling stories. You can't tell. I love telling stories. And I love telling stories. I hope a lot of people read my stories so that they will have fun. They're real fun reads and they're sexy too.

And there's lots of things and there's telepathy. There's dragons. There's [00:28:00] teleportation. There's bad people and good people and oh, and aliens. So there you go. What more could you want? Although the aliens pretty much come in the next three books, the next trilogy. So how am I doing? I'm doing great.

Jeff Kikel: You're filling your life. And this is what I tell people and I've told people this over the years I've said after working with thousands of clients over 30 years

I've met some of the oldest 60 year olds and the youngest 90 year olds. Yeah. And you've always had that young, yeah, you've just, you've always had that youth to you whenever.

And I think you just keep striving to keep yourself going and I think that's the most important part of living that retirement

or living that freedom day lifestyle is you've got to fill it with something

you had filled it prior to this with a word, with a business or a job and [00:29:00] you've got to fill that void.

You can't just not do it. And I was on a podcast last night and the guy was, he's in the the health insurance business

and he was we got into talking about clients and all this. And he said, yeah. Because I can't tell you how many people that are like postal workers and stuff like that.

And that's their whole identity. And then they retire and it's just going to hang out and watch my stories all day. You can only do that so many times.

Marilyn Nichols: Yeah. Yeah. My normal schedule is first of all, I have to tell my, no, I'm not going to go anywhere because I'm writing every day because that if I.

Stand up to him. My high energy is in the morning for writing. His high energy is for getting things done is too, but he's just going to have to wait

because I've discovered you have to discover things about yourself. If I don't do it in the morning, I won't do it. And it's worth it to me to hold my ground and do that.

I guess one of the best things I could tell people is knowing yourself well

and [00:30:00] developing a positive attitude about life are essential to happiness. I am probably one of the most positive people, absolutely. Yep. And I'll share a little more about myself. I credit 40 years of sobriety for that and actively working the steps of AA.

I am sober. I love being sober. I don't need to alter my brain in any way. It works just fine the way it is. And it's been that way pretty much throughout my sobriety. I remember when I was in college and finishing up I was in acting and I had gotten offered, I'd won a part in this play. And then I realized I can't do it because I'm working full time while going into school full time.

I can't actually don't have time to come rehearse. I've been at work, right? So I ended up being the house manager, which was fine. And at the cast party at the end. I went. Even though I was in my 30s and they were all young kids and maybe a couple of 20 year olds and they're all getting a [00:31:00] little high or a little drunk.

And one of the guys turns to me, he goes, are you really not drinking? I said, no, I don't drink. And I don't need any pot either. And he goes, I think you're having the best time. I said I know I am.

Jeff Kikel: And tomorrow morning I can guarantee you I'm gonna have a much better time.

Marilyn Nichols: I will feel great tomorrow.

Life will be good for me. And just having that attitude which, there's been a lot of trials and tribulations in my life. There's been a lot of sadness.

Jeff Kikel: Way, way more than most people. Most people would have curled up in a corner with all you had been through. Even since I've known you all that you've been through,

Marilyn Nichols: I have to admit it.

It was hard. It was hard after Roger passed away. I thought now I've seen the worst life's going to throw at me and damn, was I wrong to have Dave have to go through a death by ALS. Yeah. Horrible. And I did learn some important things people ought to know is it don't expect

to get any of [00:32:00] your needs met when you're taking care of a dying spouse.

That's not your job. Your job is to take care of your dying spouse and they're not going to give you the Hollywood stuff from TV. They're not give you, I love you, I'm so glad you're taking care of me. They're going to go. I don't feel good. I because it's so difficult for them and getting through that was tough.

I will admit one of the best purchases I ever made was long term, long term insurance on both myself and my partner. I still have it. So when I need it, I will be able to stay in my house with my dogs until I die because it will help pay for caregivers. We got this caregiver named Lynn, who's the real character, but she saved my life.

She came seven days a week and took care of David and I worked and I thought

I would have a hard time keeping my business while David was sick. Truth is I grew my business. David was sick. I doubled my business while David was [00:33:00] sick. And if people want to try to wonder, think how hard it is to do something like that.

She had him eight hours a day. I had him teen hours a day and didn't sleep. So was it difficult? Yes. Was it worth it? Yes. Could I have left if I had wanted to? No, I'm not built like. That's not me. And I'm grateful to what I put in place and what life had to offer me. Let's face it for the last 40 years, 40 and a half.

Now I've had a fine life. A good life. I know a lot of good people. I did a lot of good in the world. I think with my dog training, I helped a lot of people. I helped a lot of dogs and I retired well. I'm financially secure, which is. Thank you. You're a brilliant, [00:34:00] I took care of my own investing up until when I met you and I do bad badly.

Jeff Kikel: You did extremely well, actually.

Marilyn Nichols: Having worked at Schwab helped. Yeah.

Jeff Kikel: That was the end and it's the way your brain works too. Most artists are not real good with figures and you just are. Which I think helped also with your business too, is you understood money and figures and everything else.

Marilyn Nichols: And profit and loss and how to keep your expenses low and your profits high.

Everything I did with my business was designed from the get go to have the least overhead with running a business

where I went to them, I had no building I had to maintain, no utilities I had to maintain other than my home, which is. Any a given anyway. You had to have that. Yeah, I had that efficient car.

I had a very efficient car. And then I got the Toyota and that was, it still gets 43 to 44 miles to the gown. Amazing. All of that. Not to brag too much, but I thought about it. I really put thought into it and I [00:35:00] just, I did well and I'm happy.

Jeff Kikel: Like I said and today, you still fill your life with all of that.

You could just, sit there and wither on the vine. I just, I don't think that would ever be you. But, I think the lesson that I want to impart or I wanted to impart with this interview, and this interview is going to be part

it'll be a component of the last chapter of the book that's coming out, the retirement trap and it really wanted to share

Marilyn's story because so many people decide I want to retire early, or I want to get out of work early

but they don't put in place that step, that three year step that you took now.

It doesn't necessarily have to take three years and it may have taken longer. It's just COVID made that decision for you. But, you thought through it all and said what are the things that make me happy? And for you, it wasn't just one thing. It wasn't I have this one hobby and that's it.

You have a whole [00:36:00] bunch of different things that you enjoy and you put together a schedule for yourself. Okay a couple of days a week I do. Pottery and sculpting. Okay, great. Other days I write, okay. That's fine. Other days we garden and we do all, so it's life with those things that I believe are the most important thing

and it's what keeps you young and it keeps you going for many more years because

I'm not giving up on you you're not going anywhere on me for a while.

Marilyn Nichols: Oh no. Did you, do you haven't told them that I've always thought I was going to live to be 103, right? Yeah. Yeah, I still intend to live to be 103. And I know people say that's silly, but if you don't think you're going to live very long, what do you think is going to happen? Yeah. You're going to accidentally live a long time.

Maybe not.

Probably going to be pretty

miserable. Yeah. When I was thinking about retiring I had this one client out in Bertram, which people who don't know, that's a long way from Austin. And she was paying me a fine amount of money to come out to her house. And I loved [00:37:00] working with her. But on the way back, Usually that day happened to be the day I was talking to Stan

my business coach, and we actually talked twice a week during that period.

And he would hold my hand about not making enough money. And then when I started making money, he would hold my hand about that. And we I went through all those things about making sure my business money and my other, finances were never mingled. Never, they were always at a different bank than my personal banking.

And I always, after I learned a few things, I didn't keep a very high balance in there to protect myself from. And when you're working with dogs, there's always a chance a dog is gonna hurt somebody or kill them. Yeah, maybe me, most likely me, but it might be one of the kids in the house where I'm working at my in that I had insurance to cover that.

And I also didn't keep a lot of money that could be seized. In my bank account because it's just self protection, I need money to live and he just held my hand through

all of that and we'd have these wonderful conversations. I remember [00:38:00] when I was out in Bertram was when I was really looking at all the aspects of retirement

and if I had stayed in Austin, I probably would have still boarded dogs for a very long time.

It's real good passive income. It's easy for me because I love dogs and I understand them. It wouldn't be easy for somebody who didn't, but it would have been easy for me. But since I moved out here to the country, I decided, no, I don't think so. And if I didn't have the things that you talked about my art, my vocal lessons, but most mostly my writing

I think I would not be as happy because I have an imagination, which I'm finding out is rather maybe different from other people's. It's I live there a lot. And this gives me a way of taking all those.

Stories and all that energy that's in my head that wants to be expressed. And I sit down and I weave stories and I don't know what I'm going to write before I write it. I know [00:39:00] how it's going to start. And I may have an, I may have an idea of how it's going to end for that book but in between I get to let the story take me where it's going to go.

And I might not even have thought of that. But then when I get to the point, a certain point in the story, all of a sudden I realized, Oh. That character would do this or what if we had this happen and it's just so much fun the twists and turns and everything you put into it. It's just, and it also helps that I have the kind of imagination where I see.

My various segments in my head, I see the people doing what they're doing.

I see that you just have to write it and describe what you're seeing in your head.

Yeah. And so it's easy crafting it isn't, with all the plot lines and stuff

but describing every one of my stories is written to be seen to really be fully engaging and if God was going to grant me a [00:40:00] really big favor. He would have someone who listens to this take an interest and look at my books

to be a series or be a series of movies because that's where they would really shine. Yeah, they really would. And we have the same characters going through. The same characters to a certain extent are in the seventh book that I'm writing

now that we're in the first and we picked up characters all along the way.

And it's getting to be this universe that I get to live in and then I get to share it with people and I'm in love with writing. I really am. And I got to tell people I didn't think I could write a book. Yeah, just like everybody else. I did not think I could write a book. I could write a short story and I excelled in that part creative writing in college, but I couldn't get it further.

And then I finally learned the secret. The secret of writing is this. You have a schedule, you're going to sit down and you write[00:41:00]

you open up your tablet or your MacBook Pro or whatever you're writing on your notebook. But it. Whatever you're writing on and a couple of paragraphs that you wrote the last time

you were there and you say to yourself, what happens next?

That's it. The secret of writing is writing. Just sit down and write something. Tell the story. Don't think, Oh, I can't do it. Don't get too complicated. Just look at what you wrote and figure out what the next thing should happen.

Jeff Kikel: I can't remember who the writer was. It was a famous novelist. I remember watching on an interview one time and he said the most profound thing to me ever.

Yeah. The most profound thing he said, the act of being a successful writer is attaching one's butt to a seat and starting writing.

Marilyn Nichols: That's absolutely it. I don't know if I'll be a success, but that's it. You got to put in the time. You have to sit there and write a story.

Jeff Kikel: The books are done. So one last question before we end and I ask this of everybody on the show, what [00:42:00] is your definition of freedom?

Marilyn Nichols: Being able to live a life that is fulfilling to me and those involved with me to be able to do what I want and take care of those I love and be happy. And I am

Jeff Kikel: Excellent. Thank you very much for sharing your thank you today with the audience folks as soon as her books are out. I will make sure those are attached to the show notes page.

I've actually had a little bit of a preview of these over the years. She shared them with me. So I will tell you it's a great story and you really want to if you enjoy. A good story. This is a great read. And so pick up the books, whatever you can. Thank y'all for joining us and sharing in this story.

And we will see you back here. The next time we do these twice a week on Tuesdays and Thursdays. So make sure you subscribe to the channel. Make sure you give [00:43:00] us an upvote and share this with somebody who would love this message. So thanks a lot. And we'll see you here the very next time.