Jim Ainsworth S Interview on Reflections of a Cowboy with Dr. Michael Johnson

Jim Ainsworth’s Interview on “Reflections of a Cowboy” with Dr. Michael Johnson KETR—FM 88.9

1. All good stories begin at the beginning. Tell us about you. Where and when were you born?

8/9/44 Janes Clinic, Cooper, Delta County,Texas, Dr. Olen Janes in attendance.

2. Happy childhood? What were your parents like?

I think we all have a tendency to look back at our childhoods with flawed memories. Happy times seem happier, sadder times sadder. Overall, I choose happy as the best description. Daddy was Teadon, a man blessed with abilities I did not inherit. He had a knack for figuring out how things worked. Had high math skills even with a tenth grade education. Mother was Nadelle, one of nine sisters, three brothers. Beautiful, great sense of humor, strong work ethic, but also had a temper. They fought, but never left any doubt that they loved me and all of their children. They dealt with greater difficulties than I have ever had to face. My cup has always run over with my love for them, but my admiration for them grows each year.

3. School - good grades?

Yep. I was a straight A student who always thought he had to work harder to be as smart as the other kids.

4. What - if anything - "drove" you in school?

Probably had a little inferiority complex going. I was highly competitive. A pretty volatile combination. And I was afraid of school and teachers. I was shy—so fear of failure and the embarrassment that goes with it were definitely motivating factors.

5. Who were your heroes in the fifties? Why? What was it that attracted you to them?

My dad, (I wanted some of his skills to rub off). People always asked him to fix things, doctor animals, build things, measure land, even cut hair, and I wanted to be like that. Mostly, Daddy showed me how a firm hand can harmonize with tenderness and unconditional love.

My older brother, Eddy. He was everything I wanted to be and later, everything I did not. (He was charismatic, handsome, fun-loving, confident)

Dr. Olen Janes. (He was the family hero. We had a lot of sickness and he was always there. He defined bedside manner. Everyone felt better when he walked into the room). Sports heroes—Rocky Colavito, (Cleveland Indians), Pee Wee Reese (Brooklyn Dodger shortstop) and Bob Cousy (Boston Celtics point guard). I loved baseball and the Cleveland Indians. I always liked the steady players, guys who hit singles and doubles more than the ones who swung for the fences.

6. Can you tell us about some people who reached you? Parents, coaches, teachers, - what was it about them that made it's way into you?

Parents, of course, were major influences. Jerry Simpson, first Little League coach, Harry Ward, first basketball coach, and a mentor throughout my school years.

Teachers, most of my elementary teachers. Mrs. Ethridge, Mrs. Oney, Mrs Plaxco. Oney and Plaxco, in particular, gave me my first glimmers of confidence--that there might be something to this scrawny little poor kid. In high school, there was Jim Sessions. He came in as third teacher in my junior year English. 6'6" Baptist preacher with a big paddle. Great teacher. Made us write essays extemporaneously.

7. College - where? Why your major? What did you want to do? Tell us about your professors - someone - or several - special people? What was it about them that was special?

ETSU. Dr. Tarpley suggested English. Aptitude tests drove me to accounting--and I was told jobs would be plentiful. I wanted a job. Dr. Graham Johnson, Dr. Ken McCord, Dr. Carroll Adams. They were special because they accepted nothing less than the best and because they made me feel worthy of their time.

8. First jobs in the world of work - was it what you expected? What drove you then?

Low level numbers pusher. I had no idea what to expect, had never used a computer, not even an electronic calculator. Hell, not even a Xerox. But I was hell- on-wheels with a ten key adding machine. I had no expectations other than drawing a paycheck for at least a year. Ambition arrived unexpectedly. I was driven by fear of failure and another period of low confidence.

9. Seems you have an entrepreneurial spirit. What is it about you that created the desire to start your own business? What was the best thing about those experiences - and the worst?

I wanted out of urban areas and I wanted my kids out of Dallas schools, which were just starting busing. After college, I developed a problem with being told what to do by folks that I did not respect. I also saw some folks put thirty years in with a company, then get laid off. I realized that you make your own security.

Best thing--knowing each day that your success depends almost entirely on yourself. I had partners and wonderful employees, but ultimately, I had to manage those relationships, choose and manage people. That feeling of being in control is a great stress reducer.

Worst thing--I went broke the second year. Not bankrupt, but I could not pay my bills. Struggled through, paid everybody off and learned about the value of cash flow. I passed those lessons on to clients in later years.

10. You left that profession. Can we ask why? How old were you? What did you want to do?

I changed professions several times. I left private or corporate accounting at 28 to go into public accounting and retail. I became a licensed stockbroker and Certified Financial Planner at 41. Then left public accounting to go into financial planning and management of a broker-dealer at 47. I left all of it behind at 53, really expecting to take a year to pursue some dreams. I had a list of things to do before I die and I could not do some of them and keep a full time job.

I did not pick the age or time, but circumstances seemed to line up to send me a signal that it was time to take another look at my life.

That year has turned into 12 years and still counting. We don't have time to go into it now, but it seems that most of my life since I reached thirty-five has run in five year cycles. I admire people who stick with one company or profession all their lives--I am just not one of them.

11. Here's a hard one for me to answer...why did you start writing? What did you want to do with your writing?

Yep. That's a hard one that I will probably still be working on when I die. Most writers say the only answer to that question is “I have to.” I would modify that by saying “I need to.” In a book called Myself and Other Important Matters, Charles Handy tells a story about a writer. The gist of the story is that the purest purpose of writing is to explain the world we live in to ourselves. I hope readers learn something from my exploring. T. S. Eliot in Exploring the Waste Land said "the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started, and to know that place for the first time.

12. Now let's talk about the books - first books were financial - tell us about those.

I hate it when people tell how they just fell into something that is incredibly difficult-but that is how I managed to get a contract for four books from a New York publisher, John Wiley and Sons. I wrote a training manual, had it printed and sent it to a fellow named Jim Koon in Haugen, Montana so that he could see what we were doing with our small company. He suggested I send it to an editor at John Wiley (Mark Persons) and six weeks later, I had a contract. After the first three books, they called and asked me to write How to be a Financial Consultant.

13. Then, other books started coming - what were they about and why did you write them?

As I got older, I had the sense that life was slipping away. I wanted to heal that sense of separation and loss, to capture the moment.

14. One of your books - Biscuits Across the Brazos - was just so wonderful. Fill our listeners in on where that book came from.

When my father died, he left me two biscuits that were over fifty years old. He had kept them from the age of six. They meant a lot to him. He had told me about them many times, but I could not repeat their story when asked--I only knew that his Aunt Minnie had cooked them. I did not know for sure who Aunt Minnie was. As a six-year-old boy, he had brought those biscuits in the family covered wagon across Texas. He could not bear to eat them because he knew he might never see Aunt Minnie again.

15. And you and your friends recreated that trip?

My cousin and I and a friend recreated that trip eighty years later and took those same biscuits across the Brazos River and across Texas. Three hundred and twenty five miles, fourteen days. We camped exactly where they did when they first arrived in Delta County.

16. Now for the Rivers series - start at the beginning and don't leave anything out...

I am not someone who knew he was going to be a writer as a kid. I did not put "write a novel" on my bucket list until I was in my early thirties. It was just sort of out there--something to look forward to and fear at the same time. More fantasy than anything else--until my mother died. I started writing two days later and did not slow down for six months. It took me two years to fine-tune In the Rivers Flow and get it published. Rivers Crossing and Rivers Ebb followed in 2005 and 2007.

Rivers Ebb was a finalist for the Violet Crown Award and also for the Writers Digest mainstream novel of the year for 2007.

17. For the aspiring writer, sculptor, painter, musician, or entrepreneur - what advice would you have for them?

One word--Start ... writing, sculpting, painting, etc....

18. The theme of this show is "What makes us rise?" What makes us care more and try more? What is it that certain people in our lives do to us and for us that cause us to become more than we thought we could be? In short, what helped you rise?

Four Things.

Self examination. Socrates said, "the unexamined life is not worth living". I have always been an amateur examiner of myself, usually finding too much wrong. When I reached my mid-thirties, I got serious because I did not like the results of the examination. I now know most of the pivotal life events that shaped who I am.

As for people--I always refer to my ten thousand interviews with clients from all walks of life over a quarter century. Observing how they handled success and failure, tragedy and triumph was pivotal in my learning. Also, I read and listened to Maxwell Maltz, Napoleon Hill, Jim Rohn, Brian Tracy, Norman Vincent Peale, Earl Nightingale, W. Clement Stone.

Also, Listen. I did not listen when my daddy told me the story of those biscuits. I find that most people do not listen. I’m guilty of that, too, but I am always trying to get better.

Pay Attention--not just to what is being said to you, but to what is happening around you and in the world. Apathy is your enemy and the enemy of our country.

List the times in your life when you were lifted, when you felt you had done something as well as it could be done, when you were peacefully, serenely, divinely, joyful. Then find out why.

Learn from your mistakes. Otherwise, you are bound to repeat them.

19. Is there anything extraordinary about you?

I think it is one the amazing dispensations of life that we are all unique. If you break extraordinary into its two parts—extra and ordinary, I think there may be an answer to your question. We are all given “extra” or unique gifts, yet we are all ordinary. Name one particular attribute that I have and there are millions who have that same attribute. However, I think that it is safe to say that there is not another person on the planet who is exactly like me or like you. Makes one consider that something greater than us may be at work, doesn’t it.

But back to what I said earlier about paying attention. Everyone should pay less attention to what they don’t have and more attention to what they do have. I mentioned one of my heroes was Bob Cousy. I discovered only last year that we were both born on August 9. You think that means anything? (Another of my heroes, actor Sam Elliott was born on the same day and year as I was). I didn’t get Cousy’s or Pee Wee Reese’s skill for playing pro ball or Elliott’s acting talent, looks or great voice. He gets to play the roles I wanted to live. Not being big enough or strong enough or gifted enough to play pro ball or rich enough to buy a ranch led me to discover and exploit my other gifts. A cowboy might say, “Quit your whinin’ and start refinin’.

20. How does one get your books?

They are available at all the major online retailers like Barnes and Noble and Amazon, but the best, cheapest and quickest way to get them is from my website. jimainsworth.com--a secure site that accepts credit cards. They are cheaper there and I can autograph and mail them quicker. Or people can just e-mail me at [email protected].