I’ve been in sales most of my career, primarily because I come from a theater background and theater people normally make great salespeople.  I got into the radio industry in the 1980s because I felt that my "show biz" skills and my sales skills would work nicely together.  I figured that a career in theater was absolutely out of the question for obvious economic reasons.

If I couldn’t do theater for money, I’d keep trying to find a way to at least do it for love.

While in radio I discovered I had a much keener interest in business and marketing than I had imagined.  I live in a relatively small market in Central California, so I ended up handling advertising for many small and medium-sized businesses, thereby developing a deep appreciation for the challenges of the small entrepreneur.

In 1994, after the radio station I was working for went into bankruptcy, I was pretty burned out on that particular industry and decided to get my real estate license and enter the mortgage business.  I’ve been a self-employed mortgage broker ever since, and work for a great local company called Pacific Capital Mortgage in Los Osos, CA.

My husband and I did quite a bit of community theater before our daughter was born, but ended up having to put that on hold as she was growing up because of the time demands of two very intense professional careers plus parenthood.

By lucky co-incidence, once our daughter was in high school we both rediscovered our love of theater.  I was called upon to start directing more shows and found that over the years in business, my organizational and production skills had improved dramatically.  So my skills as a producer/director came together because of all my business experience. 

As an older person, all my varied experiences and knowlege of different types of people from every economic and social class came to increase my appreciation of the human condition.  I believe that a person’s emotions grow richer as one gets older because we’ve experienced so much in life…from deep love to deep loss and disappointment.  Growing older has definitely improved me as an artist.

So all in all, I feel as though my years in business helping average everyday Americans has made me a better person AND has helped immeasurably in my skills as a theater producer and director.  After my mom died in 2003, I had one of those "AHA!" moments where I realized that life is short and I’d better make the best possible use of the time I had remaining.

So I threw caution to the wind and started doing a lot more shows.  I eventually saw that I am a much more talented producer and director than I had given myself credit for when I was young, and more or less had to leave those dreams behind in order to make a living.

In my mom’s honor, I also decided to focus on doing reverse mortgages so that I could help other older Americans remain independent and be cared for in the best possible way. 

I guess the moral here is that I’ve come full circle in realizing that the balance I’d been seeking all my life involves doing the very things I’ve loved doing since high school.  My life has gradually become an Encore, supported by practical skills and services I can provide to make other people’s lives more comfortable and enjoyable, whether that has to do with financial advice I give professionally or shows I can produce to entertain and educate.

I can probably continue to be both a loan officer and a theater person till I drop, so that’s a good thing!

Chrys Barnes