Year Of Adventure

MAKING ’99 THE YEAR OF ADVENTURE

Local man's crusade to bring excitement to our lives

by Beth Cooney, Advocate Staff Writer

David Silberkleit is the kind of person armchair adventurers only wish they could be. He climbs mountains, flies off in a small plane on a moment's notice and scuba dives in some of the world's best reefs.

Silberkleit knows there are plenty of folks watching the Discovery Channel in the family room, dreaming of adventures he takes all the time.

He understands their wanderlust. In fact, it was just five years ago that the Stamford man walked away from the New York-based family business, Archie Comics, where he was next-in-line for to become chief executive of the company his grand father founded. "Even though it was my legacy, it wasn't me," he says. "I was making the scene, but I was unhappy."

That was then. This is now - when Silberkleit uses his zest for life the office - bound masses plot adventures that sound like exotic rambles in the J. Peterman catalog.

And many times, thanks to Silberkleit, they take those journeys without ever leaving their desks.

That's because Silberkleit makes his living teaching the art of simple adventure. He calls himself an "empowerment coach" and says his main responsibility is to give his "team" of clients the skills and the courage to work fun into their lives.

Most of them, he says, are highly successful executives and entrepreneurs, who have climbed the ladder of success and found the view from the top wanting. They contract with him at a rate of $400 a month for unlimited private coaching or pay $150 for one of his monthly telephone conference classes. Some work with him for a few months, others for as long as a year or two, all with the goal of adding some spice to what they feel are ho-hum existences.

"In our culture, we seem to be addicted to our circumstances," Silberkleit says. "We get locked in to the demands of our business commitments and responsibilities. And even though we want more experiences that meet our desires, we don't know how to get them."

Dr. Michael Hodish, a Norwalk dentist who hired Silberkleit to help him out of a professional rut, agrees. "You can have a really nice life but make a jail of it," says Hodish. "It may be practical. It is certainly what we think we are supposed to do. But it can also be so confining you just want to run away."

To Silberkleit, breaking out of a mundane existence is a matter of perspective. "It's not about climbing Mount Everest," he says. "I assure you, there's adventure in your own backyard."

It would seem an adventurous life is easy enough for Silberkleit to lead. He is 37 and divorced with no children. He lives comfortably with a fluffy cat in a waterfront Stamford condominium smartly decorated with mementos from his travels.

"It's a nice life and I'm grateful for it," admits Silberkleit. "But more people could live it if they tried to put some adventure back in their daily life."

His clients say he has advised them to squeeze adventure into their workday by trying things like rollerblading at lunchtime or ordering sushi if their standard fare is ham and cheese. Silberkleit's work with Hodish motivated the dentist - who loathes working on Saturdays - to wear costumes to the office on weekends.

"I've dressed as the tooth fairy," says Hodish, "And the reaction I get from my patients is worth it."

Silberkleit stresses that there is adventure in trying something new, even a hairstyle or a new item on the lunch menu. This, he says, is how people can begin to take risks and experience "mini" adventures that could eventually lead to bolder moves, such as the tour of Vietnam he took recently on a recumbent bike.

If you always wear solids, Silberkleit recommends trying stripes. If your dream is to climb Mount Everest, he'll take you to an indoor climbing gym and show you the ropes. "I say there's adventure in taking five minutes to study the clouds, if you've stopped paying attention to things like that," he says. "I tell men to kiss their wives like it's the first time."

Because he deals with an extensive clientele in the United States and Canada, Silberkleit often organizes group phone chats where his busy clients can plot adventures with the help of each other's input. In November, he hosted a session "An Adventure in Everyday Living" for a group that included a female financier, a chiropractor and several medical professionals and entrepreneurs. They spoke of dreams that included racecar driving and sailing the world, but most said they felt too constrained by the demands of their success to break away.

"I think we get addicted to the chaos of our day-to-day lives and we tell ourselves we can't get away," says Phillip, a chiropractor who joined the phone class.

Silberkleit says he hears this all the time. "Entrepreneurs are very adventurous people. They have the courage to start their own businesses and succeed. Then, that success sort of stifles their adventurous spirit. They're too busy with their success."

Indeed, Silberkleit says that's a hurdle with many clients who have achieved material and professional success. They resist the need to simplify. "But my job is not to break up families or dismantle careers," he says. "It's to help you fit adventure into the confines of your own life."

To that end Silberkleit recently helped Dr. David Sandak, a busy oral surgeon who practices in White Plains, N.Y., and Norwalk, to squeeze fun into days packed with conflicting demands.

"I have everything you could possibly want and then some," says the 34-year-old Sandak, who is married, and has a young daughter and a big house in Weston. "But honestly, before I was responsible and immersed in suburbia and had all these things, I had more adventures. I just didn't see where I could fit that in. And I missed it."

Yet Sandak was not inclined to close his practice and abandon his responsibilities to take some fantasy mountain climbing trip. "You work so hard to get where you are, you don't want to give it up either," lie says. So he worked with Silberkleit.

To begin, Silberkleit urged the dentist to stop watching television. The advice addressed Sandak's chief complaint that he had no time for the rigorous physical activities, such as mountain biking, he had enjoyed during his youth. Today he devotes the time once spent on sitcoms to studying karate and Tae Kwan Do at studios near his home. Although he's late for dinner occasionally, "I still get time with my family because I'm not wasting hours crashed with Ally McBeal," he says.

An additional strategy: Silberkleit mapped out bike routes near Sandak's home that allowed him to go for brief, but challenging, bike trips. "I go for just 20 minutes sometimes," Sandak says, "but to me, that's a little adventure." Silberkleit also found a studio where Sandak and his wife can study yoga together near their home, "It's something we both want to do. And it's more fun than going to the movies," Sandak says.

Hodish, who began working with Silberkleit when he wanted to close his thriving Norwalk dental practice and move to Montana, says he first needed to learn, "how to enjoy the space I was in."

Besides dressing as the Tooth Fairy on Saturday, he began to write the word "fun" on his calendar, scheduling it in the same way he would appointments and professional commitments. "Just looking down and seeing that my girlfriend and I are going to the movies on Friday can give me a lift," says Hodish adding. "By scheduling my fun. I was making a commitment to having it."

Says Silberkleit, "I think it's really important for people to try to find adventure in their existing lives before making any drastic changes. "Running away won't work."

Admitting that his single lifestyle allows him to do more traveling than the average Joe, Hodish says he's also begun to fly to Europe for occasional long weekends. He had fallen in love with the Continent after a backpacking trip that followed a dental residency in England, but once he got into practice "I could never go for the two weeks or month I wanted to."

Now, he takes several four-day trips a year, leaving Friday and returning Monday. "It doesn't disrupt my practice, and I've realized what matters is that I go."

Hodish is now planning bolder adventures. A pilot, he is taking acrobatic flying lessons. He is also considering flying around the United States to raise money for a foundation he wants to start that would subsidize dental care for the urban poor.

"Using your talents for something you believe in is an adventure," he says. "And I'm trying to combine it with a dream of flying all over the United States.

Silberkleit is gung ho for the plan, but is quick to say that adventure doesn't have to be that ambitious.

"Let's face it," says Silberkleit, we're not all going to Bora Bora tomorrow.

BECOMING A BLACK BELT IN THE GAME OF LIFE

An adventurous life does not require traveling to Katmandu or jumping out of an airplane. Here are empowerment coach David Silberkleit's suggestions for slipping adventure into your workday.

Do something new

Beginner - Try a new restaurant at lunch.

Advanced - Start a new business or interview for the job you always wanted.

Listen

Beginner - Spend five minutes with a friend without saying anything.

Advanced - Consider that you are wrong about all the co workers you thought had nothing to say. Give them another chance just by listening for an entire day.

Let go of something big

Beginner - Trash 90 percent of your "To Do" list.

Advanced - Resign from a committee or remove yourself from an obligation that doesn't support you emotionally.

Speak

Beginner -Tell a friend how you really feel.

Advanced - Ask your boss or colleagues for exactly what you need.

Embrace your fears

Beginner - Strike up a conversation with a stranger in the elevator.

Advanced - Commit to a speaking engagement in your field of expertise.

Commit

Beginner - Ask someone out on a date.

Advanced - Ask someone to move in or to get married.

Clean up a mess

Beginner -Throw out the pile of papers hidden behind your desk.

Advanced - Return every thing you've borrowed and clean out everything you've left at your parents' house.

Relate

Beginner - Call an old friend, express something intimate.

Advanced - Organize a reunion of peers from your past.

Celebrate

Beginner - Acknowledge your hard work and buy yourself a present.

Advanced - Book a trip to Bora Bora

Empower Coaching
33 Wallace Road
Stony Creek CT 06405

david@empowercoach.com
Phone: 203 488 9188