Meet Janis Robinson Daly

We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Janis Robinson Daly a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Janis, looking forward to learning from your journey. You’ve got an amazing story and before we dive into that, let’s start with an important building block. Where do you get your work ethic from?

I take pride that over a forty-year career in professional sales and marketing positions, my performance reviews consistently included remarks around my work ethic. I attribute that trait to the examples set by my parents, members of the Greatest Generation who came of age during the Great Depression.

In particular, my mother held the bar high. At a time when few women who lived in 1960s suburbia worked outside the home, my mother re-entered the workforce when I was eight years old. Family finances had become tight as my father struggled with holding a job due to (at the time, undiagnosed) lingering PTSD from his service in WWII. With two children at home and one in college, my mother took a job as a restaurant hostess where she could work nights and weekends. She chose that job instead of applying her secretarial school training to a day-time position. She wanted to be home for us after school. I will always remember her greeting us as we came off the bus, asking about our day and what type of homework we faced for the evening. After we ran outside for play time with neighborhood kids or settled in front of the TV, she turned to preparing dinner for us to re-heat, showering, putting on her make-up in a small half bath next to the kitchen, and hustling off just as my father pulled into the driveway.

Understanding that work meant more money to pay for the necessities and the extras, like ballet lessons, I started working by the time I was eleven. From a mother’s helper to full babysitter at twelve, to a paper route on my bike at thirteen to selling Avon at fifteen, I enjoyed earning my own money. I could go to the mall and pull out my wallet, knowing I was paying for that new pair of hip-hugger jeans and the smocked peasant top. A waitress job at sixteen meant I could pay for the extra tap and jazz lessons I wanted and bartending in college paid for my books, part of my tuition, and other college activities.

By the time I settled into a career after college, I also followed my mother’s example by taking part-time positions when my children came along and eventually shouldered a full-time, primary breadwinner role when we decided my husband would become a stay-at-home father as our sons entered middle school.

My Mom never slowed down, never stopped, until she retired at sixty-three as I graduated college and tuition bills ceased. She enjoyed eight months of a new-found life of leisure until my dad’s health took a turn, and she became a full-time caregiver for an invalid for the next seven years.

I never took it for granted how hard she worked. I believe that my performance reviews reflect the work ethic she instilled in me. You work. You earn. You work hard. You’re recognized for it. You don’t give-up. You figure out a way to combine work and life and maximize the rewards of each.

Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?

If you had asked me three months ago what I did, I’d have a very different answer. I would have lamented how challenging it was to find time to spend on a newly found passion of researching and writing historical fiction while working full-time in corporate sales and marketing. Yet, life has a funny way of throwing us curve balls, which sometimes, with the right aim, you can lean into and hit that sucker out of the park.

After 18 years with the same company and for the first time in my working life (which I’ve already noted, has been extensive), I was let go from a senior position. The company’s business strategy had shifted, and my position was being eliminated. Once I picked myself up out of the dirt at home plate, I dug my toe in, re-positioned my stance and set my sights on new ball game. It may be the bottom of the ninth in my working career, but for me, I say bring on the extra innings. There’s plenty of time to add some more W’s to the record.

When the video call came in on that Friday morning, complete with the HR rep on the line, I was three weeks away from launching my second novel which I had managed to research and write during nights and weekends over the prior two-and-a-half years. With an incredibly supportive spouse at my side, we identified some adjustments to make to our household budget. I filed for unemployment for the first time in my life – why not? I’d been paying into it for the past forty years. And, with barely a glance back, I decided to embark on a new chapter. I would devote my time and energies to my writing and the launch of Janis Robinson Daly Author Marketing Services.

I’m looking forward to working with other authors to help them drive toward success in reader engagement and book sales. My two historical novels, THE UNLOCKED PATH and THE PATH BENEATH HER FEET, from indie press, Black Rose Writing, have each been named #1 New Release for Historical Fiction on Amazon, driven in part by the extensive marketing campaign I developed and executed for each one.

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?

1. What is going on here? When I decided to major in Psychology the end of my sophomore year of college, I never expected the fundamentals I learned in those classes would become applicable to not only a career in sales and marketing but to building successful personal relationships. When you find yourself in a complicated or challenging situation, pause and ask yourself: “What are the driving motivations for this behavior – mine and the other persons?” By understanding those motivations, you can asses how to pivot and succeed in managing toward successful outcomes.

2. Stubbornness is a blessing and a curse. At times, stubbornness can be equated to a laudable, relentless dedication to one’s goals and beliefs. But, when it dominates one’s thinking to the point of rigidity, it becomes blinding. Flexibility and compromise are equally important qualities to develop early on in one’s journey.

3. Don’t just stop and smell the roses, gather up a full bouquet—thorns and all—into your arms, pull them close into your chest and then toss them into the air to fly scattered to the wind. Life is short. Don’t waste your time and energies on things you can’t change. Focus on what you can control and make the changes best suited for you. Stagnation is death. Never stop learning, loving and living.

Thanks so much for sharing all these insights with us today. Before we go, is there a book that’s played in important role in your development?

I discovered Kahlil Gibran’s THE PROPHET while researching literature to quote in my first novel, set in 1897-1920. His poetic words carry profound thoughts which I have internalized for self-reflection on the paths we take in life.

“Say not, ‘I have found the path of the soul.’ Say rather, ‘I have met the soul walking upon my path.’ For the soul walks not upon a line, neither does it grow like a reed. The soul unfolds itself, like a lotus of countless petals.”

“And think not you can direct the course of love, for love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.”

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.janisrdaly.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/janisrdaly_writer
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JanisRobinsonDalyAuthor
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/janis-daly-2650589/