Scott Brown of the Scooter Brown Band was kind enough to let us interview him about his career in the music business. You can check out his band and website at The Scooter Brown Band

What do you do for a living?

I am a professional musician, singer, and song writer.

How would you describe what you do to someone?

I write and compose music and perform it on stage.

What does your work entail?

It entails writing music and composing, obviously performing live shows, traveling, a lot of phone conferences and emails with bookings and management companies and venues and promotional stuff, radio, TV, internet.

What’s a typical work week look like for you?

During the beginning of the week I do a lot of phone calls, emails, and conference calls.  I do some acoustic house gigs close to where I live and then usually, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday we travel and play shows.

How did you get started?

It’s kind of funny, when I first started playing guitar, I told my dad, “This is so cool.  I love music.  One day, I just want to play on stage in front of somebody with a microphone and some speakers and just do it like that will make me happy.”  And then it happened.

When you step on stage and you look out and there’s a thousand people in front of you that all paid their hard earned money to come in and watch your show and sing along to the words, that’s the most rewarding…that 90 minutes that you’re on stage is the easiest thing about this, it’s by far the reason why we do this job.

Then the next thing I was able to put a band together and it happened.  Then I said if I can just get the music on the radio and hear my songs on radio like that would be unbelievable.  And it’s happening.  It’s like you always kind of push for those next things and you get to those and now those things are no big deal anymore.  Now you’re like I want to do this, I want to do that.  You just keep pushing for bigger and better as the years go by.  You keep accomplishing goals and obviously for us we want to be big as we can possibly get and make good money and take care of our families and play music.

What do you like about what you do?

I love music in general.  I love writing it.  I love performing it.  I love traveling.  I love going to new towns, meeting new people.  One of my favorite things about what I do is performing a song and getting a reaction out of somebody whether they smile or laugh or it brings a tear in their eye.  It’s great when you hit emotionally with the lyrics that you’ve written.  Those are some of my favorite things about what I do.

What do you dislike about this job?

I spend a lot of time away from my family.  It also comes with a very high stress level because there are so many people out there trying to do the same thing that we’re doing and competing.  It’s kind of like being on a hundred percent commission.  You could just knock it out of the ballpark one month and the next month you might be scraping by.

There’s just a ton of overhead in the business itself between recording, records, putting songs out on the radio, touring, and gas and hotels. And sometimes people think that you make a lot of money and you do gross pretty decent money but a ton of it goes back into the business itself.

How do you make money or how are you compensated on this career?

One, I make money off writing songs.  If I write a song and somebody else records it then you receive a royalty off of it.  When the songs are played on the radios or TV we receive royalties off it.  There’s also merchandise sales such as CDs, T-shirt, hats etc.  And then obviously performing at live shows.

How much money do you make as a professional musician?

Because we put so much money back into the band I probably bring home maybe $50,000 a year right now after paying for everything.  As a band we probably gross like over $200,000 or more.

With some shows you might make $6,000 or $7,000 grand.  Then you pay out the band.  You pay your management.  You pay your booking agent.  You pay yourself and then you try to stuff as much money away because you might have a show a thousand dollars away.  You might be opening for somebody, a bigger band and you might only get two hundred bucks for that show for coming and opening.  You still have to pay the fuel and the hotel rooms, and all that stuff and it adds up pretty quickly.  On a two or three day run it literally may be a thousand dollars or $1500 out of pocket.

The thing about this career is if you truly believe that this is what you want to do, you should get out there, do your best at it, make as many contacts as you possibly can and never give up. There are people that had been at it for 15 or 20 years before they actually became successful…If your heart is in it and you truly love music and enjoy performing in front of people, don’t give up. Always chase your dream because not all people get to do it.

For our band, every year has been a better year.  Every year we’ve gotten on better shows, grossed more money and have gotten a bigger fan base.  It just fluctuates throughout the year though.  There are times of the year that are slow for everybody in the business.  But for us, every year overall has been a better year for sure.

How much money did you make starting out?

When I was doing it part time and had another job I was probably making like $10,000/year.

Would you say there are any perks associated with what you do?

Yeah, definitely.  There’s perks like being recognized by fans and people around town.  We’ve picked up sponsorships where you get free clothes or free boots.  At dinner you may go into a restaurant and the owner knows you and they’ll pay for your dinner or something like that.  Also you just get to do a lot of really cool things like getting to meet and play shows with other people in the business that you look up to.

What education and/or skills would you say are needed to be a professional musician?

That’s a really hard question to answer because there are people out there that are just naturally talented and gifted people and then there’s people that go to college and know everything about the theory of music.

There are guys like Dave Matthews and John Mayer who are freakin’ musical geniuses.  They went to college and they know everything about the theory of music and then there are guys like myself.  I have a high school education and I did four years in the Marine Corps.  I didn’t go to college.  I started writing as a hobby and I picked up playing the guitar when I was 19 and I still to this day probably couldn’t tell you half the chords that I play or what key I even play in.  I just picked it up by ear and started writing.  And I don’t know much about music theory or stuff like that.  I just play it.

As far as other skills you do need to have some sort of business sense.  So if you don’t have good business, then you need to have somebody working for you that does for sure.  Other than that it’s just a lot of determination, a lot of people quit this business when they’re so close to breaking through.

What is most challenging about what you do?

Probably staying busy and just keeping the gigs rolling in, especially in Texas since there are so many bands.  Also, just continually writing my music that’s relevant and that fans want to hear.  You can write songs all days that you think are good but at the end of the day it’s about really putting asses in the seats, connecting with fans, and selling tickets to make a living.

Obviously [the goal] is always to grow as big as possible and to play in more places. Right now, I can say I’m living my dream. I get to play music for a living and I support my family off of it. And as long as I can keep doing that I will always be happy.

So creating a show, creating music that people want to buy and listen to, and staying on top of your game and being relevant in the music scene is probably the most difficult.

What do you find most rewarding about what you do?

Performing the show.  When you step on stage and you look out and there’s a thousand people in front of you that all paid their hard earned money to come in and watch your show and sing along to the words, that’s the most rewarding.

All the other stuff like dealing with contracts, booking agents, PR, ordering merchandise, etc can be a pain in the ass.  I’m not complaining but it can be a pain.  But that 90 minutes that you’re on stage is the easiest thing about this, it’s by far the reason why we do this job.

What advice would you offer someone considering this career?

The thing about this career is if you truly believe that this is what you want to do, you should get out there, do your best at it, make as many contacts as you possibly can and never give up.  The people that have been successful in this business, and granted you get a lot of people that they get on TV shows and they become an overnight success or they form a band together and they get in front of that right person and they become an overnight success and they’ve only been at it for a couple of years.

But a lot of people that have really been successful, if you go back and read their stories, they are people that had been at it for 15 or 20 years before they actually became successful.  And if after 10 years or whatever, something finally hits you in the face, and you say, “I did my best and it’s not working out.”, that’s one thing.  But I feel a lot of people go at it for a couple of years and, say “Oh, we didn’t make it,” and they go back to work in their day job.  Who knows what would happen if they have gone for another year or another five years, maybe that would have been what it took.

A lot of people settle for less because they gave up too easily or too early and throw their hands up in the air, but if you want it you can make it happen.

If your heart is in it and you truly love music and enjoy performing in front of people, don’t give up.  Always chase your dream because not all people get to do it.

How much time off do you get or take for a vacation or free time?

I pretty much play on average about 220 days a year.  I spend the other days at the house around my kids and my wife.

So the rest of the time I’m not working per se.  I may be sitting in my gym shorts like now doing interviews, paperwork, or stuff like that.  So I actually get a lot of time off where I’m technically still working.

If I feel like shutting the computer off or turning my phone off I can do that.  If I want to go on a vacation and take five days off all I need to do is tell my booking agent don’t book me during these days.

If the money is coming in, if I want to take two months off, I could take two months off.  It all depends.  That’s probably the best answer I could give you.

What is a common misconception people have about what you do?

I think the common misconception would be that we just get up on stage and play music.  I think people don’t realize how much work goes into a show and getting out on the road and actually performing and putting music out.  I mean there’s a lot of work involved to do that.  Some people will be like, “Man, it must be cool, you get to sleep until noon every day and you get up and you come out and drink beers and play music and hang out with everybody,” and that’s not what really happens.

I mean I get up in the morning and I start working.  I make phone calls.  I’m on the computer.  I go to the gym.  I keep myself healthy.  When you’re on radio tour sometimes you’ve got to be on the radio station at 6:30 in the morning or go into a live TV thing and the news at 5 o’clock in the morning.  There’s just a lot of work that goes into it besides the show that you put on.

What are you goals and dreams for the future in this career?

Obviously it’s always to grow as big as possible and to play in more places.  Right now, I can say I’m living my dream.  I get to play music for a living and I support my family off of it.  And as long as I can keep doing that, I will always be happy.  We got a couple of nice cars and we live in a nice house.  It’s nothing fancy.

It’s never going to be on MTV cribs or nothing but we get by and that’s completely fine with me.  But with that being said, we want to be a nationally based band touring all over the United States.  We want to go play in Europe and push our music over there.  We would love to put out great music and be awarded for it whether it be country music awards or the even Grammy’s or whatever, or get to play on a late night talk show.

It’s just little stuff like that as far as a bucket list that we try to strive for.

What else would you like people to know about what you do?

Whenever somebody buys our CD we tell them thank you and we say all we ask is if you like it, burn and give it to your friends.  They’re like, “No, we’re not going to burn it.  We’ll tell them to go to iTunes and download it,” which, obviously is fine.  But we say burn it and give it to people.  Tell people about it.

We’re making $10 on the sale of a CD.  If somebody burns 10 of them and just two or three more people become fans out of those 10 people, they’ll come to shows and pass it along to friends.  It all works out in the long run we just want to get the music out there and get people coming to our shows.

What do you do for a living?

I’m a medical oncologist.  There are several different types of oncologists. There are radiation oncologists who deliver the radiotherapy in the end of cancer care and medical oncologists oversee the overall care of the cancer patient and run the drug end of cancer care.

What does you work entail?

It entails primarily seeing patients in the office and seeing patients in the hospital.  We also do hematology because most oncology fellowships are combined with hematology, which is the study of cancers of the blood and benign conditions of the blood.  The oncology part of it is the cancer part.

We do consultations in the hospital and we run an outpatient cancer center where we give the drug cancer care. We primarily give chemotherapy but it can also be hormonal therapy. There are other types of drug treatments that we use for cancer as well.

What’s a typical workweek look like for you?

We work very hard like most physicians.  We probably work at least from 8 to 5 and we’re on call at night and we’re on call on weekends. I have a partner now so we switch weekends off but I would say your average medical oncologist probably works at least every other weekend and 5 days a week so there are a lot of work hours there.

I wouldn’t recommend going into this career if you’re doing it just to make money…You need to follow whatever your passion is, otherwise you’ll be miserable…If you’re doing something just to make these little rectangular, green pieces of paper you’re never going to be happy.

How did you get started in this career?

Well you have to go through medical school and get either an M.D. or a D.O. in order to go into either medical oncology or hematology/oncology.  You have to be board certified in internal medicine so you have to do an internal medicine fellowship and then after that you have to do the hematology/oncology fellowship. It’s 4 years of medical school and there’s 3 years of internal medicine and then another 3 years after that.  So it’s 6 years of training after medical school.

The reason I chose oncology/hematology is because it’s more my personality type.  There’s certain personality types that gravitate towards orthopedics or certain personality types that gravitate towards general surgery.  We deal with a lot of end-of-life care and end-of-life issues and there are some people who just can’t deal with those kinds of issues at all. It depends on their personality type. I think it ends up being someone who can deal with uncertainty better whereas the surgical type people I think have a difficult time dealing with uncertainty. Either something is black or white. There’s no shade of grey whereas people in our field end-of-life issues are all shades of grey.

You do a lot of hand holding and a lot of compassionate type care and issues and I just think certain personality types gravitate that way.

What do you like about what you do?

I think what I like most is what I just mentioned. It’s such an honor to be involved in patient’s care when it’s end-of-life because that’s a very personal, very sacred kind of thing.  And you develop strong relationships that way with your patients which is one of the things that makes the job hard as well.

There is another part of medical oncology that is so exciting now too, and it really fits people’s personalities that are into research too.

There are people that do this but don’t do patient care at all, they do just research.  There’s a huge amount of research in the molecular biology and new drug field.  In the last 10 years that we’ve had so many new drugs and so many new ways to treat this.  Many cancers used to be 100% fatal and some of them are now being rapidly cured.  There are all sorts of new things coming down the pike and that’s another exciting part of Oncology.

What do you dislike about the job?

I think probably what most people dislike about all of the medicine jobs now is just the amount of government intervention.  And that’s just going to get worse and worse over the next several years. We used to be much more autonomous and it’s just hard now dealing with both insurance companies and governments.  So dealing with the paperwork and government red tape is probably the worst part of the job.

How do you make money or how are you compensated as an oncologist?

I’m fee for service. I’m in private practice. Certainly there are hematology/oncology people that are employed by other organizations, but I’m fee for service.

How much money do you make as a hematologist/oncologist?

The median salary for medical oncologists in my region(Southeast) is right around $400,000 a year if you just take a median salary.

Certain regions of the country might be slightly higher than that.

How much money do you make starting out as an oncologist?

The starting salary for most oncologists is probably somewhere in the $300,000 range now.

What education or skills are needed to be a hematologist/oncologist?

Well like I said you have to have a college degree and then you have to be accepted to a medical school or a D.O. school and then you have to do another 3 year internal medicine fellowship and then you have to do a 3 year Hematology/Oncology fellowship so it’s a very big commitment of 10 years after college.

The hope would be that we’ll find treatments that work for a lot more of these diseases that we don’t have much in the way of treatment for. Many cancers used to be 100% fatal and some of them are now being rapidly cured.

What would you say is most challenging about what you do?

I really think the most challenging thing now is just all of the bureaucratic paperwork that we have to fill out. I probably spend 3 hours a day just signing forms. You know several years ago it wasn’t anything like that. It’s going to get nothing but worse with our current government situation.  But the patient care part of is still great and that’s still the reason we all do it..

What would you say is the most rewarding about what you do?

I think when you get a card from a patient or family saying how much they appreciated your care.  That’s very rewarding.

What advice would you offer someone considering this career?

I think you’ve just got to do it for the right reasons. I wouldn’t recommend going into this career if you’re doing it just to make money but of course that’s good advice no matter what you decide to get into to.

You need to follow whatever your passion is, otherwise you’ll be miserable the rest of your.  If you’re doing something just to make these little rectangular, green pieces of paper you’re never going to be happy.

How much time off do you get or do you take?

I take about 10 weeks off a year.  I take about 8 actual weeks of vacation and then two weeks of continuing education and medical meetings.

What is a common misconception people have about what you do?

I think the misconception that people have about all physicians is that money just rolls in and that we don’t work that hard. That’s a big misconception, we all work very hard. We all make good money but we all work very hard. So I think that’s probably the biggest misconception.

What are your goals and dreams for the future in this career?

The hope would be that we’ll find treatments that work for a lot more of these diseases that we don’t have much in the way of treatment for.

For example, there’s a new drug that came out a few years ago that treats CML which stands for Chronic Myeloid Leukemia. That disease used to be a disease that was 100% fatal in everybody within 2 years and now it’s 100% curable just by taking this capsule.  So there are a lot of cancers that we don’t have something like that for right now our goal would be there will be more of those treatments coming down the pike.

What else would you like people to know about what you do?

You have to be committed to going to school for a long time. A lot of it is about delayed gratification. Going into the medical career you really have to be willing to go the long haul and realize that it’s going to take a while.

What do you do for a living?

I’m a commercial musician and I also teach lessons.

How would you describe what you do?

I play saxophone, flute, and clarinet. I also teach. I give private lessons because it’s pretty standard for any musician out there to end up teaching something. I work at a high school right now and I have gigs, when they call. It’s not a real consistent thing; it’s more that you just go and play whenever you’re called. I teach out of the academy at Winthrop University and I teach at Northwestern high school.

What does your work entail?

It entails being able to work with people, lots of communication skills – and also it entails being flexible.  Pretty much, you’re selling yourself when you’re a musician.  We go out and we give people what they want. So, lots of flexibility, communication skills with people and obviously a lot of time devoted to practice. The majority of my work takes place in a practice room and it’s pretty much practicing my technique and making sure that any gig that I have a call on I’ll be a good reader and also have the ability to improvise, produce a good tone, and provide pretty much any musical need that anybody would have for me.

I have played gigs ranging from a wedding gig at a church playing in front of a back-end track, playing, for example, Elton’s’ theme to the Lion King.  I have played for people who didn’t even speak English, and they would nod to me and I could figure out the key signature and everything, pretty much just improvise whenever they nodded to me and stop whenever they nodded to me again. It was pretty crazy.  So the job just really entails playing music, improvising, practicing, and doing my best to be good at what I do.

What’s a typical workweek like?

It really depends. It’s not an extremely consistent job.  I think the busiest I’ve been is if I’m playing a musical at a high school or something like that, generally that work week can be six nights a week. I’ll have school in the morning and then at night go to rehearsal and then you have another full week of shows the next week. So, you have six nights of rehearsal, six nights of shows. That’s only been for one performance.

my goal is to show people music is important, and that without music we would lack so much in our culture and I want people to understand that. Without music life would be very different.

Also church gigs are probably the most common thing I get and those usually have, if it’s a big church they have Saturday services and Sunday services so I’ll go to the rehearsal at two o’clock on Saturday. Then they’ll have two services that night, one usually at four o’clock and one at seven o’clock. Then I get up early the next day and since we did sound check the day before we just have four services in a row. It really does vary depending on the gig, because I don’t have a consistent gig right now; it’s hard to say exactly the hours that I work.

How did you get started?

I got started when I was in high school and my high school director got me really involved in things. He would advertise our jazz combo in our high school and then we’d go on his gig. The very first big thing I had was a recording session with these guys in Charlotte.  I went up and I recorded with them for three hours and played on two of their songs on their CDs and then I got called for various other recordings after that. It’s a full time job  - but you have to keep in mind I’m also in college, so I’m taking currently 24 hours of class. I’m in five bands at five bands at Winthrop University. And then I pretty much practice.  I get all of my stuff done for my other classes and then with what time I have left, I practice.  I don’t get a lot of sleep.

What do you like about what you do?

I like the amount of expression that I have, it’s not the highest paying job but I at least get to do what I want. I mean, every musician is unique in his or her own way. No two players play exactly alike even though they may play similarly; it’s kind of a defining factor in your musicianship. So, if someone hears you and then likes the way you sound, you feel you have something of value because they’ve heard you and that’s what they want to hear on their album. So, I would say if there’s anything I like about it’s the amount of expression I can put into my playing and the fact that it’s such a unique job.

What do you dislike?

I dislike finding gigs. It’s very hard.  I mean, you know, you make business cards and you hand them to people and you kind of hope they call you. And then when they end up calling you, they’ll offer you a really low price.  I feel like oftentimes musicians are under appreciated and people forget that while we’re not spending our time in an office working, we are spending it in a practice room. It’s really the same difference as any other job.

The number of hours that you practice is what makes you what you are. So, it’s the same as any other profession because the amount of work you put into it determines how many gigs you get. But, people really don’t see it that way sometimes, and a lot of times they under quote you and sometimes you have no other choice because there’s no other gig.

How do you make money/or how are you compensated?

Most of the gigs are compensated with food and then we might get paid gas money if it’s a free gig. If it’s at our university usually I play free gigs and I’m compensated with people just broadcasting my name. Those kinds of gigs are just as valuable in many cases.  Then obviously we get the occasional paid gig as well.

How much money do you make?

I would say I average probably, $5,000 a year, which is like a fair number.  And on teaching lessons it’s probably more like $5,500 a year.  Give or take a little on both.

How much money do you make starting out?

Well you don’t make anything starting out.  If you can get before the public and play for people and be heard a lot of times it leads to other gigs.  So a lot of times a free gig will lead to many other paying gigs.  For teaching lessons I’m compensated right there on the spot and then also I get the teaching experience if you wanted to consider that compensation.

What education or skills are needed to do this?

For me it kind of started with my high school education and then into college. The private lessons that I have taken have been helpful as well.  But I’ve met others who have not had either and they’re doing fine. Improvisation is also very important. Being able to make up music or create music on the spot is important, because a lot of gigs and music nowadays are based around improvisation.

Knowing your keys, knowing your skills, understanding what sounds good and what you can play in front of certain audiences are all very important too. I would say improvisation I would say is very, very important for any commercial musician though.

What is most challenging about what you do?

The most challenging is keeping up with the other musicians and sustaining a reputation for yourself.  The other challenge is not getting paid very much.

What is most rewarding?

Most rewarding is when you meet somebody, they like how you’re playing, and they hire you. If the gig goes well and they want to hire you back, you just made a friend in the business who will help you out.  So, it’s obviously a networking thing; a good network in the musical community is very rewarding.

What advice would you offer someone considering this career?

If there were a recommendation for any musician out there I would say to marry somebody who makes a lot of money:).

Be extremely flexible and be prepared to give up certain things. You will have to have the mentality to realize that you’re self-employed, so when you’re not practicing there are a 100,000 people that are out there practicing the exact same thing you should be practicing. So you have to give up a lot of your social life in order to be the best, which is your objective if you want to make money.

So, I would say be prepared to give up things. Obviously don’t smoke, and don’t do anything that’s going to be damaging to your body because anything that hurts you is hurting your playing.

How much time off do you get/take?

Well right now a lot. I haven’t had any gigs in a while so; I would say you get time off when you’re not playing gigs, if you consider that time off.

Are there any perks associated with this job?

Yes, meeting people, people that you would normally have not met if you had not been a musician. I’ve met a few famous musicians, such as Wynton Marsalis. He actually did one of the first iTunes commercials. He was playing trumpet and he had his iPod, his ear buds in, you know that whole thing. I’ve met a few of the brothers in the Marsalis family. I’ve also met various other artists who I’ve had the opportunity to meet as a result of playing music.

What is a common misconception people have about what you do?

A lot of people say that a musician is a waste of job; it’s for somebody that couldn’t find anything better to do with their life. That’s not true, some of the smartest minds are musicians. I’m a music major at Winthrop and I’m a commercial musician on the side and with teaching. I can’t see myself really doing anything else except for playing music and I feel it’s my calling; that’s not a reason for anybody to say I could not find anything else to do with my life.

Also, saying that musicians don’t work hard is a very common misconception because like I said the number of hours that one person makes in one day doing their job is the same number of hours that we spend in the practice room doing our job.

What are your goals/dreams for the future?

My personal goal will always be advancing music. If I don’t make any money doing what I do, at least people will know it was important to me.  It’s not all necessarily about money, but my goal is to show people music is important, and that without music we would lack so much in our culture and I want people to understand that. Without music life would be very different.

Ultimately I would like to be a college professor. I kind have modeled my career plan after my teacher, Mr. Thompson, here at Winthrop and he’s the person I would love to become eventually. He teaches saxophone and he teaches Jazz band here at Winthrop and he also commissions the players to play up in Charlotte. He just seems to love his life and have a great time.

The way he did it, he went straight from college to being a college professor here. He went through to get his master’s degree, and then he got a college teaching job.  Realistically, that doesn’t happen nowadays, you have to have some kind of public school teaching experience if you want to get hired for a college gig.  I would love to teach middle school or elementary school because those are the two jobs that allow the most time that I can play outside of my job. I can play my instrument and perform.

What else would you like people to know about what you do?

I would definitely say from a teachers standpoint is to have respect for teachers in public schools and understand they are helping you create the workers in the future on every job. From a musical standpoint I would say, have respect for the musician and understand that they do a lot of work and what they do is in many cases, just as important as what a doctor does for people, but from an emotional standpoint. It is a release for many people. It’s much more than just playing music.

What do you do for a living?

I’m a general dentist.

How would you describe what you do?

I do anything that pertains to surgery, cleaning, hygiene, or fillings in someone’s mouth.

What does your work entail?

I do fillings and root canals and surgical extractions, regular extractions, removal of wisdom teeth, removal of canines, soft tissues etc.

What’s a typical work week like?

Typical for me and I would say for most dentists is Monday – Thursday, 8 a.m. until 5:30 or 6. I usually end up working through lunch too, because that’s my personal preference; if I’m going to be there, I want to be there working.  90 percent of my work is with patients, either doing an exam or a procedure, with the rest of the time working on office stuff.

How did you get started?

Dentistry is in my family, and that is how I got introduced to it. I went to school and started taking my science courses and I really liked them, and also I liked the interaction with people and helping them in some sort of capacity; I liked it that dentistry really allowed me to do that.  And it is a trade also.  I wanted a job that required a license because I feel like when you’re licensed to do something, you will always have a job.

What do you like about what you do?

I would say first and foremost, being able to talk to people or getting to be around and help people.  I also like working with my hands. And I’m not an artist, by any means, but you have to have a good eye and be good with your hands.   You have to know what looks natural and what doesn’t, which is really funny because a lot of patients don’t want what looks natural; they want what looks fake, which we hate:).

You have to have good patient interaction because at the end of the day no one knows how good of a dentist you are but they do know how your bedside manner is and how you treat them.

Sometimes they’ll say, “oh my gosh this isn’t perfectly straight” and you tell them,  “look at my tooth, my tooth is natural and it’s not perfectly straight, that’s why it looks good”.

What do you dislike?

I really don’t think there’s anything I don’t like about dentistry. I really don’t. I like it that much. But sometimes I feel like I have to be strict and I feel like I’m giving lectures to patients[when they guidance about tooth care or are doing bad things to their teeth].  I don’t like conflict so that’s kind of hard for me. But, at that same time, when it must be said, it has to be said.

How do you make money/or how are you compensated?

It’s fee for service.

How much money do you make as a general dentist?

I make around $200,000 – $250,000 after taxes. You are very well reimbursed and you can make up to a million. It just depends. It depends on how good you are, where you practice. But, I would say the range is like $200,000 to a million.

Somebody who owns their own practice in a small town can make more than someone in a city, because when you’re in a big city the market is saturated. I just feel like you can do better when you’re in a smaller town and because you end up doing more of your procedures, you can make more. In a city, you end up referring a lot of patients, but  in a small town you can’t, you’re forced to do everything.

How much money do you make starting out?

The average salary, I think, is about $170,000, but that is looking at someone who has not been working for 10 years.  People that have established practices make much more.  On the other hand teachers and professors in dentistry don’t make that much. People in public health don’t make that much. My first year I made $200,000 after taxes.

What education or skills are needed to become a Dentist?

Most dental schools require a four-year undergraduate degree. I don’t think you necessarily have to have that,  but you do have to have the requirements, so that usually means you have a major in biology and at least a minor in chemistry, so you have to take a bunch of sciences. You have to take the DAT which is the admissions exam and you have to have a certain GPA and you have to have a certain score on that to get an interview.  Then dental school is four years. After dental school, you can choose a specialization, and depending on which specialization you decide to take, it’s a two to six-year program afterwards.

As for skills, I would say you have to be good with people, especially as a general  dentist; as a specialist I don’t think you have to be as good;  but you have to have good patient interaction because at the end of the day no one knows how good of a dentist you are but they do know how your bedside manner is and how you treat them.  The better you are at that, that better you are as a dentist. You may have the best hand skills in the world, but patients won’t appreciate that, because they don’t always know.

What is most challenging about what you do?

Working in a very tiny, dark space.  And,  there’s fluids where you have to keep things dry. Sometimes it can be really challenging, especially when a patient can’t open their mouth.

Also, people are very, very, very scared of the dentist and I probably hear that 10 times a day: “it’s not you, I really like you but I just hate the dentist and I’m so scared and I had this one bad experience.” Seriously, every other patient, I get a story like that. It doesn’t bother me, but I’ve talked to some older dentists, and they sometimes get a chip on their shoulder.

What is most rewarding?

I guess, if I’m being completely honest I would say helping people and being financially successful. You’re very well reimbursed for what we do. Also, having the freedom of not being on call. Unlike some other medical specialties, you aren’t in the position where you have someone’s life in your hands. The biggest thing you can do is ruin someone’s tooth, but even then you always have options. Although it can be stressful at times and you do have to know what you’re doing at the end of the day but it’s not like you’re in the middle of somebody’s guts and they’re not going to wake up.

What advice would you offer someone considering this career?

To do well in school and to do a bunch of shadowing to see if it’s something they really want to do; it’s hard to know until you really get into it, because you don’t start drilling and doing all of that until you really start working with patients. You have no way of really knowing if you’re going to get along with it. The other advice is to have a good GPA, of at least 3.6 on science courses.  Your science GPA is what is important.

Are there any perks associated with your job:

You are your own boss, and you make a decent living. I feel like it’s still a respected field. You can choose your own hours, you can work as hard or as little as you want. You are always learning. For the rest of my life I will continue learning about something I like, which I think is good.

I love it, I love dentistry. It’s the best thing in the whole world. My friends and I talk about it all the time. We feel that we’re so lucky.

How much time off do you get/take?

I take every Friday off, which comes to about six weeks a year.

I can also take vacations. Right now I don’t take off very much because I take off Fridays and that’s enough for me. But, later, I’ll probably take two weeks at a time.

What is a common misconception people have about what you do?

A lot of people who have never had a toothache think all we do is exams and cleanings. If they have never had a filling, root canal, or an extraction they probably don’t realize how much we do. And others think we’re scary, which is a common misconception about dentists.  I probably hear that ten times a day “it’s not you, I really like you but I just hate the dentist and I’m so scared and I had this one bad experience”.

What are your goals/dreams for the future?

To be the very best that I can be. Seriously, I want to be the best dentist. I want to know everything; I want to be very well educated. I already own the practice but I still want to go back to school and want to specialize and get the continued education.

What else would you like people to know about what you do?

I really do think it’s the best job in the world. When I was in college, there were six of us that were best friends; three of us were biology majors and one of them wanted to go to medical school and one of them wanted to do research and I convinced both of them to go to dental school; today, they think it’s the best decision they ever made. You don’t have to be on call, and when you have a family you can still work as much or as little as you want, and you are going to be well-reimbursed for your work.

What do you do for a living?

I’m a medical doctor. I’m an obstetrician gynecologist.

How would you describe your job to someone?

Labor-intensive. Ha-ha.

Well, number one, it is a very satisfying position. You have the opportunity, from an obstetrical standpoint, to share in the families’ greatest days of their lives. When you look back and ask a family, mother or father, what are the best days of their lives, they’ll say the wedding and the birth of our children or something like that.  I get to share that all the time with every baby I deliver.

Almost every baby I deliver there is a lot of joy and it is a great thing to experience with the family. Also, unfortunately, when you talk about emotion I am with them in their lowest of lows when you tell them that they are having a miscarriage or they have a malformed fetus or maybe a lethal fetal anomaly. It’s the hardest days of their lives and to be able to be there for them at that time, it is very rewarding also.  Fortunately there are far more good days than bad in what I do but even in the bad times it’s rewarding to help them get through it.

From a gynecological part of it, a woman is trusting me with her intimate details and intimate parts of her anatomy that are needing help, whether it’s a cancer screening, pap smear, if it’s for contraception or family planning or problems due to infection or whatever. It’s almost always a very personal matter. For someone to entrust that to you is very rewarding.

What does your work in entail?

A lot of hours unfortunately.  I work 8 to 5, Monday through Friday except the day that I am on call and then on that day I start at 6:30 and go basically until 7 o’clock the next morning, a 24-hour shift. I do that one day a week when I’m on call. And then, because I have good partners, one out of every seven weekends I’m on call from Friday morning until Sunday night so that’s a long weekend.

What I do is fun. It has its hazards. There’s risk associated with it, but the joy that we get with it is immeasurable.

During my 8 to 5, I’m in a clinic checking on obstetrical patients, checking their progress, looking for problems, and also at the same time doing any gynecologic work.  We serve as a family practitioner to many women, just for the routine physicals and blood tests, cancer screening, preventive maintenance exams or regular, for their annual examinations or annual physicals, and then, of course, we uncover problems like cervical precancerous lesions, etc. We also do vaccinations and we do a lot of general medicine too. We are many women’s only doctors so if they have a sinus infection or a urinary tract infections, different things like that, we do that as well.

I also have a pretty busy gynecology practice where we deal with stress incontinence, well, any kind of urinary incontinence and prolapsed vaginal walls, whether your bladder, your rectum has prolapsed into the vagina. We do a lot of surgery. I have a very busy practice regarding minimally invasive procedures where I do hysterectomies with a laparoscope, basically single incision incontinence surgeries. We makes three small incisions in the abdomen and take out large uteruses as large as full term pregnancies through the scopes now. It’s amazing what we’re able to do that’s minimally invasive surgical procedures through the laparoscope. I would say 99% of the hysterectomies that we do now are through the laparoscope and don’t have to have open incisions anymore for those. So that’s rewarding to be able to bring those new surgical techniques in.

How did you get started in this career?

I can’t remember when I didn’t want to be a doctor when I grew up. I always wanted to be a physician. And early in my career, I had a mentor who had a small family practice physician in my town and went to our church.  He knew that I was interested and I went over and worked with him in the clinics in the summers and on the weekends and different things like that. And he piqued my interest and then I decided that’s what I wanted to do.  So I dedicated my collegiate studies to that and then was accepted to med school.  I didn’t know exactly what specialty I wanted to do then. I thought I probably wanted to do family medicine and deliver babies and do all the other things. But when I got into med school and went into my rotations and obstetric and gynecology I knew then that’s really where I wanted to go.

It’s happy, as I told you before, you’re not dealing with a lot of illness. You’re really dealing with a lot of wellness. And I’m a very happy person a lot of the time. I like joy, I like to laugh, and I like to have fun and this is the profession that really deals with all of that as opposed to a lot of physicians dealing with death, dying, morbidity, and mortality all the time.  That was not my cup of tea.

What do you like about what you do?

The joy of it and sharing with families one of the greatest events of their lives.

What do you dislike about it?

The long hours. It takes me away from my family more than I would like it to.

How do you make money and how are you compensated in this job?

We’re basically fee for service. We provide a service and the patients pay the fee for it. Now most of it is through their insurance, and we have contracts different insurance companies, Medicaid, etc.

How much money do you make as an OB/GYN?

I would say median income for an obstetrician gynecologist in the United States is about $280,000.  But those are the guys that don’t work very much.  So I would  probably say median income is about $280,000 or so but there’s years I made over $700,000.

How much money do you make starting out in this career?

Well we’ll be paying our new partner $480,000.  The hospital is paying his salary the first year to bring him in.  It’s a guaranteed salary of $240,000 plus whatever he produces out of that he’ll be able to keep. So probably about $400,000+.

What education or skills are needed to do this job?

You need a college degree and a doctorate of medicine afterwards. Four years of college and then an additional four years of med school and then four years of residency training, depending upon your specialty. Ours is four years. And then if you do a subspecialty, high-risk obstetrics is another three years and then reproductive endocrinology, another two years.  Urogynecology is another two years. GYN, cancer, and oncology is another three years. But the thing that I think is important is you better make straight A’s in college to get into med school. You need to be an A-student and that really is one of the more difficult parts of the whole deal is getting into medical school. You’ve got to push it in college to keep your grade point very high and score well on the MCAT to get into medical school. So it kind of starts early making sure that you’re making yourself a center of excellence in your life because after that you’ve got to do the same.  There’s continued education and practice. You need to be excellent in your practice.

As far as skills, I think it takes a fair amount of manual dexterity. There’s times when you need to be pretty doggone strong and these days I think it takes a fair amount of good hand-eye coordination and ability to work with and being able to see on the monitors what you’re doing. You have to be good at video games kind of. Your hands have to do what your eyes are telling them what to do without touching it. I do robotic surgery as well so we’re literally out of the patient working on a console in 3-D looking in a pelvis and operating.

What would you say is the most challenging about what you do?

Again, the hours. It’s not at all uncommon to have a 100-hour work week. And then second to that is liability. We live in a society that pretty much expects perfection and 3% of babies are born with a natural birth defect that we have no ability to diagnose prior to delivery.  Because you’re dealing with unborn human life, you don’t know a lot of times what’s on the other side when they’re born. That’s one of the more stressful things when you talk about doctors doing obstetrics. The stress of the liability and lawsuits is significant.

What would you consider most rewarding about this job?

The shared experience with the family at the time of birth. It doesn’t get much more rewarding than that. That’s one. The second is now, being able to do surgery in a minimally invasive way where the recovery is very short and the pain is markedly diminished, by doing that it’s a new paradigm.  When most people think of surgery they think of a big knife making a large incision and a lot of pain. And now we don’t do that. We take care of their problems with very little pain, very little downtime. And that to me is very rewarding to be able to stay on top of that technical curve with gynecologic surgery and being able to provide that to my patients.

What advice would you offer someone considering this career?

If you don’t mind working hard it is probably one of the most rewarding careers in medicine and one of the most rewarding specialties in medicine.

How much time off do you get or take in a year?

A lot. I work hard and I play hard. But I don’t play hard until my work’s done. I have a lot of partners and now that I am getting up in age a little bit taking more time off to travel with my family. I’m coaching football teams and basketball teams and really enjoying those extracurricular activities. So I’m taking a little more time off. In a year probably average 8 weeks off.

What is a common misconception people have about what you do?

That I make a million bucks a year because you don’t. Uncle Sam gets a lot of it.

That’s the common misconception about obstetricians probably and also the misconception about physicians. And a lot of physicians really don’t make that much in today’s world. A lot of physicians are employed physicians etc. A lot of people who are physicians are people who have worked hard to get where they are, and I don’t really begrudge them if they do make good money because most physicians are over $150,000 in debt when they get out of school.

And so you have to pay that off and when you’re starting out, it takes a lot of time. So you’ve already deferred your wage making capabilities until you’re 30-years-old, 32, before you’re really out and going. And all of a sudden you’re trying to play catch-up and paying off these huge loans. So many of us really don’t have much disposable income until your early 40s.  So there’s always a delayed gratification that you have to be in medicine because you have to work hard in college to get to through medical school and to get a good residency.

I’ve had friends who got jobs right out of college who were successful and retired by their mid 40’s.  At that point I was just getting ramped up.  So I think people don’t quite understand what we go through to get there.

What are your goals and dreams for the future in this career?

Continue to push the envelope on minimally invasive surgery procedures. To dedicate more of my time to indigent care and doing medical mission trips.

What else would you like people to know about what you do?

It’s fun. What I do is fun. It has its hazards. There’s risk associated with it, but the joy that we get with it is immeasurable.  It truly is. Literally, just recently I had a patient who had a very difficult first delivery. The baby was born with an extremely rare lethal abnormality.  And when the baby was born, nobody would have had an idea that this would happen. There’s nothing you could pick up on and so they were devastated with the first delivery.  We worked through and got them through a second pregnancy, and we found out this baby did not have this problem.  And getting them through that delivery was extremely, extremely gratifying.  To work with them through the worst day of their lives, through a long process of years and then to enjoy then the best day of their lives.

What do you do for a living?

I’m an allergist and immunologist.

How would you describe what you do?

We treat and diagnose diseases that are produced by disorders of the immune system.  And they include conditions such as respiratory allergies, which are allergic and non-allergic rhinitis and asthma, acute systemic allergic reactions known as anaphylaxis, and also patients who have immune deficiency disorders.  So it is a very broad based sub-specialty of the specialties known as internal medicine and pediatrics.

What does your work entail?

It entails seeing patients on a daily basis who suffer from the above diseases.  90% of our work is in office, and perhaps 10% is involved in hospital for the majority of allergists and immunologists.

In our discipline….we have very little to do with our hands, but a great deal to do with our minds.

We do have emergencies, we do admit asthmatics, and people who go into anaphylactic or allergic shock, and we do get called for consultations in hospitals as well when we are on call.

What does a typical workweek look like?

A work week can vary from anywhere about forty hours to a maximum of seventy to eighty hours a week, depending upon the work load and the number of consults that we receive.

How did you get started in this career?

Going into this career one has to follow the following path.  First of all you go to college and take pre-med courses, and then you are accepted into medical school.  The usual time that it takes to complete that stage of your training is about eight years.  After medical school, one then enrolls in an internship and a residency and that usually is three to four years.  To get into allergy one has to do either an internal medicine residency, or a pediatric residency.  My own personal duration in residency was four years.  After completion of residency, one enters what is called a fellowship program.  The fellowship program runs for another two to three years.  After completion of the fellowship and passing ones board examinations in internal medicine, pediatrics, or both and then allergy and immunology, one becomes a board certified allergist immunologist.

I chose immunology because it is a fascinating subject and it covers diseases of all organs.  For example, there are immunologic diseases of the heart, lungs, kidneys, and the skin.  So it is a fascinating disorder, and allergists are trained in all of these disciplines.

What do you like about what you do?

What I do is great fun.  We have a chance to deal with people in an intimate environment in office where we have all the tools that we need to help them in a very efficient manner. We deal with diseases that impact people’s lives and we have a great opportunity to lesson the burden of disease on these people’s lives and improve their quality of life.  And in addition, the basic science that underlines what we do is fascinating and constantly changing, and there is never a day where there is a dull moment.

What do you dislike about what you do?

I assume there is no job that you can have where there isn’t some aspect that is a nuisance.  In my job, dealing with regulations set by the government, regulations set by insurance companies, and the paperwork involved in getting through this mass of rules is something that I think no one likes to do.

How do you make money or how are you compensated in this career?

90% of our compensation comes directly from insurance companies, either private insurance companies or the government, and a small percent comes from direct payments by patients.

How much money do you make?

The minimum is usually low hundred thousands and goes up to maybe $300,000.

How much money did you make starting out in this career?

The usual starting salary is close to $100,000.

What education or skills would you say are needed to do this?

You have roughly thirteen or fourteen years of your life devoted to learning the discipline, and during that time of course the intellectual activity is extremely vigorous; medical school, the residencies, passing ones board exams, and then subsequent to that one has to re-certify every ten years.  So you have to have the desire to be constantly studying and learning new things.  In our discipline, the entire difficulty is the intellectual.  We have very little to do with our hands, but a great deal to do with our minds.

What would you say is most challenging about what you do?

Well the most challenging is clearly the intellectual aspect.  We see challenging patients which require research on our part and the work therefore extends far beyond the actual work day.  Most of us spend nights and weekends learning about problems that we see during the day.

What is most rewarding about this?

Most rewarding thing is when you have been successful in helping someone through their health care difficulties.  I think all of us in medicine find that to be the most rewarding aspect.  But also rewarding to me is the fact that not a day goes by when we don’t learn something new, so we are kept on our toes and I find that a very gratifying way to live.

What advice would you offer someone considering this career?

I think it is important to understand that you have a long way to go before you are going to be, for lack of a better term, hanging up the shingle.  Therefore you will see your friends who have taken shorter paths to earning a living already out and enjoying a full capacity life, so they should prepare themselves for that marathon that you go through, and one has to want to work hard.  One has to be prepared not to work only during the day but to work at night and be on call, both in their training and perhaps to a lesser extent in their final practice, but still it does exist. And then finally, one has to want to help people.

How much time off do you get or take with this career?

Most allergists practice five days a week and take call on the weekends and nights.  Time off varies tremendously on whether or not you work in a large group or whether or not you have a single practice or whether or not you are employed by a very large clinic.  If one works, for example, in a five man/woman group you will take call roughly every fifth weekend.  If you work by yourself you may take call every weekend that you practice, so the time off varies considerably depending on where you work, how many people are employed by your group and whether or not you are an individual practioner or work for a large clinic.

What is a common misconception that people have about what you do?

I think the most common misconception that I see in my own practice is the lack of understanding between what a dermatologist does and what an allergist does.  Dermatologists take care of multiple skin diseases. Almost 90% of allergy involves internal diseases and are the internal organs, and only a very small percent of all practices see skin diseases per se.  So each day in my practice I am referred a patient or two who really belongs at a dermatologist who takes care of the vast majority of skin diseases.

What are your goals and dreams for the future in this career?

You could not believe the advances that have occurred in our field since I began practicing, which is well over thirty years ago, and I think it is not unreasonable to assume that the same degree of advances will occur in the future.  When I began practice I had at least ten people in the hospital each and every day.  My hospital practice now is usually never more than one or at maximum two people in the hospital, and most of the time it is zero.  So we have been able to almost stamp out hospitalizations for the majority of diseases that we treat, and in the future I think we will make the same advances, because our knowledge is expanding along the way.

What else would you like people to know about what you do?

I think that people should understand that we are a very capable sub-specialty, which can exert profound changes in people’s lives for the better when they suffer from allergic and immunologic disorders.

David Risley of www.davidrisley.com was nice enough to visit with us about his job as a professional blogger.

What do you do for a living?

I’m a blogger, which I know doesn’t really sound like a real job.  What I sometimes tell people is that I actually market things on the Internet, and that I just happen to do it using blogs.

How would you describe what you do?

Basically I write for online readers in order to provide them value to help them accomplish things that they want to accomplish.  So the purpose of these blogs is basically to attract readers’ attention, to help them, and then to ultimately form an ongoing relationship with them.

What does your work entail?

It entails a lot of things, obviously writing is one of them.  In fact right before you and I started speaking that was exactly what I was doing. But a lot of people would be surprised, especially when you say that you are a blogger, that you don’t just write.  You also have to create products to be sold, you have to go out there and line up promotions and promote other people’s products as an affiliate.  I also have to prepare webinar presentations sometimes and deal with e-mail and customer support issues.  There is a lot really.  It’s the typical things that would go into running a business.  You are doing the same exact thing when you are running a business online.

What does a typical workweek look like for you?

These days I try to work a fairly normal schedule.  I’ve got kids now, so whereas I used to work sometimes at night or even the weekends, I try not to do that anymore.  These days it is typically about a nine to five or a nine to six type thing.  I obviously I work for myself so if something comes up I can take care of it, but on a typical basis I work a pretty standard forty-hour week.

How did you get started in this career?

I started a long time ago.  I’ve been doing this since about 1999, and I kind of fell into it as a hobby.  I started a pretty large tech site which helped people with upgrading and building computers. I got into that mainly because it was just a hobby for me at the time.  Then it took maybe a couple of years, three at the max for that idea to eventually evolve into a business.  I was getting into having banner ads on my sites and things like that, and from there it evolved into an actual career rather than just a hobby.

What do you like about what you do?

I like being able to help people and to influence them.  I like the flexibility of what I do and the fact that I can do as well as I am financially but not have to report to a boss.  If I want to go on a vacation or schedule even a business trip I don’t have to arrange it with anybody else, except for maybe my wife.  So I like the flexibility, I really don’t know how well I would take to having a normal job, so what I do suits me pretty well.

What do you dislike about it?

Not a whole lot.  I would say one of the biggest challenges is the fact that when you are your own boss then every single thing depends on me.  When things go right it is because I thought up the right ideas.  When things go wrong it is because I screwed up. So I’m the ultimate point of responsibility.  At the end of the day I can’t really say I dislike it, some people probably would, but I’ve grown to take it on as a challenge.

How do you make money or how are you compensated as a Blogger?

I make money in a variety of ways.  Most bloggers out there make their money via banner advertising, and I do as well, primarily on my tech site.  So people pay to put the banner ads there and if I run it through an ad network such as Google or some other network then I will take a percentage of whatever the gross is that they are paying to be seen on my website.  But where my main focus is, at least these days, is selling products to my audience. I promote other people’s products using an affiliate link, so basically I am getting paid a commission every time one of my readers buys that product. I sell my own stuff as well, I’ve got four trade programs out there now, more are coming soon, and obviously whenever somebody buys into one of those it is 100% profit for me.  So I create these membership sites and I sell access to them as a value added service.  They are being helped for free on my blog but if they want more information or more access to me, videos and things like that, then they have the option to pay for that.

How much money do you make as Blogger?

It goes up and down, that is one of the things about it.  Last year my business brought in about $210,000.  This year, we are only about half way through and it will probably line up to being fairly close.  Whether it is going to be up or down I am not really sure yet.  But on a monthly basis it goes up and down.  Sometimes there are pretty wild variations.  If I conduct a product launch I can have a really, really good month.  On a month where I am not really promoting much of anything, then it is a lot less than that, but on the whole that is what I made last year.

How much money did you make starting out in this career?

Not much at all. That is one of the things about blogging, or even online marketing, whatever you want to call it.  There is a lot of work involved before you make money.  It doesn’t necessarily have to take as long as I took.  I didn’t know what I was doing when I started this out, and not only that I was doing it as a hobby.  There are other people who do what I do who have built up quite nice incomes online in two or three years, so I’m not going to sit here and say you have to do it for a decade like I had to before it works.  But most of the time, regardless of how good you are, you are going to have to put in a little bit of time at the beginning, and you are really not going to be making very much at all.

What education or skills are needed to do this?

Well you obviously need to know how to write, and it’s not writing like you would do in school or to pass an English class or something.  This is writing which is designed to attract people’s attention, and then hold it.  Because on the Internet there are so many things vying and competing for our attention that you need to know how to write something to keep that attention once you have got it.  So that is a skill in and of itself.  You have to apply marketing too, even just in the creation of your free blog posts to be able to do things like that. There are certain skills that go along with marketing online, quite frankly marketing at all, because a lot of the old marketing techniques like direct response marketing or something like that in the 70s and 80s.  They all still very much still apply, it has just translated into the Internet.  Those types of things can help make or break people.  On top of all that you’ve got various technical things; designing your site, installing your blog software, etc.

What would you say is the most challenging about what you do?

The reason you are not making a lot of money when you start is because at the beginning all of it is a challenge.  Just learning how to write in such a way that attracts and gets attention.  Learning how to get traffic.  A lot of bloggers struggle with how to get enough people actually reading their website.  A lot of people struggle with the technical aspect.  They let it get the best of them in some cases and they will even give up because they can’t figure out how to install WordPress or something like that, which isn’t that complicated, but can seem tough if you don’t know what you’re doing.  So again, you just need to hire somebody or just learn it, or maybe just dedicate a day to figure it out. All those are some of the challenges that go into it, but once you have been doing it for a while you’ve already mastered all that. The biggest challenges after that are just continually growing the website and not plateauing, and also continuingly being able to provide fresh value to your readers so that you are not repeating yourself over and over again.  That is probably a couple of challenges that I deal with.

What would you say is the most rewarding about this job?

I love the fact that I can help people from the comfort of my home. I love being able to influence other people, help them, communicate with them and do all that without having to travel all over the world or the country.  And not only that, you are providing value that actually helps them get things done, and they can turn that into an actual business.  So the fact that I can make a living doing all that is just awesome.

What advice would you offer to someone considering this career?

The first thing would be to make sure you give it time.  But the caveat there is that time itself is not going to bring success, it is a matter of doing the right things in that time.  So you need to learn from the people that are making it in this career already, learn what they are doing and consider the products they offer.  I’m not saying go out there and buy everything everyone offers, but typically these people are providing real value, they have the right to charge for it and you might want to consider it.   I know that one of the ways my business really took off was when I finally stopped trying to get everything for free and I actually started paying people for what they knew and what they were teaching.  I put that information to use and I took action and it really worked out.  So that would be my biggest advice, just taking action, learn from the people who are already making it work and on top of that make sure you understand that this is not something that is going to happen overnight.

How much time off do you take each year?

I don’t really have a set amount, but basically I can kind of do it whenever I want. Things need to get done in the business, so it is not like I can take off six months without coming back to something that has essentially collapsed without me.  But at the same time I don’t have a set amount.

What is a common misconception people have about what you do?

Probably one of the big misconceptions, is the fact that you can’t make money doing it.  That is why a lot of times when I tell people I am a blogger I sometimes now will tell them I’m an online marketer or something like that.  This is because a lot of people associate the word Blog with people that are out there writing about their pets or something like that, and nothing serious.  Whereas if you are doing this as a business then you are not doing that at all, you are actually doing things that are actually valuable to people, so that is probably the biggest misconception, the fact that you really can’t make money doing it.

What are your goals and dreams for the future in this career?

Right now I am basically focused on simply growing what I am already doing.  I want to just help more people.  There is still a lot of room for growth in my business.

What else would you like people to know about what you do?

It is a lot of fun.  There are a lot of people out there, especially these days who are having a hard time finding a job, or they have lost the one that they had, and I am not saying you need to go out and become a blogger because I am not going to sit here also and say this is the easiest thing in the world to do.  It takes a lot of time and it takes a lot of the right moves, but there is a lot of opportunity online, and there are a lot of people who have given up trying to find a job and they are simply trying to do the entrepreneur thing using the Internet.  Because the Internet is a global marketplace, there is a lot going on there online.  So I think I would just leave it off with that.  There is a lot of opportunity online.  If somebody has not considered doing something like that, even if it just a spare type of thing then I think they should look into it.

What do you do for a living?

I am a Certified Public Accountant

How would you describe what you do?

Complex, challenging, interesting, very rewarding.

What does your work entail?

Being a client’s confidant, prepare personal and corporate tax returns, prepare financial statements, provide litigation support to attorneys, assess and value businesses (not an investment advisor however)

Estate planning, to listen to client’s financial concerns and provide them with the best advice I can.

What’s a typical work week like?

During the tax season, twice as busy as a normal day. The rest of the year, 25% visit with clients, 75% do the work for the clients.

How did you get started?

First as CFO of a company. Then joint with 3 attorneys as the in-house CPA and gradually out on my own.

What do you like about what you do?

Takes a lot of mental exercise to do the job and I like that.

What do you dislike?

Procrastination.  This is one thing that really makes my job more difficult.  Clients drop off the taxes April 14 and want it back April 15 and drop off corporate taxes September 15 and want it back the same day. If we don’t get it done, they will pay hundreds in penalty and we are blamed for it.

How do you make money/or how are you compensated as a CPA?

Flat fee of hourly fee depending on the service.

How much money do you make as a CPA?

200-250K/year

How much money did you make starting out as a CPA?

My first month-$180.00

What education or skills are needed to do this?

You need five years of college plus a two year internship.

What is most challenging about what you do?

Understanding new tax laws and accounting rules well enough to apply to the real life. After all, we are practitioners.

What is most rewarding?

Solving complex problems. And there are many.

What advice would you offer someone considering this career?

Be prepared to take a lot of pressure.

How much time off do you get/take?

In the aggregate, one month per year.

What is a common misconception people have about what you do?

We only do taxes and we all wear prescription glasses and carry a pencil. Not true.

What are your goals/dreams for the future?

To have my children take over my practice. This tells you how much I love what I do.

What else would you like people to know about what you do?

We do a lot more than taxes. Tax is about 50%. I do a lot of litigation support, business planning and consulting, estate and ,yes, divorce planning, etc.

This in-depth interview was conducted by one of our contest contestants Jordan Grummer.

What do you do for a living?

I’m a history professor and writer.  I teach U.S. foreign policy and political history at a major university.

Can you describe what you do on a day to day basis?

I teach 3000 and 4000 level courses on American foreign relations and one specifically on Vietnam.  I also teach a course on America since 1945. I teach two courses a semester.  When I first started I wrote notes.  I had to read and make up lectures for those, you update and change them.  I have to get ready for class before every class.  Because I try to lecture without notes as much as I can, I try to be prepared, it’s the least I can do is be organized and be prepared.  What I’m trying to do is to get most of my regular students to just be literate about history.  To know what WWII was and the basics.  I also train masters students who usually teach public school and then Ph. D.’s who teach at the college level.

So would you say your work also entails research and writing, and you do that on a day-to-day basis?

Absolutely.

What do you do with Master’s and Ph. D. students?

You teach them the literature more than just the narrative.  You teach them about the various ways that WWII has been written about—the various interpretations. And then you also teach them how to do historical research and how to write.  But then I spend probably half my time writing books and articles.  The idea at the university level is that you come here rather than going to junior college because you’re taught by people who are creating new knowledge.  You’re not just taught by people who are reading the literature and telling you about it.  You’re actually being taught by somebody who is making new knowledge in the field.  So research and teaching for me and writing are all bound up together because I initially wrote for more specialized audiences, but lately I try to write for a more general audience.  The stuff I write is researched and footnoted.  It’s reviewed in academic journals, but also its sold in Barnes and Noble—any educated lay person ought to be able to read it.  I think that’s the way you ought to be able to communicate to your students.  They don’t come in with any specialized knowledge.  But I have a routine.  I’ve been going to school since I was six. The fall semester.  The spring semester.  I used to teach in the summer time but I don’t do that anymore.

How did you get started in history?

Well, it was by accident.  My wife’s always threatening to sue me for marrying under false pretenses because I was pre-med until I was senior, and we got married before our senior year in college.  I had been admitted to medical school.  But I remember going to the University of Michigan. My brother-in-law was doing his residency there.  He was a neurologist and all of his patients were dying of brain cancer, and he was just under tremendous stress.  So I thought, “I don’t know if I want to do this.  I don’t know if I really want to be a doctor or not.”  I always liked history and literature and that sort of thing, and so I began to talk to a guy named Robert Divine who’s a historian at Texas, a big name.  So he encouraged me and that sounded like a neat thing to do.  I knew I wasn’t going to make near as much money as in medicine, but also I thought I’d have a more fun life.

What do you like about what you do?

Well, I’m my own boss.  I have to do my job and everything, but not like an office setting where you have to punch a clock.  It offers a lot of flexibility.  It was great for raising a family because my wife worked.  I could pick up the kids from school and work at the house, or I could work at night.  So it’s a great profession for a couple in with both of them are working, and I really liked that.  Now I teach the same classes over and over but my research is always different.  So I get to explore something different.  And I like writing. I like the creative process as a journalist.

What do you dislike about being a history professor/historian?

You don’t really start making any kind of money until later in your career.  Everything’s back end loaded in this profession.  It’s tough because it takes 8 years to get though college—minimum 8 years, usually ten years for your undergraduate and graduate degree and you’re not making any money then. Budgets are always tight.  It’s tough economically and financially.  It’s really really tough that way.  It tends to be somewhat isolating.  I’m a pretty gregarious person.  Writing I spend a lot of time by myself when you do research or write. I don’t like that.  But it’s a sacrifice you make.

How do you get compensated?

You’re evaluated on three categories.  Teaching and teaching evaluations by students and then by your peers.

How long did it take to get to distinguished professor?

25 years.  Most people don’t make it.  If there’s money for raises, the faculty get raises according to their merit.  When you’re promoted from rank you get a larger raise when you go from one rank to the other.  So there’s incentive to do that.

Is it pretty cut throat?

Yeah, although you either have a good record or you don’t.  Sometimes it’s based on reputation.  You’re reputation’s based on what’s on the paper.  So it’s pretty hard to fake it.

How much money do you make starting out as a historian?

I think starting salary for assistant professor in history is about $48,000 for nine months.  If there’s an opportunity to teach summer school then you get paid separate for that—not very much but probably ten percent of your salary.  The raises the last ten years have not kept up with the cost of living.  They’ve been two percent or less.

How much do you make as a historian?

$180,000/yr (This particular interviewee declined to answer this question. However they directed us where to find it because it is public knowledge since this is a university job.)

What kind of education and skills do you need to be successful as a historian?

Well, you need to go to a good graduate school.   You have to take seminars and take classes and eventually get your Phd.   I took it in US history and European history.  Then I had two thematic fields in African American history and diplomatic history.  But you take a wide variety of courses in American history, I did European history because I was going to do the Cold War.  And then you have to have two languages.  In some places you can replace statistics for one of the languages.  They teach you methodology, how to think about history, what are the various schools of thought, and then how to do research.   And if you want to write about a topic where do you get the information to write about that?  You look at presidential papers, memoirs, documents diaries, newspaper articles and other books.  You pick a topic and you research it.  It’s practice for writing your dissertation.  Then you pass your comprehensive exams which is testing over these broad fields, and then you write your dissertation which is a book length study of some particular topic.

How much reading is involved?

Thousands of books.  But you learn how to read them.  Academic books are not like a novel.  They have a thesis, and they’re trying to prove a point.  Now, they have a narrative which tells the story that you’re writing about.  Like if you’re writing about the….Battle of Gettysburg.  You’ll tell the story of Gettysburg in general terms, but if you’re thesis is the Union prevailed, you may argue, because the Confederate positioning was bad—the strategic planning was bad.  Or maybe it was logistics.  Maybe the armies weren’t being supplied properly.  So then you try to prove that point.  If you’re a Ph. D. student, you’ll know what the narrative of Gettysburg is. What you want out of that book is the point you’re trying make is.  And then did they prove that point.  You can usually read the introduction, the conclusion and maybe the first part of each chapter.  You can boil it down.  All books are reviewed by other scholars in journals, and so you can go and look at the reviews. To try to boil it down. It’s a skill.

What’s the most challenging part of the job?

Patience. You have to sit. It took me ten years to write my first biography. It took me ten years to write my second book. Patience.

When you’re writing the books do you do a lot of interviews?

I do some interviews, but a lot of people are dead.  Most of it’s archival research; Presidential libraries, the National Archives, the Library of Congress.  Most of it comes from letters, diaries, and reports.  If you’re doing foreign affairs cables between the state department and the embassy overseas then you’ll look at memorandom between the President and Secretary of State.  Those kinds of things.

How did you learn to be patient?

Fear.  If you’re not gonna get tenure what are you going to do?  You’re screwed.  You’ve wasted ten years of your life.  You got a family.  You better sit.  You better have some patience.  If you just hated it I couldn’t do it.  But you get lost in it.  It’s basically like detective work.  So you get to explore.  It’s interesting.  The more skilled you get at it, the more interesting it is.  The more efficient it is.  The less boring it is.  You set goals for yourself.  If I don’t get anything done I still can’t get up.  I’ve got to stay here until it’s don. Discipline.  That’s the key.

Whats the most rewarding aspect of it to you?

Two things.  Getting your books published and getting them well reviewed.  And then seeing students later on after they’ve graduated and gone out in the world and they come up and say I really liked this course.  They might say “I’m not necessarily using it in what I do, but I feel like it was a significant part of my education.”  And that’s rewarding.

What advice would you give to a student who’s an aspiring historian?

Make sure it’s the last thing you can do.  I mean make sure it’s the only thing you can do because it’s hard.

The job market’s flooded.  It’s been flooded since I entered the job market forty years ago.  We don’t regulate…unlike doctors or lawyers we don’t regulate the supply.  So there’s far more people looking for academic jobs than there are positions to fill.  So it’s very competitive.

It’s a major endurance test for the first 15 years.  Don’t do it because you can’t find something else to do.  You’ll get frustrated.  You can always try it.  You can get a masters and teach public school which is great.  You can get a master’s in two years, and make a decent living.  A high school history teacher now with a master’s degree probably makes close to $40,000.  That’s not great, but it’s not that different.  It used to not be that way.   So you can get a master’s program and stop there and teach public school or then you can decide to go on.

How much time off do you get/take?

I mean you can take as much as you need as long as you get your work done.  You set sort of goals for yourself.   I don’t know, it’s hard to say.  I’m older now so I don’t work as hard as I used to.   If I want to go play golf, I’ll go play golf.  If it’s a pretty day, I can go play golf on Wednesday afternoon and work on Saturday afternoon.  You see what I’m saying.   I probably take two vacations a year. There’s the school year where you teach and you come up here.  There’s 16 weeks in each semester.  But writing and teaching and research are all of one piece.  So I come up here pretty much 8 to 5.  You’ve got to, that’s the key.  And it’s hard because it takes so long to see the end product.  I had a colleague who said it’s like plowing a field.  It’s back and forth, back and forth and back and forth. It gets very tedious but then it begins to sort of come together for you.