Find and cultivate community every day of your life. The pursuit of self-interest is a modern trap; nothing matters much without a community to share it with. Without strong communities where folks look out for each other, the world is lost. I cite as evidence Cedar Key, the best place on Earth.
Many successful people reinvented themselves in a later period in their lives. Jeff Bezos worked on Wall Street before he reinvented himself and started Amazon. Sara Blakely sold office supplies before she started Spanx. Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson was a WWE wrestler before he became a successful actor and filmmaker. Arnold Schwarzenegger went from a bodybuilder, to an actor to a Governor. McDonald’s founder Ray Kroc was a milkshake-device salesman before starting the McDonalds franchise in his 50s.
How does one reinvent themselves? What hurdles have to be overcome to take life in a new direction? How do you overcome those challenges? How do you ignore the naysayers? How do you push through the paralyzing fear?
In this series called “Second Chapters; How I Reinvented Myself In The Second Chapter Of My Life “ we are interviewing successful people who reinvented themselves in a second chapter in life, to share their story and help empower others.
As a part of this interview series, I had the pleasure of interviewing Michael Bobbitt.
Michael Presley Bobbitt is a novelist and playwright most known for his novel Godspeed, Cedar Key, his off-Broadway plays Sunset Village and Florida Man, and regional plays Trailer Park Elegy and Cedar Key. With a special niche in ‘dramedy’, Bobbitt’s creative work is known for incorporating humor as a way of tackling heavy human issues and his writing is deeply rooted in prioritizing the places and settings as de facto characters in his stories. With a 23-year career in commercial real estate and a part-time clam farming passion on the side, Bobbitt is an advocate for protecting fragile ecosystems like the Florida estuary, devoting much of his life speaking and lobbying on its behalf through his book Godspeed Cedar Key and beyond. Previously featured in The Miami Herald, Broadway World, The Gainesville Sun, Kirkus Reviews and more, Bobbitt can be found most often growing clams and chasing trout and redfish in the waters around Cedar Key, his island home.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we start, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your childhood backstory?
Myfamily has roots in Florida that predate its statehood. I grew up in rural Polk County in Central Florida, in the heart of what used to be citrus country. I lived most of my childhood in a doublewide in an orange grove, near a creek that made its way into the dark-watered Peace River. Many of my favorite memories as a kid were running up and down the river and exploring the swampland along its basin. I was a voracious reader from first grade on and started writing stories in elementary school.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
A character in my book “Godspeed Cedar Key” echoes my own life motto:
“What you stand for is important, but who you stand for is everything.”
In my life, the extended family and friendships I was able to cultivate early on were the stabilizing influence that made rural poverty bearable. I am a reader of books, so big ideas matter to me — from the Federalist Papers to Greek Philosophers to Kurt Vonnegut — but ideas outside of people are a dead thing like faith without works. When a moment of life is pushed to its crisis, I choose people over principle every time. I want to be that kind of friend and I want friends that feel the same way about me.
You have been blessed with much success. In your opinion, what are the top three qualities that you possess that have helped you accomplish so much? If you can, please share a story or example for each.
1) I understand that I may often not be the smartest or most talented person doing the things I like to do, but I can outwork everyone else. I am dispossessed of the idea that success is a result of innate talent; in my life, work is the principal ingredient to achievement. A reviewer once said that I was a playwright in the same way that a person making ships is a shipwright — the ship gets made through the work of adding layers upon layers and assembling parts together into something useful. I have always loved that description of my writing, that it was a thing made through effort and toil rather than divine inspiration.
2) In order to make anything that’s any good, you have to surround yourself with quality. For a writer, reading good writing is the only real way to recognize the good in your own work. To be a good writer, I think you have to be a dedicated reader.
3) Being able to write and speak effectively and persuasively has opened so many doors for me. In my real estate appraisal firm, when we want to hire a new associate, I have them write an essay on a T.S. Eliot poem for me. I can teach just about anyone how to do the technical aspects of that job, but if someone is already a good writer, the path ahead for them is so much easier. When my own son was choosing a major in college, he was considering a business degree. I helped guide him toward a communications degree with a minor in business. I wanted him to be in a program that was writing intensive so he could hone his communication skills.
Let’s now shift to the main part of our discussion about ‘Second Chapters’. Can you tell our readers about your career experience before your Second Chapter?
I enjoy my work as a commercial real estate appraiser. A big part of my practice involves litigation proceedings where I am called to be an expert witness. In that tense arena, my appraisal and communications skills are put to the test, and I enjoy the stress of it. I had also developed a large following as a playwright, with two of my plays premiering Off-Broadway in New York City, and several others that play to sold-out theaters regionally. It was a better life than I had any right to expect.
And how did you “reinvent yourself” in your Second Chapter?
I began reinventing myself when I packed up my life and moved to a tiny island in the Gulf of Mexico called Cedar Key. I started a new aquaculture business, shifted away from being a playwright, and wrote my first novel.
Can you tell us about the specific trigger that made you decide that you were going to “take the plunge” and make your huge transition?
My wife left me, and my son left for college — causing me to feel increasingly out of sync with the theater world, and real estate work wasn’t particularly nourishing to my soul. Seeing it typed out like this makes it look an awful lot like a midlife crisis — and since I’m 48 years old, I am sneaking up on the target demographic for such a crisis. I’ll continue the cliché by noting that I was feeling pretty close to rock bottom, so I started looking for a new purpose for my life — both professionally and artistically. I began spending more and more weekends on the little island of Cedar Key, an hour’s drive west from my home in Gainesville near the University of Florida. For more than 20 years, the island had been my favorite getaway place to recharge, and I had often dreamed of what a life there might be like but could never figure out how to make it happen.
Finally, I ran out of excuses for giving it a shot, and one day I woke up and decided to drive to the island to look at houses. I found a 140-year-old house for sale that was falling apart, I made an offer that day and it was accepted. The work to restore that old house helped to further connect me to the island. I learned pretty quickly that Cedar Key was among the largest producers of farm-raised clams in North America, and almost instantly, the allure of clam farming pulled me in.
What did you do to discover that you had a new skillset inside of you that you haven’t been maximizing? How did you find that and how did you ultimately overcome the barriers to help manifest those powers?
I have always enjoyed boating and being on the water. It never occurred to me that the skills I had developed fishing could translate into a new business. When I decided to try my hand at clam farming, it became clear quickly that there aren’t any classes to take — there’s no clam college, it is an industry that has to be learned from other farmers through experience. Cedar Key is a somewhat insular community that wasn’t going to just take in an outsider and show them their key to business. It took moving to the island full time, restoring the old house, and slowly becoming a part of the community through service before I was able to learn more about clam farming.
How are things going with this new initiative? We would love to hear some specific examples or stories.
I’ve been growing and harvesting clams for three years now. It is sometimes lucrative and always rewarding work that I enjoy. When Hurricane Idalia devastated our island and much of the clam crop for everyone last year, the community came together to help rebuild the island the industry. That process made me feel more connected to the island than ever before and redoubled my commitment to becoming the best clam farmer I could be.
Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?
The mayor of Cedar Key, Heath Davis, has been instrumental in my clam farming journey. He and I became fast friends, and he was incredibly generous with his time and expertise. In addition to showing me the ropes, he was the first person I called when I sank my clam boat in my first few weeks as a new farmer. He dropped what he was doing and came to help me rescue my boat and the 250,000 clams on it at the time.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started in this new direction?
To help market my clams and the clam industry, I created a character called The Clambassador, which was basically just me dressed up in a velvet military coat with clams on the lapel and a giant clam hat. Some filmmaker friends of mine helped me make a short film about my adventure starting a new life as a clam farmer. It was originally meant to just be an industry film, but the film turned out to be a compelling story about my friendship with Mayor Davis and the about the incredible Cedar Key community. On a whim, we entered the film, Rise of the Clambassador, into the International Ocean Film Festival. To our surprise, it won the festival, and I flew out to San Francisco to accept the award at a red-carpet event. The film went on to win festivals around the world. You can view it here:
https://vimeo.com/835580191
Did you ever struggle with believing in yourself? If so, how did you overcome that limiting belief about yourself? Can you share a story or example?
With no good reason for it, I have always been abundantly self-confident. I credit my mother’s unwavering belief in me and the foundation of support from my friend group. It just never occurs to me that I can’t do something if I’m willing to keep working at it.
In my own work I usually encourage my clients to ask for support before they embark on something new. How did you create your support system before you moved to your new chapter?
Because I was in such a low place when I made the leap to move to the island, I didn’t feel as though I had much to lose by just giving it a shot. I understand how lucky I was to meet the Davis family and so many others that became my island support system, and I work every day to be the kind of friend that deserves the effort they put into their friendship with me.
Starting a new chapter usually means getting out of your comfort zone, how did you do that? Can you share a story or example of that?
Before moving to Cedar Key, I had spent 20 years in a college town that was comfortable to me. Artistically, I had developed a large following as a playwright and could reliably get new plays produced. Leaving that environment and moving to an island to write a novel and start a clam farm meant leaving that comfort behind. Whenever a new play has its first performance, there is always a moment just before the lights go up, when the playwright wonders, “Is this thing any good? What if they hate it after I’ve done all this work?” That moment of abject terror is amplified when switching mediums. The work to produce my novel “Godspeed, Cedar Key” consumed a year of my life. It took longer than an opening show to find out how it would be received. There was no comfort to be had until the glowing reviews started pouring in, and the book started selling far and wide. I wasn’t sure until then whether I had any idea what I was doing or how it would be received.
What are your “5 things I wish someone told me before I started” and why?
1 . Always check to make sure the drain plugs are in the boat. Then check again. Once you sink a boat once or five times, they’ll never let you forget it.
2 . When growing clams or writing novels, attention to detail matters. I failed to secure a load early in my farming life and lost a half million baby clams off the back of the boat in five seconds. I misspelled Ernest Hemingway’s last name in an early print run of my novel and never heard the end of it from my literary friends.
3 . In writing, no one cares about you. Most of our lives aren’t interesting enough to write about. I developed a wide readership when I stopped writing about myself and started writing stories in which others could see reflections of their own lives. This idea is another extension of the concept of community. Writing for others is more important and more rewarding than writing about yourself.
4 . Go check the drain plugs in the boat again. You’ll never live it down if you sink a boat a sixth time.
5 . Find and cultivate community every day of your life. The pursuit of self-interest is a modern trap; nothing matters much without a community to share it with. Without strong communities where folks look out for each other, the world is lost. I cite as evidence Cedar Key, the best place on Earth.
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be?
Living in Cedar Key has taught me what true community looks like and has convinced me that people are meant to live this way. The whirl and hum of the modern digital age promises connection through social media, apps, and gadgets, but we have never been more disconnected as a people. I write about community because it has been the great joy and savior of my own life. If I could start a movement to change the world, it would be one that turns us away from our devices and toward our neighbors.
We are very blessed that some very prominent names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them. :-)
Any editor at a big-3 publishing firm in New York: come on down to the island and let’s talk about my next novel 😉
How can our readers further follow your work online?
www.michaelpresleybobbitt or www.waywardwriters.com
Thank you so much for sharing these important insights. We wish you continued success and good health!
About the Interviewer: Wanda Malhotra is a wellness entrepreneur, lifestyle journalist, and the CEO of Crunchy Mama Box, a mission-driven platform promoting conscious living. CMB empowers individuals with educational resources and vetted products to help them make informed choices. Passionate about social causes like environmental preservation and animal welfare, Wanda writes about clean beauty, wellness, nutrition, social impact and sustainability, simplifying wellness with curated resources. Join Wanda and the Crunchy Mama Box community in embracing a healthier, more sustainable lifestyle at CrunchyMamaBox.com.
