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About the author: Renowned Wall Street analyst Tim Kellis takes on what could be considered society’s biggest problem today, divorce. The journey that led to him tackling such a significant issue was both personal and professional. After a successful career that eventually landed him on Wall Street Tim met what he thought was the girl of his dreams, only to see that relationship end with bitterness and anger. The journey included work with a marital therapist, and after he discovered the therapist wasn’t really helping decided to tackle the issue himself.

Ambition and a strong aptitude for math helped lead Kellis to discover how to make relationships work. His math skills led directly to an engineering degree, nine years in the telecommunications industry, an MBA in finance, and finally on to Wall Street, where he became the very first semiconductor analyst to focus on the communications market.

After publishing a 300-page initiation piece entitled Initiating Coverage of the Semiconductor Industry: Riding the Bandwidth Wave, Kellis became a leading semiconductor analyst at one of the biggest firms on Wall Street. The experience he gained as a Wall Street analyst provided an excellent backdrop for becoming an expert on relationships, and resulted in his relationship book entitled “Equality: The Quest for the Happy Marriage”. 

 The Interview:

 Why don’t you begin by telling us a little about yourself? 

Well my path to writing has been a long, winding journey.  I grew up in St. Louis, 2^nd oldest of 4, relatively poor.  My dad was a cab driver for 22 years, and worked as a security guard at a casino outside of St. Louis for 9 years before retiring recently.  My mom worked as a secretary during my upbringing.  My parents just celebrated their 50^th wedding anniversary.   

I put myself through engineering school at University of Missouri-Columbia, worked in the communications equipment industry for 9 years before going back to graduate school.  After getting my MBA from SMU in Dallas I landed on Wall Street where I became the first semiconductor analyst who focused on the communications industry, a 10 year career I left in January 2008 to focus full time on getting my message out of helping to save our culture of marriage.   

What I enjoy most is reading, having read hundreds of non-fiction books before taking up the task of writing “Equality: The Quest for the Happy Marriage”.  Although my background didn’t set me up for a writing career I find writing exhilarating and cathartic.  My other joys in life are soccer and music.  I have even recently formed an alternative rock band with some friends as the lead singer.  The name of the band is Gilgamesh, so keep an eye out for use.  Again, my interest in writing is used here to write the songs for the band.  We have completed our first song and are working on more.  I have played soccer since I was 5.  The apex of my career was scoring the 3^rd goal in the semifinals of the Big 8 soccer championship in college.  We went on to win that game 3-1 and the finals.   

And I take relationships very seriously, something I hadn’t realized until the relationship I thought was going to last a lifetime fell apart.   

When did you decide you wanted to become an author? 

The funny thing about the question about me wanting to be a writer is I never imagined myself as a writer.  In fact, I didn’t really even like to read as a kid.  I didn’t fall in love with reading until I became an adult, and have been a voracious reader of all things non-fiction since then.   

I kind of slipped into a writing career by becoming a Wall Street analyst.  I fell in love with the stock market in 1986 when my first investment turned out successful, and I made around $30,000.  My success led to a second career of investing in stocks where I spent my spare time researching their fundamentals, thus leading to my job as a semiconductor analyst after getting my MBA.   

And one of the fundamental aspects of a Wall Street analyst is “publish or perish”, where you have to continually write up updates on the stocks you follow.  You also begin by publishing what is known as an initial report on your companies.  My initiation report on the communications semiconductor industry, a subsector of the semiconductor industry where I was the first on Wall Street to focus on, was 300 pages. 

So I kind of stumbled into the business of being a writer.  And then I met the girl I thought I was going to spend the rest of my life with, and after that relationship fell apart decided to use my experience writing on Wall Street to write a book on relationships.   

Do you have another job besides writing? 

Actually no, promoting my book is my full time job.  I had worked on Wall Street for over 10 years, but decided I needed to change my career to focus full time on helping to save marriages.  I left my job and career in January 2008 to focus full time on my promotional activities. 

But as part of those promotional activities I have taken on a number of tasks.  First and foremost, I am developing a career as a public speaker.  At this time I have only had a few speaking engagements, but am focusing a lot of my energy on getting a public speaking career started.  I am currently organizing a Happy Relationships Speakers Series, with our first event scheduled for June or July in Ft. Lauderdale.  Our goal is to bring together around 8 published authors with a progressive approach to relationships to speak.   

I have also booked a number of speaking engagements, including a relationship cruise in August, an event for the military in September, and the upcoming Expo Of Heart conference in Ft. Lauderdale early next year.  I am getting involved in both the Florida Speakers Association and National Speakers Association, the pre-eminent organizations for public speakers.  I have also formed a MeetUp.com group on relationships and will be meeting regularly with couples in Southeast Florida, beginning in late May.   

I have also had a number of TV and radio appearances, so I am becoming a TV and radio personality.  I have been on CBS, NBC, ABC and Lifetime TV and a number of radio shows. 

Were you an avid reader as a child? What type of books did you enjoy reading? 

Again, I really wasn’t interested in reading as a child.  I can remember getting my Readers Circle Certificate as a child by reading comic books.  And throughout school I studied math and science, so as I grew up I never developed an interest in reading.  The only experience I can remember reading in school was a project I had in high school to read a collection of books by a single writer, and I decided to read John Steinbeck.  My interest in reading didn’t develop until I became an adult, where I developed a voracious appetite for anything non-fiction.   

Tell us a bit about your latest book, and what inspired you to write it. 

My biggest influence, and the reason I have taken on the challenge of saving marriages, were my parents, who again just celebrated their 50^th wedding anniversary.  And their influence wasn’t because of anything they ever said to me, but what they did, stayed married.  What makes this more important was they had the typical marriage of couples from their generation, full of fights, but they managed to stick it out.  They taught me that divorce was not an option, that quitting was not the path to take.   

My mom actually had my career mapped out when I was a kid to be a priest, something I took very seriously.  I was an altar boy (no, I do not have any stories) and studied the bible intently.  Although I haven’t read the bible since I was a kid I have used a lot of what I learned in my book.  And then I discovered girls.   

My taking on the marriage issue is a combination of both my professional and personal paths.  Personally speaking, I’ve learned from the pain of what I’ve been through in past relationships, particularly the one that led to writing the book, what causes relationships to turn negative.  After a successful career, and at the height of the market in 2000, I met the girl whom I thought I was going to spend the rest of my life with.  We fell in love, got engaged, fought and tried to get help from a marital therapist.  When I realized the therapist wasn’t really helping I decided to tackle the issue myself. 

 And I have had a very successful career.  Although I grew up relatively poor, the son of a cab driver and a secretary, I put myself through engineering school, spent nine years in the communications equipment industry, got my MBA and landed on Wall Street, becoming the first semiconductor analyst to focus on the communications market.   

Engineers have real difficulty dealing with illogical situations.  So when I met the woman I thought I was going to spend the rest of my life with and that relationship didn’t work out, my only real response was to try to figure out why.  My engineering undergraduate degree is important for two reasons.  The first is engineers do not understand things that are illogical, and going from planning on spending the rest of your life with someone to breaking up just didn’t make sense.  And the second reason is engineers are taught problem solving, a big tool I used in writing the book.   

The funny thing about this question is I was able to solve the problem not by having a successful relationship but by having an unsuccessful relationship.  Plus I have come to realize that professional martial therapists are not really that interested in solving the problem.  That would be bad for their business. 

 Included in the 100 books that went into the research for writing this one, were nearly 2 dozen relationship books.  My joke on this issue is all of the books I read were non-fiction books, with the lone exception of the relationship books.  My first title concept was “Men Are From Earth, Women Are From Earth” to demonstrate just this point.  Last time I checked we were all from the same planet.   

Every time I bring this issue up a critic points out that the book is just a metaphor to explain that men and women are simply different, so let me clarify before anyone asks.  Yes biologically speaking we are different.  One of the biggest objectives of my book is to refute Freud’s biology theory that we are born with our brains and, well there is really nothing you can do about mental problems, a major stumbling block to solving our marriage problem.  This is actually the first relationship book written from a mental perspective, something I find humorous considering psyche is defined as “the mental or psychological structure of a person”.   

But the most significant point on the metaphor with John Gray’s Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus, is the concept of the book is supposed to promote couples to appreciate their differences.  Now this may make sense intellectually but it is very challenging to apply practically. 

 One of the biggest lessons we learned with our racial struggles was a concept referred to as “separate but equal”, a term coined by the Supreme Court in the late 19^th century to continue to justify the separation of the races.  And we saw the results of that concept.  If you promote in any way the notion that you can keep 2 separate and that this will somehow make you equal then you cannot find balance in your relationship.   

Equality is only possible when you bring those differences together in harmony, through what Dr. Martin Luther King referred to as “civil disobedience”.  Manage conflicts by disagreeing, just be civil about it. 

If you would like to read the result of all of this effort please visit the following link for a review of the book that was just posted last week: 

http://www.bookreviewers.org/equality.htm  

Did your book require a lot of research? 

This is probably one of the most researched books ever written.  The extensive research that went into writing this book included reading over 100 books over a 10 month period, at 2 ½ books a week.  I then spent 9 months writing.  The subject matter of the 100 books was sociology, religion, capitalism, philosophy, psychology, psychiatry, relationship books and spirituality. 

And the other element that went into the research was my own personal experience.  I’ve often wondered why people think that marital therapists are experts at relationship because most of us now have experiences in relationships. 

The most important backdrop to my background, though, is the fact that my parents are still married.  This is important because of my resolve that divorce is not an option to me.  My parents taught me that you stick it out when you have difficulty in your marriage, and boy did they have a lot of problems in theirs.  I’ve included an autobiographical section in the middle of the book to put a personal touch on it.   

What was your goal when writing this book? 

My goal with writing this book is to solve the marriage problem.  I do not believe there is a book yet written that covers the expansive understanding required to fully solve this cultural phenomenon that has only been part of society of the last two generations.  

Who is your target audience? 

Obviously my primary market is anyone who is married and who is having troubles in their relationship.  But because divorce is so rampant and so many are now afraid that relationships don’t last forever my books is also targeted to anyone in a relationship.  I actually believe my best target market is engaged couples and newlyweds because the objective is to understand how to manage your relationship before it gets out of control, a concept known as marriage education.  Even people who are divorced will learn from reading the book what was the causes behind their divorce.  

What will the reader learn after reading your book? 

The first section of the book will teach the reader how to develop the positive relationship. Included will be how to handle conflicts and the appropriate mental approach between a man and a woman.  Most importantly, the reader will learn mentally what causes relationships to break down.  Much of the book is devoted to the mental dialogue between couples who are in a negative relationship.  Then the book delves into how to resolve those issues, how to deal with the insecurities which are the root causes of troubles in relationships.  The book ends by answering the question of why couples are supposed to develop relationships that lasts a lifetime. 

Describe your working environment.

I work at home.  The 12-15 hours a day are mostly spent behind the computer.  Yes my work is done in solitude but because of the mental activity I am never alone with myself.  The days seem to speed by. 

Do you write non-stop until you have a first draft, or do you edit as you move along?

The 9 months spent writing the book was accomplished by writing non-stop, from beginning to end.  Only after I finished writing did I first fine tune the order of the content, and did the editing.  I have actually edited the book 9 times. 

They say authors have immensely fragile egos… How would you handle negative criticism or a negative review?

The funny thing about this question is one of the main objective of the books is to teach the reader the notion of a balanced ego.  And I have had to develop a balanced ego myself in order to understand that notion, which basically means that I have developed a pretty mature understanding of who I am.  I have also worked in the past in sales, so I have already lived the life of “no”, so I basically take criticism in stride.  I am my biggest critic so it is hard for anyone else to say something about me that I haven’t already dealt with.   

As a writer, what scares you the most?

Failure!!!

Do you have an agent?  How was your experience in searching for one? 

As I mentioned, I figured after I finished writing my book getting it published would be easy.  I actually spent about 6 months trying to go the traditional route of getting an agent to represent me in getting a publisher to publish the book.  In the end, I was only able to get one agent to even look at my manuscript.  He read the first few pages, said the average reader only reads one book a year, there was too much information in my book, and it wouldn’t sell.  I then realized I would have to self-publish.  

What type of book promotion seems to work the best for you?

As I was writing my book “Equality: The Quest for the Happy Marriage” I never even contemplated what would be required to get my book into the hands of readers.  I figured if I wrote a book that solved the marriage problem then my readers would hear about my message, and because of the magnitude of the marriage problem, would find their way to my book. 

Boy was I wrong!!! 

I actually wrote my book in 2002-2003.  I figured after it was written I would get a hold of an agent or publisher, tell them I finally solved the marriage problem, and that would basically be it.  I spent over a year trying that route, and my only success was getting one agent to actually look at my manuscript.  He read the first few pages, said there was too much information, that the average reader reads one book a year, and that he couldn’t get it published.   

And then I needed to start making money.  So I changed directions, began to look at getting back on Wall Street, and landed a job in Boca Raton, FL, again as a semiconductor analyst.   

But my book project kept drawing me back, like some huge magnet trying to point me in the right direction.  After about 3 years working again I decided it was time to get back to my book project.  I left my Wall Street job in January of 2008, flush with enough funds to keep me going until book sales took off, to focus full time on promoting my book.  The first thing I did was to self-publish my first batch of books. 

And my challenges had only just begun.  I have actually spent the last year focused full time, spending 12-15 hours a day, promoting my book.  I believe I have figured out almost everything that doesn’t work but continue to trudge along hoping to find my formula for success.   

Over the last year I have worked with 2 PR firms which landed me a total of 4 TV appearances and 2 public appearances, and that’s it.  In fact, in my first public appearance I spoke for 2 hours and 15 minutes, going through all 166 PowerPoint slides that basically summed up the content of my book, to two people, yes two people.  I was promised around 50, but only two showed up.  Neither PR firm was able to get me in any print media or radio interviews.   

On my own I was able to obtain my first national TV appearance, on Lifetime’s The Balancing Act, and 4 radio interviews.  During that same time I had a 13 week radio show, radio ads, TV ads, newspaper ads, extensive Internet SEO work, a marketing partnership with numerous Internet websites, began building my social networks, worked with my first couple and had my first print appearance in The Palm Beach Post.  I had even tried for about 6 months to get into the concert promotion business, hoping to use concerts as a medium for promoting my Happy Relationships brand.   

Since January of this year I have picked up the pressure on myself by an order of magnitude to increase my focus.   Today I spend most of my time working on the Internet.  I have built my Facebook page up to almost 2,000 people, my LinkedIn page to over 2,000 people, not to mention the myriad of other social web sites I am on.   

And I really picked up my focus on building up my blog, posting between 2-3 articles a week.  I spend a lot of time promoting my blog, posting my blog comments on as many web sites as I can find.  I am also in the middle of a 2 month blog tour on relationships, sponsored by Dorothy Thompson at PumpUpYourBookPromotions.com.   

And I am in the process of revamping my main web site at HappyRelationships.com to organize it into a social site dedicated to those who want to figure out how to create the relationship they always imagined.  

Most importantly I have realized the significance of getting in front of people.  I am in the process of organizing a Happy Relationships Speaker Series with my friends at Conscious Living Partnership, an organization whose mission is to help others understand the need to comprehend their own lives.  I am also going to organize mini workshops where I get to interact with small groups of people interested in figuring out their relationships.  I even have my book in Rachael Ray’s hands through a friend of mine who knows her husband.   

I have appeared 4 times, out of a total of 13 scheduled appearances, on a radio show in San Antonio, TX called Marriage 101, am talking to a friend about 3 appearances on her radio show, had initial discussions with a few other friends about other radio appearances, and have had initial discussion with a few folks about putting together a TV show.   

Where I thought the path to success was imminent I now realize that no path to success is without the trials and tribulations, and focus, needed to get my message in front of people. 

What is the best writing advice you’ve ever received?

Stay focused. 

Do you have a website/blog where readers may learn more about you and your work?

My blog address is www.HappyMarriages.com where I post on a regular basis, and my home web site is www.HappyRelationships.com where you can read more about me and my project, and pick up a copy of the book. 

Do you have another book on the works? Would you like to tell readers about your current or future projects?

Over the last year with all of the work I have put into this I have had many advisors constantly advise me to simplify what I am talking about.  After all we are now a sound bite society.  My constant response has been that there are no “7 steps to a happy marriage” despite all of the books written with basically that concept.  I have, though, developed a concept for a book “10 steps to spirituality” which I will write when I get a chance.  This is one of two books concepts I currently have, with another two concepts to follow. 

As an author, what is your greatest reward? 

To me success is measured in book sales.  I know I have connected with a reader when they realize they are interested in picking up my book and reading it. 

Anything else you’d like to say about yourself or your work? 

I wanted to thank everyone for taking the time to read my interview.  As part of my blog tour the you can pick up a copy of your book for 20% off at the following link:

https://www.HappyRelationships.com/buy.aspx