I met Kate Manfredi at her home early one Saturday morning. It was one of the coldest days of the year, so we sat at a table near a sunny window while we sipped our coffee. Kate and her husband John are running the Meadow Brook Theatre which nearly closed recently due to a major reduction in funding. John is the Managing Director and Kate is the Development Coordinator. They are doing their first ever black tie fundraiser on February 28th and just secured Debbie Stabenow as their guest speaker. Kate is originally from New York and is an accomplished actress and singer. Here she shares a bit of her journey to discovering her life purpose.

Katana: So you were living in New York, how did you end up living in Detroit?

Kate: Well, I was tending bar for about 5 years, because every actor in New York either tends bar, waits tables or does word processing from midnight to 8 am. When you tend bar, you work until 2 or 3 o’clock in the morning, you go home, and you sleep. Because auditions are at 9 o’clock in the morning, there is no way you can get up at 7, get dressed, vocalize and travel. Basically I was a bartender and I looked adorable. It was the 80’s and I had big hair, which I would pile on top of my head and wear very big earrings. I was 30 and one day I was standing at the bar and I said that this is kind of cute because I am 30. At 40 it’s not going to be cute and at 50 it’s going to be pathetic. (laughing) So, I needed to get my act together if I wanted to be in the theatre.

Katana: Were you currently acting in New York?

Kate: Barely. What would happen is that I would occasionally get to an audition. I would get a job and it would be out of town. So I would lose my bartending job for a 6 week acting gig, come back and have to look for a new bartending job. I was going nowhere. I said to myself that if I wanted to stay in theatre I was going to have to get a Master’s Degree, so I could teach part time at a University and then act when acting jobs come. The only schools that I was willing to pay for were Yale or Harvard, because if you went to Yale or Harvard you would come out and you would get work. That was the day that those were the two prestigious programs and if you were good, you were going to get work—anything else and you were probably not going to get any further because of it, except that you could teach. Well, I didn’t get into either one of them. They wanted classical pieces and I didn’t know any classical pieces, so I just stunk at my audition. So I was really bummed out and didn’t know what to do. Then someone at the restaurant said, “You should look into the Hilberry (Theater) at Wayne State in Detroit.” “Yah, right”, I said. (laughing)

He said, “No really, it’s a full fellowship; there is no tuition, they give you an $8,000 per year stipend, they give you housing and they give you health insurance. I thought, “Where do I sign up”. So I went to the audition and I got in—at which point, my father said to me, “You are not going to Detroit. It’s like Warsaw after the war. It’s bombed out. You’ll go there, you’ll turn right around and by then you’ll have given up your apartment, you’ll have nowhere to go. It’s a catastrophe.” He flew me out, saying that he knew when I saw it, I wouldn’t stay. I came out for a day and it was a beautiful spring, sunny day and Wayne State is in the cultural area with museums. It was clean and beautiful and there were no street people like in New York, and there was no trash. And I thought, “He’s crazy.” Of course, I didn’t venture into the Cass Corridor or anywhere else where his depiction was pretty accurate, it does look like Warsaw after the war! But I wasn’t coming for the scenery.

I returned to New York for three months, before graduate school started, and I was still tending bar. People would say, “Where are you going?” and I would say, “I’m going to graduate school in Detroit.” And they would say, “What are you doing that for? Why are you leaving New York to move to Detroit—are you crazy?” It got so bad that I finally told people that I was going to Paris to study at the Sorbonne and then they would say, “That’s wonderful!” and the conversation would be over.

I came to Detroit and I stayed at the Hilberry for two years. I did not finish the program for many reasons that are not worth going into, but I got the Detroit Free Press Theatre Excellence Award my first year and I got nominated the second year, for best supporting actress and best actress. So as soon as I left the program, I started getting work at the theatres in town. I stayed another two years working as a professional actress and then I moved out to LA to see if I could get work in television and film. I didn’t, so I moved to Chicago, did some work there, and then I was ready to go back home. I spent 3 ½ years back in New York after that.

Katana: How old were you, if you don’t mind me asking, when you moved back to New York?

Kate: I was 31 when I came here, so then I was 37.

Katana: Did you have the hair piled on top of your head? (laughing)

Kate: No, by then, I had normal hair.

Katana: Did you bartend again?

Kate: In fact, I didn’t work for a while. At that point, I decided not to be in theatre anymore. I knew I was never going to be a big star and my whole life had been about being a big star. I didn’t know what to do. So my father said he would send me to a career counselor. So, $2500 for the eight weeks of career counseling and you’re talked to and analyzed and at the end, she said, “You tested for two careers and two careers only.” And I said, “What would that be?” and she said, “Ministry and theatre.” (laughing) I said, “Both high paying occupations!” I had actually wanted at that point to become a minister, non- sectarian, because I am Jewish. I wasn’t going to convert, so it would have been Unity or Unitarian or something like that. I knew that as a minister, coming out of ministry school, they give you something like $8,000 a year. They give you a house to live in, but it was not a living. And I didn’t want to act, so I just sat there.

Then I went to a cabaret act of this woman who was the big cabaret act of the time. There were three women doing a cabaret show and they were wonderful. And I thought, “I can do that!” So I did three one-woman shows of my own and I won the Manhattan Area Cabaret Association Award for the best newcomer, the first show I did. But I spent all my money—every penny I had in my money market, because it’s all a vanity thing. You pay for it yourself. Then I re-met John, got married and came back here.

Katana: Wait - when you re-met John, where was he?

Kate: He was here in Detroit. I had been a soloist at the Church of Today, which is now Renaissance Unity. I had been a soloist there for six years and they would fly me out once or twice per month when I was in New York and Chicago. So they flew me in for Christmas Eve services, 1997. I ran into a friend of John’s and mine and she told me that John was single, so I said, “Excuse me, I need to go.” I called information, he came over, we went out for coffee, and he proposed! I told him that I needed a few weeks to think about it. I had a job on a cruise ship for two weeks, so this gave me a good chance to think about it. A month later it was my birthday and he drove in for my 40th birthday party, proposed the night before, I accepted and we were married that May, six months after we re-met.

So I came back (to Detroit) in May, 1998, and in July I was offered a job down at the Gem doing “I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change”, which is a very cute musical review. I didn’t come back to act, but they called an offered me a job and I didn’t have another job, and they were paying really well, so I stayed for almost a year. So I got back into it. I have always worked more here than anywhere else.

Katana: Isn’t that amazing? So you were meant to be here?

Kate: I guess so, although I could certainly improve on the weather.

Katana: As we sit here it is two degrees outside!

Kate: It would have been nice if I had met someone who lives in Louisiana, but it happened here.

Katana: You mentioned that you had been in a play with John. Is that how you originally met him?

Kate: That’s how we met. I was right out of Graduate School. He was the love of my life. He asked me to marry him then, but I thought, “Oh my God, where can I move that’s the farthest away as possible?”

Katana: So you ran away?

Kate: I ran away. I ran away for six years.

Katana: Do you believe that you are soul mates?

Kate: John is my human soul mate! My true soul mate is Luluu, my dog, because we have the same temperament! But John knew from the moment he laid eyes upon me that we were going to get married. And I knew I wanted to get married to him. I just knew I was terrified of the idea and still am. We’ll have been married six years in May and I am still terrified of the idea.

Katana: And now you are working together?

Kate: Yes, we are working together and he is a great boss. If I want to sleep in late, I can come in whenever I want as long as I get my hours in. He’s a very good boss.

Katana: So what do you see yourselves doing in the next three years?

Kate: My goal as a development director would be successfully raising enough funds, that Meadowbrook would be a very strong, financially viable theatre and that John would be guaranteed running that theatre until he was ready to leave, probably when his son is ready to go to college. But who knows, he may then want to stay on another 10 years. I don’t know what I might do. I might do it and love it until we retire. But if John were happy in his job and established, partly because of my participation in it, then I could see being willing to hand that over to someone else. But I don’t know what it would be.

Katana: If you had all the money in the world, what would you be doing with your life?

Kate: There are unnumbered things I would do on a volunteer basis in the area of human rights and animal rights.

Katana: Tell me what it was like growing up.

Katana: Tell me what it was like growing up.

Kate: It wasn’t very arduous, mostly I was very fortunate. But every blessing comes with a curse. My father was successful enough that he was able to set up his children with trust funds and so I was never a person that was afraid that if I didn’t wait tables and makes my tips, that I would be living in a studio apartment with nine other girls.

So, on some level, my path was blessed. But on another level, I was not as ambitious as I could have been. My father is a serious capitalist, he is also a very politically liberal person. And he would say, “If you were making a quarter of a million a year, you would be happy doing whatever it was.” He meant that. And I would say, “Then I might as well be a hooker.”

Katana: And what did you mean by that?

Kate: Well, you could make a lot of money at that and if it’s not the work, then you might as well do the easiest thing to make the money. He’d say, “That’s not what I am talking about.” For me it was about doing what I loved.

Katana: He wasn’t real happy about the theatre thing?

Kate: No, he wasn’t. Three weeks ago, I said to him, “I wish I had taken you up on the opportunity to go to law school back when you were willing not only to pay for the school, but support me when I went to school.” And he said, “I should have been more insistent with you girls. I should have forced you to do what I wanted you to do. Instead of letting you make your own choices. I should have been more insistent.” I said, “I don’t know how you could have done that without saying, ‘if you don’t do what I want you to, then you won’t get a dime from me.’” He said, “Maybe that’s what I should have done.”

Katana: Do you think that would have been better?

Kate: What I said to him was, “You know, Dad, I don’t have the money I thought I would have. I don’t have the fame I thought I would have. But I really don’t regret a minute of what I did as a performing artist. There were great times. I touched people’s lives and I think if I had to do it all over again, I may have done it differently. But I still would have done the same thing.

Katana: And are you happy with were you are now?

Kate: Not necessarily logistically, but on a spiritual level, yes. It would be nice to have $50,000 in the bank, so we could finish the kitchen, finish the bathroom, finish the basement and go to Europe. And we don’t have that. And perhaps if I had done things differently, I would have—a savings account. But I have a very rich marriage--Married to the only man that I dated from 14 to 40 who accepts me exactly the way I am. He is the only man that could live with me, with all my dramatics and emotions, and that’s because he is an artist. We have a very safe, comfortable home.

Katana: Now you don’t have children. Tell me about that.

Kate: There was a T-shirt that I saw once with a drawing by Roy Lichtenstein and there was a woman saying, “Oh my God, I forgot to have children!” I kind of forgot to have children, but he has two children and having his children is a gift and probably far better for me than having my own children. I just read a book called, “Dog Is My Co- Pilot”. And a few of the essays are written by women who are in love with their dogs. And their friends and family would say, “She should have had a baby, she should have had a baby.” And at the end of the essay, the writer wrote, “I wonder how many people had babies when a dog would have been enough?” And for me, I think, the dog was enough. So, yes, I am happy without children. That’s what I said to my father, “I have no regrets.” And he at eighty, Mr. Capitalist said, “That’s the only thing that matters.” So, it was like, “Daddy, is that you? Did I lose the connection—did I get another person on the phone?” I think, as he has gotten older, he realizes that he has all this money, but that it’s not all there is to life.

Katana: What if you had had all this money and you never had been able to act?

Kate: All you have to do is go to Palm Beach, the Hamptons, or Beverly Hills, and talk to people who have unlimited financial resources and a good portion of them are miserable people.

Katana: Do you think you have discovered your life purpose?

Kate: No. Clearly part of my life purpose was to perform, because I was very good at it. I did this play and there was this woman who came to every play I ever did and one day she came up to me and said I changed her life. I don’t know if I entirely changed her life, but on some level, some part of her was changed by the roles I played. And that’s great to hear that you touched someone like that. But still to this day, I wonder what my real calling is? Did I miss the boat?

Katana: But don’t you think this is all part of it?

Kate: It’s all part of it and if I go to my grave not figuring it out, it was all part of it! That much I know.

“Twenty years from now, you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” ~ Mark Twain

I had a dream a few years ago where I could go back and change the past, just like the new movie, “The Butterfly Effect”. It was amazing, I was able to go back and ask my mother to not marry my stepfather. I was even allowed to take pictures from the future, letters and any other evidence I wanted to convince her that this was not a good choice.

I did a great job putting together my case, and thought, “This is great. Now my mom can marry Mr. Haskel, we can live in Birmingham, then I can go to the best university, get a great job, and later I can go to a DSO concert, meet Mark, we can still get married and have Chelsea and Kirsten”. Then, I had the great realization that I could never have the same children. How could I ever synchronize the conception time with millions of sperm? It was impossible! That is when I realized that I would rather go through all the pain I experienced than give up my children. This is the lesson I took from this dream. The dream was so vivid that I still remember it.

Later, I realized that not only would I never want to change any of my past, but it really was all perfect. It all happened for a reason. I needed these experiences to become who I am and to do what I am here to do. This is how I began to discover my life purpose.

Often this occurs in life after a major illness or accident. It’s often something that makes you stand back and say, “Why am I here?” or “What the heck am I doing with my life?” This is exactly what happened to me. Not only was I really unhappy with my life personally and professionally, but physically as well. I was having really bad pain in my knee. My doctor was recommending surgery and physical therapy and I would need to take time off work. This meant that I had to get off my treadmill. I needed to take time to think about my life and what I wanted to do with it.

At the same time, I had been contemplating attending a coaching conference in San Francisco called, “The Future of Coaching”. I decided to go to the conference first and get the surgery when I returned. This was a major step forward in my life. At the conference, I met wonderful people and found the tools that could help me figure out what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. I also hired my own coach, Alicia Smith, right at the conference. When I decide to do something, I move quickly. I want answers now!

What happened is almost like magic. By having my own coach, I am able to able to work with someone whose sole purpose is to help me succeed personally and professionally. She has helped me assess my strengths and weaknesses, and then together we create a game plan for each week. The best thing is that there is this person in my life now that I am accountable to each week—and not for her goals, but for mine. It is great! I am moving forward very quickly. Strangely, as I have become more focused and happy with my life, my knee has grown stronger and I no longer need the surgery!

It’s been ten months since my knee went out and I hired my first coach. I now have a new coach, Diane Estrada, and my life has changed so dramatically. Working with a coach has given me the confidence to stretch myself and do things that I never would have tried. I know I can do these things, because my coach shows me how to proceed, critiques me and keeps me on track.

For the first time in my life, I feel confident and positive about what I am doing. My mission is helping women make smart financial and life choices through these wonderful programs I am developing. I feel that I have come from a point of being needy to having abundance. And when bad things happen now, I say, “What am I supposed to learn from this and how am I suppose to grow?” I know that everything that happens is perfect and I am enjoying this journey.

Are you facing a major transition in your life such as death, divorce or retirement? When a woman is in this transitional phase, the best thing that she can do is to step back and review her situation and options in an objective manner. The step-by-step process of The Smart Women's Transition Solution^TM is designed to build a woman's confidence, so she can make smart choices with clarity and competence.

Click here for more information

Join Smart Women’s Coaching^TM at the new Max Fisher Music Center for an evening of networking with cocktails and appetizers, panel discussion and concert.

Topic: “Are You the Designated Daughter? Helping our Parents with Aging.”

The discussion will be moderated by Monica Gayle, Anchor with Fox 2 News.

Our panel of experts discusses the complex issues of dealing with aging and the loss of our parents. This event is sure to be life-altering – don’t miss it!

After the discussion, you will be treated to an evening with “SALUTE TO THE DUKE” with Doc Severenson and the DSO. Tickets are limited, so reserve early. Tickets are only $40, thanks to our sponsors.

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Since 1987 Katana Abbott has been helping individuals plan for their life goals and dreams as a Certified Financial Planner (CFP®).

Over the years, she found that she really enjoyed working with women and helping them through transition periods, such as developing a new life after losing their husband due to death or divorce, changing careers, starting a new business, or preparing for a new life after retirement.

She created The Smart Women's Coaching Program, after being inspired by three of her recently widowed clients who all expressed concern about not having taken more of an interest in their finances before their husbands died. Katana's vision is to help women make smart choices in all areas of their lives by providing coaching, educational resources and networking opportunities.