Bios
Welcome. Below you’ll find:
- Biographies of Vicki Robin, Monique Tilford and Mark Zaifman
- A tribute to Joe Dominguez (1938-1997)
Biography of Vicki Robin
Vicki Robin is co-author with Joe Dominguez of the national best-seller, Your Money or Your Life: Transforming Your Relationship With Money and Achieving Financial Independence (Viking Penguin, 1992), available now in eleven languages. The official portal of the book is www.yourmoneyoryourlife.info which connects readers to support materials for implementing the nine-step program and to the networks of educators and practitioners.
Vicki has lectured widely and appeared on hundreds of radio and television shows, including “The Oprah Winfrey Show,” “Good Morning America” and National Public Radio’s “Weekend Edition” and “Morning Edition”; she has also been featured in People Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, Woman’s Day, Newsweek, Utne Magazine and The New York Times. Newspapers around the world have reported on her work on lowering consumption in North America. Fluent in Spanish, she traveled to Europe in the spring of 1997 to introduce the Spanish translation of Your Money or Your Life. In Mayof 2002, she did an eight-day publicity tour in Taiwan for the Chinese release. Both trips resulted in Your Money or Your Life becoming a bestseller in those countries.
Called the prophet of “consumption-downsizers” by the New York Times, she is a frequent speaker on this issue at conferences; to corporate, academic, religious and environmental institutions; and at professional meetings of organizations seeking to understand and contribute to the national trend toward sustainable lifestyles.
In addition to Your Money or Your Life, Vicki has written introductions for Getting a Life: Real Lives Transformed by Your Money or Your Life (1997) by Jacqueline Blix and David Heitmiller, Choosing Simplicity: Real People Finding Peace and Fulfillment in a Complex World (2000) by Linda Breen Pierce, Promise Ahead: A Vision of Hope and Action for Humanity’s Future (2000) by Duane Elgin, Money: Understanding and Creating Alternatives to Legal Tender (2001) by Thomas Greco and Living Simply with Children (2002) by Marie Sherlock. She has written chapters included in Sustainable Planet (2002), edited by Betsy Taylor and Juliet Schor, Affluenza (2001) edited by John de Graaf and Imagine: What America Could Be in the 21st Century: Visions of a Better Future from Leading American Thinkers (2000), a collection of essays edited by Marianne Williamson. Vicki was one of 61 visionaries selected by Utne Magazine to be featured in Visionaries: People and Ideas to Change Your Life.
Vicki has helped launch many sustainability initiatives including The New Road Map Foundation, The Simplicity Forum, The Turning Tide Coalition, Sustainable Seattle, The Center for a New American Dream, Transition Whidbey and more. In the 1990s she served on the President’s Council on Sustainable Development’s Task Force on Population and Consumption.
In addition to her sustainable consumption work, Vicki has been a leader in the field of dialogue. She co-created the Conversation Cafés method and initiative, promoting it first in Seattle and then throughout the world. Over 70 Conversation Cafés now meet regularly in cities across North America and Europe and new ones are forming frequently. Conversation Cafés are hosted conversations among diverse people in public places on subjects that matter (www.conversationcafe.org). As founding visionary, Vicki has spoken at workshops, conferences and to the media (Readers Digest, National Public Radio, Utne Magazine, The New York Times, The Seattle Times and many local media) about the Conversation Café method and its possibilities for revitalizing our public life. In 2004 Conversation Cafes partnered with Utne Magazine to form Let’s Talk America, hosting conversations across the red-blue divide. Conversation Cafes annually hosts Global Conversation Week www.comversationweek.org.
Born in Oklahoma in 1945, Vicki grew up on Long Island and graduated cum laude from Brown University in 1967. She has received awards from Co-op America and from Sustainable Northwest for her pioneering work on sustainable living. A&E Entertainment’s show “Biography” recently honored Vicki as one of ten exceptional citizens in Seattle. She lives now on Whidbey Island and, in addition to writing and speaking, she enjoys singing, dancing, swimming, hosting conversations and engaging in the rich creative life of her community.
Monique Tilford
Monique Tilford has worked for nearly 20 years on sustainable consumption and environmental issues. For ten years, she was employed by the Center for a New American Dream, a national non-profit that helps Americans change the way they consume, serving most recently as the organization’s deputy director. Prior to joining New Dream, Monique was Executive Director for Wild Earth in Vermont and for the Carrying Capacity Network in Washington, DC. She has been quoted in The New York Times, Newsweek, USA Today, The Washington Post, The Christian Science Monitor and on NPR’s “All Things Considered.” She was a contributing author to the book Place of the Wild (1994) and currently serves as an advisory board member for Vermont Earth Institute and Population Media Center. She graduated from George Washington University in 1988 and lived in Germany for several years after that. Monique has been promoting the principles outlined in Your Money or Your Life for 17 years as a public speaker, study guide group leader, and member of the New Road Map Foundation’s board of directors. She lives outside Washington, DC with her husband and two young daughters.
Mark Zaifman
Mark Zaifman, successful FIer, financial professional and advisor to Vicki Robin for the updated and revised edition of Your Money or Your Life, is not your father’s financial planner. Using a holistic, values-based strategy, Mark helps people across social classes effectively manage their money. He has been hailed as a “new breed” of financial advisor by Natural Health magazine for his tenets of financial responsibility and sustainability as well as for his hands-on approach.
Success first came to Mark as a tax accountant and then in his own firm as a financial planner. A graduate of Monmouth University in his native New Jersey, he worked as both a public and then private accountant for five years—experience that allows him to provide his present clients with a two-for-one service. Many of his financial planning clients share common values of frugality, sustainability and giving back. Most have already read Your Money or Your Life or may just be starting the process of financial empowerment, yet all share the burning desire to transform their relationship with money and achieve financial independence (FI).
While reading and applying the nine steps of Your Money or Your Life, Mark saw the parallels between his own principles and the message of the book. Working as a team with his wife and business partner Pat, they reached Financial Independence in 2002. Soon after, he founded Spiritus Financial Planning (www.spiritusfinancial.com), a fee-only firm helping clients align their money with their core values. Vicki Robin supported Mark in getting his new financial planning firm off the ground by making an appearance in Santa Rosa and speaking about how the book strongly connected with the Spiritus philosophy.
Joe Dominguez
From Joe’s Memorial Program
February 2, 1938 – January 11, 1997
“Life is no ‘brief candle’ to me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got hold of for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.”
– George Bernard Shaw
Michael Toms writes, in New Dimensions,
I recall asking him during a “New Dimensions” program, “Joe, how can you live on so little?” He replied without missing a beat, “How can you live on so much?” I can still remember the mischievous twinkle in his eyes as he said it…. His message of service, simplicity, balance and common sense will continue to inspire others because of its pragmatism and relevance to these times.
Richard Seid’s article, “A Gentle Man of Vision,” in the Mexico City Times says,
Joe Dominguez might prove to be one of the most influential men of the 21st century. If Nobel prizes were given posthumously, in 10 or 20 years – or whenever the world comes to its fiscal senses – Joe would be in contention for the economics award. Probably not sooner because the excess materialism of the American Dream will not be seen as a threat to national security until then. Joe taught differently. He saw that through individual actions our profligate societies need to change their wasteful ways.
“In Memoriam,” in The New York Times:
He dedicated his life to leaving this planet in better shape than he found it…. He inspired hundreds of thousands of people to do the same by attaining financial integrity in their lives. He will not be forgotten.
“The Secret of Life” (below), written a number of years ago, is Joe’s attempt to express his truth in as few words as possible. It is his message and final gift to you.
The Secret of LifeBy Joe Dominguez
The secret of life is simply you… your magnificence, your divinity. Love is the medium through which the divinity manifests. The medium is the message. Love is the message. When you love, you are carrying the message… You are manifesting your magnificence, your divinity. When you feel love, you feel good. When you feel good, you feel love. When you feel good, you feel god. When you feel god, you feel good. Love is your creation. Your natural state is the ecstatic experience of Love. It is simply the conscious experience of our aliveness, made manifest…shared. Love does not “happen” to us. We happen it. We happen it by removing that which blocks it. Living a life is simply the process of removing those barriers to experiencing Love. |
