It's possible that the 10 middle-class achievers profiled in "The Escape Artists" will teach you more about transforming your passion into a viable career than any of the high-flying Steve Jobses of the world.

From the house painter turned standup comedian to the accountant who became a Navy SEAL, the people profiled in "The Escape Artists" demonstrate how to turn an obsession into a paycheck. But since the author, Joshua Piven, focuses on ordinary individuals rather than mega-entrepreneurs like Apple Inc.'s renowned founder, their examples are more practicable, and therefore, more useful.

How so? Because struggling to copy the career path of a high-tech genius who helped create an enormous industry more likely qualifies as fantasy than future. Piven -- previously known for writing a series of worst-case scenario primers ("Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook: College" and "Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook: Holidays") -- obviously understands that likelihood.

Stepping into the void … with a parachute

Piven knows that while Steve Jobs can inspire us, Mark Divine sets a realistic, mid-career example of stepping into the void while still holding on to one's safety chute. Divine grew up in a tiny (population 300) hamlet near Syracuse, New York, where it was assumed that he'd eventually join the family's light manufacturing business. After a conventional small-town childhood -- riding the bus to a rural school, playing with cousins and spending summers swimming in a nearby lake -- he was one of just four seniors from a class of 225 who enrolled in college.

He joined the swim team at Colgate University in Hamilton, studied hard and earned a semester at the London School of Economics. That overseas experience left him hungry for the world of finance. Soon after, Divine landed a summer internship with Coldwell Banker Commercial's Manhattan office that settled the question of whether to return to the family business. The lure of a big-city corporate career won out, so after graduating with a master's degree in business administration, he took a job with a top accounting firm, Coopers & Lybrand, in Manhattan. He seemed happily suited to an affluent, urban -- albeit white-bread -- lifestyle. Twenty years from graduation, it was easy to imagine a married Divine working 50-hour weeks, summering in the Hamptons and cultivating a collection of rare books.

And that's almost what happened. He worked at Coopers & Lybrand for three years before moving on in 1987 to Arthur Andersen, then the biggest accounting firm in the country. Just a few years out of college, he was earning a paycheck equivalent to $100,000 in today's currency, Piven says. Envision Divine as an embryonic (and more appealing) Gordon Gekko, the Michael Douglas character in the mid-80s film, Wall Street. Everyone around him seemed preoccupied with money, big money, huge money.

As an antidote to that all-consuming preoccupation, Divine began taking karate classes. Soon he settled on Seido karate, a more spiritual form of the martial art, eventually competing in hand-to-hand combat tournaments. Meanwhile, his day job required on-site client audits at companies including Michael Milken's junk bond firm, Drexel Burnham Lambert. The dream job was becoming a depressing drain on Divine's energy. "There was just this entire subculture of greed and envy, of everybody's self-worth somehow tied to their paychecks," he told Piven.

The first directional change

Just as Divine's workplace alienation became too strong to ignore, the stock market crashed, devastating his industry. At the same time, he was part of the team assigned to audit a family business that was "bled dry" by overzealous coworkers; the company was forced out of business and a month later, the owner/family head died of cancer. "I was just disgusted by the whole thing," he told Piven.

Around that time he met a Navy SEAL. The man was a friend of his brother's. Divine was fascinated by his adventures and impressed by his strength of character. He began dreaming of a life with a different purpose; the fact that SEALs worked underwater made joining up even more attractive. Paid by the Navy but part of the armed forces' Special Operations, SEALs function as undercover strike teams, usually in foreign countries. They must be highly fit, tough and resourceful. From his tastefully decorated Manhattan office, Divine wondered: could he make the switch from accountant to aquatic warrior? And what would his family think? It was bad enough that he'd abandoned the family company, now he wanted to join the military and blow up boats? He hesitated, stumped by the what-if's.

As Piven writes, "sometimes we keep moving in the same direction because we're too lazy or too busy or too fearful to try doing something else. We also have a tendency to stick with things into which we've invested a lot of time and money -- after all, it's only natural that we'd want to reap the benefits of our investments."

Divine wrestled with his decision while working out at the karate studio and meditating at home. Without confiding in relatives, he applied to the Navy's Officer Candidate School in 1989, where he would be paid $500 a month. He was accepted and after completing classroom training, began a brutal regime of physical conditioning that is the bedrock of SEAL competency. Then he moved on to underwater skills such as "drown-proofing" and swimming in freezing water for 100 meters. Finally he learned patrolling, weapons and explosives and various diving techniques using different types of equipment. Only he and 18 others out of a class of 221 successfully completed the taxing, 26-week training program.

For a citified accountant, it was a major life change, but Divine's search for meaning that began with karate helped him cope. His shocked parents finally accepted his career switch but still worried about his safety. For seven years, he traveled the world as an undercover soldier, most often working in inky black water, slipping across moonlit docks and clambering silently up the side of an enemy ship's hull. It was everything he'd dreamed of. But his wife, whom he'd married in 1984, was unhappy with his absences -- six weeks in South Korea, then a month in the Gulf, with another assignment always waiting in the wings.

Diving back into business

So he quit the SEALs and started a brewing company with his brother; after three years, they couldn't agree on a united direction and Divine moved on to a series of other entrepreneurial start-ups, some of which panned out and some of which did not. He was still a military reserve officer, so after the 9/11 attacks, he was called up to serve for a year in Egypt, Kenya and Bahrain. He began brainstorming for a way to combine the excitement and public service of his SEALs career with his now significant business skills. The problem was finding a job that would support his family, which now included a son. The answer: NavySEALS.com, an online home for active-duty and reserves SEALSs, which proved popular enough to provide a living. By late 2003, he had to hire several people to keep up with the fast-growing Web site. In January 2004 he was called up again, this time serving in Coronado, California, where SEALs train, and Iraq.

While on active duty he was asked to develop CERTEX, a ground-breaking SEAL exercise involving unscripted scenarios mimicking real-life combat. Back at home, the Navy hired him as a consultant to provide CERTEX training. Today, he runs the consulting firm, U.S. Tactical, which provides the CERTEX training, and maintains the Web site. Mindful of the cost of combat, Divine donates 7.5 percent of the NavySEALs.com revenue to the Naval Special Warfare Foundation, which funds families of SEALs killed in action.

As Piven notes, "When he left active duty, he was able to effectively combine his military experience and his business training to carve out a niche business, not one that's making him rich, but one that's making him happy."

Let opportunity reveal itself

The other nine escape artists profiled in Piven's book are equally compelling, including Karen DeSanto, who, as a high-school student, earned money by dressing up as a clown at kids' birthday parties. Dissatisfied with community college classes and a boring office job, she enrolled in what was then the nation's only clown school before joining Ringling Bros. For several years, she crisscrossed the country with the Ringling circus, where she met and married Greg, a fellow clown, in 1995. They also began teaching at Clown College. By 1988, when their daughter was born, they decided to establish a more settled life. But what kind of job can a couple of skilled circus clowns land that will pay the bills and provide at least some satisfaction?

The solution: teaching clowning during the summer at Circus World Museum in Michigan, and doing the same for Ringing Bros. in Florida during the winter. After five years, the museum offered them full-time jobs as education co-directors. The DeSantos moved into a house, the first time their home wasn't a circus trailer or hotel room.

In 2005, Greg was hired to direct a new show for the Big Apple Circus, which is based at Manhattan's Lincoln Center but also travels for part of the year. They took a leave of absence from the museum and headed for New York. The Big Apple provides on-site schooling for performers' children, so their daughter's studies were not interrupted. With Big Apple, they get to write their own clowning material without much management interference, a welcome change.

Will they return to Baraboo and the museum or continue working at Big Apple? Piven says Karen DeSanto, like always, is willing to let opportunities reveal themselves rather than aggressively pursue the next job.