“What do you mean I need to change what isn’t working!!”

So, how’d you make out with the questions?

Last week I gave you three assign­ments. I’m trust­ing you took this at least semi-seriously—at least thought about the ques­tions. Today, I want to pro­pose a few things about what your answers might mean.

If you missed the arti­cle, here are the assign­ments again:

1) Make a list of peo­ple whose opin­ion you trust.

2) Answer this Ques­tion: “What do you want?”

3) Describe your per­fect day.

Who do you trust?

We have heard it said,

Trust Has to be Earned

It’s odd, though, how often this is not first and fore­most in our minds. Last week, I sug­gested that you remove from your “trust” list any­one who you put there out of oblig­a­tion. Let me unpack that.

I’ll use my par­ents as an illus­tra­tion. First, they were good par­ents to grow up with. How­ever, things got inter­est­ing when I turned 17.5 and headed off to Chicago to do my B.A.

My dad imme­di­ately began to treat me as an adult– he stopped bail­ing me out, spoke to me ‘man-to-man,’ and was quick to let me know when he thought I was wrong.
As a result, I lis­tened to him until he died. (Please note: I lis­tened care­fully, but did not blindly obey!)

My mom was another story. To her, I sort of remained 17.5, and she there­fore treated me, until the day she died, as if I was a dis­obe­di­ent teenager. She con­tin­u­ally told me what I ‘ought’ to be doing, and it was clear that her ‘sug­ges­tions’ were designed to make me over into the son she wanted, as opposed to the per­son I was.
As a result, I respected her as my par­ent, and loved her as my mom, but I did not lis­ten to her ‘advice.’

Many are the clients who, well into their mid­dle age, are run­ning off to mommy and daddy. One friend calls these things “bond­ing expe­ri­ences,” (why, oh why, would any­one want to be bound to another per­son???) This is espe­cially weird when the per­son gives advice that has never helped.

Your take-away: Look at your list of trusted peo­ple again.

• Any­body there that you lis­ten to because you think you have to?
• Any­one there who speaks down to you, leads with crit­i­cism, or ‘says one thing and does another’?
• Any peo­ple there that you’re try­ing to “fix?” I get this one a lot. “I’m going to help my hus­band grow up and get over him­self, and then he’ll be worth lis­ten­ing to.” Except he never asked to be fixed, and he gives lousy advice. Hmm.
• Any peo­ple (they’re likely NOT actu­ally on your list–but you think about them, a LOT!) that pop to mind as “obsta­cles?”
  Often, peo­ple resent some­one for some­thing that hap­pened years ago. They obsess and obsess about the past offense, and are so locked into the obses­sion that they ren­der them­selves inca­pable of trust­ing any­one else, as they pun­ish them­selves over the past, dys­func­tional rela­tion­ship.
  If there’s one or more such peo­ple float­ing around in the back of your mind, con­sider ‘get­ting over it,’ by for­giv­ing the per­son, (drop­ping your men­tal con­nec­tion to the per­son) and mov­ing on.

Now, again look at your list. If it is long, ask yourself:

a) are some of the peo­ple on my list spe­cific experts? Years ago, some­one gave me a “List of Pro­fes­sion­als” every­one should have. I think it was 50 deep, and it con­tained peo­ple like an accoun­tant, a hair styl­ist, a lawyer, etc. If there are peo­ple on your list who are “pro­fes­sion spe­cific,” move them to a sep­a­rate Pro­fes­sion­als List.

Note: my therapist/supervisor is on both my Pro­fes­sion­als List, and my Peo­ple I ALWAYS Lis­ten to List. For con­ve­nience sake, keep such peo­ple on BOTH lists.

b) As you look at your Trust List, there should be 5 or so peo­ple on this List! These peo­ple could be con­sid­ered “Life Men­tors.” By this I mean peo­ple you engage in dia­log with about the mean­ing and direc­tion of your life, as you dis­cover, enact and eval­u­ate your life purpose.

c) if your Men­tor / Peo­ple I ALWAYS Lis­ten To list is over 5 or so, what are so many peo­ple doing there? Go back and eval­u­ate.
Let’s say you have 5 sib­lings, and all of them are on your list. Pare it down! Pick one for this list.
My point is that hav­ing tons of peo­ple on the list means either

• that you equate your value to hav­ing tons of spe­cial ‘friends,’ or
• that you like get­ting a ton of opin­ions, so that you never have to decide.

On the other hand, if you have no one on your Trust List,

find a ther­a­pist and talk about your trust issues! You can­not do this work with­out a men­tor (or what­ever word you want to use — teacher, ther­a­pist, guide, etc.)

Ques­tion # 2: What Do you Want?

Well, this ques­tion came back to bite me this week. Many of you know that I have a ten­dency toward melan­choly, and this has just been one of those weeks. One of my favourite clients asked me how I was doing, and I told her the truth—that I was feel­ing under­val­ued and under appreciated—my ver­sion of melancholy.

She wrote back, and asked, “What does Wayne Want?”

I took some time to think and then reply. The funny part is that, as usual, I put a lot of empha­sis into my lan­guage, mak­ing sure it was totally self-responsible—that I am respon­si­ble for cre­at­ing my melan­choly. I am care­ful not to say “I feel” when I mean “I think,” etc.

So, when I re-read what I wrote, I embar­rassed myself, as what I said I wanted was stuff that is out of my con­trol. See point 3, below!

Look at your list

Look for the fol­low­ing flaws.

1. Neg­a­tives. This is a big­gie. Clients say, “I’m sick and tired of him dis­re­spect­ing me.” Or, “She never takes me seri­ously.” Other List items might be, “I don’t want to…,” “I want to stop…“
   The prob­lem with neg­a­tives is they focus your atten­tion on what you do not want, and you end up get­ting more of it. Also, it’s a way to avoid say­ing what you do want. Many peo­ple dread putting their wants out there, for fear of rejec­tion.
   If you have any neg­a­tives, fix them!
2. Con­di­tion­als: I found my “Per­fect Day” story 10 years after I wrote it. I showed it to Glo­ria, (my ther­a­pist) and noted that I had most of the stuff in the story. She asked me if I was happy. I said that I would be, just as soon as a cou­ple of other things hap­pened. She asked me if then I would be happy. I indi­cated I’d need more stuff.
   She sighed, and said, “Cute, but stu­pid.“
   Con­di­tion­als are any­thing that stand between you and a “want.” Such as, “I want good com­mu­ni­ca­tion, and I hope my wife will learn to do it.” “I want to retire, just as soon as there is enough money.”
   If you have con­di­tion­als, you are actu­ally play­ing a game with your­self. By insert­ing con­di­tions, (end­lessly and repeat­edly) you once again put your­self off, but can lie to your­self that you are actu­ally accom­plish­ing some­thing.
   
   If they’re there, fix them!
3. Exter­nals: Here’s the one I do. I have expec­ta­tions of how peo­ple ought to be, and dis­ap­point myself when that’s not how they are. In other words, I hitch my sat­is­fac­tion onto the behav­iour of oth­ers. I do this as I imag­ine how oth­ers are doing, and what they are think­ing (as opposed to ask­ing them.)
   Exter­nals: “I want a lot of peo­ple to buy my next book.” “I want peo­ple to appre­ci­ate me.“
   “I want to be under­stood.“
   You get how odd this is?
   Here’s bet­ter lan­guage for them: “I want to write a book that I con­sider to be valu­able and excel­lent.” “I want to appre­ci­ate myself for what I do and who I am.” “I want to rec­og­nize and value my insights.“
   Notice that the fixed lan­guage is totally under one’s self-control, AND are items that could then be dis­cussed with your “Peo­ple I ALWAYS Lis­ten to” list. Our wants that have exter­nals attached to them are pipe dreams, and can’t be dis­cussed and acted upon (with­out involv­ing “every­one!”).
   If you have them, fix them!

Now, think about your com­mit­ment level

This is a big­gie.
Dar and I had an inter­est­ing expe­ri­ence a cou­ple of weeks ago. We went to a Book Launch in Toronto, for a book by Joe Vitale. He’s one of the guys who were fea­tured in the movie “The Secret,” has writ­ten a ton of best-sellers, and was kick­ing off another.

Back when my last book, This End­less Moment, came out, Joe had some­thing “up” in his life and I sent him a copy. He loved it, ordered a whack to give to friends, etc. We had a few e-mail con­tacts, but hadn’t met until a few weeks ago.

He intro­duced me to his pub­lisher by say­ing, “This is Wayne Allen. I read a lot of books, and his was one of the few I value.”

Cool, eh?

Here’s the point. Sure, I would LOVE to have a best-seller book. BUT!

In the 90’s Dar and I and our friends Jim and Cathy (hey, guys!) went to a lot of M. Scott Peck’s lec­tures (author of The Road Less Trav­eled, among oth­ers. If you have not read it, do your­self a favour–click the link, order it, and enjoy!)
Scotty was on the road flog­ging his books, through work­shops, 300 days a year! And he already had name recognition!

Do I want a best seller that bad? NO!

Look over your list of wants. See if there are items there that you want, but are not will­ing to pay the price to have. Every­thing costs!
If there are some, move them to another list– your “Some day” or “Pipe dreams” List.

Next week, we exam­ine what you can learn from your per­fect day story!