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

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?â€

3) Describe your per­fect day.

Who do you trust?

We have heard it said,

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.

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

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?â€

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.

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.â€

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!