Read stories about Marriage & True Love
Read stories about overcoming Addiction & Eating Disorders
Read stories about Grief, Depression & Anxiety
Read stories about Leadership & Financial Freedom
Read stories about Emotional Pain Causing Physical Pain
Read stories about Self-esteem
Tom's Story
Tom was 44-years-old when he first came to see me. He felt stuck. He managed a car dealership and made a good living but hated his work.
"I've been with the same dealership fifteen years," he told me. He rubbed his tired-looking eyes. "I started selling cars there and got promoted to assistant manager, then manager. It's been the same routine since then, going on six years now. I get there at eight in the morning and leave at nine or ten at night, usually six days a week. And there isn't an hour when I don't feel like I'm wasting my life."
I knew from other patients of mine in the car business that salespeople and managers tend to move frequently from dealership to dealership. "It's unusual to be at one shop for fifteen years, isn't it?" I asked Tom.
"Basically, unheard of," he said. "Anyone else would be general manager of a group of dealerships by now."
"Why not you?" I asked.
"My dad always asks me the same question. I've had offers. But it never seemed like the right time. First it was that I was getting married and didn't want another big change in my life at the same time. Then it was having my son. Then my daughter." He sighed. "The truth is I'll always find some reason to stay put."
"Even though you hate it there . . ."
"I'm not sure it would be any different at another shop," he said. "I hate the work, not the place." He shook his head. "I pretty much hate myself at this point."
"Or maybe you just aren't yourself," I said. "Is there something you'd rather be doing with your life?"
"You mean, like a dream job?" He looked at me almost timidly, as if simply uttering the words filled him with anxiety.
I nodded.
"If I could do anything in the world, I'd open a restaurant. I've got a great idea for one. Honestly, I think that's what's kept me going the past ten years." He shook his head. "Not that I'd ever actually do it."
"Are you worried you wouldn't be good at it?"
Tom smiled. He suddenly looked much more energized. "I'm not worried about that. I'm a very good cook and a really good manager," he said. "Cooking's my only hobby. It's the only thing I read about. The only TV. I watch is the Food Channel." He paused. "I think I could be great."
I could tell from Tom's voice and his eyes that he meant what he was saying. "Is it the financial risk, then?" I asked.
"No," Tom said, "I'm a mess, not my finances. I've put away a little dough. And if I opened a place and it went belly up I could get a job managing another dealership in no time at all. My dad always tells me I should just go for it, but for some reason I can't pull the trigger."
That was the second time Tom had mentioned his father. "Sounds like your dad really believes in you," I said.
"He believes in himself," Tom said. "That's the difference between us. He has more courage in his little finger than I have in my whole body."
The fact that Tom had sidestepped my statement about his father believing in him told me to dig deeper into their relationship. "Tell me more about him," I said.
"He has courage," Tom said. "If he has a hunch he follows it."
"Such as?"
"Google," Tom said.
"Google?" "He mortgaged his house to invest in Google when it went public. It went to the moon. Now, he's living large."
Tom's dad mortgaging his house to invest in the IPO of an Internet stock sounded more impulsive to me than courageous. "Is that the first time he's laid everything on the line for what he believed in?" I asked.
"He's always been that way," Tom said with pride. "As long as I can remember."
When I dug deeper, though, it became clear that some of what Tom remembered about his dad wasn't anything to be proud of. When he was nine years old his father invested almost everything the family owned on developing, patenting, and trying to market an invention designed to make cars more fuel-efficient. When it turned out the technology didn't work well enough to interest any of the automakers, his father had to sell their home and move the family into his own parents' house for two years while he got back on his feet by working as an insurance agent. Six years later, he left that job to partner with friends in Texas who were convinced a large piece of land for sale there included vast deposits of gold. When none were found, he declared bankruptcy, and told Tom he no longer had the money to pay for his college education. So Tom dropped out during his first semester and never went back.
"Were you very upset with him?" I asked Tom.
"Not for a second," Tom said without hesitation. "My father gave us all the courage we needed. He told us not to worry about a thing, that he'd make everything back, and more. And, ultimately, he did exactly what he said he would."
"With the Google investment?" I asked.
Tom nodded.
"That was a long time after your college years."
Tom chuckled. "He didn't say when he'd make it back."
Tom was using humor to distance himself from the reality that his father had squandered the chance for him to go to college. And humor was only one of his defenses against that fact. His view of his father as a courageous man with complete confidence in himself shielded him from a realization that would have been utterly terrifying to him as a boy: that his father was a self-involved gambler with terrible judgment who was willing to risk his family's financial well-being, including their home and his child's education, to indulge his narcissistic fantasies of unlimited wealth.
Once I saw how Tom was fictionalizing his father, it was easy to understand why he had never pursued his own genuine dream of opening a restaurant. In his mind, following his heart was unconsciously connected with being just like his "courageous" dad--reckless, insensitive to the needs of his family, bankrupt, and homeless. He had courage all mixed up with chaos because he was still too afraid to dig down to the truth and see his father for who he really was.
"You know I was thinking about something you told me," I said during our next session. "When you listed the reasons you hadn't switched dealerships and taken a job as a general manager, the first reasons on your list related to making sure your marriage and your children stayed secure."
"Excuses," Tom said.
"But good ones, as excuses go," I said. I wanted to challenge Tom to think about his father in a more honest light. "You didn't want your kids to have to go through what you did with your own father."
"We ended up doing great."
"Really?" I said. "You hate your work and you won't take the risk to do what you love."
"That has nothing to do with my father."
I kept pressing. "You're saying you wouldn't feel guilty if you lost your house and couldn't send your kids to college?"
"Of course I would. I mean . . ."
"Do you think your father felt guilty?"
"I don't know. I mean . . ."
"Did he tell you he did?"
"Well, no, but some things speak for . . . "
"Did you ever see him cry over it?"
Tom stayed silent.
"Sleepless nights? Anything?"
Tom looked away. "He was a tough guy," he said softly, as though barely clinging to his fiction.
"And you had to pretend to be one," I said. "At nine." I paused. "Where do you think all your fear went?"
"I guess I kept it."
"Exactly. But when you keep fear bottled up, denying it even exists, it takes more and more of your energy, until it paralyzes you completely." I waited a few moments, then made my point. "When your dad followed his dreams, other people got badly hurt, including you. But you're not nine, anymore. You could pursue your dream without turning it into anyone else's nightmare. Worse comes to worst, the restaurant closes and you go back to work at a car dealership. You still keep your house and put your kids through school. You've earned that safety net by working sixteen hour days for fifteen years. There's no shame in that."
"I guess not," Tom said, his voice suddenly less stressed. "I just never looked at it that way." We sat in silence for several moments. "So now that you've got the safety net," I said, "it's time for a leap of faith. My guess: The safety net never gets used."
Tom opened his restaurant about a year later. And while there were moments he was certain he would fail, that he should retreat back to the car business before losing everything, he stayed the course. Because he understood most of his fear of chaos was coming from being powerless when he lost his home at nine years old and when he lost his chance for a college education at seventeen.
His restaurant eventually began to thrive. Back to top