The Power of “Wow!”

By Michael Neill

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These are all the things you were meant to have while you were    on Earth, but you never believed you could have them.

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A Room in Heaven

     One day a human went to heaven in the way that humans often do. Upon arrival, the human was greeted by a host of angels and given a tour of all of heaven’s wonders. Over the course of the tour, the human noticed that there was one room the angels quickly glided past each time they approached.

     “What’s in that room?” the human asked.

     The angels looked at each other as if they’d been dreading the question. Finally, one of them stepped forward and said kindly, “We’re not allowed to keep you out, but please believe us—you don’t want to go in there.”

     The human’s mind raced at the thought of what might be contained in that room. What could be so horrible that all the angels of heaven would want to hide it away? The human knew that one should probably take angels at their word, but found it very hard to resist temptation. After all, the human thought, I’m only human.

     Slowly walking toward the room, the human was filled with dread and wonder at what horrors might be about to be revealed. But in fact, the room was filled with the most wonderful things imaginable: a beautiful home; nice things; great wisdom; a happy family; loving friends; and riches beyond measure.

     Eyes wide, the human turned back to the angels. “But why didn’t you want me to come in here? This room is filled with the most amazing things I’ve ever seen!”

     The angels looked at each other sadly, then back at the human.

     “These are all the things you were meant to have while you were on earth, but you never believed you could have them.”

Why S.M.A.R.T. Goals Aren’t Always So Smart

     The number one reason people don’t already have what they want is that they have learned not to let themselves want what they don’t think they can have.

     In order to avoid disappointment, or “be realistic,” or even “to be a good person,” they systematically cut off from the natural flow of wanting that lives inside their hearts and resign themselves to either “take what they’re given and like it” or to create “realistic” goals that they think they might be able to attain. But there are two main problems with setting “realistic” goals.

     The first is that our own views of reality are so skewed by our hopes, fears, and beliefs that by the time we make our goals “realistic,” they may no longer bear any resemblance to what we actually want. The second is our tendency to approach “realistic” left-brain goals with a realistic left-brain plan, and life’s annoying lack of cooperation in creating results that can be explained with simple left-brain cause-and-effect thinking.

     In fact, your goals may actually be in the way of your having what you want. By setting goals based on what you think you can have instead of what you really want, you will often wind up without the inspiration necessary to fuel your journey.

     I was working with a client once who was feeling stuck in her pursuit of Hollywood success. When I asked her what she most wanted, she trotted out a list of practical-sounding goals, targets, and action steps for the next year or so.

     “No,” I responded. “What do you want?”

     She looked a bit befuddled, then began repeating her list.

     “Okay,” I continued, “but what do you really want?”

     She then expanded on her original list, talking about what she thought might happen if she were a little bit more successful than she thought was possible.

     At that point, I explained to her what I believe to be the most important thing you will ever learn about setting goals. After about five minutes more of questions and answers, I asked her: “What do you want so much that it brings a big smile to your face just thinking about it? What would make you go ‘Wow’?”

     She went quiet for a few moments, then began smiling from ear to ear.

     “Oh,” she admitted. “I want to win an Oscar.”

     From that moment on, our conversation changed from a “sensible” discussion of what would be S.M.A.R.T. (Specific, Measurable, Action-oriented, Realistic, and Time-specific) to a passionate, inspired exploration of what would be wonderful.

A Millionaire’s Guide to Goal Setting

     One of the perks of my job as a genius catalyst and coach is that I get to work with a lot of people who’ve scaled the heights of what most people think of as success. This not only means I get taken out to some very nice restaurants, it also gives me the chance to learn about what people used to having what they want really do to get it.

     For example, I once asked one of my most financially successful clients, a multimillionaire “super salesman,” whether or not he set goals. He told me that he did, and in fact always had, but not in the way that most people do.

     Traditional goal setting encourages us to think big and reach for the stars, but also to keep our target constant while we do whatever it takes to achieve it. My client didn’t do any of that. He would sit down once or twice a year over a good meal and a nice glass of wine and ask himself, “What would be fun and exciting to make my life about over the next year?”

     He would then take as long as he wanted to write down his ideas until he had a list that totally inspired him. As the year unfolded, he would check in with his “goals” every now and then and adjust them up or down depending on how things were going in his life.

     When he saw how horrified I looked (didn’t anyone ever tell him you’re not allowed to change your goals once you’ve written them down?), he told me something I have never forgotten:

The Dream Confessor

     I was once on a weeklong winter retreat with a group of people who had come together to learn more about ourselves and what we really wanted in our lives.

     On the night before the first day, we all met up in a cabin on the mountain property for hot chocolate and a chat about what was about to come. Everyone shared their dreams, and each story seemed more exciting than the last.

     But one of the participants (I’ll call him “Alex”) snorted at each story and rolled his eyes at each dream. He was an outwardly successful businessman in his mid-50s, and he spoke of himself with an odd mixture of arrogance and contempt.

     “I’m here because of my wife,” he muttered. “I sent her up here to sort herself out ... and somehow she did. When she came back, she was like a different woman.” He glared at everyone, especially me. “But I don’t have any problems!” he roared.

     Every time Alex spoke from that moment forward, he revealed something else about himself that I didn’t like, from the way he screwed people over to make his millions to the disdain he had not only for my dream, but for anyone who dreamed of a better future.

     During an exercise where we were supposed to tell each other the truth about what we thought and felt about each other, I made the interesting choice to do exactly that.

     “I think you’re a real jerk,” I told him. “I hate the way you talk about your wife, I hate the way you take pride in your violent tactics, and I’m grateful that you live so far away and have never had the opportunity to get anywhere near me or my family.”

     When it was his turn to talk about me, he didn’t say anything—just glared his now-familiar glare and moved on to the next participant.

     On the third evening of the retreat, I had wandered off to phone my wife from one of the few pay phones on the property, conveniently located down a narrow passageway between two empty cabins. When I hung up the phone, I turned to find the exit to the passage blocked by Alex.

     “I want to talk with you,” he said in a voice straight out of a 1940s film noir. “Let’s go for a ride.”

The Theory of Relativity Explained

     Well, during the few seconds it took for me to decide whether to follow him into his car or attempt to push him over and run like hell, I somehow had time to consider all of the following:

     1. My family was safely back in England and there was no way I could think of that Alex could hurt them.

     2. However much I had managed to annoy him, it struck me as unlikely that he wanted to kill me.

     3. He might actually just want to talk—and if he did, that would be a conversation I did not want to miss.

     The most plausible scenario to me was that Alex had paid some locals to beat me up, a favorite tactic he had shared in an earlier session. I figured if he really wanted to have me beaten up, he could probably find a way to do so whether I followed him or not.

     After a 30-minute car journey in the direction away from the nearest town, we finally pulled into the parking lot of a fairly deserted looking roadside bar, affirming both my fear that I was about to get hit repeatedly in the stomach by large men named Moose and Judd and my hope that I might have the opportunity to numb the pain with alcohol before, during, or after the event.

     I followed him as he strode purposefully across the empty room and we took two seats at the end of the bar. As we knocked back our first beer, Alex turned to me and said, “I brought you here so I could tell you why I hate you. Normally, I wouldn’t bother with someone like you. But I guess I came on this retreat to learn a little bit more about myself, so I’m going to give this a try.”

     “This morning,” he continued, “I looked at myself in the mirror and said, ‘Alex, you haven’t known this guy long enough to hate him this much. What’s going on?’ And then I realized why I hated you. You’re going for your dreams. And I gave up on mine.”

     For the next hour, he told me the story of how he had come from a wealthy, powerful New England family who didn’t understand his youthful obsession with writing and in particular, the life and work of James Joyce. When he was 17, he ran away to Europe to write stories, meet women, and walk in the footsteps of his idol. Two years later, his parents sent a private detective to bring him back, told him to grow up and get a job, and put him to work in the family business.

     He got married, had children and prospered—in short, did exactly what was expected of him. And until his wife sent him on that retreat, he had managed to hide from his big dream. Finally, when he finished his story, he looked me in the eye and said, “Now why do you hate me so much?”

     The answer came to me almost immediately and in the spirit of confession, I shared it openly. “Because you’re what I’m afraid I’ll have to become in order to live my dream.”

     Alex and I got along just fine after that. We stayed in touch for a few years, exchanged Christmas cards, that sort of thing. Last time we spoke, his dream had changed, as dreams often do once we see them in the cool light of day. He was still making time to write every day (a practice he began after that night in the bar), and he was now in the process of tracking down every person he screwed over on his way up in order to make amends. His marriage was going well, and to his own amazement, he was finally and genuinely happy.

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Excerpted from You Can Have What You Want, by Michael Neill. Published by Hay House, it is available at online and retail bookstores.

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