Power Questions: Build Relationships, Win New Business, and Influence Others

14
Don't Let Anyone Steal Your Dreams
For more than 20 years, Ben Sampson put in 60-hour workweeks. He
climbed the corporate ladder, assuming positions of greater and greater
responsibility and authority.
The name Ben Sampson may not be familiar to you, but you know a lot of
men like him. His wife, Liz, relinquished her own career to raise their two
children. She sustained the family through several moves and more than a
few teenage crises.
Soon, the children will be leaving home for college.
Ben and Liz met at graduate school. Afterward, they both made
outstanding progress in their careers. He was with a large industrial
corporation, she with a major bank.
Liz quit her job after five years to have children. She never went back to
paid work although her workweek with her toddlers was even longer than
her husband's with his company.
There were hundreds of childcare responsibilities. These started at six
AM. (Unless one of the kids woke up in the middle of the night, which
happened often). There was the annual school auction. Volunteering to help
the sixth-grade teacher. The music lessons. Tutors. And later, after-school
sports.
At least once a month, Liz accompanied her husband to dinner with out-
of-town executives who were visiting the corporate headquarters of his
company.
Many of her women friends maintained their careers. Some of them said
things to her that were cruelly insensitive. “When are you going back to
work?” was a question she could handle. But when one of her friends asked
Liz, “When are you going to get a real job?” it was too much.
She loved being a mother and having the luxury of spending so much
time with her children. Yes, she had other ideas and plans, but she willingly

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put them on hold.
One evening in early December, after working another long day, Ben
leaves the office late in the evening. Sitting on the commuter train, he
reflects on the fact that his two daughters are almost young adults.
He wonders what his wife will do once they leave home.
A close colleague of his has just gone through a bitter divorce. Ben wants
to know what went wrong. And could it happen to him?
“What happened?” Ben asks his colleague one night over a glass of wine
at a nearby café.
“She was angry at me. Said I never gave her the intimacy she wanted in
our marriage. She also resented staying at home while I pursued my career.”
Ben is certain his own wife isn't angry like that. But then. . .he isn't
completely sure. It isn't a topic they ever discussed.
Ben's colleague is shattered by the painful failure of his marriage. As they
leave the café that evening, he tells Ben, “You ought to ask Liz what she'd
like to do now that the kids are growing up. One of the last things my wife
told me was, ‘You always focused on your dreams, but never asked about
mine.’”
Great artists and leaders stay as close to their dreams as we stray from
them. “Dreams are the touchstones of our characters,” wrote Thoreau, a
man who delighted in his own imagination. Van Gogh told a friend, “I
dream my painting, and then I paint my dreams.”
On the train home, Ben thinks a great deal about what his colleague has
said. He is right—he and Liz never talk about it. He doesn't think about her
dreams, let alone his own. He enjoys his work, yet sometimes he wonders if
the ladder he is climbing is leaning against the wrong wall.
That night, over a late dinner, Ben looks up at Liz and asks her a simple
question:
“What are your dreams, Liz?”
“What?”
“I am wondering. . .what dreams do you have? You used to talk about
going back to school, perhaps getting that degree. Do you remember?”
Liz looks down at her plate, and when she looks up again there are tears
welling up in her eyes.

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“You've never. . .you've never, ever asked me that before,” she says. They
stay at the table and talk for two hours. She pours out her dreams, her
hopes, and her fears. He just listens. It is nearly midnight before they go to
bed.
Relationships atrophy when you take them for granted. Don't just go
through the motions! Treat your spouse or partner like a newlywed. Treat
old clients like brand new ones. Greet a friend as if you haven't seen him in
a year. Use this simple question—what are your dreams?—to show you
care and to help reconnect people to their greatest longings.
Absorbed by the details of our day-to-day lives, we are rarely allowed
to dream. Invite a friend or loved one to share their heart with you.
Ask: “What are your dreams?”