Participants: Cheri Peters (Host), Brian Shaul, David Allen
Series Code: CLR
Program Code: CLR00089B
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00:15 Welcome back, I love working with everybody that comes
00:20 on the set, I wish I could introduce you to every 00:22 single person in the café today. 00:24 Each has a testimony and on some of the other programs 00:26 you will meet them. 00:28 But today is about Brian and you David. 00:31 David Allen and I want to say thank you for coming 00:34 on and I know that you and Brian work together. 00:36 Before we get into that can we talk about who you are 00:40 and where you have come from because your story is way 00:44 different than Brian's. 00:46 It is different, one thing that I can say is I grew up 00:50 in a middle-class, lower middle- class family in Wasilla Alaska. 00:54 When I grew up my parents, God bless them, they were well- 00:57 intentioned and did the best they possibly could for me. 01:00 My dad before I was born, he had gone to jail several 01:03 times for in-appropriate behavior with the opposite 01:07 gender and my mom - I love the way you say that's so 01:12 easy, I'm like wait. - it's not me and they are not here 01:16 today so I - so it's something he wasn't really a part of 01:20 in your life is where your dad came from? - yeah. 01:25 My mom had a psychological condition very similar to 01:30 autism and is called Aspergers and that affects social 01:33 skills and ability to recognize and understand emotions 01:37 in other people. 01:38 For some people that don't know that I have a friend that 01:41 has the same kind of thing and sometimes it is even 01:44 helpful for them to have a notebook with facial 01:47 expressions that says this is a happiness look like this, 01:50 sadness looks like this, anger looks like this. 01:52 They are so disconnected by not being able to interpret 01:56 expressions that they have cheater sheet. - yeah. 02:00 So I don't think my mom ever did that but it would have 02:07 been very helpful if she had. 02:08 So how this came together was that emotions were not 02:14 something I was allowed to express, if I was frustrated 02:18 with something it either was punished for being expressed by 02:23 one parent or completely ignored as something weird by 02:27 the other and so I grew up with a lot of anger. 02:30 I was embarrassed that I had emotions and didn't know how 02:34 to express them and didn't know who to express them to 02:38 so I became more frustrated. 02:40 So I could see you watching your mom and trying to get 02:44 some kind of how to act when you wouldn't 02:47 have known as a small child that she did know how to give 02:49 you those clues. - yeah so I didn't receive them. 02:52 While she was very good at teaching me in elementary school 02:57 once I went to age 12 and politics and gossips start to 03:01 become the order of the day in public schools, I was 03:05 completely unequipped to deal with all the rapid 03:09 changes that were happening. 03:10 I didn't know why all my friends were abandoning me, 03:13 I didn't know why it was being invited anywhere, I didn't 03:15 know why I was being bullied and I had 03:19 no system for understanding that. 03:20 I got out of high school - you are the first person 03:24 I have ever met, I mean I have met people with those 03:27 disorders, I met people that have really struggled 03:30 at living with those and have really done a great job. 03:33 I mean I has some really good friends that struggle with 03:36 that, with Aspergers and certain elements of that but you are 03:41 the first child of someone with this disorder that 03:46 I have ever met. 03:47 You are looking and saying I have no way to interpret the 03:50 world, and that is how I stepped into it. 03:53 Angry. - yeah I stepped into it angry and it got to 03:56 the point that by the time I was getting out of high 03:59 school I was listening to heavy metal and death metal 04:03 music for probably four to six hours a day. 04:04 - because you connect with that? 04:06 I could easily connect with that and not that I have 04:09 anything against it as a style of music but the lyrics 04:12 weren't help with me at all. 04:13 So was trying to fuel my anger and was using the anger as 04:17 a motivation to do every single thing, but it was scaring 04:22 people and I didn't know that I was scaring people. 04:24 I bet you were too, you know what I mean? 04:29 I could hear you and just see how that developed and 04:33 everything in me says I bet, because once we fit in 04:37 anywhere it doesn't matter where it is, but when you are 04:40 desperately trying to fit in and you find that niche I'm 04:44 going to fulfill that niche 100%, 1000% and I could see 04:48 you just saying okay here it is. 04:50 So it looked for a while that any evil forces or 04:56 negative forces in my life that wanted me to fail had 04:59 me pretty much on a fast freeway to wherever. 05:03 I realized when I got into college, at first I didn't 05:09 know what I wanted to do and then I decided I wanted to 05:11 get into business, because one thing my dad was always 05:14 good at he said if you want to study anything, study 05:17 business and then study whatever you want so that way 05:20 you will at least know how it works and you will be able 05:22 to make good living for yourself and your family. 05:25 And you can develop whatever is? - uh-huh. 05:26 - that's awesome - so I went into that and started 05:29 studying salesmanship, I was at a life insurance company 05:32 and I was calling people on this church directory and 05:35 naturally most of these people knew me growing up and 05:38 being very angry so they weren't ready to invite me into 05:41 their house to talk to their family about what would 05:43 happen if one of them died and try to get them to part 05:46 with their hard-earned money. - exactly and if you 05:48 don't do it right you may die right now. - yeah! 05:51 We may just take care that? - well if something happened to 05:56 you yes so I was looking at this church directory and there 06:01 was one name that stuck out and I saw this face and it 06:05 was a redheaded face with a beard and he had his wife 06:09 and two kids there and his name was Brian Shaw. 06:12 - Oh so that's for Brian comes in. 06:14 I look at the name and thought yet he used to go to my 06:17 church, he goes to a different one now, I should call him 06:19 but I'm going to skip that name and go to a different 06:22 one on the list. 06:23 So I called and did a bunch of other lists and four months 06:26 later finally I just decided I'm going to call this name. 06:29 I don't know why I was scared to call this person, why? 06:33 So I dialed his number and meant talk to him about 15 06:36 minutes, and maybe even five and set up an appointment 06:39 and got off the phone and I talked to him for 45 minutes. 06:42 So you connected right away? Yeah, I thought I had this 06:46 thing in the bag so I set the appointment and came over 06:49 and try to sell him the insurance and I learned about 06:53 emotional intelligence instead. 06:54 I started my journey towards personal development ever 06:58 since. - that's what his passion was. 07:01 It is very rare to find someone whose passion was 07:03 stronger than my own. 07:04 So what did you learn about emotional intelligence because 07:08 you have been dying for that information your whole life. 07:11 Without even knowing it your whole life has been 07:14 wanting to know this. 07:16 And God knew that, praise the Lord because when I was 07:20 getting started and Brian was meeting with me and teaching 07:23 me these principles from the Bible a couple of times 07:26 people would meet with him and take him aside and say 07:29 Brian do not work with David. - he's angry! 07:34 He's angry, probably one of those people who will end up 07:37 killing his mother one day and so yeah but luckily 07:41 so even with you saying that what people don't realize is 07:45 that your anger was tangible. - um hmm. 07:49 So lots of people were just frightened about that? 07:54 - yeah, so luckily Brian duly noted this and listen to 07:58 God and decided to act anyway and he became the first 08:02 of what would be many people who would be very supportive 08:06 of me, listening and understanding my emotions and it 08:09 became a bridge between me and developing 08:12 a relationship with God. - Amen! 08:15 So you know I'm so proud of Brian, and proud that he saw 08:18 that, and proud that he didn't back away from it 08:21 because of his own anger it didn't scare him more than 08:25 likely and we will talk to him about that later. 08:28 But it probably didn't scare you at all and so to me 08:31 what was it like and tell me some of the first things 08:35 that you learned about waking all that stuff up? 08:38 Okay the first thing I realized is that with relationships 08:43 what I had back then was a tit-for-tat thing. 08:46 You would do something, I would do something for you and 08:49 I would expect you to do something for me and it's going 08:51 to be whatever I want it to be and you will do it now. 08:54 It's if you don't then you are a lousy person. 08:56 - And I don't want a relationship with you. 08:59 - I learned that people don't like that very much. 09:03 I was able to watch how Brian interacted with people and 09:07 I was able to go to different churches and watch how other 09:09 people interacted with one another and I got involved with 09:13 community theater and I started to notice the social norms 09:17 with how my family operated, that isn't how other people 09:20 operate, there is another way a better way of living. 09:25 You know I just want to say David, I feel so proud of us 09:29 as Christians, I'm proud of God that no matter where 09:34 we come from, God says I've known you since you were 09:37 a little boy and I know exactly what you need right 09:41 now and that is what I'm going to do. 09:42 Your journey is so much different than mine but I really 09:45 proud of God because I know you need to watch people and 09:48 you need someone to really reach in and spend that time 09:52 and understand where you come from and don't you get 09:55 proud of God that He does all of that for us? 09:58 - I do, I do. - so as you're watching that and realize 10:01 in the social norms you came from are not what is out 10:04 there and you're going to now learn something 10:07 that is going to help you to step into the next 10:10 part of your recovery. 10:11 You must've been a scary time and an exciting time? 10:16 - it was, I was challenged on a lot of issues and one of 10:20 the first issues I was challenged with was the issue of 10:24 this really dark music I was listening to. 10:28 Because the person teaching me, Brian here he knew that 10:31 if I continued to listen to that four to six hours a day 10:35 and continue to try to be angry on a perpetual basis 10:40 I wouldn't be able to listen or learn to become someone 10:44 who had someone best interest in mind. 10:46 - exactly because a lot of the anger is all self 10:50 focused and what he is trying to teach you is to be 10:54 other focused right now. - absolutely! 10:57 There were something I learned in my own recovery is 10:59 that I'm oversensitive and have all these abuse issues 11:03 and somebody said to me is that God created us to be 11:06 oversensitive, to be sensitive to the needs of others 11:09 not of our own, I thought oh stop, because mine 11:13 was always about me. 11:15 So it's like not being able to turn that around a 11:18 little bit and he's saying to break away from that 11:21 stuff so you can get it turned around, dialed in. 11:26 Cool. Awesome so now you're at a place where you're 11:30 starting to cut the music down because that is a 11:34 addiction, high adrenaline, high energy thing. 11:37 It is very addictive. - Well one thing I have noticed 11:41 I very much like freedom and it comes from being rejected 11:45 as a kid and I learned that I have this desire whether 11:48 it is sometimes healthy or sometimes not to be everything 11:52 to myself, so one thing I did was I took all the cd's 11:55 I had, probably several hundred of them and put them all 11:58 in a box and taped the box shut and put it in the trunk 12:02 of my car. - so I still have it. - I still have it 12:04 and can always go back to it if I want to because it's 12:07 right there, but knowing that I could gave me the 12:12 freedom to choose not to as well. 12:14 - exactly and for some of us that has to be the step. 12:18 When someone says, even when I say to somebody is that 12:21 you just have to get rid of that and see the panic in 12:24 their eyes, step back a little bit and take that step. 12:28 Just put it over here for a minute. 12:31 That's why people say with a lot of recovery programs to 12:35 take one day at a time. 12:37 We are not asking you to stay away from whatever has 12:41 got a hold on you for a eternity we are just asking you to 12:43 do right now and do it today. 12:45 - Even for this hour, that's awesome. 12:47 So that was the beginning of your journey. 12:51 - it was - that's awesome so now with that being cut out 12:56 your free to feel something other than anger? - yes. 13:02 But that is new too, so how does that feel? 13:05 Well it felt wonderful, he loaned me books on business, 13:09 Christian leadership of John C. Maxwell and different 13:13 authors like that and I went to a seminar, a man named 13:16 Leo Screven came up and did an All Power Seminar 13:18 and I attended that. 13:20 I love Leo, he's a good friend of mine. 13:22 So I started paying attention to all the sources of 13:25 wisdom and knowledge and just became acknowledged junkie. 13:30 Almost a sponge? - yes. 13:32 Can you remember, and this is something I remember in my 13:36 own recovery, can you remember the first time that you 13:39 laughed and it was an honest laugh in this part of your 13:43 journey? Did you just feel like oh? 13:45 I compensated with laughter for many reasons so I always used 13:51 laughter, it was always genuine. 13:53 An issue I had my house with my mom with her Aspergers 13:56 I would make a joke and she would be so oversensitive 13:59 and unable to understand that it was joke and would take 14:01 offense at everything I said. 14:02 So I had to find other places where to use humor. 14:06 That was never really an issue for me looking for genuine 14:10 laughter. - okay so now that you are starting to look at 14:14 the business thing and starting to get your legs underneath you 14:17 as far as the music with the 6 hours a day, the music is 14:21 releasing you and even opening up time which is amazing. 14:25 When people talk about addictions, like even the social 14:29 network addictions, or whatever addiction is that we spend 14:33 a large amount of time on those addictions 14:35 and when we get that freed up, what do you do with it? 14:39 You've gotten some business stuff, you're starting to 14:42 get your passion about that? 14:44 I'm starting to get my passion yeah, one thing 14:46 I had put on the back burner and completely 14:48 forgot about was writing. 14:49 I wrote stories when I was in first grade, 14:52 I was homeschooled and I wrote a story that I entered 14:55 into a contest run by PBS and I won it for 14:57 my state, for my grade. 14:59 - so you loved to write? - I love to write and then 15:02 through 3-5 grade I wrote two more books probably 15:05 about 30 pages long, not really big but they were 15:07 volunteer work and I was doing it because I loved it. 15:10 And then there was a dark time in my life when I went to 15:13 middle school and I was unprepared and didn't understand 15:16 social relationships so I tried to become stronger and 15:20 looking tough and more capable of generating fear in 15:24 other people so I could survive. 15:25 I can see you doing that yeah. 15:26 So I forgot about writing and took this idea of turning 15:29 these principles into a book that reawakened that desire. 15:34 So now I want you to talk about the whole principle and 15:39 looking at socially how people do. 15:42 What about that first thing that David talked about, that 15:46 trust? What did that look like in your life as you got 15:49 a hold of that I need to start? 15:52 Yeah, so there are three things that I learned from the 15:56 very first day, and even today I'm still working on them. 15:59 They are having integrity, having other people's best 16:03 interest in mind, and getting the job done. 16:06 I had integrity to a reasonable degree. 16:09 And I ended up getting the job done because that was what 16:12 my parents cared about the most. 16:13 But having other people's best interest in mind, now that 16:16 was an issue because it was pretty much nonexistent in my 16:19 household, so I didn't understand that that was a 16:22 component trust and when that was being violated, 16:25 I knew I was being violated, I knew there is something 16:28 wrong, but I had no way to express it because the people 16:31 to whom I would have to express it had no concept of it. 16:34 So I would be frustrated at not know why and think it was 16:37 wrong with me, but thank God I was able to learn about 16:40 these principles and I learned to know there is nothing 16:43 wrong with me, at least not in that aspect. 16:46 Having other people's best interest in mind is a 16:50 legitimate need and everybody including you David 16:53 has needs in other people. 16:55 I have to just say most people in recovery we are so self 17:04 focused, incredibly self focused. 17:07 So can you give us a little bit of a step, how do you go 17:14 from self focused to turning out and really caring about 17:18 the heart of the person in front of you, or the life of 17:23 the person in front of you? 17:24 Just having healthy relation- ships around you, watching 17:29 other people around you put aside their needs for a little 17:32 while to pay attention to you and knowing that those needs 17:36 are going to be met in the future. 17:38 Just because you set them down for a second, no one is 17:41 going to run away and grab them and you are going to see 17:44 those needs again if you care about them that much 17:47 they are not going to go away. 17:48 Exactly! And to me what a gift to even say this out loud 17:53 and being able to say to put them down for a moment and 17:56 know that they are just as important, but right now 17:59 I'm going to care for the person in front of me and they 18:02 are going to be everything right now in this moment I want 18:05 them to know that I care about your passion and 18:07 your needs and your dreams. 18:09 What we can do for each other that is a gift and being 18:12 able to like what you and Brian have talked about is 18:16 making that three people at first, not just everybody, 18:19 three people and then add a different level the 12, 18:22 and then a different level the 70. 18:24 But for these three people in my life I want to be so 18:28 involved in their lives that they know that I know who 18:33 they are, I see them. You know what I mean? 18:35 That is awesome. To me as you are talking of where 18:40 you grew up in the home you grew up this is incredible 18:43 it's almost like somebody put you on life support for 18:46 a moment and taught you this. You know what I mean? 18:49 Healing and that is huge. - will there is a reason that 18:52 these type or relationships are called lifeline 18:55 relationships, they are met to sustain you. 18:58 They are meant to pick you up when you are feeling down. 19:01 - exactly, and change everything. 19:03 What's really incredible about this kind of healing, 19:08 what you and Brian have put together is that if I can get 19:13 that, when I turn around to get my thing back, 19:17 when I pick it up because you said you set it aside and 19:20 look at a person in front of you. 19:21 But when I turn around and pick it up again it's more 19:25 substantial, because I've grown a little bit by being 19:28 able to connect with this person. 19:30 So my interest, my passions, my dreams actually become 19:35 more real because my relationships are more real so 19:40 it all goes together after a while. 19:42 There's a story that I would like to talk to about. 19:45 I basically took the Harvard business school version of 19:48 learning how to put aside my needs for a moment. 19:52 My mom came back from a mission trip teaching English in 19:56 South Korea, which was her first time overseas and it was 19:58 very exciting for her, but she came back in a wheelchair. 20:02 She had Lou Gehrig's disease which is a terminal illness 20:05 where the body painfully and slowly shuts down. 20:08 Starting with the fingers and working its way to the lungs 20:10 until you die. - wow, wow! - My mom didn't want 20:15 anyone to know that she was sick for a while and didn't 20:18 want to have anyone else help her so what I ended up 20:21 doing was that put aside my schooling and stopped the 20:25 business I was involved in and I spent my time learning 20:28 how to take care of her. 20:30 So I didn't have a nursing degree and I was scared of the 20:33 idea of doing nursing as a profession but I had to learn 20:37 how to take care of people outside of school and really 20:40 learn how to spend all my time with this woman 20:42 who brought me into this world and I spent six months. 20:45 - you still love her and was going through 20:48 this process with her. 20:49 Yeah and I was in real estate at the time and I had 20:52 made my first and last sale after about month six which 20:54 was the sale of my childhood home to pay for the 20:57 medical care that she needed and she was able to 20:59 rely on that for the rest of her life. 21:01 Wow to me I can't imagine, I really can see how God 21:08 used that to you outside of yourself but I can't imagine 21:11 emotionally, you'd then felt everything from joy to 21:15 despair. - Um Hmm. - during that time. 21:19 Did she survive, is she still alive? 21:22 No she's not, she died two weeks before her 60th birthday 21:27 in 2009. - Wow - and I had already bought a plane ticket 21:32 to come up and visit her and all I was going to do was 21:33 finish my final exams and go up and she died before my final 21:38 exams were completed. 21:39 I'm sorry about your mom, I'm thrilled that you were in 21:44 a place where you can care for her and that you could 21:47 go in and put things aside and just so you know what, 21:51 I'm actually here for you in whatever you need during 21:54 this time. That is incredible. 21:57 It wasn't easy, it was one of the most difficult 21:59 experiences in my life, but I am glad I went through it now. 22:01 It changed you? -Um Hmmm. 22:03 What's really for a lot of us is that we think that as 22:09 we learn these things and we come into healing as 22:12 we figure it out that everything is going to work out but 22:15 life still happens, tragedy still happens but we have 22:18 tools that grow us during those tragedies. 22:23 So tell me more about your journey? 22:29 I mean the journey with your parents it sounds like you were 22:35 able to resolve some of that anger stuff and during the 22:39 time you cared for her in the last part of her life being 22:43 able to resolve some of that and understand her at a 22:46 different level. - it was, there were a couple times were we came 22:50 a head because she had trouble understanding 22:52 emotions and she was relying on me not as her 3 or her 22:57 12 but as her 1 and 1 and so she had a lot of needs and 23:03 only need to meet them. 23:05 One thing that was great about her is that she read her 23:07 Bible every day, she prayed and she made a dramatic 23:10 transformation in her life and she became much more 23:13 peaceful and she was going through these last several 23:15 months then when I seen her when she was well. 23:17 Well, so you got to see that. 23:19 I'm going to go him take a break and then bring Brian 23:23 backup so that we can close this out with the two of you 23:27 because I got a really good sense of your journey and 23:31 I am so, I don't know if it's appropriate for me to say 23:35 I'm so proud of you, but the things you have looked at 23:38 and the things that you have confronted and the steps 23:42 you have made, how cool is that? 23:44 I just want to say praise God for that, you could have 23:47 said no along the way, you could set I'm not put many 23:50 music aside, I'm not looking at any of this stuff but 23:53 you didn't you said yes to all of it. 23:55 And in our recovery the only way we are going to get 23:58 healing and recovery is when we start saying yes, even 24:01 against the things that we know have worked in our life. 24:04 I'm proud of you that you did that. We're going ahead 24:06 and take a break and I want to bring Brian back up and 24:11 have a sense of how all this fit in and how they are 24:14 helping people stand up and hopefully somebody is 24:18 listening and you hear the fact that when you start 24:21 saying you want to change God will put things in place 24:24 that will just wow you, absolutely wow you. 24:27 Be right back, stay with us! |
Revised 2014-12-17