Have you seen the t-shirt that says “I’m twisted not broken. Don’t try to fix me.”

That’s what I thought of when I read what Wayne Nance’s book Thin, Rich, and Happy. He says that people need to know who they are to be able to understand what they do. I agree that it is helpful to have some self-reflective insight. However, he goes on to claim that people have fixed “attitudes” that determine how they respond. Here I call bullshit. (I’m starting to get the hang of this confrontational thing!) I agree that people have default ways of responding to situations but the default is not universal — it is very dependent on the situation!

He has a quick profile in the book. (This is where I was heading with my profile post last night.) It is fairly insightful for being a 3-minute profile. Although the results, like most of the profiles, depend on your self image when you answer. Using your results you are supposed to work around why you may be fat, broke, and/or divorced. Unfortunately for Nance (and fortunately for me) my results came out fairly balanced and I fell outside the scope of most of his advice.

I did read far enough to catch his rant about the connotations of “change.” He feels that people hear change and imagine a “180 degree turn.” I disagree with his projection, but I did take his intention to heart. Watch for a renewed emphasis on the synergistic effects of simple changes.

I can’t fix anyone because people aren’t broken
— they are just stuck in bad patterns.

What will it take to get you unstuck so you can be thin, rich, happy, etc?