Rules realignment

Right now, begin to take control of your rules by writing down your answers to the following questions. Make your answers as thorough as possible.

1. What does it take for you to feel successful?

2. What does it take for you to feel loved—by your kids, by your spouse, by your parents, and by whoever else is important to you?

3. What does it take for you to feel confident?

4. What does it take for you to feel you are excellent in any area of your life?

Now look at these rules and ask yourself, " Are they appropriate? Have I made it really hard to feel good and easy to feel bad? " Do you have 129 things that must happen before you feel loved? Does it take only one or two things to make you feel rejected?

If that's true, change your criteria and come up with rules that empower you. What do your rules need to be in order for you to be happy and successful in this endeavor? Here's a critical distinction: design your rules so that you're in control, so that the outside world is not what determines whether you feel good or bad. Set it up so that it's incredibly easy for you to feel good, and incredibly hard to feel bad.

For the rules that govern your moving-toward values, use the phrase " Anytime I..." In other words, create a menu of possibilities of ways to feel good. For example, " I feel love anytime I give love, or anytime I spend time with people I love, or anytime I smile at someone new, or anytime I talk with an old friend, or anytime I notice someone doing something nice for me, or anytime I appreciate those who already love me." Do you notice what you've done? You've made the game winnable by stacking the deck outrageously in your favor!

Come up with tons of ways to satisfy your rules for feeling love; make it incredibly easy to experience that pleasure, and make sure to include plenty of criteria that are under your sole control, so you don't have to depend on anyone or anything else to feel good. Any time you do any of these things, you would feel love—not just by meeting some outlandish[155] criterion that only occurred about as often as a total eclipse of the sun! By the way, I have a rule for you: while you're doing this, you must have fun! Get outrageous; explore the outer edges. You've been using rules all your life to hold you back; why not get a few laughs at their expense? Maybe in order to feel love, all you have to do is wiggle your little toe. It sounds weird[156], but who am I to decide what gives you pleasure?

Now, be sure to discover the rules of the people around you. Go out and do some polling. Find out what your kids' rules are for being a family member, or for being successful in school, or for having fun. I bet you'll be amazed at what you discover! Find out your spouse's rules; ask your parents; ask your boss or your employees. One thing is sure: if you don't know the rules, you're guaranteed to lose because you're bound to violate them sooner or later. But if you understand people's rules, you can predict their behavior; you can truly meet their needs and thus enrich the quality of your relationships. Remember, the most empowering rule is to enjoy yourself no matter what happens.

In the past few chapters we've nearly completed learning about the five elements of the Master System. We know the importance of state, the way questions direct our focus and evaluations, and the power of values and rules to shape our lives. Now let's discover the fabric from which all these elements are cut...

REFERENCES: THE FABRIC OF LIFE

" Man's mind stretched to a new idea never goes back to its original dimensions."

OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES

As he stood on the flight deck, the young lieutenant watched a jet plane skid out of control onto the aircraft carrier, a wing slashing[157] out and nearly cutting in half a man standing only a few feet away. The only thing that pulled him through the horror of the moment was the booming voice of his commanding officer shouting at him: " Somebody get a broom[158], and sweep these guts off the deck! " There was no time to think.

He had to respond immediately. He and his fellow crewmen swept their comrade[159]'s body parts off the landing strip. In that instant, nineteen-year- old George Bush had no choice but to learn to deal with the carnage of war. It would be a memory he would recite often to describe the shock of violent death and the necessity to be able to respond.

Another experience that shaped his life was a bombing mission he flew not long after the tragedy on the ship's deck. He was sent to bomb a radio tower on a small island in the South Pacific. Chichi Jima was a Prisoner of War facility run by an infamous Japanese officer, Matoba, who Bush and his crew knew had committed brutal war crimes against his prisoners: such unbelievable atrocities[160] as cannibalizing some of the men and putting their remains into the soup for meat, feeding it to the other prisoners, and then telling them afterward that they had eaten human flesh.

As young George Bush approached the target, he was absolutely resolved to isolate this madman by destroying his only tool of communication: the radio tower. As he approached his bombing run, he was hit by enemy attack. Smoke filled the cabin, but he was determined to hit his mark. In the final seconds, he managed to release the bomb, smashing the target and destroying the antenna. Instantly he gave the orders to eject. He turned the plane back out to sea, and when his turn came, the bailout didn't take place as planned. His body was slammed against the tail of the aircraft, tearing a portion of his parachute and grazing[161] his head.

The damaged parachute functioned only partially in breaking his fall, but just before he hit the water, he cut himself loose. Struggling back to the surface with blood oozing[162] from his head wound, he desperately groped[163] for his life raft. He found it, but as he dragged himself into it, he saw that

the water and food canisters had been destroyed upon impact with the aircraft's tail.

To make matters worse, the current was slowly pulling him directly toward the beach of the island he'd just bombed. Can you imagine what they would do to him? As his raft was drawn closer and closer to the shore, his fear grew. Then, suddenly, he began to see something in the water. At first he thought it was his imagination, then he realized it was a periscope. He was about to become a prisoner of the Japanese.

But as the huge submarine began to lift out of the water in front of him, he realized it was the Finback, an American submarine! He was rescued, but only in time for him to have to endure yet more peril[164]. Upon picking up Bush, the Finback dropped quickly as the enemy boats approached and began dropping depth charges on the submarine. All the Finback could do was dive and remain totally still. The crew was unable to do anything but call upon their faith and pray that the explosives would not destroy them.

George Bush not only survived this experience, but also completed many other successful bombing missions, and returned a war hero. He said that his days upon that submarine were some of the most important of his life—days when he began to think about destiny, about who he was and why he was put on earth.

What role did these experiences play in shaping the character, identity, and destiny of George Bush? Clearly, they became the fabric from which many of his core beliefs and values would be cut—the fabric I call reference experiences—these experiences would be part of what would guide him more than forty years later to becoming President of the United States. They also helped to mold his beliefs and his sense of certainty that good must " stand up to evil." They gave him a sense of confidence that if he gave his all and didn't give up, he would produce the results he desired against all odds. How do you think these references shaped his actions almost five decades later as he sat in the Oval Office, contemplating his response to Saddam Hussein's unprovoked invasion of friendly Kuwait?

If we want to understand why people do what they do, a review of the most significant and impactful reference experiences of their lives certainly gives us clues. References—the fifth element of a person's Master System—really provide the essence, or the building blocks, for our beliefs, rules, and values. They are the clay from which our Master System is molded. There is no doubt that a person who has experienced and triumphed over tremendous adversity clearly has strong references from which to build a consistent level of confidence—a belief or faith in themselves and in others, and the capacity to overcome challenges.

The larger the number and greater the quality of our references, the greater our potential level of choices. A larger number and greater quality of references enables us to more effectively evaluate what things mean and what we can do. The reason I say " potential" choice is that, while references provide us with the foundational ingredients of our beliefs, we often fail to organize our references in ways that strengthen us. For example, a young man may have tremendous confidence and skill on the football field, but when he enters his history class, he may fail to summon that same sense of certainty that could help him to maximize his potential as well in the classroom as he does when he's facing his foe across the line on the gridiron. If he approached football with the same attitude of defeat or doubt as he did his history class, he'd be incredibly ineffective.

What determines which of our references we use? Clearly, the emotional state we're in will radically impact which files—i.e., which memories, emotions, feelings, sensations that we've stored—are available to us. When we're in a fearful state, only the references we've associated with those fearful sensations in the past seem to come to mind, and we find ourselves caught up in a loop (" fear" leading to " reference of fear" leading to " multiplied fear").

If we're feeling hurt by someone, we tend to open the file and remember every other experience when that person hurt us, rather than changing our state by remembering how this person really feels about us, remembering times when they've been loving to us. Therefore, the state we're in will determine how much of this fabric is available for the creation of a quality life. Another factor besides state is to have an expanded reference system, one that can clearly add to our level of understanding as to what is possible and what we're capable of, no matter what challenges may arise.

There's no doubt references are one of the most important elements of our decision-making process. They clearly will shape not only what we do, but how we feel and who we become. Contrast Saddam Hussein's reference experiences with George Bush's. We know that Saddam's father physically abused him, that his uncle taught him how to nurture a grudge[165] and to hate the English " overlords." While Bush was rewarded for heroism, Saddam's role models were those who learned to control others with murder and propaganda.

Over a period of about fifteen to twenty years, Saddam repeatedly attempted to oust[166] the leader of Iraq, killing anyone who got in his way. As a result, he doesn't perceive setbacks, regardless of how bloody—as failures; he's come to believe that in the long run he'll always succeed.

This is a belief, by the way, that has allowed him to prevail even after his defeat in the Persian Gulf War. By the age of forty-two he had eliminated his opponents and taken control of Iraq. To many, Saddam is a monster, and people often wonder how the Iraqis can support him. The answer is that Iraqis perceive Saddam Hussein as one who helped turn things around in their country: he helped to

provide better housing, education, and so on. To the Iraqis, he is a hero. Besides, all Iraqis from the age of four or five are taught that he's a hero. His image is displayed everywhere, and they see only his best side on nationally controlled television.

Did Saddam Hussein become a murderer purely because of his references of being abused as a child? Far from it. Many people have emerged from very similar reference experiences as compassionate and

sensitive people who, because of their pain, would never allow anyone else to be abused around them. Many of these people strive to help others. Could someone else have been on that same ship with George Bush and been devastated by the death of their friend, and used that as a reference for the belief that life is not worth living or that war is never justified? You bet. Once again, it's not our references, but our interpretations of them, the way we organize them—that clearly determine

our beliefs.

Which references play the largest role in our life's experiences? It all depends on what we get reinforced for. Saddam was rewarded for cutting a wide swath of murder and destruction en route to leadership of his country. George Bush was reinforced constantly for his focus on " doing the right thing, " contributing, and helping those in need. These reinforcements helped to create foundations for very different destinies for these men's lives.