Life Code: The New Rules for Winning in the Real World (2 page)

“Better to be awakened by a painful truth than lulled to sleep by a seductive lie.”

—Dr. Phil McGraw

Have you ever sat around and wondered how and why someone who you are certain does not have your brains, personality, value system, work ethic, commitment, motivation, or skills often seems to wind up at the top of the heap—while you’re stuck in the middle, or even the bottom? Or are you baffled by how your best friend always seems to get all of the attention—while you stand on the sidelines? Or are you amazed by how your sister always manages to end up with the good-looking, popular guy—when you wish he had chosen you instead? Or do you wonder why, after you’ve had an argument with someone, you’re inevitably the one who always feels guilty and apologizes when you know,
I mean really know
, that you did nothing wrong?

Worse still, have you wondered why that guy in the next cubicle, who you
know
to be a backstabbing, brown-nosing, manipulating, “sycophant suck-up,” got the promotion or credit that
you
deserved? Or why you get taken advantage of and flat-out betrayed by the very people you trusted and
thought
were your friends and allies? Or why your child is always the one getting bullied at school? Or why someone suckered you, once again, by selling you something you didn’t need, at a price you couldn’t afford, or by borrowing (taking) your hard-earned money with some sob story and never paying it back? Or why you lost your husband to someone everyone
but
your husband (duh!) knows to be a scheming gold digger? Worst of all, do you ever wonder why people get away with lying, stealing, cheating, or emotionally or physically abusing someone you know and love, or even
you
?

Whether these things happen to you or to someone you care about, you can change
all
of it. Seriously, you can. I’ll tell you right now, one goal of this book is for you to stop being victimized and start being “victim-wise!”

If you have had any (or all) of the thoughts I began this chapter with—and I think we all have at one time or another—your “questions,” your “wonderings,” were very likely statements of frustration and complaint more than they were actual queries. But they
should
be real questions, because they have
real
answers
. Answers I’m going to give you. I’m going to tell you the “unvarnished” truth about how and why these things happen to you or those you love so deeply. I’m going to tell you with the honesty and clarity that you have come to expect from me. I’m going to give you the straight truth, nothing less, because knowledge is power, and you can use that power to change the
rest
of your life. Notice I said “the
rest
of your life.” I’m a pragmatist; I only want to talk about what you have a chance to change, because that’s the only part you should put energy into. It doesn’t do any good to just sit around being upset about it if you don’t make the effort to figure out what, how, and why it happened. You can be madder than the snake that married the garden hose, but that won’t change reality. To do that, you have to get street-smart savvy and recognize that the world rewards
action
.

I want you to learn the actions required to get
and keep
what you want in your life, for yourself and those you love. I want you to learn the new “Life Code”
and have a crystal-clear view of how the world
really
works. It all begins with you surrounding yourself with the right people—the good and authentic people—and “unsurrounding” yourself with the wrong people. And we both know there are plenty of
wrong
people in this world. I guess a lot of things in life boil down to the war of good versus evil, and your life and mine are often the battleground. Edmund Burke said, “In order for evil to flourish, all that is required is for good men to do nothing.” By the end of this book, I think you will be much better prepared to do “something”—to fight to procure and protect what you value and, if you are a parent, to prepare your children to self-protect when they go out into this “full-contact” world.

Okay, enough generalities. Let’s get very real about the world we live in and the challenges and obstacles we all have to contend with and overcome.

I made a threshold decision as I began working on this book. I cannot do it, or you, justice if I’m not willing to share some very personal thoughts, beliefs, values, and heretofore distinctly private experiences. That needs to start right now, so here are some critical truths I have come to understand about me and my very personal point of view as I go about living in this contemporary world: I love life, but not everything in it. I love people, but not all of them. I love myself, but not everything about me. There is a dark side to most things in this world, including life, people, and self, and it is pivotally important to “light up” that dark side and understand those who are controlled by it. It is time to take away the mystery and overcome the denial of its existence, even its existence within ourselves. Understand when I say “dark side,” I’m not necessarily talking about “evil” in the spiritual sense, at least not
just
in the spiritual sense. Life experiences, mental illness, drugs, greed, environment, and poor role-modeling can all forge damaged people and can generate a darkness, an exploitiveness, in the way they approach life. Whatever their genesis, there are people in your life (and mine) who will hurt you if you let them.

Firstly, I want to show you how you can protect yourself from getting hurt by the damaged and dangerous people lurking around the corner. Hurt by people who live on the dark side, dispense pain as a matter of course, and never shed a tear or give a second thought to how they have victimized you—and may even brag about it. You know I’m right; there are some bad people in this world and in all of our lives.

Secondly, as I said earlier, I plan to give you this new “Life Code,”
which is defined by new or, in some cases, improved awareness, skills, and attitudes, not just for surviving, but also for winning and winning
big
. This “Life Code” is not just for
getting
what you want but also for
keeping
what you have worked so hard for, including material things and, even more importantly, a fulfilling and peaceful life. There are endless opportunities and possibilities in our current world, and I hope you’re as passionate and excited about those opportunities as I am.

We really do live in exciting times! But for some reason, our society teaches us things like how to read, how to add and subtract, what chemicals make up what substances, who was President over the past 200+ years, and a lot of other facts—but
not
how to win and
not
how to effectively get
and
keep what you want for yourself and your family. Most people in America have a high-school education, but I have not found many curricula that focus on human nature and why we do what we do and don’t do what we don’t do. You see, those are different skills, skills that require finesse, and are sometimes much harder to describe and teach than a factual formula, for example. But you need this information; we all do. Just because it’s hard to articulate doesn’t make it any less critical to have.

I have spent my professional and personal life studying exactly that and specifically studying success and how to not only have it but how to sustain it. Analyzing what it takes to win and win big in life has been a passion that has defined much of who I am. I have had so much fun doing this that I’m bursting to share it with you. By learning and applying this new “Life Code,”
you will not believe how your life can and will change.

Think about it: If you take flying lessons, you can learn to fly; swimming lessons, you can learn to swim; singing lessons, you can learn to sing. So, why not take winning lessons? Why not figure out what to think, feel, and do in order to get what you want for yourself and your family? We live in a different world, and it requires different skills and knowledge than it did even ten years ago. At the risk of sounding cocky, if you read this book and others don’t, you are going to have a huge “leg up” on the competition. They will be either embracing a mind-set that no longer fits our fast-paced, changing world or, more likely, just passively accepting whatever comes their way, maybe good, maybe bad. You, on the other hand, are going to have a well-thought-out, passion-fueled strategy built on the skills and confidence that stem from rolling up your sleeves and learning what others simply don’t know.

You have to start by getting very “real” about who you are, including your strengths and weaknesses,
and
getting real about how the world
really
works, both the good and the bad. And it’s a rapidly changing world, so it takes commitment to keep up.

Some experts estimate that we at least double our knowledge base every two years! Technology is the best example. When I was in high school, I had barely even heard of a computer; now we can’t live without them. I used rotary-dial phones, not cell phones. I never saw
Pong
until college, let alone video games! Kids weren’t one click away from a bottomless pit of pornography and didn’t interact with strangers in some “chat room” on the World Wide Web. Much of what your parents told you about the world simply doesn’t apply anymore or just won’t cut it in this day and time, not because they wanted to mislead you but because it has radically changed since you left the nest. Back then, there was no Internet pounding on you, no transient lifestyle destroying your neighborhood lifestyle, no cable television bombarding you with glamorized sex and violence—and there were, at least seemingly, fewer scammers and exploiters out there seeking to take advantage. You didn’t have all of those influences and factors to contend with, but you do now and, of critical importance, so do your children. Soooo, let’s get current. Let’s get tuned in to what it
does
take in this day and time to build the life you want.

It isn’t just knowledge or technology that has changed. Yesterday’s rules and expectations about relationships, emotions, and interacting simply don’t apply anymore, at least not like they once did, and those who figure that out and adapt to the current world will have an incredible edge. There are all kinds of people in this world, ranging from the sheltered, naïve, “goody two-shoes” neophytes to the street-smart, savvy, worldly people who are tough and smart. I want that to be you. I want you to be tough and smart when you need to be.

I’ve lived on both sides of that dichotomy, and trust me, being smart and tough is better, way better. But I’m so excited about “powering you up” that I’m getting ahead of myself. Power begins with having a crystal-clear view of reality and what each and every person in your life is driven by. That will take a bit of a “wake-up” call because we typically choose to be blind to such things as why people do what they do. For some reason, it just seems to be human nature to choose to take people at face value. Yes, that blindness is a choice. You might be wearing rose-colored glasses that are distorting your view of what’s really happening around you and to you.

So, let’s “wake up” and get really clear and up-to-date about an element of society we don’t like to think about and wish didn’t exist. I’m talking about the people in your life who are negative and exploitive. They are obstacles to your success, happiness, security, and peace of mind. Once you “get” how they think, feel, and act, they become a puzzle that is easily solved. You should know that many people advised me against writing this part of the book, saying that it was too negative and that people don’t really want to face the truth or deal with the ugly side of life. Obviously, I said, “Wrong! I’m not writing to a bunch of mouth-breathers here! Do not underestimate my readers, my supporters, my viewers. We have been getting real together for 15 years, and they
do
want the truth; they do want to know what I know about their world!” It might shock you, it might even horrify you, but most importantly, this knowledge will empower you.

Ask yourself these questions: Do you crave routine? Are you so used to doing, speaking, and thinking the same things day in and day out that you feel, quite literally, like someone else is at the controls and you’re just a passenger? I’m here to tell you that there can be real danger in routine. We can become such creatures of habit that we go on “automatic pilot” and stop paying close attention to our world. It can seem like a harmless rhythm of life, but
not
paying attention is
never
harmless. We get lulled to sleep by the routine of repetition and predictability. We get bored, get dull, and lose our emotional edge and sensitivity, if we ever had it, and in so doing we can put ourselves and those we love in danger—danger of being preyed upon by those in our lives who are more than happy to swoop in or “seep” in and take what isn’t theirs, wreak havoc in our lives, and cause pain. We fall into a stupor of unthinking, an innocent or unmindful trance where we don’t react to warning signs, or even clear and present dangers.