Life Code: The New Rules for Winning in the Real World (3 page)
Read Life Code: The New Rules for Winning in the Real World Online
Authors: Phil McGraw
The common mugger on the dark street at night is a good example of how shuffling along on “auto pilot” can land you in trouble. Does he choose the sharp, alert, strong-looking man or woman who has a presence and is glancing around with a keen alertness? Or does he pick the person walking head down, tuned out, and just going through the motions? We can and do get “mugged” in life just as we can get mugged on the street if we shuffle along. Those from the dark side seek the gullible, the trusting, or the inattentive. Almost all of the Internet scams, for example, target the elderly, the lonely, the desperate. They hunt in the neophyte end of the continuum, so if that is where you exist, you may well be getting hunted as we speak.
I wish I had written this book a long time ago. I didn’t, though I should have. I’m writing this book now to create an “urgent awareness” within you and a plan to activate it in your life, starting right now. I hope that when you finish this book, you will feel a sense of personal peace and power based on a greater emotional and social competency that makes you anything but an easy target for those who come at you from the dark side. I hope that you feel awake, alert, in-tune, and like you’re in the driver’s seat as you implement the new “Life Code” in every area of your world.
In spite of all of my extensive and, I think, excellent training, there was a time when I really didn’t understand or confront how the world truly worked. I knew how it appeared to work. I learned the traditional lessons about the hydraulics of our lives: Work hard and be rewarded; keep your nose to the grindstone; be honest and loyal; be patient and caring and giving because good things come to those who wait; trust in human nature and give your fellow man the benefit of the doubt; and 1,000 other virtues framed and presented as “good qualities.” It all makes for a great story, and as a self-confessed “incurable optimist,” I believe in “goodness and light.” But sadly, that story is changing, and there is more to it, much more, and the whole story rarely gets told.
The part of the story that needs more telling is the part that alerts us to the fact that embracing those good and wholesome values and qualities, without some major and urgent awareness, can set us up to be abused, exploited, and left in life’s “dust.” It’s part of the story that takes away naïveté and prepares us for a darker side of human nature. It can even be found at our highest levels of academic learning. The leading business schools in the leading universities teach how the banking and financial market systems work (or are supposed to work), but they sure didn’t teach how to spot and appropriately deal with self-dealing by major banks and Wall Street firms. That would have been a valuable class!
When you get right down to it, I fear that only some of what I was taught is true all of time, some of it is true some of the time, and some of it isn’t true any of the time! The real truth is that much of what we were all taught is not so much how the world
really
works as it is how the world
should
work. In other words, it’s how things should be done in “polite” society if everyone has a clear moral compass. But even if the values taught are true and just, and many are, you must be a realist. Be prepared for when those desirable values and beliefs are violated by those who have no moral compass, ignore basic values, and seek to exploit. We need to talk about what
really
happens in marriage, work, society, politics, and even religion. There’s an old saying my football coaches used to tell us: “BS the fans, not the players!” I want you to become a player.
The real truth is that much of what we were all taught is not so much how the world
really
works as it is how the world
should
work.
I say “player” because so much of life is a competition. You may wish it wasn’t, but it is. It becomes pretty clear if you step back and evaluate it. You competed for your mate, your job, your social position, and your friends. You worked hard to create a family, make a home, and maybe build up a nice little “nest egg.” And now you have to fight to protect those things. It seems like we spend the first half of our lives trying to get ahead, creating some stability and building our success, and then we spend the second half just trying to keep people from taking it all away from us. And some of that fight is against people who aren’t like you. They will lie, cheat, steal, use, and abuse. They will bully you, molest your children, steal your husband or wife, and take credit for your work. They will sabotage you at every turn. And by the way, they aren’t coming; they’re already here! They’re in your life and mine, maybe even in your own home or family.
My spiritual upbringing taught me to pray for the misguided people in my life, and I always have and always will, and I hope you do the same for those in your life.
But
(and this is a big
but
) praying for them does not mean that we—you and I—shouldn’t also protect ourselves and those we love from them. In fact, it’s our duty to self-protect because, true to their reptilian nature, these people, like snakes, will inject their venom into us (if not destroy us) without flinching. We must open our eyes to the “games” they play and boldly confront this very negative and unsavory part of our world.
In fact, it’s our duty to self-protect because, true to their reptilian nature, these people, like snakes, will inject their venom into us (if not destroy us) without flinching.
In the following chapters, I’m going to tell you how to spot them and neutralize them so you are inoculated against their attacks and how to win this competition for whatever it is that you are fighting. If you think I’m just a cynic; if you’re not interested in getting real and acknowledging that there are some truly bad people out there, committing to protecting yourself and your loved ones, and preserving what you earned and value and seek in life; if you want to be average; if you want to sit in the middle of the bell curve and “receive” rather than “create” what comes your way and hope that nobody takes it away from you—then you can stop reading right now, because this book is not for you.
Here is my hope and my promise: I
hope
you let me give you a powerful edge in your life by being willing to learn how you can steel yourself against the dark side of this life and the people who would do you harm. I
hope
you are willing to learn that some of the lessons you’ve been taught about how to get ahead in this life or find true peace are myths; they are just crocks, plain and simple. We will challenge many timeworn beliefs, and if they withstand challenge, then fine, hang on tight. But if they don’t, be prepared to hit the eject button and radically change what you think, feel, believe, and do. I
hope
you power up and start more proactively creating what you want and deserve in this life. And I
promise
that if you do, your head will rest easier on the pillow at night, because you will know that a savvy player (you) stands in the gap, protecting you and your family. Knowledge is power, and I’m offering you some of both right now. “The truth will set you free.” I believe that, even if it’s, in part, an ugly truth or includes things you don’t
want
to hear. A great attitude for reading
Life Code
is: “Sorry to hear it, but
glad
to know it!”
Oh, and before we go on, let’s get one more thing out of the way. If bad things are happening to you or someone you love, those things are not a result of bad luck. I’m not a big believer in luck. I believe the harder you work, the luckier you get! I don’t too much believe in accidents either. For the most part, accidents happen because someone—in my life it’s usually me—had to do something stupid, wrong, or careless to enable the “accident” to occur.
I’ve been a pilot for 40+ years, and during a portion of my career I was involved in accident investigation, especially scheduled airlines. I quickly learned that when a plane crashes, somewhere along the line, somebody had to do something wrong. If everybody did exactly what they were supposed to do, exactly the way they were supposed to do it, 99.9999 percent of the time the plane would not have crashed. Maybe the pilot ignored a bad weather alert. Maybe a mechanic performed a sloppy maintenance check and missed a tiny leak in the hydraulic valve that controls the rudder. Maybe the flight controller was inattentive at the radarscope. And how many car “accidents” result from drivers who are texting at the wheel? Or running a red light? Or simply driving under the influence?
Knowledge is power, and I’m offering you some of both right now.
It’s no different in interpersonal relationships, whether personal or professional. When you break it down, it’s usually not “bad luck.” It’s not some kind of accident when you get passed over at work, your spouse makes a decision to have an affair (most certainly not your fault, but maybe at least foreseeable if they cheated in their previous three relationships, for example), or you get “screwed” in a business deal. Some people “lose” or come out on the short end because they don’t know how the game of life is really played. They don’t know, for example, just how low some people can go or how dark they can get.
It is ugly but true that some people, a lot of people, “win” just because they play the game of life according to a different set of rules or no rules at all, and they are very skilled at it. And I’ll tell you something else: Simply put, many times those “winners” cheat! They cheat to win, at your expense. On the playground we hear children say “Cheaters never win, and winners never cheat!” Yeah, right! That is the chant of an innocent child. Leave it on the playground, because “that dog don’t hunt,” as we say in Texas—not in the real world it doesn’t.
B
Backstabbers
A
Abusers
I
Imposters
T
Takers
E
Exploiters
R
Reckless
So, how do we refer to these people who cheat, exploit, use, and abuse? I think of them as BAITERs (for people who are “Backstabbers/Abusers/Imposters/Takers/Exploiters/Reckless”).
1
We will talk in great detail later, but for now, understand that we are talking about people who believe the “means are justified by the end.” They are totally self-focused and results-oriented, and they are willing to do anything, absolutely anything, to achieve their goal, whatever it may be—a job, a promotion, money, a wife or husband (maybe even yours), attention, an escape from accountability, or anything else they desire. For most people, of course, “anything” may mean only hard work, smart work, dedication, and commitment. But for BAITERs, it may mean taking a darker approach, where they don’t try just to win, but to win at your expense, or where they use you as a stepping-stone or steal your place in the game.
1
The BAITERs, as I conceptualize them for the current discussion, are not one-dimensional people who are all exactly alike. They don’t all come from an identical background or get to be who they have become based on similar experiences. If this group of people were to collectively present themselves to mental-health professionals for evaluation, they would not all have the same diagnosis and would instead be scattered across several different categories. Some would likely be diagnosed as antisocial personalities, some borderline personalities, and some paranoid personalities. Some might be considered oppositional defiant personalities or a number of other diagnostic categories. Some might fit into multiple diagnostic categories. Some would just be, in my opinion, downright evil. Others might simply be damaged or lacking the proper upbringing, simply not knowing any better. But for the purposes of our discussion, whatever their etiology or diagnostic classification, you will find that certain behavioral patterns and corrupted values show up with great commonality across the group. Religious folks might classify the behavior of BAITERs as “sin,” and psychiatry/psychology might call it “sin-drome/syndrome.” These labels may be describing different patterns, and sometimes they might overlap.
For the purposes of our discussion, I’m not sure it should matter to you
why
they stole your husband, got your job, attacked your reputation, or stabbed you in the back. My point is that “evil” is real and dangerous and that we need to identify it and deal with it effectively—or we may end up with the short end of the stick. If you appoint yourself to be in charge of “fixing” them, then causal information has a significant bearing, but that’s not the purpose of the current discussion. Think about it this way: You’re standing on the street in front of your house and somebody drives over your foot and smashes it, breaking several bones and requiring you to have a painful surgery and arduous recovery process. Whether they did it out of carelessness or pure meanness doesn’t really change the damage to your foot. That foot is just as smashed either way. So, for the purposes of this discussion, BAITER is a summary term that generally describes those who create pain, heartache, and havoc in your life. We will talk later about forgiveness, and maybe then motivation plays a part, but I’ll let you decide that at the time.
This is an unpleasant picture, I know, but a realistic one nonetheless. As you’ll learn in Chapter 2, these people don’t see the world the way you do. They do not have your standards for relationships. They lack empathy—the “fellow feeling” that enables human beings to appreciate and identify with another person’s emotions. They lack conscience. They lack the ability to feel remorse, and they selfishly and narcissistically pursue whatever their own egos demand. They are, consciously and subconsciously, unscrupulous. They use dirty tricks and underhanded politics. They exploit, abuse, lie, cheat, and manipulate. They do not hesitate to commit any nefarious act that will take them closer to their goal. They are committed to win and to win at any cost—and that “cost” is often paid by you.
