Rule of Life (5 page)

Quick point of clarification here. When I say listen, I don’t mean listen to what goes on in your head. Now that really is where madness lies. No, I mean a stiller, quieter voice. For some it’s more a feeling than a voice—what we sometimes call gut instinct. And even if it is a voice, a lot of the time it doesn’t speak at all—unlike our mind, which babbles on inces-santly—and if it does, you can miss it in the torrent of words that our mind produces.

This isn’t about predicting what’s going to happen. You won’t discover which horse will win the Kentucky Derby or who’ll score in the Cup Final. No, this is the important stuff: what we’re about to do, big decisions we have to make, why we are behaving in the way we are. You already know the answer, if you ask yourself.

YO U K N OW.

A N D I K N OW YO U K N OW.

I K N OW B E CA U S E

W E A L L K N OW.

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No Fear, No Surprise,

No Hesitation, No Doubt

Where does this come from? It’s from a seventeenth-century samurai warrior. This was his four-point key to successful living—and swordsmanship.

No Fear

There should be nothing in this life that you are afraid of. If there is, you might need to do some work on overcoming that fear. Here I have to confess to a certain fear of heights. I avoid high places if I can. Recently, owing to leaky gutters, I had to crawl out on our roof—three floors up with a very long drop on one side. I gritted my teeth and kept repeating, “No fear, no fear, no fear,” until the job was done. Oh yes, and of course I didn’t look down. Whatever your fear, face it head on and defeat it.

No Surprise

Life seems to be full of surprises, doesn’t it? You’re going along swimmingly and suddenly something huge rears up ahead of you. But if you look carefully, there were clues all along the way that it was going to happen. No surprise there then.

Whatever your situation now, it is going to change. No surprises there. So why does life seem to surprise us then?

Because we are asleep half the time. Wake up, and nothing can sneak up on you.

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No Hesitation

Weigh the odds and then just get on with it. If you hang back, the opportunity will have passed. If you spend too long thinking, you’ll never make a move. Once we have looked at the options, we make a choice and then go for it. That’s the secret.

No hesitation means not waiting around for other people to help out or make up our minds for us. No hesitation means if there is a certain inevitability about a situation, then just throw yourself in head first and enjoy the ride. If there is nothing to be done, then waiting doesn’t help.

No Doubt

Once you have made your mind up about something, don’t go over it again and again. Stop thinking and enjoy—relax and let go. Stop worrying. Tomorrow will come along as certainly as it can. There is no doubt about life. It just is. Be confident. Be committed. Be sure of yourself. Once you have committed yourself to a set course, a path, a plan, then follow it through.

Have no doubt it was the right thing to do and no doubt that you will succeed. Get on with it and trust your judgment completely.

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I Wish I’d Done That—and I Will

Regrets, I’ve had a few…. You might be expecting me to say there’s no room for regrets or “if onlys.” As it happens, they can be very useful—if you choose to use them to make a difference going forward.

There are three types of “I wish I’d done that” scenarios. The first is when you genuinely feel you didn’t capitalize on an opportunity or that you missed out on something. The second is when you see somebody who’s done something great and you wish it had been you. The final type is not you, but the others—the people who hang around with a sort of permanent

“I could have been a contender” mentality. If only I’d had the chances, the lucky breaks, the opportunities. For this last group, the bad news is that even if Lady Luck had come up and bitten them on the behind, they’d still have missed it.

When it comes to looking at what others have achieved, this world is divided into those who look at others enviously and those who look at others as a motivational tool. If you find yourself saying, “I wish I had done that/thought that/been there/seen that/experienced that/met them/understood that,” then you need to learn to follow it up with a “And now, I will….”

In many cases the thing you wished you’d done might not be out of the question—even if it’s not exactly as you would have done it previously. For example, if you’re thinking “I wish I’d taken a year off before college and traveled to China like so and so did,” then you’re clearly not going to be able to reverse time. But could you get a sabbatical for six months and go now? Could you take a longer-than-usual vacation and go R U L E 1 4

(with family if necessary)? Or how about making firm plans that when you retire you’ll put this at the top of your “to do”

list?

Obviously, if the regret is that you didn’t win an Olympic 400m gold medal because you gave up athletics at 14, it’s not going to happen if you’re now 34. What you can do is resolve not to let any more opportunities pass you by. So you can choose to book those scuba diving lessons and, in doing so, ensure that you won’t be saying, “I wish I’d learned to dive” in another 20 years’ time.

T H E WO R L D I S D I V I D E D

I N TO T H O S E W H O LO O K AT

OT H E R S E N V I O U S LY A N D

T H O S E W H O LO O K AT

OT H E R S A S A

M OT I VAT I O N A L TO O L .

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It’s OK to Give Up

You know how you sometimes hear stories about people who have failed their driving test 35 times? Much as you admire their persistence, don’t you sometimes wonder why they don’t just give up? These are clearly people who just aren’t cut out to drive big, heavy, dangerous lumps of machinery around streets full of children and old people and dogs and lamp posts. Even if they do finally pass, there’s a feeling that it’s probably a fluke, and you probably still wouldn’t want to be a passenger on their next trip.

Actually, if these people held their hands up (as some do) and said, “You know what? This isn’t me. I’m going to get a bicycle and a bus season ticket,” I would applaud their ability to see what was staring them in the face. I wouldn’t call them quit-ters or criticize their lack of determination or drive.* They’d simply be getting the message loud and clear and having the good sense not to ignore it.

Sometimes we head off down the wrong path in life, often with the best motives. Maybe there’s no knowing it’s the wrong path until we try it. There’s no shame in admitting it once we realize it’s not getting us where we want to be. When you realize this college course isn’t right for you, or that you don’t have what it takes to do this job well, or that your move to a new city isn’t working out, or that the hours you put into being on the local council put too much strain on your family, it takes guts to say so. That’s not quitting. That’s courage.

* Sorry, couldn’t resist that one.

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Quitting is when you give up because you don’t want to put in the effort, you can’t be bothered, you don’t like hard work, you’re scared of failure. We Rules players don’t quit. We harden our resolve, and we get on with the job without com-plaint.

However, good Rules players know when they’re beat. If the world is telling you that you took a wrong turn, you can admit it honestly and put yourself on a different track. No one can be brilliant at everything, and sometimes you have to try things to find out whether you can do them. And maybe you can’t.

A few years ago, a leading UK government official resigned from her post, famously saying that she was simply “not up to the job.” Now, I’d never really rated her up to that point, but she rose hugely in my estimation—and that of many others—

for that admission. That took guts. Maybe she wasn’t great at leading a government department, but she was certainly in a different league from most politicians when it came to honesty, courage, and self-knowledge. She’s an outstanding example of the fact that if you give up in the right way at the right time, you’re showing strength of character, not weakness.

G O O D R U L E S P L AY E R S

K N OW W H E N T H E Y ’ R E

B E AT.

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Count to Ten—or Recite

“Baa Baa Black Sheep”

Every now and then someone or something is really going to get your goat. But you’re a Rules Player now, and you’re not going to lose your temper any more. How, exactly? The answer is in fact one of those old pearls of wisdom. You get in the habit of counting to ten under your breath while you hope and pray that the feeling of impending rage will subside. It invariably does for me and gives me those vital seconds to regain my composure and remember where I am and who I am. Once I have collected my wits and calmed down, I can find an appropriate response.

But that counting to ten is essential. “Old hat,” I hear you say.

Yep, but it works. You don’t like it? Then you are most welcome to find something else to recite under your breath. A poem perhaps, but it has to be a short one. That’s why I suggested “Baa Baa Black Sheep.”

Someone asks you a question and you’re not sure of the answer. Take ten before you answer. This person will think you are incredibly wise and thoughtful. (Don’t tell him if you are actually reciting “Baa Baa Black Sheep.”) It’s a variant on

“engage brain before opening mouth,” too—that extended pause can save endless trouble.

If you find yourself in a confrontational situation, taking a quiet ten can help enormously. I was once in a rough part of a town but very hungry so I ventured into a fish and chip shop.

As I was being served, the “rough diamond” behind me whis-pered that I should be very careful when I left the shop. I asked why, and he said that I would be relieved of my food R U L E 1 6

when I got outside by the local boys who were sitting on a brick wall. “Saves waiting in the queue,” he confided.

I left the shop with trepidation—no wait, it was actually fear.

But I buttoned up my coat, took a deep breath, and stood there looking at the youths. I counted to ten slowly while we all eyed each other, and then I walked toward them very purposefully. As I got to them, still counting, they turned away and I was left alone. God, those fish and chips tasted wonderful!

O N C E I H AV E C O L L E CT E D

M Y W I T S A N D

CA L M E D D OW N ,

I CA N F I N D A N

A P P R O P R I AT E R E S P O N S E .

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Change What You Can Change;

Let Go of the Rest

Time is short. This is another of those facts you can’t escape; it’s a given. If time is short, then it makes sense not to go wast-ing any of it, not a single lovely drop of it. It’s my observation that the successful people in this life are the ones who wring every last ounce of satisfaction and energy out of life. They do that by practising this simple Rule. They pay attention to what, in their life, they have some control over and they simply, economically (time-wise), let go of the rest.

If someone asks you directly for help, then that’s something you can do—or not as you choose. If the whole world asks you for help, then there is very little you can do. Beating yourself up over it is counterproductive and such a waste of time.

Now, I’m not saying to stop caring about things or to walk away from those in need. In fact, quite the opposite in many ways, but there are areas in which you can make a personal difference and other areas where you’ll never even make a dent.

If you waste time struggling to change stuff that is obviously never going to be changed, then life will whiz past and you’ll miss it. If, on the other hand, you dedicate yourself personally to things you can change, areas where you can make a difference, then life becomes richer and more fulfilled. And the more rich it is, curiously, the more time you seem to have.

Obviously, if lots of us get together, we can change pretty well anything, but this is a Rule for You—these are your personal set—and thus this is about what
you
can change.

If you have the ear of a president, you might be able to shape policy that affects the entire nation. If you have the ear of the R U L E 1 7

Pope, you might have a hand in shaping the next Papal Bull. If you have the ear of a general, you might avert a war. If you have the ear of an editor, you might get your name in print. If you have the ear of the head waiter, you might get the best table. And so on and so on. So whose ear have you got? What influence do you have, and what change can you effect by using that influence?

Often the only ear we have is our own. The only definite influence we have is over ourselves. The only thing we can really, really change is exactly that—ourselves. Wonderful. What an opportunity to do some good. What a chance to make a real contribution. Begin with ourselves and let it spread outward.

This way we don’t have to waste time preaching to those who won’t listen. We don’t have to waste effort or energy or resources on things over which we have no control and no certainty of any success. By changing ourselves, though, we can be assured of a result.

D E D I CAT E YO U R S E L F

P E R S O N A L LY TO T H I N G S

YO U CA N C H A N G E , A R E A S

W H E R E YO U CA N M A K E A

D I F F E R E N C E .

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Aim to Be the Very Best at

Everything You Do—

Not Second Best

Wow. What a tall order. This is a seriously difficult thing to aim for—and deliberately so. If you go to work, then do your job as well as is humanly possible. If you are a parent, be the very best parent possible. If you are a gardener, be the very best gardener you can be. Because if you aren’t, then what are you aiming for? And why? If you set out to do something, anything, and you are deliberately aiming for second best, how sad is that? This Rule is really simple, really easy. Let’s take parenting, for example. What is the very best way of parenting possible? There are, of course, no right or wrong answers here—it’s entirely a subjective assessment. What do you think the very best parenting means? Good. Now are you going to aim for less than that? Of course not.