Part 2: Major system help your life
Chapter 14: great influence: your major system
One of the things that excites me most in life is having the opportunity
to uncover the mysteries of human attitudes
and thereby offer solutions that truly transform the quality of life.
I find it exciting to explore the underlying reasons behind people’s attitudes,
uncovering key beliefs,
questions,
metaphors,
standards,
and values.
“You have two choices,
to control your mind or to let your mind control you.”— Paulo Coelho
Since my strong point is being able
to produce immediate results,
by necessity I have learned to identify the levers to enable change to occur.
Every day I play the role of Sherlock Holmes,
working through the tiniest details
to solve the puzzle in each person’s unique experience,
what a professional private detective I am!
There are magical keys in human attitudes!
Sometimes these keys are hard to spot,
it takes a deep dive to uncover them.
However, human behavior is extremely diverse,
but I have found one thing that has allowed me to succeed,
which is that everything ultimately boils down
to some common pattern driven by key factors.
Fort.
If you and I understand these organizing principles,
we will be able to not only influence others
to help them change in a positive way,
but also understand
why they do what they do.
Understanding the Master System that governs all human attitudes
is a true science governed
by laws and predictable actions and reactions.
We are constantly surrounded by
so many things happening in our daily lives
that most of us do not realize that we have a philosophy of our own,
nor do we realize the force that this philosophy guides our way.
We make sense of the things around us.
Part two of this book helps you control your dominant system of judgment,
the power that governs how you feel
and what you do at every moment of your life.
Understanding someone else’s Governing System
will allow you to understand first-hand the nature of a person,
whether that person is your spouse,
child, employer
or business partner,
even the people you meet daily.
You’ll be lucky to be able to know what’s driving all
these people who mean a lot to you,
including yourself.
Thanks to that,
without judging anyone,
you can directly recognize who they really are.
With children,
we often recall that stubbornness is caused
by a need to be pampered rather than a stubborn or naughty mood.
In married life, it is especially important
that we recognize the stresses of everyday life
so that we can support each other
and cultivate the marriage bond
that binds two people together.
If your partner feels overwhelmed by work pressure
and bursts with anger or frustration,
it doesn’t mean your marriage is over,
but it’s a sign that you’ve found yourself.
You have to be more attentive
and focused on supporting your loved one.
Likewise, we cannot judge a person by a single fact or two.
People are not their attitudes.
The key to understanding people is
to understand their Dominant System
so you can appreciate their individual
and systematic way of thinking.
We all have a system or method that we use
to determine what is meant for us
and what attitude we should have towards it in all situations of life.
We must remember that each story is of different importance to each person
and that each person values events differently
according to his or her circumstances and vision.
We need to learn how to evaluate things
in order to have positive judgments
and take positive actions.
Great judgments create wonderful lives
When I study the lives of successful people,
I always find this common denominator:
they have excellent judgment.
Just think of any successful person in any field such as business,
politics,
law,
art,
love,
health,
religion.
What brought them to the top?
What has made attorney Gerry Spence win in virtually every case
he has defended over the past 15 years?
Why has Bill Cosby always captivated the audience every time he stepped on stage?
What makes Andrew Lloyd’s music so ravishingly perfect?
It all boils down to one reason
that they have excellent judgment in their areas of expertise.
Spence understands the effects of people’s emotions and decisions.
Cosby spent years developing dominant standards, beliefs,
and rules about how to use things around you
to make people laugh.
Webber’s mastery of rhythm, arrangement, harmony,
and other elements has help him write heart-wrenching music.
“Be brave.
Take risks.
Nothing can substitute experience.”— Paulo Coelho
One of the top investment managers in the world is Sir John Templeton,
president of world investments,
who has held the record for 50 years without a hitch.
An initial $10,000 investment in the Templeton Development Fund in 1954
could be worth $2 billion today!
If you want him to personally work on your investment project,
you must invest a minimum of $10 million in cash;
His biggest client has entrusted him with an investment of over $1 billion.
What made Templeton one of the greatest investment advisors in history?
When I asked him this question,
he answered without hesitation,
“my ability to appreciate the value of an investment”.
Being good at judgment brings a lot of wealth.
“It’s the possibility of having a dream come true that makes life interesting.”— Paulo Coelho
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Let us summarize the five evaluation factors
and briefly describe each one.
“There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve:
the fear of failure.”— Paulo Coelho
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1. The first factor that governs all evaluations is your intellectual
and emotional state while you are evaluating.
There are times in life when someone says something
to you that makes you cry,
while the same word said to you at another time makes you laugh.
Why is there such a difference?
It could simply be your mood at the time.
When you are in a fearful,
vulnerable mood,
the soft footsteps outside your window at night
will make you feel completely different from
when you are joyful.
So, one of the key factors in making good judgments is
that you do it when you’re in a positive,
excited mood instead of in a fearful mood.
“The world is changed by your example,
not by your opinion.”— Paulo Coelho
******************
2. The second element is the questions we raise.
Questions form the starting point for our assessment.
You should remember that,
when reacting to anything that happens in life,
our mind evaluates that event by asking,
“What’s going on?
What is the meaning of this situation?
It means pain or pleasure?
What can I do to avoid suffering,
or to gain pleasure?”
In this questioning process,
your familiar questions play an important role.
“Sometimes you have to travel a long way to find what is near.”— Paulo Coelho
******************
3. The third factor is your value ladder.
In life, we all know how to value some emotions more than others.
We all want to feel happy,
which means satisfaction,
and we all want to avoid suffering.
But life experience teaches each of us a system of rating for ourselves in
regard to what is suffering
and what is happiness.
It is because of the guidance provided by our ladder of values.
For example,
some people see happiness
as a feeling of stability, security,
while others see security,
stability as suffering because this makes them never experience freedom.
“Fight for your dreams, and your dreams will fight for you.”— Paulo Coelho
******************
4. The fourth element is our beliefs.
Our general beliefs give us a sense of certainty about how we experience
and about what we can expect of ourselves,
of life,
and of others.
For example,
some people believe,
“If you love me, you should never be harsh on me”.
This belief causes the person
to value a harsh word as an expression
of the lack of love in the relationship.
“When we strive to become better than we are,
everything around us becomes better, too.”— Paulo Coelho
******************
5. The fifth element of the Master System is the stock of comparative experiences
you already have in your mind that you can put to use.
In your mind you have stored every experience you have had in your life,
as well as every experience you have imagined.
These comparative experiences are the material we use
to build our beliefs and decisions.
To determine what one thing means to us,
we must compare it with another.
“You have to dream before your dreams can come true.”— Abdul Kalam
For example, is this situation good or bad?
Good or bad compared to what?
Is it good to compare with other people’s case?
Is it bad compared to a worst-case scenario you’ve experienced?
You have countless experiences to compare while making any decision.
One day,
you and I both have the opportunity to have contrasting experiences
whereby we can strengthen our beliefs,
refine our values,
ask new questions,
enter states of motivation will push us in the direction we want to go
and actually shape better destinies for us.
“People are more or less wise
not because of their experience,
but through the ability to accept experience”. — George Bernard Shaw
Test what you’ve learned
To stimulate your thinking on how you can make your Master System work,
answer the following questions:
1. What is your favorite memory in your life?
2. If you could end world poverty today
by killing one innocent person, would you?
Why yes or why not?
3. If a passenger left a bag in your taxi,
would you go and find the owner to return it?
Why yes or why not?
4. If you eat all 100 cockroaches,
you will be rewarded with 1000 dollars,
will you eat dry
why yes or why not?
“Let us sacrifice our today
so that our children can have a better tomorrow.”— Abdul Kalam
Our responses will reflect our Main System.
And each person,
depending on the dominant system
and depending on the way the situation is evaluated,
will give very different answers.
Interesting, isn’t it?
At some point…
We have studied the above five elements of the Main System,
but there is one subject we must pay attention to:
we can certainly overestimate.
People often like to analyze things to the end.
However, at some point,
we have to stop judging and move on to action.
For example, there are people who,
when making a very small decision,
have to re-evaluate and re-evaluate many times before taking action.
This excess causes them to become hesitant,
timid and ultimately achieve no results in life.
Sometimes being too scrupulous
in small details can make us feel suffocated and powerless.
“Great dreams of great dreamers are always transcended.”— Abdul Kalam
I will guide you through identifying the rating system you are using,
helping you to establish a more efficient
and consistent new mainstream system.
Now that you know the power of status and questions
we now move on to the third area of evaluation:
that of your life’s values, your personal compass,
which is the subject of the next chapter follow.
