Rule 3

(Aly Pendlebury, Taming Tigers’ Operations Manager wasn’t sure whether or not she could write a blog. The rest of us reckoned that she certainly could. A quick £1 bet later and she accepted the challenge.
So here’s Aly’s first blog – feel free to leave a message on the blog or on Facebook if you like it.)

When Charles Unwin in the “Manual of Detection” by Jedediah Berry finds himself being pushed into a new job he doesn’t want, he is convinced it is a mistake.

When you consider agreeing to something that you believe to be wrong for you, is it because you are letting other people write your story. Who is holding the pen?  They may think that they know where you want to be and what you want to do – but do they really?  Are they party to your aspirations and the challenges that you want to face? It seems unlikely.

Can you say (unlike Charles) that you are following Rule 3 and “Heading in the direction of where you want to arrive, each day”, or has the steering wheel been taken out of your hands?

Remember – ACT BOLDLY and say STOP when you need to, however SCARY this may seem and however loudly the TIGER roars. Change your RULEBOOK and TAKE CHARGE.

Aly.

Click on the image to view the Rule 7 video

This is a really fundamental concept. So important that I’ll keep it really short.

We are all motivated either by the desire to get to where we want to be OR by the desire to avoid what we fear.

Now listen up to the important part:

THESE ARE RARELY TWO SIDES OF THE SAME COIN.

A successful and compulsively creative entrepreneur told me that he got up very early in the morning and worked very hard “not from a desire to get rich, but from a desire not to be poor”. I don’t buy that. He may not have had a desire to get very rich. But if he only had the desire to move away from being poor, he’d have got himself a law degree. His desire to create was greater than his desire to not be poor. He was motivated by moving towards what he wanted, not by moving away from what he feared.

How much of what you have on your agenda today is motivated by avoiding what you are afraid of (the risk of: unpopularity, criticism, failure, conflict,  a “career limiting move”, your spouse grumbling at you) and how much of what you have on your agenda today is motivated by getting to where you want to get to – despite the scary but manageable things that may lie in the way? 

It can take years of practice for most people to develop the self-awareness to differentiate between these two key motivators. Don’t rush it. But don’t stop working on it.

Jim.

Click on the image to view the Rule 3 video

If you have seen a Taming Tigers presentation but not read the book, there are pieces of the jigsaw that you are missing. There’s only so much I can cram into an hour slot.

So here is an important missing piece. The Ten Rules for Taming Tigers are divided into four groups.

·         The Integrity Rules (Rules 1-3)

·         The Leadership Rules (Rules 4-6)

·         The Change Rules (Rules 7-9)

·         The Esteem Rule (Rule 10)

Over the next few days, I’ll introduce you to these groupings and explain their significance. I’ll start today with the Integrity Rules

The Integrity Rules

Rules 1-3  are called the Integrity Rules. They are designed to assist in bringing us back into integrity with ourselves, to highlight our ego created fears and our related blame and avoidance strategies. Through the bold action in Rule 1 – Act boldly today – time is limited –  we are invited to test the water and admit that we are not helpless. The reason that we do not do the things we wish or need to do is almost always fear. When considering the bold action, most people can find no reason not to take it other than fear and uncertainty. We are not, of course, talking about leaping blindly and irreversibly in up to our necks at this stage. Merely taking a bold step towards finding the right path. This requires us to face the Tiger head on.

Through the re-assessment of the Rulebook  in Rule 2 – Re-write your Rulebook – challenge it hourly – we are invited to examine with honesty and scrutiny those beliefs that we hold dear (and societal “Rules” or norms that we buy in to) that enable us to play victim rather than face new realities.

Through the creation of our own purpose and daily commitment to its accomplishment in Rule 3 – Head in the direction of where you want to arrive, every day, we can glimpse ourselves in a new, truer light. We can choose to move forward each day. “Ruts” become a distant memory. This need not be daily movement to a big goal. It can be daily movement in more personal and subtle areas.

Through the work that we do over the first three Rules a new freedom begins to become possible. That freedom, of course, is to fearlessly be ourselves. The price of freedom: facing the Tiger with honesty.

The prize: living in integrity with ourselves.

Please feel free to post comments, thoughts and experiences.

Jim

Click on the image to view the Rule 1 video

Click on the image to view the Rule 2 video

Click on the image to view the Rule 3 video

Rule 3 is “Head in the direction of where you want to arrive- every day”. Of course to do that, you need some inkling of where you want to arrive. It asks for a thought process. Reflection. Taking stock. A little time travel to the nursing home and back again to see if any tweaks are required.

But finding, or re-discovering, a sense of purpose is like charging the batteries. It brings energy and, fundamental to the Rules and how they work, allows you to tame Tigers. Why? Because you know why you are taming that Tiger! If the Tiger roars and there is no reason to do battle with it, the path of least resistance is an intelligent route to take. If the Tiger roars and you need to get past it to continue being the person you have decided to be, you can hear the roar as a mere whimper and use the Rules to get past it. And when you have purpose, you can put a plan in place to get there and you can do something to advance that plan every day.

I hope you enjoy the third of our videos. If you’d like to see all of the videos that we now have on the Rules, please visit the all new Taming Tigers website. Let the team and me know what you think of it. It’s there for you!

Over to you…

Jim

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There was a loud cheer at Taming Tigers HQ yesterday when Anthony Knott won his first race – a prize he had pursued for 28 years – and promptly retired from the saddle.

Rule 10 for Taming Tigers is “Never, never give up!” and Rule 3, “Head in the direction of where you want to arrive, every day”. 28 years is a long time. That’s a lot of early mornings – especially if you have a herd of cows to milk before you ride out. It has prompted much discussion about what we would work 28 years to achieve. Hmmm. Dangerous thinking. No bets, please.

Mr Knott – we take our skull caps off to you!

(Now go and have a well deserved Pizza and a lie in)

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I spent a day with 100 shipbuilders last week. Just think about that. Building a ship!  Where is the shortcut? Where is there to hide if you get a bit wrong? What a timescale to work to. I always have a healthy respect for my audiences (I turn down the jobs where I don’t) but I found my respect growing for this lot during our day together.

The shipbuilders got me thinking about “time” on my journey home (Rule 8 is all about time). And planning (Rule 3). And the quick fix (no rule for that in TT). The Taming Tigers way is that there is unlikely to be a quick fix. Some things take time. There is no mantra. We cannot “re-program our minds”, we need to graft. The media-generated, modern idea of the quick fix conflicts with us though. It demands that “something must be done!”, that we can and must fix anything and “we can and must fix it now!”

Do you believe in the quick fix?  Or is your faith placed in the right fix?

I rarely see the quick fix in business. It’s there, for sure. But it’s rare – because it is rarely effective. It’s usually a fallacy. And as those bankers who quick fixed their bonuses from gambling their colleagues’ jobs on “sub-prime” (what a phrase) debt discovered, a fallacy is a dangerous foundation to build a business strategy upon.

Sometimes “it” can’t be fixed. Sometimes “it” has to fix itself. Sometimes “it” will take time, effort and a mass change of attitude and behaviour. In business there are consequences for failure. In business it should be that the lure of the quick fix is in inverse proportion to the likelihood of the slow lingering cock-up (see “sub-prime” above). The real world is not about today’s headline or a cabinet “re-shuffle” (what a phrase). It’s the world of the result or of the sacking.

But in the media and politics “something must be done [today]!” Really?

So as our appetite for borrowing more than we can afford to decreases, the UK government is to make debt compulsory for us, lumping that debt onto every man, woman and child in the country without asking nicely first. Interesting philosophy. But can you “quick fix” a clear message from the market?

I don’t think that my new shipbuilding friends would make the mistake of building or operating a ship based on a fallacy – we’ve seen the consequences of that. I do hope we are not building an economic future on one.

PS – I have – rashly – signed up to run the London Marathon for Racing Welfare in April 2009. If anybody knows of a “quick fix” to get fit for that, please let me know urgently. It’s getting cold and dark out there!