The Breakthrough Factor: Creating Success and Happiness Through a Life of Value - Softcover

The Principle Made Me Do It!

There is an incredible power within each of us that is the way to achieving our personal best. It is the power of principles.

"It's the principle of the thing!" is a phrase that has been around our culture as long as anyone can remember. When all other reasons have been exhausted, it's the one given for continuing on. Beyond money, beyond power, beyond glory, even beyond winning, things are done simply "on principle."

Our principles make us do it.

This book is about principles. It's about what they are, how we get them, why we all have them, and what we use them for.

Most of all, it's about power. The incredible power of principles. A power so pervasive, so all encompassing, that there isn't anything any of us do that can't be traced back to its source. In short, our behavior is a reflection of the principles we choose to live by.

Some of us recognize and understand this power and use it for all it's worth. Others use it from time to time, but don't realize what it is they're using. And too often, many of us leave this source of power largely untapped in our lives, as if we had Michael Jordan on the team and kept him on the end of the bench.

This is not a book about morals. You'll find nothing here that preaches what values you ought to have; what you should believe. The focus is on recognizing that the beliefs we individually choose to live by are directly responsible for whatever quality of life we enjoy. There's just no getting around that. That's life! The key to enjoying peace, success, fulfillment, and contentment is putting in place those beliefs that will best produce those kinds of satisfying results. That's the challenge to each of us: to find out what beliefs allow us to realize our personal bests.

I use the phrase "personal best" because for thirteen years I competed in international athletics, and those were words I learned to greatly respect. I participated as a middle-distance runner on four United States Olympic teams. From 1977 through 1988 I was the top American in the 3,000-meter steeplechase -- and now, in my "retirement," I check the results every new track season to see if, and when, the American record of 8:09.17 I set in 1985 will fall.

However, that American record was built upon an athletic career of personal bests. Every year I attempted to improve my personal best. That was my measuring stick. Was I running faster than ever before? And each year as I set new personal bests I felt great personal fulfillment. Early in my career, when I ran my fastest time, it was simply my own personal best -- my own record. Later, when four of my personal bests were also American records, or American bests, they took on an added measure of notoriety. But those earlier "Individual" personal bests brought the same satisfaction as the American personal bests that came later.

Personally, I can tell you that my entire experience as an athlete was an extremely satisfying "run," and I'm convinced it was because I had principles that allowed me to concentrate on striving for my own personal best, rather than worrying about someone else's personal best. Because of those inward-directed principles, I was not only able to compete for as long as I did, but I was able to thoroughly enjoy the experience.

Just as I sought to achieve personal bests athletically, we can seek to achieve personal bests in all areas of our lives. In this book, we'll learn how. Better yet, we can achieve personal bests well after our physiological peak, or age -- which limits us athletically. We can have greater fulfillment every day we live upon the earth.

As a runner I happened to plug into the power of principles without consciously realizing what I was doing -- and not only did that save my career in the beginning, it saved me from experiencing a lot of unnecessary grief during those times when things didn't go my way. Looking back, all I can say is thank goodness my focus was on "personal best" and not "gold medal."

I understand now why I didn't quit, and why others either wanted to, or did. I understand now why I was able to avoid the angst that can so often be an integral part of a career as competitive as international track and field. I understand now why I was able to deal with what the world would term "devastating setbacks." It was because I had my own finish line. I could "win" when others only saw losing. I had a different principle.

So I am evidence "Exhibit A" in the pages that follow. I use myself as a living example of one who has experienced the power of principles in achieving one's personal best. It happened to me as a runner, and it happened to me again as an attorney. I graduated from law school, passed the bar exam, and began to practice law, all set to climb the legal ladder of fulfillment and success. But I discovered I was not cut out to spend my days in a law library, and I made a career change just when I was ready to cash in on all my years of preparation and training. In the pages that follow I detail the dynamics that caused that career change because they further help illustrate, and endorse, the power of applying beliefs that work for your own purposes. Not for anyone else's, but for your own.

I've been a few places and done a few things, and I've made some big principle-driven changes along the way that have made all the difference -- and if it's true that you can't effectively sell something unless you believe in it wholeheartedly yourself, in the chapters to come you'll see I've taken care of that requirement.

Like many of us, I happened quite by chance upon the power of principle-driven behavior. But it doesn't need to happen that way. It is possible to become consciously aware of our beliefs and take care that they drive the kind of behavior that will produce the quality of life we're seeking. It's possible to realize going in that our beliefs tell us what to do! Once we understand that, we can start putting those beliefs in place that will tell us to have a peaceful, meangingful, enjoyable life -- in other words, to achieve our personal best.

FORKS IN THE ROAD

A few years ago I saw a bumper sticker that read: GUNS DON'T KILL PEOPLE, PEOPLE KILL PEOPLE. I thought the point was well made. A gun is powerless until somebody decides to use it. A gun has no mind of its own; it can't make decisions. It is simply the extension of the behavior of the person using it, a whim at the beck and call of whoever's finger is on the trigger.

To illustrate the point, here are two names for you: Mahatma Gandhi and Adolf Hitler.

In many significant ways, these men were alike. By all accounts, they each had superior intelligence, excellent speaking skills, powers of persuasion, and the ability to inspire others to follow them and embrace their causes. They were goal setters. They had charisma. In short, they each had the qualities of leadership.

But despite their similarities, they couldn't have behaved much more differently.

Hitler's politics were fueled by beliefs of superiority. He believed in the supremacy of the Aryan race and acted accordingly. Armed with this belief, he was able to order the execution of millions of people and invade and dominate millions more. Gandhi, on the other hand, acted according to an entirely different set of beliefs, based on the sanctity of all human life. Because the Indian leader's aims were to improve the quality of life for his people, his behavior was on the other end of the spectrum from Hitler's. Whereas Hitler embraced violence, Gandhi eschewed it. One waged war. One waged peace.

Both behaved according to their personal truths -- and that made all the difference.

IT'S THERE, MIGHT AS WELL USE IT

We all behave according to beliefs. We can't help it. We can't avoid it. There's no getting around it. It's a universal thing. It's like eating and sleeping. If we're alive, we do it. Whether we do it consciously or subconsciously, we all do it.

The simple act of breathing can actually help illustrate this distinction between conscious and subconscious action. Most of us go through our days breathing every few seconds and hardly give it a conscious thought. But those who understand the values of breathing do give it a conscious thought. Proper diaphragm breathing -- inhaling deep into the diaphragm, or stomach, area to ensure a full exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide -- allows for better circulation, sharper instincts, and optimum coordination. Athletes learn how to breathe. So do dancers and performers and those who practice Yoga and other forms of meditation. Breathing, at its best, lets us fall to sleep, calms us down, makes us healthier, and helps us make free throws and perform a virtuoso Swan Lake. Breathing is in fact a tremendous power, whether we realize it or not. Some people use it as a power quite naturally. But most don't. Most have to either work at it, or they end up not getting the most out of something valuable that's completely available to them.

It's the same with principle-driven behavior. We are all driven by our beliefs, every last one of us. Our behavior unavoidably is a mirror image of our beliefs, but most of us are unaware of the power inherent in that natural resource. We use it unconsciously. We use it without even knowing it. We have the power of a Ferrari under the hood, and we barely touch the gas pedal.

To really tap into this power source -- and, as a result, to achieve our personal best -- we need to understand it, understand that we have it, and understand what to do with it.

Time and again, I have seen the importance of getting in touch with beliefs and the behavior that they drive. When that behavior delivers unsatisfactory results, it only makes sense that it ought to be changed, for the most basic of reasons: Who doesn't want to have satisfactory results in their lives? The only way to effectively change behavior is by changing the belief that's prompting it.

Through my involvement ...