Richard Templar - The Rules of Life, Expanded Edition: A Personal Code for Living a Better, Happier, More Successful Life (Richard Templars Rules)

A Personal Code for Living a Better, Happier, More Successful Life

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2011 by Pearson Education, Inc.

Publishing as FT Press

Upper Saddle River, New Jersey 07458

Authorized adaptation from the original UK edition, entitled The Rules of Life ,

Second Edition, by Richard Templar, published by Pearson Education Limited,

Pearson Education 2010.

This U.S. adaptation is published by Pearson Education Inc,

2010 by arrangement with Pearson Education Ltd, United Kingdom.

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Printed in the United States of America

First Printing November 2010

ISBN-10: 0-13-248556-7
ISBN-13: 978-0-13-248556-2

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Templar, Richard, 1950-2006.
The rules of life : a personal code for living a better, happier, more successful life / Richard Templar. Expanded ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-13-248556-2 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Conduct of life. I. Title.
BJ1581.2.T42 2011
158.1dc22
2010038220

This book is dedicated to Miyamoto Musashi,
who taught me the strategy of simplicity,
and Jamie Greenwood, who taught me
economy of movement. I am indeed deeply
indebted to both of them
No Fear
No Surprise
No Hesitation
No Doubt

For reasons that are too long and complicated to go into here, I had to live with my grandparents for a couple of years when I was very young. They, like many of their generation, were hard-working, contented sort of people. My grandfather had taken early retirement owing to an industrial accident (a truck-load of bricks fell on his foot) and my grandmother worked in a large department store in London. Having me dumped unexpectedly on her for a while obviously caused logistical problems. I was too young for school, and my grandfather wasnt to be trusted to look after me at home. (Men didnt look after children in those days...my, how things have changed.) Her solution was to tuck me under her wingon some days physically as well as metaphorically, as she smuggled me past managers and supervisorsand we went to work together.

Now going to work with Nan was fun. I was expected to keep quiet and still for long periods and, as I didnt know any different, assumed this was normal. I found that by watching customersoften from my safe refuge under a huge deskI could pass the time quite happily. Thus was born an immense appetite for people-watching.

My motherlater I went back to live with hersaid it would never get me anywhere. Im not so sure. You see, early in my career, observation of those around showed that there were a distinct set of behaviors that got people promoted. If there were two women of equal ability, for example, and one dressed, thought, and behaved as if she had already been promoted, she would be the one who got the next available job at that next level. Putting these behaviors into practice gave me a fast track up the career ladder. These rules formed the basis of my book Rules of Work, now a bestseller in its field.

Just as you can identify behaviors that make some people glide effortlessly onward and upward at work, so you can in life. Observing life in general, people very broadly seem to fall into two main camps: those who seem to have mastered the knack of successful living, and those who still find it all a bit of a struggle. And when I say successfully mastered it, I dont mean by amassing wealth or being at the top in some stressful career. No, I mean mastered it in the old-fashioned sense that my hard-working grandparents would have understood. People who are content, mostly happy on a day-to-day basis, and in general healthy and getting more out of life. Those who are still struggling tend to be not so happy on the whole, and the enjoyment of life just isnt what it should be.

So whats the secret? The answer comes down to a simple choice. We can all choose to do certain things every day of our lives. Some things we do will make us unhappy, and some things we choose to do will make us happier. By observing people, I have reasoned that if we follow a few basic Rules of Life, we tend to get more done, shrug off adversity more easily, get more out of life, and spread a little happiness around us as we go. People who play by the Rules seem to bring their luck with them, light up a room when they enter, have more enthusiasm for life, and cope better.

So what follows are my Rules of Life. They arent set in stone, and they arent secret or difficult. And they are based entirely on my observations of happy and successful people. I have noticed that those who are happy are those who follow most of them. Those who seem miserable are the ones who dont follow them. And the successful ones often dont even realize this is what they are doingthey are natural Rules Players. Whereas the less instinctive ones often feel something is missing and spend their entire life looking for somethingoften themselvesthat will miraculously give their life meaning or fill some empty void within them. But the answer lies much closer to homesimple changes in behavior are all that is required.

Can it really be that easy? No, of course not. To live by the Rules is never easy. If it was, we would all have stumbled on this a long time ago. It has to be hard to make it worthwhile. But, and this is the beauty of the Rules, they are all individually simple and attainable. You can aim high and go for them all or take one or two and start there. Me? No, I never get it all right, ever. I fall by the wayside as often as anyone else, but I do know what to do to get back up again. I know what I have to do to make my life make sense again.

By watching people, I came to realize that all of these Rules of Life are sensible. Personally I love the sort of advice that begins, Go quietly..., but Im not sure how Im supposed to do that. However, a bit of advice such as, Polish your shoes before you go out makes more sense to me because that is something I can do and, more importantly, in which I can immediately see the logic. Incidentally, I still feel polished shoes make a better impression than scruffy ones.

You wont actually find shoe polishing here, nor will you find anything inspirational and New Age, which doesnt mean those things dont count. Its just that I feel it is better to have realistic things we can do rather than uplifting clichs that may well be truetime is a great healer, for example, and love does conquer allbut when you want things to do, clichs dont hit the button as far as Im concerned.