6.Take what you are given and don’t ask for more.
7.Don’t take money from friends.
8.Don’t take money from strangers or talk to them.
9.Don’t rock the boat.
10.You can’t have your cake and eat it, too.Many of these are excellent rules for a five-year-old. If you are
25, 35, 45, or older and still obeying them, however, these rules will
hinder your financial success.
Here is what may happen if you continue to follow these rules as
an adult:
If you follow rules 1, 2, and 3, you feel uncomfortable about
public speaking, job search, or selling anything. Job search and sell-
ing have a great deal in common. The former is far more difficult,
because the product and the salesperson are identical. It is the ulti-
mate sales job; your survival is at stake. Job candidates are unem-
ployed salespeople, selling their skills in a very competitive
environment. A job search is intensely emotional and much more
difficult if you have never learned to sell. In many surveys, people
have named public speaking as their most significant fear—clearly
an irrational fear, caused by childhood rules. After all, the casualty
rate among public speakers is quite low.
Remember that the fear you experience when learning to sell
has nothing to do with the prospective customer or the current situ-
ation. Instead, it is actually about breaking family rules.
If you follow rules 4 and 5, you’re likely to have a job. People
who own a business soon discover there is no one to provide in-
structions and no one whose permission is required. Success in
your own business requires the willingness and ability to operate on
your own authority.
If you follow rule 6, you accept the salary you are given and
feel very uncomfortable discussing a raise. Asking for what you
want is always a bit uncomfortable, because you run the risk of re-
jection. Following this rule makes negotiation out of the question,
meaning you can never receive anything better than the first offer
anyone makes.
If you follow rules 7 and 8, you have a less than satisfying rela-
tionship with your boss. If it is not OK to take money from friends
or from strangers, whom does that leave? Known enemies! This
may seem a mere play on words until you consider the sometimes
Rules 83