suppressed animosity between employers and workers that seems
to be expressed only from time to time in labor strife. Job satisfac-
tion is impossible if you view your employer as an adversary.
If you follow rule 9, you perform at less than your best or sabo-
tage your success. Why? Excellence alwaysrocks the boat.
If you follow rule 10, success does not seem to be worth the
price. People try to prove this to be correct by creating endless ob-
stacles and struggles. With this mind-set, you will create losses that
you attribute to your progress and that make you wonder whether it
is worth it.It is not a good idea to rebel against all the rules our parents gave
us, although we know a few people who try. Surely your parents
taught you some wise rules.WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU BREAK THESE RULES?
These rules are more than intellectual furniture. Intellectual furni-
ture means knowledge with little or no emotional impact. C^2 =A^2 +
B^2 would be an example. This formula, the Pythagorean theorem
for calculating the measurements of a right triangle, is something
most of us learned in the sixth or seventh grade. Trigonometry is
very different from the childhood rules we are discussing here. The
difference is the childhood rules were enforced. It doesn’t matter
what the methods were; they may have been extreme or not, rang-
ing from brutal beatings to being unfavorably compared to a sibling
to being sent to bed without supper. All the methods share an in-
tense, negative emotional component. In other words, failure to fol-
low the rules made you feel bad. This is the reason why when as
adults we step outside these rules, the emotional memories of the
enforcement flood awareness. For some people, just thinking about
breaking the rules does this.
Stepping beyond these counterproductive rules is bound to feel
uncomfortable. Knowing this makes it easier to accept the discom-
fort and move forward with your own business. The discomfort
does not mean there is something wrong with you or that you are in
any danger if you choose to violate these rules.
Financial success requires you to defy these rules and become a
rebel for your own good. Rebellion has a well-deserved bad reputa-
tion, often expressed in self-destructive behavior like reckless dri-
ving or dangerous addictions. We are not referring to this sort of84 Your Recovery from a Good Upbringing