The Winners Code

GEORGE CHINGARANDE | Monday March 8, 2010 00:00

Steve Jobs is the famous founder of Apple, the multi-billion dollar computer company.  Oprah Winfrey is, by many accounts, the first African American woman to become a billionaire. Tiger Woods is the first sportsman to become a billionaire.

What is common among all these people? There are two answers to this question-one obvious and the other less obvious. The obvious answer is that they are all billionaires. However, far more important than being a billionaire is what makes the billionaire. Being a billionaire is an outcome but becoming a billionaire is a process. In the game of life outcomes are very important, but the processes that produce these outcomes are just as important if not more important.

Steve Jobs is a phenomenal inventor and entrepreneur. Oprah Winfrey is the undisputed queen of talk shows.And it is difficult to argue against Tiger Woods's statistics on the golf course. They may not necessarily be leading phenomenal lives, but at least they are phenomenal at what they do, and being phenomenal at what you choose to do is a small but integral aspect of leading the phenomenal life.

The annals of history are replete with examples of people that have led phenomenal lives. Research reveals that there are certain common traits that they possess. Self mastery is one of these. In his book, The Fifth Discipline, Peter Senge defines self-mastery as the discipline of continually clarifying and deepening your personal vision, of focusing your energies, of developing patience, and of seeing reality objectively.

From this definition it can be surmised that there are at least six skills that go hand in hand with self-mastery. The first is discipline. Discipline is about keeping your body under subjugation. At the most elementary level the human being is an animal driven by very base instincts of which wild lusts are the prime.

Daily people wrestle with lusts for money, sex, food and idleness and similar trappings. Discipline is the art of saying no to what is wrong and inappropriate when the urge to do it is raging inside. It is saying no to the allure of idleness when work is calling. It is spurning the invitation of the warm winter night blankets, when the work that has to be done on the chilling night remains unfinished. In its most general sense, discipline refers to systematic instruction given to a disciple. To discipline thus means to instruct a person to follow a particular code of conduct.

This is the mother of all truths, 'If you are not in control of your life somebody else is. If you are not in control of your time somebody or something else is. If you are not in control of your emotions somebody else is the master of your life. The only way to remain a master of your destiny is to retain control over your life.' There is only one surefire way of retaining control over yourself-and that is self discipline. There can never be self discipline without a personal code of conduct.

A personal code of conduct is a set of principles, values, standards, or rules of behavior that guide the decisions, actions and thoughts of an individual in a way that contributes to his welfare and the welfare of his key and significant stakeholders. It is best to have a written down code of personal conduct. Some people find it more helpful to capture their code of conduct in a set of mantras or mottos. President Truman's motto was 'The buck stops here' and he had a plaque to that effect on his desk. John F Kenedy's motto was, 'Always First Because Second Place is already defeat,' which may help explain why he was such a tenacious and competitive person.

When it comes to personal codes of conduct Benjamin Franklin, one of the founding fathers of the United States of America, is perhaps the best example. At the age of twenty Franklin wrote down a list of twelve principles by which he intended to live his life. Later in life a friend challenged him about his pride and Ben responded by adding a thirteenth principle. Throughout his life he strove to live by these principles and held himself to account.

As a guide to creating a personal code of conduct we will present and do a short review of some of the principles below.

Principle One: Temperance: Eat not to dullness; drink not to elevation. Being temperate is avoiding the extremes.Don't drink or eat to excess, or indulge in anything beyond what is healthy. Although the mantra speaks about eating food this principle covers all areas of human affairs. Indulging in excesses and extreme positions is inimical to sound human relations especially negotiations.

Principle Two: Silence: Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself, avoid trifling conversations. Fights, wars, broken relationships, bitterness and the like are mostly started by words. Simply put; nothing good ever comes out of gossip or misused words.

Principle Three: Order: Let all your things have their place, and let each part of your business have its time. This speaks about the virtues of living an orderly life where everything has a place, and priorities are right. Most people's lives are chaotic. To begin with they are so disorderly that they lose a lot of time trying to locate misplaced things and documents. Secondly their time management is shambolic because there is no set time for each activity.

One can never be phenomenal without high standards of personal conduct that one holds oneself accountable to. Set yourself high standards and strive to live by them.winningmantra@yahoo.com