It typically takes 21 days to build a new habit. Today is January 26th. How are you doing on new year resolutions?!
If you feel you need help formulating resolutions that stick, I highly suggest you pick up a copy of “Master Your Code” by Darren Gold. The book explores the art and science of a successful life and it is a breakthrough guide that’s deeply rooted in science, peppered with personal stories.
The book is structured like a guide, but it will feel more like an autobiographical novel. That’s intended: it was born out of the author’s need to explain to his son how he “recoded his life”.
It typically takes 21 days to build a new habit. Today is January 26th. How are you doing on new year resolutions?!
First Principle: You Run The Code. The Code Doesn’t Run You.
The foundational premise behind “Gold’s rules for rebooting your life” is that humans are in control of their own code. By code, Darren refers to our psyche, the conscious and unconscious habits that run our lives. In two words: our “Operating System” (OS).
Darren believes that it’s up to each of us to harness the opportunity to continuously “update” or “upgrade” our OS. Just like a phone or computer gets upgrades to handle new conditions, the “Human OS” can be upgraded to better handle the situations of its time.
How many of us are taking the necessary steps to fix and upgrade our “operating system”? How many of us react to situations because “that’s how we’ve always reacted” in the past? How many times have you caught yourself exhibiting less than excellent behavior and excuse it as a habit caused by factors you can’t control?
One of my favorite quotes in this book is Victor Frankl’s: “Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”
Just like a phone or computer gets upgrades to handle new conditions, the “Human OS” can be upgraded to better handle the situations of its time.
By the time you’re done with chapter one, Gold will have proven that humans are not simply the product of their evolutions but rather they have tools to master their lives and emotions. One such tool is how we define and control our environment and, by extension, the environment and reactions of others.
Even better: as you continue reading, you’ll learn that science proves that our code is not only very malleable but that its development accelerates each time we upgrade it.
This level of awareness will help you get better, but it will also help you to help others get better. This is when your life’s “leadership” opportunities come into play.
Let Your Faith Be Bigger Than Your Fears
I’m a big fan of Brené Brown’s work. If you haven’t picked up her books yet, simply watch her talk on vulnerability here. She explains that the lack of “psychological safety” is the key reason for why teams fail.
Getty Images for Massachusetts Conference for Women 2019
Teams fail when individuals can’t confess the truth without fearing consequences. Teams fail when their leaders are unable to foster “psychological safety”. This creates dysfunctional behaviors that science explains as “survival strategies”.
But, in reality, as Gold explains, these behaviors inhibit the potential of teams and their members. When people can’t trust each other, they lie by omission. They mask the truth. They rarely do so because they are “bad people”. They do so because they want to protect themselves.
The “good news” is that science validates this. As Gold writes: “your psyche has been designed for the protection and survival of your ego. That design has served you well. But it will soon reach the limits of its effectiveness”.
Teams fail when individuals can’t confess the truth without fearing consequences. Teams fail when their leaders are unable to foster “psychological safety”.
The solution? Science again: to reverse the deficiencies of our code’s “early wiring”, take the Adverse Childhood Experience (ACE) test. Want to find out more about this? Watch Dr. Velitti, one of the doctors who was involved in the study related to this test below: How Childhood Trauma Can Make You a Sick Adult.
Net-Net Though: if you want to be the “master of your code”, you need to be the “master of your past”. Take the test.
May The Force Be With You
Only when you’ve embraced the reality that you control your code and that you can change it, can you move to the next step of your evolution: changing your future.
When I asked Darren what leadership was, he said something that I think should be on everyone’s desk: “Leadership is the ability to create a future for people to live into such that the actions they take will be consistent with the realization of that future.”
On the way to realizing your team’s full potential, you will have to define your future clearly. You will have to help them face their fears. You will have to create psychological safety.
“Leadership is the ability to create a future for people to live into such that the actions they take will be consistent with the realization of that future.”
But, as Gold explains: the fact that you model these behaviors does not guarantee that others will value them and mirror them. You will have to take unconditional responsibility for your success. Despite the past. Despite the future. Despite the actions of others. This took me a while to internalize. In fact, I had to re-read that chapter multiple times.
If you don’t think the above is enough, there is more! The book also covers what you might call “good habits”, such as “6 rules for living purposely”, “never stop learning” and “forgiving unconditionally” (I particularly struggle with this last one).
Don’t have time to get the book? Just listen to one of Gold’s latest podcast interviews here.
And may this help you make 2020 your best year ever.
