YOU EITHER CREATE OR ALLOW EVERYTHING THAT HAPPENS TO YOU

To be powerful, you need to take the position that you create or allow everything that happens to you. By create, I mean that you directly cause something to happen by your actions or inactions. If you walk up to a man in a bar who is bigger than you, has obviously been drinking for a long time, and say to him, “ You are really ugly and stupid,” and he jumps off the bar stool, hits you in the jaw, and you end up in the hospital—you created that. That’s an easy-to-understand example.
Here’s one that may be harder to swallow: You work late every night. You come home tired and burned out. You eat dinner in a coma and then sit down in front of the television to watch a basketball game. You’re too tired and stressed out to do anything else—like go for a walk or play with the kids. This goes on for years. Your wife asks you to talk to her. You say, “Later!” Three years later, you come home to an empty house and a note that she has left you and taken the kids. You created that one, too!
Other times, we simply allow things to happen to us by our inaction and our unwillingness to do what is necessary to create or maintain what we want:
■You didn’t follow through on your threat to take away privileges if the kids didn’t clean up after themselves, and now the house looks like a war zone.
■You didn’t demand he join you in counseling or leave the first time he hit you, so now you’re still getting hit.
■You didn’t attend any sales and motivational seminars because you were too busy, and now the new kid just won the top sales award.
■You didn’t take the time to take the dogs to obedience training, and now they’re out of control.
■You didn’t take time to maintain your car, and now you’re sitting by the side of the road with your car broken down.
■You didn’t go back to school, and now you are being passed over for a promotion.
Realize that you are not the victim here. You stood passively by and let it happen. You didn’t say anything, make a demand, make a request, say no, try something new, or leave.