Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Prologue
My Personal Journey
Part One - The Decision Maker Difference
Chapter 1 - Is Profound Change Possible?
Chapter 2 - Principles of the DM Technology
Chapter 3 - What's Holding You Back?
Part Two - The Decision Maker Process in Action
Chapter 4 - How the DM Process Works
Chapter 5 - Using the DM Process in Daily Life
Chapter 6 - Case History Diane: Conquering Bulimia
Chapter 7 - Case History Barry: A Transformed Criminal
Chapter 8 - Case History Frank: Transcending AIDS
Part Three - Re-creating Our World
Chapter 9 - Raising Empowered Children
Chapter 10 - Organizations That Thrive on Change
Chapter Eleven - Making Society Work
Epilogue - Unlimited Possibilities
Notes

Acknowledgments
Almost one thousand private clientsthanks for your trust and for allowing me and the other Decision Maker facilitators to work with you, because
without you there wouldn't be a Decision Maker Process. What I've learned
about it since I initially created it has been through our work with you.
My many friends, Jane O'Leary, Jeanne and Dan Fauci, David Ferber,
Sherrylee and Sam Mink, Ruth Bonomo, Arlene Lefkoe, Lynda and Stuart
Brodsky, Diz and Sam Gutner, Margaret Hiatt, Jamie and Glenn Forbes,
Joyce Cohen, Lucie and Mark Scanlon, Elissa and Bryan Russo, David and
Debbie Howland-Murray (who designed a brilliant logo for the Decision
Maker Institute), Marcia Bandes, Tom Edwards, and many others too numerous to mention by namethanks for your support over the years, both
financial and moral. I especially thank those of you who read early versions
of this book and gave me valuable feedback.
Dr. Larry Dossey, a modern-day Renaissance man and friendthanks for
being the first person to help me realize that I could never present the full
scope of the Decision Maker Technology in articles and for repeatedly encouraging me to introduce my ideas in a book.
Elizabeth Campbell, a teacher at the California Institute for Integral Studies where I was registered in a Ph.D. program a few years ago thanks for
urging me to turn the paper describing the Decision Maker Process that I
submitted to you as an assignment into a book and for your excellent suggestions as you read the early chapters.
Ron Bandesthanks for preparing a videotape that vividly communicated
the exciting results of my prison research and for your many insightful comments as you read the innumerable drafts of this book.
Sarah Engelthanks for suggesting a way to revise the structure of my
book so readers would realize from the beginning that I was presenting a

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revolutionary technology for change in every area of life rather than a selfhelp technique useful only for individuals.
All my associates at Lefkoe & Associates, Inc., the predecessor company
to the Decision Maker Institutethanks for helping me to discover and implement the first application of the Decision Maker Process to
organizations.
Werner Erhardthanks for my first exposure to transformation, for assisting me to shift my life from a focus on "what's in it for me" to a focus on
contributing to others, and for the immeasurable difference you have made in
the lives of hundreds of thousands of people through the est training and the
Hunger Project.
Hilda and Jack Fogel, the best in-laws a man could havethanks for welcoming me into your family, for treating me like your son, and for your constant love and confidence in me. I especially want to acknowledge you,
Mom, for using the Decision Maker Process to demonstrate that it is never
too lateeven when you are in your seventiesto transform your life. I love
you both very much.
Letha Edwards, the first person other than my wife who was trained as a
Decision Maker facilitatorthanks for being my partner and second-best
friend and for your unwavering love and support.
Chris Schillig, my editorthanks for your initial enthusiasm about the
ideas I wanted to express, for telling me what was good and what wasn't so
good about my manuscript, and for advising me what was needed for it to
reach the widest possible audience.
Catherine Whitneythanks for doing a magnificent job in helping me
translate some complex ideas into readable prose. You helped me transform a
manuscript that read like a textbook into a page turner.

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Cynthia Borg, Director of Publicity and Promotion at Andrews and

McMeelthanks for support "above and beyond" and for being my
"advocate."
Mauna Eichner, who designed the book cover and jacketthanks for
capturing the essence of my message in a highly imaginative and unique
visual image.
Janet Bakerthanks for a truly amazing job of copyediting.
Jane Dystel and Charles Myer, my agentsthanks for believing in me, my
vision, and my manuscript after other agents had turned me down, for finding
the right publisher, and for teaching me what I needed to know about the
publishing business.
Blake and Brittany, my two daughtersthanks for the joy you bring to my
life, for being the reason I feel so much love every day that it hurts, for being
understanding about the time that Mommy and I are in "sessions," and for being the incredible human beings you have created yourselves to be. I am so
proud of you I could burst.
Shelly, my wife, best friend, soul mate, and partnerthanks for loving
and supporting me, for enduring all the hard times, and for your confidence
in me and my vision. You contribute to the life of everyone who is fortunate
enough to meet you, especially the parents who attend your workshops. I
never could have done what I did or become what I am without you. You
have made a profound difference in my life. I love you.

Prologue
My Personal Journey

The significant problems we have cannot be solved at the same level of

thinking we were at when we created them.

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Albert Einstein
efore the age of thirty-eight, my main interest in life was making lots of
money and becoming a famous business executive. Success for me would
have been having several million dollars in the bank and my picture on the
cover of Fortune magazine. This goal led me to become a management consultant and writer. As a consultant I helped organizations develop effective
communications and marketing programs. I also wrote more than a hundred
freelance articles about business and government for publications like Fortune, the Wall Street Journal, Nations Business, and Barron s.
I was very logical and rational and was generally out of touch with my
feelings. I would have described myself as very practical and not at all
spiritual.
I was driven in my work and motivated by my goals for success. But deep
down I was confused and unhappy. As the years went by, I found that I was
depressed much of the time. Eventually, I tried both private and group psychotherapy, which helped me to cope better with my day-to-day existence.
But neither was able to eliminate the negative sense I had about myself and
my life.
The Start of My Transformation
At the age of thirty-eight I took the est training and experienced an immediate and fundamental shift in my life. I was no longer obsessed with impressing others and achieving wealth and fame. My commitment shifted to
contributing to others.1
Shortly after I completed the est training in New York City in 1975, the
organization offered me a job in San Francisco, where I managed the Public
Information Office and handled many special projects. After two and a half
years, I left and moved back to New York, where I continued to assist at est,
leading almost twenty different seminars for three thousand or so est graduates and assisting in about twenty trainings.

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My last project at est was helping Werner Erhard create the Hunger Project (THP), which is devoted to ending world hunger. I assisted in the production of the original events that introduced THP to about 35,000 people.
Later, I worked with Werner in writing the Source Document that spelled out
the principles of THP and what it would take to eliminate death by starvation
on the planet. This was my first attempt to think systematically about how to
use ideas to make radical global change. More and more, I was seeing that
such change was possiblesomething I never would have imagined a few
years earlier. I was exhilarated by the idea that I could contribute to that
change.
After leaving est I returned to consulting, but it was not at all satisfying. I
was no longer the same person I had been before my est experience. I had begun a personal path to understand myself, to become more "spiritual," and to
find some way of making a real difference in organizations and in the world.
I could no longer get excited about giving companies advice on how to communicate or market more effectively.
I was also frustrated by the results of my conventional consulting methods. I noticed with increasing frequency that organizations, having retained
me and agreed with my suggestions, often failed to follow through. I checked
with a number of other consulting firms, small and large, and all of them
agreed that unless they held the client s hand and
walked them through a specific recommendation, it usually wasn't implemented. This baffled me. Why would an organization pay to get advice, agree
with the advice, and then do nothing?
As I pondered this curious situation, I realized that this inability to do
what made good sense was also true for individuals, not just organizations.
How often did people read a book or get advice to do something and decide
to pursue it (like exercising more or dieting), but then never get around to doing it? Conversely, how often did people get involved in activities or relationships they knew were wrong for them?

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Why Do We Do What We Do?

I set out on an intellectual quest to understand the source of individual and
organizational behavior. I read extensively on subjects ranging from the
nature of human consciousness to organizational transformation to leadingedge science. I took many workshops. In time, I concluded that what people
did, felt, and experienced was determined by their beliefs: about themselves,
other people, and life itselfa realization that many others, including
Buddhists, have had for centuries. I came to understand why people and organizations did what they did and why it was hard for them to change their
behavioreven when they wanted toif they hadn't first changed their beliefs. But knowing that beliefs were at the core of individual and organizational behavior was only the first step. I still had to discover how to change
those beliefs.
Finding the solution became my sole focus. I began my search by totally
altering the nature of my consulting practice. Instead of giving organizations
advice on how to solve problems, which they frequently didn't use anyway, I
started to consider what it would take to assist organizations to solve their
own problems by helping them change their beliefs.
Around that time, a friend of mine, Terry Shull, who had worked at
AT&T, suggested that we create a workshop for service technicians employed by local companies that had just split off from AT&T. If we could
find a way to help service technicians provide the higher level of service
that customers were demanding, Terry said, we ought to get a lot of business.
It was clear that the conventional approach of merely telling service technicians what to do, how to do it, and why to do it would not produce the dramatic improvement that was needed. On the other hand, if we could shift the
way they defined their jobfrom being "service technicians" to being "customer satisfiers"so they really believed their essential purpose was to make
customers happy, a dramatic increase in the level of service was possible.

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I created a workshop designed to help people experience their jobs differently and then set out to market it. For almost a year I called, wrote, and met
with many companies. I kept getting expressions of interest but no sales. During that period I was also consumed by another question: What would it take
to change beliefs permanently? I continued to read and do a lot of thinking.
While I was trying to market my new workshop, I had stopped marketing
my "advice-giving" consulting services. After six months, I was in desperate
financial straits. But I didn't want to go back to giving advice to organizations, because it had become clear to me that the advice, good though it might
be, made little difference to the client.
In January 1985,1 had the opportunity to make a presentation in California
to Carter Hawley Hale (CHH), the department store chain. The state of California had offered the company a grant of several million dollars to take
1,500 people who were on unemployment or welfare and train them in the retail profession. The states theory was that if these people could get job skills
and the guarantee of a job for at least six months, they would become
productive tax-paying citizens and require less state aid in the long run than
the amount of the training grant.
I had heard about this project from a friend, who said that CHH had
already created a six-week training program: three weeks in a classroom and
three in a store. But the company was concerned that the trainees might have
a motivation problem, so they wanted to spend a couple of days on motivation at the start of the workshop.
This seemed like an ideal opportunity for me. I made a call to one of the
Human Resource people at CHH and told her about my work. I explained
what I had learned about the nature of motivation.
"You want to motivate these trainees," I said. "Thats easy. The difficulty is
that motivation is a feeling that lasts only a day, a week, or a month, and then
it's gone. A more effective method," I suggested, "would be to help the

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trainees discover and eliminate any beliefs that might get in the way of their
success in the program."
I told her I could create a workshop that would accomplish that, and she
invited me out to California to discuss my proposal. I wasn't sure exactly how
to go about it, but, as was my wont, I thought if I got the assignment I would
figure out how to do what I had promised.
My Trip to California
On January 2,1 was on a plane from New York to Los Angeles with five
hours on my hands, and I found myself thinking about my own life. I had
been struggling for a long time to get companies to accept my programs. But
in spite of making many presentations, I wasn't getting clients. Here I was
again, flying cross-country to try once more. I thought of the old Fred Astaire
song from the movie Swing Time: "Pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and
start all over again " That was my pattern, repeated day after day. Well, I
wondered, if my life was the result of my beliefs, what did I believe that
could be responsible for the pattern I had just identified in my life?
I had always seen myself as someone who never gave up. No matter what,
I'd keep going. In fact, that was the one trait most people who knew me always acknowledged. So what did I actually believe? Five hundred or so miles
later I had found the answer: I'm someone who overcomes obstacles. That
was the truth about me. In fact, it felt as if that's who I really was.
If one's life is a function of one's beliefs, I thought, what would show up in
my life if I believed Pm someone who overcomes obstacles?
Obstacles, of course! Not success, because that wouldn't give me an opportunity to demonstrate that I'd never give up. I needed obstacles to prove
that nothing could ever stop me. And I had been proving it all my life, especially during the past year or so.

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I continued to question. Where did I get that idea from? Why did I think
that? I thought and wrote for almost five hours. By the time I landed I felt
different, as if something profound had shifted in me, but I didn't know what.
After I made my presentation at CHH, they told me they were interviewing one more consultant and would get back to me in ten days. I returned
home the next day still musing over the remarkable shift I had experienced
on the plane. What had happened to me? What did it mean?
I had just started trying to explain to my wife, Shelly, what had happened
to me when the phone rang. It was CHH. I had gotten the assignment. They
had liked my presentation so much that they decided not to even interview
the other consultant.
CHH wanted me to create a three-day workshop that would assist the
trainees to eliminate any belief that might inhibit their ability to be successful
sales associates. My course would be used at the start of the six-week program. Because there were to be so many groups, however, I wouldn't be able
to lead my own workshop. I would have to create it and then teach the
company's trainers how to lead it.
I hung up the phone and turned back to my wife. "It looks like I really did
eliminate a belief, because the obstacles just disappeared. I got the
assignment!"
Shelly was thrilled. "Tell me what you did on the plane," she pleaded.
"I'm not sure," I answered honestly. I had to find out what I had done to
make the belief go away, because not only didn't I have the belief anymore,
something had changed in my life. I was certain this shift in me was the key
to what I was looking for in my work. If I could help people have the same
kind of transformational experience, my work with organizations would have
unlimited possibilities.
The Decision Maker Process

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Eventually I was able to write down the steps to what I came to call the
Decision Maker (DM) Process. I had created a technique that would assist
individuals to identify the specific beliefs that determined their behavior,
feelings, and attitudes and then to totally eliminate those beliefs. Although
the DM Process has been modified and improved since its creation, the basic
principleswhich I call the Decision Maker Technologyare still the
same. Initially, I didn't "figure out" the DM Process. I didn't use a process of
deduction to arrive at the steps. Rather, I intuitively did something that
worked, after which I did a lot of hard thinking to figure out how and why it
worked and how to improve it.
I immediately found ways to apply the Decision Maker Process to the
field of organizational transformation. Instead of giving companies advice on
what to do, I now had a method to help them change their "cultures" (their
beliefs about what it took to survive and succeed), as well as the beliefs of individual workers. Using the DM Process, companies could determine on their
own what needed to be done and then do it.
Since 1985 my associates and I have worked with about ten thousand employees in over thirty companies, from as many as two thousand at New Jersey Bell to a total staff of thirty-five at Harris Graphics. We've worked with a
diverse range of organizations, including almost half the Bell Operating
Companies; the Copps Corporation, a wholesale and retail grocery chain in
Wisconsin; Kondex, a small manufacturing company; and Lands' End, the
direct-mail merchandising company.
The last eleven years have been an exciting journey, a continuing process
of realization and creation. I have learned more and more about beliefshow
they are created and how to eliminate them. When I first developed the DM
Process, I really didn't know how or why it worked. I only knew that beliefs
disappeared and patterns changed. I now have a much better understanding of
the DM Technology, which consists of the principles on which the DM Process is based. After each private session

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and corporate assignment, I am always thrilled and somewhat awed by the

results. And the Decision Maker Technology and Process continue to
evolve.
Why I Wrote This Book
For several years I had been thinking about writing a book. Over time I
had developed some theories that explained why the DM Process worked. As
a result I realized what made it so effective at producing rapid and permanent
change. And, most important, I developed the DM Technology, a set of principles that can be used to make fundamental changes in individuals, organizations, and institutions. I finally had something to write about that could make
a real difference in peoples lives.
So I faced a new challenge: how to write about the DM Technology and
Process in such a way that it would become real for readers. I wanted people
to understand that there was a brand-new possibility in their lives, to realize
that they need not be stuck in old patterns that held them back and made aspects of their lives dysfunctional. But I was very clear that my work was not
in the realm of self-help. My book could not be compared to books in that
category. The DM Technology and Process are unique. Many books offer advice about how to cope with problems at work, at home, in organizations,
and in society. Instead, my work provides a technology and a process that enable people to eliminate their problems totally by eradicating the beliefs that
are their source.
This book is the result of several years of grappling with how to explain
the DM Technology and Process and how you can use them to recreate your
life, transforming yourself and your world. I urge you to read it in the spirit
of awakening and discovery. It can be the first step on the most exciting journey you've ever taken.

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Part One
The Decision Maker Difference
Chapter 1 - Is Profound Change Possible?
There is now incontrovertible evidence that mankind has just entered upon
the greatest period of change the world has ever known. The ills from which
we are suffering have had their seat in the very foundation of human thought.
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Phenomenon of Man
As you look at the world, you may feel despair about the human condition.
It seems impossible to solve the deeply embedded problems of crime,
poverty, drug abuse, prejudice, and violence. The real problems never seem
to get solved; in fact, they get worse as they are endlessly carried from generation to generation.
Imagine for a moment a different kind of societyone where people live
in mutual respect and caring, working together to make a better life for everyone in the community. Imagine corporations that value creativity and collaboration above ego and greed. Who wouldn't want to live in a world where
there was peace, supportive communities, and a deep commitment to freedom, happiness, and opportunity for everyone?
Now look at your own life. You too might have some problems, and
sometimes they seem as insoluble as the big problems of the world. Maybe
you've honestly tried to make positive changes, through therapy or self-help
programs or other methods, because you really want to make your relationships work, do well at your job, be an effective parent, and really enjoy your
life. But you keep slipping back into familiar patterns, and you cant figure
out what to do. Why cant you consistently achieve what you think you should
be capable of achieving?

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You are no doubt reading this book because you are seriously committed
to making changes, but you haven't been able to attain what you most passionately wantfor yourself, your family, your company, and your
community.
You wonder, What's wrong with me? What's wrong with the world? What
can I do about it?
Something's Wrong
Perhaps one or more of the following scenarios will strike a familiar
chord.
You Wake Up in the Morning Feeling Depressed
Well, maybe you're not exactly depressed. It's just that you've lost much of
your enthusiasm for life. You realize that you are tired much of the time and
it's getting harder to summon enough energy to do what has to be done.
Maybe you re not always tired; instead, you re frequently sad or anxious
or angry: If you re like many people, however; you have some uncomfortable
emotions that you'd rather not have. But you don't know why you have them.
And even if you do, you don't know how to make them go away.
You Feel Out of Control
You remember the argument the night before with your spouse. What
were you arguing about? The details are hazy; you only remember that it was
a repeat of so many evenings when you said something, your spouse said
something, and before you knew it you were fighting. You try to control your
temper, but something always sets you off.
Maybe there was no actual argument last night because you or your
spouse just withdrew and refused to discuss the issue. Maybe your anger was
directed toward your children or coworkers, not your spouse. In any case, if
you re like many people, you either experience and express your anger too

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frequently or you suppress it and burn inside. You dont know why. Or if you
do, because youve undergone intensive therapy and soul-searching, you are
stymied by your inability to change your behavior permanently.
Your Motivation Is Missing
You finally pull yourself out of bed. As you walk across the room you notice your reflection in the mirror and cringe. You remember your resolution
to exercise three times a week. You look at the clock and see that you have
time to walk on the treadmill for twenty minutes, but unaccountably you find
yourself resisting. You know you should, but it's just too much
troublewhich is what you've said every morning since you bought the
treadmill several months ago.
Maybe it's not the treadmill, it's the stair climber. Maybe it's not the exercise, ifs the diet. Most people have something they know they should do and
really want to do, but they are never able to get around to it.
The World Is a Mess
As you start getting dressed, you turn on the morning news. The budget
battle is still in progress. The Republicans say one thing, the Democrats say
another, and meanwhile no solution really seems to work. You hate to be
cynical, but it seems hopeless. Why, you ask yourself, do all the proposed
solutions to a growing number of societal problems create as many problems
as they solve? Why do so many problems seem insoluble?
Your Job Is a Rat Race
You arrive at work and are immediately called into a meeting. Another
customer survey has come up with the same old message: They want better
service or they'll take their business elsewhere. This is beginning to sound
like a broken record that no one is able to fix. You've tried everythinggiving bonuses to the service people, sending them to customer service training,
even hiring new people to replace the ones who weren't working out.

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Although the level of customer satisfaction has risen somewhat, most of the
service people don't really listen. They fix the machines or answer the questions, but their response to customers is lackluster and incomplete. They don't
recognize the value of finding out what the customers want and need and
then providing it.
Maybe it's not the service people, maybe it's the managers, who continue
to act like autocratic bosses, even though the company has encouraged them
to be partners and team players. Or perhaps it's the hourly workers who resist
working in the teams you've recently created. Whoever it is, virtually every
organization has at least one group of employees who are resisting the
changes needed to survive in today's hotly competitive global markets.
You Are Exhausted at the End of the Workday
You drag yourself home and walk in to find your kids glued to the TV set.
You're instantly annoyed. The kids seem to spend more time watching TV
and fighting with each other than studying, doing chores, or playing nicely.
They're really good kids, but you're concerned that they're developing bad
habits that will hurt them later in life. You've tried talking to them, explaining, yelling, and disciplining. You've tried rewarding them and threatening
them. Nothing seems to work. Maybe you're doing something wrong, but
what? This parenting business is harder than you thought.
You may have related to one of these scenarios or to all of them. There are
literally hundreds of everyday scenarios in which you, the organization you
work for, and the institutions on which you rely all do things that clearly
won't work and appear to be unable to do things that obviously will work.
What's worse, all too often there don't appear to be any viable solutions.
Could that really be the case, that there are no solutions to the myriad
problems we face? Or is there some way to get control over our lives?
A Promise of Possibility

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If you feel trapped in a world and a life that aren't all you would like them
to be, I invite you to explore an entirely new way of dealing with reality. The
principles and the process associated with the Decision Maker Technology
will allow you to discover:

Why so much of your life doesn't work the way you want it to.

How you can use a new set of tools to help you resolve each
problem presented in the foregoing scenarios, along with the
many others you experience daily.

How you can join with others in transforming institutions and organizations so they really work.

I created the DM Technology after many years of observing that people

couldn't seem to accomplish what they wanted to. They were unable to initiate and then sustain positive change. Many of my clients have spent countless
hours and dollars pursuing self-improvement. The corporations I advise usually have excellent executives and are constantly getting advice from competent consultants. The parents I know are always trying new ways to help their
children become responsible, caring, happy human beings. The problem isn't
a lack of commitment to positive change. It's an inability to initiate and sustain it. Moreover, even if things look better for a while, the results are shortlived. Clearly, the old methods aren't working. Many people have come to
realize that they need an entirely new method of examining problems and
creating possibilities, but they have little idea where to look for such a method. The result is a deep cynicism bordering on despair that has infected individuals, parents, companies, and organizations in our societya sense of
"What's the use? Things will never change."
Yet life isn't hopeless; it is only that we have been looking in the wrong
places. I have found, as a result of my work with individuals and

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organizations, that the DM Technology enables people to achieve results that

they never imagined were possible.
The tools of the DM Technology can help people eliminate virtually any
dysfunctional emotional or behavioral pattern. They can enable drug and alcohol addicts to recover quickly and permanently. They can cure bulimia or
anorexia for good. They can reform teenage and adult criminals. They can
enable people to make fast, effortless, and lasting changes in long-held behaviors and emotional patterns, including phobias, prejudice, hostility, and
chronic depression. They can rejuvenate sluggish corporations and prepare
any organization to make the radical adjustments needed for our rapidly
changing environment. They can enable institutions to truly serve the people
who depend on them.
This seems like an awfully big promise, doesn't it? But I have seen it happen again and again, and I'll give you many case histories that will make the
possibility of transformation real for you: Diane, whose bulimia was ruining
her life before she eliminated it completely; Barry, a hardened street criminal
who broke the cycle of violence; Frank, who transcended the disease of
AIDS. I'll also take you inside major corporations where the DM Technology
enabled the previously impossible to become possible. And finally I'll show
you how even the most tenaciously stubborn institutional problems, such as
those that pervade our current education and health care systems, might be
dissolved.
The DM Technology is not another form of psychotherapy. It is not a selfhelp program like so many others that have been tried and failed. Nor is it a
motivational system to jump-start organizations. The DM Technology is a
paradigm-shifting approach that allows individuals and organizations to recreate themselves by eliminating the beliefs that cause them to behave in selfdefeating, self-destructive ways and limit their ability to change.
Not Another Psychotherapy

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Many of my individual clients have spent some time in psychotherapy,

and a number of my business clients have retained consultants for advice on
how to change. I admire them for that, because it shows they are eager to be
more effective in the world. But I have also seen that even after years in therapy, many self-help programs, and lots of excellent advice, these clients are
still stuck with their old, ineffective behaviors. Maybe they get better for a
while, but its rarely permanent.
By the time they come to me, they are understandably skeptical about trying the Decision Maker Process, but they are intrigued when I explain that
it is not psychotherapy. Individual psychotherapy, most group therapies, and
self-help programs enable people to cope much more effectively with their
problems, but they are rarely capable of producing fundamental, lasting
change. Even when they do, the struggle and the effort usually don't totally
disappear.
There is a good reason why people are usually unable to get rid of dysfunctional behavior by using conventional methods. The principle implicit in
most attempts to change behavior is: Information + Motivation = Change.
This makes perfect sense to most people, whether they are psychotherapists,
training professionals, parents, or individuals. If you know what to do and
how to do it, and if you are motivated (positively or negatively), isn't that all
you need to take the appropriate action?
Obviously not, since the formula of Information + Motivation doesn't
seem to be working. If it were, everyone would wear seat belts, which they
don't. Everyone would keep New Year's resolutions, instead of letting them
go after a couple of weeks. People suffering from cardiovascular disease
would all adopt low-fat, low-cholesterol diets. Corporate training programs
would be effective in changing worker behavior.
Let's take a simple example. Say you're a procrastinator. You always leave
work projects until the last minute. As a result, you're anxious much of the

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time and sometimes you turn projects in late, which subjects you to the disapproval of your boss. In fact, he tells you, "I'd like to consider
you for a promotion and a raise, but I cant as long as you continue to deliver projects late."
You decide you must change, and you really want to change. What do you
do?

You prioritize your activities, assuming that it will help you focus on the most important projects.

You make a schedule that helps you allot time during the month
for work on the project.

You put up reminders in prominent places.

You create rewards to give yourself when you finish a projecta

special dinner or a new item of clothing.

You ask your friends to support you.

So now you've gathered all the information and resources you need to get
your projects done on time. And you have several strong reasons for doing it:
a possible promotion, a raise, your bosss approval, an alleviation of your constant anxiety.
But be honest! After youve done all this, plus all the other variations
youve discovered, does the behavior pattern really change? Does the Information + Motivation enable you to sit down easily and do what you say you are
going to do? And if it does today, does it continue to be easy month after
month? For most of us, the answer is no. (If you think this isn't a valid assumption, consider all the times you've made a similar commitment,

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buttressed by Information -1- Motivation, but for some inexplicable reason

you failed to follow through.)
Let's look at another example of how Information + Motivation are ineffective in helping people change their behavior and emotions. Perhaps you
find yourself obsessed with what other people think of you. That's common
enough. You've found that your ever-present concern with the opinions of
others is annoying, at best, and gets in the way of your daily interactions with
others. You want to change. You think that if you can rid yourself of this obsession, you will be a lot happier and more comfortable in social situations.
So what do you do?
Maybe you begin by trying to appreciate your own value and to realize
that your self-worth is not dependent on the opinions of others. You think
about all the people who do like and appreciate you. You realize that the desire to be liked by everyone is self-defeating as well as impossible. Maybe
you try to convince yourself that people who don't like you just aren't "your
kind of people," so it doesn't really matter.
But don't you find, even with all your positive thinking and all your efforts, that the need to be liked by everybody doesn't go away? The reason is
simple: Information + Motivation arent enough to change emotional and behavioral patterns because the beliefs that cause them haven t been eliminated.
The formula of Information + Motivation never deals with beliefs, so lasting
change isn't possible.
But because we believe that Information + Motivation should be enough,
we usually blame ourselves or someone else when it doesn't work. We think,
"I'm incompetent," or "She'll never learn," or "What's wrong with him?"
Depending on Information + Motivation as a reliable and permanent means
of behavior modification is an invitation to failure, guilt, and blame.
There are other ways the DM Process is different from psychotherapy.
Many forms of psychotherapy attempt to change behavior directly by using
either logic or persuasion, ignoring beliefs altogether. One of the major forms

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of psychotherapy employed today, however, is cognitive therapy, which does

focus on changing beliefs. That might sound like what I am doing, but it is
actually very different. Let me explain.
Cognitive therapy is designed, first, to help you identify irrational beliefs
and then to talk you out of them with reason and logic. The premise is that
once you see your belief is illogical or self-defeating, you will be able to
eliminate it. But what if your dysfunctional beliefs are not irrational at all but
are a logical conclusion of an early experience? Here's an example.
Assume that you are a two-year-old child, the third of four. You have a
brother and a sister, two and four years older than you, and a baby brother.
Your parents never yell at you or hit you. Your dad works all day, and your
mom stays home to take care of you and your siblings.
When you wake up in the morning, you jump out of bed and you say,
"Mommy, Mommy, play with me. Paint with me. Read to me." And
Mommy, with a four- and a six-year-old running around and a new baby,
replies, "Not now, honey. I'm busy. Play by yourself or with your brother and
sister for a while."
So you go off to explore the house, and an hour or so later you come back
to Mom and say, "Mommy, Mommy, play with me. Paint with me. Read to
me." This time your mom says, "Not now, honey. I need to feed the baby.
Maybe later."
Imagine that this scene gets repeated every hour or so until 6 p.m. when
Daddy comes home. You rush to the door and yell, "Daddy, Daddy, look at
what I made today!" Daddy replies, "Give me a minute until I can get my
coat off and relax."
Eventually, Dad spends a few minutes with each of the kids, reads the paper, and watches TV, which is followed by dinner. If all goes well, maybe
Mom and Dad read to you and your siblings for a while before bedtime.

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So what happened on this typical day of your life at age two? You asked
for attention fifteen or twenty times, and almost always you heard, "No, not
now." Even if we were conservative and said you asked for attention only
three times a day, that would mean about a thousand requests in a year that
were usually denied, and four thousand separate denials by the age of six.
What meaning would you give the experience with your mom and dad?
If you're a typical child, you might conclude (unconsciously) I'm not important. That would be a brilliant feat of integration for a child. You have had
thousands of separate incidents that you didn't understand and that upset you.
But deciding I'm not important now allows you to make sense of them. If
you're not important, of course Dad and Mom wouldn't have time for you.
Say you carry this unconscious conclusion into adult life (which is usually
what happens), and at some point a therapist provides you with a host of logical arguments to demonstrate you are important and it makes no sense
whatsoever to believe otherwise. But it does make sense to you because you
formed the belief as a reasonable interpretation of your experience.
Moreover, the "evidence" that you offer for a belief is not usually the real
reason you believe it. Your evidence usually consists of recent observations
that appear to substantiate the belief. The real source of your belief, however,
is your interpretation of circumstances earlier in life.
For example, if you were to form the belief Relationships don't work as a
child, you would act consistently with it thereafter. You might avoid relationships altogether. You might stay in a bad relationship, thinking, I'll never find
a better one. You might not try to talk to your partner in an attempt to make
your relationship better. These and similar activities will produce current
evidence for the already-existing belief. In other words, life becomes a selffulfilling prophecy. Because the evidence you present to validate your beliefs
is a consequence of the beliefs, not their source, challenging the validity of
the evidence usually doesn't help.

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Another form of psychotherapy is based on the idea that by fully experiencing "incomplete" episodes from your childhood, you can release them and
eliminate their impact on you. In this type of therapy, the experiences leading
to your perception Im not important would be relived and virtually
exorcised.
The problem with this method is that the source of dysfunctional behavior
is not the early experiences themselves but the beliefs you formed as a result.
The experiences themselves do not have a lasting impact on you; after all,
you don't live in the past, you live in the present. You can't go back and
change experiences you've already had. But the beliefs that you form as a
young child do have a significant impactand you can change those.
Some psychotherapists, especially psychiatrists, who are medical doctors,
focus on eliminating the symptoms of your problem, thinking that the illness
is the set of symptoms. Perhaps your belief Pm not important results in symptoms of depression, and a psychiatrist recommends an antidepressant medication. You take the drug and you feel less depressed. But although your symptoms are alleviatedat least while you are taking the drugthe source of
your depression has not disappeared and is likely to be manifested in other
ways. (Obviously, a dysfunctional behavioral or emotional pattern that
clearly has a physical cause is an exception. But I believe those to be relatively rare.)
No wonder after many years of therapy or self-improvement courses,
you're still struggling with the belief I'm not important.
Are you beginning to see why psychotherapy is limited? While the goal of
psychotherapy is to help you cope better with your problemsand it frequently does that very wellmy goal is to help you eliminate the problems
totally, by eradicating the beliefs that are at the source. Many different psychological explanations of human behavior may be valid in that they are logical interpretations of why people behave the way they do. But they aren't
particularly useful as tools to empower people to experience total

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satisfaction, eliminate dysfunctional patterns rapidly and permanently, and

experience themselves as the creators of their lives, with infinite possibilities
and no limitations. Nor are they useful in the broader and more profound
sense of eliminating suffering in the world, reducing crime and violence, or
creating effective institutions.
The DM Process is more about creation than about psychology. It's more
spiritual than psychotherapeutic. When you eliminate a belief using the DM
Process, you don't merely think, feel, and behave differently. You also enter
what appears to be a non-ordinary state of consciousness. In this state you experience yourself as calm, serene, powerful, and turned on. The possibilities
of your life seem unlimited. You experience that you have no limitations.
Finally, there is nothing to slip back into because your old belief no longer
exists.
Are You Limited by Your Beliefs?
The core of the DM Process is that it enables you to eliminate the beliefs
that lead to dysfunctional patterns. As you'll discover, your beliefs have an
enormous power in your life.
What do you mean when you say you believe something? That it's true. A
belief is a statement about reality that you think is "the truth." And this belief
molds your behavior, your emotions, and your attitudes.
Each of your beliefs serves as a box that limits and determines the behavior that is possible for you.
Here's an example. Let's say you really believe Relationships don't work.
If that's your belief, your behavior would probably include one or more of the
following actions:

You wouldn't let people get close to you.

You wouldn't try to work out problems in your relationships.

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You would spend a lot of time alone.

You wouldn't allow superficial relationships to become close

ones.

You would stay in an unsatisfactory relationship without trying

to change it.

Can you see that the belief Relationships don't work makes it almost impossible for you to sustain a satisfying relationship over a long period of
time? If you eliminated this belief, wouldn't the behaviors just listed (which
are the result of the belief) change, automatically and naturally?
Consider another example of how your beliefs determine your behavior.
Assume you held this belief: The way to succeed in life is to avoid mistakes.
Although this belief would not necessitate any specific behavior, it would undoubtedly limit your behavior in one or more of the following ways:

You would avoid taking any chances at all.

You would do the same thing, day after day, believing that if it
worked yesterday it will work today.

You would be more interested in assigning blame for a mistake

than in finding its source and correcting it.

You would respond defensively to criticism.

Behavior that is incompatible with your belieflike being open to criticism or taking riskswould be highly unlikely. Your behavior occurs in the
box defined by your beliefs.

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Usually, there are many beliefs that contribute to the patterns in your life.
Anna, a client of mine, described her pattern in relationships as "fear of taking chances, shutting off." Just a few of the beliefs that contributed to this
pattern were: Relationships always end with someone getting hurt; there's
something wrong with me; if I express my affection for someone, I'll get hurt.
The patterns in Annas relationships could be explained by these and other related beliefs.
Beliefs Shape Your Emotions
Not only do your beliefs determine your behavior, they also determine
how you experience things emotionally. For example, if you believe Dogs are
friendly, the appearance of a boisterous, excited dog that jumps at you will
produce delight and joy. But if you believe Dogs are dangerous, the same action by that same dog will produce fear. Change the belief, and your emotional reaction to the same stimulus automatically changes. This occurred with
one of my clients. Larry had a phobic fear of crowds that led him to tremble,
break out in a sweat, and hyperventilate whenever he was in the midst of one.
"I don't know why I respond this way to crowds," he told me. "It's not
rational."
As I worked with Larry, he discovered that his emotional reaction was
based on the belief In a large group of people I don't know, something bad
will happen. When the belief was eliminated, Larry's fear went away and the
accompanying physiological symptoms disappeared as well..
Many people have difficulty with the idea that emotional reactions are
based on beliefs. They think of emotions as uncontrollable impulses, resulting from physiological and chemical changes that are separate from the mind.
Feelings "just happen." But this is not correct. Emotional reactions, or feelings, usually are very much dependent on beliefs.
Consider the emotional response you have to another person. Say you
know a person named Fred whom you don't like very much. But a friend of
yours does like Fred and feels very close to him. How can your reactions to

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Fred be so different? You may assume that you and your friend are observing
different qualities in Fred, but in fact your friend probably sees the same
qualities you do. The difference in your emotional response to Fred is a result
of different beliefs the two of you have about people and friendship.
Fred is a very extroverted, gregarious person. Since your friend believes
people should express themselves freely, he admires these qualities in Fred.
On the other hand, you believe that people should be more reserved and only
express themselves fully to very close friends. You don't like these qualities
in Fred.
Fred's qualities are the same for you and your friend. Your different reactions result from the different beliefs you have about what those qualities
mean.
Your beliefs also determine your attitudes, which are a combination of
what you think and how you feel. An attitude is an emotionally held belief. If
you believe I'm worthwhile; things usually work out the way I want them to;
I can do whatever I really want to do, you will have a positive, optimistic attitude about life. On the other hand, if you believe I'm not worthwhile; life is
too hard; I'll never get what I want, those beliefs will tend to give you a negative, pessimistic attitude about life.
Another example of attitudes caused by beliefs is racial, religious, and
gender prejudice. Early in life many people form negative beliefs, such as:
Blacks, Jews, homosexuals, or women are inferior. Such beliefs lead to prejudicial behavior toward these groups. Many people, as adults, feel uncomfortable or even guilty about their attitudes and behavior, and they try logically to
talk themselves out of their feelings. Usually, however, they are unable to
totally get rid of the attitudes and the subtle behavior associated with
themunless they totally eliminate the beliefs that are responsible for the
prejudice. I have worked with several people who presented prejudice as their
unwanted pattern. When the beliefs underlying the prejudice were eliminated,
it totally disappeared. These sessions

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were so successful that I believe the DM Process would be equally valuable in eliminating ethnic conflict between Serbs, Muslims, and Croats in
Bosnia and between Israelis and Palestinians in the Middle East.
You Perceive What You Believe
Not only do your beliefs determine your behavior, your feelings, and your
attitudes, they literally determine what you are able to perceive. Everybody
senses the same thing, but perceiving it is different. An oversimplified description of how you see is that light strikes an object and is reflected in your
eyes. Electrical impulses travel from the retina to the visual cortex, where the
shape and color of the object are registered. But before you can actually see
an object, electrical impulses have to travel from your visual cortex to your
frontal lobe, where the sensation of sight is integrated into a perception of a
specific, recognizable form. In other words, sensations are the raw data
provided by the senses; perceptions are the result of what the brain does with
the raw data. And that is largely a function of your beliefs. So it might be appropriate to reverse the old saying 'Til believe it when I see it" to the more
accurate statement "I'll see it when I believe it"
Let's use a simple example. When you see white moisture on the ground in
winter, you say, "That's snow." If, however, you asked an Eskimo man what
he saw, he would point to as many as ten different places in the snow and use
a different word to refer to each place. The Eskimo might ask you as he pointed, "Do you see the kanewluk or the muruaneq? And, over there, the natquik
and the nutaryuk?n And you'd say, "No, I don't see any of that. I only see
snow."
Are there really ten different "things" out there? There are for the person
who has distinguished them, but not for the person who hasn't. It might not be
hard to learn to distinguish ten different types of snow, but until you did, you
would sense what the Eskimo senses, but you would not perceive what the
Eskimo perceives.

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Once you "see" somethingor, more accurately, distinguish itit really

does exist for you, and you can no longer "not see" it. Consider the popular
optical-illusion books that are filled with images you can only see after you
soften your focus and look at the image without deciding what you expect to
see. Once it comes into focus and you "see" the picture, you cant stop seeing
it.
Another example of how beliefs determine perception can be found in
hypnosis. This is an altered state of consciousness in which it is possible for a
hypnotist to make suggestions to a subject that the subject then believes while
under hypnosis. One common trick is for a hypnotist to drop a $100 bill on
the floor and tell a hypnotized man from the audience that it is his to keep if
he can pick it upand that it weighs one thousand pounds. The subject
struggles mightily, yet fails to pick up the bill. Why? Because he believes it
weighs one thousand pounds and thus perceives it that way.
Eliminate Beliefs and Open Possibilities
When you eliminate the beliefs that are limiting you, you create new possibilities for action. You have the potential of discovering workable solutions
that literally didn't exist before. You're no longer limited by the box you were
previously in.
Randy, one of my clients, described the following pattern to me: "I have a
hard time seeing a project through to its completion in the accepted way. I
keep getting stuck. When it starts getting close to deadline, I just panic. I'm
afraid if I don't come through I'll lose my job. So I end up taking shortcuts
and cheating."
For many years, this was Randy's typical behavior, and he got by with it.
But eventually his boss started noticing his shortcuts and cheating and told
him he had to change his ways if he wanted to keep his job. Suddenly,
Randy's behavior was a problem for him. He tried to follow the rules, but he
was filled with fear that his projects wouldn't succeed. Eventually, he reverted to old patterns, despite his sincere desire not to.

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My work with Randy focused on identifying the beliefs that accounted for
his pattern of behavior, including I can't do what's expected of me.
I asked Randy, "Can you see that your behavior is absolutely consistent
with that belief?" He realized that it was virtually impossible to change his
behavior without first eliminating the belief.
Using the DM Process as you will find it described in Part Two, Randy
began to eliminate the beliefs that were stopping him from finishing projects
without cheating. When all the beliefs were gone, he was able to complete
projects successfully without cutting corners.
The bad news is: You will find that the negative beliefs you have created
in your life literally create your reality. The good news is: The beliefs can be
eliminated. After you have eliminated a belief that has run your life and discovered that you created it, you become the creator of your life. When you
see that you create your life with your beliefs, you can change it by eliminating the beliefs.
You Can Also Change the World
The DM Technologyof which the DM Process is one application is
very effective on a personal level. But it is not a new self-help technique. Its
ultimate implications are far more profound. Imagine a technology that has
the power to change entire institutions so they continually operate in the most
effective manner. Even if you believe that personal renewal is possible, it
may be hard to picture such a Utopian view of society. But it becomes easier
when you understand that organizations and institutions have belief systems
tooand their dysfunctional strategies and operations spring from these
systems.
What people do in organizations is a function of the "culture"the beliefs
about what it takes to survive and succeed. These fundamental beliefs are
manifested in innumerable policies, procedures, organizational structures,
management styles, and systems.

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Institutions operate out of a paradigma set of core beliefsabout their

nature and purpose. All behaviors and actions flow from these basic beliefs,
which shape the strategies of the institution.
In the same way that many individuals get stuck with dysfunctional and
limiting beliefs, institutions and corporations also create boxes that prevent
them from healthy operation and growth. They may try hard to solve their
problems, but the more they try, within the framework of the box, the more
deeply embedded the problems seem to become. As you will see in Part
Three, what I call Third Order Changebeing in a state of continuous creationwill allow every institution and organization to devise workable
strategies to deal with problems as they occur.
But before you can fully grasp the nature of the Decision Maker Technology and learn how to use it, you must understand its underlying principles.
These principles are fundamental. They reach back into the very nature of human consciousness.

Chapter 2 - Principles of the DM Technology

The basic structures of the material world are determined, ultimately, by
the way we look at this world;... the observed patterns of matter are reflections of patterns of mind.
Fritjof Capra, The Turning Point
JLhe principles of the Decision Maker Technology are based on a theory
about the nature of consciousness, creation, and realityspecifically, how
our consciousness creates reality by making distinctions.
I ask you to set aside every preconceived idea you hold, just for a moment,
and consider a different way of viewing life. Begin with these five principles:
1. Existence is a function of consciousness.

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2. Language is the primary tool we use to make distinctions.

3. There is no inherent meaning (or "the truth") in the world.
4. When you create a belief, you create your reality.
5. When you eliminate a belief, you change your reality and create new
possibilities.
Lets explore these points in more depth.
1. Existence Is a Function of Consciousness
If you asked someone, "Do things exist?" the response would probably be,
"Of course things exist! The world is full of things." Doesn't everyone know
that there is physical stuff out therethat reality is tangible and real?
But what allows any thinga hand, a chair, or any other objectto exist?
One way to answer is to imagine a specific thingsay, a hand. What if the
hand expands and keeps expanding until there is nothing in the universe except the hand. What would happen to it? You wouldn't see the hand anymore.
It would disappear because there would be nothing in the universe that was
not the hand. This is a very basic concept about reality: In order for any thing
to exist, there must also be not that thing.
Consider this for a moment. Can you see that any physical object is
bounded by "not that object"? If an object did not have any borders that is,
if it wasn't surrounded by "not that object"it couldn't be distinguished from
everything else. In other words, it wouldn't exist.
The same principle applies to nonmaterial concepts. Love and hate, peace
and war, strong and weak, beautiful and uglythese only exist and have
unique attributes because they have been distinguished from each other. For
example, the state of war is distinguished from peace by the presence of
armed conflict. When there is no armed conflict there is peace. But if armed
conflict existed throughout the world all the time, and if the alternative

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(peace) was unimaginable, you wouldn't be able to distinguish war from any
other state. War, as a condition distinct from peace, couldn't exist.
Now imagine everything in the universe without any distinctions. It's all
just an undifferentiated whole. Can you see that there is nothing? That's because in order for anything to exist, it must be distinguished from everything
else. If no distinction is made between a specific thing and everything else,
there is only an undifferentiated everythingwhich is another way of saying
nothing.
Everything, without any distinctions, is the same as nothing.
Physicist Fred Allen Wolf once said that "the world is only a potential and
not present without you or me to observe it." I would suggest that what physical reality really requires is consciousness to make distinctions.
In making distinctions, we use our sensory apparatus (the five senses) as
well as our perceptual framework (language, culture, paradigms, and individual beliefs). But the world isn't really the way you perceive it. It isn't any
way until you perceive it that waythat is, until you distinguish it that way.
In fact, you don't even sense what's "out there," because there's nothingout
there to be sensed. (Nothing, as we've seen, however, is the potential for
everything to be distinguished.)
An example comes from a Time magazine cover story on human
consciousness.
A baby born with cataractsan unusual but not unheard-of conditionand left untreated for as little as six months becomes permanently and
irrevocably blind. If a sixty-year-old develops cataracts, an operation can restore full sight. The distinctions most of us make unconsciously and at a
glanceforeground vs. background, moving vs. stationary, vertical vs. horizontal, and dozens moreare concepts that the brain has learned. It literally
has to wire itself, with neurons growing out to touch and communicate with
one another in an ever more sophisticated network of connections. And if

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those connections are not repeatedly stimulated in the first few months of
life, when the brain is still in its formative period, they atrophy and die.1
In other words, moving and stationary or vertical and horizontal are not
events "out there." Rather they are "concepts that the brain has learned" (or
distinguished) as a result of having a specific sensory apparatus, without
which they couldn't be distinguished. That means they literally wouldn't
exist.
2. Language Is the Primary Tool We Use to Make Distinctions
What we perceive is also determined to a large extent by our personal beliefs, which are largely a function of our culture and our immediate environment. Our most important tool in making distinctions and creating our reality
is language.2
As Edward Sapir, a noted anthropologist, has said:
Human beings do not live in the objective world alone, nor alone in the
world of social activity as ordinarily understood, but are very much at the
mercy of a particular language which has become the medium of expression
for their society. The fact of the matter is that their "real world" is to a large
extent unconsciously built up in the language habits of the group. ... We see
and hear and otherwise experience very largely as we do because the language habits of our community predispose certain choices of interpretation.
Language is far more than a tool for communication. The word "language"
comes from logos, which means category or concept. With language we categorize, distinguish, and create the universe. Ultimately, we perceive the
world according to our language. For example, when we think in English, we
perceive a world made up primarily of objects: people, trees, houses. These
objects do things or have things done to them using verbs. We literally see
everything in the world in this fashion. We dont perceive "things out there"
because there really are things out there. That just happens to be our worldview, because in our language there is a subject, which acts upon an object,

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which exists independently of the subject. In the English language, independent entities (subjects and objects) are primary, rather than processes or relationships. That's not true in every language.
As Ralph Strauch points out in his book The Reality Illusion:
Some languages are structured around quite different basic word-categories and relationships. They project very different pictures of the basic nature
of reality as a result. The language of the Nootka Indians in the Pacific
Northwest, for example, has only one principle word-category; it denotes
happenings or events. A verbal form like "eventing" might better describe
this word-category, except that such a form doesn't sound right in English,
with its emphasis on noun forms. We might think of Nootka as composed entirely of verbs, except that they take no subjects or objects as English verbs
do. The Nootka, then, perceive the world as a stream of transient events,
rather than as the collection of more or less permanent objects which we see.
Even something which we see clearly as a physical object, like a house, the
Nootka perceive of as a long-lived temporal event. The literal English translation of the Nootka concept might be something like "housing occurs," or "it
houses."
In a discussion of this point, Larry Dossey quotes Nobel Prize winning
physicist Werner Heisenberg as saying,
... what we are observing is not nature itself, but nature exposed to our
method of questioning. And how do we question? All of our methods of interrogating nature depend on languageand it is the very nature of language
to refer to things. We therefore think in terms of things. How can we possibly
think of nonthings, nothings, nothing? In our very forms of thought we instinctively divide the world into subjects and objects, thinkers and things,
mind and matter. This division seems so natural that it has been presumed a
basic maxim of objective science.6
3. There Is No Inherent Meaning (The Truth) in the World

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If nothing exists without distinctions, there is no meaning in the world.

There are only interpretations, which are a form of distinction. For example,
you have never seen anywhere in the world that "I am [anything]," or "Life is
...," or "People are ...". You have never seen anything beautiful or ugly, good
or bad. You see people behaving and talking, and you see objects acting on
other objects (such as acts of nature), but you have never seen the meaning of
any of these behaviors or events. If I ask you, "Have you ever seen a comfortable chair?" you might reply that you have. But have you really? No. You
have only seen a chair which you interpreted as being comfortable. Other
people might interpret the chair as being uncomfortable. "Comfort" is not inherent in chairs.
Your beliefs, including the negative ones that you might hold about yourself, such as I'm not worthwhile, usually stem from your experiences as a
child. You might think they are "facts" that existed in the world before you
"discovered" them. But your beliefs are not facts; they are interpretations of
what you see and hear. For example, if as a child you watched your parents
fighting a lot instead of expressing signs of love and affection, you might
have concluded, Marriage doesn't work. That belief was formed in your
child's mind as an interpretation of what you heard and saw. It became "the
truth" for you, but it wasn't really. There were other ways to interpret what
you observed, such as My parents' marriage doesn't work, but others might.
Or, Some relationships work, others don't. Beliefs are interpretations based
on your observation of events. You didn't see your belief in the world. You
only saw one couple arguing. Your interpretations don't exist in the world,
only in your mind.
There is an old story attributed to author Karl Weick about three baseball
umpires discussing their job.
The first one says, "I calls 'em like they *5." The second one says, "I calls
'em like I sees em." And the third one says, "There ain't nothin' there until I
calls em."

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Once you make a distinction and bring something into reality, it is difficult
to imagine that thing not existing. It really does exist for you. Reality, for any
given person, can be described as that which that person's consciousness has
already distinguished.
4. When You Create a Belief You Create Your Reality
When you realize that you never saw your beliefs in the world, that you
only saw events that had no inherent meaning, it becomes clear that you create your beliefsand, ultimately, your reality. Thus, everything we say is
"out there," other than what we touch, see, hear, smell, or taste, is a distinction we create that exists only in our mind.
Creation is the act of making distinctions. For example, you walk down
the street and think you actually see"men" and "women" when you actually
only perceive individual human beings. You describe these human beings as
"men" or "women," but you have never actually seen "men" or "women";
they are only abstractions you have distinguished. If you were to arbitrarily
distinguish people into those taller and those shorter than six feet, you would
eventually walk down the street and think you are seeing "shorties" and "tallies" as clearly as you now see men and women.
In Alternate Realities, Lawrence LeShan gives a simple example:
Consider how we make classes of things. "Surely," we say, "we do not
create classes. We take them as we find them 'out there,' male and female, animal, vegetable, and mineral.... We are not creating anything. We are observing things and learning their relationships." Why then, asked one philosopher, has no one made a class of red, juicy, edible things and included meat
and cherries in it? Or a class of tall, dark-haired men and women with no earlobes? ... It becomes clear, as we look at these trivial points, that... we help
create and maintain the reality we perceive and react to.
So nothing is until you make it so. But once you do, it must be. You can
no longer not see men and women.

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Here is a vivid example. In The Experts Speak by Christopher Cerf and

Victor Navasky, hundreds of experts are cited who were limited in their ability to see anything outside their existing beliefs. The following is just one of
the beliefs that was generally accepted as "the truth" and that determined the
believer's behavior at the time. Cerf and Navasky tell of how in the 1850s, a
Hungarian doctor and professor of obstetrics, Ignaz Semmelweis, ordered his
interns at the Viennese Lying-in Hospital to wash their hands after performing autopsies and before examining new mothers. The death rate plummeted
from 22 out of 200 to two out of 200, prompting the following reaction from
one of Europe's most respected medical practitioners:
"It may be that it [Semmelweis's procedure] does contain a few good principles, but its scrupulous application has presented such difficulties that it
would be necessary, in Paris for instance, to place in quarantine the personnel of a hospital the great part of a year, and that, moreover, to obtain results
that remain entirely problematical." (Dr. Charles Dubois, Parisian obstetrician, in a memo to the French Academy, on September 23,1858.)
Semmelweis' superiors shared Dubois' opinion; when the Hungarian physician insisted on defending his theories, they forced him to resign his post on
the faculty.
In modern times, we may view this example as ridiculous. Doesn't everyone know that proper hygiene is a lifesaving factor in hospitals? We tend to
view this as an objective realitya fact. But Dubois and his colleagues were
operating out of a different worldview, from a different set of beliefs.
Semmelweis's theory did not fit with their beliefs about hospital care, and
therefore it was not the truth for them.
The only thing that is "true" is that which you make true by definition.
You create reality (truth) by making arbitrary distinctions out of nothing.
Whatever you distinguish becomes real (true) by the very fact of your having
made the distinction. The distinction brings something into existence. It also
serves as the definition of what has been brought into existence. The world

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isbut only because we said so. We are, by our very nature, conscious beings who distinguish, which means beings who create "reality."
Once you have created a belief, you have created a reality in which your
belief is "the truth." And your life becomes consistent with that belief. You
have constant evidence that the belief is true. You have a hard time even imagining possible behavior that is not consistent with your belief. It is difficult
to eliminate or change the belief because you feel as though you actually perceive it existing in the world. So your behavior continues to be consistent
with your belief, even if it is dysfunctional and you try to change it.
I like to use this story as an illustration. Imagine God saying, "Let there be
earth, with land and water," and there was earth with land and water. Then
God said, "I think I'd like to visit earth and go sailing all around the planet."
So God goes to earth, creates a boat, gets in it, and starts sailing. After a
while, however, even God would not be able to continue sailing because the
boat would bump into land. Obviously God could make the land disappear
and continue sailing. But as long as there is land, which God created, even
God could not sail unimpeded around the world.
5. When You Eliminate a Belief, You Change Your Reality and Create
New Possibilities
Because things only exist as a result of distinctions you make, when you
dissolve or eliminate the distinction, that reality disappears. The following
exercise demonstrates my point.
Let's distinguish a two-dimensional figure with three straight sides from
every other possible figure and call it a triangle. (A definition is nothing more
than how you describe a specific distinction. Its the "nature" of the distinction.) Now let's change the figure by adding one more side and making it a
four-sided figure with equal angles. Notice you no longer have a triangle.
You now have a figure we have defined as a rectangle. The new figure no
longer fits the definition of a triangle. You might say that the triangle has disappeared. It doesn't exist.

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From this illustration we learn that when the unique attributes of a "thing"
are changed, and when the distinction that makes it unique from other
"things" is changed, it disappears.
This principle explains what makes a belief disappear during the DM Process. In the DM Process, you identify a specific belief, which is a conviction
you have that your way of viewing the world is "the truth," as distinguished
from all other views, which are not "the truth"they're false. You then transform a statement that you consider to beuthe truth" into a statement that you
consider to be "a truth." Once you do that, the statement is no longer a belief
It has become an interpretationone of many possible ways of defining reality. Thus, the belief no longer exists. It has disappeared! And when the belief
is gone, your reality has changed. Now new possibilities appear that weren't
there before.
Most therapies assume that there is an objective world "out there" that the
individual is having trouble dealing with. Therefore, the conventional role of
therapy is to help people cope better with that objective world. The DM Process, on the other hand, assumes that there is no "reality" independent from
your beliefs. Thus, altering your beliefs not only changes your behavior, your
feelings, and how you perceive the world, it literally changes the world in
which you function.
The Decision Maker Technology is a way to use these philosophical
principles in everyday life. We think that our beliefs about education, health
care, the penal system, parenting, business, and so on are "the truth." Our
problem-solving strategies are consistent with our (often unconscious) beliefs. And because we think we discovered our beliefs in the world, they are
very hard to let go of, and we strongly resist strategies or ideas that are inconsistent with them. But once we see that our beliefs are merely interpretations
or distinctions we madeand not "the truth" at allwe are open to other
alternatives.

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Before you can eliminate a belief, however, you have to be able to identify
what it is you believe and how you arrived at that belief. That's the next point
in our discussion.

Chapter 3 - What's Holding You Back?

Whether you say you can or you can'tyou're always right! Anonymous
JYour core self-esteem beliefs are formed early in childhood. These are
the beliefs that shape who you are and are very influential in determining
how you deal with the world.
Many medical experts, psychologists, and parenting authorities agree that
possessing self-esteem is the key to living as empowered adults. A major
government task force that spent three years studying self-esteem concluded:
Self-esteem is the likeliest candidate for a social vaccine, something that
empowers us to live responsibly and that inoculates us against the lures of
crime, violence, substance abuse, teen pregnancy, child abuse, chronic welfare dependency, and educational failure. The lack of self-esteem is central to
most personal and social ills plaguing our state and nation as we approach the
end of the twentieth century.
Many people have a sense that these conclusions are true, but what is the
specific relationship between self-esteem and how we live our lives? And
why does poor self-esteem lead to dysfunctional behavior and emotions?
In my own experience, after having worked with almost a thousand
people, I found that negative self-esteem beliefs were at the root of almost
every dysfunctional pattern of emotion or behavior that people presented.
For example:

Beneath Rons inability to express his feelings was the belief:

I'm not lovable.

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Beneath Sally's fear of confronting people was the belief:

Im not worthy.

Beneath Barney's avoidance of relationships was the belief:

Im not good enough.

Martha came to see me just after she left a long marriage in which her husband had been cold, physically detached, and emotionally abusive. She
wanted to understand why she hadn't left him earlier. During her session,
Martha realized that she experienced herself as someone who wasn't worthwhile, which came from several beliefs, including Pm unworthy. At that
point it became clear to her that the reason she hadn't left her husband was
that she hadn't felt she was worthy enough to have someone who would treat
her better. Her cold, abusive husband was "just what I deserved."
Martha then recalled that shortly before her marriage she had briefly dated
a man who was very warm and loving and who had treated her "like a
queen." She remembered feeling uncomfortable with him, so she broke off
the relationship. What she wasn't conscious of at the time but realized during
our session was that she'd been afraid he'd "find out I wasn't worthy and leave
me." Soon after, she met the man she eventually married. Even though he
treated her badly and she never felt he loved her, she stayed with him for
thirty years.
Martha's self-esteem beliefPm unworthycreated a reality in which she
experienced no choice but to live unloved for thirty years. It's a startling example of the permanent damage low self-esteem beliefs can have.
But how are self-esteem beliefs formed?
In the Beginning
At birth, you are pure possibility. You don't enter the world with a tag on
your foot that defines you as a specific type of person with a predestined set

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of beliefs and patterns. You're just consciousnessthe creator of the creation

you will become.
Into that vacuum of pure possibility comes your environment, your circumstances, the behaviors of others. You begin to create distinctions about
what you experience. Those distinctions become your beliefs, and you create
them. For example, my client Laurie was rarely able to get her parents to accommodate any of her desires. Everything was always done their way. By the
age of six, after consistently having her wishes denied and being urged to go
along with what her parents told her, Laurie formed the belief I don't matter,
and she felt and acted according to that belief. Had Laurie been able to interpret her parents' behavior to mean that My mom and dad don't have very
good parenting skills, she would not have gone through life with low self-esteem, in spite of her parents' behavior. This latter conclusion would have
been a huge and probably impossible leap for a small child; that's why so
many of the beliefs formed in childhood result in a poor self-image. In fact, it
is typical of children to blame themselves for their parents' behavior. Children believe that adults are all-knowing. If their parents ignore, criticize, punish, or abandon them, they assume it must be their own fault. Children are
also totally dependent on adults for survival, so it's scary for them to think
adults don't know what they're doing. Interpreting their parents' behavior toward them as their own fault is ultimately safer. It was natural for Laurie to
form the belief I don't matter as a result of her parents' behavior.
Parents Don't Cause Our Beliefs
But Laurie's parents were not the cause of her belief that she didn't matter.
As the creator of her beliefs, Laurie made that distinction and it became her
reality. Her parents' behavior merely constituted the circumstances that she
observed while she was creating herself.
It's important to realize that beliefs about yourself are not merely thoughts
inside your head. A child's self-esteem decisions are not only a

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mental process. They are distinctions by which the child actually becomes
the belief The child is actually creating herself. So when Laurie concluded I
don't matter, she actually became someone who didn't matter. Her actions,
perceptions, interpretations, feelingsand even the way she was treatedbecame consistent with being someone who didn't matter.
We create our lives based on models (such as our parents), but those models have no inherent power to cause us to believe anything. Consider this
metaphor. A painter bases his painting on a model, but you wouldn't say that
the model created the painting. Clearly, the painter created it, although it
would have been a different painting had there been a different model. In the
same way, other people do not create you; they are merely models from
which you create yourself.
Just as a painter might change his work or dab away a color that isn't acceptable after the model has left, you can change your beliefs any time after
you leave the environment that was your model.
Unfortunately, most people come to see their beliefs as unchangeable
facts, as "the truth."
The Consequences of Negative Self-Esteem
It makes all the difference in the world how you create yourself. Let's assume that you create one of the two following sets of self-esteem beliefs:
I'm not good enough; I'm not okay; there's something wrong with me; I'm
not worthwhile; I don't matter.
Or:
I'm good enough; I'm okay just the way I am; I'm worthwhile just because
I am, not for any reason; I matter.

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Which set of beliefs would most likely lead to anxiety and depression? To
substance abuse? To teenage pregnancy? To eating disorders? To satisfying
relationships? To a productive career?
It may seem obvious, but many people get stuck with the idea that these
are not beliefs at allthey are expressions of ego or "Who I really am." I use
the term "ego" here to mean who you think you are: namely, the collection of
beliefs, feelings, and behaviors that you use to identify yourself and to distinguish yourself from others. For example, you may describe yourself as a
good parent, a loving spouse, a compassionate person, or a hard worker.
People often say that certain behaviors or attitudes are "Just the way I am"
or "Part of my personality" or "My way." And conversely, "That's not me" or
"I'm not that kind of person." They box themselves into an identity as if it
were an objective thing. But that "identity," like everything else, is a result of
distinctions they made. It wasn't just given to them at birth. In other words,
they experience themselves as the creation when really they did the creating,,
During my first few sessions with Barbara, she would acknowledge a dysfunctional pattern, such as hostility, and then say, "That's me. That's just the
way I am." Her sense of herself and her behavior was consistent with the beliefs and behavior she had formed early in life. She defined them collectively
as "me." After Barbara eliminated several beliefs and, consequently, changed
her behavior, she discovered that they didn't define her. Her experience of
herself changed totally.
When you experience yourself as your ego, you are limited by the specific
beliefs with which you have identified yourself. For example, if you say "It's
not safe to express myself" or "I'm not artistic," that's what you and your
world become.
Your ego isn't who you really are, however. It is merely who you think
you are and experience yourself as being. Who you really are is the creator of
your ego. Remember, you start life as a blank slate with unlimited possibilities. Then, as the creator of your beliefs, you form the conclusions about

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yourself that ultimately constitute your ego. You experience yourself as that
which got created, when really you are that which did the creating. You are
not the sum total of your decisions. You are the decision maker.
Creating a Survival Strategy
Let's say you are a young child who has created a host of negative beliefs
about yourself or about life. At this point you are in school, interacting with
lots of other kids and adults. You are beginning to realize that you are going
to grow up and will have to make your own way in life. You are confronted
with a real dilemma, albeit an unconscious one: "How will I make it in life if
there's something fundamentally wrong with me or the world?"
Imagine the fear and anxiety you must feel when you experience these two
conflicting "facts." On one hand, your experience is I must make it on my
own in life. On the other hand, you have concluded that There's something
fundamentally wrong with me or life that will make it difficult, if not impossible, to make it.
Fear and anxiety are unpleasant and painful feelings, so children who have
them try to find ways of not feeling them. In DM sessions, I've discovered
that people have two basic ways of dealing with the unpleasant feelings that
are caused by negative self-esteem beliefs: First, they use alcohol, drugs,
food, or other substances to cover up the feelings and numb themselves or to
make themselves feel good. Second, they develop survival strategies that help
them deal with the anxiety that stems from their negative beliefs. As a survival strategy is formed, the child also forms a belief about that strategy.
I'm good enough because...
What makes me worthwhile is...
The way to deal with a dangerous world is...
The way to survive is...

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Survival strategy beliefs are based on a child's observation of what it takes

to feel good about herself or himself, to be important, to be worthwhile, or to
be able to deal with life. For example:
Susan's parents placed a heavy emphasis on friendships, on what others
thought of them, and on impressing people, so Susan concluded that the way
to survive was to get everyone to like and approve of her.
Art lived in a community where the people who were considered important and given respect were in gangs and carried guns, so he chose that as his
survival strategy.
Jennifer discovered in high school that boys sought out the attractive girls
who wore makeup and nice clothes, so Jennifer concluded that the way to
win approval was to look pretty.
Once you decide that a positive sense of yourself is "because of" anything,
you've created a lifelong problem. If you say the only way to be good enough
is to be wealthy and have a big house, your sense of worth is linked to that
goal. If you aren't wealthy and don't have a big house, you are forced to face
your belief that you're not good enough. Moreover, even if you achieve your
survival strategy, there's the danger of losing it. Total disaster is always just
around the corner for you. Life becomes a sea of anxiety, in which you are
constantly struggling to meet the conditions you have made for being good
enough. Your self-esteem is always in question.
Tom, an executive in a Wall Street firm, earns over $200,000 a year. His
core belief is I don't matter, and his survival strategy belief is What makes me
worthwhile is being seen as important by others. As a result, Tom becomes
anxious whenever a new person gets hired, or a colleague wins praise, or he
isn't included in a meeting, or his boss doesn't acknowledge him after he's
completed a project.
Miriam has the survival strategy belief Being beautiful makes me acceptable. For most of her life, she has lived comfortably with that belief. Her

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beauty earned her quite a bit of attention, admiration, and even love. But now
Miriam is approaching fifty, and she's frightened. The march of time is
threatening to rob her of the one thing that she believes makes her acceptable.
She has become increasingly depressed; every time a man fails to look at her
admiringly, she feels as if she doesn't matter.
One consequence of being run by survival strategy beliefs is that instead
of living out of choices and pleasuredoing things because you want to do
themyou do them primarily to survive. You experience your survival as dependent on the success of your survival strategy. The need to fulfill the terms
of your survival strategy dominates your life.
Someone once said, "You can never get enough of what you never really
wanted in the first place." That's an excellent description of trying to live
with survival strategies formed to compensate for negative self-esteem beliefs. Once you say you're not worthwhile just the way you are, no amount of
accomplishment or praise will provide the unconditional sense of self-esteem
you want and need.
People who have beliefs that are indicative of low self-esteem are not just
criminals or drug addicts or unsuccessful people or those who suffer from
deep depression. Many people with low self-esteem are visibly successful,
living in nice homes with stable families. What distinguishes people is not
their self-esteem beliefs, but their survival strategiesthe ways they cope
with a negative sense of themselves.
Jonathan, a businessman, concluded What makes me good enough is getting away with things I shouldn't do to compensate for the belief I'm not good
enough.
Sandy, a mental health professional, used What makes me okay is taking
care of other people to help her deal with the belief I'm not okay.
Charlie, a financial executive, concluded What makes me valuable is getting results to cover up the belief I'm not important.

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Although the dysfunctional behavior that people exhibit is usually a direct

result of their survival strategy beliefs, the energy that drives the survival
strategies is the underlying negative self-esteem. Thus both the underlying
self-esteem beliefs and the survival strategy beliefs have to be eliminated.
The role of survival strategy beliefs explains why therapies designed only to
improve self-esteem rarely produce fundamental and lasting changes in
peoples lives.
True Self-esteem Is Unconditional
Don, a top executive in his company, spent an hour of our first session describing how many corporations wanted to hire him as CEO, how wealthy he
was, and how many business successes he had. But as we worked together,
Don discovered something that truly astonished him. First he discovered the
belief I'm not worthy, which was his interpretation of why he had received
very little attention from his parents. Then he remembered that when he was
a child his parents only gave him positive attention when he exceeded their
expectations. He formed the belief What makes me okay is exceeding
people's expectations. He grew into a driven workaholic, accumulating
wealth, success, and acknowledgment along the way, but never really feeling
he had done enough. His belief kept him running on all cylinders, but there
was little satisfaction or joy in his success. And while others observing him
might have said that Don was a man with very high self-esteem, in fact he
never felt good about himself.
Self-esteem is not conceit, arrogance, or bragging. Acting important or
trying to convince others you are important is not behavior characteristic of a
person with high self-esteem. It is a manifestation of a survival strategyin
Don's case, the need to convince himself and others that he was okay.
A positive self-esteem is a fundamental sense of yourself as okay just the
way you are. It is created unconditionally. You are good enough just because
you create yourself that waynot because of anything you do. You can't earn
self-esteem. For example, if you get straight A's in school and your parents

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never acknowledge your good marksor constantly point to what you haven
t accomplishedyou may form the belief I can never do anything right. On
the other hand, if you get poor grades yet your parents offer unconditional
love, try to support you in your studies, and praise you for those things you
do well, you probably won't develop negative self-esteem beliefs. It isn't
achievements or grades that are responsible for self-esteem.
Praise and rewards won't necessarily lead to high self-esteem. In fact, children who receive indiscriminate praise might tend to look outside themselves
for acceptance instead of trusting their own judgment.
The crucial issue is how children interpret any given set of experiences,
which is determined by all their other experiences, the beliefs they have
already formed, and the fact that they are only children. In chapter 9,1 will
offer parents some techniques for enhancing self-esteem in their children.
Being the Decision Maker
As long as you are going to have an ego, you need positive self-esteemthe sense that the creation you have created yourself to be is able and
worthy of surviving in the world you have created.
At any given moment, it's possible to experience yourself either as an
egoa specific set of distinctions or beliefsor the creator of your life
which creates the distinction.
People who do the DM Process significantly change their sense of themselves by eliminating dysfunctional beliefs. If they do it repeatedly, they also
are able to take the experience of being the decision maker into their everyday lives. They have a sense of "nothing missing," of satisfaction, of not being at the mercy of difficult circumstances. They seem to be living both as
the ego they have created and, at the same time, as the creator of the ego.
They experience that they have upsets, not that they are upset.

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For example, from time to time my wife does or says something and I get
angry. I used to think that my anger was caused by Shelly, and I would stay
angry at her for hours or even days. Now I still get angry sometimes (although not as often), but my immediate reaction isn't that Shelly caused my
anger. As the creator, I observe that I am reacting to something Shelly did or
said. I watch "Morty the creation" being angry and I ask, "What does he believe that makes him so upset?" Sometimes I find a belief, and sometimes I
don't. I don't try to talk myself out of my feelings or try to suppress them. I
fully experience them. Yet almost always I also experience a distance
between "myself" and the reaction, and I realize that the reaction isn't being
caused by Shelly So I am not run by my anger, I rarely react to it, and I am
able to get over it quickly.
A metaphor I use to describe this state is that life is a game (such as
Monopoly) that we think is real. Most people live as if they are the Top
Hatgoing to jail, collecting $200, paying others for landing on their property, and so on. But after you have created and then experienced yourself as
the decision maker several times, you experience that you aren't the Top Hat.
You are, instead, both the creator of the game and that which is moving the
Top Hat around the board.
Moreover, when you play Monopoly, you are excited about passing go
and disappointed when you land on someone else's property or get sent to
jail. But you usually have the sense that it is just a game that you'll be putting
away in a few hours.
When you experience yourself repeatedly as the creator of your life, you
feel that way about life: There are incidents that feel good and those that feel
bad, circumstances that turn out the way you want and others that don't. But
there is always the clear sense that life is a gameto be played all-out but at
the same time not taken too seriously. You experience that life has already
turned out; there is no place to get to. Whatever is happening is a function of
beliefs you createdand you can eliminate them at any time.

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Most psychotherapy tries to help you cope better with the world. Most enlightenment practices focus on transcending the world. The Decision Maker
Process enables you to change your world (which you created in the first
place) and, at the same time, to live in it but not be run by it.

Part Two
The Decision Maker Process in Action
Chapter 4 - How the DM Process Works
No great improvements in the lot of mankind are possible until a great
change takes place in their mode of thought. John Stuart Mill
lou may have had the following experience with self-help exercises. You
read an exercise in a book that is supposed to help you "work through" some
problemlike an inability to have satisfying relationships or being overweight. You decide to try the exercise on yourself. Maybe you write answers
to questions, or practice positive thoughts, or follow specific steps. You do
this trusting that the formula of the exercise will produce the results you're
seeking if you do it correctly. Self-help books are full of these exercises, and
at best they help you in the short-term. Rarely if ever do they produce profound and lasting change.
The DM Process does. As you will see in this chapter, the DM Process
usually requires a trained facilitator when it is used to eliminate serious dysfunctional patterns. That's mainly because the beliefs are not known. They're
usually unconscious, and assistance is required to identify all the beliefs responsible for any given problem. However, as I will demonstrate in chapter
5, once you know the beliefs you want to work on, you often can use a modified version of the DM Process to eliminate unwanted beliefs in your own
life, with your children, or with friends.

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In Part Three I will demonstrate how the DM Technology can be used for
large-scale transformation in institutions and organizations. For now, just
concentrate on grasping the steps of the DM Process.
The Decision Maker Process
There are seven steps to the DM Process:
1. Identify the undesirable pattern.
2. Name the underlying beliefs.
3. Identify the source of each belief.
4. Describe other possibilities (alternate interpretations).
5. Realize you didn't "see" it in the world.
6. Eliminate the old belief.
7. Create yourself as the creator.
I've chosen my client Joan to help illustrate how the process works. Joan,
an attractive and soft-spoken professional woman in her mid-forties, came to
see me after hearing a speech I'd made about the Decision Maker Process.
She thought I might be able to help her.
Joan had been a government worker for twenty years and had recently left
her job to try and start her own business. She confided that she had been divorced for five years, after spending ten years in a "horrible" marriage, and
she still felt resentful about the way her husband had treated her.
Step One: Joan's Undesirable Pattern
I asked Joan to describe an undesirable pattern that she wanted to change.
She told me, "My problem is that, while other people have confidence in
me, I never feel as good about myself as others do. I'm afraid to challenge

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people, afraid to take a stand. I'm always doing more for others than they do
for me." She paused. "I guess you'd call it low self-esteem. In a way, I feel
that my life is a fake. Some days I don't even get out of bed because I'm so
depressed."
"Is depression the pattern you want to work on?" I asked.
She nodded. "Yes. It's been getting worse since I left my job. I want to
start a business, but I have a sense of just not caring."
Step Two: Joan's Underlying Beliefs
I explained to Joan that everything we do and feel is a function of our beliefs. "What do you believe that could account for your depression?"
"I have a lot of negative beliefs about myself," Joan responded readily. I'm
not good enough. Pm not worthy. A lot more." "What seems the most real
right now?" She thought a moment. "Pm not worthy."
"Can you see that the belief Pm not worthy would at least partially explain
your pattern, your depression and negative sense of yourself, your sense
of'Why try?' 'Why care?' 'Why get out of bed?'" "Yes, I can see that," she
agreed.
Step Three: Finding the Source of Joan's Belief
I then asked Joan to look for the circumstances or events that led her to
form her belief. As we have seen, fundamental beliefs about yourself and
about life (the kind of beliefs that shape your self-esteem) are usually formed
before the age of six, based on early interactions with parents and other
primary caretakers. Beliefs are almost always formed by a pattern of events,
not just a single incident.
When I asked Joan to think about what happened to her as a child that
might have led to the belief Pm not worthy, she told me about growing up on
a ranch in Texas that her father ran. "I had a brother three years older and a

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sister ten years younger. We lived way out in an isolated area. There was no
one to play with, so I always played alone. I was a loner.
"I never had any approval as a child. I remember thinking if I had party
clothes it was so my parents could impress the neighbors. They seemed to be
very worried that I not embarrass them.
"My parents were very much in love with each other. My father was always buying Mother something, but not me. I didn't see much of him. I never
really knew my father.
"My mother was always telling me to 'be a good girl/ But she never
praised me or said loving things to me. I wasn't criticized, I was ignored. She
never hugged or kissed me or told me she was happy I was her little
girl or that she loved me no matter what. If we displeased her, she burst into tears. I'd feel rotten. Father was always trying to please her, but I never
could. I had the sense that if I did something that was really embarrassing, I'd
be banished."
I had been listening without interruption for some time. Now I said, "I
think you've found the source of your belief. Does it make sense to you that
what you've just told me about your childhood is the source of the belief I'm
not worthy?"
Joan's face was very sad. "Yes."
"Can you see that the conclusion you reached that I'm not worthy made a
lot of sense to a four-, five-, or six-year-old girl? That it wasn't silly or stupid
or off-the-wall?"
She nodded.
"Can you also see that you were a little girl, trying to understand hundreds
of different upsetting, confusing experiences with your mom and dad? And
they just didn't make sense, until one day you saidprobably not

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consciouslyTf I'm not worthy, everything makes sense. My parents' behavior makes sense.'"
"I can see that."
"And that's what you believed to be the truth. You didn't make a mistake.
You made the logical conclusion any child in your place would have made.
Now let's examine some alternatives."
Step Four: Describing Other Possibilities
"Let's play a game called Possibilities," I said. "You start with a set of experiences. We'll use the ones you just told me from your childhood. Then I'll
ask you to make up as many different explanations or interpretations of those
experiences as you can. You've already made one interpretation of your parents' behavior toward you. You concluded I'm not worthy. What might be
some others?
Joan labored hard over her list and finally came up with six other ways to
interpret her parents' behavior:
1. My parents treated me the way they did because they thought I wasn't
worthy, but they were wrong.
2. My parents' behavior had nothing to do with me. They did what they
did because of their beliefs from childhood.
3. My mother didn't know how to be a good mother and show love for her
children.
4. My mother was frustrated about being stuck out on the ranch, and she
took it out on me.
5. I wasn't good enough by my mother's standards, but I might be by other
people's standards.

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6. My mother didn't have a very effective parenting style. It wasn't my

fault.
"Good." I smiled at Joan. "Can you see that each of these statements could
explain your parents' behavior just as well as the conclusion you reached as a
child that you weren't worthy?"
Joan had tears in her eyes. "Yes," she said quietly. I then asked Joan, "Is
what you have been living with as c the truth' about you since you were a
little girl only one arbitrary interpretation made by that little girl?" "That's
right."
Step Five: Joan Realizes She Didn't "See" It in the World
"If you try to picture yourself back on the ranch, didn't it seem to you that
you could see right in front of you, almost like it was a physical thing: I'm not
worthy? It was probably the most real thing in your childhood." "Yes, it
was," she agreed.
"Did you really see it? Was it out there in reality to be seen?"1 She smiled
ruefully. "No. It was an interpretation. I made it up." "Okay. If I'm not worthy
wasn't out there in the world, where was it?" "In my mind."
"And what did you actually see in the world?"
"I saw my parents' behavior."
"Do you notice what happened?" I asked Joan. "Even though I'm not
worthy was never the truth, once you said it you lived your life as if it were
the truth. You felt that way and tried to compensate for feeling that way; it
determined your behavior. You even found a husband who treated you that
wayeven though it's not 'the truth.' Your life became consistent with the belief I'm not worthy.
"What if you had had an aunt whom you were very close to as a child,
who saw everything that happened to you, and to whom you confided

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everything you were thinking. What if after you told her you were concluding
I'm not worthy, you two had the conversation we just had today? Is it real to
you that if she had helped you reach any other possible interpretation of your
parents' behavior, your life would have been consistent with that conclusion?
For example, if you had said your parents' behavior meant they didn't have
good parenting skills and had nothing to do with you, would your life have
been different?"
"Absolutely. I wouldn't have felt unworthy. I wouldn't have married the
man I married."
Joan was silent. She looked stunned by this new realization.
Step Six: Joan Eliminates Her Belief
After a time, I said, "Look inside yourself, Joan. Look for that place where
you felt I'm not worthy when we first started this session. Is I'm not worthy
still the truth for you?"
She paused and appeared to be actually looking inside. After a moment,
she replied. "No. That's not the truth. I'm not unworthy. It's just something I
made up."
"Would you say that your belief I'm not worthy has disappeared?"
"Yes, it has."
"There are two ways of knowing that a belief has disappeared. First, you
look inside and the belief isn't there anymore. Or you say the words
of the belief and they aren't real to you. That's what you've just done. Second, since a belief limits you to behavior that is consistent with it, if the belief goes away you should see new possibilities that you couldn't see before.
I'm not asking you to predict how you will feel tomorrow. But can you at
least imagine the possibility of waking up in the morning and caring? Of feeling worthy?"

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"I still don't feel totally great about myself, but I can imagine it," Joan
said.
"Could you have imagined that possibility an hour ago?"
"Definitely not."
"Joan, you only eliminated one belief today," I said. "It will never come
back. Your childhood led to a lot of other beliefs that manifest themselves as
depression. That's why you still don't feel great about yourself. By eliminating one belief, you created some new possibilities for feeling better about
yourself that weren't there before. When you eliminate all the beliefs that are
responsible for the depressionbe they one or thirtythe pattern of depression will disappear. Don't invalidate what you did today. If you feel depressed, ask yourself if you still believe I'm not worthy. You won't. And if
you eliminate the other beliefs, like Pm not good enough, which you mentioned earlier, ultimately your depression will lift totally."
Step Seven: Joan Creates Herself as the Creator
Eliminating the first belief was a huge breakthrough for Joan. Her entire
life had been spent carrying around this negative belief about herself. It was
like a giant boulder resting on her shoulders. Now she saw I'm not worthy
was simply an interpretation. "I've lived with I'm not worthy, and it's not
true." Once she realized that her belief was notuthe truth," only "a truth," it
disappeared. It no longer defined her. She no longer had to live her life as
someone who was not worthy.
Once you see that you are not your beliefs, but instead that you create your
beliefs, you have tremendous ability to shape the direction of
your life. With the DM Process, this is more than just an abstract concept.
You have literally re-created yourself as a person who is able to eliminate
negative beliefs and invent new possibilities for your life.2

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Lets return to Joan. "You told me earlier that you were a person who was
not worthy," I said. "But now you have eliminated that belief. You have discovered it wasn't the truth. But if you are your beliefs and the beliefs disappear, your sense of yourself should have disappeared. Look inside. Do you
still experience 'Joan'?"
Joan laughed. "Of course I do!"
"Okay. If that's the case, you can't be your beliefs because one of your
core beliefs disappeared and there's still 'you.' In fact, you could repeat what
you did today with a hundred beliefs about yourself and you'd still experience
a 'you' inside. Which leads us to the question: If you aren't the sum total of
your beliefs and the behavior and emotions that stem from them, who are
you, really?"
She looked totally confused. "Urn .. .1 am someone who is worthy?"
I smiled. "No, you just made that up. That's no more true than your belief
that you weren't worthy. I'll give you a hint. How did the belief I'm not
worthy get in your head in the first place?"
"My parents. What they did."
"No, that's what happened. How did what happened translate into your
belief?"
"It's the way I interpreted it," she said.
"Ah! So do you see that before there can be an interpretation, there must
first be an interpreter? There had to be someone who created the belief before
there could be a belief? Can you see that you aren't your decisions, you're the
decision maker?
Joan smiled. "I am the interpreter."

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"Yes." I sat back in my chair and regarded Joan. "That's why I call this the
Decision Maker Process. Each of us really is the decision maker, not the
decisions we've made. You can call that soul, or spirit, or consciousness, or
whatever description you like. Another way to put it is that when you were
born you were the possibility for all possibilities. The essential quality of
who you really are is when you say, 'I'm this and not that'; this becomes the
truth just because you said it. Remember, Joan, your life has been consistent
with Pm not worthy, even though this isn't and never was the truth about you.
You realized that if you had said something different as a child, that other
conclusion would have become the truth for you, and your life would have
been consistent with it. You are the possibility for anything until you identify
yourself as specific beliefs. Is that clear to you?"
"That's clear."
"Well, if your life is consistent with your beliefs, and you make up your
beliefs, what does that make you?"
Her response sounded like a question. "The creator of my life?"
"Is that real to you?"
Her eyes widened and she sat back in her chair. She took a deep breath.
"That's actually very real to me right now."
I explained to Joan that the only thing that is "true" is that which a person
makes true by definition. We create reality by making distinctions. I asked
her to consider the ways we "know" something. A crucial aspect of the Decision Maker Process is to know that you are the creator of your life in a
very different way from how we usually "know" things.
This is the way I described it to Joan: There are three different ways of
"knowing" something: (1) understanding it, using language; (2) experiencing
it; and (3) creating it.

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Consider knowing how to ride a bike. You can read about it, watch others
do it, study the physics of balance, and be given detailed instructions. You
can understand the mechanics of bike riding so well that you could tell
someone else how to do it. But the kind of knowledge that consists of understanding is very different than the knowledge you get from experiencing
itgetting on and falling off forty or fifty times until your body learns how
to balance and you can ride a bike down the street.
Unfortunately, we sometimes confuse our description of an experience
with the experience itself because we communicate by using words. For example, let's say your friend describes a great meal he had at a local restaurant
and you respond, "Oh, I know exactly what you're talking about." Maybe you
"understand" what he's talking about, but you have not had your friends experience. Understanding and experiencing are two different things.
There is a third way of knowing something. We are going to focus on this
way in the DM Process. It's knowing something as a result of creating it.
I'm sure that on more than one occasion in your life you had someone
teach you somethingfor example, how to solve a math problem. If your
teacher was competent, you understood what to do. Moreover, once you had
performed the math problem, you had experienced doing it. If you continued
studying and learning, however, something very special might have happened
to you. One day, you might have had a deeper sense of knowing, a flash of
conceptual insight that allowed you to see the problem in a qualitatively different light. You thought, "Aha! That's what my teacher meant." After this
experience, you "know" the material in a different way. You "own" your understanding; it's yours. In a sense, you did the same thing as the first person
who ever solved the problem. You actively created the answer for yourself as
opposed to just passively understanding the answer.
The distinction between these three ways of knowingunderstanding, experiencing, and creatingis important because the DM Process makes use of
"knowing by creating."

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After explaining this to Joan, I said, "At the moment in our conversation
when you said, 'I didn't see I'm not worthy in the world, it was just an interpretation'at the moment you realized that your interpretation only became
true because you said so and that anything you would have said would have
been trueat that moment you created yourself as the creator of your life. If
you look inside yourself, is it real to you that you not only understand and experience that you are the creator of your life, but you also know it in a different, more profound way?"
"Yes, I do," she said. "It's more like an intuitive knowledge. It's like I just
know it and don't need reasons."
"Before we end," I said to Joan, "I'd like you to notice what it's like being
the creator of your life. Would you say that no matter how good any given
moment in your life has been, you've always had the sense that something
was missing?"
She looked sad again. "Absolutely."
"Joan, just put aside for a moment what you've known to be true up until
now and what you expect to be true when you leave. Look inside, as the decision maker, as the possibility for all possibilities, as the creator of your life.
Is there anything missing right now, at this moment?"
She looked at me with an expression of surprise. "No. No, there's nothing
missing."
"And what are you experiencing right now, as the creator of your life?"
"I feel good. Peaceful. Like a weight has been lifted off me. Powerful.
There are no limitations. It's all up to me."
"What you've just described is the natural experience of human beings
when they've created themselves as the creators of their lives. You've had a
moment in that state. Imagine living your whole life that way."

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Although Joan's belief I'm not worthy would never return and her pattern
of depression would start to change immediately, I knew that the non-ordinary state of consciousness she was in would not last long after the DM session. However, the more she created that state for herself in future DM sessions, the longer it would last. In time, the non-ordinary state of consciousness and the experience of unlimited possibilities would become a real and
active part of her. She would begin to view her life as what the Buddhists call
"a silent witness." She would "have" upsets, she would not be upset. She
would "have" disappointments, she would not be disappointed. She would
observe barriers in her life, but she would not be stopped by them. She would
no longer experience herself as a victim of external forces. She would no
longer experience herself as a player on the stage of her life. She would know
in all these ways that she is the creator of the play.
A Profoundly Spiritual Process
As you think about Joan's experience with the DM Process, at first it may
seem quite simplistic to you. But the DM Process is far more than merely understanding that your beliefs are interpretations and having them disappear.
As I explained earlier, you know you are the creator because you have created it, not merely understood or experienced it. It involves creating yourself
as the creator of your beliefsand therefore as the creator of your life.
The DM Process is not about logical knowing and deciding. It appears,
rather, to be a cognitive gateway to a non-ordinary state of consciousness in
which you create and then experience yourself as okay just the way you are.
More than that, you experience everything in your life differently.
Imagine living in a state where nothing exists as inherently good or bad,
where events have no inherent meaningonly the meaning you assign to
them.
The DM Process is the gateway to a profoundly spiritual state of consciousness. It is a reawakening. Can you begin to imagine the impact of the

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principles of the DM Process on your personal life, on your company, and on

society?
We try to solve problems in our personal livesas well as in education,
health care, the penal system, parenting, and businesswith strategies that
are consistent with the (usually unconscious) beliefs we hold about those
areas. Because we think we discovered our beliefs "in the world" and have
evidence for them, we strongly resist any strategies or ideas that are inconsistent with them. When we realize, however, that we never "saw in the
world" what we believe but we only interpreted it, the belief disappears and
we are no longer stuck in it. We are open to other alternatives. This principle
works for more than just personal use. By changing the cultures of organizations and the paradigms of institutions, it can also be used to solve problems
in every area of life.
In the next chapter, I will give you suggestions about how you might employ the principles and some of the elements of the DM Process in your daily
life. Then I'll walk you through several particularly moving case histories.
When you read these storiesabout how the DM Process transformed the
lives of a bulimic woman, a young criminal, and a man with AIDSyou'll
see just how unlimited the possibilities really are.

Chapter 5 - Using the DM Process in Daily Life

It isn't until it is, and then it must be. Morty Lefkoe
Jxaveyou ever awakened in the morning, realized that you overslept, and
cried, "Today is going to be a bad day"? I imagine most people have had that
experience at one time or another. There are numerous occasions in life when
you or those around you draw an immediate conclusion like that. At the moment, it seems very realthe only possible conclusion you could have
reached under the circumstances. That conclusion, in turn, almost always becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

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In these everyday instances, you can use an abbreviated form of the DM

Process to eliminate the belief in yourself or others before it has a chance to
do any damage.
As you have seen, the steps of the DM Process are relatively simple. Once
you realize that what you have lived with as " the truth" is only "a truth," that
what you thought you "saw" in the world exists only in your mind as one arbitrary interpretation out of many, the belief disappears. The DM Process is
not especially difficult to use when you know the belief you want to eliminate and its sourcelike Today is going to be a bad day.
The aspect of the DM Process that usually requires months of intensive
training is when a person is aware of a dysfunctional pattern that he or she
wants to stop but isn't aware of all the beliefs that cause it. Finding the relevant beliefs and their sources requires skills that go way beyond merely finding possibilities for early events. Moreover, after the belief is eliminated, creating the distinction between yourself as the creator and the creation also requires some training.
This explains why I have emphasized that this is not a self-help book. You
may not be able to use the DM Process directly on yourself, or even on
friends, to address long-standing dysfunctional patterns. But, as this chapter
will demonstrate, the modified DM Process can be an invaluable tool in
everyday situations when the belief is known.1
The following case histories demonstrate both the wide range of applicability of this modified version of the DM Process and exactly how you can use
it in your personal life.
Case 1. A Morning Belief. Today Is Going to Be a Bad Day
Let's begin with the initial example. How many times have you exclaimed
in the morning, Today is going to be a bad day, as a result of oversleeping,
spilling coffee on your shirt, missing a bus, or not being able to get your car
started? Probably more times than you'd like to remember. Although this

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belief relates only to the day it is formed, have you noticed how it manifests
and becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy? How, as the day progresses, it is
filled with things that go wrong? This situation is a perfect opportunity to use
the modified DM Process to eliminate a belief as soon as it is formed because
you clearly know the belief and the events that led to it. Here's how you can
do it.
1. What Is the Belief?
You know it because you just said it: Today is going to be a bad day.
2. What Happened to Lead to That Conclusion?
You turned the alarm off and went back to sleep. You were running late
and then your car wouldn't start. As a result, you were late for work (or
whatever your scenario is).
Can you see that your conclusion was a logical interpretation of the events
that occurredthat what happened to you might well mean Today is going to
be a bad day?
3. Are There Other, Equally Legitimate, Interpretations?
What are some other possibilities? What else could the events mean?
Waking up late could also mean:

You were very tired, which is why you went back to sleep, but
after getting more sleep you're now in great shape for the rest of
the day.

The first event of the day was bad, but now that you've used up
your share of bad luck for the day, the rest of the day will be
great.

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Based only on what happened so far, the rest of the day might be
bad or it might not be bad.

The first event of the day has no connection whatsoever with the
other events of the day.

Can you see that what happened in the morning could mean Today is going to be a bad day, but also could have these other meanings? Can you see
that what you concluded to be " the truth" is only "a truth"one of several
possible interpretations of what actually happened?
4. Did You See It in the World?
Didn't it seem to you as if you could see with your eyes, right out there in
the world: Today is going to be a bad day? It seemed like it, didn't it?
But you didn't really see it in the world, did you? If you didn't really see it
in the world, where was the belief? Can you see that it was only "in your
mind"merely one interpretation of many?
5. Is It the Truth?
Is it true that Today is going to be a bad day? Do you still believe it? At
this point the belief will have disappeared.
Case 2. A Child's Fear: Crowds Are Dangerous
When my daughter Blake was six, I worked successfully with her to find
and eliminate a belief that was causing her a problem.
On many occasions, Shelly and I had taken Blake to fairs and shows
where there were hundreds of people, and she usually enjoyed herself at these
events. One Saturday we took her to a school that was having games, face
painting, and a lot of other activities for kids. We had been inside only a few
minutes when Blake screamed and exclaimed, "I'm scared! I want to leave!"

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"What's wrong?" we asked her.

"I don't know. I'm just scared. I want to leave," she repeated. We tried to
find out what was scaring her, but she didn't know. The closest she could
come to an answer was that there were a lot of people there. I reminded her
that she had never before been afraid of crowds. What was it about this
crowd that was so scary? She didn't know. When we realized that the fear
wasn't going away, we left.
When we got home I sat down with Blake and asked, "Do you remember
that Mommy and Daddy talk about the work we do with people in our sessions? How we help them with things that bother them in their lives?" "Yes."
"Would you like me to try to help you figure out what is scaring you?
You've never been scared of crowds before." "Okay," she said solemnly.
We started trying to identify the belief. Blake named it almost immediately. "Crowds are dangerous."
"Okay, what happened that gave you that idea?"
She didn't pause even for a minute. "Remember when we went to the Italian street fair? Remember the lady who burned me with the cigarette?"
I certainly did remember. The fair had been mobbed; we could barely
walk. We had been there for only a few minutes when Blake had screamed in
pain. A woman had walked by her, swinging a lighted cigarette in her hand,
and had hit Blake's arm with it. The woman then turned around, yelled at
Blake, "Watch where you're going!" and walked away. Fortunately the burn
wasn't bad and we had stayed for another couple of hours.
"So did you decide Crowds are dangerous based on your experience at that
fair?"
"Yes."

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"I can see why you concluded that. It made sense. A lot of people would
have said the same thing, honey. Now we're going to play a little game. What
else could explain what happened to you other than what you said? It really
could be that crowds are dangerous. But what else would explain what
happened?"
She wasn't sure what I meant, so I said, "For example, that fair was dangerous, but maybe not all other fairs will be dangerous."
She got into the spirit of the game. I gave one interpretation, then she gave
one:

That woman didn't care if she hurt you, but other women would.

People carrying lighted cigarettes can hurt me; people without

cigarettes don't.

That person wasn't careful with her cigarette, but most people
would be.

I'll get hurt at some crowded places, not others.

The crowd at that fair was dangerous; other crowds wouldn't be.

I'll get hurt at fairs, but not other crowded places.

You have to be careful of people who have cigarettes.

Blake was having fun with the DM Process.

"Okay, honey," I said, "can you see that it made sense to conclude when
you got burned that crowds are dangerous, but that there are a lot of other explanations for what happened?"

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She understood what I was saying. She nodded.

I looked directly into her eyes and asked, "Didn't it seem, at the fair, right
after you got burned, that you saw right in front of you that crowds are dangerous and that you'll get hurt?"
"Yes, that's what I saw."
"Is it clear now, honey, that you didn't see that, you only imagined that?
You did see one woman burn you, but you never saw with your eyes that all
crowds are dangerous. Did you?"
"I know what you mean, Daddy, I didn't see it. I only thought it."
Case 3. A Belief about Achievement: I'll Never Get It Right
You can put the modified DM Process to excellent use with sports. How
many times have you missed a short putt, double-faulted, or thrown a bowling ball into the gutter? What did you feel? What did you think? Are you
aware of frequently feeling, in these types of situations, I'm getting worse or
I've blown it again or I'll never get it right?
Pause now and get in touch with one of those moments and that accompanying feeling or thought. Doesn't it seem as if you actually perceived that
conclusion: You actually observed in the world I'll never get it right? By now
it should be clear that, in fact, you didn't discover any of these things out in
the world. They are all interpretations of what you did observea ball that
didn't go where you wanted it to go. What does that event mean? It doesn't
really mean anything, but once you say it
means something, you have formed a belief. And then, once you believe
I'll never get it right, guess what? You literally have created that belief for the
day, and possibly beyond.
Get into the habit of watching your thought processes as you play sports.
Notice when you interpret, when you judge your performance as good or bad.

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As soon as you do, stop for a minute and realize that you have just reached a
conclusion (such as I'll never get it right) based on your interpretation of one
or more events. Acknowledge that it is a valid interpretation; in other words,
you might never get it right. And then come up with four or five other interpretations. For example:
I had a single bad stroke.
I'm having a bad first hole (or first game), and I'll improve as the day goes
on.
I lost my concentration for a moment, and I'll get it right back.
It's taking me a few minutes to get warmed up.
If there are at least four other interpretations of your performance that are
just as good as the one you made, can you see that what you concluded is itself only an interpretation and not "the truth"? Is it real that you never saw
your conclusion in the world?
If you practice this technique, you can eventually get to the point where
you will catch yourself making a judgment and reaching a conclusion at the
very moment it occurs. Then, as you begin to realize there is no meaning in
the worldthere are only events, and all meaning is merely in your
mindyou can eliminate the beliefs as fast as they are created. It is possible
to learn to distinguish between observations and interpretations on the spot.
Case 4. A Child's Struggle: I'm Stupid in Math
Sometimes your children (or friends) reach conclusions about themselves
and life, and are very aware of those conclusions on a daily basis. It usually
takes them only a minute to locate the source of the belief because it
happened relatively recently. You can then help them make up several alternative explanations for the incident, and the belief will disappear.

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Here's one real-life example. Shelly's former partner in her parenting business, Kim, has a daughter, Elizabeth. Shelly was at their house one day when
Elizabeth, who was nine at the time, threw her pencil down while doing her
math homework and exclaimed, "I'm stupid in math!"
Kim immediately asked, "Do you really believe that?"
"I sure do," she replied.
Shelly looked over at Kim, as if asking for her permission. Kim smiled
and nodded. Shelly turned to Elizabeth and asked, "Where did you see I'm
stupid in math?"
Elizabeth explained. "My teacher gave a surprise test in math a couple of
days ago. I failed it. My teacher then put the names of everyone who had
failed on the board. Everyone in the class saw who the stupid kids were."
"You're saying that your belief I'm stupid in math came from the incident
with the math teacher a few days ago?" .
"Yes," Elizabeth answered.
"That's a very reasonable conclusion," Shelly said. "In fact, a lot of the
kids whose names were on the board probably concluded the same thing,
didn't they?"
"I bet they did!"
"What else could that incident have meant? How else could you explain
it?"
After a little coaching, Elizabeth came up with these possibilities:
# I wasn't prepared for that test, but if she had given notice and I had studied for it, I could have done well.
# I'm not good in math now, but I'll get better later on."

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# I was tired that day, and I wasn't thinking well.

# It was a particularly hard test.
# It was a lot of times tables that we had to do quickly, which I didn't
know, but that doesn't mean I'm bad in other areas of math.
# I had just gotten in a fight with another kid and I was distracted.
Shelly asked her, "Can you see that failing the test and having your name
put on the board could mean that you're stupid in mathand it could also
mean a lot of other things?"
"Sure, I can see that."
"Didn't it seem as if you could see I'm stupid in math in the classroom at
the time?"
"I sure did."
"Is it real to you now that you never saw that and it was only one of several possible interpretations?"
"Yeah. I didn't see it."
"Is I'm stupid in math the truth?"
"No, it's not."
A few months later Elizabeth came home from school and excitedly told
her mother, "We had a Mastery Test in math and I got excellent'!"
Case 5. A Common Phobia: Flying is Dangerous
Have you ever had a scary experience on a plane and then concluded Flying is dangerous? (If not, think of another scary situation you experienced.
We'll use flying for the purpose of this example.) This is a perfect example of

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knowing both a belief and its source, which enables you to eliminate the belief quickly and easily.
What happened that led to the belief? It could have been any number of
things: A near plane crash, a very rough plane ride where it seemed as if the
plane was about to crash, reading about a crash in which many people died,
and so on. Flying is dangerous is a reasonable conclusion to form after any of
these events. But what are a few other interpretations or explanations?

That plane crashed (or almost crashed); it doesn't mean every

flight will be the same.

Some planes crash (or almost crash); it doesn't mean every flight
will be the same.

That particular airline isn't safe; it doesn't mean all airlines are
the same.

That particular pilot wasn't competent; it doesn't mean that all pilots are the same.

Didn't it seem as if you could see it with your eyes: Flying is dangerous?
Did you really see that, or was that merely your interpretation of one specific
event? If it was just one arbitrary interpretation that you never saw in the
world, where was it?
Is it really " the truth?" Do you still believe it? Once you can see that the
belief is not "the truth" and you never actually saw it, the belief will be gone.
Case 6. A Business Application: Our New Department Head Will Never
Get This Department to Work
The modified DM Process can be very useful in a variety of work situations, regardless of your position. For example, say there's been a proposed

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change at your company, and you're talking to a coworker who exclaims, "It
will never work." You may agree, in which case the point is moot. But what
happens when you disagree? You give all your reasons why you think you're
right and your coworker is wrong. But how often do your arguments really
change your coworker's mind? By now it should be clear that logical arguments usually fall on deaf ears. That's because they are heard through a filter
composed of the sense that you "saw" the belief in the world so no matter
what anyone says, you are right and they are wrong. Try this instead.
Imagine your buddy George stops by your desk one afternoon and announces, "Our new department head will never get this department to work."
Instead of trying to convince him that he's wrong, ask, "What happened that
led you to that conclusion?"
He will no doubt begin telling you storiesabout how no one could get
the department to work in the past or about the prior failures of the new department head in other positions. Try responding like this: "With the facts
you just told me, I understand why you reached your conclusion. It makes
perfect sense, given that information. Would you be willing to play a little
game with me? What are some other logical interpretations or meanings for
the events you've just related?"
Some possibilities might be:

No one has been able to get the department to work before; it

doesn't necessarily mean no one will be able to succeed in the
future.

The conditions necessary to get the department to work haven't

existed before now.

No one else has had the support of management before.

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The new manager couldn't get other departments to work; it

doesn't mean he won't be able to get this department to work.

He wasn't the right person for the people who worked in the other places, but he might be the right person for this department.

He didn't have the necessary skills before, but he's learned on the
job what it takes to be a successful department manager, and he
now has the necessary skills.

Ask your coworker, "Can you see that what you believe to be 'the truth' is
only one possible interpretation? Doesn't it seem like, right now, you can see
in the world that Our new department head will never get this department to
work? But can you really see that in the world? Is it 'the truth' that Our new
department head will never get this department to work?"
Using this process can make a big impact on the day-to-day negative beliefs that get formed around the office.
Case 7. Totally Boxed In: Beliefs Can't Be Permanently Eliminated
There are many people who have a fundamental belief that change is impossible, which might be stated as Beliefs can't be permanendy eliminated.
If you have this belief it's probably because you have tried unsuccessfully
to eliminate beliefs and behaviors at various times of your life. You might
have tried psychotherapy, personal growth workshops, or on your own. You
may have been told by psychotherapists that beliefs can't be permanently
eliminated, or you may have read it in a book.
What other meanings could those experiences have?

You haven't been able to eliminate beliefs with the technology

you have used so far.

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The psychotherapists you have used were not successful; that

doesn't mean other people won't be able to help you.

You didn't recognize that you never saw your belief in the world;
it's only in your mind.

You weren't ready to eliminate a belief earlier in your life; you

might be now.

Hasn't it seemed as if you could clearly see in the world that Beliefs can't
be permanently eliminated? Did you ever really see that? If you didn't see it
in the world, if it's only been in your mind, is it really "the truth"? Do you
still believe it?
I hear this belief in sessions from time to time. A person will eliminate a
belief and then resist acknowledging that the belief has been eliminated.
When I can see in the person's face that the belief is gone and they still can't
acknowledge it, I use this quick version of the DM Process. After the belief
that Beliefs can't be permanently eliminated has been eliminated, the person
is clear that the belief we had been working on really is gone.

Chapter 6 - Case History Diane: Conquering Bulimia

Human beings, by changing the inner attitudes of their minds, can change
the outer aspects of their lives. William James
JYou can now see that it isn't very difficult to eliminate a belief that is
causing problems in everyday life when you know the belief. Most of the
time, however, we only know the behavioral and emotional patterns that
bother us, such as depression, anxiety, procrastination, and an inability to express our feelings. We usually don't know the beliefs that cause these
patterns.

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Exploring the patterns and identifying the appropriate beliefs that were
formed in childhood takes more intensive digging and analysis. It's very hard
for most individuals to do this kind of deep work for themselves. Usually our
beliefs are unconscious, so people aren't even aware of them. In those circumstances, they might need a trained facilitator to help them go through the
Decision Maker Process.
The case histories in the next three chapters are examples of that kind of
complex work. Reading them, you'll begin to see that the DM Process is capable of finding the specific beliefs that are responsible for a given patternbeliefs that people didn't even know they hadand then eliminating
them, thereby changing dysfunctional patterns and creating possibilities that
once seemed unimaginable. Reading about the experiences of these three
very different people should put you one step closer to making real for yourself some of the concepts weve discussed. These case histories should also
demonstrate how powerful the DM Process can be for everyone, regardless of
their problems.
We begin with Diane. My work with her took sixteen sessions, spread out
over more than a year. I've chosen her story to demonstrate how certain patterns of behavior, like bulimia, are not really what they seem to be. Bulimia
is far more complex than one's relationship to food; it is intricately woven in
with many self-esteem beliefs, survival strategy beliefs, and a negative sense
of life developed in childhood. These must be brought to the surface and
eliminated before the overt pattern of bulimia can be addressed.
This is one reason why "behavior modification" approaches usually don't
create lasting change. It is almost impossible to really change one's behavior
permanently and effortlessly if the beliefs that led to it still exist.
In the following recounting, you will begin to see how the DM Process
can be used to eliminate a complex pattern. Be aware that during our time together, Diane discovered and eliminated many more beliefs than those detailed in the text. Often, in cases like this, a person needs to eliminate fifty or

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more beliefs. I have chosen those that best illuminate the Decision Maker
Process and Diane's struggle.
Meeting Diane
Diane was sixty-three years old, a lovely, well-dressed woman with a
warm, vulnerable face. She described her patterns as guilt, difficulty expressing her feelings, and bulimia. Diane told me quite frankly that she had low
self-esteem.
Diane had been in a group to which I spoke briefly about the DM Process,
but she didn't understand it very well. She was surprised when I avoided tackling her eating problem head-on. I explained that the beliefs responsible for
eating and bodily illness are not usually as direct as the beliefs responsible
for most behavioral and emotional patterns. Dysfunctional eating patterns are
a survival strategy, so they usually involve not only beliefs about eating but
also self-esteem beliefs. I suggested that we work on the other dysfunctional
patterns in her life for a while before we directly addressed her eating problem. She agreed.
I began by asking Diane to identify several beliefs that could account for
the inability to express her feelings. She immediately thought of one: I'm not
good enough.
I asked her what might have contributed to this belief as she was growing
up.
She told of a tormented childhood. "My family lived in a house with my
aunt and uncle and two cousins," she said. "I was always compared unfavorably to my older brother and my cousins because I was different and had my
own interests. From the time I was very small, I loved to paint and draw. My
parents never accepted this; they thought painting was frivolous."
Diane's parents responded to her creativity with disapproval. She remembered vividly how her mother used to look upward and cry, "God, what

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did you send me?" referring to Diane. When Diane would draw or paint, her
mother and aunt hid the paintings under the bed, telling her it was silly, she
couldn't earn a living as an artist, and she should be more serious about her
future.
It became clear that Diane's belief about not being good enough was a logical outcome of these experiences as a child. I helped her to see that there
were other alternatives to explain the behavior of her parents and aunt.
"You formed the belief early on that you weren't good enough, based on
the way you were treated," I observed. "It made sense to you. But now let's
see if I'm not good enough was 'the truth,' or if it was only your interpretation. Can you see other ways of explaining your mother's behavior toward
you besides concluding that you weren't good enough?"
Diane nodded thoughtfully. "I don't know why, but I always assumed I deserved to be punished. It never occurred to me that I would be punished if I wasn't a bad person. But now, thinking about it, I realize my
mother was a very unhappy woman, and she took her unhappiness out on me.
I just assumed her harsh treatment of me was my fault, but that wasn't necessarily true."
"So another explanation for your mother's behavior was that she was unhappy; it had nothing to do with you. Can you think of other explanations?"
Diane came up with several.

It could mean that my family thought I wasn't good enough, but

they were wrong.

Maybe I wasn't good enough by my family's standards, but I

might be by the standards of other people.

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In a Jewish family, painting is considered frivolous; in other environments it wouldn't be.

I wasn't good enough as a child; I might be fine when I grew up.

"I'll bet when you were a child you thought you could see your belief in
the world, like a real, physical thing."
"Yes," she agreed. "It was as real as anything."
"But did you really see I'm not good enough in the world?"
"No, I didn't."
"If it wasn't 'out there,' where was it?" I asked.
"I made it up. It was in my head."
"So do you still believe I'm not good enough?"
"No. It isn't true. It's gone."
This was a great revelation to Diane. Not only did she discover that a fundamental belief about herself wasn't "the truth," she also entered into a nonordinary state of consciousness. She created herself as the creator of her life,
and experienced nothing missing, endless possibilities, and no limitations."1
During the next four sessions, we continued to work on other related beliefs. Diane identified several: I'm not worthy. I'm not capable. I'm warped.
Nothing I can do is good enough. I'm alone in the world. I can't do what
people expect of me. Each of these beliefs, and others, were based on experiences that were similar to the childhood experiences she had described. As
Diane began to eliminate them, one after the other, she was overwhelmed. "I
realize now that none of these beliefs were the truth," she said. "I thought
they were real, but they were just in my mind."

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Now we were ready to go on.

Trapped in Life
At our fifth session together, we began to look at Diane's eating problem.
She told me that she had tried every therapy, diet, book, and clinic she'd been
able to find, and nothing helped.
"How would you describe your eating problem?" I asked. "Specifically,
what is the dysfunctional pattern you've been trying unsuccessfully to
change?"
She wasn't sure exactly what it was. She talked for about an hour, describing the present pattern and the events in her childhood that she felt were related to it.
"I don't think I reward myself with food, as I've been told," she said. "I see
eating as a punishment. I don't ever get pleasure out of eating. What I eat is
sweets and bread. I say, 'I don't want that, I don't even like that,' as I reach for
a bagel or a piece of cake. I close the world off; I don't even hear the phone. I
just eat."
She sighed. "I dream of being thin. I was skinny until my first child. I
weighed ninety-two pounds at my wedding, when I was twenty-one. I've
been fighting with my weight ever since."
It sounded as if Diane was making a connection between getting married
and her weight problem. I sensed that there was another belief that needed to
be eliminated before we could talk directly about her bulimia. I asked, "What
did getting married and having children mean to you?"
"I don't think I ever wanted children." She paused, embarrassed. "I never
said that to anyone before. I had my first child at twenty-three, and I never
felt comfortable in the role of mother. My second child came when I was
twenty-six. The way I see it, I succumbed. I became a housewife and mother.

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I hated to clean and couldn't cook. I gave up the art I loved. I was trapped,
just like my mother was trapped."
"How was your mother trapped?"
"I used to catch her crying in the living room at night. A woman has no
place to go. My mom and my aunts were all trapped. I said to myself, 'Once
you have children, or are even just married, you're really stuck.' I decided
very early that being married stinks. As a kid I decided that the role of a woman is one of subservience, loss of identity, and loss of freedom. It's martyrdom. After my first child, what I feared came true."
"Early in my marriage, I resented having sex when my husband had the
time and when he wanted it. I concluded that sex was up to one person.
"I'm alone a lot, and I eat when I'm alone. My husband and I live totally
distinct and separate lives, even when we're together; we have for almost
forty years."
Diane's eating pattern was not yet totally clear, but I asked her to try and
identify a belief that might be responsible for the unhappiness that seemed to
underlie it. She came up with this belief: When a woman gets married and
has children, she gives up herself and becomes totally subservient.
Diane had already told me some of her childhood experiences that related
to this belief, but she provided more details.
"Our life was intertwined with Mom's five sisters. All six of them had terrible marriages. The men were very dominating, verbally and emotionally abusive. Only one of my aunts was dominant in her relationship with her husband. The men were tough adversaries. It looked like the only way to make it
was to be a man."
After Diane listed several alternative explanations for her childhood experiences, I asked, "Do you remember being a child and seeing When a

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woman gets married and has children, she gives up herself and becomes
totally subservient?"
"I do!" she replied instantly. "It was all around me, with my mother and
my aunts "
"But did you really see it?"
"No, I didn't"
"What did you see?"
"I saw the women in my family getting married, having children, and giving up themselves."
"So your belief isn't 'the truth.'You saw your mother and aunts being subservient, but is it clear to you now that your belief that all women become
subservient was only one possible explanation for what you saw?"
Diane agreed, and the belief disappeared. Seeing that it was gone was a
massive shock to her. Diane felt that her entire life had been based on the
truth of this belief. She felt as if she had just eliminated the very foundation
of her life. She was shaken.
We had started the session talking about food. Diane now saw that she
started eating compulsively right after her first child, which led her to a belief
that had to do with being married and having children.
We Tackle Bulimia
At the start of the next session, Diane was ready to tackle her dysfunctional pattern head-on.
We had a long conversation about eating. I asked her to think about when
she ate, what she felt when she ate, and what she felt when she didn't eat. Her
reflections took her back again to her childhood. She recalled several memories about food:

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Mom was always on a diet because she had a bad stomach. She
abused laxatives. Her sisters were the same.

When I was a child, my parents gave coffee and cake to guests.

"Eat more" was part of our culture. Food was a gesture of
welcome.

I liked sweets, and if I did something good, I'd get paid with
sweets. If I was bad, I didn't get dessert. Being thin as a child
was a form of rebellion.

As a kid, I associated meals with being attacked, with unpleasantness. Meals were "let's get Diane" time. I hated to sit down at
the table. I frequently threatened to vomitand I did vomit if I
was made to eat something I hated.

Diane went on to say, "They couldn't make me eat what I didn't want to
eat. It was a way to assert personhood, my identity. Food makes me feel better. Makes me feel warm. I get this wicked grin beating the system, getting
my way. It's satisfactionperverse satisfaction. I feel I'm my own person. I
will be me."
She clearly remembered concluding at the age of three or four, Eating is
the only control I have over my life.
When I asked her for some alternative interpretations of her childhood experiences, Diane had a hard time. This belief was so strongly "the truth" for
her that she couldn't even imagine any alternatives. Eventually, however, she
found several, and the belief disappeared.
Diane arrived at the next session and mentioned that she had seen significant changes in her life since we began our work. I read back to her every

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belief she had eliminated so far and asked her if any of them still seemed true
for her. She shook her head and said no after each one.
But there was much more work to do.
Diane told me that she had eaten a lot one evening since our last session
and had thrown it up. Earlier that evening she had hoped to speak to her husband, but he had gone to sleep before she could start a conversation. She
went on to tell me how her marriage had evolved into such a lonely place for
her.
"I always remembered how my father and uncle hated their jobs, and I
didn't want that for my husband. I was very supportive when he took a night
job so he could work days for himself. I wanted him to be able to do what he
wanted to do. But that meant I was alone during the first nine years of my
marriage. At first I didn't mind because I was excited about him starting his
own business and being happy. But when my husband's business became successful and he gave up his evening work, he replaced it with evenings spent
with clients. I could never get his attention. He even bragged that he had tunnel vision regarding his career. I couldn't be a part of his life. Business came
first, second, third, and fourth. I might come fifth."
Suddenly, Diane began reflecting about her childhood observations of
married life. It all came to the surface for her once again. "When I was a
child, I saw that men were the bosses and women were subservient. Romantic
relationships were not really romantic."
She stopped and stared at me with widened eyes. "That's it! That's the belief: Marriage is the ruler and the slave. There's no truth, no honesty, no romance, no communication, no compassion."
"Great!" I said enthusiastically. Diane had just found a belief she had not
been aware of previously. I reminded her that in earlier sessions she had
clearly described several childhood events that could have led to that

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conclusion. She recalled them briefly and was able to create a series of alternative explanations.
After the belief disappeared, Diane could imagine all sorts of possibilities
in her relationship with her husband that she hadn't been able to imagine before. She wasn't sure what to do and how to do it, but she left excited.
What had occurred was the discovery that one stimulus to eating was her
loneliness and being ignored by her husband. So we eliminated a core belief
that had led to her loneliness.
At the next session, Diane described her eating pattern as she then saw it.
"I'm eating when I have negative feelings. I feel I should not have negative
feelings. When I have so much [materially], I shouldn't have negative feelings. Even as a child I had everything I needed. I certainly do now. What
right do I have to be depressed or upset? When I feel really upset, I eat to
numb myself so I don't feel. When I eat to numb out, I'm gone."
She identified two survival strategy beliefs: Eating is the only way to cover the pain and Food is my only way to produce pleasure and love.
As she reviewed the events of her childhood, Diane said, "I used not-eating as a weapon against my mother. She believed food was love. Cookies and
candy were a reward for being good, and when she gave them to me I felt
lovedsomething I rarely felt. Then, after my first child was born and I was
miserable, I ate and the pain diminished. I had discoveredactually, I had
createda connection between food and emotions."
After Diane had found other alternatives for her childhood experiences
and the two beliefs disappeared, she began for the first time to really grasp
that she could change her eating pattern.
Diane Looks Deeper
When we met again, Diane reported, "A lot of things are changing, but
food is still tough. I still run to the refrigerator when I'm alone, although I'm

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much more aware of what I'm doing now. I can't close my head off the way I
used to. I talk to myself now: 'Do you need it? No, I want it.' I threw up once
last week after eating two boxes of cookies. I knew I'd 'give it back' when I
ate them. I still feel as if I have no control at the moment. When I ate the
cookies I felt, Screw you. I know I shouldn't do this and I will anyway.
"I can't stand the feeling of having food in me, and yet I go to the refrigerator two hundred times a day. The action of eating is pleasant but always
tinged with guilt. It's pure relief to get rid of it. I feel relief, calm, release."
Diane began to reflect on what was behind this experience of relief, calm,
and release. She recalled, "About twenty years ago I came home after a dinner with my husband and a client and threw up because I was so stuffed. And
that started the binge-and-purge syndrome. I merely observed one day that
when I overate I felt I was punished by the vomiting, so I consciously decided to overeat in order to punish myself. It's complicated, because after
vomiting I also feel calm and good."
The belief was obvious: The only way to achieve release and calm is to
vomitto give it back. A related belief was Vomiting is a way to control my
life.
This was an interesting session because the two beliefs had been formed
years before they produced the pattern. We had started by looking at her
statement that the only way to survive as a child was to "give it back" when
she was forced to eat something she didn't want to eat. Later in life it looked
as if she was throwing up primarily when she felt guilty, upset, depressed,
and out of control. I got the sense that part of her reason for eating was to
have something to throw up. The eating problem had started at twenty-three
when her first child was born. The vomiting hadn't started for another twenty
years.
I suggested to Diane, and she agreed, that the first time she threw up as an
adult was not to assert control, feel calm, and experience a release (which
was the childhood belief). Rather, it was an accident because she had felt so

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stuffed after dinner. Afterward, however, she noticed that she did experience
a psychological release, a calm and control that was consistent with the childhood decision. That experience reminded her of the childhood belief. She experienced the same good feelings after accidentally throwing up. Thereafter,
she consciously decided to adopt that behavior in order to produce the feelings that accompanied the vomiting.
At her next session Diane reported that her eating was very different. "I
don't feel as panicky about food. I had some dessert last week. I rarely only
have 'some.' Normally the thought of food is in the forefront of my mind.
Now, however, I feel I can stop. I can push a plate away. I couldn't before. I
am seeing major changes in my eating patterns."
"My Best Friend"
The next time we met, Diane made an interesting comment. She said she
was feeling less compulsive in her eating, calmer and more centered. Now
the issue was, "I don't want to give up my best friend"meaning food.
"What is the belief underneath that?"
"I guess that Food is my best friend," Diane said shyly "It's my comfort;
it's the only thing that's always there when I need it.
"When I was alone in my twenties, when I had no control over my life, I
had an enormous responsibility as a wife, mother, partner, and housewife. I
wasn't prepared for it. I didn't know how to cook or be my husband's 'business partner.' I was scared to death. I sewed, painted, and ate. I always felt
better when I ate."
As she was looking for the source of the belief Food is my best friend, she
discovered another one: Eating is a way to hide, something to hide behind.
When the initial belief disappeared, this second one did too, without working on it specifically. She then mentioned that she was upset because she

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couldn't seem to hold on to the experience of being the creator of her life
between sessions.
I explained, "No one can hold on to it. It can't be remembered; it has to be
created anew." I reminded her about the three ways of knowing: understanding, experiencing, and creating. She claimed that she understood that she was
the creator of her life between sessions, and she experienced it from time to
time, but she only created it as true when she did the DM Process with me.
I reminded Diane that she had told me in a recent session that she did have
the internal sense between sessions of experiencing herself as the source of
her beliefs, rather than as merely her body and beliefs. She remembered that
conversation and acknowledged that the experience was becoming more real
for her between sessions. The DM Process was working; her experience of it
just didn't fit her picture of what it was supposed to look like. (In a way that I
still don't fully understand, the more you create the non-ordinary state of consciousness in DM sessions, the more real that state becomes for you between
sessions.)
That was the last time I saw Diane for a while, because she was traveling
with her husband. We finally had a telephone session about a month later. It
seemed that the major remaining issue was her relationship with her husband.
Not being "seen" by him was the one thing that still upset
her, and she couldn't deal with it. Eating was still her survival strategy.
Thus, when she announced early in the conversation that she had gone back
to eating whole desserts, bread and butter, and more, I was disappointed but
not surprised.
"I'm uncomfortable in my skin," she said. "And I'm uncomfortable with
my husband. He cares more about the people at work and his friends than he
does about me. He wont take me seriously. I'm very upset about it. I want
companionship, communication with my husband."

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Diane also revealed another thing that was troubling her, something that
was a result of our working together.
"I've been changing over the past few months and he hasn't. I want him to
change, and he isn't even making an attempt. Before this work on my beliefs,
I didn't even see the possibility that our relationship could be any different.
Now I can see the possibility, but I can't have it." She laughed bitterly. "What
a dilemma! And it's so painful to be with him. It's easier to eat bread and butter than to talk to him."
"So you're not pursuing the new possibilities that have opened up for
you?" I asked.
"I'm afraid of rocking the boat, of being alone," she admitted. "And I can't
stand having the failure of not being able to make the marriage work. I've
paid an awful price for comfort and don't want to give that up. I'm also,
frankly, afraid I'll never find anyone else. I've always looked down on
someone who's gotten divorced. It would mean that everyone would see my
failure. Shame. Fear. I couldn't make a go of it."
"So what is the belief?" I prodded gently.
"It's a woman's responsibility to make a marriage work. If she doesn't,
there's something wrong with her."
That belief clearly explained Diane's guilt about not being able to make
her marriage work and her unwillingness even to consider divorce. I was
careful to emphasize that I wasn't recommending divorce, but I urged her to
eliminate the belief that made divorce impossible, so she could choose to stay
rather than have to stay because of the belief.
She thought about the source of the belief. "I guess it's that my family always said,4She couldn't make it work,' whenever a couple we knew
got divorced. Very few women got divorced at the time; it was the shame of
the century. It was always the woman's fault they couldn't make it work, no

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matter how mean or miserable the man was. None of my mother's sisters had
a good marriage, yet none ever got a divorce."
Again, the belief disappeared after Diane made up several alternatives and
realized she never saw the belief in the world. I was very pleased with the
progress we were making. Diane had already eliminated quite a few beliefs.
Diane Disappears
Then Diane disappeared. I called and left several messages over the next
few months, but she didn't return any of my calls. I wrote, and the letter went
unanswered. I called again several months later, and still no reply. I had an
idea about why she totally cut off all communication, but there was no way to
know for sure. Based on the work we had been doing when she stopped, it
looked as if Diane was afraid to look any deeper into her relationship with
her husband. She didn't even want to consider the possibility that she could
leave him. That would have been too scary for her.
I decided that if she didn't want to talk, for whatever reason, I had to honor
that decision. And there it remained for eighteen months, at which point I
started working on this book. I wanted to use Diane as a case history, so I
read through her file. When I finished, I had to know how she was.
I called, and her husband answered. When he asked who was calling, I
answered, "It's Morty." Oh, hell, I thought; if only she had answered the
phone herself. Now she'd have him make an excuse for her. But a moment
later I heard her voice.
"It's good to hear from you."
I told her I had been reading through her file and thinking about her. "How
have you been?"
"I'd like to talk," she said warmly. "But I'm about to go out right now. Call
me tomorrow and we'll set a time to get together." I called the next day and
we agreed to meet a few weeks later.

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Diane breezed into my office, looking wonderful and happier than I'd ever
seen her. She plunked herself down on the sofa and started talking. "I had lost
myself; now I'm finding myself," she said proudly. "So many things have
happened. One is that my husband's been sick. He's frightened, and that's
opened the door to us talking. He's begun to hear me. I wanted him to know I
would no longer be the person I had been, and it was okay for him to be the
way he is. That really shook him up. I wanted my freedom, but I didn't know
that I had it all along. I just had to take it.
"My husband will never change. And that's really okay with me. It used to
be when he came home upset, I'd say, 'What can I do to make it better?' Now
I say, 'I'm sorry you had such a bad day. Is there something I can do to help
you relax?' I do what I can to help, but it's no longer up to me to make it all
better. I'm far more relaxed with him. He doesn't intimidate me the way he
used to. I don't feel inadequate anymore, even if a paintingI've been painting againisn't perfect.
I asked Diane about her eating. "I've been pretty good about it," she said.
"I'm working with a holistic doctor to create a fat-free diet. I can now turn
away from desserts, but bread is still difficult. So I bake my own fat-free
bread."
"What about binging and purging?" I asked.
"Only three times since I saw you eighteen months ago. I used to do it
three times a day. If I hadn't found a way to stop, I'd be dead by now. The
three instances were times when I felt overwhelming hopelessness. My need
to be who I want to be for myself was being stepped on. I used to attribute
that feeling to my husband's not being what I wanted him to be. Not so. I now
see it has nothing to do with anyone but me. I no longer have the need to
vomit."
I read back the list of beliefs Diane had eliminated during our DM sessions. There were almost thirty of them.

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"Gone," she said with a dazzling smile after each one.

"Tell me how you've seen changes in your patterns as a result," I said.
"I now experience freedom without guilt," she said. "It's okay for me to
not sit home and wait for my husband to show up. For example, we bought
tickets to a show a few weeks ago. At the last minute he called and said he
wasn't going to be able to make it. In the past I would have called someone
and given the two tickets away and stayed home. This time I called someone
and said I had one extra ticket, not two, and asked her to come with me. We
had a great dinner and then enjoyed the show. It's now okay for me to enjoy
myself."
She talked and talked about her new sense of freedom. She no longer felt
she was responsible for everyone else's happiness. She was doing what she
wanted to do for herself. She was not being nasty to others, but she was also
not allowing them to impinge on her newly created sense of freedom.
At some point I stopped her and asked, "What happened eighteen months
ago? Why wouldn't you talk to me?"
Her face reddened. "I'm embarrassed about that," she said. "But it was too
scary. If I took the next step, what would I land on?"
Diane had been scared of all the possibilities she'd created for herself. She
wasn't sure of her footing. She had floundered for a few months, but as she
got more comfortable with the numerous possibilities that arose after the beliefs disappeared, she started creating a brand-new life for herself, a life in
which food was no longer an issue and in which she was now free to be
herself.
At the end of the session, she smiled and hugged me. I remembered that
she had said to me several times during our meetings that she was sorry she
hadn't discovered the DM Process earlier in her life. I always answered, "It's
never too late to create your life. You're in your early sixties. You probably

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have another twenty years that you can live as the creator of your life." She
always nodded that she understood what I was saying, but I could tell that the
regret about the past had seemed more real to her than the opportunity for the
future. Now, as she walked away, I realized that she had finally put aside the
past and was creating her future just the way she wanted it.
I called Diane again about a year later. We chatted for a few minutes about
her life during the prior year. I could hear the happiness and excitement in
her voice as she described a number of positive changes, including the fact
that she hadn't had a single bulimic incident. She summed everything up by
concluding, "You just can't believe how good it is on this end of the phone."

Chapter 7 - Case History Barry: A Transformed Criminal

I'm thinking of the people who won't get shot in the future because I just
got rid of these beliefs. Barry
The Decision Maker Process has the power to permanently transform
lives. I've seen it happen hundreds of times. But even if you believe that's
true, you may, like many others, also believe that there are some individuals
who are "hopeless"immune to transformation.
I was eager to demonstrate that the DM Process could be effective with
men who were used to being judged by others (and often judged themselves)
as incapable of change and not worth the effort.
In 1994,1 decided to conduct a small pilot study that would involve sixteen incarcerated young men, eight of whom would be part of a control group
and eight of whom I would have a weekly DM session with for three months.
I knew many people would look at these men and doubt that they could
change. This doubt is embedded in decades of despair. They believe there is
nothing we can do about crime except lock the criminals up and throw away
the key. Given most of the evidence thus far, especially the high rate of recidivism, this belief makes a lot of sense.

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I wanted to demonstrate a new possibility. I began looking for subjects

and for a psychologist to actually design the parameters of the study. I called
Professor of Psychology Lee Sechrest at the University of Arizona, who had
written about research methods in the Handbook of Juvenile Delinquency,:
He agreed to choose the measures and analyze the data.
Early in August, I met with teenagers at Long Lane School, an institution
for incarcerated teenagers, and with adults at Maple Street House, a halfway
house where convicts went after release from prison but before being totally
freed.
I spoke frankly with them. "I've never been arrested," I said, "but when I
was a kid I had a lot of problems, and I was depressed for much of my life." I
described how nothing I had done, including therapy, had made much difference for me. But when I discovered that my problems were all the result of
my beliefs, and when I eliminated the appropriate beliefs, my life improved
dramatically. I asked them if they would like to be part of a research study to
determine if eliminating beliefs could be helpful to people who had been arrested for criminal behavior. Most of those I talked to volunteered to participate, and we had our sixteen subjects.
The pilot study proved to be a great success. It provided statistical evidence to buttress anecdotal stories from hundreds of case histories that showed
behavior is the result of specific beliefs, that the beliefs can be eliminated,
and that the behavior will change when the beliefs disappear. I now had scientific evidence that its not the environment that produces criminal behavior,
it's the beliefs formed in the environment.
In other words, what happens to you during your childhood has no effect
on you later in life. What you conclude about what happens to youyour beliefstotally determines the rest of your life.
After analyzing the results of the study, Dr. Sechrest wrote, "The simplest
and, we think, fairly compelling conclusion is that the intervention [the DM
Process] resulted in generally favorable changes in self-concept in the

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experimental group and that, without intervention, self-concepts would likely

have deteriorated during confinement."
My conviction that the DM Process would work as well with a criminal
population had been justified.
Conducting the study was also a deeply moving and transforming experience for me. Barry's story is a case in point.
BarryIn the Beginning
Barry was a tall, thin, twenty-two-year-old African American. He looked
very serious and rarely smiled. He had been arrested for larceny third, which
he described as driving a stolen car and possessing a gun. Barry had served
his time in prison and was at Maple Street House when I met him. When our
sessions began, he was looking for a job but hadn't found one yet. In spite of
his problems with the law, Barry was extremely bright and motivated. He
didn't want to set foot in prison ever again.
I worked with Barry two hours a week for thirteen weeksthe period we
were confined to by the study. Normally, the DM Process would be more
open-ended, because there's no way to know at the beginning how many beliefs need eliminating. Even with our limited time, however, much was accomplished. In thirteen weeks, Barry eliminated thirty-two beliefs as well
as several criminal and other dysfunctional behavior patterns.
The following case history details some of the most critical breakthroughs
that came during Barry's DM sessions. It will give you an idea of what is possibleeven for a young man like Barry whom society had in so many ways
abandoned.
There is, of course, more to Barry's story than you will see here. The following story is significantly abridged. More beliefs and patterns were eliminated than are described here. But you will see how the steps of the DM

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Process can stop criminal behavior and change a violent lifestyle. If the DM
Process can change patterns so extreme, imagine what it can do for you.
At our first session, I reviewed what I had told Barry and the others about
the DM Process at our initial meeting. He listened quietly, his usual serious
expression on his face. I think he was probably wondering what he'd gotten
himself into.
"What I need from you," I said, "is some pattern of behavior or feelings
that you have tried unsuccessfully to change."
Barry took what seemed like an eternity to answer. (I subsequently
clocked the time it took him to reply after I asked him a question. It
ranged from a minute to a minute and a half. Try waiting for a minute and
a half for someone to answer you. It seems like forever.)
"I'm not very good with people," he said finally. "I stay quiet and don't
talk in groups. I feel upset, jumpy. I worry about what they'll think about
what I say. I feel they'll be against me."
Despite his long pauses, it didn't take much time for Barry to find a belief
that could explain his pattern: I'm not worthwhile.
"Where did that belief come from?" I asked. "What happened early in your
life that could have led to that conclusion?"
Barry began to tell me the story of his troubled childhood. "I had a sister,
one year older than me, and two brothers, two and four years older. My father
had a full-time job working as a machinist. But he left when I was four for
about six years to live with another woman. He eventually had thirteen children, with a lot of different women. What I remember about him is that he
was an alcoholic. Loud. He didn't hit me, though. He didn't do much of anything with me when I was little. We had no relationship before he left. He
didn't even say much to me. He did yell at me if I didn't do my chores. I was

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always scared of him, drunk or sober. He always carried a gun. He had shot
people.
"My mother worked as a nurse. She was quiet, very quiet. She got upset if
we didn't do what we were told. She'd spank me and say, 'I work all the time,
why don't you do what I ask?' Most of the time she was warm and loving, but
she wasn't around very much.
"We were raised by an aunt who was very loud and always criticizing us.
She'd yell and curse at us if we were too noisy, if we left our toys out, if we
didn't clean our rooms. She'd always be saying, 'Your asses are lazy.' She'd
spank us with a belt."
Barry acknowledged that the way his three caregivers had treated him led
to the belief I'm not worthwhile. I helped him to find several alternative interpretations for the events of his childhood and to realize that he had never seen
his beliefs in the worldthey were just his interpretation of events. After going through the remaining steps of the DM Process, the belief I'm not worthwhile was gone. He was beginning to experience a new possibilitythat he
could eliminate his dysfunctional beliefs.
How Barry Survived
At our next session I reviewed the pattern from the first session, and Barry
identified another belief that contributed to it: I'm not good enough. I asked
him what he experienced in childhood that led to this conclusion.
In addition to the childhood events he had described earlier, Barry recalled, "Nobody noticed what I did. Nobody noticed me. If I got a good grade
in school, no one cared."
"Do you remember any physical, emotional, or verbal demonstra-tiveness
toward you by your family?" I asked.
"No. There was none."

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"Okay, so as a result of not being noticed or shown affection, you concluded I'm not good enough."
"Right." Barry nodded.
We went through the remaining steps of the DM Process, and Barry's belief I'm not good enough disappeared. Then I explained to Barry about survival strategy beliefs. "What did you use to make yourself feel worthwhile
and good enough?" I asked.
"The more people who spoke to me and respected me, the better I'd feel,"
Barry said. He came up with the survival strategy belief The way to be good
enough is to have people interested in you.
He was clear about the source of this belief. "My sister did favors for
everybody. She'd go to the store, wash dishes, and help people. She got rewards: money and attention. She got attention all the time, compared to the
boys. She got to go everywhere with Mom: shopping, visitingwherever
Mom went. The family was more interested in her. They showed that by buying her clothes, taking her places, spending more time with her, not yelling at
her, not spanking her. It was clear that she was better than me."
At our third session, Barry reported, "I've been speaking up more lately
and I'm not as concerned about other people. I'm still pretty quiet, though."
Even though there had been a change in the pattern, it had not disappeared
totally, which meant there were other beliefs to be identified and eliminated.
He found more: People can't be trusted. People are dishonest.
"As a kid if I made a comment about someone, another kid would tell him.
If I told girls what I felt, they'd tell other kids who'd make fun of me. I liked
sitting in the dark, watching stars. People made fun of that, too.
"I used to depend a lot on my brother who was closest in age to me. He
used to promise that I could ride his bike and wear his shirt. There were a lot

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of things he said he would do for me that were important to me. He never

came through for me."
After discovering alternative interpretations and completing the steps of
the Process, these beliefs, too, disappeared.
Barry started our fourth session by telling me, "I speak up now. I don't
think about what other people think of me. All the beliefs we talked about are
gone. My pattern is different."
"What pattern do you want to work on now?" I asked.
"Violence. Since I was fifteen I've shot three people and shot at others
when I get angry," Barry confessed. "Last night I gave my waitress twenty
dollars and she gave me change for a five. The manager came over and
quickly checked the register and said I had given her five dollars. He was
calling me a liar. I started swearing at them and threatening them. I got my
money. I was thinking about getting my gun and going back. I'm usually patient, but when I get mad, I want to shoot people."
As we discussed the pattern as it had existed throughout his life, Barry
realized that every time he shot someone or felt like shooting someone, "I felt
disrespected. I got angry and wanted to shoot them to stop the disrespect."
I explained that we were looking for survival strategy beliefs. "You don't
feel good enough or worthwhile. When you think people are disrespecting
you, you are brought face-to-face with those beliefs, which produces a lot of
anxiety. Using a gun is your way to stop them from reminding you that you
aren't good enough or worthwhile. What are the specific words of your
belief?"
"My survival strategy is my pride. I can't survive without that. If I don't
get respect, I'll look bad, I'll feel stupid, I'll feel bad about myself. The way to
feel important is to be respected. The way to be respected is to use a gun.

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Barry told me about his father. "He took me to clubs when I was a kid.
People respected him, ran up to him, knew his name. He seemed important.
He always told me, 'Let people know you're not going to take any shit and
you'll be respected.'Also, in the street, the people who were respected were
the ones who carried and used guns."
"So you drew the logical conclusion that carrying a gun would get you respect," I said.
He nodded.
"Barry, can you see that your conclusion wasn't wrong? In fact, it made a
lot of sense, based on what you observed as a child."
I asked Barry to think of alternative explanations for his belief. He came
up with:

The way my father was respected was to use a gun. It might not
work for other people.

The way to be respected in my old neighborhood was to use a

gun. It might not work in other places.

One way to be respected is to use a gun, but it has a lot of negative consequences. There might be other ways to be respected
that don't carry the negative consequences.

"Didn't it seem as a kid that you could see with your eyes that The way to
be respected is to use a gun?" I asked.
"Oh, yes," Barry replied.
"Look again. Did you really see that in the world?"
"I guess not. No. I didn't."

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"Now," I asked, "do you believe it's the truth that The way to be respected
is to use a gun?"
"No, I don't," Barry said, with a surprised look on his face.
"So you've just eliminated that belief."
Barry grinned. "Yes, I guess I have."
At the next session he reported two incidents that showed him that the patterns were changing. "I had been talking on the phone when a girl said to me,
'I can't stand you.' Normally I would have started swearing. But this time I
just ignored it and went on talking on the phone. Also, I deliberately spent
some time with my old buddies over the weekend. They were carrying their
guns. I felt like going home to get mine, but instead I just left. I had wanted
to see how I would feel and what I would do."
I suggested that we look for other beliefs involving guns because, although he had left his buddies over the weekend, he had still felt like getting
his gun. Barry came up with the beliefs I'm not important and I'm alone in the
world and the survival strategy belief: The way to be important is to hang out
with the popular crowd and do what they're doing.
In addition to everything Barry had already told me about his childhood,
he added a few more details to account for the beliefs I'm not important and
I'm alone in the world. "My aunt was always saying, 'Don't bug me.' My
mom worked all day and wasn't around, and she was too tired to be with me
when she got home. She didn't buy me the things that my friends' parents
did."
The two beliefs disappeared after he created several alternative explanations for the events in his childhood, and after he realized that he never saw
the beliefs in the world.
"Tell me about your survival strategy belief The way to be important is to
hang out with the popular crowd and do what they're doing,"I said.

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Barry told me he'd always hung out with people who carried guns. "They
get a lot of attention from the people in the neighborhood. When you're one
of them, you get a lot of attention too. It makes you important."
We had found another survival strategy belief involving guns. It was becoming clear to me from my work with Barry and the other incarcerated subjects that they had the same negative self-esteem beliefs that I and most of
my noncriminal clients had. The difference between us was not in the level of
self-esteem. It was in the survival strategy beliefs that the subjects had
chosen, to deal with or compensate for their low self-esteem, compared to
those chosen by noncriminals. As always, the source of the beliefs was the
immediate environment.
In most law-abiding, middle-class families, children get attention, respect,
and love when they get good grades or do what their parents say, and they
notice that the people around them who get attention, respect, and love are
successful in the professional or business world. On the other hand, people
who end up as criminals get attention, respect, and love from others in their
community when they get into trouble, and they notice that the people around
them who get attention, respect, and love are gang members and people who
carry guns, break the law, are violent, and sell drugs.
"I used to try to hang out with the crowd my brother hung out with, but
they said I was too young," Barry said. "My brother was popular in that
crowd, with girls too. I found other kids who were popular; they were the
tough guysalways fighting, breaking windows, and getting into trouble. I
wanted to be known. The kids in the gangs wore jackets; they were popular. I
wanted to be part of it."
After the beliefs were eliminated, I said to Barry, "Now, step back. Can
you imagine the possibility of hanging out with people who have guns but
not carrying one yourself anymore because you dont need it to be important?"

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He nodded silently. In that moment he fully experienced himself as the

creator of his life. He was clear that everything in his life was a function of
his beliefs.
"You know," he said in a soft voice just before the session ended, "I never
told you before, but I have two little kids: a son one-and-a-half years old and
a daughter four months. They have different mothers, and I didn't marry
them. But I want to be a better father to them than mine was."
Barry Faces His Anger
Barry arrived at our next session, smiling a rare smile and seeming very
pleased with himself. He reported that he had just gotten a job entering data
in computers for a Fortune 500 company. Barry wanted to do
well at his job and eliminate all his dysfunctional patterns. He proudly informed me, "I don't need a gun anymore."
We picked up where the last session had endedwith his dysfunctional
relationships with women.
"I've been in a lot of shaky relationships," Barry said. "They don't last
long. There's lots of arguments, especially about cheating."
I helped Barry identify some beliefs that were producing this pattern. He
came up with: Women are unfaithful. Relationships are trouble. Women are
distrustful of men.
The source of the first two beliefs was his first two relationships, when he
and the girls were fourteen or fifteen years old. "Both of them cheated on me.
When I confronted them with what I knew, they denied it. I checked it out
and found out it was true. We argued about it and I finally beat them up. The
relationships ended. When I saw them later, they said nasty things to me and
said bad things about me to other girls I was going with "

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The source of the third belief was his mother, who always told him, "Men
are whores. Men are liars. Men are sneaky." His aunt and female cousins frequently said the same thing.
Barry's survival strategy was again to use violence. He beat up his girlfriends, and he admitted to beating up other women too.
"When I feel mad I can't deal with being mad. I just lash out," Barry said.
"The purpose is to punish the person for doing something that made me mad.
When what they did that made me mad stays in my mind, my only thought is,
'I'm going to hurt them.' What makes me mad is someone disrespecting me."
I asked, "What beliefs would you have to have to explain that behavior?"
Barry came up with three beliefs: I don't matter. People who make you feel
bad should be punished. The way to punish people is to make them feel pain.
The source of the first belief was the same family events that produced I'm
not good enough. The source of the other two beliefs was very simple:
"When I upset my family, they beat me." (So much for the theory that corporal punishment is a good way to discipline children!)
After these three beliefs were gone, Barry was quiet for a long time. I
didn't say anything because he seemed to be deep in thought. Finally, I asked
him what he was thinking. His answer stunned me.
"I'm thinking of the people who won't get shot in the future because I just
got rid of these beliefs. And I'm thinking of the people who got shot in the
past because I had these beliefs. I once shot up someone real bad for five dollars. I could have talked to him and collected a dollar a week. I once shot a
guy because he said to my girl, 'Come here.' I thought he was disrespecting
me.
"You've got to get this [the DM Process] to the kids before it's too late.
Before they kill someone and it's too late. I'll talk to them with you."

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I had done the DM Process with a lot of clients who had made many major
changes in their lives before this session, but rarely had I been so moved and
inspired. If I ever had any reservations about the efficacy of the DM Process
in alleviating crime and violence, they were totally gone now.
Barry showed up for the next session looking lighter, more relaxed. I
asked him what changes he was noticing in his life.
"I'm more positive. If someone says something that normally would have
upset me, I tend to ignore it and not get mad," he replied. "That's a big deal
for me. I just feel better, you know?"
Barry had mentioned in an earlier session that he had two young children.
Each child had a different mother, and Barry hadn't married either of them. I
reminded him of this and suggested we use it as a pattern. "What do you believe," I asked, "that could account for this situation?"
As usual, Barry didn't have much trouble coming up with a belief: The
way to keep women around without being committed to them is to have children with them.
He also had no trouble finding the source of the belief. "My father had
thirteen children with five different women. He used to take me to different
houses to visit the kids. I saw he wasn't committed to any of the mothers.
None of them were with another man, either. My father would visit the kids
and then spend the night with the mother."
We spent some time thinking of alternatives to the belief Barry had
formed after observing his fathers behavior, and the belief disappeared. It
was no longer "the truth" for Barry.
After the belief disappeared, Barry said solemnly, "If I hadn't had this belief, I never would have had my daughter."
We still had plenty of time, so I asked him, "What do you believe about
how to get what you want?"

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He identified two beliefs: To get what I want is impossible. The way to get
what I want is to take it from whoever has it.
The source of the first belief was never getting what he wanted as a kid. It
seemed to Barry that no one cared about how he felt, what he did, what he
thought, or what he wanted. The second belief was a survival strategy Barry
created after he formed the first belief. Its source was noticing that all the
guys in his neighborhood took whatever they wanted. When they wanted
food, clothes, bikes, or anything else, they simply grabbed them from stores
or from other people.
Barry Finds Hope
At our next session, I decided to try something I had done with a few clients in the past. "Barry," I said, "instead of starting with a pattern and then
looking for a belief, I'd like you to look inside yourself and find your sense of
life. This exists as a feeling, as a sense, not as words. It is your deepest sense
of yourself. After you have found the feeling, you can describe it in words,
but it exists in you as a feeling, not as a concept."
He thought for a few minutes and then spoke: "Life's a struggle; you have
to strive for what you want; it doesn't come easy; things are complicated,
hard to understand."
He paused for a minute and then continued. "As a kid, that's all I
sawpeople struggling. There wasn't enough money to pay bills, to buy
food, to pay for the car. I didn't understand what I was seeing, and no one explained it to me. Mom had to go to work and school and be away, and I didn't
understand that."
Barry then reviewed some of the events from his childhood that he had
told me at earlier sessions. When he was clear that he knew the source of his
sense of life, he found alternative explanations; when we were done, that
deep emotional sense of life he had lived with since childhood was gone.

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As I drove away I was thinking, Heres a guy with nothing more than a
high school education, who recently was out on the street shooting people,
who now is clear that he creates his own reality, that he creates all meaning,
that his entire life is a function of his beliefswhich he can change at any
time. If a few DM sessions could lead Barry to taking responsibility for his
life, the implications are staggering! What if I could train tens of thousands of
people to use the DM Process with millions of kids, both in and out of
prison?
Barry walked into his next session talking. "Fm feeling more control. I'm
not letting my temper run me as much. The other night someone took a few
bucks out of my wallet, and I didn't even get mad. A few months ago, I
would have threatened everyone in the room. I'm getting a sense, even
between sessions, of being the decision maker. I talk to myself, like, 'I can do
this. I don't have to do that' I saw this group of guys carrying guns and I
thought, I don't need to do that. I have nothing to prove."
He was smiling throughout his entire report. A transformation had taken
place before my eyes.
The next issue to handle was Barry's return to society. We discussed the
artificial, restricted environment in which he was livingan environment
that didn't expose him to much of life. Thus, a lot of dysfunctional patterns
that might exist out in the "real world" were not arising while he was living in
a halfway house.
We decided to look at potential problems that might arise when he was released. "What about a career?" I asked.
"I want to be an accountant. I took high school courses and business
school courses in accounting. I like working with numbers. I liked math in
school. I want to go to college and become a CPA. I'm working for a company now that would pay part of my tuition. I haven't really thought much
about it. Til be out of here [Maple Street House] in about two months."

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"What do you believe could prevent you from becoming a CPA?"

He identified three patterns and their accompanying beliefs. The first concern he had was that he might not have enough money to pay for college. The
belief was Money is tight.
"As a kid, Mom never had enough money to do what she wanted to do.
She was always telling me I couldn't have what I wanted because there wasn't
enough money."
The second issue was "It might interfere with my social life. I might miss
out on fun if I study all the time. I might lose all my women. It's an image
thing." The belief associated with that feeling was What makes me feel attractive is having a lot of women interested in me. Barry told me the source
of that belief. "When I was about eleven or twelve years old and my brother's
girlfriend, who was sixteen or seventeen, came around, she said, 'You're so
cute,' which made me feel attractive. If she thought I was attractive, it meant I
was. I also remember a group of girls got together and decided which one of
them would talk to me, and I knew that. That also made me feel attractive,
knowing they were all interested in me."
Both beliefs were eliminated during this session. Barry found a survival
strategy belief associated with the second belief: In order to feel good about
myself, I need to be attractive. He recalled, "As an early teenager my friends
had new clothes, and I didn't. They got a lot of attention, and I didn't. I felt
bad, left out, depressed. When I got new clothes, I got attention; I wasn't left
out, I felt happy, good. As a teen I only felt good when getting attention,
which I got mainly from wearing new clothes. I remember, when I was about
fourteen, hanging out with a cousin who was about eighteen. He always had
new clothes and looked nice. He was always telling me to 'look good.' So
when I put on nice clothes I felt good. He took me to sporting events and
concerts and he had me dress up when we went. He took me shopping for
clothes and told me how good I looked when I was dressed up. He told me
what to wear, what I looked good in. I respected him a lot."

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The next aspect of the going-to-college pattern was his fear that "I won't
apply myself. I'm afraid to fail." The belief responsible for that feeling was I
don't have the ability to get through college to be a CPA. Its
source was the fact that only a few of his friends had gone to college, and
some of them had flunked out. We went through the Process and Barry saw
that his belief wasn't "the truth."
After he had eliminated all the beliefs we could find that might have prevented him from becoming a CPA, I asked him to imagine the entire process
of applying for school, getting money from his present employer to help pay
for tuition, finding other sources of tuition funds, getting accepted, going to
school, studying, and being busy evenings with little time for dating. Then I
asked him to see if he experienced any concerns or problems at any step
along the way. After thinking for three or four minutes, he looked straight at
me and said, "I can see it happen now... now that I've gotten rid of these beliefs. I'll be a CPA."
At my last session with Barry, I went back and reviewed all the patterns
involving violence and guns. Then I asked him, "Can you imagine any possible situation that would lead you to use a gun or engage in any other form
of violence?"
He thought for a minute or so. "If someone deliberately stood in my face
and degraded meyou know, called me a punkI still feel I have to shoot
him. All the other things I mentioned before wouldn't bother me, but this one
thing would."
"What belief would produce that reaction?"
Barry said immediately, "Allowing someone to stand in my face and talk
junk to me means I'm not a man."
"Do you really believe that statement?" I asked quietly.
"Yes!" His answer was firm.

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"Tell me, Barry, does some part of you also know that you made it up, that
it is really 'a truth,' not4 the truth'?"
He smiled sheepishly and nodded. It was clear that Barry was in the space
of the decision maker, even though he had beliefs that hadn't yet been eliminated which could cause him problems in his life.
He found the source of this belief. "My father used to tell me that. He took
me to these clubs with him, and when someone didn't stand up for himself,
my father would tell me the person was a punkhe wasn't a man. My father
told me never to do that."
After Barry looked at several alternative interpretations and realized he
had never seen his belief in the world, I asked, "It isn't 'the truth,' is it?"
"No, it isn't," Barry said. "It isn't 'the truth' and I don't believe it."
Making a Difference
Barry had many obstacles to overcome and many beliefs to eliminate.
Even though he had eliminated thirty-two beliefs by the time we ended our
work together, I would have liked to have had more time with Barry. It just
wasn't possible to discover and eliminate every belief responsible for all his
dysfunctional patterns in so short a time.3
Even so, Barry and I completed our thirteen sessions with high hopes. At
the end of our final session, Barry looked at me shyly and said, "Just possibly, I want to try to help the younger kids growing up now. You know, the
ones hanging out on the streets. Try to be a role model, you know? I could
preach to them about the stuff I went through while I was out running in the
streets. Try to show them a different waya positive way. So, you know, I
want to try and do something like that. Sort of like giving back to the community. I know kids now, eight and nine years old, they're lost out there. I'd
tell them, 'You don't have to do this. You don't have to think that selling

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drugs or whatever is going to make you some big person. There's something
else.'"
Shortly after the study ended, I was describing what happened to a law enforcement official. "It sounds like you're just telling these guys 'You're not responsible for what you did because of your beliefs and childhood experiences,'" he said. "Isn't it just another variation on blaming your parents or
someone else?"
I realized that this was the way some people might interpret the work.
Yet the DM Process is all about taking responsibility! That's what being
the creator means. My friend's observation was correct in the sense that a
person's range of responses is limited when he experiences himself as the creation. But the goal of the DM process is to assist people to live as the creator
and thus to take the ultimate responsibility. We have less power in the short
term (as the creation) and more power ultimately (as the creator) than we
usually assume.
A Serious Vision of Rehabilitation
Despite the excellent results of my work with Barry and the others in the
study, I know that merely offering the DM Process to incarcerated criminals
is not the answer to the problem of violence and crime. If used with convicted criminals and people exhibiting criminal behavior who have not been
arrested, the DM Process can make a tremendous impact both in prevention
and rehabilitation, because it can facilitate radical changes in behavior, attitudes, and feelings. But it is not a panacea, and there are other important
pieces of the puzzle, especially from a public policy standpoint. In order to
get people to eliminate violence and other criminal behavior completely and
permanently, a total transformation is requirednot only for the individuals
themselves but in society. For example, the fundamental criteria we have established about what constitutes improvement in criminal behavior must be
reevaluated.

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I have serious reservations about most of the criteria that are commonly
used to gauge improvements in criminals. For example, following his sixth
session, one subject told me he had smoked coke with a woman on a weekend furlough. Because he had broken the rules of its program, the institution
judged him to be doing poorly. But when the subject reported the incident to
me, he stated that even while he was smoking the coke, he was asking himself, "What do I believe that is having me do this? If I can identify and eliminate the belief, I won't be tempted in the future. If I can eliminate enough beliefs, maybe I'll be able
to resist my feelings." This thinking showed he had a greater sense of responsibility and commitment to true change than someone who goes through
the motions of doing the "right thing" while incarcerated and is judged to be a
model prisoner, but who knows that he probably will revert to his old behavior as soon as he is released.
Even though the DM Process can assist incarcerated offenders to assume
responsibility for their lives, improve the level of their self-esteem, eliminate
criminal patterns of behavior, and create new possibilities for their lives,
most of them also would need skills in order to survive after they were released from prison. For example, many might need assistance in writing resumes, looking for jobs, finding out about educational opportunities, and
dealing with the family in which many of the beliefs were created (especially
if they are teenagers still living at home).
Offering this type of assistance to someone who still has the beliefs that
lead to criminal behavior probably would make little difference. (Do you
think this type of assistance would have had a significant impact on someone
with Barrys patterns and beliefs?) But once the beliefs have been eliminated,
people become responsible for their lives and become open to, and usually
very interested in, further assistance, which enables such assistance to be
truly effective. It should be provided.

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We must be clear, however, that using the DM process for the rehabilitation of people who are already exhibiting criminal behavior is not enough.
Prevention is the true goal. As Deborah Prothrow-Stith, M.D., Assistant Dean
for Government and Community Programs, Harvard, recently pointed out,
using the analogy of lung cancer:
One would not propose a campaign to reduce lung cancer that focused
only on treatment (tertiary); it is clear that better treatment will not reduce
lung cancer rates. Helping people who smoke to stop (secondary) and preventing people from beginning to smoke (primary) are essential. Most public
policy discussions of violence are about tertiary strategies; whether to try juveniles as adults; whether to impose stiffer sentences, mandatory sentences,
or three strikes and you're out.
Public debate and policy must move beyond the tertiary level and must include primary and secondary programs designed to prevent violence, and not
merely to respond to it.
The DM Process was used in this study as a tertiary strategy. Used this
way, I think it can significantly reduce recidivism, which I intend to demonstrate in a proposed research study The DM Process can also be used as a
secondary strategy by helping teens or even adultswhose beliefs predispose
them to join gangs, sell and use drugs, and engage in violenceto eliminate
those beliefs. Finally, it can be used as a primary strategy, by assisting parents to eliminate those beliefs that interfere with effective parenting.
After I finished my sessions at Maple Street House during the tenth week
of the study, one of the residents said he wanted to talk to me. After he reminded me that he originally had volunteered for the study but had not been
chosen to have weekly sessions with me, he asked for help.
"I keep breaking the rules here, and I'm afraid I'm going to get sent back to
jail. People have been telling me my whole life that I do what I want to do
when I want to do it, and I can't seem to stop myself. Isn't there any way I can
get into your study so you can help me?"

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It was one of the most frustrating and upsetting moments of my life. I had
to hold back the tears. I knew that the DM Process could help him. In fact, it
might be the only thing that would enable him to break the cycle that could
send him back to jail. But there was no way I could have DM sessions with
him because he was in the control group. When I got home I told Shelly what
had happened and resolved that somehow, no matter what it took, I would
find a way to make the DM Process available to everyone who wanted it.
To the extent that this pilot studyalong with all the other material in this
book describing the DM Processconvinces the administrators of some drug
and alcohol clinics, prisons, or alternative incarceration centers that the DM
Process can be helpful, I would like to start training staff members at those
institutions so they can offer the DM Process to their residents.
Postscript
That Christmas I received a card from one of the fifteen-year-old subjects
with whom I had worked.
Mr. Lefkoe I hope you and your family have a wonderful X-mas.
Again I'd like to thank-you for all the help you gave me if it wasn't for
you I just don't know what condition I'd be in right now. I prayed,
prayed, and prayed that God would help me and he did he sent you
thank you
Love, Drew

Chapter 8 - Case History Frank: Transcending AIDS

The highest use of the psyche in the course of human illness is not for
cure, but for transcendence of the conditional events we call health and
disease.
Dr. Larry Dossey

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"Have you heard about the new field of medicine called psychoneu-roimmunology, or PNI?" my colleague Steven Hart asked me one day in 1988.
"Based on recent PNI research, Til bet the DM Process could be used to assist people with AIDS to improve their immune system."
I was intrigued but skeptical. How could the DM Process possibly help the
immune system?
Steven told me he knew some gay men in New York City who had HIV,
the AIDS virus. Many of them also had full-blown AIDS. They were looking
for alternative treatments and were interested in research on the effect of the
mind on the body, specifically on the immune system.
Steven told me a little about the field of PNI. Some researchers were beginning to demonstrate a significant medical connection between the mind
and the body's immune system. One pioneer in mind-body research, Robert
Ader, a professor at the University of Rochester's Medical School, was
quoted as saying, "There is little question that we can alter the course of disease by manipulating psychological factors." And summarizing the research
done in this area, Newsweek concluded:
With the help of sophisticated new laboratory tools, investigators are
demonstrating that emotional states can translate into altered responses in
the immune system. ... The logical next assumption would be that emotions
have an impact on health.
My AIDS Workshops
After my conversation with Steven, I got excited about the idea of using
the DM Process with people who were HIV-positive or had fullblown AIDS
to see if eliminating negative beliefs would improve their immune systems. I
asked Steven if he would put me in touch with people who might want to do
a workshop.

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While Steven worked on enrolling people in the workshop, I started to do

some reading. One of the first books I picked up was Bernie Siegel's thencurrent best-seller, Love, Medicine & Miracles. Dr. Siegel, a surgeon, had
worked with groups of cancer patients to help them use their minds to deal
with the illness. He had concluded, "The fundamental problem most patients
face is an inability to love themselves, having been unloved by others during
some crucial part of their lives." He went on to say, "Psychological shaping
in the formative years plays a large part in determining who will develop a
serious illness. Its effects are even more specific, however. It often determines what disease will occur, and when and where it will appear."
This was intriguing because the DM Process appeared to be able to change
people's "psychological shaping." I had already discovered that many
people's childhoods led them to negative beliefs about themselves. Now I was
finding out that those same negative beliefs could have a significant impact
on physical health.
Dr. Siegel made the connection quite clear: "Other doctors' scientific research and my own day-to-day clinical experience have convinced me that
the state of the mind changes the state of the body by working through the
central nervous system, the endocrine system, and the immune system. Peace
of mind sends the body a 'live' message, while depression, fear, and unresolved conflict give it a 'die' message."
After reading that I couldn't wait to see if the DM Process would help
people with AIDS. We enrolled ten gay men who were HIV-positive, some
with symptoms of AIDS. I faced them one Saturday morning, eager to see
what would happen.
"The purpose of our time together," I told them, "is to empower you with a
technologya tool you can use whenever you'd likethat will enable you to
change your beliefs. This technology can be used to improve the quality of
your life. I guarantee I can deliver that. Even though you might not be able to

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use the DM Process individually on yourselves, I'll teach you how to work
with each other."
I paused and looked into their faces. "What I can't promise is remission of
your illness. However, based on the available evidence, as you change your
beliefs about yourself from negative to positive, your immune system should
improve. If it gets back to normal, any illness that is a function of a breakdown in the immune system should go into remission. Will it? That's what we
are about to find out. Given the scientific evidence, there is a lot of reason to
think it could happen."
I then discussed the issue of blame or guilt. "Even if it is true that your illness is a function of your beliefs, given your childhood environment, you
couldn't have concluded anything other than what you concluded at the time.
Now, however, you have a chance to change the beliefs. If that helps, great. If
not, then there are still some things we don't understand about the relationship between beliefs and illness. But you have everything to gain and nothing
to lose."
As we began to explore the beliefs in the room, the men came up with the
typical negative self-esteem beliefs I've mentioned earlier, such as I'm not
good enough, I'm not worthy, I'm not deserving. In addition, they listed the
following negative self-esteem beliefs that were related to being gay:

I don't deserve to be here, to breathe, to live. [This man had

Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia, a form of AIDS in which one
has a hard time breathing!]

I'm unnatural, a violation of nature.

The world is not a safe place.

I have to hide the "real" me [my homosexual nature]; it's not

acceptable.

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I'm a despicable person.

It's not safe to be alive. To be alive is to risk death [at the hands
of homophobic people].

The world is a dangerous place, and I can't defend myself.

What I want doesn't matter, and it's not smart to draw attention to
myself.

The beliefs these men listed were the almost inevitable decisions people
would make about themselves and life when their sexuality not only was
judged morally wrong by much of society but was also used as a justification
for personal and governmental persecution and even physical abuse.
To the extent that some negative beliefs widely held by homosexuals result from an environment of persecution and abuse, and to the extent that those
beliefs literally contribute to killing them by impairing their immune system,
how would you describe the people who create such an environment?
Shelly and I led several workshops and a number of evening follow-up
sessions. We also had a number of private DM sessions with a few participants who became committed to using the DM Process regularly. Several of
them buddied up and had repeated sessions with each other. Those who did
the DM Process with us or with each other reported significant emotional and
attitudinal changes, but we had no objective measurements for changes in
their mental or physical condition.
Less than a year after the first AIDS workshop, however, one of the participants with whom Shelly and I had a number of private sessions and who
had also done sessions regularly with a buddy told us that his Kaposi's sarcoma, a skin cancer that is a common manifestation of AIDS,

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had disappeared. He had stopped all medication. It was only one anecdote,
which didn't prove anything, but it was still promising. (His skin cancer was
still in remission when we last talked, five years later. He had no other symptoms of AIDS during that period.)
At that point, I decided to do some controlled research as a way of getting
doctors and public health officials to pay attention to the DM Process as an
intervention that could possibly help. I started contacting key people in the
field of PNI, asking if they would be willing to participate in a research project that would determine whether or not the DM Process could produce
enough change in beliefs, attitudes, and feelings to improve immune
function.
There was very little interest. "What evidence do you have that your intervention will really eliminate beliefs?" I was asked. When I said I had only anecdotal evidence but wanted to pursue "hard" evidence through the study, the
researchers lost whatever small interest they might have had. The dean of one
New York City medical school asked me sharply, "What degree do you have,
Mr. Lefkoe? An M.D., or a Ph.D. in psychology?" When I answered,
"Neither," she hung up on me.
It took me a year, during which time I demonstrated the DM Process and
talked to well over one hundred immunologists, physicians, and psychologists, before I was finally successful. Elinor Levy, Ph.D., an immu-nologist at
Boston University, agreed to be a coprincipal investigator. She helped me
find Dennis Kinney, Ph.D., a psychologist at McLean Hospital, Department
of Psychology, Harvard Medical School, who became the other coprincipal
investigator. Dr. Kinney designed the study and prepared a fifteen-page research proposal. From that point, we went in pursuit of funding, a lengthy
and often frustrating process. To this day, the study remains unfunded, but
we still hope to raise the money eventually.6

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Funded or not, I realized I could not give up on these men who were facing the most important fight of their lives. I felt a deep responsibility to continue my work with AIDS.
Transcending Illness
The essence of the DM Process is not merely eliminating beliefs but creating yourself and living as the creator of your life. You live as a paradox, both
as the creation and the creator, having the experiences of your life (as the creation) and, at the same time, knowing (as the creator) that you created them
all. In this state of consciousness you have feelings, but you realize you aren't
your feelings and you dont experience being controlled by them. You are
able to witness your life, as opposed to being run by it. You respond to the
events of the moment both positively and negatively, depending on how you
assess them, but on some level you know that the assessments and ultimately
even the events are not "real." They are only distinctions you have made up.
I had the privilege of having a client with AIDS who appeared to live almost continuously in this state. I would like to share with you how he got to
it and what both he and I learned about health and illness during the two
years we were friends and worked together.
Frank's Story
In the spring of 1989, Frank, who had been diagnosed HIV-positive, attended one of my DM workshops with his lover, Alan, who did not have the
HIV virus. Early in November, Alan called to tell me that Frank had just
come down with AIDS and was in the hospital. Alan explained that Frank
had eliminated one belief in the workshop. Subsequently, Alan had done the
DM Process with Frank and helped him eliminate a second belief. Now, Alan
told me, Frank might be interested in working with me further, and Alan
asked me to call him. When I reached Frank we talked for a while about the
DM Process and my workshop. I told him I was trying to raise money for my
research project and would let him know if I could use him in the study.

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We talked again in early April, when it had become clear that the research
would not be starting any time soon. I agreed to drive into New York City to
work with him weekly without payment. It would be an opportunity to learn
how the DM Process might be used most effectively with people who had
already contracted an illness, especially AIDS. My sessions with Frank
would make me better prepared for the study when I finally funded it. Also,
Frank was very interested in spirituality and in the relationship between the
DM Process and spirituality. Based on his two earlier experiences with the
DM Process, he had the sense it could be valuable for him.
At our first session I suggested that we do what I normally do with clients:
work on some dysfunctional pattern in his life that he would like to change,
rather than working directly on his illness. He had already eliminated the belief I'm not good enough and the accompanying survival strategy belief What
makes me good enough is pleasing others.
Now Frank described a pattern that bothered him: "I use sarcastic, flippant, glib humor to mask my insecurity. I use it to take the offensive. I use it
to negate compliments. If I get loving, supportive comments, I do this to deal
with the fear that it will be taken away."
The beliefs he identified and eliminated at our first session that were driving the undesirable pattern were People are going to leave me and I have to
rely totally on myself, which are a basic belief and a survival strategy he devised to cope with the reality created by the initial belief.
During the course of our sessions Frank described additional undesirable
patterns: "I withdraw from situations where I feel joy and support; I sometimes feel I cant trust the people in my life" and "I've never felt good enough
creatively in whatever I was involved in, even skating [Frank had been a famous professional ice skater], so I worked harder than anyonecompulsively.
I distrust myself. I love doing creative work, but I doubt that it's good
enough."
How Being Gay Affected Frank's Life

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Early on, we discussed how Frank thought his being gay had affected him.
We spent a lot of time talking about that and about his early experiences.
"As a kid I was more feminine than other boys, and other kids called me a
sissy. They said I wasn't like them. I've felt persecuted since I was a kid. I
never even tried to fit in, and I felt hurt when I was left out. I was always
sensitive, which other boys my age saw as a weakness. I loved and listened to
classical music as a young child, under ten. I didn't like rough physical sports.
I felt as if I didn't fit in in grade school. I felt comfortable with the feminine
side of me by age six or sevenmaybe younger. I was very much alone in
grade school. By high school I developed a strategy to be accepted and liked.
"Expression of my sexuality was never a big deal. I had no problem drifting from men to women. When I was famous and being interviewed, I
couldn't express my sexuality publicly. I'm more open now, but I still hold
back. One reason I moved to New York City was because being gay here was
more accepted. How safe would Alan and I be in our suburban home or in
most southern cities?
"Society as a whole doesn't accept my sexuality. I feel persecuted from
time to time. It's not safe to be gay at my gym. Given the conditions in society and my sexuality, I have to modify my behavior. I can't express myself
freely in public because it's not safe. Society would never accept me if it
knew who I really was.
"I've never been accepted by the community of life. The world is un-accepting, hard, and has no sense of priorities that appeal to me. The world's
priorities are so totally out of whack that there's no way they could support
human life: greed, competitiveness, money, position in the world, rigidity, inflexibility, lack of compassion.
"There's a type of straight man who repulses me and always has. He's
macho, inflexible, rigid. I equate him with the world. People like that are not
open to differences in the world, differences in people. My image of that type
of man is of a conservative, southern military man. He is afraid of sensitivity,

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compassion, heart, intuition. He has a lack of acceptance of different

lifestyles."
I asked Frank specifically how he felt about being gay. His answer was
similar to that given by almost every gay man I've talked to: "I'm okay being
gay, but it's not okay in this world."
Some of the beliefs that arose from Franks experiences:

It isn't safe for me to express who I really am.

I can't be loving, expressive, and open in this world.

If I expressed myself totally my life would be threatened, because gay people are considered deviant, perverted.

The world, society, life are unyielding, unaccepting, tyrannical,

prejudicial, hostile.

The real world is inhibiting and suppressive of me and my

vision.

I can't be me in the world.

The Lesson of AIDS

Over a period of several months, using the DM Process, Frank eliminated
these and other beliefs about himself and life. At some point we started talking about his illness.
"AIDS is lethal. It's killed off several friends and lovers," Frank said. "But
in a funny way it's been a gift, too. It's forced me to totally reconsider my life.
There's a reason why so many people have AIDS, and a reason why the type
of people who have it have it. It's like I've agreed to be part of some sort of

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cosmic lesson. I was a prime candidate. I had changed careers, giving up figure skating, which had been the most important thing in my life; my best
friend broke up our relationship; my lover died of AIDS."
"If AIDS is a lesson for you personally, what is it?" I asked Frank.
He had a list:

It forced me to look at life in a more spiritual way.

It gave me a sense of urgency to discover what's real and important in my life, to be really honest about my life.

Had I not gotten AIDS I don't think I'd have done these firs two
things to the extent or with the intensity I would have otherwise.
Even having you, Morty, and the DM Process in my life is a
function of AIDS.

I have freedom to create my own time. My boss is allowing me

to work my own hours.

I didn't feel up to dealing with what life was dumping on me.

Now I don't have to push as hard in the ways I used to.

I have more patience, understanding, care from my boss, my

friends, and my mom. No deadlines now. No pressure.

I don't have to put myself through the "struggle." If I didn't have

AIDS there might be the tendency to have to prove myself.

"Two years ago," Frank told me, "there was no way to express myself and
no relationship. I felt, What's the point of living? I seriously thought about
suicide several times. Now at my job [he worked part-time publishing a

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company newsletter], I touch people in a way that they're better for it. I'm
here to be a catalyst, to affect, help change people's emotions, effect change
on an emotional level. I have the ability to touch people's hearts. When I connect with people, somehow my life is different. People experience joy. I have
a sense of acceptance. I can allow people to be light about their lives. Accept
themselves in a more loving way. Provide opportunities for others to grow in
a more loving and accepting manner. Touch people emotionally. I'm closer to
my vision now than I've been in quite a while. I'm picking up where I left off
when I was thirteen years old."
Seven months after our first session I spoke to Frank's employer to see
what changes he saw in Frank. "There has been a change over the past few
months, an improvement in his mental attitude toward life," his boss said.
"He smiles more. Frank has a positive attitude toward people on the staff. He
used to have less of a personal relationship with others. Now he relates more
warmly."
After nine months Frank told me, "I feel an ongoing sense of comfort
around my spirituality. Something has changed through our work. It's comforting. Death will be a good experience. It doesn't worry me.
Our work is reaffirming my spiritual beliefs. I carry that with me on a
daily basis. At this moment the idea of living longer or shorter doesn't seem
important; I'm not worried about dying right now. I'm doing things emotionally and spiritually that I should be doing."
After we had been working together for about ten months, Frank remarked, "I don't experience myself as a 'sick person.' I have a sense of peace
about myself. Since the last session I've been experiencing life as a duality, a
drama that I can choose to get involved in or not."
A month later he said, "If I died tomorrow I would have learned the lesson
I needed to learn in this lifetime."

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After eleven months, I talked to Alan about how Frank was doing. He told
me, "Frank's emotional and self-concept levels have never been stronger.
Rest, peace, forgiveness of others. Both from my observation and from what
he's said, it's clear he's never had anything like the perspective that this work
offers. And his physical deterioration is still proceeding. He has an infection
on his neck, swollen legs, his lesions are getting darker. The oncologist has
lightened treatment again. Frank expects that another emergency might be the
end."
When I next saw Frank, I told him what Alan had said and asked if he
agreed. He nodded and added, "I'm not living out of'I'm going to die.' I'm in
great emotional, psychological, and spiritual shape."
Frank Transcends His Illness
Ken Wilbur, who has written extensively about transformation, made an
observation that captures the essence of Frank's attitude:
Thus the individual's mind-and-body may be in pain, or humiliation, or
fear, but as long as he consents to simply abide as the witness of these affairs,
as if from on high, they no longer threaten him, and thus he need no longer
manipulate them, wrestle with them, subdue them, or try to "understand"
them. Because he is willing to witness them, to look at them impartially, he is
able to transcend them.7
After a year, during which he had about forty sessions and eliminated
many beliefs, Frank was getting weaker so we weren't meeting as often. Despite the fact that I thought Frank was in better shape psychologically and
spiritually than most of the people walking the streets of New York City, his
body still wasn't getting better. And that's what I had hoped to be doing with
Frank: helping him get rid of or at least halt the progression of AIDS. I
searched for books that might provide me with clues. I spent hours looking
for possibilities I hadn't yet seen. What beliefs had we not gotten to? What
aspect of his life had we not looked into deeply enough? What attitudes did
long-term AIDS survivors have that Frank didn't have? What beliefs could be

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eliminated that might open up the possibility of gaining those attitudes? What
could I do that I hadn't yet done? I was frustrated and upset. I had grown to
love and admire Frank very much, and I was unable to help him get better as
I had originally hoped.
In a conversation just one year after our work started, Frank told me, "I'm
able to experience and express feelings and anger. Self-expression is okay. If
I could stand up for long enough periods of time, I'd be painting. I don't think
people will leave me. I'm secure in feeling much loved. I no longer have the
sense of being a victim of my father's behavior. I've come to terms with feelings of abandonment by my mom. I'm very secure with Alan; he's here for
the long haul. I trust he will not abandon me. I make my needs and opinions
clear to him. I never would have described myself as a victim a year ago, but
in retrospect I know I was." The person Frank was describing was almost the
opposite of his description of himself a year earlier.
Although we talked on the phone from time to time, I only had two additional sessions with Frank. Then in October he called and told me he was
back in the hospital. He had lost the sight of one eye and his body had deteriorated badly. Amazingly, he was still in good spirits. We made an appointment to have a session in the hospital a few days later. When I arrived at
about 10 a.m., a nurse stopped me outside the door and asked, "Are you a
member of the family?" I was afraid she wouldn't let me in if
I said I wasn't, so I just nodded and walked on without waiting for permission. Alan was sitting on the bed, his eyes red from crying. "Frank passed
away less than an hour ago," he told me tearfully. We looked at each other
for a moment and then hugged. We talked about Frank for a long timehow
much we both loved him, how he'd changed in the past year, and how he'd
actually enjoyed the last months of his life.
I had started working with Frank a year and a half earlier with the sole
purpose of helping him eliminate beliefs so that his immune system would
improve enough to halt the spread of AIDS in his body. That was what I

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thought the DM Process had to offer. Given my original purpose, Frank's

death should have meant total failure. But I didn't feel failure. There was a
greater truth in evidence.
Later, when I read a piece by Larry Dossey, it was as if he had Frank in
mind when he wrote it:
Future forms of therapy that emphasize the potency of the mind in the origin and course of human illness will recognize [the importance of transcendence]____They will utilize psychological interventions to more effectively
and humanely treat illness, but with the added understanding that there is yet
something more important for the patient to learn. They will rightly acknowledge a state of health that transcends the problem at hand or any illness that
might develop in the future. They will proclaim that the highest use of the
psyche in the course of human illness is not for cure, but for transcendence of
the conditional events we call health and disease, birth and death.8
Life Is about the Journey, Not the Destination
My work with Frank helped me to discover something important about the
DM Process and about lifesomething I had only known intellectually before our time together: Life is about the journey, not the
destination. The DM Process had not kept Frank alive, but it had supported him in his spiritual quest. He had been able to change most of the behavior patterns that had diminished the quality of his life. He had been able to
eliminate his negative sense of self, so that he could accept and enjoy himself
without concern for what others thought of him. He had been able to forgive
his parents and others he thought had harmed him in the past. And, most important, he had created himself as the creator of his life and had been able to
live in that space much of the time during the last year of his life.
I regularly quote to people one of Franks statements when I am trying to
explain the experience of living as the creator of your life, as opposed to

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living as the creation. I tell people that, when asked how he was feeling,
Frank always answered, "My body's in terrible shape. But I am in great
shape."9

Part Three
Re-creating Our World
Chapter 9 - Raising Empowered Children
It's not really difficult to get your children to do what you want them to do,
if the punishments are severe enough. But at what cost to the rest of their
lives? Shelly Lefkoe
Why cant you ever?" "How come you never?" "Surely you realize!" "Did
you?""Can you?""Will you?""Wont you?""Aren't you?""How many times do
I have to tell you?"1
Imagine that you're a young child hearing these words from your parents
over and over again, day after day. How do you think you would feel?
If you are a typical child, you'd feel guilty, sad, angry, resentful, and
ashamed. But more than that, you would begin to form beliefs about yourself
based on your conclusions about what those statements meant. And what
would you be likely to conclude? There's something wrong with me. I'm not
good enough. Fm not worthwhile.
Most parents would be horrified to realize that their daily words might result in the formation of such beliefs. They mean well. They do the best they
can. How could their children respond with such low self-esteem beliefs?
Perhaps the DM Process has something to offer. The primary purpose of
this chapter is to assist parentsthose people who have taken on the most
important and most demanding job in the worldto become more effective
at that job. A secondary purpose is to help anyone who wants to understand

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the relationship between the disastrous state of the world and how the people
in the world have been (and are still being) parented.
This chapter is dedicated to the children of the world, with the intention
that it contribute to their future well-being.
The "Job" of Parenting
My wife, Shelly, used to complain that when men at parties asked her
what she did, and she answered, "I raise my two children," the men would
turn away, boredas if a mom wouldn't have anything very interesting to
say. Now Shelly tells people she is a professional mother. The response is
usually surprise: "What is a professional mother?" She replies that her
primary job is "mother," and she trains and studies for that job the same way
other professionals prepare for theirs.
It's fascinating that people would respond to Shelly's description of her
"work" with such surprise. For virtually every job you've ever held, you've
received some formal or informal training or educationeither initiated by
you or by the organization for which you worked. But if you decide to become a parent and take on one of the most difficult jobs imaginable, there is
no training required. You're expected to know what to do automatically. This
is absurd! It is no more obvious how to parent than it is how to treat an illness, draw up a contract, or be an effective administrative assistant.
About five years ago, Shelly created a business, the Possibilities of Parenting Center (POPC), designed for parents, teachers, mother's helpers, and others who work with children. Her company offers workshops and private DM
sessions that help people become better caretakers for children. POPC's mission is: "To have parents discover that self-esteem (the experience of being
able and worthy) and a positive attitude toward life are the key to children's
happiness and success, and to empower them to assist children in the creation
of self-esteem and other positive attitudes."

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Although Shelly and I have read a great many books and have taken a
number of workshops on how to parent more effectively, our best paren ting lessons have come from facilitating people in the DM Process.
Session after session, hour after hour, we have heard people describe the experiences they had with their own parents that led them to dysfunctional beliefs: "My Mom and Dad always did ... they never did ... they always said ...
they never said."2
What our parents do and don't do, say and don't say, provides us with the
experiences that we interpret into beliefs. Those beliefs, in turn, create our
reality and determine our livesfor better or for worse.
In our workshops, we help parents discover:
1. What they want for their children
2. That getting what they want for their children depends on their children
having healthy self-esteem and a positive sense of life
3. That their children's self-esteem beliefs result primarily from interactions with their parents
4. That the essential function of parents, initially, is to assist their children
to create positive conclusions about themselves and life and then, when children reach their teen years, to help them discover that they are the creators of
their lives
Let's first walk through the essence of our workshop. Then we will examine some beliefs you might have about parenting and the relationship
between them and the above four points.
What Do You Want for Your Children?
Take a piece of paper, title it List A at the top, and write down your answer to the question: What do I want for my children? In other words, how

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do you want their lives to look as adults? If you could choose the three most
important characteristics or qualities that you would like your children to
have when they are ready to go out on their own, what would they be?
Some answers that other parents have given include: self-disciplined,
responsible, self-reliant, good study habits, self-motivated, good feelings
about him/herself, good values, self-confident, sensitive, secure, high selfesteem, kind and caring, considerate of others, good relationships, happy with
spouse and children, and financial success.
Once you write down what you want for your children, the next question
is, What can you do to help them turn out that way? Write down on another
piece of paper, titled List B, your answer to the question: How do I behave
with my children on a daily basis, so that ultimately they will turn out the
way I want them to? I'm not asking you what you think you should do but
what you really do. What behavior would someone see if they looked through
your window and you didn't know they were there? What is some of your
typical behaviorthat youre happy about and not so happy about? Write
your answers on List B.
Some answers that other parents have given include: nag, yell, explain,
make happy, threaten, play with, show, punish, make time-outs, praise, teach
(good manners, neatness, good study habits), coddle, reward, and plead.
Now look at List A and ask yourself which of the two following types of
beliefs would be more likely to produce the qualities you listed: (1) I'm not
good enough; I'm not okay; there's something wrong with me; I'm not worthwhile; people can't be trusted; life isn't fair, or (2) 1'm good enough; 1'm okay
just the way I am; 1'm worthwhile just because I am, not for any reason;
people can be trusted; life is open to my having whatever I want.
It probably seems obvious that what you want for your children would be
impossible to fulfill with the first set of beliefs. In fact, as we discussed earlier, these are beliefs that lead to such dysfunctional behavior as drug and

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alcohol abuse, teenage pregnancy, the inability to have a close and lasting relationship, gang membership, anxiety and depression, and the inability to experience real inner satisfaction.
That being the case, the next question to answer, on a third paper headed
List C, is: What behavior would enhance my children's healthy self-esteem
and a positive sense of life?
Some answers that other parents have given include: checking rather
than directing, exploring possibilities, encouraging, acknowledging, giving respect, modeling, allowing risk-taking, being on their side, giving
choices, listening, showing unconditional love, providing a sense of security,
trusting, and being honest.
Now on a fourth sheet, titled List D, write your answer to the question:
What behavior would inhibit my children's healthy self-esteem and positive
sense of life? (If you have trouble answering this question for yourself, you
might think about what other parents do or what you've observed.)
Before you answer the question, let me emphasize that inhibiting behavior
isn't necessarily "unloving." For example, Shelly's parents are two of the
most loving people I've ever met. They love herand loved her as a
childas much as a child can be loved. Her parents were committed to her
life being wonderful all the time. Whenever she tried to do something new as
a child, such as pouring milk, setting the table, or helping with the dishes,
they said, "That's okay, honey. Let me do it." They didn't teach her to bake,
cook, sew, or do other similar things that her friends were learning. After
hundreds of experiences like this, what do you think Shelly concluded about
herself, despite the love that motivated her parents' behavior? She decided:
I'm not capable.
The issue here isn't your intentions, but your behavior.

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Some answers that other parents have given include: accusing, directing,
blaming, judging, spanking, characterizing, labeling, demanding, comparing,
being too busy to spend enough time, criticizing, overprotecting, martyrdomsacrificing, inconsistent love, conditional love, not acknowledging, unreasonable expectations, rescuing, and denying feelings.
Now place the four lists in front of you. List A is what you want for your
children. List B is how you behave with your children. List C is behavior that
enhances a healthy self-esteem and positive sense of life. List D is behavior
that produces a negative self-esteem and sense of life.
Your children's success, as you defined it, requires healthy self-esteem and
a positive sense of life. To what extent is your behavior, List B, closer to the
inhibitors on List D than the enhancers on List C? Can you see that at least
some of your behavior is not likely to create the positive self-esteem beliefs
that are required for your children to have what you say you want for them?
Can you see that your behavior sometimes inhibits the creation of a positive
self-esteem?

You Aren't a Bad Parent

The purpose of this exercise is not to have you discover that you are a bad
parent. If you are like most parents, you love your children and you are

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committed to their well-being. You want to do the best you possibly can.
However, if you are a typical parent, you've had little or no training in that
role. Thus, sometimes your behavior enhances and sometimes it inhibits
positive self-esteem. The point is not to criticize the number of inhibitors you
exhibit but to help you to reduce them and increase the number of enhancers.
You may want to change your behavior, but because it is the result of your
beliefs, the first step is to discover the beliefs that are driving you. Then you
need to eliminate the beliefs so that the new, desired behavior will come
naturally.
What do you believe, probably unconsciously, that could explain the inhibiting behavior on List B? Each of you will have to answer that question
for yourself, but some typical answers are: My job is to produce results____My job is to teach my child how to achieve success----My job is to
make my child happy. Can you see how one or more of these beliefs might
result in your inhibiting behavior on List B? Don't you use those behaviors to
get your children to listen, to do as they're told, to learn what you think they
should know, and even to have what you think will make them happy?
Most parents believe: I've succeeded as a parent if my behavior with my
child produces the desired result, teaches the desired information, or makes
my child happy. But ask yourself: At what cost? If you succeed in achieving
what you want, and, as a result of your interaction, your child forms negative
self-esteem beliefs, was your behavior really "successful"? Is what you
achieved short-term with your child worth the long-term cost?
I'm not saying that your children's behavior on a daily basis, their learning,
and their current happiness are not important. Of course they are. What I am
saying is that the single factor that has the greatest impact on whether or not
your child achieves what you wrote on List A is a healthy self-esteem, a positive sense of life, and other positive beliefs, such as Relationships
work____It's safe to express feelings____People can be trusted. Nothing they

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do, learn, or feel as a child will have as much influence on their lives as the
fundamental beliefs they form and take into adulthood.
The Major Role of Parents
Given the crucial role of beliefs, what do you think the major role of parents should be? Influencing behavior, teaching information, and making their
children happy? Or helping their children to create positive decisions about
themselves and life?
If you chose the latterand I believe it is much more important the best
way I know to ensure that you are doing your job well is to constantly ask the
question: What is my child likely to conclude about herself and life as a result
of the interaction we just had? If it's a positive belief,
congratulations! You got your job done. If it's a negative belief, go back,
apologize, and clean it up.
What clients report during DM sessions provides parents with bad news
and good news. The bad news is that you'd better be very careful about what
you do and say with your children, because your behavior is the model from
which your children will create the beliefs that determine the rest of their
lives.
The good news is that nothing you do as a parent actually determines how
your children's lives will turn out. Only a person's interpretations/beliefs determine their realitynot the earlier experiences on which they are based.
And beliefs can always be changed. It's inappropriate to blame your parents
for the way your life turned out, because individuals always have the power
to change beliefs that are determining their lives. Remember, every person is
both the creation and the creator of the creation.
Beliefs that Cause Inhibiting Behavior

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Let's take a look at some of the most common beliefs parents have that
lead to inhibiting behavior. If you're a typical parent, many of them will
sound familiar to you.
Belief One: I Am Responsible for My Child's Behavior
When my daughter Blake was ten, I saw her take a friend's hat and I immediately told her to give it back.
A few minutes later, I began to wonder about my action. Why did I tell
Blake what to do? If her friend got angry and didn't want to be friends with
Blake anymore, that would be a good lesson for her about respecting other
people's property. And if her friend didn't get angry, then it was just a game
and Blake would give the hat back on her own. There were half a dozen other
possible outcomes. Why did I feel I had to make sure she gave the hat back
right away?
I discovered after a little exploration that I believed I am responsible for
my children's behavior toward others. And if I am responsible, then I have to
constantly monitor her dealings with others.
Once I had identified my belief, the next question was: What conclusion
would Blake eventually come to if I continued this type of behavior long
enough? Possibly, There's something wrong with me (because Dad is always
telling me what to do and not to do). Or, I need someone else to make sure I
do the right thing. (With this belief, what would happen when someone told
her that "everyone" was trying drugs or having sex? If she couldn't count on
her own judgment, she would have to listen to what everyone else was
saying.)
The belief that you are responsible for your child's behavior toward others
inhibits the development of independence and a healthy self-esteem in your
child. Your intention may be benevolent, but the result is to foster selfdoubt.3

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This model demonstrates how "the sins of the parents are visited on the
children." Your beliefs as a parent determine your behavior, which leads to
your children's beliefs, which determine their behavior. The best place to
break this cycle is with your own beliefs as a parent. If your children have
already reached adolescence and have formed their core self-esteem beliefs,
you need to help them eliminate those that lead to dysfunctional behavior.
Belief Two: Children Should Have the Same Standards of Behavior as
Adults
On another occasion, Brittany, then age four, took about ten two- to fourinch pieces of Scotch tape from my desk and put them on her bedroom walls
and furniture. I asked her to not take any more tape because she was wasting
it. She repeated her behavior on several more occasions, and I found myself
getting increasingly annoyed because she wasn't listening to me. "Brittany," I
warned her, "if you keep taking my tape, you won't be allowed in my office
anymore." But threats didn't faze her.
At that age, Brittany seemed to march to her own drummer. It was hard to
enforce any rules. At meals, she would always half-sit, half-stand,
as if she were getting ready to take flight from the table. I must have said
"Sit down!" ten times a meal. I was always nagging, cajoling, and creating
"consequences."
Finally, I asked myself, What is Brittany concluding about herself and life
as a result of these interactions?
One possibility might be: I can't do what I want to do in the world; I need
someone else's permission. And perhaps also: Daddy's constantly unhappy
with what I do, so there must be something wrong with me. Or: Others know
and I don't.
I began to think about what I believed that produced my anxious, nagging
behavior. When I finally discovered it, I realized that it was a belief that a

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great many parents had: Children should have the same standards of behavior
as adults.
Putting several inches of tape on the wall is wasting tape by adult standards; it is a game by a child's standardsand a very inexpensive game at that.
Standing during a meal is not polite by adult standards, but children are filled
with energy and have a hard time sitting still at any time. In fact, there is a lot
of evidence they can pay better attention if they are permitted to move around
than if they are forced to sit still for long periods of time. (Many schools have
successfully dispensed with the standard fixed desks and allow children to sit,
lie, walk around, stand, and kneel during classes with excellent results.)
A child who is repeatedly told; "Don't do this, don't do that!"when
merely doing what is natural for a child that age, what makes sense, what
feels rightalmost always would experience the "don'ts" as personal invalidation rather than parental instructions not to do a specific thing. That child
will probably conclude, There is something wrong with me; I can't do anything right, so why bother?
And a child who is feeling angry (or upset, or any other feeling) who
is repeatedly told, "Don't be sad____You're not really angry at your
friend;
she didn't mean it____That shouldn't upset you" or "Don't cry" will most
likely hear the injunctions as, There's something wrong with the way I
am____What I feel doesn't matter____or I can't trust my feelings.
The consequences of the beliefs formed as a result of interacting with
your children this way are children who experience their limitations rather
than their unlimited potential; children who feel bad about themselves; children who have a sense that life is too much for them and that getting what
they want will be difficult, if not impossible; children who believe that what
they feel, want, and do isn't really important anyway.4

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Belief Three: Children Can't Be Trusted

When my daughter Blake was five she constantly complained that she
didn't want to eat what Shelly and I were having for dinner. One day, I suggested to Shelly that we try an experiment and allow Blake to eat whatever
she wanted, given that we only kept relatively healthy food in the house.
Shelly thought I had lost my mind, but I insisted that Blake could be trusted.
Shelly argued that she was not old enough to be trusted. After a long and
heated discussion, Shelly agreed to an experiment. For two weeks Blake
would be allowed to eat whatever she wanted that we had in the house.
The next morning Blake got up and asked for ice cream for breakfast!
Shelly was so upset that she served the ice cream and then left the kitchen so
she wouldn't have to watch Blake eat it. The next day Blake went back to her
typical health food cereal for breakfast. Although she decided to eat what
Shelly and I had as a main course for dinner most evenings, she asked for and
received a sweet dessert every night, usually ice cream. After a few days she
started saying to us, "I'm not going to have ice cream tomorrow." But the
next day she invariably had ice cream.
One evening about ten days into the experiment, the three of us were in
our car driving when Blake said to us, "Mommy and Daddy, I have a
problem."
"What is it, honey?" I asked.
She sounded sad. "I'm eating too much sugar, and I can't stop myself."
Shelly looked quickly at me and then said to Blake, "How can we support
you?"
Blake answered, "I still need you to say 'no' to me. We need to call the experiment off until I'm older."
Shelly had tears in her eyes. She told me later that she realized that she
had been right in that Blake wasn't old enough to decide on her own what she

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could eat. But Shelly also realized that ultimately I was right because Blake
could be trustedif not to be able to control what she ate, then to ask for assistance in controlling herself.
What did Blake conclude about herself over this and similar incidents? I'm
not sure, but probably something like: I can be trusted. I am capable of deciding what works for me.
What would a child conclude if she constantly heard her parents say, "I
can't trust you to ..." or observed behavior in her parents that implied a lack
of trust? Probably: I can't be trusted. I can't decide on my own what's best for
me. I'll probably mess up unless someone tells me what to do.
Belief Four: I'm the Boss
One particularly detrimental parenting belief is: We do it my way around
here because I'm the parent. In other words, "I'm the boss, just because I'm
the mother or father."
There are a hundred times a day when a child asks, "Can I have a snack?"
"Can I have a friend over?" "Can I watch TV?" or Do I have to?" There is no
objectively "right" answer to many of these questions. Often the answer is arbitrary. Sometimes you give one answer, sometimes another. Why one or the
other? No reason; it's just what you feel at the moment. Or, even if you think
you have a reason, just as good a case frequently can be made for the opposite response. If your child challenges you and asks, "Why?" you may respond, "Because I'm your father (or mother)."
When the answer is arbitrary, why do we think that we need to retain the
authority to provide the answer? Why don't we say instead, "I don't think that
I have a better answer to that question than you do. What do you think? Why
do you think that?"
Again, what conclusion would children probably reach if what they want
is overridden frequently by the arbitrary commandments of their parents?

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How would they probably interpret continually asking,"Why cant I?" and
hearing their parents answer, in effect, "I don't need a reason; I'm your mother (or father)"? Such a child may think, What I want isn't important. I have no
control over my life. I don't matter. Reasons aren't important; only power is
important.
Belief Five: My Job Is to Produce Results with My Children
This belief, perhaps more than any other, robs people of much of the joy
of parenting, and it leads to negative beliefs on the part of their children.
Many parents believe that the most important thing in any given interaction
with a child is achieving a specific result: finishing the book that is being
read, brushing the teeth, playing a new game by the rules, getting dressed, or
eating a meal. One underlying parenting belief that could produce such behavior is My job is to produce results with my children. This belief is probably
accompanied by the related belief: A successful parent is one who gets children to obey. (Don't most parents of young children consider the ultimate accolade to be "Your child is so well-behaved"?)
As a parent you probably find yourself frustrated and upset when your
children want to do something other than what you want them to do. If getting your children to exhibit specific behavior and to complete tasks is your
goal, you are doomed to frustration and upset because children often won't
cooperate. Your annoyance comes from the assumption that the point of
brushing teeth is to get the teeth clean; the point of playing a game is to complete it while observing the rules; the point of reading a book is to finish the
story. Why? Who said so? You did. But children do not usually have the
same standards as their parents. If you were to change your belief, most of
the upset would disappear.
Remember the last time you heard a parent say, "My kids are wonderful,
they always obey me." Or, "They never talk back." Or, "They are never a
problem." Did you sigh with envy and say, "Oh, I wish my kids were like
that?" Think again. What beliefs would a child have to have to always obey,

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never talk back, or never be a problem? Jane always did what her parents
wanted when she was a kid. Her parents described her as "the perfect child."
Two beliefs underlying her behavior, which continued to affect her later in
life, were What I want doesn't matter. I'm not important. Norman was praised
constantly by his parents for being so well-mannered as a child. He had concluded; The way to be accepted is to make people happy and to never upset
them. How do you think beliefs like these would affect your children when
they become adults?
What if you decided that the primary purpose of every interaction was to
assist your children to create positive beliefs about themselves and life?
When Brittany was young, it was a running battle to get her teeth brushed
at night. Sometimes she'd resist going into the bathroom. Other times she'd
refuse to open her mouth. Or she'd bite the toothbrush, or turn her head, or
jump up and down. I was constantly annoyed that I couldn't get her to do
what I wanted her to do, and I let her know it. At some point, I recognized the
principle we're discussing here and I changed my focus to having fun during
this activity, rather than completing it. When Brittany didn't want to go to the
bathroom to brush her teeth, I'd ask her how she would like to go to the bathroomwith me leading a parade and her following, with her in my arms or
on my back or did she want to meet me there in five minutes?
This change occurred in other areas as well. Before, if Brittany interrupted
me to talk about various things while I was reading to her, I'd try to get her to
stop talking so I could finish the book. Again, I would feel annoyed because I
was being frustrated in achieving what I had as my goal. I thought, Isn't reading to children important? After changing my belief, I discovered that when I
used the time we were in bed with a book to allow Brittany to talk about
whatever she wanted, we had some very interesting and fun conversations.
Our time together became more meaningful to both of us. And, most important, Brittany was probably forming positive rather than negative beliefs about
herself and life.

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Belief Six: I Have the Power...

Perhaps the most common parenting belief, the one that underlies all others, is Parents have the power to determine how their children's lives turn out.
Consciously you might acknowledge that it is out of your hands, but take a
look. Doesn't your behavior imply that you think your actions and statements
can determine your children's behavior? Don't you think you are having a
valuable and lasting impact on your children when you teach them table manners, good study habits, how to clean their rooms, and how to relate to
others?
Most of what children do and feel when they grow up is not a function of
what they learn or feel as a child. It is a function of the beliefs they form,
both as children and later in life. Although you can provide a model of life
that can influence those beliefs, you cannot control the beliefs. In fact, trying
to control their behavior, or even their beliefs, more often than not produces
an environment in which negative self-esteem and sense-of-life beliefs are
created.
Jackie's mother and father were very successful professionals. From
everything Jackie told me, it was clear that her mom and dad were loving,
well-meaning parents. They wanted only the best for her. They often expressed their love and rarely yelled at her. They were determined that she be
as successful as they were, which they thought would make her happy. No
matter what Jackie accomplished, her parents pointed out how she could have
done better. Jackie was corrected constantly; her parents were always showing her "the right way"that is, their way, to do everything. She frequently
heard as a child, "There's no need to make the same mistakes we made."
What do you think Jackie concluded from her parents' behavior? I'm incapable of doing things on my own. There's something wrong with me.
Human beings, especially children, generalize about their experience. Instead of merely noting what we observe, we almost always ascribe meaning

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to our observations. Because there is no meaning out there in the world, our
conclusions are always arbitrary and are never "the truth."
Parents, therefore, have an almost impossible job: We are responsible for
creating an environment in which children are more likely to form positive
self-esteem and sense-of-life beliefs, but, no matter what environment we
create, we cannot control the decisions children make.
The Beliefs That Lead to Child Abuse
Not only are many of our beliefs about parenting the source of ineffective
parenting behavior, our own negative self-esteem beliefs and accompanying
survival strategy beliefs are the source of the worst type of parenting behavior: child abuse. Two case histories involving parents who were verbally and
physically abusive make this point very real.
Harold complained of his inability "to control my temper when my kids
don't behave the way I want them to behave. I finally stopped spanking them,
but I still lose control and yell at them when they don't meet my
expectations."
In looking for the beliefs that produced this behavior, Harold realized that
he felt powerless and out of control when his children didn't listen to him. He
discovered the survival strategy: Being in control makes me okay, and the
underlying belief: I'm not worthy.
The highlights of his childhood experiences that led to this negative selfesteem belief included: "Mom said she felt her job was to point out what the
kids do wrong. I'd always hear from her: 'How many times do I have to tell
you? Aren't you ever going to get it right?' There was very little physical or
verbal affection or warmth. I spent very little time with my mom."
In the other case history, Peter described his pattern as "yelling at my kids,
when they fight among themselves, when they aren't obeying, when they
don't listen to me."

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He said that just before he yells he feels that he needs "to be in control to
feel good about myself. When the kids don't obey, I feel out of control."
His underlying belief was I'm powerless. His survival strategy belief was
Being in control makes me powerful.
Other DM sessions with parents who report similar patterns reveal that
child abuse frequently (if not always) is the parent's way to feel in control at a
time when he or she feels out of control. The experience of being out of control can result from the children not listening or from other events in life.
When a parent has negative self-esteem beliefs such as Pm powerless and a
survival strategy belief like Being in control makes me powerful, being out of
control brings the self-esteem belief to the surface, along with the anxiety
that is associated with it. Verbally and physically abusive behavior with children (and even spouses) is the attempt to get back in control, in order to cover
up the anxiety parents feel when they experience being out of control.
Victims Create Victims
A great many adults act as if they believe that someone or something outside themselves has ultimate power over them. They think, My life would be
perfect if only my spouse [or my children, or my co-workers, or my boss]
would ... In other words, these people feel they are victims of others. Where
does that come from?
In addition to the constant "do this" and "don't do that" that we hear as
children, we also frequently hear, "You make me angry [or some other feeling]!" The message is that something outside of us determines what we feel.
Between constantly hearing "no" and "don't" and the message that feelings
are a function of something outside of you, it is understandable that people
would wonder, Who am I to determine how my life turns out? Concluding I
don't matter or Pm powerless is virtually inevitable, given how so many of us
were brought up.

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Pause for a moment. Is the connection between our parenting styles and
the state of society getting clearer? Can you see that virtually all the problems
individuals experiencefrom drug and alcohol abuse to crime to relationships that don't work to people blaming everyone and everything else for
their lives not working and experiencing no personal responsibility for changing their circumstancesare the inevitable result of beliefs that were
formed in childhoodand those beliefs were the inevitable result of how we
were parented and are parenting our children today? You might not like this
explanation, but if you are willing to accept responsibility as parents, you
have the opportunity to change your parenting. You also have the opportunity
to change the state of the world.
My Operating Principle as a Parent
At some point I found that I could no longer justify most of my "interventions" as a parent, based on the principle, What is my daughter likely to conclude about herself and life as a result of the interaction I just had with her?
Once I had decided that my job as a parent was to enhance self-esteem and
sense of life, I created the basic operating belief out of which I parent: The
only time I should forcefully intervenethat is, tell my children what they
must do or cannot dois when they are about to do something that will harm
them, someone else, or something of value. Of course, its not always obvious
if harm will follow a given behavior, and its often a major challenge to figure
out how to operate consistently out of this standard. I don't always succeed.
How did I come to create this new operating belief about parenting in
contrast to other beliefs like My job is to teach my children? I concluded that
experience was a more effective teacher. Think about it: Children learn the
two toughest things they will ever learnto walk and to talknot from their
parents but from direct interaction with reality.
That doesn't mean I can't encourage my children or acknowledge them or
give them support and advice; I do this regularly. But when it comes to deciding what they can and can't do, I leave it up to them unless I foresee some

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harm and can explain my position. Is it harmful for an eleven-year-old girl to

have three holes in her ears and stay up after midnight on weekends? (I concluded it wasn't.) Is it appropriate for a thirteen-year-old girl to buzz her hair
down to one-eighth of an inch? (I cringed at the thought, but I helped Blake
do it after she had carefully considered several questions I raised and still
wanted to go ahead. After living with it for a couple of months, she decided
to let it grow back.)
I have decided that my opinion doesn't count for more than my children's
opinions just because I am their father. If I believe their behavior might be
harmful, I will say no, not just because I have the authority but because I am
responsible for their well-being until they can be fully responsible themselves. At what age will that be? I'm not sure. Probably about the time they
graduate from high school and leave home for college. Maybe earlier. I don't
have the "right" answer, even though I'm their father!
Focus on Possibilities, Not Problems
A couple of years ago I was talking to a friend about her son. She told me
he had been having "problems" at school. His teachers were having a hard
time getting him to listen; he seemed to be different from the other children;
he just didn't fit in.
"I'm worried," she said. "What do you think I should do?"
I started explaining the connection between beliefs and behavior and suggested that she help her son discover and eliminate the beliefs that were producing his "problem" behavior. Then I suddenly had a realization. I stopped
and asked, "Tell me, by what standard is your son's behavior dysfunctional?
Why do you want to change it? Maybe there's nothing wrong with him at all."
She rushed to disagree, listing what she believed were the negative consequences of her son's behavior.

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I interrupted. "I've just had a thought. Maybe parents shouldn't focus on

changing their children's behavior, even if they can help the child to change
his beliefs."
My friend seemed surprised by my idea. She had never considered that before. Many parents get stuck operating out of a "problem" mentality toward
their children. If, however, you are trying to raise a unique individual who
thinks for himself or herself and who always looks for possibilities, then your
child's behavior probably won't be like most children's. Although it's possible
to determine statistically what "most" children do, think, or feel at various
ages, it's impossible to know exactly what any one child's behavior should be
at a given time. You might be concerned about a behavior that is actually appropriate to your child's unique development, yet it doesn't fit your "picture"
of what the behavior should look like.
We can find confirmation in the stories of some of the great creators in
history. Leonardo da Vinci's father was bothered by the way his son's interests seemed to change from month to monthfirst drawing, then engineering, then science, then nature. He concluded that his son couldn't stick to one
area and would never amount to anything. Da Vinci's father didn't realize that
his son was preparing to be a Renaissance man, who would be a genius in all
of those fields and more.
As a boy, Albert Einstein was a daydreamer. He started speaking relatively late and did poorly in mathematics. Picasso was always drawing on
wallsa behavior considered unacceptable, to say the least. Thomas Edison
was constantly taking things apart that he couldn't put back together again; as
he got older, he began conducting chemistry experiments that exploded in the
cellar.
There's no question that the parents of these men spent many anxious
hours and days worrying about their sons' "dysfunctional" behavior.
Today, these stories give us pause. If we try to change our children's behavior, we might well be trying to change the very behavior that is necessary

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for our children's unique "appropriate" development. If, however, we focus

on assisting our children to create healthy self-esteem and a positive sense of
life, we will avoid curtailing the so-called "problem" behavior if it really is
appropriate.
Obviously, if your children are doing or feeling something that is disturbing to them, you can help to eliminate the belief that is producing what they
consider undesirable. Also, if their behavior clearly harms them, someone
else, or something of value, you need to discuss that behavior with them.
You Still Need Skills
Even after you have examined your beliefs regarding parenting and have
eliminated those that are likely to result in inappropriate interactions with
your children, knowing how to interact with them in a way that facilitates a
healthy self-esteem and a positive sense of life is not self-evident.
What should you do after working on your beliefs? Study. Study. And
then study some more. Support groups with other parents can be very useful.
There are a great many excellent books, along with a number of workshops
available throughout the country, that provide excellent strategies and skills.
(See Suggested Reading for a list prepared by Shelly's POPC that should be
helpful.)
A reminder: Skills are useful to people only when the skill is consistent
with their beliefs. Skills are not useful to people whose beliefs make using
the skill unlikely or impossible. In other words, as long as you have beliefs
like As the parent Pm the boss or My job is to produce results with my child,
you won't be able to use the skills to facilitate positive beliefs consistently.
Learning how to listen is irrelevant if you think your job is to tell, not listen.
If, on the other hand, you have eliminated such beliefs and have concluded
that your job as a parent is to assist your children to create positive beliefs,
you will be able to make good use of the skills you learn from books, workshops, and support groups.

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By the way, you might discover as I did, after reading a few books designed to provide the skills for being more effective parents, that the lessons
are just as valuable in dealing with adults. In fact, after reading Liberated
Parents, Liberated Children by Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish, I remarked
to Shelly that if one substituted the word "manager" for "parent" and "employee" for "children," it would be an excellent textbook for managers.
I've asked myself from time to time, Do we need to learn special skills for
raising children, or would it suffice to change our beliefs about ourselves,
life, and relationships so that we treated all people appropriately?
And wouldn't it be a worthwhile principle to ask ourselves, after interacting with anyone, What did the other person conclude about himself or herself
and life as a result of my interaction? If we behaved with everyone so that the
conclusion was always positive, or, if negative, that we apologized and
cleaned it up, would there be much more we had to learn about dealing with
children and teenagers?
Although such an approach certainly would be a significant improvement
over the current state of much parenting, I think some skills still would be
needed. It's not obvious how to deal with children so they reach positive conclusions about themselves and life as a result of your interaction. Some
knowledge of child developmentfor example, what is age appropriatecertainly would also be necessary.
I've learned this the hard way with my daughter Blake, who is now a teenager. Blake and I have always been very close. She has felt safe discussing
with me whatever was on her mind, and I assumed that I would be able to
raise any subject or issue with her. That was the case until she turned eleven.
Then, all of a sudden, communication shut down.
It started when I suggested she watch a television program for adolescents
about sex. She reacted ferociously. Not only wouldn't she watch it, she
wouldn't even discuss watching it. That was the beginning. Then, it all came
to a head one week when she was almost twelve.

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She'd had a few dates with a twelve-year-old boy in her school. She
wouldn't talk to me about the boy, the dates, her feelings, or anything remotely related to the issue. When Shelly or I tried to talk about it, she got annoyed and refused to discuss it. When she came home from school, she took
the phone from my bedroom to hers and closed the door. She didn't come out
for hours. I had a hard time getting her to talk to me about school, her friends,
or almost anything else in her life. She got angry with Shelly and me for not
allowing her to go with her friends to a local mall without an adult present,
and she was withdrawn and noncommu-nicative about everything for almost
a week.
Nothing like this had ever happened before. Blake was no longer the
daughter I had known for almost twelve years. She had shut me out almost
totally. Our close relationship had been one of the most important things in
my life, and it looked to me as if it had disappeared. I was hurt. No, I was
devastated! I walked around in a daze for almost a week. (Or, to be more accurate, "I the creator" observed "Morty the creation" walking around in a
daze.)
I tried hard not to see it as wrong of Blake not to communicate. But I
wasn't very successful. And, although I tried to keep her from feeling guilty
by telling her she wasn't doing anything wrong and I would figure out what I
believed was making me so upset, she probably felt responsible to some
extent.
In an attempt to understand adolescence better, I got some books that described this stage of development. I had concluded that something had gone
wrong in my reltionship with Blake, which was terribly upsetting to me. As I
started reading, however, I realized that nothing was wrong, either with Blake
or with our relationship. What I had seen as withdrawal from me was natural
behavior in this new stage in Blake's life. I discovered that the essence of adolescence is asserting independence from parents. As soon as I realized there
was another interpretation for Blake's behavior, my upset disappeared. As I
became more understanding of Blake's behavior, I was better able to support

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her by letting her go through whatever she needed to go through. It really became okay with me that she wasn't communicating with me. In a few weeks
things were back to normal, and communication had reopened between us.
Obviously what I did during that week didn't permanently damage Blake
or our relationship, but had I known what to expect before it happened, I
probably would have been able to handle my reaction to her behavior a lot
sooner.6
When you are a parent, you are (or should be) in a constant state of learning, growing, and developing. By eliminating your inhibiting beliefs and
learning effective parenting skills, you can make the experience of raising
children so much richer. And what could be more rewarding, ultimately, than
helping your child to develop healthy self-esteem and a positive sense of life?

Chapter 10 - Organizations That Thrive on Change

Rapid knowledge-based change imposes one clear imperative: every organization has to build the management of change into its very structure.
Peter Drucker
aImmediately after I created the DM Process, I started using it to empower
groups of employees to shift: the way they saw their jobs. But except for the
initial Carter Hawley Hale assignment, which I referred to in the Prologue,11
had never actually done the DM Process one-on-one in a corporate workshop.
I was concerned that businesspeople would be unwilling to discuss dysfunctional patterns, beliefs about their self-worth, and their childhoods in front of
their peers.
Then Larry Moon, the CEO and owner of Kondex, a small manufacturing
company in Lomira, Wisconsin, heard a presentation I made and called me
several days later. He told me he would like to retain me to work with his
seventy employees, but first he wanted to make sure that his management
team was fully on board and supportive of the idea.

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"Can you come out for a day and give my top people a preview of what
you'd do in a two- or three-day workshop?" Larry asked. He said he hoped
my presentation would convince his managers that workshops for all their
employees would be valuable.
I said sure. I was confident that I could make a convincing presentation.
The next week I flew to Wisconsin.
Sitting informally around the table with the small group of Kondex executives, I began to explain how the DM Process worked to change employees'
beliefs about their jobs. Suddenly, Larry spoke up.
"Can you show us?" he asked. "I'll be the guinea pig and do the DM Process right here."
I tried to warn him that we couldn't know before he stated his pattern what
the belief might be that gave rise to it, and we wouldn't have any idea where
the belief came from until we started looking. He didn't seem to care. "That's
okay, let's do it."
Much to my amazement, he named a pattern that uncovered a self-esteem
belief leading back to his childhood and his parentsright in front of the
three members of his management team! Before I knew it, the others had
done it too. It was possible to have businesspeople do the DM Process in
front of their peers. I knew my work with organizations was about to take a
quantum leap forward.
During the workshops with the seventy Kondex employees, a few of them
felt uncomfortable doing the DM Process in front of their colleagues, and a
few of them even had a hard time watching others. But virtually everyone
who participated found the experience extremely powerful and beneficial.
They not only could see how it could be used in business situations, they saw
new possibilities in their personal lives as well. Once you create yourself as
the creator of your life, you see new possibilities everywhere you look.

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The Key Is the Culture

As I worked with corporations, I began to formulate a theory about corporate change that would become the foundation for my work. This theory,
and the consulting approach that flowed from it, has become a remarkably
successful tool for corporate change. It will ultimately take an entire book to
explore all the principles and success stories. However, I will give you an
overview of what I have learned and experienced.
Early on I realized that the behavior of individuals on the job is not just a
function of their own distinctive personal beliefs, it also is determined by the
beliefs they share with their coworkersnamely, the organization's culture.
By "culture" I mean an organization's fundamental beliefs about how to
deal successfully with its environment and the circumstances it faces. A culture becomes visible in the innumerable policies, practices, procedures, organizational structure, management style, and systems. I call them P's and
S's. The behavior of employees in an organization is ultimately determined
by its culture. In fact, an organization will find it virtually impossible to implement any strategymarketing, financial, or otherwisethat is inconsistent with its culture.
Let's examine the culture of companies in just one industry, department
stores, to clarify this point. Most department stores believed for decades that
the way to survive and succeed was to offer the right products, priced correctly and presented well. In other words, the culture was based on a focus on
product, price, and presentation.
How does such a culture show up in their P's and S's?

Salespeople are hired primarily to take customers' money; their

effect on a sale is considered minimal.

Salespeople are compelled to spend much of their time on labeling and stocking rather than with customers.

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Salespeople are poorly compensated and have virtually no

prestige in the company, which leads to considerable turnover.

The important people in the organization are the buyers, who

choose the "right" products.

Management learns all it needs to know about customers from

computer printouts of what was purchased.

It seems irrelevant to find out directly from customers what truly

would satisfy them.

A minimal amount of time is spent discussing customer satisfaction in management meetings.

For decades, department stores operated successfully with a culture based

on "product, price, and presentation" and its corresponding P's and S's. Then
one day in the 1980s many woke up and discovered that they were in serious
trouble. Some were forced to declare bankruptcy. A few decided they ought
to try a new way of operating. They noticed that a chain of department stores
called Nordstrom was expanding rapidly at the same time that they were losing money.
Why was Nordstrom successful? It had a very different culture from the
typical department store. It did not believe that the best way to survive and
succeed was products, pricing, and presentation. Although these were important, Nordstrom believed the way to succeed was to provide extraordinary
customer service. Its salespeople, called associates, had the authority to accept returns without sales slips, to deliver items directly to customers when
neededin short, to do whatever it took to satisfy customers. The most important people in Nordstroms stores were the sales associatesthose who
came face-to-face with the customers.

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What would be the chance of instituting an approach like Nord-stroms in a

conventional department store? Given the culture in place, slim to none. The
type of salespeople hired, their training, their other duties, and the lack of focus on customers would make it virtually impossible for a Nordstrom-style
approach to succeed. If a department store wanted to implement the Nordstrom strategy, it would first have to change its culture.
This principle explains why GM, IBM, Sears, and many other major corporations lost their industry leadership and incurred significant losses: Their
cultures and their Ps and Ss prevented them from successfully implementing
the new strategies that were required by a rapidly changing world.
Creating Real Change
In order for a corporate culture always to be responsive to its environment,
there needs to be what I call Third Order Change. Til define that concept by
first discussing what constitutes First and Second Order Change.
First Order Change is characterized by a change in behavior that is consistent with the existing belief or culture. First Order Change usually consists
of finding ways to do things a little better, faster, or easier. It produces incremental improvements that are consistent with the existing culture and its P's
and S's. One example would be a service technician using a new tool to install, fix, or maintain equipment. Using the new tool might make his job performance better or his task easier, but it would still be entirely consistent with
the way the service technician already sees his job as a technical employee.
That's First Order Change.
In chapter 1 we saw how Information + Motivation was a formula incapable of producing fundamental change. That formula, however, is capable of
producing First Order Change, because the desired new behavior is consistent
with the same belief. All you're doing is trying to effect change within the existing box.

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Second Order Change is characterized by behavior change that requires a

new belief or culture. The desired behavior is inconsistent with the existing
belief and requires a new one to open a different set of behavior possibilities
that didn't exist before. An example would be service technicians who see
themselves in a box labeled "technical people." They're really unable to take
care of customers because that role is inconsistent with the way they see their
jobs. In Second Order Change, they would create a new job beliefI am a
customer satisfierin which taking better care of customers becomes possible. The shift: in belief would allow employees to see taking care of customers as part of their job instead of getting in the way of their job.
Second Order Change is fundamental rather than incremental change.
Whereas First Order Change consists of improving what already is, Second
Order Change consists of creating something totally new. It is starting with a
blank sheet of paper. In Second Order Change the existing belief must be
eliminated so that you can take a fresh look at the current environment and
form another belief that is appropriate for today.
An excellent example of Second Order Change can be found in Re-engineering the Corporation by Michael Hammer and James Champy. It concerns
Wal-Mart and a single product, Pampers, the disposable diaper, a bulky item
that needs a lot of shelf storage space relative to its actual dollar value.
Wal-Mart maintained Pampers inventory at its distribution centers, from
which it filled orders. When the distribution center inventory was low, WalMart would reorder more diapers from Procter & Gamble.
But the business of managing inventory was complex, and Wal-Mart
struggled with devising a formula that would put enough Pampers on the
shelves to satisfy customers without creating a storage problem. The WalMart management approached Procter & Gamble with a proposal that P&G,
which probably knew more about diaper movement through warehouses than
Wal-Mart, should take on the task of informing Wal-Mart when it needed
stock.

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P&G agreed, and the plan was implemented. Each day, Wal-Mart would
tell P&G how much stock it was moving out of the distribution center to the
stores. When P&G felt it was appropriate, it would tell Wal-Mart that it was
time to reorder and how much. If the recommendation seemed to make sense,
Wal-Mart would approve it and P&G would ship the goods.
Hammer and Champy wrote about the result:"The new arrangement
worked so well that over time Wal-Mart suggested that P&G henceforth skip
the purchase recommendation and just ship the diapers it thought Wal-Mart
would need. In other words, Wal-Mart offloaded its inventory replenishment
function onto its supplier."
In the process, Wal-Mart cut inventory costs and increased the effective
management of stock. The idea was an unmitigated success.
Managing their inventory better, cheaper, or faster would have been First
Order Change on Wal-Mart's part. Second Order Change consisted of starting
from scratch as if there were no inventory system at all and asking: Given
today's technology, supplier capabilities, cost structure, and competition,
what is the best way to handle our Pampers inventory?
It is important to emphasize that in Second Order Change you can't know
exactly what the new behavior will look like when you create a new belief,
be it personal or organizational. The new box creates possibilities that didn't
exist before. Although you might have a sense of what some of those possibilities are, there is no way to know what all of them are until they are explored. When you operate out of a new box, you figure out what to do in each
situation, limited only by your imagination and the restraints of the new box.
For example, when service technicians create a new job beliefI am a
customer satisfierthey become committed to satisfying customers. At the
moment the belief is created, however, neither they nor their manager knows
for sure exactly what the new behavior will look like. In fact, each "customer
satisfier" will devise his or her own new ways of satisfying each customer.

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Here are a couple of examples to clarify the difference between First and
Second Order Change.
Assume that an autocratic boss who always controls everything in the department suddenly starts delegating major responsibilities to subordinates. At
first, it may seem to be behavior consistent with fundamental Second Order
Change. But think about it: Who decides what will be delegated and to
whom? Who decides if the work is being done right? Who has the authority
to take the work back? Even though the change might have seemed fundamental at first glance, in reality the basic relationship between manager and
subordinates has not changed. This is First Order Changedifferent behavior
but the same box.
Here is another example. A few years ago when Quality Circles were set
up in some companies, everyone was very excited about them and called
them a fundamental change. Quality Circles gave employees a chance to
meet together in groups, on company time, to discuss changes they wanted to
have made. They were told that their contribution to corporate policy was
highly valued. But what happened to the recommendations the Quality
Circles made? They were handed over to some manager, who decided which
suggestions to implement and which to discard. That's the way it had always
been. True, employees did get together in groups and it was on company
time, but that was merely First Order Changea different way of arriving at
suggestions inside the old box.
This is not to say that First Order Change is not valuable. Very often all
that is required is for employees to do their job a little differentlyand First
Order Change allows that to happen. But we should be clear that merely doing things differently inside the old box is not fundamental change.
How do you know if a company requires Second Order Change? I always
ask employees in my corporate workshops, "What percentage of your time do
you spend creating value for customers, and what percentage of your time do

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you spend getting through the culturethe P s and Ssso that you are able
to create value?"
They answer that from 50 to 95 percent of their time is wasted dealing
with the culture. When employees look to see what is wasting their time, they
discover how the existing culture and its Ps and S's act as a barrier to the
work itself. It is often a startling realization: The company itself is preventing
them from doing an effective job!
Companies run into a problem when they try to produce Second Order
Change with a technique that is only able to produce First Order Change
namely, Information + Motivation. As I explained in detail earlier, Information + Motivation rarely produce out-of-the-box change. Why? Because we
think we saw with our eyes what we believe. Logical arguments, threats, and
promises will not overcome what we think is the evidence of our senses and
eliminate existing beliefs. Producing Second Order Change requires a different approach, which the DM Technology provides.
Third Order Change
In a world that didn't change very frequently, an organization that was able
to create Second Order Change probably would do very well. But in a world
where what works in business today is probably out of date by next year,
even Second Order Change is insufficient.
Although Second Order Change opens new possibilities far beyond those
that had existed before, you still end up assuming that the new beliefs are as
true as you used to think the old beliefs were. At that point you are as locked
into the new beliefs as you were with the old ones.
Third Order Change is similar to Second Order in that the required
new behavior is not possible in the existing box. Unlike Second Order
Change, however, where a company gets out of old boxes in order to get into

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new and better boxes, the Third Order Change company is never in a "box" at
all.
Third Order Change results from always operating out of questions such
as, What's needed to succeed today?rather than answers regarding the right
way a company or worker should act in order to succeed. An organization
characterized by Third Order Change is one where most of the employees recognize that there is no ultimate truth about business. They operate as if
everything will need to be changed as the environment changes. You could
say that a culture characterized by Third Order Change is a meta-culture. In
other words, it is a culture that develops whatever specific culture is appropriate for each unique environment.
Just as your ultimate personal goal is not merely to eliminate beliefs but to
create yourself as the decision maker, so the ultimate goal for an organization
is to recognize that it, too, should make up its culture and all of its P's and S's
appropriate to the environment at any given time. Operating in a new and better box produces Second Order Change. Operating as the box creator results
in Third Order Change.4
The Necessity of Third Order Change
We currently are living in a world that is changing rapidly and fundamentally. As William B. Joiner, a partner in the consulting firm of Action Management Associates, has pointed out:
Change itself has changed. Change and turbulence have become constan t
features of the external environment. As a result, contemporary organizations
... need to develop, first and foremost, the capacity to adapt continually to
ever-changing conditions in ways consistent with their ultimate purposes____The great challenge for leaders is to develop learning
organizations.
In his recent book, Managing in a Time of Great Change, Peter Drucker,
the renowned management thinker and consultant, points out that the new

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jobs require, in the great majority, qualifications the blue-collar worker does
not possess and is poorly equipped to acquire. . . . They require a different
approach to work and a different mind-set. Above all they require a habit of
continuous learning. ... At the very least, [workers] have to make a major
change in their basic attitudes, values, and beliefs.
Ask yourself, What are the possibilities of adapting and learning if you believe you already know "the truth" about the world and how to deal with it
successfully? The only way to learn is to recognize that there is no "ultimate"
answer and that you can't ever stop asking questions. That is DM thinking,
which would result in Third Order Change.
Continuous improvement is, by definition, a process, not merely a state
change. Second Order Change merely substitutes one state for a better one.
An organization committed to continuous improvement requires Third Order
Change, which is a process.
Many people have commented that my description of a Third Order organization sounds similar to what most companies do when they are just getting
started. They dont have many Ps and S's, people change what they do easily,
and so forth. It is true that most new organizations don't espouse very many
"the truths." But Third Order Change organizations know there is no "the
truth"; new organizations think there is and are looking for it. When "the
truth" is discovered by such organizations, they will be institutionalized in P's
and S's.
People and Organizations Don't Resist Change
If you really analyze the nature ofand difference betweenthese three
types of behavior change, you will come to a startling conclusion: human beings and organizations really don't resist change!
"Nonsense," you reply. "Look at all the evidence of resistance." I'll admit
that people and organizations do resist something, but is it change?

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Here's an exercise to provide an insight into my claim. Try to follow the

instructions as closely as you can, and you'll discover something fascinating
about change and resistance. Imagine that you really believed there is no "the
truth" about business, that there is no right way to do your job, that what you
are doing today is only the best solution you could find for today's circumstances. And you also believed that under significantly different circumstances you and your colleagues should and would operate differently.
Now imagine that a year or so from now you discover that the circumstances that affect your jobsuch as the competition, technology, and customers' needshave changed dramatically. Would you have a hard time
changing the way you do your job?
To the extent that you really believe there is no right way to do your job,
you would not resist changing your behavior when you noticed a change in
your environment.
So what is it that people do resist? If you think what you are doing now is
the right thing to do, and then someone tells you to do something different,
how does it appear to you? Well, if you believe that your current behavior is
right, you believe that the advice you're getting is wrong. You're not really
resisting change so much as resisting doing what you think is wrong.
A Third Order organization would welcome change because change would
be its greatest competitive advantage. Other organizations initially wouldn't
see changes in the environment as they occurred. Eventually they would acknowledge the environmental changes and try to deal with them. They'd start
with First Order Change. Eventually, some of them might make Second
Order Changes. By then, what would have happened to the environment? It
would have changed even more. They would never be dealing with the world
as it is at the moment.
As Eric Hoffer, the San Francisco longshoreman philosopher, once put it:
"In a time of drastic change, it is the learners who inherit the future. The

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learned find themselves equipped to live only in a world that no longer remains." (Emphasis added.)
Who are the people best able to identify what needs to be done at any given time regarding a specific job or function? More often than not, the people
who do the job. Thus, a Third Order organization is one in which most employees operate as if they are responsible for creating the culture that is most
appropriate for implementing their mission, given any particular
environment.
Employees in a Third Order organization would be monitoring the environment constantly to see which changes, if any, they would need to make in
the future. As they observed the world changing, employees would change
the company's P's and Ss and their personal beliefs about their jobsexcept
their "beliefs" would be not be held as " the truth" but rather "a truth."
What's required today for all organizationsin business as well as in nonprofit firms and governmentis a culture that welcomes change, instability,
and operating from questions rather than answers. What's needed today more
than ever before are cultures that continue to adapt to a constantly changing
external environment.
I like the word used by Frederick Kovak, vice president for planning at
Goodyear: "The key term is 'reconfigurable.' We want an organization that's
reconfigurable on an annual, monthly, weekly, daily, even hourly basis. Immutable systems are dinosaurs."
Why Cultures Get Stuck
In earlier chapters we saw in detail how personal beliefs are formed and
eliminated. It's much the same with organizations. The same basic principles
of the DM Process are used to eliminate cultural and other business beliefs,
but I use a variation of it in organizational settings.

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Here's a football story I often tell in workshops that shows how organizational cultures get formed, and the variation I use to assist employees to
change them.
Consider a professional football coach who has just been hired. His job?
Win the Super Bowl as quickly as possible. How would he start? He'd look at
all the relevant aspects of his environment: the players, the coaches, the competition in his division, the competition outside of his division, and so on.
After his analysis of the elements of the environment, he'd make whatever
changes he could to improve them. Finally, he'd need something that would
determine his playbook and virtually everything else he did for the rest of the
year. What is that? No, not an all-pro quarterback, although that certainly
would help. What he needs is a game plana belief that one strategy has a
better chance of getting his team to the Super Bowl than any other.
Assume that he chooses a ball-control ground game. (You don't have to
understand football or what a ball-control ground game is to follow this
story.) Now assume further that he wins the Super Bowl. What should he
probably do next year? Most people, including a lot of coaches, would say: a
ball-control ground game. Why? The answer you'd get from most fans, players, and coaches would be: because it works.
You are now about to discover how it's possible for a team to win the Super Bowl one year and not even make the playoffs the following year. If the
coach's strategy is really the reason the team won the championship, then it
should work the next year. But what if several of the best assistant coaches,
who made the ball-control ground game work, leave to go with other teams?
What if a few of the players crucial to the ball-control ground game become
free agents and leave, and a few others are injured? What if you're able to obtain a quarterback known for his ability to throw long, and an all-pro wide receiver? What if the competition knows what you did last year and is designing a game plan specifically to stop you from doing it again? In other words,
what if there is a total change in the environment that originally led the coach
to conclude that a ball-control ground game was the best strategy?

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What makes a coach successful over time is not the specific strategy he
chooses in any given year but the questions he asks of his environment that
lead him to his strategies. If he does that the year after winning the Super
Bowl, he will be able to choose the most appropriate strategy for that year. It
may be the same strategy and it may be totally different. But it will be chosen
in light of the anticipated environment; it will not be repeated merely because
it worked before.
This analogy applies to the way organizations form their cultures.
They look at the competition, customers, employees, and technology to
decide how best to survive and succeed. When they succeed, they look at the
evidence of their profit-and-loss statement and conclude: The best way to run
a business is to ...
Once they believe this is the "right" way to run a business, they either dont
look into the environment anymore to see if it has changed, or they do look,
but through the filter of already knowing what they will see which prevents
them from noticing when there is a meaningful change.
Consider the story of Compaq computer. It was one of the fastest growing,
most successful companies in history during its first couple of years; a few
years later it was in serious trouble. For doing what? The very same thing
that had made it so successful initially! The world in which it operated had
changed, and Compaq had not.
Let me continue my football story to describe the way we frequently try to
change beliefs and behavior in organizations. Imagine that you are in the
stands immediately following the Super Bowl game, and your team has just
won. You are very excited, but you are concerned about next year. Several of
the best players and coaches will not be back. The competition now knows
what to expect. The environment will be very different. So you decide to go
to the dressing room and discuss your concerns with the coach. Somehow
you manage to get in to see him.

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"Congratulations!" you say to him.

"Thanks." He grins. "Have some champagne."
"Coach," you say, "I'm a little worried about next year. I think it might be
a mistake to use the ball-control ground game again" Before you have a
chance to finish, the coach pulls the glass of champagne from your hand and
you are shown to the door by a couple of burly security guards.
As silly as this sounds, isn't this how most behavior changes are presented
to workers by their managers? "Don't do what you're now doing anymore.
You should be doing something different." Or, if we're very sophisticated:
"Don't believe what you believe anymore. You should believe something different about your job." Although workers are rarely in a position to show
their managers to the door, they probably feel just as resistant and angry as
the coach who won the Super Bowl.
In order for coaches or corporate employees to be able to look at the current environment and really see it, the existing belief must be eliminated.
How to Get Cultures Unstuck
Now consider how you could get the coach to consider a different game
plan next year by using a variation of the DM Process. You walk up to the
coach and say, "Congratulations on winning the Super Bowl! How did you
do it?" (What is the current pattern of behavior?)
"Weren't you watching?" the coach replies. "We had several drives where
we held the ball for over six or seven minutes each. They only had the ball
for about twenty-two minutes."
You nod. "I did see that. It was great. But what was your strategy or game
plan that enabled you to accomplish that?" (What belief produced that
behavior?)
"We executed a brilliant ball-control ground game," he answers.

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"Of all the possible game plans you could have chosen, whatever gave you
the idea to employ that particular strategy this year?" (What did you observe
in the environment that led to that belief?)
He assumes his coaching demeanor. "At the start of the season I looked
carefully at the players we had, their strengths and weaknesses, and I made a
few good trades and acquisitions. I got rid of a few assistant coaches and got
a couple new ones who were great. I then did an analysis of our competition.
Based on everything I saw after I finished, I decided that a ball-control
ground game was the way to go."
"Let me get this straight. You decided on a ball-control ground game because of the specific circumstances at the start of the season?"
"That's right. And I made a damn good choice, didn't I?"
"You sure did! By the way, coach, aren't you losing your head defensive
coach and several other assistant coaches?" (Instead of looking for other possible interpretations of the circumstances that led to the belief, the variation
in the DM Process used in organizations is to ask if the current environment
is the same as the one in which the belief was formed.)
"Yes, but I'm sure we'll be able to find good replacements."
"Aren't we losing a lot of the players on offense who enabled us to ground
out one first down after another and, on defense, who always got the ball
right back? Some won't return next year, a couple are injured, and a few are
getting pretty old."
"That's true. But I'm sure we'll be able to pick up players who'll be just as
good."
"What about the competition? I noticed they had seven or eight men on
the line most of the time, anticipating our ground game."

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"It was getting more difficult as the season progressed, but we created a
few surprises out there today and we'll find a way to do the same next year."
"Let me get this straight, coach. You said that you created the ball-control
game plan because of the specific environment you observed at the start of
the season. Now you say that significant elements of the environment are almost totally different. Based on the type of analysis you did last year, what
game plan do you think you ought to employ next year?" (If the current belief
is a function of the old environment, and the environment now is very different, what belief and behavior would be appropriate now?)
"That's a good question. I'll have to think about it during the offseason."
Can you see the difference in the two approaches? In the first case, you
told someone they shouldn't do what they were doing, which produced resistance and defensiveness. In the second case, you didn't tell anyone anything.
You only asked questions designed to allow the other person to discover that
what he thought was " the truth" for all time was only "a truth" at a specific
time.
Also, can you see that in this scenario you aren't using the DM Process as
I've presented it? You are using a different process based on the principles of
the DM Technology. Instead of looking for other interpretations or explanations for the events that are the source of the belief, which will lead to the belief disappearing, you clearly see that the belief was a perfectly logical and
valid interpretation of a specific set of environmental
factors. Then you look to see if the environment has changed. Realizing
that your belief is the result of interpreting a unique set of environmental conditions and that those conditions have changed radically will have the belief
disappear. If the environment has changed, you then do the same thing you
originally did: interpret the environment that is currently in front of you.
A Third Order Shift in Fundamental Beliefs

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In her excellent book In the Age of the Smart Machine, Harvard professor
Shoshanna Zuboff writes:
The 21st century company has to promote and nurture the capacity to improve and to innovate. That idea has radical implications. It means learning
becomes the axial principle of organizations. It replaces control as the fundamental job of management.
In other words, a fundamental shift needs to occur in businessfrom getting people to act differently (according to management dictates) to having
them think, innovate, and create on their own. When all the employees have
access to the information that used to be reserved to the privileged few, they
can and do use it to make the organization more competitive and successful.
Here's an example. Gary Reiner, GE's vice president of Business Development, reports:
GE's big breakthrough has been giving workers flexibility and unprecedented authority to decide how to do their work. All the good ideasall of
themcome from the hourly workers. At GE Power Systems, a $6.8 billion
unit that makes generating equipment, changes in production methods cut inventory carrying charges by $90 to $100 million a year." (Emphasis added.)
More evidence: After an ALCOA magnesium plant in Addy, Washington,
fed production data back to the factory floor, workers quickly found ways to
boost production by 72 percent.
These extraordinary levels of improvement require not old-style
workers, who merely do different things as dictated by management, but a
transformation of the workers' functionsfrom carrying out instructions to
identifying and initiating what needs to be done on their own.
Two fundamental beliefs that managers and workers have about their jobs
need to be changed in order to create a Third Order organization.

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1. Most managers believe that their job is to figure out what workers
should do and then get them to do it.
2. Most workers believe that their job is to do what their manager wants as
best they can, without trying to change the P's and S's in which they operate.
In order to create a Third Order organization:
1. Managers need to believe that their job is to create an environment in
which workers do the thinking that they, the managers, used to do; then they
need to support workers in making the changes they propose.
2. Workers need to believe that their most important job is to figure out
what barriers (in other words, what P's and S's) are getting in the way of doing their job; then they need to eliminate them.
In workshops, I always ask participants what limitations there would be
for them if they created a Third Order organization.
Their answer, stated with amazement, is always the same: "There wouldn't
be any limitations!"
Just as an individual in the space of decision maker experiences no limitations and infinite possibilities, so, too, employees in a Third Order organization who operate as the creator of the company's culture and P's and S's experience no limitations and infinite possibilities.
Why Managers Tell People What to Do
One common belief that I frequently hear in workshops is: The job of
managers is to figure out what workers ought to do and then get them to do it.
If managers don't tell people what to do, nothing will get done.
My experience is that most supervisors and mid-level managers who have
had their jobs at least fifteen years have this belief. Given the current trend in
many organizations to have managers listen to and empower their workers

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instead of "boss" them, this belief often gets in the way. The ability to assist
managers to rid themselves of this belief would have a significant impact at
many organizations.
The following "case history" is a composite of a number of different sessions with managers at several companies.
Most managers who choose this belief to work with generally state it as a
fact, as something that is so obviously true that the manager isn't sure what
there is to talk about. What else would a manager do?
"Okay," I say, "you think it's 'the truth.' Where did it come from? What did
you experience in your life that led you to this belief?"
The answer is always some version of "I see it every day"and then they
tell their daily war stories.
"I'm sure you do see it every day," I respond, "but what was the earliest
experience that led to the belief? What happened yesterday isn't the source of
the belief, because you believed it the day before yesterday, didn't you?"
They usually refer to their first job, sometimes a part-time job in high
school, sometimes a summer job, sometimes a first job after college. I ask
them to describe what happened.
"Well, there was this guy, the manager, who told us what to do and how to
do itand then we did it. Sometimes, when he wasn't around, we goofed off.
And when he was around, we worked harder."
I probe a little. "Did many of the workers initiate work that the manager
didn't ask for?"
"A couple of workers sometimes, but most of us just did what we were
told to do."
"Did you know what to do before the manager told you?"

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"No."
"Did most of the other workers know what to do before the manager told
them?"
"No"
"So what did managers do at your first job?"
"They told people what to do."
"And what did workers do?"
"What the managers told them to do."
"So your beliefThe job of managers is to figure out what workers ought
to do and then get them to do it. If managers don't tell people what to do,
nothing will get donewas a logical conclusion for you based on your first
job experience, wasn't it? It wasn't a silly or irrational conclusion. It really
made sense, didn't it?"
The managers respond, "It sure did."
"Let's play a game," I say. "It's called Possibilities. Let's see if we can find
ten possible explanations for, or interpretations of, what you observed in your
first job, other than what you concluded. We aren't looking for a better explanation. The one you came up with is as good as any we'll find. But let's
find ten more."
It only takes a few minutes to find them.
1. All the managers at that company told people what to do, but that might
not be true at all companies.
2. The workers at that company only did what they were told to do, but at
other companies they might do more on their own.

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3. Managers acted that way in that industry, but not necessarily in all
industries.
4. Those specific ten or twenty workers and managers I worked with acted
that way; other workers and managers might not.
5. That behavior occurred in the particular corporate culture that existed at
the time. It might not occur in any other type of corporate culture.
6. That behavior occurred in the United States. Managers and
workers in Japan, Germany, or some other country might not exhibit that
behavior at all.
7. That behavior occurred in the 1950s [or 1960s, or whenever], but it
might not occur at another time in history.
8. Teenagers exhibit that type of behavior, but older workers might not.
9. Workers on their first job usually do only what managers tell them to
do, but as they progress in their careers they might take more responsibility
for their work and initiate things on their own.
10. That behavior occurs when you have workers who haven't had much
training. If workers get training in what to do and how to do it, they might not
need much supervision.
By this point it is clear that what the managers saw on their first job could
be interpreted in several different ways, each one just as valid as the next.
"Can you see that what you concluded was a valid interpretation, but that
it was no more valid than any of the others?" I ask.
"Sure."
"Didn't it seem to you at the time that right there on the factory floor or in
the office, right next to the manager who was telling you what to do, you saw

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this 'thing' called The job of managers is to figure out what workers ought to
do and then get them to do it. If managers don't tell people what to do, nothing will get done?
"Yes, I saw it." They nod.
"Is it clear now that you never saw any such thing 'out there'?"
"Yes."
"Well, if it didn't exist 'out there,' where was it?"
"It was an interpretation in my mind."
"So," I ask, "is it 'the truth'?"
They laugh and say: "No. It isn't."
It usually takes less than half an hour for a manager to eliminate this belief
about the need to tell people what to do in order to get any work done.
Then I ask, "Can you imagine your job being any different when you get
back to work?"
"Yes. I see the possibility of asking workers instead of telling them. I see
that they might have a lot to contribute that I never realized before. I see that
I could be their partner instead of their boss. I see that perhaps I have better
things to do than look over their shoulders. I see that I have to look at each
individual worker to determine how much guidance he or she needs; there is
no one truth about all workers under all circumstances."
A Corporate Application
Let's see how to apply the modified DM Process as I presented it in the
coaching story to the culture of the Information Services (IS) department of a
large corporation. If you were to ask members of a typical IS department to
describe their behavior, they might say, "We determine what hardware and

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software everyone in the organization needs, then we purchase and install it.
We write custom programs. We also maintain all hardware and software. We
determine priorities."
The next step is to find out what beliefs produce that behavior. In one organization I was told:

We need control.

Every piece of hardware must be connected to the mainframe.

We need to purchase the software.

The role of the end users is to tell us their problem so we can

solve it.

We must decide.

We are the experts.

We develop solutions in response to customers' stated needs.

Can you see how an IS department's behavior can be totally explained by

these beliefs? The next question is, What is the source of these beliefs? What
happened that led to those beliefs? IS employees who have been around since
the late 1970s and early 1980s will respond that when the department originally was created:

There were very few people in the company who knew what
they really needed from IS.

We only had mainframes; PCs were used only for analysis, not
general business purposes.

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There were no off-the-shelf software packages; we had to create

all the code for our own software.

There were few contract programmers; we had to do it all

ourselves.

Our clients' (that is, the other departments') needs didn't change
frequently, so what we created worked for many years.

Most clients knew very little, if anything, about how computers

worked.

Most people in IS had gone to school for special training; clients

didn't have that training.

Given this environment in which the beliefs were created, they made perfect sense. Almost anyone would have reached the same conclusions if this
were what they observed in the world. But is the world the same today?
When asked this question, IS staffers will describe the environment in which
they are operating today:

Most of their clients know what they need.

PCs are used for all business purposes; as part of a network they
do the work of mainframes in many cases.

There are a great many off-the-shelf software packages.

There are many contract programmers.

Clients' needs change daily; solutions become out of date

quickly.

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Most IS clients know a lot about computers.

Most clients have one at home.

If the IS department's behavior is a function of its beliefs, if the beliefs are

the inevitable result of the older environment in which they were created, and
if today's environment is drastically different, should it be doing the same
thing and believing the same thing as it used to? Obviously not. But as long
as the old cultural beliefs remain, there is little chance that people will be
open to really looking at the new environment. Once it becomes clear that the
beliefs that run your company or department are not" the truth" but "a truth"
that was valid only at the time the beliefs were created, they disappear as beliefs. That enables employees to repeat the original process: Look at the environment today, interpret it, and form not "the truth" but "a truth," which
will manifest as the appropriate behaviorfor today.
Day-to-Day Business Applications of the DM Process
Shortly after I completed workshops for one manufacturing client, many
of the employees started making suggestions for improvements in the
company's P's and S's. Supervisors were allowing workers to make more and
more decisions on their own. A lot of excitement was generated; many of the
changes workers suggested were instituted.
Bob, the manager of a department of about thirty-five workers, went on
vacation for a week. Two days after he left, Jean, one of the supervisors,
handled something that everyone had agreed would be done by the workers.
When Rick, one of the workers, complained to her, Jean said, in effect, "So
what? I'm still the supervisor." When Rick continued to protest, Jean took
him to the operations manager's office.
The other workers observed the altercation and most of them concluded
We're back where we started. Nothing has really changed. If you speak up
you get into trouble.

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The next week Bob returned from vacation to discover that morale and
productivity had sunk to a new low, with virtually no suggestions or worker
participation.
What would most managers do in a situation like this? Talk to the supervisor involved in the altercation? Yes, but that in itself would have little effect on the other thirty-some workers. Talk to the workers individually and as
a group, telling them that one incident isn't really important and that the new
era of openness and involvement will continue? Yes, but through what filter
will anything the manager says be heard by the workers? "I hear what you're
saying, but you weren't here last week, and you didn't see with your own eyes
as I did that We're back where we started. Nothing has really changed. If you
speak up you get into trouble."
Here's what Bob actually did. He called a meeting of the department's entire workforce and asked that someone explain exactly what happened while
he was away. One of the workers described the incident between Jean and
Rick. Bob thanked him and replied, "So most of you concluded We're back
where we started. Nothing has really changed. If you speak up you get into
trouble. Right?"
A scattering of "Yeahs" could be heard.
Bob continued. "That's a reasonable conclusion, based on what happened
between Jean and Rick. I might have concluded the same thing had I been
here. Right now, however, I'd like you to play a little game with me. It's
called Possibilities. I'd like you to tell me at least five or six other things that
last week's incident could possibly mean. I'm not trying to invalidate your
conclusion, which is as good as any other we'll find. I'd just like you to tell
me what other interpretations might be possible."
After a few minutes the answers started coming from the floor.

It could mean that Jean hasn't bought into our empowerment program, but all the other supervisors have.

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It could mean that Jean has it in for Rick, but she wouldn't be a
problem for any other worker.

It could mean that Jean was having a bad day, and she is as committed to the new empowerment program as anyone.

It could mean that Jean is willing to delegate most of her work

except for the job involved in last week'sproblem.

After several more responses, Bob said, "Can you see that what most of
you concludedWe're back where we started. Nothing has really changed. If
you speak up you get into troubleis one valid interpretation of what
happened, but that a number of other explanations are just as valid?"
Heads started nodding up and down.
He continued. "Didn't it seem last week when Jean and Larry were arguing
that you could see right here on the factory floor We're back where we started. Nothing has really changed. If you speak up you get into trouble?"
One worker yelled out, "If you had been here, Bob, you'd have seen it
too!"
Bob smiled. "Did you really see that? If you did, I'd like to know, was it
on the wall or the floor? Was it red or green, striped or polka-dotted? Big or
small? Or did you just see Rick and Jean arguing, and the only place We're
back where we started. Nothing has really changed. If you speak up you get
into trouble has ever been is in your mind, as an interpretation of what you
really did see?"
They got the point.
Bob turned to Rick. "By the way, what happened when you went to the
operations manager's office with Jean?"

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"He told us to work it out ourselves," Rick answered.

Bob turned back to the group. "Anything else?" He saw a lot of sheepish
grins. "Let's go to work."
In most companies, hardly a day goes by that some employees don't observe something and then reach a conclusion that negatively affects their behavior. Usually their manager will try to change their behavior using Information + Motivation. That rarely works. Sometimes if the belief surfacesSoand-so can't be trusted or That new plan will never workthe DM Process
(or a variation) can be used easily, with one employee at a time or with a
large group, just as Bob did.
How to Create a Third Order Organization
Are you beginning to get a sense of the remarkable impact the DM Technology and its many applications can make in the daily operations of companies? You can change how individual workers see their jobs. You can
change the purpose and behavior of entire departments. You can change the
thinking and actions of individuals or groups of workers. And, perhaps most
important, you can create a Third Order organization. Now let's examine five
specific steps required to create a Third Order organization.
Step One: Create an Effective Mission and Operate Out of It
Consistently
An organization's mission is what the organization stands for, its purpose,
and its direction. Because an organization's mission is its most fundamental
belief system, the mission has the potential to be its most influential belief. It
rarely is, but it can be.
To be truly effective, a mission must serve as the standard for all of an
organization's decisions. Every meeting should start with a reference to the
mission: How is what we're about to discuss going to further the mission? If

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what we're about to discuss has no relevance to the mission, why are we
wasting time discussing it?
The standard for each individual worker should be: What procedures, systems, policies, and practices (P's and S's) are inhibiting me from furthering
the mission? Can they be eliminated totally, or can they be replaced with
something that will support me rather than hinder me?
Using the mission as the standard for all changes prevents workers from
going off in different directions or making changes that they personally favor
but which have no direct benefit to the organization.
Step Two: Employees Must Change Their Beliefs about Their Jobs
As long as workers believe their job is to do the best they can, given the
existing culture, and managers believe their job is to figure out what workers
should do and then get them to do it, no one will take responsibility for changing the culturemuch less for creating Third Order Change.
Remember, to create a Third Order Change organization:

Managers need to believe that their job is to create an environment in which workers do the thinking that they, the managers,
used to doand then to support workers in making the changes
they propose.

Workers need to believe that their most important job is to figure

out what P's and S's are getting in the way of their doing their
jobsand then to eliminate them.

Step Three: Don't Just Fix Problems, Eliminate Their Source

In other words, dont fix the culture you have; eliminate it and create a new
one that's appropriate for today. Then keep changing it as required.

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The source of a continuing barrier to the mission or of any other ongoing

business problem is almost always the way the culture manifests itself
through its P's and S's. Most organizations solve problems by trying to "get
through" them, but if all you do is fix a problemthat is, deal with it
todaywhatever is responsible for producing the problem will continue to
produce it. You'll have to solve it repeatedly as it continues to come up.
Everyone in the company should focus on creating an effective culture,
not merely on somehow getting through the existing culture, because just getting along results in less time spent creating value for the customers.
Step Four: Start Employees on Eliminating Barriers to Implementing
the Mission
Usually when the executives of a company decide to make changes, they
assign other executives to task forces, which first are given the job of identifying the specific areas to be changed and then are asked to recommend
changes. There are several drawbacks to this approach. First, the executives
assigned to the task force rarely have the same problems as the people whose
problems they are trying to solve. Second, they don't have the time to undertake this assignment. Third, the solutions they come up with usually produce
new problems as bad as the original problem.
Here's an alternative approach. Who generally knows a worker's barriers
better than anyone else? Who knows better what it would take to eliminate
those barriers? The worker doing the job. (If your answer is "management,"
you haven't been reading the articles in the business press about changes
made by hourly workers that are improving productivity and quality, reducing backlogs, reducing waste, and increasing customer satisfaction by 30 to
70 percent annually.)
Ask each worker if the existing culture and its P's and S's are a support or
a hinderance in furthering the mission. Because they were created years earlier for a different environment, they almost always will hinder employees to a
greater or lesser extent.

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Next, starting from the top down, have each manager ask the workers to
commit to changing one specific barrier (one of the P's and S's) that gets in
the way of implementing the mission. After they make their commitment,
those managers should ask the next level, and so forth, until every employee
in the company has made a commitment.
It won't be particularly difficult to get most people to identify a barrier to
their implementing the mission and then commit to eliminate it.
But most people will not do what they commit to. The actual response will
resemble a bell-shaped curve: The 20 percent on one side will be excited and
thinking of what to change and how to change it before you leave them. The
20 percent on the other side will think that the entire process is nonsense, that
things are okay the way they are, and that if any change is needed its minor.
This group will resist and possibly try to sabotage the process. The remaining
60 percent in the middle will like the idea of creating a Third Order organization, but they will be very skeptical and cynical. They will not believe that
significant change really will happen, and they think they have a lot of evidence for that belief.
Most people who want to create major organizational change, when confronted with this 20-60-20 percent ratio, would decide to ignore the 20 percent who oppose the whole idea of a Third Order organization and also the 20
percent who are eager to start looking for what to change. They would focus
on trying to convince the skeptical 60 percent who are watching and waiting.
But why aren't the 60 percent who support the idea of Third Order Change
acting? Because they think they saw with their eyes that no one is interested
in their ideas and that significant change never will happen.
You could, theoretically, do the DM Process with every one of the 60 percent and eliminate that belief. Apart from the fact that many would refuse to
do the DM Process with you, this approach would be difficult and time-consuming. So here's an alternative method. Focus on the 20 percent who are going to act. My experience in a number of organizations that have tried this,

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and the experience of various "cultures" that have made significant changes
(for example, farmers using new hybrid seeds or equipment and natives using
boiled water), shows that if the first 20 percent succeed, the rest will follow.
If they don't, the rest never do. Management must first make sure that the
suggestions received from the initial 20 percent get implemented, and then it
must publicize the changes to the other 60 percent so that they can repeatedly
see with their eyes that employees' suggestions are really being used and that
all employees really have been empowered to change the things that impede
implementing the mission.9
If management does this, some of the 60 percent who are watching will
start saying, "Hey, what they said really was true. There is a commitment to
make fundamental changes. Maybe they will listen to me now. I think I'll try
to eliminate something that's in my way."
A few months later, the proportion of those who watch vs. those who act
will shift from 60-20, to 50-30, then 40-40, and so on. In less time than you
would expect, there is sufficient momentum to sustain the process of convincing additional employees to make fundamental changes. Within a year or so
there is a visible shift in the culture.
Step Five: When Employees Focus on Solutions, Management Can't
Say No
Make a rule that employees are not allowed to bring in problems, only
solutions. And remember, by solution I don't mean a "First Order fix" but a
Third Order Change in the culture, such as new policies, procedures, and systems that will eliminate the source of a problem.
Then, if an employee suggests a way to change some P's and S's that are
barriers to implementing the mission, and if the suggested change does not
adversely affect any other employee, management is not allowed to say "No,
we won't change the way we do things around here."

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When the people who have to do the job of implementing the company's
strategy and mission submit a proposed change, they are saying that the culture is getting in their way. Management might have to work with them to
modify their proposals so that no one else in the organization is hindered by
the proposed change, but management can never tell anyone that they have to
accept the existing culture if it is a barrier to implementing the organization's
mission. (At this point the importance of an effective mission statement becomes even clearer.)
Within a relatively short period of time, the company will not only have
made significant changes in its culture, so that operations have become more
consistent with the mission and the current environment, something even
more important will have happened.
If you were to ask employees in any company today, Who is responsible
for fixing what doesn't work for you? who would they name? Probably
someone other than themselves. But after they and 80 percent of their fellow
employees have made the changes they want to make, to whom will they turn
to eliminate the next barrier to the mission that they identify? The very ones
who identified and eliminated the last barrier themselves! A company
where this occurred on a regular basis would be a Third Order organization.
Third Order organizations will resolve one of society's biggest problems:
the apparent conflict between companies that pursue profits and companies
that care about employees. Third Order organizations achieve their financial
success by giving employees what they really want from a jobthe chance to
really make a difference.

Chapter Eleven - Making Society Work

The United States is in the midst of a great transformation, comparable to
the one that ended medievalism and shook its institutions to the ground....
The old ideas and assumptions that once made our institutions legitimate are

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being eroded. They are slipping away in the face of a changing reality, being
replaced by different ideas as yet ill-formed, contradictory, unsettling.
George Cabot Lodge
As far back as I can remember, I had the sense that society didn't work.
There was too much pain, suffering, and unhappiness. Too many people got
left out. Even as a child, the distinction between the "haves" and the "havenots" was obvious to me. It was so unfair. Because I considered myself to be
a "have-not," I decided that the way to deal with a dangerous world was to
place myself in a position where it couldn't touch me or hurt me. I created a
survival strategy belief: The way to survive in life is to have a lot of money
and make friends with important people who can help me if I get in trouble.
In other words, to escape the danger, I must become one of the "haves." (Because I also formed beliefs like Til never get what I want and I'm not deserving, I was unable to succeed with my survival strategy. The result: a lot
of anxiety and depression for many years.)
After I took the est training, however, my focus shifted. At that point,
rather than insulating myself from a hostile world, I became committed to
improving it. I continually saw people make significant, positive changes in
their lives after they took the est training. By working for est,
both as a paid employee and as a volunteer seminar leader and training supervisor, I experienced a great deal of satisfaction in knowing that I was making a valuable contribution to the lives of thousands of people.
But it was my work assisting Werner Erhard to create The Hunger Project
(THP) that first gave me a sense that change was possible on a much grander
scalethat entire areas of life or institutions of society could be changed and
improved. I helped prepare the initial Hunger Project presentations that were
made to about 35,000 people in 1977, and then I helped Werner edit THP's
Source Document. It was during the time I worked on this position paper that
I first clearly realized how beliefs could make it impossible to solve a social
problem such as global hunger.

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Growing up, I saw the failure of repeated attempts to solve problems in

every area of life, including welfare, crime, the environment, foreign policy,
child abuse, prejudice against women, racism, and health care. Several years
after I developed the DM Process (early 1985), I finally understood why most
of the attempts failed: In virtually every area, the existing paradigmsthe
collections of beliefs related to a specific aspect of lifewere no longer appropriate to today's circumstances. As a result, one of two things happened.
Either the attempted solutions were not effective in dealing with the problems, because they were consistent with the existing inappropriate paradigm,
or the strategies were potentially useful but widespread implementation was
impossible because the strategies were inconsistent with the existing
paradigm of the institution.
This realization propelled me to begin examining institutions and their
collective beliefs to find ways that the DM Technology could be used to
change institutional paradigms so that workable solutions could be devised
and implemented relatively easily.
Once you understand the power that beliefs have to shape behavior and
limit possibilities, you can see why so many of society's problems seem insoluble. It suddenly makes sense why every proposed solution in health care,
crime, education, and foreign policy has so many negative aspects, and why
no one can seem to find a solution that doesn't have as
many negatives as positives. We've tried virtually every option in the old
boxes, and the problems continue to grow worse.
As I described in chapter 10, the focus of my work with organizations is
on assisting employees to create a "meta-culture" that facilitates change. My
role is to provide them with the DM Technology, which enables them to
make changes. Specifically, they learn how to create a Third Order organization in which each employee assumes responsibility for figuring out what
needs to be done to implement the company's mission. Once they learn how

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to use the DM Technology, they decidenot I which aspects of the culture

they want to change and what they want the change to look like.
The same is true for people concerned with their professions and institutions. This chapter is designed to provide people who are trying to make fundamental improvements in institutions like the health care system and education with a technology that will enable them to succeed. The DM Technology
will enable them to understand (1) why change has been so difficult and (2)
how to get people to let go of the existing paradigm and be open to adopting
a new one. Then a new group of beliefs and viable strategies that are consistent with it can be adopted.
The purpose of this chapter is not to provide alternative beliefs or the intricate details of various solutions. My intention here is to make clear why the
existing paradigms keep most attempts to improve our institutions from succeeding, and how the DM Technology can be used to change these institutional paradigms so workable solutions can be devised and implemented.
I will provide a few illustrations of what alternative paradigms and
strategies could look like in the areas of education and health care. But I
won't spend a lot of time on my alternatives because I'm not pushing them. In
my experience, the people who work in organizations and institutions are the
best source of solutionsonce new beliefs have been created.
The DM Technology explains why there are no workable solutions in the
existing boxesthe current paradigms. It enables us to realize that
the problems we face today in virtually every area of life cannot be solved
with the options that exist.
Ultimately, what we need is a society that practices "DM thinking." The
result would be a profound realization that" the truth" about education, health
care, or any other institution does not exist. What is needed is "a (new) truth"
that is more appropriate for the momentand should be replaced when future conditions require it.

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The Folly of Our Beliefs

If you need an example of the way anachronistic beliefs have stood in the
way of workable solutions to institutional problems, you need only look at
our educational system. Few institutional arenas are subject to as much passion, dissent, and, ultimately, paralysis as education. The modified version of
the DM Process used in organizations shows why we are so deadlockedand
how that deadlock might be transcended.
Most people agree that there is a problem with education in this country.
And a great many believe that the problem can be solved at least partially by
instituting national standards.
Why does a fixed plan for educational improvementthe idea of setting
measurable standards and goalsappeal to so many people? I suspect it is
because of the belief There is a certain amount of information that should be
learned in school, and setting up national standards is one very good way to
insure that.
Where did we initially get that idea? To answer, we must go back in time.
When compulsory education was initiated in America over a century ago,
its purpose was to prepare people to work in factories. Workers needed to
read and write and be able to follow instructions. What a person knew about
the world remained true during a lifetime of forty-some years. The amount of
new knowledge produced during adult life was minimal. It wasn't particularly
important that one learn how to think independently or creatively. Given such
an environment, it made sense
to conclude that there was a certain amount of information needed to succeed in life and that the function of school was to provide that information.
The belief about the importance of learning a certain amount of information
while in school was not wrong when it was formed. It made perfect sense and
was totally appropriate, given the circumstances. It was the logical outcome
of looking at the world as it existed when the belief was formed.

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In today's world, however, "facts" are in a constant state of change. The

amount of new knowledge produced every few years is greater than all the
accumulated knowledge to date. The ability to succeed in the business world
today (forget succeedthe ability even to get hired!) depends not so much on
the quantity of information you know and how well you can follow orders
but on your ability to think and act on your own. As Alvin Toffler put it, "The
illiterate of the future are not those that cannot read or write, but those that
cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn."
Today, people are not only changing jobs several times during their work
lives, many of them are changing careers several times. Moreover, it has become increasingly clear that a satisfying life consists of more than business
success. It requires a good sense of yourself, the ability to relate well to others, and lots more.
The proposal for national standards to measure how much information has
been learned in school is consistent with the existing paradigm, but that
group of beliefs is no longer appropriate. We need schools that operate within
a new educational model that's appropriate for today, one that opens the possibility for new educational strategies. There are some schools providing
what is needed, but by definition they are "alternative" schools, operating
outside the prevailing set of beliefs.
Let's consider the difference between the "old" set of beliefs and a possible new one that is more appropriate for our times (shown on p. 194).
Notice that the beliefs constituting the existing paradigm generate questions and strategies about how to achieve norms, obedience, and correct answers. The new beliefs lead to questions and strategies about how to motivate
for lifelong learning, how to strengthen self-discipline, how
Beliefs of the Old Paradigm of Education
It is important to emphasize facts, acquiring a body of "right information,"
once and for all.

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Beliefs of One New Paradigm of Learning

It is important to emphasize learning how to learn, how to ask good questions, being open to and evaluating new concepts; teaching "facts" should be
secondary because much of what is now "known" may change.
Learning is a product, a destination to be reached.
Learning is a process, a journey.
The priority is performance.
The priority is on self-image as the generator of performance.
The external world is looked to for virtually all the answers.
Inner experience is the context for learning.
The emphasis is on analytical, linear, left-brained thinking.
Left-brained rationality is augmented with holistic, nonlinear, and intuitive
strategies.
There is a primary reliance on theoretical, abstract "book" knowledge.
Theoretical and abstract knowledge is heavily complemented by experiment and experience, both in and out of the classroom.
Education is a social necessity for a certain period of time, to inculcate
certain minimum skills and train for a specific role.
Education is a lifelong process, one only tangentially related to schools.
Teachers impart knowledge; education is a one-way street.
Teachers are learners too, learning from students.

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Adapted from: Marilyn Ferguson, The Aquarian Conspiracy. Los Angeles:

J. P. Tarcher, 1980
to awaken curiosity, and how to encourage creative risk-taking in people
of all ages.
Ron Miller, author of What Are Schools For?, describes the essence of
this new paradigm:
Holistic educators recognize that all aspects of life are interconnected.
They contend that education must be concerned with the physical, emotional,
social, aesthetic/creative, and spiritual qualities of every person, as well as
traditionally emphasized intellectual and vocational skills. ... In our culture,
"education" is implicitly equated with the transmission of information, particularly through written sources. But holistic educators have, for two centuries,
asserted that education is an active engagement between a person and a vastly
complex world. Holistic education emphasizes experience, not "Great Books"
or a few "basic skills."... Why limit students to a curriculum of academic subjects when the entire cosmos is at hand? Education, as John Dewey so eloquently argued, must not be seen as "preparation" for lifeit is life! Education is growth, discovery, and a widening of horizons. This is just the opposite of traditional educational goalsdiscipline, order, high test scoresthat
aim to prepare children for the limited world which the adult generation has
created.1
If this description of an alternative model for education is a possible one
for today s circumstances, what strategies might we use to improve the educational system? We might focus on learning how to ask the right questions
and how to think, rather than on dry facts that are not seen as relevant to one's
life. We might give students more responsibility for their own learning. We
might use more learning experiences outside the classroom. We might relate
the information that is taught to each students daily life. We might blend information from different areas together into core curricula so that students
learn math when they study art and grammar when they study drama.

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Strategies already exist that could solve most of today s educational problems. What is missing is a paradigm that allows them. And where workable
strategies do not already exist, people with knowledge and an interest in education would create them if they were operating from a new group of beliefs.
Creating a New Paradigm
Are you beginning to see how the roots of our institutional problems lie in
the beliefs that comprise our institutional paradigms, and not in the quality of
our solutions? But what is the process by which we might eliminate an existing paradigm and create a new one?
Let's use the health care systemanother paralyzing institutional problemto show how our reliance on "the [old] truth" is limiting our possibilities for viable solutions. The following process, based on the Decision
Maker Technology, can be used to escape from the confines of the existing
paradigm so that a new one, appropriate for today, can be created.
As you accompany me through the steps, you may find yourself seeing
things in a way you never saw them before.
Step One: State the Problem
Virtually everyone agrees that the existing health care system doesn't
work, even though there are a number of conflicting theories about why and
what should be done. What's wrong? Insurance premiums are rising faster
than the ability of millions of people to pay. Tens of millions of people aren't
covered by any insurance at all. An increasing percentage of our national income is being spent on medical care. People with preexisting conditions can't
get insurance. People who can't pay aren't getting the medical treatment they
need.
Step Two: Examine the Strategies Presented as Solutions
Suggested approaches to deal with these problems include price controls
on medical services, managed competition (in all its variations),

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HMOs, PPOs, a government-subsidized system like Canada's, increasing

the deductible amount, having employees pay a larger share of the premium,
having the insured pay a larger percentage and the insurance company a
smaller percentage of the bill, having business pay the full cost of insuring all
employees, and having the government reimburse employers.
Every proposal has serious drawbacks. If business pays all the costs, companies will have to raise prices and lay off employees. HMOs can reduce
costs, but the patients are limited in their choices of doctors, and a lot of valuable treatment may be excluded. In HMOs, physicians are frequently encouraged to practice "cost-effective" medicine, which isn't always the best medical care. If insurance companies are forced to insure everyone and allow policyholders to get whatever treatment they want, premiums will increase even
higher and faster. If the government pays all medical bills, the federal deficit
will continue to increase.
Step Three: Identify the Underlying Beliefs
After years of trying many of these alternatives, which either have made
no noticeable improvement or have created almost as many problems as they
solved, it should be clear that a truly workable optionquality health care
available to everyone at an affordable pricedoesn't exist in the current
paradigm. We've been looking in the wrong place for a solution. What is required is a new model that will create fresh, heretofore unimaginable options.
Virtually all legislation that has been considered during the past few years
exists in the current paradigm. What is this paradigm? What current beliefs
govern all proposed strategies?

Health care should focus on eliminating symptoms and disease.

Body and mind are considered separate; psychosomatic illness is

mental and may be referred to a psychiatrist. Mental phenomena
are irrelevant in treating most physical illnesses.

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The body is a machine in good or bad repair. The primary intervention should be with drugs and surgery.

The focus should be on treatment of symptoms.

There should be a high degree of specialization.

The patient is dependent. The professional is the authority.

Step Four: Find the Source of the Beliefs

Descartes, the seventeenth-century French philosopher, taught that
everything in the material universe was a machine, including human beings.
He claimed that the human body reflected the machinelike characteristics of
the universe itselfmachinelike bodies inhabiting a machinelike world.4 He
argued, therefore, that disease was a disorder of the mechanism; the machine
was broken. Descartes devised what became known as the scientific or reductionist method: To learn about the complex, study the simple. Learn about a
germ, and eventually you learn about the disease associated with it.
A medical theory that supported Descartes's general scientific approach
was the theory of specific etiology: Every disease or infection is caused by an
identifiable microorganism.
In their book The Healer Within, Steven Locke and Norman Colligan describe the medical advances that flowed from these two theories:
In 1906 researchers used Koch's discovery of the tuberculin bacillus to develop a vaccine for the disease. In 1911 researchers developed a special arsenic compound, Salvarsan, that effectively treated many forms of syphilis.
In the 1920s insulin was isolated, and insulin injections were extending the
lifetimes of diabetic patients. In the 1930s, sulfa drugs appeared, and with
them cures for bacterial pneumonia, meningitis, gonorrhea, and urinary tract
infections. By the 1940s, the sulfa drugs were largely replaced by even more

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potent drugs, the antibiotics, made possible by the discovery of penicillin. It

seemed that there was no disease that medical science could not handle.5
So where did physicians (and their patients) get the belief that the source
of most illness and disease was an invading microorganism or a malfunction
of the body/machine and that the influence of the mind was irrelevant? From
their experience over several decades. As Locke and Col-ligan put it, "For
most of the history of modern medicine this biomedical approach has dominated the philosophy of science for the best of all reasons: it worked."
The biomedical approach resulted in physicians focusing more on diseases
than on the patients who had the diseases. This trend was exacerbated by advances in medical technology, an early example of which was the stethoscope
in 1819. Locke and Colligan write that diagnostic technologies
further reinforced the image of the patient as an object of study. By the
turn of the century, doctors had tests for tuberculosis, diphtheria, typhoid,
cholera, and syphilis. Soon after came the X-ray, the electrocardiogram, the
electroencephalogram, and blood tests. The patient became less and less a
fellow human being with an illness and more and more an amalgam of medical data.6
So where did physicians (and their patients) get the idea that a doctor s job
was to diagnose an illness and treat ity as opposed to dealing with a whole
person who had a body and a mind? Again, from their experience in dealing
with the world. Their conclusion was not illogical or invalid. It made sense.
Their interpretation fit most of the available evidence.
The problem was that the medical establishment considered this conclusion an absolute fact"the truth" rather than "a truth"the only accurate description of illness and how the body worked, then and forever. Once the belief was formed, they became blinded to new evidence that was incompatible
with their beliefs.7
Step Five: Observe Today's Environment

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We are increasingly gathering evidence of a mind-body connection in the

cause and treatment of illnessas we discussed in chapter 8. For example,
according to some physicians, the power of hypnosis to affect the body
makes it a promising tool for treating burn victims; Dabney Edwin, professor
of surgery and psychiatrics at Tulane University, has been using hypnosis to
treat severe cases Dr. Edwin has found that hypnotizing a patient within
hours of an injury has had significant effects on the speed and completeness
of recovery. Other physicians using hypnosis have had similar results.
If there is no mind-body connection, how can the healing process be dramatically improved by nothing more than a belief that the part of the body
that has been burned is "beginning to feel cool and comfortable"?
If a change in your mental state can change your EEG patterns, blood
pressure, skin conditions, and even eye colorsomething medical scientists
have assumed is totally determined by your genesis it difficult to imagine
that a belief such as Pm unworthy could contribute to producing illness?
There are many tangible examples in medical practice of the mind-body
connection. One of the best proofs that beliefs have a powerful impact on our
health has existed for years right under the noses of every physician in the
world: the placebo effect, "a change in a patients illness attributable to the
symbolic import of a treatment rather than a specific pharmacologic or
physiological property." In other words, it is your natural healing ability
triggered by belief in a treatment, doctor, or institution.
Every new drug is tested for safety and efficacy before it is put on the
market. Part of all testing involves giving the drug to human subjects to determine if it is effective in dealing with the condition it's intended to alleviate.
At the same time, a pill containing an inert substance, sometimes sugar, is
given to other subjects with the same illness. The drug is approved for distribution if it is determined to be safe and significantly more effective than the
placebo.
As Deepak Chopra points out:

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By giving a placebo, or dummy pill, thirty percent of patients will experience the same pain relief as if a real painkiller had been administered. But the
mind-body effect is much more holistic. The same dummy pill can be used to
kill pain, to stop excessive gastric secretions in ulcer patients, to lower blood
pressure, or to fight tumors. (All the side effects of chemotherapy, including
hair loss and nausea, can be induced by giving cancer patients a sugar pill
while assuring them that it is a powerful anticancer drug, and there have been
instances where injections of sterile saline solution have actually led to remissions of advanced malignancy.)
An excellent example of the mind-body connection is cancer. The old saying, "Many a truth has been spoken in jest" was never more true than when
Woody Allen said in the film Manhattan, "I don't get mad, I grow tumors"
Cancer is a disease caused by a failure of the immune system. What
causes the immune system to fail in some people and not in others? Increasingly, scientists and cancer specialists are reaching the same conclusion Norman Cousins wrote about in Head First. Cousins summarized research showing that "depression is a demonstrated cause of physical ill health, including
deleterious effects on the immune system. Equally striking is the fact that liberation from depression produces an almost automatic boost in the number of
disease-fighting immune cells." Cousins concluded, "If you can reduce the
depression that almost invariably affects cancer patients, you can increase the
body's own capacity for combating malignancies.
Depression is experienced as an overwhelming sense of hopelessness and
helplessness. Those attitudes are the result of such beliefs as I'm not good
enough, I don't matter, I'll never get what I want, People can't be trusted, Life
is difficult, and I'm not safe in the world. By eliminating beliefs such as
these, depression can be eliminated and the immune system can be
strengthened.10
Another example of the mind-body connection is heart disease. Scientists
have long been puzzled by the fact that, although the "risk factors" for heart

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disease (like high blood cholesterol, diabetes, high blood pressure, and cigarette smoking) are well known, more than half the new cases of heart disease
occur when none of these risk factors is present. Something else is going on.
Scientists have also learned that the most reliable factor in determining
survival rates for patients with heart disease are job satisfaction and a sense
of "overall happiness." Those who were alone and depressed had the poorest
survival rates.
Lynda H. Powell, an assistant professor at the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health at the Yale University School of Medicine, has done
extensive research on the relationship between mental states and heart attacks. Dr. Powell points out:
Hostility and cynical mistrust are consistently associated with coronary
artery disease. The constant ongoing vigilance associated with being mistrustful appears to promote coronary heart disease by speeding up the disposition on the atherosclerotic plaques on the walls of the arteries. How we think
this happens is that the hormones which enter the bloodstream during times
of stress act to keep the sticky LDL cholesterol, which is considered the bad
type of cholesterol, circulating in the bloodstream longer, and this increases
the rate of blockage on the coronary arteries.
It is clear that we now live in a world that is very different from the one
we inhabited a century ago, a world in which there is irrefutable scientific
evidence of a mind-body connection, evidence that existed only anecdotally
during the years that the paradigm for modern medicine was being created.
The current paradigm is at variance with the new medical reality, as Larry
Dossey points out:
What is the success of modern medicine? What can it do? These are the
questions in need of answers in the debate----The fact is

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that for the majority of patients who see physicians, the likeliest diagnosis
is some type of psychosomatic or stress disorder. And regrettably, it is in this
areathe area from which most patients sufferthat modern medicine is not
at its best____Actual studies show that three-fourths of all illnesses brought
to physicians are self-limiting (that is, will go away without medical treatment). And of the remaining one-fourth, in only about half of the cases is
medicine dramatically helpful.
None of this is meant to denigrate physicians or modern medicine. The
only point I'm making here is that what we observe when we look at what is
known about health and illness today is vastly different from what we observed a century or so ago when the current medical model was being
formed.
Step Six: Create a Paradigm for Today
Today's strategies are a function of an institutions group of beliefs, which
in turn was designed to be an appropriate response to a specific environment
that existed when it was created. If today's environment is significantly different, can you see that neither the current strategies nor the paradigm can
work for today? That neither are "the truth"?
It's fitting to ask: If we originally devised a successful paradigm and a
course of action that was based on a careful analysis of the environment as it
existed then, why don't we do the same today?
Contrast one new paradigm of health with the current paradigm (shown on
p. 204).
Notice that for the most part the existing beliefs generate questions and
strategies about illness, especially how professionals can make people better
after they get sick, usually using such "mechanical" aids as drugs or surgery.
Can you see that the beliefs constituting one possible new paradigm lead to
questions and strategies about a state of wellness, emphasizing prevention,

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involving the patient as well as the professional, and using the patient's internal resources as a significant aid?
Beliefs of the Old Paradigm of Medicine
Emphasis on eliminating symptoms.
Beliefs of One New Paradigm of Health
Emphasis on achieving maximum wellness, "meta-health."
Body and mind are separate; psychosomatic illness is mental, may be referred to a psychiatrist.
Body-mind perspective; psychosomatic illness is the province of all health
care professionals.
Body seen as machine in good and bad repair.
Body seen as dynamic system, field of energy within other fields.
Primary intervention with drugs, surgery.
Minimal intervention with "appropriate technology," complemented with
full armamentarium of noninvasive techniques (psychotherapies, diet,
exercise).
Treatment of symptoms.
Search for patterns and causes, plus treatment of symptoms.
Specialized.
Integrated, concerned with the whole patient.
Disease or disability seen as thing, entity.
Disease or disability seen as process.

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Patient is dependent.
Patient is autonomous.
Professional is authority.
Professional is therapeutic partner.
Primary reliance on quantitative information (charts, tests, dates).
Primary reliance on qualitative information, including patient's subjective
reports and professional's intuition; quantitative data an adjunct.
Mind is secondary factor in organic illness.
Mind is primary or equal factor in all illness.
"Prevention" largely environmental; vitamins, rest, exercise, immunization, not smoking.
"Prevention" synonymous with wholeness: work, relationships, goals,
body-mind-spirit.
Adapted from: Marilyn Ferguson, The Aquarian Conspiracy. Los Angeles:
J. P. Tarcher, 1980
Step Seven: Create Strategies Consistent with the New Paradigm to Solve
Existing Problems
If people trying to solve the health care problem sought solutions consistent with the alternative paradigm just suggested, and if everyone involved in
the process viewed potential solutions from this alternative paradigm, it
wouldn't be long before alternative solutions were devised, accepted, and
implemented.
Each belief that constitutes a new paradigm opens up new possibilities for
strategies and solutions. Experts in each field can provide better solutions

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than I can, and many already have. What's been missing is the acceptance of
a paradigm that allows solutions outside the existing one. Once people realize
that the existing paradigm is "a truth," not" the truth," and view the alternative paradigm presented here as another "a truth," one that is more appropriate
for today, new health care and wellness strategies will be devised and implemented.14
Perpetuating an outdated paradigm makes it impossible to resolve the
problems of society. As Seaborn Blair once said, "Everybody wants to
change the world, but nobody wants to change his mind." Why don't we want
to change our minds? Because we are convinced that our beliefs are "the
truth."
Our only hope for resolving the myriad problems that confront us today
and really improving the state of the world is to change our minds. If we are
to create a society that really works for everyone, we must get unstuck from
our existing beliefs and open our minds to alternative ones.
The DM Technology can enable people to do just that. It can be used to
eliminate the outmoded paradigms that prevent us from finding viable solutions to today's problems. The DM Technology is one excellent tool for easing the way for a "Third Wave" information/knowledge society to come into
beingalong with transformed institutions and a more holistic and spiritual
approach to life.

Epilogue - Unlimited Possibilities

The future is not some place we are going to, but a place we are creating.
John Schaar
In a recent business workshop, just as I finished explaining the relationship between beliefs and behavior, one of the participants suddenly exclaimed, "This is crazy!"

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I stopped talking and looked at him curiously. "What is?" I wondered what
I had said to make him disagree so violently.
His answer was totally unexpected. "Why didn't we learn this in grammar
school? Why I am finding this out now at the age of forty?"
I grinned at him. "Better late than never." Then, assuming a more serious
tone, I said, "I am committed to seeing that in the future people won t have to
wait as long as you didor have to ask that question."
The Ever-Open Possibility
And that is my commitment: To get the Decision Maker Process and
Technology out into the world. Not because I think I have all the answers.
Nothing in this book is " the truth." The ideas expressed here are only one
way of looking at life. Yet it is one that appears to empower us to make fundamental and needed changesin ourselves, in our organizations, and in our
institutions. There are other ways of looking at life that are just as valid, but I
don't know any that are as empoweringthat enable us to get unstuck from
our current dysfunctional patterns and create new possibilities in life.
I am not pushing a specific point of view. This book, unlike most books
that give advice on how to change, is not about First, or even Second Order
Change. It is about Third Order Change.
I'm not even saying that existing societal paradigms are wrong and another
one is right. I'm saying there aren't any paradigms that are "the truth." There
are only belief systems that work and those that don't work, given the circumstances at the time. And today, most of our paradigms don't work, at least if
our standards are peace and respect for people of different genders, skin colors, sexual preferences, and religious faiths. They don't work if we long for a
sense that nothing is missing: inner satisfaction, relationships that nurture us,
organizations that empower us, and institutions that truly support us.
The Power of Decision Maker Thinking

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The radically different type of thinking that the DM Process and Technology propose is really the essence of creativity. It is the ability to view the
world from outside the boxes most people live in. As William James observed, "Genius, in truth, means little more than the faculty of perceiving in
an unhabitual way." Thinking that assumes there is no "the truth," that constantly creates new possibilities, that enables you to perceive "in an unhabitual way," is Decision Maker thinking. But in order to think that wayin order to be willing to give up beliefs you've known as " the truth" and live out
of questions rather than answersyou need to realize that all meaning is an
interpretation that you make.
Because we are empowered when we can create new possibilities, mastering DM thinking is the ultimate empowerment. It also is a revolution in
thinking.
I expect this book will spawn thousands of formal and informal research
projects on how best to use the DM Process and Technology in every area of
life. I want to encourage people to use DM thinking to create a Third Order
society. I hope millions of people use the DM Process and Technology to
transform their organizations and institutions. I intend that even more people
learn how to use the DM Process to help others make changes in their lives.
The Mission of the Decision Maker Institute
The mission of the Decision Maker Institute is: "To facilitate people to
live, not only as the creation they normally experience themselves to be, but
also as the creator of that creationby enabling them to discover that their
personal, organizational, institutional, and societal beliefs are not 'the truth'
but only'a truth' they createdso that each and every one of us experiences
serenity, satisfaction, nothing missing, no limitations, and unlimited possibilities, individually and in relationship with each other."
I think that the DM Process is urgently needed. If you consider what you
normally do when you're upset or need advice, your options are woefully inadequate. It should be possible to have someone always available to facilitate

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you in the DM Process so you can discover the beliefs that are producing any
given problem as it arises and then eliminate them. There ought to be millions of people who can use the DM Process with others, such as friends,
teachers, parents, facilitators available at the office, or professionals available
to help anyone who drops in for a session. I am training DM facilitators as
quickly as I can, so they can help people deal with dysfunctional patterns
they can't handle on their own or with the assistance of a friend.
Participating in a DM session, however, is not about fixing your life once
and for all. It's about growth. It's about constantly creating new possibilities
for your life. It's about experiencing life as a game, one in which you create
more and more possibilities and fewer and fewer restrictions. It's about making the space of the decision maker real for yourself all the time.
You created your life just the way it is. To be more precise, you created
the beliefs that have resulted in your life being the way it is today even if
you haven't been aware of it. And even if you have, it's unlikely you've had
the ability to permanently eliminate your beliefs. That's exactly the situation I
was in on January 2,1985:1 had finally discovered that my beliefs were responsible for what wasn't working in my life, but I didn't know how to
change them. The DM Process offers you, as it offered me, the opportunity to
re-create your life todaythe way you consciously choose it to be now, instead of the way you unconsciously created it years ago.
Embrace Fundamental Change
I have written this book because I think that much of what I've learned on
my journey thus far will empower you and make a profound difference in
your life. In order to take advantage of the book, you must first realize the
need for fundamental change and then be open to the possibility of it. If you
"know" that it's impossible to permanently change beliefs, this book will hold
little value for you.
If, however, you are willing to look at the source of your beliefs, acknowledge that there are other possible interpretations or explanations for the

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events you experienced, and then realize that you didn't see what you now
hold as a belief, you can create unlimited possibilities.
Most of what I present in this book, including the philosophical principles
that underlie the DM Technology, is very real to people when they are facilitated in the DM Process. In the non-ordinary state of consciousness that
people get into when they do the DM Process, they experience with profound
clarity: I am the creator of my life, there's nothing missing, there are no limitations, and anything is possible. I'm not telling you this to convince you that
it is true but to report the experience my clients and I have shared. It's analogous to reporting that I climbed a mountain and discovered that water boils at
a lower temperature at higher altitudes. The point of reporting that is not to
convince you of what I said; it's to describe what will happen if you were to
boil water at 10,000 feet. Climb to 10,000 feet and boil water and discover
for yourself what temperature is required.
Have someone use the modified version of the DM Process to help you
eliminate a belief you know you have and discover for yourself what happens. Use it with your children or to improve your results in athletic activities. Use the DM Technology in your organization. Use it to start transforming
our institutions. Try using the DM Process and Technology so that you can
discover the benefits you and the rest of society can derive from them.
Create Your Future
Please write me with your address if you want to be put on our mailing
list. We will keep you informed about Decision Maker workshops in your
area, further developments in the DM Technology and Process, a forthcoming DM Newsletter, results of research studies, and so on. I especially look
forward to hearing how you've used the Decision Maker Process and Technology to improve your life and to discussing with you how together we can
use it to transform individuals and to transform our organizations and society
(e-mail: info@decisionmaker.com; website: www.decisionmaker.com ).

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We've got a big job ahead of us, but as John Schaar of the University of California wrote in "The Future," one of my favorite poems:
The future is not a result of choices among alternative paths offered by the
present, but a place that is created,
first in mind, next in will, then in activity.
The future is not some place we are going to, but a place we are creating.
The paths are not to be discovered, but made, and the activity of making
the future changes both the maker and the destination.

Notes
Prologue: My Personal Journey
i. Despite all the negative publicity that est and Werner Erhard have received, the importance of the est training in my life is undeniable. I still consider it to be one of the most significant experiences in my life. I am able to
distinguish between the value of the programs offered, the company that offers the programs (Landmark Education, the new name for the est organization), and the man who created the original organization and training. I don't
think discovering that an organization or an individual has done something
you condemn in itself affects the value of the programs offered.
1: Is Profound Change Possible?
i. According to the Yup'ik Eskimo Dictionary compiled by Steven A.
Jacob-son (Alaska Native Language Center, University of Alaska, 1984),
what an Eskimo would mean by these four words are "light snow," "soft deep
snow," "drifting snow," and "fresh snow."
2: Principles of the DM Technology
1. Time, 17 July 1995, p. 49-

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2. Benjamin Lee Whorf has written extensively on the relationship

between thought and language. In his most famous book, Language, Thought,
and Reality: Selected Writings of Benjamin Lee Whorf, ed. by John B. Carroll (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1956), he proposes that language plays
an extensive role in perception. His thesis has become known as the Whorfian hypothesis.
This book is a brilliant analysis of the relationship between language andthinking and perception, with numerous illustrations of how the Indo-European languages (for example, English and the languages of the peoples of
Europe) have created one worldview and people speaking other languages,
such as Hopi, Maya, the dialects of other Indian tribes, and Chinese, have
created very different worldviews.
It is difficult to prove conclusively his (and my) thesisthat reality is a
function of distinctions, and language is a major instrument by which human
beings make distinctionswith only a summary of his arguments. It really is
necessary to study the full range of Whorf s examples and arguments to understand fully why he concludes that "the picture of the universe shifts from
tongue to tongue." Nonetheless, the following quotation provides a good
sense of his line of reasoning.
"We cut up and organize the spread and flow of events as we do, largely
because, through our mother tongue, we are parties to an agreement to do so,
not because nature itself is segmented in exactly that way for all to see. Languages differ not only in how they build their sentences, but also in how they
break down nature to secure the elements to put in these sentences.... By
these more or less distinct terms we ascribe a semifictitious isolation to parts
of experience. English terms, like 'sky, hill, swamp,' persuade us to regard
some elusive aspect of natures endless variety as a distinct THING, almost
like a table or chair. Thus English and similar tongues lead us to think of the
universe as a collection of rather distinct objects and events corresponding to
words. Indeed, this is the implicit picture of classical physics and

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astronomythat the universe is essentially a collection of detached objects of

different sizes."
3. Edward Sapir, Languagey Culture, and Personality: Essays in Memory
of Edward Sapiry Leslie Sapir, ed. (Menasha, Wise.: Sapir Memorial Publications Fund,
1941).
4. A dramatic (and sobering!) example of how language determines the
distinctions we make can be found in the specific technical language that is
used to describe nuclear weapons and arms control. Carol Cohn, a senior research fellow at the Center for Psychological Studies in the Nuclear Age,
Cambridge, Massachusetts, spent a year as a visiting scholar at a defense
studies center. She published some of her experiences in the Summer 1987
issue of SIGNS: The Journal of Women in Culture and Society; 1987 by
The University of Chicago Press, in an article titled "Nuclear Language and
How We Learned to Pat the Bomb." She wrote, in part:
The better I became at this discourse [of arms control], the more difficult
it became to express my own ideas and values. While the language included
things I had never been able to speak about before, it radically excluded others. To pick a bald example, the word "peace" is not a part of this discourse.
As close as one can come to it is "strategic stability," a term that refers to a
balance of numbers and types of weapons systemsnot the political,
social, economic, and psychological conditions that "peace" implies____
If I was unable to speak my concerns in this language, more disturbing
still was that I also began to find it harder to keep them in my own head. No
matter how firm my own commitment to staying aware of the bloody reality
behind the words, over and over I found that I could
not keep human lives as my reference point____

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I was so involved in the military justifications for not using nuclear

weaponsas though the moral ones were not enough. What I was actually
talking aboutthe mass incineration of a nuclear attackwas no longer in
my head.
As I learned to speak [this new language], I no longer stood outside the
impenetrable wall of technostrategic language, and once inside, I could no
longer see it. I had not only learned to speak a language: I had started to think
in it. Its questions became my questions, its concepts shaped my responses to
new ideas, (emphasis added).
5. Ralph Strauch, The Reality Illusion: How We Create the World We Experience (Wheaton, 111.: Theosophical Publishing House, 1982), pp. 39-40.
6. Larry Dossey, Space, Time, and Medicine (Boston: Shambhala, 1985),
p. 203.
7. Lawrence LeShan, Alternate Realities: The Search for the Full Human
Being (New York: M. Evans 8c Co., 1976), p. 6.
8. Christopher Cerf and Victor Navasky, The Experts Speak: The Definitive Compendium of Authoritative Misinformation (New York: Pantheon
Books,
1984), p. 3i.
3: What's Holding You Back?
1. Toward a State of Esteem: The Final Report of the California Task
Force to Promote Self-Esteem and Personal and Social Responsibility (Sacramento: California Department of Education, 1990), p. 4. Copies can be obtained from the Bureau of Publications, P.O. Box 271, Sacramento, CA
95812-0271.
216

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2. Ultimately, there is no such thing as a "negative" or "positive" belief.

Beliefs are not good or bad; they are merely interpretations of what we observe. It is possible, however, to judge the consequences of our beliefs. We
can say that our behavior or emotions are positive or negative. Thus, although
it is not really accurate to label beliefs as positive or negative, we can do so
based on the behavior and emotions that result from them. When I refer to
negative self-esteem beliefs, thats what I mean.
3. It appears that people who have chronic depression (which manifests as
an overwhelming sense of hopelessness and helplessness) and anxiety have
been unable to create successful survival strategies. Either they haven't been
able to make their survival strategy workin other words, they are unable to
do or achieve that which they said would make them good enough, worthwhile, important, or able to surviveor they've been unable even to create
one.
4: How the DM Process Works
1. If, as occasionally happens, Joan insisted that she did "see" her belief in
the world earlier in life, I would point to various objects in the room and ask
her where the object is, what color it is, and what shape it is, She would soon
realize that anything you can "see" exists in a specific place and has color and
size, and so on. Then I would ask, "Where in the room was your belief? What
color was it? What shape was it?" Trying to answer these questions is always
sufficient for the client to realize that, although she thought she "saw" her belief earlier in life, she really didn't. In other words, the belief is nothing more
than an interpretation of what she actually did see. As I explained in detail in
chapter 2, there is no "meaning" in the world. All meaning is interpretation
and exists only in our minds, not "out there."
2. An important caveat: Despite all I've just written, I want to warn you
against accepting the admonition that "you are responsible for your reality"
just because I or anyone else says so. The danger arises from the lack of a
distinction between "you" as a creation and "you" as the creator of that

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creation. You the creation are not in charge of your life; you are like a robot
that must act consistently with its programming (that is, your beliefs). You
the creation can't talk yourself out of your beliefs just because you want to.
You the creation aren't responsible for most of what you do or what happens
to you.
On the other hand, when you createnot merely understand or even
ex-217
perienceyourself as the decision maker, you distinguish yourself as the
creator of your life. You enter what appears to be a non-ordinary state of consciousness. At that point, you have the power to eliminate beliefs and really
are responsible for your reality.
5: Using the DM Process in Daily Life
i. At present, there is only one person, in addition to Shelly and me, who
has been trained to use the DM Process to facilitate people when the belief is
not known. A group of four additional DM facilitators should complete their
training by the fall of 1996 and another class of four should graduate in 1997.
Thereafter one of my main priorities will be training additional DM facilitators around the country.
6: Case History Diane: Conquering Bulimia
1. We did the spiritual part of the DM Process in each session, but I won't
repeat it in the following case histories.
2. Other beliefs Diane eliminated during our time together include:
I'm really not artistically talented.
I should be able to do things perfectly; if I don't I'm bad.
Bad people should be punished.
Overeating is the easiest and most inescapable way to punish myself.

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Sense of life: emptiness, not belonging, separateness, not visible, not

heard, void, a black hole.
Sense of self: not being.
I have no right to have unless everyone else has.
I have no right to my husband's money. It's not mine. I should be on my
knees thanking him for what he gives me.
I have no right to ask my husband. It's his hard work. It's his money.
Marriage is not a shared experience where each naturally shares personal
thoughts and possessions with the other.
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7: Case History Barry: A Transformed Criminal
1. L. Sechrest and A. Rosenblatt, "Research Methods in Juvenile Delinquency," in H. C. Quay, ed., Handbook of Juvenile Delinquency (New York:
John Wiley, 1987), pp. 417-50.
The initial research protocol describes the purpose of the study: "We propose to examine the efficacy of the Decision Maker Process as an intervention to improve self-esteem, to enhance an internal locus of control, and to reduce hostility, social alienation, and antisocial behavior in eight incarcerated
criminals. We hypothesize that using the Decision Maker Process to eliminate beliefs such as I'm not good enough, I'm not worthwhile or deserving, HI
never get what I want, People can't be trusted, and I don't matter will significantly improve self-esteem, enhance an internal locus of control, and reduce
hostility, social alienation, and antisocial behavior."
Dr. Sechrest and I decided to administer the Tennessee Self-Concept Scale
to all sixteen subjects both before and after the intervention. In addition, subjects in the experimental group would be interviewed at the end of the study

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to determine the value of the DM sessions, both emotionally and behaviorally, and their assessment of the DM Process itself. Shortly after the study
was under way, at Dr. Sechrests suggestion we administered another measure, the Inwald Survey 8 (IS8-A).
Moreover, the caseworkers for each of the sixteen subjects were asked to
submit a weekly written report regarding the attitudes and behavior of each
subject, in addition to filling out a Revised Behavior Problem Checklist both
before the intervention and again at its completion.
Finally, we agreed to attempt to track all sixteen subjects during the year
following the completion of the initial study, although it was unlikely that we
would be able to stay in touch with all sixteen after they were released.
2. Results of the Study
After analyzing the data from the two measures filled out by subjects and
the one completed by counselors, Dr. Sechrest concluded:
The results strongly support the claim that persons in the experimental
condition did develop more favorable self-concepts over the weeks of the experiment, while those in the control condition showed no systematic change...
Similarly, by self-reports, the persons in the experimental group also improved more in several behavioral dispositions likely to be related to risk of
further legal violations. Specifically, the experimental group improved more
(statistically significant) than the controls on the Inwald, a test aimed at detecting social deviance. The experimentals also showed statistically
significant improvements on risk-taking tendencies and leadership____
All in all, this little experiment has to be regarded as a fairly remarkable
success. Certainly it justifies efforts to carry out further testing to determine
whether the changes observed can be dependably produced. If they can, the
DM Process could have definite promise in helping young male offenders
mend their ways----

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3. Several days after his last session, Barry was interviewed by a local
therapist. The interview was videotaped and then transcribed, so that Dr. Sechrest could use what was said as part of the data to be analyzed. At one
point, the interviewer said, "Okay. Now, Barry, have there been changes in
your feelings as a result of the Decision Maker sessions you had with
Morty?" A portion of the transcript follows.
B: Yeah, there has. There has been. I feel that the way I used to feel was
very negative about things. I feel positive about now, since going through this
with Morty. And it has helped me a lot. I feel that a lot of the violencethat
the way I used to be very violentI feel now that thats not necessary in my
life anymore. I: So your feelings of violence have changed. B: Yeah.
I: Any other feelings that have changed?
B: My feelings toward myself. I used to have very low self-esteem. My
selfesteem is high now. I think highly of myself now. I: Okay. And have you
changed your behavior as a result of the sessions
you had with Morty? B: Yes, I have. Like I said, thinking violent, I've
changed a lot. I: Now you're not behaving violent?
B: Yeah, right. There's a few instances where Iyou know, before this, I
probably would have hurt somebody. But, you know, using my head and
thinkingI let it go.
220
I: Any other behavior changes besides violence?
B: Toward women. I respect them a lot more now. You know.
I: Great. Do you intend to make other changes in your behavior when you
get out of here and back to a more normal life?

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B: Uhhh. (Pause) Yeah, I do. Plan on, you know, staying positive. Thinking good about things. Not thinking that, you know, worrying about this, and
thinking that this could stop me from achieving my goals.
I: Any other changes you intend to happen? Like, you were talking about
women before?
B: Yeah, think I'm going to try toa one-woman relationship, you know?
Maybe get married and have a happy family.
I: Thats a change. Do you see new possibilities for your life that you did
not see before the session started three months ago?
B: Yes. I see myself going to school now. I really had doubts before this.
But now I see myself going to school.
4. Shortly after my last session, officials at Maple Street House told me
that the offender who had smoked coke on his weekend furlough had run
away. They said he disappeared on the day that results from a random drug
test were due, so they assumed he had been using drugs again. Several
months later this subject called me on the phone. He wanted me to know that
he had not run away because he feared a positive drug test. He had gone to
collect some money owed him, got in a fight, and when the police were
called, panicked and ran away. Afraid the police would be waiting for him at
the halfway house, he never went back. He told me that despite being broke
and looking for work, he never acted on his thoughts of robbing people. He
said to me quietly and emphatically, "I'd never do that again." He also commented that even during the fight he was asking himself, "What do I believe
that made me so angry that I got in this fight?"
5. During the thirteen weeks of this study, none of the adult subjects
dropped out, although one escaped after his second DM session. On the other
hand, two of the teenage subjects quit after a session or two (and were replaced) and one dropped out after six sessions. Moreover, during their sessions the teenage subjects tended to fidget, play with their nails, and look out

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the window. It was considerably harder to get them to pay attention than
adults.
One of the teenagers who completed all thirteen sessions did as well as the
adults, and I'd be willing to bet he never again engages in criminal
activities
although it is clear that he still has a lot of dysfunctional patterns that
should be eliminated. This young man floored me when he said in his exit interview, "I used to think I was mean. I'm not mean. I can be. Vm not." There
aren't many people who experience and can make a conscious distinction
between their behavior and who they are; this fifteen-year-old could. So it appears that the DM Process can be as effective with teenage criminals as with
adult offenders, even though teens are harder to work with and more of them
probably would drop out than adults.
8: Case History Frank: Transcending AIDS
1. Time, 12 March 1990, p. 76.
2. Newsweek, 7 November 1988, p. 88.
3. Bernie Siegel, Love, Medicine & Miracles, pp. 4,88. Here and
throughout, facts of publication not given here appear in the Recommended
Reading lists that follow the Notes.
4. Ibid., p. 3.
5. Jack Gorman, a principal investigator for a National Institute of Mental
Health study on the relationship between the course of the AIDS virus and
the psyche, says there is evidence that "depression and stress have bad effects
on the immune system, while an optimistic and hopeful attitude has good
effects."
Other researchers claim that the mental state underlying AIDS is that of
victim: that is, an external locus of control in which one feels that one is

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living at the effect of others. The beliefs that were uncovered in my workshops confirm that.
6.1 made an appointment with Norman Cousins, the former magazine editor who claimed to have cured himself of a deadly illness using laughter and
massive doses of vitamin C. He had joined the faculty of the School of Medicine at UCLA and was very involved in supporting PNI research. Cousins
was very open to what I had to say. He even offered to write a letter that I
could attach to our research proposal and use for fund-raising.
The letter read, in part: "The emerging field of psychoneuroimmunology,
or the biochemistry of the emotions, is turning up significant evidence that
the positive emotions have a measurable impact on the immune system and,
when this information is integrated with appropriate medical therapies, can
produce dramatic results in the treatment of disease.
"The attached proposal represents an important effort to identify the relationship between psychosocial factors and immune function in HlVSeroposi-tive individuals. Results from research of this kind, while focused
on the AIDS pattern, may well have an impact on the treatment of a wide
range of serious illnesses, including cancer and heart disease."
Dr. Elinor Levy also wrote a letter for fund-raising: "Scientists generally
acknowledge that cofactors are important in the development of AIDS, and
that these cofactors help explain the fact that one HIV-infected individual develops AIDS within two years, whereas another is still apparently healthy
more than ten years later. We believe that psychological factors could act as
one of the co-factors for the development of AIDS.
"If this is the case, then clearly any psychological intervention that can
ameliorate psychic distress and produce long-lasting effects would be expected to slow the progression of AIDS. The technique developed by Morty Lefkoe, our co-investigator on this project, which is an approach to improve efficacy and self-esteem, could be such an intervention. His intervention also

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may have broader application in the important area of substance addiction,

where low self-esteem tends to be an important factor predisposing to substance abuse."
7. Ken Wilbur, quoted in Larry Dossey, Beyond Illness (Boston:
Shambhala, 1985), p. 96.
The relevance of this state to illness was captured very well by Dr. Larry
Dossey (Beyond Illness, p. 61): "Sick people who achieve this awareness (a
sense of Oneness, of transcendence) in the course of illness seem to radiate
an unmistakable freedom from illness, even though they are afflicted by it
and are immersed in it. This is paradoxical, for it is obvious that they are not
free from disease: they hurt like other people, they may orient their lives
around taking medications on schedule, following certain treatment programs, etc. Where does the freedom they emanate come from?
"It arises because they are not fixated on the fact of illness as if it were an
external event that is controlling their lives. Their world, originally a conglomeration of subjects and objects, has undergone the fusion and subsequent
disjunction described above as the final state of understanding in which the
freeing quality of Oneness is retained. It is this unity of opposites that allows
freedom from particulars, such as illness and disease. As (Zen writer Toshihiko) Izutsu puts it, 'Man (at this final stage) is a total actualization of the
Field of Reality, is on the one hand a Cosmic Man comprehending in himself
the whole universe . .. and on the other he is this very concrete individual
man who exists and
lives here and now, as a concentration point of the entire energy of the
Field. He is individual and supra-individual.5"
8. Dossey, pp. 146-47.
9. Based on the results of extensive PNI research and the success of the
DM Process in changing attitudes, I still am convinced that the DM Process
can make a significant contribution to health care by improving the

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functioning of the immune and other systems. I hope to fund either the AIDS
study I've described or some other research to determine what role the DM
Process can play both in prevention and treatment of any illness.
9: Raising Empowered Children
1. These are what H. Stephen Glenn calls "adultisms" in his book, Raising
Children for Success, p. 79.
2. When I conduct individual DM sessions in a business workshop, I frequently have businesspeople tell me that the most valuable thing they've gotten from the three-day workshop that is designed to change the culture of
their organization is a change in their parenting (see chapter 10). Merely
watching a few people trace behavior to beliefs and beliefs to interactions
with parents in childhood is enough to make most people acutely sensitive to
their own behavior and conversations with their children.
3. Some of you might be feeling "But I am responsible!" Where did you
see that in the world? You never saw in the world that you are responsible for
your child's behavior toward others. That was an interpretation of something
you did see. The belief isn't "the truth." It's "a truth." Just take a look at the
consequences of operating out of the belief and see if it works for your
childin the long run. Remember this when I discuss other common parenting beliefs that you may be tempted to defend.
4. It is true that there are many ambitious children (and adults) who will
not let anything stop them. Notice two things about that phenomenon
however: First, the number of people who really feel that they are in control
of their lives and can have things turn out the way they want is very small.
Second, there are many people who have created a survival strategy that consists of saying I'm good enough because I won't let anything stop me or I'm
good enough because of my successes. (The first was a belief I discovered in
myself and eliminated.) Such people frequently succeed by societal standards. But their behavior

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is compulsive, not chosen freely. The question that should be asked is;
What is the level of their internal satisfaction? What is the emotional and
psychological cost of their external success?
5. According to Violence and Youth, a 1993 report of the American Psychological Association Commission on Violence and Youth: "Harsh and continual physical punishment by parents has been implicated in the development of aggressive behavior patterns. Physical punishment may produce
obedience in the short term, but continued over time it tends to increase the
probability of aggressive and violent behavior during childhood and adulthood, both inside and outside the family. These findings suggest a cycle in
the development of aggressive behavior patterns: Abuse at the hands of parents leads children to think and solve problems in ways that later lead to their
developing aggressive behavior patterns and to their continuing the cycle of
violence."
To those parents who respond, "A few smacks once in a while is not 'harsh
and continual physical punishment,"' maybe it isn't to you. But how is it being interpreted by a child, or even an adolescent?
6. Of the twenty-odd recommended readings listed under Parenting at the
back of the book, the best one I found at this time was "Dont Stop Loving
Me"by Ann F. Caron. Later I discovered Mother Daughter Revolution by Elizabeth Debold, Marie Wilson, and Idelisse Malav'e, and Reviving Ophelia,
by Mary Pipher; Shelly and I found both books very helpful in understanding
the world as seen by adolescent girls. They also helped us understand that, although parents are the major source of our beliefs, by the time we reach adolescence our culture also plays an important role in determining our beliefs.
I also found helpful Haim Ginott's highly regarded book, Between Parent and
Teenager. Although it was published many years ago, this solid book stands
the test of time. The most valuable book of all, in my opinion, is Positive Discipline for Teenagers, by Jane Nelsen and Lynn Lott. (I'm probably prejudiced because the recommended behaviors for parents are consistent with my
own basic beliefs about parenting.)

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10: Organizations That Thrive on Change

1. At Carter Hawley Hale I developed a three-day workshop that trained
groups of the company's trainers to lead. In my first pilot workshops, the
trainees reported a number of different beliefs that led to their current situation. For example, one reported that he was quickly promoted on every job he got because his performance was so good, but then something always happened that
led to his being out of work: either the company had to lay off people and he
was the last hired and the first fired, or he had a fight with his boss, or he
(once) decided to move to a different city. He discovered the belief I don't deserve to succeed, which for him totally explained the way his work life was
turning out.
Other beliefs that were identified and eliminated by trainees included I'm
not good enough; I'm not worthy; I'm not deserving; no matter what I do it's
not enough; life is difficult; and HI never get what I want.
None of the trainees had consciously tried to lose his job. In fact, consciously all of them preferred to be working. Thus, initially, everyone thought
the idea that their beliefs had anything to do with their employment situation
was total nonsense. It was the economy, their lack of education or opportunity, their race, and so on. But by the time each had done the DM Process,
eliminated a belief, and made real that he created his life, most of them acknowledged that their beliefs had played a major role in explaining the predicament they were in.
This is not to say that economic conditions, lack of training, and prejudice
have no impact on your ability to get a job. Clearly they do. Nevertheless, the
attitudes you project to people, the choices you make, and the opportunities
you fail to take advantage of are all a result of your beliefs.
2. Over the years I've collected many evaluations from corporate workshop participants. Here is a sample of what they've told me. You'll see that

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the DM Process not only has a positive impact directly on the company, it
also transforms the business and personal lives of the people who take the
workshops. As you read these comments, ask yourself what type of workforce and work environment they reflect and what results would be created.
"It helped me to solve my own personal problems so that I can go on to be
a more productive person."
"I understand that we live in boxes and that we must change our beliefs
before we can change our behaviors."
"You have totally changed my outlook on life, and I plan to make numerous changes at work and at home."
"I now know how to affect behavior, and that means there is no limit to
what I can do or what [my company] can do."
"I discovered that I created my life by my observations around me and the
way I interpreted the truth as I saw it."
"Understanding why I believe what I believe has allowed me to see things
differently."
"I believe that 'real' change is possible."
"It allows me to see how I can fulfill my passion and make my life
worthwhile."
In answer to the question What was the most valuable part of the workshop? participants answered:
"To see that I have control over my life and that I create my own life."
"The identification of beliefs as one perception of realitynot as absolute
fact! This revelation opened my eyes to my way of viewing the world and its
events. I feel more mature and powerful as a result of this understanding."

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"Being able to see why the things I want to change or do couldn't be done
in the past due to my beliefs."
"Getting rid of the belief that Tm not good enough.' This opens many new
doors now that I can take risks and it's okay to fail."
"To understand where my feelings were coming from when I was dealing
with my child and others I work with. Also, I seem to have more joy in my
life."
"The true understanding that beliefs can be changed, because this will allow us to improve both the organization and our personal lives."
"Learning to understand why people do the things they do. And how to
use that information to make my job and everyone else's job easier and more
effective."
"Finding out why we are what we are. It gives me a different outlook on
dealing with people, my family. It gives me a better sense that I can make a
difference and that I want to make a difference."
"The part about the possibilities (there is no 'the' truth) and how our beliefs
control our behavior. It opens up new possibilities to reach our corporate
mission."
"The realization that it is not someone's fault but a belief they have or the
culture that probably is responsible for their behavior. Understanding this
means I can focus on the real problem."
"Understanding why people resist change: that resistance is based on their
belief system. Knowing that will enable me to deal with resistance to
change."
"Realize beliefs control your life, not other people or situations. You can
always change. This will make a difference in how/what my future is."

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"The'one-on-one' [DM] process where I explored a personal belief and discovered it was not 'the truth.' Whybecause I truly understand the process
[of changing our culture] after I saw my belief disappear."
"Witnessing and realizing that I'm not the only person with the beliefs that
I have; they're not bad or good. And most of all that I literally have the power
within me to change anything and everything."
"Learning about peoples beliefs and how they affect people's behavior.
Learning that we can change our beliefs, that we dont have to be limited by
our beliefs. The possibilities for what we can do are limitless."
3. Michael Hammer and James Champy, Reengineering the Corporation:
A Manifesto for Business Revolution (New York: Harper Business, 1993),
pp. 60-62.
4. Another way to view the three types of change I describe for organizations is presented in Steps to an Ecology ofMindby Gregory Bateson (New
York: Ballantine Books, 1972). He distinguishes between three fundamental
types of learning, I, II, and III.
Learning I is "a change in specificity of response by correcting errors of
choice within a set of alternatives." Using the terminology in this book,
Learning I consists of changing your behavior from one option that is consistent with a belief to another option that is consistent with the same belief.
Learning II is "a corrective change in the set of alternatives from which
choice is made." Again translating to our terminology, it is a change from one
belief to another, which opens up new possibilities of behavior that are consistent with the new belief.
Learning III is "change in the process of Learning II, for example, a corrective change in the system of sets of alternatives from which choice is
made" (Bate-sons emphasis). In other words, it is operating as the creator, not
the creation; it is being able to shift "sets of alternatives" or beliefs at will.

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Bateson emphasizes that "there might be replacement of premises [i.e., beliefs] at the level of Learning II without the achievement of any Learning III
[so] it is therefore necessary to discriminate between mere replacement
without Learning III and that facilitation of replacement which would be
truly Learning III" (emphasis added).
5. William B. Joiner, "Leadership for Organizational Learning," in John
D. Adams, ed., Transforming Leadership (Alexandria, Va.: Miles River
Press, 1986), p. 42.
6. Peter Drucker, Managing in a Time of Great Change (New York: E.P.
Dut-ton/Truman Talley Books, 1955), p. 226.
7. Shoshanna Zuboff, In the Age of the Smart Machine: The Future of
Work and Power (New York: Basic Books, 1988).
8. In recent years many managers who operate out of this belief deny that
they hold it because they "know" it's no longer appropriate. The way to
determine if a manager has this belief is not to ask the manager but the workers who report to the manager. Their description of the manager's behavior
will allow you to determine quickly what the manager really believes.
9. Some organizations use face-to-face meetings, some use videotapes,
some use existing newsletters, and so on. Lands' End created a new publication called New Directions: Notes from Outside the Box. The company told
all employees that the publication was "a forum written by you, for you. This
newsletter will regularly describe the changes that we either have created
ourselves or have observed in others. Please keep sending, in a form we can
publish, all the changes you are aware ofbig and small, first order or
second order, in attitude or behaviorthat are supporting our new vision and
the creation of a third order culture here at Lands' End."

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10. The following letter, which was sent by the CEO and vice chairman at
Lands' End to 160 executives, managers, and professional staff, captures the
essence of what is required to create a Third Order organization.
Dear participants in the two-and-a-half-day Change Workshop:
We have just completed sixteen Change Thinking Workshops which were
attended by almost 160 executives and managers. On March 1 we started a
series of one-day workshops for most of the rest of the salaried staff, led by
Morty, which is a condensed version of the workshop you attended.
We have made this major commitment because we are determined to create a vital, growing learning organization at Lands' End. A company where
every one of our employees accepts responsibility for eliminating barriers
and creating an environment that supports each person in fulfilling our vision.
An organization where everyone is listened to and respected. Where creativity and innovation are nurtured. Where imagination flows. Where mistakes
are a part of the learning experience, not something punished. An organization where employees are excited about coming to work.
The evidence is mounting in the business world that employees at all
levelswhen provided with the appropriate information, training, and supportwill accept full responsibility for the success of their company and produce quantum improvements in productivity, quality, and
customer service. In fact, as more and more organizations empower their
entire workforce, it will be difficult for any organization that does not to
survive____
We must shift the role of managers here at Lands' End from figuring out
what others should do and then getting them to do it, to creating an environment in which workers figure out themselves what needs to be done to implement the vision, and [are then] empowered to do it themselves.

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To create this environment, each of us must accept responsibility for initiating change that supports our daily efforts to fulfill our vision. We must
identify the policies, practices, procedures, systems, and structures that inhibit us and then develop alternative ones that will support us.
In the workshops each of you was asked how much of our time is spent
actually creating value for customers. You responded that 75% to 90% of
your time was wasted overcoming barriers.
We must eliminate these barriers and free up time that doesn't create value
for customers. Only by making changes can this be accomplished.
When each of us accepts the responsibility for communicating the changes
we have made to the rest of the organization, we encourage others to make
changes. We want it to be clear to every single employee that changes are being made, and that everyone is expected to make them. Each manager must
prepare the people they manage to take on greater responsibility. (Human Resources has created a number of programs to support you in this endeavor.)
When people come to you with suggested changes, remember that we can't
say "no." We must be committed to assisting everyone in this company to
eliminate the barriers that inhibit them from fulfilling our vision.
Support each other. The changes we must make may not be easy for all of
us. We believe that most of us at Lands' End are open to change. If someone
responds negatively to your attempt to institute change, don't give up. If we
support each other, there's nothing we can't do....
Thank you.
(signed) Bill End and Dave Dyer 11. While I was writing this chapter I
called Jim Wessing, the current president of Kondex, and asked if he would send me a letter describing some of
the changes in the company that could be attributed to my assistance in helping it create a Third Order organization. Excerpts from his response follow:

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People have changed how they look at the world, both here at Kondex and
at home. Changing people's beliefs has led to people seeing a lot more
possibilities.
Several things have helped facilitate the idea that part of every Kondex
associate's job is to make improvements every day here at Kondex. You
helped us create an environment in which associates were truly encouraged to
make improvements. Part of what helped was creating trust by eliminating
punching in and out for the hourly workers and giving every team member
the authority to spend up to $100 to make improvements without the need for
approval from a manager. This action also supported our efforts to empower
Kondex associates to make improvements as they identified them.
In order to communicate the changes that are being made to everyone in
the company, we have company-wide meetings every Monday at which we
share with each other our goals for the week, what improvements we are
making, and any other information of interest to all Kondex associates. These
weekly meetings have opened up communication throughout the organization
and have allowed a tremendous increase in our improvement efforts.
We had been trying to reduce "cycle time," the number of days it took to
run an order through our shop, since 1987, when it took 33 days. Over the
next three years, we had reduced it 58%. During 1992, the year you did your
workshops with us, there was a farther reduction of 50%. It's now been
slightly over two years since you left and we have gotten cycle time down to
less than two days. [It is now down to less than 24 hours.]
We no longer measure how many reported changes and improvements associates make, but they occur daily here at Kondex. As you know we measured them at one time and we achieved one hundred in a couple of weeks.
Now they happen so fast that many of them are shared at our weekly meetings, and many are just implemented without anyone even thinking about
them.

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I also called Mike Copps, CEO of the Copps Corporation, and asked for a
similar letter. Excerpts from his response follow:
Through your leadership we bought into the idea that we're all limited by
our personal and corporate belief systems and that if we could remove some
or all of these negative aspects of our beliefs we would be much freer with
our thought process. Being freer we felt we could arrive at more intelligent
conclusions.
The majority of the effort in our group sessions was aimed at eliminating
those corporate beliefs that would inhibit us as individuals from doing the job
we felt we were capable of doing. Let me add that personal inhibiting beliefs
were also dealt with in our group sessions depending on the individual's personal choice. Subsequently each individual took it upon him or herself to
change that aspect of the organization that prevented him or her from fulfilling the job.
Once these issues were dealt with, the individuals within the group shared
a great sense of freedom to discuss what it is that our organization could and
should be. No limitationsno negatives from our corporate cultureno restrictions from the way we used to do things. This allowed us to formulate a
corporate mission for our organization. It was our belief that all of the financial variables would fall into place if we were able to achieve our mission.
Being in the food business and being a service organization, here is the actual
wording of our mission: To create a uniquely satisfying shopping experience
in which customers are offered products and services that exceed their
expectations.
To accomplish our mission we concluded that there were three absolutes
that had to be adhered to. Number one is the mission itself, two is a continual
increase in sales and profits, and three is the involvement of all our people. It
is noteworthy that there are no other financial variables listed other than sales
and profits, and this is purposeful. We don't want our thinking restricted. Any
of the other variables such as labor costs, supply costs, advertising expenses,

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etc. are all trade-offs and not ends in themselves. Our third absoluteinvolvementis by far the most important.
Incorporating the above has led us to a method of idea solicitation.
We call it our "mission in motion." Anyone in the organization can come
up with an idea that represents our mission in motion. We will automatically
incorporate that idea. We have developed methods of garnering those ideas
from all segments of our business. Our purpose is to accelerate implementation throughout the organization. With our mission in motion we have gone
from ideas such as providing umbrellas to our customers on rainy days to
wholesale changes in our reporting relationships and responsibilities.
We are continuously working at "getting out of the box." We also discuss
regularly going from Second to Third Order Change. There have been enormous improvements in our corporate culture and our ability to communicate
with each other as a result of having gone through your process. I might add
that our corporate sales and profits have continuously headed upward and
that at this moment we are experiencing record profits.
11: Making Society Work
1. Ron Miller, What Are Schools For? Holistic Education in American
Culture (Brandon, Vt.: Holistic Education Press, 1992), pp. 153,156-57.
2. Several books, in addition to Miller's, describe possible strategies, including The Universal Schoolhouse: Spiritual Awakening Through Education
by James Moffett (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1994); Schools That Work by
George Wood (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1992); and New Directions in Education: Selections from Holistic Education Review (Brandon, Vt.: Holistic
Education Press, 1991).
3. In order to see clearly the power of paradigms in determining an educational institution's purpose, goals, and strategies, compare the mission and
strategy of the Mead School, an alternative school in Greenwich,

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Connecticut, which my two children attend, with the national goals stated in
The Goals 2000: Educate America Act.
The Mead School's mission is: "to nurture in each child the power to create a personally meaningful life," and Mead expands on this mission by
stating:
The Mead School is a community dedicated to preserving and stimulating
the innate curiosity of each child, supporting emotional growth, and encouraging honest responsible relationships. We want students to express personal
feelings honestly, and to deal respectfully with the feelings of others. The development of autonomous learning, inner directedness, self-knowledge, responsibility to one's self and the community, and
lifelong learning are among our goals.
We value equally the development of a person's mind, body and spirit and
in addition to a traditional curriculumin which art, music, drama and body
are vital componentswe mean to emphasize concentration, reasoning, investigation, evaluation, decisionmaking that supports the individual,
decision-making that supports the community, intuition, and reflection. Our
aim is to encourage students to acquire the skills and confidence to express
themselves in all of these conventions.
In contrast, the national education goals declare that by the year 2000, "all
students will arrive at school ready to learn; the high school graduation rate
will be at least ninety percent; students will be competent in core academic
subjects; U.S. students will be first in the world in math and science; all
adults will be literate and skilled; every school will be free of drugs and violence; teachers will have a greater opportunity for professional development;
and every school will promote partnerships to increase parental involvement
in education."

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Notice that all these goals are consistent with the current paradigm. Notice
also the profound difference in emphasis between Mead's goals and our national goals for public education.
"Goals 2000 is America's blueprint for prosperity and world leadership,
and our children's guide to lives filled with productivity and the special rewards that only a quality education can provide."
Notice the emphasis on society ("prosperity," "world leadership," "productivity") rather than on the child/learner, which is consistent with the original purpose of public education, and contrast it with Miller's statements and
Mead's focus.
4. The worldview and values that form the basis of our culture and its institutions, especially our science, are primarily the result of the ideas promulgated by two men: Rene Descartes, a seventeenth-century Frenchman who
usually is regarded as the founder of modern philosophy, and Sir Isaac Newton, an Englishman who lived in the same century, who developed the mathematics that validated Descartes's theories.
To Descartes the material universe was nothing but a machine. There was
no purpose, life, or spirituality in matter. Nature worked according to mechanical laws, and everything in the material world could be explained in terms
of
the arrangement and movement of its parts. Descartes gave scientific
thought its general framework: the view of nature as a perfect machine, governed by exact mathematical laws. He went so far as to assert, "I do not recognize any difference between the machines made by craftsmen and the
various bodies that nature alone composes."
The man who realized the Cartesian dream and completed the Scientific
Revolution was Newton, who developed a complete mathematical formulation of the mechanistic view of nature. Newtonian physics provided a

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consistent mathematical theory of the world that remained the solid foundation of scientific thought well into the twentieth century.
The Newtonian universe was one huge mechanical system, operating according to exact mathematical laws. In the Newtonian view, in the beginning
God created the material particles, the forces between them, and the fundamental laws of motion. In this way the whole universe was set in motion, and
it has continued to run ever since, like a machine, governed by immutable
laws. All that happens has a definite cause and gives rise to a definite effect,
and the future of any part of the system couldin principlebe predicted
with absolute certainty if its state at any time was known in all details.
The absolute split Descartes made between spirit and matter resulted in a
world that could be described objectively, without ever mentioning the human observer. Moreover, this objective description of nature became the
ideal of all science. (This summary of Decartess and Newton's philosophy
was taken from The Turning Point by Fritjof Capra [New York: Bantam
Books, 1983].)
5. Steven Locke and Norman Colligan, The Healer Within: The New
Medicine of Mind and Body, pp. 8-9.
6. Ibid., p. 10.
7. Thomas Kuhn, in his brilliant book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2nd ed., 1970), p. 24, points out
that most of normal science "seems an attempt to force nature into the preformed and relatively inflexible box that the paradigm supplies. No part of
the aim of normal science is to call forth new sorts of phenomena; indeed,
those that will not fit the box are often not seen at all Nor do scientists normally aim to invent new theories, and they are often intolerant of those invented by others. Instead, normal-scientific research is directed to the articulation
of these phenomena and theories that the paradigm already supplies' (emphasis added).

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8. Deepak Chopra, Ageless Body; Timeless Mind: The Quantum Alternative to Growing Old (New York: Harmony Books, 1993), p.18.
9. Norman Cousins, Head First: The Biology of Hope, p. 259,279.
10. In The Health of Nations: True Causes of Sickness and Weil-Being
(New York: Basic Books, 1987), Leonard Sagan has pointed out that "those
who are competent and have confidence in themselves and in their ability to
control their own lives will experience better health outcomes than those who
do not----Another dimension that must be incorporated into our notion of
health is an understanding and appreciation for the preeminent role of early
childhood in forming the attitudes and values that are fundamental in the
formation of a healthy personality. Our current biomedical paradigm focuses
narrowly on adult behavior, on diet and particularly on physical fitness as the
primary determinant of health, and largely ignores the fundamental role of
our self-esteem, and our ability to form affectionate relationships with others,
and finally, to feel ourselves to be in charge our of own lives. It is in these
qualities that true health lies."
Dr. Sagan concludes: "Our health care system should change its emphasis
from its current exclusive concern with disease care to also encompass health
care.... Once we recognize that health is more closely related to pride and
self-sufficiency than to trace contaminants in the environment, then the resources and imagination to achieve improved health will become available."
11. Lynda H. Powell, interview, New York Times, Connecticut Section, 8
September 1991.
12. An important caveat: There is no firm evidence of which I am aware
that any given belief, emotion, or attitude will always cause an illness. The
evidence indicates, however, that certain mental states do seem to predispose
you to illness; they are cofactors rather than causes. (We all know examples
of miserable, depressed, anxious people who were criticizing, complaining,
and expressing bitterness well into their eighties and nineties, in seemingly
fine health.)

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If you have some of the beliefs, attitudes, or emotions that have been associated with specific illnesses (such as heart disease, hypertension, cancer, and
immune function disorders), that does not mean you will necessarily get the
disease. It is worth noting, however, that the same negative attitudes, beliefs,
and emotions that weaken your immune system and predispose you to illness
also impair your enjoyment and success in life. When you eliminate them,
you not
only decrease your susceptibility to disease, you also improve your day-today life and experience greater satisfaction.
13. Larry Dossey, Beyond Illness (Boston: Shambhala, 1985), p. 108.
14. Despite the fact that the medical establishment and politicians still operate out of the old paradigm, a large number of physicians and an even larger number of patients already have accepted a new health care model. David
Eisen-berg of the Harvard Medical School described some startling statistics
in a January 28,1993, article in the New England Journal of Medicine. The
results of a 1990 survey, Dr. Eisenberg wrote, showed that 34 percent of the
American population paid for some form of alternative therapy that year,
which included 425 million visits to nonconventional medical practitioners.

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