The 12 New Rules (Frederic M. Hudson, Ph.D. & Pamela McLean, Ph.D.) provide a significant, inspiring and practical set of principles for living an effective and meaningful life. I am grateful to them and many others who have influenced my development as talent management practitioner and leadership coach.
1. No one owes you anything ~ not the government, your employer, your family, or your spouse. Although the world around you is less and less definite and predictable, it is no less valuable and mysterious. To rejoice in living you must invent your own future, entrepreneur your life, and expect surprises.
2. Global change is the major force in your life, and in the lives of everyone on earth. We are all in training for a new era for all humanity. Don’t whine about it. Take advantage of the expanding possibilities now available to you in our world of constant flow.
3. You have no ultimate safety, security, or guarantees, so don’t expect any. What you have are endless opportunities to rearrange your priorities for work, play, and life. Choose wisely, and expect more choices to follow.
4. Your life is an adventure, a journey through time. There are no lasting arrival points and few lasting endings. Everything is flow ~ you just keep moving, day by day, and week by week, following your internal compass for adventuring through the long haul of ninety years or more. You live on a boat in a river, flowing in whitewater from the alleged reference points of yesterday to the utter unknown of tomorrow. Learn how to say “hello” and “good-bye” with grace and style.
5. Know how to recycle yourself. Live each chapter of your life fully, then invest in a transition and begin the next chapter. Weave, unravel, and reweave your life, over and over. No matter what your age or situation, design your future as your manifest destiny.
6. The best way to guide your life through infinite change is to follow your own values and vision. Like a rudder, your values will keep you on a course your integrity prefers. Like a sail, your vision will pull you ahead into legitimate expectations.
7. Your best future happens when you have the courage to be: reach, learn, risk, dare, leap. Embrace the unknown ahead. Live on the outer edge of your possibilities, not on the inner edge of your security. Be active, not passive. Lean into the wind.
8. Here is how to conduct your journey: Have a long-term purpose with short-term goals. Be definite and flexible. Trust the ocean but stay in charge of your boat. Ride the waves.
9. Refuse to be defined and consumed by your career work. It’s an important part of the whole journey, but it’s not the journey itself. Your deepest agenda is your soul’s work, your holistic callings to create success and caring in all the parts of your life.
10. Everyone on earth is linked to the same destiny. We share the same air, water, food, and capacities for total destruction. We are in each other’s hands, one for all and all for one. Interdependence is our expectation.
11. Learn how to grow older and better. Achieve mastery as a human being ~ model wholeness, wisdom, and caring. Rewrite the myths of aging with your evolving presence and leadership. Be grateful. Leave a legacy that makes a difference.
12. As you find better rules ~ and you will ~ replace these rules with them.
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