That’s why those who know me best would lay 100-to-1 odds that I would never make a spur-of-the-moment decision to hop on a train and head for New York on New Year’s Eve.  And they would have lost their shirts on that bet this year.

What they would have failed to take into consideration was a phenomenon known as “temporary insanity.”  It was my wife’s birthday, plus my son loves Times Square, so I impulsively blurted out, “What the heck.  Let’s do it!” (Translation: “I’m game for a good refresher lesson on why impulsiveness is not a good habit.”)

The next thing I knew, my wife, my son, and I were on an Amtrak train heading for the Big Apple.  We were looking forward to two events — being in Times Square when the countdown to midnight started and gorging ourselves on the Stage Delicatessen’s version of health food.

We pulled into Penn Station about 9:30 p.m.  All we needed to do was go up to the street level, walk a few blocks, and we’d be in the heart of Times Square.  “Hey,” I thought to myself, “this spontaneous stuff is great.”

To our surprise, however, after walking a few blocks up Seventh Avenue, we ran smack into a barricade manned by a battalion of New York’s finest.  They directed us, and thousands of other people, to head toward Eighth Avenue — the opposite direction from Times Square!

The next thing we knew, we were trudging up Eighth Avenue in a scene right out of the movie Escape from New York.  Hoodlums, street people, schizophrenics — you name it — were coming and going in every direction.  I felt like we were drowning in a sea of tattoos and earrings … every kind of tattoo you could imagine.  One guy had a tattoo on his forehead that was either a serpent or Nancy Pelosi, but I couldn’t tell for sure which it was.

But the earrings were even wilder.  Earrings in noses … earrings in tongues … earrings in eyelids … earrings in belly buttons.  I stopped at the belly buttons. I didn’t want to think about where else the earrings might be located.  The only thing I was sure of was that I would never again buy my wife a pair of earrings.

We tried to go back toward Seventh Avenue and Times Square every few blocks, but at each entry point we were turned back by a brigade of police.Finally, we reached the end of the line — Central Park.  No luck there, either. The barricade ran from Eighth Avenue across Central Park South to the end of the earth.

Resigning myself to the fact that we were not going to see the ball drop in Times Square at midnight, I concluded it was time to throw in the towel and head for the Stage Deli.  Once there, we could drown our disappointment in saturated fat, cholesterol, salt, and lots of sugar (disguised as strawberry cheesecake).

Only one problem:  I forgot that the police had blocked off all entries to Seventh Avenue, which is where the Stage Deli is located, between 53rd and 54th Streets.  Not being able to celebrate New Year’s Eve in Times Square was one thing, but keeping me from my fair share of corned beef, chopped liver, dill pickles, and cheesecake was a clear violation of my civil rights.  I thought about calling Al Sharpton on my cell phone to help me form a picket line, but decided against it.

Finally, after the responsible area of my brain had taken control, we ended up at an Italian restaurant on Eighth Avenue.  The food was somewhere on a par with the culinary offerings at Abu Ghraib Prison.  The only thing missing was the nudity.

We left the restaurant and again wandered through the sea of tattoos and earrings on Eighth Avenue.  Suddenly, at 54th Street — at about 1:00 a.m. — I saw that the police were beginning to remove the barricades.

Mental flashbulb:  We’ll go to the Stage Deli for cheesecake dessert!  It would be a perfect ending to a less-than-perfect night.  Before you knew it, we were turning the corner at 54th Street and Seventh Avenue and marching resolutely toward the Stage Deli.

But when you see through the windows that the chairs are stacked up on the tables, it’s not a good omen of things to come.  Sure enough, the door was locked and the sign hanging on it was fairly easy to understand:  CLOSED!

Once again, my civil rights had been violated.  I had a right to that cheesecake I was looking at through the window.  After all, wasn’t it guaranteed by some constitutional amendment?  Something like, “Congress shall make no law prohibiting people from eating cheesecake, especially on New Year’s Eve.”  I’m almost certain I read about that amendment somewhere.  Come Monday, I’d have to check it out with the ACLU.

We arrived back at Penn Station in time for our 2:45 a.m. departure. Three-plus hours of trying to find a comfortable position … dozing off and on … stuffy, stifling heat … clickety-clack, clickety-clack.  Mercifully, our New Year’s Eve trip to New York and back came to an end at around 6:00 a.m.

The only thing I love more than learning is a refresher lesson that keeps me on my toes.  That’s why, as George Orwell put it in his classic book 1984, the best books are those that tell you what you already know.

Learning, relearning, and motivation are like eating:  You have to do them every day.  For me, spontaneity is not a healthy way to fill one’s needs, but even I manage to slip every five to ten years and do something impulsive.

I recognize that millions of people live by the philosophy “let it all hang out” and “live for the moment.”  But what works for me is avoiding impulsive action and relying more on my intellect.  I like to check and double-check the facts. I like to be in control of events rather than allowing events to control me.  I like to know when, where, and how things are going to happen.

None of these traits detracts from my being an action-oriented person.  On the whole, I move pretty fast, but I like to give myself the benefit of some thought prior to taking action.

Finally, I reminded myself that nothing gives me a greater feeling of control than religiously following my own routine.  Spontaneous action is simply against my nature.  In his book Ageless Body, Timeless Mind, Deepak Chopra lists a daily personal routine and regular work routine as two factors that retard the aging process.  Nice to know.

In truth, my little tale about my New Year’s Eve experience was more comedy than tragedy.  But if one engages in a steady diet of impulsive action in either his personal or business life, he’s sure to end up with far more of the latter than the former.

It goes without saying that some people are more naturally creative than others, but the same can be said of any human trait.  A person with a high IQ might breeze through school with a “B” average, but a person with an average IQ can become an “A” student if he’s willing to invest enough time and effort in his studies.

The same is true of athletes.  There are great athletes in every major sport who never rise above mediocrity, while guys like Larry Bird (slow and no jumping ability) and Emmett Smith (small and not particularly fast) became legends.

And so it is with creativity.  What it gets down to is price paying.  If you want to become more creative, you have to be willing to put forth the effort necessary to do those things that lead to increased creativity.

One of the most encouraging facts about the brain that researchers have discovered is that intelligence is not a prerequisite to creativity.  IQ tests focus on convergent thinking, which views a problem as having only one solution.  There is no creativity involved in this process.  To be creative, you have to think divergently, which entails considering many solutions.  And that, in turn, requires you to disregard conventional wisdom and consider far-ranging possibilities.

Studies have demonstrated that the left hemisphere of the brain is responsible for convergent thinking, while the right hemisphere is the home of divergent thinking.  Thus, a person with severe left-brain damage can still be creative.

Anyone who has ever watched young children at play knows that they tend to be very creative.  However, their creativity becomes suppressed by a school system that values conformity and specific answers to specific questions.

Further conformity is demanded, or at least encouraged, on job applications and in the workplace.  The cerebral risk-taker who dares to go against conventional wisdom does so at his own peril.  If his unconventional idea is adopted and proves to be a winner, he may very well be on his way to the presidency of the company.  But if he’s wrong, he may be looking for a new job.

Those who are self-employed don’t have to worry about getting fired, but they do have to worry about going broke.  Thus, one of the prerequisites for creativity is having a well-endowed lower anatomy.

Knowledge is another factor that is critical to creative thinking, in at least two ways.  First, because the left brain is the cerebral filing cabinet for specific knowledge, it keeps the creative right brain from running wild.  We’ve all known people who come up with an idea a minute, but most of their ideas either fail or never get off the ground.  Usually, it’s a result of their lacking enough specific knowledge in their brain to silence their creative right brain and tell it to move on to the next idea.

Second, and even more important, if your left brain is overflowing with knowledge, your right brain has access to the material it needs to be creative.  Good ideas and concepts are only as good as the knowledge upon which they are based.

What comes into play here is the Schlock Blocker, which states: For every hour spent watching schlock TV — e.g., Survivor, The Bachelor, The Apprentice — the left brain is deprived of an hour’s worth of valuable knowledge that could be gained by reading a serious book.

But it gets even trickier.  There is convincing evidence that too much specialized knowledge can actually inhibit creativity.  Viktor Frankl alluded to this problem when he described an expert as a person who no longer sees the forest of truth for the trees of facts.

When it comes to the arts, in particular, too much knowledge can be detrimental to creativity.  Researchers have discovered that people who experience severe left-brain damage become less inhibited and more creative in such skills as drawing and painting.

This is because the left brain organizes our social skills and tends to repress “eccentricity” and nonconformity.  There is a strong suspicion that Vincent van Gogh’s wackiness was a result of left-hemisphere brain damage, which in turn gave him the freedom to be totally uninhibited in his right-brain artwork.

Today, Hollywood is overflowing with artistically creative people who talk as though they’ve had group left-brain lobotomies.  If one gives them the benefit of the doubt and assumes they are well-meaning, one is also forced to conclude that their clueless babbling on such topics as politics, world peace, and the environment stems from a lack of knowledge.  But this lack of knowledge does not get in the way of their artistic creativity.

Finally, it is much easier to be creative when you’re not under pressure. That’s why it’s a good idea to get away from your office periodically and relax.  Some of my best ideas have come to me while cruising at thirty-five thousand feet — no telephone, no e-mails, no projects piling up all around me.  Vacations, ball games, attending conferences, and just going for long walks all serve the same purpose.

Above all, develop the habit of grabbing hold of random, creative thoughts and quickly getting them down on paper.  Nothing frustrates me more than realizing that a great idea I came up with yesterday is gone because I was so certain I’d remember it that I didn’t take the time to write it down.

To discourage this lazy habit, I keep pads and pens everywhere — throughout the house, in my car, and next to my bed.  Be rigidly self-disciplined when it comes to writing down your ideas, especially those that are the most extreme or that you’re positive you’ll remember.

It’s also a good idea to always be ready to put your DVR into action, because you never know when some great tidbit is going to make its way in between the standard schlock programming and appear on your television screen — provided you watch the right channels, of course.

Lastly, and most important, I believe that creativity flows from action. Action stimulates your brain cells and gets your creative juices flowing. What happens when you take action is that the atoms in your brain increase the speed of their vibrations, which causes your “mental paradigm” to expand. And when that occurs, you begin to see new ideas, new concepts, and new possibilities that you may not have previously considered.

That’s why you can’t afford to wait until you become motivated to take action.  Instead, you have to employ your free will and force yourself to take action.  And when you do, motivation is almost sure to follow.  In other words, don’t make the mistake of waiting for something to happen; make it happen!

Remember, to be successful in business, the three most important areas you have to focus on are strategizing, innovating, and marketing.  And since all three require creative thinking, it’s imperative to your success that you constantly hone this remarkable human trait.

Merkle’s infamous mental lapse took place on September 23, 1908, in the last half of the ninth inning against the Chicago Cubs.  With the score tied and two outs, the Giants had runners on first (Merkle) and third (Moose McCormick), when Al Bridwell singled to centerfield.

On the hit, Merkle was still on his way to second base when McCormick crossed home plate with what appeared to be the winning run.  But when Merkle saw McCormick score, he thought the game was over and didn’t bother to go all the way to second base.  Instead, he headed straight for the clubhouse.

Unlike Fred Merkle, however, the Cubs’ Johnny Evers was alert to what was going on.  He immediately realized that even though the runner had already crossed home plate, the run wouldn’t count if a forced runner (Merkle) was thrown out at second.  He yelled to the Cubs’ centerfielder “Solly” Hofman to throw him the ball.  By at least by one account of the chaotic scenario, the ball went over Evers’ head, and Cubs third-base coach Joe McGinnity scooped it up.  Realizing what was about to happen, McGinnity threw the ball into the stands.

Relentlessly, Evers climbed into the stands and retrieved the ball (or, according to some accounts, “a” ball), called to one of the umpires that there was a force play at second base, and touched the bag.  The umpire, who also had been alert enough to note that Merkle had not bothered to touch second base, called him out.  Because of the ensuing chaos, and with darkness setting in, the game was ruled a tie.  The Giants disputed the tie ruling, but the National League office upheld the umpire’s decision.

After that historic game, the Giants, who had been in first place prior to the game, fell apart in the last two weeks of the season.  Further, to rub insult into injury, the Cubs won the pennant.  (Little did Cub fans realize, of course, that it would be their last pennant of the century.)

Today, more than a century after the fact, this historic moment is still referred to in baseball lore as “Merkle’s Bonehead Play.”  And Fred Merkle became forever labeled “Bonehead Merkle” for his infamous mental lapse.

Poor Fred Merkle.  He got labeled a dunce for making the same kind of mistake most of us make many times throughout our lives.  Everyone forgets to “touch all the bases” at one time or another.

In politics, for example, we see this same lack of follow-through occur all the time.  Most of us are not old enough to remember Harry Truman’s upset of New York Governor Thomas Dewey in the presidential election of 1948, but we’ve read about it and seen it on television many times.

While Truman traveled the country and “gave ’em hell” from the back of his campaign train, Dewey coasted.  He was focused on prematurely celebrating rather than on touching all the bases and making certain that Truman wouldn’t rise from the dead.  Not only was Dewey an odds-on favorite to beat Truman, the failed haberdasher from Missouri, but some headlines the morning after the election actually declared Dewey the winner.

And so it goes.  As an author, I can assure you from firsthand experience that writing a book is all about following through and touching all the bases.  For each book I write, I have a checklist of over one hundred items that I painstakingly address after I work my way through twenty to twenty-five drafts.  If an author’s aim is quality, he has to be willing to invest an enormous amount of time and effort in making certain that no important steps are missed.

The broader message I’ve been leading up to in this article is that you shortchange yourself if you fail to touch all the bases during your short stay on this planet.  Take reading, for example.  The last thing in the world you want to do is miss the one book that might have had a major impact on how you lived your life.

Touch all the bases.  Make the effort to get up out of your chair, walk over and pick up the camera, and take a picture of that special moment in time that will otherwise be lost forever.  Take the time to listen to your kids … play sports with them … laugh with them … communicate with your spouse … exercise … listen to good music … be active.  Make a conscious effort to touch all the bases while you’re here, because you have no way of knowing if you’re ever going to pass this way again.

I believe that the reason those words jumped out of my mouth, without my even taking a few seconds to ponder the question, was because of my belief that most people tend to ignore or skim over the basics.  By “basics,” I am referring to things that are often so obvious that people simply don’t bother to give them much thought.  Which is unfortunate, because the basics are the building blocks of success.

Rules No. 1 and 2 are as basic as you can get.  Why?  Because unhealthy people tend to perform at a sub-par level, and low-level performance does not lead to success.  As to staying alive, dead people don’t perform at all.  Just think of James Dean, Elvis, Andy Gibb, Bobby Darin, John Belushi, John Denver, Pete Maravich, Freddy Prinze, Reggie White — the list of celebrities who died at a young, or relatively young, age goes on and on.  And most of these early deaths could have been avoided.

For example, a lot of famous people have died as a result of drug overdoses. I don’t like the odds against living a long and healthy life when you put abusive substances into your body, so I choose to pass on drugs.  Drugs are a choice one makes.

John Denver, John F. Kennedy, Jr., Jim Croce, Ricky Nelson, Buddy Holly, and undefeated world heavyweight champion Rocky Marciano all died in private-plane crashes.  I realize that the weekend pilots reading this article will take issue with my assessment, but, personally, I don’t like the odds of flying in a small plane, either.

Of all the things that can kill you, however, the one that poses the greatest danger is obesity (primarily through heart attack, stroke, and diabetes). Since “obesity” is a subjective term, perhaps it would be more appropriate just to say that eating too much food and/or eating unhealthy food is an irresponsible behavior that can lead to illness and death.

Again, what I’m talking about here are Rules No. 1 & 2 for making money: stay alive and stay healthy.  Don’t make the mistake of ignoring or waving aside these two fundamental issues just because they are so obvious.

The reason this subject is so dear to my heart (hmm … maybe not such a good word choice) is because I had a severe weight problem for many years. As a result, I have a great deal of empathy for the tens of millions of people in America who are overweight.

We’ve all heard the age-old theme:  If I can do it, anyone can.

This is a theme that applies to me in spades when it comes to taking off weight, because I inherently “think fat.”  When I say I “think fat,” I mean I can relate to Dom DeLuise and his chubby pals in the movie Fatso when they chanted in unison, “Get the honey!” … then proceeded to rip off the kitchen-cabinet doors.

Like most overweight people, my dinosauric eating habits developed at a very young age. I ate anything and everything I could get my hands on. We’re talking extra-large pizzas … two double-cheeseburgers, two orders of fries, and two extra-thick shakes at a sitting … and a whole salami and a loaf of white bread for a nightcap!  Homer Simpson eats like an anorexic compared to me in my heyday.

During my teen years, my habit of vacuuming in any stray food within reach didn’t cause me a weight problem, because I played sports for hours on end. Then, a funny thing happened on the way to growing up.  My endless hours of exercise dwindled, but my caloric intake did not.  As a result, I soon became grossly overweight and shockingly out of shape.

For years, I felt lousy, and the quality and quantity of my work output was in a downward spiral.  What changed everything for me was when I came to realize that even though I loved food, overeating is not an addiction; it’s a state of mind.  In other words, I thought like a fat person.  Meaning that even if I wasn’t hungry, I would eat, because that’s what a fat person is supposed to do.  It was a Psycho-Cybernetics issue.

The reason I decided to tell on myself is that in the event you are one of the millions of people in this country who are overweight, I suggest you attack the problem with your gray matter.  A responsible-behavior mind-set is a hundred times more effective than the greatest diet book ever written.

Specifically, this means declaring war on that part of your brain that thinks fat — and understanding that it’s a lifetime war.  Today, people constantly comment about how thin I am.  Little do they know that I’m really a closet fat person, because I still think fat.

In fact, I still periodically go for the ice cream or the jar of gourmet hydrogenated fat (a.k.a. peanut butter).  But what’s been different about the past 25 years or so when it comes to my personal Battle of the Bulge is that my responsible-behavior brain cells never fail to come to my rescue and overwhelm my think-fat brain cells.

I’ve had some close calls, but the responsible cells always manage to win. And because weight is quantifiable, the tool I use to help them win is my bathroom scale.  I monitor the situation every morning and every night to eliminate the possibility of deluding myself.

The result is that even though I still think fat, I manage to eat thin — at least most of the time — because I’ve learned to intellectualize the problem of unhealthy eating habits.  To intellectualize means “to give something a rational structure,” and giving something a rational structure leads to responsible behavior.

In other words, it’s 100 percent mental — mind over calories.  I focus on ingesting fruits, vegetables, and whole grains before the eating machine within me starts reaching for the saturated fat, cholesterol, salt, and sugar.

So if you’re one of my think-fat soul mates, take heart (hmm … there’s that word again).   I’m willing to bet that I love food more than you do. Modesty aside, I’m also willing to bet I can out eat you blindfolded.  Having said that, what’s more important is that I choose not to.

Yes, definitely, if I can do it, anyone can.  Someday, I’ll probably write an article about another important component of staying alive and healthy: exercise.  And if you want to be around to read that article, you would do well to heed Rules No. 1 & 2.

But RMS is just one aspect of a much broader problem — the consequences that tend to flow from any kind of false perception of reality, no matter what the cause.  False perceptions brought about by RMS are the result of what we commonly refer to as “brainwashing” or “the power of suggestion.”

Interestingly, good advertising and good salesmanship use this same tool to try to guide consumers’ perception of reality.  If successful, it can result in sales, to be sure.  But it also can result in dissatisfied customers if such customers later believe they were misled.

Action is the starting point of all progress, but an accurate perception of reality is the foundation upon which a successful person bases his actions.  A false perception of reality leads to false premises, which in turn leads to false assumptions, which in turn leads to false conclusions, which, ultimately, leads to negative results.

If a batter perceives that the pitcher has just released a fastball, but in fact the pitch is a curve, there’s a high probability he’s going to swing and miss. If a woman perceives that her boyfriend is the perfect mate, but he turns out to be Scott Peterson or O.J. Simpson, her false perception can even be fatal.  The point is that the roots of success are planted in one’s perception of the world.

The late conservative economist Henry Hazlitt once wrote that an entrepreneur’s success is to a great degree dependent upon how accurately he can predict the future.  And, though the entrepreneur may not consciously think about it, those predictions are based on his perception of reality.

For example, I’ve seen one case after another of a person having a warped perception of what he brings to the negotiating table, which usually results in his walking away empty-handed.  Homeowners are often guilty of this kind of self-delusion when they harbor an inflated perception of the value of their houses.

False perceptions also run rampant in the publishing business.  First-time authors usually believe that a publisher will heavily promote their books. Unfortunately, such a perception is pure fantasy.  Publishers do not promote books; they print and distribute them.

On the other side of this coin, most first-time authors also tend to believe that they’ve written War and Peace and that their masterpiece will sell quickly through word of mouth.  Again, such perceptions are pure fantasy. An author has a better chance of winning the lottery.

The kinds of inaccurate perceptions one can harbor in business dealings are literally infinite. But there is one perception that is probably more costly than any other.  The faulty perception I am referring to occurs when you become involved in a business deal with someone who is clearly unethical.

A business acquaintance of mine had an uncanny knack for becoming entangled with dishonest people.  His problem was that he was a romantic. He simply couldn’t stop himself from becoming enamored with every guy who crossed his path wearing a fake Rolex.  And the more such an all-show-and-no-dough person boasted about his accomplishments, the more mesmerized he became.  As you might have guessed, he spent more time in court than he did working on his business.

I can’t give you a surefire formula for being able to differentiate between honorable and disreputable people, because I myself still manage to get my body parts caught in the wrong place from time to time.  Happily, however, I have noticed two changes in my life with regard to this problem.

First, it happens to me much less frequently.  And that tells me that I’ve improved my perception of people.  Second, when I do find myself involved with someone who bears a moral likeness to Hugo Chavez, I make it a point to exit quickly — even if I have to do so at a loss.

While I said that I can’t give you a surefire formula for being able to differentiate between honorable and disreputable people, I can tell you how you can increase your odds of becoming involved with an unethical individual. All you need to do to accomplish such a masochistic feat is carelessly confuse your wishes with reality.

This emotional mistake happens most often when your desire to do a deal is so great that you ignore the neon sign on the other person’s forehead that reads:  “LSCD” — Lie, Steal, Cheat, Deceive.  The only antidote I know for avoiding this mistake is to be relentlessly vigilant when it comes to not allowing your desires to override what your eyes, ears, and gut tell you.

All this may seem far removed from the phenomenon of recovered memory syndrome, but it’s not.  RMS is often nothing more than a false perception of reality brought about by the power of suggestion.  And that same power of suggestion, whether it comes from someone else or is self-administered, can lead to false perceptions in any area of life.

Which is why it’s incumbent upon you to become adept at distinguishing between reality and illusion.  A false perception of reality — regardless of the cause — automatically leads to failure.  An accurate perception of reality doesn’t guarantee success, but it’s an excellent first step in the right direction.

You can’t put too much conscious effort into sharpening your perception of reality.  It’s mentally hard work, but everything worthwhile is hard.  The more you’re willing to pay the price of vigilance in this area, the more often you’ll find yourself enjoying the benefits.

Puzo, who passed away in 1999, wrote a number of bestselling novels, including The Godfather, Fools Die, and The Last Don.  But what I really liked about Puzo was his legendary tongue-in-cheek interviews.  One of my favorite Puzo comments was when he warned aspiring scriptwriters that the only way to get a fair deal in Hollywood is to go into the studio with a mask and gun.

I was amazed at how many of Puzo’s rules apply not only to fiction, but to nonfiction books as well.  And even more amazed at how much they apply to life in general.  Following are five of Puzo’s rules that I believe can be of great benefit to you if you apply them to your daily life.

Puzo Rule No. 1:  “Never show your stuff to anybody.  You can get inhibited.”

Anyone who is serious about writing — whether it’s fiction, nonfiction, or copywriting — should take this advice seriously.  The most dynamic writing is from the heart.

While my first two books, from a writing standpoint, were not up to par with my more recent books, they grabbed people in a way that publishers are incapable of understanding.  There is no question in my mind that the reason people have been so zealous about these books over the years is because I “let it all hang out” in my storytelling.

In other words, volunteering my own mistakes and shortcomings in writing makes it easy for readers to relate to me.  Yet, on those few occasions when I showed my manuscript to others, they often suggested that I should remove certain material which they felt was too “disrobing.”

Be careful about who you show your work to, no matter what business you’re in.  When you become inhibited, your creativity and genius become suffocated in the process.

Puzo Rule No. 2: “Rewriting is the whole secret to writing.”

Actually, I first learned this secret from the late Ayn Rand, who pointed out that there’s no such thing as writing; there’s only rewriting.  I’ve based my whole career on this principle.

I once asked an elderly friend of mine, who was Bob Hope’s executive producer for twenty-five years, if it was difficult to write a joke.  He replied, “It’s no more difficult than writing a postcard, and to write a postcard is easy … but to write a good postcard is hard.”

I recall someone once saying to me, “It must be nice to be able to knock out a book as quickly as you do.”  Whereupon I asked what made him think I could “knock out” a book quickly.

He responded, “Because your books are written so simply, it’s obvious that you don’t put a lot of time into them.”  Fortunately, I was able to control my emotions by reminding myself that capital punishment had been reinstated. So, in lieu of going the homicide route, I smiled and said, “I guess you’re right.  I’m lucky to have such an easy job.”  I then calmly walked away.

All quality products — not just books — are easy for the consumer for only one reason:  The people who create them put a ton of work into making them easy.  In my case, I do about twenty-five drafts of every book I write. And the main purpose of doing all those rewrites is to make it as clear and easy as possible for the reader to understand my message.

Perhaps advertising pioneer Claude Hopkins put it best when he said, “Genius is the art of taking pains.”  Repetition, polishing, relentlessly striving to make your product the best it can be is what lifts you above the competition.

Puzo Rule No. 3: “Never sell your book to the movies until after it is published.”

I’ve employed the essence of this strategy for more than two decades, and one of the things I’ve found is that it’s also a great mistake — at least for a first-time author — to try to make a publishing deal on the basis of an outline.  And it’s just as true of any other industry when it comes to making a deal on the basis of a business plan alone.

Why?  Because people either can’t, or won’t, stretch their imaginations enough to share your vision.  That being the case, be sure to have something concrete to show the other person if you’re trying to raise money or make a deal — regardless of the business you’re in.

I attribute much of my early success as an author to the fact that I not only wrote my books before showing them to a paperback publisher, but promoted the hardcover editions into bestsellers first.  Once a book was a success in hardcover, I was then able to command a large advance from a paperback publisher.

Puzo Rule No. 4:  “Never let a domestic quarrel ruin a day’s writing.  If you can’t start the next day fresh, get rid of your wife.”

Vintage Puzo — tongue-in-cheek, yet good advice.  In my book Action! Nothing Happens Until Something Moves, I similarly advise readers:

“A spouse who continually berates you for pursuing your dreams is a classic example of someone close to you who can derail your best-laid plans.  It still amazes me how many letters I’ve received over the years from people who have told me they parted ways with a spouse or domestic partner after reading one of my books — which almost always resulted in a better life.  This used to make me feel uncomfortable, but after rechecking my premises I began to feel good about the fact that I had helped so many people find happier, more fulfilling lives.  Don’t for a second think that I’m making light of divorce, but spending a lifetime with a person who makes every minute of your existence unpleasant is a far worse alternative than enduring the pain of a divorce.”

Unlike Puzo, for the sake of political correctness I have used the word “spouse” in this article rather than “wife.”  As a matter of fact, most of the letters I’ve received from people who got rid of their spouses have been from women.

Puzo Rule No. 5:  “Never trust anybody but yourself.  That includes critics, friends, and especially publishers.”

This is closely related to Rule No. 1, but it goes beyond the problem of inhibition.  It gets at the very heart of creating work that represents your own skills and beliefs rather than what someone else thinks your work should be.

When it comes to writing, the late essayist E.B. White summed it up perfectly when he wrote, “The whole duty of a writer is to please and satisfy himself, and the true writer always plays to an audience of one.”

This can sometimes create a sticky situation between an author and editor. So-called line editing, or proofreading, is one thing.  But content editing is quite another.  Though editors, on the whole, tend to be very bright people with excellent technical skills, it takes a special kind of editor not to overreach.

In any event, editors are professionals.  What’s alarming is how easily many would-be authors are influenced by the input of their nonprofessional friends and associates.  If you don’t have enough confidence in your own writing — or whatever it is you do for a living — to follow your own instincts, you probably should consider changing professions.

How can so-called experts be so consistently wrong?  To paraphrase Viktor Frankl, an expert is nothing more than a person who no longer sees the forest of truth for the trees of facts.

Finally, a parting Mario Puzo bonus for you, straight out of The Godfather: “He made him an offer he couldn’t refuse.”

Now, I’m not suggesting that you start putting horse heads in people’s beds when things don’t work out your way.  (Though I might have enjoyed doing just that to the guy who told me how easy my job was.)  What I am suggesting is that when it comes to negotiating deals, your mind-set should be to make the offer so good that the other person can’t resist taking you up on it.  This is also a great approach to writing ad copy.  The perfect ad is one in which the prospect feels that he literally can’t refuse the offer.

Do yourself a favor and make it a point to abide by Mario Puzo’s rules.  If you fail to do so, don’t be surprised if … one fine day … some of the goodfellas drop around to pay you a visit.  And if that should happen, just remember that I tried to warn you.

I thought about this some years ago after watching about a half-hour of a Larry King Live show and a segment on 60 Minutes Wednesday that immediately followed.  From a reality-therapy perspective, I found the dichotomy between the two celebrities featured on these shows to be fascinating.

The first of these celebrities, on Larry King Live, was the ultimate legend, Elvis Presley.  Larry King was doing a special on Elvis, with the usual Elvis cronies and girlfriends as guests.  Tragically, near the end of his life, Elvis was reduced to a stumbling, slurring shadow of his former self.  At one of his shows in Vegas, I recall commenting that the glazed look in his eyes was a dead giveaway to a drug problem.

As I continued watching Larry King’s special, my mind drifted back to an Elvis biography written by a couple of his former “Memphis Mafia” members.  Like most everyone who knew him, they were fond of “The King,” but frustrated by their inability to curtail his self-destructive actions.

They described behavior so immature and irresponsible that it defied belief. On one occasion, he had an aide go out and buy a half-dozen bulldozers so he and his live-for-the-moment pals could play a rough-and-tumble version of bumper cars at Graceland.

Above all, what came across in both the book and from the guests on Larry King’s show was that Elvis didn’t really believe he deserved his fame and fortune. Throughout his short life, he purportedly asked, “Why me?” over and over again.

It seems clear that, at least subconsciously, Elvis realized he was an accident of history, an accident made possible by the marketing genius of Col. Tom Parker.  What Parker did was create a remarkable and marketable myth, and myths almost never fail to grow larger with the passage of time.

Elvis had good looks and a great voice, but I’m sure he himself was well aware that there were a lot of good-looking guys around with great voices in his era — e.g., Tom Jones, Englebert Humperdink, and Robert Goulet.

Sleeping with a thousand beautiful maidens may sound exciting to millions of men, but the reality is that sexual overactivity is really nothing more than an escape.  As Viktor Frankl pointed out, the more a person seeks sexual pleasure just for the sake of proving his sexuality, the more he fails to find pleasure and the more miserable he is.

As a result, Elvis increasingly turned to drugs and overeating, with his most well-publicized indulgence being peanut butter and banana sandwiches fried in butter.  Elvis’s autopsy report suggested that he had overdosed on everything from codeine to barbiturates to morphine.

I believe that the bottom line to Elvis Presley was that he was thrust into a world of sophistication and opulence that he was not equipped to handle. I would conjecture that fame and fortune came so fast and with so little effort that Elvis never even thought about what his real needs were, let alone figure out a way of fulfilling them.  By all accounts, his was a life without purpose, a life of meaninglessness.

Now, I’d like to segue to the other celebrity in this reality-therapy dichotomy, Thomas Quasthoff, who was featured in a 60 Minutes Wednesday segment I watched following the Larry King Live show on Elvis.

Quasthoff was born near Hanover, Germany, one of the earliest thalidomide babies.  At birth, he had no arms and a deformed body that would grow to only about three feet in height.

His parents, concerned that they could not properly care for him, sent him away to an institution for the disabled when he was very young.  But after a few years, he returned home and was placed in a regular school.

While his classmates played soccer, Quasthoff  took singing lessons.  It was the start of a long journey that would bring him to where he is today — one of the finest and most famous baritones in the world.  Quasthoff now performs full-time in countries around the globe, and is adored by fans everywhere he goes.

Incredibly, Thomas Quasthoff, now rich and famous, is the epitome of self-confidence.  He displays an endearing, self-deprecating sense of humor, and his smile and boisterous laughter are infectious to everyone in his presence.

In his interview with the late Ed Bradley, Quasthoff described sleeping in a room with a dozen or so other disabled children, many of them both mentally and physically challenged.  Reflectively, he said, “It was a hard experience. But, on the other side, now I say it was very good for me, because … I know how hard life can really be.”

He went on to explain, “I accept my disability as a fact.  I cannot hide it, and I don’t want to hide it.  I don’t want to be judged as a disabled person.  I want to be judged as a singer.”

When Bradley started to ask him what he would do if he had to choose between being an able-bodied person who didn’t have his ability to sing or a disabled person with his enormous talent, Quasthoff quickly interrupted him with, “I would stay like I am.”  The segment closed with Quasthoff saying, “My life is very, very fulfilled.  I’m a very happy man.”

Through the power of free will, Thomas Quasthoff chose to forget the traumas of his past.  He recognized that there was nothing he could do about his disabling thalidomide injuries.  But, at the same time, he believed he could fulfill his needs through a singing career and a very active life.  He refused to use the horrifically bad hand he was dealt at birth as an excuse for failure.

Sadly, and by contrast, Elvis found only misery in wealth, fame, and revolving female companionship.  Blessed with a healthy body, good looks, and a great voice, he instead chose a path of astonishingly irresponsible behavior.

The dichotomy between Elvis Presley and Thomas Quasthoff is yet another reminder that the main difference between success and failure — between happiness and unhappiness — lies in the power of choice.  Responsible choices and responsible behavior lead to success and happiness. Irresponsible choices and behavior lead to failure and unhappiness.

Never forget that while you are a product of your past, the reality is that you can’t change any of the unpleasantness you may have endured.  Which is why I would urge you to be ever vigilant when it comes to fighting the temptation to look back.

When the past no longer clogs your thought processes, it paves the way for you to focus on exercising the self-discipline to act responsibly in the present.  Acting responsibly today is the key to fulfilling your needs and getting where you want to be in life tomorrow.

The idea is that once a person’s past traumas are brought to the surface and dissected, he is able to change his attitude toward life.  It made perfect sense to me.  I did not believe in the concept of “behavioral modification,” which is in stark conflict with conventional psychology.  Behavioral modification seemed to imply synthetic change, which is why I associated it with the rah-rah slogan “Just fake it till you make it.”

But my attitude toward both traditional psychotherapy and behavioral modification changed when I started learning about “reality therapy,” a psychotherapy method created by Dr. William Glasser.

Before discussing reality therapy, I am obliged to point out that it is a very complex subject, and one in which I claim no professional expertise.  My only aim here is to simplify reality therapy in an effort to share some information and insights that might be helpful to you in your quest for a better life.

With this caveat, I will begin by pointing out that the central focus of reality therapy is fulfillment of an individual’s needs.  A reality therapist believes that fulfilling one’s needs is concerned only with an individual’s present life.  It has nothing to do with his past, no matter how traumatic his experiences may have been.

Reality therapy, however, does not deny the existence of past problems. Rather, it just views them as unimportant when it comes to fulfilling one’s present needs.

The corollary to the above is that if you learn to fulfill your needs in the present, the past no longer matters.  A perfect example of this would be an individual who has experienced a bad first marriage.  The sooner such an individual can find happiness in a second marriage, the sooner his/her first marriage will become a distant memory.  In fact, reality therapy believes that the most critical factor when it comes to fulfilling one’s needs is intimate involvement with another person.

To the reality therapist, then, it’s a waste of time to sit around and lament what has happened to us in the past and continue to use old traumas as an excuse for our present unhappiness.  The only things you can change are your thoughts and actions of today.

So, while it’s true that you are a product of your past, the reality is that you can’t change any of the unpleasantness you may have endured earlier in life. Whatever childhood problems may have caused a person to behave the way he does today, no amount of bringing them to the surface will change his current situation.

Reality therapy teaches that the key to fulfilling our needs in the present is responsible behavior.  As Dr. Glasser puts it, “Happiness occurs most often when we are willing to take responsibility for our behavior. … Responsible behavior leads to a feeling of self-worth.”

In other words, Dr. Glasser believes that responsible behavior ultimately solves most of our problems.  But isn’t “responsible behavior” a subjective term?  This question brings to the fore the age-old relativist argument that everything in life is subjective.  Millions of clueless kids bought into the lie of relativism in the sixties, only to end up dead or with shattered lives.

The truth of the matter is that every halfway intelligent, mature adult knows the difference between responsible and irresponsible behavior.  I would argue that the vile behavior extolled by millions every night on television — much of it under the protective shadow of the First Amendment — never leads to happiness.

Civilization cannot exist without a generally accepted code of conduct, and it is the code of conduct of Western culture that has made it the most civilized and prosperous civilization in the history of mankind.

In other words, responsible behavior pretty much coincides with practicing the virtuous traits that are the bedrock of Western life.  It is self-evident to all civilized people that responsible behavior is demonstrated through such traits as hard work, saving for the future, civility, loyalty, respect, honesty, temperance, and charity, to name but a few.

Again, we all have bad experiences in our past, especially in our childhood, that have left painful memories.  There is, however, nothing we can do about them.  History is written in stone.

Nevertheless, we have the capacity to control how we think and act today. This capacity is known as “free will.”  We are the only living creatures who have the capacity to change the nature of our existence by altering events.

It is free will that makes behavioral modification possible.  For example, I smoked until I was in my late twenties, but stopped — cold turkey — in one day.  Based on the medical evidence, I simply faced up to the reality that smoking was a dangerous and irresponsible behavior.

My decision to stop smoking was not based on my gaining a deeper understanding of my past.  Through free will, I was able to modify my behavior by accepting reality and employing one of the most important of all responsible traits — self-discipline.

Whatever it is that you don’t like about your present life — business, personal, or otherwise — don’t sit around and blame it on the past.  Just as important, don’t feel that you have to get at the deeply rooted, underlying causes of your problems.

I don’t know you personally, but I’m willing to bet you can tell the difference between right and wrong.  I would also wager that you can differentiate between responsible and irresponsible behavior.  And I have absolutely no doubt that you, as a human being blessed with the awesome faculty of free will, have the capacity to take action — today — to do the right thing.

No matter how smart you may think that loyal pooch lying on the floor next to your chair is, the reality is that he can’t do anything to change his existence.  Having no free will, he’s destined to serve his master all his life.

Though I recognize that you may not own a canine, I brought man’s best friend into the picture to graphically remind you of just how fortunate you are to be a human being.  To not exploit the unique gift you possess to alter your life for the better is to drastically short-change yourself.

Free will is the gift that keeps on giving.  The only question is whether or not the recipient chooses to use it wisely.

What was he so ticked off about?  Would you believe it was because, in the first chapter of the book, I briefly discuss my belief that there is an infinite source of power in the universe that no one fully understands?  When I say no one, that includes the most cerebral scientists on the planet.  The most remarkable discovery that resulted from the launching of the Hubble Space Telescope is that not only is all matter in the universe moving away from all other matter at lightning speeds, those speeds are actually accelerating.

As the top scientists on the Hubble Telescope project explain it, what this means is that there is an invisible power in the universe that they simply do not understand.  Further, they point out that this unknown power source is greater than the gravitational pull of all matter in the universe combined!  So much for the collapsing-universe theory.

In Action! I subjectively refer to this invisible force as the Conscious Universal Power Source, but also point out that people use a variety of other words to describe it, the most common of which is “God.”

Recognizing that we live in an age where we are silenced by self-appointed censors who worship at the altar of political correctness, I went out of my way to begin this brief section of my book with the following words:  “To discuss the concept of God is a precarious endeavor, at best.  Since so many people have such strong views on the subject, it is guaranteed to cause a lot of anger.  Let’s face it, a significant percentage of the world’s population is not rational when it comes to discussing God.”

I then devote roughly seven pages to the subject, with most of my discussion revolving around the examination of four possibilities with regard to the existence or nonexistence of God.  These include quietism, atheistic randomness, divine fatalism, and humanistic self-determination.

Sadly, today those who dare to ponder important issues and speak their honest opinions are often reviled.  Sensitive subjects protected under the political-correctness umbrella include race, illegal aliens, gay marriage, the environment, and abortion, to name but a few.

For quite sometime, however, God has been making a run at the top spot on the politically incorrect list, which is why I knew I was entering dangerous territory when I delved into the subject.  I did it, albeit in a totally nonreligious way, because I felt it was necessary in order to make a crucial point.  That point is that common sense dictates that there must be some kind of universal power source not only from which human beings draw their power, but from which all matter in the universe draws its power as well.

This is so self-evident to me that it borders on axiomatic.  Nevertheless, fairness compels me to concede that when I use the term Conscious Universal Power Source, I can understand why an atheist might have a problem with the word “conscious.”  Which is fine.  I respect everyone’s right to his opinion.  I should, however, add that an in-depth discussion of what is meant by the word “conscious” might lead us to the conclusion that the question itself is one of semantics.

In fact, Viktor Frankl (author of Man’s Search for Meaning) once opined that at some future date he believed the differences between atheists and religionists would become indistinguishable.  In his view, the only difference between an atheist and religionist is that an atheist is merely a person who, when he is talking to God, believes he is talking to himself.  In fairness, I would concede that an atheist could justifiably argue that the opposite might also be true — that a religionist is merely someone who, when he is talking to himself, believes he is talking to God.

The bottom line is that an overwhelming majority of the world’s population believes there is a source of universal, infinite power to which we are all attached.  Further, it seems logical and obvious to me that the best way to access this power source is through action.

Clichéd as it may sound, some of my best friends are atheists.  In fact, one, in particular, is probably the most spiritual person I have ever known, and I like to kid him about it.  He’s good-natured and ethical to the core.  But “fundamentalist” atheists are different.  As one of them put it to me years ago, “To even consider the possibility of a Higher Being would destroy the very foundation upon which I have built my entire life.”  Such closed-mindedness is about as unscientific as one can get.

Which brings me to the real point of this article.  If you’re interested in continually working to better your existence, you should avoid the mistake of disregarding everything a person writes or says just because you disagree with him on one or more issues.  I long ago recognized that I can learn something from everyone with whom I come in contact, no matter on how many issues I disagree with him.

Even if I dislike the underlying ideology of an author, I have found very few books that didn’t teach me something of value.  Adolf Hitler was not exactly one of my favorite historical characters, but I still learned a lot from Mein Kampf.  Ditto the Communist Manifesto, even though I am a theoretical libertarian/practical conservative.  At the very least, reading books like these educates one as to how the minds of demented people work.

Rational self-interest requires that you be a sponge when it comes to learning.  I will gladly take any knowledge or useful ideas I can get from any person, book, or situation that comes my way.  To shut down your mind to information just because you don’t like someone’s point of view on one subject or another is irrational.  And to get mad about it is nothing short of childish.

Someday, the political-correctness monster may be slain and we might all be free to say what we really think — without being ostracized or vilified.  But, in the meantime, don’t allow it to stop you from acquiring all the knowledge you can get from any and all sources and situations.

Example:  You spend decades learning the rules of the game.  Then, just about the time you’ve managed to accumulate some meaningful wisdom, the game ends.

Example:  Children are one of the greatest joys known to mankind.  But raising children takes more time and effort, and brings more grief, than perhaps any other undertaking.  Worst of all, as every parent knows, it’s the ultimate thankless job.

Example:  Any mature, rational adult recognizes that the best things in life are free.  But the reality — which many people resist facing up to — is that in order to be able to spend quality time with your family, in order to smell the flowers and to engage in relaxing activities, you have to spend most of your time working and making money.

And so it goes. The paradoxes of life are endless.  But the paradox I want to zero in on in this article is one that has been extremely important to my success.  It has to do with the past as an indicator of the future.

A rational approach to life is to always consider the past when it comes to planning for the future.  But even though the past is an indicator of the future, it does not dictate the future.

We see this over and over again is sports.  In its first 80+ years of existence, the Green Bay Packers never lost a playoff game at home.  Based on this ominous historic note, the ho-hum Atlanta Falcons shouldn’t have bothered to show up for their playoff game at Lambeau Field back on January 4, 2003.

But, unfortunately for Green Bay, they did.  As a result, the Packers’ 80-year, 13-game winning streak in home playoff games ended when the Falcons beat them 27-7.  If the Atlanta coaches and players had allowed decades of history to intimidate them, Green Bay’s home winning streak in the playoffs might still be intact.

In more than 130 years of major league baseball, no team had ever come back from a 3-0 deficit to win a playoff series.  Nevertheless, the Boston Red Sox had the impudence — in the face of the Curse of the Bambino, no less — to play out the string against the hated New York Yankees.

As a result, they not only became the first team in history to win four straight games after being down 3-0, they also became the first team ever to win eight straight playoff games when they went on to beat the St. Louis Cardinals four games to none in the 2004 World Series.  To paraphrase one of the great intellectual giants of our time, John Madden, it’s why they play the game.

This same disregard for the past is just as prevalent in politics as it is in sports.  History makes it clear that a large voter turnout always favors Democrats.  So what happened in the 2004 presidential election?  More people voted than in any presidential election in history, but the Republicans forgot to lose.

You can even mix sports and politics together to shatter historical myths.  For example, no incumbent party had ever won a presidential election when the Washington Redskins lost their last home game prior to the election.  The Sunday before the 2004 presidential election, the Redskins lost to the Green Bay Packers 28-14, but those stubborn Republicans still forgot to lose.

How about war?  For more than two centuries, the United States never had to concern itself with protecting its mainland from foreign invasion.  The attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 was an aberration in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, and the Japanese attack was on a military target.

Yet, more than 50 years after Peal Harbor, one man from a Stone Age country halfway around the world somehow managed to direct a catastrophic attack on the two most important cities in America — New York and Washington, D.C.  The result was a horrific death for nearly 3,000 people and the complete destruction of the two tallest buildings in New York.

Likewise, business examples of false predicators of the future are endless.  My personal favorite is the voodoo science known as stock market “charting.”  Notwithstanding mountains of evidence to the contrary, investors still delude themselves into believing that charting the past movement of stocks is a sound way to predict the future.

When you watch a panel of chartists on one of the financial news shows on television, it’s hard to believe they’re serious.  It is to their good fortune that there are always millions of people who are looking for a magic bullet when it comes to making money.

If you think about it, you can probably come up with a quick list of at least 20-30 more examples of past history being ignored by future events.  The lesson to take away from this, in both your business and personal life, is that it’s important to recognize that whatever happened in the past does not guarantee that the future will follow suit.

There is no question that it’s prudent to study the past and learn all you can from it.  But never make the mistake of confusing the past with the future.

The biggest problem with relying too much on past history as an indicator of the future is that it can become an invisible barrier that prevents you from coming up with the new ideas and concepts you need to create your own history.

Be careful about placing too much weight on historical patterns, because you can always find patterns in any collection of data.  And, more often than not, such patterns are nothing more than coincidences — coincidences upon which myths and superstitions are built.

A prerequisite to determining your future destiny is to refuse to allow history to constrain your actions of today.

It was a very clever way of turning a negative into a positive.  And the nice thing about it was that it was true.  The greatest teachers have a knack for demystifying complex issues by applying common sense to them.  But just what is common sense?

A good technical definition of common sense is “sound judgment not based on specialized knowledge.”  In other words, you don’t need to be a Ph.D. to exercise common sense.  It’s a trait you develop through purposeful awareness and habit.  And I would add to that that in order to be aware and develop a habit requires self-discipline, the self-discipline to do the right thing rather than doing what makes you feel good at the present moment.

Common sense equates to wisdom, whereas an academic understanding of specific areas of life equates to knowledge.  In simpler terms, what common sense boils down to is a sound understanding of how life works.  This requires that a person learn through his experiences and not delude himself about the causes that lead to his consequences.

Having said this, I believe that most people have a reasonably good understanding of what is the right thing to do in most situations.  In other words, they know the difference between responsible and irresponsible actions.

The problem, however, is that too many of these same people — at the moment of truth — have a habit of ignoring their intellect and instead acting on emotion.  That, again, is where self-discipline comes in.  I can’t stress it enough:  All the common sense in world is useless if one doesn’t have the self-discipline to apply it.

Children — especially teenagers — have a tendency to make this mistake more often than adults.  But teenagers have an excuse: They’re short on experience.  With each passing year, an adult has more and more experience under his belt, and thus less and less justification for acting on impulse.

In fact, a good definition of maturity is the willingness to forego instant gratification.  At some point in time, an adult — to be successful — must learn through his experiences or be willing to live a Wile E. Coyote kind of life (as in, “Beep, beep!”).  So it all gets down to experience, the wisdom one takes away from his experiences, and having the self-discipline to apply that wisdom to other situations.

When I watch the daily news, it amazes me how many sad, even tragic, stories are a result of people’s common sense taking a leave of absence when they most need it.  I always try to focus on the common-sense angle of these stories and file away the lessons I learn in my subconscious filing cabinet.

My hope is that by doing so I will be able to avoid similar lack-of-common-sense mistakes in my own life.  As a result, I often find myself thinking of these mistakes at critical moments.  Learning is one of the most wonderful aspects of life, but it doesn’t count for much if you don’t apply what you’ve learned to real-life situations.

Many people who appear to lack common sense simply fail to apply what they already know.  In other words, common sense is not something that you either have or don’t have at birth.  Like most traits, anyone can acquire it and improve upon it.

One of the reasons I became so enamored with Albert Einstein’s quote “Nothing happens until something moves” is because it is the epitome of profound common sense.  Tens of millions of people seem to be waiting around for something good to happen in their lives, while expending enormous amounts of energy complaining about their “bad luck.”

Most people tend to miss the most obvious things when it comes to success in any area of life.  While in search of the magic formula for success, they mistakenly overlook the importance of something as simple as common sense.

Demonstrating this trait on a consistent basis doesn’t guarantee success, but a lack of it can come pretty close to guaranteeing failure.  Deferring to common sense before making decisions is nothing more than a habit — and, fortunately, all habits can be learned by anyone who brings willingness to the game and applies a good dose of self-discipline.

From the first time I saw that sign, I was impressed with the school.  What a great truism to emphasize to children, because, throughout their lives, they will continually be confronted by injustice.

I thought about this basic reality of life recently when two major legal verdicts were handed down.  I found it to be a fascinating coincidence that on the same day that Scott Peterson was sentenced to death for the murder of his wife, Laci, Robert Blake was acquitted of charges that he murdered his wife, Bonny Lee Bakley.  What crossed my mind was how many people were directly affected by these two cases and their verdicts.  I can only imagine how unfair the world must seem to many of them.

For starters, let’s not dismiss Scott Peterson’s plight out of hand.  As I’ve stated in the past, based on what I know about the case, I personally believe Peterson is guilty.  Nevertheless, even though I’m a strong advocate of the death penalty and a harsh critic of soft-on-crime judges, I am compelled to say that I don’t believe the evidence in that case came close to proving his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

If the truth be known, what I think really happened was that Peterson convicted himself with his abhorrent — and ignorant — behavior before, during, and after his trial.  Though jurors probably would never admit it even to themselves, I believe they condemned Peterson to death for being a lying, cheating, vile human being.  And, like it or not, that does not qualify a person for capital punishment.

But let’s stretch our imaginations a bit.  What if Peterson really didn’t kill his wife?  In that unlikely event, if you were Peterson, do you think you might feel that life is a bit unfair?  Imagine facing twenty-plus years on death row and eventual execution for a murder you didn’t commit.

Even if Peterson did commit first-degree murder, he must surely be comparing his outcome to that of O.J. Simpson.  According to most law-enforcement officials, O.J. had far more evidence against him than the majority of people who have been put to death for being convicted of murder, yet he walked away from his sham trial into a life of golf and financial freedom.

Even worse for Peterson was the fact that he received his death sentence on the same day Robert Blake was acquitted.  Worse because, in Blake’s case, it was commonly known that he hated his wife and wanted to get rid of her.  In fact, two different people testified that Blake had approached them about killing his wife.  My best guess is that he actually did hire someone to do it, which is probably why there is no hard evidence pointing to him.

But, Peterson and Blake aside, let’s take a look at the victims in these two high-profile murder cases.  Laci Peterson, the beautiful young lady with the affidavit smile, ended up with her mutilated body, along with that of her soon-to-be-born baby, in San Francisco Bay.  Life certainly wasn’t fair to her.

And what about Laci’s parents, who must now live their remaining days thinking about how their daughter’s life came to such a brutal end.  To further their pain, they also lost a grandson whom they never even got to see.

Then there’s Scott Peterson’s parents.  Even if Peterson is guilty, you can be certain his parents don’t think so.  Which means they are destined to spend every day of their lives with the thought that their son is on death row, awaiting execution for a murder he didn’t commit.  The world must seem like a very unfair place to them right now.

We see these kinds of tragedies play out on television day in and day out, so much so that both the victims and perpetrators become old news very quickly.  When is the last time you heard anyone talk about Chandra Levy, who, like Laci Peterson, ended up a mutilated corpse?

Gary Condit did lose his seat in Congress over that one, along with his Washington, D.C. love nest, but he was never even indicted.  Not a shred of evidence … but a little too much of a coincidence for my taste.  As with Laci Peterson, Chandra Levy left behind a grieving family destined to live out their lives in an unfair world.

On the other side of the coin, what about the lucky ones who somehow managed to cheat death when it appeared to be imminent?  When Elizabeth Smart was found alive, it seemed to all the world to be a miracle.  Yet, could you blame the families of Chandra Levy, Nicole Simpson, or Laci Peterson for asking themselves,  “Why couldn’t my daughter have been the lucky one?”

Or Ashley Smith, who was held hostage by Brian Nichols, the murderer with a conscience who killed Superior Court Judge Rowland Barnes in an Atlanta courtroom?  Why did the fates allow her to escape certain death, while tens of thousands of other people are killed by everything from a tidal wave in Southeast Asia to a hurricane in Florida to a mudslide in California?

There can be only one answer to these questions:  Simply that life isn’t fair. Worse, none of us will ever know why.  We have free will, but we can never hope to understand the inevitable.

The reason it’s important to intellectualize all this is because the unfairness of the world is such an integral part of life.  A person in search of a fair world has little chance of finding happiness.

To make life worthwhile, you have to stay committed to a meaningful purpose in your life and live every day as responsibly as you can.  You have to move steadily toward your goals, day in and day out, in spite of the treacherous blows periodically meted out by life.

The airlines remind passengers to put their own oxygen masks on first, before helping their children.  It’s also a sound principle to apply to the unfairness of life.  By this I mean that it’s important for you to accept the reality that the world isn’t always fair, and move forward with your life in spite of the injustices that may confront you from time to time.  Leading by example puts you in a much better position to teach this painful truism to your children.

When something goes wrong in my 16-year-old son’s world, he often says, “It’s not fair.  To which I usually respond,  “Life isn’t supposed to be fair.”  Just as important, I tell him that anyone who is alive and healthy doesn’t have all that much to complain about.

Accepting the reality of an unfair world and learning how to deal with it is a lifetime project, so the earlier you begin explaining it to your child, the better off he or she will be.

At the very least, they’re willing to forgive and forget.  I think my teenage son’s attitude is typical:  “I don’t care if players use steroids.  I just like seeing home runs.”

It kind of reminds me of a newspaper article I read back in the late 1970s when rational adults were concerned about the double-digit inflation that was driving real estate prices through the roof.  The article mentioned an eighteen-year-old kid in Los Angeles who was making buckets of money buying and selling properties.

It even quoted this prodigal investment “genius” as saying, “I don’t think inflation is a bad thing.  I think it’s a good thing.  I don’t want inflation brought under control.”  (Though I can’t confirm it, I heard a rumor that after the Southern California real estate collapse in the early eighties, he declared bankruptcy, got a job at McDonald’s salting French fries, then — later, of course — was invited to be a guest lecturer on economics at UC Berkeley.)

Yet, Major League Baseball’s steroid problem does present some interesting issues.  The foremost question, of course, is the illegality of using steroids in sports.  As usual, the government is involved.  And, as usual, I don’t see why it’s any of the government’s business.

But Major League Baseball’s involvement is another story.  Baseball is a business, and if it wants to allow players to use performance-enhancing substances, it certainly has a right to do so.  Whether it will hurt attendance over the long term remains to be seen.

If fans don’t believe that what they’re witnessing is an athlete’s true ability, they might begin to think of baseball in much the same light as pro wrestling.  Or perhaps as a freak show, sort of like baseball’s version of “Ripley’s Believe It or Not.”

The second issue is whether an athlete should be considered sane if he is willing to risk his long-term health in order to compile mega-statistics.  This kind of thinking is foreign to me, because I can’t imagine voluntarily putting anything into my body that has the potential to cause damage.

Third is the issue of out-and-out cheating.  Rather than looking the other way all those years, Major League Baseball would have been better off if it had just made steroids legal.  Then fans and sports reporters wouldn’t be faced with the question of whether or not asterisks should be placed next to modern-day records — and, if so, which records?

But to me, the most important issue is the question of integrity.  Integrity is adherence to one’s code of moral values.  A person who consistently acts in accordance with a generally accepted moral code is ethical.  Someone who preaches a high standard of morality but selectively acts otherwise is hypocritical.

Violating the rules of any game is unethical.  Deceiving people who are paying money to see you perform is unethical.  But even more unethical is when a person divulges confidential information about a friend, especially if it’s done for financial gain.

For example, while even Democrats agree that Bill Clinton’s sexual misconduct and lying were beyond the pale, that didn’t give Linda Tripp a moral justification to record intimate conversations with her supposed friend, Monica Lewinsky.

Tripp’s sob story that she only did it to protect herself didn’t even come close to passing the giggle test.  Can you imagine a “good friend” taping your conversation when you’re telling her the most intimate details of your life?

Unfortunately, it goes on all the time.  Remember when Doug Wead, a long-time, close friend of President Bush, revealed that he had taped telephone conversations with the president?  He said the reason he recorded their conversations was that he “viewed Bush as a historic figure.”  Sure, Doug.

Which brings me to Jose Canseco, the former baseball superstar who wrote a tell-all book about drug use in Major League Baseball.  Even if most of what Canseco said in his book was true, what was his point?  Did he really feel a choirboy’s moral obligation to step forward with the truth and clean up the sport that he now says he wants nothing to do with?

I would have been much more impressed had he spoken up during the height of his career — when he had a lot on the line financially — because he had a sincere conviction that it was wrong for players to deceive fans.  If he had just admitted that he wrote his book for money, I might have respected him for at least being honest.

In any event, like most fans, I can’t get too excited about steroid usage in sports.  After all, poll after poll has shown that many people in our society not only lie and cheat, but see nothing wrong with it.  And since I don’t have the power to change how others think or act, I would rather focus on the more important point — being discreet about what you say and who you say it to.

In that regard, a good motto to live by is:  Live every moment as though the whole world were watching and listening.  This is especially true when it comes to telephone conversations and e-mail.

Even Microsoft had its e-mails used against it by the Justice Department in that agency’s antitrust suit against the company.  With that in mind, the challenge for each of us is to be vigilant about saying anything on the telephone or putting anything in an e-mail that could come back to haunt us.

Above all, remember that friends have an amazing capacity to morph into enemies at the worst possible times.  And when and if that happens, if your phone calls, e-mails, and hands are clean, you won’t have to worry if a Linda Tripp or Jose Canseco happens to be on the other end of the line.

A Geragos is a humanoid who:

1. Possesses a piece of paper (technically referred to as a “law degree”) that gives him the right to participate in a monopoly known as the “practice of law.”
2. Passionately believes in the timeless maxim: First and foremost, feed the ego.
3. Has never met a television camera he didn’t adore.
4. Is cursed with a mouth that can outrun logic and rational thought.
5. Is shameless. (For example, willing to represent a client even after repeatedly proclaiming him to be guilty on national television.)

Perhaps the most powerful group of Geragoses ever assembled was the team of lawyers who represented O. J. Simpson. Because of the awesome job they did, all Americans now clearly understand that a trial is not a search for truth. Rather, it is a contest of cleverness.

It isn’t as easy as it looks to convert your client’s trial into a trial of the detective who found the most damning evidence against him. Yet, the O. J. team managed to pull it off with style and grace, and without even a trace of a smirk on their faces.

The problem for future Geragos superstar teams is that the O. J. circus led them to believe that by being just as outrageous as Johnny Cochran and Friends, they could achieve the same results. But the bar the O. J. team set was so high that, without a racial component to tap into, it’s become increasingly difficult to clear.

So, how do you commit a Geragos? You do it by becoming intoxicated by numbers 2-5 above. When you are devoid of shame and your ego is salivating to be fed, you jump in front of every television camera you can find. Then, once your mug is staring into the camera, you simply put your mouth on autopilot and let it drown out any hint of logic or rational thought.

In my first book, “To Be or Not to Be Intimidated?”, I offered a solution to this neurotic condition. I referred to it as the Bluff Theory, which states: The secret to bluffing is to not bluff.

In other words, never lay down an ultimatum unless you’re prepared to follow through with it, and never say anything that you can’t back up. You may occasionally get away with a hollow bluff, but it’s unwise to count on this tactic if you’re interested in long-term success.

In the case of Mark Geragos and his handling of Scott Peterson’s defense, all he needed to do was hammer home to the jury the theme of “reasonable doubt.” Instead, he chose to fill the courtroom and airwaves with bluffs.

Scott Peterson’s idiotic behavior was bad enough, but at least he has an excuse: He’s not part of the legal monopoly. Geragos, however, is.

Like most people, I tend to believe that Peterson is guilty, but the reality is that his was a slim case based entirely on circumstantial evidence. If the evidence against Peterson was enough to send him to his death, or even life in prison, then, on a pound-for-pound evidence basis, O. J. Simpson should have been sentenced to share a cell with Charles Manson for life.

Apparently without regard for his client’s welfare, Mark Geragos committed one Geragos after another during the trial. There are far too many of them to list here, but following are three that managed to confound even his fellow criminal defense attorneys who appeared on talk shows. And all three hurt, rather than helped, Scott Peterson.

1. Geragos waved aside the notion of showing reasonable doubt, instead promising to prove Peterson’s innocence. (By making this promise, he also violated a principle taught in Negotiating 101: Never promise more than is required of you.) Result: zero.
2. He said he would produce five eyewitnesses to the crime that would support promise No. 1. Result: zero.
3. He said he not only would prove Peterson’s innocence, but he would find the real killer or killers. (This one went down the drain with his satanic-cult theory, which was his version of Johnny Cochran’s drug-dealer hit theory in the O. J. Simpson case.) Result: zero.

Finally, after destroying a potentially winnable case through his ego-driven, outrageous statements, Geragos went one step further and managed to clinch a spot in the Legal Hall of Shame. To everyone’s amazement, he set up a boat display (which included a dummy portraying Laci Peterson) across from the courthouse.

The idea was to demonstrate to the world that it would have been impossible for Peterson to throw his wife’s body overboard without capsizing. Some might attribute this to insanity, but I believe it was nothing more than an insatiable ego.

As a side note, I had a dream last night that a new law was passed that gave juries the choice of sending either the defendant or his attorney to prison after hearing all of the evidence. Thankfully, when the jury foreman rose to read the verdict in the Scott Peterson trial, I awoke from my dream.

What a relief! The thought that the jury might have let Peterson off in favor of incarcerating Geragos left me shaken. It took two cups of Chinese green tea to calm myself.

So, now that you know how to commit a Geragos, my advice to you is straightforward: Don’t do it! Be vigilant about never promising more than you are required to produce. Instead, always strive to produce more than you promised, better than you promised, quicker than you promised.

Regardless of your profession or the circumstances, you’ll find this to be a winning formula every time.

The words that most of us remember are when Gehrig said, “Today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of this earth.”  What an amazing statement from a person who knew that he had amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).  This insidious terminal illness is now commonly referred to as “Lou Gehrig’s Disease.”

When the Pilgrims celebrated the first Thanksgiving in 1621, it wasn’t for the purpose of focusing on their hard life.  It was to give thanks for the bountiful harvest reaped by the Plymouth Colony following a severe winter.

Like most people, I love the festive atmosphere of Thanksgiving.  The spirit of this gluttonous holiday seems to put everyone in a good mood. (Except for the turkey, of course.)  But, like so many of our national holidays, I doubt that many people reflect on the purpose of this special day.

In this regard, I’d like to share with you something personal about myself that has become a centerpiece of my life.  For many years now, I have made it a ritual to think of every day as a day of thanksgiving.

I do so by beginning each morning consciously thinking about my blessings. Because everyone’s glass is both half empty as well as half full, I could just as easily choose to think about my misfortunes.

Since every negative has an offsetting positive built into it, and vice versa, you always have a choice as to whether to focus on the abundance or the scarcity in your life.  My firsthand experience has convinced me beyond all doubt that if you want more negatives in your life, all you need to do is think about the negatives that already exist.

Likewise, if you want more positives in your life, you should focus on the positives you already have.  You’ll be amazed at the number of new positives that will almost magically make their way into your life as a result of focusing on the positive side of the equation.

But the truth of the matter is that there is nothing magical at all about this phenomenon.  On the contrary, it’s scientific.  What makes it possible is the fact that (1) all atoms are connected and (2) atoms vibrate at tremendous rates of speed.

This is why when your thoughts are positive, science works its wonders and causes those vibrating atoms in your brain to draw positive forces into your life.  I feel obliged to point out here that I believe science is an extension of the Conscious Universal Power Source, or what people variously refer to as God, Yahweh, Supreme Being, etc.  And because you are always connected to this Conscious Universal Power Source, you have infinite power at your disposal.

But even if you’re an atheist, I think you will find that focusing on your blessings is a cathartic way to start each day.  If you choose not to give thanks to a Conscious Universal Power Source, then just be thankful in a general way for all the good “luck” you’ve had in your lifetime.

Sometimes, I purposely think about the negative of a situation first.  Then I say to myself, “BUT, here’s the offsetting positive” … and I then describe it to myself.  In really grim situations, it can sometimes be difficult to find positive offsets.  Rest assured, however, they are always there.

I recently saw three U.S. soldiers on television who looked like they were wearing Halloween masks.  All of them had their faces mangled as a result of skirmishes in Iraq, and one had already had 28 operations.

What was incredible about these three soldiers was their upbeat attitude — no bitterness, no hint of feeling sorry for themselves, no desire for sympathy from others.  They were pleasant to a fault.  And the one who had 28 operations on his face was the most pleasant one of all!

As I watched, I found myself thinking about how full my glass was.  If I were to make up a list of all of the blessings I’ve had during my life — including minor, medium, and major blessings — such a list would be in the thousands. I don’t know you personally, but I strongly suspect that your list would be just about as long as mine.

I realize that it’s not easy to focus on your blessings when faced with such crises as  a serious medical problem, financial upheaval, or a deteriorating marital situation.  Nevertheless, it’s wise to remember that the more you focus on the adversities in your life, the more adversities you are likely to get.

I don’t have a double-blind study to prove it, but I can tell you from firsthand experience that being thankful for what you have every day of your life is a powerful tonic for the mind.  I’m not talking about just speaking the words. I’m talking about thinking the thoughts.

Start each day by celebrating Thanksgiving, in solitude, and it will change the way you look at life.  And, as they say in quantum physics, when you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.