4 – The Diversity of Lifestyles

“Living means daring. Living means risking something. Those who risk nothing, do not live either.”

Charles Houston

A Life in Passion

In his memoirs the old Venetian revealed with breathtaking candor his wild life as a seducer and womanizer. He spent his childhood with a grandmother who hardly cared for him. Financially well provided for, he was able to live freely in his youth. Constantly traveling, his eloquence and self‑confidence opened doors to princely courts. His life was filled with adventures beyond the realm of romance. As a young man he fought two duels with esteemed personalities. On one occasion, thoughtless remarks landed him in a notorious prison, from which he escaped by cunning and audacity, gaining even more admiration. Financially, his life resembled a roller coaster—at times incredibly wealthy, then penniless again, fed by his gambling passions and profligacy. Yet he remained convinced he’d always prevail, leaping from one adventure to the next. After his forty‑fifth year, however, he lost his charm over women, beginning the sad second half of a once‑successful man’s life. In the end, Giacomo Casanova (1725 – 1798) served as librarian at Dux Castle in Bohemia, where he died.

A Life of Humility and Charity

The petite, gentle woman spoke simply of love, care, and the joy of sharing. The many years spent working in the slums of Calcutta, corrugated‑iron huts of London, and ghettos of New York had etched deep lines in her face. After taking her vow of chastity, she devoted her life to God. As His servant, she washed the wounds of those afflicted by leprosy, founded homes for abandoned children, and raised funds for the medical care of the poor. She needed nothing for herself, having renounced material wealth to stand with the poor as equals. Poverty became her freedom; faith overflowed within her. Convinced that God would guide her mission, she responded when she arrived in the Indian district of Motijhil and saw no school existed. With no grand plans or preparations, she simply began: scratching the Bengali alphabet in the dirt with a stick. Children gathered one by one. Donations of chairs, a desk, a chalkboard followed—and the school became reality. Any poor or sick person could count on her help: lepers, those with AIDS, abandoned children, starving, dying. Day and night she labored in unspeakable hardship.

Honored in many countries, in 1979 she received the Nobel Peace Prize for her deeds born of love’s overflowing heart. As the champion of the poor and powerless, she was welcomed by the world’s most powerful, and the church’s highest dignitaries sought her company. Yet through it all she remained the very personification of humility. Over 4,000 Missionaries of Charity in nearly 400 houses around the globe continue her life’s work.

“We demand life have meaning. But it only has as much meaning as we give it.”

Hermann Hesse

Just a brief outline from the lives of two famous people—yet what a tremendous difference. All my life I have wondered what makes the difference. How did Casanova live so completely unlike Mother Teresa? What forces drove these two to their life’s work? What values underlie their destinies? I won’t give away the answer yet—it will become clearer over the course of this chapter. But one thing is clear: there exists an immense variety of unique characters. You, too, are one‑of‑a‑kind. Isn’t it wonderful how rich our possibilities on this planet are? How many different goals it is worthwhile pursuing and how many ways one can commit oneself to them? What nearly all people share, however, is the search for meaning in life. That is the only commonality, for the paths to that meaning differ completely. Some become monks or nuns; others throw themselves into their jobs to earn as much money as possible. One man preached gospel across the land; another devoted all his energy to wiping out an entire people. What distinguished them? What drove them, making them live as they did? Were they always this way? Must they remain so?

I do not believe so! We are not rigid, immutable beings whose character is set at birth and cannot change. Each of us contains a multitude of traits and behaviors. Yet it seems some people confine themselves to a handful of characteristics, thereby depriving themselves of additional possibilities. What if you could choose your traits or even switch personas from situation to situation?

Most people do not even dream that this is possible, so they completely ignore it, spending their entire lives through the lens of their habits, repeatedly performing the same behaviors. Their day runs on autopilot—routine. We must overcome this rigidity to succeed and live happily. A psychologist once put it: “A healthy person has as little personality as possible.”

Develop a Dynamic Personality

By personality he meant everything we hold in values, norms, fixed character traits, moral systems, the ways we speak—all that is static and not in process, what we have acquired and refuse to let go. He did not say we should have no personality, but rather one that is as flexible as possible—capable of throwing everything overboard to start anew. Don’t you sometimes wish you had more drive to break free from the comfortable cage of habitual behavior and choose something new that brings you closer to your greatest dream? In this book I will show you how to develop a dynamic personality: one that retains the freedom to change whenever you find it useful. I want to show you ways to choose among different “personalities” at various times or in different situations of your life. Don’t worry—you can always choose the personality you have or believe you are. But you can also be someone else, if you wish.

If you do what a normal person does, you will get only normal results. To achieve extraordinary results, you must do what extraordinary people do.

With a dynamic personality, the rules governing “ordinary” people no longer apply to you because you can willfully change your behaviors. You will learn to view problems and challenges from new perspectives and gain freedom of choice in your behavior. A dynamic personality adapts to the demands of each life situation. You will be able to draw on the full range of emotional reactions and feelings. By becoming a dynamic personality, you will hold a power—the power to shape your life as you wish. Personality traits are static only if you believe them to be so. In this book you will learn how personality can change. You can leave your seemingly predetermined path and become who you want to be. We follow a new way here, not oriented toward the ordinary or mundane, but toward the extraordinary. We study the peak performance of masters in their fields!

If you model yourself on an ordinary person, you will also be bound by the psychological laws that apply to them—making it impossible to realize your dreams. Shift your focus to successful people—those who’ve mastered one or all areas of life. By emulating their methods and lifestyles, you will break free from the cage of the mundane and open new possibilities. I will now introduce variants of being different and inspire you with new ideas. Reflect on your current lifestyle. Afterwards, we will examine what distinguishes these successful people.

The Wild Ones

One fascinating type is the “wild” person—marked by exceptional life energy enabling them to accomplish astonishing feats. They hunger for experiences proving they are still alive. Yet between adventures they often endure deep emotional emptiness. While highly vulnerable, they are also daring risk‑takers. They break social norms to realize their own individual lifestyle, shattering taboos and rarely settling in relationships. They seek novelty for self‑fulfillment. Wild ones live at a very high energy level—throwing themselves into life and burning through all resources in a breathtaking struggle.

“To live is, after all, to explore—eager and fearless for ever newer, richer experiences.”

Eleanor Roosevelt

Lou von Salomé’s Life

A striking example of a wild individual is Lou Andreas‑Salomé (1861 – 1937), known for her relationships with Friedrich Nietzsche, Rainer Maria Rilke, and friendship with Sigmund Freud. She inspired these men to great creative achievements. Her life brimmed with passion: championing women’s self‑determination and free love. She radiated vitality and possessed an incredibly erotic allure. She received numerous marriage proposals, and only a threatened suicide from one suitor compelled her to agree to marriage—rather than a desire for stable commitment. Even in marriage, she maintained her wild life. A special breed of wild ones are extreme mountaineers. When not on the mountain, they plan their next perilous ascent. They court the impossible, not simply to reach the summit quickly, but to conquer dangerous, demanding routes that test all their strength. They climb the pinnacle of their life’s mountain. Other life domains are subordinated to this goal. They crave adventures in nature—even at the risk of frostbite or seeing comrades fall. While tackling a tough wall, the climber faces ever‑present death; each moment demands total precision and focus of senses and strength on the rock beneath their hands. Through complete energy concentration, the climber experiences total unity. In that moment they need not ponder life’s meaning—the question fades before the brink of death and raw survival instinct emerges. Such nature adventurers make hazard their life’s necessity, sacrificing all else if need be.

Reinhold Messner Conquers the Highest Peaks

The living paragon of extreme mountaineers is Reinhold Messner. He climbed all 14 eight‑thousanders on Earth without supplemental oxygen or fixed ropes, guided by the desire to grow through his ascents. He saw mountains as mythic immensities, confronting them on his own terms. What seasoned alpinists considered impossible, Messner made reality, refuting the belief that humans cannot breathe above 8,000 m. His years of training and focus on a single goal paid off. Many times he failed, yet never gave up, pressing on to ever more challenging summits with indomitable will. During one expedition on Nanga Parbat, an avalanche cost him his brother. Messner survived but lost toes and fingertips to amputation. Fewer than two years later he stood atop another eight‑thousander, repeatedly mastering dire situations. Between expeditions he dreamed of ever bolder undertakings, creating chances to realize them. Reinhold Messner opened new horizons by transcending his body’s limits and mastering great dangers—he learned when to turn back, to lose but not give up, preserving his life.

A Boy Climbs the Chess Olympus

Leaving mountains and Messner, we enter the world of 64 squares. No one taught the six‑year‑old boy chess, yet his eyes never left the board position before him. The next morning he proposed a solution that astonished his parents. A neighbor’s son took him to the Young Pioneers chess club in Baku, where his stellar career began. Though weak at first, he developed extraordinary memory by immersing himself in positions and études. He studied 1927 – 35, 1937 – 45 world champion Alexander Alekhine, inspiring an unstoppable rise. At 10 he entered the renowned Botvinnik Chess School. In 1977, at 14, he became USSR youth champion and the same year placed third in the cadet world championship. Besides endless study, he pursued literature, cultivating vast intellectual breadth. Though intense battles raged on the board, he was a quieter type who disliked crowds. His life was defined by total dedication to chess. At 18 he won the USSR championship; at 22, Garry Kasparov became world champion.

Countless other fascinating lifestyles exist—just imagine different countries and continents. How do people live there? What challenges does a child face in South Africa? What rules govern Iranian women? How would you like being an Eskimo? Or consider life in ages past—when pharaohs built great pyramids or during the Ice Age?

Values and Life Rules

I have given these examples to show the immense spectrum of possible aims and ways to live. What sets these people primarily apart, in my view, are their values and life rules. Both values and rules are special forms of belief systems. Values are convictions about the importance of certain things. For life rules I distinguish two types.

One type dictates which conditions must be met to evoke a feeling; the other tells us what we must do and want to do. Values lie behind our behaviors—they are internal motivators. If you seek to change behavior but hold values contradicting that behavior, you will not succeed. You cannot sustain new behavior unless your values support it. Congruence between values and actions is essential. Ask a passionate extreme mountaineer if he would trade his life on the mountain for the palace duties of Brunei’s sultan—he would likely decline. His values determine how he measures success. Values thus guide every major life decision. At a crossroads, you unconsciously choose the path tied to your highest values.

Our values determine what directions we move in life—and which things we leave alone. They shape our lifestyle!

Every behavior you wish to acquire, every experience you pursue, is checked against your values. Values occupy a high position in your internal control system. You cannot switch them off—they belong to your personality’s core. In principle, your values shape every important life choice. Scientists call them superordinate; they drive everything else.

Formation and Change of Values

Values don’t remain fixed for life. They change through peers, teachers, college, and later your employer’s culture. If you cannot identify with your company’s values, you face resistance and soon depart. A promotion may alter your priorities and thus your values. Media and wider society also powerfully shape values. Over time, entire generations can shift. Despite this malleability, our current values are tremendously important. Values like freedom, honor, justice, or patriotism drive men into war, risking death to preserve them. In the film A Few Good Men two soldiers, accused of violating orders that led to a comrade’s death, insist on a nearly hopeless court‑martial rather than accepting a plea—believing to clear their honor is more vital than freedom. Values motivate and guide each of us.

Discover Your Core Values

To communicate effectively, it helps to know another’s and your own values. Ask yourself, “What matters most in my life?” or “Which values play a major role for me?” List them to work with them further.

Examples: Joy of life, growth, health, attractiveness, love, honesty, power, flexibility, success, creativity, respect, understanding, status

To rank them, compare pairwise: Is passion or imagination more important to me? Passion. Is passion more important than freedom? Yes. Is passion more important than growth? And so on, until you have a clear hierarchy.

My Value Hierarchy

Meaning of Values

Review your list: what do these values mean to you? Ask: What does love mean to me? Love might mean standing by someone through thick and thin. What does that entail? Being able to trust them. Explore definitions thoroughly—people often mean different things by the same word. Two people valuing love at the top may define it differently. One means family gatherings at home (security), the other intense passion (devotion). To empathize with another, you must know their meaning.

Value Conflicts

Many face value conflicts: they want career advancement, more wealth, social engagement, and frequent vacations. Such conflicts make life varied and exciting—but overwhelming when inner conflict dominates, leading to paralysis.

Examples: wanting family time vs. career; health vs. work schedule. Identify conflicts in your list, noting areas where strict adherence traps you.

Where do value conflicts arise in my list?

Life Rules Type 1: What must happen for me to feel a certain way?

Life Rules Type 2: What must I do for … to occur?

What should I do for … to occur?

If people impose many “must” rules (for health, love, success), it severely restricts life. A “must” rule demands absolute compliance—violation is unacceptable. To discern those of others, ask: What must you do to be healthy or loved? “I should drink less alcohol” expresses intent, not compulsion. Examine your core rules. If impossible to meet because criteria conflict or depend on uncontrollable factors, discard and replace them with positive, achievable ones. The more rules you create for feeling good—and the more demanding those for feeling bad—the more frequently you’ll feel good.

Life Rules Type 1:

What must happen for me to feel a certain way?

Life Rules Type 2:

What must I do for … to occur?

What should I do for … to occur?

For example: “I feel successful when I rise early.” Or “I can enjoy any situation no matter what happens.” People like that show how broad or narrow life rules shape emotions and agency.

What are my most important life rules?

“Any fool can make rules—and all fools will follow them.”

Henry David Thoreau

Review values again asking: “What must happen for me to feel loved? To feel happy? To feel healthy?” Fill in examples:

I always feel good when … (the more possibilities, the more often you’ll feel good)

My relationship thrives when …

I enjoy my work when …

Identify your key rules and rank them.

Recognizing Others’ Life Rules

Check if you know those of your partner or close confidant. We often clash because we don’t realize others follow different rules. How could you meet someone’s rules if you don’t know them? Seek to discover others’ rules and share your own. In a relationship, ask what makes them feel loved. Or ask a colleague what makes them feel autonomous at work. Listen for keywords—use their value‑language to motivate them. Ask: How do you know there’s trust between us? What makes you feel self‑reliant at work? Free yourself from your own values when doing so: each person has their own model of the world, and you know very little of theirs.