Think about the proactive choice this man is making and the impact it has on his family! Think about the relationships he's building and about how that is going to impact every dimension of family life for years, perhaps for generations to come!

Any successful marriage, any successful family takes work. It's not a matter of accident, it's a matter of achievement. It takes effort and sacrifice. It takes knowing that-"for better or worse, in sickness and in health, as long as you live"-love is a verb.

Developing Your Unique Human Gifts

The four unique gifts we've talked about are common to all people except perhaps some who are sufficiently mentally handicapped that they lack self-awareness. But developing them takes conscious effort.

It's like developing a muscle. If you've ever been into muscle development, you know that the key is to push the fiber until it breaks. Then nature overcompensates in repairing the broken material, and the fiber becomes stronger within forty-eight hours. You probably also know the importance of adjusting your exercises to bring into play the weaker muscles rather than taking the course of least resistance and staying only with those muscles that are strong and developed.

Because of my own knee and back problems, I have had to learn to exercise in a way that forces me to bring into play muscles and even entire muscle groups that I would otherwise rarely use or even be aware of. I realize now that the development of these muscles is necessary for an integrated, balanced level of health and fitness, for posture, for various skill activities, and sometimes even for normal walking. For example, to compensate for my knee injuries, I used to focus on developing the quadriceps-the muscles in the front of the upper leg-but I neglected the development of the hamstrings, which are the muscles at the back of the leg. And this affected a full, balanced recovery of my knees and also my back.

So it is in life. Our tendency is to run with our strengths and leave our weaknesses undeveloped. Sometimes that's fine, when we can organize to make those weaknesses irrelevant through the strengths of others, but most of the time it isn't fine because the full utilization of our capacities requires overcoming those weaknesses.

And so it is with our unique human gifts. As we go through life interacting with external circumstances, with other people, and with our own nature, we have constant ongoing opportunities to come face-to-face with our weaknesses. We can choose to ignore them, or we can push against the resistance and break through to new levels of competence and strength.

I have done a human gifts questionnaire 2 many times with thousands of people in many different settings, and the overwhelming finding is this: The gift most neglected is self-awareness. Perhaps you have heard the expression "Think outside the box," meaning to get outside the normal way of thinking, the normal assumptions and paradigms in which we operate. That's another expression for using self-awareness. Until the gift of self-awareness is cultivated, the use of conscience, imagination, and willpower will always be "within the box"-that is, within one's own life experience or one's present way of thinking or paradigm. So in a sense the unique leveraging of the four human gifts is in self-awareness, because when you have the ability to think outside the box-to examine your own assumptions and your own way of thinking, to stand apart from your own mind and examine it, to think about your very thoughts, feelings, and even moods-then you have the basis for using imagination, conscience, and independent will in entirely new ways. You literally become transcendent. You have transcended yourself; you have transcended your background, your history, your psychic baggage.

This transcendence is fundamental to the life force in all of us and helps unleash the propensity to become, to grow, to develop. It is also fundamental in our relationships with others and in cultivating a beautiful family culture. The more the family has a collective sense of self-awareness, the more it can look in on itself and improve itself: make changes, select goals outside of tradition, and set up structures and other plans to achieve those goals that lie outside social scripting and deeply established habit patterns.

The ancient Greek saying "Know thyself"3 is enormously significant because it reflects the understanding that self-knowledge is the basis of all other knowledge. If we don't take ourselves into account, all we are doing is projecting ourselves onto life and onto other people. We then judge ourselves by our motives-and others by their behavior. Until we know ourselves and are aware of ourselves as separate from others and from the environment-until we can be separated even from ourselves so that we can observe our own tendencies, thoughts, and desires-we have no foundation from which to know and respect other people, let alone to create change within ourselves.

Developing all four of these gifts is vital to proactivity. You cannot neglect one of them because the key is in the synergy or the relationship among them. Hitler, for example, had tremendous self-awareness, imagination, and willpower-but no conscience. And it proved to be his undoing. It also changed the course of the world in many tragic ways. Others are very principled and conscience driven, but they have no imagination, no vision. They are good-but good for what? Toward what end? Others have great willpower but no vision. They often do the same things again and again with no meaningful end in mind.

And this applies to an entire family as well. The collective sense of these four gifts-the relationship among these gifts as well as the relationship among the individuals in the family-is what enables the family to move to higher and higher levels of achievement and significance and contribution. The key lies in the proper nurturance of all four gifts in the individual and in the family culture so that there is a great sense of self- and family awareness, a highly cultivated and sensitive individual and collective conscience, the development of the creative, imaginative instincts into shared vision, and the development and use of a strong personal and social will to do whatever it takes to fulfill a mission, to achieve a vision, to matter.

The Circle of Influence and the Circle of Concern

The essence of proactivity and the use of these four unique gifts lies in taking the responsibility and the initiative to focus on the things in our lives we can actually do something about. As Saint Francis wrote in his well-known "Serenity Prayer": "God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference."4 One way to make this differentiation more clear in our minds is to look at our lives in terms of what I call the Circle of Influence and the Circle of Concern. The Circle of Concern is a large circle that embraces everything in your life that you may be concerned about. The Circle of Influence is a smaller circle within the Circle of Concern that embraces the things you can actually do something about.

The reactive tendency is to focus on the Circle of Concern, but this only causes the inner Circle of Influence to be diminished. The nature of energy focused on the outer Circle of Concern is negative. And when you combine that negative energy with neglect of the Circle of Influence, inevitably the Circle of Influence gets smaller.

But proactive people focus on their Circle of Influence. As a result, that circle increases.

Consider the impact of one man's decision to work in his Circle of Influence: In my later teens I noticed that Mom and Dad were becoming very critical of each other. There were arguments and tears. They would say things that hurt-and they knew what to say. There was also making up and "everything's fine." But over time the arguments increased and the hurt got deeper.

When I was about twenty-one, they finally separated. I remember at the time feeling a great sense of duty and a desire to help "fix it." I guess that's a natural response for a child. You love your parents. You want to do everything you can.

I would say to my dad, "Why don't you just go to Mom and say 'I'm sorry. I know I've done lots of things that hurt you, but please forgive me. Let's work at this. I'm committed to it.' " And he would say, "I can't. I'm not going to bare my soul like that and have it stomped on again."

I would say to my mom, "Look at everything you've had together. Isn't it worth trying to save?" And she would say, "I can't do it. I simply cannot handle this man."

There was deep unhappiness, deep anguish, deep anger on both sides. And both Mom and Dad went to unbelievable effort to get us children to see that their side was right and the other was wrong.

When I finally realized they were going to divorce, I couldn't believe it. I felt so empty and sad inside. Sometimes I would just weep. One of the most solid things in my life was gone. And I became consumed with self-focus. Why me? Why can't I do something to help?

I had a very good friend who finally said to me, "You know what you need to do? You need to stop feeling sorry for yourself. Just look at you. This is not your problem. You are connected to it, but this is your parents' problem, not yours. You need to stop feeling sorry for yourself and figure out what you can do to support and love each of your parents, because they need you more than they have ever needed you before."

When my friend said that to me, something happened inside. I suddenly realized that I was not the victim here. My inner voice said, "Your greatest responsibility as a son is to love each of your parents and to chart your own course. You need to choose your response to what has happened here."

That was a profound moment in my life. It was a moment of choice. It was realizing that I was not a victim and that I could do something about it.

So I focused on loving and supporting both my parents, and I refused to take sides. My parents did not like it. They accused me of being neutral, wimpy, not being willing to take a stand. But they both came to respect my position over time.

As I thought about my own life, it was suddenly as if I could step aside from myself, my family experience, their marriage, and become a learner. I knew that someday I wanted to be married and have a family. So I asked myself, "What does this mean to you, Brent? What are you going to learn from this? What kind of marriage are you going to build? Which of your weaknesses that you happen to share with your parents are you going to give up?"

I decided that what I really wanted was a strong, healthy, growing marriage. And I have since found that when you have that kind of resolve, it gives you the sustaining power to swallow hard in difficult moments-to not say something that will hurt feelings, to apologize, to come back to it, because you are affirming something that is more important to you than just the emotion of the moment.

I also made the resolve to always remember that it's more important to be "one" than to be right or have it your way. The tiny victory that comes from winning the argument only causes greater separation, which really deprives you of the deeper satisfaction of a marriage relationship. I count that as one of my greatest life learnings. And from that I determined that when I faced a situation where I wanted something different from what my wife wanted and I did something dumb that put a wall between us (which, even at that time, I realized I would do on a regular basis), I would not live with it or let it expand but would always apologize. I would always say, "I'm sorry," and reaffirm my love and commitment to her and work it out. I determined to always do everything in my power, not to be perfect-because I knew that was impossible- but to keep working at it, to keep trying.

It hasn't been easy. Sometimes it takes a lot of effort when there are deep issues. But I believe my resolve reflects a priority that might never have been there had I not gone through the painful experience of my parents' divorce.

Think about this man's experience. Here were the two people he loved most in the world-the people from whom he had gotten much of his own sense of identity and security over the years-and their marriage was falling apart. He felt betrayed. His own sense of security was put in jeopardy. His vision, his feelings about marriage were threatened. He was in deep pain. He later said it was the most difficult, the most challenging time in his life.

Through the help of a friend he realized that their marriage was in his Circle of Concern but not in his Circle of Influence. He decided to be proactive. He realized he couldn't fix their marriage, but there were things he could do. And his inner compass told him what those things were. So he began to focus on his Circle of Influence. He worked on loving and supporting both parents-even when it was hard, even when they reacted in negative ways. He gained the courage to act based on principle rather than reacting to his parents' emotional response.

He also started to think about his own future, his own marriage. He began to recognize values he wanted to have in his relationship with his future wife. As a result, he was able to begin his marriage with the vision of that relationship in mind. And the power of that vision has carried him through the challenges to it. It's given him the power to apologize and to keep coming back.

Can you see what a difference a Circle of Influence focus makes?

Consider another example. I'm aware of one set of parents who decided that the behavior of their daughter had deteriorated to the point where allowing her to continue to live at home would destroy the family. The father determined that when she got home that night, he would tell her that she had to do certain things or move out the next day. So he sat down to wait for her. While he was waiting, he decided to take a three-by-five card and list the changes she had to make in order to stay. When he finished the list, he had feelings that only those who have suffered a similar situation can know.

But in this emotionally pained spirit, as he continued to wait for her to come home, he turned the card over. The other side was blank. He decided to list on that side of the card the improvements he would agree to make if she would agree to her changes. He was in tears as he realized that his list was longer than hers. In that spirit he humbly greeted her when she came home, and they began a long, meaningful talk, beginning with his side of the card. His choice to begin with that side made all the difference-inside out.

Now just think about the word "responsible"-"response-able," able to choose your own response. That is the essence of proactivity. It is something we can do in our own lives. The interesting thing is that when you focus on your Circle of Influence and it gets larger, you are also modeling to others through your example. And they will tend to focus on their inner circle also. Sometimes others may do the opposite out of reactive anger, but if you're sincere and persistent, your example can eventually impact the spirit of everyone so that they will become proactive and take more initiative, more "response-ability" in the family culture.

Listen to Your Language

One of the best ways to tell whether you're in your Circle of Influence or Circle of Concern is to listen to your own language. If you're in your Circle of Concern, your language will be blaming, accusing, reactive.

"I can't believe the way these kids are behaving! They're driving me crazy!"

"My spouse is so inconsiderate!"

"Why did my father have to be an alcoholic?"

If you're in your Circle of Influence, your language will be proactive. It will reflect a focus on the things you can do something about.

"I can help create rules in our family that will enable the children to learn about the consequences of their behavior. I can look for opportunities to teach and reinforce positive behavior."

"I can be considerate. I can model the kind of loving interaction I would like to see in my marriage."

"I can learn more about my father and his addiction to alcohol. I can seek to understand him, to love and to forgive. I can choose a different path for myself, and I can teach and influence my family so that this will not be part of their lives."

In order to get a deeper insight into your own level of proactivity or reactivity, you might like to try the following experiment. You may want to ask your spouse or someone else to participate with you and give you feedback.

Identify a problem in your family culture.

Describe it to someone else (or write your description down), using completely reactive terms. Focus on your Circle of Concern. Work hard. See how completely you can convince someone else that this problem is not your fault.

Describe the same problem in completely proactive terms. Focus on your response-ability. Talk about what you can do in your Circle of Influence. Convince someone else that you can make a real difference in this situation.

Now think about the difference in the two descriptions. Which one more closely resembles your normal habit pattern when talking about family problems?

If you find that you are using essentially reactive language, you can take immediate steps to replace that kind of language with proactive words and phrases. The very act of forcing yourself to use the words will help you recognize habits of reactivity and begin to change.

Teaching responsibility for language is another way we can help even young children learn to integrate Habit 1.

Colleen (our daughter): Recently, I tried to help our three-year-old be more responsible for her language. I said to her, "In our family we don't say hate or shut up or call people stupid. You have to be careful about the way you talk to people. You need to be responsible." Every now and then I would remind her, "Don't call people names, Erika. Try to be responsible for the way you talk and act."

Then the other day I happened to remark, "Oh, I hated that movie!" Erika immediately replied, "Don't say hate, Mom! You're responsible."

Erika is now like the Gestapo in our family. We all have to watch our language when we're around her.

Building the Emotional Bank Account

One very practical, useful way to understand and apply this whole idea of proactivity and this inside-out approach of focusing on the Circle of Influence is by using the analogy or metaphor of the Emotional Bank Account.

The Emotional Bank Account represents the quality of the relationship you have with others. It's like a financial bank account in that you can make "deposits," by proactively doing things that build trust in the relationship, or you can make "withdrawals," by reactively doing things that decrease the level of trust. And at any given time the balance of trust in the account determines how well you can communicate and solve problems with another person.

If you have a high balance in your Emotional Bank Account with a family member, then there's a high level of trust. Communication is open and free. You can even make a mistake in the relationship, and the "emotional reserves" will compensate for it.

But if the account balance is low or even overdrawn, then there's no trust and thus no authentic communication. It's like walking on minefields. You're always on your guard. You have to measure every word. And even your better intentions are misunderstood.

Remember the story of my friend who "found his son again." You could say that the relationship between this father and son was $100, $200, or even $10,000 overdrawn. There was no trust, no real communication, no ability to work together to solve problems. And the harder this father pushed, the worse it got. But then my friend did something proactive that made a tremendous difference. Taking an inside-out approach, he became an agent of change. He stopped reacting to his son. He made an enormous deposit in this boy's Emotional Bank Account. He listened, really, deeply listened. And the boy suddenly felt validated, affirmed, recognized as an important human being.

One of the biggest problems in many family cultures is the reactive tendency to continually make withdrawals instead of deposits. Consider what my friend Dr. Glen C. Griffin suggests is a typical day in the life of a teenager.

A Day's Input To A Teen What kind of impact will this kind of communication-day in and day out-have on the balance in the Emotional Bank Account?

Remember, love is a verb. One of the great benefits of being proactive is that you can choose to make deposits instead of withdrawals. No matter what the situation, there are always things you can do that will make relationships better.

One father from a blended family shared this experience: I have always considered myself to be an honest, hardworking man. I was successful at work and in my relationships with my wife and children-with the exception of our fifteen-year-old daughter Tara.

I had made several futile attempts to mend my broken relationship with her, but every attempt had ended in a frustrating failure. She just didn't trust me. And whenever I tried to resolve our differences, I seemed to make things worse.

Then I learned about the Emotional Bank Account, and I came across a question that really hit me hard: "Ask yourself, are those around you made happier or better by your presence in the home?"

In my heart I had to answer, "No. My presence is making things worse for my daughter Tara."

That introspection almost broke my heart.

After the initial shock I came to the realization that if this sad truth were to change, it would only be because I changed myself, because I changed my own heart. I not only had to act differently toward her; I needed to commit to truly loving her. I had to quit criticizing and always blaming her, to quit thinking that she was the source of our poor relationship. I had to quit competing with her by always making my will supersede hers.

I knew that unless I acted on these feelings immediately, I would probably never act on them, so I resolved to do so. I made a commitment that for thirty days I would make five deposits daily into my Emotional Bank Account with Tara-and absolutely no withdrawals.

My first impulse was to go to my daughter and tell her what I had learned, but my better judgment told me that the time was not right for teaching with words. It was time to begin making deposits. Later that day, when Tara came home from school, I greeted her with a warm smile and asked, "How are you?" Her curt reply was "A lot you care." I swallowed hard and tried to act as if I'd not heard it. I smiled and replied, "I just wondered how you were doing.' "

During the next several days I worked hard to keep my commitment. I put reminder "stickies" everywhere, including on the rearview mirror of my car. I continued to dodge her frequent barbs, which was not easy for me because I had been conditioned to fight back. Each experience caused me to see just how cynical our relationship had become. I began to realize how often in the past I had expected her to change before I would do anything myself to make things better.

As I focused on changing my own feelings and actions rather than hers, I began to see Tara in an entirely new light. I began to appreciate her great need to be loved. And as I continued to let the negative blows glance off, I felt an increasing strength to do so without any inner resentment, but with increased love.

Almost without effort I found myself beginning to do little things for her-little favors that I knew I did not have to do. While she studied, I would quietly walk in and turn up the light. When she asked, "What's this all about?," I'd reply, "I just thought you could read better with more light."

Finally, after about two weeks, Tara looked at me quizzically and asked, "Dad, there's something different about you. What's happening? What's going on?"

I said, "I've come to recognize some things about myself that need changing, that's all. I'm so grateful that now I can express my love to you by treating you the way I know I should have treated you all along."

We began to spend more time together at home, just talking and listening to each other. More than two months have gone by now, and our relationship has been much, much deeper and more positive. It's not flawless yet, but we're getting there. The pain is gone. The trust and love increase each day, and it's due to the simple yet profound idea of making only deposits and no withdrawals in the Emotional Bank Account-and doing it consistently and sincerely. As you do you will begin to see the person differently and begin to replace self-serving motives with service motives.

I am certain that if you ask my daughter what she thinks of me now, she would quickly reply, "My dad? We're friends. I trust him."

You can see how this father used proactivity to make a real difference in his relationship with his daughter. Notice how he used all four human gifts. Look at how self-aware he was. Look at how he could stand apart from himself, from his daughter, from the whole situation and see what was happening. Notice how he could compare what was happening with what his conscience was telling him was right. Notice how he had a sense of what was possible. Through his imagination he could envision something different. And notice how he used his willpower to act.

And as he used all four gifts, look at what began to happen. Things began to improve dramatically-not only the quality of the relationship but also how he felt about himself and how his daughter felt about herself. It was like flooding a toxic culture with a healing balm. That's literally what he did. He made many deposits because he got his head out of the weaknesses of other people and focused on his own Circle of Influence-on those things he could do something about. He was truly an agent of change.

Just remember, every time you build your emotional life on the weaknesses of others, you give your power-that is, your unique human gifts-away to their weaknesses so that your emotional life is a product of how they treat you. You disempower yourself and empower the weaknesses of others.

But when you focus on your Circle of Influence and on doing what you can to build the Emotional Bank Account-to build relationships of trust and unconditional love-you dramatically increase your ability to influence others in positive ways.

Let me share with you some specific ideas-some "deposits" you can make in your own family-that may be helpful. These are practical ways that you can begin to practice Habit 1 in your family now.

Being Kind

Some years ago I spent a special evening with two of my sons. It was an organized father and sons outing, complete with gymnastics, wrestling matches, hotdogs, orangeade, and a movie-the works.

In the middle of the movie, Sean, who was then four years old, fell asleep in his seat. His older brother, Stephen, who was six, stayed awake, and we watched the rest of the movie together. When it was over, I picked Sean up in my arms, carried him out to the car, and laid him in the backseat. It was very cold that night, so I took off my coat and gently arranged it over and around him.

When we arrived home, I quickly carried Sean in and tucked him into bed. After Stephen put on his pajamas and brushed his teeth, I lay down next to him to talk about the night out together.