Behavior Patterns

Let’s go to the fourth piece of the Reality Model, which is a right-facing triangle. Down the slope on the top of that triangle is the word Behavior. Inside the triangle is the word Action.

Let’s go back to that same principle: all Doberman pinschers are vicious. If that’s true, then we set up our rules. Rules are automatic. If you go in somebody’s yard and there’s a Doberman, what behavior pattern will we see? You will perform the same action every single time.

Let’s take another principle through the model to this point. Here is a principle: “My self-worth is dependent on my possessions.” Do you know anyone who has that principle on his or her Belief Window? Which of the four Human Needs would drive this principle? The need to feel important, for sure. Anything else?

Let’s pretend I have a second principle on my Belief Window: European stuff is better than American stuff. Now I have two principles on my Belief Window: (1) my self-worth is dependent on my stuff, and (2) European stuff is better.

Let’s take that through the model. If that’s true, the rules we set up will reflect those beliefs. It’s now time for me to buy a car. What kind of car will I buy? What kind of clothes will I wear? Both will be European, of course. And I am likely not going to feel good about myself without that car or those clothes.

Let me tell you a story to illustrate how Belief Windows can be passed on from generation to generation. One Sunday morning a man comes into his kitchen and notices his wife is cooking a wonderful dinner. As she pulls a beautifully cooked ham from the oven, he notices that the ends have been removed from it. He is curious, so he asks his wife, “Why did you cut the ends off the ham?”

“It makes it taste better,” she says.

“How do you know that?”

“My mother taught me that.”

On this woman’s Belief Window is the principle that if you cut the ends off the ham it makes it taste better. (We know she believes that, because that is what she has done.) The man is really curious because he has never seen his own mother do that. The next Sunday he’s at the in-laws’ house for dinner. He takes his mother-in-law aside and says, “I understand you cut the ends off your ham.”

“I do.”

“Why do you do that?”

“It makes it taste better.”

“How do you know that?”

“My mother taught me that.”

Two generations of women now have the same principle on their Belief Window: cutting the ends off the ham makes it taste better. But the man doesn’t understand this logic. The grandmother is still alive at age ninety-three, so he calls her on the phone.

“I understand you cut the ends off your ham.”

“I do.”

“Why do you do that?”

“Won’t fit in the oven if I don’t.”

Here was a practical reason as the origin of the practice, but two generations later, the principle or belief floats down on a Belief Window: cutting the ends off the ham makes it taste better.