The Three Laws of Performance

Law #2: How a situation occurs arises in language.

A. The feeling of being “stuck” in a relationship (personal or professional) develops into a “complaint, such as, “he treats me like dirt.” The authors explain that such a complaint, as it festers, develops into a Racket.” It looks like a legitimate complaint, but it’s much more than it first appears—like mafia backed restaurants (rackets) that are money laundering havens. According to Zaffron and Logan, a racket has 4 aspects to it:

i. Complaint (“He treats me like dirt.”). This is how all rackets start.

ii. A Pattern of Behavior : You avoid her or snap at her, or look stiff and uncompromising. Note that the nonverbals are often far more powerful even than what you actually say. Thus, you might say “I’m fine,” when every bone in your body is leaking nonverbals to the other person that, in fact, say saying I’M REALLY PISSED!

iii. The Payoff: One of the results of a racket is that we get to be smug about our perceptions….”See, she did it again!” Our friends agree with us (as they always do) and we keep up the rant. We translate even the slightest action as a snub, which supports our thesis that “He treats me like dirt.” And finally,

iv. The Cost: Unfortunately there’s a huge cost to such rackets. They can cost you happiness, joy, and the satisfaction that you should get from doing your job. Note that we all are engaged in rackets—some more destructive than others. But if you don’t stop the cycle and move from a vicious cycle to a virtuous cycle, life’s not much fun.