The Secret of Rule No. 6
Updated: 4 days ago
Why Lightness is the Ultimate Leadership Advantage
In The Art of Possibility, Benjamin Zander shares a legendary story.
Two prime ministers are sitting in a room, conducting state business.
Suddenly, an enraged advisor bursts into the room, stamping his feet, red-faced, screaming at the top of his lungs.
The resident prime minister calmly looks up and says, "Heinz, please remember Rule Number 6."
Instantly, Heinz restores his composure, bows deeply, and leaves the room.
Twenty minutes later, another official rushes in, tearing her hair out in total panic over a political crisis. Again, the prime minister speaks gently: "Jan, please remember Rule Number 6." Jan stops, relaxes her shoulders, apologizes, and exits peacefully.
The visiting prime minister, amazed, leans over and asks, "What on earth is Rule Number 6?"
The host smiles: "Rule Number 6 is: Don't take yourself so damn seriously."
Astounded, the visitor asks, "And what, if I may ask, are the other rules?"
The prime minister replies: "There are no other rules."
Why does Rule No. 6 hit home so well?
And what does it mean to take ourselves so seriously?
Because many of us spend our working lives trapped in what Zander calls the "calculating self." Rule No. 6 frees us from the fearful ego, the part of us obsessed with status, self-protection, and avoiding mistakes at all costs.
At its essence, this calculating ego part of us springs from deep in our primitive survival coding. It is trying to protect us. So, it comes from love and fear. We can appreciate that AND we can recognize it no longer serves us. In fact, it often does the opposite.
When we operate from this state:
Disagreement feels like an attack on our authority.
Every mistake feels like a threat to our career.
Each individual assignment and team project carries a suffocating weight of perfectionism.
When you remember Rule No. 6, you aren't shrinking your ambitions or lowering your standards. You are releasing the friction that keeps you and your team stuck and limited in defensive or perfectionism modes.
How Rule No. 6 Unlocks High Performance
When leaders model Rule No. 6, it cascades through an entire organization. Same as for other contexts – in parenting, for instance, and in social groups. Its magic lies in how it opens the door to something different by starting a chain reaction: calming our nervous systems, changing our energy, and opening our big, beautiful minds. Rule No. 6 starts that possibility.
From Heavy & Defended | To Light & Possibility-Driven |
Defending ego and status | Focusing on shared purpose and learning |
Blame culture and risk aversion | Rapid experimentation and resilience |
Tense, exhausting energy | Joyful engagement and creative spark |
Putting Rule No. 6 into Action
TL;DR: Notice, intercept, take a break, invoke rule no. 6, get curious, and see what happens.
Catch your fear-driven self in the act. Often our body notices first. Maybe you notice your chest or gut tightens, or your voice hardens in defense. This intercepts the pattern and signals you to tune into Rule No. 6.
Pause, breathe, or tune into one of your senses. This breaks the pattern by resetting your internal operating system. Neurobiologically, it's like a reboot of your nervous system, body, and mind. Brain imaging even shows activity receding from your survival brain (primitive limbic network) as more of your whole mind lights up, as you can now access networks for critical thinking with creativity, intuition, and wisdom.
Laugh at your own drama: When something goes sideways, be the first person in the room to laugh and lower the temperature. This is one way to invoke Rule No. 6.
Ask yourself, "Am I exploring for best outcomes here, or am I fighting for my ego?"
Ask your team: "What would we try next if we weren't afraid of looking silly?"
What do you think the benefits would be to this Rule No. 6 process? For you? Your team? Other contexts, like at home?
Taking your mission seriously while taking yourself lightly isn't just a happier way to live - it is the single greatest competitive advantage we can cultivate.
Pro-practice: If you notice after the fact or think you might be headed into a situation, these steps still work. Our brains do not differentiate between real and imagined experiences. This practice helps retrain your mind and prepare it for future inevitable scenarios.
Next article: Giving Yourself an "A"
Once you’ve disarmed the fearful ego (Article 1: “How fascinating!”) and cleared away the panic of making mistakes (Rule No. 6), a whole new landscape opens up.
What do you actually build when you're no longer operating out of self-protection?
Enter Benjamin and Rosamund Zander’s most radical practice: Giving Yourself an "A."
In our next article, we explore how writing your story from the future breaks the "clarity deficit," shifts you from avoiding what you don’t want, and playfully pulls you into steering towards intentional creation of what you do want. 🦩
Credits: Benjamin Zander and Rosamund Stone Zander as the creators of the concepts ("How Fascinating!", Rule No. 6, Giving an A) and source of direct quotes.
References:
Zander, Rosamund Stone, and Zander, Benjamin. The Art of Possibility: Transforming Professional and Personal Life. Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2000.
Video, Work (How to give an A), Benjamin Zander https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTKEBygQic0
Video: Experiencing the Art of Possibility, Benjamin Zander https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d54-4mDLXYo
Images: Gemini under the direction of moi. I wish my hair really did look like that!
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