C. S. Keating Pre-order

Most of your life runs on rules you never chose.

Living by Your Own Rules is a practical system for finding them, rewriting the ones that cost you, and deciding the big things once, so you stop re-arguing them every week.

Pre-order the bookSee what's inside

By C. S. Keating. Twenty-two chapters, plus the whole system on one page.

Cover of Living by Your Own Rules by C. S. Keating, a hardcover book with a river canyon at sunset

You can feel it, even if you can't name it.

  • In the Sunday-night dread.
  • In the conversations you keep avoiding.
  • In the sense that the shape of your days was decided by someone else.
  • In the argument you keep having with yourself and never settle.

Every life is made of thousands of decisions, and almost nobody has looked at how they make them. Most were made on your behalf, by circumstance, by habit, or by somebody else's expectations.

This book is about becoming the person who decides on purpose. Not with a five-year plan or a vision board, but with small, specific tools you can use this week.

Same water. Different outcome.

A river carves a canyon out of solid rock. The same water in a puddle evaporates without leaving a mark. The difference has nothing to do with the water.

A puddle

Plenty of drive and no edges. It spreads a little wider every day and gets a little thinner.

A river

The same drive, held between banks. It goes somewhere, and over time it cuts deep.

The banks are decisions you make once, while you're calm, and write down. The book calls them personal bylaws. You'll write your first one before the last page.

“I have a rule about buying gas, and it has probably improved my life more than most of the advice I've ever paid for.”

From Chapter 6, Personal Bylaws

Stuck on a Tuesday? There's a move for that.

  • You keep having the same argument with yourself.Write a bylaw.Ch. 6, 22
  • You're stuck between two options.Ask the deathbed question.Ch. 9
  • You're about to say “I can't.”Finish the sentence honestly.Ch. 2
  • Something went wrong and you're explaining it with someone else's name.Ask what your role was.Ch. 4
  • You're dealing with the same chore, payment or decision for the third time.Eliminate it, automate it or hand it off.Ch. 7
  • A big moment is coming and you know you'll decide badly inside it.Write an if-then condition now.Ch. 8
  • You're afraid of hearing no, or of being looked at.Do one small rep.Ch. 15
  • Your care is spread across a dozen causes and the people closest to you aren't getting all of it.Sort your puppies.Ch. 16
  • The thing you want feels too big.Ask what it costs today.Ch. 17

A taste of the one-page system at the back of the book. Each move is a full chapter, with the story that explains why it works.

A book you do, not just read.

It asks things of you.

Every so often the book stops and asks you to answer a question, make a decision, or go do something before you continue. Those are the parts that work.

Run it as given.

Most people keep the tools that sound reasonable and skip the rest. The book asks you to try the whole thing first and edit later, once you have real results to edit from.

The whole system on one page.

The last page is for the Tuesday, a few months from now, when you're stuck and can't remember which chapter had the answer.

Fair warning.

You can skip the exercises. You'll get a perfectly pleasant read and nothing much will change, which is what happens with most books. Do them, fully, and something might.

What's inside.

Twenty-two chapters, grouped the way the one-page system groups them.

See where you are

  1. 1The Default Life
    Four questions that find the rules you didn't know you were following.
  2. 2Can't Is a Lie
    Finish the sentence honestly.
  3. 3The Puddle
    Find your verb, not your noun.

Take the controls

  1. 4Everything Is My Fault
    Ask what your role was, then change that.

Build the banks

  1. 5Principle Over Rules
    What problem was this rule invented to solve?
  2. 6Personal Bylaws
    Decide it once, while you're calm.
  3. 7Life Automation
    Eliminate it, automate it or hand it off.
  4. 8Universe Conditions
    Write the if-then before the moment arrives.

Steer by the end

  1. 9The Deathbed Filter
    Will I wish I did this, or wish I hadn't?
  2. 10The Silver Lining
    Find one true thing about it that isn't bad.
  3. 11The Three Things That Chose Me
    Build enough room to say yes when one arrives.

Learn from others, and from friction

  1. 12The $400 Deal
    Ask what's actually available beyond the obvious offer.
  2. 13Wholesale Adoption
    Run it as given for ninety days.
  3. 14Do Hard Things
    One hard thing today, small enough to be embarrassing.
  4. 15The Disapproval Gym
    One small, recoverable rep this week.

Aim what you have

  1. 16Pick Your Puppies
    Sort the ones that are genuinely yours.
  2. 17The Ticket Price
    Ask what it costs today, and pay that installment.
  3. 18Premeditated Love
    One relationship, one small ritual.
  4. 19You Owe It to the World to Be Rich
    Two money rules. Get one running first.

Keep going

  1. 20Like Water Moving Through the Landscape
    Let the end set the destination and the land set the route.
  2. 21Still Not At Peace
    You can build a deliberate life and still feel the hunger.
  3. 22Your First Bylaw
    Write one this week.

At the back

  1.  The System on One Page
    The whole book, organized by the problem you're facing.

Tested on a real life first.

C. S. Keating lives by rules he wrote himself, and he has spent twenty-five years testing them on his own life.

He grew up on the Canadian prairies in a family of teachers, bought his first house at eighteen, and built a business that has done over ten million dollars in sales and helped raise more than half a million dollars for charity. At twenty-five he weighed close to three hundred pounds and had never played a sport. At forty-one he won the Muay Thai World Expo title, and he will tell you there was no talent in it, only a way of showing up on the mornings he didn't want to.

He lives in Calgary, Alberta. He is a portrait painter, married for twenty-seven years and a father of three. He surfs badly and keeps at it. And he is partway through a round-the-world motorcycle journey, ridden two weeks a year, that has so far taken him from Calgary to Costa Rica.

He is candid about what the system hasn't fixed. One chapter is called “Still Not At Peace,” and it is in the book on purpose. The rest is the method underneath the life: decide the important things once, in advance, then get on with living.

Cover of Living by Your Own Rules by C. S. Keating, a hardcover book with a river canyon at sunset

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Get the system, and the page that finds you the right tool when you're stuck.

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Questions.

Who is this book for?

Anyone who can feel that something in their life isn't working and suspects the shape of their days was decided by someone else. You don't need to be a business owner. The stories come from one life, but the tools work on any life that has decisions in it.

Is it a memoir or a how-to?

The stories are mine, because I only know what I've lived. But the stories aren't the point. What's underneath them is: a set of tools for deciding on purpose, each one tied to a story so it sticks.

Do I have to do the exercises?

No. You'll get a perfectly pleasant read and nothing much will change, which is what happens with most books. The exercises are small, and they're the part that works.

Where should I start?

At the beginning. Chapter 1 shows you where you are, and each chapter builds on the last. Once you've read it, the one-page system at the back is how you find the right tool again.

When does it ship, and where to?

To be announced. We'll confirm shipping options as soon as pre-orders open, and everyone on the launch list hears first.

Can I get it as an ebook or audiobook?

Not yet announced. The launch list is where any other formats will be announced first.

Pre-order the book