Rule Breakers Wanted

I’m a good girl. I’ve always followed the rules like a good girl. That’s what good girls do.

This last year I made some big decisions that are out of character for a good girl. These decisions completely shifted my universe. I left two start-up businesses, one a marketing consulting business and the other a coworking space. I left my marriage. I left my home. I left my dog.

To those around me, it looked as if I left my world. In one way I did and there are days that I still feel like a newborn. But, I also feel as if the world I left wasn’t meant for me to begin with. At the point of realization, when I knew that I had to change my life and break the rules set up around me, the immediate consequences on other people was nearly unbearable. So, why did I forge ahead? Because the one thing that kept me going was this: I realized that I was following the rules for all the wrong reasons.

When you follow the rules because they are the rules, you lose. When you follow the rules because they bring positive outcomes – happiness, peace, success or whatever is at the top of your list – you win. If the immediate pain of rule breaking, such as public opinion or short-term risk, is the smaller price to pay and if you are breaking the rules for greater achievement down the road, there is no question of what has to happen.

Here are some of my favorite rule breakers – now, obviously, I’m not suggesting that I’m anywhere on par with these guys and gals but I sure have learned from them:

• President Obama. Agree or disagree with him, you can’t deny that this guy knows how to break the right rules. His campaign was built on breaking the rules. While some would argue that he actually applied tried-and-true “old” rules of grassroots mobilization, he accomplished his goals with following his gut (and other really smart people) which told him that his only path to success was to break the rules of competition altogether. And he also says emotionally charged stuff like “stupid” and has a smoke once in a while.
• Catherine Keener. Have you ever seen this actress in a major blockbuster movie that involves either a tornado, martians, the Holocaust or a ridiculously sappy plot line? No. Does she want to be in a blockbuster? I don’t know. But, I do know that she’s one of the best actresses out there and she’s phenomenal in every movie I’ve ever seen. This tells me that she picks and chooses what she wants and says you-know-what to the Hollywood moviemarketing business.
• Seth Godin. At Fathom, we reference him just about every day. He markets himself through plain text emails, doesn’t Twitter (he wants to connect with you through his own platform Squidoo and he also says he wouldn’t be able to keep up with it) and he doesn’t have a personal assistant. This guy is at the top of his game and he doesn’t have a personal assistant! Or, if he does, he keeps him/her really under wraps.
• Oprah. Ha! Just kidding. Wanted to see if you’re paying attention.
• Tara Hunt. This one continues to amaze me. I met her when I was starting my coworking space and luckily found (through Tara and others) an amazing support network of folks who really opened my eyes up to a new way of thinking and being. Since that time (a year and a half ago), I have watched Tara go through what appeared to be a really difficult breakup with her boyfriend/business partner, build an enormous contingency of fans among the landscape of other rule breakers, write a book and move to Montreal – and move she did, with style, via a karaoke road trip that started in San Fran and hit different cities along the way. I don’t know this because Tara and I are great friends. I barely know her. I know this because she puts it all out there. She lets us see the good, the bad and the ugly and she does it in a way that is genuinely her. No agenda. Not even a thought to breaking rules. She does it innately and the result is an intriguing mix of instigator, thought provoker and someone you want to have a beer with.

As I get older (not wiser just yet – I think we all need to work on that one), I see how breaking the rules is not only possible, it is necessary at times. It is not for everyone and I only advise it when the bigger picture trumps the immediate pain of rule breaking. If there is one thing that I see through this universal shift of community and conversation that is happening online – and happening all around us – it is that we are not only breaking the rules, we are making our own. And someday those rules will be broken too.

Written by: Suzi Craig

Email the author: suzi@fathom.net

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