Rules Don’t Matter – So, Stop Pretending That They Do

It’s so easy when you don’t know the rules. Stop pretending they matter.

Say it with me. The rules do not matter. They just don’t.

It’s so easy when you don’t know what you’re not allowed to do.

We’ve been told, and we’ve learned that the rules must be followed. They say that you need to make X amount of dollars to save up a deposit to spend the rest of your life paying off a mortgage. They tell you not to start a business. They tell you to shut down your dreams and find a way to pretend they never existed.

Even if you do take the leap, and strike out on your own, and become an entrepreneur or an artist or a creative, there are more rules.

How many times do you get told that this isn’t how “we” do things…those are the rules.

To go along with them is to become an example that proves them. We believe the rules, so we follow them, so we demonstrate them.

If you have never experienced what it feels like to go completely off-base and colour outside of the lines, it’s tough to know and to understand the incredible feeling of complete freedom.

The fact is, if you want to build anything that means anything, you have to find a way to do that. Elon Musk, Richard Branson and every other fucking millionaire who you look up to as an entrepreneur found a way to do that.

Breaking out of the rules is what allows you to see the angles, the opportunities and the holes in every society, situation and marketplace. The framework for innovating is to first break them, then get to a place where you no longer consider them.

The need to bust out of your lane is calling to most people who wake up with the urge to build the new. Although you may not realize it, you have the ability to live and work in the wild, where the rules do not apply. It can be difficult to know where to begin — but once you get the hang of it…

You have to look inside and find those that you have been following, and abandon them.

What matters is this: Being fearless of failure arms you to break the rules. In doing so, you may change the culture and just possibly, for a moment, change life itself — Malcolm McLaren

Throughout history, there have been people who stand out because they do not care about the rules. Are you one of them?

[This post by Jon Westenberg first appeared on Medium and has been reproduced with permission.]

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