Three Minute Leadership: Breaking the Rules to Make Life Extraordinary

To: The Great Leaders Who Have a Passion for Continuous Learning

Albert Einstein said: “You have to learn the rules of the game. And then you have to play better than anyone else.” Wise counsel to the great leaders who strive daily for performance excellence in their live. Rules provide direction and structure, and by their very nature, they limit actions beyond their boundaries. This is their greatness strength and, at times, their greatest weakness when it comes to limiting the leaders’ view of their world.

Neil Gaiman, English author, in his Commencement Address to the 2012 University of Arts graduating class speaks of his career journey and shares everything that he wished he had known at its start. One of his poignant messages for a successful life and career is to have a mindset that challenges the rules, breaks the rules – a mindset fired by the expansive belief in what could be:

“People who know what they are doing know the rules and they know what is possible and what is impossible. The rules on what is possible and impossible… were made by people who had not tested the bounds of the possible by going beyond them. If you don’t know it’s impossible, it’s easier to do. And because no one had done it before, they haven’t made up rules to stop anyone from doing that particular thing again. If you have an idea of what you want to make, what you were put here to do, then just go and do that….. The old rules are crumbling and nobody knows what the new rules are….So make up your own rules….And now go, and make interesting mistakes, make amazing mistakes, make glorious and fantastic mistakes. Break rules. Leave the world more interesting for your being here.”

Rules are needed in the structure they bring to life. Great leaders remember the quote: “If we make the rules, we can change the rules.” Our world and lives are presenting new questions which the old answers may no longer satisfy. Yes, great leaders need to play better than anyone else. They also need to break the rules with unlimited thinking, with a excited and passionate commitment to dare, dream and find what could be. As Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote: “The young man knows the rules, but the old man knows the exceptions.” Find the exceptions and make your life extraordinary.

Have a beautiful day and a magnificent week!!!

Mike

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