Breaking the rules; and getting away with it

Music: “Just A Blip” by Andy G. Cohen

From the Free Music Archive Released under a Creative Commons Attribution International License

"Ethical behavior is doing the right thing when no one else is watching- even when doing

the wrong thing is legal." - Aldo Leopold

- Everybody loves a good "bad-boy" story about the person who broke rules and did well with

it. - On the last episode on honesty, I talked about my gambling story and how I repaid my large debt. I'm not proud of what i did or why I had to do it but the point of that story was 2-fold; to illustrate that we all make mistakes and no one's perfect, and there are points in life where you have to make exceptions for what you believe in. - Life's never as simple as black-and-white. There's no one "final" or "one-size-fits-all" approach to everything. Which is both a good thing and bad. Good that because we know none of us are perfect; we will never be able to attain some kind of standard that needs to be met or applied.  - Despite what it sounds like, people break the rules quite normally and on a daily basis. People cut queues, run through red lights; and while most of the times perfectly valid reasons, sometimes it can be mundane.  - Every person who came to be regarded as a visionary had at some point or another, or even still continue to; break the rules. While that should not be used as an excuse, it's a good reminder that the people who set the rules themselves are failable and not perfect. - Talk about my own career and how I came to constitute a rule-breaker.

- However, it's always good to consider some "rules" when you're thinking about breaking the

rules. - Knowledge; you know how to differentiate a situation from the norm that requires a difference in the treatment that constitutes a breaking of the rules. You know enough to realize that the rules don’t make sense or they're wrong and you know what EXACTLY is required to make it right.  - You've calculated the risk. Breaking the rule shouldn't be a decision to be made in the heat of a moment or done emotionally. Make sure you've done all the research and expanded ALL the effort necessary to ensure you ABIDE to the rules.  - You're prepared for the consequences. It's interesting to talk about rules in the United States because here is a country and government that was founded on precisely the concepts of rule breaking when it decided to revolt against England. It's been regarded as "cool" to break the rules; in fact the whole concept of disruption in business is to challenge and break the status quo. However, you need to be ready to face consequences.  - There's a fine line between being reckless and breaking rules for the greater good. Common sense needs to be the rule of the day. We need to be able to develop good common sense to know when to follow the rules and when to violate them? When to preserve beautiful order and when to flirt with anarchy? - If all of this sounds complicated; that's because it is. There is NO hard-and-fast rule as well, pardon the pun. So; be prepared to break the rules ONLY IF you have thought hard about it.