- February 9, 2018 -
To this day, I don't think my parents know that I used to skip high school with two of my buddies.
We'd check for whenever the Walnut Street Theater in downtown Philly advertised an Open Jam Session.
And if Mercer Ellington (Duke Ellington's son) was in town, we'd skip school and hop on a bus...
'Cause we knew he'd be at the theater jammin'.
We'd spend the whole day at the theater playing jazz.
We were fifteen and thought we were something else!
Never got busted because the lady in the school office knew what we were doing and pulled our cut slips that our teachers filled out. LOL
...it was the 70's, baby!
Broke the rules then, still do. (yeah, it's kind of my thing.)
Back to jazz, though...
I was in our 25-piece jazz band all through high school. We won every competition we entered in those days...with the Ridley Jazz Festival being the big one every year.
God, I loved those days!
Now District Band was another beast...
Every year, I'd try out...every year, I'd make it to the final round.
The round where I was given a piece of music and had to play by sight.
Couldn't do it.
Where with jazz, all you need to do is...
If I could hear something played just once...I could play it back.
My buddy Charlie who played trumpet like me had perfect pitch...
So did Jay on the bass.
And then we just let our instincts take over and improvise all day long.
And let me tell you...riffing with the likes of Mercer Ellington to a bunch of 15-year-olds was like nothing else!
Total freedom from rules...and school 🙂
And to this day, I run my businesses the way I played jazz...trusting my instincts.
Every single time I try to second-guess what my gut is telling me...I get tripped up.
And I'll bet it's the same for you.
So here's the thing...people want and need rules.
They need guidance and you've got to have limits,constraints, checks in your business.
I totally get (and live and teach) that.
But at the end of the day...
Think about it. If rules don't have exceptions, then why do we even need humans?
For example, marketing exactly like your competitors do is a rule to be broken.
You should be the exception.
And designing your Infusionsoft campaigns in a cookie-cutter way that doesn't make sense for your unique outcomes is a rule to be broken.
Always build with the end in mind.
If you could use another set of eyes to see where strategically breaking some rules would give you big results in your marketing automation efforts, schedule a free consult.
We'd love to help.
And have an exceptional weekend!
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