Rules are everywhere.

Cross at the crosswalk.

Use a full stop to end your sentences.

Don’t drive drunk. Don’t steal.

Keep your promises, pay your debts.

Fill in form 158 A and sign subsection 456 (c) and get it certified by the right authorities and include your documentation and submit it by the deadline and pay the fee and then wait 17 months for processing and do not contact us until we contact you.

Have the rules got a bit out of control?

Are we trapped in a Kafkaesque nightmare?

Do we need a stomping, rampaging, revenge fueled rule breaker to get us back to the freedom and greatness which must surely be our birthright?

In the US, freedom is central to the national identity.

Free speech is enshrined in the ‘constitution’ – a document that lays down the rules which apply to everyone in the group that call themselves the United States.

The constitution constitutes – it puts together, lays the framework, makes up, brings into being, establishes.

Rules make a group.

They pull us together.

When rules are explicit they create safety.

We know what to do to stay inside the group. To belong. Phew!

Rules in their nature are the expression of a group process.

We have to agree on them in order to keep them in place.

And group process is notoriously unstable.

Always evolving. Always in motion. Always emerging into the future.

When rules are connected to the most subtle level of our experience, deep rooted, those rules can hold us all.

But most rules are the temporary resolution of a power struggle, part of a dreaming process, cycling at the edge.

So do the rules apply to you?

Making a difference always means breaking some rules.

Choosing which rules to break and which rules to respect is the art and the science of sustainable change.

Go as deep as you can.

Find the place in you that is connected to the whole.

Allow this knowing to choose which rules apply to you.

One rule you should follow

I’ve been an apple user for a long time now.

And it is kinda striking that I probably don’t need to explain what that means.

apple user. Sounds more like an identity than a brand of computer.

I made the shift many years ago because of a guy I worked with.

He was the IT department at our scrappy little nonprofit. He was cool.

I remember asking, but why do you have an apple? It was an expensive, elitist brand and definitely not on my radar.

He slid out his laptop from his backpack and showed me the photo library. It was gorgeous. The display was intuitive, smooth and flowing.

Everything just works he said.

But lately, I’ve started having doubts.

Last year, apple made a big splash about launching their AI integration (Apple Intelligence).

It has been a major flop.

They didn’t deliver on schedule. And as the features have slowly dribbled out, well, underwhelming is probably an overstatement.

The one rule you should follow?

Keep your promises.

Which means of course, don’t make promises you can’t keep.

In Find your Focus, I help people find the promises they can keep, the promises they are here to make. It is an online training to help you unleash their inner marketer and make your difference.

As part of the experiential training, I invite folks to connect to their Tall Tree Nature.

Calling on your Tall Tree Nature is about finding your strength, your integrity, your ability to be here for the long haul.

Your power to stand for something. To make promises that you can keep.

Trust is hard won but very easily broken.

Find your focus and call on your tall tree nature so you only make promises that you can keep.

You’ve got this.

And the world needs you.