The CEO insists on quarterly thinking because that’s how it’s done. The founder chases venture capital because everyone says you must. The team meets every Monday at nine because… well, that’s when meetings happen.
We inherit rules like we inherit furniture from previous tenants.
Here’s the interesting part: most rules aren’t rules at all. They’re habits dressed up in authority’s clothing. Someone decided something once, it worked (or didn’t), and it calcified into “how we do things here.”
The game of business—of leadership, of scaling—operates on these inherited rules. Show up this way. Communicate like that. Measure these things. The rules provide structure, yes. They offer the comfort of precedent.
But comfort and growth rarely share the same address.
The founders who create extraordinary value? They’re the ones who pause and ask: “Who made this rule, and were they solving my problem or theirs?” They question whether the playbook they’re following was written for a different game entirely. Others have attained success often through their questioning of the rules.
You’re not obligated to play by rules that don’t serve your vision. You can rewrite them. Better yet, you can write new ones.
The question isn’t whether you’re following rules. You are—we all are.
The question is: which rules are you following unconsciously, and what becomes possible when you examine them in daylight?
