You couldn't make it up:"From high-school drop-out to monk to multimillionaire", reads the dustjacket of Rules for Renegades, Christine Comaford-Lynch's modus vivendi for a fulfilling life "while rocking your career". There's an endorsement from Bill Clinton, not to mention section headers such as, "Evicting the Vile Bitch" and "Leaders 'Have a Pair'...and they're made of brass."
These are US serial entrepreneur Comaford-Lynch's 10 "rules" for living and working, based on her own colourful experiences. As she says in the preface, "My journey into the world of business never bulleted down the express lane." Far from it: first, she modelled in Manhattan, then spent seven years as a Buddhist monk. And that was all before she reached 24.
Somewhere along the way, she also has a crack at becoming the first American geisha, thinking this was a genius business idea until she found out exactly what geishas do. It's a story she recounts in Rules to great effect. And even that has a silver lining-"I had no idea I had sales ability, but I persuaded someone to teach me at an age when most geishas retire," she says in an early-morning interview ahead of the UK release of the book in September.
Every experience offers a lesson: her dates with Bill Gates and Larry Ellison; her $8m loss of face while running CCI. It's a relentlessly positive read, and it's hard not to get caught up in her enthusiasm.
In Rules, she encourages readers to visualise what they want and explains how she hung a poster in her cubicle at work that read: "My First Million", with a picture of a pile of money. It may sound a bit evangelical for the phlegmatic Brit, but Rules has clearly hit home in her native US, where it has already spawned "Renegade Clubs".
The buzz is as much around her own history, but Comaford-Lynch has walked her talk, having started five successful companies, the first while she was still a temp at Microsoft—itself a job she fenegled without a high-school diploma, let alone a degree, using her "front, back or side-door" theory. "I always have a Plan B and C," explains Comaford-Lynch. "There's never only one way to do something." Here are a few more nuggets on unleashing your inner rule-breaker:
Why renegade? "Renegades are willing to do whatever it takes; they have that fire in the belly," she says. As for why "renegade" rather than entrepreneur, she dislikes the transient connotations of the title entrepreneur—"they've often sacrificed their personal life and end up burn outs or with a business that doesn't scale. Renegades want to have a real life. You cannot be an innovator unless you unplug; you're not general manager of the universe," she says, echoing Rule 9, "The Control Freak 12-Step Program".
She sees renegades as promoting the work ethic while ensuring people don't overdo it, but admits that any business leader will likely overdo it when the business is just starting out. "It's bursty; you're like a little rocket at the beginning. You jam for a while then work on integrating it [into your life]."
Chaos theory Renegades should also, she believes, have a "tolerance for some degree of chaos" and skin of hide: as the book amply demonstrates, Comaford-Lynch has learnt to handle failure and advises against taking rejection too personally: "What is it that's being rejected?" she asks. "It's an outcome we didn't plan for." Her book, she relates, was rejected "unanimously" by 22 publishers. She reworked it and, after 17 more rejections, found a publisher.
With all this positivity, then, it's something of a surprise to hear that Comaford-Lynch is a firm believer in planning for the downside—or "risk planning", as she calls it. She's all for realism and counsels against having "happy ears", saying: "You will be almost paralysed if you only visualised success. The all or nothing mentality is crazy."
How to Get Stuff Done (GSD)
Having "GSD" means always maximising your forward motion, while minimising your drag coefficient. Here are 10 steps to build your momentum.
1. Rock responsibility Everything in our lives, good or bad, is the result of our actions or thoughts. When we take 100 per cent responsibility for our lives we acknowledge this, which enables us to improve our situation. Responsibility is an active pursuit. What would happen if you took just five per cent more responsibility in your life?
2. Get visual You'll want to set specific goals, visualise them being achieved, and act on making them happen. Your goals should include what specifically you want to achieve and when specifically you want to achieve them. Keep track of how you're progressing. It will work wonders in focusing yourself and keeping you on track.
3. Solicit superb support A supportive tribe is necessary to a GSD. I've found two hugely effective ways to do this—an accountability partner and a mastermind group. An accountability partner is a friend or colleague who helps you stay accountable to your commitments. A mastermind group is a group of like-minded people who help further each other's goals on a group basis.
4. Toss toxicity You probably have some toxic people in your life right now. Know anyone who actively hampers your ability to advance or creates fires you have to waste time stamping out? Or who tells you that you can't do what you're doing? They're deflators. You can choose to avoid them or let their negativity bounce off you. If you're not sure if someone is toxic, just monitor how you feel after spending time with them. Do you feel furious, exhausted or despondent? You've got a live one: so get out the isolation suit.
5. Pump-up the positive Use only positives when you talk to yourself about your goals. Negative self-talk fosters a negative self-image, which results in negative behaviour. We sabotage ourselves far more than anyone sabotages us. List your strengths. Don't list your shortcomings; instead, reframe them as strengths you want to develop. Be honest if you have no interest in improving in a certain area and be okay with it. I have no desire to become a terrific organiser. So, I hire someone who is.
6. Log on to the law of attraction You've heard the saying "What you focus on, you become." That's the idea of the law of attraction. As Norman Vincent Peale put it, "Formulate and stamp indelibly on your mind a mental picture of yourself as succeeding. Hold this picture tenaciously. Never permit it to fade. Your mind will seek to develop the picture."
7. Persevere You're probably going to have a healthy number of failures and rejections in your career and life. The key is how you view them and whether you let them hold you back. I think of failures as "learning adventures", to reduce their negative impact. As Henry Ford said, "Failure gives us the opportunity to begin again more intelligently."
8. Pay attention One of the fundamental attitudes you need to cultivate is constantly paying attention to what's going on around you. That may seem obvious, but it's not just about focusing closely on what you're doing. Sometimes when you're concentrating on what you're doing, you miss the important stuff. The more you increase your attention to life, the more present you are, the more you'll notice opportunities.
9. Continuously course-correct We all make mistakes. But the big idea is that the more honest we are, the more likely we'll avoid mistakes or recognise them immediately and be able to clean them up quickly. The more we clean up our messes, the less baggage we have, the lighter our load is (reducing our drag coefficient), and the easier it becomes to rise above petty issues and see more clearly. Clearer vision results in better decisions.
10. Celebrate success You took the risk; now give yourself the reward. What's a compelling way to reward yourself? One of my friends is a sales rep and eBay fashion fan. So for each sale he closes, he allots himself $100 toward an online shopping spree. That's motivation.
Be a rocking good leader
• Results can coexist with compassionate leadership, and compassionate leadership doesn't mean you're a pushover.
• Remember that true leaders are always elevating the status of others. Think of all the ways you can raise the status of your team. Then do it.
• You can have it all; you'll just need to adjust your expectations. And don't expect to have it all at the same time.
• Make the best decisions you can and course-correct constantly.
• Foster collaboration. See everyone as a potential business partner. People who are problematic one day may be your best allies the next—don't give up on them too quickly.
• Get mentors and sounding boards and listen to what they say. Study and model successful leaders.
• Hire people who are smarter than you, capitalize on the competition's weaknesses, and carry a big umbrella to protect your team.
• You're working with people. They will have personal problems that may affect their performance. Do what you can to help them through these.
• Don't sacrifice yourself to the cause: ensure that you are paid well, get the respect you deserve and have a personal life.
• Say it and do it. If you can't, admit it and explain the situation.
• Leaders will be criticized. Deal with it. Do what's right, and the slash of criticism won't cut you. Look in the mirror and like the person you see.
