Be More Pirate: Or How to Take on the World and Win - Softcover

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Sam Conniff Allende is the founder and former CEO of Livity, a multi-award-winning youth marketing agency. Sam has led the unlikeliest collaborations between brands and bright young people on the edges of society, resulting in real innovation. He has worked with Google, Unilever, PlayStation, and Dyson, and regularly speaks and runs Be More Pirate workshops at these industry-leading companies. Sam believes in the power of professional rule-breaking and is on a mission to instigate modern mutinies in organizations around the world, where the teams take over the running of the ship to ultimately become more accountable, motivated and rebellious. Be More Pirate is his first book.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Be More Pirate

1. HERE BE DRAGONS

New Horizons, New Heroes

Three hundred years ago a small group of frustrated and underappreciated, mostly young professionals finally had enough of living in a society run badly by a self-interested and self-serving establishment. Disruption had become the constant backdrop to their lives as they faced ongoing uncertainty and mass redundancy in a world plagued by ideologically influenced international conflict. This generation felt entirely abandoned, and they were right. The odds were stacked high against them and in every single way, the rules of the day favored an elite few, and for the majority of people life was unclear, unfair, and unfulfilling.

Sound familiar?

Rather than simply voice their complaints, they chose instead to do something about the situation. No longer prepared to sit quietly and accept the bad deal on the table, they decided to break the rules and then remake the rules. Along the way, they came up with a new social code built on purposeful principles such as fair pay, fair say, social equality, freedom, and justice. And rum.

You see, the action these particular disenchanted professionals took was to turn pirate. Although such an extreme-sounding career change was arguably justifiable, these rebels, who emerged from both the Merchant and the Royal Navy, were soon denounced as “enemies of humanity” by the establishment they struck fear into, not only because of their unlawful buccaneering but also because of the radical and progressive ideas they represented.

These were the “Golden Age” pirates, and they created enough disruption at the edges of society and politics during this, the dawn of capitalism, to leave a legacy that has changed the way we live forever. Which is handy, because, some three centuries down the line, we’re once again in need of inspiration about the best way to give the current establishment a metaphorical kick up the backside, to better tackle the world’s looming crises.

Today we have a similarly self-interested political and business elite pressing the buttons of power, who for the most part show no sign of stepping up to the challenge in any meaningful sense. Rather than gracefully handing over a little more authority to the generations destined to live with their mistakes the longest, the folks who have already overcooked the future continue to run the show (a) in their own interests and (b) badly.

In their defense, it hasn’t all been completely disastrous. From antibiotics to nanosurgery to the realization of the internet to lifting a billion people out of poverty to the Spice Girls, some of the progress in the late twentieth century truly demonstrated humankind at its best. But then we left the great fridge door of history open and everything started to go off. Today a multitude of futures await, most of them apocalyptic: environmental degradation, economic disintegration, unprecedented levels of human migration, or the rise of the robots—just take your pick.

In direct response to this turbulence, uncertainty, and the resulting emptiness many us face, much of society is afflicted by an epidemic of anxiety and a crisis of identity. Living costs are rising while real incomes are falling and the distribution of both wealth and opportunity grow more unequal than ever. Whole generations feel excluded from their own future. They are sick of being told “that’s just the way things are” and that they’re “naive” for expecting such basic amenities as decent housing or accessible health care or affordable higher education.

There’s a lot of people we could blame for the mess we’re in, but so far that’s got us nowhere fast. What happens next is up to us; we each have to decide whether we’re part of the problem or part of the solution, and when I say we, I mean you.

A lot of people might tell you not to worry, that technology will save us and everything will be okay in the end. But it’s not true. No one is coming to save you. It’s going to get worse before it gets better. There’s an urgency in the air and a need for change. Today, if we want to improve this picture of our future, we have to do it ourselves. The only way out of this mess is a little less Instagram and a lot more action.

The upside to an age of uncertainty is that it is fertile ground for opportunity. Most of us are familiar with the feeling that if we could just get focused, come up with a plan, hustle a bit harder, and seize the opportunity, we could do good, if not great, things. There are smart people doing interesting things everywhere, but instead of being inspired by them, we find it easy to feel overwhelmed or intimidated.

So many successful people look more like superheroes than real-life characters whose steps you could realistically follow in. The typical role models that often get served up are well meant, but let’s face it, they’re also a little predictable. I want us to go further than the standard Stanford University dropouts with great teeth, quirky surnames, and heads full of world-changing technology. The thing is, every exciting unicorn galloping out of Silicon Valley leaves a lot of horse shit behind the scenes. I think we deserve more than the uberization of everything as our default universal future model of anything, and that’s why I’ve looked to a different set of rebels, not just for inspiration but for practical ideas that anyone can take, adapt, and implement in order to change whatever it is that needs fixing, overhauling, or scrapping.

We’re going to look back in time to the secrets of a unique set of pirates in order for you to navigate a more promising path for the future, one that sets you on the right track for the fortune you seek.

Whether you aspire to be a world-class change-maker or you’d just like a new career, whether you’re trying to make your name, up your game, strike it rich, or strike a blow to the system, Be More Pirate will help you be more courageous, more effective, and more creative as we sail into the uncharted waters of the mid-twenty-first century.

Whether you’re thinking about setting up your own business or trying to improve the one you’re already in, whether your side hustle needs another side hustle, or if all you know is that you’ve got what it takes to be the next big thing, Be More Pirate will help you be more decisive, more powerful, and more purposeful in getting there.

Why are these Golden Age pirates the perfect role models for anyone trying to make their mark against the odds we face today? Well, they didn’t just break rules, they rewrote them. They didn’t just reject society, they reinvented it. They didn’t just tell tall tales, they told a story that shook the world. They didn’t just challenge the status quo, they challenged everything, and once the dust had settled, their alternative society and strategies changed the world for good.

Yes, these are big claims. And yes, I’m going to back them up, and then some. Over the years, pirates have acquired a mythical status. They have been popularized and presented as pop-culture pastiches that don’t resemble the true picture. Be More Pirate looks past these clichés and analyzes their innovations, organizational systems, and team structures that have become a global standard of good governance and their pioneering work on branding and reputation management, which predates the universal principles...