Did You Start with the Rule Finder?

If you took the Rule Finder quiz first and then were directed here, you’re in the right place.

If you haven’t yet taken the quiz, please do so now so you can be directed to the appropriate challenge stack.

These are the Teamwork Challenges, for breaking the rule Be Independent.

Enjoy the 3 Sample Challenges

If you’ve found out from the quiz that you tend to follow the rule Be Independent, the three sample challenges here in the teamwork stack will help you get a sense of their effectiveness and what it feels like to set foot outside of Be Independent rule prison.

I hope you’ll try a challenge of your choice, or all of them, and then consider how much more tolerable you’ll be to the rest of us once you’re actually having some fun at work. : )

To get the most out of the sample challenges, become a free subscriber (if you haven’t already).

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How to get maximum benefit from each challenge

If you follow these guidelines for this first challenge, and every other challenge you engage through Break a Rule, you’ll get enormous benefit over time.

1. READ THE CHALLENGE AND VISUALIZE DOING IT
   
   Imagine the situation where you might apply it. You may notice that just thinking about doing it generates resistance. You might feel like it’s silly, too scary, weird or uncomfortable, or a waste of time. But the act of visualizing yourself breaking the rule is like planting a seed. Even if you don’t follow through with the action, you’ll be engaging an inner work that is worthwhile. Just visualizing action is actually a step in the right direction. So don’t ever feel bad if all you do is read the challenge and think about how you’d apply it. That effort counts.

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2. TAKE ACTION HOWEVER YOU CAN
   
   If the challenge as it’s stated feels too daunting or too for steep to you, you’re always free to modify the challenge in a way that supports you to take action. Even if you decide to take on just a fragment of the challenge, cut it in half, or have to get creative with its application to your own life, please do so. Remember, this about taking charge of your own life and destiny by calling the shots for yourself, instead of blindly adopting somebody else’s rules. Use these the way a writer would use a writing prompt, as a springboard for your own creativity and self-expression. These are life prompts. Use them to move—even just a small degree—in a new direction. Stretch a little outside of your comfort zone.
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3. PARTICIPATE IN THE COMMUNITY
   
   Finally, if you want to supercharge and accelerate your growth results ten-fold, engage in the community by leaving a comment on the challenge. Share what you tried—what happened internally and externally as a result. Were you thrilled with the outcome? Disappointed? Are you mad it didn’t work? Are you shocked that such a small action could provide you with so much energy, or produce such a positive change?
   
   It will be at the community level that our work has the potential of making a huge difference, personally, and for others. You will gain more here from relationships with new friends and like-minded professionals than you will from the challenges themselves. Because we need to be surrounded by a community of authentic, inspiring, and courageous humans more than we need a library of new ideas. The ideas are just the seeds for our connection.

Last 3 useful tips

Consider working with a partner

If you really want to magnify the benefits of engaging with the platform, consider bringing a friend or colleague with you into Break a Rule and becoming accountability partners for each other in rule breaking.

This can work really well if you make heartfelt promises to each other to follow through with the challenges, and if your partner drops the ball, to shame the crap out of them for being such a loser uh, I mean, to be kind and respectful and stuff.

Tracking hack

When you find a challenge you want to work with, simply type the words, “Game On,” in the comment section below the challenge.

We’ll send a reply with words, YOUR CURRENT CHALLENGE, the challenge title, and key instructions so it will be right there in your notifications.

This way, you’ll always be able to remind yourself of which challenge you’re working on by clicking the notification icon next to your profile. (See where the arrow is pointing in the screenshot below. You have to be signed up at least as a free subscriber to do this.)

Even if other notifications have arrived, just look for the one that says: YOUR CURRENT CHALLENGE.

Subscribe to the teamwork stack

If you’d like to be specifically notified whenever a new teamwork challenge is added to the stack, you can subscribe directly to the teamwork challenge stack by navigating to your profile, clicking on “settings”, scrolling down to subscriptions and clicking there, and then scrolling down to your notification settings where you will be able to subscribe to any of the development stacks.

This process is shown below.

Go to settings.

Choose Break a Rule from your subscriptions.

Toggle emails “on” to receive new posts to any of the stacks.

Update a Friend

This challenge is to reach out to an old friend and give them an update about how you're doing and what you've been up to.

The friends we've known for the longest often know us the best and can provide a unique degree of mirroring, encouragement, and support.

If they don't know what's going on in our world we're cutting ourselves off from an important source of help — the loving care and wise counsel of those who have been in our lives for years.

Friends that you don't need to talk to for your bond to remain strong are exactly the ones who deserve the effort of your connection.

Make Break a Rule an incredible tool for everyone.

Leave a comment about how you used this challenge, what you experienced, discovered, or learned.

Or let us know if you have a suggestion for how this challenge could be improved.

Ask for the Story

This challenge is to let yourself fall back into the lap of your childhood, and with as much innocence as you can allow, ask someone to tell you a story.​

I was out for dinner one night with an old friend and a few new ones.

I asked one of those new friends to elaborate on something she mentioned about her past.

She wound up telling a story that inspired me, lifted me up, and gifted me with an example of how to practice with an extremely challenging circumstance, which I also happened to be facing.

The same way a small child wants to be transported into a realm of imagination, possibility, and discovery, ask someone to tell you a story that has some magic or inspiration in it.

You probably already know who the good storytellers are in your life, or at work. But if you ask around, you might some new inspiring people.

To become independent of the need for stories, especially transformational ones, indicates more that we have given up, not that we have grown up.

Our thirst for worthy stories bonds us together, and transcends independence.

So the next time someone glosses over their life experience in a conversation, stop them, and just say, "Oh...tell me the whole story."​

Make Break a Rule an incredible tool for everyone.

Leave a comment about how you used this challenge, what you experienced, discovered, or learned.

Or let us know if you have a suggestion for how this challenge could be improved.

Say What Hurts

This challenge is to communicate something that is painful for you — physically or emotionally — to somebody you trust.​

Sometimes being transparent about our pain, as much as we may want to remain independent and protect ourselves from the vulnerability of sharing our soft spots, can be the most direct means of evoking practical help.

There are those of us who lash out at others when we most need help or support with an issue, problem, or circumstance—and we ourselves can predict the result; everyone backs away and we're left with our precious "independence."

Wanting to relieve the suffering of others is a natural and human response.

Allowing ourselves to feel and express what it is that is painful to us in a responsible way, expressing it as our experience rather than as blame of someone else, is a brave invitation that invokes allies.

If we refuse to admit the suffering that is present for us it's no surprise when we don't get the support we're secretly hoping for.

Make Break a Rule an incredible tool for everyone.

Leave a comment about how you used this challenge, what you experienced, discovered, or learned.

Or let us know if you have a suggestion for how this challenge could be improved.

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Meet a Future Friend

Here's the idea.

Think a year down the road about where you'll be, what you'll have accomplished, the skills you will have gained, and the company you'll be keeping in association with these changes.

By seeking out the individuals who are already established in the domains that represent our destiny we break the rule Be Independent.

To ask for the company of those who are ahead of us on the road is a time-honored way to Ask For Help.

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Make Break a Rule an incredible tool for everyone.

Leave a comment about how you used this challenge, what you experienced, discovered, or learned.

Or let us know if you have a suggestion for how this challenge could be improved.

Last week’s free featured challenge, Get the Biography, is now for paying subscribers only.

Annual paid subscribers unlock enough teamwork challenges to practice breaking the rule Be Independent every week for an entire year. (Monthly subscribers get the same thing, they just pay more, which according to logic makes the annual subscribers smarter people.)

But that’s not all.

For an insanely minimalistic pittance of $8.33/month you’ll get access not only to all the teamwork challenges, but to every challenge for all the other rules as well!

• communication challenges

• innovation challenges

• productivity challenges

• accountability challenges

• leadership challenges

• vision challenges

So if you want to switch challenge stacks at any time and work on breaking another rule, you can!

It’s professional development in your pocket that’s incredibly effective at a fraction of the cost of traditional training models.

• no high fees

• no time missing work

• no time away from family

• no business travel expenses

• no high-fat meeting break snacks

Any questions?

Q: “How can you possibly run a business by charging such incredibly low and affordable prices?” you ask.

Easy. You’re on your own here. As soon as you hand over your credit card I’m heading for the beach and you can figure out how this thing works on your own.

I mean . . . um . . .

I’m leveraging the power of the internet to scale our services using the marvel of systems and technology that allow for equitable transfer of high-quality services not-forth-withstanding maximum viable product restrictions that are non-taxable in Tennessee on holidays . . .

Oh, the hell with it.

I don’t know. We might go broke. But if enough of you sign up, this might just work to all of our mutual benefit.

So take advantage of this offer ($8.33/month) while you can, because likely we’ll raise prices by a thousand percent next week. And then you’ll be sorry when this costs $8,333/month.

Subscribe now

Any more questions?

Q: “What else do I get, besides 24/7 access to the whole challenge library for every rule?”

Great question!

You’ll unlock access to:

• The full text of, 7 Rules You Were Born to Break

• Recurring Use of the Rule Finder Quiz

• Quarterly Community Rule Breaking Sprints

• Comments and Questions on Challenges

• Unrestricted Reading Beyond the Paywall in Weekly Articles

• Community Chat Threads with the App

• Registration to our first convention as soon as we can find a hotel willing to host thousands of rule breakers who most definitely will not sneak into the pool after hours.

Also-

• As a paid member, you’ll receive new challenges every week

• After that, they’re stored in the communication challenge library so you’ll always have access to dozens of useful practices that will keep you from getting stuck back in Be Normal mode

• How does all that sound?

“Wow, that sounds like an incredible service!”

Yes, it is!

So what are you waiting for?

Your unique success path is waiting for you to express yourself courageously and authentically, serve a unique purpose, and enjoy sharing the real you while making a meaningful contribution to the world.

Let’s Break some Rules baby!

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