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Be More Pirate
Or How to Take On The World and Win
Be More Pirate (2018) reveals just how effective and forward thinking the pirates at the turn of the eighteenth century were. Using their methods and rebellious principles as inspiration, Sam Conniff Allende shows how you can harness powerful, revolutionary forces to fix unjust rules while inspiring and empowering a like-minded crew. These are the same methods that modern-day pirates from Elon Musk to Malala Yousafzai have used in their radical and progressive work.
- Rebels and creative types
- Anyone with an itch to make their mark on the world
- Entrepreneurs and aspiring pirates
Sam Conniff Allende is the former CEO of Livity, an international youth-led creative network with clients that included PlayStation and Google. He is now a sought-after strategy consultant and public speaker. He’s worked with Unilever and Red Bull, and he continues to mentor and empower young entrepreneurs, helping them turn their dreams into reality.
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Be More Pirate
Or How to Take On The World and Win
- Read in 16 minutes
- Audio & text available
- Contains 10 key ideas
Synopsis
Be More Pirate (2018) reveals just how effective and forward thinking the pirates at the turn of the eighteenth century were. Using their methods and rebellious principles as inspiration, Sam Conniff Allende shows how you can harness powerful, revolutionary forces to fix unjust rules while inspiring and empowering a like-minded crew. These are the same methods that modern-day pirates from Elon Musk to Malala Yousafzai have used in their radical and progressive work.
Key idea 1 of 10
Despite their pop-culture image, Golden Age pirates were important and innovative historical figures.
Thanks to movies like the popular Pirates of the Caribbean series, you might think that all pirates were drunken swashbucklers or murderous, scurvy-ridden thugs. Either way, it’s likely that you don’t think of pirates as politically-minded rebels fighting for justice and fair pay. Yet that’s precisely the case for many of the Golden Age pirates.
Golden Age pirates sailed the high seas between 1690 and 1725, a period during which piracy thrived as it never had before. And these men and women were such innovative thinkers, rebelling against such unfair times with such progressive ideas that they still have plenty to teach us today.
Specifically, there are five great attributes that Golden Age pirates should be remembered for.
First is fair pay. Many pirates were former Royal Navy or Merchant Navy personnel, so they were familiar with being treated unfairly. Those in the navy were routinely paid less than promised and often much later than scheduled.
In response, pirates practiced fair pay for every member of the crew. Captains and quartermasters got three to four shares of any pirated booty. Doctors and gunners got two shares. The rest of the crew got one share each.
These days, the ratio between the CEO’s pay and that of the lowest-paid worker of a corporation can be as bad as 384 to 1. Meanwhile, at progressive enterprises, it can be as good as 10 to 1. But the 4-to-1 ratio that included all crew members aboard was still far fairer than anything seen today.
The second amazing quality of the pirate’s life was protection against abuse of power.
Navy sailors weren’t only underpaid; they also had to put up with the oppressively dictatorial ways of their commanders. So pirates, determined to keep their own captains in check, invested quartermasters with more power than they’d traditionally had. In this early example of dual governance, captains were still responsible for planning and strategizing, but the quartermaster was now in charge of keeping the crew happy and letting the captain know about any disputes.
A similar two-house system of government was also catching on in England, with the 1689 Bill of Rights establishing a second house of government, which the United States would also put to use in 1776.
Key ideas in this title
- Despite their pop-culture image, Golden Age pirates were important and innovative historical figures.
- Pirates were ahead of their time in voting rights and health care.
- The first step in adopting the pirate mind-set is to find your cause for rebellion.
- The second step is to rewrite the rules in an effort to improve the way things are done.
- The third step in adopting the pirate mind-set is to avoid mindless growth through collaboration and a strong network.
- The fourth step is to stay true to your values, just as social enterprises do.
- The fifth step in adopting the pirate mind-set is to spread your message by leveraging the power of storytelling and fearless branding.
- Finally, create your own pirate code, enforce it well and never lose sight of who you are.
- A blink from the author: Pirates would approve of the disruptive power of blockchain technology.
- Final summary
