We Only Work With Punks

If it feels like a shocker of a headline, welcome to the party.

When you start out in business, you feel the need to work with everyone. Income is sparse - if they have a budget, they have your attention. This is not a sustainable way to do anything. Eventually, you start to hate everything and you find yourself huddling back to the corporate world. Here, at least, you don’t get to choose who you get to work with. It’s just a job. You can go home at the end of the day.

It took a while, but I realized I only wanted to work with punks. It’s not that I was looking for permission, not that it mattered to any of you reading this. If you’re here, reading this, you’re likely wondering what in the fresh hell it means to work with punks.

Or you are here to say, “You ain’t punk man, you a fuckin’ poser.”

Or, you have been all about the OutWord way from the beginning. You are punk. You are welcome here.

We think of the punk as mohawks and safety pins. Of thrashing chords and screaming into microphones and moshpits. You see them as the countercultural wonders of the world. Every generation has its punk. It is always in fashion.

But this isn’t about fellating Sid Vicious or cutting holes in the Misfit’s shirt that you picked up from Target. It’s not about the music. You can be punk and jam out to Taylor Swift. I don’t care…and that’s the point.

Punk is a mindset. Punk is a way of being. This is what I look for when I say, I only work with punks.

Mindsets and Methods

The punk says, fuck this. They look at what the world is offering them and nothing seems to vibe. Their surroundings are built for the many to squash the few. When nothing fits, you make your own clothes. When nothing on the radio sounds good, you whistle your own tune.

Write the book you want to read.

This is the mindset of the punk: do what isn’t being done, do it for the people who want something else. Do it for the people who have yet to realize there is another way.

Punks look at their section of the world and they know it can be done a different way. Their company, their competition, their field - the establishment needs resistance. A punk may not change the world with their resources, but they can certainly right the ship and push it in a better direction.

You may not change the world, but it’s worth trying.

Punks fear one thing: getting stuck in the same ol’. They want to do things a different way. They don’t believe in best practices. They know there are people out there who are starving for what they have to offer.

If we work together, it’s because I see the punk in you. Hang on tight.

punks in business

The exact second there is a hierarchy, you lose your punk badge. That’s just the way it is.

You don’t necessarily hire me; I don’t take you on as a client. Think of this as a collaboration. Of course, the headlines are full of “alternative” executives who claim to be rewriting the playbook on how things should be done in the world of business. I say: unless you’re willing to give everything up to elevate every person in your company above you, sit down and shut up. Knot your tie, follow your agenda, and call me when you’re ready to break something.

No Employees

OutWord will never have employees. Of course, I want this business to grow. I want more people to discover a totally different way of doing business…but I’ll be damned if I am in the place where I’m assigning work to people. I don’t want to have to tell people to want to do or establish due dates. I don’t want to bother checking work or holding people accountable.

I’m not hiring people to do things. I’m building a stage with a microphone and a big-ass PA system. I want to bring in outside acts who have something they want to share, who need a place to grow.

I don’t need someone who will write what I ask. I want people who know how to grow.

This is an opportunity.

Drop out. Step aside from the race. Cut a new path. The opportunity is in what’s next, and you get to decide what that gets to be. If you have that feeling in your gut, go with it.

I’m just here to show you where that feeling can take you.