When “The Father of Motivation” Wayne Dyer released his first book Your Erroneous Zones, he found himself in a bit of a pickle.

Big Wayne was still an unknown back then. This was well before he started getting booked on Oprah and selling out theatres across America.

Perhaps that’s why Wayne’s publisher wasn’t being overly helpful when it came to promoting his book.

The marketing people told him there was no marketing plan. The publicising people told him there was no publicity budget. And the distributors who were meant to be contacting the book stores wouldn’t even return Wayne’s calls.

In Wayne’s own words:

I’m in the midst of a kind of gridlock that is very new to me. Everything is too big – too many departments not communicating, and then blaming each other for the inefficiency. I’m anxious to make something happen but I seem to be running into roadblocks with everyone I encounter.

So what did Wayno do?

Well, he did something very cunning:

Wayne set himself up as a new bookstore called Wayne Dyer Books. Then he called up his publisher as a bookstore owner and ordered every single copy of his book’s first run to be sent to his “store” (aka his garage).

Two days later, he called his publishing rep to ask for a sales update. 

His rep was astonished to see the book was now sold out. So he hit print on another run.

Guess what?

Two days later, Wayne called back up as the same bookstore owner and ordered those 2,500 books too. Then he packed his car and began a bookshop & radio tour across the States.

That tour is a story for another time.

But the lesson here should be obvious:

Wayne didn’t try to fix the system.

He went around the system and created a parallel path where he became the distribution, marketing, sales and PR man for his own book.

This story reminds me of what Uber did back in the day to get round all the red tape in the taxi industry. Basically, rather than set themselves up as a taxi business and try to get taxi licences, Uber framed itself as a tech company instead. A tech company that just happened to be in the business of connecting drivers and passengers. 

Whether you love Uber or loathe Uber, by the time the regulators had got their act together, Uber were motoring.

In fact, this worked so well that Uber didn’t just use a parallel path but a case could be made that they’ve become the path now too.

Lots of ideas here for anyone who works in a big company. Especially if it’s a big company where Marketing are waiting for Legal, Legal are waiting for Compliance, Compliance are waiting for Finance and (you guessed it) Finance are waiting for Marketing. And round & round it goes like a professional hot potato.

But if the rules don’t work for you, why not play a different game?

Truth of the matter is, the system probably won’t fix itself.

But you don’t need it to. You just need to stop waiting.

If you’re sitting on a project, an idea or a change you want to make but you’re up against gridlock, I can help you design a parallel path to move forward without the system you’re in needing to change.

If you’d like that, hit reply and tell me what you’re trying to get moving.

To fulfilment,

Tom