BARCELONA, SPAIN, Sept. 29—ARRR! The Leadership Breakfast at IAAPA Expo Europe featured author Sam Conniff … who is all about acting like a pirate and making waves.
“We rarely make statues to people for follow the norm,” Conniff said. “We need a rebellion like the ‘Star Wars’ kind, that’s sexy and cool.”
The author of the best-selling book, "Be More Pirate," encouraged attendees at IAAPA Expo Europe to harness the global pandemic’s era of change to challenge traditional thinking.
“I don’t want use to look back and think we missed an opportunity during all of this,” Conniff said on stage at the IAAPA Theater.
Conniff, known for pushing corporate boundaries, resorting to non-traditional tactics, and challenging traditional thinking, says that the human brain processes fear and excitement in the same way. Therefore, he suggests nobody should allow fear to hold them back, whether that is developing a new process or challenging a supervisor’s stale convictions. In his research, Conniff identified fear and administration as the biggest roadblocks to progress.
“By facing your fears, and recognizing them first, you can then move forward and identify what steps you need to take next,” he says.
“This is about challenging the status quo of the second half of the 20th Century. What was once placed to protect us is now constraining us,” Conniff said. “Sometimes, it’s the right thing to do the wrong thing. The future is at odds with the past.”
Therefore, he suggests that attractions professionals of today need to act more like a pirate by questioning everything and then taking action.
“Rule breaking up until 5 years ago was a risky move. I now suggest there is a new definition: the reasonable thing to do,” he says.
So how does a professional break the rules and get away with it? Conniff says turn the word “no” into the word “go” to empower yourself to make a difference and plow a new path.
“The future of the world is developed by people like you, in industries like yours, that matter,” he said
