In case you hadn’t heard, there’ve been some shenanigans taking place on Capitol Hill.

Surprising, huh?

Anyway, the House ethics committee’s charged Rep. Charlie Rangel from New York with 13 counts of violating the rules of the House of Representatives.

Those include accusations that Chuck used public resources for personal gain, omitted hundreds of thousands of bucks on his financial disclosure forms, and exhibited conduct that reflected “discredibility” on the House.

Yikes!

Charlie’s rule-breaking high jinks got me thinking about a book Dan Kennedy wrote years ago called How to Succeed in Business by Breaking All the Rules (later retitled No Rules).

Dan suggested about two dozen “rules that need to be broken” if you wanna really make money. But all these rules can be broken legally and ethically.

Thought I’d share a handful of Kennedy’s points with you.

There’s no such thing as a born salesman, or a “born” anything.

DK says to stop worrying about genetics or “natural talent.” Nothing will move you ahead faster than your own decisions and determination.

Sometimes you’ve gotta piss people off.

“The bigger your ambitions,” Kennedy says, “the more likely you are to offend people while achieving those ambitions. And your opportunity to have meaningful impact will be in direct proportion to your willingness to offend.”

Forget all about “creativity” as it’s commonly understood.

Fight creativity for creativity’s sake. Focus instead on taking what’s already been proven and doing it extraordinarily well.

The customer is NOT always right.

And since that’s the case, it pays to make sure you strategically target customers who are most likely to be satisfied by your products and services.

Stop letting lack of money imprison you.

You can turn your ideas into a thriving business without a crapload of capital. In fact, throwing cash at an enterprise never guarantees success. It can actually ensure the opposite.

As I’ve said earlier, never before in history have you been able to launch a flourishing business with just a simple plan and a laptop computer.

If you can get hold of a copy of Dan Kennedy’s No Rules, do so. I promise that it’ll open your eyes to a new world of possibilities.

In the meantime, I’d love to hear YOU suggest some business rules that are just begging to be broken.