THE NEWYORKER, SEPTEMBER 30, 2019 33
SHOUTS & MURMURS
RUNNING WITH SCISSORS
BY COLIN STOKES
LUCI GUTIÉRREZ
R
unning with scissors changed my
life. At first, it was just a hobby, but
soon it became something I did almost
every day, and now I can’t imagine life
without it. It would just be so predictable.
It all started when my parents yelled
at me for running with scissors. I could
tell that they were trying to hold me
back—that they didn’t have the same
ability to think outside the box that I
did. I ignored them, and, as a result, I
won a regional high-school running
competition. There will always be people
who don’t believe in your vision. Lots
of kids in the races I ran would cry and
whine, saying that it was “scary” to run
next to me, or that I had “cut them badly.”
I knew I couldn’t stay in school—the
teachers there just weren’t smart enough
to understand my innovative spirit. Also,
they chased me off campus after I won
a particularly great race and then joy-
ously embraced the gym teacher, forget-
ting about the scissors thing.
They say that bad things will hap-
pen if you run with scissors, but that
hasn’t been my experience. After I ran
(holding my scissors) out of school fol-
lowing the gym-teacher incident, I
found it very easy to get a job, even
though I hadn’t technically graduated
from high school.
You see, job interviews go much faster
when you’re running around an office
holding scissors. It’s as if you have a
magical power over people. Of course,
they’re all terrified—terrified of open-
ing their minds to new ways of doing
things. But, at the same time, they feel
compelled to hire you.
I worked my way up the corporate
ladder by being decisive and quick. I re-
member many a meeting where it looked
like things weren’t going to go my way.
But, after I took a few laps around the
room holding scissors, people seemed
willing to give me whatever I wanted.
Eventually, I was promoted to C.E.O.,
after the other person who was going for
the job mysteriously ended up in the
hospital. It turns out that running a com-
pany is a lot like running with scissors. I
bet you think that I’m going to talk about
making cuts! But, really, success is about
taking risks and not surrounding your-
self with yes-men. Almost all the people
around me disapproved of my running
with scissors, but I didn’t take their advice.
Unfortunately, there were a fair num-
ber of people who didn’t understand my
maverick leadership style, and I had to
let them go. But everyone who left the
company was given a generous parting
gift: a pair of scissors and an autographed
copy of my book, “Cut and Run.”
A few years ago, I retired from my
job as C.E.O., and now I spend most of
my time running with scissors to stay fit,
rather than to get ahead in the corpo-
rate world. To young people who want
to be like me, I say: Don’t let society dic-
tate what you can and can’t do. Ride your
bike without a helmet, play with matches,
eat glue—you never know where it might
take you. But, please, don’t run with scis-
sors. That’s my thing.
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