Do what others won’t so that you can live a life that others can’t.
I’m weird.
I was outside watching the sun at 5.30am this morning.
Having sleep on a top mattress on the floor as Christina and I do every night.
I read two or more hours every day and I sit and write to myself most days too.
That’s just the tip of the iceberg and already I’m weird to 99.9% of people (eg only 6% of the population read books).
I’ve not always been able to openly share what I think and do. It’s dangerous, our brain is wired to fit in, to be the same, to not stand out.
I’ve so often found myself agreeing when I don’t or the flip side, trying to make them wrong for their difference to me. Or just hiding what I think and do from some people.
There is a saying that’s often said in business which is,
Do what others won’t so that you can live a life that others can’t.
That’s not quite it but it’s close...
I spoke to a group of entrepreneurs at Copenhagen business academy a little while ago and one of the things that struck me was this phrase
“Supposed to be.”
I’m supposed to work these hours, I’m supposed to be stressed, I’m supposed to...
Naturally we look to the common experience as an indicator that we are doing it right.
I even have clients who move from 70 hr weeks down to 30hrs while the business improved on all metrics who then became plagued by doubt because their experience no longer aligned with the norm.
We quickly fixed this, but it points to something about us humans.
We must create certainty around our approach.
A narrative for both ourselves and for those we come into contact with.
We have to own and celebrate our weirdness.
Because when you decide to step away from what is common and create a life on your terms the world and the people in it will test you and try to push you back to what is common.
They will see you not filling time with hustle and stress and try to fill it.
They will see your calm and try to take it.
They will see you operating differently to them and feel judged by it and try to put you into a box and make you wrong.
Not out of spite or anything conscious but because we each want our model of the world to be confirmed and we feel threatened when it doesn’t.
It feel safer to make you wrong and try and push you back into the model ASAP.
They are testing you not out of hate, but strangely, out of hope.
They want to know if it’s REAL.
If it really is possible to step outside of what is common and if it’s possible for people like US.
And of course it is.
For every lifestyle you believe impossible there is someone less intelligent and with fewer resources already living it.
Is supposed to or what’s common preventing you from create a life you love?