"When everyone is running one way, run the other way" - Futurist Jim Carroll
Futurist Jim Carroll is using his Daily Inspiration blog post – one of which you are reading now – to generate material for a book he has in progress with the working title, “How to be Unique (And Why it Will Get You To Your Future Faster!)” This is one of those posts.
To avoid conformity, you need an action plan.
How do you do that? To thine own self be true, so to speak. With that mindset, do these things. Stop chasing harmony. Avoid groupthink. Kill committees. Stop seeking consensus. Banish buy-in. Forget concurrence. Give up on the goal of unanimity. These are the words, ideas, and cultures that kill uniqueness.
Instead, celebrate your uniqueness, and use it as fuel for your creativity. The fact is, when everyone is running one way, run the other way! Because when everyone is thinking the same thing, you’ll always end up with the same thing! Nature despises routine, punishes consistency, reorders routines, inhibits uniformity, and abandons mediocrity.
Don’t be like everyone else. Be yourself!
YOU are the owner of your great ideas. Don't let others beat you down, wear you out, tire your initiative, challenge your belief - because you know, deep down in your heart, that you are on the right path. And even if you aren't, at least the failure will be yours to own - and yours to learn from.
Being unique, though, means that people might laugh at you, and ridicule your ideas. Ignore it - because it usually means that you are right! If you see the ordinary, do the opposite. When there is a status quo, change the quo. When the routine is established, disrupt it.
Do you get the point?
If you look at what the extraordinary people do, it’s pretty obvious that they don’t do what everyone else does - they will often do something completely different. They simply take a different approach; view the problem in a different way; don’t go with the obvious solution; they apply a creative idea to a complex problem.
How do *you* become that type of person? I suspect that for some people, this is just a natural trait. For the rest of us average people, we have to work harder to shed our “ordinariness.” That involves a conscious effort to try to avoid the obvious, and dismantle the expected - and avoid doing what the crowd does. It also involves reaching beyond the normal solution for something big and bolder - remember - Think BIG!
After all, when everyone is thinking alike, do your own thinking! Being unique is the basis of all innovation – because if you are doing what everyone else is doing, you aren’t innovating. You are copying.
Look, innovation and aligning to the future aren’t about bandwagons. It’s more important — and more difficult — than that. It’s about finding something within an obvious trend that plays to your strengths, lets you share your unique value, and removes you from the crowd. Which means running your own way.
Be unique!
Futurist Jim Carroll believes unique thinking is the root of all innovation.