Define Yourself

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Good morning boys and girls, ladies and gentlemen I hope you are well.

What an amazingly interesting year it’s been so far. Fear driven all around us in the news, the looming break-up or uncertainty going on in Europe, the slowing down of China and the US Federal Election. It seems we are constantly being bombarded by these worldly events that seemingly have nothing to do with us, decisions being made by governments’ on our behalf for our benefits. The world is shifting beneath our feet economically, socially and spiritually, which means that over the next ten years the world is going to get a face lift.

This is good though, because frustration and growth inspires change, it excites those among us to break free from our constraints and think outside the box. It inspires the genius lurking in your brain to things it wouldn’t normally do, so you never know, you could be the next someone, the next anyone.

This week I’ve been thinking a lot about identity, and what it is specifically. To me identity is who you are, what you are and what you stand for. Normally someone defines themselves by what they do for work and I’m sure you all have had the terrible displeasure of rattling off your CV to potential suitors in dive bars, cocktail bars and restaurants 🙂 So you see this whole drawing of identity from your work is socially conditioned in us.

On paper how does this look? Does the garbageman have less identity to the engineer, does the engineer have more identity than the musician, does the doctor have a higher moral identity to the Wall Street banker?

No! In a world driven mostly by ego, we are constantly trying to one up each other, trying to earn more than the person before us to make us feel better about ourselves. We constantly seek ourselves in what we have, in our material possessions. That’s what I mean by drawing identity from your work.

Start playing the game by your own rules. Just because you are an “engineer” doesn’t mean you can’t be anything else, doesn’t mean you can’t be an expert in ancient history. Just because you feel you “just” work a 9-5 doesn’t mean you can’t do anything else. Don’t let other people tell you you can’t do anything. Define Yourself.

This is the new world. You have all the resources at your disposable, especially if you can read this right now. By letting other people push their own self doubts and insecurities on to you, you are not owning your reality. You are letting someone else set your boundaries, you are essentially letting someone else define who you are.

The fear that seems to be the constant focus of all global events on the news is actually part of the system, it’s part of the game. No it’s not some stupid conspiracy theory, but it’s just a form of control to keep the cogs in the wheel spinning, to keep this whole machine we call the world moving.

So ask yourself, do you want to be in the wheel or pushing it? In the next post I’m going to talk about taking the next steps in this journey.

Define Yourself. 

Be Purple. Be Remarkable

I’m currently reading a book called The Purple Cow by Seth Godin. It’s a marketing book that can pretty well much be applied to anything, be it sales, music, life in general, happiness etc.

The basic message of the book is to be remarkable to capture the attention of a few people, the innovative people who aren’t afraid to take risks and hear you out. Those few people will then tell their friends, and these innovators are the same people who have some sort of influence. Look at Apple and how they cornered in on the niche market of creatives and designers, those same people told their friends and now Apple stock prices are through the roof.

Apple products are truly remarkable and with it they had remarkable advertising, everything was remarkable. I’m currently writing this on a Macbook pro 🙂

Seth Godin is part of growing network of professionals and game changers, hopefully myself included 😉 ,  that believe that the day of the TV-industrial complex is over, that you can no longer mass market a mass product designed for mass usage if no one is prepared to listen. It’s because everyday we are bombarded with advertisements, we have unlimited choices we can make, we have an unlimited number of things that are vying for our attention.

It’s no longer good to just be good enough, you need to be remarkable. People have freedom to choose now, you don’t need to be forced to listen to the radio to hear new music, you don’t have to watch what they tell you to watch on TV. You right now have at your disposal the necessary resources to satisfy your unique individual tastes.

The people who go for it, who are willing to be criticised, who are willing to go against the grain, to speak their minds are the game changers. They are the innovators. They are the people who are probably scorned first but eventually make it out on top. They are the people who have failed so many times but make it out in the end. They didn’t fail though, they were getting the necessary feedback required to do something remarkable.

Don’t be afraid, just go for it. Society and school has bred us to not stick out, to shy away from conflict, to be a cog in the system. By all means it’s much much easier to remain on autopilot and stay comfortable. Comfortable gets you nowhere. Complacency gets you nowhere.

Seth Godin writes:

Perfect and impossible

The definition of a revolution: it destroys the perfect and enables the impossible.

The music business was perfect. Radio, record chains, Rolling Stone magazine, the senior prom, limited access to recording studios, the replaceable nature of the LP, the baby boomers… it all added up to a business that seemed perfect, one that could run for ever and ever.

The digital revolution destroyed this perfect business while enabling the seemingly impossible: easy access to the market by new musicians, a cosmic jukebox of just about every song ever recorded, music as a social connector…

If you are in love with the perfect, prepare to see it swept away. If you are able to dream of the impossible, it just might happen.

 

Be well.

Peter