The Benefits of Being Yourself

Take up your space!

The Storm of Elements, George Stefanescu, 1978

A couple of things having been knocking around my head lately, in collect the dots; connect the dots fashion:

“Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.” — attributed to Oscar Wilde

This new Nike campaign from the Super Bowl — “You’ll be told you can’t do it. So do it anyway.”

“Take up your space!” — one writer to another at a local live poetry event this week

“If you can be yourself on stage nobody else can be you and you have the law of supply and demand covered.” — from Bill Hicks’ 12 Principles of Comedy

“Beneath my feet were the bones of a thousand years. I thought: I cannot bear this world a moment longer. Then, child, make another.”― Madeline Miller, Circe

And then this morning my studio partner Matt dropped this nugget on a new biz call with a potential client: “If your brand doesn’t have a personality, people will assign one to you. And then move you into the trash bin.” Harsh. But fair.

So what does it all mean?

Let’s talk business. Sort of. Branding is about differentiation; everything else is secondary. But there is a gravitational pull in broader culture toward sameness and safety in the middle of the road, and that creates a massive amount of friction whenever we try something new.

I’ve lost count of the projects I’ve been on where the brief amounted to “Do something completely unique that no one has ever seen! And also make sure it looks like these three existing things, and has a 100% chance of success.”

Business want risks that aren’t risky, art that isn’t challenging, and new experiences that are immediately familiar. But if branding is about differentiation, we have to actually differentiate. Diverge. Do something, anything, that isn’t what’s around.

How to be yourself

You can differentiate by aiming to do something different than other people in your chosen endeavor. But despite our best efforts at compartmentalization and industrialization (and severance!) we’re whole people — integrated beings. There’s enough resistance in the world without adding to it by trying to do things that simply aren’t you. Being yourself is a better differentiator than any other strategy. Works out great if you’ve got a good idea of who you are, but maybe not so great if you don’t. Or you feel like you’re still figuring it out.

I’m no expert, but I do have copious amounts of unearned confidence and I’m unapologetically weird as heck, so maybe these tips will help you on the path:

1. Figure out the stuff that comes easy to you that seems like magic to everyone else.

2. Write about that thing (or those things), preferably in public. Start a newsletter, or a blog, or yell into the void. Method doesn’t matter. Articulating how you see and experience the world will help you understand yourself, and help other people find and understand you. As Mary Oliver succinctly put it: “Instructions for living a life. Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.”

3. Embrace your unique interests. Be comfortable in them. I guarantee there are other people into the same things, but it’s hard to find them if you aren’t secure in your likes and interests. (I won’t shut up about loving Magic: the Gathering, but talking about it for a decade has brought me community, opportunities, and experiences I never would’ve had if I didn’t speak up.)

4. Stay open and curious. “Being yourself” has to leave room for learning and growing and becoming different versions of yourself along the way. “I had been old and stern for so long, carved with regrets and years like a monolith. But that was only a shape I had been poured into. I did not have to keep it.” — Madeline Miller, again.

5. Don’t be scared to change. If there are still parts of who you are that you don’t like, take comfort — they’re malleable, not fixed. Reinventing aspects of yourself isn’t exactly easy, but it is possible. If you don’t feel comfortable with public speaking, find low stakes opportunities to public speak. If you don’t like your shape, build new habits. If you don’t like your world, “then, child, make another.” You’ve got to be the number one advocate for the life you want to live and how you show up in the world.

The world needs more you

In software terms we talk about startups having a “moat” — a defensible position. If you’re being yourself, you are your moat.

What’s your thing? Are you talking about it? Are you telling people about what you’re into? Are you finding new stuff to be into, and integrating that into your life? Yeah? That’s unique. You sound like a fascinating person I’d love to know more about.

Thanks for being you.