If you feel much more comfortable in situations where you are part of the majority, you are like most people.
That’s a complicated way of saying that almost everyone prefers the sense of belonging that comes from acting in a “normal” way. More often than not, this comfort is justified, since in general, people tend to do well at what they have to do.
But that’s a long way from saying it’s always better to do “like everyone else.” In fact, I believe that for some people, the opposite is true.
My blogs are often aimed at people who understand the difference between the times when it’s better to do as others do, and the situations that call for doing the “Zig” when the others are doing the “Zag.”
If you feel this is aimed at you, maybe it’s because you already understand very well that there are lots of choices in life where it’s better to take the time to go against the crowd.
And it seems to me that the more often you go the other way, successfully, the more fun you have doing it. Winning “as a gang” is a lot of fun, but winning and being one of the only winners among a crowd of losers is even more satisfying.
Sometimes when I talk with people who have been successful in their lives, while respecting this tendency to do what needed to be done, even if it wasn’t what the majority would have done, I find that they still have the reflex of going along with the majority in other areas of their lives.
Let me explain. An entrepreneur who succeeded in building a business in a sector he knows will surely have acted in an unconventional way. But when it comes time to make decisions in his personal life, he will often follow his friends.
A person who built a family SME by going in the opposite direction from most of the people he knows doesn’t hesitate to do as they do in other circumstances.
If you’ve had a lot of success in your life by acting “not like the others,” why is it so hard to act that way in other aspects of life?
I grew up in a family business where my father ran everything, and he wasn’t shy about doing things his way, without regard for what others were doing or what they thought. He wasn’t always right, obviously, and he didn’t like admitting when he was wrong, but that didn’t stop him from trying again, his way, the next time.
Recently, I went with my mother to a meeting at which we invested money in a fund whose manager had mentioned that most of the investors in his fund were institutions, not individuals.
I mentioned that this didn’t bother us, since my mother had lived more than 50 years with someone who never stopped at the fact that he was the only one of his kind, and since he was my “mentor” and the one who had trained me, I was used to being the only one too.
By getting used to being “not like the others,” it has become almost preferable to keep going “not like the others” in many circumstances.
Are you afraid to act “not like the others”? Aren’t you at risk of regretting it?
