Difficulty is part of life for all of us at some time or other.
But, there are some who have experienced extreme difficulty and come back from it to succeed in life.
Armed with the right mindset and beliefs, they turned a seeming disaster into destiny.
So, if you are in a hole and struggling, take heart from these stories that show that your mind can lead you to a much brighter future.
Even if it all starts out the very opposite.
A Car Crash Life.
A young man with his whole future ahead of him.
A young footballer playing for one of the biggest and most famous clubs in history.
He had been representing Real Madrid in their junior reserve team as a goalkeeper and showed huge promise. On the way home one night in 1962 the car he was driving crashed leaving him paralysed from the waist down and severe injuries to the other passengers. His whole life seemed over.
Severely depressed he lay in bed day after day until a nurse brought him a guitar to give him something to focus on and add strength and dexterity to his hands. This was the start of his revival. He developed a real love for music and it also galvanised his body. He felt sensations in his lower limbs when he played and soon his toes moved. In his mind he believed he could survive and two other important beliefs – he would walk again and he would be a singer. Both he stayed totally disciplined at achieving.
In 1968 he swept the board as an unknown singer at the Benidorm summer song festival. That victory lead him to being signed to his first ever recording contract. His career took off. He went on to win world acclaim including World Music Awards and 2 Grammy’s and is the best selling Latino artist of all time and has sold 300 million records in 14 languages.
He is the same man who lay broken in his hospital bed. Broken in mind too until that mind changed.
You are a single parent who has just lost their mother who dies aged 45.
You have fled domestic violence with only your young daughter and not much else. Owning nothing you are forced onto benefits but live a meagre existence in a cold flat. You are almost destitute and only survive thanks to spending your days at a local cafe run by a relative. As you later said in those days your were ‘as poor as it is possible to be in modern Britain, without being homeless’.
Your future looks bleak. Your prospects are very low and you sink into depression. Even suicide passes through your mind.
However you had one idea. A silly story really but you’ve had it in the back of your mind for a few years. With little else in your life you dedicate time daily in the cafe to turning your idea into some kind of manuscript. The only thing you have left is this. But, your violent ex-partner finds you and tries to get back together. You must involve the courts and you need therapy to keep it together.
You keep writing. The book takes 2 years. Hope still remains.
That hope is challenged. Publisher after publisher turns it down. Finally another two years later one offers you a tiny £1500 advance which you accept with little else on the table.
The book was published and becomes a sensation and bidding soon follows for the future books with $100,000 offered for the US rights alone.
You have turned your vision for the character and his adventures into the literary success of the modern generation.
Her pen was a mighty as her mind and wrote herself into destiny.
Mindset resets life.
These true stories typify the change of mindset and the wholesale effects this originates.
Both the pen and the plectrum turned seeming disaster into a dramatic destiny. But, behind both, was the mind. Renewed. Rekindled. And reinvigorated even in the pits of despair.
In all of our lives are ongoing ups and downs. Hassles here, problems there, sometimes bright spots. Sunshine and rain. But, the key is not to let that undermine thinking. When we are on the up, life is easy to mentally process. When we are on a down slope however, it’s easy to keep going down with it mindwise.
Julio and JK took the positives out of their harsh realities. They looked for something better to get involved in and follow. To redirect the mind and put its purpose and focus on the new skill or goal not the current pain and restriction.
We can all take a leaf out of that book. The mind can go one of two ways always. We get to choose which way it goes.
As Shakespeare famously wrote in Hamlet, ‘There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so’.
I think we should decide to use our mind to get the best out of everything
And turn grime into gold, and difficulty into destiny!
References – Edition.cnn.com – Julio Iglesias; near death experience made him a singer.
Surinenglish.com – July, a month of success for Julio Iglesias.
Wikipedia – Julio Iglesias.
Biography.com – J.K. Rowling’s incredible rags to riches story.
Photo attribution – Free to use under Pixabay Content License by Blogcube and Vika_Glitter.
Many people want to be a success.A big success in some form.
But, underneath if they do, lies a mental flaw that has affected countless top achievers and millions of the rest of us.
Imposter Syndrome.
You may not have heard of the term, but chances are you may experience it a number of times in your life.
Can you guess who this is?
Born in the mid 1950’s he made his first acting appearance in a low budget horror film before landing a starring role in a TV movie in 1982. From there his stock rose. Next came one of the lead roles in an ABC series plus other TV guest appearances. His first Hollywood film made $69m at the box office and from there he went from one stellar hit to another. He is ranked the 4th highest all time box office star grossing over $9.96BILLION worldwide. He has won two Oscars, seven Emmy awards, and four Golden Globes plus lifetime achievement awards.
But he said of himself, ‘ No matter what we’ve done, there comes a point where you think, ‘How did I get here? When are they going to discover that I am, in fact, a fraud and take everything away from me?‘.
Despite all that mega success and super acting recognition, he still feels an imposter in Hollywood.
Imposter Syndrome affect us all from a teacher to a tycoon.
Imposters everywhere.
Imposter Syndrome covers every group, race, income level, background and, well, everything.
Almost anyone can experience this mindset malaise. Some other examples are very surprising.
Would you have thought that the following have experienced Imposter Syndrome?
David Bowie, Serena Williams, Lady Gaga, Natalie Portman, Emma Watson, and Michelle Obama.
It’s a helluva list but it gets more amazing when you add those from recent history too.
Legendary British comedian/magician Tommy Cooper, award winning and multi million selling author Maya Angelou, and even….wait for it….Albert Einstein even declared, ‘I am compelled to think of myself as an involuntary swindler’, as he didn’t feel worthy of the accolades his work attracted.
In the great and good there is a long line now, and in the past, of famous performers who felt a fake and somehow worth less than what they have achieved. Whether you win an Oscar or Nobel Prize, they can feel exactly the same as you when you get promoted to managing a marketing team or captain of the golf club that you simply don’t deserve it.
There are imposters everywhere in every walk of life not just on the red carpet.
Imposters are among all of us. In fact most of us have been one at some point. Think of the time you felt you didn’t fit in because the people, the place, the role, or all of them together, were better than you. That feeling is Imposter Syndrome.
So what is Imposter Syndrome?
It is a psychological sense of inadequacy where, despite external evidence to support success and achievement, internally the sufferer downplays any accomplishments as luck or someone better wasn’t available and/or that they are not worthy of the result. Feeling a fraud or not the level of those they are around nor the stature of such people is common.
This starts to manifest as individuals begin to develop themselves. Their slight lack of self confidence turns inwards even more as progress is made especially if it is rather pronounced or made in a fairly short time. They ‘just don’t get what people see in me or what I have done’, is a common phrase they will utter to themselves.
From housewives to heroes, CEO’s to career ladder ‘would be’s’, Imposter Syndrome is an active mental feeling affecting almost anyone. When things start to go good, the Imposter strikes to remind that it’s not justified. I just won’t have it no matter what the proof, is the mental view.
We are an Imposter in a better world.
How to feel like we fit in.
Imposter Syndrome tells you lies about yourself.
So you have to put it straight. There is no pill to take. You have to make the Imposter feel like he or she isn’t real. It’s a made up projection. You have to direct your mindset to a greater perspective, a bit like explaining to a child that the monster in their story only exists in a book. Enlist your own PR – Proper Response
There are a number of approaches that will help restore self awareness and self acceptance such as these.
Look for fact over fiction, or substance rather than conjecture. Recognise that if you have won a major prize or contract it can only be done on merit.
Admit to others and especially your peers that you feel an Imposter (as Tom Hanks did). You may find that people in that field had the very same feeling once.
Identify your Imposter fraud feelings. Maybe you are the only woman ever promoted to a senior position so you think it’s a tick box appointment. Or your friends only loved your new dress to be polite as they know you can’t afford them often. See that fake belief and face it down.
Create a new conversation. It’s all going on in your head. Those thoughts about yourself like a voice telling you how you don’t fit. Grab that voice back and turn it round. Clearly state, and keep stating, that you 100% earned what you have got and you did it by being yourself.
There are some others to also use such as having positive self talk, seeing yourself in your mind’s eye actually congratulating yourself at what you have achieved, and add rewards for each good outcome to reinforce it as a ‘well done me’ belief.
Many Imposters have left the building with these.
Imposter be gone and stay gone.
Imposters never get away with it.
They always get found out in the end. Sooner or later they betray themselves. So if you have started to question whether you actually do deserve the recognition or advancement you are experiencing, then superb, you are outting the Imposter. You are pointing out the faker in your thinking, opinion, and limiting beliefs.
Follow these tips above and show them the door and never let them back in. They were never invited to your party in the first place, they just barged there way in. Say bye bye to bad views and turn that music up.
Time to celebrate you and all that you do!
References –
Wikipedia – Tom Hanks.
Casting Frontier – 9 actors who struggled with Imposter Syndrome.
Entrepeneur.com – 12 Leaders, Entrepreneurs, and Celebrities who have struggled with Imposter Syndrome.
Businessinsider.com – celebrities who talked about having Imposter Syndrome.
Assets.henley.ac.uk – WHITEPAPER was Albert Einstein an Imposter.
ImpostorSyndrome.com – how to overcome Imposter Syndrome.
There are some infamous lines spoken in movie history.
‘After all tomorrow’s just another day’, from Gone With the Wind.
Michael Caine’s awesome’, You’re only supposed to blow the bloody doors off’, from The Italian Job.
And my all time personal favourite from Julia Roberts in Notting Hill, ‘I’m just a girl, standing in front of a boy, asking him to love her’.
But one of the greatest ones ever quoted is by Marlon Brando, the classic,
‘I coulda had class‘, he said, ‘I coulda been a contender. I could’ve been someone’, from On The Waterfront.
The last line captures perfectly the modern mindset belief adopted by vast swathes of the population. Brando’s words were from a Hollywood film’s low life character reflecting on becoming a someone in the world and rising above his meagre status. No longer just a citizen, more a star, more recognised by others. In today’s world art has become life as people all over the world use social media to be a somebody as if they are in some TV show or popular film.
Their every activity is governed towards increasing their profile and being seen. It’s like a disease. In fact, it’s got a name.
The Somebody Syndrome.
Nobodies everywhere.
Towards the end of last Century we were all nobodies. There were nobodies everywhere.
Now when I mean nobodies, I mean non-celebrity, non notable personas to the world. The few true stars, leaders, sports legends, and mega business moguls were few and stood out. If there was a tree in their field, they shone out at the very top.
The rest of us were working folks known only to others in our community, or organisation, or perhaps in some way locally or nationally but not at any elite level where anyone, anywhere would know exactly who we are if we walked down the street.
People went about their business doing what they had to do. Work, shopping, family duties, enjoying some hobbies, the odd day trip here, plus a short Summer vacation there. No desire to tell the world about themselves and what they did day after day. Their focus was their life around them and the people that mattered. As it has been in various guises for hundreds of years.
Then social media arrived. And the nobodies started to want to become somebodies.
It started off as fun. Facebook was the true first big thing. And we all wanted to be involved. In 2006 Facebook opened up to the general public having previously been campus based only with 250,000 student members to begin with. Within a year of this it had 20 million daily users. Today that has soared to the heights of 3.07Billion.
It’s main feature was to share thoughts, images and updates of our ordinary lives, our communities, our activities. Sharing and connecting with others who did the same. It was fresh, fun, novel, exciting, and unusual all rolled into one.
And we got hooked!!
Facehooked.
When it began Facebook seemed to answer an innocuous human function.
A place to go to connect and learn, see what’s out there, see others. See what the world is doing. But….the buzz is addictive. Firmly hooked by the ability to be ‘liked’ and praised and given attention by people we didn’t even know, not just from our friends, we were drawn in. People anywhere and everywhere wanting to hook up with little old us. Wow, the feeling was sooo good.
In our humdrum lives getting a thumbs up from a stranger or nice looking person sure lifted our mood and boosted our self confidence. Innocent pick me ups, good old natured positive recognition which we rarely got in our everyday lives, became a sense of escapism. Add to that gathering a group of ‘friends’ who followed our profile and well, hell, this is the place to be.
These people support me. These people like me. All of these people are keen to keep doing that even when I post a picture of my garden or me in my outfit for a Friday night out. And their comments prove I’m pretty popular after all. I’m going to keep doing this and do it a bit more often.
The Somebody has been born.
Oh No FOMO.
Word had clearly spread. Facebook is the hottest spot in virtual town.
And we headed there in our droves participating in the exact same behaviour as above. We didn’t want to be out, we wanted to be part of the in crowd. So we copied them. After all that’s what humans do. We are a tribe, a race of people, so we do what the group does. Which is hop onto Facebook and share every photo we have got (usually of the self) of almost anything.
FOMO came to life. FOMO aka Fear of Missing Out said you gotta join in or you are a nobody. Which effectively said to our subconscious, that when you are posting and sharing (which blew right out of the water when we could post videos too!), you are a somebody. Roll on enough years and now it’s an ingrained behaviour.
A belief system has taken root in our emotional and mental base.
Cue the drift into a sense of self importance. Checking out other people’s profiles to prove to our inflating ego that we have more followers, likes, comments than they do or more of the cool people coming our way.
And the greatest shock of all with this? This trait surfaced in the young twenty somethings first, the big social guys and girls, who were naturally always out and about. Then it spread. Soon the thirty and forty year olds came to the party and nowadays ever age group is mega active.
Oneupmanship surged. Every time we went somewhere – the local pub, to walk the dog, to buy a new woolly hat; it needed a FB post. We had to stay relevant, stay ahead, stay noticed. We craved the likes, we needed the recognition and respect we felt inside. Keeping that supply going became key. So we took day trips to share online. Concerts and sporting occasions were posted en masse. Traveling to unusual places were featured. Anything to keep the attention, keep the numbers up, and be that somebody we believed we were.
We became so many somebody’s.
Online all the time.
We have developed Somebody Syndrome.
The acute, and often desperate, want to be visible and seen. Oh be seen, yes, but not as just an ordinary Joe or Jane. Someone special, attractive (yes all those phone filters!!), successful, admired, and followed. We have fast progressed from seeing ourselves as a somebody, to bordering on being a star.
Somebody morphs into Celebrity.
We are going almost any place to take a picture or share a video or buy a product (from killer shoes to fast cars) to act like celebs….in our head. The completely fake and false image we have grown up around ourselves is out of control. Millions and millions of people all seeing themselves as some next big thing in some way. Posing like models or shooting a vid ‘at home’ as if they were a world renowned reality personality.
And the damage is huge. Mental health issues due to social media are hitting scary numbers. For instance – did you know 210 million people worldwide are addicted to social media? People actually develop palpitations if they can’t access social media feeds! And worse. Online they meet those who feel inadequate and insecure, people who abuse, criticise, threaten, and belittle others causing severe anxiety and depression as a result.
If it’s not our ego that suffers from overhype, it’s our fragile emotions and identity that are severely holed so we’re sinking.
Our heads have become too big, and our hearts have become too broken.
Be a real somebody.
There really is only one Taylor Swift.
Or Ed Sheeran. Or Steve Mc Queen. And only one Elvis Presley, Julia Roberts, Kim Kardashian et al. Truth is we are killing ourselves at trying to be another version of a well known man/woman/couple instead of the real version of who actually are.
Social media has changed us. We want to be the popular one, the somebody people seek out. Every day we feed that mentality monster by posting and tweeting and shooting videos to Instagram, TikTok, and all other sites we have a presence on. But, we’re missing one HUGE truth.
We were born to be who we are. A pure one off. A unique individual with their own identity. The real living breathing somebody,
Someone meant to be the best interior designer, sports coach, hairdresser, meteorologist, and thousands of other possible roles that make us make our mark. Roles that reflect our true selves in the world around us. Contributions that we will be truly remembered for and not some viral video that will be forgotten in weeks. We have special skills and talents in abundance. Ones we are ignoring chasing the online applause.
You see we already ARE influencers. By being ourselves in our own clothes, and own skin, and own ways. We don’t need some Apple phone image to enhance that nor a few likes that will be here today but gone in a few years.
We are all a somebody. A normal, wonderful somebody. Picture thatin your mind.
Anyone of a certain age was brought up on the 3 R’s of education.
The famous (though clearly incorrectly referenced…go figure!!) R’s – Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic.
These were defined as the basic three foundations of learning. They have been the staple educational cornerstone in many countries for umpteen decades.
But, did you know they have a thinking equivalent?
And not just any thinking. The highest and the best. The elite level thinking.
If you didn’t know, worry not. In this post I’m going to reveal them to you so you can start developing them too.
Let us begin the great mindset lesson. Three is the magic number to learn. Three elite ways to use thinking to bring out the very best.
One, two, three….let’s go!
1. Reasoning.
Even crazy ideas aren’t that mad.
This is the foundation of pinnacle thinking. All ideas conceived, no matter how unlikely or fantastical, are treated to this triple approach. And the initial entry point mentally is where any concept, any possibility, is first processed by the mind. It is where it is fairly considered and evaluated.
It experiences reasoning.
Reasoning is the sensible perspective applied by the mind. Whether the idea is whacky or wonderful, reasoning is activated to ensure solid appraisal. Some years ago on the business investment programme Dragon’s Den on BBC TV, an inventor sought funds from established business gurus for cardboard garden furniture. It didn’t happen.
This is because of every pitfall the creator had not thought through about the product. It seemed like a good idea. It was novel. The cost was low. It was environmentally friendly. And not to mention, it was innovative. In their mind.
No reasoning had been employed. You could probably guess half of the problems the Dragons identified. But, if you get carried away with your ‘big bright new thing’ exciting your head (and future pockets), you will never see sense.
This is also relevant with bonkers ideas. At first they seem insane without a cat in hell’s chance of making it. Have a think. Switch on reasoning. See the issue it could be solving. Perhaps the concept only requires a tweak to fit into another field. It could just be the gap in a market no-one else ever noted. Nothing is dead until reason says so.
Reasoning is where an open mind meets a sensible brain.
2. Reflection.
Ever thought about something you first weren’t sure about, then changed your mind?
It’s the classic ‘let it sink in’. This is what occurs when we receive information that’s far and above our norm. Big bad news or big brilliant news. The mind asks for a time out and wants to do some inner homework before it offers its opinion.
That downtime is when the mind slips into reflective mode. It ponders and considers the info, idea, proposal, seriousness, etc. A kind of top to bottom mental review to capture what you really feel/believe/understand.
We do that on less magnificent options – what will happen if we go for promotion or change the car. Large enough a decision for us, but not earth shattering.
Elite level minds reflect as standard but elevate the scenario. They will practise reflection over opening a brand new business, how to fit in ultra marathon training while working a 45 hour week as an analyst, and financial planning for the coming five years if they were to move their savings into short term office space rental.
Sure it’s more mega stuff, but the principal remains sturdy.
Reflection is correction, connection, or condemning a possibility by deeper, calmer contemplation about what it is and what it can mean.
3. Responding.
However you start, you have to finish.
And at the end of any idea or concept, after all thinking is done, has to be a decision. Before you go for it or pull it, you have to land on one mental response that decides one way or the other.
Elite thinkers are highly adept at quality responses.
They reason that the idea is sound. That is followed up with reflecting on how it could look, develop, who it could be for, where to pitch it etc. Those two completed and the mind made up, they are comfortable at the step most become paralysed in taking.
They respond – they take action. The move it forwards. Result? Progress with a capital ‘P’.
Now there is a proviso. That response could equally be they will kill the project. Maybe it’s too soon for such an endeavour. It might be too expensive to fund. Preferences and trends are changing. Various factors (they they have identified and thought through) in the groundwork is saying it won’t work on the ground.
Hey, but it may turn out a stunning 180 flip. It could be scaled up or dedicated to a certain type of person. It might begin small with a soft launch first before the explosion onto the wider stage. Relabelling it might change perceptions and so on.
Whether it’s a big thumbs up or down, rest assured elite minds will respond to the idea and the thinking they have invested, with surefooted, confident responses. No waiting, no pontificating. The iron is hot…or cold, nothing in between.
So, where does that leave you?
4. What’s the Big Idea?
You’re not reading this post for fun, right?
At the back of your mind you want to learn how big thinking is done. Because you’ve got something to get done. Asking that girl out you’ve fallen for at the office. Quitting work to be a vlogger. Wanting to tell your parents that you won’t be going into the family business. And bigger still.
Well, you now know there’s no mega secrets to mega thinking. No inner sanctum the great leaders and business moguls in history were members of with the keys to riches. You don’t have to hold your nerve. No poker face is required or working on the art of bluff.
Just these three R’s – the reasonable, rational, reflexes of the mind. They hold true whether it’s a city you are building or simply bridges with people you need to get back.
3R’s that will help you choose the right and best path…the elite one.
Photo attribution – Free to use under Pixabay content license by RyanMcGuire.
Have you ever looked at something and seen completely the opposite to others?
What they say is clearly obvious, you can’t see at all?
Well, you are not weird. Or alone. It’s a well developed human characteristic of the mind. The mind together with the brain learn. As we grow and age they are fed information. Some of which is advice, a lot though is opinion and influence from people beyond us, even conjecture. The media, and increasingly, social media have become rich sources for our thoughts and beliefs.
All of this data gets added to the mental banks and an individual viewpoint of life and the world is formed. That gets set and from now on we will only see through the lens of that mental imprint.
And what we see can be very far from the truth.
No accident at all.
Every time a disaster or shocking event occurs, our mental projections above kick in.
In November 2020 the A46 motorway in the West Midlands in the UK was shut due to a ferocious car fire. Luckily the inhabitants made it out fairly unscathed. The very same morning a driver who was passing as the fire took hold, shared a picture they snapped to a local Facebook group (this is the header picture of this blog post) soon after.
Within minutes certain members began focusing on one part of the picture. They were sure that there was a human face within the raging inferno. Egged on by this, others joined the conversation stating it was unmistakeable. Not long after, fuelled by this obvious evidence, all manner of spirit and ghost theories were put forwards. Incredibly some began inventing a previous fatal crash near the spot that killed a young man and it must have been him coming back to help. And similar. There has been no such car smash there before.
Now, of course, as you are reading this there may be a few of you who can see a face. Others ‘might’ possibly see one. And plenty who see only a car fire. Who is right? Are the face watchers spotting what the majority seemed to miss? Or are they simply joining dots that aren’t there? Maybe they are just deluded??
The truth is it’s more pareidolia rather than paranoia.
I see what you are believing.
You have probably heard of the phrase people often say, ‘I see what you are saying’.
Change that for, ‘I see what you are believing’.
For example –
Someone who is religious and experiences some unexpected good luck or has a narrow miss from an accident, may tend to see that as their chosen God’s hand at work saving their life from above.
Another person who is a staunch supporter of a political party will elect to see everything wrong with the country if they are not in power, or working hard and fixing things when their party is the ruling Government.
And let’s not forget the good old sport supporters who decide their team are being fouled all the time while they are making no fouls in return.
In each scenario our pre-set mindset witnesses what it has a pre-loaded bias for. Whether it’s UFO’s in the sky or we are a good driver while most others need lessons. If it’s in the mind, it gets projected out into the world of vision including weird and wonderful curious cases we can suddenly explain.
Which brings me back to the photo at the top and the face (or no face).
And the psychological tendency to see patterns, shapes, faces, and more in random images. Otherwise known as pareidolia.
Buildings on Mars anyone?
We’ve seen it all before.
The well known saying tells that ‘there is nothing new under the sun’.
The phrase refers to the fact that history repeats itself, just in different forms, but remains the same theme as ever. We do and see repeat things in restyled ways. A contemporary financial scheme is actually an echo of others that went belly up in the past. The great new trend is merely the modern version from sixty years ago. Stupid little wars always erupting out of pride or self inflated desire to be powerful.
You get my drift?
Turn to the picture and employ the theory. Is there a face? A real face? Or are those who believe in the spirit realms finding what they need to keep their beliefs alive? Because that’s what we all do in what we see through our mind. Keeping our beliefs alive when we look at the world and life.
Belief that God or a spirit guide had favoured us. Belief that our politics are what everyone requires. Or belief that referees are deliberately preventing our side winning because they know they are the best.
So, next time you cast a look over a situation or story or picture of an eruption with a Devil’s evil look peering out, ask yourself what your mind, not your eyes, is not only wanting to see, but expecting to see,
Because your mind has the best eyesight you could ever imagine!!
Are you seeking a breakthrough somewhere in your life?
Especially if you want to achieve something with who you are?
It’s easy to get stuck. We get so used to acting and thinking a certain way that nothing will really change because we are not changing those. As the famous phrase by Henry Ford goes, ‘If you always do what you’ve always done, you will always get what you’ve always got’.
Us humans are, by genetics, predisposed to living by the norm. Otherwise known as convention. It’s a survival reaction instinct. If we do what everyone else is doing we increase our chances of staying alive, and perhaps even thriving. It’s why every time a trend develops (coffee shops, internet marketing, yep Bitcoin too etc), people pile on the bandwagon and it all becomes saturated.
It seems a sensible behaviour, but it’s those who break with convention who often breakthrough into a far more memorable life.
And that’s as true in history as now.
What’s in a name?
With billions of humans on Earth, how truly different is a different name.
Where everyone used to be called Martin or Megan, parents today are trying to outdo each other with more bizarre names for their offspring like Glade, or Magenta or Meteor. They may sound cool, but this very rarely creates anything notable by having the snazzy name alone.
But one person who DID make a mark through her name was Lucy Stone.
I can guarantee virtually no-one will have heard of her, but she made a huge ground shift in what she did with her surname. A shift that millions of females have followed since without ever knowing about her pioneering stance.
So what was so unconventional about her?
It’s the mid 1840’s in the USA and it’s very much a man’s world. But not for independent Lucy. As an advocate and promoter of women’s rights when she got married she did something no other woman had ever been known to have done. What do you think it was?
The answer – she refused to take her husband’s surname and continued to be known as her maiden name. She wanted to stand as a individual rather than be hidden behind her male partner’s title. She broke the mould and went on to win the rights for women to divorce abusive husbands and that wives could earn independent income that was theirs rather than belonging to their husband as tradition dictated.
Lucy Stone made a stand with her own name and broke convention to further women in the world.
Forget what they say.
Fancy a beer? A craft beer?
They are pretty popular these days. Go to any town or city and you can find a pub or bar with a quality ale available. But it wasn’t always that way. Just ask Martyn Hillier.
In 2005 he saw a gap in the market no-one else saw. Or even believed existed. In the small village of Herne in Kent, UK, he decided to open a micropub at The Butcher’s Arms, the old butchers shop. The term micropub still isn’t that widespread today. Twenty years ago it didn’t exist at all. It did in Martyn’s mind.
His concept was to start a small pub with seating for just 12 people where you could only buy cask ales. That was it. No lager or other beer types. He also banned live music, jukeboxes, serving any food, and no TV’s showing sport. In fact the only two things you could get there was a fabulous real ale and conversation due to the intimate nature of the size of the pub. That was against all trends, and everyone’s advice not least the bank manager.
The Butchers Arms has just celebrated its 20th anniversary and is still going strong. It’s now firmly on the beer tour for ale aficionados with drinkers coming from all round the country for a simple pint in quaint surroundings and happy chat with others.
Martyn broke with the typical convention about the size of a pub and what it serves. It succeeded and so did he as he was awarded an MBE in the 2024 Honours List for services to business and hospitality. Today there are over 500 micropubs in the UK. He didn’t break the mould, he made it.
Like Lucy Stone, Martyn Hiller knew his mind, the unconventional one.
The Alternative Approach.
The world hasn’t been chocked full of people breaking with convention.
Those that have done so though have furthered their lives in very visible and incredibly unforeseen beneficial ways.
They faced the blocks and opinions and restrictions that signposted they should follow the usual routes and actions. The same ones that had left them precisely where they were to begin with. Stuck. Unfulfilled. Not honouring themselves.
And that’s your cue. If things haven’t quite worked out for you maybe it’s time to breakthrough those imagined limitations and do something avant-garde, braver, or plain opposite to the norm.
Hey, maybe the only alternative you really ever needed was to take the alternative approach all along.
Because the biggest breakthrough just needs to be in your mind.
