We humans are part of a race of people.

Even though there are billions of us of all racial groups and beliefs and languages, as one big tribe of people we share one trait. To fit in. We may have varying styles of life but we tend to follow the norm of behaving and living as most others do and don’t seek to be too different.

Deep down this supplies a sense of safety and security as everyone is doing it so it must be ok.

Our minds join in with this copycatying by also thinking and viewing everything along well accepted lines. We are almost like soldiers following orders. Orders that have existed over time since the first dawning of mankind.

It feels less risky and more manageable. But…it hinders individualism and full expression of our own unique selves beyond a very narrow set of activities and mindsets.

We become like Truman Burbank in The Truman Show.

But. there is another way to live that frees from the mass mentality. A way that reshapes your mindset and the whole reality you experience.

To use your mind to be different. And here’s how!

Star Wars Thinking.

I’m fairly sure almost all adults in the world have heard of or seen Star Wars.

The 1977 blockbuster movie Star Wars was ahead of its time. It was DIFFERENT. Not so now, but then, most definitely.

Coming up to Christmas that year no-one had predicted the unprecedented storm around the world following the film’s screening. A limited range of toy figures were planned but not a large run due to the view they would not sell that many. In fact major manufacturers were not interested in the line as a result and it was a small Ohio company, Kenner Toys, who secured the licensing rights.

But, the massive response and demand for anything Star Wars sent them into a spin as they were the 11th hour option who only won the contract that April. This was barely a month before the film’s release. Toy lines normally took 12 – 18 months to develop and manufacture. They were swamped.

They needed a way to meet demand and not disappoint customers due to the delay. Plus they had to fund this major up scaled production. And guess what they did? They thought differently to any other manufacturer AND broke the normal processes.

They chose to get the public to PAY IN ADVANCE for an Early Bird Certificate Package around $12. This contained only a colorful cardboard display and certificate they had to mail back to be first in line when the toys were available.

Money for nothing in effect.

Did it work? After all it had never been tried before and everyone advised against it.

YOU BET! By the time they were released in 1978, sales hit $100m in that year alone.

This is the power of a different mind!

Don’t be normal in your mind.

Most minds think alike.

This is due to the fact that people follow the accepted norms of thought that the majority do. It’s kind of tribal fall back to our ancient ancestors. If the majority considered woolly mammoths as the food for health and survival, well, so did you. Plus wearing sabre tooth jewellery as the way to dress and bingo, you’re not about to go against the tribe.

It’s a survival thing.

Today that mechanism repeats how we live, behave, interact…and think. We still operate under the general idiom of society acceptance so we’re not ‘cast out’ of the social community. In neanderthal times, they were cast out to fend for themselves.

This fear of not co-operating with the gang means we think along their lines. From social media posting to having more holidays, from trying to be wealthy to owning pets, we mentally replicate the crowd.

This mass mentality is what kills living a different life. A wider, more illuminating, fulfilled one.

Constrained into a fixed mental view of what life means, vast millions of us can’t create anything meaningful because our mind can’t see it or imagine it. Let alone consider it possible or sensible. We’re stuck in the middle of group thought.

We are too normal in our minds and we have to learn not to be.

There is an art to it.

Have you ever seen any of Salvador Dali’s paintings?

Iconic compositions such as Persistence of Memory or The Burning Giraffe. A surrealist painter who painted from his own mind rather than any previous surreal styling. His mind had different ideas.

Similar to Andy Warhol who I wrote about in The Life Changing Impact of Using Your Individual Mind.

This should be your approach. To take any situation and feel free to view it your way. Forget tried and tested. Scrub the accepted thinking. Activate what your mind projects to you. Build on that.

True success arrives when regular thinking isn’t employed.

It unfolds from being brave enough to have a different mind than anyone else. To see what no-one else does and to see that through to a product, career, lifestyle, or service.

You haven’t, or a scared to even start, because you are held by the mass mindset. You need to be of the ‘one’ mindset. Yours.

Yes, you might get thought dumb or crazy. Voices might poke fun at you. Experts may degrade your considerations. All of this is good. You are moving into a different and individual mind and that’s when genius is born.

So think up a new cat food recipe. Or add a new item to bread no-one has ever considered. Or design a radical car, create a niche travel agency, or open a shop not a single soul in the world ever would.

Different is dynamic. And it’s personally liberating.

Because is you don’t do different, your life never will be!

References – https://www-2018.swansea.ac.uk/press-office/news-archive/2017/howstarwarskick-startedmoderntoycollecting.php.

Wikipedia – Kenner Star Wars Action Figures.

The Toy Collectors Guild.com – Start Wars 1977-1985.

Photo attributions – free to use under Pixabay Content License by Vilkass and geosilva2023 and GraphixMade.