You’re either boring, okay, good, great, remarkable or amazing. You have to want to be amazing. Being good isn’t the goal. Being amazing is! You can be incredible if you put your mind to it. The time to be amazing is now. Better isn’t good enough. Don’t spend your best part of your life on other people’s priorities, when you know you can pull that project off when you put your mind to it.
Start doing what your future self will be proud of. We don’t find it remarkable when our expectations are met – only when they are exceeded. Start that business, begin that project, finish what you have started. Don’t put off what you can do today.
“Remarkability lies in the edges. The biggest, fastest, slowest, richest, easiest, most difficult. It doesn’t always matter which edge, more that you’re at (or beyond) the edge. Not everyone appreciates your efforts to be remarkable. In fact, most people don’t. So what? Most people have their heads in the sand, unable to help you anyway.” says Seth Godin.
Your goal isn’t to please everyone but to please yourself. Your goal is to please those that care about your work, spread the word or buy even buy your work.
In an article for FastCompany, Seth defines remarkable:
The world is full of boring stuff – brown cows – which is why so few people pay attention. Being remarkable is the art of building things worth noticing right into your product or service.
A Purple Cow would really stand out. The essence of the Purple Cow – the reason it would shine among a crowd of perfectly competent, even undeniably excellent cows – is that it would be remarkable. Something remarkable is worth talking about, worth paying attention to. Boring stuff quickly becomes invisible.
Ideas that spread, win. What we’ve been living through is the greatest culture of spreading ideas that there’s ever been. At one level, that’s great because it’s easier to spread your ideas than ever before. At another, it’s harder because we keep raising the bar.
If you decide to put your work online, strive to be original. Information is everywhere, everyone is sharing their ideas and stories online… it’s really hard to be original. That being said, you don’t have a choice. Focus on sharing your work to your audience in the best possible way you can show it. Strive to give and show something people have never seen before. Everyone naturally craves what they’ve never seen or heard. Be the odd one in a good way.
Whether it’s content, a product, service or even a method of doing something, make it memorable. If you expect your idea to be talked about, your product to be shared or even passed on without hesitation, it needs to stand out and impress. Make it contagious.
Whatever you decide to do, it should be something you definitely love to do with every fibre of your being. It should come to you without struggle. If you struggle to make it happen, it’s not for you, move on. Passion always shows, people know when you are genuine. Passion is contagious. What’s your passion? Think Warren Buffett, Bill Gates or Steve Jobs.
Tell amazing stories. People understand things more when they can relate to it and stories are easy to relate to. Don’t write a product description, show it. Don’t list your features, show stories of people who have found your service or product useful. Don’t write, show. Whatever you do, try to show the proof. If you have to write, deliver epic content.
But the hard truth is that, if you want to create something truly remarkable, it takes longer than you expect. A great novel, an awesome app, a revolutionary company – this kind of thing takes time, thought, craft, and persistence.
Over to you..
1. Find what matters and is remarkable to you.
2. Create something awesome that can spread.
3. Get in front of the right people – your people – and listen to them.
4. Infuse it with some “purple”. Make it different. Well, you’ll have to work that out.
5. Be consistent. What you should refrain from changing is your brand language.
Don’t give up just yet! Your time to be awesome is now!