I strive to stand out. I want to be different. I want to be an outlier.
Why?
Because I despise mediocrity and I believe the largest value adds live in the tails of the bell curve.
Paradoxically, I don’t think I am alone. I think that most people say that they want to be different. This is ironic because as humans we tend to conform to people like us. But that is another point.
What I want to focus on, though, is differentiation.
How do you make yourself stand out?
This of course is useful — for your resume, your next company, in conversations, the list goes on. What can you do to be different.
A lot of people start by answering this question with things like creativity, innovation, intelligence.
Those are all great answers and they are very true. If you can invent the next type of computing or land a rocket on Mars, then yes — you can be different from the rest.
But the thought I want to portray is something much simpler, something that everyone can do.
And the thought is that execution makes you different.
99 percent of people don’t execute. On whatever it is, the way you can be different is to simply do it more often than anyone else.
I talk a lot about this hard work and etc. but this “hustle” that everyone talks about is the most straightforward way to differentiate yourself.
This ‘method’ has the least amount of variable factors — you control the destiny. Of course it is hard, though it may sound easy, but if you can execute you can separate yourself from the crowd.
0 to 100. Real quick.