Saying No To Playing Their Way: Why Individuation is the Gateway to Legacy

History is filled with outliers who disregarded convention—not for the sake of rebellion, but because their need to express their vision outweighed any need to belong, and hence, to conform.

Look at Roger Bannister, the famed runner who was first to break the 4-minute mile. He trained in a way that didn’t make sense to any of his coaches. 

“Bannister was an outlier and iconoclast — a full-time student who had little use for coaches and devised his own system for preparing to race. The British press “constantly ran stories criticizing his ‘lone wolf’ approach,” Bryant notes, and urged him to adopt a more conventional regimen of training and coaching.” (Bill Taylor, Harvard Business Review, March 9, 2018)

What if individuality isn’t an exception to the rule but the most natural expression of existence itself? What if the fastest route to creating a lasting legacy is not in striving to be different - what if just being unapologetically yourself is the very thing that will make the world sit up and take notice?

Eschewing Convention Isn’t About Rebellion

You don’t have to be contrarian to be yourself, you just have to allow yourself to believe the notion that you have value apart from how well you fit in. Conventional norms exist to provide a scaffolding; it can be useful to move around on it and see what those norms do for you but you do need to recognize when it no longer serves you. The people who leave legacies are those who trust their instincts enough to move beyond the accepted way of doing things.

Steve Jobs didn’t innovate by trying to be different; he obsessed over elegance and simplicity in a way that felt obvious to him but was revolutionary for others. Richard Feynman won a Nobel Prize for a model of motion he worked out that, at the time, had no practical purpose except to slake his thirst to understand the relationship between the spin and wobble of a plate when it’s thrown into the air. The lasting influence of these men wasn’t about being intentionally radical—it was about being deeply true to their own interests and outlook.

The Path to Legacy is an Unveiling, Not an Invention

Michaelangelo claimed that his sculptures were already perfect before he started working on them, that all he had to do was chip away the bits of excess marble that weren’t needed. 

A true legacy is not built by strategizing how to leave a mark; it is built by fully inhabiting who you are and releasing the parts that aren’t serving you. This involves owning your perspective – instead of shaping and modeling yourself to wow the mainstream, learn to explore your true nature more deeply and dare to stand behind the real you. Bringing your most authentic way of thinking and being into the world is key to accessing new levels of personal power which in turn opens the door to greater success than you’ll ever have by trying to do it someone else’s way.

Believe it or not, something that feels fairly effortless to you often turns out to be where your greatest impact lies. The only thing between you and a monumental legacy creation is your own doubt about the value you think others will place on what seems so obvious and easy to you!

Being Who You’re Supposed to be is the Most Efficient Strategy

Trying to be unique is exhausting; being a fully individuated self is powerful and liberating. Remember, your only job is to chisel away whatever is covering up the masterpiece inside. Ask yourself: what would it feel like to fully express that masterpiece? That is where the extraordinary begins.