You will never succeed in life, because you are so different.

I have been told this many times and I proved them all wrong.

I strongly believe that the ability to think differently, aka out of the box, and to have the self confidence to act accordingly is one of the cornerstones of successful people or at least of my success.

To be just mediocre

If you think and behave like everyone else, you will become like everyone else, you will become very average. You will do your nine to five job one day after another. You will get so frustrated, that you will spend all your saving to compensate it by going on fancy vacations or pursuing luxury goods. But these diversions will give you only short time dopamine flushes and very soon you need to return to your hamster wheel. The time you retire, your health is most probably already destroyed, either by the stress or frustration of your job or as you were sitting at your desk eight hours a day with no energy for any sport after working hours. The tiny pension you receive after 40 years of service, is too much to die, but too little to live. So you will vegetate with no purpose in life until you die. I know, I might be exaggerating here, but I think you get my message.

Imagine the opposite, that you believe that thinking and acting out of the box is an edge. You will start putting it into practice within many different circumstances. You will start questioning everything: how people behave, how they define happiness, what is written in the newspaper and foremost your own behavior. You will start thinking critically from every angle.

Be different is not easy

Trust me it will not be easy. It is like going into war with the establishment and for sure they will protect what they have built for so many years and fight back. They will ally against you. They will call you an outsider and troublemaker. Someone who is a danger and risk for the corporate harmony. The truth is, when you work for huge organizations, you most probably will loose this fight as you are just outnumbered. You will get so frustrated, that your cooworkers cannot see how inefficiently they work, that there is no will to improve and that it is all about politics. The frustration inside you grows from day to day and then you basically have two options. Either you suck it up and will be miserable for the rest of your life or you are willing to take risks and start making plans to do your own thing.

Being successful by being different is more than just thinking out of the box. Being creative, the ability to see the flaws of other people and knowing how to improve is the easy part. But acting accordingly, investing all your savings and time into a business idea, this is what really requires courage. Basically this courage is what distinguish successful from mediocre mainstream people.