How Do I Stand Out?

I’m sure some of you have already read Linchpin (affiliate link) by best selling author Seth Godin. In this book, he talks about how being artistic and creative can make you indispensable in the workplace. With so many of today’s businesses fostering easily replaceable tasks and employees, the only real way to secure our future and fate is to be a “linchpin.” We need to do something or create something, perhaps even on a daily basis, that is remarkable and irreplaceable to either our business or the business we are employed by.

That said, how can we do this. I, like many, find it hard to come up with truly unique ideas especially ones that are meaningful enough to be considered “remarkable.” Though, I definitely have not mastered this, I think like anything, it is not learned overnight. In other words, we have to practice being remarkable and coming up with remarkable ideas. As we do, we get better and better at it and our ideas become better and better because we are more confident in our ability to create.

Practice is one way, another way may just come as a result of necessity. My wife, though  I disagree with her almost daily, truly believes that she is not very creative. However, when her favorite Aunt was diagnosed with cancer recently, she came up with the idea to create a scrapbook for her and give it to her by the end of the week. She emailed all of her extended family members and anyone that new her and had them write down memories of Aunt Cathie so that she could compile a scrapbook for her. Sunday night came and she had barely received all the letters and notes back and still had the entire book to create. She had thought that her sisters, who were more experienced and loved scrap booking, would do the bulk of the work because she is “not creative.” However, they had other obligations  so she ended up having to compile nearly the entire scrapbook in two hours by herself. It turned out fantastic and everyone loves it! See… you can be remarkable and you can be creative. Sometimes it just takes that initial push to get you to try something new.

So, here is an exercise that I would like you to try for at least two weeks and see if it makes a difference. Before you start your day, take 15-20 mins and go over the tasks that you have before you. Lay them all out and think about the process you will take to accomplish them. In doing so, try to think of a new way to accomplish them that you may not have tried before. Maybe you could add something to the finished product that would make it a little bit better. Ask yourself, how can I get everything done today that I need to, yet still have it stand out more than normal?

I think you’ll be surprised at what happens. I’m anxious to see what happens for me.