The Suprising Power of Being Different: Or How to Create your Blue Ocean
There are a lot of people in this world. More than 7.5 billion as of this writing. That’s a lot of individuals out there trying to get by, earn a living and make a difference. Some are more fortunate than others — some have more drive, better looks, better genes and better circumstances than others. That’s just how the world is. Within those circumstances, looks, genes and mindsets however, we can do a few things to increase our odds of making a difference in the world.
Since you’re reading this I’m going to go ahead and assume that you’re a pretty affluent person, who’s got their basic needs covered and who is not at risk of gering mauled by a lion or another some such unpleasant experience.
Now you have a choice to make. You can either go on living in oblivion, and do what everybody else is doing, or you can help make the world a better place.
How do you make the world a better place?
Let’s face it — in order to help others you can’t be in need of help yourself. Even better — the more you have for yourself, the more you’re able to give.
Take Bill Gates and Warren Buffett as examples. These two cool cats are two of the most affluent people in the world, and they are also some of the people making arguably the biggest contribution to humanity.
So if you want to help others, make sure to help yourself first.
The funny thing about this however, is that the more value you provide for others, the more value you create for yourself. Microsoft has made perhaps the biggest contribution to the world since the printing press with their Office package, and that has created massive amounts of wealth for Bill Gates and all of Microsoft’s shareholders.
But how was he able to create such massive wealth? This is where we get into the meat of our story — because what he did was to do something that no one else had done before. He managed to create a viable business model around software. Until Gates persuaded the hackers and developers of the world in the early 80s that software was a valuable thing that people should pay for no one made money on software.
The Power of Creating a Blue Ocean
He saw an opportunity that no one else could see and so he created a blue ocean. The Blue Ocean strategy is the idea that you want to get out of the blood filled red ocean where all the piranhas (competition) are, and create a blue ocean where you can swim without being scared that someone is coming to eat you — you want to be unique.
Microsoft is a classic example of this, but we can use this idea as well. If we can make ourselves unique — create a blue ocean for ourselves we not only create massive value for ourselves and others, but we can also help and inspire people to do and be better versions of themselves. If we are to be a little bit self-aggrandizing, we can help make the world a better place.
Elsewhere I’ve written about how the best thing you can do for yourself is to find what you like to do and apply yourself like crazy. When you do this, you will a naturally create a unique skill set. Unique skill sets are valuable. There are two ways to go about building your unique set of skills — or creating your blue ocean. Either you can get insanely good at one particular thing, or you can get fairly good at a range of different skills.
Whether you choose one option or the other, you need to think about how to set yourself apart from the crowd. What is it about you, that makes you better suited to do just what you’re doing? How can you do a thing differently than its ever been done before? How can you come up with that twist that yanks me from yawn to applause? You don’t have to come up with an answer right now. But think about it. Consider it. Keep it in your mind and ponder the question: how can I stand out? How does my set of circumstances and experiences make be unique in such a way that no one else can compete with me?
The answer to that question is your blue ocean.
And once you create your blue ocean, nothing is going to be able to stop you.
