These days I am trying to get some downtime. When I get home from work I need to turn off the notifications, unplug from the internet and different apps and do my best to switch off my constantly thinking brain…It is not working that well so far and I am still experimenting. 

One of the things I am exploring are cheap and dumb TV series and reality shows. And today I watched videos on Youtube featuring the best bits from The Voice audition.

Not only it did not turn off my brain, but those video compilations brought a chain of different thoughts and I ended up typing this post… (watching The Voice is now successfully crossed off my “brain switch off” experiment list).

The first thing I thought of was how stressful and even humiliating that might feel. Standing there, singing and looking at the backs of jurys’ chairs and being at their mercy… Doing your best to impress with your voice and performance.

Those singer wanna be-s are trying to prove themselves. Justify their right to sing. Seek permission and acknowledgment. Get verified. Be accepted…

Will they like it? Will they turn? What will they decide?…

You don’t even know who are you competing with… were the ones before you better?

Then I realised… hey, that’s exactly what happens in life too… we all are trying to impress someone. At a job interview, our boss, that girl in the pub, our friends… we all have people who we’d like to turn around and accept us.

And then, just like all those singers, we fall into the competition trap. The trap, where there will almost always be someone who is (slightly) better. And then just like in life some of the competitors are way better than the jury that chooses.

And probably that is not fair at all…but then life is not fair either…

Have you noticed who in the Voice does best?

Who are those who get the “wow” from the audience? The standing ovations, the admired looks, and the dropped jaws?

Yup… those who are waaaay better than everyone else. Waaay better than everyone before and after them… than the jury… than most of the singers we keep hearing on Spotify… than anything we’ve listened to lately…

In life, it is the same… if you’re THAT good in whatever you do, no one will care if you’ve got a diploma or not and the potential employers will be on the stage trying to impress you so you choose them…… 

but then if you are THAT good, probably you won’t need an employer either. You’ll just go ahead and do your own thing in your own terms.

When you are THAT good — you won’t have a competition.

Your only competition will be the better version of yourself.

Have you noticed what many on that Voice stage do wrong?

Nope, it has nothing to do with the voice pitch, how they sing or how they move on stage. In fact, it has nothing to do with music or singing at all.

They chose the wrong as we call in marketing “target audience”. What I mean is they are trying to impress the wrong people. They focus on the jury… and what they should do instead is…get under the skin of the main audience…

Because if they manage to provoke their tears and have them mesmerized it would not matter what will the jury do. Even if they do not turn around the singer has already won. Jury’s reaction will be already irrelevant at that point!

So be true to yourself, don’t even get into competing with others, be amazingly good at what you love doing and wow the right people… and then you’ll have others compete for you!

Just like in that famous song, I was born in the USSR. 

Yup… I am THAT old and yup… that country no longer exists. 

The Soviet culture had strong imprint in many people’s mentality and lifestyle. If you were born in those years too but in any capitalistic country, then I am sure you think that things back in the Soviet Union were way worse than they were. To be fair that is exactly what we thought about your country too…

But that is not what I was going to write about. 

Among many different memories from my childhood I remember what I disliked most… standardization. We all were raised to think alike, to behave alike and to look alike. There were very few choices and we all could do nothing but chose among that scarce variety only. 

Well, USSR was extreme case… but even later, when I ended up living in different countries, I realized that the whole concept was very similar, simply the scale was different. 

And that brings me to the main topic of today – the “weirdo”s and misfits.

No matter where one lives being different is not always easy. One ends up bumping into walls of misunderstanding, the feeling of not being appreciated and the backlash of criticism. One is considered to be “crazy”, “a creep”, “a weirdo”, etc…

Even my mum, who I know loves me, in many different occasions described me as “very original”. In reality she did mean crazy, but since she’s always been very “politically correct” that’s how she phrased it. And to be honest I wasn’t even THAT different… simply I did not look at life the way others around me did. My only issue was: I did voice my opinion and it was not a popular one… that’s all.

And although I myself have never been extremely differ or as mum put it “original”, I always admired those who were. To me all those “misfits”, “creeps” and “werdo-s” were extraordinary. They always intrigued me. They were the ones who have chosen “the road less travelled by and that by itself made me envy their courage.

If one does things the way things have always been done one will get the same outcomes as always. If we keep doing things as they have been made just because that is the “right” way – we will never come up with different and in most cases better ways. 

Do you think innovation and creative ideas can come from ordinary and common people? 

Yes? 

Then think again!

This is the ode to all who’re questioning the society norms and challenging the status quo. The ones, who are not afraid to be themselves and tap into their superpower. Their superpower of weirdness that many perceive as weakness… To all those who prefer to make their own path and not to drive the highway…

People obsessed with their ideas and dreams… 

To all those who change our world one step at a time, one dream at a time, one idea at a time…

Cheers to misfits and all those crazy ones, who think they can change the world.