Diversity
Being Weird Is The Rage Make It Your Chosen Niche
Be a leader; shine your weird.
I read a story by Remington Write; she is a fellow weirdo — who knows it’s the highest honor — whom I have invited to write on Illumination. She wrote the piece about writing advice and why she avoids all the help so freely given on Medium.
It’s about discovering your niche. According to her, if you write long enough, you’ll find it.
“What you seek is seeking you.” ~ Rumi
She makes a lot of sense. When Dr. Mehmet Yildiz suggested that we should write a short 300–500 words with one theme, I believe he was suggesting the same thing. I took it to mean, write about your niche. However, I love what Daniella Mini and Timothy Key have done with that idea. If you haven’t, I recommend that you check it out.
I know what I enjoy writing about, but the thought of making money with it kept getting in my way of doing what I wanted and would derail me time and time again.
I like to use storytelling and lessons learned from my life to inspire people to make the most of themselves. I thought that it meant Self-Improvement, but it doesn’t. Self-Improvement and Personal-Development are about using hacks to improve your position in the corporate environment. That is the farthest thing from what I had in mind.
Tammy Remington made me realize that writing what you want is where the pleasure is. What I want to offer through my scribblings is Personal Growth, not the two niches above. Personal Growth most likely will help you get ahead in your career, but it could also enable you to see that you may be in the wrong profession. I have always believed that; when we do what we enjoy, money takes care of itself.
With the advent of the Internet, the idea of making money doing what you love proliferated. It would be wonderful if we can earn a living doing what we love. But what if you’re a Scanner, as Barbara Sher calls them, or a Jack of many trades like me. So much, the better.
The problem most people run into is when they can’t escape the corporate-speak or an employee mindset. You think you have to make a living doing only one thing, and it has to support you financially fully. Most people learn, through corporate training, to focus on one thing and one thing only, namely your job or means of earning income. It becomes the most important thing, and you think that it is the key to your success.
It doesn’t have to be that way.
The most important thing you can learn about success is this: There is always another way, and nothing says that there can only use one. Diversity is natural and found in everything.
You are never given a desire without means for its fulfillment. That would be like teasing a child with candy she cannot have. The Universe has your highest interest in mind.
Achievement of your desire contributes to the growth and expansion of the Universe itself, so why wouldn’t it?
Wallace D Wattles put it beautifully in his classic Science of Getting Rich.
Every person naturally wants to become all that they are capable of becoming. This desire to realize innate possibilities is inherent in human nature; we cannot help wanting to be all that we can be. Success in life is becoming what you want to be.
The debate about whether or not following your passion is a good strategy rages on.
I read Your Niche is Looking for You on my phone app while still in bed this morning. It inspired the idea about writing a blog post, so I quickly dictated my thoughts on the Medium editor. As I sat down to see what I had in mind and edit it, the essence of the original thought remained, the rest are mostly new words and ideas.
That’s how my mind works, and that’s why, like Remington Write, I don’t do shoulds. I hate them, I tell you, I hate them.
I am discovering my niche, along with my writing voice, and they are inspiring me to let my weirdness shine. I attended a personal growth workshop a couple of years ago, where Kody Bateman, who was leading the seminar, encouraged us to create some I am… statements. In my notes, I found this:
I am the permission slip for the weirdos of the world to let their weird shine.
I am going to start using that permission slip myself.
As always, thank you for reading and responding.
Rasheed Hooda is a regular contributor to #ILLUMINATION, a writers’ community on Medium, where writers support each other to grow and prosper.
He is a self-proclaimed weirdo who lives a Freedom Lifestyle and writes about related topics — Travel (a top writer), Personal Growth, Freedom, and entrepreneurship. (Join the Tribe)
“You can let others tell you what it means to be successful, or you can decide it for yourself.”
