Why Are Successful People, Weirdos?

Define weird.

Why are successful people weirdos?

Why are “geniuses”… weird?

I encourage you to ask yourself why it is you think such silly thoughts. I encourage you to define “weird”.

What makes something “weird”?

‘Well, something that isn’t normal,’ (you may say).

But what’s… “normal”, then?

Well, you’re normal, (you may think, once again). We are all normal; except for those weird guys and gals, you know, the ones out there living fulfilling lives and all.

Here’s what I think:

We have a tendency to place successful people so far outside ourselves into a realm we believe we cannot occupy.

We chalk it up to silly things like “miracles”, “talent”, and “genius” instead of taking it for what it really is: work, work, and more work.

But you don’t understand what could cause someone to actually do what they want, can you?

How weird of them… am I right?

Well… is it really?

Think of it like this:

The people you see living fulfilling, intentional lives of hard work and dedication — pushing limits and boundaries and achieving obstacles — are normal people.

What? No way. Shocker. Who would've known?

And here’s the kicker: You can be amongst them as well.

Shut. Up.

Here’s another way of putting it:

These people who you see going out into the world and leaving their mark are just like you, the only difference is they made the choice to keep going with intensity at all the precise moments you stopped trying.

I know you can’t quite see it that way right now. I know you think this is “out of reach”.

You’ve placed success and genius so far outside your reach that it’s extremely hard to believe in your capability of grasping it, but it is there. You can do this.

You can reach it.

Maybe not today, but someday, only if you keep at it.

Labeling a normal person as “magic” or “miraculous” or “genius” or “extraordinary” only feeds into our natural tendency to be mediocre.

You’re killing yourself, stop it.

I think questioning why the most normal and self-actualized people among us are weird is one of the weirdest things you can do.

I mean… look at you.

You want someone to be like… you? Of all people?

Why do we want successful people to be like us? So we can feel good about our misery? So we can continue to feel like we are the normal ones witnessing some rare, miraculous aliens that only come into existence when the moon is blue or clover has four leaves or the stars line up correctly?

Do successful people really make us that uncomfortable that for a second we feel like the weird ones even though we are amongst a sea of people living unintentional, unactualized dreams just like us?

That last part may definitely be true. We are the weird ones.

Perhaps I seem quite harsh. I’m not just talking about you here.

I’m a mediocre loser still trying to figure it out. Perhaps I’m doing way worse than you are.

If I was achieving my dreams and finding much success, I would relish the fact that people consider me a weirdo. That must mean I’m doing something right!

Truthfully, any distinguishing term is fine as long as it isn’t “normal”. Boy, doesn’t that “normal” thing suck. It doesn’t even pay the bills!

Successful people are normal people, stop putting them on such a high pedestal. A lower one is just fine.

Look, I revere the ones I look up to just as much as the next individual, but I’d be damned if I didn’t believe I could be where they are too.

If no one has told you, you can achieve your wildest dreams… then stop waiting for it to happen. Just believe it anyway.

No matter how much I look up to someone doing something that I want to do, I never think that “I could never”. Instead “How could I?”

Why have we normalized mediocrity? Why have we normalized scarcity-thinking?

I want you to think of these “successful people” as just that… people.

When you really think about it, isn’t it weird that we would rather watch others be successful and dream and hate ourselves rather than do everything in our power to achieve those very things we dream about?

Wow, what a weirdo a lot of us are.

Let’s stop being weirdos. Let’s start… being.

The current “normal” behavior is… trash.

Our current definition of “normal” leads to a lifetime of feeling sorry for ourselves and a deathbed of regret.

Make “hard work” and “perseverance” the new normal. Your future-self-of-greatness will thank you for it.

It isn’t “magic” or “genius”; It’s prepared, expected, calculated.

Either make those dreams happen, die trying, or give up.