Be the Voice in the Wilderness
What are you doing differently from other people?
“Be the voice in the wilderness. Be the one to speak out first, to point to a new direction, and take people along with you.”
This is something I heard at an event recently, from author Jay Papasan. In his case he was telling a story about a book club he started right at the beginning of the pandemic. These days, there are lots of online book clubs, but his was one of the first and it’s done incredibly well.
If you’re trying to create something, stand out in some way, nudge someone along to a new way of thinking—or even just make some kind of change—“be the voice in the wilderness” is a helpful model.
It’s also a great way to live.
For me, a question I try to ask myself from time to time is: what am I doing differently from other people?
If I’m trying to do the same thing everyone else is doing, then 1) I’m probably not going to be better than everyone else, 2) I probably won’t make much of an impact, and c) ultimately I won’t be very happy.
So what’s not to love about being different? Just one thing: doing something different can come with a cost.
People do not always like the voice in the wilderness! And even though I am not a conspiracy theorist—because such things have been very harmful to people in recent years—it’s also true that some conspiracy theories turn out to be true. So in those cases, the people who speak out early, daring to be criticized or denounced, end up being on to something.
Conspiracies aside—there is value in being the voice.
Be the one who’s calling out for something different.
Change it up!
Man, I have such mixed feelings about this, not from the personal and occasionally societal benefit standpoints, but from the cost end.
I've been an upstream swimmer for a long time, and a couple of times pretty loudly and publicly. While I have no regrets, it can get really exhausting. The burnout from being misunderstood by everyone else you're close to going the other direction is real.
It improves once you let go of things and people you've moved on from, but that is such an emotionally painful peeling away that I feel bad for people in the thick of it even when they're people I don't particularly like.
Change is hard. Change is even harder when it disrupts or dissolves your whole social fabric. I think that's a big factor in why so many people don't do it.
I have been thinking about this a lot as I start a formal coaching practice and am nervous about being too different but also … why does the world need another exec coach talking about growth maxing and shareholder value and working til you’re sick and tired?
One thing I love about gen Z is that they are collectively the voice in the wilderness on so many things for they older generations (im gen X)- questioning why we live and work the way we do, refusing to put up with the same shit that we did.
Thanks for this thought provocation!