Be Different!

“In order to be irreplaceable, one must always be different.”

-??????? Coco Chanel

We were all born with a gift; our species has evolved into sentient, creative beings who had to move, change, and adapt, or perish for hundreds of thousands of years. Navy SEALs and successful entrepreneurs must follow the laws of the land as well as the laws of nature. Bending or breaking the imposed rules on how we think is the way we test the static present to make room for a more colorful and satisfying future. Not convinced? Read on!

This philosophy may not be for everybody, but I do know that the successful leaders in every part of our shared world are transformative forces of positive energy. People who have learned to ignore the mental handcuffs and the intellectual red tape. People who see things the way they might be and happily race to that exciting point on the horizon. I like these people and try to emulate their powerful remedies for over reliance on the past by studying and practicing the methods they employ to shape the future. I’m still a work in progress. Maybe I’ll never measure up; but I’m convinced that to pursue excellence in creativity is a good thing, a noble pursuit, and I’ll keep trying to improve until the good lord calls me.

Do you still have doubts? Being compliant is how we were all raised, or should I say, conditioned. Every school we’ve ever attended and all the companies we’ve ever worked for, prize an obedient student or employee. This is not a malicious intention. It’s just the way things are. Structure is applied across the entirety of human activity to keep us safe and in many cases, in control. However, when it comes to intellectual constraints, to obey is to toss aside our free will and our freedom of expression. ?

A few years ago, I became a board member of the non-profit entity, BEST Robotics, Inc. I was humbled by the amount of time and energy the volunteer professionals poured into the organization. These incredible people are dedicated to crafting difficult technological challenges for kids in the sixth through twelfth grade. They mentor teams of the young minds of up to twenty students each, preparing for the scheduled competitive events. I watched as they cheered, eyes wet with tears of pride, as the kids executed their plans, collaborating and communicating, and innovating, always with a smile on their faces.

My takeaways after the first year of my involvement were not intuitive. First, the mentors don’t train or teach the teams of students. The students work through the difficulties themselves. They create a company, a website, a marketing plan, a business presentation, and a commercial display booth, all while simultaneously designing, building, and testing the robot they think will win. The central theme of this organization, founded by engineers thirty-one years ago, is all about Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math, or STEM learning. While the overall exercise did feature and enhance elements of STEM, I came to realize it was so much more than that. Communications, marketing, website content development, design insights, creative and innovative collaboration, and value proposition development are not normally associated with STEM.???

I also became aware the students underwent an emotional and intellectual transformation as they progressed through their projects. Individually and as a team, rapid prototyping solutions, zooming in to handle the many details of the competition, and then back out again to put it all in the context of the deliverables. When watching a competition firsthand, I saw incredible teamwork, not just within each team but between competing groups! The participants bring boxes of cardboard, balsa wood, wires, small motors, batteries, and tools, lots of tools to the event. This is because they are allowed to observe and acknowledge performance failure in each competitive round. Then, between rounds, they are encouraged to repair or redesign their robotic solution in preparation for the next engagement.

In one series of competitive rounds, a team realized it didn’t have a specific item critical to their rapid prototyping effort. A kid in another team overheard this and came over to help. Once he was made aware of the material item in question, he began to run from team to team, canvassing at least ten separate groups before he found one with the item needed. Meanwhile, members of the other teams flowed over to see if they could assist. I watched dumbstruck as the item of concern was located and quickly brought to the team in need. ?

Competition is rarely a kumbaya thing. BEST Robotics fosters an intense desire to succeed without the all-too-human downside of envy, aggression, and mistrust. Now, I’m not a person with engineering credentials, I’m not a technology expert, and I’m not too fond of math. So, as an outsider I began to see the purity of the student’s untethered intellectual approach. Purity of thought without blind obedience to the frozen facts of science or the stodgy rules of mechanical engineering. I eventually found out that, while a handful of the BEST Robotics participants over the last thirty-one years did go on to engage in engineering or science, the majority did not, becoming successful and happy in all sorts of professions.

For thirty years BEST Robotics has been changing the world one child at a time. Providing an amazing experience in over twenty national events every year that are truly transformational. My study of this organization revealed the value of honest ignorance. When I say ignorance, I refer to a mind untainted by the heavy filters and restrictions of dogma expressed as rules. Pure thought requires honest ignorance to be set free. Free to discover, free to question. I’m reminded of a saying I saw once on a poster, “Remember, amateurs built the ark, professionals built the Titanic.”

Perhaps it’s my SEAL background, but I never spend much time analyzing my personal or professional success. I also never let a failure pass without drawing out every possible lesson from that experience. Winning is nice, but we learn far more from failing. It’s how we all transitioned from crawling to walking and from walking to running. Failures are packed with little packets of gold, lessons learned, large and small. Was it timing? Talent? Did I miss the obvious or did I ignore the obvious? Was I resourced appropriately? Was the goal even valid? I do this every day, failure by failure, and try to become better.

Agility and flexibility are hallmarks of successful entrepreneurs and special operations professionals. So is courage, conviction, and relentless execution. While not all ideas work out, these unique thinkers keep the ideas coming. They know instinctively how valuable it is to think differently about the past and the future. They evolve, grow, risk it all, and do so knowing the consequences of failure. It’s when they begin to ignore their intelligence, their internal business muse, that they become conventional operators, safe, slow, and while they don’t know it, vulnerable. Many of us were raised by adults who had safety and stability as parental performance objectives. Honor and sustain the status quo. Slow it all down, dumb it down, too. Keep the world within the range of achievable and you won’t get hurt. ?

Of course, many of you know by now that this safe and secure state is not consistent with the reality of real life and day-to-day business reality. The atoms are constantly quivering, the universe is always changing. People fall in love and break up. Competitors change tactics and customers change buying habits. Losing your creative way has consequences and wrapping everything you do in layers of rules to avoiding or mitigate risk is a band aid at best. Stand in place and the world will pass you by, or worse, run you over.

Don’t fall into the success trap. Live and act in the now, but envision and prepare for the future, or multiple futures. Keep your head on a swivel, anticipating change rather than being a victim of it. Operating and thinking differently will make you different! Adopt a creative and open mindset, train to think differently and the next time to universe bangs a hard right, you’ll be ready to roll with the new normal. If you need to bend the rules, do so. If you need to break rules to push past apathy, go for it! If you need to pave your own road, make your own new set of rules based on where the future is taking us, be my guest! Thinking forward is the edge you need to survive and thrive in our ever-changing universe. Reigniting your childhood creative nature will lead to innovation, invention, and success. Trust me, you’re never too old to be different!

Marty Strong is a retired SEAL officer, CEO, motivational speaker, and the author of two business books, Be Nimble: How the Creative Navy SEAL Mindset Wins on the Battlefield and in Business and Be Visionary: Strategic Leadership in the Age of Optimization. His third book, Be Different: How Navy SEALs and Entrepreneurs Bend, Break, or Ignore the Rules to Get Results! is now available for pre-sale on amazon.com and set for release December 1, 2024. ?

www.martystrong.com