Here's to the Crazy Ones | Think Different

What is it that successful entrepreneurs, world changers, and cubicle renegades all have in common? They are all a little bit crazy.

Traditional advice usually states that you need to figure out what has worked for other people in the past, learn from them, and follow in their footsteps.

What would your world be like if people like Abraham Lincoln, Mahatma Gandhi, Amelia Earhart, Martin Luther King, Jr., Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, or Steve Jobs didn't forge their own path and change the world in their own ways?

Life is filled with countless reasons to conform to pressure from peers and just do what everyone is doing.

To live a life filled with freedom, to change the world, and to build a profitable lifestyle business, you need to "think different".

(Side note: If you haven't read the biography of Steve Jobs yet, I highly recommend you do. It is one of the most interesting books I've ever read.)

Here's to the Crazy Ones

(Click here to watch the video if you can't see the video above.)

Transcript of the above Apple Commercial:

"Here's to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes... the ones who see things differently -- they're not fond of rules... You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them, but the only thing you can't do is ignore them because they change things... they push the human race forward, and while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius, because the ones who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world, are the ones who do."

Apple used this commercial to resonate with their current customers about why using an Apple product means you're different, but it also wowed the world into thinking, "Maybe I should see what makes these Macintosh computers different."

When you are different, people take notice.

Fear & Uncertainty

People that can stare into the eyes of fear and charge right into uncertainty are few and far between.

Until I was about 24 years old every decision I made was based on what was the safe, responsible, and "right" thing to do. Everything from choosing a major in college that would land me a job to religiously driving the speed limit.

Once I started to take more risks, my life instantly became more fulfilling and is now filled with less regrets.

Steve Jobs sums up the realization that needs to take place in everyone's lives in this beautiful quote:

"When you grow up you tend to get told the world is the way it is and your life is just to live your life inside the world. Try not to bash into the walls too much. Try to have a nice family life, have fun, save a little money.

That’s a very limited life. Life can be much broader once you discover one simple fact, and that is - everything around you that you call life, was made up by people that were no smarter than you. And you can change it, you can influence it, you can build your own things that other people can use.

The minute that you understand that you can poke life and actually something will, you know if you push in, something will pop out the other side, that you can change it, you can mold it. That’s maybe the most important thing. It’s to shake off this erroneous notion that life is there and you’re just gonna live in it, versus embrace it, change it, improve it, make your mark upon it.

I think that’s very important and however you learn that, once you learn it, you’ll want to change life and make it better, cause it’s kind of messed up, in a lot of ways. Once you learn that, you’ll never be the same again."

I couldn't have said it better myself.

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What makes you different? What makes you a little bit crazy?

Knowing this can be the difference between success and failure in both life and business.