Blending in by standing out.....
Sometimes the most profound realisations occur in unexpected places. People who know me well are already used to my "I was in the shower and had this great idea" moments...
This time it was different though. For various quite fun reasons I recently donned a high-viz jacket and spent a few days driving around in a large white van. You'd think the combination of a reflective bright yellow vest and a "too big for these roads" van would attract some attention...but no...there is something about this combo that rendered me quite invisible. No one noticed me performing dangerous 3 point turns, or venturing onto what was very obviously private property (for a good reason I must add), or parking where I shouldn't or even strolling around their neighbour's garden. It was like I didn't exist.
And it set me thinking...the more we seek to stand-out, the more we blend in. How many "We can 10x your business with our new AI gizmo" messages do you receive? How many do you pay any attention to? How many times has someone told you they have a revolutionary new product or service that you simply MUST buy right now? And do you? Of course not, mostly you consign it to the "annoying noise" bucket and move on.
So, why is any of this relevant to LinkedIn? Well, the point is that sometimes we can really stand-out by just being excellent at the things we do every day and that can, if done with skill and deliberation, make the difference between "meh.." and "that's really interesting".
The best way to stand-out is not have the latest and best tool, its to deliberately choose to be great so as not to blend-in through mediocrity
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