Be Yourself
My entire life I have really just been trying to be me. I was born an identical twin, so the world always compared the two of us. Which one is smarter? Who is stronger? For the first twenty years of my life, it seriously seemed like everyone made a comparison. As much as I love my brother I wanted to be seen as an individual not compared to someone else.
As far as I can remember I have been trying to validate myself as me.
It would be years later when I realized everyone is trying to find their uniqueness in the world — and should — in order to be valued for who they are and their unique talents. I remember going through high school refusing to make good grades to prove I could do what I wanted to do. This protest against fitting in resulted in me making some very bad decisions in my life, including getting in a nine year daily battle with drugs which almost killed me. As a young salesman after I cleaned up, I found myself constantly clashing with management and butting heads with everyone just to prove I was different.
It finally started to pay off for me as a salesman because I never wanted to be compared to others salespeople, so I flipped the model and started doing things completely different than everyone else. The customers loved it and I realized I was on to something. Then I went out on my own and I started my first business based around the idea of changing the sales process from what had been taught for the last one hundred years. I created Information Assisted Selling and when I finally figured out how to properly market it I changed an entire industry.
It wasn’t successful just because it was different — it was successful because it worked. The world resisted me for many years and then finally everyone started adopting my ideas and even knocking them off. Some say the greatest compliment is plagiarism, but I think its stealing.
When National Geographic bought eight episodes of TurnAround King and bailed after just two episodes I decided to take control of my television career and created GrantCardoneTV. Today, we produce twenty new shows a month including The Cardone Zone, Young Hustlers, The G&E Show, Power Players, Network Marketing Moguls and our own reality show Whatever It Takes showing the difficulty of hiring people in America.
You may have seen me on The Steve Harvey Show on his segment The Big Success. On the break, Steve said to me, “you’re different man.” He’s right. My businesses, career and even social media are places where I practice being me 365 days of the year. It’s my belief that discovering who YOU are and not copying others is one of the most important and empowering discoveries a person can make. The freedom to be me is one of the greatest gifts of my life.
It has cost me business being me, not everyone likes it, but at least I get to be me. When I bought the jet it came with the registration number N98SP. I told Elena,“I hate the reg number on the plane.” She said, “It has to be 365GC”. Sure enough, it was available and it now sits on both engines and it’s on the cover of my book, Be Obsessed or Be Average.
I hope you get to figure out how to be yourself in your life and your business.
I see so many people selling out, being trapped in a job they don’t like, putting up with people they don’t care for. I have friends that run huge companies on Wall Street that feel they are unable to truly be themselves — handcuffed by paychecks and retirement plans. And I also see people unwilling to stand out just for the sake of being labeled a problem and it costs them any chance of advancing in the world.
I hope you are able to figure out how to be you and discover the unique value YOU and only YOU can offer the world. I believe everyone has some very special gift and I know how difficult it can be to discover that and allow it to support you in your life. But at the end of the day, there is only one of you. Take the time to find out what that special and unique value-add thing is you bring to the world.
I’ve setup my online training University to help those who are brand new, mid-career and even the old guys who think they can’t learn new tricks. It’s never too early or late to changed and go MASSIVE with your life. Invest in yourself today at CardoneU.
Be great,
GC
P.S. Don’t Miss 10X GrowthCon —the biggest entrepreneurial business conference of all-time!