The Wonderful Consequence of Being Weird

Dude, that’s fu**in weird. Why do you want to do that?

You are SO weird. I could never do that.

That’s so weird! Interesting… like, how do you do that?

That’s…strange? Why not just do it?

Each of these responses were heard when I was quitting coffee, throwing out my bed, took a week off from artificial light to only use candle light, and described my preference on why I abandoned saying “bless you” when people sneeze.

Though these were typical responses when people discovered I was doing these things, the unexpectedly beneficial side effect was that they were interested and asking questions. No matter who I encountered, when in a group of people one of them would turn, point at me and use what I was doing or something “weird” I had done as a conversation starter to introduce me. Surprising me, it was rarely negative. The sheer awareness that these nouveau lifestyle investigators became suddenly curious and talking excitedly about something unfamiliar to them was a strong sign:

I now firmly believe that being “weird” can be crucial and beneficial to your personal brand.

Curiosity is as much the parent of attention, as attention is of memory.
- Richard Whately

Lifestyle Experiments for True Self Confidence

There’s honestly a ton of books on this topic with all kinds of self help crap (forgive the candor), but it is my highest belief that placing yourself in uncomfortable and unknown experiences, while then witnessing your growth to overcome or manage these experiences is the fastest and surest way to build true self confidence.

Based on that, I ascribed to this method, and took it one step further — I decided to concoct weird living experiments and contrarian ways of doing anything and everything I want (or don’t want) for the simple fact in being confident that I wanted to (or didn’t want to).

A lot of people unknowingly attach their self-confidence to external factors out of their control. From my own experience, I know that these silent talons can tighten their grip around significant others, approval from your boss, respect of peers, fame, status, and so on. Before you know it, as you’re spreading your wings to take flight and soar towards your aspirations, you’re unwittingly carrying anchors that will encumber your efforts, and potentially bring you crashing back down.

What is crucial to understand and develop is an innate sense of self confidence that you control.

I’ve always admired soldiers and military personnel (I was raised by military parents) but they also fulfilled my childhood fantasies of becoming hardened like the rugged cowboys and crafty spies who could survive under any circumstances and creatively use any resources at will, despite the constraints. My experiments in living different would sometimes be random, like not wearing underwear for a week (secretly), or throwing out my couch and buying a gym mat to sit on in my living room so I could get more comfortable on the ground. Other times had purpose or direction, like sleeping on the ground to fix my back problems or wearing a three piece suit every day to experiment with my image.

These were meant to instill affirmation within that I could control my own fate, deal with discomfort, buck social pressure, and also challenge conventional lifestyles in exchange for inspiring, strange, or even foreign ones I observed while traveling.

I was surprised to find out that these not only worked, but actually had strong social benefits.

Personal Brand Recall

Coming from a professional background from the technology side of job search and originally a student of acting in the theatre before switching to a marketing concentration, I had time and wisdom built from observing people who needed to stand out. From those years of auditioning alongside unique talents in self marketing their physicality, to then working with fortune 500 employers and teaching job candidates to stand out, I built a sense of how people can be perceived as interesting and be remembered.

One of the biggest advantages you can have in a career is being unique and leaving a mark. This kind of indispensability comes from first having a strong self confidence in your abilities, and in order to build those abilities you cannot let that determination and gutsy motivation erode.

In marketing science, the concept of unaided brand recall is considered to be one of the most important factors in determining how strong your brand is and how successful marketing has been towards consumers. Unaided brand recall is the ability of a person to bring up a brand without being prompted. An example would be a simple question of — “who sells shoes?”, and the consumer responds first with “Nike”, implying that there is strong unaided brand recall for Nike. With your personal brand, it is the same. The goal is to achieve unaided recall of who you are. The more weird, more interesting, and more effect you have in people wondering about you, the more access you have to leaving an impact. Even when you are not around, it benefits you for people to think of your work, actions, and personality as top of mind, and the returns are exponential.

Find Your Weird and Pursue It

When I saw how many people were curious and hounding me about why I was doing these life experiments and being “weird”, I realized — I had them listening. This in itself offered me a platform to share my motivation, philosophy, and enlightening journey of weirdness to build self confidence, and hopefully encourage others to live, think, and do things differently in a similar quest. It wasn’t just a circus like an episode of Jackass with me doing stunts or being the kid who eats worms because he was dared to. This was a mission to lower my expectations and challenge anything I felt was holding me back, and that meant questioning many, many things about the way I was living.

“When we use the logic of consequence, we can always find reasons not to take risks.”
― Adam M. Grant, Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World

For years I was riddled with fear about the future and consequences of my actions, and after being inspired by the philosophies of introducing play back into my adult life, it became clear I should play around with the questions I had of what social and lifestyle norms held me back. By playing around and just having fun with your own private and personal life just so you can explore your self confidence, it will compound and build curiosity. This curiosity and interest of others will spill into your confidence to maintain more prominent goals related to your career, relationship, and health.

Once you’re more firmly rooted in your own self-reliance and “weirdness”, branching into other unknown and challenging endeavors becomes a breeze.

Whoa. You made it this far down? If you liked this, it would be appreciated if you clicked the green ♡ below to share the love.

I like to learn, just like you:

If this story resonated and you like self-growth, lifestyle experimentation, exploring the world, and learning to build an interesting life, please subscribe to LiveDiff.