Be a Category of One

[Music]

are you

vanilla

are you vanilla

when i was a little kid i used to play

soccer and our head coach professor

pierrot would say

every simultaneous

i would freeze

i was afraid of attacking

i was afraid of winning

are you ready to win

are you really ready to win

our deepest fear is not failure our

deepest fear

is that we are impactful beyond measure

our deepest fear is that our wildest

dreams come true and we don’t know what

happens

what happens when your wildest dream

comes true

and how does it feel

most people never wrote down their

wildest dreams so they know they don’t

know what it is

and they fear it because we fear what we

don’t face

as soon as you face something fear

disappears

when you are in a social situation and

you are the strange one

and it’s awkward and it feels irritating

this is your uniqueness this is your

superpower

you might not like it

but this is your main asset

your strategic advantage

nobody else has this it’s yours

if you embrace it you will win

if you let other people define your work

they will say

make a little bit more of this make less

of this and at the end it becomes

vanilla it becomes like

everybody else’s work your uniqueness

so if you want to create something

remarkable

something really relevant then you have

to inoculate

against the wishes from the outside

world

you have to protect your genius

so stop hiding

please stop hiding

were you ever invited to a pitch

where you have to compare your work to

three other people’s work

why did you go there

there is only one you so there is

nothing to compare

today my boys were playing playful

blissful joyful limitless

and then i came in not so fast not so

loud

not so dangerous and then i realized

this is how i try to make them vanilla

this is how society tries to make

everybody vanilla

because we want people to be all the

same when they are all the same

we are in our comfort zone we don’t need

to look at us

we don’t need to change anything we can

keep doing what we do

without questioning are we doing the

right thing

the right way

we can keep in our default position so

we try to make everybody vanilla

and we start when they are young

but this is not good for us as a society

we don’t need more vanilla people we

have enough

vanilla people

we need to solve problems like climate

change like how to build an

open society and this will not be done

by vanilla people

so please stop hiding

because we need your superpowers

your superpowers your superpowers in

order to solve these big questions

every day i hear excuses

yeah i know remote working would be

better but in my industry this is how

things are done

yes i know i should build more but you

know in my industry this is how

things are done so we take something

like the industry and we use it to hide

behind it

but there is no such thing as an

industry you know in the 1980s

industries have lost their clear

boundaries

in what industry is apple in what

industry

is siemens

i share with you now if you’re ready to

win

a powerful tool the equalizer

it will help you break free from

competition and be

uncomparable this is how you can coach

yourself

step one you write down eight

things that you created and are proud of

and then you write down for each one

what people in that field

are currently investing in for example

it’s photography

everybody is investing in more precision

which

different edge can you bring in with

your superpower

so when they zig you zag for example

they go for more precision

you go for more emotion

so the next step is you

try and implement your zack daisy

yousek based on your uniqueness

and then you group these eight things

based on where you are super weak

on the left side where you’re okay in

the middle and where you are

excellent and you win you put them on

the right side your superpowers

and now you act upon it

left side you stop doing that

middle you do less of it and on the

right side

now you put in all the time all the

money

that you saved on the left side you put

them on the right side on your super

powers where you are

already winning and you double down on

that

that’s the equalizer stop annealing

yourself

you are something special and while

there is nothing special about being

special because everybody’s special

there is magic in

showing up with your uniqueness

because as you stop hiding

you give others power

as we liberate ourselves we give

others permission to liberate themselves

and this is what we need break free

from vanilla keep rolling

[Music]

you