There’s something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately, and it hit me hard enough that I had to sit down and write it out. I was watching people around me: creatives, entrepreneurs, parents, and friends, and I kept noticing the same pattern over and over again. Everyone was walking the same road. Everyone was wearing the same costume, so to speak. And I don’t mean that literally, though Halloween did give me this analogy. I mean it in the deepest sense of who we are and how we’re choosing to live — and whether we truly understand how to be original, or if we’ve just been following someone else’s script all along.
Here’s the truth that changed everything for me: if the trail ahead of you is clear, you’re on the wrong path.
Read that again. If it’s easy, if it’s already been blazed, if there’s no resistance and no uncertainty, you’re walking someone else’s trail. You’re not pioneering anything. You’re just following the crowd in a costume that doesn’t belong to you.
I spent years doing exactly that. I was running with the masses, going with what was safe, going with what was known. And there’s a comfort in that, I won’t lie to you. When you stay in the pack, nobody questions you. Nobody challenges you. Nobody looks at you sideways. But here’s what I also know: nobody sees you either. Not the real you. Not the original you.
Life is way too short to live someone else’s dream.
Our past has a way of dictating our future if we let it. Our parents, our family of origin, the institutions we grew up in, schools, churches, and culture: they all have a way of imposing a blueprint on us. And most of us just accept it. We take that blueprint, and we build a life on it without ever stopping to ask, “Wait, is this actually mine? Is this what I was designed for?”
It’s like that crab trying to leave the bucket. The moment one of them starts climbing out, all the others grab it and pull it back in. That’s what happens when you start stepping out of the norm. People get uncomfortable. They question you. They try to pull you back into the familiar. And the hardest part? Sometimes those people are the ones you love the most.
But here’s what I want you to understand: Being original is not just a creative concept. It’s a calling. It’s a responsibility. It’s the most important work you will ever do.
Think about the people and brands that have genuinely changed the world. Disneyland. Apple. Nick Park and his studio, and the genius behind Wallace & Gromit and Chicken Run. Charles Schulz. Bill Watterson. These weren’t people who played it safe. These were people who looked at the world and said, “I see something nobody else is seeing, and I’m going to bring it to life regardless of what it costs me.”
And it does cost something. I want to be honest with you about that. Being an original takes a tremendous amount of effort. It’s unknown territory. It requires risk. It requires a willingness to fail. Not once, not twice, but over and over again until you work the bugs out. Most people aren’t willing to pay that price. And that’s exactly why originals are so rare and so powerful. If you’re wondering what it truly costs to leave your creative dreams unrealized, that’s a price worth calculating too.
But here’s the reward on the other side of that risk: you learn more about yourself than you ever thought possible. You grow in ways that comfort never allows. You help others in ways only you can, because only you have your story. You provide something the world has never seen before. And when you do that, when you fill a need that people didn’t even know they had, that’s when you get an advantage. That’s when you create a movement. That’s when you build a new culture.
One of my favorite verses in all of Scripture is Ephesians 2:10:
“For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.”
That verse wrecks me every time I read it. You are His workmanship. You are a masterpiece. You were created, not accidentally, not generically, but specifically and intentionally for good works that were prepared in advance for you to walk in. That means your calling isn’t something you have to manufacture. It’s something you have to discover. It’s already there. It’s already been prepared. Your job is to find it and walk in it. If you’re wrestling with whether you’re following your plans or God’s plans, you’re asking exactly the right question.
And here’s the thing that really gets me: we all have a unique physical DNA. But more importantly, we all have a unique spiritual DNA. We all have a unique DNA of talents. Yes, there are other artists out there. Yes, there are other entrepreneurs, other coaches, other creatives. But none of them have your story. Nobody can take your story. It lives in your heart, in your being, in your soul. And your job, your most important job, is to crack the code on how to take that story to the world and use it as a solution.
So let me ask you something directly: Are you living as an original, or are you walking around in someone else’s costume?
Are you blazing your own trail, or are you following a path that someone else already cleared for you? Are you building a life based on your unique design, or are you building it based on what the culture, your family, or your fear told you was acceptable?
I’m not saying it’s easy. I’m saying it’s worth it. I’m saying the price of being an original is real, but the reward of waking up every single day knowing you are walking in the purpose you were designed for is absolutely paramount to anything else this world has to offer.
You are a one-of-a-kind. There is nobody else out there like you. And your job, starting today, is to live like it.
How to Be Original: Your Next Step
Encouragement & Action:
This week, I want you to do one thing: write down three areas of your life where you’ve been following someone else’s trail instead of blazing your own. Then, next to each one, write what your version of that path would look like if fear weren’t a factor. That’s your starting point. That’s where your original story begins.
I’d love to hear from you! Drop a comment below and tell me: what’s one area of your life where you know you’ve been playing it safe, and what would it look like if you finally went your own way? Let’s talk about it.