C.J. Cascicotta - Get Weird: Stop Fitting In. Start Standing Out.

I was sitting alone at a pub in New York City doodling some thoughts in a cup ringstained notebook. The sidewalks outside were covered with the thinnest layer of snow, as if indecisive raindrops had changed their minds just before hitting the ground. I had come to New York to pitch a proposal that wouldnt pan out. Just a few months earlier, Id been here to produce an event that would end up a complete disasterone that would leave me riding back to my hotel on the subway repeating the line, If I can make it here Ill make it anywhere over and over in my head like some ironic, taunting joke.

Sitting there with my notebook under a blanket of white noise, a combination of clinking glasses and muffled conversations all orbiting my restless and weary brain, I wrote down a word that had never really presented itself to me with the significance it did in that moment.

Weird.

I was trying to make sense of my life and why every turn of events had seemed like entering a short hallway that led to a solid brick wall. I was a creative jack-of-all-trades, making a living on the rocky outskirts of a cubicle, helping companies with their communications and producing media for their campaigns, all the while trying to conjure up a few creative ventures of my own.

I knew what I was good at. I approached everything as a writer, a poet who believed there was such a thing as a soul, something divinely preinstalled, the source of peoples greatest needs and longings.

A hippie prophet once told me my purpose in life was to connect people to the person they are becoming. That was enough explanation for me, but a bit esoteric for a sales pitch, to say the least.

As I sat there hunched over a high-top table in my own dark little corner of Hells Kitchen, I started thinking about the heroes of my childhood, guys like Jim Henson, Walt Disney, and Mister Rogers, the misfits and make-believers who had shaped my dream to one day make things half as good as they. I realized I was nowhere close, mostly because I hadnt even tried.

I glanced back down at that word weird again.

It started to come into razor-sharp focus.

I help people discover what makes them weird in a sea of sameness.

It was the heartbeat of how I had been helping companies. It was the character trait that linked all my heroes. It was the essence of all my fledgling creative projects. It was where I wanted to go in the future, a vision of helping as many people as possible, no matter their shape, size, or circumstance, understand whats unique about themselves and each other.

But wait a minute.

I peered down at the word again, this time staring at it until it blurred. Weird. I turned my head and noticed the crowd of drinkers around me, some on their first date, some undoubtedly on their last, some who had wandered in with the same restlessness I had, and others celebrating another sleepless night in a city that famously encourages every one of them.

I wasnt weird. I mowed my own lawn. I made dad jokes. I bought clothes with the precise purpose of fitting whatever wayward trend pop culture seemed to require at the moment. Who was I to assume this mantle of weirdness?

I flipped through my notebook, noticing all the doodles of monsters and imaginary creatures, scanning the random thoughts and poems I had always reassured myself were for some other time.

Maybe it was time to get weird. Maybe it was time to reconnect with the sacred self my soul was busy scribbling in my notebooks. Maybe it was time to step off the safe and secure shores of Same and realize their promise was an empty one.

I had spent the past several years studying movementshow they start, grow, and create a sense of belonging among their followers, converting others along the way. I began sketching out in my notebook everything I had learned about how movements form, from Christianity to democracy to abolition, trying to distill it to its simplest form.

The through-line? You guessed it. All movements start off weird.

A stiff shot of clarity began to dance its way through my bloodstream. A distant passion drew closer and climbed into my nostrils like divine breath being blown into Adam. I was new again. Awake. Curious. Vital. If someone had taken notice of the disheveled, rigid man who walked into the bar, they would have wondered where he went and why a child was now sauntering out past a bewildered bouncer.

The subway sang a triumphant call as it pushed into the station. The doors flung open, offering a soundtrack to my personal renaissance. I didnt need to make it here. I had everything I needed.

I was weird. Everyone was. And I had to tell them.

Its strange to be here. The mystery never leaves you alone.

John ODonohue

T heres something different about you. Since the moment you arrived on planet Earth, youve been carrying a unique combination of matter and spirit no one else in human history could duplicate. And ever since that moment, youve been told to ignore it.

I remember when my daughter was born. Shortly after taking her home from the hospital I was tasked with the duty of going to the local drugstore to pick up an extra package of diapers. I carried this out with both a deep sense of pride and bewilderment, as I imagined the young boys of World War II mustve felt right before going into battle. Except I wasnt carrying a gun or wearing a uniformjust a debit card and a pair of skinny jeans along with an old Yankees cap I hadnt taken off since the first night in the hospital. Still, this was as close as I was going to get to those glory days when real men, like my grandfather, did brave things. The fantasy was holding up.