I spend so much of my time with clients arguing in favor of zigging when others are zagging.
Do the thing that others are afraid to do.
Tell stories. Be personal. Be funny. Be vulnerable.
Take that mind-numbingly bland marketing deck or standard sales pitch or benign keynote and do something that no one has ever seen before.
Dare to be different. Dare to be yourself. Dare to be memorable. Tell an authentic, vulnerable story.
It’s a hard, frustrating, oftentimes fruitless endeavor. It’s far too easy for people – particular those in corporate America – to stay in their lane, do what everyone else is doing, and work like hell to be utterly, completely, inexplicably forgettable.
Corporate America is like water running down a mountainside:
They are always looking for the path of least resistance.
This is a mistake. Zig when others are zagging, I say. Be the one person who stands out and does something different. Be brave, damn it. Be courageous enough to stand out from the rest.
This is almost always the right course of action.
This video, one could argue, might be the exception to my rule. Then again, you must admit that it’s memorable, different, and certainly sparked joy in your day, so maybe it proves my point.
Even in this case, zigging while others are zagging might have been the best course of action, even if the boy’s mother seems to disagree.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71aEph0cmSQ
