Use Your Difference to Create Your Own Path

The song "We Are the World" sticks in my throat.

It was sung by a supergroup called 'USA for Africa' who came together in 1985 to raise funds for famine relief in Africa. Among the group were Lionel Richie, Bruce Springsteen, Tina Turner, Bob Dylan and Diana Ross.

But we are not the world. Although I liked the reason for their coming together, the idea that they sang about - that people around the world are basically the same - is a lie.

I'm from England, but I have lived and worked in Hamburg, Sharjah, Hong Kong, Bandar Seri Begawan and, for the last 35 years, Singapore. And if I try to approach a Singaporean businessman in the same way as I would approach an English businessman, I will end up a pauper.

We are all different. Very much so. Not only between countries and cultures, but between our own countrymen and family members.

I'm not talking just about the way we behave and communicate. I'm talking about the meanings we give to words, behaviours and events in our head. Each of us processes the information coming into us from our five senses in totally different ways.

It's the meanings that we ascribe to others' words and behaviours, and to the things that happen to us, which are the source of our differences. These meanings are created by each of us based on a myriad of influences - from our early programming, our experiences, and our temperament.

When we say to ourselves "His words mean...", we are creating our own, unique take on the world, different from anybody else. And the meaning we create causes us to feel a certain way, leading us to say things back to that person that reflect the meaning we have created in our own mind.

This article is not about communication. But when we understand how different we all are - how 'special' our own take on the world is - we realise how important it is to follow our own path, our own system, our own method for moving forward in life.

I say this because I have been captured by the career and success advice of many good writers, whose books each prescribe the 'right' way to approach our life. And I'm fed up trying to follow someone else's system. Whether it's The One Thing, 10X Is Easier Than 2X, Tiny Experiments, Slow Productivity or Feel Good Productivity, they all prescribe something different from each other. Something that works just for the author.

I've spent years reading and trying to input their methods, to no avail. I think differently, my personality and way of being in the world is different, and my way of achieving 'success' will be different.

But our nature is to follow someone else's prescription because when we do, we don't need to think about ourselves and what we are really like. Most of us are outward-focused, reacting to what we find 'out there', beyond our bodies and minds, as a way to move forward. We tend not to look inside. So it's easy to find a guide 'out there' who will make it easy for us to 'live'. All they need to do is give us a prescription for us to follow and we don't have to do any deep thinking.

But when we adapt to other people's ways of doing things, we have to force ourselves into a system that isn't natural for us. And it's this forcing that causes so much frustration and hopelessness as we try method after method and never get anywhere.

Why don't we accept that we are different in so many ways from the creators of these systems? That's the starting point.

Now we can turn from an outside-in perspective to an inside-out perspective, where we emphasise what's going on inside us first, before we take action out in the world.

And the first step with an inside-out perspective is to meet ourselves, perhaps for the first time. We need to stop being busy and become aware of what we think about things. Not what other people think, but what we, and only we, truly think.

What thoughts come to us without effort when we focus on our work?

What way of working seems easiest and most in sync with our natural tendencies?

What would we really like to do in order to move forward in our life?

Once we know ourselves better, we can gradually uncover an ideal way of working and accomplishing things, iterating as the weeks and months go by until we have built our own system that fits with our personality and lifestyle.

This doesn't mean we ignore all the good advice that's out there. I have taken the philosophy behind Tiny Experiments and some of the inspiration from 10X Is Easier Than 2X, but have now decided to start with a blank page and work just for me. I know that I am lousy with planning and goal-setting. So I don't use them. I know that I find starting with uncertainty and iterating as I go along works better for me. But this doesn't mean I am disorganised. I love systems, and making sure the parts fit the whole in a perfect unity. So I will mess around with my dreams and my productivity as I go along until I find that my inner and outer worlds are in sync.

So unshackle yourself from the common wisdom. Tune into your own wisdom, and let this be your guide to a happy and prosperous 2026.

Best wishes

James