Being Uniquely You: Part II Authenticity

Our most precious commodity is our authenticity.  

Before you read further, I'd like you to complete an activity.  It doesn't take long and it could change your approach to life. Here's the activity:

1. Open a Word document (or Pages, Evernote... whatever you prefer)
2. Title it (something to this effect: "Things I Love About Myself That Other People Consider F'd Up."
3. Insert the date
4. List 5-10 things that you do or are that meet the title's description
5. Save this document for reference later.

My list includes things like:

• Enjoys running 100-mile races
• Vegan
• Likes getting or viewing tattoos
• Arranging for clarinet choir
• Small business
• Conservative politically 
• Working towards living debt free
• Playing Baermann
• Reading the Bible
• Being a science nerd
• Being very good at/educated about things people really don't think are useful

I'll do this exercise every so often and compare lists just to see where I am with these things.  The combination of these items is uniquely me.  No two people's lists will be the same and that is the very quality that makes you an appealing candidate in any endeavor. My wife says I'm a conundrum.  I like it that way. Maybe that should be on my list.

Here's how this connects to the previous posting: We live in the age of the entrepreneur.  We cannot count on someone else designing our job description, recruiting our students, generating our revenue, or even continue doing our jobs the way "we always have" and expecting it to suit us long term.  We cannot even count on having an employer long term. This is a mixed blessing. We are growing in our independence and autonomy.  Many people no longer have someone looking over our shoulder.  The problem here is that many lack the stability of larger employers and steady paychecks. 

We best serve our students (or customers/patients/clients) by teaching them to be uniquely their own people and by us being uniquely our own.  Others will be attracted to us when we are not pretending to be something we're not and instead are uniquely ourselves. People will come to our programs, enlist our services, and even want to be around us socially when we are genuine.  Maybe your ideal gig is playing in a quartet. It's simply not enough to be good at playing your instrument, you must also be good at networking, asking for performances, getting performances (that pay), and constantly figuring out what your customer wants. When you figure this out, you won't be one of the hundreds auditioning for one spot in an orchestra that may or may not even get filled at this audition.  If you have enough quartet gigs to keep food on your table and a roof above your head, the pressure of winning the audition is largely mitigated.  It's gravy if you win but not the end of the world if you don't.   

I play on my strengths and my unique combination from my list above and that is why I'm successful and why my students succeed.  I have good pedagogical ideas, but, as we all know, there's no magic spell to make someone a great clarinetist. It doesn't matter that I didn't study with Professor Q from the University of Z. I'll probably never have a student play in the New York Philharmonic, nor will I have students who really want to march in a college marching band, or come from large amounts of money. None of those options are authentic to my situation and I'm ok with that.  I recruit students who work hard and want to follow their own path. Sometimes we talk about marketing, small business, debt, taxes in addition to the items on our syllabus.  Students need to learn how to survive in as entrepreneurs, not employees. If I don't teach them this, who will? Maybe a future blog post from an ultra marathoning clarinetist will have some insight?

Here's the takeaway: your biggest success is being unique and putting in the hard work to back it up. Eric Thomas, the Hip Hop Preacher said it well: "You may come from privilege, your daddy may own the company, but you will not outwork me." 

So take that list, reflect on your uniqueness, put in some hard work and go with it. I can think of very few fields more dissimilar than ultra marathoning and clarinet-ing. But the lessons learned in one enhance the other. That's uniquely me and I embrace it. When you work for yourself, you'll always have an income. That's the way to escape someone else's job description and be your own boss and love your work. Become uniquely you.