Many times we ask ourselves what success is, but we always think about it the wrong way. We believe that being successful has to do with being the best at a discipline: the best at singing, the best at thinking, the best at something. But we don't realize that there will always be someone better than us.
Whatever we do, there's always someone better at that discipline. And if there isn't right now, if you're the best in the world, someone better will come along eventually, it's only a matter of time. Think of a swimmer: at first there are several better than him, but in time he becomes the best in the world, wins at the Olympics, breaks world and Olympic records. For a moment, that swimmer is the best in the world. But in time, a better one comes and breaks his records. So, are we the best in the world only for a while? What do we mean by "being the best"? An action, or a way of being? We have to give the word "success" another meaning: being successful is being authentic, it is being you.
What's incredible is that we can observe this in people who already do it, or who did.
Michael Jackson, one of the great artists in history, had everything stacked against him. A poor, Black child in the sixties, and yet he reached the top. He's a successful person. But once you understand how his life was, you see that his success isn't because of the music: it's because of who he was. He was playing, he knew who he was, how he was, what he was, what he liked and what he didn't. He was authentic, he was himself. He was playing at being him, and that made him happy. He knew what he was good at, he knew what he could do, and all of that built him, and he lived as himself, without falsehood, without trying to be someone he wasn't.
Steve Jobs, another person who changed the world, did so for the simple fact that he was as he was. It sounds strange to put it that way, he was as he was, but who else would walk barefoot through an office because that's how he thought best? A person who is as they are is a person sure of themselves. They don't need anyone's permission to exist a certain way, they don't apologize for their ideas, they don't imitate others to fit in. Jobs designed products from his personal obsession, from his own taste, from his particular way of seeing beauty, and that is exactly what made them universal. Authenticity, paradoxically, is the most universal thing there is.
Freddie Mercury, a man with four extra teeth, his mouth bigger than normal, his jaw different. Anyone else would have gone to the dentist, would have tried to hide it, would have felt ashamed. Freddie knew that mouth gave him something no one else had: a vocal range that almost no human being has ever had. And his way of being, strange, eccentric, with a mustache, with tights, with crowns, in an era when that wasn't normal, he didn't hide either. He was as he was. He didn't try to fit in anywhere. And even so, or rather, because of that, he filled stadiums. He wasn't the most handsome, he wasn't the most normal. He was the most himself. And that was enough to make him one of the greatest in history.
Being authentic makes us different from everyone else, because you'll never be the same as another person. No one can beat you at being you. Authenticity allows you to do different things, creative things, things that are yours. And if you're not doing that, if you're not being who you are, then you're not living, you're not being successful, you're not building. There aren't many people like that anymore, we all follow and try to be like others. But since when did Michael Jackson want to be like someone else? He admired people, yes, but he always wanted to be as he was.
Drowning in social media, in wanting to be, in trying to be, in living in the future. We're not being ourselves. That's why there are so few successful people, and there will be fewer and fewer authentic ones, people whose work an AI can do, trained on data from someone who already exists. But no AI has been trained on your life, on your authenticity. It's sad to know that's what we're heading toward, and that we're moving away from what humans should really live for: being ourselves, being unique, being different. Because difference is what makes us grow, difference is what makes us compare.
Difference is what gives beauty to painting with colors.
There is no one better at being you. Only you are the best at being you. But if you believe there's someone better, or you don't feel that you're the best, then you're copying someone else, and that's something you have to realize. When someone asks you who you are, you shouldn't answer with your name.
You should answer with…