#4 Uniqueness

Ep4 Between the Ears - Uniqueness
Welcome, I'm Arnold Bekus and I enable you to have a better life between the ears. Why is that important? Because your inner state creates your outer reality. Today's topic is uniqueness.

Why is uniqueness so important? Well, I would say as we are all born unique, and we have uniqueness, we are all unique, but it is pressed out of our system. It's suppressed because our system, our capitalist system, wants us to be the same as everyone. We are pushing sameness.

That is why education was invented. It had two reasons. One is to make you an obedient employee and the other one is to get rid of your uniqueness and make you the same as everybody else.

Why do they think it's important to make you the same? Because then your behavior is predictable and it's easier to manage you and it's easier to control you if you behave in the same way as everybody else. But that is very detrimental to your health, your well-being and your performance because each one of us is inherently and innately unique. What is uniqueness? What do I mean by uniqueness? Well, uniqueness is each and every one of us has a dynamic mix of roles, values, qualities, knowledge, skills, activities, experiences, thoughts, beliefs, emotions, energy and DNA.

That combination, that mix of all these different items makes you unique and I and everybody else. It's the combination of your mental, emotional, spiritual and physical capabilities. There's no person in the world totally the same, not even twins.

Everybody is totally different. Everyone is unique. But by suppressing our uniqueness and replacing it with sameness, look at what's happening in a lot of countries where you send children to school.

They have to put on a uniform. Uni means make it one, make it the same and a form is form. So a uniform puts you in a uniform.

So you look the same as everybody else and you are supposed to behave in the same way as everybody else. That makes you a robot and we are not robots. We are unique human beings.

We have this unique combination of capabilities and it's the cause of a lot of chronic stress and chronic diseases because we're supposed to behave in a way which doesn't match with who we are. It's also fooling us into that if we copy a method or an approach or a business of someone who is supposedly successful that we will get the same results. That's why there are so many books around self-help.

There are books around setting up your own business about startups. There are books about health but even there are books about well maybe that's even the largest category about the recipes for food and the underlying message. If you exactly copy what that man or successful woman is telling you what to do then you will get the same results.

But guess what? That never happens. It didn't happen to me. It doesn't happen to anyone and it doesn't matter whether it was your self-help thing, whether it is your recipe, whether it's your health, whether it's your becoming an athlete and winning gold medals.

No, you never get the same results. Never ever and I tried the same because I was fooled also. I tried all of these methods and I followed them to the detail and I did everything correctly and I was getting no results.

Not even half the results of the other person. That frustrated me and gave me the feeling that I was not good enough. That's what we talked about in another podcast episode until I realized that if we are all unique it means that if I exactly copy the uniqueness of someone else number one that's not possible and number two that's not working.

Why is that not working? Let me give you an example. Suppose you buy a book or a method or on the internet you can buy these programs where you can become a millionaire and setting up your own internet business. So you follow that same method but let me take you to a couple of steps.

Already from the start it might mean that the person who's sharing that method, that successful person is maybe consciously or subconsciously not sharing everything. So that means from your potential of getting 100% the same results you subtract 15%. So you start at 85% then there's a different context another subtraction of 15%.

So now you're at 70%. Why is that? Well I tell you if you set up an internet business and most of these folks were in the US and if you live in Europe or you live in Africa or you live in South America it's not the same. The context is totally different so you get different results.

So now we're at 70%. Then there's a different way of execution. You cannot do exactly the same as that other person.

So another 15% subtracted. So now you're at 55%. Then which is also invisible is like that other person might have a different mindset or a different energy.

So another 15% subtracted. So now you're at 40%. So that's the maximum level I can reach.

The maximum level I can reach that's kind of the ceiling. It's 40% of the result of the successful guy. That is where you start from and you did nothing wrong.

You actually did everything perfect. Well not really perfect because you try to copy the uniqueness of someone else which you can't. You cannot copy.

You have to figure it out yourself. You have to use your own uniqueness. So I suggest that all a lot of time and effort you put in to figure out what is your uniqueness.

There's a very simple approach and method which I would like to share. It's been written down by Scott Adams. He's the author of the Dilbert cartoon.

He says if you want something extraordinary in life you have two paths. Number one is become the best at one specific thing and number two become very good so the top 25% at two or more things. The first strategy so becoming the best at one specific thing is very very difficult.

Few people will ever play in the NBA or in the premier league soccer or make a platinum album. So don't even try. It's the people who play now at the world cup soccer.

It's not even one percent of the people in the world. So what is much more feasible is the second strategy which means becoming very good at two or more things and combine them. Everyone has at least a few areas in which you could be in the top 25% with some effort.

In his case making the cartoons he says I can draw better than most people but I'm hardly an artist and I'm not any funnier than the average stand-up comedian who never makes it big but I'm still funnier than most people. The magic is that few people can draw well and write jokes. It's the combination of the two what makes what I do so rare and when you add in my business background so Scott Adams business background suddenly I had a topic that few cartoonists could hope to understand without living it.

So figure out what these two or three things are where you are very good at and what are those things mostly it are things which you can do effortless where you're good at even without trainings or reading a lot of books or resources or watching video it's something like well I can just do that so look at those two or three possibly verbs where you're good at so look at your uniqueness try to define it and it's your uniqueness which makes a difference not being exactly the same as everybody else. We conclude each session with some examples of everyday beauty because beauty and especially moral beauty like kindness courage and compassion have a very positive influence on your inner state. The example I would like to use is Italian forests they are now covering 60 000 square miles of Italy exceeding agricultural land for the first time in recorded modern history.

The forests are concentrated in the mountainous areas so particular around the Alps where farmland that younger generation have left behind is quietly referred to woodland. The ecological benefits compound quietly in a single municipality where 94 percent of the land is now covered in trees the natural functions of those forests storing carbon filtering water and air and preventing erosion would cost nine and a half million dollars annually if industrial solutions had to be thought instead but bears and wolves locally endangered for decades are benefiting from the expanding habitat. Ecotourism and sustainable forestry are emerging as economic opportunities in areas that once struggled with rural depopulation and that trend is also beginning to reverse a decade-long emigration crisis and since 2021 more almost a thousand Italian municipalities have recorded positive net migration and with a significant share of them in heavily forested areas so that is something really really positive happening.

So thank you for your attention I hope you will work on your uniqueness or more discover your uniqueness because it's already there you just haven't paid attention yet and I would like you to remember we need your uniqueness be a better maker for yourself for others for the world.