Above All…Be an Original: Finding Your Dream and Living From Your Design

A few years ago, Chris, a great friend of mine, was attending a summer concert featuring a Beatles Tribute band. They were dressed up like a 1965 version of John, Paul, George and Ringo. They had their accents and music down. They were an amazing group of musicians perfectly imitating genuine rock stars. And they were fake. After twenty minutes Chris couldn’t handle it. He actually left his family sitting on the grass and spent an hour walking home. He couldn’t stand listening to “fake Beatles.” To this day, Chris tells me that if he were a musician, he would rather spend his life playing his music in small bars and clubs then playing someone else’s music to crowds of Baby Boomers trying to re-imagine their past. Chris is an original. He is not about to sing someone else’s song.

Turns out, this is great career advice. “Be the rock star of your own life!”

What if you were designed perfectly to live your Dream Life? Well you are. You were designed to succeed at what brings you deepest, lasting joy. And fulfilling your design is the music of your heart. All you have to do is hear it.

Although we share over 99% of our DNA structure and pretty much 100% of our spiritual nature with other humans, there’s still an amazing amount of room for individuality. Recent brain and personality research suggests that each of us is more unique than perhaps we ever imagined. Turns out that 1% DNA difference leads to tens of millions of physical, psychological, and personality differences. That’s what makes us an original! The way we think, the way we learn, and the way we excel are extremely idiosyncratic. Many of us feel frustrated and anxious when we we’re not allowed to do “our thing our way.” This turns out not to be stubbornness but Design trying to shine through.

Our very uniqueness holds our personal key to fulfillment. A Dream Life is built on discovering, or re-discovering, our authentic Design. Greatness is always the result of being different—Being original.  No one can be better than you at being you.  Don’t compete; be unique.  And turn up the volume.

So how is this accomplished? Luckily, surgery is not required, nor are light explosives. You discover your design by becoming aware of your persistent traits and talents. Your “Design” is the intersection of traits and talents that you bring with you into the world.

Talents are skills that you perform exceptionally well and with natural ease. They are the way others see and experience you—the outer you. Talent yields success with minimal effort. Traits are the inner you. They’re the way you experience the world, what you pay attention to, what you derive deep satisfaction and value from, and how you like to engage life and others. A trait is a persistent quality of our essential identity. Examples are optimism, caring, courage, and enthusiasm.

What you both value doing (traits) and do extremely well (talents) is what you were Designed to do—your calling. Activities that are aligned with your Design give you energy rather than sap it. You don’t tire of them. You have to be told to stop doing them. You do them when you should be eating lunch. You would do them even if you didn’t get paid. They fire you up. When you are expressing your design, you have no longings to do something different. Something better, yes. More opportunity, of course. A bigger stage, more impact…sure. But you don’t yearn to do something fundamentally different.

It’s inspiring to believe that each of us are perfectly designed to fulfill our real dreams; that our traits, talent and interests are sign posts to the road of our greatest possible life.  But I’ve found it take more than understanding and inspiration to actually live a Dream Life.  It requires changing how you think, what you feel, and what you do.  Every decision you make either takes you closer to your Dream Life or further away from it. Yes once you think about it, it’s clear that to live an extraordinary life, extraordinary choices are necessary.  Once, when I was deeply confused my father advised me, “Be who you are and do what you came for.” It was his way of telling me not to be a fake Beatle.

I don’t know what your dreams are or what your extraordinary choices should be.  I can only challenge you to consider your choices and make them. All of us are ultimately responsible for our own lives. Our lives are our anthem. But spending our life imagining what it might sound like doesn’t do any good. Pick up your microphone and belt it out.

This article was originally published in The Deluxe Knowledge Quarterly KQ2 2008.