Being an outsider gives you the inside track.

I've always been an outsider. Sometimes I felt it so strongly. Other times, I just haven't been able to fathom why I didn't fit it, why I didn't get included. It took me literally decades to work it out. Years and years of trying to fit in, to be acknowledged and to be accepted. How about you?

The thing is, I now realise that being the outsider for so long, has actually given me the inside track. Here's what I've learned that can help you too:

Maybe you’ve always felt like you just don’t fit. Don’t quite belong. Maybe you’ve struggled with other people’s behaviour, values or to understand their language. Maybe you felt things very deeply and maybe sometimes that was uncomfortable to say the least. Maybe you were excluded because you were 'odd', 'weird' or just 'different'. Maybe you’ve tried so hard to fit in that you've had floppy boundaries and have allowed people to take advantage of you. Maybe you’ve tried so hard to fit in, that you lost a sense of who you really are, and maybe you accept it because it’s all a part of being deeply perceptive, sensitive and intuitive.

Sound familiar?

Here's something you might not be aware of though. Being the outsider is a gift, a super power! The best way to explain what I mean is to tell you how I discovered this in my own life.

As a child, I was often described as ‘odd’, ‘weird’ and ‘over sensitive’. I was always the outsider, never invited to play, never picked for sports teams, never invited to parties and I found it really difficult to make friends, other than with other weird kids. Not that I tried that hard. I just wasn’t interested in the things other children were interested in. Their games and behaviour just seemed boring and shallow to me. They wanted to play elastics, ralio and dressing up. I wanted to create 'other worlds', write stories, make stuff. I loved being outdoors messing around, mostly alone.

It didn’t bother me that I didn’t fit in exactly, I just couldn’t understand why the other children didn’t want to do the things I did. Well, why wouldn’t you? But, I did get lonely. I explained it to myself like this…

• It’s because I’m an only child

• It’s because I’m quiet … or 'shy'

•  It’s because everyone knows my mother has mental health issues. (She was diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic.)

I told myself….

• It’s because my mother is a Jehovah’s Witness.

• It’s because I daren’t mix with other non Jehovah’s Witness children because it’s not allowed.

• It’s because I have a stammer.

• It’s because people know my mother is violent.

I was a child. I needed reasons. I needed to understand...but I DIDN’T!!!!!

Here’s what happened though. Something quite powerful, although I wouldn't come to realise that until many years later. Because I was mostly alone and mostly on the outside, I spent a lot of time observing, noticing things others didn’t, watching people’s behaviour and noting the consequences of it. I spent a lot of time being creative: writing, playing, making, fantasising. I spent a lot of time finding my own ways of surviving my mother’s mental illness and violent outbursts because we were alone together. I spent a lot of time reading and learning and starting to understand.

Essentially, it turns out that being an outsider was my gift. I was being prepared for what was to come.

Creative people need to feel. We also have a need to understand: people, behaviours, why things happen the way they do, how things can change. If we don’t feel and can’t understand, we not only feel disconnected from ourselves and others, but we can’t be creative, ideas just don't flow. Everything feels stuck.

Things will probably never make complete sense to us though. Quite apart from what’s happening globally, we can struggle to make sense of things in our own worlds. I know I do. Sometimes I can’t even follow a conversation.

In my 20+ year career in advertising, I honestly never felt like I fitted in. I tried bloody hard though because for a long time, I thought that’s what you needed to do. Sometimes I’d sit in board meetings and feel like everyone else was speaking a different language. I tolerated, blagged and bluffed so much until it became painful. I almost completely lost sight of myself and I definitely wasn’t feeling creative.

I reached a point though, as I climbed the bloomin' corporate ladder, that I had more control, I could lead more, and so I decided that enough was enough and I had to do things my way. In that industry I was definitely the outsider. I was called ‘weird’ ‘woowoo’ ‘soft’. I liked to understand my teams, what motivated them, what their needs were. It was not the way that industry worked. I was totally excluded from the old boys' networks and castigated for my odd ways of working and managing.

Things started to change though, when we started to get more clients, win more pitches, when the bottom line improved and when absence was reduced to virtually zero.

This outsider felt in to what was needed, stayed on the outside to get a 360 view and do the work, and it paid off, way more than just financially. The staff were happy, I was happy, the board were happy. If I’d followed the status quo, tried to fit in, none of that would have happened and I would be lost. I certainly wouldn’t be here talking to you about all this.

If you resonate with any part of any of this, you’re probably an outsider. I congratulate you. Welcome in. Know this. You have a gift and a path, or multiple paths, to walk. We’re creative shape shifters and love to take diversions and change routes when we feel called, because from the outside, we can see and learn from what has been, and usually see what is to come. What better gift for a creative?!

Trust what being an outsider has gifted you, and remember that being the outsider definitely gives you the inside track.

HERE ARE THE 5 KEY THINGS I’VE LEARNED ABOUT BEING AN OUTSIDER THAT TRANSFORMED THINGS FOR ME and I think they can help you too…

1.    Being on the OUTSIDE gives you a 360 view of things and means you can avoid getting caught up in mass opinions, actions and behaviours and see solutions and escape routes.

2.    Being on the OUTSIDE allows you to see where the gaps in your boundaries are and where they need securing.

3.    Being EXCLUDED means you have something special that others find it difficult to understand and most people fear what they don’t understand. That’s ok. You don’t have to educate or evangelise, you just have to step back and step into your creative gift/s.

4.    Being the OUTSIDER means you might experience deep emotions: lonliness, rejection, bullying, guilt, self loathing. While those emotions are painful, they’re hugely valuable when it comes to helping others. Going through emotions is what gives us empathy, and little is more important for changing humanity, than empathy.

5.    TRUST YOURSELF. Without a doubt, the most valuable thing I’ve learned is to trust myself and to take time. Whenever there’s a temptation to follow the narrative, to doubt yourself, to shrink, step back, tune in to yourself. You are your best baromoter.

Big love,

Michele x

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