How to Become Extraordinary

We live in a time when the quality of being extraordinary seems to be inextricably linked to degree of fame and fortune.

And of course not everyone can achieve fame and fortune.

But that’s what we really want…deep down. So we elevate those who do achieve it to that coveted status of…

extraordinary.

I’m going to suggest, however, that maybe there’s a better way…a more truthful how to become extraordinary.

I’ll explain with a story about a very young blogger.

It’s the story of a little girl in Pakistan. The village where she grew as a child was under the grip of an oppressive regime that refused to allow girls to go to school. In protest, she decided to blog about it. That did not make her popular with the regime, but it did quickly gain attention in other parts of the world.

The regime decided to put an end to the girl and her blog. A gunman boarded a school bus and fired a shot into her face. She survived.

And now she is doing more damage to that regime’s repressive ideology than that bullet could do to her body and will.

The little girl’s name was Malala Yousafzai. The regime, The Taliban.

I posted the other day that a star on the Walk of Fame takes talent and a man on the moon genius, but a blog that matters, only a sincere desire to make a difference.

That comment was discussed on the popular podcast, Unmistakable Creative.

But the idea that seemed to emanate from the discussion was that only extraordinary people can do extraordinary things.

No one would argue against the notion that Malala is an extraordinary little girl. At 16 she is currently in Syria in support of the inhumane conditions that refugees from the ongoing civil war are experiencing, especially the most vulnerable of those refugees, the children.

But before she was recognized, Malala was by all intents and purposes, an ordinary child from a remote village in a northwestern Pakistanian province.

No one would likely have acknowledged her had it not been for one important thing…

impact.

Her impact was to bring to the light of the world an almost unimaginable idea…that little girls like her would be denied the opportunity to go to school because of some radical religious-based ideology.

Who could have known that her blog would be picked up by the New York Times? That she would go one to be twice nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize (the youngest person ever to receive such a nomination).

Sure, we may erect mythologies that support the idea of our heroes being extraordinary from birth. But I’ll make a radical suggestion that those are exactly that…myths.

What truly makes us extraordinary is our impact upon the world…not fame and fortune.

Fame and fortune may be a byproduct of that impact…but it’s not what makes one extraordinary.

Not in my opinion at least.

There are quite a few in our society who have achieved fame and fortune for one reason or the other, not related to impact. And I wouldn’t consider any of them extraordinary.

How far-reaching does that impact need to be before the moniker of extraordinary can be bestowed?

I would suggest not very much at all.

One person, perhaps?

You see, I believe in this day and age where “going viral” and “15 minutes of fame” are considered more important than, well, everything, we tend to get mixed up about extraordinary.

It’s not the eBook that may have gotten noticed by the right person and thus “viralized” that makes the author extraordinary…it’s the impact of the author’s message.

And impact is more about motive than it is about talent, or luck (fame and fortune require a bit of both).

That is, if you have a heartfelt desire to change the world for the better, someone will notice…someone will be impacted, even if your prose contains a few typos and run-ons. Even if your blog was not designed by an all-star.

Even if you never “go viral.”

The truth of the matter is that….

we’re all ordinary by creation, but we become extraordinary by impact.

image credit: nancymergybrower via Compfight cc