How to Set Yourself Apart From The Crowd and Profit Hugely From It

Famous people have done it. Politicians, rock stars, celebrities, oil tycoons, sports gods, serial killers and those people from Friends. Somehow, these people have demanded notice and got what they asked for and more. How did they do it? If they can do it, why can't you?

You may think, "But I don't want to stand out, I want to do my fair share behind the scenes." While you may have a good altruistic point. Is it really the reason? If you are quite honest with yourself, there is no problem. You won't even feel any twinge of envy while your colleague who is short on talent but worked really hard in marketing himself to your boss gets that promotion you know you deserve!

You may say that the ones with the best mouths always get to eat the cake. Is there no way for people with less eloquent social skill to go up and get paid for what they deserve. Of course there is! But there is a condition. You must really like what you're doing.

Surprisingly, the most effective way to be recognized as different is to know what is different about you. Let's use biology to make great analogies of being unique. Darwin observed in social animal behavior that the most aggressive males in a pack or herd usually get to mate with the females. These are called alphas. The males who lost are either driven from the group. These are called betas. These males compete for the right to propagate and pass on their genes down into the future. Those that lose out are effectively weeded out of the gene pool.

While this may seem a little extreme, this example only emphasizes that each human being, as social beings, must be unique in his own way and make sure he uses it to his fullest advantage in as many instances in society as possible. He must know what he is good at and devote his energies to make that talent even more powerful.

So how can you tell what you're good at? Dr. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi describes this human phenomenon as flow. Zen-like in its experience, flow activity creates a profound sense of happiness. And happiness is the key to making yourself different.

To sum it up, to set yourself apart from the crowd, you must do what makes you truly happy in life regardless of what profit you get out of it. Forget the money and the money just comes.

Happiness can be found in any activity. It does not really matter what it is as long as it matters a lot to you. So it is important for you to recognize when you are experiencing flow and find ways to shift a majority of your time to enhance it.

Here are the components of flow happiness:

1. Goals are clear. You know what is to be done with the activity, and you feel up to the challenge.

2. Feedback is immediate. You'll know the very instance when you've made a mistake and take steps to adjust.

3. Challenge and ability level is matched. You current skill level matches the challenge in a way that no side has the overwhelming upper hand. This can illustrate by the fact that if an activity bores you, it is a good sign that you must step the challenge up another notch to regain your interest. The trick is to find ways to grow forward and up without feeling like you've bitten off more than you can chew.

4. Total attention is focused on the activity. When the activity starts, all other concerns are forgotten for the duration of that activity. People with flow experience describe it closely to the Zen term of no-mindedness or "mushin." There is nothing but the activity.

5. Operating in the present. The past and future is forgotten. There is only the activity, the Master Work. Even the term "present" is not a good description. There is only the activity.

6. Sense of relative control. You have control over the outcome of the activity. Your efforts and concentration affects the results in a big way.

7. Ego is lost. Somehow by concentrating on the activity, you lose all sense of self-consciousness. Ego is diminished or extinguished altogether. You become the activity. Things become much easier to do because you're not getting in your own way.

8. Time becomes malleable. If there is any sensation, time is felt to either stretch or compress based on the circumstances. It does not matter to the person. Time becomes irrelevant.

Will you profit from this once you find it? It will. And the returns are priceless beyond measure because you've found the happiness you've been looking for in life. So what are you waiting for? Have a happy life.

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