Dont be a Corporate Clone in Real Life

Quote: “Being yourself is all it takes. If you want to impress someone don't be someone else just be yourself.”
― Selena Gomez

Believe it or not, I work for a major multi-billion-dollar corporate company. It might not seem like the author of this blog would work for someplace that jampacks action items into National Sales Meetings or Deep Dives into whiteboarding ideas aka calling out the low hanging fruit within the industry, who’s small-scale ideas are just ripe enough for the picking, or to put it more accurately, stealing. But here I am, sharing my open and honest feedback, all the while aware the corporate owl sees all. Admitting that we tweak someone else’s idea or product or offering just enough to not be called out for copycatting, but make our own corporate clone.

And before I continue, let me say one thing…FUCK THAT! Do you know why? Because the very definition of a clone is a replica of another. A clone is the opposite of unique. A clone has robotic behavior merely mirroring the individual or thing it was cloned from.

Now I mention that because on a day-to-day basis, I am on conference calls or flying to HQ for a sales meeting or on dozens of group threads seeing and hearing people replicate others. What kind of confidence is that? You are that unconfident in yourself that you need to dress like a solider in an army with the same blue suit with brown Cole Haans and your ridiculous free swag backpack? And let’s not forget those who just throw on a classic polo for their Teams or Zoom call, which everyone can see right through, because everyone else was also just sitting on the couch in their boxers. Come on! Be your damn self. Do something that feels true to you. DO NOT drink the corporate Kool-Aid. I won’t drink it to the point where my quote above is by Selena Gomez instead of Kobe Bryant or Michael Jordan. By the way, that’s exactly what my boss does. Every. Single. Time. Be yourself. Grow a pair of balls, and quote someone who hasn’t achieved something great or sat in the Oval Office or won any awards simply because YOU like what they have to say.

It all boils down to one thing, risk. Are you risk-averse or risk-tolerant? Are you willing to risk being yourself for the possibility of high return or even uncertain return? To dive a little deeper, are you lacking the confidence to even take risks because you think the real you is a risk?

I’ll let you sit with that for a second, but here is one more question to hold you over until next Friday. What is the risk of not taking risks? You ever hear a Pit Boss at a casino say, “The more you bet, the more you win when you win.”? Which essentially means without risk there is no chance of reward, so is your risk worth your potential reward?

Because the only thing we know for certain is that the future is inherently uncertain, we usually have to choose between:

1) Avoiding risk with little-to-no return.

2) Taking modest risk and settling for a modest return.

3) Taking a high degree of risk in the pursuit of a huge gain, but also accepting the probability of substantial to permanent loss.

What do you want to do? Who do you want to be? How do you assess the risk of being you? Are you ever going to have regrets or what-ifs? Or the hauntings of “shoulda, woulda, coulda.”

In all aspects of our lives, we base our decisions on what we think will probably happen. And we almost always relate that to something that has happened in the past. In all fairness, historical analysis is a very logical thing to do, but no two scenarios are a 1:1 match. You can’t copy/paste. You have to adapt. Being able to adapt is embracing your self-confidence. If I could be the Warren Buffett of being real, I could give you a 90%+ assurance that you will come out on top if you are yourself. Otherwise, what makes you stand out from the rest? Why wouldn’t your boss, someone you’re trying date, etc., choose someone else. There’s no reason for them not to, which is why confidence is key.

Do yourself a favor and bet on yourself. Take a risk. Boycott your lack of confidence. Just be you. Not a clone. Hard stop that shit and be you. The risk is worth the reward or at least worth not wondering what might’ve been. You will make it farther, trust me. 

-TCM