What are you doing to stick out?

Are you noticeable or easy to forget? In today's marketplace, having noticeability is useful–unless you're in a crime syndicate.

But to be noticeable requires doing things differently or being so magnificent at what you do that people cannot ignore you any longer. The problem for us is that there is only one Michael Jordan, one Lance Armstrong, one Ansel Adams, one "greatest-ever" legend at nearly everything.

We all have a limit on just how magnificent we can be at any given thing (I could shoot 1000 basketballs a day and never even crack an NBA roster, let alone compete on Jordan's level,) but we all can go about things differently and in a more daring fashion.

Be the first bookmobile, the first person to transform an old airplane into your home, or the first person to walk across the North Pole. Do something different and run the risk of being noticed.

I know in principle these things are true, but I still find myself tempted to play it safe because the comfort of conformity is a seductive and entangling mistress. If you're going to be different, you have to live it and it must become your modus operandi. Everyone can sniff it out if you're faking the commitment to doing things differently. That's not the noticeability you want.

What are you doing to stick out?