The Four Traits of Successful Unrelatable People (And Their Dark Side)

The Weight of Being Unrelatable

Being unrelatable - allowing yourself to be yourself - is the way that someone who is designed for difference (like you) is going to succeed. But knowing this logically and acting on it practically are two different things.

Being myself, and being unrelatable, put money in my pocket. Inspirational people go out into the world, do things differently, and bring innovations back into our ‘village’ so that life improves. But we are surrounded, in our communities and online spaces, with ‘the majority’: a great mass of people doing pretty much the same thing as everyone else, in elevated or unelevated ways. 

Sitting With the Fear of Being Cast Out

I wrote here how the process of embracing unrelatability begins by sitting with your true fear: that by being yourself, you will be cast out of the ‘village’ and will no longer be able to secure resources for your survival or thriving. It continues with reckoning with the rationalisation of your fear - the mental gymnastics your mind contorts itself through to find proof that being relatable means guaranteed resources, and therefore being unrelatable will lead to loneliness, poverty or distress. 

I advised you to discover people who inspire you, who are successful and yet still apparently ‘unrelatable’, because this process gives your mind examples of alternatives, making it harder to justify your inherent fear. These inspirational individuals achieve success not despite being unrelatable, but because of it. However, this messes with our minds, which are acting to keep us safe and socially-accepted. 

When the Village Guaranteed Success

Previously, in our small communities of manageable networks, we would see that following a prescribed path of apprenticeship, mastery, marriage and children led to the baker being well-off, or the blacksmith always having work, or the farmer gathering a fruitful harvest. Scatter in some generalised blessings by going to church every Sunday and you had a guaranteed recipe for success.

How the Internet Rewards Sameness

Now, the internet and social media has given us ever-more increasing access to humanity. Our village has expanded significantly, and we are flooded with more examples of prescriptive paths to success. Of course, the benefits of early internet communities - unrelatable people banded together through their technical skills and pop culture references - still create pockets of commonality, whether based in music, fashion, or life experience. But the majority will always be the majority, and that means statistically there are more examples of the modern-day baker, blacksmith and farmer on Instagram than there are of the pilgrims who have been called out of normal village life. Social media algorithms also increasingly reward relatability; ‘liking’ a post is fine but if you share or tag someone else in the comments - both signs that you are happy to be aligned with the content - that gives out a stronger signal. The algorithm simultaneously rewards mimicry: advice on ‘going viral’ or multiplying engagement tends to centre on replicating popular hooks, trends, and content structure with a niche twist, because these formats are proven to work, and therefore same-but-better versions will be accepted by most users, keeping them on the platform for longer. 

With this increased access to more of humanity via the internet, and in particular increased visibility of the ‘highlights reel’ of someone’s life on social media, we are exposed to more examples of success built on majority-approved relatability than ever before. Because you are designed as you are, it’s likely you have already curated your social media and internet space to give you inspiration and innovation - but the adverts, the shared content, the ‘normal’ will still creep in and with it will the damp, rising tide of fear and shame to be oneself, to be unrelatable. What is to be done?

Dolly Parton and the Mirror of Inspiration

“I kind of patterned my look after the town tramp. I didn't know what she was, just this woman who was blond and piled her hair up, wore high heels and tight skirts, and, boy, she was the prettiest thing I'd ever seen. Momma used to say, "Aw, she's just trash," and I thought, That's what I want to be when I grow up. Trash.”

Dolly Parton

I imagine a young Dolly Parton, dressed in tired, patched but clean clothes, riding down into town with her family from their home in the mountains, and catching a glimpse of this blond angel leaning up against a bar. I can see Dolly’s eyes get wider as she takes the whole of this woman in: her figure, her hair, her raucous laugh. This nameless ‘tramp’ was Dolly’s inspiration, just as Dolly has been an inspirational figure to so many others. 

Parton has said (and sung) on many occasions that she grew up poor but happy, with little material wealth but surrounded by love. Dolly’s world was one where 14 people lived in a one-bedroom cabin, doctors were paid in cornmeal, and her father was business savvy but illiterate. Seeing the ‘trash’ in the town must’ve blown Dolly’s mind, so bright and pretty and different to the environment and people she was used to. 

And this is what inspiration does: it speaks to a part of ourselves we have hidden, or ignored, or perhaps didn’t even know existed. Unlike ‘being relatable’, which talks to the surface level of our being, being unrelatable plugs into a deeper part of ourselves, a part we have yet to express. It is part of the pleasure of an inspirational individual to expose the difference between who-you-think-you-are and who-you-know-you-truly-are by acting as a sort of fairground mirror, holding up your real reflection for you to admire. Dolly saw in this woman a version of the person she might become, the woman-in-waiting, ‘patterning’ her look after what she saw in that living, breathing mirror. 

Unrelatable people are successful because they express outwardly what exists within us, but that we are not yet confident enough to express. That could be style - in the case of Dolly - or mannerism, behaviour or philosophy. We are not trying to replicate them; they are not aspirational, the same-but-better; we are not attempting to become like them. We are using them as a pattern for what our lives could be; our own version of a many-coloured coat, a cut inspired by their blueprint but from our own cloth. 

Bowie the Beacon: Why Unrelatable People Attract Superfans

“He looks like a man recruiting an army of teenage misfits. No matter how weird and alien you felt, you couldn’t be as weird and alien as Bowie and his bandmates looked.”

Alexis Petridis, writing about David Bowie for The Guardian

When I first opened a MySpace account, I proudly typed my username in: ‘Hot Tramp’, an appellation for the person Bowie is addressing in the thumping belter Rebel Rebel. He was one of my first crushes as Jared in The Labyrinth; I remember singing along to Changes with my mum in a rare moment of shared culture; I even knitted a doll of Ziggy Stardust as a present for a friend. His death did not affect me profoundly as it did with those people who had been avid devotees of his music, possibly because his self - his image - everything he represented - had already been burned into my character.

Read any account of Bowie’s career and it is a rollercoaster. His constant reinventions of himself, his music and his character seem to be sometimes orchestrated, often chaotic, even indecisive, particularly as he scrabbled to find his (or any) groove in the early years. He released music that was criticised as much as applauded, behaved in ways that were revolutionary one minute and problematic the next. Francis Whately, a filmmaker who has created several Bowie documentaries, said “I would question anyone who said they really knew him. I don’t think anyone knew him”, and yet his death resulted in mass mournings and celebrity tributes. He was deeply treasured and loved, yet who - or what - was it that people treasured? What did they love? And what did they lose when he died?

Bowie was unrelatable, unrecognisable, seemingly an alien who had landed on earth for a few gigs before going back home. This unrelatability made him a beacon for others who felt like him; not who were like him, with spandex leotards and mismatched eyes, but who deep inside saw themselves mirrored in him as that fairground mirror, like Dolly and the ‘tramp’. And because we saw deep, unexpressed parts of ourselves mirrored in Bowie, we came to love him not only because of who he was, but in what he told us about ourselves.

Unrelatable people are successful because rather than talk to anybody and everybody who, on the surface, is like them - ‘relates’ to them - they speak to the few. They speak to the 2.5% of any community who acts as an innovator; they speak to the pilgrims; they speak to the minority. And because, finally, someone is speaking to us - us! Who hasn’t had anyone to speak to about who we are or how we feel as we sit here stifled and bored in this ‘village’ - we fall in love and we become superfans. We adore them. We come back to them again and again, their reinventions and mistakes and chameleonic nature meaning absolutely nothing to us because they continue to be a mirror for who we are becoming. We, too, are reinventing ourselves; we, too, make mistakes - our work is panned, our outputs critically demolished. And yet, they continue, and find new paths, and we walk after them - not as them, but as ourselves, knowing we have met a pioneer.

What Jesus Teaches Us About Being Unknowable

“Then they said to Him, “Who are You?”

And Jesus said to them, “Just what I have been saying to you from the beginning.”

John 8:25, New King James Version

I advised you here to choose an inspirational figure and to ask yourself ‘What would this person do?’ to guide your behaviour. This practice grew entirely from the born-again Christian mantra, ‘What Would Jesus Do?’, and the accumulation of rubber WWJD bracelets piled up on the arms of girls I knew back when I was 17. For many in that faith, Jesus is the ultimate blueprint of ‘good behaviour’. His teachings are important - the parables, the metaphors - but it is actually his life that forms the strongest guidance for a Christian looking to live well. The way Jesus lived is seen as repeatable practice, and it is the same in other faiths. Do as the Buddha did, and achieve nirvana; do as your guru does, and you will find enlightenment. These figures practice what they preach and so too can we.

These types of unrelatable people are successful because they are in integrity with themselves. What they think, say and do is in harmony. Their internal world and external expressions are coherent; they are how they are, and there is no trace of misalignment in their presence.

This is a very subtle, easily-missed quality in inspirational figures, but it makes or breaks your relationship with them. When we are in the presence of integrity, we feel it. You can’t always name it, but it is deeply sensed. Unrelatable, successful people who demonstrate integrity have a disarming honesty and a refreshing approach. It’s like we have been wading through fog in all our other conversations and then someone comes along with a clarity and simplicity which wafts away all the confusion. They do not need to explain themselves because we feel them; their integrity, their internal coherence, is palpable.

Why We React to Integrity in Three Different Ways

If you are not tuned into your own integrity - if you are misaligned, lacking coherence between who you are and what you do - then you can react in one of three ways when meeting the unrelatable person. You can be refreshed and enlivened by their presence, finding the spiritual equivalent of co-regulation by being around them. This is the experience of the disciple in the presence of the guru, who expresses to them - wordlessly or otherwise - the deep, divine, unconditional love they have yet to apply to themselves. 

Alternatively, you can find it hard to trust the unrelatable person, because your lack of self-integrity makes it harder for you to spot integrity or its absence in someone else. You are highly sceptical and dismissive, because you have been burnt before; contemporary celebrities, especially those in the self-development and New Age world, weave such a spell around them it is hard to perceive who they truly are. And the superfandom that unrelatable people inspire contributes to this glamour, meaning that it is hard to level criticism against the figure without being crushed in the backlash.

Or this, if you are wedded to the fog - to the unnecessary but comfortable complexity, confusion and procrastination that being out of integrity brings - then you will feel threatened by the unrelatable person. Their presence will jar you as they hold up another type of mirror to your own identity, this time one of blinding clarity, a clarity you are not ready to see. 

Truthfully, in the presence of the inspirational, unrelatable person, you are likely to experience all three of these states, often swinging back and forth to try and orient yourself with them. You can see this oscillating relationship played out in the Biblical interactions written about Jesus. The Pharisees are portrayed as angrily and repeatedly questioning his credibility as the son of God. The story is woven so that the Pharisees are seen as threatened by Jesus, his way of teaching and healing which runs counter to their rituals, and their interrogation stems from fear; but they can also be seen as applying a healthy scepticism after the appearance of many other ‘false prophets’. His disciples are most often seen to be refreshed and enlivened by his presence, but have their many moments of doubt and scepticism, whether it is their fear of drowning in a storm or their inability to heal a young boy. The reaction to an unrelatable, inspirational, successful person is not always a pretty one - but it is very real, very human, and another part of the deep relatability we are all experiencing.

The way Jesus answers the Pharisees - and his disciples - about his identity offers another important part of what being unrelatable means. His retorts are often indirect, quizzical, mirroring their assumptions without revealing much of himself. Sometimes he unequivocally states his identity; in other conversations demands that no disciple share who he is or where he will be. Watch or listen to any interview of a successful, unrelatable person and you will see that same pattern: an unwillingness to be defined by any outside source, a refusal to explain themselves, even as this appears frosty, frustrating or confusing to us as onlookers. What they think, say, and do is in harmony - but a complex multi-modal harmony, one which not all of us have the ear for. The majority want a way in, a way to ‘relate’ to this person, so they try to fragment the unrelatable, inspirational whole into bits they can get a hold of. They want to understand, they argue, they want to get to know the ‘whole person’, they want to relate. But you do not need to understand nor know someone completely to feel, fully and deeply, the coherence and integrity they possess. You only need to be around them, to drink them in. The mark of the unrelatable successful person is someone in whose very presence you feel transformed; any answer you get from them in response to your question is just bonus content.

The Four Traits of Successful Unrelatable People

Whether Dolly, Bowie, Jesus or the inspirational figure of your choice, you will see these four traits emerge over and over again in the successful, unrelatable person:

1. Unrelatable people are successful because they express outwardly what exists within us, but that we are not yet confident enough to express.
   

2. Unrelatable people are successful because rather than talk to anybody and everybody, they speak to the few. 
   

3. Unrelatable people are successful because they are in integrity with themselves.
   

4. Unrelatable people are successful because they feel no compulsion to explain themselves and are unwilling to be defined by an outside source.

   
   

The Dark Side of Unrelatable Success

But the success created from being unrelatable does not automatically equate to morally good, just or peaceful success. Donald Trump is a completely unrelatable figure - the man has a golden toilet - and ticks all these boxes: he expresses sentiments others feel but have not yet been confident enough to express; he speaks to the few who agree with him (and, bonus delusion, assumes they are the majority); he refuses to explain anything about himself; and he has integrity in the most technical sense of the word - that is, what he thinks, says and does all seem to be aligned. It is just that his thoughts, words and actions happen to be diabolical. His superfans create a forcefield around him, and he has become one of the most ‘successful’ people in the world. 

Good, just, peaceful success is the aim. If you are unrelatable and the money that goes in your pocket from the subsequent success is money gleaned from rage-baiting, social division, environmental destruction, and the diminishment of others, then well done - you fulfilled the assignment in the laziest possible way. If you are unrelatable, successful, and replicate existing conditions of disharmony and inequality, then what was the point? Did you truly go out into the world, do things differently, and come back to improve the life of our ‘village’ - or did you just come back to check the majority were still grinding away, still available for you to pity? I hear this attitude a lot from people who have left ‘unfulfilling’ corporate roles to start a business, who pride themselves on creating ‘financial freedom’ for themselves, and it leaves a vile taste in my mouth. Unrelatable people are happy to not be for everyone, to face slings and arrows, to feel on this earth but not of it; but that does not mean treating the earth and its inhabitants as if they were lesser than you. If anything, you have a unique responsibility that only comes with being unrelatable.

Your Responsibility as a Pilgrim

Grace Jones - a wonderfully inspirational, unrelatable, successful figure - wrote in her memoirs that: 

“Those who demand that you conform the most to how they live are the ones who are the most scared and intimidated by life.”

Those people, the majority, are frightened animals, trapped in a situation they do not know how to control. They are scared and intimidated by life, and by the wild, feral, unrelatable life flowing through you. They will make demands because that feels safer, will question your existence and your methods, will claw and hiss because they are afraid.

Do you wish to argue, snarl back at them, put them down because they threaten you? Will you confuse compassion with pity and use their position to make your high horse even higher? Or will you instead do what you are designed to do: speak to the parts of themselves they most need to express; be an inspirational, peaceful presence, an example of integrity; leave them alone and love them from afar until they are ready to listen.

Stop explaining yourself, justifying your excellence, and instead start embodying it. Take on the responsibility of becoming a living example of unrelatable success; a perfectly balanced, utterly wild ecosystem all of your own. That is what the world needs.

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Being unrelatable isn't about trying to appear different, or put on a show of quirkiness for an audience. It's instead about steadily aligning who you are, what you say, and what you do - and making that visible. And that kind of integrity isn't built overnight, but through practice.

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If you're ready to build a spiritual practice with real coherence - one where your inner world and outer life finally match - Everyday Faith is my 4-week course designed to help you live what you believe, every day.

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Remember, you don't need to justify your excellence to anyone. Your work is only to practise it, over and over, until it becomes second nature for you to be seen as the extraordinary, unrelatable person you are.