Being Unrelatable Led to Money in My Pocket - Here's Why

The LinkedIn Post That Changed Everything

On International Non Binary Day in 2023, I posted on LinkedIn about my experience as a nonbinary person. I talked about my childhood, how I knew I was nonbinary, and what others could do to be more welcoming of nonbinary people. The photo I added was of me riding a cannon, arms flung in the air, replete with phallic symbolism.

I had been training myself all that year to ‘be myself’ on social media, but this update was one which felt very close to my heart and it wasn’t without a few nerves that I clicked ‘post’. I knew talking about gender identity on LinkedIn was a hot button topic; I also knew that images like that spark interest and organic engagement. I was conscious of being different, unusual, and aware of a lingering fear of how being unrelatable might ripple out into my corporate network.

It turned out being unrelatable was one of the best things that could’ve happened. The post garnered significant views and complex conversations in the comments. Those views and comments led to reach, and that reach led to actual paid work. 

Being unrelatable led to money in my pocket. 

So why would I - why would we - still fear it?

Why We Fear Being Cast Out

I wrote in this article that the fear of being unrelatable is not our actual fear; the true fear is of being cast out, and losing our network of human connection that helps us survive and thrive. We fear being punished for being different, whether that punishment is psychological or physical, close up or from some troll on the internet.

And I also wrote that those who are unrelatable have been designed to be so. We are pilgrims, called to something bigger than ourselves and our ‘village’ that has kept us alive up to now. Your pilgrimage may circle back to the community you once belonged to, where you will bring in fresh insights and resources of which the villagers were ignorant - or it may lead you to a new network, one made entirely of pilgrims called to a life and purpose different from the one they were expected to fulfil.

If you are designed to be unrelatable - if being a pilgrim in this manner is in your bones, no matter how many years you spend resisting it - then your work is to embrace your unrelatability. This means sitting with the fear that you will be cast out, and the shame that emerges when you imagine expressing your true self; but it also means reckoning with the rationalisation of this fear. 

This is the reasoning that your mind uses to keep you as you are, in the place it believes is safest: in the dreary confines of the village, in the grind, in the boring ‘business as usual’. The way our mind rationalises this shame is by telling us that to secure the resources we need in the world - food, shelter, warmth, companionship - we must be like everyone else. Our mind equates success with securing resources, and looks for examples to back up this logic. And now it has the whole of the internet, the whole of social media, to help it do so.

How the Village Used to Guarantee Success

We scan social media and we see that the most ‘successful’ people - that is, the people who appear to have the greatest visible resources as evidenced by their photographs and status updates - also have huge communities surrounding them. Thousands, millions of people are in their ‘village’, and that village has brought them extraordinary resources. It doesn’t matter if those resources are yachts, luxury handbags, a farm in the Hebrides, kids, cats, whatever; your mind is sifting through all the possible success stories you secretly desire, and selecting the ones which prove what it already believes: you must be relatable to be successful.

Why the Internet Floods Us With "Proof" That Relatability Wins

Until you have had an experience like mine, where being unrelatable led to money in my pocket, your mind will continue to tell you relatability secures resources. It will rationalise your shame by telling you that only people who are down to earth gain followers; only people who share their everyday life are likeable enough to capture new clients; only those who sound like, look like, act like everyone else in the village but just a little bit elevated will succeed. You cannot be exactly the same as other people - you must be the same-but-better. And in your desire to be the same-but-better, you will attempt to find and reconstruct the winning formula or hook or template or process that someone else has already used so that you can secure the resources and the success that you want. 

The Same-But-Better Trap

This is in fact a well-rehearsed strategy for social media virality. I have heard it from many business coaches and influencers: find what is already working, and replicate it in your niche. Just do what everyone else is doing, but, like - a little bit better and not quite exactly the same. It’s not copying, it’s inspiration; not plagiarism, but homage. And it works! You will scoop up a new community with this approach, those who find the hook compelling or the template witty or the formula digestible. You’ll find yourself in a new village, surrounded by new followers, and guess what? You will still be a pilgrim yearning to adventure and explore and be completely unrelatable.

Where Difference Is Punished Most 

And as it is on social media so too is it in the greater projection of your career, your relationship, of life itself. The rationalised shame that tells you difference equates to a lack of resources is magnified as you scan our peer groups, social strata and internal conception of the world. The least resource is offered to the most different, whether that is the artist, the magician, the drag queen, the satirist, the inspiring teacher, the nurse up to their elbows in blood and guts - or whether it is to those who have been oppressed and denied sovereignty because of their skin colour, birth place, gender, sexuality, or bodily health. Shame infects you and you develop internalised hatred of some component of yourself which you perceive makes you different, makes you a pilgrim, whether it is genetic or innate or a budding talent that you then suppress for decades. You choose your career, your mate, your life path based on someone else’s blueprint - someone who seemed successful to you - and then wonder why you are dissatisfied, disappointed and depressed. But the truth of who you are will not have evaporated simply because you found a box just big enough to squeeze yourself into and make it palatable for others. The one constant on a pilgrim’s journey is the presence of the pilgrim; wherever you go, there you will be.

You Are Not the Majority - And That's the Point

The internet as a mass communication tool has put us into contact with thousands of people on a daily basis. And the truth is that most of those thousands of people are not innovators; they are not early adopters; they are the majority, the great mass of humanity that is doing the same stuff as everyone else, and doing it repeatedly. You can see it through a sociological lens: Rogers’ theory of the diffusion of innovation identifies only 2.5% of any given community are innovators, bringing in fresh inventions to the group. You can see it through an esoteric lens: in Human Design, 68% of the population are sacral beings designed for consistent, responsive action rather than guidance or novelty. Most people, most of the time, are doing the same old stuff they’ve always done. There is nothing wrong with that - but then there is also nothing wrong with being a pilgrim and doing something different. 

The majority are securing resources through being the majority because that is what they are designed to do; the village remains a village, and life continues steadily. But you are not designed to secure resources in this way. You are not designed for success in this way. The unrelatable pilgrim has a calling bigger than themselves and bigger than the village, which means they must find new ways of succeeding in that endeavour. What works in the village does not work on the road.

Finding the Pilgrims Who've Gone Before You

We must find what works on the road, and to do that we turn to other pilgrims. Our cultures are full of examples of people who have succeeded through their unrelatability. Browsing social media, you’ll find it hard to discover them, just like it’s hard to spot a diamond in a pile of shattered glass. But they are there - just as they are there in your new community, in the books you read, the art you examine. Reckoning with the rationalisation of your fear of being cast out starts with discovering the right people; not those who are aspirational, the same-but-better than you, but those who are inspirational - who start a fire within you, who cause you to jump up and dress how you want, think how you want, and start walking the road to your new life. 

The more examples you find of successful, ‘unrelatable’ people the harder it will be for your mind to justify the fear you have that being unrelatable equates to a lack of resources. The more success stories you hear from pilgrims who have journeyed outside the norms of their community, the more your mind will realise it is safe to be unrelatable. 

What Would They Do? Using Inspiration as a Compass

I encourage you to choose someone - a musician, artist, historical figure, even a loved friend or family member - who represents this inspirational energy to you. And just as a Christian might ask ‘What Would Jesus Do?’ when faced with a decision, I say to ask yourself the same question of your chosen person. What would Bowie do? What would Dolly Parton do? What would my best friend do? What would that kooky art teacher from secondary school do? That chosen person’s answer will guide you away from acting same-but-better and into acting as yourself, as much as you can be in that given moment. 

We all need the unrelatable role model, not to tell us how to be like them, but to teach us how to be more like ourselves. And Jesus is an excellent example of this sort of inspiration, who is unrelatable and yet ‘gets it’. Biblically, he is the son of God: as far removed and un-related to humanity as possible. But he is also here, in our midst, as a human. He gets angry, he is impatient, he storms off by himself into the desert for days at a time. He wrangles constantly with what the New Testament advises readers to do: to be in the world, but not of it. 

And this is where being truly relatable comes in. If you are a pilgrim journeying far from your village, learning, growing, and expanding your relationship with Life itself, that doesn’t mean you don’t get hungry, tired, or a stone in your shoe. You don’t stop being a grumpy pain in the arse at the end of a long day, just because you are designed to be an innovator. After all, everyone poops, whether you’re Jesus, Bowie, Dolly Parton, or some well-dressed weirdo you’ve only ever seen on Instagram who inspires you to make the most of your wardrobe. 

The Secret Nobody's Selling You

The secret all business coaches and social media influencers who teach ‘virality’ have missed - the secret so many people have missed as they struggle under the weight of shame and fear of being cast out - is that you do not need to try and be relatable. You already are, simply as a result of being born into the great hodge-podge that is humanity and continuing to be a human with all of your ups and downs and joys and nonsense. 

Your success will not come from creating a social media profile that is just the same-but-better; it will not come from choosing your career, or mate, or life path based on a pre-approved blueprint; and it will not come from making yourself likeable, understandable or relatable in an endeavour to retain what you perceive are scarce resources. Your success will come from embracing your tender, exposed, innate humanity and your greater calling to do something different, untamed, and wild. You cannot do anything but both, because anything less is not you! For as a pilgrim, you are designed to be in this world, but not of it; designed to be an inspiration to others; but first you must find your own.

---

Being unrelatable isn't a risk to your success. It's the foundation of it. But unlearning a lifetime of diminishing yourself to fit the village doesn't only happen by reading yet another article! It happens by practising, consistently and unapologetically, the art of being fully who you truly are.

If you're ready to reconnect with your spirit and soul beneath the noise of "same-but-better," then start with Pocket Guru, my free 10-day reset. Ten days, no cost - only gentle daily reminders to help you remember who you were before the village squashed you down.

If you're ready to build a spiritual practice that's actually yours, now borrowed from someone else's blueprint, that will help you walk the pilgrim's path, then Everyday Faith is my 4-week course that helps you weave the sacred into daily life, on your own terms.

And if you're ready to stop chasing formulas and start living your actual purpose, then Wild Success is my signature in-person, two day event designed to help you uncover your calling and build a real plan to pursue it.

Remember, you don't need a hook. You don't need another template, or another person's version of success. You need to be seen, heard, and celebrated exactly as you are by the people who were always going to recognise you.