We all have our heroes, but you need to be you. Quit imitating others, you are the only you there has ever been or will ever be. You are special and need to figure that out today.
Do you have any idea what makes a leader? A leader is their own person and has ultimately figured this little piece of the world out about themselves. Followers are those that are still trying to figure out who they are and where they belong. Once a follower decides to be who they are, they are no longer followers. They have now become leaders and the followers will come, mark my words.

There is nothing wrong with looking up to someone, but don’t go as far as wanting to be them. (The only people that can pull this off and not look ridiculous are twins, even though, they too are individuals who should follow their own path.) If you try to be them, you are a follower who is just an imitation and have yet to find yourself. Everyone has something special about them, the trick is to find out what is special about you. Once you have figured that out, you can step out of the shadow of someone else and lead a fuller life.
Being a leader does have its downside. As a leader, you start to see others imitating you, so you have to try very hard not to put a step wrong. As a follower, nobody pays attention to you, you are just another face in the crowd. You have no significance as far as others see you. This may work for you, but for most of us, it’s better to have a little pressure put on us to be known as someone and not a nobody.
Are you ready to step up and step into who you are, or will you continue to be someone else’s shadow? Nobody can answer that question but you. I can tell you, in this day and age, we could use some more leaders. Followers are readily available, but leaders are getting harder and harder to find. I think everyone truly wants to be their own person, but they are afraid of failure. It is true that you will see failures along the way, but a true leader can weather the storm and come out better for going through the struggle.
Let’s attack this another way and see if this helps with your decision. If you are a follower and the one who leads you fails, what happens next? If they crash and burn, you will also crash and burn with them because you are just following without making a decision for yourself. Wouldn’t it be better if you held the reins and made the decision for your own life? You may find yourself making a bad decision once in a while, but at least it was your decision, and you can learn from it. As a follower, you have no decision capabilities, along with no way of learning from the failure that you were just dragged into.

I personally choose to make my own decisions of who I am and in turn, have others that follow in my footsteps. I also encourage these followers to step out on their own and learn who they are. Furthermore, I have been a follower and I have been a leader, both have their ups and downs. The main reason I choose to be a leader now is because I no longer wish to follow others when they fail.
I have no idea why I felt the need to write this post. Maybe there are a few of you that needed to hear it, or maybe it is something that I needed to hear for myself. I do know I had an overwhelming need to write this. If this is something that you needed to hear, please let me know. If you don’t want to comment for others to see, you can always email me at [joinme@readcsi.com] Thank you for reading and may all your wants and needs be met. Take care, my friends. Until next week, remember, we are all in this together.
6 replies on “Quit trying to be someone else!”
Thanks, Brett, for sharing these thoughts with us. And I do think you hit on something that many struggle with. Including myself. I’ve been a follower for too long. But I guess that was something I needed to do in that time to figure our who I was. It has it’s downsides as you mention, when you follow people who take you on a destructive path.
I don’t see myself as a leader, but I do as an individual and feel more empowered that my own agency is valid and something I can trust in. Great post.
I’m so glad that you enjoyed this post. I put a lot of heart and soul-searching into writing it. Thank you for taking the time to write your thoughts down and sharing them with me, along with my readers. Take care and remember, we are all in this together. Cheers
Great post, with lots of food for thought in here! Being a leader definitely isn’t for everyone and definitely has it’s downsides – with pressure being one of them!
Thank you for reading and I enjoyed your comment about pressure. You are 100% correct. Cheers
Interesting! I know being a leader is a good thing but good leaders need good followers or else they have nothing to lead and just have themselves. I think we have to choose wisely who we follow when we decided to do so and if we cant find anyone good to follow we most likely will have to become the leader for the reasons you mention. 🙂
You have really hit the nail on the head with your comment. You are exactly correct. I will try to come back to this subject in the future and most definitely keep your thoughts in mind. Thank you so much!